All That Heaven Allows

Brassaï, Pierre Bonnard in His Studio at Le Cannet, 1946
"'The main subject is the surface, which has its color, its laws, over and above the objects,' Pierre Bonnard declared in December 1935. I don’t know what I expected to accomplish by hauling my ass to Copenhagen’s Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek museum for the second stop of 'The Colour of Memory,' the first globe-trotting Bonnard survey in twenty years. Concentrating on the artist’s later solar work, the splendid exhibition, arranged chronologically, stumbled only with a series of not-uninteresting but nevertheless wince-inducing 'soundscapes,' about which the less said the better. ..."
ARTFORUM

Pierre Bonnard, La salle à manger, Vernon (The Dining Room, Veron), ca. 1925

2012 January: Pierre Bonnard, 2015 March: Pierre Bonnard: Painting Arcadia, 2019 September: Les Nabis

Here It Is! Alice B. Toklas’s Recipe for Hash Brownies

"Yesterday, I published a list of unusual literary cookbooks—and in doing so was reminded of perhaps the most notorious recipe ever included in such a volume: 'Haschich Fudge,' printed in The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book in 1954. Since this is Thanksgiving and you may be called upon to make dessert and/or come up with creative ways to tolerate your relatives, I thought I would share it again here. Of course this wasn’t Toklas’s recipe at all—it was sent to her by a friend, the artist Brion Gysin, who lived in Morocco. (You may not recognize the name, but he’s a literary celebrity in his own right, or should be: Gysin invented the cut-up method, which William S. Burroughs made famous.) Toklas signed a contract with Harper’s for the cookbook in 1952, but as the deadline approached, she decided she didn’t have enough recipes of her own and started asking her friends for help. This was Gysin’s contribution. ..."
LitHub
Open Culture: Alice B. Toklas Reads Her Famous Recipe for Hashish Fudge (1963) (Video)
The infamous Hashish Fudge recipe of Alice B. Toklas (Video)
Scientific American - Go Ask Alice: The History of Toklas’ Legendary Hashish Fudge (Video)
W - I Love You, Alice B. Toklas

Before and After Science - Brian Eno (1977)

"Before and After Science is the fifth studio album by British musician Brian Eno. Produced by Eno and Rhett Davies, it was originally released by Polydor Records in December 1977 in the UK and by US Island soon after. Guest musicians from the United Kingdom and Germany helped with the album, including members of Roxy Music, Free, Fairport Convention, Can and Cluster. Over one hundred tracks were written with only ten making the album's final cut. The musical styles of the album range from energetic and jagged to more languid and pastoral. The album marks Eno's last foray into rock music for the 1970s as a solo artist, with all his remaining albums of the decade showcasing more of Eno's avant-garde and ambient music, which was hinted at on the second half of Before and After Science. ... Critical response to the album has remained positive, with several critics calling it one of Eno's best works. ..."
Wikipedia
‘Before And After Science’: Brian Eno’s Dimension-Straddling Classic (Video)
Discogs (Video)
amazon
YouTube: Before And After Science (Full Album)

Peter Schmidt's "Four Years" was one of four prints included in the original pressings of the album.

Can South America Produce a Superclub?

Flamengo will play River Plate in Saturday’s Copa Libertadores final in Peru.
"My favorite soccer-related study of all time, by some distance, came from the Brazilian magazine Mundo Estranho a few weeks before the start of the 2014 World Cup. For the first time, it said, it could provide an answer to that thorny question: Just which team is the most popular in all of soccer? This, you will agree, is the sort of research that matters, the sort of material that academics and statisticians all over the world should be devoting their time to understanding. It does, after all, have real-world effects: Manchester United, for one, regularly mentions on conference calls to its investors just how many fans it has. The latest estimate, from the agency Kantar, is that 1.1 billion people — or one in every seven people on the entire planet — are currently trying to persuade themselves that seventh in the Premier League isn’t too bad. ..."
NY Times

Flamengo won its only Copa Libertadores final in 1981.

The Iran Cables

"The source said they wanted to “let the world know what Iran is doing in my country Iraq.” They sent The Intercept 700 pages of secret intelligence reports from Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security, or MOIS, but never revealed their own identity. This kind of leak is unprecedented for Iran, a country with a highly secretive government and spy agencies that guard their confidential information zealously. In the months after we received the intelligence reports, which are written in a highly bureaucratic and opaque style, we had them translated from Persian into English and then had the translations cross-checked. ..."
The Intercept_: The Story Behind the Iran Cables (Video)
The Intercept_: The Iran Cables

2019 March: ISIS Caliphate Crumbles as Last Village in Syria Falls ++

Rue Cottage Books

"While in Blue Hill, Maine, I received a call from Alan at Own Guru Records. He had a promo copy of Allen Ginsberg’s Lion for Real. By the time I called back, he had sold it to a particularly attractive French tourist. Vous comprenez, non? Oui, but only because I already owned a copy. Alan knew about Blue Hill from scanning through FM stations on his travels. He hit upon 89.9 FM (WERU), the local alternative station, and was drawn like a moth to a flame to this small community with peninsulas full of artists and aging hippies. He urged me to walk around Echo Lake in nearby Acadia National Park assuring me that there were psychedelic mushrooms along the shores. I was doubtful, but given all the survivors of Kerouac’s rucksack revolution that wander through Acadia I be mistaken. ..."
Reality Studio

John Giorno – the New York radical who broke art and poetry's boundaries

John Giorno in August, at a gala honouring his partner Ugo Rondinone in New York.
"'What do telephones, poetry and the Museum of Modern Art have in common?' read a press release issued by the New York institution on 21 July 1970. A question to which they might have added gay liberation, Aids activism, the aesthetics of advertising, Tibetan Buddhism and sleeping for Andy Warhol, and still received the answer of John Giorno. The artist and poet, who died on Friday aged 82, was the linchpin of New York’s downtown scene. ..."
Guardian (Video)

Dial-a-Poem from the retrospective Ugo Rondinone: I love John Giorno.

2012 June: The Dial-A-Poem Poets: The Nova Convention, 2014 March: The Dial-A-Poem Poets (1972), 2015 January: Dial-A-Poem Poets - Big Ego (1978), 2018 November: I ♥ John Giorno and So Should You

A Coup in Bolivia, Yet Again

Miners from Colquiri receive tear gas from police during a protest on November 15, 2019 in La Paz, Bolivia.
"Extracontinental power transitions are frequently called 'revolutions' by their authors and “coups” by those who resist. For a large plurality of Bolivians, last week’s forced resignation of President Evo Morales fits the latter category. Morales was elected to his third term in 2014 by the highest percentage of votes — 63 percent — of any free election since universal suffrage, and he was set to begin an unprecedented (for Bolivia) fourth term after polling in at 47 percent on October 20, more than ten percentage points ahead of his closest competitor. Fueled by distrust among his detractors, however, the second place candidate refused to accept the results and was backed up by a dubious OAS (Organization of American States) report alleging electoral fraud. ..."
Jacobin
The Nation: Bolivia’s Coup Is Still Happening
Guardian: Many wanted Morales out. But what happened in Bolivia was a military coup (Video)
NY Times: Bolivia Crisis Shows the Blurry Line Between Coup and Uprising

A supporter of former president Evo Morales holds a Bolivian flag during clashes with police in La Paz, Bolivia,

What Is Bebop? Deconstructing Jazz Music’s Most Influential Development

"What is bebop? The Big Apple certainly didn’t know what hit it when Charlie Parker blew into town like a tornado and shook the jazz scene to its very core. It was 1942, and the 22-year-old alto saxophonist from Kansas City, then playing in pianist Jay McShann’s band, was blowing his horn in a way that had never been heard or seen before. Molten melodic lines poured out of him in a rapid-fire torrent of improvisation that took virtuosity to a new level. Parker, who in his own words had been 'bored with the stereotyped [chord] changes that were being used', found a kindred spirit in trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, with whom he played in Earl Hines’ band later the same year. Together, their sonic explorations, which developed rapidly during the next three years, would sow the seeds for what became known as bebop. ..."
udiscover (Video/Audio)

We Spent the Night at a Bodega and Wrote It All Down

"Eight hours, 322 sales, two cops, one America’s Next Top Model, and one very persistent drug dealer. ..."
NY Times

Mario Sanchez: Painter of Memories (1983)

"Mario Sanchez is a self-taught painter who was born in Key West, FL in 1908 and died in 2005, age 96. He saw island society change and depicted his memories of daily life in a continuing series of painted, hand-chiseled wood reliefs. His unique work, made using dime store brushes and paint mixed with castor oil on pine and cedar boards, is among the most famous folk art in the world. This sole film portrait of the artist shows the sympathy, humor and personal involvement of a native son as he captures a distinctive part of the American scene. ..."
Folkstreams (Video)
Gallery On Greene
Painter/Sculptor Mario Sanchez
amazon: Mario Sanchez-Painter of the Key West Memories

What the Future Sounded Like: Documentary Tells the Forgotten 1960s History of Britain’s Avant-Garde Electronic Musicians

"It really is impossible to overstate the fact that most of the music around us sounds the way it does today because of an electronic revolution that happened primarily in the 1960s and 70s (with roots stretching back to the turn of the century). While folk and rock and roll solidified the sound of the present on home hi-fis and coffee shop and festival stages, the sound of the future was crafted behind studio doors and in scientific laboratories. What the Future Sounded Like, the short documentary above, transports us back to that time, specifically in Britain, where some of the finest recording technology developed to meet the increasing demands of bands like the Beatles and Pink Floyd. ..."
Open Culture (Video)

Julia Kent

"Been awhile since the cellist Julia Kent had a mention here, and thankfully there’s a new release, providing good reason. 'Salt Point' isn’t truly new. It’s one of two previously unreleased tracks that will appear on the forthcoming expanded, vinyl edition of Kent’s 2011 album, Green and Grey, alongside the four tracks off Last Day in July, which came out the year prior to Green and Grey. 'Salt Pond' is a lush slice of what has come to be called neoclassical. That’s an interesting term in how it has transitioned over time. It used to mean sort of the opposite of what it now means. It once meant contemporary work that had obvious roots in the past, work that strove for a semblance to antiquity. ..."
disquiet: Julia Kent Reveals an Unreleased Track (Audio)
Headphone Commute (Video)
W - Julia Kent
YouTube: Julia Kent’s breathtaking compositions fuse cello, electronics and found sounds: MUTEK 2016, Invitation to the Voyage, Overlook, Leopard - Live@Blah Blah, Torino (Italy)
YouTube: open recording session 17:31, live at [F]luister 44:07
YouTube: Julia Kent

French Baguettes From a Vending Machine? ‘What a Tragedy.’

Traditional mom-and-pop bakeries in rural areas are disappearing quickly — sometimes at a rate of four percent in a single year.
"LA CHAPELLE-EN-JUGER, France — The lights inside the village bakery used to come on before dawn, an hour or so before the smell of baking bread would waft into neighbors’ homes. The storefront door would soon be heard, opening and closing, the rhythm as predictable as the life stirring awake across the French countryside. But everything changes. 'Without bread, there is no more life,' said Gérard Vigot, standing in his driveway across the street from the now shuttered bakery. 'This is a dead village.' Two years ago, the 650 residents of La Chapelle-en-Juger lost their bakery, the last local business where they could meet one another, chitchat and gossip while waiting in line for their daily baguette or their weekend éclairs. For the community, the closing of the bakery was 'un drame,' as one newspaper put it, or a tragedy, one that is being repeated in countless French villages. ..."
NY Times

When the bakery closed in Landelles-et-Coupigny, residents started shopping elsewhere. So the butcher shop next door also closed.

Troy: myth and reality

Filippo Albacini (1777–1858), The Wounded Achilles. Marble, 1825.
"The story of a great city, plunged into a 10-year war over the abduction of the most beautiful woman in the world, is irresistibly dramatic and tragic. This allure has sent adventurers and archaeologists in quest of the lost city, which is now widely believed to have existed. But what of the heroes and heartbroken, women and wanderers, who are said to have played a part in the Trojan War? Why have they inspired so many retellings, from Homer to Shakespeare to Hollywood? Get closer to these captivating characters as you explore the breathtaking art that brings them to life, from dramatic ancient sculptures and exquisite vase paintings to powerful contemporary works. You can also examine the fascinating archaeological evidence that proves there was a real Troy, offering tantalising hints at the truth behind the mythical stories. From Helen of Troy's abduction to the deception of the Trojan Horse and the fall of the city, tread the line between myth and reality in this phenomenal new exhibition. ..."
British Museum
British Museum: Who was Achilles?

Pietro Testa (1611–1650), Achilles dragging the body of Hector around the walls of Troy. Etching, 1648–50.

Ignore the Confusion, Embrace the Romance

Finland can seal a berth in its first major soccer championship on Friday.
"It is 15 days until the draw is made for Euro 2020, all glitz and stardust in an oversized exhibition center in Bucharest, Romania. So far, 10 teams have qualified, including Belgium, Italy, Spain, England and France. Germany and the Netherlands should join them soon enough, and most likely Portugal and Croatia, too. Beyond that, it is anybody’s guess. If you can understand all of the permutations, all of the different routes into the tournament, the qualifying and the playoffs and the Nations League route, then you have my undying admiration. It is easy to be cynical about international soccer. ..."
NY Times

Finland’s manager, Markku Kanerva. The Finns can claim a place in next summer’s European Championship with a win against Liechtenstein on Friday.

The (Almost) Re-Opening of the Yerkes Observatory

"What do you do with a 19th-century observatory? In April 2018 the University of Chicago, owners of the Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay, Wisconsin, announced that they had no practical use for such an observatory. Unless a buyer came forward, they would close the observatory. No buyer came forward, so they shut the doors to the public on October 1, 2018. Astronomers, historians, and telescope enthusiasts around the world feared the worst: that Yerkes would never open again. Now there is new hope that the Yerkes may soon reopen under new management and with a new mission for the 21st century. The Yerkes Observatory, dedicated in 1897, is home to the largest refracting telescope in the world, along with several other working telescopes. The building and grounds are designed with such magical detail that the setting looks like something out of a fairy tale. ..."
Sky and Telescope
W - Yerkes Observatory
What's That Building? The Yerkes Observatory (Audio)

The Quiet American - Graham Greene (1955)

"The Quiet American is a 1955 novel by English author Graham Greene. Narrated in the first person by journalist Thomas Fowler, the novel depicts the breakdown of French colonialism in Vietnam and early American involvement in the Vietnam War. A subplot concerns a love triangle between Fowler, an American CIA agent named Alden Pyle, and Phuong, a young Vietnamese woman. The novel implicitly questions the foundations of growing American involvement in Vietnam in the 1950s and is unique in its exploration of the subject topic through the links among its three main characters – Fowler, Pyle and Phuong. The novel has received much attention due to its prediction of the outcome of the Vietnam War and subsequent American foreign policy since the 1950s. ..."
Wikipedia
NPR: The Disquieting Resonance of 'The Quiet American' (Audio)
NY Times: In Our Time No Man Is a Neutral (March 11, 1956)
Guardian: Shades of Greene - Zadie Smith
amazon, amazon DVD

2017 December: The Heart of the Matter (1948), 2019 June: Our Man In Havana (1958)

Players to Watch in the 2019-20 College Basketball Season

Cole Anthony of the North Carolina Tar Heels could be among the best players this college basketball season as he operates in the system of Coach Roy Williams.
"There are roughly 4,000 players in Division I men’s college basketball every season, but only a select few who can truly affect the game every time they are on the floor. This season begins after a year in which many of the top players — Zion Williamson and RJ Barrett, to name two — left college for professional opportunities. That has created an opening for many new names to emerge. Here are a few you should get to know long before March Madness arrives. ..."
NY Times (Video)
SB Nation: 10 predictions for college basketball’s 2019-2020 season
The Ringer: Meet College Basketball’s National Championship Contenders
ESPN - 2019-20 College basketball preview: Preseason picks, rankings, complete coverage
SB Nation: College basketball’s top 100 players for 2019-20 season: No. 50 through No. 1
SB Nation: Cole Anthony is college basketball’s new freshman king
Wikipedia: 2019–20 NCAA Division I men's basketball season
amazon: 2019-2020 Blue Ribbon College Basketball Yearbook

Big East

That Tiny Dot? It’s the 2019 Transit of Mercury

"The planet Mercury slid across the face of the sun on Monday. Mercury is the fastest planet, and if it orbited on the same plane as Earth we would see it pass in front of the sun every 166 days. But Mercury’s orbit is tipped, so we only see it cross the sun in the rare November or May when Mercury rises or falls directly between the Earth and sun. Mercury appeared as a tiny black dot at 7:35 a.m. Eastern time. Its full transit across the sun took five and a half hours. Transits of Mercury happen about 13 times a century. Here are all transits since 1900. November transits are angled upward, as Mercury rises above the plane of Earth’s orbit. During these transits Mercury is close to the sun and moving quickly. ..."
NY Times
NY Times: How to Watch Mercury’s 2019 Transit of the Sun (Video)

An observation of the 1631 Mercury transit by Pierre Gassendi.

‘Point me and I’ll march’: Mick Herron re-reads the novels of John le Carré

"My memory tells me it happened like this: I was watching TV; it was 1979. The programme was a new drama serial, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, about the search for a mole in the British secret service – and if 'mole' was a part of my vocabulary then, it would have been from reading about this very programme. My parents were in their usual chairs. I can’t remember who else was in the room, or whether it was a weeknight, or what time of year it was, but I do remember that during the opening scene we watched the characters assemble for a meeting. One – who would turn out to be Bill Haydon, as played by Ian Richardson – entered carrying a cup of tea, on top of which he’d balanced a saucer, to prevent spillage. ... Memory also tells me that by the time the second part of the drama was screened I had read the novel, and knew who the mole was, and if an unconventional manner of carrying a cup and saucer wasn’t explicitly cited as indicative of treachery, it probably counted as circumstantial evidence. This was a world of nuance, after all. ..."
TLS
W - John le Carré
Guardian: John le Carré
amazon: John le Carré

Young Marble Giants Week – Day 5: Video Vault: Live at the Western Front, Vancouver, November, 1980

"This video documents Young Marble Giants’ entire November 1980 performance at the Western Front in Vancouver. As far as we know, it’s the only footage of an entire YMG concert available online; this absence of documentation, makes their distinctive fashion style and stage presence (or deliberate lack thereof) entertaining and illuminating. Just two months later, in January of 1981, the band would officially announce their breakup—due to a culmination of longstanding personal tensions—but they appear completely at ease in this video, moving through a fifteen-song set of tracks from Colossal Youth, plus the newly released Final Day EP and older songs like 'Ode to Booker T.' ..."
333SOUND (Video)
vimeo: Concert by Young Marble Giants (1980)

2015 August: Young Marble Giants

Travelin’ Thru, 1967 – 1969: The Bootleg Series Vol. 15

"Since its inception in 1991, The Bootleg Series of Bob Dylan has evolved to the point where each successive release has become distinct and complete unto itself. ... The three-CDs or LPs posit the Nobel Laureate continuing the musicological expeditions of those two aforementioned periods, reacquainting himself with a variety of styles in order to choose the optimum means of expression for himself as a songwriter. ... The cachet of Travelin’ Thru, 1967 – 1969 lies in part with a single song,'Western Road.' A Nashville Skyline outtake, it is the only version of the song ever sung by Dylan and he does so in the presence of Johnny Cash, a long-time admirer of the Bard from Minnesota. ... The aforementioned rarity appears alongside a clutch of alternate taken from earlier sessions for the John Wesley Harding album that, when it appeared in all its spartan glory late in 1967, was so at odds with the psychedelic times. ..."
Glide Magazine (Video)
Bob Dylan Plays Nashville on Insightful Travelin’ Thru Bootleg Installment (Video)
Bob Dylan (Featuring Johnny Cash) – Travelin’ Thru, 1967 – 1969: The Bootleg Series Vol. 15 out now!
Bob Dylan’s Bootleg Series to Tackle 1969 Johnny Cash Sessions (Video)
amazom
YouTube: The Story Of Travelin' Thru, 1967 - 1969 7:18

How to pick a New York City neighborhood

Jackson Heights, Queens.
"I’ve lived in New York City for nearly 20 years, and in that time, I’ve called nine different neighborhoods home. Some have felt more like 'home' than others: Boerum Hill, where I lived for three years, was by far my favorite, with everything I needed—a decent grocery store, some mom-and-pop businesses, access to Brooklyn Bridge Park, and two of my favorite bars—all within a 20-minute walk from my apartment. But ultimately, I decided that I wanted more space for less money, which is how I ended up in my current neighborhood, Bed-Stuy. These are the calculations that many New Yorkers end up making when choosing where to live: Do I want space, or do I want to be surrounded by people? How important is it to be close to a park? Can I really live off of just one subway line? And how much is all of this going to cost? ..."
Curbed New York
Which NYC Neighborhood Should You Move To?
The best New York City neighborhoods for families (Video)
New Tool Maps NYC Economy by Neighborhood

Jackson Heights, Queens.

A Slave Rebellion Rises Again

Performers in a reenactment of an 1811 slave rebellion marched through LaPlace, La., on Friday.
"LaPLACE, La. — The insurgents, dressed in the linen uniforms of slaves and wielding clubs and guns, swarmed the sprawling white plantation house and attacked its owner. The anger and resentment that had grown over years of oppression had boiled over into an uprising. The rebels and slave owner were performers — actors, students, engineers and teachers who had been enlisted in the ambitious undertaking on Friday to recreate a rebellion in 1811 in which some 500 enslaved people of African descent marched from the sugar plantations along River Road to New Orleans. The re-enactment, led by the New York artist Dread Scott, excavated the memory of an event that organizers saw as an inspiring display of courage. The uprising ultimately ended in bloodshed and settled into a chapter of history that was largely ignored for two centuries. ..."
NY Times
NY Times: With a Slave Rebellion Re-enactment, an Artist Revives Forgotten History
W - 1811 German Coast uprising
Hundreds March In Reenactment Of A Historic, But Long Forgotten Slave Rebellion (Audio)
The former slave who opened the first French Market coffee stand

In the 1811 rebellion, slaves killed a plantation owner and his son and then set off toward New Orleans, carrying weapons and recruiting others as they marched.

Fall of the Berlin Wall

East German police sprayed water on West Germans as they broke through the wall at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin on Nov. 11, 1989.
"The fall of the Berlin Wall (German: Mauerfall), on 9 November 1989, was a pivotal event in world history which marked the falling of the Iron Curtain. The fall of the inner German border took place shortly afterwards. An end to the Cold War was declared at the Malta Summit three weeks later, and the reunification of Germany took place during the following year. Following the April 1989 dismantling of an electric fence along the border between Hungary and Austria, by early November refugees were finding their way to Hungary via Czechoslovakia or via the West German embassy in Prague. The emigration was initially tolerated because of long-standing agreements with the communist Czechoslovak government, allowing free travel across their common border. However this movement of people grew so large it caused difficulties for both countries. ..."
Wikipedia
NY Times: The Fall of the Berlin Wall in Photos: An Accident of History That Changed The World
YouTube: The rise and fall of the Berlin Wall - Konrad H. Jarausch, Fall of the Berlin Wall

Looking through the wire from the West to East Berlin on Stallschreiberstrasse in 1961.