Oscar Peterson – Oscar Peterson Plays the Duke Ellington Song Book (1959), Playing the Truth: Charles Mingus’s Jazz in Detroit/ Strata Concert Gallery/ 46 Selden, Sam Jones ‎– Right Down Front: The Riverside Collection (1988)

'“Twice in the 1950s, pianist Oscar Peterson recorded an extensive series of songbooks devoted to one composer. From 1952-53, Peterson, guitarist Barney Kessel and bassist Ray Brown were extensively documented; in 1959, the pianist joined up with Brown and drummer Ed Thigpen to repeat many of the programs (since the group had changed and the music could now be cut in stereo) plus additional songbooks. This 1999 CD brings together both of Peterson‘s Duke Ellington tributes; the same dozen songs were recorded with each of the two groups. ... ”
allmusic (Audio)
W – Oscar Peterson Plays the Duke Ellington Song book
Discogs
amazon
YouTube: Oscar Peterson Plays The Duke Ellington Song Book 12 videos

“... [Charles] Mingus long adored the legendary composer publicly and privately, even signing on as the bassist with Ellington’s band. Ellington quickly sacked the bassist after Mingus attacked the trombonist Juan Tizol as the band opened a show, a story set to legend in Mingus’s autobiography, Beneath the Underdog. Published in 1971, it took Mingus almost two decades to write and did little to separate fact from fiction. The book, however, remains one of the most visceral depictions of a life in jazz. …”
Riot Material – BBC (Audio)
Discogs (Video)
YouTube: Jazz in Detroit / Strata Concert Gallery / 46 Selden

“For this compilation of small big-band performances, bassist Sam Jones — long recognized for his ability to anchor and swing a session — reliably grounds a collection of arrangements that have an affinity with the Count Basie Band‘s early-’60s book. The tracks are from three LPs that Jones recorded between 1960 and 1962, during his tenure with Cannonball Adderley‘s group. …”
allmusic (Audio)
W – Sam Jones
Discogs
YouTube: Right Down Front ( Full Album )

The Cantos - Ezra Pound

"The Cantos by Ezra Pound is a long, incomplete poem in 116 sections, each of which is a canto. Most of it was written between 1915 and 1962, although much of the early work was abandoned and the early cantos, as finally published, date from 1922 onwards. It is a book-length work, widely considered to be an intense and challenging read. The Cantos is generally considered one of the most significant works of modernist poetry in the 20th century. As in Pound's prose writing, the themes of economics, governance and culture are integral to the work's content. The most striking feature of the text, to a casual browser, is the inclusion of Chinese characters as well as quotations in European languages other than English. ..."
Wikipedia
W - List of cultural references in The Cantos
Guardian - Ezra Pound: Posthumous Cantos edited by Massimo Bacigalupo review – fresh insights into an epic masterpiece
Cantos 1, 4, and 84 by Ezra Pound (Video)
New Republic - The Case of Ezra Pound (April 1, 1957)
A Short Analysis of Ezra Pound’s The Cantos
amazon
YouTube: Canto I, Canto 81, Canto XLV (With Usura), Canto XLV, Canto LXXXI

Ezra Pound in Venice, Italy, in 1964.

A History of Soccer in Six Matches

Hungary’s visit to Wembley in 1953 was a seminal moment in the modern game.
"A few weeks ago, I asked readers to submit ideas for what they would like to see in this column. Not because I am short of them, you understand, but because in this bleak new reality of ours writing about sports very much falls into the category of 'things you want,' rather than 'things you need.' There was a flurry of suggestions, on every topic under the sun, most of which I know absolutely nothing about. One theme that stood out, though, was that many would welcome the chance to immerse themselves in the comforting nostalgia of soccer history. Even with my understanding editors and generous word counts, that is a vast, unwieldy subject. You can write soccer history in a million different ways: through the lens of teams and individuals, through tactics or geography or culture. ..."
NY Times (Video)

World on Fire - Peter Bowker

"There’s something so fitting about the fact that the final episode of Peter Bowker’s second world war drama, World on Fire, will air on Remembrance Sunday. A sweeping look at events across Europe after the outbreak of war, from the start it has been clear that conflict has a heavy price, and that we should never forget both the sacrifice and the suffering of those who lived through it. This is not, however, the blind jingoism of those who trot out old canards about ‘our finest hour’ as though there is nothing better than viewing a nation through the prism of destruction and death. Instead, Bowker’s story – in addition to being cracking Sunday night viewing – has worked precisely because it has refused to shy away from the true cost of war. ..."
Guardian - World on Fire: thrilling TV that shows the true, terrifying cost of war
NY Times: In ‘World on Fire,’ War Is the Virus
salon - "It's our foundation myth": PBS' "World on Fire" challenges the World War II narrative we know (Video)
W - World on Fire (TV series)
PBS (Video)

Dutch Golden Age Art Wasn’t All About White People. Here’s the Proof.

The Image of the Black in Western Art, Vol. II, Part 1 — 23: Reliquary bust of St. Maurice. Heiltumsbuch, fol. 228v. 1525-1527.
"Rembrandt’s 1661 painting, 'Two African Men,' s one of the Dutch old master’s more inscrutable works. One man, dressed in a Roman-style costume and shawl, seems to be giving a speech, while another man leans attentively over his shoulder. The canvas was painted with a thin layers of earth tones and looks unfinished, but it bears the artist’s signature. Why did Rembrandt paint it, and who were his subjects? These were some of the questions that came to mind for Stephanie Archangel in 2015 as she found herself lingering in front of the work at the Mauritshuis Royal Picture Gallery in The Hague. A sociologist by training, she had been searching in paintings 'for black people in which I could recognize myself,' said Ms. Archangel, who was born and raised on Curaçao, an island that was once a Dutch colony. ..."
NY Times
Black in Rembrandt’s Time, The Black Figure in the European Imaginary, amazon: The Black Figure in the European Imaginary
The Image of the Black in Western Art, The Image of the Black in Western Art, Volume I: From the Pharaohs to the Fall of the Roman Empire (Video), Soundcloud: The Image of the Black in Western Art - National Gallery of Art (Audio)
Rediscovering the Black Muses Erased from Art History

Frédéric Bazille, Young Woman with Peonies, 1870.

A (Very) Brief History of NYC Espresso

"'Coffee is the Italian espresso, black as an owl’s nest at midnight,' wrote New York Herald Tribune food journalist Clementine Paddleford in 1948. 'One sip burns your tonsils, two sips shines your shoes.' While it’s not the first recorded mention of espresso in print, it might be one of the most prescient description of the the espresso craze that would hit New York like a caffeinated tidal wave in the 1960s, and it also serves as a charming snapshot of some of the earliest reactions New Yorkers had to the pungent imported drink. While the earliest patent for a prototype of the modern espresso machine dates to a Turin inventor in 1884, steam-powered espresso machines didn’t arrive in the United States until the early 20th century. ..."
La Marzocco

Joe Americano

2010 September: Espresso, April: The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World, 2013 May: Coffeehouse, 2015 June: Barista, 2015 August: Coffee Connections at Peddler in SoHo, 2015 November: The Case for Bad Coffee, 2016 January: 101 Places to Find Great Coffee in New York (2014), 2017 June: How Cold Brew Changed the Coffee Business, 2017 September: Our 7 Favorite Literary Coffee Shops, 2017 October: Clever Literary Coffee Poster, 2017 October: Coffee as Existential Statement: A Crisis in Every Cup on Valencia Street, 2018 February: The Trencherman: A Tale of Two Coffee Shops, 2020 April: Unfair trade

Burning Man 1995

"In 1995 some friends invited me to Burning Man. I thought it was an overnight rave, so I grabbed a backpack with a change of clothing and my Super8 camera. It wasn't until we entered Nevada that I realized I was going to a week-long festival in the desert. With no food or shelter, and minimal supplies, I lived off the kindness of friends and strangers. We were a part of the Wicked Sound System dance community, bringing the first DJ sound system to the event. At that time, the music selection at Burning Man was very diverse with live bands (many acoustic) and performance artists dominating the entertainment. Following the first all-night Wicked party, we were asked to move our camp far away so people could sleep—a notion that seem ridiculous today. ..."
vimeo: Burning Man 1995

2007 November: Burning Man, 2009 August: Burning Man - 1, 2013 January: Timelapse-icus Maximus 2012 "A Burning Man for Ants", 2016 October: A Brief History of Who Ruined Burning Man, 2017 August: The Playa Provides: A Journey of Starting Over at Burning Man

Pandemic Journal

"This is the current edition in a running series of dispatches by New York Review writers that is documenting the coronavirus outbreak with updates from around the world that began March 17–22 and has continued through March 23–29, March 30–April 5, and April 6–12. Dan Chiasson in Wellesley • Joshua Jelly-Schapiro on Fire Island • Miranda Popkey., April 15, 2020. WATERTOWN, MASSACHUSETTS—Tuesday morning and, as usual, I’m watching a head bob before a verdant if patchily rendered digital landscape. I’m on Zoom, of course, along with a hundred and twenty or so other anti-hunger advocates from across the state of Massachusetts. For the past year and a half, I’ve worked part-time at a small nonprofit embedded within a much larger nonprofit, first in data entry and now in childcare solutions and case management. Our focus is workforce development: we match clients with and pay for job training. ..."
NYBooks

Dash, top, and Dish, bottom, live with their mother Darling in a shelter apartment in Dorchester while Darling studies to be a nurse, Boston, Massachusetts, March 27, 2020; recently, Darling lost her job and her food stamps are running out. On any given night, roughly 12,000 people are without homes across Massachusetts.

Redux: This Caliper Embrace

Eudora Welty
"This week at The Paris Review, we’re having a little birthday party for Eudora Welty, Samuel Beckett, and Seamus Heaney, all born on April 13. Read on for Welty’s Art of Fiction interview, an excerpt from Beckett’s novel Molloy, and Heaney’s poem 'Polder.' ..."
The Paris Review

2009 November: Samuel Beckett, 2010 April: A Piece of Monologue, 2011 June: Film (1965) - UbuWeb, 2012 March: “fathoms from anywhere”, 2017 April: Krapp's Last Tape (1957), 2017 May: The Alternative Facts of Samuel Beckett’s “Watt”
2008 May: Seamus Heaney, 2009 April: Heaney at 70, 2010 March: Seamus Heaney - 1, 2013 August: Obituary: Seamus Heaney

A Journey into the World of the Ottomans

"... Commenting on the importance of this exhibition, Her Excellency Sheikha Al Mayassa, Chairperson of Qatar Museums Authority, said: 'In celebrating Doha as the Cultural Capital of the Arab World, it gives me great pleasure to share this moment with the opening of a Journey into the World of the Ottomans, to highlight some of the greatest Orientalist masterpieces. The State of Qatar has long collected works of Oriental art, archiving these works as historic artefacts worthy of study and exploration.' Her Excellency went on to say: 'Although the notion of 'Orientalism' is commonly perceived as a view from the West on the East, we believe that there is an opportunity to explore and appreciate the spaces in between. Although these works were mainly Western documentations of Eastern lands, the importance of this European art movement lies in that it recorded major historical events, people, customs and culture.' ..."
Orientalist Museum launches “Journey into the World of the Ottomans”
Painter in the Palace
amazon
DailyMotion: A Journey into the World of the Ottomans

Nicolas Ryckx. Procession of the Turks, c. 1665.

2018 April: Orientalism - Edward W. Said (1978), 2019 January: Orientalism’s Equestrian Eye

Invisible Cities - Italo Calvino (1972)

"Invisible Cities (Italian: Le città invisibili) is a novel by Italian writer Italo Calvino. It was published in Italy in 1972 by Giulio Einaudi Editore. The book explores imagination and the imaginable through the descriptions of cities by an explorer, Marco Polo. The book is framed as a conversation between the elderly and busy emperor Kublai Khan, who constantly has merchants coming to describe the state of his expanding and vast empire, and Polo. The majority of the book consists of brief prose poems describing 55 fictitious cities that are narrated by Polo, many of which can be read as parables or meditations on culture, language, time, memory, death, or the general nature of human experience. ..."
Wikipedia
Illustrations of Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities
NY Times: Invisible Cities
[PDF] Invisible Cities
amazon

Rare Grooves on Vinyl from Around the World: Hear Curated Playlists of Arabic, Brazilian, Bollywood, Soviet & Turkish Music

"Just as the category of 'Foreign Language Film' has serious problems, so too does that of 'World Music,' which names so many kinds of music that it names nothing at all. World music 'might best be described by what it is not,' noted a 1994 Music Library Association report. 'It is not Western art music, neither it is mainstream Western folk or popular music.' The report adds some vague qualifications about 'ethnic or foreign elements' then gives away the game: 'It is simply not our music, it is their music, music which belongs to someone else.' Perhaps one can see why the idea is now regarded by some as 'outdated and offensive.' As the University of Minnesota’s Timothy Brennan argues in a historical analysis of the term, 'world music does not exist' except 'as an idea in the mind of journalists, critics, and the buyers of records.' ..."
Open Culture (Video)
[PDF] World Music Does Not Exist - Timothy Brennan

Baseball: Part 3: The Faith of Fifty Million People

Honus Wagner / Pittsburgh Pirates
"On Opening Day 1910 President William Howard Taft supposedly invented the seventh inning stretch. See 'Baseball Music' for a more detailed explanation of the real story. Also at the start of the same season, legendary Comiskey Park opened in Chicago with the ability to seat over 45,000. In 1910, two of the usual powers regained dominance. The Chicago Cubs reasserted themselves at the top of the National League, winning their fourth pennant in five years, and the Philadelphia Athletics won the American League by 14.5 games. For Philadelphia, pitcher Jack Coombs finished the year with a 1.30 ERA and 31 wins, the most in the American League. Coombs would win three games in the World Series, and the Athletics cruised to a 4-1 series win. ..."
Cementing baseball as the national pastime: 1910-1920
PBS - Part 3: The Faith of Fifty Million People (Video)
Great Grandson Finds 1910 Ty Cobb And Cy Young Tobacco Cards In A Cigar Box In The Attic, Library of Congress 1910-1919
W - 1908 bribery attempt, 1914 World Series upset, 1917–1918 suspicions, 1919 conspiracy
W - Federal League, SABR: Was the Federal League a Major League?, Anatomy of a Murder: The Federal League and the Courts - John Thorn, Part 2, NYPL - Outlaw Baseball! The Federal League of 1914-1915
W - 1910 Major League Baseball season, 1911, 1912, 1913, 1914, 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919

"The Black Sox Scandal was a Major League Baseball game-fixing scandal in which eight members of the Chicago White Sox were accused of throwing the 1919 World Series against the Cincinnati Reds in exchange for money from a gambling syndicate led by Arnold Rothstein, Aiden Clayton and Aaron Nelson. Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis was appointed the first Commissioner of Baseball, with absolute control over the sport to restore its integrity. Despite acquittals in a public trial in 1921, Judge Landis permanently banned all eight men from professional baseball. The punishment was eventually defined by the Baseball Hall of Fame to include banishment from consideration for the Hall. Despite requests for reinstatement in the decades that followed (particularly in the case of Shoeless Joe Jackson), the ban remains. ..."
W - Black Sox Scandal
Black Sox Forever, SABR: Eight Myths Out: The Black Sox Scandal, Eight Myths Out: Appendix of errors in 'Eight Men Out' book and film, The Enduring Myth of the ‘Stolen’ Black Sox Confessions, W - Eight Men Out, John Sayles, YouTube: Eight Men Out Official Trailer #1
YouTube: In Search Of History - World Series Fix! The Black Sox Scandal 42:43
amazon: Eight Men Out: The Black Sox and the 1919 World Series, The Betrayal: The 1919 World Series and the Birth of Modern Baseball

Memory Game - Meredith Monk & Bang on a Can All-Stars (2020)

"MEMORY GAME is both a look back at a pivotal point in Meredith Monk’s storied career, and a richly layered portrait of how vocal music, under the guidance of an indefatigable master, can play with our expectations in poignant and compelling ways. What emerges is a suite of songs that flows with a remarkable narrative cohesion, stemming in large part from the composer’s willingness to revisit the past with an insatiably curious eye. ... Teaming up here with her renowned Vocal Ensemble (featuring Theo Bleckmann, Katie Geissinger and Allison Sniffin) and the Bang on a Can All-Stars, Monk explores all-new arrangements of never-before-recorded selections from her award-winning sci-fi opera The Games, as well as new versions of several pieces originally released on Do You Be (1987) and impermanence (2008). ..."
Cantaloupe Music (Audio)
The Quietus (Audio)
mixcloud - Radio Eclectus #034: Monk, Meredith, memory(Audio)
amazon
YouTube: Memory Game

2008 March: Meredith Monk, 2009 September: Songs of Ascension - Meredith Monk and Ann Hamilton, 2011 February: Meredith Monk: A Voice For All Time, 2011 August: Ellis Island, 2012 December: Turtle Dreams, 2013 February: Quarry: The Rally (Live, 1977), 2014 November; 10 Things You Might Not Know About Meredith Monk, 2015 April: Volcano Songs (1994), 2015 June: Ellis Island, 2016 April: 16 Millimeter Earrings and the Artist’s Body (1966/1998), 2016 December: Beginnings (2009), 2017 February: Book of Days (1988), 2017 May: Piano Songs (2014), 2017 December: Monk Mix: Remixes & Interpretations of Music By Meredith Monk (2012), 2020 March: Quarry (1976)

The walled-in settlement house by the East River

"You can see one side of it from the FDR Drive at 76th Street. High above the roadway overlooking the East River is a Georgian-style red brick building and what must have been an entrance with a faded plaque above it. Squint and you can make out what it says: East Side House Settlement. Settlement Houses began popping up in New York City in the 1890s and early 1900s. Born out of the benevolence movement of the Gilded Age, they were built by social reformers who 'settled' into a poor or working-class community, launching a home base where the community could go take advantage of classes, recreational activities, and cultural offerings. ..."
Ephemeral New York

Twin Peaks: Go Down the Rabbit Hole.

"Thirty years ago, on April 8, 1990, one of television’s most influential series premiered: 'Twin Peaks.' There’s something timeless about the series, which arrived at the cusp of one decade and channeled several others. With its combination of high-pitched soap opera and low-frequency supernatural hum, 'Twin Peaks' was always bound to be one of the weirder shows ever to air on American television. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of 'Twin Peaks,' fire walk with us through some of The Times’s best writing on the series. (And, instead of making all that sourdough, you might try to make our recipe for a 'Twin Peaks' cherry pie.) ..."
NY Times: Happy 30th Anniversary, ‘Twin Peaks.’ Go Down the Rabbit Hole. (Video)
An Echo Of Owls: watching repeats of Twin Peaks eleven years later
Guardian: Twin Peaks at 30: the weird and wonderful show that changed television, “One chants out between two worlds”: Visiting Twin Peaks and Twin Peaks.
Telephones, Voice Recorders, Microphones, Phonographs: A Media Archaeology of Sonic Technologies in Twin Peaks
Tensions in the World of Moon: Twin Peaks, Indigeneity and Territoriality

‘Twin Peaks’ Analysis: What Do the Numbers Mean?
Twin Peaks: The Return, or What Isn’t Cinema? (Part One), (Part Two), (Part Three), (Part Four)
YouTube: Twin Peaks Intro, 10 Mind-Blowing Facts You Didn't Know About Twin Peaks, Talk About Judy • Twin Peaks: The Return • Analysis & Theory, Episode 1 • The Ring • Twin Peaks Analysis, Episode 2 • Phillip Jeffries • Twin Peaks Analysis, Episode 3 • Laura Is The One • Twin Peaks Analysis, Episode 4 • The Town of Twin Peaks
Anatomy of a Fascinating Disaster: Fire Walk With Me (Video), W - Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, YouTube: Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992) Trailer

"In a town like Twin Peaks, it’s not hard to get lost. Here are all the Twin Peaks maps I’ve collected so far, but please let me know in the comments if you come across any other ones! ... The city roadmap shows almost all the important sites, including The Great Northern Hotel, White Tail Falls, Black Lake Dam, Twin Peaks Town Hall, The Grange (burned), Palmer House, Briggs House, Hayward House, Twin Peaks High School, Black Lake Cemetery, Twin Peaks Sheriff’s Department, Upper Twin Park, The Gazebo, Lower Twin Park, County Museum, The Bookhouse, Old Railroad Depot, Double R Diner, Roadhouse, Horne’s Department Store, Calhoun Memorial Hospital, to Packard Place, to Packard Sawmill, to Owl Cave, to the Railroad Cemetery, to Ghostwood National Forest, Harold Smith’s Apartment, Dead Dog Farm, Big Ed’s Gas Station, to Unguin’s Field Observatory (U.F.O.), and Old Unguin’s Field."
Twin Peaks Maps
A Guide to Twin Peaks
Twin Peaks Tarot Cards Now Available as 78-Card Deck
Twin Peaks Tarot Cards For The Magician Who Longs To See Through The Darkness Of Future Past
Twin Peaks Star Pics Cards
W - Twin Peaks books
W - List of Twin Peaks episodes, W - Log Lady, W - Black and White Lodges, W - The Man from Another Place, W - MIKE, W - Killer BOB, W - The Giant, W - Episode 29
Welcome to Twin Peaks
amazon: Soundtrack From Twin Peaks, Floating Into The Night - Julee Cruise, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me

He Could Have Seen What Was Coming: Behind Trump’s Failure on the Virus

"'Any way you cut it, this is going to be bad,' a senior medical adviser at the Department of Veterans Affairs, Dr. Carter Mecher, wrote on the night of Jan. 28, in an email to a group of public health experts scattered around the government and universities. 'The projected size of the outbreak already seems hard to believe.' A week after the first coronavirus case had been identified in the United States, and six long weeks before President Trump finally took aggressive action to confront the danger the nation was facing — a pandemic that is now forecast to take tens of thousands of American lives — Dr. Mecher was urging the upper ranks of the nation’s public health bureaucracy to wake up and prepare for the possibility of far more drastic action. ..."
NY Times
NY Times: Trump Reveals the Truth About Voter Suppression
NY Times: Plague Season, Through the Eyes of Writers
Happy Easter: ABC Resurrects Fake News Trump Warned of Virus in November (Video)

Man of the Hour: The Resurrection of Jazz Legend Hailu Mergia

"Leave it to Hailu Mergia, a musician of high aptitude and unflinching self-belief, to make an album like Lala Belu, a freewheeling odyssey of accordion solos, anthemic sing-alongs, and acoustic piano pieces. Throughout the album, the Ethiopian virtuoso combines a host of musical interests with both vibrancy and skill. Stripped to the most basic description, Lala Belu could be reasonably pitched as an Ethio-jazz record—its songs are full of vivid hi-hats, twinkling keys, and it emphasizes freestyle expression. But that would be like telling Romeo and Juliet by just running through the first act. Over six songs, the 71-year-old Mergia asserts himself as a master composer and arranger. It’s almost impossible to believe that it’s his first new album in about 30 years. Then again, maybe it takes three decades of storing ideas to put together a piece so packed with creativity. ..."
bandcamp (Audio)
bandcamp: Hailu Mergia (Audio)
W - Hailu Mergia & His Classical Instrument
Discogs (Video)
YouTube: Lala Belu (Full Album)

Reggae, riots and resistance: the sounds of Black Britain in 1981

"'In this country in 15 or 20 years time, the black man will have the whip-hand over the white man'. Enoch Powell’s 1968 statement reverberated through post-war Britain, a comfortable assertion that the position of blacks should be one of subjugation and enslavement. The ‘Mother Country’ then was devoid of spaces where ethnic minorities were equal to, let alone owners of, whites. Voiceless and marginalised, blacks in Britain were making themselves heard in a different way. Transporting reggae, dub and sound system culture from the Caribbean, the sound of Jamaica was slowly saturating the British soundscape. The thundering bass quintessential to reggae vibrated through the streets of London in the ‘70s, a warning of the rumbling tension set to erupt in 1981 –- a year which reshaped 'Great Britain' forever. ..."
Pan African Music (Video)
Guardian: Toxteth revisited, 30 years after the riots
W - 1981 England riots

1917 - Sam Mendes (2019)

"1917 is a 2019 British epic war film directed, co-written, and produced by Sam Mendes. The film stars George MacKay and Dean-Charles Chapman, with Mark Strong, Andrew Scott, Richard Madden, Claire Duburcq, Colin Firth and Benedict Cumberbatch in supporting roles. It is based in part on an account told to Mendes by his paternal grandfather, Alfred Mendes. The film tells the story of two young British soldiers during the First World War who are ordered to deliver a message calling off an attack doomed to fail soon after the German retreat to the Hindenburg Line during Operation Alberich in 1917. This message is especially important to one of the soldiers, as his brother is taking part in the pending attack. ... Filming took place from April to June 2019 in the UK, with cinematographer Roger Deakins and editor Lee Smith using long takes to have the entire film appear as two continuous shots. ..."
Wikipedia
There's an incredible new trailer and a behind-the-scenes look at the new WWI blockbuster '1917' (Video)
YouTube: 1917 - Official Trailer

Fran Lebowitz Is Never Leaving New York

"Fran Lebowitz is the patron saint of staying at home and doing nothing. She is famously averse to working, and famously resistant to technology; she has no cell phone or computer. She moved to New York City from Morristown, New Jersey, around 1970, the moment she was legally able to do so, and became one of New York’s most distinctive personalities, with her defiant grouchiness, her devotion to cigarettes, her trademark ensemble of cowboy boots and custom-made Anderson & Sheppard suit jackets, and her pearl-gray 1979 Checker car. Soon after arriving, she talked her way into a job writing for Andy Warhol’s Interview, and her incisive commentary on city living was collected in two volumes, 'Metropolitan Life' (1978) and 'Social Studies' (1981). ... Thanks to COVID-19, many of us are now trapped at home, if not nearly as stylishly. ..."
New Yorker

2015 September: Fran Lebowitz

Why Soccer is the Most Universal Language on the Planet - Laurent Dubois

"Soccer is a language, probably the most universal language on the planet. It is spoken more widely than English, Arabic, or Chinese and practiced more widely than any religion. In 1954, the French soccer journalist Jean Eskenazi wrote an essay on the 'universality' of the game. It is, he declared, 'the only denominator common to all people, the only universal Esperanto . . . a world language, whose grammar is unchanging from the North Pole to the Equator.' Although mutually intelligible everywhere it is played, it is still delightfully varied, 'spoken in each corner of the globe with a particular accent.' The Swedish writer Fredrik Ekelund similarly calls the game the 'Esperanto of the feet.' The novelist Karl Ove Knausgaard, who wrote a book of letters about the 2014 men’s World Cup with Ekelund, offers a vivid example of how this language works. ..."
LitHub
LitHub: Football is Everything (Which is to Say Soccer)
amazon: The Language of the Game: How to Understand Soccer, The Age of Football: Soccer and the 21st Century - David Goldblatt, Soccer in Sun and Shadow - Eduardo Galeano, The Illustrated History of Football - David Squires

Murder Most Foul - Bob Dylan (2020)

"Bob Dylan won a Nobel Prize in literature in 2016, but today marked a new accomplishment: his first No. 1 hit. According to Billboard, Dylan’s new song 'Murder Most Foul' has topped its Rock Digital Song Sales chart, giving Dylan his first No. 1 under his own name on any chart. Dylan surprise released the 17-minute 'Murder Most Foul,' which addresses the JFK assassination, on March 27. According to Nielsen data, it sold 10,000 downloads between its release and April 2. ..."
Bob Dylan’s “Murder Most Foul” Is His First No. 1 Song on Any Billboard Chart (Video)
Murder Most Foul - Lyrics
YouTube: Murder Most Foul

Atlas Obscura, 2nd Edition: An Explorer's Guide to the World's Hidden Wonders

"... It rocketed to the top of bestseller lists and has over 626,000 copies in print since its publication in late 2016. Now the best gets better and the weirdest gets weirder with this completely revised and updated second edition that includes 120 new entries that offer readers even more of the most unusual, curious, bizarre, and mysterious places on earth. In addition, the second edition includes a full-color gatefold Atlas Obscura road trip map, with a dream itinerary. Created by the founders of AtlasObscura.com, the vibrant travel community that’s grown substantially since the original edition—not only online but in stores, too, with the recent publication of the #1 New York Times bestseller The Atlas Obscura Explorer’s Guide for the World’s Most Adventurous Kid—Atlas Obscura expands the reader’s sense of what’s possible. ..."
booktopia
amazon

Agnès Varda - The Little Story of Gwen From French Brittany (2008)

"An extremely rare short film directed by Agnès Varda has debuted online for free just a couple weeks after the one-year anniversary of the legendary French filmmaker’s death. The short film, 'The Little Story of Gwen From French Brittany,' is streaming on YouTube courtesy of the American Cinematheque, the nonprofit dedicated to the history and culture of movies. The organization has announced plans to take its programming to the virtual space in the weeks ahead, starting with the online debut of Varda’s 'The Little Story of Gwen From French Brittany.' ..."
Agnès Varda’s Rare Short Film ‘The Little Story of Gwen’ Debuts Online for Free — Watch
YouTube: The Little Story of Gwen from French Brittany

May 2011: The Beaches of Agnès, 2011 December: Interview - Agnès Varda, 2013 February: The Gleaners and I (2000), 2013 September: Cinévardaphoto (2004), 2014 July: Black Panthers (1968 doc.), 2014 October: Art on Screen: A Conversation with Agnès Varda, 2015 September: Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962), 2017 Feb. Plaisir d’amour en Iran (1976), 2017 April: Agnès Varda’s Art of Being There, 2017 April: AGNÈS VARDA with Alexandra Juhasz, 2017 August: Agnès Varda on her life and work - Artforum, 2017 October: Agnès Varda’s Ecological Conscience, 2018 March: Faces Places - Agnès Varda and JR (2017), 2018 July: Vagabond (1985), 2019 March: Agnès Varda, Influential French New Wave Filmmaker, Is Dead at 90

Harry Dean Stanton - Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain, Ry Cooder - Canción Mixteca, Mariachi Los Reyes at the Harry Dean Stanton Award Show

"... And any film where the actor and musician popped up in automatically gained a bunch of cool-factor points. He was just one of those voices and faces that were familiar and drastic. Weathered at times but stoic. After the actor passed away on September 15th, an era or eras even had faded away. But something struck me as a little odd but understandable at the same time. Folks hadn’t really known his love of music or his aspirations, at moments, to be a professional musician. ..."
Global Texan Chronicles
YouTube: Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain, Ry Cooder - Canción Mixteca, Harry Dean Stanton & Mariachi Los Reyes at the Harry Dean Stanton Award Show

2012 March: Paris, Texas (1984), 2014 August: Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction, 2017 September: Harry Dean Stanton (July 14, 1926 – September 15, 2017)

Living in the Present with John Prine

"I’m leaning against a cherry-red 1977 Coupe de Ville at a CITGO station in Gulfport, Florida, waiting for the car’s owner to emerge from the attached convenience store. It’s got to be at least ninety-five degrees out here, and the heat waves coming off the football-field-sized hood are hypnotic; they bring out the deep luster of the paint job, with its overtones of nail polish, lipstick, and Mad Dog 20/20. It takes a while, but John Prine finally appears, wearing a big smile and carrying two gallon jugs of water. 'Just in case!' he says. 'That’s a long bridge coming up.' We are headed for Sarasota, and between it and us stretches a very long causeway, the kind where they tell you to check your gas level before you start across. The car was only just delivered to him two days ago, and aside from a turn or two around the block, this is its first serious drive. ..."
Oxford American (October 8, 2018)
W - John Prine

2010 February: John Prine, 2011 October: John Prine - 1, 2012 May: Diamonds in the Rough., 2013 September: Sweet Revenge (1973), 2016 February: "Souvenirs" - John Prine & Steve Goodman (1973)