Márquez, Neruda, Llosa: A Look at Three of Latin America's Most Famous Writers

Mario Vargas Llosa
"Attempting an all-encompassing definition of Latin American literature is as reductive as trying to do so for African, Asianor European literature, and will necessarily lead to as vigorous a debate. Nonetheless the mythology of the ‘Latin American Boom’ and its concomitant genre ‘magical realism’ still dominate discussions of literary publishing throughout the South American content. This is largely down to three writers who, by the sheer profundity and renown of their work, defined literary production on the continent in the latter half of the 20th century. These were Colombia’s Gabriel García Márquez, Peru’s Mario Vargas Llosa and Chile’s Pablo Neruda, all of whom have won the Nobel Prize for Literature, and who both collectively and individually are South America’s greatest literary exports. ..."
culture trip
11 questions you're too embarrassed to ask about magical realism
W - The Boom

Fury in the Streets as Protests Spread Across U.S. In Dozens of States

"George Floyd Protests Live Updates: Fury and Frustration in Cities Across U.S. After a night marred by clashes and looting despite curfews and National Guard troops in the streets, cities across the country assessed the damage on Sunday and looked for answers to the escalating unrest. Calling for 'peace, not patience,' Mayor Melvin Carter of St. Paul said that in order to restore calm, his city needed assurances that those responsible for the death of George Floyd would be held accountable. Cities across the United States smoldered on Sunday morning after a largely peaceful day of protests collapsed into a night of chaos, destruction and sporadic violence. The fear and fury that had seized Minneapolis, where the death of yet another black man at the hands of the police set off protracted unrest last week, swept well beyond Minnesota throughout the day and into the night, with tumultuous demonstrations from Columbus, Ohio, and Little Rock, Ark., to Miami and Washington. ..."
NY Times (Video)
NY Times: Photos From the George Floyd Protests, City by City

A weekend of protest and mourning: George Floyd’s death spurs demonstrations in Texas cities
NY Times: Two Crises Convulse a Nation: A Pandemic and Police Violence
NBC: Fury across U.S. as protesters demand justice for George Floyd's death
CNNN: George Floyd protests spread nationwide

Violence, destruction mar Seattle protests over the death of George Floyd

What Color Is the Sky? - Nina MacLaughlin

Paul Signac, View of Saint-Tropez, 1896
"Sky blue. Please picture it. Put a swath of sky blue in your mind. Just for a moment. Sky blue. Close your eyes. You see it. Now, look out the window, up and out to your sky. I wonder, what color do you see? Does it match the color your mind projected? In the room where I sit now, in my apartment on the first floor, in the small Northeastern city where I live, a little after eight in the morning, sun slants across the dusk-orange couch and the brown blanket slung on the back of it. The windowpanes repeat themselves in shadow, elongated squares over the dark red rug. From behind the roofline horizon, dish towel light seeps through a tangled net of branches. What little sky I can see is not so much color as light. Looking at it, I wonder, if I didn’t know what color the sky typically was, would I call it blue? I see a blue-ish-ness, a graywhiteblue glow, but is that only because I already know the sky is blue? ..."
The Paris Review

Military Police Prepare to Deploy After ‘Absolute Chaos’ in Minneapolis

Protesters marching through the street on May 28, 2020, in downtown Minneapolis.
"Sprawling Protest Movement Treads Line Between Justice Agenda and Chaos. MINNEAPOLIS — With the Third Police Precinct headquarters engulfed in flames, what felt like a cathartic release swept through the streets of Minneapolis’s South Side on Thursday night. Some people danced to Beyoncé, others passed out beer. Still others chanted: 'No justice, no peace! Prosecute the police!' The police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis has incited a wave of demonstrations and unrest across the nation, renewing passionate street uprisings that gave rise to the Black Lives Matter movement six years ago. But if the scene on Thursday felt like a victory for some protesters, the escalating violence and destruction that spread Friday in Minneapolis and elsewhere around the country felt more like a warning that this moment could be spinning out of control both because of the limitations of a largely spontaneous, leaderless movement and because, protesters and officials warned, there were indications it was also being undermined by agitators trying to sabotage it. ..."
NY Times
NY Times: Atlanta Protesters Clash With Police as Mayor Warns ‘You Are Disgracing Our City’
NY Times: Protests Flare in Brooklyn Over Floyd Death as de Blasio Appeals for Calm
NY Times: Sprawling Protest Movement Treads Line Between Justice Agenda and Chaos
TIME: Pentagon Prepares Military Police for Minneapolis Deployment as Protests Over George Floyd's Murder Continue (Video)

A police car burned after protesters marched to the Georgia State Capitol on Friday.

The 1955 plan to get rid of Central Park’s Ramble

"Since Central Park opened in 1859, city officials have occasionally tried to tinker with its original intent—which was to replicate the woods and pastures of nature for industry-choked New Yorkers in need of R&R. Among the plans that luckily never came to pass: a racetrack, a cemetery for the city’s 'distinguished dead,' a 1,000-seat theater, building lots from parcels of park space, even pavement replacing the grass at the lower end of the park. And these are just the ideas proposed before 1920! ..."
Ephemeral New York

Thomas Brodie (Royal Navy officer)

Incorruptible: Beginning of the action, 4 February 1805, by Francis Sartorious Jr.
"Thomas Charles Brodie (1779 – 14 March 1811) was an officer in the Royal Navy during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. As a lieutenant, he fought at the Battle of the Nile in 1798 and the Siege of Acre in 1799. Promoted to the rank of commander on 14 February 1801, Brodie is one of two people credited with the command of HMS Arrow at the Battle of Copenhagen in April. Promoted to captain in 1802, Brodie spent some time in charge of a group of Sea Fencibles in south-west Ireland. He commissioned the 38-gun HMS Hyperion in 1808 and served in her in the Mediterranean and West Indies. Brodie died in Jamaica from an unknown illness on 14 March 1811. ..."
Wikipedia

Nicholas Pocock - The Battle of Copenhagen, 2 April 1801

Fire Rages in Minneapolis and Protests Spread Across U.S.

"Protests Over George Floyd’s Death Spread Across U.S.: Live Updates. A Minneapolis police station was overrun and set ablaze by protesters Thursday night as destructive demonstrations raged in the city and spread across the country overnight Friday after the death of George Floyd, an African-American man, in police custody. He died after pleading, 'I can’t breathe,' while a white police officer pressed his knee into his neck. The death set off days of continuing protests and scattered looting of stores in the city, as demonstrators denounced another in a long line of fatal encounters between African-Americans and law enforcement officers. Early on Friday, officers in plastic face shields and carrying batons remained on some streets, which had largely cleared of protesters. Smoke rose on the city’s horizon. National Guard patrol vehicles were deployed, as firefighters worked nearby at the blackened shell of a building, still smoking, that housed a Family Dollar store. ..."
NY Times (Video)
***W - Death of George Floyd
NBC: Minneapolis police precinct burns as George Floyd protests rage; CNN crew arrested (Video)

CNN: George Floyd protests spread nationwide (Video)
NY Times: Why Is Police Brutality Still Happening?
NY Times: Police Brutality, Misconduct and Shootings (Video)
Aljazeera: George Floyd death: Live updates as protests erupt across US
Guardian: Black CNN reporter arrested on air at protests over George Floyd killing (Video)

A Pulse-Slowing Playlist for an Unmoored Time

"... Now, time is an obsession. Google has registered a surge of searches for the day of the week. Individual days creep along, yet April sped by and May evaporated in a flash. And nature moves ahead on schedule, indifferent to human confusion. ... Investigations into the perception of time have long been the work of composers, too. Since the end of the 19th century, perhaps bridling against the nascent industrial age, composers have played with different ways of creating music resistant to man-made mechanics of time keeping. ... Here are seven pieces that speak to the Covid-19 time warp: a playlist of music for the unmoored. ..."
NY Times (Video/Audio)

Grant. Three-Night Miniseries Event

"At the time of his death, Ulysses S. Grant was the most famous man in the world and stood alongside men like George Washington and Abraham Lincoln in the pantheon of American heroes. However, today Ulysses S. Grant is largely forgotten, his rightful legacy tarnished by a fog of myth, rumor and falsehood. Grant tells the remarkable and quintessentially American story of a humble man who overcomes incredible obstacles, rises to the highest ranks of power and saves the nation not once, but twice. With a seamless blend of dramatic scenes, expert commentary and beautifully enhanced archival imagery, this three-part miniseries uncovers the true legacy of the unlikely hero who led the nation during its greatest tests: the Civil War and Reconstruction. ..."
HISTORY (Video)
W - Ulysses S. Grant
YouTube: Grant: Official Trailer | 3-Night Miniseries Event Premieres

Atget's Paris, 100 Years Later

Quai des Grands Augustins.
"PARIS — For much of the last two months, Paris has been empty — its shops and cafes shuttered, its streets deserted, its millions of tourists suddenly evaporated. Freed of people, the urban landscape has evoked an older Paris. In particular, it has called up the singular Paris of Eugène Atget, an early 20th-century father of modern photography in his unsentimental focus on detail. In thousands of pictures, Atget shot an empty city, getting up early each morning and lugging his primitive equipment throughout the streets. His images reduced Paris to its architectural essence. ..."
NY Times

2008 January: Eugene Atget, 1857-1927, 2008 January: Paris Changing

The 21 Best Films Set in New York City

Grace Kelly and James Stewart in 'Rear Window'
"Probably beginning with Herald Square (1896), thousands of movies have been set in New York City. These 21 New York film locations can justifiably be called the best. ... 8. Rear Window (1954) A celebrated Alfred Hitchcock thriller, Rear Window stars James Stewart as L.B. 'Jeff' Jefferies, a voyeuristic wheelchair-bound photographer who realizes that one of his neighbors (Raymond Burr) has murdered his wife. Grace Kelly co-stars as Jeffries’ beautiful socialite girlfriend whose fussing around him intensifies his sense of impotence. The Greenwich Village apartment building Jeffries gazes on at '125 West Ninth Street' was modeled on the one at 125 Christopher Street, which still exists. ..."
culturetrip (Video)

Your Maps of Life Under Lockdown

“I find myself with nowhere to go” - — Alex Chung, New York, New York
"CityLab recently invited readers to draw maps of their worlds in the time of coronavirus. Nearly 400 of you have responded to our call with an incredible range of interpretative maps, submitted from all over the world. You charted how your homes, neighborhoods, cities and countries have transformed under social distancing and stay-at-home orders around the planet, from daily work routines and the routes of your 'sanity walks,' to the people you miss and the places you fled. While most used markers, pens, and computer-based drawing tools to sketch maps by hand, some used watercolors, clay, and photography. Some were humorous, others heart-wrenching — between them all, a full spectrum of quarantine-era emotion emerged. ..."
CityLab

“I constantly found myself scrolling on TikTok or Instagram” — Clare Halvorsen, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Charles Ives

"Charles Edward Ives (/aɪvz/; October 20, 1874 – May 19, 1954) was an American modernist composer, one of the first American composers of international renown. His music was largely ignored during his early life, and many of his works went unperformed for many years. Later in life, the quality of his music was publicly recognized, and he came to be regarded as an 'American original.' He was also among the first composers to engage in a systematic program of experimental music, with musical techniques including polytonality, polyrhythm, tone clusters, aleatory elements, and quarter tones. His experimentation foreshadowed many musical innovations that were later more widely adopted during the 20th century. Hence, he is often regarded as the leading American composer of art music of the 20th century. Sources of Ives' tonal imagery included hymn tunes and traditional songs; he also incorporated melodies of the town band at holiday parade, the fiddlers at Saturday night dances, patriotic songs, sentimental parlor ballads, and the melodies of Stephen Foster. ..."
Wikipedia, W - Charles Ives House
***NY Times: At 150, Charles Ives Still Reflects the Darkness and Hope of America (Audio)
The Charles Ives Society
A Charles Ives Website: Works
A Charles Ives Website
Pandemonium: Charles Ives by Alex Ross, The New Yorker, June 7, 2004
The Atlantic: The Many Faces of Ives
NPR: An American Maverick Turns The Symphony On Its Head
How Ives Composed: The Geiringer Lecture By Kyle Gann (Audio)
Discogs (Video)

Charles Ives, Intercollegiate March, 1892. Performed at William McKinley's Inauguration, March 4, 1897
YouTube: The Best of Charles Ives (Video)
0:00 The Unanswered Question 6:07 Violin Sonata No. 1. II: Largo cantabile 12:03 Violin Sonata No. 3. I. Adagio - Andante - Allegretto - Adagio 24:24 Three Places in New England: Putnam's Camp II 29:46 Three Places in New England: The Housatonic at Stockbridge III 33:54 Symphony No. 2. I: Andante moderato 40:10 Symphony No. 2. V: Allegro molto vivace 50:27 Symphony No. 4. III: Fugue: Andante moderato con moto 57:04 Central Park in the Dark 1:04:21 The Things Our Fathers Loved 1:06:08 Memories 1:08:38 The Circus Band 1:11:40 They are There! 1:14:32 Tom Sails Away 1:17:21 Tone Roads No. 1 1:20:42 Psalm 100 1:22:17 Hallowe'en (from "Three Outdoor Scenes") 1:24:18 Piano Sonata No. 2, Concord, Mass, 1840–60 IV: "Thoreau" (after Henry David Thoreau)

W - A Symphony: New England Holidays
The Holidays Symphony
Keeping Score (Audio/Video)
Decoration Day According to Charles Ives
YouTube: Keeping Score | Charles Ives: Holidays Symphony (FULL DOCUMENTARY AND CONCERT) 1:48:58
 W - Symphony No. 2
Symphony No. 2
YouTube: Charles Ives - Symphony No. 2 (Leonard Bernstein) 1/3, 2/3, 3/3

W - Central Park in the Dark
Transcendentalism in Charles Ives' Central Park in the Dark
Central Park in the Dark
YouTube: Central Park in the Dark (1906) Symphony Orchestra of Bartók Conservatory Budapest
 W - Three Places in New England
Three Places in New England
Eda Kuhn Loeb Music Library: Three Places in New England: II. Putnam’s Camp, Redding, Connecticut
YouTube: Three Places in New England - Ensemble intercontemporain (Live)

amazon: Ives Plays Ives The Complete Recordings of Charles Ives
NY Times: That Grumpy Old Pianist Is Ives By Kyle Gann (Feb. 20, 2000)
allmusic (Audio)
W - Piano Sonata No. 2
Piano Sonata No. 2, Concord, Mass., 1840-60
YouTube: Piano Sonata No.2, "Concord, Mass., 1840-1860" 48:11 Jordan Hall at New England Conservatory

W - Universe Symphony
Universe Symphony
Brooklyn Rail: Charles Ives’s Universe Symphony, Finally
W - The Unanswered Question (lecture series)
YouTube: Leonard Bernstein - The Unanswered Question 1973 1 1:45:37, 2 1:36:32, 3 2:23:06, 4 2:23:24, 5 2:13:57, 6 2:52:17
YouTube: Universe Symphony 1:04:31

Spiritmuse Records presents 179: The Interplanetary Travels of Sun Ra

"We’re celebrating the 106th Interplanetary arrival of Sun Ra on Planet Earth, with our quintessential selection of our favourite tracks from the Afrofuturist pioneer’s extraordinary volume of work. Considered by many ‘The Greatest of All Time’, he’s been an immense personal influence and mainstay of our shows, as is to many other jazz lovers and beyond. For 2hrs, we Travel the Spaceways – this is our tribute of love to this unique experimental musician, composer, bandleader, piano and synth player, theatrical performer, poet and cosmic philosopher."
MadonJazz (Audio)

Debatable: Could this be the next Great Depression?

"An additional 2.4 million U.S. workers filed for unemployment last week, the government reported Thursday, bringing the total to 38.6 million in nine weeks and providing more evidence — in case there was any doubt — that the economy is plunging ever deeper into crisis. Of the path to recovery, Nicholas Bloom, an economist at Stanford University, told The Times, 'I think we’re in for a very long haul.' But not everyone is despairing of the country’s economic future. Last week, my colleague Paul Krugman, a Times columnist and Nobel Prize-winning economist, expressed some guarded optimism in his newsletter. ..."
NY Times

Requiem for the American Dream - Noam Chomsky (2017)

"REQUIEM FOR THE AMERICAN DREAM is the definitive discourse with Noam Chomsky, widely regarded as the most important intellectual alive, on the defining characteristic of our time - the deliberate concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a select few. Through interviews filmed over four years, Chomsky unpacks the principles that have brought us to the crossroads of historically unprecedented inequality - tracing a half-century of policies designed to favor the most wealthy at the expense of the majority - while also looking back on his own life of activism and political participation. Profoundly personal and thought provoking, Chomsky provides penetrating insight into what may well be the lasting legacy of our time - the death of the middle class and swan song of functioning democracy. A potent reminder that power ultimately rests in the hands of the governed, REQUIEM is required viewing for all who maintain hope in a shared stake in the future."
YouTube: Requiem for the American Dream 1:12:49

2011 January: Peak Oil and a Changing Climate, 2015 May: The Limits of Discourse As Demonstrated by Sam Harris and Noam Chomsky, 2015 October: Electing the President of an Empire, 2015 December: Noam Chomsky on Paris attacks, 2016 December: Chomsky: Humanity Faces Real and Imminent Threats to Our Survival, 2017 April: Requiem for the American Dream: The 10 Principles of Concentration of Wealth & Power (2016), 2017 July: Noam Chomsky: Neoliberalism Is Destroying Our Democracy

Spike Lee and the Battlefield of American History

>
Lee pausing during a bike ride on the Upper East Side.
"It’s a funny thing, Zooming with Spike Lee. ... Think of his most famous characters — Mars Blackmon, from his 1986 feature 'She’s Gotta Have It,' and a series of Nike commercials with Michael Jordan; or Mookie from 'Do the Right Thing' — and they’re confronting you head-on. This is Lee’s preferred stance: undaunted, in your face, eye-to-eye. And it works. Even on a stuttering videoconference, the man is unmistakable. ... Now, in the middle of a global calamity, and with a new film, 'Da 5 Bloods,' that revisits the Vietnam War, he is its witness once again — older, more contemplative and as insatiable as ever, despite a legacy as solid as exists in American cinema. ..."
NY Times (Video)

2009 January: Spike Lee, 2014 June: Do the Right Thing (1989), 2016 June: Clockers (1995), 2018 December: BlacKkKlansman (2018)

‘Historic Evening (Soir Historique)’

The Musical Contest c.1754, by Jean-Honoré Fragonard
"'What I like about music', said John Ashbery (1927–2017), 'is its ability to … carry an argument through successfully to the finish, though the terms of the argument remain unknown quantities … I would like to do this in poetry.' This affinity for musical rather than rational structures (he once said he wanted to produce a poem 'that the critic cannot even talk about”) is one of the qualities that made Ashbery well suited to translate the poetry of Arthur Rimbaud (1854–1891), especially the prose poems of Illuminations which, in a TLS review of Ashbery’s versions published in 2011, Edmund White compared to 'a musical score meant only to be read'. In what he called Rimbaud’s 'disordered collection of magic lantern slides', Ashbery discovered the prototype of 'absolute modernity', that is, 'the simultaneity of all of life, the condition that nourishes poetry at every second'. ..."
TLS

2008 May: Arthur Rimbaud, 2010 November: Arthur Rimbaud - 1, 2012 October: Patti Smith: Poem about Arthur Rimbaud (Subtitulado), 2012 December: Writers’ Houses Gives You a Virtual Tour of Famous Authors’ Homes, 2013 August: Arthur Rimbaud Documentary, 2013 November: julian peters comics - The Drunken Boat by Arthur Rimbaud, 2014 June: In Which We Begin To Roar With Laughter At Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud, 2015 May: Illuminations - Arthur Rimbaud (John Ashbery - 1875), 2016 March: Rimbaud in New York, 2016 December: The Photography of Poet Arthur Rimbaud (1883), A Season in Hell - Arthur Rimbaud (Robert Wyatt, Carl Prekopp, Elizabeth Purnell, 2009), 2019 September: A Rebel French Poet Draws New Followers to the Hometown, 2019 December: 127 years after his death, letters of love and angst still come to Rimbaud’s grave.

See Spring's Finest Spiral Galaxies

The Whirlpool Galaxy (M51) in Canes Venatici ...
"Ever since I was a young amateur I've wanted to see spiral arms. In the telescopes of my youth galactic structure was hard to come by. While I could often distinguish a galaxy's bright core from its faint disk, arms held out on me until I could afford a larger instrument. On Earth we find spirals in sunflowers and snails, but to see it expressed in something as enormous as a galaxy transforms this familiar pattern into something truly grand. That's what I feel when I point my scope at the Whirlpool Galaxy and see its billions of suns arranged in the whorls of a spiral. Grandeur. Not to mention the joy of knowing that a shape imprinted in my very DNA resonates across the universe. ..."
Sky and Telescope
Astronomy: Meet the stars next door

The nearest stars. Two-thirds of our stellar neighbors are cool M-class dwarf stars. ...

My Lighthouses

C Levå, Marinmotiv
"Certain landlocked cities have lighthouses. On such rivers as the Rhine, the Seine, and the Saint Lawrence, lighthouses gave warning of dangerous areas. In London, the Trinity Buoy Wharf light is still in existence. This hexagonal, pale-brown brick structure is located in an area known as Container City. I remember my father telling me about these buildings when I was a child. To my ears, accustomed to the Spanish language, the word container, which I never completely understood, sounded warlike; I imagined gigantic metal constructions, improbably conical or spherical in shape. It never occurred to me that they would be like shoeboxes. ..."
The Paris Review
amazon

“Prince and the Revolution: Live,” the Historic 1985 Concert Is Streaming Online

"A quick heads up. The Prince Estate has released Prince and the Revolution: Live, a historic concert captured at the Carrier Dome in Syracuse, NY on March 30, 1985. Streaming to support the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund for the World Health Organization, the video revisits the Purple Rain tour, when Prince was at the height of his powers. You can find the 20-song setlist right below. Enjoy the free fundraising stream while it lasts. ..."
Open Culture (Video) 1:52:34

FM3: Buddha Machine Variations

Buddha Machine Variations No. 21 (Dark Pixels)
"... In 2005, FM3 began work on a small musical loop player that the group called the Buddha Machine. The Buddha Machine fulfills certain criteria of a generative music device, while the idea of layering loops of ambient sound is credited to Brian Eno, who worked similarly using tape machines for installations. Eno was himself an early supporter of the Buddha Machine. Roughly the size of a pack of cigarettes, the device features a single toggle switch to cycle through samples, a combined power and volume dial, and an integrated speaker. The device contains a chip holding nine digitally encoded drones, ranging in length from 1.5 to 40 seconds. The name and idea is derived from a popular Chinese device that intones repeating loops of Buddhist chanting. ..."
Wikipedia
disquiet: No. 27 (Fracture Delay), disquiet: No. 29 (Prescient Delay)
YouTube: Buddha Machine Variations 35 videos

Buddha Machine Variations No. 27 (Fracture Delay)

Take a Virtual Walk in Brooklyn, Before It Was a Global Brand

"Officially incorporated in 1834, Brooklyn was already the third largest city in America by the Civil War. Just over a century later it was in shambles, hemorrhaging jobs. Now it’s a global brand, a glorious, complex megalopolis of thriving streets, gentrification and poverty, its booming neighborhoods illuminated by a million twee Edison bulbs, its enduring emblems a parachute jump and an old, beloved roller coaster. ... Historian-in-residence for the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, a fourth-generation Brooklynite, he is the author of 'Brooklyn: The Once and Future City.' This is the latest in a series of (edited, condensed) virtual walks with architects and others. ... He proposed a stroll from Brooklyn Heights to the gates of the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The walk meandered through Cadman Plaza Park and Vinegar Hill — a couple of miles, more or less, covering a few hundred years. ..."
NY Times
NY Times - Brooklyn Bridge, Star of the City: Here’s a Tour
NY Times - The East River Waterfront Dazzles. Take a Virtual Tour.

Vinegar Hill was a neighborhood of three-story houses with ground floor shops.

Birdfoot violet

"... Bird-foot violet is a low, clumped perennial, 4-10 in. high, with large, almost pansy-sized flowers. The leaves, almost round in outline, are 3/4-2 inches long, deeply cut into 3-5 segments, and these again narrowly lobed. The leaf stem is 4-6 inches long. Flowers are pale to dark purple, broad, flat, 1-1 1/2 inches across. They have 5 petals, the 2 upper ones smaller than the lower 3 and deep violet. The lowest petal has the dark streakings which are common to most violets. There are 5 stamens with brilliant orange anthers. A most beautiful Violet of dry, upland sites. Its showy, light violet-blue flowers, distinctive birds-foot-shaped leaves make it easy to identify. It is pollinated by bees and butterflies. The bicolored form of this species, with its 2 upper petals a deep violet and the lower 3 a lilac shade, has been considered the most beautiful Violet in the world. This violet does not reproduce vegetatively like most other violets. Reproduction is by seed only. ..."
Wildflower: Plant Database
W - Viola pedata

Jodie Foster Breaks Down Her Career, from “Silence of the Lambs” to “Hotel Artemis”

"Jodie Foster is looking old in new movie Hotel Artemis. Playing a 70-year-old nurse who hasn’t been outside for 20 years, she looks pale and grey. It turns out to be makeup (she’s only 55 in real life) but you wonder if this is how Foster feels on the inside, given her long, strange career. Foster was always old beyond her years. At about the same age Emma Watson was enrolling at Hogwarts, Foster was playing a child prostitute in Taxi Driver. By that stage, she had made more movies than Martin Scorsese. Even in Bugsy Malone, her Tallulah seemed like an adult among kids. In Freaky Friday, she was literally playing a 30-year-old woman in a 14-year-old’s body. ..."
Guardian - The brave one: why Jodie Foster is Hollywood’s ultimate survivor
YouTube: Jodie Foster Breaks Down Her Career, from “Silence of the Lambs” to “Hotel Artemis”

Queen of Sheba

The Visit the Queen Sheba to King Solomon, Edward John Poynter (20 March 1836 - 26 July 1919)
"The Queen of Sheba (Hebrew: מלכת שבא‎; Arabic: ٱلْمَلِكَة بَلْقِيْس‎, romanized: Al-Malikah Balqīs) is a figure first mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. In the original story, she brings a caravan of valuable gifts for the Israelite King Solomon. This tale has undergone extensive Jewish, Islamic, and Ethiopian elaborations, and has become the subject of one of the most widespread and fertile cycles of legends in the Orient. Modern historians identify Sheba with the South Arabian kingdom of Saba in present-day Yemen. The queen's existence is disputed among historians. ... The treatment of Solomon in literature, art, and music also involves the sub-themes of the Queen of Sheba and the Shulammite of the Song of Songs. ..."
Wikipedia
PBS: Queen of Sheba
YouTube: Queen of Sheba - Black is Beautiful

17th-century AD painting of the Queen of Sheba from a church in Lalibela, Ethiopia and now in the National Museum of Ethiopia in Addis Ababa

2016 June: Voyage to the Orient (1851), 2017 March: Selected Writings of Gerard De Nerval (1957), 2017 June: Did Gerard de Nerval walk his pet lobster through Paris?, 2017 October: Les Filles du feu (1854), 2019 March: Sylvie (1853)

Reading List: Ronnie Close

"When researching my book on the ultras phenomenon in Egypt, Cairo’s Ultras: Resistance and Revolution in Egypt’s Football Culture (2019), I was surprised to discover how little has been published on football literature concerning the Middle East and North African (MENA) region. Apart from a limited number of journal articles, newspaper reports of different sorts, and various types of book publications, little has been written on football culture in Egypt per se. In particular, the Cairo ultras had not been looked at in a meaningful way as a significant social movement in recent years. However, as I began to write this reading list, I was pleased to hear of a new pending book by anthropologist Dr. Carl Rommel and look forward to more publications of this kind in the future. ..."
Africa is a Country

Baseball: Part 8: A Whole New Ball Game

Roger Maris
"Early in the 1960s, 1950s-style baseball was still in charge. The Yankees continued to win pennants. Home whites and road grays remained in vogue. Ted Williams, Warren Spahn and Stan Musial were still producing. But America of the 1960s evolved into a decade of quick change, if not complete metamorphosis. America’s internal and external problems —and the counterculture that spawned as a result—made major league baseball, the bastion of tradition for over 60 years, feel odd and out-of-place through the decade. Answering to immense pressure, each league reluctantly expanded from eight teams to ten early in the decade—and more contentedly added two more in 1969 to total 12. The relocations of the Dodgers and Giants to the West Coast at the end of the 1950s were just the beginning of an inevitable trend that would reach all corners of America—and beyond. By the end of the decade, the U.S. Northeast—the long-anchoring region of baseball—saw its geographic power diluted with new or relocated teams in San Diego, Seattle, Minneapolis, Atlanta, Oakland, Houston and even Montreal in neighboring Canada. ..."
This Great Game
PBS: Part 8: A Whole New Ball Game (Video)
This Great Game: 1964 The Fizz Kids
This Great Game: 1966 Wish You Were Here, Mr. DeWitt
This Great Game: 1968 Year of the Pitcher
How Baseball Got Its Groove Back in the Turbulent 1960s
SABR: 1960s
W - Major League Baseball on television in the 1960s, W - Major League Baseball relocation of 1950s–1960s

Sandy Koufax 1963
Dean's Cards: 1960s Baseball Cards
Baseball from 1960 to 1969 Chronology
W - Roberto Clemente, Roger Maris, Whitey Ford, Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, Bob Gibson, Harmon Killebrew, Jim Palmer, Brooks Robinson, Frank Robinson, Carl Yastrzemski, Steve Carlton, Lou Brock, Tom Seaver, Nolan Ryan
amazon: The Long Season by Jim Brosnan, Ball Four by Jim Bouton, The Summer Game by Roger Angell, Can't Anybody Here Play This Game? by Jimmy Breslin, Bill Veeck, October 1964 by David Halberstam, The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop. by Robert Coover, Veeck - As in Wreck by Bill Veeck, Red Smith on Baseball: The Game's Greatest Writer on the Game's Greatest Years, The Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading And Bubblegum Book
World Series: 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969
YouTube: Roger Maris 1961 - 61st Home Run as Called by Red Barber, WPIX-TV, 10/1/1961, Struck Out: The Fall of the 1964 Phillies, Dick Allen story, 1966 World Series Game 4: Dodgers @ Orioles, 1964 Baseball Highlights 1:22:48, Every MLB World Series Film From The 1960s (1960-1969) 6:58:48

Bob Gibson