Worlds within a self: V. S. Naipaul and modernity

"V. S. Naipaul’s work speaks eloquently to the contemporary world. His focus is on migration and displacement, and his abiding theme is 'the great movement of peoples in the second half of the twentieth century'. Naipaul is ripe for reassessment now that work can be seen as a whole, following his death in 2018 – and time has only made his legacy clearer. Moreover, Naipaul is no longer around to stir up controversy with outrageous statements in interviews – a form of deliberate provocation that George Lamming likened to carnival masquerading. Naipaul was born in 1932 in rural Trinidad; a scholarship enabled him to study in Oxford, and so his life followed the trajectory to which Sanjay Krishnan’s subtitle alludes. ..."
TLS

2012 February: V. S. Naipaul, 2013 February: A Bend in the River (1979), 2015 July: Guerrillas (1975), 2016 March: In a Free State (1971), 2017 September: The Masque of Africa: Glimpses of African Belief - V.S. Naipaul (2010), 2018 August: V.S. Naipaul, Who Explored Colonialism Through Unsparing Books, Dies at 85

Other Protests Flare and Fade. Why This Movement Already Seems Different.

Chicago Ave. and E 38th St. in Minneapolis, Minnesota
"DENVER — Ever since people across the country began pouring into the streets to protest police violence, Dakota Patton has driven two hours each day to rally on the steps of the Colorado State Capitol. He has given up his gig jobs delivering food and painting houses. He is exhausted. But he has no plans to leave. ... As Monday marks two full weeks since the first protest sparked by the killing of George Floyd, the massive gatherings for racial justice across the country and now the world have achieved a scale and level of momentum not seen in decades. And they appear unlikely to run out anytime soon. Streets and public plazas are filled with people who have scrapped weekend plans, canceled meetings, taken time off from work and hastily called babysitters. ..."
NY Times
***NY Times: Live Updates on George Floyd Protests: Democrats Unveil Police Reform Bill
NY Times: An Antiracist Reading List
Open Culture: An Anti-Racist Reading List: 20 Books Recommended by Open Culture Readers (Video)
Vox: A reading list to understand police brutality in America

New Yorker: How Do We Change America?
Institute for Social Ecology: Reimagining a World where Justice is Possible
W - List of George Floyd protests in the United States
W - Black Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter
The Paris Review: Let It Burn
The Atlantic: America Is Giving Up on the Pandemic
Letter from Minneapolis: Why the Rebellion Had to Begin Here

A protester holds up a sign showing a fist and reading “Black Lives Matter” during a Black Lives Matter protest in front of the US Embassy on June 5, 2020, in Vienna, Austria.

The Age of Innocence - Martin Scorsese (1993)

"The Age of Innocence is a 1993 American historical romantic drama film directed by Martin Scorsese. The screenplay, an adaptation of the 1920 novel The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton, was written by Scorsese and Jay Cocks. The film stars Daniel Day-Lewis, Michelle Pfeiffer, Winona Ryder and Miriam Margolyes, and was released by Columbia Pictures. The film recounts the courtship and marriage of Newland Archer (Day-Lewis), a wealthy New York society attorney, to May Welland (Ryder); Archer then encounters and legally represents the Countess Olenska (Pfeiffer) prior to unexpected romantic entanglements. ..."
Wikipedia
Criterion - The Age of Innocence: Savage Civility
NY Times - The Age of Innocence; Grand Passions and Good Manners By Vincent Canby
Criterion, amazon
YouTube: THE AGE OF INNOCENCE - Trailer, Scorsese's The Age of Innocence: An Analysis 18:00

Spiritmuse Records presents From The Vaults #35

"Spiritmuse Records presents From The Vaults #35 • World Deep Jazz. An 1hr set of spiritual, deep jazz and avant-garde sounds from around the globe. It includes gems from Mary Lou Williams, Jef Gilson and Malagasy, David Amram, Shintaro Quintet and many more. Recorded live at a London venue in FEB 2018. All vinyl. Enjoy
MixCloud (Audio)

Live Updates on George Floyd Protests: A National Movement

Alan Michnoff, center, protests police brutality and the death of George Floyd in front of the North Hollywood police station.
"Demonstrations that began as spontaneous eruptions of outrage after the death of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis police two weeks ago coalesced this weekend into a nationwide movement calling for police reforms and racial justice. Tens of thousands gathered in big cities like New York, Washington and Seattle and small towns like Vidor, Texas, and Marion, Ohio — in swelling crowds that have been multiethnic, spanning generations and overwhelmingly peaceful. The movement has also spread around the world, with protests this weekend in Africa, Asia, Australia and Europe. The calls for change come as United States faces its starkest economic crisis since the Great Depression, largely the result of measures put in place to limit the spread of the coronavirus, which has claimed more than 110,000 lives in the country. ..."
NY Times (Video)
NY Times: Bird’s Eye View of Protests Across the U.S. and Around the World
LitHub - Readings on Racism, White Supremacy, and Police Violence in America

N.J. will track police use of force, require licensing cops, AG says as protests roil nation
The antiracist resources Fortune staffers are reading and sharing (Video)
Reckoning with white supremacy: Five fundamentals for white folks
LitHub - The Middle of History: Readings on Democracy, Fascism, and the Uncertain Space Between
Democratic Leaders’ Shamefully Tepid Response to Trump’s Threat of Military Crackdown on Protests
LA Times - George Floyd protests have created a multicultural movement that’s making history
Jacobin - The Best Way to “Reform” the Police Is to Defund the Police

A Distant Episode - Paul Bowles (1947)

"A Distant Episode is a short story by Paul Bowles. It was first published in the Partisan Review (January–February, 1947) and republished in New Directions in Prose and Poetry, #10, 1948. It is also the title story in a 1988 collection of Bowles's short stories. The story is a fictional account of a Professor of linguistics (likely an ethnic and national French citizen) traveling through what is likely Morocco in the late 1940s. The nation is never, however, specifically mentioned and the cities that are referred to appear to be entirely fictional. Only references to local languages and tribes (especially the Reguibat and Ouled Nail) suggest that the events take place in Morocco, Algeria, or possibly Western Sahara. ..."
Wikipedia
NY Times: Distant Episodes
Guardian - Scary stories for Halloween: A Distant Episode by Paul Bowles
amazon

Paul Bowles preparing mint tea ... Marrakesh, Maroc, July 20, 1961.

2007 November: The Authorized Paul Bowles Web Site, 2010 February: Paul Bowles (1910-1999), 2011: January: Halfmoon (1996), 2013 July: Tellus #23 - The Voices of Paul Bowles, 2014 January: Let It Come Down: the Life of Paul Bowles (1998), 2014 March: The Sheltering Sky (1949), 2015 January: Things Gone & Things Still Here, 2015 October: The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles – a cautionary tale for tourists, 2015 November: The Rolling Stone Interview (May 23, 1974), 2016 June: Let It Come Down (1952), 2016 December: Paul Bowles & the Music of Morocco, 2017 July: Night Waltz: The Music of Paul Bowles, 2018 July: The Sheltering Sound, 2019 September: Jane Bowles, 2019 December: So Why Did I Defend Paul Bowles?

Live Updates on George Floyd Protests: Global Rallies Decry Racism and Police Brutality

Demonstrators march away from the White House during a peaceful protest against police brutality and the death of George Floyd, on June 3, 2020 in Washington, DC.
"... Large protests against police brutality are expected across the world. Protesters across the United States, Australia and Europe were staging major demonstrations on Saturday, in the latest sign that anger over police violence has not abated since the killing of George Floyd in Minnesota last month. In response, some American cities are cracking down on overly aggressive policing with an urgency never seen before. On Friday, city leaders and judges in Minneapolis, Denver and Seattle moved to rein in tactics like officers’ use of chokeholds, tear gas or rubber bullets. In recent years, reform efforts to curb police violence were aimed at accountability for officers or legislative changes, but the current wave of protests has amplified calls across the country to defund, downsize or abolish police departments altogether. ..."
NY Times (Video)
The Paris Review: Policing Won’t Solve Our Problems
The Paris Review: The Art of Distance No. 11

Law enforcement monitor protesters in Washington, D.C.
Politico: The Story Behind Bill Barr’s Unmarked Federal Agents (Video)
PBS: What’s behind racial disparities in American policing — and how to solve them (Video) 13:20
NBC - 'I was horrified': Democrats seek to outlaw unmarked police as they patrol D.C. protests (Video)
Vox: How to reform American police, according to experts (Video)
NY Times: As Images of Pain Flood TV, ‘Where Is Our Leader?’
NBC: D.C. Mayor Bowser has 'Black Lives Matter' painted on street leading to White House (Video)

"Black Lives Matter" painted on 16th Street near the White House on June 5, 2020.

The Seagull - Michael Mayer (2018)

"The Seagull is a 2018 American historical drama film directed by Michael Mayer with a screenplay by Stephen Karam, based on the 1896 play of the same name by Anton Chekhov. The film stars Annette Bening, Saoirse Ronan, Corey Stoll, Elisabeth Moss, Mare Winningham, Jon Tenney, Glenn Fleshler, Michael Zegen, Billy Howle and Brian Dennehy. ... Set in Russia in the early 1900s, an aging actress named Irina Arkadina pays summer visits to her brother Pjotr Nikolayevich Sorin and her son Konstantin at a country estate. On one occasion, she brings her lover Boris Trigorin, a successful novelist. Nina, a free and innocent girl on a neighboring estate, who is in a relationship with Konstantin, falls in love with Boris. ..."
Wikipedia
Guardian: The Seagull review – all-star cast brings out the comedy in Chekhov
Roger Ebert
amazon
YouTube: Saoirse Ronan, Elisabeth Moss, Drama Movie

At George Floyd Memorial, an Anguished Call for Change

George Floyd’s casket is carried out to the hearse after a family memorial service on Thursday, June 4, 2020, outside Frank J. Lindquist Sanctuary at North Central University in Minneapolis.
"Hundreds of people filed into a Minneapolis chapel on Thursday to remember George Floyd, the man whose death at the hands of the police opened a nationwide flood of anguish, protest and demands for change in American policing. By turns somber and defiant, the mourners celebrated Mr. Floyd as a friend and father and uncle to those closest to him, but also as a victim of racial injustice whose killing had drawn a legion of people to the streets. 'George Floyd’s story has been the story of black folks,' the Rev. Al Sharpton said in a eulogy of Mr. Floyd, who died after a white police officer held him down on a Minneapolis street with a knee to Mr. Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes. 'Because ever since 401 years ago, the reason we could never be who we wanted and dreamed of being is you kept your knee on our neck.' ..."
NY Times (Video)
Photos: Outside the George Floyd memorial service in Minneapolis

NY Times - Live Updates on George Floyd Protests: Witness Videos Put Spotlight on Police (Video)
the intercept_ - Buffalo Police Said Protester With Head Wound “Tripped and Fell.” Video Shows They Lied. (Video)
NY Times - Trump and the Military: A Mutual Embrace Might Dissolve on America’s Streets
The Atlantic - I Can’t Breathe: Braving Tear Gas in a Pandemic
NY Times - Debatable: Why it’s different this time
The Atlantic - These Protests Are Different, but They’re Also the Same
ROAR - Solidarity means dismantling the system everywhere
The Nation - Don’t Stop Organizing By Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis

Protestors raise their fists outside of the Fifth Police Precinct in Minneapolis in response to the death of George Floyd on May 30, 2020.

June 2020: Stars of Early Summer

"As told in this month's Sky Tour astronomy podcast, June is a minimalist month for stargazing because the nights are so short. For most of us evening twilight doesn’t end until 9 p.m. or later, which makes it tougher to observe. The solstice, when daylight is longest and nighttime shortest, comes on June 20th at 5:44 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time. Planet-wise, almost all the action occurs late at night or in the predawn sky. Venus has disappeared from the evening sky but reappears in the east just before dawn. As June begins, Jupiter and Saturn rise within about 15 minutes of one another just before midnight. ..."
Sky and Telescope (Audio)

Protest Updates: Ahmaud Arbery Suspect Used Racist Slur After Shooting, Investigator Says

Demonstrators marched on Wednesday in New York, Washington and Los Angeles, among other cities, defying curfews but also avoiding confrontation with the police.
"... George Floyd’s family prepares for a memorial in Minneapolis, one of many planned in coming days. For nearly three months, Americans have avoided most collective outpourings of grief as fears of the coronavirus converted funerals of lost friends and family into painfully socially distanced affairs. That will not be the case on Thursday when large crowds are expected to gather for a memorial service for George Floyd, a man whose recent death in police custody has elicited such outrage across the country that it has pushed fears of a global pandemic into the background. ... Here’s what you need to know: A suspect in the Ahmaud Arbery case used a racist slur after the shooting, an investigator testified., ... Senate Democrats hold 8 minutes and 46 seconds of silence., Three officers newly charged in the death of George Floyd have their first court appearance on Thursday., ... A student struck with a bean-bag round at a protest in Austin has brain damage, his brother says., ‘He tries to divide us,’ Jim Mattis says of President Trump. ..."
NY Times (Video)

James Mattis Denounces President Trump, Describes Him as a Threat to the Constitution
"James Mattis, the esteemed Marine general who resigned as secretary of defense in December 2018 to protest Donald Trump’s Syria policy, has, ever since, kept studiously silent about Trump’s performance as president. But he has now broken his silence, writing an extraordinary broadside in which he denounces the president for dividing the nation, and accuses him of ordering the U.S. military to violate the constitutional rights of American citizens. ... In his j’accuse, Mattis excoriates the president for setting Americans against one another. ..."
The Atlantic
***NY Times - Bishop Budde: Trump’s Visit to St. John’s Church Outraged Me
The Nation: Trump Is Using the Military to Hide His Weakness
The Atlantic: Trump Gave Police Permission to Be Brutal
Donald Trump Is a Nazi. Full Stop.
NYBooks: How Police Became Paramilitaries
The Nation: Where Does America Go From Here?
Performative Allyship Is Deadly (Here’s What to Do Instead)
ROAR: We defend ourselves so we can all breathe in peace
ROAR: Rising up against white revenge

T-Bone Walker’s ‘Complete Imperial Recordings’: The Fountainhead Of Modern Blues Guitar

"Born on 28 May 1910, Texaan bluesman Aaron Thibeaux Walker remains one of the most innovative and influential musicians of the 20th Century. Walker is the fountainhead of modern blues guitar – the first person to play blues an electric model – who led the way for countless others, including BB King. When the man known as T-Bone Walker started recording for Imperial Records, in April 1950 (the first of several sessions later collected together as The Complete Imperial Recordings), he was a month shy of his 40th birthday and at the peak of his talent as a singer and guitarist, famous for his ‘Stormy Monday’ hit. He had a sound and playing style all his own; unique phrasing with smooth and melodic staccato runs. ..."
udiscover (Video/Audio)

Live Updates on George Floyd Protests: Esper Opposes Use of Troops for Now

"Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper said Wednesday that he does not think the current state of unrest in American cities warrants the deployment of active-duty troops to confront protesters, just days after President Trump said he was considering use of the Insurrection Act to do exactly that. In a Pentagon news conference, Mr. Esper said ordering active-duty troops to police American cities should be a 'last resort and only in the most urgent and dire of situations.' He said that, for now, this was not warranted. About 1,600 airborne troops and military police have been ordered to be positioned outside the capital, officials said Tuesday night. Officials said that Mr. Trump had discussed the invoking the Insurrection Act, but had been dissuaded by Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Attorney General William P. Barr. ..."
NY Times (Video)
NY Times: How Trump’s Idea for a Photo Op Led to Havoc in a Park (Video)
NY Times: Trump Deploys the Full Might of Federal Law Enforcement to Crush Protests
NY Times: In Rare Break, Some Republicans Reject Trump’s Harsh Response to Unrest

Minneapolis Police Use Force Against Black People at 7 Times the Rate of Whites
"Video of George Floyd’s last conscious moments horrified the nation, spurring protests that have led to curfews and National Guard interventions in many large cities. But for the black community in Minneapolis — where Mr. Floyd died after an officer pressed a knee into his neck for 8 minutes 46 seconds — seeing the police use some measure of force is disturbingly common. About 20 percent of Minneapolis’s population of 430,000 is black. But when the police get physical — with kicks, neck holds, punches, shoves, takedowns, Mace, Tasers or other forms of muscle — nearly 60 percent of the time the person subject to that force is black. And that is according to the city’s own figures. ..."
NY Times
NY Times: Protests Draw Shoulder-to-Shoulder Crowds After Months of Virus Isolation
Guardian: George Floyd killing: announcement on additional charges expected today – live (Video)

Protesters and activists move along 5th Ave. Tuesday, June 2, 2020, in New York City. George Floyd Protests...

Airmail - Edwin Boyd Johnson (1937)

"Airmail is a 4-by-8-foot (1.2 × 2.4 m) American fresco painting by Edwin Boyd Johnson. It was painted in 1937 and was originally located in the Melrose Park, Illinois, United States Post Office, which later became the village's public library. The fresco features a giant barefoot and bare-chested male mailman flying over a town scene whilst holding a winged letter. An airplane is seen in the skies behind him. This was chosen as Melrose Park was one of the first airmail facilities used by the United States Post Service and the fresco was painted to commemorate it. ..."
Wikipedia, W - Edwin Boyd Johnson

‘In Every City, There’s a George Floyd’: Portraits of Those Speaking Out

Beatriz Lopez, 19 - Los Angeles
"For a week, cities across America have been theaters of dissent. The protesters are in the torched neighborhoods of Minneapolis. They are banging the barricades outside the White House, surging through New York’s Union Square, smashing shop windows in Beverly Hills. The people giving voice to their anger are individual pieces of a movement, like drops of water to a wave. Their strength is in cohesiveness. Yet they are strangers, divided by geography, age, color and experience. The statue, at the center of a legal fight, was defaced and damaged during a protest on Sunday night. A 65-year-old black woman in Boston. The teenage daughter of undocumented immigrants in Los Angeles. A white stay-at-home mother from Austin, Texas. They have all had enough. 'I can’t breathe, read the signs carried by many protesters, echoing some of the last words of George Floyd, whose death in the custody of the Minneapolis police — his neck rammed under an officer’s knee — ignited a sudden, collective fury. ..."
NY Times
NY Times: Mayor Announces Weeklong Citywide Curfew in N.Y.C.: Live Updates (Video)
NBC: NYC Curfew Extended Through Sunday; 700 Arrested as ‘Packs’ of Looting Youth Defy Order (Video)

Peaceful Protesters Tear-Gassed To Clear Way For Trump Church Photo-Op


President Donald Trump walks past police in Lafayette Park after visiting outside St. John's Church across from the White House Monday, June 1, 2020, in Washington. Part of the church was set on fire during protests on Sunday night.
NY Times: Tear Gas Clears Path for Trump to Visit Church (Video)
Fox News: Backlash grows over use of tear gas against protesters prior to Trump's walk to DC church (Video)
Vox: The White House’s explanation for a tear gas attack on peaceful protesters doesn’t add up (Video)
NY Times: Joe Biden Listens to Anguish at a Black Church in Delaware (Video)
Aljazeera: EU 'shocked and appalled' by George Floyd's killing: Live updates (Video)
VPR: Crowd Confronts Burlington Police During Protest For George Floyd (Video)

A woman and children put flowers at a makeshift memorial honouring George Floyd, at the spot where he was taken into custody, in Minneapolis.

Christo, Artist Who Wrapped and Festooned on an Epic Scale, Dies at 84

"Christo, the Bulgarian-born conceptual artist who turned to epic-scale environmental works in the late 1960s, stringing a giant curtain across a mountain pass in Colorado, wrapping the Pont Neuf in Paris and the Reichstag in Berlin and zigzagging thousands of saffron-curtained gates throughout Central Park, died on Sunday at his home in New York City. He was 84. His death was announced on his official Facebook page. No cause was specified. Christo — he used only his first name — was an artistic Pied Piper. His grand projects, often decades in the making and all of them temporary, required the cooperation of dozens, sometimes hundreds, of landowners, government officials, judges, environmental groups, local residents, engineers and workers, many of whom had little interest in art and a deep reluctance to see their lives and their surroundings disrupted by an eccentric visionary speaking in only semi-comprehensible English. ..."
NY Times: Christo, Artist Who Wrapped and Festooned on an Epic Scale, Dies at 84
The Atlantic - Photos: The Works of Christo
Eight key projects by Christo and Jeanne Claude

2007 November: Christo & Jeanne-Claude, 2009 November: Jeanne-Claude, 2010 April: Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Remembering the Running Fence, 2010 September: Christo and Jeanne-Claude - The Gates, 2010 November: Over The River - Christo and Jeanne-Claude, 2012 January: 5 Films About Christo & Jeanne-Claude, 2012 June: The Pont Neuf Wrapped, 2013 January: Wrapped Floor and Stairway, 1969, 2015 April: New Christo Work to Temporarily Bridge Italy’s Lake Iseo, 2015 October: Next From Christo: Art That Lets You Walk on Water

Live Updates on George Floyd Protests: Asphyxia Caused Floyd’s Death, Private Autopsy Finds

Demonstrators marched in Berlin on Sunday to protest the death of George Floyd at the hands of police in Minneapolis.
"A week after George Floyd died in police custody in Minneapolis, daytime demonstrations focused on racism and police brutality are increasingly giving way to violence and chaos by night, fueling tensions over the direction of a protest movement that has unfurled in sprawling fashion in dozens of cities across the United States. Several people have been killed or wounded in shootings linked to the unrest, and looters have raided neighborhood shops and upscale commercial districts from Santa Monica, Calif., to Boston, as a sixth day of largely peaceful protests descended into lawlessness. President Trump, who has been besieged by protests and fires outside the White House, took a hard line on Monday in a call with state governors. ..."
****NY Times
****NY Times: ‘We Are All George Floyd’: Global Anger Grows Over a Death in Minneapolis
NY Times: Facing Protests Over Use of Force, Police Respond With More Force (Video)
NY Times: Many Claim Extremists Are Sparking Protest Violence. But Which Extremists?

Columbus
Guardian: Across America, police are responding to peaceful protests with violence
Violent protests are not the story. Police violence is.
Images of police using violence against peaceful protesters are going viral (Video)
Darkness Falls
Rights, riots and police brutality
Kurdish Women’s Movement in solidarity with George Floyd protests
Jacobin: Don’t Fall for the Myth of the “Outside Agitator” in Racial Justice Protests

Syrian artists Aziz Asmar and Anis Hamdoun created a mural depicting George Floyd in the town of Binnish, in Syria's northwestern Idlib province on Monday.

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)