Deep Art Nature

all music (Audio), W - Horace Andy

Horace Andy - In the Light/In the Light Dub (1977)

"Regarded as one of reggae's most distinctive voices, vocalist Horace Andy had wild success early on with his career-defining single 'Skylarking' as well as a host of other hits. As far as full-length statements are concerned, Andy's 1977 album In the Light may be his strongest. The album's ten tracks found Andy's quivering vocals floating in a dreamlike tension above tightly wound rocksteady rhythms, looming darkly on pensive tracks like 'Problems' (a tune that revisits the burning bassline from one of Andy's earlier hits, 'Mr. Bassie'), exploding on fun jaunts like 'Do You Love My Music,' and lingering meditatively on the lighthearted anthem of self-awareness and cultural pride that is the title track. ... Skillfully remastered and even stronger with both originals and dubs occupying the same space, In the Light/In the Light Dub is a triumph of roots reggae and a necessary chapter for anyone even remotely enthusiastic about Jamaican music and culture, especially at this critical point of reggae's evolution in the late '70s. ..."

Discogs: In The Light (Video), In The Light Dub (Video)

amazom

YouTube: In The Light + Dub, Government Land + Dub

Get the Birds To Come To You

"Hosting a gathering of friends at your home may not be advisable at this time, but getting together with a flock of feathered friends is a great diversion. During the pandemic, birding has become a popular escape with sales for seed suppliers, birdhouse builders and other bird related businesses 'through the roof,' according to Audubon Magazine. Extending an invitation to the bird community is simply a matter of offering a meal. A backyard rich with trees and shrubs is an ideal place to hold the get together, but a patio or rooftop will suffice. ..."

Leventhal Map & Education Center

2008 September: Birds, 2008 June: Bird Songs, 2017 April: Of a Feather, 2017 June: Bird Sounds, 2017 July: Beautifully Designed Tiny Houses... For Birds, 2019 September: The Crisis for Birds Is a Crisis for Us All, 2019 March: She Invented a Board Game With Scientific Integrity. It’s Taking Off., 2019 June: Where Birds Meet Art . . . After Dark, 2019 September: The Crisis for Birds Is a Crisis for Us All, 2019 October: A Quest to Protect the World's Last Silent Places, 2020 June: Making a Garden That Welcomes the Birds, 2020 July: New Bird Song That ‘Went Viral’ Across This Species of Sparrow Was Tracked by Scientists For the First Time, 2020 August: How to Use Binoculars - Jason Ward

Wild Days, New Faces and a Ticking Clock

"The season is still young. The sample size is far too small to draw conclusions. Over the next month or two, order most likely will be restored. As the weeks clog with matches, as muscles tire and injuries occur, chances are that the familiar faces will be the ones left standing. That is the privilege of having deep pockets, of course: They tend to contain the deepest squads. But a glance at the standings across Europe’s major leagues this week is enough, at least, to make you wonder if something strange is happening, if something, however small, has shifted, if all those factors that might have made this season less predictable — the absence of fans, the shortened preseason, the compacted schedules — have had some sort of effect. ..."

NY Times - Rory Smith

Leventhal Map & Education Center

"... This trivia event, hosted by the Leventhal Map & Education Center in collaboration with the Boston Public Library's Department of Special Collections, utilizes ATLASCOPE, a completely free online and app-based resource for exploring and browsing the Map Center's incredible digitized urban atlases collection. The atlases appear as continuous, zoomable web layers, allowing users to pull up specific maps for all areas of Boston, and compare the current streetscapes with historical records to answer questions in a geographic scavenger hunt. ..."

The Boston Calendar Blog

YouTube: Leventhal Map & Education Center

Marcus Belgrave ‎– Gemini II (1974)

'Originally released in 1974 on the independent Tribe Records, this album features many of the Detroit heavyweight artists such as Wendell Harrison and Phil Ranelin, who have both had releases on Chicago's Hefty Records where they have worked with and been re-mixed by current artists such as Telefon Tel Aviv, Morgan Geist, Prefuse 73 and Kirk Degiorgio amongst others. Marcus Belgrave's musical career spans over 4 decades. He has worked with everyone from Sun Ra to Charles Mingus, from McCoy Tyner to Clifford Brown. He worked as part of the Tribe collective in Detroit, working with the same ideology as their musical neighbours, The Art Ensemble of Chicago. ..."

Holland Tunnel

YouTube: Gemini II 38:50

First Look: New York’s Digital Subway Map Comes Alive Today

"The date was April 20, 1978; the scene, the Great Hall of the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art on Astor Place. On the stage where Abraham Lincoln once spoke sat two men, the Italian modernist Massimo Vignelli and the cartographer John Tauranac, constituting two sides of the Great Subway Map Debate. Six years earlier, Vignelli’s firm had reimagined the New York subway map into a groovy rainbowlike diagram, one that graphic designers loved and many riders found hard to navigate. ..."

Curbed

vimeo: The Map 10:08

Seeking Solar System’s Secrets, NASA’s OSIRIS-REX Mission Touches Bennu Asteroid

A set of images taken by the OSIRIS-REX spacecraft showing a full revolution of the asteroid Bennu.

"A NASA robot pogo-sticked off an asteroid on Tuesday and grabbed a sample of dirt and rocks, material that could give scientists new insights to the birth of the solar system. From first impressions recorded 200 millions away on Earth, the OSIRIS-REX spacecraft pulled off its collection of bits of asteroid, a carbon-rich rock known as Bennu, perfectly. It then backed away and headed back to orbit. ... It will take a few more days before scientists can completely declare success. At present, they can only say that the spacecraft executed its instructions exactly as programmed. What is not yet known is how much material was actually grabbed. Scientists are hoping for at least a couple of ounces, but the sampling mechanism can hold up to four pounds. ..."

W - 101955 Bennu

Carl Gari / Abdullah Miniawy - Whities 023 (The Act of Falling From the 8th Floor) EP

"Early in 2016, Will Bankhead’s eclectic electronic label The Trilogy Tapes dropped a thrilling run of club-melting 12"s from Rezzett, Four Legs, and Call Super’s Ondo Fudd alias. Slotted among these was an eerie, queasy release credited to Carl Gari and Abdullah Miniawy, with a stark photograph of Tahrir Square and the scorched exterior of the former parliament building in Cairo. The music matched that smoldering, post-revolutionary scene; the heavy atmosphere of the country and the bitterness of the military dictatorship resonated in haunting drones, ominous throbs, and a voice incanting in digitally processed Arabic. ... The Act of Falling From the 8th Floor is a harrowing and desolate listen that captures the mood and mindset of Miniawy and numerous other Egyptians living under the brutal oppression of the Al-Sisi regime. ..."

Pitchfork (Audio)

Bandcamp (Audio)

What Happens if Roe v. Wade Is Overturned?

"The almost-certain confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court has increased the chances that Roe v. Wade will be weakened or overturned. If that were to happen, abortion access would decline in large regions of the country, a new data analysis shows. Legal abortion access would be unchanged in more than half of states, but it would effectively end for those living in much of the American South and Midwest, especially those who are poor, according to the analysis. (The analysis incorporates more recent data on research we wrote about last year.) ..."

Planned Parenthood - Roe v. Wade: The Constitutional Right to Access Safe, Legal Abortion

What If Roe Fell?

Russet, the Color of Peasants, Fox Fur, and Penance

Pieter Bruegel - The Return of the Herd (1565)

"... Embroidery was deemed 'unseemly' as were 'light and variant hues in clothing, as red, blue, yellow and such like, which declare the lightness of mind.' Instead, the Scots were told to wear simple fabrics in 'grave colour,' such as 'black, russet, sad grey, or sad brown.' This depressing list comes from a summary of the 1575 General Assembly of the Kirk, recorded in the Domestic Annals of Scotland. Although the upper classes continued to wear silks and velvets and pretty bright dresses, most people wore their sad rags. It was more practical, to be dressed in dark gray and black and brown. Life for the lower classes was hard. The clothing reflected this fact. And yet, thrown in with those drab colors was russet. ..."

The Paris Review

W - Russet (color)

Kamala Harris, Mass Incarceration and Me

"Because senator Kamala Harris is a prosecutor and I am a felon, I have been following her political rise, with the same focus that my younger son tracks Steph Curry threes. Before it was in vogue to criticize prosecutors, my friends and I were exchanging tales of being railroaded by them. Shackled in oversized green jail scrubs, I listened to a prosecutor in a Fairfax County, Va., courtroom tell a judge that in one night I’d single-handedly changed suburban shopping forever. Everything the prosecutor said I did was true — I carried a pistol, carjacked a man, tried to rob two women. ..."

NY Times (Audio)

“Crawl Into The Promised Land” - Rosanne Cash (2020)

"Rosanne Cash has released the 'scathing yet hopeful' new song 'Crawl Into The Promised Land,' complete with an official video by Phyllis Housen and Eric Baker. Esteemed four-time Grammy winner Cash co-wrote the song with its producer, John Leventhal, and its appearance is a call to the resilience of the human spirit as America leads into next month’s presidential election. Proceeds from the single will be donated to the Arkansas Peace & Justice Memorial Movement. The educational online memorial commemorates the victims of lynchings in the state of Arkansas, in collaboration with the Equal Justice Initiative and Coming To The Table. ..."

See Rosanne Cash’s Video For Forthright ‘Crawl Into The Promised Land’ (Video)

2010 March: Rosanne Cash, 2012 January: Black Cadillac, 2012 April: "I Was Watching You", 2012 July: The Wheel, 2012 February: Live From Zone C, 2014 February: The River & the Thread (2014), 2014 August: Rules of Travel (2003), 2015 June: King's Record Shop (1987), 2016 June: 10 Song Demo (1996), 2017 January: Rodney Crowell - "It Ain't Over Yet (feat. Rosanne Cash & John Paul White)", 2019 August: Everyone But Me, 2020 March: Long Way Home By Rosanne Cash

Growing Up Absurd - Paul Goodman (1960)

"Growing Up Absurd is a 1960 book by Paul Goodman on the relationship between American juvenile delinquency and societal opportunities to fulfill natural needs. Contrary to the then-popular view that juvenile delinquents should be led to properly regard society and its goals, Goodman argued that young American men were justified in their disaffection because their society lacked the preconditions for growing up, including meaningful work, honorable community, sexual freedom, and spiritual sustenance. The book drew from Goodman's prior works, psychotherapy practice, and personal experiences and relations in New York City. ..."

Wikipedia

Writing the Riots

NY Times: Gadfly of the ’60s, Getting His Due

NY Times: It's Purpose That Counts; GROWING UP ABSURD. ... By John K. Galbraith (Oct. 30, 1960)

YouTube: Paul Goodman Changed My Life (2011) Trailer

Vin Gordon ‎– African Shores (2019)

In 2019, British saxophonist Nat Birchall is celebrating twenty years as a bandleader. His specialism is post-John Coltrane spiritual jazz. Since 1999 he has released an album every two years or so. The most recent was the outstanding Cosmic Language (Jazzman, 2018). The next is due later this year. ... Before Birchall became a jazz musician, his big love was reggae, which is where African Shores is coming from. The album is released on Birchall's reggae-focused label Tradition Disc. It is headlined by Jamaican trombonist Vin Gordon with Birchall sharing the frontline and the writing credits. ..."

All About Jazz

YouTube: African Shores 9 videos

Angel Of Death: Reframing Montgomery Clift At 100

"... On paper at least, Montgomery Clift had everything: matinee idol good looks, natural acting talent bolstered by training from legends of the New York theatre, the education of an aristocrat. It’s why Hollywood pursued him for more than a decade, trying to tempt him over to the movies with increasingly tantalising offers, until he finally relented. Cinema audiences saw Clift for the first time the year he turned 28, in post-WWII drama The Search, which earned him his first of four Oscar nominations, and the western Red River, which was a huge box office success on release. These two films, each a showcase for a novel kind of leading man practicing an immersive new style of acting that would come to be known simply as ‘the Method’, made Clift an instant star. ..."

The Quietus

Le Mellotron: Bomba Tropical - Lucho Pacora

"Music journalist, cultural manager, booker, manager and DJ from Perú. Lucho Pacora has been a Dj resident at El Directorio and Victoria Bar. His interest in tropical roots music led him to found, with your partner Marco Caballero, the project called 'Bomba Tropical', which rescues the sound memorabilia of the vinyls records where many Latin American tropical styles were published such as mambo, guaracha, porro, cumbia, chicha, salsa, guaguancó, son, marimba, among others. This project has taken the original Latin sounds to countries like Mexico, Brazil, Spain and France. ..."

Soundcloud (Audio) 58:18

YouTube: Bomba Tropical • 45rpm Vinyl Set 58:18

The East Village, Home of Punks and Poets: Here's a Tour

"By the 1960s, the neighborhood took on its bohemian title: the East Village, home to Beats, hippies and no wave bands, to Allen Ginsberg, W.H. Auden, Abbie Hoffman, Fillmore East and the Poetry Project, to graffiti artists — and, in recent years, to droves of New York University students. It used to be simply the northeast quadrant of Manhattan’s Lower East Side, where, to repurpose a phrase by another former resident, William S. Burroughs, layers of history are 'wrapped around each other like hibernating rattlesnakes.' During the 17th century Lenape settlements gave way to Dutch plantations. By the 1830s, the Georgian-style St. Marks Church in-the-Bowery, which took on a Greek Revival spire and cast-iron portico, had risen on a piece of Peter Stuyvesant’s former estate. ..."

Soccer Politics / The Politics of Football (April 2020)

2015 December: The Other Paris - Luc Sante, 2020 September: Luc Sante: ‘Money doesn’t kill people, but it changes the fabric of daily life’

Euro 2020 Simulation

"As of the writing of this blog post, there are over two million cases of coronavirus worldwide. Sports have been particularly affected, having all major seasons, events, and tournaments canceled. One of the most prominent of which is the rescheduling of the Euro. Obviously, these precautions were enacted with the safety of the athletes and their families in mind. However, personally, as a fan, I have deeply missed spectating these contests. As a result, I decided to simulate the tournament that was supposed to be played this summer. I simulated these matches using the FootySimulator. For each match, I simulated 99 games at a neutral venue. For elimination games, I played extra time and then penalty kicks, while just full time was used for group stage matches. The aggregate goal differential was recorded for the group stage in the event of a need for a tiebreaker. ..."

Cape Breton Island

"Cape Breton Island is an island on the Atlantic coast of North America and part of the province of Nova Scotia, Canada. ... Although the island is physically separated from the Nova Scotia peninsula by the Strait of Canso, the 1,385 m (4,544 ft) long rock-fill Canso Causeway connects it to mainland Nova Scotia. The island is east-northeast of the mainland with its northern and western coasts fronting on the Gulf of Saint Lawrence; its western coast also forms the eastern limits of the Northumberland Strait. The eastern and southern coasts front the Atlantic Ocean; its eastern coast also forms the western limits of the Cabot Strait. Its landmass slopes upward from south to north, culminating in the highlands of its northern cape. ... Approximately 75% of the island's population is in the Cape Breton Regional Municipality (CBRM) which includes all of Cape Breton County and is often referred to as Industrial Cape Breton, given the history of coal mining and steel manufacturing in this area, which was Nova Scotia's industrial heartland throughout the 20th century. ..." W - Cape Breton Island

"Alistair MacLeod, OC FRSC (July 20, 1936 – April 20, 2014) was a Canadian novelist, short story writer and academic. His powerful and moving stories vividly evoke the beauty of Cape Breton Island's rugged landscape and the resilient character of many of its inhabitants, the descendants of Scottish immigrants, who are haunted by ancestral memories and who struggle to reconcile the past and the present. MacLeod has been praised for his verbal precision, his lyric intensity and his use of simple, direct language that seems rooted in an oral tradition. ... In 2000, MacLeod's two books of short stories, The Lost Salt Gift of Blood (1976) and As Birds Bring Forth the Sun and Other Stories (1986), were re-published in the volume Island: The Collected Stories. MacLeod compared his fiction writing to playing an accordion. ..."

W - Alistair MacLeod
A LESSON IN THE ART OF STORYTELLING: AN INTERVIEW WITH ALISTAIR MacLEOD
amazon: Alistair MacLeod
NY Times: "Out With the Tide" (Audio)
NY Times - "No Great Mischief" (Audio)
Guardian: The isle is full of noises

"Cape Breton fiddling is a regional violin style which falls within the Celtic music idiom. Cape Breton Island's fiddle music was brought to North America by Scottish immigrants during the Highland Clearances. These Scottish immigrants were primarily from Gaelic-speaking regions in the Scottish Highlands and the Outer Hebrides. Although fiddling has changed considerably since this time in Scotland, it is widely held that the tradition of Scottish fiddle music has been better preserved in Cape Breton. ..."

Wikipedia
The Cape Breton Musical Heritage Series
The Amazing Music of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia
YouTube: Angus Chisholm - Cape Breton Fiddle, Angus Chisholm - Rodeo, A.A Gillis Johnnie Cope - Cape Breton, Donald MacLellan - Strathspey & Reel Cape Breton, W.H (Bill) Lamey - Scottish Reels, Alick Gillis - Go To The De'il And Shake Yourself, Margaree's Fancy, Villeneuve & Bouchard - Set du Lac St-Jean, Willie Kennedy traditional Cape Breton Fiddle (Live), Fiddler Robbie Fraser at the Red Shoe in Mabou N.S. (Live), Cape Breton Fiddle | John MacDougall (Live)
Cape Breton Island - Protest Song (2012), Songs of Steel, Coal and Protest (2012)
"On Cape Breton Island, where coal mining and steel making were once an essential part of the region’s culture and economy, protest song and verse are found in abundance. ..."
Protest Songs, Protest Songs – Volume 1 (Audio), Songs of Steel, Coal and Protest – Volume 2 (Audio)
Industrial heritage remembered
YouTube: Albert Lionais - He Walked Right In

Palo Alto - Thelonious Monk (2020)

"Thelonious Monk once said: 'Weird means something you never heard before. It’s weird until people get around to it. Then it ceases to be weird.' By the time Monk and his quartet strode into the auditorium at Palo Alto High School on October 27, 1968, people hadn’t just gotten around to his oblong, minimalist take on jazz—they’d left it behind. After decades of toiling in New York’s clubs to little outside recognition, Monk had briefly tasted superstardom, culminating in a 1964 Time magazine cover. ... The live album Palo Alto is a grainy snapshot of Monk and his classic quartet taking a break from their two-week stand at San Francisco’s Jazz Workshop to cut loose and get paid. ..."

Pitchfork

NY Times: 52 Years Ago, Thelonious Monk Played a High School. Now Everyone Can Hear It. LondonJazz

amazon YouTube: Live At Palo Alto High School, Palo Alto, CA / 1968 1/7

2012 September: Thelonious Monk: Straight No Chaser, 2013 August: Five Spot Café, 2014 February: Thelonious Monk - Genius of Modern Music, Vol. 1, Vol. 2, 2015 February: "Epistrophy" - Thelonious Monk / Kenny Clarke (1941), 2016 November: Underground (1968), 2017 May: The Thelonious Monk Quartet: The Complete Columbia Studio Albums Collection (2012), 2018 May: Les Liaisons Dangereuses 1960 (2017)

End Our National Crisis

"Donald Trump’s re-election campaign poses the greatest threat to American democracy since World War II. Mr. Trump’s ruinous tenure already has gravely damaged the United States at home and around the world. He has abused the power of his office and denied the legitimacy of his political opponents, shattering the norms that have bound the nation together for generations. He has subsumed the public interest to the profitability of his business and political interests. He has shown a breathtaking disregard for the lives and liberties of Americans. He is a man unworthy of the office he holds. The editorial board does not lightly indict a duly elected president. During Mr. Trump’s term, we have called out his racism and his xenophobia. We have critiqued his vandalism of the postwar consensus, a system of alliances and relationships around the globe that cost a great many lives to establish and maintain. We have, again and again, deplored his divisive rhetoric and his malicious attacks on fellow Americans. Yet when the Senate refused to convict the president for obvious abuses of power and obstruction, we counseled his political opponents to focus their outrage on defeating him at the ballot box. Nov. 3 can be a turning point. This is an election about the country’s future, and what path its citizens wish to choose. ..."

University of Oxford (Video)

2020 October, Trump

Precious and Rare: Islamic Metalwork from The Courtauld

"Islamic metalwork — more than any other form of Islamic craftsmanship — represents a meeting point of different cultures, patterns, and traditions. Drawing on some of the finest objects from the Middle East, Africa, and Europe, Cultures in Conversation presents a modern-day interpretation of Islamic metalwork in The Courtauld Gallery and the History of Science Museum collections. From stunning court fashion and intricate astrolabes to beautiful bowls and candlesticks, immerse yourself in six centuries of Islamic artisanship. Discover how each precious and rare object is a cultural conversation which starts and ends in a different place. And those cultural conversations continue today in the online exhibition, with objects and stories from the Multaka-Oxford volunteers and local community — including an interactive digital programme where online visitors can design their own Islamic-inspired patterns. ..."

A Glance at Daily Life Among the Caretakers of Britain’s Small Islands

Bardsey Island, as seen from the warden’s house. In the distance is the island’s lighthouse, built in 1821.

"The waters surrounding Britain are speckled with thousands of small islands, only a small fraction of which are inhabited, some by as few as one or two people. Among those who call Britain’s small islands home are a collection of wardens — caretakers who spend their lives in quiet solitude, away from the crowded corners of our urban world. Often employed by nonprofit conservation groups, their role is to maintain and manage the preservation of their small speck of land — its natural beauty, its wildlife — for future generations, often while conducting research into delicate ecosystems. ..."

Guardian - Bill Frisell: Guitar in the Space Age review – witty six-string celebrations

Fela's stories: Confusion Break Bone

"We embark to Lagos with old lion Binda Ngazolo. The chaotic megacity was often referenced by Fela, much like in 'Confusion Break Bone' (1990). ... Abidjan, 2001: I receive an unlikely offer. I’m invited to stage the play Le Fou du Carrefour ['the crossroads’ madman'] in Lagos, Nigeria, under the title Madness Junction. This urban fable was penned by the great Ivorian playwright Hyacinthe Kakou in 1994, and depicts a frenetic African city invaded by garbage and other toxic waste originating from industrialized countries. The city’s arteries are blocked. Vehicles can no longer move freely, workers can no longer get to their respective occupations… The people grumble. The cops beat them down. The economy is blocked, the country is suffocated. Everyone complains, but no one does anything. ..."

PAN (Video)

Which states had the best pandemic response?

"Vermont locked itself down early and reopened gradually. Washington state paid workers who couldn't do their jobs while quarantined. And Louisiana zeroed in on students who were most at-risk of falling behind and prioritized help for them first. When President Donald Trump decided to delegate the pandemic response to the states, he gave them a chance to call their own shots. Some states acted aggressively to contain Covid-19, others far less so. We wondered with all those decisions put in states’ hands, which ones have done the best job so far? ..."

Politico

Bill Frisell - Guitar in the Space Age (2014)

"This is an old-school electric guitar fan’s album, played by one of the most creative guitar fans in the world. Bill Frisell is a lifelong lover of the quintessentially American invention, drawing on everything from Charlie Christian swing through 50s tremolo twangs to cutting-edge pedal technology. But it’s also a fine display of bluegrass and rock-inspired contemporary music, in which Frisell’s intelligent, jazz-informed sensibility is applied to 1950s and 60s classics by Duane Eddy, the Beach Boys, the Kinks and more. On a casual listen, he might seem to be treating the Chantays’ Pipeline or the Junior Wells blues Messin’ With the Kid as if he’s still a teenage guitar prodigy who has just excitedly learned them off the singles – but in fact this is as serious, witty, layered and subtle as any of his more abstract work. Check out a rapturously tender Surfer Girl, a delicately spacey Tired of Waiting for You – and Kenny Wollesen’s deep, casually flappy percussion, which elegantly counterbalances the metallic clangs all the way through."

W - Guitar in the Space Age

allmusic (Audio)

SoundCloud (Audio)

YouTube: Pipeline (Live), Surfer Girl (Live)

2018 April: Music IS (2018)

We All Live in Don DeLillo’s World. He’s Confused by It Too.

"A permeating paranoia. Profound absurdity. Conspiracy and terrorism. Technological alienation. Violence bubbling, ready to boil. This has long been the stuff of Don DeLillo’s masterly fiction. It’s now the air we breathe. For nearly 50 years and across 17 novels, among them classics like 'White Noise,' 'Libra' and 'Underworld,' DeLillo, who is 83, has summoned the darker currents of the American experience with maximum precision and uncanny imagination. His enduring sensitivity to the zeitgeist is such that words like 'prophetic' and 'oracular' figure frequently in discussion of his work. They will very likely figure again in regards to his new novel, 'The Silence,' in which a mysterious event on Super Bowl Sunday 2022 causes screens everywhere to go blank. ..."