​Trump Is Marching Down the Road to Political Violence

 

“At the beginning of last week, former President Donald Trump referred to the 2020 election as the ‘greatest Election Fraud in the history of our Country.’ By the end of the week, he had issued a statement saying, ‘As our Country is being destroyed, both inside and out, the Presidential Election of 2020 will go down as THE CRIME OF THE CENTURY!’ What else is new? These are the ravings of a 74-year-old sociopath, isolated and banned from social media, living in Mar-a-Lago, where he is crashing wedding parties and delivering rambling monologues. ...”

The Atlantic

2021 February: 77 days: Trump’s campaign to subvert the election, 2021 February: First They Guarded Roger Stone. Then They Joined the Capitol Attack., 2021 February: A Small Group of Militants’ Outsize Role in the Capitol Attack , 2021 March: Police Shrugged Off the Proud Boys, Until They Attacked the Capitol, 2021 March 21: ‘We’ve Lost the Line!’: Radio Traffic Reveals Police Under Siege at Capitol, 2021 April: Capitol Police Told to Hold Back on Riot Response on Jan. 6, Report Finds

Projective Verse - Charles Olson (1959)

 

“Charles Olson’s influential manifesto, ‘Projective Verse,’ was first published as a pamphlet, and then was quoted extensively in William Carlos Williams’ Autobiography (1951).  ... Composition by field opposes the traditional method of poetic composition based on received form and measure. Olson sees the challenge of the transference of poetic energy from source to poem to reader, and the way in which that energy shifts at each juncture, as particularly of concern to poets who engage in composition by field, because the poet is no longer relying on a received structure as a propulsive force. ...”

Poetry Foundation: Essay on Poetic Theory - Projective Verse

LARB - All Architectures I Am: The (Unintended) Legacy of Charles Olson’s Projective Verse

Projective Verse - Printer’s Devil Review (Video)

[PDF] Projective Verse

2009 January: Charles Olson, 2009 April: Rockport Harbor, 2010 September: Charles Olson: The Art of Poetry No. 12, 2011 July: Charles Olson: February 21, 1957, 2012 June: In Which We Lather Our Sensibilities At Length, 2013 January: Mass.Charles Olson, 2013 May: The Maximus Poems, 2013 November: A Guide to The Maximus Poems of Charles Olson , 2015 March: "In Cold Hell, in Thicket" (1950), 2017 May: The Collected Poems of Charles Olson edited by George Butterick, 2017 May: Gloucester HarborWalk #: Charles Olson 3rd Letter on Georges, unwritten to Schooner Footage, 2020 March: A Trip to Charles Olson’s Gloucester

​Deeper Listening: An Introduction to Drone Composition

 

“Drone composition encompasses a variety of music, all of which use long, slow-moving pitches as a vehicle for questioning how we perceive sound. Composers create these transfixing pieces by manipulating tape, layering acoustic instruments, and even inventing whole new instruments; but regardless of the nuts-and-bolts of their creation, the aim of drone composition is have us reconsider the role of sound in our day-to-day lives.The genre is garnering new attention thanks to the documentary Sisters With Transistors (2020), which sheds light on the work of female electronic musicians, many of whom were pioneers in the field of drone composition. ...”

bandcamp (Audio)

amazon: Experimental Music Since 1970, Jennie Gottschalk

Burning Spear - The Fittest Of The Fittest (1983)

 

“After the rather disappointing Farover, this mellow album laid down a firm foundation for the future, ensuring that while Burning Spear's fire no longer burned as fiery as before, a bright glow would still last down through the years. The Fittest of the Fittest's title track encapsulates both the sound and vision of what was to come. The Burning Band's rhythm section lays down a succulently meaty groove, while the rest of the musicians weave in and out, layering on riffs and flourishes to create a rich tapestry of sound. Overhead, Winston Rodney chants along, a long-distance roadrunner eating up the miles and passing cultural touchstones along the way. ... A superb album, which while not in the same class as Spear's first five releases, proves that the artist still has a good deal of simmer left. ...”                ”

allmusic (Audio)

W - The Fittest of the Fittest

Discogs (Video)

amazon

YouTube: 7'' Bad To Worse (& Dub), Fittest of the Fittest (2002 Remaster), Old Boy Garvey (2002 Remaster), Repatriation (2002 Remaster),  2000 Years (2002 Remaster)

A Radical Rebellion: The Transformation of the GOP – A Fareed Zakaria Special

 

“CNN’s Fareed Zakaria investigates the roots of the radicalization of the modern Republican party.  A Radical Rebellion: The Transformation of the GOP – A Fareed Zakaria Special, explores the roots that foreshadowed this critical moment for American democracy in a one-hour prime time special that premieres Sunday, May 16 at 8:00pm Eastern on CNN and CNN International. From Barry Goldwater and the John Birch Society, to the conspiracy theories of the defeated Donald Trump, who refused to accept the results of the 2020 U.S. presidential election and fomented an insurrection, Zakaria traces the GOP’s tradition of elevating personalities prepared to suppress the democratic franchise through the pursuit of illiberal extremism and conservative grievances against a changing world. Zakaria shows the political pathway of how America landed at the current inflection point for the ‘Party of Lincoln.’ ...

CNN

CNN (Video)

Extraterrestrial Plutonium Atoms Turn Up on Ocean Bottom

 

The remnants of a supernova, center bottom in blue-green, near the Small Magellanic Cloud, captured by the Hubble Space Telescope.

“Scientists studying a sample of oceanic crust retrieved from the Pacific seabed nearly a mile down have discovered traces of a rare isotope of plutonium, the deadly element that has been central to the atomic age. They say it was made in colliding stars and later rained down through Earth’s atmosphere as cosmic dust millions of years ago. Their analysis opens a new window on the cosmos. ... Dr. [Anton] Wallner works at the Australian National University as well as the Helmholtz Center in Dresden, Germany.Dr. Wallner and his colleagues reported their findings in Science on Thursday.Plutonium has a bad reputation, one that is well-deserved. ...”

NY Times

America’s Dead Souls

 

Engraving from Gustave Doré’s 1861 illustration of Dante’s Inferno.

“There is money to be made off the dead. Nikolai Gogol knew this when he wrote his masterpiece, Dead Souls, the story of a middle-aged man named Chichikov who buys dead serfs with the intention of mortgaging their souls for a profit. I chose to read this novel at the start of quarantine, when everyone else was reading War and Peace. I had already read War and Peace. It ruined my life. I wasn’t keen to have my life ruined again. I wanted some other grand, sweeping Russian epic to fill my time. I wish I would have been more cautious in picking a book. Every time I read one of the Russian greats my life transforms into an eerie mirror of the work....”

The Paris Review

Don DeLillo

“Don DeLillo (born November 20, 1936) is an American novelist, short story writer, playwright, screenwriter and essayist. His works have covered subjects as diverse as television, nuclear war, sports, the complexities of language, performance art, the Cold War, mathematics, the advent of the digital age, politics, economics, and global terrorism. ... DeLillo's work displays elements of both modernism and postmodernism. ... He has said the primary influences on his work and development are ‘abstract expressionism, foreign films, and jazz.’ Many of DeLillo's books (notably White Noise) satirize academia and explore postmodern themes of rampant consumerism, novelty intellectualism, underground conspiracies, the disintegration and re-integration of the family, and the promise of rebirth through violence. ... The psychology of crowds and the capitulation of individuals to group identity is a theme DeLillo examines in several of his novels, especially in the prologue to Underworld, Mao II, and Falling Man. ...” Wikipedia

W - White Noise, NY Times: White Noise by Jayne Anne Phillips (Jan. 13, 1985), Mapping Don DeLillo’s White Noise, LitCharts: White Noise Study Guide

W - Libra, Rolling Stone - Q&A: Don DeLillo, NY Times: DALLAS, ECHOING DOWN THE DECADES  By Anne Tyler (July 24, 1988), Don DeLillo’s Libra at 30

W - Underworld, NY Times: The Power of History by Don DeLillo (Sep. 7, 1997), Guardian: Don DeLillo’s Underworld – still hits a home run, NYBooks: Between Hell and History by Luc Sante (Nov. 1997), Excavating the Past in Don DeLillo’s Underworld, Guardian: No 98 – Underworld (1997), [PDF] Underworld

W - The Body Artist, NY Times: Ghostbuster (Feb. 2001)

W - Falling Man, The Paris Review - Falling Men: On Don DeLillo and Terror, NY Times: The Clear Blue Sky, Guardian: As his world came tumbling down

 NY Times: We All Live in Don DeLillo’s World. He’s Confused by It Too. (Oct. 2020)

The Paris Review: The Art of Fiction No. 135 (Fall 1993)

New York: What to Read (May 2007)

BOOKFORUM: Stockholm, Are You Listening? Why Don DeLillo deserves the Nobel

Soundcloud: Don Delillo reads from Mao II, Point Omega, Falling Man at Town Hall

amazon

Colette: The French resistance fighter confronting fascism

 

“90-year-old Colette Marin-Catherine confronts her past by visiting the German concentration camp Mittelbau-Dora where her brother was killed. As a young girl, she fought Hitler's Nazis as a member of the French Resistance. For 74 years, she has refused to step foot in Germany, but that changes when a young history student named Lucie enters her life. Prepared to re-open old wounds and revisit the terrors of that time, Marin-Catherine offers important lessons for us all. Film-makers Anthony Giacchino and Alice Doyard explain how they found out about the story of Colette and why they decided to make a documentary about her. Read the interview here ...”

Guardian (Video)

2021 January: Colette (2018 film)

The National Pastime - SABR

“Since 2009, The National Pastime has served as SABR’s convention-focused publication. Published annually, this research journal provides in-depth articles focused on the respective geographic region where the National Convention is taking place in a given year. From 1982 to 2008, the magazine was intended as a more literary outlet for SABR members to publish their research, in comparison to the more statistically inclined Baseball Research Journal. Click on a cover image below to read articles online from The National Pastime. (Note: Some TNPs are still being digitized and are only available as PDF downloads. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to view those files.) Most past editions of The National Pastime can be purchased at Amazon.com. ...”

SABR: The National Pastime Archives PDF

The National Pastime, Pictorial Issue: John Thorn

Debatable: ‘Full-scale war’

 

President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, left, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel.

“A synagogue on fire. Gazan apartment buildings leveled by bombs. Jews attacking Arabs and Arabs attacking Jews on the street. It’s been called the worst outburst of Israeli-Palestinian violence in seven years. At least seven people, including two children, in Israel and 103 Palestinians, including 27 children, have been killed as of Thursday, and by Friday those numbers will probably be outdated. If the situation continues to escalate, the United Nations’ special coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process warned, the region could be headed toward a ’full-scale war.’ Why is this happening, and what does it portend for the future of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? Here’s what people are saying. ...”

NY Times (Video)

 

In Pics | Violence Grips Israel and Palestine in Most Intense Hostilities in Years

Richard Skelton’s Newest Ambient Works Are Inspired by 19th Century Magical Medicine

 

“For many years Richard Skelton has explored the natural world through sound. Ambient compositions that reflect nature often conjure up associations of soothing serenity, with the immersive soundscapes acting as the peaceful bliss and idyllic beauty of stretching landscapes. However, Skelton plunges deeper than this, exploring his own personal relationship and history to specific places, as well as the raging contradictions of nature, channelling its harshness and unforgiving unpredictability alongside its staggering splendor.In the early days Skelton never intended his music to be performed for, or heard by, anyone. His audience was the same as his inspiration: nature. ...”

bandcamp (Audio)

W - Richard Skelton

Articulate Silences interview with ambient/modern classical (Audio/Video)

Discogs

YouTube: River Song, Of the Sea, Noon Hill Wood, Threads Across The River

​See Reopening Plans and Mask Mandates for All 50 States

 

“All across the country, mask mandates are easing, restrictions are lifting and many states have gone back to business as usual. It appears much of the country will be open with few restrictions in the coming months. Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, it has been largely up to state and local officials to determine what restrictions, if any, to impose to slow new infections. A nationwide patchwork of rules for businesses and residents resulted over months of trial and error, as governors reopened some sectors only to later re-close and reopen them again as infection rates rose and fell. ...”

NY Times

​Pina Bausch Magazine

 

“A conceptual magazine spread detailing the life and career of ballerina, modern dancer, and choreographer Pina Bausch. The brushed type treatment is a nod to her own style, which created motifs of rapid movement, disorientation, and distress through dance.  The text is taken from the biography published to her webpage. The cover design is inspired by ArtForum's styling. Typefaces used are Avenir Next, Bratz, and Baskerville. ...”

Caitlin Stamper

ARTFORUM: The Auto-Representation of Pina Bausch (February 1984)

​The Pleasures of Destroying a Good Book

 

“It is a sin, she said, to damage the spine. My elementary school librarian showed us a cracked book. The creases and wrinkles looked like an exposed skeleton. After her elegiac presentation, we were sent to the stacks to find books. I handled them with more fear than care. When I got the nerve to peek inside, I eased open the pages as if each text would crumble to dust. My librarian had good reason for her method: she had to preserve books for years of students. Unfortunately, her warnings made me think that books were meant only to be borrowed. As a reader, I want to inhabit a book as a form of communion. Most books took years to write—and likely a few more years to rewrite. They deserve more than a single read before being consigned to silent prison among their cousins of other genres on untouched bookshelves. Some books become part of my weekly, daily life. Those books are inevitably flattened on my desk. Dog-eared. Highlighted. Circled. ...”

LitHub

amazon: Best American Short Stories 1983, Anne Tyler

​Beautiful Garbage

 

Talking Heads

“Beautiful Garbage is a journey through one of America’s most revered and impactful genres. Moving from the four cornerstones: TheMC5, The Velvet Underground, The Stooges, and The New York Dolls; to Punk’s birthplace in New York at CBGB; and finally to England, where The Sex Pistols propelled it to worldwide recognition before imploding and leaving us with The Clash and asking ‘what is punk?’ Written and hosted by Kevin Hogan, Beautiful Garbage shares the quest for that answer and the stories we found in the archives, told by those who lived them. Stories about innovations in sound and style, technological breakthroughs, and the sociopolitical factors that produced the punk aesthetic and its indelible mark on popular music and culture. ...”

Osiris Pod (Audio)

Dangerous Visions - Harlan Ellison (1967 - Editor)

 

“Dangerous Visions is a science fiction short story anthology edited by American writer Harlan Ellison and illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon. It was published in 1967. A path-breaking collection, Dangerous Visions helped define the New Wave science fiction movement, particularly in its depiction of sex in science fiction. Writer/editor Al Sarrantonio writes how Dangerous Visions 'almost single-handedly [...] changed the way readers thought about science fiction.' Contributors to the volume included 20 authors who had won, or would win, a Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, or BSFA award, and 16 with multiple such awards. Ellison introduced the anthology both collectively and individually while authors provided afterwords to their own stories. ...”

Wikipedia

A Look Back at Harlan Ellison's Dangerous Visions by Ted Gioia

[PDF] Dangerous Visions

amazon

A guide to New York City through the 10 best movie locations

 

“I have never been to New York. I do not regret it, however, as there are certain locations that seem almost magical in your dreams. As soon I hear the words ‘New York’, the first image that comes to my mind is people clad in crisp business suits, talking on their phones, rushing to commute to their workplaces. New York is the city of dreams, a city where commerce and art make love together, and a city that never sleeps. With a variety of people cohabiting the city together, it is a land of urban surrealism. Amidst the neon signs, the hustle and bustle of city life and the posh, swanky skyscrapers that make your existence seem nearly negligible, the city hides the dark underbelly which reeks of crime, violence and homelessness. Of course, this juxtaposition is arguably a key factor in what makes the city so fascinating; the constant dichotomy and the ever-widening gap between wealth and poverty. New York is full of surprises, turmoils, violence and love, and nobody is complaining.  ...”

FAR OUT (Video)

 

Taxi Driver 1976.

​Money, Power, and Respect at the Champions League Final

 

“The grand spectacle is almost upon us. Real Madrid, the great but ancient empire of European soccer, have been swept aside for now; Paris Saint-Germain, the fast-rising upstart, have faltered in their ascent. As Chelsea and Manchester City, their respective conquerors, prepare to contest the third men’s UEFA Champions League final between two English teams, there is a sense that they are announcing another next great rivalry. ... Now, Foden has been coached by Pep Guardiola for only a few seasons. Yet he is such an accurate embodiment of the Spaniard’s footballing philosophy—tactically versatile, endlessly fluid in his movement—that he seems to have been working with him since he was able to walk. ... Both should be leading figures for their club for several seasons to come. ...”

The Ringer (Audio) 59:24

Just Coolin' - Lester Young

 

“Lester Young was one of the most influential saxophonists of the swing era. His light, airy sound, and the melodic grace of his improvisations were in direct contrast to Hawkins's gruffer, more harmonically-based approach. Young's velvety tone and rapid articulation were major influences on the bebop generation of saxophonists that followed, notably Charlie Parker. Lester Young was one of the true jazz giants, a tenor saxophonist who came up with a completely different conception in which to play his horn, floating over bar lines with a light tone rather than adopting Coleman Hawkins' then-dominant forceful approach. A non-conformist, Young (nicknamed ‘Pres’ by Billie Holiday) had the ironic experience in the 1950s of hearing many young tenors try to sound exactly like him. ...”

moochin about (Audio)

2017 July: In Washington (1956), 2018 August: The Jazz Giants '56 (1956), 2019 March: Lester Young - March 15, 1959

​Night sky

 

The Milky Way is brighter in the Southern Hemisphere than in the North. 

“The term night sky, usually associated with astronomy from Earth, refers to the nighttime appearance of celestial objects like stars, planets, and the Moon, which are visible in a clear sky between sunset and sunrise, when the Sun is below the horizon. Natural light sources in a night sky include moonlight, starlight, and airglow, depending on location and timing. Aurorae light up the skies above the polar circles. ... The night sky and studies of it have a historical place in both ancient and modern cultures. In the past, for instance, farmers have used the status of the night sky as a calendar to determine when to plant crops. Many cultures have drawn constellations between stars in the sky, using them in association with legends and mythology about their deities. ...”

W - Night sky

Night Sky Planner

W - Sky & Telescope, W - Astronomy

 

The Flammarion engraving, Paris 1888

Greg Jager and a Roman Basketball Court: “Tiber Courtyard”

 

“The sheer number of painted basketball courts that we see in the last two years makes us think there may be an evolving new category of art practice somewhere between street art, land art, billboard takeovers, and municipal public art. Clearly, a coffee table book will arrive here shortly. Today we have a new project in ‘Valco San Paolo’ by Greg Jager. The press release describes the design challenges of creating something for a population that lives on a tract of land that is ‘not a real neighborhood, not a suburb, not even a victim of that phenomenon that some have called beautification.’ ...”

Brooklyn Street Art

Tiber Courtyard by Greg Jager

Makaya McCraven ‎– In The Moment (2015)

 

“Makaya McCraven‘s breakthrough debut album In The Moment captured 48 hours of live, improvised performances from McCraven and company. It was recorded at 1 venue over 12 months and 28 shows. The edited, remixed, and final product ended up displaying one of the most important recordings to date in the modern jazz world.The feeling still organic and never too far removed from the source material, the impressive, virtuosic playing reaches Sun Ra levels of hypnotic transmissions that keeps the listener fully engulfed in the spiritual plane. ...”

#vinyloftheday

Discogs (Video)

amazon

YouTube: In the Moment Deluxe Edition ((FULL ALBUM)) 1:53:44

The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967 - Hunter S. Thompson

 

“One thing that this collection of letters makes clear at the outset is that Hunter S. Thompson, he of the 'Fear and Loathing' books, for whom the phrase ''gonzo journalist'' was invented, has always burned to carve his initials onto the collective awareness. ... It is noteworthy that although just one in seven of the relevant cache of letters was included, this book, labeled 'The Fear and Loathing Letters, Volume I,' weighs in at just under 700 pages -- and there are still 30 more years to go. Even some of the photographs of Mr. Thompson were taken by the author himself, self-portraits of the writer at work and at play. Manifestly, this is a man who, while anti-snobbish to a fault, abusively contemptuous of self-promotion and pretension, had a powerful need to make a record of himself and to make that record public.  ...”

NY Times: Letters of the Young Author (He Saved Them All)

Google: The Proud Highway...

amazon

2014 April: Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas | Nov 11, 1971, 2017 June: Gonzo journalism

Love of a Woman (Horace Andy, Dillinger, Patrick Andy) etc.

 

“Horace Andy possesses one of the truly immortal voices of reggae -- a reedy tenor that cuts effortlessly through the mix and has influenced countless other reggae singers. He began recording as a teenager, and his voice and delivery have actually changed little since those early days, when he was cranking out hits for producer Clement ‘Coxsone’ Dodd at the great Studio One label. ...”

YouTube: Love of a Woman (Horace Andy, Dillinger, Patrick Andy) 17:59, Only A Smile (Paragons, John Holt, Dennis Brown, Gregory Isaacs, Big Youth) 20:23, Swing Easy (Soul Vendors, Augustus Pablo) 27:22

Reclaiming Africa’s Early Post-Independence History

A History of Resource Plunder

“This article is part of the ‘Reclaiming Africa’s Early Post-Independence History‘ series from Post-Colonialisms Today (PCT), a research and advocacy project of activist-intellectuals on the continent, working to recapture progressive thought and policies from early post-independence Africa to address contemporary development challenges. It is adapted from a recent webinar on natural resource sovereignty which you can listen to here. Sign up for updates on the project here. ...”

Africa Is a Country

Post-Colonialisms Today (Video)

YouTube: Post-Colonialisms Today   21 videos

Reclaiming Africa’s Early Post-Independence History

Accra Central, Ghana, 2019.

​Jean Dubuffet: Brutal Beauty

 

“Jean Dubuffet: Brutal Beauty is the first major UK exhibition of the work of French artist Jean Dubuffet (1901–1985) in over 50 years. One of the most provocative voices in postwar modern art, Dubuffet rebelled against conventional ideas of beauty, hoping to capture the poetry of everyday life in a gritty, more authentic way. Drawn from international public and private collections, Brutal Beauty brings together more than 150 works: from early portraits, lithographs and fantastical statues to enamel paintings, butterfly assemblages and giant colourful canvases. It opens at Barbican Art Gallery on 17 May 2021. ...”

Barbican

Dubuffet Architecte

Guardian - Jean Dubuffet: impish master of perpetual reinvention

amazon

2018 February: Jean Dubuffet

Jean Dubuffet sculpts a block of polystyrene with a hot wire in his studio on rue Labrouste

Lea Bertucci ~ A Visible Length Of Light (2020)

 

“Few images unmistakably capture the American West more than the image on the front cover of Lea Bertucci’s new album, even if this one has been vividly colourised. Sure, there are more distinct rock formations such as the Arches (in the same state) but for many, this is the USA – the remote, inhospitable, desert lands of Utah that served as a background for any number of Westerns that we grew up watching. A monochrome version of the picture could double for an Ansel Adams photograph, images that introduced the natural beauty of the States to a national and international audience. ...”

a closer listen (Audio)

Bandcamp (Video/Audio)

Lea Bertucci (Video/Audio), About | Contact