​In the Company of Wes Anderson

 
“It’s his first film set in France, and the first done as an anthology. But Wes Anderson’s 10th movie, ‘The French Dispatch,’ was made in much the same way, and with much the same cast, as many of the features that preceded it. Along with his fastidious and vibrant visual sense and staccato pacing, his company of free spirits has become his signature. ... ‘The French Dispatch,’ about writers at a midcentury magazine based on The New Yorker, is set in the fictional town of Ennui-sur-Blasé and was filmed in Angoulême, France. ...”

How Neal Stephenson’s Sci-Fi Novel Snow Crash Invented the “Metaverse,” Which Facebook Now Plans to Build (1992)

“Whatever the benefits and pleasures of our current internet-enriched world, one must admit that it’s not quite as exciting as the setting of Snow Crash. Originally published in 1992, that novel not only made the name of its author Neal Stephenson, it elevated him to the status of a technological Nostradamus. It did so, at least, among readers interested in the internet and its potential, which was much more of a niche subject 29 years ago. Of the many inventions with which Stephenson furnished Snow Crash‘s then-futuristic 21st-century cyberpunk reality, few have captured as many techie imaginations as the ‘metaverse,’ an enormous virtual world inhabited by the avatars of its users. ...”

2021 September: Cryptonomicon (1999)

​Illuminate I Could: On Lucille Clifton

 
Caroline and son. Courtesy of the Clifton family.

What is our relationship to history? Do we belong to it, or is it ours? Are we in it? Does it run through us, spilling out like water, or blood? I think the answers to those questions, at least in America, depend upon who you are—or rather, on who you’ve been taught to believe that you are. If the history you descend from has been mapped, adapted, mythologized, reenacted, and broadcast as though it is the central defining story of a continent, perhaps you can be forgiven (up to a point) for having succumbed to a collective distortion. ...”

The Long Crisis: New York City and the Path to Neoliberalism - Benjamin Holtzman (2021)

 
“... The reasons for that seemingly abrupt development were complex and long in the making, and they are traced with precision and care by Benjamin Holtzman’s history of the intertwined crises of liberalism and the metropolis, The Long Crisis: New York City and the Path to Neoliberalism (Oxford 2021). Whereas Smith opens The New Urban Frontier with the policing of houselessness at Tompkins Square Park, Holtzman’s book concludes with it, building over five chapters before coming to a crescendo with the 1980s spike in houselessness. The action in that final chapter sits like an all-too-avoidable train wreck whose multi-causal derailing demands careful study. We are fortunate to have Holtzman holding the magnifying glass....”

Raincoats - The Kitchen Tapes (1983)

 
“The first thing to be said about the Raincoats is that they are the most appropriately named London band in the history of pop music. The second is that their music has moved from emotional manifestations of situations and events to statements of emotional positions taken on situations and events–and that the music here, recorded at the Kitchen in New York City in December, 1982, is a result of the latter approach. In other words, these are performances of songs. As such they can speak for themselves, but the Raincoats did not always ‘perform songs,’ and before they are subsumed into rock history–the band may well be gone by the end of 1983–or marked off as a half-page in one more new-women-in-rock book, it might be worth noting what they did instead. ...” 

2015 July: Odyshape (1981), 2017 January: The Raincoats (1979)

​Cockroaches, car camping, poverty wages: Why are minor-leaguers living in squalor?

 
“It happened in Rochester, home of the Nationals’ Triple-A affiliate, a few times during the early part of the season. In San Antonio, where the Padres’ Double-A team is located, they’re up to five break-ins this year, as players’ cars — which can double as living quarters or storage facilities — are easy fodder for a potential burglar. Several players on the Brewers’ Triple-A roster in Nashville piled into a small one-bedroom apartment thinking they struck gold within their budget: instead they found a roach infestation. At the Mets’ Double-A affiliate in Binghamton, N.Y., last month, a group of players lost electricity and went nearly three days without power and running water. ...”

​The Best of Townes Van Zandt

 
“After a number of short-lived compilations, it seems that The Best of Townes Van Zandt is finally going to be the album that definitively represents Van Zandt's classic Tomato recordings. ... On the plus side, it is generally agreed that Van Zandt's music is best heard in an intimate acoustic setting, and The Best of Townes Van Zandt leans heavily toward that supposition, featuring ‘Tecumseh Valley’ and ‘White Freightliner Blues’ from the concert album Live at the Old Quarter and the second recorded version of ‘For the Sake of the Song’ that Van Zandt preferred to the 1968 original. ... People are going to cry out over some of this stuff, asking where's this and that, but such omissions ensure that people will continue to buy Van Zandt's proper records, and that is essential.”

90 Seconds of Rage

 
“The American flag became a blunt instrument in the bearded man’s hands. Wielding the flagpole like an ax, he swung once, twice, three times, to beat a police officer being dragged down the steps of a United States Capitol under siege. Other officers also fell under mob attack, while the rest fought to keep the hordes from storming the Capitol and upending the routine transfer of power. Sprayed chemicals choked the air, projectiles flew overhead and the unbridled roars formed a battle-cry din — all as a woman lay dying beneath the jostling scrum of the Jan. 6 riot. Amid the hand-to-hand combat, seven men from seven different states stood out. Although strangers to one another, they worked as if in concert while grappling with the phalanx of police officers barring entry to the Capitol. ...”

​Poussin and the Dance

 

“Richly illustrated and engagingly written, this publication examines how the pioneer of French classicism brought dance to bear on every aspect of his artistic production. Scenes of tripping maenads and skipping maidens, Nicolas Poussin’s dancing pictures, painted in the 1620s and 1630s, helped him formulate a new style. This style would make him the model for three centuries of artists in the French classical tradition, from Jacques-Louis David and Edgar Degas to Paul Cézanne and Pablo Picasso. Poussin and the Dance, the first published study devoted to this theme, situates the artist in seventeenth-century Rome, a city rich with the ancient sculptures and Renaissance paintings that informed his dancing pictures. ...”

The Musical Wanderings of Don Was

 
“Is Don Was the definitive musical journeyman of the late 20th century? Born Don Fagenson in Detroit in 1952, he co-founded the funk/pop band Was (Not Was), of ‘Walk the Dinosaur’ fame; won four Grammys in the far-flung genres of country, children’s music and blues; serves as president of the jazz powerhouse Blue Note Records; made documentary films about The Beatles and Brian Wilson; and has produced albums for the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Elton John and Willie Nelson. It’s exhausting to  think about. ...”

​Andrew Watson: The 'most influential' black footballer for decades lost to history

 
Watson is also depicted in a mural at the site of the original Hampden Park

"There are two murals of black footballers facing one another across an alleyway in Glasgow. One helped shape football as we know it, the other is Pele. Andrew Watson captained Scotland to a 6-1 win over England on his debut in 1881. He was a pioneer, the world's first black international, but for more than a century the significance of his achievements went unrecognised. Research conducted over the past three decades has left us with some biographical details: a man descended of slaves and of those who enslaved them, born in Guyana, raised to become an English gentleman and famed as one of Scottish football's first icons. ..."

Lanquidity (Definitive Edition) - Sun Ra (1978/2021)

 
“That’s how Sun Ra responded when Philly Jazz Records owner Tom Buchler visited the late jazz giant at his Philadelphia apartment early in the summer of 1978 in an attempt to discuss the upcoming studio session that would yield the album Lanquidity. In the liner notes assembled especially for a new expanded double-disc edition of the album, Buchler recalls his expectations. ... Of course, anyone familiar with Sun Ra can easily picture the train of thought those conversations must have followed, which is easy to reconstruct thanks to multiple longform monologues with Ra expounding on likeminded topics that are now available online. By the time he met Buchler, Ra—born Herman Blount, but later changing his legal name to Le Sony’r Ra—had advanced his central message for decades. ...”

​The Dangers of Distracted Parenting

 
“Smartphones have by now been implicated in so many crummy outcomes—car fatalities, sleep disturbances, empathy loss, relationship problems, failure to notice a clown on a unicycle—that it almost seems easier to list the things they don’t mess up than the things they do. Our society may be reaching peak criticism of digital devices. Even so, emerging research suggests that a key problem remains underappreciated. It involves kids’ development, but it’s probably not what you think. More than screen-obsessed young children, we should be concerned about tuned-out parents. Yes, parents now have more face time with their children than did almost any parents in history. ...”

​The Trojan Story

 
“Since 1968, Trojan Records has been synonymous with the reggae, rocksteady, dub, and ska genres.  The U.K. label founded by Lee Gopthal and Island Records' Chris Blackwell was instrumental in spreading those Jamaican sounds throughout the world and popularizing such key artists as Jimmy Cliff, Desmond Dekker, Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, and The Maytals.   By 1971, Trojan - with its focus on 45 RPM singles - had amassed enough hit records to release a label anthology. ... The Trojan Story was the first large-scale release to celebrate the music of Jamaica to the world at large.  The three-disc, 50-song anthology was curated by Trojan label manager Rob Bell, Dandy Livingstone, Webster Shrowder, and Joe Sinclair. ...”

Absolut Cuba - Raúl Cañibano

 
Viñales - His approach means we find genuine people in his pictures, who never appear manipulated or contrived

Absolut Cuba is Raúl Cañibano‘s declaration of love to his native country. His surprising, caring, yet incredibly precise take and his lightning-fast, instinctive and gripping intellect let him capture moments which might seem totally familiar: normal everyday life in urban or rural settings. This makes him one of the most gifted photographers in Latin America. His project Tierra Guajira pays tribute to Cuban farmers in an almost anthropological approach – tracing his own childhood in the east of the country. Raúl Cañibano combines it with pictures from his series Ciudad, Fe por San Lázaro and Ocaso to let us sense the heart and soul of Cuba. His images are truthful and convey a sense of identity. They are filled with tradition, happiness, tragedy and magic. ...”

​Concrète Dschungel: Einstürzende Neubauten’s Kollaps At 40

 
“Feral musicians emerging from the rubble of bombed-out West Berlin and creating themselves out of their own blood and guts very much feels like a tale from another age. In a world of coffee shop startups, utilitarian computer software and ersatz bedroom electronica as aural wallpaper, building your own percussive instruments from scrap might seem primitive, complex, redundant even. But in 1981, when Einstürzende Neubauten made Kollaps, it was revolutionary. For the briefest of moments they tried to be conventional, but it didn’t last long. The Moon Club in Berlin on April 1st, 1980 was the scene of Naubauten’s first ever show, after Blixa Bargeld overheard a promoter telling somebody else that an act was needed for the following Tuesday night; he formed the band there and then and blurted out the name - ‘collapsing new buildings’ - to give them something to put on the poster. ...”

2010 September: Einstürzende Neubauten, 2012 September: Imaginary Sounds Feature, 2013 September: Alles Wieder Offen (2007)

​Whirlpool Galaxy

 
Whirlpool Galaxy (M51A or NGC 5194), the smaller object in the upper right is M51B or NGC 5195

“The Whirlpool Galaxy, also known as Messier 51a, M51a, and NGC 5194, is an interacting grand-design spiral galaxy with a Seyfert 2 active galactic nucleus. It lies in the constellation Canes Venatici, and was the first galaxy to be classified as a spiral galaxy. Its distance is estimated to be 31 million light-years away from Earth. The galaxy and its companion, NGC 5195, are easily observed by amateur astronomers, and the two galaxies may be seen with binoculars. The Whirlpool Galaxy has been extensively observed by professional astronomers, who study it to understand galaxy structure (particularly structure associated with the spiral arms) and galaxy interactions. What later became known as the Whirlpool Galaxy was discovered on October 13, 1773, by Charles Messier while hunting for objects that could confuse comet hunters, and was designated in Messier's catalogue as M51. ...”

When J.R.R. Tolkien Worked for the Oxford English Dictionary and “Learned More … Than Any Other Equal Period of My Life” (1919-1920)

 
“When J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings appeared in the mid-1950s, its first critical readers held some diverging views on the books’ quality. On the one hand, there was praise for the revival of fantasy for grown-ups, and comparisons to great epics of the past. On the other hand, Tolkien’s prose was excoriated for its wordiness, length, and seemingly inexhaustible obsession with obscurities. Both perspectives seemed to miss something important. ... The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) remains an indispensable reference for scholars of language and literature, but it is not itself a typical academic text. ... The experience as an OED lexicographer prepared Tolkien for his lifelong career as a philologist. It also informed his literary technique, argue Peter Gilliver, Jeremy Marshall, and Edmund Weiner, the authors of Ring of Words: Tolkien and the Oxford English Dictionary and former OED editors, all. ...”

​Assassin's Creed Ambience- The Most Beautiful music from AC 1 to AC: Odyssey

 
“Here you can find the most beautiful music you will ever hear. Some of the tracks can be classified as classical or ethnic music. Remember... the music tells a story... a story that is more powerful than any hand-written text. Words are weak and often meaningless. Words can describe different objects and events. But can they directly transfer feelings? Here comes the music. The music itself is one complex collection of emotions. All you have to do is just to listen and feel... feel every sound you hear, feel every story that's behind these sounds. I managed to collect the most beautiful and the most emotional tracks from all of the main Assassin's Creed games (that exist until this moment). Tracks are sorted according to the game release dates. In the video I labeled all of the historical periods and places that tracks represent. ...”

Smoke - Wayne Wang and Paul Auster (1995)

 
Smoke is a 1995 American independent film by Wayne Wang and Paul Auster. The original story was written by Paul Auster, who also wrote the screenplay. The film was produced by Greg Johnson, Peter Newman, Kenzo Horikoshi, and Hisami Kuroiwa. Among others, it features Harvey Keitel, William Hurt, Stockard Channing, Harold Perrineau Jr., and Forest Whitaker. The film follows the lives of multiple characters, all of whom are connected via their patronage of a small Brooklyn tobacconist store managed by Auggie (Harvey Keitel). Brooklyn Cigar Co. was located on the corner of 16th Street and Prospect Park West. Auggie has been taking photographs of the store from across the street at 8:00am every morning and has been collecting all his photos in albums. A recently-widowed writer Paul Benjamin (William Hurt) spends an evening with Auggie, during which Auggie tells Paul of his photographs, which he describes as his ‘life's work’. ...”

Louder in Lagos

 

“In the shadow of Nigeria’s 61st Independence Day, Africa Is a Country radio stops over in Lagos on its tour of African club cultures inspired by the Ten Cities book project. ... That narrative is one that focuses on individual artists’ success, propelled by a general surprise around Africans’ access to wealth, itself fueled by a long tradition of single African stories.  At a time when Wizkid has sneaked his way into our daily subconscious via the banal stream of mainstream radio, even making it on to that holy commercial grail of US black radio that black international stars have been trying to crack for decades, we would be wise to remember that the push and pull dynamics of national history that have shaped the Lagos music scene (and its urban environment in general) are inseparable from the music itself. Take a listen on Worldwide FM or below via Mixcloud, and if you have an account there, go ahead and hit follow to keep up on all the latest episodes. ...”

​Extending the Family at Fazunchar Festival in Portugal with Isaac Cordal

“It’s a curious pleasure to meet some of the extended members of the Isaac Cordal businessmen after all these years, isn’t it? For a decade or so you’ve been seeing his balding men in rumpled suits installed on ledges and window sills – contemplating their ennui, reviewing their rotten deeds, realizing they had wasted their lives playing the stock market only to feel empty.  Now it’s time to meet the family? Now the Spanish street artist expands the circle as he attends the Fazunchar Festival in Figueiro dos Vinhos in Portugal, and you are seeing his new sculptures perched in new spaces throughout the village. ...”

​My frame is true: new wave posters – in pictures

 
“Andrew Krivine began collecting music industry flyers and posters in 1977 on his annual trip from the US to see family in London. ... By the time he’d finished college in the early 80s (spending a year in the UK as well as studying in Chicago), he’d amassed around 5,500 items of memorabilia for punk and new wave LPs, gigs and clubs. The finest of these have now been collected in the book Reversing into the Future (published by Pavilion on 14 October, £35). In a time before Spotify and YouTube, poster art was key to a band selling their sound to an audience. ...”

​Anni Albers on How to Be an Artist

 
Anni Albers revered experimentation. During her early days studying under Paul Klee at the Bauhaus school, in the 1920s, she set out to expand the scope of weaving by using new, daring methods and materials. ‘I heard [Klee] speak and he said take a line for a walk,’ she once recalled to Nicholas Fox Weber, director of the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation. ‘And I thought, I will take thread everywhere I can.’ In her textile practice, Albers ecstatically mingled organic and synthetic fibers; loom-weaving and hand-weaving; representation and abstraction; art and utility. The resulting lively, bristling compositions revolutionized weaving and helped shape the burgeoning traditions of abstraction. ...”

Impulse Records: Music, Message and the Moment

 
“Those of us for whom Impulse has been as important a part of our cultural lives as Blue Note, perhaps even a more important one, will not be satisfied until the label reissues its entire catalogue on remastered CDs and audiophile vinyl. In the meantime, it would be churlish to do anything other than applaud such signs of Impulse's rejuvenation as its signing of reed player Shabaka Hutchings and welcome every tickle of its back catalogue such as this mostly well compiled, thoughtfully annotated 4xLP / 2xCD compilation marking the label's 60th Anniversary. ...”

​Laurie Anderson Has a Message for Us Humans

 
“When the Hirshhorn Museum told Laurie Anderson that it wanted to put on a big, lavish retrospective of her work, she said no. For one thing, she was busy. She has been busy now for roughly 50 years, hauling her keyboards and experimental violins all over the world to put on huge bonanzas of lasers and noise loops and incantatory monologues that she delivers in a voice somewhere between slam poetry, an evening newscast, a final confession and a bedtime story. Although Anderson plays multiple instruments, her signature tool has always been her voice. Words emerge from her mouth deliberate and hyperenunciated, surrounded by unpredictable pauses. She piles up phrases the way van Gogh piled up brush strokes. ...”

​Brew: A Brief History of Coffee

 
“To some, their morning coffee is an elixir from heaven, their wake-up in a cup, or simply… necessary to carry on.  With its energizing properties and storied past, it has an interesting history that deserves to be remembered. This is original content based on research by The History Guy. ...”