The Graphic Novel as Architectural Narrative: Berlin and Aya

 
“The comic strip, la bande dessinée, the graphic novel. These are all part of a medium with an intrinsic connection to architectural storytelling. It’s a medium that has long been used to fantasise and speculate on possible architectural futures, or in a less spectacular context, used as a device to simply show the perspectival journey through an architectural project. When the comic strip meshes fiction with architectural imagination, however, it’s not only the speculation on future architectural scenarios that takes place. It’s also the recording and the critiquing of the urban conditions of either our contemporary cities or the cities of the past. ...”

​Africa Cup of Nations review: sorrow, anger and Mané’s redemption

 “Our writers relive their highs and lows of a tournament completely overshadowed by the Olembe Stadium tragedy. … This Cup of Nations was played under a shadow from the moment eight supporters died outside Olembe Stadium a fortnight ago. There is no excusing what happened at a venue surrounded by vast spaces and the depressing sense remains that its causes will be swept under the carpet. After driving back to Yaoundé the following day and speaking with Romaric, who had been in the ground and encountered people who had been caught up in the crush as he left, the horror of what had occurred started to become clear. A subsequent visit to the emergency hospital brought some harrowing testimonies; these are, sadly, the words and images that linger. …”

​The Largest Autocracy on Earth

 
“In 1947, Albert Einstein, writing in this magazine, proposed the creation of a single world government to protect humanity from the threat of the atomic bomb. His utopian idea did not take hold, quite obviously, but today, another visionary is building the simulacrum of a cosmocracy. Mark Zuckerberg, unlike Einstein, did not dream up Facebook out of a sense of moral duty, or a zeal for world peace. This summer, the population of Zuckerberg’s supranational regime reached 2.9 billion monthly active users, more humans than live in the world’s two most populous nations—China and India—combined. ...”

​Cooking with Virginia Woolf By Valerie Stivers

 
“The boeuf en daube in To the Lighthouse, a 1927 novel by Virginia Woolf about an English family on vacation in the Hebrides, is one of the best-known dishes in literature. Obsessed over for many chapters by the protagonist, Mrs. Ramsay, and requiring many days of preparation, it is unveiled in a scene of crucial significance. This ‘savory confusion of brown and yellow meats,’ in its huge pot, gives off an ‘exquisite scent of olives and oil and juice.’ It serves as a monument to the joys of family life and a celebration of fleeting moments. Thus, it is with fear and trembling that I suggest that Woolf’s boeuf en daube, from a cook’s perspective, is a travesty, and that its failures may prove instructive. ...”

All the terra cotta beauty of an early uptown apartment building

“Sometimes you come across a building so rich with decoration, it knocks you out. That was my reaction when I found myself at 45 Tiemann Place, near the corner of Broadway and just below 125th Street. The building appears to be just another early 1900s apartment residence in the slightly askew neighborhood of Manhattanville—where the grid plan doesn’t necessarily hold and streets tend to have names based on early people and places in the area, not just numbers. ...”

Éliane Radigue: For a Composer at 90, There’s Nothing but Time

“Éliane Radigue lives and works in a second-floor apartment in the Montparnasse neighborhood of Paris. A weeping fig tree looms above her head; across the loft-like room are three large windows adorned with house plants. The windows face a school across the street which, she wrote in a recent email, ‘gives its rhythm to days, weeks and months.’ She has lived there for the past 50 years, steadfastly writing a great deal of slow, very minimal, mostly electronic music. ...”

Black History, Black Freedom, and Black Love

 
“... From critical race theory to the 1619 Project, Black intellectuals are reshaping conversations on race in America. Now seven of those preeminent voices share their insight on the reckoning with race in America in three parts: past, present, and future. Gain a foundational understanding of the history of white supremacy and discover a path forward through the limitless capacity and resilience of Black love.The class includes several hours of videos about ‘the history you weren’t taught in school” from an absolutely incredible lineup of instructors: Angela Davis, Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, Nikole Hannah-Jones, Jelani Cobb, Sherrilyn Ifill, John McWhorter, and Cornel West. This is a fantastic resource. ...”

A Time For Healing - Kahil El'Zabar Quartet (2021)

 
“Chicago’s legendary spiritual jazz shaman Kahil El’Zabar returns, leading an enviable ensemble of young masters from his hometown! Kahil El’Zabar delivers yet another epic double LP’s worth of ancient/future music for the mind, body and soul. From swinging jazz that sings of his Chicago pedigree, to talking drums and soothing spiritual grooves that reconnect Black Classical Music with its African roots. Multi-percussionist, band-leader, vocalist, composer, conductor and educator, Kahil El’Zabar has been at the forefront of the unceasingly creative avant-garde jazz scene in Chicago and beyond for over 4 decades. ...”

Football Is Sinking in Crypto Snake Oil

 
“Football fans have had to put up with a lot lately. Match-going diehards have been squeezed for decades, with tickets in many of Europe’s top leagues becoming unaffordable. Attending away games isn’t just expensive but near impossible for many fans, with the spread of matches across weekdays and a constant rise in fixture congestion. Even for those stuck at home, things aren’t much easier. TV and digital streaming rights are often split between three or more providers, meaning fans have to shell out hundreds of dollars a season. Fans are sacrificing time, money, and attention just as all these things seem scarcer than ever. ...”

​An Electrifying View of the Heart of the Milky Way

 
Electrical storms light up the center of the Milky Way galaxy. A new radio image reveals supernova remnants, threads of energy and other features both new and known.

“Noise and chaos reign at the heart of the Milky Way, our home galaxy, or so it appears in an astonishing image captured recently by astronomers in South Africa. The image, taken by the MeerKAT radio telescope, an array of 64 antennas spread across five miles of desert in northern South Africa, reveals a storm of activity in the central region of the Milky Way, with threads of radio emission laced and kinked through space among bubbles of energy. At the very center Sagittarius A*, a well-studied supermassive black hole, emits its own exuberant buzz. We are accustomed to seeing galaxies, from afar, as soft, glowing eggs of light or as majestic, bejeweled whirlpools. Rarely do we glimpse the roiling beneath the clouds — all the forms of frenzy that a hundred million or so stars can get up to. ...”

​Post-structuralism

 
Meaning might be ceaselessly deferred along a signifying chain … cog-dog-log … without any possibility of an ultimate destination.

Post-structuralism is a term for philosophical and literary forms of theory that both build upon and reject ideas established by structuralism, the intellectual project that preceded it. Though post-structuralists all present different critiques of structuralism, common themes among them include the rejection of the self-sufficiency of structuralism, as well as an interrogation of the binary oppositions that constitute its structures. ... Writers whose works are often characterised as post-structuralist include: Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Judith Butler, Jean Baudrillard and Julia Kristeva, although many theorists who have been called ‘post-structuralist’ have rejected the label. ...”

Hotter THE Battle+Dub

 
“A rough tune from the Conscious Minds featuring a serious horn line. Hotter The Battle + Dub: Conscious Minds. Whip Them Jah: Clint Eastwood.  Pablo's Mood: Augustus Pablo. Peace and Love In The Ghetto: Jah Woosh. ...”

Radio On - Christopher Petit (1979)

 
“We’re pleased to present the trailer and posters for the new 4K restoration of Christopher Petit’s debut feature Radio On (1979), which sees its North American premiere at the New York Film Festival on October 4 and 5 before opening at the Metrograph on October 15. Writing for Film Comment in 2007, Chris Chang called Radio On an ‘exquisitely bleak yet thoroughly transcendent’ road movie. London DJ Robert (David Beames) heads east to Bristol to investigate the death of his brother, and he’s accompanied by one of the great soundtracks in British cinema: David Bowie, Devo, Kraftwerk, Robert Fripp, Ian Dury. ...”

​Heart & Soul of NYC

 
“Even though Jay and Alicia  banged us out with one of the hottest New York anthems of all time last year - there's always room for more love letter to one of the most beloved cities in the world. Released right as both the weather and NBA playoffs are heating up, ‘Heart & Soul of NYC’ was produced by Kevin Couliau (the well known French streetball documentarist) who spent last summer in the five boroughs hunting down 'supreme blacktop action' which he was able to excellently capture on film. With rhymes by Red Cafe (who is fresh off his ‘I'm Ill’ success) and a dope beat by Pete Rock,  this track just shows what a compatible mix hip hop, basketball and NYC really is.”

Catherine Wagner - Constantine Fragments (2014)

 
Rome Works investigates and interprets the history of culture. The photographs include sculptural masterpieces both within and outside of museum archives. Although rooted in antiquity each image is embedded with some form of marker that creates a collision in time. The process of conservation, the physical moving of an artifact, or the recreation of a figure from isolated fragments - serve to disrupt the historical iconography allowing for a more contemporary reading. The images often focus on overlooked details, illuminating unwritten histories. ...”

​10 Ideas to Fix Democracy

 
“For 15 consecutive years, Freedom House’s annual tally has recorded a decline in the number of democracies worldwide. It’s a steady loss of ground that Larry Diamond, a political scientist at Stanford University, calls a ‘democratic recession.’ And no event put the reality of democratic backsliding more dramatically on display than the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021—when the world’s oldest liberal democracy endured the first violent presidential transition in its 245-year history. As we mark that event’s dubious anniversary, we’re reminded how fragile democracy really is. Democracy is on the defensive, and the reasons are as deep as they are familiar. Growing inequality has fed a global mood that democratic institutions aren’t serving their citizens. The internet and social media have hypercharged political polarization and cultural divides, which populists easily exploit. ...”

​The Rich Legacy of Philadelphia Free Jazz

“As the birthplace of great innovators like Billie Holiday, Lee Morgan, Trudy Pitts, McCoy Tyner, ’Philly Joe’ Jones, James Mtume, the Heath Brothers, and Bobby Timmons and home to John Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie, Archie Shepp, and others, Philadelphia’s contributions to jazz are well known. Despite the notoriety that Philly’s bebop, hard-bop, and organ trio sound has enjoyed throughout the decades, the city’s free-jazz and avant-garde contingent has been less well-documented.In the 1960s, Philadelphia-born musicians like bassist Henry Grimes and drummer Rashied Ali played in some legendary ensembles led by progressive jazz giants like Albert Ayler and Coltrane. ...”

Trump Had Role in Weighing Proposals to Seize Voting Machines

 
Former President Donald J. Trump spoke to thousands of supporters at a rally in Texas on Saturday.

“Six weeks after Election Day, with his hold on power slipping, President Donald J. Trump directed his lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, to make a remarkable call. Mr. Trump wanted him to ask the Department of Homeland Security if it could legally take control of voting machines in key swing states, three people familiar with the matter said.Mr. Giuliani did so, calling the department’s acting deputy secretary, who said he lacked the authority to audit or impound the machines. ...”

“About halfway into his Texas rally on Saturday evening, Donald J. Trump pivoted toward the teleprompter and away from a meandering set of grievances to rattle off a tightly prepared list of President Biden’s failings and his own achievements. ... Mr. Trump, who later went on to talk about ‘that beautiful, beautiful house that happens to be white,’ has left increasingly little doubt about his intentions, plotting an influential role in the 2022 midterm elections and another potential White House run. But a fresh round of skirmishes over his endorsements, fissures with the Republican base over vaccines — a word Mr. Trump conspicuously left unsaid at Saturday’s rally — and new polling all show how his longstanding vise grip on the Republican Party is facing growing strains. ...”

​John Ashbery: outtakes from the film series, USA: Poetry

 
“John Ashbery is filmed on March 4 and 6, 1966 in New York City while both reading his poems and being interviewed. Richard O. Moore interviews Ashbery one-on-one in Ashbery's apartment, and Ashbery together with painter Jane Freilicher in her studio. 2nd edition (1978 release)“

YouTube   46:37

​A New Wave of American Buyers Has Set Its Sights on European Soccer

 
“Last May, Venezia FC celebrated its improbable return to Italy’s top tier, Serie A, for the first time in exactly two decades, completing a remarkable five-year rise from the fourth division. Players celebrated with a ferry ride through Venice’s storied canals, steered by gondoliers wearing traditional candy cane uniforms. Among those celebrating in the victory parade was Duncan Niederauer, the club’s American president and majority shareholder since 2020. Niederauer, the former CEO of the New York Stock Exchange, had been part of an American ownership group that first bought into Venezia in 2018, two years after the club emerged from its third bankruptcy in a decade. …”

The Difficult Odyssey of James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’

 
James Joyce looking troubled in 1922—but he wasn’t the only one having difficulties. 

“The wily hero of The Odyssey is repeatedly aided by women: Athena, goddess of wisdom; the Phaecian princess Nausicaa; and numerous other female characters play important roles in helping Odysseus return home to Ithaca and his wife, Penelope. Three-ish millennia after Homer composed his epic poem, Irish writer James Joyce decided he would pattern his new novel after The Odyssey. In a twist of cosmic coincidence, Joyce (1882–1941) himself, even more than his Ulysses protagonist Leopold Bloom, was aided by women in his journey. ...”

We Still Can’t See American Slavery for What It Was

 “The historian Marcus Rediker opens ‘The Slave Ship: A Human History‘ with a harrowing reconstruction of the journey, for a captive, from shore to ship: The ship grew larger and more terrifying with every vigorous stroke of the paddles. The smells grew stronger and the sounds louder — crying and wailing from one quarter and low, plaintive singing from another; the anarchic noise of children given an underbeat by hands drumming on wood; the odd comprehensible word or two wafting through: someone asking for menney, water, another laying a curse, appealing to myabecca, spirits. An estimated 12.5 million people endured some version of this journey, captured and shipped mainly from the western coast of Africa to the Western Hemisphere during the four centuries of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Of that number, about 10.7 million survived to reach the shores of the so-called New World. ...”

Paris Street; Rainy Day

 
Paris Street; Rainy Day, Gustave Caillebotte (1877)

Paris Street; Rainy Day (French: Rue de Paris, temps de pluie) is a large 1877 oil painting by the French artist Gustave Caillebotte (1848–1894), and is his best known work. It shows a number of individuals walking through the Place de Dublin, then known as the Carrefour de Moscou, at an intersection to the east of the Gare Saint-Lazare in north Paris. Although Caillebotte was a friend and patron of many of the impressionist painters, and this work is part of that school, it differs in its realism and reliance on line rather than broad brush strokes. Caillebotte's interest in photography is evident. The figures in the foreground appear ‘out of focus’, those in the mid-distance (the carriage and the pedestrians in the intersection) have sharp edges, while the features in the background become progressively indistinct. The severe cropping of some figures – particularly the man to the far right – further suggests the influence of photography....”

 
Childe Hassam's 1885 painting Rainy Day, Boston bears "an uncanny resemblance" to Caillebotte's work.

​Awesome Tapes From Africa puts Gabonese harp in the spotlight with Papé Nziengui

 
“The American label is set to reissue Kadi Yombo, a monument to Gabonese ‘postmodernism’ from the late 1980s. The album Kadi Yombo, originally released in 1989, is a particularly successful project in the quest for a fusion between tradition and modernity. Musician Papé Nziengui presents a dialogue characteristic of ngombi harp playing with male call and response choirs, adding female cult rhythms and Tsogho ritual music, while combining the beating of rattles with synthesizer layers. ...”

Foreword to Ariel: The Restored Edition written by Frieda Hughes

"The Restored Edition of Ariel by my mother, Sylvia Plath, exactly follows the arrangement of her last manuscript as she left it. As her daughter I can only approach it, and its divergence from the first United Kingdom publication of Ariel in 1965 and subsequent United States publication in 1966, both edited by my father, Ted Hughes, from the purely personal perspective of its history within my family. When she committed suicide on February 11, 1963, my mother left a black spring binder on her desk, containing a manuscript of forty poems. She probably last worked on the manuscript's arrangement in mid-November 1962. ...”

New York City Subway

 

“The New York City Subway is a rapid transit system owned by the City of New York and leased to the New York City Transit Authority, an affiliate agency of the state-run Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). Opened on October 27, 1904, the New York City Subway is one of the world's oldest public transit systems, one of the most-used, and the one with the most stations, with 472 stations in operation (424 if stations connected by transfers are counted as single stations). Stations are located throughout the boroughs of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx. The system has operated 24/7 service every day of the year throughout most of its history, barring emergencies and disasters. By annual ridership, the New York City Subway is the busiest rapid transit system in both the Western Hemisphere and the Western world, as well as the seventh-busiest rapid transit rail system in the world. ...”

28th Street station after the W train was discontinued in mid-2010. Note the dark grey tape masked over the W bullet.

The Duchamp Research Portal Digitally Unites Three Museum Archives

 
The Duchamp Research Portal houses nearly 50,000 digitized objects covering the artist’s life and work in France and the United States. 

“In 1964, towards the end of his life, Marcel Duchamp delivered the pithiest of artist statements, ‘Je suis un respirateur.’ Too apt that this ‘respirateur’ or ‘breather’ — one who creates art out of everyday life — should be the keeper of a seven-decade oeuvre of abstract paintings and provocative readymades that significantly shifted the plates of Dada, Cubism, and Conceptualism.So massive was Duchamp’s output that for years, his works, sketches, and papers have been scattered across the collections of various museums. But no more: this week, three institutions have merged their separate Duchamp archives for a digital resource set to illuminate one of the past century’s most seminal artists. ...”

 
Marcel Duchamp in a hammock at his residency in Cadaquas, Spain in 1965, by Man Ray.

The Making of a Coronavirus-Criminal Presidency

 
“The United States is the product of an accountability movement that was never fully realized. Thomas Paine called the country into being with Common Sense, a pamphlet that invited the beleaguered residents of 13 British colonies on the eastern shore of North America to indulge their fury at the imperial abuses of King George III. ... Rejecting the prospect of reconciliation with ‘the power that hath carried fire and sword into your land,’ Paine encouraged Americans to ask themselves pointed questions. ... This was about more than refusing to shake hands with the murderers, however. It was, Paine recognized, about forging a new mentality that would see beyond the lie of reconciliation with those who abused positions of authority to the detriment of the people. No excuses. No forgiveness. The stakes were too high for that. ...”

Who is Nathan Davis? A guest post

 
LJC says: Who is Pedestroika? An expat in Pittsburgh with an ear rooted in Indian classical music, who says he came to jazz by way of McCoy Tyner’s Search for Peace, in graduate school nearly 20 years ago. Having navigated the ‘have the time but not the means, and have the means but not the time’ phases of life without losing his passion for jazz, he tries to make it an integral part of every day life. ‘I see collecting the vinyl form as an assumed stewardship of sorts; what we collect, enjoy, share, and hopefully preserve will ultimately be part of what we hand on to future generations.’ Amen to that, the floor is yours Pedestroika.. ...”