The Lives of Others - Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (2006)

 

“The Lives of Others ... is a 2006 German drama film written and directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck marking his feature film debut. The plot is about the monitoring of East Berlin residents by agents of the Stasi, East Germany's secret police. It stars Ulrich Mühe as Stasi Captain Gerd Wiesler, Ulrich Tukur as his superior Anton Grubitz, Sebastian Koch as the playwright Georg Dreyman, and Martina Gedeck as Dreyman's lover, a prominent actress named Christa-Maria Sieland. The film was released in Germany on 23 March 2006. ...”

Wikipedia

Guardian: How we made The Lives of Others

NY Times: A Fugue for Good German Men - A.O. Scott

YouTube: The Lives Of Others Trailer, A Film in Three Minutes

2013 July: The Legend of Rita - Volker Schlondorff (2001), 2013 August: Good Bye, Lenin! (2003), 2013 August: Der Tunnel (2001).

Putin’s Ukraine Gamble Pivots to a Very Different Battlefield

 

A Ukrainian soldier in February in Trokhizbenka, in the Luhansk region.

“KYIV, Ukraine — There are fields instead of city streets, farmsteads instead of apartment buildings. Open highways stretch to the horizon. The battles in the north that Ukraine won over the past seven weeks raged in towns and densely populated suburbs around the capital, Kyiv, but the war is about to take a hard turn to the southeast and into a vast expanse of wide-open flatland, fundamentally changing the nature of the combat, the weapons at play and the strategies that might bring victory. Military analysts, Ukrainian commanders, soldiers and even Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin acknowledge that a wider war that began with a failed attempt to capture the capital will now be waged in the eastern Donbas region. ...”

NY Times

Is Ukraine the End of the End of History?

NY Times: As Russia Pivots East, Ukrainians Ask: Are We Next? (Video)

VOX: The banned weapon Russia (and the US) won’t give up (Video)

Bloody Borders or a Bloody Cross?

 

Aerial shots of a map of Kyiv and view of debris of buildings after shelling in Borodianka of Kyiv province

​Lightning Struck Itself: Television’s ‘Marquee Moon’ in Eight Phases

 

“So you say you want a revolution? Two rearguard beatniks banded together on the anything-goes streets of Manhattan in the early ’70s, at the height of its postapocalyptic glamour, when taxi cabs hated to venture below 14th Street but the see-and-be-seen crowd couldn’t resist it. Those who came from elsewhere came to define the scene. Richard Meyers and Tom Miller were two gifted reprobates who fled to New York from a well-to-do Delaware boarding school. They knocked around the stylish wilderness of the Lower East Side and the more civilized clubs and coffee houses of Greenwich Village. ...”

The Ringer

2013 October: See No Evil, 2014 October: Dreamtime (1981), 2014 November: Marquee Moon (1977), January: Adventure (1978), 2015 October: Tom Verlaine (1979)

Announcing New Brooklyn Underground Subway Tour!

 “We’re excited to announce our newest tour, the Brooklyn Underground Subway Tour, the BK version of our popular NYC Underground Subway tour! This new Untapped New York tour is led by Rayn Riel, a bona-fide subway expert and licensed tour guide. We have met a lot of subway experts here at Untapped New York, and there is no one more knowledgable about the Brooklyn subway system than Rayn. Now, after two sold-out tours with our Untapped New York Insiders, we’re bringing the Brooklyn Underground Subway Tour to the public. ...”

Untapped Cities

​War Brings New Iron Curtain Down on Russia’s Storied Ballet Stages

 The star ballerina Olga Smirnova with Semyon Chudin at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow in 2014.

“AMSTERDAM — Just days after the invasion of Ukraine, Olga Smirnova, one of Russia’s most important ballerinas, posted an emotional statement on Telegram, the messaging app. ‘I am against war with all the fibers of my soul,’ she wrote. “I never thought I would be ashamed of Russia, but now I feel that a line has been drawn that separates the before and the after.’ That’s certainly been true for Ms. Smirnova, 30. As the war got worse, and dissent in Russia was ruthlessly quashed, Ms. Smirnova, who had gone to Dubai to recover from a knee injury, realized that she could no longer return home. ‘If I were to go back to Russia, I would have to completely change my opinion, the way I felt about the war,’ Ms. Smirnova said in a recent interview in Amsterdam, adding that returning would be, ‘quite frankly, dangerous.’ ...”

NY Times

Guardian - ‘A completely different language’: how Ukrainian writers and artists are responding to the war (April 8)

NY Times: Journey to Transnistria: Inside Russia’s Disinformation Bubble (Video)

Noam Chomsky, Jeremy Scahill on the Russia-Ukraine War (Video) 1:02:21

‘I cry every day’: in the stands with Ukrainians as Dynamo Kyiv play again,   NY Times: Exiled by Russian Bombs, a Ukrainian Soccer Team Embraces Its Journey

New Journalism

 

Tom Wolfe

“New Journalism is a style of news writing and journalism, developed in the 1960s and 1970s, that uses literary techniques unconventional at the time. It is characterized by a subjective perspective, a literary style reminiscent of long-form non-fiction. Using extensive imagery, reporters interpolate subjective language within facts whilst immersing themselves in the stories as they reported and wrote them. In traditional journalism, however, the journalist is ‘invisible’; facts are reported objectively. The term was codified with its current meaning by Tom Wolfe in a 1973 collection of journalism articles he published as The New Journalism, which included works by himself, Truman Capote, Hunter S. Thompson, Norman Mailer, Joan Didion, Terry Southern, Robert Christgau, Gay Talese and others. ...”

Wikipedia

W – The New Journalism

Esquire: Why They Aren’t Writing the Great American Novel Anymore – Tom Wolfe

amazon: The New New Journalism

Kassidat: Raw 45s from Morocco (1956)

 

“... Kassidat: Raw 45s from Morocco is a full-length album that features six extended tracks from the golden age of the Moroccan record industry. After Morocco gained its independence in 1956, Moroccan-owned record labels sprouted and flourished in Casablanca. The inexpensive 45 rpm format allowed the record companies to release thousands of songs during the 1960s, creating a snapshot of the raw and hypnotic Berber music that thrived throughout Morocco. Powerful traditional styles were still alive and well at this time and untouched by international pop influences. Kassidat looks back at this era and presents it anew for audiences hungry for intense and authentic folk music. ...”

Holland Tunnel Dive

Discogs (Video)

amazon

YouTube: Kassidat : Raw 45's From Morocco : Folk World & Country Music Compilation North Africa   31:34

​Hiding in Plain Sight, a Soviet-Era Air Defense System Arrives in Ukraine

 

The village of Dobra, Slovakia, where the S-300 antiaircraft system recently provided by the country to Ukraine was loaded on a train to be transferred over the border.

“DOBRA, Slovakia — Driving back to his village near the Ukrainian border last Thursday, the mayor had to stop to let a train pass, and assumed he wouldn’t have to wait long. But the flatbed wagons, stacked high with military equipment, just kept coming. He waited for nearly half an hour. ‘It was a very long train, much longer than usual,’ recalled Mikolas Csoma, the mayor of Dobra, a previously sleepy village in eastern Slovakia that, over the past month, has become a key artery funneling weapons and ammunition into Ukraine by rail from the West. The train that delayed Mr. Csoma’s drive home was not only unusually long but also signaled a singular escalation in Western efforts to help Ukraine defend itself. ...”

NY Times

POLITICO: Pentagon confirms explosion aboard Russian warship (Video)

NY Times: Despite Russian Warnings, Finland and Sweden Draw Closer to NATO

ARTFORUM: Latvia's Riga International Biennial Delayed Owing to Russian Invasion of Ukraine.

The Paris Review: Cooking with Sergei Dovlatov

​Jacques Louis David: Radical Draftsman

“Jacques Louis David: Radical Draftsman will be the first exhibition devoted to works on paper by the celebrated French artist who navigated vast artistic and political divides throughout his life—from his birth in Paris in 1748 to his death in exile in Brussels in 1825. His iconic works captured the aspirations and suffering of a nation, while addressing timeless themes that continue to resonate today. Through the lens of his preparatory studies, the exhibition looks beyond his public successes to chart the moments of inspiration and the progress of ideas. Visitors will follow the artist’s process as he gave form to the neoclassical style and created major canvases that shaped the public’s perceptions of historical events in the years before, during, and after the French Revolution. ...”

The Met Museum (Video)

Was Jacques-Louis David Really That Radical?

NY Times: The Dangerous Beauty of Jacques-Louis David

W - Jacques-Louis David

The Passages of Walter Benjamin - Judith Weschler (2014)

 

“In 1933, Walter Benjamin, one of the most brilliant literary and cultural critics of his time, fled Berlin when the Nazis took over and headed for Paris. There he sat, at the Bibliothèque nationale, working in poverty and relative obscurity on his most important project, ‘The Arcades Project.’ With the backdrop of totalitarianism spreading across the European continent, Benjamin explored the origins of modernity. Praising the poet Charles Baudelaire and employing his emblematic characters especially the flâneur and the rag picker, Benjamin wanted to counter the ‘false semblance of totality.’ This enormous incomplete study is both a collection of sources for a radical history of 19th century Paris and the basis for an allegorical critique of European fascism in the 1930s. ...”

UbuWeb (Video)

2015 September: In praise of dirty, sexy cities: the urban world according to Walter Benjamin, 2020 September: On Benjamin’s Public (Oeuvre), 2020 November: When Waking Begins, 2021 May: Illuminations: Essays and Reflections (1969)

​Russian Tech Industry Faces ‘Brain Drain’ as Workers Flee

 

Zvartnots International Airport in Yerevan, Armenia. The country has become a landing spot for tech workers leaving Russia.

“In early March, days after Russia invaded Ukraine and began cracking down on dissent at home, Konstantin Siniushin, a venture capitalist in Riga, Latvia, helped charter two planes out of Russia to help people flee. Both planes departed from Moscow, carrying tech workers from the Russian capital as well as St. Petersburg, Perm, Ekaterinburg and other cities. Together, the planes moved about 300 software developers, entrepreneurs and other technology specialists out of the country, including 30 Russian workers from start-ups backed by Mr. Siniushin. The planes flew south past the Black Sea to Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, where thousands of other Russian tech workers fled in the weeks after the invasion. ...”

NY Times

NY Times: U.S. and Ukrainian Groups Pierce Putin’s Propaganda Bubble

Open Culture: “Europe’s Big Lie About Ukraine,” According to Stephen Fry (Video)

The Intercept_: Russian TV Is Filled With Images of Bucha’s Dead, Stamped With the Word “Fake” (Video)

VOX: Is it genocide?

 

Protesters in Krakow, Poland, staged a silent demonstration against the mass killing of Ukrainian civilians by the Russian army on April 9.

Key to a Kingdom: Ronda’s Secret Water Mine

 

From the southwest, Ronda's limestone ramparts are split by the Tajo, or gorge, spanned since 1793 by the picturesque "New Bridge." ...

“Approaching the region of the Serranía de Ronda, just inland from the Mediterranean’s Costa del Sol, one passes through mountains and rugged surroundings that have challenged settlers, merchants, travelers and invaders for thousands of years. Over the last ridges, a broad valley opens, circled around by hills and hazy massifs. Near its center, set like a jewel in this natural crown, a small tableland rises some 200 sheer meters above the fields: Ronda, spectacularly cleft by its famous Tajo, a narrow, nearly vertical gorge cut over five million years ago by the river Guadalevín, a name that comes from the Arabic wadi al-laban (valley of milk), after the prosperity its waters brought to the grazing lands below. ...”

Aramco World

How Lucinda Williams Wore Her Pain On Her Sleeve With ‘World Without Tears’

 

“They say time heals all wounds, but that maxim has never applied to Lucinda Williams. On her seventh studio album, 2003’s World Without Tears, Williams brings her unique mix of heartache, carnal desire, and strong-willed resolve, and lays it out for all to witness. ... Not that she’s ever shied away from dark subjects. Williams is a blues singer, after all – that’s reflected in the structure and impassioned delivery of her songs. But one thing is clear: she was mad as hell when she recorded World Without Tears, and she was not going to take it anymore. Nobody’s martyr Williams has made a career wearing her pain on her sleeve, but she’s nobody’s martyr. ...”

udiscove (Video)

2008 January: Lucinda Williams, 2010 May: Lucinda Williams - 1, 2011 March: Blessed, 2011 November: Austin, Texas, 1989, 2012 May: World Without Tears, 2012 October: Honky Tonk Women: The Changing Role of Women, 2013 January: "Can`t Let Go", "Pineola", "Changed the Locks", 2013 June: Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, 2013 August: Essence (2001), 2015 November: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert, 2016 February: The Ghosts of Highway 20 (2016), 2017 February: "Passionate Kisses" (1988)

​No More ‘Have a Nice Day’: Lviv Learns to Live With War

 

Central Lviv on Saturday.

“LVIV, Ukraine — When war came to Ukraine in February, Helen Polishchuk made some adjustments in the six-story bar she manages in central Lviv.The Mad Bars House in Lviv’s historic central square stayed open, but served coffee and hot food instead of alcoholic drinks. They turned off the rock music. And as displaced Ukrainians began pouring into the city from places devastated by Russian attacks hundreds of miles away, she had instructions for the wait staff. ... Now, instead of tourists, there are displaced Ukrainians fleeing the war-torn east of the country. ...”

NY Times

NY Times: Ukraine War Pushes Germans to Change. They Are Wavering.

New Yorker: The Holocaust Memorial Undone by Another War (Audio)

LitHub: Rewatching Zelensky’s Servant of the People as Russia Wages War on Ukraine

Smithsonian: Museum Renames Degas’ ‘Russian Dancers’ in Nod to Ukraine

 

A zoomed-in view of Edgar Degas' Ukrainian Dancers, previously known as Russian Dancers.

Are These the Most Distant Galaxies Yet Seen?

HD1, the candidate for the most distant galaxy discovered to date, appears as the red object in the center of the zoom-in image.

“Astronomers may have found the most distant galaxies ever seen. In two papers posted to the arXiv preprint server, Yuichi Harikane (University of Tokyo) and an international team report the detection of two sources that appear to blaze at us from a mere 330 million years after the Big Bang. In astronomers’ lingo, that corresponds to a redshift of 13. The studies have been submitted for publication but are not yet peer-reviewed. Observers have previously found a handful of galaxies in the universe’s first few hundred million years. ...”

Sky & Telescope

Scientific American: Astronomers Spot Most Distant Galaxy Yet, 13.5 Billion Light-Years from Earth

 

This timeline shows how the discoveries of these two candidate early galaxies fit in with the history of the universe.

Made To Measure

 

“Crammed’s legendary Composers’ Series is reactivated in 2021, with the release of new albums, and remastered vinyl reissues of several classics. Inaugurated in 1984, Crammed's MADE TO MEASURE composers’ series set out to chart a map of some of the most interesting instrumental music of the era. Thirty-five albums came out during the series’ first decade, harbouring a great variety of inventive musical adventures which often weaved aspects of neoclassical/chamber music, ambient, electronica, minimalism, experimental avant-rock, soundscape creation & more. ...”

Crammed (Video)

Genre b(l)ending: An introduction to eclectic world of Crammed Discs in 20 records (Video)

2014 November: Aksak Maboul, 2017 July: Made to Measure, Vol. 1 (1984), 2018 February: Before And After Bandits: Marc Hollander Of Aksak Maboul & Crammed Discs, 2020 March: Tout a une fin / Blaue Bleistift (2020), 2020 August: Aksak Maboul ‎– Figures (2020), 2020 September: From Aksak Maboul to Crammed Discs, Marc Hollander Envisions a Musical Melting Pot

Bucha’s Month of Terror

 

We visited Bucha, documented dozens of killings of civilians, interviewed scores of witnesses and followed local investigators to uncover the scale of Russian atrocities.

“BUCHA, Ukraine — A mother killed by a sniper while walking with her family to fetch a thermos of tea. A woman held as a sex slave, naked except for a fur coat and locked in a potato cellar before being executed. Two sisters dead in their home, their bodies left slumped on the floor for weeks. Bucha is a landscape of horrors. From the first day of the war, Feb. 24, civilians bore the brunt of the Russian assault on Bucha, a few miles west of Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital. Russian special forces approaching on foot through the woods shot at cars on the road, and a column of armored vehicles fired on and killed a woman in her garden as they drove into the suburb. But those early cruelties paled in comparison to what came after. ...”

NY Times: The following images depict graphic violence.

Open Culture (Video)

NY Times: A Stricken Ukrainian City Empties, and Those Left Fear What’s Next

GRID - Ukraine war in photos: April 11

 

Local residents pass by a destroyed church, which served as a military base for Russian soldiers, on Sunday in Lukashivka, Ukraine.

​Jules Bastien-Lepage

 

At Harvest Time (1880)

“Jules Bastien-Lepage was a French painter noted for his sentimental genre painting of rural life. Despite growing up during the era of Impressionism, his style of plein air painting was closer to the naturalism of the Realism art movement than the light-oriented art of Claude Monet (1840-1926). Ironically, a  number of Impressionist painters - in Scotland, Holland, America and Australia - preferred to adopt his style of naturalist realist painting rather than Impressionism proper. The French realist writer Emile Zola, who described Bastien-Lepage as ‘the grandson of Courbet and of Millet’, later charactized his painting as: ‘Impressionism corrected, sweetened and adapted to suit the taste of the masses.’ ...”

Visual Arts Cork

W - Jules Bastien-Lepage

YouTube: Jules Bastien Lepage: A collection of 37 paintings

2020 January: A Cultural History of the Potato as Earth Apple

 

Haymaking (1877)

​A midcentury printmaker celebrates machine age New York City

 

Allen Street, 1929

“As the machine age took hold in the United States in the early 20th century, some artists took a darker view of the mechanization of urban society—seeing isolation and alienation amid skyscrapers, automobiles, and steel bridges. Painter and printmaker Louis Lozowick, however, found something to celebrate. Lozowick isn’t a household name, but his backstory will sound familiar. Born in Ukraine in 1892, he immigrated to New York City in the early 1900s, according to Artnet. ...”

Ephemeral New York

In Mariupol’s Drama Theater, a Cry for ‘Mama!’ That Offered Brief Relief

 

yahoo: The Donetsk Regional Drama Theatre in Mariupol, Ukraine

“LVIV, Ukraine — ... Ms. [Viktoria] Dubovitskaya, interviewed last month at a shelter in Lviv, in western Ukraine, said she and her two young children were among the many civilians sheltering in Mariupol’s Drama Theater on March 16 when it was devastated by a Russian airstrike. A wall fell onto her 2-year-old daughter, Nastya, and in those horrific first moments, Ms. Dubovitskaya recalled, she did not know if the girl had survived.Finally, she heard it: “Mama!” Nastya screamed. A mattress that had been propped up against the wall fell against her daughter, cushioning the blows. Under the shattered masonry, Nastya was alive, but the place where they had taken refuge for 11 days, along with hundreds of others, was destroyed. ...”

NY Times

VOX: Here’s what the ICC can actually do about Putin’s war crimes

NY Times - ‘Everything Was Destroyed’: War Hits Ukraine’s Farms

The Intercept_ - Zelenskyy Is Absolutely Right: The U.N. Must Be Reformed. But It Never Will Be. (Video)

The Nation: The Little Picketers of Russia

NY Times: Officials Say Russian Art, Seized by Finns, Should Return Home

 

Crates of art from Russian museums that were seized by Finnish customs officials. Officials later decided the art, which had been on loan to institutions in the West, was not subject to sanctions.

​2022 Winter Music Preview ~ Ambient and Drone

 

“We absolutely love this time of year at A Closer Listen. As we survey the musical landscape, we see over 200 new releases on the near horizon and our hearts are filled with hope.  Artists continue to be inspired, labels continue to release albums, and we have the privilege of previewing a healthy selection of new music.  This might turn out to be a pretty good year after all.  Over a quarter of our winter announcements are found in the fields of ambient and drone ~ perfect sounds to accompany snowed-in evenings with candlelight and friends, or perhaps a good book. ...”

a closer listen (Audio)

 

Virginia bluebells

 

“Mertensia virginica (common names Virginia bluebells, Virginia cowslip, lungwort oysterleaf, Roanoke bells) is a spring ephemeral plant with bell-shaped sky-blue flowers, native to eastern North America. Virginia bluebells have rounded and gray-green leaves, borne on stems up to 24 in (60 cm) tall. They are petiolate at the bottom of the flower stem and sessile at the top. Flowerbuds are pink. Flowers have five petals fused into a tube, five stamens, and a central pistil (carpel). They are borne in mid-spring in nodding spiral-shaped cymes at the end of arched stems. Flowers are usually blue, but white or pink flowers occur rarely. ...”

Wikipedia

YouTube: Capital Naturalist: Virginia Bluebells

​‘The City Lives’: With Russian Forces Gone, Kyiv Starts to Revive

 

Residents returned and businesses opened their doors after a month of Russian artillery attacks on Ukraine’s capital subsided.

“KYIV, Ukraine — On Feb. 25, the day after Russia invaded Ukraine, Kolya Rybytva gathered his grandmother and younger sister and left Kyiv ‘quickly and without unnecessary sentiments,’ he said, heading west. His parents and brother stayed behind to help in the war effort. ... At the time, Mr. Rybytva, 24, understood that he might never return. But two weeks ago, he did, re-entering Kyiv, the capital, just as Ukrainian forces were starting to push Russian troops out of the suburbs and, eventually, into a full retreat. After a month of artillery attacks that ravaged buildings and had Kyiv residents seeking shelter in the subway stations, a sense of relative calm is being restored. ...”

NY Times (Video)

GRID - GlobalUkraine mystery: Why have so many Russian generals been killed?

NY Times: Fiona Hill on Whether Ukraine Can Win — and What Happens if Russia Loses (Audio)

Smithsonian: The 20th-Century History Behind Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine (March 4, 2022), Nazi collaborator monuments in Ukraine (Jan. 2021)

 

The debate over how to remember Ukraine's World War II history, as well as its implications for Ukrainian nationalism and independence, is key to understanding the current conflict.

Union vs. Hertha: why is the Berlin derby such a special fixture?

 

“Hertha Berlin and Union Berlin will meet three times in 2021/22 and when they do, the eyes of the world will fall on the German capital for a fixture that brings together football, politics and history in a once divided city. Union won the first top-flight meeting of the sides in November of 2019/20, when substitute Sebastian Polter got the only goal from the penalty spot late on, while Hertha romped to a 4-0 victory in the return on Matchday 27. The Old Lady got the better of things in the first encounter of last season, winning 3-1 at home, while the return at the Stadion an der Alten Försterei ended 1-1. …”

Bundesliga (Video)

What makes the Berlin derby such a special fixture in Bundesliga? (Video)

The Analyst – Berlin Blues: Hertha’s Battle for Bundesliga Survival

W – Hertha BSC, W – 1. FC Union Berlin

****ESPN: Union thrash embattled Hertha 4-1 in Berlin derby

 

Berlin was a divided between the Allied powers after WWII and Checkpoint Charlie was one of the few access points between the East and West.

​Six Definitive Songs: The ultimate beginner's guide to Husker Du

 

“It’s a tale as old as time: Upstate New Yorker pretends to be a Manhattanite as he arrives in the cold, dank eternal winter of Minnesota for college. He meets a record store clerk with a mohawk and reputation for selling weed, and they bond over a love of punk rock. They enlist the only other punk rock-loving clerk to start a band. ... The origins of Husker Du, the legendary St. Paul punk-turned-alternative rock trio consisting of guitarist Bob Mould, drummer Grant Hart, and bassist Greg Norton, are modest. ...”

FAR OUT (Video)

10 Best Hüsker Dü Songs (Video)

W - Zen Arcade, YouTube: Zen Arcade • 1 / 23