“Éric Alfred Leslie Satie; 17 May 1866 – 1 July 1925), who signed his name Erik Satie after 1884, was a French composer and pianist. Satie was a colourful figure in the early 20th century Parisian avant-garde. His work was a precursor to later artistic movements such as minimalism, Surrealism, repetitive music, and the Theatre of the Absurd. ... In addition to his body of music, Satie was ‘a thinker with a gift of eloquence’ who left a remarkable set of writings, having contributed work for a range of publications, from the dadaist 391 to the American culture chronicle Vanity Fair. ...”
The fallout of Russia’s grain blockade
“The alarm on Ahmed Karim Khalife’s phone is set for 6am, so the 22-year-old budding architect can join the queue that starts forming early outside his neighbourhood bakery in Beirut. The shop opens at about 7:30am, and nowadays, often runs out of bread by 9am, said Khalife. ... Lebanon’s grinding economic crisis has driven inflation up over the past three years, and the giant explosion at Beirut’s port in 2020 destroyed the country’s biggest grain silos, hobbling its ability to store wheat. Now, Russia’s unrelenting blockade of the Black Sea amid the war in Ukraine – where Lebanon imports more than 60 percent of its wheat – is deepening the Middle Eastern nation’s food crisis, upending the lives of families like Khalife’s. ...”
Three holdout brownstones hiding in the Diamond District
“For a block devoted to the jewelry trade, 47th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues has business bustle and energy…but not much sparkle. Marked by two oversized diamond-shaped lights (below) and some colorful signage above some storefronts, the buildings lining the block dubbed the Diamond District seem drab—not unlike neighboring blocks with a similar mix of old brownstones and commercial loft buildings in the shadows of modern office towers. ...”
A Brief History of Women’s Eyebrows in Art
“Being a public persona on the internet means that my face is looked at almost constantly by strangers, leading to uninvited comments about one feature in particular: my eyebrows. ... Reactions range from applause to truly unhinged amounts of anger and disgust. I started wondering: Have people always been this weird about eyebrows? As the most easily mutable facial feature, women’s eyebrows have often been sites of intense scrutiny and have gone through seemingly endless, rapidly changing trend cycles around the world. ...”
Unknown artist, "Mummy portrait of a young woman named Eirene from Egypt” detail (c. 1st century BCE–1st century CE), encaustic on wood panel
Russian missiles hit residential buildings in Ukraine’s Kyiv
“Russian missiles have hit residential buildings in Kyiv, wounding five people and burying others under rubble, in the first such attack on the Ukrainian capital in nearly three weeks. A fire broke out in a nine-storey residential building that was partially damaged in the attack in the central Shevchenkivskiy district, the emergency services said on Sunday. Mayor Vitali Klitschko said several explosions were heard in the Shevchenkivsky district at approximately 6:30am (03:30 GMT) on Sunday. ... The Shevchenkivskiy historic district, one of Kyiv’s central neighbourhoods, is home to a cluster of universities, restaurants and art galleries. ...”
Missiles hit a residential building in the typically lively district
Jean Genet on the Hidden Heart of Jean Cocteau
“Greek [Grec]! The dry elegance of this word, its brevity, its rupture even, a little abrupt, are the qualities that can be readily applied to Jean Cocteau. The word is already a fastidious work of cutting: thus it designates the poet freed, cut loose from a substance whose chips he has made vanish. The poet—or his work, but even so, it is still he—remains a curious fragment, brief, hard, blazing, comically incomplete—like the word ‘Greek’—and one that contains the virtues that I want to enumerate. Luminosity above all. ...”
2017 August: Three Stones for Jean Genet told Patti Smith (2013), 2019 September: Jean Genet in Tangier – Mohamed Choukri, Paul Bowles (Translator), 2020 March: The Maids (1947)
Chicago, 1968
“Wishing for Wings” by Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada in Catalonia, Spain
“Contemporary artist Jorge Rodríguez-Gerada recently worked on a new mural for the GarGar festival in Penelles near Lleida in Catalonia. For the last 2 years, the artist has focused on working on lines and movement, which allows him to play with various textures and techniques. This mural is another example of the unified aesthetic that the artist has developed in the last few years. Gerada’s murals now bridge together all of the artist’s directions, including his land-art works, sculptures and paintings. ...”
Coal Dust and Methane Below, Russian Bombs Above
“DOBROPILLIA, Ukraine — When Aleksander Maryinych enters a metal cage and descends into darkness with dozens of other miners for his six-hour shifts, the concussive thumps of an artillery war are replaced by the clatter of rail carts and the grind of machinery carving deep into the earth. Plumes of dust and smoke from Russian bombardment are exchanged for clouds of fine coal dust, seeping into the crevices of the miners’ skin and staining their eyebrows a signature black. ...”
Exiting an elevator at the end of a shift.
Finding Traces of Harriet Tubman on Maryland’s Eastern Shore
“Of the many feats Harriet Tubman accomplished, none awe me more as an historian than the estimated 13 trips she made to Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Each time, she stole family and friends from enslavement much in the way Tubman first secreted herself away to freedom in 1849. Born on the Eastern Shore, Tubman grew into a fearless conductor along the perilous routes of the Underground Railroad, guiding enslaved people on journeys that extended hundreds of miles to the north, ending on the free soil of Pennsylvania, New York and Canada. ...”
2016 April: Tubman replacing Jackson on the $20, Hamilton spared, 2018 December: Songs of the Underground Railroad
No place better remembers the abolitionist Harriet Tubman than Maryland’s Eastern Shore, where she was born enslaved 200 years ago. Much of her story is told through its land.
Hot Tuna: Keep On Truckin' - 46th Street Rock Palace (3/22/73)
“Well now keep on truckin' mama, truckin' my blues away
Keep on truckin' mama, truckin' my blues away
Here you come mama big as sin, tell what you been doin' by the shape you're in
So keep on truckin' mama, truckin' my blues away …”
2013 December: Hesitation Blues
SUPREME COURT OVERTURNS ROE V. WADE
“Tracking Which States Banned Abortion Today. Abortion is now banned in at least five states, with trigger laws in eight more states set to take effect in the coming days. Laws in four states — Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri and South Dakota — went into effect on Friday in response to the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Oklahoma passed a law in May prohibiting nearly all abortions. Expected legal status of abortion without Roe. The New York Times is tracking abortion laws in each state following the court’s decision. The states fall into five categories: those where abortion is now or likely to be prohibited; those where it is likely to be prohibited or restricted; those where the status of abortion restrictions is uncertain; those where abortion is expected to remain legal; and those where the procedure will remain legal and where access is being expanded. More information on each state is below. ...”
Kaliningrad row: Lithuania accuses Russia of lying about rail 'blockade'
“Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte has said Russian claims of a rail blockade of its territorial outpost in Kaliningrad are a lie. Kaliningrad is on the Baltic Sea and uses a rail link to Russia via Lithuania for passengers and freight. When Lithuania banned the transit of steel and other ferrous metals under EU sanctions last Saturday, Russia threatened to respond. The Kremlin condemned the sanctions as illegal and unacceptable. Ms Simonyte explained that passengers were still able to travel freely across Lithuanian territory from Russia to Kaliningrad and only about 1% of Russian freight was affected. ...”
Diplomats say no goods trains have yet been barred from crossing Lithuania
Amirtha Kidambi & Luke Stewart – Zenith/Nadir (2022)
“Two of experimental music’s busiest and most creative voices join together on this set of vocal and bass duets. Stewart employs feedback, loops, and effects to generate discordant and boiling noise structures. His instrument’s natural sounds are often hidden to the point of indiscernibility behind these rumbling constructs. Kidambi also makes generous use of effects and processing, with her vocabulary stretching the notion of ‘singing’ to haunting and plaintive wails, chant, and scat. Her wordless vocalizations are largely obscured. But as Zenith/Nadir progresses, the instrumentation and vocals become more clearly identifiable. ...”
The Ukraine War in data: 16,000 alleged war crimes, and counting
“The country of Ukraine is a war zone. It’s also a humanitarian crisis, a refugee crisis, and the origin point for a food production and commerce crisis impacting far-flung corners of the globe. But as we were reminded this week, the territory of Ukraine is also a crime scene. This week, the official in charge of war crimes investigations for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told Grid that more than 16,000 such cases are now under review. These range from allegations against individual soldiers to Russian commanders in Bucha and Mariupol, from the widespread use of cluster munitions to the charge that the invasion itself is a war crime — and thus Russian President Vladimir Putin should be charged with crimes against humanity. ...”
An underground natural gas storage facility in Rehden, Germany.
Segregation, Poverty and Policing: A Shared History
“... What has changed in 56 years? As I speak, we are just a week away from the second anniversary of the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. The murder of George Floyd in 2020 was the brutal exercise of the forceful continuance of segregation — the roots of which run back more than a century in time. We should not look at the murder of Mr. Floyd — as horrific as it was — as the acts by a lone-wolf troubled officer. ... These experiences are not unique. Scholars and writers, like James Baldwin, identified the roots of the modern criminal justice system in the United States as linked to the maintenance of its racialized social order brought about by segregation. ...”
An Introduction to Stanislaw Lem, the Great Polish Sci-Fi Writer, by Jonathan Lethem
“Who was Stanislaw Lem? The Polish science fiction writer, novelist, essayist, and polymath may best be known for his 1961 novel Solaris (adapted for the screen by Andrei Tarkosvky in 1972 and again by Steven Soderbergh in 2014). Lem’s science fiction appealed broadly outside of SF fandom, attracting the likes of John Updike, who called his stories ‘marvelous’ and Lem a poet of ‘scientific terminology’ for readers ‘whose hearts beat faster when the Scientific American arrives each month.’ ...”
2011 June: Stanisław Lem, 2017 March: Pilot Pirx (1979-1982), 2017 April: The Star Diaries (1971), 2018 February: His Master's Voice (1968), 2021 December: A Century in Stanislaw Lem’s Cosmos
Will the war with Russia rein in Ukraine’s oligarchs?
“Kyiv, Ukraine – The Azovstal steelworks has become an almost mythical symbol of Ukraine’s resistance to Russia’s aggression. Bird’s-eye view footage from drones, along with photos by Azov Regiment soldiers holed up in the industrial complex in the southern city of Mariupol for 82 days, showed how Russian bombers, multiple rocket launchers and heavy artillery methodically and mercifully annihilated Azovstal. The plant occupied 11 square kilometres (four square miles), provided tens of thousands of jobs, churned out two-fifths of Ukraine’s steel and had its own port on the Sea of Azov to ship metal slabs worldwide.The odorous smog from Azovstal and its smaller sibling, the Ilich steel plant, blanketed the city of 480,000 people for decades.In the 1930s, Moscow boosted steel production in Ukraine – and made its steelworkers and coal miners the poster boys of the Communist way of life. ...”
Paul Bowles: Time Traveling with Musical Recordings from Mid-20th-Century Morocco
“If you’re unfamiliar with Paul Bowles and hoping to get a primer, this article will only lead you further astray. It won’t help you understand his writing style, composing quirks, or cultural significance. Instead, it’s an appeal for the value of winding, irregular melodies and enigmatic rhythms. It’s a defense of the love of dust. And also a strong recommendation that you track down this collection of music and figure out how to make it work for you. Sometimes the best way into something completely unfamiliar and complex is to try to get a picture of how it operates on a purely mechanical level. ...”
2007 November: The Authorized Paul Bowles Web Site, 2010 February: Paul Bowles (1910-1999), 2011: January: Halfmoon (1996), 2013 July: Tellus #23 - The Voices of Paul Bowles, 2014 January: Let It Come Down: the Life of Paul Bowles (1998), 2014 March: The Sheltering Sky (1949), 2015 January: Things Gone & Things Still Here, 2015 October: The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles – a cautionary tale for tourists, 2015 November: The Rolling Stone Interview (May 23, 1974), 2016 June: Let It Come Down (1952), 2016 December: Paul Bowles & the Music of Morocco, 2017 July: Night Waltz: The Music of Paul Bowles, 2018 July: The Sheltering Sound, 2019 September: Jane Bowles, 2019 December: So Why Did I Defend Paul Bowles?, 2020 June: A Distant Episode (1947), 2020 September: Paul Bowles in Exile - Jay McInerney, 2021 January: Here to Learn: Remembering Paul Bowles
Hand-drawn map by Paul Bowles, showing his itinerary through Morocco in 1959
5 wildly different sign styles outside New York’s subway entrances
“The New York City subway system has 472 stations, according to the MTA. Some of these stations made up the original IRT line that debuted in October 1904; others opened in the 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, and beyond (looking at you, Second Avenue Q train). The nice thing about a subway system constructed in different decades is that there's no one uniform subway sign above ground outside station entrances. The wide range of sign styles reflects the era the station opened and/or the feel of the surrounding neighborhood. Each has a different magic. ...”
A Shopping Trip for Apples, Over the Last Bridge in Lysychansk
“LYSYCHANSK, Ukraine — The woman’s mission was simple: she was going shopping, and she would not be deterred. Svitlana Zhyvaga just needed to cross a bridge. But this was not just any bridge. The residents who lived nearby said it was mined. Ukrainian soldiers warned others that the bridge had been shelled and would likely be shelled again. But last Friday morning Ms. Zhyvaga, 54, woke up just before sunrise, climbed a ladder and walked across what is currently one of the most dangerous river crossings in the world. ... The bridge spans a roughly 250-foot-wide portion of the Siversky Donets River, which separates the eastern Ukrainian cities of Lysychansk and Sievierodonetsk. It would be completely impassable if not for several ladders connecting a collapsed section to the road above. ...”
Svitlana Zhyvaga, 54, who lives in Lysychansk, crossing one of the destroyed bridges still being used by civilians to go back and forth from Lysychansk to Sievierodonetsk, on Friday.
Altre Follie 1500-1750 - Jordi Savall, Hesperian XXL (2005)
“For listeners unconverted by the art of Jordi Savall, the enthusiasm with which his fervent fans have greeted his successive recordings has always seemed, to say the least, uncritical. After all, it seemed highly implausible that Savall's records could have steadily gotten better through his long career. ... The excellence of the music on the program is undeniable. Each Follie setting from the anonymous Peruvian composer's rhythmically infectious Folias criollas to the Venetian composer Antonio Vivaldi's violently virtuosic La Follia Sonata is more impressive than the last, their totality forming an organic unity in which the whole is far more than the sum of its parts. The beauty of the performances is incontestable. ...”
2020 February: Hespèrion XXI – Orient - Occident (2006), 2021 April: Marin Marais: Pieces for Viol from the Five Books (2006)
How to Make the Perfect Cup of Italian Coffee
“A hissing, rattling, and gurgling on my stovetop penetrates the still air in my kitchen. The reassuring sound — which physicists have dubbed the Strombolian phase of brewing — is gently comforting but also gets my bones moving each morning. Even more comforting and bone-activating are the steamy caffeinated vapors of roasted beans, which I deeply inhale while getting ready to start my day. But the real business of waking up begins when I pour the hot, brown elixir into a cup, usually with a splash of cream to mellow it out. Only then does the day really begin. ...”
2010 September: Espresso, 2013 April: The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World, 2013 May: Coffeehouse, 2015 June: Barista, 2015 August: Coffee Connections at Peddler in SoHo, 2015 November: The Case for Bad Coffee, 2016 January: 101 Places to Find Great Coffee in New York (2014), 2017 June: How Cold Brew Changed the Coffee Business, 2017 September: Our 7 Favorite Literary Coffee Shops, 2017 October: Clever Literary Coffee Poster, 2017 October: Coffee as Existential Statement: A Crisis in Every Cup on Valencia Street, 2018 February: The Trencherman: A Tale of Two Coffee Shops, 2020 April: Unfair trade, April 2020: A (Very) Brief History of NYC Espresso, 2020 May: The Islamic History of Coffee, 2021 January: The Life Cycle of a Cup of Coffee: The Journey from Coffee Bean, to Coffee Cup, 2021 June: Philosophers Drinking Coffee: The Excessive Habits of Kant, Voltaire & Kierkegaard, 2021 July: The invisible addiction: is it time to give up caffeine?, August 2021: The Birth of Espresso: How the Coffee Shots The Fuel Our Modern Life Were Invented, 2021 October: Brew: A Brief History of Coffee, 2021 November: Coffee and Climate Have a Complicated Relationship, 2022 January: The Bialetti Moka Express: The History of Italy’s Iconic Coffee Maker, and How to Use It the Right Way, 2022 April: All Espresso Drinks Explained: Cappuccino, Latte, Macchiato & Beyond
Why grain can’t get out of Ukraine
“Approximately 20 million tons of grain sit in storage in Ukraine, with few ways out of the country. It is a slow-moving crisis that is choking Ukraine off from the global economy, and cutting the rest of the world off from Ukraine’s critical supply of grains. Ukraine provides about 10 percent of the global share of wheat exports, and almost half of the world’s sunflower oil. Alongside Russia, Ukraine makes this region one of the world’s ‘breadbaskets.’ But Moscow’s war in Ukraine and Western sanctions against Russia have squeezed agricultural exports from the entire Black Sea region. These products can be replaced on the global market, but at a cost. Food is harder to afford for poor countries, and for poor people in rich countries. It could deepen a worldwide hunger crisis....”
A Ukrainian serviceman attends a wheat field on a front line near the city of Soledar in the Donetsk region on June 10.
Travel New York in the footsteps of 'The Warriors'
“From Coney Island to the Bronx, The Warriors is a film that takes the viewer in and around the depths of New York City. Although most New York City-based films centre Manhattan in their stories, The Warriors are a gang with Coney Island on their minds, and the story sets out with the crew being framed for murder in the north end of the Bronx. Those unfamiliar with the layout of New York might need a bit of a recap, but really, the system is actually simpler and more organised than you might expect. ...”
2015 September: Cast of 'The Warriors' to Reunite in Coney Island One Last Time, 2020 October: The Real Deal - The Warriors (1979)
The Nuclear Observatory of Mr Nanof - Piero Milesi (1986)
“... Milanese composer Piero Milesi was one of the most prominent Italian artists in the field of electronic minimalism. After having studied cello, he graduated with a degree in experimental and electronic music composition from the Milan conservatory. He then joined the Gruppo Folk Internazionale entourage and got a degree in architecture with a thesis on the relationship between space and sound. ... Working in a melodic vein, The Nuclear Observatory Of Mr. Nanof veers from ethereal solo keyboard electronics to scores for lyricon and small chamber ensemble. Lovely, yet also rich musically. ...”
YouTube: The Nuclear Observatory Of Mr. Nanof 17 videos
What Hundreds of Photos of Weapons Reveal About Russia’s Brutal War Strategy
“Reflecting a shockingly barbaric and old-fashioned wartime strategy, Russian forces have pummeled Ukrainian cities and towns with a barrage of rockets and other munitions, most of which can be considered relatively crude relics of the Cold War, and many of which have been banned widely under international treaties, according to a New York Times analysis. The attacks have made repeated and widespread use of weapons that kill, maim and destroy indiscriminately — a potential violation of international humanitarian law. These strikes have left civilians — including children — dead and injured, and they have left critical infrastructure, like schools and homes, a shambles. ...”
Munitions and submunitions photographed in 72 locations in Ukraine since the war began in February.
BM-21 multibarrel rocket system. A Soviet launch system in use since the 1960s, in which 40 launch tubes are mounted on a truck chassis. Illustration of a multibarrel rocket system.
The Blank Generation - Ivan Kral & Amos Poe (1976)
“... An invaluable document of a long-lost era, The Blank Generation sets the style for the Punk Documentary—raw, sloppily spliced, unsynched footage of bands, with sound recorded by cassette. The effect is total disorientation and CBGBs performances by Talking Heads (’Psycho Killer’), Blondie (’He left Me’), Ramones (’Shock Treatment’, ‘1-2-3-4, Let's Go’) Tuff Darts and many of the other New York bands fill up this frantic, crowd-pleasing film. CBGB, the small Bowery Avenue club that spawned and nurtured American punk and New Wave music in the mid-70s, closed earlier this fall after a three-decade run.....”
Patti Smith
Pont-Aven School
“Pont-Aven School (French: École de Pont-Aven, Breton: Skol Pont Aven) encompasses works of art influenced by the Breton town of Pont-Aven and its surroundings. Originally the term applied to works created in the artists' colony at Pont-Aven, which started to emerge in the 1850s and lasted until the beginning of the 20th century. Many of the artists were inspired by the works of Paul Gauguin, who spent extended periods in the area in the late 1880s and early 1890s. Their work is frequently characterised by the bold use of pure colour and their Symbolist choice of subject matter. ...”
Le Matin Diélette (Morning, Diélette) - Henry Moret (1912)
Ukraine’s Death Workers: ‘If You Take It All Close to Heart, You Go Mad’
“LVIV, Ukraine — For many Ukrainians facing Russia’s invasion, there is hope the daily battles can be won: A soldier may beat back his enemies. A rescuer might miraculously pull a survivor from rubble. A doctor could save a life. But in one line of work, also deeply affected by this war, grief seems like the only sure end: the handling of the dead. From gravediggers to embalmers, funeral directors to coroners, these workers carry deep psychic wounds of war — and have few others who can relate to them. ...”
Prima ballerina: Daryna Kirik, the principal dancer in a performance at the Lviv Opera in May. Her mother and grandmother survived the Russian occupation of Bucha.
Simone de Beauvoir Defends Existentialism & Her Feminist Masterpiece, The Second Sex, in Rare 1959 TV Interview
“Given how many academic philosophy departments have banished Existentialism into some primitive wilderness, it seems striking to hear people talk about it as a current phenomenon with a serious, living pedigree and a hip youth vanguard distilling its ideas into pop culture. ... And a Canadian journalist, sitting down to interview Existentialist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir, began by asking her to comment on the ‘group of noisy, rowdy jazz-loving young people, in the immediate post-war period.’ This first wave of 50s Parisian hipsters embraced Sartre, Camus, and Beauvoir right along with Coltrane and Charlie Parker. ...”
The Best Kendrick Lamar Songs: 33 Rap Essentials
“The best Kendrick Lamar songs have something for everybody. There are straight-ahead pop songs that stimulate the imagination, deeply rooted metaphors that take multiple close readings to untangle, and political songs diving into the history of Black oppression. ... The Compton-born MC is more than an album artist; everything he touches turns to gold. Without further ado, here’s our best crack: The best 33 Kendrick Lamar songs (for now). ...”
2015 December: To Pimp a Butterfly (2015), 2016 March: When the Lights Shut Off: Kendrick Lamar and the Decline of the Black Blues Narrative by Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah (2013), 2016 March: Who gets to say how black people see themselves? - Marlon James, 2016 March: untitled unmastered (EP - 2016), 2016 July: BET Awards 2016: Watch Beyoncé Perform “Freedom” with Kendrick Lamar., 2017 April: Damn. (2017)
Ukraine deserves its place in the EU. It’s right for the country – and right for Europe
“What a difference a war makes. Four months ago, the leaders of France, Germany and Italy would not have dreamed of supporting Ukraine’s candidacy for EU membership. But this Thursday, there they were in a sunny Kyiv, all emphatically endorsing it. If next week’s EU summit agrees, following the positive opinion just given by the European Commission, this really could be, as President Volodymyr Zelenskiy put it after meeting his visitors from luckier parts of Europe, ‘one of the key European decisions of the first third of the 21st century’. ... There are two good reasons for accepting Ukraine as a candidate for membership of the EU: because Ukraine has earned it, and because this is in the long-term strategic interest of all Europeans. The second is even more important than the first. ...”
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