“One year ago, on July 11, a small protest by Cuban dissidents in a poor suburb of Havana sparked nationwide anti-government demonstrations. In dozens of cities and towns, thousands marched to protest shortages of food and medicine, electricity blackouts, and a surge in Covid-19 infections. Most of the demonstrations were peaceful, but in some neighborhoods, protesters battled with police, overturned cars, and looted stores. The unprecedented protests were a symptom of deep economic and political discontent. They shocked Cuba’s leaders, emboldened the opposition, and rekindled Washington’s perennial pipe dream of regime change. ...”
Webb's First Deep Field
“Webb's First Deep Field is the first operational image taken by the James Webb Space Telescope, depicting the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723, 4.6 billion light-years from Earth. Revealed to the public on 11 July 2022, the composite image was taken by the telescope's Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and covers a tiny area of sky visible from the Southern Hemisphere. Thousands of galaxies are visible in the image, which is the highest-resolution image of the early universe ever taken. ...”
Ukraine investigates, attacks those who collaborate with Russia
“Kyiv, Ukraine – Volodymyr Saldo claimed that in 2016, he was handcuffed to a metal bed for 59 days in the Dominican Republic, almost 10,000 kilometres (6,200 miles) away from home.He alleged that the kidnapper, Igor Pashchenko, his former business partner from the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, electrocuted him so he would read certain phrases into a dictaphone. Saldo claimed Pashchenko used those phrases to demand a hefty ransom from his family – and to edit together an audio recording of Saldo’s “confession” to collaborating with Russia.When Saldo, a construction tycoon and Kherson’s former mayor, was released and returned home, he maintained that he had never worked for Russians. ...”
Firefighters and members of a rescue team clear the scene after a building was partialy destroyed following shelling, in Chasiv Yar, eastern Ukraine.
The New New Haven
“On a recent evening in the New Haven, Conn., Dixwell neighborhood, artists, students, academics and locals gathered in a large, state-of-the-art event space for a conversation with the photographer Dawoud Bey, 69, who is known for chronicling unseen facets of the Black experience in America. Using thoughtful, precise words, Bey — who has a rare command of language — described the ways in which a long tradition of Black cultural production informs his work. As the audience took in Bey’s resonant images of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., and the flight routes of enslaved African Americans in Ohio — among the historic sites the artist has reimagined in his work — the event’s venue was significant in more than one way. ...”
Jason Price (left) and Titus Kaphar in front of a former ice cream factory that is now part of NXTHVN in New Haven, Conn. The architect Deborah Berke expanded two existing buildings into a state-of-the-art arts center that includes studios, event spaces and a gallery.
Z Press: Kenward Elmslie - Calais, Vermont
“Z Press produced the eponymous one-shot magazines Z, ZZ, ZZZ, ZZZZ, ZZZZZ, and ZZZZZZ in the 1970s, perhaps following in the footsteps of the Once series edited in England in the early 1960s by Tom Clark (Once, Twice, Thrice, Thrice and a 1/2, Frice, etc.). Z, for which Trevor Winkfield drew the logo and cover, also included other work by him, including prose poems. ... Z Press continues to publish books, broadsides, records, and cassettes from time to time (including work by Joe Brainard and Kenward Elmslie) and keeps most of its publications in print and well distributed, being in this way a little unusual or lucky.“
April 2008: Kenward Elmslie, PENNSOUND, Jacket #7, Wikipedia, 2011 February: Kenward Elmslie's poem songs, 2016 February: Nite Soil (2000),, 2017 February: Kenward Elmslie / Videos
Desperate for Recruits, Russia Launches a ‘Stealth Mobilization’
“Four Russian veterans of the war in Ukraine recently published short videos online to complain about what they called their shabby treatment after returning to the Russian region of Chechnya, after six weeks on the battlefield. One claimed to have been denied a promised payment of nearly $2,000. Another grumbled that a local hospital declined to remove shrapnel lodged in his body. ... Ordinarily, these sort of complaints might be ignored, but the swift rebuke underscores how Russian officials want to stamp out any criticism about military service in Ukraine. They need more soldiers, desperately, and are already using what some analysts call a ‘‘stealth mobilization’’ to bring in new recruits without resorting to a politically risky national draft. ...”
Kherson police say Russian troops are deliberately destroying crops
An Introduction to the Voynich Manuscript, the World’s Most Mysterious Book
“’The Voynich manuscript is a real medieval book, and has been carbon-dated to the early 1400s.’ No modern hoax, this notoriously bizarre text has in fact ‘passed through the hands of many over the years,’ including ‘scientists, emperors, and collectors.’ Though ‘we still don’t know who actually wrote it, the illustrations hint at the book’s original purpose,’ having ‘much in common with medieval herbals, astrology guides, and bathing manuals.’ Hence the likelihood of the Voynich manuscript being ‘some sort of medical textbook, although a very strange one by any measure. Then there’s the writing.’ ...”
K. Leimer - A Period Of Review (Original Recordings 1975-1983)
“An incredible 30-track anthology that covers a huge breadth of styles and forms, but is ultimately serene, peaceful and calming. Expect a dream-like journey. A Period of Review (Original Recordings: 1975 - 1983) unearths unheard portions of K. Leimer’s vast archives and highlights the work of a self-taught visionary whose use of generative compositions ferried his music to infinite resonance. With its hypnotic, arcadian terraces and nearly narcotic glacial beauty, A Period of Review has a rightful place in the canon of pioneering ambient music. ...”
2010 September: K. Leimer, 2014 June: K. Leimer by Alexis Georgopoulos , 2015 November: music for land and water (1983)
Ukraine and the Contest of Global Stamina
“WASHINGTON — Another day, another weapons shipment: On Friday, the Pentagon announced a new transfer of precision-guided shells and multiple rocket launchers to Ukraine, the latest armaments heading east. But will there come a day when that system begins to slow? More than four months after Russia invaded Ukraine, a war that was expected to be a Russian blitzkrieg only to turn into a debacle for Moscow has now evolved into a battle of inches with no end in sight, a geopolitical stamina contest in which President Vladimir V. Putin is gambling that he can outlast a fickle, impatient West. ...”
Destroyed cars in Irpin, Ukraine, this month. More than four months into the Russian invasion, the war has evolved into a battle of inches with no end in sight.
Free Jazz legend William Parker Plays Original Composition for Sounds of Saving
"’Everything that is beautiful, the reason it's beautiful is because there's music in there’. In this video, William Parker discusses how we must all find perfection inside ourselves. He invites us into his home to share this story and to play a one time only original composition.”
YouTube 11:16
2022 January: A Guide to William Parker, 2022 February: Raining On The Moon – Corn Meal Dance (2007), 2022 March: William Parker Quartets: Meditation / Resurrection (2017), 2022 May: Painter's Spring - William Parker Trio (2000)
Histography: Timeline of History
"HISTOGRAPHY is project by Israeli designer Matan Stauber. It uses an algorithm for identifying and extrapolating historical events from Wikipedia’s immense database. Historical events are mapped in an interactive timeline encompassing 14 billion years, from the Big Bang to 2015. Updates are automatic: Each new historical article appearing on the online encyclopedia is added to the website. The timeline is composed of thousands of tiny black dots on a pink background. Each dot represents a historical event, and all together they span horizontally throughout time, showing an increasing quantity and density as they approach the present. ...”
At Europe’s Largest Port, Russia Sanctions Meet Their Toughest Test
“ROTTERDAM, Netherlands — Jolanda Wielenga was checking documents accompanying containers bound for Russia when her heart skipped a beat: One held a substance that could be used to make a chemical weapon. The substance could be used for both civilian and military purposes. Exporting it to Russia would have been legal before the invasion of Ukraine. But the E.U. sanctions imposed on Russia in recent months had changed that. Ms. Wielenga, a two-decade veteran customs investigator at Europe’s largest port, blocked the shipment. ‘I slept pretty well that night,’ she said on a recent morning as she paced up the terminal where hundreds of colorful cargo containers, many bound for Russia, were stacked for detailed manual inspection. ...”
Infrastructure and construction works are conducted in Ukraine's Mariupol, which is under control of Russian forces after long conflicts, as Russia-Ukraine war continue on July 06, 2022.
The Colossus of Maroussi - Henry Miller (1941)
“I was watching the sunset on the Greek island of Hydra with my best friend when I suddenly said, ‘I think I hate Henry Miller.’ I’d just raced through The Colossus of Maroussi and then Tropic of Cancer. So, as my friend and I perched on rough stones by the sea, I forced her to listen to my least favorite passages from Tropic of Cancer. ... Does the moment redeem the mass of it? Can I recommend The Colossus of Maroussi for the sake of one gemlike isle? The question engenders other questions: what, if anything, redeems a work of literature? Is the language of redemption even appropriate? What about the language of possession? Yours, mine. Give, take. ...”
2010 March: Dinner With Henry (1979), 2011 December: Asleep & Awake (1975), 2013 April: Henry Miller, 2014 April: Henry Miller, Brooklyn Hater, 2015 July: Henry Miller Interviews, 2015 August: The Air-Conditioned Nightmare (1970), 2016 January: Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch (1957)
Barbara Kruger: ‘Anyone who is shocked by what’s happening has not been paying attention’
“Few creators can claim the Museum of Modern Art and Rage Against the Machine as fans and collaborators. Yet, this is the unifying power of 77-year-old conceptual artist Barbara Kruger’s work: it’s immediate, powerful, and, as her legion of imitators has proven, it also looks great on a T-shirt.Known for iconic text works proclaiming ‘I shop therefore I am’ and ‘Your body is a battleground’ – the latter given new life last spring as an incendiary cover for New York Magazine – the artist remains ever humble. ...”
2008 February: Barbara Kruger, 2013 February: The Globe Shrinks, Barbara Kruger, 2014 June: Barbara Kruger at Modern Art Oxford, 2021 February: the artwork - Oral History: Barbara Kruger
Ukraine war: 21,000 alleged war crimes being investigated, prosecutor says
“Ukraine says it is investigating more than 21,000 war crimes and crimes of aggression allegedly committed by Russia since the start of its invasion. Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova told the BBC she was receiving reports of between 200 to 300 war crimes a day.She admitted that many trials would be held in absentia, but stressed that it was ‘a question of justice’ to continue with the prosecutions.Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February. It denies all war crimes allegations. Speaking to the BBC's World Service Outside Source programme, Ms Venediktova warned that Russian soldiers who killed, tortured or raped civilians ‘should understand that it's only a question of time when they all will be in court’. ...”
Fighters in Ukraine’s Odin Unit, made up of Ukrainians and foreign volunteers including Britons and Americans, during an operation in March in Irpin.
Tour de France stage 6: Tadej Pogačar takes stunning win and yellow jersey
“Tadej Pogačar followed up his strong showing on the cobbles with a similarly impressive blitz through the Ardennes on Thursday, nabbing the seventh Tour de France stage win of his career. The UAE Team Emirates rider answered an early jump by Primož Roglič (Jumbo-Visma) inside the final 400 metres of a hilly finale, blasting clear of the others in a select front group and hitting the line first. ...”
Guardian: Thibaut Pinot still France’s favourite but hopes of home glory thin on the ground (July 3)
Relentless fighters: The favorite to win the Tour, Slovenia's Tadej Pogacar, and the other riders struggle through dust and over cobblestones on Stage 5
Twyla Tharp and David Byrne - The Catherine Wheel (1982)
“An evening-long collaborative work between Tharp and David Byrne (of The Talking Heads), The Catherine Wheel is a continuous piece of dance/theater that makes its way toward a firework-like finale [see: The Golden Section] through episodes presenting the disintegration of the nuclear family, while ruminating on the detonation of nuclear weapons. The dance ensemble becomes a cast of specifically defined characters: The Leader and The Chorus; The Mother; The Father; The Sister; The Brother; The Maid; The Pet; and The Poet. A pineapple prop plays a part as its natural self and as its symbolic self, as a nickname for explosive devices. ...”
How War in Ukraine Roiled Russia’s ‘Coolest Company’
“What a difference a war makes. Just a few months ago, Yandex stood out as a rare Russian business success story, having mushroomed from a small start-up into a tech colossus that not only dominated search and ride-hailing across Russia, but boasted a growing global reach. A Yandex app could hail a taxi in far-flung cities like Abidjan, Ivory Coast; Oslo, Norway; or Tashkent, Uzbekistan; and the company delivered groceries in London, Paris and Tel Aviv. Fifty experimental Yandex robots trundled across the campus of Ohio State University in Columbus, bringing Grubhub food orders to students — with plans to expand to some 250 American campuses. ...”
A man walks in the rubble near damaged buildings, as Russia's invasion of Ukraine continues, in Bakhmut, Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine in this still image obtained from a social media video released on July 2, 2022.
Nerval's Lobster: Is walking a crustacean any more ridiculous than a dog?
“Before Rimbaud, before the Surrealists, there was Nerval (1808 – 1855), living his life as if it were a lucid dream. Of course, it didn't hurt that his mental skies flickered with the chain lightning of madness—bouts of insanity that condemned him to periodic stays in asylums and, ultimately, self-murder. ... T.S. Eliot sampled him in his modernist mash-up The Waste Land. Proust thought he was one of the most important French writers of the 19th century. Yet Nerval lives on in the collective unconscious of the Google Age not as the visionary Romantic who wrote the hallucinatory sonnet sequence Les Chimères but as the eccentric's eccentric: the boulevardier who took his pet lobster for a walk, on a leash made of blue ribbon, in the jardins of the Palais-Royal. ...”
2016 June: Voyage to the Orient (1851), 2017 March: Selected Writings of Gerard De Nerval (1957), 2017 October: Les Filles du feu (1854), 2019 March: Sylvie (1853), 2020 May: Queen of Sheba
Stephen Scott – New Music For Bowed Piano (1984)
“Take the 200-year-old tradition of piano music for four hands, multiply it by, oh, two and a half, and cross it with Henry Cowell and John Cage’s experiments on the pianoforte’s inner regions, otherwise known as prepared piano. When the room stops spinning, what you might end up with is Stephen Scott. ... Piano preparation has the rep of being noisy and cranky, but Cage’s early pieces were often purposely lovely and gamelanlike. Scott explores similarly exotic territory, preferring echoey sonorities and consonant harmonies over grating and dissonance. ...”
YouTube: The Bowed Piano Ensemble perform Stephen Scott's Entrada (Live), Stephen Scott demonstrates the Bowed Piano (Live)
YouTube: New Music For Bowed Piano - 6 videos
‘Like ghosts’: Inside an occupied apartment building in Ukraine
“Hostomel, Ukraine – Andrii Kurpich, a towering, leather-clad 49-year-old chauffeur, manoeuvres his way through the dark and dingy basement of a half-ruined apartment block in Hostomel, a town about 20km (12 miles) northwest of Kyiv. Water drips from the overhead pipes into murky puddles and a stale humid smell hangs in the air. This eerie underground network of corridors and partially flooded rooms was home to nine of the block’s residents, including Andrii and his wife, Viktoria Kurpich, for more than a week after Russian troops stormed the building on March 5, 2022. Viktoria, a cheerful 51-year-old homemaker with short blonde hair, dressed all in black, says she was ‘terrified the soldiers would kill us’ when they knocked on their front door and ordered them outside with their hands up. ...”
Russian shelling has laid waste to large areas of the city
The Algerian Revolution Changed the World for the Better
“Algeria today presents the world with a closed, distrustful face. Although its revolutionary state survived the tumultuous ruptures of the late twentieth century, it has been plagued by border conflicts, Islamist insurgencies, and, most recently, widespread youth protests. However, the legacy of the Algerian people and their liberation state is as dynamic, internationalist, and courageous as any in the world — the proud equal of a Cuba or a Vietnam in revolutionary heroics. A century ago, Algeria stood at the heart of the French empire, as central to the French imperial project as India was to the British. Algeria was partly settled by white colons, who considered it their homeland and did not view themselves as a caste of imperial administrators. ...”
2021 May: The Battle of Algiers
A celebration to mark the independence of Algeria in the summer of 1962.
Kondi Band – We Famous (2021)
“Kondi Band finds, or maybe forges, the link between hand-hewn folk music and modern electronic music. Led by Sierra Leone’s Sorie Kondi playing a custom-build 15-pin lamellophone called the ‘kondi,’ the band is a collaboration with producers Chief Boima and Will LV, based in Los Angeles and London respectively. But Kondi (the man) and kondi (the instrument) are unmistakably the star of Kondi (the band). The modern production is always graciously at service to Kondi’s beautiful voice, and rhythmic playing. ...”
What is life like in Russia-occupied areas of Ukraine?
“Kyiv, Ukraine – It wasn’t a knock, it was loud banging – at about 7:30 on a recent Saturday morning. Taras opened the door of his two-bedroom apartment in Kreminna, a town in Ukraine’s southeastern Luhansk region that was taken over by Russia in late April, to see three gun-toting soldiers in camouflage. ‘Do you have a garage on the corner?’ the oldest of them, a redhead in his late 20s, asked Taras imperatively. Without waiting for his answer, the soldier continued: ‘Open it up.’ He was talking about a group of three dozen garages built in the early 1980s, an area which had become an informal club, where men could have a drink, crack a joke and play backgammon or chess. ...”
Destroyed vehicles are pictured in the city of Lysychansk in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donba
A History of Rucker Park: The True Mecca of Basketball
“Walk into Harlem’s Rucker Park, located on 155th Street and Frederick Douglass Boulevard in New York City—right across the street from where the Polo Grounds used to stand—on an ordinary afternoon, and you might not understand. Not right away at least. Sure, there are bleachers, both metal and concrete, surrounding the single court, and there’s a scoreboard above the seats by midcourt. Other than that though, it’s just one more blacktop in a city that has thousands of them. ...”
Derrida (2002)
“DERRIDA is a complex personal and theoretical portrait of the internationally renowned French philosopher, Jacques Derrida. Best known for generating a movement known as ‘deconstruction’, Derrida's radical rethinking of the founding precepts of Western metaphysics has profoundly influenced the fields of literature, philosophy, ethics, architecture and law, inalterably transforming the intellectual landscape of the 20th and 21st centuries. Produced with Derrida's full cooperation and consent, the film is the most ambitious cinematic project ever undertaken with a world-class philosopher. ...”
Investigators of War Crimes in Ukraine Face Formidable Challenges
“KOROPY, Ukraine — Four men tugged at long strips of fabric to lift a coffin out of the gaping hole in the backyard of a small house. They flung the lid open to reveal the moldy corpse of Oleksiy Ketler, who had been killed instantly by shrapnel when a mortar fell on the road in Koropy, a village outside Khavkiv in northeastern Ukraine, in March. Mr. Ketler, a father of two young children, would have celebrated his 33rd birthday on June 25, if he had not been outside his house at the wrong time. Now, his body has become another exhibit in Ukraine’s wide-ranging effort to collect evidence to prosecute Russia and its military for war crimes in the brutal killings of Ukrainian civilians. ...”
The fighting caused a blaze at an oil refinery near Lysychansk
Liquid Light: Painting in Watercolours
“Featuring approximately 200 works from more than 170 artists, this large exhibition features the Laing Art Gallery's nationally significant collection of watercolours, spanning more than three centuries of art. The show includes important pictures from the 'golden age' from about 1780 to 1880, when British watercolours became established as an influential art movement, admired in Europe. Landscape painting was the initial focus of this, with artists achieving pictures than glowed with light or recreated the sensation of weather, generating drama and emotion. ...”
Clara Montalba, A Festa on the Grand Canal, Venice, 1870
Frantz Fanon – The Political Writings from Alienation and Freedom
“The 23 essays that appear in The Political Writings were extracted from the collection of recently discovered writings by Frantz Fanon called Alienation and Freedom, first published in French in 2015. Edited by Jean Khalfa and Robert J. C. Young and translated by Steven Corcoran, The Political Writings largely draws from Fanon’s contributions to the radical Algerian independence newspaper El Moudjahid, and they date from August 1957 to February 1961. Each was written in direct response to events in an ongoing anticolonial revolution, at the center of which was May 13, 1958, and its aftermath....”
2017 October: The Wretched of the Earth (1961), 2021 January: Frantz Fanon: Black Skin, White Mask - Isaac Julien (1995)
Ukraine demands the seizure of Russian-flagged grain ship off Turkey
“Ukraine has called for a ship carrying grain from a Russian-occupied part of the country to be seized. The ship is currently lying off the Turkish coast. We've monitored the Russian-flagged ship, the Zhibek Zholy, on its route from the Ukrainian port of Berdyansk to the Turkish port of Karasu. It is not clear where its cargo came from or how it was obtained, but Russia has been accused of stealing grain from areas of Ukraine it controls - allegations Russia denies. ...”
Rebel Music: 11 Of The Best Reggae Protest Songs
“Whether fighting for the legalization of cannabis or battling dark forces in politics, the best reggae protest songs spoke to their times yet continue to resonate today. Whether warning rudies of doom around the corner, fighting for the legalization of cannabis, or battling dark forces in politics, the best reggae protest songs have spoken to their times and yet continue to resonate today. Here are 11 of the best reggae protest songs that remain timeless classics. ...”
Why Can’t They See? The Lost World Of The Twenties Group
“Look at this: a painting of a worker, crucified. Here is an image of poverty that shocks despite the obviousness of the metaphor. At the foot of the cross sits his grieving wife and dog. On his left some co-workers shake their fists at three Bullingdon Club types on the right. A soldier armed with a rifle protects the nabobs. In the background policemen on horses bop strikers. Is this a vision of now? Is it by Coldwar Steve? No – this is An Allegory of Social Strife, the work of Archibald Ziegler done sometime in the 1920s. Ziegler? Who he? Who knew we had our own George Grosz? ...”
Robert Greenham, On the Beach, 1934
Ukraine war: Russian missile strikes kill 21 in Odesa region - emergency service
“At least 21 people, including one child, have died in overnight Russian missile strikes on Ukraine's southern Odesa region, Ukrainian officials say. The state emergency service, DSNS, says 16 people were killed in a nine-storey building hit by one missile in the village of Serhiyivka. Another five people, including the child, were killed in a separate strike on a holiday resort in the village. Russia has fired dozens of missiles on Ukrainian cities in the past few days. On Friday Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov again denied that Russia was hitting civilian targets. ...”
The Russian missiles hit several targets in Serhiyivka - including this residential building - at about 01:00 on Friday
Tour de France Preview: Pogacar Leads the Way Once Again
“The Tour de France is preparing to roll out of the starting gate again on Friday, with this year’s race set to feature a dominant young champion, a climb up the famous Alpe d’Huez and the debut of a multistage women’s race after the men’s event concludes. How can I watch? USA Network will show most of the stages in the United States, with NBC jumping in for Stage 2 — the first mass-start road stage on Saturday — and the final two stages. Peacock will stream every stage of the race. ...”
2008 July: Tour de France 2008, 2009 July: Tour de France 2009, 2010 July: Tour de France 2010, 2011 July: Tour de France 2011, 2012 July: 2012 Tour de France, 2015 July: 2015 Tour de France, 2015 July: Tour de France 2015: Team Time Trial Win Bolsters American’s Shot at Podium, 2015 July: Tour de France: Chris Froome completes historic British win, 2016 July: 2016 Tour de France, 2017 July: 2017 Tour de France, 2018 May: 2018 Giro d'Italia, 2019 July: 2018 Tour de France, 2019 July: Tour de France 2019, 2021 July: 2021 Tour de France
Renata Adler: Troll or Treasure?
“... And knowing this, I understand that there is something truly, yes, psychedelic about Renata Adler. I don’t mean drugs, of course. Forget drugs. Adler, now 76, has always written as if she’s never taken a drug in her life—as if the fiercest, purest jinni of a mind-expanding molecule, upon approaching the crystal ramparts of her consciousness, would wither up in shame. Her reputation, in mid-2015, feels floaty and diffracted—quite Internet, really, in that it doesn’t completely scan, and it has an undertow. Some people adore her fiction: her two novels, Speedboat (1976) and Pitch Dark (1983), were reprinted to fresh accolades in 2013. ...”
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