“The New York state attorney general filed a sweeping lawsuit Wednesday against former President Donald Trump, three of his adult children and the Trump Organization, alleging they were involved in an expansive fraud lasting over a decade that the former President used to enrich himself. In the more than 200-page lawsuit, Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat, alleges the fraud touched all aspects of the Trump business, including its properties and golf courses. According to the lawsuit, the Trump Organization deceived lenders, insurers and tax authorities by inflating the value of his properties using misleading appraisals. ...”
All of Aaron Judge’s Homers, From 1 to 60
“After hitting his 60th home run of the season on Tuesday, Aaron Judge went for 61 at home on Wednesday in a game against the Pittsburgh Pirates. He didn’t go deep, but he did double twice and he scored two runs in a blowout win. As Judge pursues the Yankees’ single-season home run record — every non-Yankee who has hit at least 60 home runs has been connected to performance-enhancing drugs — we are tracking his progress against where Roger Maris was at in 1961 (when he hit 61) and where Babe Ruth was at in 1927 (when he hit 60). ...”
Ukraine at UN: We need a Nuremberg-style war crimes trial
“NEW YORK — As world leaders gather for the U.N. General Assembly in New York, Ukraine’s government hopes to use the event to press its case for a special tribunal to prosecute war crimes. With the war in Ukraine set to dominate proceedings, and new evidence of mass killings emerging in recent days, Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s administration sees a window of opportunity to turn global diplomatic opinion. It wants backing for a Nuremberg-style trial to be established to investigate atrocities committed by Russian troops. The discovery of more than 450 bodies in mass graves in Izium in the East of the country last week as Ukrainian forces moved in on Russian-held territory has bolstered Ukraine’s case. Zelenskyy has said there is evidence of torture, branding Russia a ‘state sponsor of terrorism,’ with Oleg Synegubov, head of Kharkiv’s regional administration, stating that bodies were found with hands tied behind their backs. Several news agencies confirmed the reports during a visit to the site organized by Ukrainian authorities on Friday. ...”
United Nations
54 Dance Programs, Festivals and More Coming This Fall
“Compared to the strange, transformative exhilaration of last fall’s return to live performance, this season’s dance calendar feels both more abundant and more introspective. Many presenters are back to their pre-shutdown schedules and are once again able to welcome an array of international performers; many dance artists are only beginning to reckon with the fallout of the pandemic and other global crises, exploring themes of grief and upheaval. ...”
The choreographer Yvonne Rainer, here in 1982, says that her new dance, which will have its premiere at New York Live Arts in October, will be her last.
Terrance Hayes’s Soundtracks for Most Any Occasion
“When we asked Terrance Hayes to make a playlist for you, our readers, he wrote us a poem. Of course he did. As Hayes told Hilton Als in his Art of Poetry interview in our new Fall issue, formal constraints offer him ‘a way to get free.’ Many of Hayes’s poems derive their titles from song names and lyrics; others are influenced by the mood of a particular album or track. Music, he tells Als, ‘changes the air in the room.’ This particular playlist-poem has a track for almost any kind of air—or room—you might find yourself in this week. Read and listen to ‘Occasional Soundtracks’ below. ...”
Ukraine’s Counteroffensive Forces Face Mobilized Inmates and Drones
“BAKHMUT, Ukraine — In battlefields in the rolling hills of the Donbas in eastern Ukraine, and near the Black Sea in the south, Ukrainian troops have stubbornly tried to inch forward without losing control of territory, facing an opponent whose forces have been bolstered by inmates-turned-fighters and by Iranian drones. ’Perhaps it seems to someone now that after a series of victories we have a certain lull,’ President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said in his nightly address Sunday. ‘But this is not a lull. This is preparation for the next sequence.’ Over the weekend, Ukraine’s Army built up the pressure in the country’s south, with forces striking Russian military strongholds and targeting sites used by local officials loyal to the Kremlin. They are also continuing to hit the supply lines for thousands of Russian soldiers on the western bank of the Dnipro River. Ukraine’s strikes in the important Russian-held city of Kherson seemed to rattle security there, with firefights and broad disorder reported. ...”
Guardian: Footage released by Ukraine purports to show shelling at nuclear plant in Pivdennoukrainsk (Video)
A Ukrainian soldier in front of a hotel in Kramatorsk on Sunday. It was struck by a Russian missile overnight.
Floridita - Havana, Cuba
“Floridita or El Floridita is a historic fish restaurant and cocktail bar in the older part of Havana (La Habana Vieja), Cuba. It lies at the end of Calle Obispo (Bishop Street), across Monserrate Street from the National Museum of Fine Arts of Havana (Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de La Habana). The establishment is famous for its daiquiris and for having been one of the favourite hangouts of Ernest Hemingway in Havana. ... The establishment was frequented by many generations of Cuban and foreign intellectuals and artists. Ezra Pound, John Dos Passos, and Graham Greene, the British novelist who wrote Our Man in Havana, were also frequent customers. ...”
The roses in the window guards outside an East 51st Street townhouse
“Sometimes you come across a New York row house with enchanting, floral-inspired window guards and railings, like the Art Nouveau iron grilles outside this Riverside Drive townhouse. There’s also the iron blooms on the balconies of the Chelsea Hotel, and the tangle of vines that make up the iron railings outside the front windows of J.P. Morgan’s former mansion in Murray Hill. But equally beautiful are the wrought-iron roses and rose leafs decorating the oval window guards on the ground floor of 331 East 51st Street (above, top)—a five-story elegant townhouse between First and Second Avenues in Turtle Bay. ...”
Russia turns to trucks and big wages to woo volunteer soldiers
“The Russian army, seeking contract soldiers for what it calls the ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine, is using mobile recruiting trucks to attract volunteers, offering nearly $2,700 a month as an incentive. A special unit stationed one such truck in a central park in the southern Russian city of Rostov on Saturday and removed the sides to reveal a mobile office. Soldiers in camouflage and black masks showed their guns to interested passersby and handed out colour brochures titled ‘Military service on a contract – the choice of a real man’. Neither Russia nor Ukraine discloses their military losses, which Western intelligence agencies estimate at tens of thousands on both sides.Moscow has not updated the official death toll since March 25, when it said 1,351 Russian soldiers had been killed and 3,825 wounded. The Kremlin said last week there was no discussion of a nationwide mobilisation to bolster its forces. ...”
BBC: Putin failing on all his strategic military objectives, says defence chiefPutin failing on all his strategic military objectives, says defence chief (Video)
Soldiers in camouflage and black masks showed their guns to interested passersby and handed out colour brochures titled 'Military service on a contract - the choice of a real man”
On Malcolm Lowry’s Yearslong, Fruitless Attempt to Adapt Fitzgerald’s Tender Is the Night for Film
“In the winter of 1949, after a year-long trip to Europe, Malcolm Lowry and his wife, Margerie, returned to their home, a squatter’s shack on the ocean north of Vancouver. Lowry was two years removed from the publication of Under the Volcano, and its surprise success had made him a literary star. The ensuing pressure of being a public figure and the need to produce something else of value exacerbated his already excessive drinking; by his own count, he was up to two liters of rum a day, ‘to say nothing of the other drinks at bars.’ He had not written anything in two years. ...”
2018 November: Under the Volcano - Malcolm Lowry (John Huston - 1984), 2020 August: Malcolm Lowry - Under the Volcano (1947)
2015 November: The Crack-Up (1945), 2017 December: Living Well Is the Best Revenge By Calvin Tomkins, 2019 August: Three Letters from Switzerland By Zelda Fitzgeralds, 2020 November: A Few Words about F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Pretenders - Pretenders (1979)
“Pretenders is the debut studio album by British-American band The Pretenders, released in 1979. A combination of rock and roll, punk and new wave music, this album made the band famous. The album features the singles ‘Stop Your Sobbing’, ‘Kid‘ and ‘Brass in Pocket’. Nick Lowe produced the Pretenders' first single, ‘Stop Your Sobbing’, but decided not to work with them again as he thought the band was ‘not going anywhere’. Chris Thomas took over on the subsequent recording sessions....”
The ‘Wild Field’ Where Putin Sowed the Seeds of War
“CHASIV YAR, Ukraine — On a clear spring morning eight years ago, Oleksandr Khainus stepped outside his house to go to work at the town factory when he spotted new graffiti scrawled across his fence. ‘Glory to Russia,’ vandals had written in angry black spray paint. ‘Putin,’ another message said. Mr. Khainus was perplexed. It was true that Chasiv Yar, the Rust Belt-like town where he has spent his entire life in a region called the Donbas, had long contained many conflicting opinions on its identity. Geographically, the Donbas was part of Ukraine, no question, but it was so close to Russia and so tied to it historically that many maintained that their true home really lay eastward. ...”
A road outside Chasiv Yar with mountains of slag visible on the horizon.
Architect Breaks Down Five of the Most Iconic New York City Apartments
“Real estate is a perennially hot topic in New York City, as is gentrification. Above, architect Michael Wyetzner, breaks down the defining features of several typical NYC apartments. You’re on your own to truffle up the sort of rent a 340 square feet studio commands in an East Village tenement these days. The ancestors would be shocked, for sure. My late mother-in-law never tired of causing young jaws to drop by revealing how she once paid $27/month for a 1 bedroom on Sheridan Square…and her mother, who immigrated at the turn of the century, couldn’t wait to put the Lower East Side behind her. ...”
How to win the World Cup - Chris Evans (2022)
The art of international football management – by those who’ve done it: "The pinnacle of the game. A job reserved only for the very best. That was how an international manager’s role was viewed for decades. The World Cup was where the globe’s top coaches would meet in the dugout, just as the best players were doing so on the pitch. While the growing importance of domestic leagues and the Champions League has curbed international football’s reputation in the 21st century, there remains a special enchantment to leading a national team to glory. No other job in football gives a manager the chance to bring such unbridled joy to so many people. ..."
Ukraine war: Hundreds of graves found in liberated Izyum city - officials
“Ukraine says hundreds of graves have been found outside Izyum, days after it was re-taken from Russia. Wooden crosses, most of them marked with numbers, were discovered in a forest outside the city by advancing Ukrainian forces. Authorities said they would start exhuming some of the graves on Friday.It is not yet clear what happened to the victims, but early accounts suggest some may have died from shelling and a lack of access to healthcare.Speaking on Friday, the head of Ukraine's national police service said most of the bodies belonged to civilians. Ihor Klymenko told a news conference that although soldiers were also believed to be buried there, there was so far no confirmation. Earlier, Ukrainian authorities told the BBC more than 400 bodies were thought to be buried at the site. ...”
Jane Bowles: Collected Writings
“In a brilliant handful of works, Jane Bowles (1917–1973) fashioned an uninhibited avant-garde style, a dazzling compound of spare prose and vivid dialogue that has enjoyed an outsized literary influence. Tennessee Williams called her ‘the most important writer of prose fiction in modern American letters’; Truman Capote said she was a ‘modern legend’; and for John Ashbery she was ‘one of the finest modern writers of fiction in any language.’ The modernist classic Two Serious Ladies (1943), a novel inspired by the author’s honeymoon in Mexico with her husband, the writer and composer Paul Bowles, follows two bourgeois American women in Panama as they jettison sexual and cultural norms in search of happiness and liberation: newlywed Frieda Copperfield, who seeks love and comfort in the arms of a young Panamanian girl, and Christina Goering, a wealthy spinster whose unorthodox pursuit of salvation leads her into a world of shiftless men and seedy bars. ...”
The artist who fills potholes with mosaics – in pictures
“Em Emem is an anonymous, Lyon-based artist. ‘But I’m just a sidewalk poet, a son of bitumen,’ he says. His work involves filling potholes and cracked walls on city streets with beautiful mosaic designs, a process he calls ‘flacking‘ – a play on the French word flaque, meaning puddle or patch. He started in 2016, after becoming ‘hypnotised’ by the scarred surfaces of the old alley that housed his first workshop. ‘My work is the story of the city, where cobblestones have been displaced; a truck from the vegetable market tore off a piece of asphalt,’ he says. ‘Each becomes a flack.’ ...”
The Ukraine War: How Does It End?
“The stunning success of Ukraine’s counteroffensive east of Kharkiv and the accelerating progress made toward Kherson in the south has, to astute observers, brought to mind a famous line from Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises. Drinking with his buddies, the character Mike Campbell—a kind of ‘proto-bro’—is asked how he became bankrupt. ... As Lawrence Freedman notes, the sort of collapse we’re seeing from Russia’s forces is familiar to military historians. ... Freedman analogizes Russia’s current conundrum to that of the Afghan National Army last year, but the story of the German Imperial Army in late 1918 is also worth pondering. After imposing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk on Trotsky, Lenin, and the Bolsheviks in 1917, German General Erich Ludendorff turned westward to try to defeat the Allies before American reinforcements could arrive in Europe in large numbers....”
A monument to the Ukrainian-born Russian writer Isaak Babel in Odesa.
Rescuing an Off Off Broadway Theater With a Storied Past
“When Edith O’Hara, the mother hen and indefatigable leader of the eclectic 13th Street Repertory Company for nearly half a century, died last fall at age 103, the future became decidedly shaky for one of Off Off Broadway’s longest-operating stages. In an effort to ensure that it’s not the end of the run as well for the antebellum brick house where both the theater and Ms. O’Hara made their homes, preservationists are urging the city to grant landmark protection to the three-story Greek Revival structure. ...”
New research shows that the 1840s rowhouse at 50 West 13th Street was owned by Jacob Day, an abolitionist businessman, who was one of the wealthiest Black residents of 19th-century New York City.
Joseph Kamaru a.k.a KMRU
“... Following our launch with Laraaji to coincide with World Mental Health day, we welcome Nairobi-based producer Joseph Kamaru a.k.a KMRU. With a proclivity for drones and field recordings, Joseph’s sounds is warm and enveloping, maximal in its textured simplicity. Based in a city whose musical identity is vibrant and multi-faceted, KMRU is an outlier of sorts, but his authenticity is tantamount to his success; a quality instilled by his grandfather of the same name, whose work as a benga musician and political activists has made him a Kenyan hero. ...”
U.S. Military Aid to Ukraine Grows to Historic Proportions — Along With Risks
“Since Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February, the U.S. government has pumped more money and weapons into supporting the Ukrainian military than it sent in 2020 to Afghanistan, Israel, and Egypt combined — surpassing in a matter of months three of the largest recipients of U.S. military aid in history. Keeping track of the numbers is challenging. Since the war started, U.S. officials have announced a flurry of initiatives aimed at supporting Ukrainian defense efforts while keeping short of a more direct involvement in the conflict. On Thursday, on a surprise visit to Kyiv, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced a new $675 million package of U.S. military equipment as well as a $2.2 billion ‘long-term’ investment to bolster the security of Ukraine and 17 of its neighbor countries. ...”
Nancy Kay Turner
“... Nancy Kay Turner’s two and three -dimensional mixed –media works incorporate text and image while exploring the intersection of memory and identity. The work– which mediates between past, present and future, examines the mysterious way objects retain remembrance, how fragments can suggest an entire story, and how we have a fickle relationship to our own history.She grew up in an apartment in the Bronx. Deprived of an attic and family objects of historical or emotional importance, she has had to look through others actual and metaphorical ‘attics.’ Her mixed-media work has been written about in ‘Crossing Over: Feminism and the Art of Social Concern’ by Arlene Raven, and ‘The Power of Feminist Art: The American Movement of the 1970’s, History and Impact’ edited by Norma Broude and Mary D. Garrard. ...“
Spray Nation: 1980s NYC Graffiti Photos - Martha Cooper (2022)
“... Page after page of golden NYC hits from the Martha Cooper archive; this new hardcover tome expands the galaxy for fans and academics of that amber-soaked period when it seemed like New York was leading a Spray Nation of graffiti for cities across the country. Known for her ability to capture graffiti writers’ work in its original urban context, Ms. Cooper once again proves that her reputation as the documentarian of an underground/overground aesthetics scene is no joke. With an academics’ respect for the work, the practice, and the practitioners, Cooper recorded volumes of images methodically for history – and your appreciation. ...”
Ukraine’s wins turn focus back on Europe’s waning military aid
“Ukraine’s swift battlefield advances are forcing European governments to once again confront an uncomfortable question: Will they significantly boost weapons deliveries? It’s a touchy subject in many European capitals, where the energy crisis and cost-of-living woes have dominated public attention over the past weeks, prompting warnings of war fatigue. But Ukraine’s counteroffensive against Russia in recent days has changed the narrative — at least for the moment — giving a new opening to those wanting European governments to step up their arms deliveries. First among them is the Ukrainian government itself. ...”
A Russian soldier, taken prisoner, stays on a tank with Ukrainian soldiers after the city was recaptured from Russian forces on Sunday in Izyum, Ukraine.
Jean-Luc Godard, Daring Director Who Shaped the French New Wave, Dies at 91
“Jean-Luc Godard, the daringly innovative director and provocateur whose unconventional camera work, disjointed narrative style and penchant for radical politics changed the course of filmmaking in the 1960s, leaving a lasting influence on it, died on Tuesday at his home in the district of Rolle, Switzerland. He was 91. His longtime legal adviser, Patrick Jeanneret, said Mr. Godard died by assisted suicide, having suffered from ‘multiple disabling pathologies.’ ... In practice he seldom scrambled the timeline of his films, preferring instead to leap forward through his narratives by means of the elliptical “jump cut,” which he did much to make into a widely accepted tool. ...”
The First Transit Map: a Close Look at the Subway-Style Tabula Peutingeriana of the 5th-Century Roman Empire
“The first subway train, as we know such things today, entered service in 1890. Its path is now part of the Northern line of the London Underground, itself the first urban metro system. The success of the Tube, as it’s commonly known, didn’t come right away; the whole thing was on the brink of failure, in fact, before creations like 1914’s Wonderground Map of London Town aided its public understanding and bolstered its public image. At the time, Britain still commanded a great empire with London as its capital; the Wonderground Map placed the London Underground in the context of the city, making legible the still fairly novel concept of an underground train system with copious whimsical detail. ...”
A close-up of the Tabula Peutingeriana.
Ukraine’s surprising counteroffensive forces Russian troops to flee
“A surprise counteroffensive over the weekend saw Ukrainian troops push into areas around Kharkiv in the northeast, liberating villages and cities, and catching Russian troops flat-footed. The swift maneuvers threatened to encircle a portion of the Russian army and led them to rapidly abandon positions and military hardware as Ukrainian troops closed in. The counteroffensive has recaptured around 1,160 square miles of territory since it began in earnest earlier this month, commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyy told the Associated Press Sunday. The eastward push caught Russian forces off-guard and forced several units to abandon their posts as Ukrainian troops took control of the strategic cities of Izyum, Balakliia, and Kupiansk — critical areas for the Russian supply and logistics line in the Donbas region. ...”
NBC News: Ukraine drove Russian forces back with a stunning offensive. What now for Putin's war? (Video)
Ukrainian flag waves after Ukrainian army liberated the town of Balakliya in the southeastern Kharkiv oblast, Ukraine, on September 11, 2022.
Read Your Way Through Mexico City
“Álvaro Pombo, a Spanish author, came to Mexico City in 2004. He’d written a novel that took place during the religious revolts of early 20th century Mexico, and wanted to know what the country he’d studied in books was like, he said. So he installed himself in a hotel in the city center and went for a walk. He saw the murals of the Palacio Nacional, the Aztec dancers outside the cathedral, the ruins of the Templo Mayor and the skulls alluding to human sacrifice. Later, he toured a street market filled with a baroque assortment of fruit, animals and Chinese goods. ...”
“The Angels Rejoiced Last Night” - Gram Parsons / Emmylou Harris
“... Instead, he headed back to Los Angeles late in 1971, spending the rest of the year and the first half of 1972 writing material for an impending solo album. He met Emmylou Harris through Chris Hillman, and Gram Parsons asked her to join his backing band; she accepted. By the summer of 1972, he was prepared to enter the studio to record his first solo album. Parsons had assembled a band -- which included Harris, guitarist James Burton, bassist Rick Grech, Barry Tashian, Glen D. Hardin, and Ronnie Tutt -- and had asked Merle Haggard to produce the album. ...”
2008 March: Gram Parsons, 2011 March: Gram Parsons & Emmylou Harris. Liberty Hall, Texas, 1973, 2012 May: Sweetheart of the Rodeo, 2013 January: Gram Parsons: Fallen Angel, 2013 September: Flying Burrito Brothers - Live At The Avalon Ballroom 1969, 2014 February: The Gilded Palace of Sin - The Flying Burrito Brothers (1969), 2014 March: Burrito Deluxe - The Flying Burrito Brothers (1970), 2014 May: GP (1973), 2014 September: Grievous Angel (1974), 2015 October: Top 10 Gram Parsons Songs, 2016 November: Death of Gram Parsons, 2017 March: Sleepless Nights (1976), 2017 April: The Complete Reprise Sessions (2006)
Ukraine recaptures territory from Russian forces in Kharkiv
“Ukraine's armed forces have recaptured large swaths of territory and are making ‘significant gains’ against Russia's occupation of the northwest region of Kharkiv, the U.K.'s defense ministry said in an intelligence briefing Sunday. Russian forces have likely ‘withdrawn units from the area,’ but fighting continues around the strategically important cities of Kupiansk and Izyum, it said in its daily update on the war in Ukraine, posted to Twitter. Ukraine's government claims Russia's retreat from Kharkiv is a major turning point in the six-month-old conflict, as thousands of Russian soldiers abandoned their weapons and ammunition stockpiles to flee the Ukrainian advance, they said....”
A destroyed Russian military vehicle in Balakliya, in the eastern Kharkiv region, on Saturday.
History of the World Map by Map
“History of the World Map by Map proves that maps don't just show us where to go, but also where we've been. A stunning overview of all human history, side by side with 140 custom maps. This stunning visual reference book starts with the evolution and migration of our oldest ancestors out of Africa. You can then look up maps about the Greece and Persian War, the Mongol Conquests, Medieval Europe's trade routes, and the rise of the Ottomans. There are maps about the colonization of North America, the scientific revolution, Napoleon's advances, and Britain's control of India. There's more in later centuries, like the Age of Imperialism, the American Civil War, industrialized Europe, and the transformation of Japan. ...”
Fall Music Preview ~ Experimental
“The world may often seem stagnant, but as long as there is art, there is hope. In every field ~ art, music, cinema, literature and more ~ experimentalists test the boundaries of the expected, breaking through to unexplored territories. Today’s experimental music may become tomorrow’s mainstream, or may not ~ the value is in the searching, striving and finding. Why play the note as it is written? Why play the note at all? Is music found only in instruments? Can the random be considered composed? These questions and more are tackled by this season’s roster. ...”
Russians Retreat as Ukraine Presses Lightning Offensive
“KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian forces have scored the most significant battlefield gains since they routed Russia from the area around Kyiv in April by reclaiming territory in the northeast, according to Ukrainian officials, Western analysts and battlefield imagery. In his overnight address to the nation Thursday, President Volodymyr Zelensky said that the Ukrainian military had captured scores of villages and large chunks of Russian-occupied territory across Ukraine since the offensive began. “In total, more than a thousand square kilometers of the territory of Ukraine have been liberated since the beginning of September,” he said. On Friday the Ukrainian military appeared to be moving rapidly to cut off the city of Izium, a critical logistical hub for Russian military operations. ...”
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