"Virgil van Dijk puffed out his cheeks and wrapped his arms around Joe Gomez. Mohamed Salah may have been Liverpool’s match-winner but this enthralling 1-0 triumph over Manchester City was built on firm foundations. Van Dijk has found himself in uncharted territory this season. His crown as the most complete centre-back in world football has slipped. As Liverpool’s defensive vulnerability has been repeatedly exposed, his form has been held up as a symptom of the team’s decline. There have been uncharacteristic errors and accusing fingers pointing in his direction. ...”
Prince of Enchantment: The 'Ud
"Sitting in his Pennsylvania workshop, surrounded by hanging tools and worktables, Najib Shaheen cradles a hand-crafted, wooden ‘ud (oud) in his arms. As he strums and picks, the nylon strings resonate along an Arab musical scale. Similar in size to an acoustic guitar but far different in shape and sound, the ‘ud is to many the most iconically Arab of all musical instruments. And Shaheen, whose expertise has earned him the nickname ‘Oudman,’ would know. Growing up in the Mediterranean coastal city of Haifa in the 1950s, the instrument has never been far from his reach. As a boy, he learned to play the round-backed, half-pear-shaped instrument amid an extraordinarily musical family. This included his father, Hikmat Shaheen, a well-known music educator, composer and ‘ud performer, and his younger brother Simon, who is today a virtuoso on both ‘ud and violin. ...”
How Vladimir Putin is thinking about the war
"Less than 48 hours after the Kerch Bridge connecting Crimea with Russia proper was damaged by a powerful blast, Vladimir Putin retaliated against Ukraine. Russia fired close to a hundred missiles at a variety of Ukrainian cities this past Monday and Tuesday. The rockets hit an array of buildings, including residences and schools, killing at least 19 civilians and injuring more than 100. While the missile attacks knocked out power and water to Ukraine’s largest cities, the value of the attacks was dubious at best. No military targets were hit. Ukraine’s population seems ever more determined to resist Russia. Experts pointed out that Russia retains a scarce number of precision-guided missiles, and it seemed like a waste to use them on these kinds of targets. Looking ahead, the attacks may well have also created a permission structure for NATO to arm Ukraine with better air defenses. ...”
NBC News: U.S. to provide Ukraine with more weapons as Putin signals end to unpopular mobilization drive (Video)
A mural of a hacker has appeared on the streets of Kyiv
The Jan. 6 Hearings Are Over. These 3 Things Must Happen Now.
"On Thursday, in what was probably its final public hearing before the election, the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol revealed new details about former President Donald Trump. Those details included Secret Service records documenting his determination to join a mob he knew was armed and headed for violence. The hearings have provided an indispensable record of an attempted coup that failed but that, as Representative Liz Cheney pointed out, threatens to recur. As the committee waits for the (unlikely) testimony of Mr. Trump, the torch now passes to other actors who hold the power to achieve accountability for the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol — and to prevent another one from happening. This task fits into three key areas. ...”
Fall Music Preview ~ Drone
"The tractors are plowing the fields, the leaf blowers are clearing the lawns, the construction crews are fixing the roads, and a new season of drone music ~ live and recorded ~ is upon us. Today’s drone post picks up from yesterday’s dark ambient cliffhanger, tilting us toward daylight savings, the harvest and Halloween.While late summer days continue to bring the heat, late summer nights yield a bit of chill, a tinge of the season to come, as the green begins to leach away, stolen by umber, russet and rust. ...”
Sarah Davachi - Two Sisters (2022)
Despite Its Barrage of Missiles, Russia Still Loses Ground in Ukraine
"KYIV, Ukraine — They exploded with dull thuds on the outskirts of towns and detonated in the center of cities with deafening booms. Strikes in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, left cars burning and splatters of blood on the sidewalks. Throughout this week, the Russian military fired its most intensive barrage of missiles at Ukraine since the start of the war in February, killing three dozen civilians, knocking out electricity and overwhelming air defenses. One thing the missiles did not do was change the course of the ground war. Fought mostly in trenches, with the most intense combat now in an area of rolling hills and pine forests in the east and on the open plains in the south, these battles are where control of territory is decided — and where Russia’s military continued to lose ground, despite its missile strikes. ...”
A dream job Sergei secured at the National Library of Russia kept him from leaving Russia. He finally escaped to Georgia, after Putin’s mobilization notice. “Some of the Georgians do call us racist slurs and they might kick Russian emigrants out,” he says. “We deserve it, but I hope it won’t come to that.”
Over 370 Republican Candidates Have Cast Doubt on the 2020 Election
"They include candidates for the U.S. House and Senate, and the state offices of governor, secretary of state and attorney general — many with clear shots to victory, and some without a chance. They are united by at least one issue: They have all expressed doubt about the legitimacy of the 2020 election. And they are the new normal of the Republican Party. About the data Karen Yourish and Danielle Ivory collected and analyzed statements of more than 550 Republican midterm candidates. Read more about their reporting. More than 370 people — a vast majority of Republicans running for these offices in November — have questioned and, at times, outright denied the results of the 2020 election despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, according to a monthslong New York Times investigation. ...”
Simone de Beauvoir Speaks on American TV (in English) About Feminism, Abortion & More (1976)
"France has long been known for the cultural prominence it grants to its philosophers. Even so, such prominence doesn’t simply come to every French philosopher, and some have had to work tirelessly indeed to achieve it. Take Simone de Beauvoir, who most powerfully announced her arrival on the intellectual scene with Le Deuxième Sexe and its famous declaration, ‘On ne naît pas femme, on le devient.”’Those words remain well known today, 36 years after their author’s death, and their implications about the nature of womanhood still form the intellectual basis for many observers of the feminine condition, in France and elsewhere. ...”
2010 June: Simone de Beauvoir, 2021 November: The Second Sex - Simone de Beauvoir (1949), 2022 June: Simone de Beauvoir Defends Existentialism & Her Feminist Masterpiece..., 2022 August: Simone de Beauvoir’s Philosophy on Finding Meaning in Old Age
Russia's Crimea Disconnect
"On 7 October, an explosion destroyed some of the Kerch Bridge, which connects Russia to Crimea. It is a new construction. When Russia invaded Ukraine the first time, in 2014, there was no such bridge, no road connection between Russia and Ukraine's Crimean province. From the perspective of Ukraine, Crimea is a peninsula. From the perspective of Russia, Crimea is an island. The Kerch Bridge was completed in 2018, as a way for Russia to control Crimea, which it claimed to have annexed from Ukraine. This year, it has been used to supply Russian troops, carrying out a war of atrocity in Ukraine. The damage to the bridge will make it harder for Russia to supply the troops occupying Crimea and other parts of southern Ukraine. The explosion was also a blow to Vladimir Putin's prestige, since the bridge is a monument to his personal imperialism. Its vulnerability suggests not only the foolishness of this war for Russia, but more generally the self-destructiveness of Russian attempts to extend empire by force. ...”
Residents of the Kherson region of Ukraine near Mykolaivka on Sunday.
Cuban Caricature and Culture: The Art of Massaguer
"With his biting political satire, caricatures, and magazine and advertising illustrations, publisher and graphic artist Conrado Walter Massaguer (1889–1965) helped shape the visual culture of his native Cuba between the 1920s and 1950s. Drawn from a recent donation by Vicki Gold Levi to The Wolfsonian–FIU, the works reflect Massaguer’s legacy, from images of the ‘New Woman’ flapper ideal and caricatures of politicians and Hollywood celebrities to depictions of tropical paradise for the Cuban Tourist Commission. ...”
Jan. 6 Panel Votes to Subpoena Trump, Setting Up Court Fight
"The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol voted unanimously Thursday to issue a subpoena to former President Donald J. Trump to question him about his role in events that led to the violence that consumed Congress ‘He is required to answer for his actions,’ said Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the chairman of the committee, at the end of what was possibly the panel’s final public session. ‘He is required to answer to those police officers who put their lives and bodies on the line to defend our democracy.’ The vote emerged after the committee presented a sweeping summation of its case against Mr. Trump, including more details about his state of mind and his central role in the effort to overturn the 2020 election. ...”
Ukraine’s Path to Victory
"For too long, the global democratic coalition supporting Kyiv has focused on what it should not do in the invasion of Ukraine. Its main aims include not letting Ukraine lose and not letting Russian President Vladimir Putin win—but also not allowing the war to escalate to a point where Russia attacks a NATO country or conducts a nuclear strike. These, however, are less goals than vague intentions, and they reflect the West’s deep confusion about how the conflict should end. More than seven months into the war, the United States and Europe still lack a positive vision for Ukraine’s future. The West clearly believes that Kyiv’s fight is just, and it wants Ukraine to succeed. But it is not sure yet whether Ukraine is strong enough to retake all its territory. Many Western leaders still believe that the Russian military is too large to be defeated. This thinking has led the members of the pro-Ukrainian coalition to define only their interim strategic military goals. They have not plotted out the political consequences that would come from a complete Russian military collapse. ...”
A mockup of a nuclear reactor at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine.
Cooking with Taeko Kōno - Valerie Stivers
"The Japanese writer Taeko Kōno is a maestro of transgressive desire whose stories often—and deliciously—use food as a metaphor for sexual appetite. Kōno, who died in 2015, is considered one of Japan’s foremost feminist writers and one of its foremost writers of any kind. She won many of the country’s top literary prizes, including the Akutagawa, the Tanizaki, the Noma, and the Yomiuri. The single selection of her work in English, Toddler-Hunting & Other Stories, first published by New Directions in 1996 and translated by Lucy North and Lucy Lower, contains ten dark, deceptively simple stories about women who find the gender roles in Japanese society unbearable, and are warped by them. ...”
The Waning Years of Edward Hopper
"In September 1948, Edward Hopper put the final touches on the painting he would call Seven A.M. As with most of his great pictures—and this is one of them—its quiet power is both plain and a bit mysterious. It shows us a very ordinary scene, a portion of a white storefront, with a partial view of its interior through its wide plate glass windows. It’s not clear what kind of business this is. A pharmacy? A barbershop? Even Hopper wasn’t sure. But whatever it is, he makes it appear a semi-rural place, set along a dirt road and beside a patch of woods with shadowed undergrowth. ...”
2008 July: Edward Hopper, 2010 October: Finding Nighthawks, 2010 December: Modern Life: Edward Hopper and His Time, 2012 Wednesday: Through Edward Hopper's eyes: in search of an artist's seaside inspiration, 2013 July: Hopper Drawing, 2014 May: INTERVIEW: “An Interview with Edward Hopper, June 17, 1959″., 2014 September: How Edward Hopper “Storyboarded” His Iconic Painting Nighthawks, 2015 February: Edward Hopper's New York: A Walking Tour, 2015 September: Edward Hopper life and works, 2016 May: "Night Windows," 1928, 2016 July: Sunday (1926), 2016 September: Drug Store (1927), 2018 January: Seven A.M. (1948), 2018 February: Jo Hopper, Woman in the Sun, 2019 August: Pennsylvania Coal Town (1947), 2020 January: Queensborough Bridge, 1913, 2021 July: The Mournfulness of Cities
Seven AM (1948)
Ukraine seeks weapons to counter Russia’s ability to strike
"An explosion on the Kerch Bridge connecting the Crimean Peninsula to Russia has led to massive Russian retaliation against Ukrainian civilians and infrastructure in the 33rd week of the war. This, in turn, has led to Ukraine stepping up requests to allies for bolstered air defences and longer-range weapons with which to hit Russian forces. There are also ominous signs that Russia is enmeshing Belarus ever more closely in its war in Ukraine. On Saturday, an explosion on the bridge linking Russian-annexed Crimea with Russia disabled two of its four car lanes and melted tracks on a separate railway span, where a train caught fire. ...”
Guardian: Analysis | Would Lukashenko really throw Belarus into a war Russia is losing?
A Ukrainian civilian tries to survive in a house destroyed by the missile attack after Russia’s latest shelling in different parts of Ukraine, including the capital, Kyiv, on October 11.
Travel in the footsteps of Patti Smith's New York
"Patti Smith made waves in New York’s punk scene when she released her debut album, Horses, which blended avant-garde techniques with simple chord progressions and spoken word poetry. She is now regarded as a ‘punk poet laureate’ and has significantly influenced artists from Madonna to Johnny Marr and Morrissey to Orville Peck. During her time in New York, Smith developed an intense relationship with artist Robbert Mapplethorpe, who she saw as her kindred spirit. The pair were bound to each other romantically, platonically, and creatively, remaining close until he died in 1989. ...”
In sun and shadow
"On this month’s show we wrap up our focus on sports and music with a look at the cultural politics of the world’s most popular sport, Football. We are doing so in anticipation of the upcoming Men’s World Cup tournament taking place in Qatar this November and December. For it, we’ve invited special guests Sean Jacobs and Tony Karon who host the football podcast Eleven Named People, to select some songs and talk about the anti-colonial contours of the global game, and what they anticipate in the upcoming Cup. ...”
Here’s what Russia’s attacks may indicate about its weapons stockpile.
"The Russian missile and drone attacks that killed at least 19 people across Ukraine on Monday were traumatic and wide-ranging, but they were not as deadly as they could have been, in the context of a war that has included widespread civilian killing. That has renewed questions over the quality of Russia’s weapons and about the capacity of its forces to carry out President Vladimir V. Putin’s military designs. Ian Storey, a senior fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore, said it could be a sign that Russia’s guided missiles are not very effective, or that it is running short of precision munitions. Most of the missiles targeted energy and other civilian services, in what Mr. Putin said was retaliation for a blast on Russia’s bridge to occupied Crimea. ...’
A Russian rocket serves as a reminder of the relentless bombardment of Kharkiv, Ukraine.
“Manteca”--Dizzy Gillespie Big Band with Chano Pozo (1947)
"The jazz standard ‘Manteca’ was the product of a collaboration between Charles Birks ‘Dizzy’ Gillespie and Cuban musician, composer and dancer Luciano (Chano) Pozo González. ‘Manteca” signified one of the beginning steps on the road from Afro-Cuban rhythms to Latin jazz. In the years leading up to 1940, Cuban rhythms and melodies migrated to the United States, while, simultaneously, the sounds of American jazz traveled across the Caribbean. Musicians and audiences acquainted themselves with each other’s musical idioms as they played and danced to rhumba, conga and big-band swing. ...”
The Entire Archives of Radical Philosophy Go Online: Read Essays by Michel Foucault, Alain Badiou, Judith Butler & More (1972-2018)
"On a seemingly daily basis, we see attacks against the intellectual culture of the academic humanities, which, since the 1960s, have opened up spaces for leftists to develop critical theories of all kinds. Attacks from supposedly liberal professors and centrist op-ed columnists, from well-funded conservative think tanks and white supremacists on college campus tours. All rail against the evils of feminism, post-modernism, and something called ‘neo-Marxism’ with outsized agitation. For students and professors, the onslaughts are exhausting, and not only because they have very real, often dangerous, consequences, but because they all attack the same straw men (or ‘straw people’) and refuse to engage with academic thought on its own terms. ...”
Putin’s ‘Mass Strike’ on Ukraine Draws Furious Condemnation
"KYIV, Ukraine — President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia unleashed the broadest aerial assault against Ukraine’s civilians and critical infrastructure since the early days of Moscow’s invasion, hitting cities across the country on Monday in far-reaching strikes that drew furious international condemnation. Russia’s attacks killed at least 11 people nationwide and wounded 89 others, the Ukrainian authorities said, and knocked out power and other key services in multiple cities. President Biden condemned ‘the utter brutality of Mr. Putin’s illegal war,’ and India and China, key trading partners of Moscow that have avoided direct criticism of Mr. Putin, renewed calls for immediate de-escalation. ...”
BBC: Shock and horror after Russia's wave of strikes across Ukraine (Video)
President Vladimir Putin ordered a series of missile strikes against cities across Ukraine, killing at least 11 people. It was the broadest aerial assault against civilians and critical infrastructure since the early days of Moscow’s invasion.
Albert Ayler – Holy Ghost: Rare & Unissued Recordings (1962–70)
"Albert Ayler was a mysterious figure. His recording career was relatively brief, beginning in 1962 and ending in 1970, with several of the entries live performances released many years after his passing. His demise itself was a bizarre circumstance. Revenant Records, by all accounts the most ambitious and thorough of all box-set minded labels, has now released a nine+ CD set of Ayler whose mystery has rubbed off a little on the project. Its coming was announced by a series of all black ads with little on them but what has become the set’s slogan: ‘Trane was the Father…Pharoah was the son…I am the Holy Ghost.’ The result? Most probably the highwater mark in the often underwhelming realm of box sets. ...”
A New Brushstroke Analysis Reveals Vermeer Was Not the Painstaking Perfectionist Art Historians Long Thought
"For generations, art historians believed Johannes Vermeer was a perfectionist who worked very slowly—a theory supported by his precisely placed brush strokes and relatively limited career output. But in examining one of the painter’s masterpieces, researchers at the National Gallery of Art (NGA) in Washington, D.C., found that may not have actually been the case. Underneath Woman Holding a Balance, Vermeer’s classic canvas dated from around 1664, are layers of spontaneous brushstrokes, chemical imaging has exposed. ...”
2009 September: Vermeer's Masterpiece, The Milkmaid, 2011 February: Vermeer: Master of Light, 2013 October: Vermeer, Rembrandt, and Hals: Masterpieces of Dutch Painting from the Mauritshuis, 2015 December: This Is Not a Vermeer ™, 2017 January: The Art of Painting (1665–1668), 2021 December: Museum rivalry ‘could make Dutch Vermeer show last of its kind’, 2021 December: Okay Cupid: Reopening Vermeer’s love letter to contradiction
Woman Holding a Balance (c. 1664)
An American in Ukraine Finds the War He’s Been Searching For
"SOLEDAR, Ukraine — ‘Please, come with me.’ He was begging. He didn’t have much time. The Russians were blasting this town in eastern Ukraine with rockets, airstrikes and thundering artillery. The ground shook. Andrew Milburn, a retired Marine colonel, could have been hanging out at home, 6,000 miles away in the Florida suburbs, enjoying retirement. Instead he was standing in Soledar, a town under fierce assault, black smoke filling his nostrils, staring at a Ukrainian woman he had never met, pleading with her to evacuate. ‘Please,’ he tried again. ‘You will die here.’ The woman had long gray braids and a face etched by countless sorrows. When she refused to leave, Mr. Milburn nearly exploded with frustration. ...”
"The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest" - Bob Dylan (1967)
"‘The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest‘ is a song by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan which was released as the fifth track on his eighth studio album John Wesley Harding (1967). The track was written by Dylan and produced by Bob Johnston. It was recorded in one take on October 17, 1967, at Columbia Studio A in Nashville. The song's lyrics refer to two friends, Frankie Lee and Judas Priest. Lee asks Priest for a loan of money. Priest offers the money freely. Lee spends it in a brothel over 16 days, then dies of thirst in Priest's arms. It has been suggested by commentators that the song refers to Dylan's relationship with his manager Albert Grossman or to his contractual negotiations with his record company. The song received a largely negative critical reception. ...”
One Ring
"The One Ring, also called the Ruling Ring and Isildur’s Bane, is a central plot element in J. R. R. Tolkien‘s The Lord of the Rings (1954–55). It first appeared in the earlier story The Hobbit (1937) as a magic ring that grants the wearer invisibility. Tolkien changed it into a malevolent Ring of Power and re-wrote parts of The Hobbit to fit in with the expanded narrative. The Lord of the Rings describes the hobbit Frodo Baggins‘s quest to destroy the Ring. Critics have compared the story with the ring-based plot of Richard Wagner‘s opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen; Tolkien denied any connection, but at the least, both men drew on the same mythology. …“
2010 January: The Lord of the Rings, 2018 January: An Atlas of Literary Maps Created by Great Authors: J.R.R Tolkien’s Middle Earth, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island & More, 2019 January: The Largest J.R.R. Tolkien Exhibit in Generations Is Coming to the U.S.: Original Drawings, Manuscripts, Maps & More, 2020 January: Hear Christopher Tolkien (RIP) Read the Work of His Father J.R.R. Tolkien, Which He Tirelessly Worked to Preserve, 2020 August: The Complete Guide to Middle-earth - Robert Foster (1971), 2021 September: When the Nobel Prize Committee Rejected The Lord of the Rings..., 2021 October: When J.R.R. Tolkien Worked for the Oxford English Dictionary..., 2022 March: J.R.R. Tolkien Tolkien Estate
Crimea Bridge Explosion Disrupts Crucial Supply Route for Russian Forces
"A major explosion severely damaged the bridge connecting Russia’s mainland to the occupied Crimean Peninsula, disrupting traffic on a crucial artery for the supply of fuel, military equipment and food to Russian troops fighting to hold ground in southern Ukraine. The bridge, opened by President Vladimir Putin to great fanfare in 2018, was meant to symbolize the might of the Russian state and the permanence of Russia’s annexation of the peninsula four years earlier. Russia even released a feature movie about its construction. Russia’s investigations committee said three people died after the early-morning explosion on Saturday of a truck on the bridge’s roadway next to a supply train that was carrying fuel. Some demolition experts who analyzed footage of the blast questioned the Russian version and said that the explosion must have come from under the bridge, caused either by an explosives-laden boat, manned or unmanned, or by shaped charges placed by divers. ...”
Black smoke billowed from a fire on the Kerch Strait Bridge that links Crimea to Russia on Friday.
Newcastle United’s transfer, stadium and investment plans one year after takeover
"This is the first of three articles this week to mark the one-year anniversary of Newcastle United’s controversial takeover by a Saudi-backed consortium. Today George Caulkin and Chris Waugh explain how the club has changed in 12 months. Tomorrow Oliver Kay visits Saudi Arabia to ask questions about how the takeover is perceived there, football’s role in the country and allegations of sportswashing. On Friday Matt Slater examines the degree of Saudi involvement and influence at the Premier League club. ..."
Guerrilla warfare
"Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare in which small groups of combatants, such as paramilitary personnel, armed civilians, or irregulars, use military tactics including ambushes, sabotage, raids, petty warfare, hit-and-run tactics, and mobility, to fight a larger and less-mobile traditional military. Although the term ‘guerrilla warfare’ was coined in the context of the Peninsular War in the 19th century, the tactical methods of guerrilla warfare have long been in use. In the 6th century BC, Sun Tzu proposed the use of guerrilla-style tactics in The Art of War. ...”
Guerrilla warfare during the Peninsular War, by Roque Gameiro, depicting a Portuguese guerrilla ambush against French forces. The term "guerrilla" was coined during this conflict, which occurred in the early 19th century.
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‘They Are in a Panic’: Ukraine’s Troops Size Up the Enemy
"STAVKY, Ukraine — Racing down a road with his men in pursuit of retreating Russian soldiers, a battalion commander came across an abandoned Russian armored vehicle, its engine still running. Inside there was a sniper rifle, rocket propelled grenades, helmets and belongings. The men were gone. ... After months of static fighting and holding the line under withering Russian artillery barrages, Ukrainian soldiers are exulting over their smashing of Russian lines in the northeast three weeks ago, and their recapturing of swaths of territory seized by Russian troops earlier this year. They have almost retaken the whole of Kharkiv Province, as well as territory in each of the four regions that President Vladimir V. Putin claims to have annexed for Russia. ...”
Fighters with the Carpathian Sich battalion searching houses used by Russian soldiers in the recently recaptured village of Stavky.
"Pretty Little Angel Eyes" - Curtis Lee (1961)
"... What resulted was an infectious master take of a tune written by Lee and Boyce: ‘Pretty Little Angel Eyes,’ recorded at the moldy, rat-inhabited Mira Sound Studio (an optimal environment for acoustically dynamic record-making, as Spector discovered). The uncomplicated song came alive with an agile arrangement, heavy on the backbeat with precise and well-timed harmonies by the Halos (who weren't credited on the label). Lee's lead vocal was also nicely done, a step up from earlier efforts. It couldn't miss. Hitting the charts in July '61, it was top ten throughout most of August into early September. ...”
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