​One year in, both Ukraine and Russia still think they can win

"After weeks of very public debate, the United States and Germany are committing advanced tanks to Ukraine — something Kyiv has long wanted, and which it sees as vital as Ukrainian forces continue to try to reclaim territory from Russia. A United States senior administration official confirmed Wednesday that the US will send 31 M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine, on top of the infantry fighting and armored combat vehicles it committed earlier this month. Germany, too, finally pledged to provide tanks, an initial company of 14 Leopard 2s, and Berlin will allow other countries to send their stocks of Leopards. ... And at the nearly one-year mark, the Ukraine war is in something of a holding pattern: a grinding, attritional battle that is expending ammunition and human effort for both sides, and re-entrenchment in the areas Ukraine and Russia currently hold. ...”

VOX

NY Times - With a Pledge of Tanks for Ukraine, Biden Strengthens Allied Commitment (Video)

Guardian: Zelenskiy ramps up anti-corruption drive as 15 Ukrainian officials exit (Video)

Make the Abrams the Free World’s Tank

Soldiers prepare to head out near the Bakhmut front lines with Russia on January 22, 2023 in Chasov Yar, Ukraine.

Andrei Tarkovsky - Stalker (1979)

"Andrei Tarkovsky’s final Soviet feature is a metaphys­ical journey through an enigmatic postapocalyptic landscape, and a rarefied cinematic experience like no other. A hired guide—the Stalker—leads a writer and a professor into the heart of the Zone, the restricted site of a long-ago disaster, where the three men eventually zero in on the Room, a place rumored to fulfill one’s most deeply held desires. Adapting a science-fiction novel by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, Tarkovsky created an immersive world with a wealth of material detail and a sense of organic atmosphere. A religious allegory, a reflection of contemporaneous political anxieties, a meditation on film itself—Stalker envelops the viewer by opening up a multitude of possible meanings. ...”

Criterion (Video)

W - Stalker (1979)

A Unique Perspective on the Making of ‘Stalker’: The Testimony of a Mechanic Toiling Away under Tarkovsky’s Guidance (Video)

Guardian: Danger! High-radiation arthouse!

YouTube: Stalker (1979) - Andrei Tarkovsky - Behind The Scenes 29:11

2012 May: Solaris, 2018 October: Andrei Rublev (1966), 2020 December: Bruegel as Cinema, 2022 December:  Mirror (1975)

Hania Rani – Esja (2019)

"... The book contains specially selected compositions, art photography, as well as a digital pass to download audio copies of the titles coming from her debut album Esja. It has been manufactured out of high-quality paper and cardboard, sewn together in a way that ensures its stable placement on a piano sheet music stand of any music lover that chooses to read it. The scores include the 10 tracks from the album, as well as 5 other, yet unpublished, compositions. This time, Hania envisioned the book as more than a mere set of sheets: she wanted it to be an album that tells a wider story of places, events and emotions that have accompanied her creative process. ...”

Bandcamp (Audio)

Discogs (Video)

YouTube: Glass (Official Video), Esja (Official Album Video)  45:15

2021 April: Live from Studio S2 (2021), 2022 January: Hania Rani, 2022 March: Music for Film and Theatre (2021)

​In Moscow, a Quiet Antiwar Protest With Flowers and Plush Toys

"Police buses seem ubiquitous in Moscow since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last February, watching over much of the city center, including a statue of one of Ukraine’s most famous poets that has become a popular spot for a silent but emotional outpouring of antiwar sentiment. Since a Russian missile struck a residential building in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro nine days ago, killing 46 and injuring 80 others, Muscovites have been coming to lay flowers — along with plush toys and photographs of the destroyed building — at the feet of the statue of Lesya Ukrainka, a Ukrainian poet and playwright who lived during the last decades of the Russian Empire. ...”

NY Times

The Intercept_: U.S. Veterans in Ukraine Are Fighting Each Other in Court

GRID - Russia after Putin: When and how it might happen — and how dangerous it might get

Laying flowers at the statue of the Ukrainian poet and writer Lesya Ukrainka in Moscow, in memoriam to those killed by a Russian missile strike in Dnipro, Ukraine. this month.

A Bend in the River – V.S. Naipaul (1979)

"Much like its eponymous waterway, V.S. Naipaul’s A Bend in the River meanders steadily through the dark reality of postcolonial Africa, alternately depicting minimalist beauty and frightening tension. Like Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, subtle prose reveals the timelessness of the continent’s remote corners alongside human corruptibility. Yet, Naipaul moves his narrative closer in time to contemporary Africa, demonstrating that the horrifying legacies of colonialism did not end with Europe’s retreat. In A Bend in the River, the struggle to establish national identities in the wake of Western imperialism takes center stage, with ‘black men assuming the lies of white men’ in order to govern. ...”

NOT EVEN PAST

W - A Bend in the River

Guardian - The 100 best novels: No 90 – A Bend in the River by VS Naipaul (1979)

V. S. Naipaul’s ‘A Bend in the River’: A Tragic Vision of Evil

2018 August: V.S. Naipaul, Who Explored Colonialism Through Unsparing Books, Dies at 85

What the figures on the doors of a Third Avenue Gap store tell us about the building

"The front doors caught my eye first. Heavy and bronze, these two doors at the entrance of the Gap store at Third Avenue and 85th Street feature intricate carvings and curious allegorical figures reminiscent of ancient Greece. On one door, a woman balances a locomotive engine in her left hand and grips a caduceus in the right. Behind her is a sailing ship, and beside her head are the words ‘commerce and industry.’ The man on the opposite door holds a staff with a beehive at the top. In his other hand is a key, and at his feet a cornucopia. ‘Finance and savings’ is inscribed at his shoulder. ...”

Ephemeral New York

​A Brutal New Phase of Putin’s Terrible War in Ukraine

"The war in Ukraine has entered a new, more deadly and fateful phase, and the one man who can stop it, Vladimir Putin, has shown no signs that he will do so. After 11 months during which Ukraine has won repeated and decisive victories against Russian forces, clawed back some of its lands and cities and withstood lethal assaults on its infrastructure, the war is at a stalemate. Still, the fighting rages on, including a ferocious battle for the city of Bakhmut in the eastern Donetsk region. Cruel, seemingly random Russian missile strikes at civilian targets have become a regular horror: On Jan. 14, a Russian missile struck an apartment building in Dnipro, in central Ukraine. Among the at least 40 dead were small children, a pregnant woman and a 15-year-old dancer. ...”

NY Times: Opinion| Editorial Board

At Soledar, the Battle of the Damned

POLITICO - ‘We need action’: Time runs out for Ukraine as allied countries debate sending tanks (Video)

Guardian: US to designate Russia’s Wagner Group as ‘transnational criminal organization’ (Video)

NY Times: A Hit French Novel Tries to Explain Putin. Too Well, Some Critics Say.

“The Wizard of the Kremlin,” on display in a Paris bookstore on Monday, has sold more than 400,000 copies.

​Spain and the Hispanic World

"Discover the rich story of Spanish and Hispanic art and culture from the ancient world to the early 20th century through over 150 fascinating works: from masterpieces by El Greco, Zurbarán, Velázquez and Goya to sculptures, paintings, silk textiles, ceramics, lustreware, silverwork, precious jewellery, maps, drawings, illuminated manuscripts and stunning decorative lacquerware from Latin America. ...”

Royal Academy (Video)

Guardian: Spain and the Hispanic World review – royals, chinchillas, bullfights and blood

issuu (Audio)

Joaquín Sorolla, Vision of Spain, 1912-13.

​The fantastic history of fuji music

"Tracing the history of fuji music is going headfirst into the history and music culture of Nigeria itself. It has its origins in the Yoruba-Muslim communities of Nigeria’s South-West, evolving from ‘were’ played during the seasonal Ramadan festivals, and made its break with some clever slight of hand by the legend Ayinde Barrister, dubbing his sound ‘fuji’ after seeing an airport ad for Japan’s famous mountain. Over the years, between oil booms and military regimes, as the genre slowly introduced the harmonica, flute, keyboard and saxophone, many schools of fuji emerged, often with someone at the helm proclaiming themselves the next king, boss and overall fuji superstar. ...”

PAN (Video)

Moscow Details Plan to Boost Military as Ukraine Warns of Fresh Russian Offensive

"KYIV, Ukraine—Russia detailed its plans to boost the size of its military as Ukraine warned that Moscow may be preparing an offensive and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called on Western allies to accelerate the provision of arms to the country. On Tuesday, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu provided a timetable for the troop increase the Kremlin outlined in December following a string of setbacks on the battlefield and criticism from Russian nationalists. The country’s army will increase to 1.5 million military personnel between 2023 and 2026—compared with its current level of 1.15 million and one million at the start of 2022, Mr. Shoigu said, according to state newswire TASS. ...”

WSJ (Audio)

GRID -  The Ukraine War in data: Russia announces plans for a 1.5 million-strong army

Guardian - Thursday briefing: Could a supply of European tanks turn the tide in Ukraine?

Ukrainian soldiers fired at Russian positions in eastern Ukraine.

Plan for a Journal - Italo Calvino

"In an interview collected in Ferdinando Camon’s Il mestiere di scrittore: conversazioni critiche (The Writer’s Craft: Critical Conversations), Italo Calvino described a dream for ‘a completely different sort of journal.’ This journal would be something more like the serialized novels of Dickens and Balzac, with writers working on commission on a wide range of topics and themes. It would employ the ‘I’ of Saint Augustine and Stendhal. ... At the Review, we’re fascinated by ideas for what magazines can be—no matter how outlandish. And so we were delighted when we came across Calvino’s four-page plan for a journal, from a typescript dated 1970, translated by Ann Goldstein and published below. It’s eclectic, wildly ambitious, smart but not too self-serious, and totally unrealized. What else could you ask for? ...”

The Paris Review

2020 April: Invisible Cities (1972), 2021 September: Cooking with Italo Calvino - Valerie Stivers, 2023 January: The Written World and the Unwritten World

​A Beastie Boys guide to New York City

"First off, shout out to Brooklyn. No tour of the Beastie Boys’ New York City is complete without starting off in Brooklyn. Adam Yauch may have been the only true Brooklynite of the three (Adam Horovitz and Michael Diamond were Manhattan kids), but for the better part of 30 years, Brooklyn was the beating heart at the centre of the Beastie Boys experience. Just take a trip through their catalogue to find out for yourself. MCA has a castle there in ‘Brass Monkey’. It’s the titular destination in ‘No Sleep ’til Brooklyn’. It’s where you could get your pocket picked in ‘Shadrach’. Take the D-train to get there on your way to Coney Island in ‘B-Boy Bouillabaisse’. But even with those stops in mind, Brooklyn is just the start of the Beastie Boys’ guide to New York City. ...”

FAR OUT (Video)

2018 November: New York’s Finest: Paying Tribute to the Beastie Boys in the Pages of the Voice

​Renewed Armenia-Azerbaijan Conflict Underlines Russia’s Waning Influence

"In late 2020, when President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia brokered the end of a war in the Caucasus between Azerbaijan and Armenia, and placed 2,000 Russian peacekeeping troops between the two sides, it looked like a strategic masterstroke. The deal gave Russia a military presence in one post-Soviet country, Azerbaijan, while deepening the reliance of another, Armenia, on Russia as a guarantor of its security. It positioned Mr. Putin as a peacemaker and seemed to affirm his claim to Russia’s rightful influence, as the only power capable of keeping stability throughout the former Soviet sphere. Barely two years later, the conflict over the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan is heating up again, and Russia, distracted and weakened by the war in Ukraine, has not stepped in. ...”

NY Times

Aljazeera: Calls for special tribunal for Russia’s ‘war crimes’ in Ukraine (Video)

BBC - Ukraine war: Bakhmut defenders plea for Western tanks

NBC News: Former Russian mercenary commander flees to Norway and seeks asylum (Video)

Russian peacekeepers blocking a road outside Stepanakert, the biggest city in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, in December.

Lucky - starring Harry Dean Stanton (2017)

"Lucky is a 2017 American drama film, starring Harry Dean Stanton and directed by John Carroll Lynch from a screenplay by Logan Sparks and Drago Sumonja. It was one of Stanton's final onscreen roles before his death. The film tells the story of 90-year-old Lucky as he comes to terms with his own mortality and searches for enlightenment. ... We meet Lucky, who lives alone in an isolated house in the small desert town of Piru, California. He drinks a glass of cold milk after his morning yoga and cigarette before getting dressed and heading out on his daily routine. He gets coffee at a diner where he is on friendly terms with the owner, Joe. He works on a crossword puzzle from his daily newspaper. Lucky then walks to a convenience store where he buys another pack of cigarettes and a carton of milk. ...”

Wikipedia

Guardian: Lucky review – Harry Dean Stanton ages disgracefully

Roger Ebert

YouTube: Lucky - Official Trailer, Harry Dean Stanton's 60+ Years In Film and Television

2012 March: Paris, Texas (1984), 2014 August: Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction, 2017 September: Harry Dean Stanton (July 14, 1926 – September 15, 2017) , 2020 April: Harry Dean Stanton - Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain, etc., 2020 November: Harry Dean Stanton Day

​The hard work of shoveling snow during a New York winter

"You can almost feel the bitter cold in this rich, evocative scene of faceless men battling piles of snow after a winter storm buried a street somewhere in New York City. Completed in 1905, painter Harry W. Newman would have been 32 years old when he captured the gray skies, white snow, black coats, and red brick that composed a typical city block of the era. We can’t see her face, but the little girl on the far right might be the only person looking at this as a snowy wonderland. ...”

Ephemeral New York

​‘This will last a long time, but we know the outcome’: Kyiv’s year of defiance

"At Kyiv’s Beatnik Bar last spring, the mixologists wrestled with the question of whether they should even try reopening. Their families were mostly under Russian occupation in eastern Ukraine, many of their friends were on the frontline. Was it really the right time to be worrying about making and selling high-end cocktails? But they had emptied their bank accounts while volunteering, needed money to live and to support the war effort, and figured the government could do with the taxes. And maybe, in a city that had spent a month with Russian soldiers at the gates and was now unearthing the horrors they left behind in places such as Bucha and Irpin, people could do with a good drink. So in May they opened again, just 3pm to 6pm, more coffee shop than nightlife because of the curfew. ...”

Guardian

NY Times

GRID: Why does Bakhmut matter? The brutal, monthslong fight for a small city in Ukraine.

Rescue hopes fade after Russian attack in Ukraine's Dnipro

27 People on the Streets of New York Talk About How Much Money They Make

"Do your co-workers know how much money you earn? Do your friends? Does your family? Salary transparency is a hot topic — new laws have recently gone into effect around the country requiring employers to disclose salary ranges as a way to tackle pay inequities. Curious how individuals feel about this movement toward transparency, we approached nearly 400 people on the sidewalks of New York late last year to see if anyone would tell us how much they make. A small fraction of the people we flagged down spoke to us. Here are 27 of them. ...”

NY Times

​On the trail of John Steinbeck in Salinas and Monterey, California

"‘The Salinas Valley is in Northern California. It is a long narrow swale between two ranges of mountains, and the Salinas River winds and twists up the centre until it falls at last into Monterey Bay.’ So begins John Steinbeck’s 1952 novel East of Eden. Steinbeck was simply one of the greatest English language writers of all time. His works primarily concerned the working classes of the first half of the 20th Century and the moral minutiae of their everyday lives. In 1962, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, with the committee praising his ‘realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humour and keen social perception.’ ...”

FAR OUT (Video)

2012 July: East of Eden, 2019 January: Tortilla Flat (1935), 2020 July: How John Steinbeck’s Final Novel Grappled With Immigration and Morality

​Ukrainian Engineers, Historians and Housewives Are Keeping Putin on His Toes

"ODESA, Ukraine — With tourniquets, there is no way of doing things on the cheap. These lifesaving devices, used to stop blood loss from a wounded limb and prevent death from bleeding, need to be 100 percent reliable: a solid, wide Velcro band sufficiently long to be put around a thigh and a tough crank to pull it tight, with a sturdy locking mechanism. A good tourniquet costs $20 to $30 and the best ones are made in the United States. As with many other products, Chinese vendors sell a variety of fakes — something as simple as a rope on a rod is an invitation to counterfeit. Worse than useless, the Chinese knockoffs are a liability when they snap in the trembling, slippery hands of a bleeding person. ... In the early days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, tourniquets were hard to come by. The Ukrainian troops defending their country often had to make do with the black inner tubes of bicycle tires or similar devices. ...”

NY Times: Opinion

NY Times: Western Tanks Appear Headed to Ukraine, Breaking Another Taboo

NBC News: Russia says it has taken control of Soledar in eastern Ukraine, its first victory in months (Video)

This Ukrainian factory in Uzhhorod is making supplies for the army. Factory workers are producing tactical bags, bulletproof vests and first aid kits for Ukraine's defence.

​Kali Malone Finds Freedom In Restriction On “Does Spring Hide Its Joy”

"‘You give all of your trust to the music and let it guide your attention rather than anticipate what’s around every corner,’ says composer Kali Malone. Malone creates drone meditations that gradually unfold through layered tones. Her latest project Does Spring Hide Its Joy presents three different versions of the finished piece, each of which blossoms from the same score. Malone found kinship with like-minded artists Lucy Railton, a cellist she met in Sweden who was often working in the Electronic Music Studio at the same time as her, and Stephen O’Malley, a guitarist she met by chance while going through the metal detectors at Ina GRM in France. ...”

Bandcamp (Audio)

Bandcamp: Kali Malone

“City of Kings: A History of NYC Graffiti” Continues — Part I Through 1-15 at Howl! Happening; Part II Through 1-29 at Howl! Arts/Howl! Archive

"Rigorously researched and handsomely presented, City of Kings celebrates the rich graffiti culture that began on the mean streets of NYC in the late 60’s and has since evolved into a worldwide phenomenon. Curated by first generation graffiti artist and SAMO© partner Al Diaz, along with graffiti archivist and artist Eric ‘DEAL CIA’ Felisbret and graphic designer and arts educator Mariah Fox, City of Kings appeals not only to us graffiti aficionados, but to anyone curious about the history of an illicit art form that has not only become legitimized in the 'art world,' but has impacted just about every aspect of our culture — from advertising to fashion design to education. ...”

Street Art NYC

1982 Bronx capture, DUSTER/LIZZIE: 2 top to bottom whole cars in straight letters and wild style.

Why does ‘Putin’s chef’ want Ukraine’s Soledar so badly?

"Kyiv, Ukraine – To analysts, if Moscow is able to capture Soledar, a tiny salt-mining town in Ukraine’s war-scarred southeast, the ‘victory’ would be little more than a consolation prize for Russia’s failing military effort. To the Kremlin and pro-Moscow separatists, though, taking the town with a pre-war population near 10,000 would be a groundbreaking triumph. And to Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of Russia’s Wagner Group, a private army, Soledar offers access to mineral riches, a stash of firearms and a higher place in the Kremlin’s pecking order.Prigozhin is known as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “chef” after becoming rich from government contracts to feed soldiers, schoolchildren and guests at state banquets. ...”

Aljazeera (Video)

Guardian: Ukraine military denies Russian forces have captured Soledar (Video)

Aljazeera: Russia using old Ukrainian weapons sent in goodwill on front line

BBC - Ukraine war: What does facial recognition software make of Putin’s backdrop crowd?

The James Webb Space Telescope Is Finding Too Many Early Galaxies

"Images and spectra from the James Webb Space Telescope suggest that the first galaxies in the universe are too many or too bright compared to what astronomers expected. Evidence is building that the first galaxies formed earlier than expected, astronomers announced at the 241st meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Seattle, Washington.As the James Webb Space Telescope views swaths of sky spotted with distant galaxies, multiple teams have found that the earliest stellar metropolises are more mature and more numerous than expected. The results may end up changing what we know about how the first galaxies formed. ...”

Sky & Telescope

This image — a mosaic of 690 individual frames taken with Webb's Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) — covers a patch of sky near the handle of the Big Dipper.

3 Year Itch Birthday Session v.6

"In October 2022 we started to celebrate the third anniversary of Modulisme as I liked the idea of closing the year by bringing together the regulars of the label and others whose music I like so much. One volume leading to another and bringing more and more interest the celebration spreaded into 6 volumes, thus – in order to keep the whole thing digestible and leave some time between each – I thought it would be a good idea to end this 3 Year Itch Birthday series at the beginning ...”

Modulisme - Session 78 (Audio/Video)

The Sonny Downs Quartet - Seven Pavers

Without Hesitation, Ukraine Goes Toe to Toe With Russia in Bakhmut

"BAKHMUT, Ukraine — It was midmorning last Friday when the camera of a Ukrainian drone zoomed in on a Russian soldier moving furtively among trees on the edge of town. Another enemy assault was underway in Bakhmut. The drone pilot marked coordinates as he watched, then sent them by satellite link to artillery commanders. Within a few minutes, Ukrainian artillery units struck the houses where they had seen the Russians taking cover. Smoke from the hits could be seen rising silently on the drone operator’s screen. Later that day, however, an armored vehicle rumbled out of an eastern neighborhood carrying wounded Ukrainian soldiers toward a stabilization point in the city’s west. Ukraine’s army was taking its hits, too. ...”

NY Times

NY Times: Putin’s Efforts to Divide the West Over Ukraine Fall Flat

Guardian: Ukraine reinforces Bakhmut defences amid relentless Russian assault

POLITICO: Russia’s Wagner group ramping up operations outside of Ukraine, U.S. warns (Video)

Ukrainian military analysts on Friday near Bakhmut, in the country’s east, reviewing videos obtained by drone operators.

This freewheeling French cafe and artist hangout had a colonial-era past

"Sometimes you come across an image that compels you to do some research. That’s what happened when I found myself viewing this fleeting moment of intimacy below. ‘At Mouquin’s’ is a portrait by William Glackens, a founder of the Ashcan School known for his tender urban realist landscapes of New York City at the turn of the century.In this painting, Glackens shows us two patrons at a cafe called Mouquin’s—a bustling, covivial spot on Sixth Avenue and 28th Street in early 20th century Manhattan’s red-light Tenderloin district. It should be a lighthearted, jubilant scene befitting this decadent era before financial panic, the Great War, and Prohibition. ...”

Ephemeral New York

At Mouquin - William Glackens

​Rook Radio #7 - African Funk Vol. 1

"From Nigeria to Ghana, Somalia to Sudan, we're bringing you the finest funk music from across the African continent. Mixed by Juby Rook. 00:00 Harry Mosco - It’s Too Late 03:22 Dur Dur Band - Heelo 07:05 Sonny Okosuns - Power To The People 11:07 Gyedu-Blay Ambolley - This Hustling World 14:24 Assagai- Kinzambi 18:10 Kamal Keila - Agricultural Revolution 22:27 Harry Mosco - Wanderer 26:36 Orlando Julius - Ashiko 30:41 Kris Okotie - Woman 33:37 Gyedu-Blay Ambolley - Toffie 36:13 Super Elcados - Afro Funk 38:45 Dur Dur Band - Ohiyee 41:14 Sonny Okosuns - The Dance of The Elephants 45:46 Orlando Julius - Crystal Pleasure 50:42 Kamal Keila - Al Asafir ...”

YouTube: Rook Radio 7 // African Funk Vol.  1 [Vinyl Mix]

Makiivka: Russia points fingers after deadliest Ukraine attack

"The deaths of dozens of Russian soldiers in a new year missile strike on a building in occupied eastern Ukraine have prompted recriminations among critics of the Russian military. Russia's defence ministry has so far conceded that 89 people were killed in the Ukrainian attack on Makiivka at around midnight on New Year's Eve. One commander's wife accused the West of trying to destroy Russia. But elsewhere military leaders were accused of incompetence. Ukraine says as many as 400 people were killed or wounded at Makiivka, and numbers into the hundreds have been given by Russian nationalists on social media. However, there is no way of verifying how many soldiers were killed when US-made Himars missiles hit a vocational college packed with conscripts. Ammunition was also being stored close to the site, which was reduced to rubble. ...”

BBC

NY Times - Now Fighting for Ukraine: Volunteers Seeking Revenge Against Russia

NBC News: Moscow ends self-proclaimed ceasefire and vows to press ahead in Ukraine (Video)

NY Times: In a Ukraine Workshop, the Quest to Build the Perfect Grenade

Local military commander's wife Yekaterina Kolotovkina was among mourners in the centre of Samara

Widescreen Synthesis: Another generous slate from Glasgow-based Instruō

"The maximum display width of an image on Disquiet.com increased significantly with this site’s recent redesign. I figured I’d employ the capacity for the first time by taking a screenshot of the six modules that the Scottish company Instruō (instruomodular.com) made available for free last month on the free software synth platform VCV Rack (vcvrack.com) — along with, for good measure, a seventh module, the earlier Cš-L oscillator, just to max out the width. Each of these modules was ported to software from existing commercial hardware that Instruō designs and builds in Glasgow. It’s also a good opportunity to highlight the interview I did back in January 2021 with Instruō founder Jason Lim about the process and decision-making that went into the company’s initial slate of hardware ports: ’How Instruō Went Virtual.’“

disquiet

Looking for Elbow Room, Louvre Limits Daily Visitors to 30,000

"It has become an unpleasant gladiatorial rite of passage for tourists to Paris: Trying to view the Mona Lisa, the pensive diva encased in bulletproof glass, through a heaving throng of arms, heads and raised iPhones at the sprawling Louvre Museum. No longer. Or at least, that is what the Louvre’s management appears to be hoping after it was revealed this week that it has, effectively, decided to limit daily attendance by about a third, to 30,000 people — a policy that has quietly been in place for several months. During its busiest days before the coronavirus pandemic, the Louvre could attract as many as 45,000 people a day, the museum said. ...”

NY Times

amazon: The Louvre: The Many Lives of the World’s Most Famous Museum

2014 August: Louvre, 2016 August: The Pocket Louvre: A Visitor's Guide to 500 Works by Claude Mignot, 2018 March: Jay Swanson, 2020 April: Take a Long Virtual Tour of the Louvre in Three High-Definition Videos,

The Louvre welcomed 7.8 million visitors in 2022, leading to bottlenecks and sometime interminable waits.

​Winter Has Come: Reporting From Lviv as Russia Attacks Ukraine’s Infrastructure

"Over the past 10 months, attacks by Russian forces on Lviv have been sparse, nowhere near as intense as those on Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, or on the frontlines in the eastern part of the country. But now, after a string of new attacks that left no area of Ukraine unscathed, even Lviv is struggling to provide crucially needed heat, water, and electricity to its 700,000 residents, as temperatures plunge below freezing every day.On November 15, Russia launched approximately 100 missiles at targets throughout Ukraine, the largest number of strikes since Russia stepped up its campaign, on October 10. These attacks all have the same goal — to destroy Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure. The day after the November attacks, the head of the Lviv Regional Military Administration, Maksym Kozytskyi, wrote in a public statement on Telegram, ‘During yesterday’s massive attack on Ukraine, ten enemy missiles flew into our region. Most of them were shot down by the soldiers of the [Ukrainian] Air Defence Forces.’ ...”

Voice

Guardian: Russia preparing to mobilise extra 500,000 conscripts, claims Ukraine

Aljazeera: What awaits Ukraine in 2023? (Video)

In Lviv, sandbags protect windows from Russian bombs while cats huddle together for protection.

Two Years Later, Prosecutions of Jan. 6 Rioters Continue to Grow

"The investigation into the storming of the Capitol is, by any measure, the biggest criminal inquiry in the Justice Department’s 153-year history.And even two years after Jan. 6, 2021, it is only getting bigger. In chasing leads and making arrests, federal agents have already seized hundreds of cellphones, questioned thousands of witnesses and followed up on tens of thousands of tips in an exhaustive process that has resulted so far in more than 900 arrests from Maine to California. ... The Capitol siege investigation, as the government likes to call it, has been, among other things, a highly publicized and sophisticated effort to bring to justice extremist groups like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers militia. ...”

NY Times

The Intercept_: How Jan. 6 Brought Frontier Violence to Heart of U.S. Power

Bulwark: Two Years Ago...

Bill Frisell - Four (2022)

"Two years after issuing his acclaimed trio album Valentine, GRAMMY Award-winning guitarist and composer Bill Frisell returns with Four, a stunning meditation on loss, renewal, and those mysterious inventions of friendship. Frisell’s third album for Blue Note Records since signing with the label in 2019 proffers new interpretations of previously recorded originals as well as nine new tunes. The session brings together artists of independent spirits and like minds: Blue Note stablemates Gerald Clayton on piano and Johnathan Blake on drums, and longtime collaborator Greg Tardy on saxophone, clarinet, and bass clarinet. ...”

Blue Note (Video)

Discogs (Video)

2018 April: Music IS (2018), 2020 October: Guitar in the Space Age (2014)

‘Fear Still Remains’: Ukraine Finds Sexual Crimes Where Russian Troops Ruled

"KHERSON, Ukraine — On her eighth or ninth day in Russian detention, Olha, a 26-year-old Ukrainian, was tied to a table, naked to the waist. For 15 minutes, her interrogator leveled obscenities at her, then threw a jacket over her and let seven other men into the room. ... Sitting in Olha’s cramped kitchen weeks later in Kherson, in southern Ukraine, Anna Sosonska, an investigator with the prosecutor general’s office, listened to her recount the ordeal — an account of forced nudity that, prosecutors say, added to an accumulation of evidence that Russian forces had used sexual crimes as a weapon of war in the places they once ruled. ... After months of bureaucratic and political delays, Ukrainian officials are gathering pace in documenting sexual crimes, which are prevalent and devastating in times of war but often remain hidden under layers of shame, stigma and fear. ...”

NY Times

BBC - Ukraine war: Defying Russian onslaught in city 'at the end of the world'

Olha, a 26-year-old Ukrainian, faced sexual violence by Russian soldiers when she was detained in Kherson.