​Ukraine war: Borrowed time for Bakhmut as Russians close in

"The soil of Bakhmut is dusted with snow and soaked with blood. This small city in Eastern Ukraine is at the centre of an epic battle. For more than six months Russian forces have tried to claim it. Ukrainian troops have resisted, giving rise to the popular slogan here ‘Bakhmut holds.’ Now the Russians are attacking from three sides, with regular troops and fighters from the notorious Wagner mercenary group. The Russians have reached one of the main highways into the city, and are closing in on the outskirts. There is house-to-house fighting in some areas on the outskirts, with ‘hard battles for every home’ according to the Ukrainian military. It feels like Bakhmut is on borrowed time. If so, Ilya and Oleksii intend to use every second of it. ...”

BBC (Video)

NY Times: In Rural Ukraine, Medicine and Hope Roll In on a Truck

Aljazeera - NATO role in Ukraine threatens ‘unpredictable’ escalation: Russia (Video)

POLITICO: Red carpet war as Ukrainians and Russians scrap over Oscar nominations (Video)

Guardian: Standing room only as Zelenskiy delivers a lesson in leadership

Ukrainian forces are now defending the small city of Bakhmut on three fronts

​Watch Conservationists Moving & Restoring an Exquisite Ancient Greek Mosaic

"Raise a glass to the city of Dion on the Eastern slopes of Mount Olympus, considered by the ancient Greeks a divine location, where Zeus held sway.And while we’re at it, raise a glass to Zeus’ son, Dionysus the god of fertility and theater, and most famously, wine: …hail to you, Dionysus, god of abundant clusters! Grant that we may come again rejoicing to this season, and from that season onwards for many a year. – The Homeric hymn to Dionysus. In the summer of 1987, archaeologists working at an excavation site near the modern village of Dion unearthed a mosaic of thousands of stone tessarae depictng ‘ivy-crowned Dionysus, the loud-crying god, splendid son of Zeus and glorious Semele,’ raising a drinking horn as he rides nude in a chariot pulled by sea panthers. ...”

Open Culture (Video)

​Deep In The Woods (Pastoral Psychedelia & Funky Folk 1968-1975)

"... Triple CD set collecting rare cuts and cult favourites from the worlds of psychedelic, pastoral and funky folk, 1968-1975. Focusing on the outpouring of psychedelic folk flavours that emerged swiftly after the first psychedelic era. Featuring some wonderful selections from long collectable acts such as Sunforest, Mellow Candle, Trees, Heron, Trader Horne, Christine Harwood and many more. Compiled by Richard Norris (Beyond The Wizards Sleeve/The Grid), the compilation is themed around UK and Irish music from that hallowed period, and comes with a 7000 word essay and sleeve notes from the musician/producer. Celebrating the collision of traditional folk with new psychedelic studio techniques, new and exotic textures, and a developing groove. ...”

Holland Tunnel Dive

allmusic (Audio)

amazon

YouTube: Deep In The Woods: Pastoral Psychedelia & Funky Folk (1968-1975)  1 / 45

​Kharkiv Got Some Breathing Space, but Still Doesn’t Breathe Easily

"KHARKIV, Ukraine — The trenchworks along the northern edge of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, have begun to erode and fill with refuse, and the soldiers who used them to defend the city from the Russian onslaught have now departed to other fronts. Today, the fortifications are manned only by mannequins in military uniforms, including one, perhaps too optimistically, wearing a blue United Nations peacekeeping helmet. All around, the blackened and pockmarked high-rise apartment buildings testify to the ferocity of the fighting that occurred here in Ukraine’s northeast in the early months of the war. But there is a stillness now, and residents are not quite sure how to interpret it.Ukrainian forces expelled the Russian military from almost the whole region in a blitz offensive in September that took much of the world by surprise. Not only did it inject new vigor into the Ukrainian war effort, but it also gave Kharkiv some breathing space. ...”

NY Times

Guardian - The Guardian view on tackling corruption in Ukraine: welcome action, Editorial

NY Times: Russia and Ukraine Battle for Control of Villages Near the Key City of Bakhmut

A resident towing water from a school back to his apartment this month in the battered neighborhood of Saltivka, in Kharkiv, Ukraine.

The Recommended Sampler (1982)

"Typically, record label samplers are promotional tools created for crassly commercial purposes. So the promotion of a sampler as a collector's item would seem to be something of a stretch. However, this sampler was a notable exception when it was first released in a double-LP format in 1982, and it is equally welcome 26 years later as a two-disc CD set. Recommended Records was founded in 1978 by Chris Cutler, a percussionist, composer, and founding member of avant-garde British bands Henry Cow and Art Bears. Cutler's label was a natural outgrowth of the Rock in Opposition movement, which sponsored a number of festivals in the late '70s. ...”

all music (Audio)

Bandcamp - The Recommended Sampler 1982: 25th Anniversary Edition (Audio)

W - Recommended Records Sampler

Discogs (Video)

​Top 18 Secrets of Alphabet City, Manhattan

"Alphabet City is the eclectic home of legendary jazz musicians, a candy store owned by a 90-year-old immigrant, buildings featured in Rent, and a tree where a religious movement began. Alphabet City is a neighborhood within the East Village typically defined as the blocks between Avenues A through D and East Houston Street through East 14th Street. The neighborhood was a haven for Irish immigrants in the mid-1800s, German immigrants in the latter half of the 19th century, and Puerto Ricans since the mid-1900s, with large and historic Jewish and Black populations. The neighborhood is a true mix of old and new, with some buildings dating back well over a century (including one from 1827) next to more modern developments. ...”

Untapped Cities

​Ukraine Corruption Scandal Stokes Longstanding Aid Concerns in U.S.

"WASHINGTON — Since the start of the war in Ukraine, U.S. officials have watched with some anxiety as billions of American dollars flowed into the country, well aware of Kyiv’s history of political corruption and fearing that aid might be siphoned off for personal gain. The ouster of several top officials from Ukraine’s government on Tuesday following accusations of government corruption has lent those concerns a fresh urgency. Although U.S. and European officials say there is no evidence that aid to Ukraine was stolen, even the perception of fraud would threaten political support for continued wartime assistance and for the postwar reconstruction effort that Western officials envision. The allegations included reports that Ukraine’s military had agreed to pay inflated prices for food meant for its troops. ...”

NY Times

Guardian - ‘The big battle is coming’: Ukrainian forces prepare for the war’s most intense phase

POLTICO: ‘Ukraine’s more integrated in NATO than any other country’

GRID - Russian propaganda responds to German tank deployment to Ukraine: ‘Nazis,’ ‘swastikas’ and talk of World War III

Charles Simonds: Artists Space and 112 Greene Street

"Charles Simonds occupies the sweet and ethical position of giving his art away. For years now he has built tiny clay brick dwellings in the predominantly Puerto Rican neighborhood of New York’s Lower East Side to accommodate a migratory race of little people. Simonds’s mythopoesis is immediately accessible. ... But Simonds’s efforts are also a small-scale mimic of the earth workers’s moves out of the studio to build in the vast deserts out west. Simonds’s dwellings, built with a museological precision, are based on Indian pueblo architecture, particularly the centuries-abandoned cliff dwellings in Mesa Verde, Colorado. ...”

ARTFORUM

Charles Simonds: Films (Video)

2018 October: Dwelling

Dwelling Niagra Gorge, ArtPark, Lewiston, NY 1974

This Is Darkness - Vol.1 Dark Ambient, Vol.2 Nothingness

"This Is Darkness is very proud to present to you the first of our compilations. This one has been in the works for about 8 months and has been a lengthy but exciting process. We are presenting you with 66 exclusive tracks, coming in at 7+ hours of music. This is a combination of some well known artists and some that are up & coming.”

Bandcamp (Audio)

Bandcamp: Vol. 2 Nothingness (Audio)

​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