​Moments of reflection from a year of war

"As Russia launched its full-scale invasion on the night of 24 February 2022, life for Ukrainians went underground - to basements, bunkers, bomb shelters, metro stations. BBC teams set up a makeshift, round-the-clock operation in a car park beneath the streets of Kyiv. Lyse Doucet was among them. Did we have enough food and water to last, perhaps, for weeks? Were we ready to remain in a city where Russian troops could, possibly, be on the streets? We lived and worked, mattress-to-mattress, with Ukrainians who asked the same questions. Our neighbours included Liana, her teenage son Rustam and her mother Vera. Their Maine Coon cat Tyson never lived up to his namesake, the champion boxer; he hid under a bed above ground. ...”

BBC

NY Times: Deadly Russian Artillery Strikes Reported in Ukraine’s East and South

New Left Review: Ukrainian Voices?

Some MAGA Republicans Break with Fox Over Ukraine

GRID - World in Photos: From Ukraine and Beyond, One Year of War

NY Times: War in Ukraine Has Changed Europe Forever

Russian travelers arriving at the Vaalimaa border crossing between Finland and Russia. Its emptiness speaks of new European division.

​The French Like Protesting, but This Frenchman May Like It the Most

"A human tide swept through Paris last month for the type of event France knows only too well — a protest. Union leaders led the march, awash in a multicolored sea of flags. Demonstrators shouted fiery slogans. Clashes with the police erupted. And, as in every protest, there was Jean-Baptiste Reddé.He held a giant placard over his head that read, ‘Tax evasion must fund our pensions.’ Its distinctive colorful capital letters stood out in the dense crowd.Signs like that have been Mr. Reddé’s trademark since he retired from his teaching job a decade ago and dedicated himself nearly full time to protesting. He has since become a personal embodiment of France’s enduring passion for demonstration, rooted in a culture that sees change as a prize to be won, and defended, in the streets. ...”

NY Times

Jean-Baptiste Reddé with one of his traditional posters last month. He was on his way to a demonstration in Paris against the French government’s proposed pension overhaul.

​Forms of woundedness

"James Baldwin and Chinua Achebe only met once in their lifetime. ... Baldwin’s father, like Okonkwo in Things Fall Apart, was a troubled man who wrestled with his times the best way he knew how. In the process, both men harmed those they loved. Watching August Wilson’s 1985 play, Fences—currently running at the Joburg Theatre in South Africa as part of Black History Month programming—I was reminded of this conversation between Baldwin and Achebe, because the protagonist, Troy Maxson, battles with his times, inadvertently harming those he loves. Like Baldwin’s encounter with Things Fall Apart, many Africans know everyone in Fences. ...”

Africa Is a Country

2017 July: Fences (2016), 2017 August: The Ground on Which I Stand, a Speech on Black Theatre and Performance (1992), 2018 July: Pittsburgh Cycle, 2018 August: August Wilson in St. Paul: A MN Original Special, 2020 May: August Wilson's Blues Poetry, 2020 July: On Lessons From August Wilson’s Jitney, 2020 December: August Wilson, American Bard, 2021 December: The Art of Theater No. 14

​Here’s what to know on the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

"President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine vowed on Friday that his country would defeat Russia, as the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion prompted shows of solidarity from around the world and a mix of anxiety and resolve in Ukraine. ‘We will be victorious,’ Mr. Zelensky of Ukraine told reporters at a lengthy news conference in Kyiv. He said that Ukraine could win the war this year as long as its allies remain united “like a fist” and continue delivering weapons. There will be no negotiations with Russia, Mr. Zelensky said, until Moscow stops bombing Ukrainian cities and killing Ukrainian people. ‘Go ahead and stop doing all of that, and only after that we’ll tell you what form will be used to diplomatically put an end to it,’ Mr. Zelensky told reporters, on a day when allies rallied around Ukraine with new pledges of weapons and shows of support. ...”

NY Times

NY Times - ‘It’s Complicated’: How Biden and Zelensky Forged a Wartime Partnership

Voice - One Year of War: In Conversation with Ukrainians Standing Fast

LitHub - In the Hour of War: Carolyn Forché and Ilya Kaminsky on Contemporary Ukrainian Poetry

NY Times: The West Tried to Isolate Russia. It Didn’t Work.

NY Times: Our Photographers in Ukraine on the Images They Can’t Forget

Palanca, Moldova, March - A young life packed up in pink

Egg cream

"An egg cream is a cold beverage consisting of milk, carbonated water, and flavored syrup (typically chocolate or vanilla), as a substitute for an ice cream float. Despite the name, the drink contains neither eggs nor cream. It is prepared by pouring syrup into the tall glass, adding milk, lightly stirring it with a spoon, then streaming soda water into the glass, mixing the other ingredients. Ideally, the glass is left with 2/3 liquid and 1/3 foamy head. The egg cream is almost exclusively a fountain drink. ... The egg cream originated among Yiddish-speaking Eastern European Jewish immigrants in New York City, so one explanation claims that egg is a corruption of the Yiddish echt 'genuine or real', making an egg cream a ‘good cream’ ..."

Wikipedia

Requiem for an Egg Cream: In Search of a New York Classic

Brooklyn's Finest: The Eight Best Egg Creams in New York City

New York Egg Cream Recipe and History

The History of the Egg Cream and How to Make One in the Authentic Brooklyn Style

YouTube: How to make the perfect egg cream, Brooklyn's Last Seltzer Men | I Got a Guy | Bon Appéti

Eddie's Sweet Shop's egg cream is made with a homemade chocolate syrup.

​Trash and Vaudeville

"Trash and Vaudeville is a store located at 96 East 7th Street between Avenue A and First Avenue in East Village in Manhattan, New York. The store is associated with the clothing styles of punk rock and various other counter culture movements, and has been a leading source of fashion inspiration since its inception by owner  and founder Ray Goodman in 1975. HistoryRay Goodman founded Trash & Vaudeville in 1975 at 4 Saint Marks Place, New York, NY. The store occupied two floors within the historic Hamilton-Holly House building on St. Mark's Place from 1975 to February 2016. The basement formerly housed a pinball parlor directly below the upstairs, which was accessed by an iron staircase. Although physically separated as two stores, they were regarded as one entity. ...”

Wikipedia

NY Times: Trash and Vaudeville, a Punk Emporium, Leaves Its East Village Home

The Way It Was: One Last Look at Trash & Vaudeville on St. Mark's Place

NY Times: The Shop That Punk Built

How Russia's 35-mile armoured convoy ended in failure

"Three days into Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a huge 10-mile (15.5km) line of armoured vehicles was spotted by a satellite in the north of the country. The very same morning in Bucha, just outside Kyiv, 67-year-old Volodymyr Scherbynyn was standing outside his local supermarket when more than a hundred Russian military vehicles rolled into town. Both Volodymyr and the satellite were witnesses to a key part of President Vladimir Putin's plan for a quick and overwhelming victory. They were also witnesses to its failure. The western media called it a convoy. In reality, it was a traffic jam and a major tactical blunder. Forty-eight hours after that first satellite photograph, on 28 February 2022, the line of vehicles had grown to a colossal 35 miles (56 km) long. The vehicles were stalled for weeks. Then finally they retreated, and seemingly disappeared overnight.  What happened? Why did such a massive force fail to reach Kyiv? ...”

BBC (Video)

Year One of the Ukraine War: The Big Lessons and Questions

Aljazeera - One year on: Bittersweet journeys to safety

NY Times - How Poland, Long Leery of Foreigners, Opened Up to Ukrainians

GRID - Ukraine, One Year at War: An interactive timeline of the conflict

POLITICO - The environmental scars of Russia’s war in Ukraine

Satellite images of the convoy captured last year

Ezra Pound, The Art of Poetry No. 5 (1962)

Interviewed by Donald Hall : "Since his return to Italy, Ezra Pound has spent most of his time in the Tirol, staying at Castle Brunnenburg with his wife, his daughter Mary, his son-in-law Prince Boris de Rachewiltz, and his grandchildren. However, the mountains in this resort country near Merano are cold in the winter, and Mr. Pound likes the sun. The interviewer was about to leave England for Merano, at the end of February, when a telegram stopped him at the door: 'Merano icebound. Come to Rome.'  Pound was alone in Rome, occupying a room in the apartment of an old friend named Ugo Dadone. It was the beginning of March and exceptionally warm. The windows and shutters of Pound’s corner room swung open to the noises of the Via Angelo Poliziano. The interviewer sat in a large chair while Pound shifted restlessly from another chair to a sofa and back to the chair. ...”

The Paris Review

2020 April: The Cantos, 2021 April: A Walking Tour In Southern France

​New Age Steppers – Stepping Into A New Age 1980 - 2012

"... An anthology set of the group that launched the On-U Sound label with the first album and single, New Age Steppers were a collective with an evolving line-up, built around the driving forces of Ari Up (The Slits) and producer Adrian Sherwood. Their records featured contributions from several singers and players from the UK post-punk vanguard such as the Pop Group, The Raincoats and The Flying Lizards; colliding with established movers from the reggae world such as Bim Sherman, Style Scott and George Oban. Contains the following discs: New Age Steppers (1981), Action Battlefield (1981), Foundation Steppers (1983), Love Forever (2012), Avant Gardening (a new compilations of rare dubs, version excursions and unreleased tracks from the vault) plus 32 page book containing photos, ephemera and a new sleevenotes by Oli Warwick that trace the history of the group via conversations with Adrian Sherwood and other contributors. ...”

Bandcamp (Audio)

Discogs (Video)

2010 October: Ari Up (17 January 1962 – 20 October 2010), 2012 July: Subatomic Sound System meets Lee Scratch Perry & Ari Up of the Slits (7″ vinyl), 2014 September: Live in Cincinnati and San Francisco 1980, 2015 August: Return Of The Giant Slits (1981/2007), 2016 July: "Man Next Door" - Berlin 1981, 2021 April: Avant Gardening - New Age Steppers (2021), 2022 September: Typical Girls/I Heard It Through The Grapevine (1979)

Biden Visits Kyiv, Ukraine’s Embattled Capital, as Air-Raid Siren Sounds

"President Biden made a surprise trip to the embattled capital of Ukraine on Monday, traveling under a cloak of secrecy into a war zone to demonstrate what he called America’s ‘unwavering support’ of the effort to beat back Russian forces nearly a year after they invaded the country. Mr. Biden arrived early Monday morning to meet with President Volodymyr Zelensky, and the two stepped out into the streets of Kyiv even as an air-raid siren sounded, a dramatic moment that underscored the investment the United States has made in Ukraine’s independence. ... Mr. Biden promised to release another $500 million in military aid in coming days, mentioning artillery ammunition, Javelin missiles and Howitzers, but he did not talk about the advanced arms that Ukraine has sought. ...”

NY Times (Video)

Guardian - ‘This is a part of history’: Kyiv citizens delighted by Joe Biden’s surprise visit (Video)

Aljazeera - Measuring militaries: How do Russia and Ukraine stack up? (Video)

GRID - The unexpected ‘winners’ of the war in Ukraine: The people, companies and countries that have benefited from the turmoil 

President Biden traveled to the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, to meet with President Volodymyr Zelensky in a demonstration of America’s support nearly a year into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

2023 Winter Music Preview ~ Ambient & Drone

"Starting today, we delve more deeply into the winter release schedule, which already includes hundreds of titles: a boon for those who have packed away their 2022 playlists and are looking for something new.Our earliest 2023 submissions arrived in late summer, a sign that some artists really have their act together ~ or were ready to put last year behind them before it was over.  We’ve been playing some of these albums for more than a season, and now we’re finally able to share them with you!  This winter’s musical slate is already enthralling, one of the finest in years. ...”

a closer listen (Audio/Video)

Everthus the Ether - Tristan Eckerson   

​How Hell’s Kitchen got its rough and ready name

"There used to be a lot of hell in New York neighborhood names. Hell’s Hundred Acres was the early to mid-20th century moniker for today’s SoHo, thanks to all the fires that broke out in the cast-iron buildings then used for manufacturing. Hellgate Hill was an East 90s enclave named for the narrow East River channel separating Queens from Ward’s Island, where perilous rocks and currents sunk many ships. Let’s not forget Satan’s Circus, the Gilded Age vice district that straddled the Chelsea-Flatiron-Midtown borders, and Spuyten Duyvil, the northern Bronx enclave that translates into ‘spite of the devil’ or ‘spouting devil’ due to its treacherous waters. ...”

Ephemeral New York

The War’s Violent Next Stage

"For much of the winter, the war in Ukraine settled into a slow-moving but exceedingly violent fight along a jagged 600-mile-long frontline in the southeast. Now, both Ukraine and Russia are poised to go on the offensive. Russia, wary of the growing Ukrainian arsenal of Western-supplied weapons, is moving first. Using tens of thousands of new conscripts in the hope of overwhelming Ukraine, its forces are attacking heavily fortified positions across bomb-scarred fields and through scorched forests in the East. They are looking for vulnerabilities, hoping to exploit gaps, and setting the stage for what Ukraine warns could be Moscow’s most ambitious campaign since the start of the war. ...”

NY Times

NY Times: Opinion | Putin Began His Unjust War One Year Ago. Here’s What Ukraine Needs Now.

Guardian: One year after the start of war, what lies ahead for Ukraine?

The Women Fighting Back Against Putin’s Attack on Ukrainian Culture

POLITICO: ‘This Place Is Full of Ghosts’, Photographer Stephen Dupont documents Ukraine's haunted landscapes.

NY Times - Trading Books for a Rifle: The Teacher Who Volunteered in Ukraine

When Russian troops rushed Kyiv, a woman joined its defense.

A Wiser Sympathy - Mary Kuhn

"In 1870 the American Independent ran an article from Charles Dickens’ magazine All the Year Round titled ‘Have Plants Intelligence?’ The provocative question in the title was designed to spark intuitive negative responses, but the paragraphs that follow rehearse a clear argument in the affirmative. ... Emily Dickinson was, by all accounts, a skillful and dedicated gardener. Throughout her isolation at her parents’ house on Main Street in Amherst, Dickinson continued to raise plants, arrange bouquets, and send cuttings to distant friends. As a student she scouted for new flowers to press into her bound herbarium, and in winter, to keep plants warm, she brought them into the conservatory built against the southeastern wall of the house. ...”

Laphams Quarterly

2016 December: Studies in Scale - Excerpts by Emily Dickinson and Jen Bervin, 2018 April: A Quiet Passion - Terence Davies (2016)

Page from Emily Dickinson’s herbarium, c. 1840.

​5 Quirky Queens House Trends

"Queens is New York City’s most diverse borough, both culturally and in terms of its residential architecture. Throughout the borough, you can find amalgamations of different architectural styles, personal touches, and cultural influences from all over the world resulting in houses that are truly unique. In his book, All the Queens Houses, Spanish-born Queens-based architect and artist Rafael Herrin-Ferri creates an architectural portrait of the borough that captures how the homes reflect the diversity of their residents.

Untapped Cities

Moscow’s Military Capabilities Are in Question After Failed Battle for Ukrainian City

"As Moscow steps up its offensive in eastern Ukraine, weeks of failed attacks on a Ukrainian stronghold have left two Russian brigades in tatters, raised questions about Russia’s military tactics and renewed doubts about its ability to maintain sustained, large-scale ground assaults. The battle for the city of Vuhledar, which has been viewed as an opening move in an expected Russian spring offensive, has been playing out since the last week of January, but the scale of Moscow’s losses there is only now beginning to come into focus. Accounts from Ukrainian and Western officials, Ukrainian soldiers, captured Russian soldiers and Russian military bloggers, as well as video and satellite images, paint a picture of a faltering Russian campaign that continues to be plagued by battlefield dysfunction. ...”

NY Times

Aljazeera: Russia surrounds Bakhmut as Ukraine sends in troops (Video)

NY Times - ‘The World’s Largest Construction Site’: The Race Is On to Rebuild Ukraine

Keep the New Russian Offensive in Perspective

YouTube: Berlin Film Festival: Ukraine war dominates the screen

NY Times: In Bleak Russian Cemetery, Sea of Crosses Signals War’s True Toll

Set the Night on Fire: L.A. in the Sixties - Mike Davis and Jon Wiener (2020)

"Set the Night on Fire: L.A. in the Sixties is a book by Mike Davis and Jon Wiener about Los Angeles in the 1960s. The authors combine archival research and personal interviews with their own experiences in the civil rights and anti-war movements to tell the social history or, as the authors term it, ‘movement history’ of this transformative decade. The book’s purpose is not to present a comprehensive history of 1960s Los Angeles but to dispel the mythology surrounding this era and replace it with the neglected history of the populist social and cultural movements that shifted power away from an entrenched elite and opened up opportunities for radical egalitarian change. ...”

Wikipedia

BOOKFORUM: Los Angeles Is Burning – Sasha Frere-Jones

Guardian: Set the Night on Fire by Mike Davis and Jon Wiener review – the real LA in the 1960s

Verso – The Midnight Hour: The Watts Uprising

LARB – A Quarter of a Million Readers: The LA Free Press (1964–70)

Verso Books

The Ascent - Larisa Shepitko (1977)

"The Ascent (Voskhozhdeniye, Larisa Shepitko, 1977) is a Second World War drama set in an unidentified area of German-occupied Belarus during the bitterly cold winter of 1942. Not a film for the faint hearted, The Ascent is a harrowing, gut-wrenching portrayal of the suffering experienced by two members of a Soviet partisan group: a stolid, grizzled, battle-hardened veteran, Rybak (Viadmir Gostyukhin), and a former schoolteacher turned soldier, the pale, slight and sickly Sotnikov (Boris Plotnikov, making his film debut). ... When The Ascent was released in 1977, it garnered Ukrainian-born director Larisa Shepitko much-deserved international recognition, winning the prestigious Golden Bear Award at the 27th Berlin International Film Festival that year. ...”

A Harrowing Exploration of War and the Meaning of Human Existence: The Ascent

Criterion - The Ascent: Out in the Cold

Senses of Cinema

Wikipedia

Criterion (Video)

Guided Missile Killed U.S. Aid Worker in Ukraine, Video Shows

"Roughly a minute after an American paramedic, Pete Reed, and a team of aid workers began tending to a wounded civilian in the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut on Feb. 2, they were attacked. Mr. Reed, a former U.S. Marine volunteering on the war’s front lines, was killed, and several of his colleagues were wounded. Volunteers at the scene initially attributed the strike to indiscriminate Russian shelling. But a frame-by-frame analysis of a video taken at the location — and shared with The New York Times — shows that Mr. Reed, who was unarmed, died in a targeted strike by a guided missile almost certainly fired by Russian troops. ...”

NY Times

BBC - Ukraine war: Russians slowly take ground around Bakhmut (Video)

POLITICO: Russian-linked malware was close to putting U.S. electric, gas facilities ‘offline’ last year

NY Times: Secretive Network Rescues Russia’s Antiwar Dissidents in Nick of Time

The temptation of a simple story

The mosaic in the Africa Institute in Moscow

Stand By for Failure: A Negativland Documentary

"Above is the opening of my review of the new Negativland documentary, Stand By for Failure, directed by Ryan Worsley, which is in the new issue of The Wire (the one with the Necks on the cover). I’ll post the full text in a month, once the subsequent issue is out. In the interim, some thoughts I had while writing the review that didn’t make the assigned length. ... I wanted to talk a bit more about the group in the context of American pop surreality, notably the Firesign Theater and the Church of the SubGenius (J. R. ‘Bob’ Dobbs), neither of which are mentioned in the documentary, or industrial music like Consolidated and Ministry. ... In the review I mention how some of the material will be confusing to unfamiliar viewers. I didn’t have space to include the moments of American Top 40 host Casey Kasem cursing. ...”

disquiet (Video)

2009 March: Negativland, 2012 January: Negativland (sound collage), 2012 December: No Other Possibility (1989), 2013 November: No Business (2005), 2021 November: Negativland Is Still Culture Jamming and Taking on Our Masters

​Love Songs: “Water Sign”

"Parliament’s ‘(You’re a Fish and I’m a) Water Sign’ is an unabashed ode to passion, to the base and the sensual, to the possibilities of love in the juiciest ways it can exist between people. The song moans into being, a beseeching follows, then there’s a bass so low you can’t possibly get under it, and finally the central question is posed: ‘Can we get down?’ In true Parliament fashion, the tune doesn’t follow a traditional verse-chorus-bridge structure; it consists of an ever-evolving chorus that departs from the lines ‘I want to be / on the seaside of love with you / let’s go swimming / the water’s fine.’ The arrangement is magnificent and the execution velvety, and the soulful, overlapping ad-libs of George Clinton, Walter ‘Junie”’Morrison, and Ron Ford are just romantic lagniappe. ...”

The Paris Review

Mosaic in Maltezana

​Ukrainian Refugees and Host Families: What Is Life Like After Being Uprooted?

"Millions of Ukrainians have left their country since Russia invaded in February 2022. In the first few weeks of the war, people in other countries rushed to offer help to those who were fleeing. Poland, which shares a border with Ukraine, has taken in the largest number of Ukrainians in Europe: Nearly 1.5 million had registered as refugees there by November. In western Europe, programs like Homes for Ukraine in Britain, #UnterkunftUkraine in Germany and Pour l’Ukraine in France were created to enable citizens to share their homes. Displaced Ukrainians are now living in countries all over Europe, as well as further afield. Many have spent months outside of their home country.As the war enters its second year, we’d like to hear from Ukrainians whose lives have been uprooted and who are now living with relatives or host families outside of Ukraine. ...”

NY Times: Opinion

NY Times: They Are Russians Fighting Against Their Homeland. Here’s Why.

Guardian: Putin’s war has reinvigorated the west’s defence of liberty. That unity must not crack now

Aljazeera: Can EU-Russia relations be repaired post-Putin?

​Jurgen Klopp turned doubters into believers once already at Liverpool. Now he must do it again

"… Barely a year after reaching the Champions League final, Dortmund went on a run that saw them lose 11 of their first 19 games of the Bundesliga season. In early February they were bottom of the table, an astonishing fall from grace for Klopp and his team. Eventually, they rallied to win five and draw two of their next seven games, moving away from the relegation zone and ending up in seventh position. But after seven years, two Bundesliga titles, a German Cup, two German Super Cups, one Champions League final and more magical moments than their fans could ever have dreamed when he arrived from Mainz in 2008, Klopp told the Dortmund hierarchy in early April 2015 that he, his players and the club needed a change. …”

The Athletic

The Athletic: The problems facing Liverpool in the biggest crisis of Jurgen Klopp’s reign (Video)

​Can: Live in Stuttgart 1975

"... The band’s line up for this legendary 1975 performance features all four original members—Irmin Schmidt on keys, Jaki Leibezeit on drums, Michel Karoli on guitar, and Holger Czukay on bass. Can Live in Stuttgart 1975 is the first in a series of Can live concerts available in full for the first time on vinyl, CD and digital formats. Originally recorded on tape, these carefully restored live albums will comprise the entirety of each show in the format of a story with a beginning, middle and end, with Can’s performances taking on a life of their own. ...”

Bandcamp (Audio)

NY Times: Can’s Live Shows Will Be Heard at Last, Thanks to a Bootlegger in Big Pants (Video)

Pitchfork

Discogs (Video), YouTube: LIVE IN STUTTGART 1975  1 / 5

2011 September: Can, 2011 February: Plight & Premonition, 2011 June: Persian Love, 2013 October: Flux + Mutability - David Sylvian and Holger Czukay (1989) , 2014 June: Holger Czukay - Der Osten Ist Rot, Rome Remains Rome (1984/7), 2012 June: The Lost Tapes, 2016 March: Invaders Of The Heart - Jah Wobble (1982), 2017 April: Jah Wobble, The Edge, Holger Czukay - Snake Charmer (1983), 2017 June: The Legend Lives On… Jah Wobble In Betrayal (1980), 2017 July: Can - The Singles (2017), 2017 September: Holger Czukay (1938-2017), 2019 September: Holger Czukay - Cinema (2018), 2020 December: Future Days (Remastered) - Can (2014)

The War’s Violent Next Stage

"For much of the winter, the war in Ukraine settled into a slow-moving but exceedingly violent fight along a jagged 600-mile-long frontline in the southeast. Now, both Ukraine and Russia are poised to go on the offensive. Russia, wary of the growing Ukrainian arsenal of Western-supplied weapons, is moving first. Using tens of thousands of new conscripts in the hope of overwhelming Ukraine, its forces are attacking heavily fortified positions across bomb-scarred fields and through scorched forests in the East. They are looking for vulnerabilities, hoping to exploit gaps, and setting the stage for what Ukraine warns could be Moscow’s most ambitious campaign since the start of the war. Ukraine must now defend against the Russian assault without exhausting the resources it needs to mount an offensive of its own. Kyiv is training thousands of its own soldiers outside the country and scrambling to amass heavy weapons and ammunition, in advance of an assault meant to 'break the bones' of Russia’s army, said Oleksandr Danylyuk, a former director of Ukraine’s national security council. ...”

NY Times

BBC - Ukraine war: Belgorod locals live in fear but won't blame Putin

NBC News: Russia steps up attacks in Ukraine with broad bombardments (Video)

The Intercept_: U.S. Hypocrisy on War Crimes Is a Gift to Putin

Guardian: Large-scale Russian missile attacks ‘reconnaissance’ for future offensive

POLITICO: Can Putin win?

Both sides are preparing to attack after months of slow-moving fighting. Russia is moving first. Here’s how each side is trying to shape the critical next stage in Ukraine.

Queens Jazz Trail Map

"While New Orleans may boast that it is the ‘birthplace of jazz,’ New York City's borough of Queens has its own proud claim: it has been the ‘home of jazz,’ the residence of choice for hundreds of the music's leading players. The award-winning Queens Jazz Trail map (originally commissioned by Flushing Town Hall) shows the different neighborhoods and sites that are part of this hidden jazz history. Featuring portraits of jazz greats and drawings of their houses, this pictorial map makes a beautiful poster. The back of the map contains a short history of jazz in Queens; the addresses of homes once occupied by jazz musicians; and sites of current interest to jazz fans. ...”

Ephemera Press

Untapped Cities

​Legendary NYC Graffiti Artist James Top Book Signing and Solo Exhibition at Sister’s Uptown Bookstore & Cultural Center

"Tomorrow evening, Saturday, February 4, Sister’s Uptown Bookstore & Cultural Center and James Top Productions will host a book signing of James Top‘s autobiography, My Life, along with an opening reception to ‘Life Is Sweet on Sugar Hill,’ a solo exhibition of his artwork. If you don’t already own a copy of James Top‘s memoir, this is the ideal setting to pick up a personally autographed one. James Top, My Life not only celebrates the life of one particularly passionate graffiti artist, curator, educator and activist, but it illuminates elements of the hip-hop culture that NYC birthed. Growing up in the projects in East New York, a neighborhood plagued by poverty and violence, it was all too easy to succumb to the fiercely brutal life of the streets. But James Top was determined from early on to somehow escape the ‘war zone’ that was his everyday reality and ‘make it to the top.’ ...”

Street Art NYC

​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