​At William Faulkner’s House

"’That’s the one trouble with this country: everything, weather, all, hangs on too long,’ William Faulkner wrote of his native Mississippi in his novel As I Lay Dying. ‘Like our rivers, our land: opaque, slow, violent; shaping and creating the life of man in its implacable and brooding image.’ There came a day when, as a reader of Faulkner, I wanted to see what he was talking about. If the tendency of things in Mississippi was to hang on too long, as Faulkner claimed, maybe the populace and the landscape would be more or less the same as they’d been when he wrote those lines in 1930. The drive from Brooklyn to his house, Rowan Oak, in Oxford, Mississippi, was seventeen hours. ...”

The Paris Review

2011 September: Southern Gothic, 2014 February: William Faulkner, 2015 October: William Faulkner Draws Maps of Yoknapatawpha County, the Fictional Home of His Great Novels, 2015 November: Interviews William Faulkner, The Art of Fiction No. 12, 2016 April: Absalom, Absalom!! (1936), 2016 May: The Sound and the Fury (1929), 2016 October: The Snopes Trilogy (1940, 1957, 1959), 2016 December: Light in August (1932), 2017 February: As I Lay Dying (1930), 2017 June: The Wild Palms (1939), 2017 August: Sanctuary (1931). 2017 September: The Unvanquished (1938), 2017 October: 20 Pieces of Writing Advice from William Faulkner, 2017 November: Yoknapatawpha County, 2018 February: Go Down, Moses (1942), 2018 June: Flags in the Dust (1973), 2019 May: Collected Stories of William Faulkner (1950), 2019 October: Sartoris (1929), 2020 August: Down Through the Faulkner Bloodline, Pride and Racial Guilt Commingled

​Justice Dept. Embraces Supporting Role in Pursuing War Crimes in Ukraine

"Attorney General Merrick B. Garland makes a point of refusing to discuss active investigations, but during a recent trip to Ukraine he broke form, revealing that U.S. prosecutors had identified ‘several specific’ Russians suspected of war crimes against one or more Americans. Despite Mr. Garland’s assessment, the possibility of identifying Russians who targeted Americans in a war zone and bringing them to justice in the United States — rather than charging them in absentia — appears remote for now. As a result, the Justice Department is increasingly focused on a supporting role: providing Ukraine’s overburdened prosecutors and police with logistical help, training and direct assistance in bringing charges of war crimes by Russians in Ukraine’s courts. ...”

NY Times

Vox: The Wagner Group, Russia’s maybe-private army in Ukraine, explained (Video)

NBC News: Ukraine hints it blew up Russian missiles in occupied Crimea (Video)

What Happens When Russia’s Criminal Soldiers Come Home

Guardian: Russian missiles destroyed in Crimea blast, Ukraine says (Video)

Musicians Who Are Poets: 12 Game-Changing Lyrical Masters

"... For many, the fact that the success of a song lyric tends to hinge upon on its accompanying music, the voices that sing it, and the performance itself means that it cannot be considered poetry. Yet before the written word, poetry was performed and passed on through song. The thing that sets poetry apart from prose is that its impact depends on a musicality in language and rhythm, much like a song lyric. However you see it, there are many musicians who are poets in their fans’ eyes, and their song lyrics are taken seriously today – studied in classrooms and published as annotated, hardback collections.Here, then, is our pick of just a few lyricists that many would consider poets. ...”

udiscover (Video)

The NCAA Tournament’s Sweet 16 is set, but there’s questions for all of them

"In a frenzied six days of action last week, the NCAA Tournament field was cut from 68 to 16. That’s 16 teams that somehow found the answers they needed to find in order to survive and advance (twice). Now that they’ve come this far, their reward is … more questions. Who will riddle their way to Houston? It depends on the next round of Q&A. Here is the key question that each of the remaining teams will face as the tournament enters its second week. ...”

The Athletic

The Athletic - Catching up with NCAA Tournament Cinderellas: What happened after their magical runs?

The Ringer: Winners and Losers of the NCAA Tournament Round 2 (Video)

The Athletic: Miami’s run to the Sweet 16 reflects college basketball’s new reality

The Athletic: Markquis Nowell, K-State’s ‘arrow,’ is writing March magic into his NYC hoops origin story

The Athletic: Alabama might just win the NCAA Tournament, whether anyone likes it or not

****The Athletic - 2023 March Madness upsets: Why Princeton has a chance in the Sweet 16, but FAU has a tough matchup

​After a year of war, why is Russian gas still flowing through Ukraine?

"Almost from the moment Russia invaded last year, Ukraine has been insistently urging European countries to end their reliance on Russian gas, arguing that these purchases are effectively funding Russia’s war effort. ‘Please do not sponsor the weapons of war of this country, of Russia,’ Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the European Parliament last March. ‘No euros for the occupiers. Close all of your ports to them. Don’t export them your goods. Deny energy resources. Push for Russia to leave Ukraine.’ Europe has responded, though not as forcefully as some would like, cutting its use of Russian oil and gas, investing in other energy sources and vowing to completely phase out Russian imports by 2027. U.S. and European intelligence agencies reportedly now suspect that a pro-Ukrainian group was behind the explosion that damaged the Nord Stream gas pipelines linking Russia and Germany. ...”

GRID

NBC News: Defiant Putin visits Mariupol in first trip to occupied eastern Ukraine (Video)

BBC - Yevgeny Prigozhin: From Putin's chef to Wagner founder

NY Times: Inch by Bloody Inch in Ukraine War, Russia Is Closing In on Bakhmut

YouTube: What impact will ICC warrant for President Putin's arrest have? | Inside Story

​An Architect Breaks Down the Design of New York City Subway Stations, from the Oldest to Newest

"With 26 lines and 472 stations, the New York City subway system is practically a living organism, and way too big a topic to tackle in a short video. Architect Michael Wyetzner may not have time to touch on rats, crime track fires, flooding, night and weekend service disruptions, or the adults-in-a-Peanuts-special sound quality of the announcements in the above episode of Architectural Digest’s Blueprints web series, but he gives an excellent overview of its evolving design, from the stations themselves to sidewalk entrances to the platform signage. ...”

Open Culture (Video)

​Caribbean and Latin Connections in Jazz

"Afro-Caribbean and Afro-Latin music has blended with Black North American music for centuries. This interaction is based in shared African-influenced musical characteristics such as rhythmic focus, a percussive quality, and links to dance. Caribbean and Afro-Latin influences brought new musical elements, such as polyrhythms (simultaneous contrasting rhythmic patterns), African-derived percussion instruments (such as the conga), and Spanish-inflected melodies, to North America. At the same time, African American music from the United States had an influence in the Caribbean and Latin America. This musical dialogue gained momentum during the 20th and 21st centuries, fostering rich new forms of creativity. ...”

Carnegie Hall (Audio)

​Arrest Warrant From Criminal Court Pierces Putin’s Aura of Impunity

"The International Criminal Court accused the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, of war crimes and issued a warrant for his arrest on Friday, a highly symbolic step that deepened his isolation and punctured the aura of impunity that has surrounded him since he ordered troops into Ukraine a year ago. The court cited Mr. Putin’s responsibility for the abduction and deportation of Ukrainian children, thousands of whom have been sent to Russia since the invasion. It also issued a warrant for Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, the public face of the Kremlin-sponsored program that transfers the children out of Ukraine. There is little prospect of Mr. Putin standing trial in a courtroom anytime soon. The International Criminal Court cannot try defendants in absentia and Russia, which is not a party to the court, dismissed the warrants as ‘meaningless.’ ...”

NY Times (Video)

NY Times: In Stoic Ukraine, Stony Faces Are Starting to Crack and to Cry

Aljazeera: Ukraine Black Sea grain export deal extended, UN and Turkey says (Video)

GRID: The US-Russia drone collision over the Black Sea is a sign of increasingly unfriendly skies

Mark Stewart - As The Veneer Of Democracy Starts To Fade (Reissue 1988)

"... Probably one of the most chilling, bleak, heavy, and monochrome albums ever recorded, _As the Veneer of Democracy Starts to Fade_ is probably the epitome of, to thieve an album title from Chris and Cosey, Techno Primitiv. The album is pretty much coloured in black and white with scraping shades of grey in between. The beats will rattle your soundsystem (particularly if one has the 1995 reissue), the shrieking of instruments and samples are often cringe-worthy (particularly on ‘Bastards’), and you will barely notice that there is an almost complete absence of bass since so much is going on during most of the songs and everything sounds horrifyingly shrill. Imagine the Persian Gulf war combined with Soviet radio screaming in your ears through bullhorns. ...”

Holland Tunnel Dive

W - As the Veneer of Democracy Starts to Fade

Discogs (Video)

​Souls Grown Deep like the Rivers

"For generations, Black artists from the American South have forged a unique art tradition. Working in near isolation from established practices, they have created masterpieces that articulate America’s painful past – the inhuman practice of enslavement, the cruel segregationist policies of the Jim Crow era, and institutionalised racism. Drawing its title from the work of Langston Hughes, Souls Grown Deep like the Rivers brings together sculpture, paintings, reliefs, drawings, and quilts, most of which will be seen in the UK and Europe for the first time. It will also feature the celebrated quiltmakers of Gee’s Bend, Alabama and the neighbouring communities of Rehoboth and Alberta.  Made from the materials available locally – like clay, driftwood, roots, soil, recycled and cast-off objects – the 64 works range from the mid 20th century to today. ...”

Royal Academy (Video)

Thornton Dial, Stars of Everything, 2004.

Ukraine conflict: What war crimes is Russia accused of?

"The International Criminal Court in the Hague has issued an arrest warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin. It accuses him of being responsible for war crimes in Ukraine, including the unlawful deportation of children. Russia's Commissioner for Children's Rights, Ms Maria Lvova-Belova, is also subject to an arrest warrant.According to Ukraine, tens of thousands of possible war crimes have been carried out by Russian forces since they invaded Ukraine in February last year. What is a war crime? ’Even war has rules’, as the International Committee of the Red Cross says. These are set out in treaties called the Geneva Conventions along with other international laws and agreements. ...”

BBC

Aljazeera: ICC issues Putin arrest warrant on Ukraine war crime allegations (Video)

NY Times: Using Adoptions, Russia Turns Ukrainian Children Into Spoils of War

POLITICO: Zelenskyy digs in against calls to quit Bakhmut (Audio)

NBC News: Has Ukraine made a big mistake by refusing to retreat from Bakhmut? (Video)

​NCAA Tournament Beer Guide: A local brew for every team. Please read responsibly

"The NCAA Tournament is a month’s worth of emotional overload. A bright, shining star we can’t help but stare at. It will consume the universe for the next month. And those who watch along may consume some frosty refreshments. Which brings us to the question we ask every spring: What’s the best beverage to pair with watching every team in the field of 68? That’s right: Welcome to The Athletic’s third-annual men’s NCAA Tournament Beer Guide. For three Marches now, we’ve reached out to local breweries with one question: If you could drink just one of your beers while watching the NCAA Tournament, which would it be? Occasionally, we were able to test the product and provide a mini-review of our own. For journalism. ...”

The Athletic

Southeast Missouri State, The brewery: Many Good Things Brewing, The beer: Frog Bones Imperial IPA

​Albert Camus, Stranger in a Strange Land: New York

"When a boat carrying Albert Camus sailed into New York Harbor in March 1946, he was hailed as a moral emissary from war-ravaged Europe and the glamorous embodiment of a newfangled philosophy known as Existentialism. The American publication of his novel ‘The Stranger’ was celebrated on the roof of the Hotel Astor, and Vogue published a portrait by Cecil Beaton, showing Camus smiling slyly from noirish shadows. But a year later, Camus recalled his three months amid the city’s ‘swarming lights’ and frantic streets with a mixture of awe and bafflement. ...”

NY Times

The Paris Review: Camus’s New York Diary, 1946 By Albert Camus

amazon: Travels in the Americas: Notes and Impressions of a New World

2011 October: Albert Camus on Nihilism, 2014 November: Albert Camus: Soccer Goalie, 2015 May: LISTEN: New Cave And Ellis Soundtrack, 2016 April: Anarchism and Friedrich Nietzsche, 2016 April: Algerian Chronicles (2013), 2017 November: The Stranger (1942), 2018 July: Resistance, Rebellion, and Death (1960), 2019 September: Les Pieds-Noirs: Algeria’s Forgotten Footballers, 2020 March: The Plague (1947), 2020 September: An Animated Introduction to Albert Camus’ Existentialism, a Philosophy Making a Comeback in Our Dysfunctional Times, 2021 October: Albert Camus on the Responsibility of the Artist: To “Create Dangerously” (1957), 2022 May: Albert Camus: The philosopher who resisted despair, 2022 September: Deep Emotion, Plain Speech: Camus’s The Plague

​‘I Live in Hell’: The Psychic Wounds of Ukraine’s Soldiers

"The soldier cannot speak about what happened to him. It’s been a month since ‘the tragedy,’ as he calls it. When the subject arises, he freezes and looks at the floor. He gulps for air. He cannot say it. His doctor, a motherly woman, speaks for him: There were four of them. They were stationed near the front line, in eastern Ukraine, and on that night they shot a Russian drone from the sky. A small victory. Then its wreckage hurtled down, hunks of ragged metal slicing into the men below. He was the only one left standing. In the numb hours that followed, someone came to collect the others — one dead, two wounded — and he was left to hold the position alone through that freezing night and into the next day. ...”

NY Times

Guardian - The body collectors: Ukrainian volunteers search for Russian corpses

Aljazeera: Putin calls Ukraine role in Nord Stream blasts ‘sheer nonsense’ (Video)

The Ukraine Untruths of Disingenuous DeSantis

Inside a psychiatric hospital in Kyiv, the growing mental trauma of the war is written on every soldier’s face.

Composers Find Transcendence, and Inspiration, at the Club

"BERLIN — In 2018, after a visit to Berghain, the storied techno club here, the saxophonist and curator Ryan Muncy called the composer Ash Fure, a friend and collaborator. ‘God spoke to me in the subwoofers,’ Muncy told her. ... She and Muncy went straight to Berghain. ‘I remember so vividly every single detail,’ Fure said in a video interview. She recalled watching as the other club-goers shed their coats and donned futuristic outfits. She explored the labyrinthine architecture, discovering vantage points from which to watch and listen. She got close to the famous Funktion-One sound system, which engulfed her with its volume but never hurt her ears. She stayed for 14 hours. ...”

NY Times

LILLETH

YouTube: HIVE RISE - The Museum of Contemporary Art

The composer Ash Fure performing “Hive Rise,” a work that got its start at the club Berghain in Berlin, at the Geffen Contemporary in Los Angeles.

​Behind the Scenes at Beyond The Streets London / Recap

"Behind the scenes at ‘Beyond the Streets London’ is a hive of activity, with artists deeply focused on installing their work and seeking assistance with tools and equipment. Curators, organizers, and lighting professionals are bustling up and down the stairs, carrying props, or ladders, and communicating with vendors and artists via text message. Salespeople are diligently crafting wall texts to accompany the art pieces. It’s a few hours before showtime, yet everything is somehow accomplished just as the first guests arrive for the preview. ...”

Brooklyn Street Art

AgnesB at Beyond The Streets – London. Saatchi Gallery.

Ukraine war: Life in Mariupol under Russian occupation

"Finding people willing to speak to me from Mariupol was never going to be easy. After 10 months of Russian occupation, fear and distrust are the two most frequent responses I encountered when looking for someone who could tell me how things really are in Mariupol, in Ukraine's south-east. ... Russian forces put the people of Mariupol through a horrific months-long siege, before finally capturing it last May. I eventually found three residents willing to speak to me at length: a local city councillor, a retired pensioner and an engineer. All spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing reprisals from the local authorities installed by Russia (who block access to occupied Ukraine by Western journalists). They paint a picture of a massively expensive campaign conducted by Russia to win over the hearts and minds of the people of Mariupol, and rebuild a city damaged beyond recognition by Russia's own troops. ...”

BBC

GRID: Why prosecuting Russian war crimes in Ukraine may be awkward for the US

Rolling Stone: Putin Continues to Terrorize This Ukraine City, Long After His Troops Left

NY Times: International Court to Open War Crimes Cases Against Russia, Officials Say

NY Times - ‘Russia Outside Russia’: For Elite, Dubai Becomes a Wartime Harbor

The invading Russian forces damaged some 90% of residential buildings in Mariupol

Seedings for N.C.A.A. Men’s Tournament Show Wide-Open Field

"When the N.C.A.A. Division I men’s basketball tournament committee members hunkered down in Indianapolis over the weekend, they pored over spreadsheets, stared at a bank of televisions, sharpened their pencils and massaged their temples to figure out how to best seed the 68-team tournament field. They might have saved themselves all that time — and anguish — by picking names out of a hat. This year’s tournament, which was announced on Sunday night, has an on-any-given-Sunday feel, where blue bloods don’t feel so rich, midmajors don’t feel so middling and every team enters with questions — even at the very top. ...”

NY Times

W - 2023 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament

The Athletic - NCAA Tournament Midwest Region analysis: Houston, Texas, Indiana and more, NCAA Tournament West Region analysis: Kansas, UCLA, Gonzaga and more, NCAA Tournament East Region analysis: Purdue, Duke, Kentucky and more, NCAA Tournament South Region analysis: Alabama, Arizona and more

How To Fill Out Your Men's NCAA Tournament Bracket Like A Pro, The College Basketball Storylines You Should Know Before March Madness

The Athletic: However far Alabama goes this NCAA Tournament, questions about tragedy will follow

​Eyre Transmissions XXII: Interview With Hypnagogic Dark Ambient Composer, Ajna

"For the past several years, Ajna has been on fire! The Dark Ambient producer has consistently released great albums spanning sub-genres such as isolationism, drone, hauntology, and other experimental aspects of electronic music. Whatever is on the radar for any particular album, you can rest assure that the results are beyond reproach. Recently I was fortunate to have a few email interactions with the mastermind behind Ajna to get a greater viewpoint of the music, influences, the ardor behind the album artwork and everything in between. The results are embedded in this congenial interview with Ajna and on display is an endless passion for music, photography and spiritual wellbeing. ...”

The Dungeon in Deep Space (Audio)

Soundcloud (Audio)

In Fields Sown With Bombs, Ukraine’s Farmers Risk Deadly Harvest

"BERYSLAV, Ukraine — Oleksandr Hordienko stepped gingerly into a wheat field that had recently served as a Russian tank position, following closely behind an assistant with a metal detector. He stopped when he came to a row of metal disks glinting in the late-winter sun. They were tank mines, hundreds of them, laid out in a checkerboard pattern  across his field and presenting a deadly conundrum before the spring planting season. Farmers who choose to climb into their tractors and work their land risk death or dismemberment by the mines, shells and other ordnance that litter the fields. Those who do not risk an economic crisis: The fighting has already cost the southern Kherson region three harvests, and there is no sign that farming will resume its role as an engine of Ukraine’s economy anytime soon. ...”

NY Times

Guardian: What happened in the Russia-Ukraine war this week? Catch up with the must-read news and analysis

BBC - Ukraine war: Why Bakhmut matters for Russia and Ukraine

Aljazeera: Wagner mercenary chief demands more ammunition for Bakhmut battle (Video)

The Intercept_: Conflicting Reports Thicken Nord Stream Bombing Plot

Piles of wheat rotting in a half-destroyed grain storage facility at a farm complex in the village of a Shyroke, Ukraine, near the city of Kherson in February.

​Long-Lost Letters Bring Word, at Last

"In a love letter from 1745 decorated with a doodle of a heart shot through with arrows, María Clara de Aialde wrote to her husband, Sebastian, a Spanish sailor working in the colonial trade with Venezuela, that she could ‘no longer wait’ to be with him. Later that same year, an amorous French seaman who signed his name M. Lefevre wrote from a French warship to a certain Marie-Anne Hoteé back in Brest: ‘Like a gunner sets fire to his cannon, I want to set fire to your powder.’ Fifty years later, a missionary in Suriname named Lene Wied, in a lonely letter back to Germany, complained that war on the high seas had choked off any news from home: ‘Two ships which have been taken by the French probably carried letters addressed to me.’ None of those lines ever reached their intended recipients. British warships instead snatched those letters, and scores more, from aboard merchant ships during wars from the 1650s to the early 19th century. ...”

NY Times

Cooking with Florine Stettheimer - Valerie Stivers

"The painter and poet Florine Stettheimer should have been easy to cook from. Her poetry, commercially published for the first time in the 2010 collection Crystal Flowers, has a section devoted to ‘comestibles’—including airy tributes to ham, bread, and tomatoes with Russian dressing—and her paintings often portray food. She was born to a wealthy German-Jewish family in New York in the late eighteen hundreds, part of a social circle that included Neustadters and Guggenheims, and she held salons that were a Who’s Who of the New York art world. (Marcel Duchamp, Carl Van Vechten, and Leo Stein were regulars.) ...”

The Paris Review

The Paris Review - Archives: Valerie Stivers

Major Russian missile barrage slams targets across Ukraine

"Russia unleashed ‘a massive rocket attack’ that hit critical infrastructure and residential buildings in 10 regions of Ukraine, the country’s president said Thursday, with officials reporting at least six deaths in the largest such night-time attack in three weeks. Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the barrage that came while many people slept as an attempt by Moscow ‘to intimidate Ukrainians again. The occupiers can only terrorize civilians. That’s all they can do,’ Zelenskyy said in an online statement. The war has largely ground to a battlefield stalemate over the winter. The Kremlin’s forces started targeting Ukraine’s power supply last October in an apparent attempt to demoralize the civilian population. The barrages later became less frequent, with analysts speculating Russia may have been running low on ammunition. The last massive barrage took place on Feb. 16. ...”

NBC News (Video)

Aljazeera: Russia takes east Bakhmut as Ukraine builds up forces (Video)

No, Critics of Western Aid to Ukraine Aren’t Being Silenced

Guardian: Ukrainian forces still trying to hold Bakhmut despite heavy casualties

GRID - Ukraine War in Data: The battle for Bakhmut, by the numbers

Smoke billows after a Russian missile strike in Kyiv on Thursday.

The old brick city by the Atlantic - John Wieners's Boston haunts

"For almost thirty years, John Wieners lived meagerly and humbly in the same apartment in Beacon Hill; 44 Joy Street, Suite 10 as he called it. Joy Street, originally called Belknap Lane, named after the Colonial Apothecary, Dr. John Joy, with its history of livery stables, was his home. Wieners became somewhat more reclusive in his later years, but he was still a fixture on the streets of Beacon Hill, seen often trudging tragic-comically through the streets with his bag draped around his shoulder, and a cigarette in his hand, carrying himself with a certain muted elegance. ... Like a ghost, Wieners can be glimpsed in the emptiness of specific places left behind. There are many places to me where I can conjure up a spark of his spirit just by walking his Beacon Hill streets. ...”

Jacket2

2008 July: John Wieners, 2009 December: John Wieners - 1,  2011 May: John Wieners: June 21, 1959, 2012 May: Behind the State Capitol: Or Cincinnati Pike, 2012 August: John Wieners - 707 Scott Street, 2013 January: Mass: John Wieners, 2013 October: Measure (1957-1962), 2015 November: Stars Seen in Person: Selected Journals of John Wieners (2015), 2016 January: Supplication: Selected Poems of John Wieners

​The Brave Women Who Saved the Collected Texts of Hildegard of Bingen

"11 March 1948 – Eibingen Monastery, Wiesbaden, Germany: A brave, frightened women is risking her life in a daring res­cue mission. In these post-war years, medieval scholar Margarete Kühn is not dealing with spies and Nazis: instead, she has kidnapped a book. Assisted by her friend Caroline Walsh, an American military spouse, Margarete has secured the manuscript’s safe passage across 400 miles, traversing the wildest and most hostile parts of Germany’s war-ravaged landscape to a secluded monastery high above the banks of the Rhine. ... From her childhood as an enclosed nun with just a handful of companions, to her rise on the international stage as a leading scholar, theo­logian, visionary, musician, linguist, artist and scientist, the remarkable life of Hildegard of Bingen (1098– 1179) has been celebrated for centuries. ...”

LitHub

2018 June: Experience the Mystical Music of Hildegard Von Bingen: The First Known Composer in History (1098 – 1179)

​Intelligence Suggests Pro-Ukrainian Group Sabotaged Pipelines, U.S. Officials Say

"New intelligence reviewed by U.S. officials suggests that a pro-Ukrainian group carried out the attack on the Nord Stream pipelines last year, a step toward determining responsibility for an act of sabotage that has confounded investigators on both sides of the Atlantic for months. U.S. officials said that they had no evidence President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine or his top lieutenants were involved in the operation, or that the perpetrators were acting at the direction of any Ukrainian government officials. The brazen attack on the natural gas pipelines, which link Russia to Western Europe, fueled public speculation about who was to blame, from Moscow to Kyiv and London to Washington, and it has remained one of the most consequential unsolved mysteries of Russia’s year-old war in Ukraine. Ukraine and its allies have been seen by some officials as having the most logical potential motive to attack the pipelines. ...”

NY Times

GRID: Why joining NATO and the EU are life or death issues for so many Ukrainians

NBC News: Russian troops 'forced to fight with shovels' as ammo shortage undermines Bakhmut advance (Video)

NY Times: Opinion | Ukraine’s Soldiers Know That Our Enemy Is in Shock

Aljazeera: Will Russia sanctions dethrone ‘King Dollar’?

Liverpool 7 Manchester United 0: Gakpo, Nunez and Salah run riot as Ten Hag’s men wilt

"Two goals each from Cody Gakpo, Darwin Nunez and Mohamed Salah helped Liverpool power to a record win over Manchester United. Gakpo, the Netherlands forward signed from PSV Eindhoven in January, produced his best performance for Jurgen Klopp’s team, scoring two exquisite goals either side of Nunez’s 47th-minute header. Salah got in on the act with a fourth before Nunez got his second and the Egypt star completed his own double. Roberto Firmino, who confirmed this week he will be leaving at the end of the season, came off the bench to complete the rout. …”

The Athletic

The Athletic: Ten Hag has used ruthlessness and running but this Man Utd humbling needs a new response (Video)

Guardian: Ten Hag accuses Manchester United of being ‘unprofessional’ in Liverpool rout

BBC: Bruno Fernandes a ‘disgrace’ & Manchester United ‘eaten alive’ in Liverpool thrashing

Guardian: Salah and Liverpool make history with seven-goal rout of Manchester United

Hear De La Soul’s Highly Acclaimed & Influential Hip-Hop Albums Streaming Free for the First Time

"If you don’t listen to rap, you’ve heard the same questions over and over in response to that confession. One of the most common is ‘But have you heard De La Soul?’ — which in recent years was easier said than done, at least on streaming platforms. ... One complication had to do with sampling, a standard hip hop practice conducted in such a far-reaching, freewheeling, and elaborate manner by De La Soul that the prospect of renegotiating each and every sonic snippet they’d cleared in the CD-and-tape era inspired untold corporate intransigence. ...”

Open Culture (Video)

NY Times: De La Soul’s Music Is Finally Back. It’s a Bittersweet Victory.

From left: Posdnuos (Kelvin Mercer), Maseo (Vincent Mason) and Trugoy the Dove (David Jolicoeur) in the early 1990s.

Race to get last children out of Bakhmut as city becomes ‘hell on earth’

"War breeds euphemism and metaphor. In the battle for the Donbas city of Bakhmut, threatened with a closing encirclement by Russian forces after seven months of bitter fighting, there are ‘White Angels’ and ‘Dark Angels’, the ‘road of life’ (the Bakhmut-Lysychansk highway, which is anything but) and the ‘Invincibility Centre’. The White Angels, a police evacuation group, scour the lethal districts of the shell-ruined city to evacuate children and the elderly.Their counterparts, the Dark Angels, take out the dead. The Invincibility Centre is where the few thousands of civilians who remain can find water and hot food cooked by the volunteers who have stayed in the city, even as in the past fortnight it has faced an increasing threat of finally being overrun. ...”

Guardian

****NY Times: This Is What Trench Warfare on the Front Line Is Like

NY Times: Whirring Into Action in Ukraine’s Skies

Aljazeera - Russia-Ukraine live: Russia attempting ‘to encircle’ Bakhmut (Video)

NY Times: With Ukraine Under Pressure in Bakhmut, Fight Becomes a Battle Over Roads

BBC - Bakhmut: Fighting in the street but Russia not in control - deputy mayor

Bakhmut has lost 95% of its pre-war population since the start of the Russian invasion

Ironweed - Héctor Babenco (1987)

"Ironweed is a 1987 American drama film directed by Héctor Babenco. It is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name by William Kennedy, who also wrote the screenplay. It stars Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep, with Carroll Baker, Michael O'Keefe, Diane Venora, Fred Gwynne, Nathan Lane and Tom Waits in supporting roles. The story concerns the relationship of a homeless couple: Francis, an alcoholic, and Helen, a terminally ill woman during the years following the Great Depression. Major portions of the film were shot on location in Albany, New York, including Jay Street at Lark Street, Albany Rural Cemetery, and the Miss Albany Diner on North Broadway. ...”

Wikipedia

Cult Movie: Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep shine in underrated Depression-era drama Ironweed

NY Times: 'Ironweed,' From Hector Babenco

YouTube: IRONWEED (Eureka Classics)

​Late winter was boot scraper season in 19th century New York City

"In the 18th and 19th centuries, New York City roads were filthy. Garbage was tossed in gutters (sometimes consumed by free-roaming pigs, who left their own waste behind), dust got kicked up on dry days, and manure from the thousands of horses that pulled streetcars and wagons caked the streets. Add in the snow and sleet typical of late February and early March, and the cityscape that appears so charming in old black and white photos was actually a muddy, grimy, soupy mess. ...”

Ephemeral New York