​Sealand: The national football team from a country half the size of a football pitch

"During the 2018 World Cup in Russia, it emerged that a seven-page document had been supplied to stadium security staff, detailing dozens of flags that tournament organisers had banned from being displayed. These included the flags of jihadist terrorist groups al-Qaeda and al-Shabaab, of pre-revolutionary Iran, and separatist emblems for Somaliland and Catalonia. Sandwiched between the flag of the Luhansk People’s Republic and the Catalan Estelada was flag No 29, a flag actively prohibited from being displayed at the biggest sporting event on the planet. The flag of Sealand. …”

The Athletic (Video)

W – Principality of Sealand

amazon: Sealand: The True Story of the World’s Most Stubborn Micronation and Its Eccentric Royal Family

​Black literary surrealism

"​Literary magazines have been at the center of a black transnational cultural renaissance. This is not where I intended to end up when I first encountered Ethiopia (Awakening), 1921—a sculpture by Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller (1877-1968), an important artwork created at the dawn of the Harlem Renaissance—at the 59th Venice Biennale in 2022. ... True to the curatorial vision, Fuller’s sculpture is often described as the first pan-African American work because it connected Ethiopia, the only independent African country at the time, to the emerging Black society in America. Fuller belongs on a long list of artists and writers who were championed by the 20th-century American intellectual, W.E.B. Du Bois. ...”

Africa Is a Country

Guardian - Afrofuturism: reimagining science and the future from a black perspective

​‘Rebuilding is part of our resistance’: how Ukraine is bringing Bucha back to life

"Standing on the crumbling roof of a house, dozens of workers hammer in unison. Around them, cranes, bulldozers and trucks work frantically to repair roads and buildings destroyed by Russian artillery. It is hard to believe that this noisy construction site is in Yablonska Street, in the town of Bucha, in the north of Kyiv, at the precise crossroads where a year ago the bodies of dozens of civilians, brutally killed by Russian soldiers, were strewn over almost a mile, some with their hands bound behind their backs. Ukraine has already repaired, and in many cases fully rebuilt, many of the sites destroyed by Moscow, including bridges, roads and government buildings. It is only the beginning of what Kyiv has described as the largest rebuilding effort since the second world war and perhaps the most expensive in history, with an estimated cost of half a trillion dollars. But managing this unprecedented influx of money in a country with a long history of corruption will bring challenges, experts say. ...”

Guardian

Aljazeera - Russia-Ukraine war: Will there be a spring counteroffensive? (Video)

Aljazeera: Global network aims to sue Wagner as a ‘terrorist’ organisation (Video)

NY Times: Ukraine Charges a Leading Ukrainian Vicar, as Russia Pounds Eastern Ukraine

An aerial view of Yablonska Street, once covered with bodies of dead civilians. Today it is a giant and very noisy construction site, with cranes, scaffolding, bulldozers and trucks working to repairs roads and homes destroyed by Russian artillery.

Raymond Roussel - Locus Solus (1914)

"The wealthy scientist Martial Canterel guides a group of visitors through his expansive estate, Locus Solus, where he displays his various deranged inventions: a machine propelled by the weather, which constructs a mosaic out of varying hues of human teeth; a hairless cat charged with a powerful electric battery; a bizarre theater in which corpses are reanimated with a special serum to enact the most important movements of their past lives. Wondrously imaginative and narrated with Roussel’s deadpan wit, Locus Solus is unlike anything else ever written. ...”

New Directions

W - Locus_Solus

New York School Poets

amazon

[PDF] Locus Solus

YouTube: Locus Solus  4:06:20

2009 September: Raymond Roussel, 2012 January: The Tropological Space of Locus Solus, 2015 August: Galerie Buchholz, 2018 June: The Accidental Avant-Gardist

​GRAND JURY VOTES TO INDICT TRUMP

"What We Know About the Indictment of Donald Trump, and What Comes Next - “Donald J. Trump was indicted in Manhattan on Thursday, becoming the first American president, current or former, to be charged with a crime. His indictment was handed up by a grand jury which has been hearing evidence about Mr. Trump for months. The Manhattan district attorney’s office, which brought the charges, is focused on the former president’s involvement in the payment of hush money to a porn star, Stormy Daniels, who said she had an affair with him. Michael D. Cohen, Mr. Trump’s fixer at the time, made the payment during the final days of the 2016 presidential campaign. The office of the district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, issued a statement on Thursday evening saying that Mr. Trump had been indicted, and that his lawyers had been contacted to arrange a surrender. ...”

NY Times

NY Times: Donald Trump Is Indicted in New York

NY Times: A President Faces Prosecution, and a Democracy Is Tested

NY Times: Opinion | I Worry About a Failed Prosecution of Trump, but I Worry More About No Prosecution

**********NY Times: Trump Charged With 34 Felonies in Hush-Money Case

******NY Times: How Trump’s Playboy Persona Came Back to Haunt Him

****NY Times: For Some G.O.P. Voters, Fatigue Slows the Rush to Defend Trump

Ukrainians in a Hidden Command Post See Bakhmut Going Their Way

"Hidden in the bowels of an unmarked building, set well back from the fighting, a command center directing operations in the city of Bakhmut was high-tech and humming. Soldiers monitored video screens with live feeds of destroyed buildings and a cratered battlefield. Six weeks after coming to help defend Bakhmut, the men of the Adam Tactical Group, one of Ukraine’s most effective battle units, were quietly confident they had turned the tide against Russian troops trying to encircle and capture it. ‘The enemy exhausted all its reserves,’ the commander, Col. Yevhen Mezhevikin, 40, said on Tuesday, straddling a chair as artillery, air defense and intelligence-gathering teams worked around him. Through wave after wave of Russian assault and tenacious Ukrainian defense, Bakhmut has, over eight months, become a central battlefield of Russia’s invasion despite limited strategic significance. ...”

NY Times

Guardian - Putin, Trump, Ukraine: how Timothy Snyder became the leading interpreter of our dark times

Ukrainian Spring?

The military operations of a major Ukrainian battle group defending the city of Bakhmut from an unnamed location in eastern Ukraine.

​Understanding Espresso: A Six-Part Series Explaining What It Takes to Pull the Ideal Shot

"It doesn’t take long to learn how to pull a shot of espresso. Search for that phrase on Youtube, and you’ll find hours’ worth of sound instruction, most of it in the form of brief and easily digestible videos. All of them cover the same basic stages of the process: grinding, dosing, tamping, and brewing. When examined closely, each of those stages reveals a formidable body of knowledge to master. If any one Youtuber can lay claim to having mastered all of them, it must be James Hoffmann, previously featured here on Open Culture for his videos on subjects from deep-fried coffee to the classic Bialetti Moka Express. In the six-part series above, he offers viewers an overview of all they need to know to achieve a true understanding of espresso. ...”

Open Culture (Video)

2010 September: Espresso, 2013 April: The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World, 2013 May: Coffeehouse, 2015 June: Barista, 2015 August: Coffee Connections at Peddler in SoHo, 2015 November: The Case for Bad Coffee, 2016 January: 101 Places to Find Great Coffee in New York (2014), 2017 June: How Cold Brew Changed the Coffee Business, 2017 September: Our 7 Favorite Literary Coffee Shops, 2017 October: Clever Literary Coffee Poster, 2017 October: Coffee as Existential Statement: A Crisis in Every Cup on Valencia Street, 2018 February: The Trencherman: A Tale of Two Coffee Shops, 2020 April: Unfair trade, April 2020: A (Very) Brief History of NYC Espresso, 2020 May: The Islamic History of Coffee, 2021 January: The Life Cycle of a Cup of Coffee: The Journey from Coffee Bean, to Coffee Cup, 2021 June: Philosophers Drinking Coffee: The Excessive Habits of Kant, Voltaire & Kierkegaard, 2021 July:  The invisible addiction: is it time to give up caffeine?, August 2021: The Birth of Espresso: How the Coffee Shots The Fuel Our Modern Life Were Invented, 2021 October: Brew: A Brief History of Coffee, 2021 November: Coffee and Climate Have a Complicated Relationship, 2022 January: The Bialetti Moka Express: The History of Italy’s Iconic Coffee Maker, and How to Use It the Right Way, 2022 April: All Espresso Drinks Explained: Cappuccino, Latte, Macchiato & Beyond, 2022 June: How to Make the Perfect Cup of Italian Coffee, 2022 August: Café A Brasileira, 2022 August: It’s Not Just You — Blank Street Coffee Is Suddenly Inescapable

​Jimmy Heath, aka Little Bird, Takes Soul’s Serenading Flight

"When saxophonist Jimmy Heath died at 93 from undisclosed causes on Sunday, January 19, 2020, he left younger brother Albert as the last of the Heath brothers, a remarkable trio of musicians who worked collectively and individually to help craft the pillars of jazz music. With Albert on drums, Percy on bass and middle brother Jimmy, nicknamed Little Bird because of the early influence of Charlie Parker on his playing, on saxophone, the Heaths played on hundreds of recordings with legends and under known greats of the musical idiom. Without the Heaths musical input, jazz would not be what it is today. ...”

Riot Material (Audio)

Jimmy Heath at a session at New York’s WOR Studios, 1953. From left: Miles Davis, Kenny Drew, Art Blakey, Jimmy Heath.

​In pictures: The Ukrainian religious sites ruined by fighting

"Ukraine has accused Russia of damaging or destroying at least 59 religious sites across the country since its invasion began. They include an Orthodox cathedral with its steeple ripped apart, a Jewish school struck by shelling, and parish churches left almost totally flattened. Targeting historic monuments and cultural heritage sites is a war crime under international law, according to the Hague Convention. Russia denies targeting civilian infrastructure, but the BBC has identified a number of religious sites that have suffered damage. St Michael's Cathedral was described by Mariupol's tourist office as ‘the most beautiful place’ in the city's Left Bank district.Offering ‘panoramic views of the Sea of ​​Azov, green hills and coastal villages’, the cathedral - opened in 1997 - attracted both worshippers and visitors alike, it said. ...”

BBC

BBC: 'I'm shocked by my church leaders in Moscow' - priest in Ukraine

NY Times: How Ukraine’s Battered Steel Industry Galvanized Its War EffortThe iron- and steel-producing factories of Ukraine’s

NBC News: Russia stops sharing information on nuclear forces with the U.S. (Video)

Vox: What US weapons tell us about the Russia-Ukraine war (Video)

The priest of the village of Yasnohorodka, near Kyiv, stands inside his destroyed church

Arooj Aftab - What's In My Bag?

"Brooklyn-based Pakistani composer, singer & producer Arooj Aftab goes shopping at Amoeba San Francisco and talks about Billie Holiday's recordings with orchestra, the trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire's beautiful tone, and one of the most incredible albums she's ever heard. The deluxe edition of Arooj Aftab's breakthrough album, Vulture Prince, is available from Verve Records. In 2022, Arooj Aftab won a GRAMMY Award for Best Global Music Performance and she was just nominated in that category for the second consecutive year.“

Amoeba (Video)

​Junto Profile: Joe McMahon, aka Equinox Deschanel

"... Joe McMahon, but since there are three of us by that name who are musicians, I use Equinox Deschanel for my musical endeavors. ... I’m based in the San Francisco Bay Area right now, but I’m originally from a small town in the northern panhandle of West Virginia. ... My influences are wildly varied: jazz, musique concrète, ambient music, generative music, “classical” electronic music, prog rock, Spike Jones, Laurie Anderson, Frank Zappa — anything that looks at things a little bit sideways. ...”

disquiet (Video)

Before the Shadow Play

'Dance like there is no tomorrow': Inside Ukraine's underground wartime music scene.

"Lviv and Kyiv, Ukraine - Boghdan Sulanov, the fast-talking vocalist of a heavy metal rock band called YAD, traverses a crammed backstage area. He edges past a guitarist who has just finished a high-octane, adrenaline-fuelled set, leaving him drenched in sweat, and reaches a small table piled with audio equipment, tea and biscuits. From underneath the table, he fishes out a rucksack with the clothes he will soon wear onstage.The concert hall, an intimate venue in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, is covered in music posters and on a night in early February, it is packed with several hundred rock enthusiasts eagerly awaiting the next performance. The atmosphere is electric, and Sulanov is excited. ... On stage, Bohdana Nykyforchyn, a 35-year-old singer with shoulder-length dyed red hair, screams into a microphone while her bandmate pounds away on a drum set. Nykyforchyn transports the room through a range of emotions, alternating between soft melodic tones and more aggressive, fast-paced vocals. At one point, her voice cracks, and she looks like she might cry. After her set, she explains why. ...”

Aljazeera (Video)

Guardian: Putin and his allies love buying art. To help us win the war in Ukraine, confiscate it

The Intercept_: Russia Calls for U.N. Investigation of Nord Stream Attack

NBC News: A Muslim minority loyal to Ukraine bears the brunt of Russia’s crackdown in Crimea (Video)

Bohdana Nykyforchyn, who is eight months pregnant, performs in Lviv

A midcentury captures the anonymity of the subway in 5 paintings

"Bernard Gussow was born in Russia in 1881. But by 1900 he’d made it to the Lower East Side, where he was described as an ‘East Side artist’ in a New York Times article about paintings he displayed at an art show at the Educational Alliance settlement house on East Broadway. Gussow would get his name in newspapers many times, mostly in the teens, 20s, and 30s. Usually grouped with other artists (like John Sloan) of his era, this Art Students League attendee would be described as ‘interpreting the spirit of East Side life.’ ...”

Ephemeral New York

Subway Steps

​Listen to Patti Smith’s Glorious Three Hour Farewell to CBGB’s on Its Final Night

"All good things must come to an end, but it hurt when CBGB’s, New York City’s celebrated – and famously filthy – music club shuttered for good on October 15th, 2006, a victim of skyrocketing Lower East Side rents. While plenty of punk and New Wave luminaries cut their teeth on the legendary venue’s stage – Talking Heads, The Ramones, Blondie – final honors went to Patti Smith, a CBGB’s habitué, whose seven-week residency in 1975 earned her a major record deal. ...”

Open Culture (Video)

Bakhmut Battle ‘Could Be Stabilized,’ Ukrainian General Says, but Fighting Remains Intense

"Ukrainian forces could be close to stabilizing the front lines in Bakhmut, the commander of the country’s armed forces said, as international aid workers warned that civilians remaining in the war-ravaged eastern city faced a dire humanitarian situation. The battle for Bakhmut, which began in the summer, has become one of Russia’s longest-running and deadliest confrontations in the 13 months of war. The fighting in and around the city has been the most violent of recent months and does not appear to be letting up, with both Russian and Ukrainian officials expressing this past week an unwillingness to yield. The Ukrainian commander, Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, said in a post on the Telegram messaging app on Friday that, thanks to the ‘titanic efforts”’of the city’s defenders, the situation ‘could be stabilized,’ though he acknowledged the ferocity of the battle. ...”

NY Times

NY Times - Stolen Valor: The U.S. Volunteers in Ukraine Who Lie, Waste and Bicker

Guardian: As the Met reclassifies Russian art as Ukrainian, not everyone is convinced

BBC - Ukraine war: How a Russian child's drawing sparked a police investigation

NBC News - There's a new dividing line for world leaders: Would you arrest Putin?

Ukrainians moving water to their homes in Chasiv Yar, near Bakhmut, Ukraine, in March. The battle for Bakhmut has become one of Russia’s longest-running assaults in the war.

The Persian Set : Classical Music of Iran

"A stunning collection of Persian classical music with 2 recordings by American composer Henry Cowell - The Persian Set & Homage to Iran - written after visiting Iran in the 1950's and using traditional Persian instruments - combined with a collection of Dastgah Systems, featuring Persian musicians such as Ahmad Ebadi, Mohamad Heydari, Ashgar Bahari, Khatereh Parvaneh, Houshang Zarif, Hassan Kassayi, Hossein Tehrani. ...”

Bandcamp (Audio)

2008 December: Henry Cowell, 2022 July: Stephen Scott – New Music For Bowed Piano  (1984)

Robert Wilson: It's About Time

"When Robert Wilson's work first appeared internationally it was generally seen from a single and limited viewpoint—as a return to the image. Wilson was understood as a proponent of two-dimensional theater, of theater to be looked at only. This was because he came into the public eye at the beginning of the ’70s, when the figurative gesture ruled supreme on the stage, and the body, in its expressive entirety, was at the center of a tendency to involve the spectator. But Wilson’s push was to stretch the visual; it was a recuperation of the grand deliriums of the Surrealist painters, basing dramatic narrative on a simple sequence of backdrops and the unfolding of a tableau vivant, immobile yet in continuous and unstoppable evolution. ..."

ARTFORUM

NY Times: At 80, Robert Wilson Holds On to a Singular Vision for the Stage

amazon: Robert Wilson: The Theater of Images

YouTube: How Robert Wilson Bends Time

2008 April: Robert Wilson, 2010 January: Einstein on the Beach, 2010 July: The CIVIL warS, 2011 May: Einstein on the Beach: The Changing Image of Opera , 2011 August: Stations (1982), 2012 February: Absolute Wilson,  2012 August: Einstein on the Blog: Christopher Knowles’ Typings, 2013 March: The Life and Times of Joseph Stalin, 2013 April: Death, Destruction and Detroit, 2013 October: crickets audio recording slowed way down, 2013 October: Beached, 2014 January: The Louvre invites Robert Wilson - Living Rooms, 2014 November: The Old Woman - Robert Wilson, Mikhail Baryshnikov and Willem Dafoe, 2015 May: Watermill Quintet: Robert Wilson Curates New Performances, 2015 June: THE EARTH MOVES. A documentary about Einstein on the Beach., 2018 March: Video 50 (1978), 2021 October: Deafman Glance (1971)

Wilson’s aesthetic has been singularly consistent, including details like the white makeup performers wear and their stylized hand gestures.

Ukraine war: The front line where Russian eyes are always watching

"The line of trees appears to fragment and disappear as it winds its way towards the Russian positions on the outskirts of the small town of Velyka Novosilka. Dima, a Ukrainian army infantryman with the 1st Separate Tank Brigade, treads carefully along a path where army boots have worn through the spring clover. The zero line - the final trench - lies ahead. Russian troops are only 700m away. Further north in Bakhmut, the Ukranians have been losing ground. But here in the south of Donetsk province, Ukrainian tanks and infantrymen are standing firm. Despite months of vicious Russian attacks, Dima says the brigade has lost less than 10m of territory. Russian forces, he says, have sustained heavy losses. It is a stricken landscape, where trenches lie exposed to Russian observation posts and surveillance drones. On this front line, Russian eyes are always watching, waiting for an opportunity to attack. ...”

BBC (Video)

NY Times: ‘Give Me an Abrams!’ Ukrainian Tank Commanders Grow Impatient.

Vanity Fair: Why the War Crimes Charges Against Vladimir Putin Are So Significant

NY Times: Healthcare services in Ukraine are being destroyed, a report from Doctors Without Borders finds.

Guardian: Putin should be under no illusion – Xi is not Russia’s knight in shining armour

YouTube: Ukraine war: Is more war the only solution? | The Bottom Line (24:15)

The Ukrainians have dug a network of trenches

Evan Lurie – Selling Water By The Side Of The River (1990)

"While taking a break from his brother John Lurie's Lounge Lizards, Evan Lurie created a masterpiece of modern chamber music, focusing on the rich, passionate bandoneon playing of Alfredo Pedernera. Classically influenced with tango and waltz rhythms interspersed, the beautiful pieces that make up Selling Water by the Side of the River are quite reminiscent of Italian movie music. The recapitulation of themes throughout, along with Jill Jaffe's almost weeping violin, make it seem as if it really were the soundtrack to a classic European film. The interplay between Pedernera and Jaffe is matched only by Marc Ribot's stunning, melodious performance on classical nylon string guitar -- a side of Ribot not often heard. Lurie himself lays the rhythmic and melodic foundation with his distinct piano playing, but the real focus is on the compositions. The tracks are like short vignettes, which are individually engaging, but as a cohesive album, they're absolutely breathtaking. ...”

allmusic (Audio)

Discogs (Video)

amazon

YouTube: Tarantella

​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)