The History of the Electric Guitar Solo: A Seven-Part Series
"No instrument is more closely identified with rock and roll music than the electric guitar, and no form of performance is more closely associated with the electric guitar than the solo. You can hardly discuss any of those three without discussing the others. Hence the broad sweep of Axe to Grind, the new seven-part video series from Youtube music channel Polyphonic on the electric guitar solo, a cultural phenomenon that can’t be explained without telling the story of a vast swath of popular music through practically the entire twentieth century and continuing on into the twenty-first. ..."
Once Upon a Time in America - (Extended Director's Cut)
"This film has been with me for many, many years. I was 15 when I saw it and was just blown away by it. It contains my favourite soundtrack of ALL TIME, De Niro in his prime, the volatile James Woods, the first sighting of the beautiful, Jennifer Connelly, the time jumps, the kids, Bugsy, Pesci, Burt Young, opium, gangsters, loyalty, betrayal, New York, Dominic slipping, the cake scene, Elizabeth McGovern, Tuesday Weld, Danny Aiello, the babies scene, going for a swim, Fat Moe, William Forsythe, Treat Williams and the unions all brought beautifully together by the mighty Italian director, Sergio Leone. This was his 10th and final film. I have seen it countless times and it gets better with every viewing. Always the 229 minute version, thanks goodness I never got to witness the abomination that was the American cinema release, the butchered 139 minute chronologically ordered version cut by the studio. ..."
YouTube: ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA: (Extended Director's Cut) - Trailer, Why THIS SCENE In Once Upon A Time In America Is PERFECT
Rivers of Babylon - The Melodians (1970)
"The Melodians were a rocksteady harmony trio composed of Tony Brevett, Brent Dowe, and Trevor McNaughton. There was a fourth member, Robert Cogle, but he apparently contributed to the group only as a songwriter, not as a singer. After singing in various amateur talent shows from 1960 on, they recorded for Clement 'Coxsone' Dodd in 1966, and had a series of hits for the producer Duke Reid in 1967-68. They then recorded several songs for Sonia Pottinger before working with Leslie Kong in 1969-70. They recorded an album's worth of material for Kong, notably hits like 'It's My Delight' and 'Sweet Sensation' (which were released in the UK on a Trojan 45 at the time and were later covered by the British reggae band UB40 in the 1980's and 1990's), but it was 'Rivers of Babylon,' a Rasta-influenced hymn-like song, that was to prove their biggest hit. ..."
The Botched Hunt for the Gilgo Beach Killer
"The beginning of the story was strangely familiar, like the opening scene in a shopworn police procedural: A woman runs screaming down a street in Oak Beach, a secluded gated community on Long Island’s South Shore, only to vanish, it seems, into thin air. It was almost dawn on May 1, 2010. Hours earlier, Shannan Gilbert traveled from New Jersey to see a man who had hired her as an escort from a Craigslist ad. By the time the police arrived, she was gone. They talked to the neighbors, the john and her driver and came up with nothing. A few days later, they ordered a flyover of the area and, again, saw no sign of her. Then they essentially threw up their hands. She went into the ocean, they decided, either hysterical or on drugs. ...
Like a Virgo: Spectacle, submission, and an endless European summer
"Virgo season's come and gone, the season of people who tighten their belts and straighten their backs, a time characterized by a destructive willingness to exert oneself without being able to answer the question, Why? A Virgo is her own worst enemy, and so, as a Virgo, to enter into a period of energetic overlap between personal and collective experience means the exacerbation of an already overly sensitive temperament. This is a kind of disclaimer. For such was the state in which I attended the press viewing at Fotografiska in early September. ..."
Monika Baer, Untitled, 2022/2023
Illuminating: an illustrated guide to some of the world’s most remote lighthouses
"José Luis González Macías acknowledges that he was
not the most obvious person to write a book about lighthouses. 'I grew
up a long way from the sea and had no personal connection with the world
of seafaring,' he says. 'My professional life has been more centred on
books than coastlines.' As a writer, designer,
illustrator and publisher of books and graphic materials for museums
and other cultural institutions, he had always dreamed of creating a
personal project that would put equal emphasis on images and text, but
the fascination with lighthouses came later. ..."
Matinicus Rock Lighthouse: Atlantic Ocean - North America
NEU!
"Neu! ... German for 'New!'; styled in block capitals) were a West German krautrock band formed in Düsseldorf in 1971 by Klaus Dinger and Michael Rother following their departure from Kraftwerk. The group's albums were produced by Conny Plank, who has been regarded as the group's 'hidden member'. They released three albums in their initial incarnation—Neu! (1972), Neu! 2 (1973), and Neu! 75 (1975)—before disbanding in 1975. They briefly reunited in the mid-1980s. ..."
How the New York City Steam System Works
"Our latest Untapped New York podcast
episode is out, all about how the New York City steam system works.
Have you ever wondered about those orange and white smokestacks you see
in the middle of New York’s streets with steam flowing out of them? To
find out more, we’ve gone straight to the source by interviewing Frank
Cuomo, the general manager for steam operations at Con Edison. We also
spoke with Mark Reigelman, an artist who used the steam system for one of our favorite guerrilla art installations ever. ..."
W - New York City steam system
YouTube: Why Steam Pours From New York City Streets
What Makes James Joyce’s Ulysses a Masterpiece: Great Books Explained
"Here on Open Culture, we’ve often featured the work of gallerist-Youtuber James Payne, creator of the channel Great Art Explained. Not long ago we wrote up his examination of the work of René Magritte, the Belgian surrealist painter responsible for such enduring images as Le fils de l’homme, or The Son of Man. Payne uses that famous image of a bowler-hatted everyman whose face is covered by a green apple again in the video above, but this time to represent a literary character: Leopold Bloom, the protagonist of James Joyce’s Ulysses. ..."
The Last Angel of History - John Akomfrah (1996)
"The Last Angel of History is a 45-minute documentary, directed in 1996 by John Akomfrah and written and researched by Edward George of the Black Audio Film Collective, that deals with concepts of Afrofuturism as a metaphor for the displacement of black culture and roots. The film is a hybrid documentary and fictional narrative. ... The structure of the film makes it a meta-narrative commenting on while also becoming part of the genre of Afrofuturism. The film uses concepts based on George Clinton's Mothership Connection and features interviews with Clinton, Derrick May, Samuel R. Delany, Octavia E. Butler, Nichelle Nichols, Juan Atkins, DJ Spooky, Goldie, Ishmael Reed, Greg Tate, Bernard Harris, Kodwo Eshun, Carl Craig, and A Guy Called Gerald to explore the link between black music as a way of exploring the future. The film makes mention of Sun Ra, whose work centres on the return of blacks to outer space in his own Mothership.
YouTube: The Last Angel of History 45:06
The Lasting Whole Earth Catalog
"When the Whole Earth Catalog arrived in the Fall of 01968, it came bearing a simple, epochal label: ‘Access to Tools.’ As its editor and Long Now Co-founder Stewart Brand wrote in the introduction to that first edition, the goal was for the Catalog to serve as an ‘evaluation and access device’ for tools that empowered its readers ‘to conduct his own education, find his own inspiration, shape his own environment, and share his adventure with whoever is interested.’ The key word in all of that idealistic declaration of purpose was ‘access.’ The Whole Earth Catalog did not intend to directly grant its readers this knowledge, wisdom, and mastery, but to provide a kaleidoscopic array of gateways from which they could attempt to find it themselves. ..."
The Long Now Foundation X: The Lasting Whole Earth Catalog
The Long Now Foundation X: Ideas
The George Orwell guide to the perfect cup of tea
"British novelist George Orwell dedicated his writing to unravelling complex societal structures. Best known for penning Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four,
his opposition to totalitarianism and ardent support of socialism
undercut his most major works. He tackled class inequality, bleak
dystopian futures, and capitalism in his poetry, fiction, and journalism
– but in 1946, he tackled his most divisive subject yet. How to make
the perfect cup of tea. ..."
2011 July: Spanish Civil War - 75 Year, 18 July, 2012 March: 1984 (For the Love of Big Brother), 2012 June: "The Spanish Earth", Written and Narrated by Ernest Hemingway, 2013 January: The Real George Orwell, 2015 August: Songs of the Spanish Civil War, 2016 September: George Orwell - Homage to Catalonia (1938), 2017 January: Guernica (2016), 2019 September: What Makes Guernica So Shocking? An Animated Video Explores the Impact of Picasso’s Monumental Anti-War Mural, 2021 November: Down and out in George Orwell’s Paris: A guide to the secret Paname
Israel Can Defend Itself and Uphold Its Values
"Israel stands on the verge of invading
Gaza in response to the terrorist attacks by Hamas that many, including
Israel’s leaders, have compared to Sept. 11 not just because of the
scale and savagery but also because the terrorists sought to destroy the
tranquillity of daily life. They killed the very young and the very
old, the strong and the weak, civilians and soldiers; they took some 150
hostages, including children, and survivors said the attackers raped women — all to send a message that no Israeli was safe. Israel
has a responsibility to its citizens to hold accountable the
perpetrators of this violence, but as Secretary of State Antony Blinken said this week, 'How Israel does this matters.' ..."
NY Times: Opinion | Editorial Board
The 250 Greatest Guitarists of All Time
"... The guitar is the most universal instrument, the most primal, and the most expressive. Anybody can pick up a little guitar in no time at all, but you can spend a lifetime exploring its possibilities. That’s why thinking about what makes a great guitarist is so much fun. Rolling Stone published its original list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists in 2011. It was compiled by a panel of musicians, mostly older classic rockers. Our new expanded list was made by the editors and writers of Rolling Stone. This one goes to 250. ..."
89 | Lou Reed
A Left That Refuses to Condemn Mass Murder Is Doomed
"This weekend in Israel, a far-right Islamist group perpetrated the largest mass killing of Jews since the Holocaust, murdering entire families, including babies, in their beds and slaughtering 260 concertgoers. More than 1,000 Israelis were killed in all, and over 100 others taken hostage. Israel’s far-right government predictably responded by choking off all food, electricity, and fuel to Gaza’s 2 million residents and then preparing a military assault more untempered by concern for civilian casualties than ever before. ..."
NY Times: The Secrets Hamas Knew About Israel’s Military (Video)
Maps of the 2023 ‘Ring of Fire’ Solar Eclipse
"The darkest part of the moon’s shadow
will slide from Oregon to Texas on Saturday morning, then cross the Gulf
of Mexico into Central America. Viewers
inside this dark band — the path of annularity — will see a ring of
light around the moon for up to 5 minutes. Viewers outside the path of
annularity will see the crescent sun of a partial solar eclipse. The map below shows the path of the eclipse, and the approximate local time when the ring of fire will be visible. ..."
Interviews - Henry Taylor: B Side
"Henry Taylor is one of those artists who just does it—puts shit
together, paints what he feels like painting. He works, as they say,
intuitively. But that’s not to dismiss the thoughtful way he’s arranged
his subjects: urban life, Black life, the artist’s life. Whether working
on tree-like assemblages, installations that bring the city’s grit into
the gallery, or (his calling) figurative painting, Taylor approaches
the world and the people in it not as an aloof observer or “student of
man,” but as someone full of empathy, someone who lives here too. ..."
Untitled, 2023,, acrylic on wood panel, 36 × 48"
Devo’s Future Came True
"Devo isn’t overjoyed about being prescient. The band got started half a century ago as a satirical art statement. But by now, much of what Devo mocked has become inescapable. Gerald Casale, who founded Devo with Mark Mothersbaugh, said, 'If somebody would have told you 50 years ago where we would be at as a culture now, you probably wouldn’t have believed it. Neither would I. But here we are.' Devo’s lone hit, 'Whip It' in 1980, only reached No. 14 in the United States. But the influence of Devo’s buzzy, blippy synthesizer tones, its robotic moves and its re-contextualized retro graphics has grown ubiquitous, from commercials to cartoons and perhaps even into K-pop, where synthesizers, uniforms and tightly synced dance routines reign. ..."
They are not men, they are Devo: From left, Bob Casale, Gerald Casale, Bob Mothersbaugh and Mark Mothersbaugh performing in the late ’70s.
Orioles’ season was special, which is why the last four days were so painful
"The best teams to be around are the ones who catch you by surprise, the groups who captivate a city and worm their way into even the most irresolute fan’s heart.It’s June and you’re just glad they’re still fun to watch. It’s July and you’re braving the humidity just to get a closer look at the Homer Hose and the Splash Zone, as the stadium is buzzing again. ... The 2023 Orioles brought baseball back to Baltimore, where local businesses hung Orioles signs in their windows and fans yelled until the stadium vibrated and the players — many in their first year — looked at each other wide-eyed and thought, is this what the big leagues is always like? This group was special. It’s what made this season so great. It’s what made the last four days so painful. ..."
Hamas Leaves Trail of Terror in Israel
"They were killed waiting for the bus,
dancing at a festival, doing morning chores and hiding as best they
could. Searching bullet-riddled houses, streets and lawns, Israeli
soldiers are still finding them. The
soldiers, retaking control of the kibbutzim, towns and settlements near
the Gaza Strip that came under attack by Palestinian terrorists over the
weekend, have recovered body after body after body. Hamas gunmen,
hitting more than 20 sites in southern Israel, killed more than 1,000
people, including women and children, and abducted an estimated 150 more
people. ..."
YouTube: The Israel-Hamas War — and What It Means for the World | TED 47:57
1970 Jazz: Free, Avant-Garde and Experimental
"In previous articles about jazz music recorded in 1970, we featured
albums on major jazz labels including Atlantic, Impulse! and Blue Note,
with some of the releases showcasing free and experimental jazz by
artists such as Chick Corea’s Circle Quartet, Pharoah Sanders, Alice
Coltrane and Rahsaan Roland Kirk. In this article we will review other
recordings of the esoteric sides of jazz, all recorded in 1970 and
released on various labels. We open with a free jazz royalty. In April 1968, as a shareholder in a co-op that purchased an old
seven-story factory at 131 Prince Street in Soho, just south of
Greenwich Village in New York, Ornette Coleman became the owner of the
street-level and third floors in the building. ..."
Ed Blackwell, Dewey Redman, Ornette Coleman, Charlie Haden at 131 Prince Street, May 1971.
In New York City’s Coolest Clubs, Remixing Cumbia for the Hipster Set
"It was 1 a.m., and Thursday night had
become Friday morning when Anthony Dominguez, known around the New York
City D.J. scene as hellotones, took the stage at the Market Hotel, a
club in a 19th-century building whose windows look directly on the
elevated J and M trains passing through Bushwick, Brooklyn. The
theme of the evening was 'experimental Latin sounds,' and arriving at
his console, Mr. Dominguez unleashed a thunderous bass. Then came the
beat, from a metal comb scraping a ridged, hollow tube, known as the
guacharaca: chik-chika-chik-chika-chik, repeating over and over. ..."
Soundcloud: DjExtreme Cumbia 2023 Mix (Audio)
The Fantastic Women Of Surrealism: An Introduction
"When André Breton, a leader of the Surrealist movement and author of its first manifesto, wrote
that 'the problem of woman is the most marvelous and disturbing problem
in all the world,' he was not alluding to the unfair lack of
recognition experienced by his female peers. Marquee name Surrealists like Breton, Salvador Dalí, Man Ray, René Magritte, and Max Ernst positioned the women in their circle as muses and symbols of erotic femininity, rather than artists in their own right. ..."
Israel-Hamas war: what has happened and what has caused the conflict?
"What happened on the border between Israel and Gaza on Saturday? Shocked
Israelis woke on the last day of the Jewish high holidays to the wail
of sirens as Hamas and Islamic Jihad fired thousands of rockets from
Gaza and armed militants broke down the hi-tech barriers surrounding the
strip to enter Israel, shooting and taking hostages. Militants in boats also tried to enter Israel by sea. It was a staggering and unprecedented offensive by Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and a catastrophic intelligence failure
by Israel – and both will have long-lasting repercussions and
consequences. The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, declared
that Israel was at war and that Palestinians would pay a heavy price. ..."
NY Times - Maps: Tracking the Attacks in Israel and Gaza
Offensive launched from Gaza represents large failure of Israeli intelligence and is likely to have long-lasting repercussions.
Remanence ~ Sepiadrone (2023)
"... It feels like a small miracle that this album has even seen the light of day. Like a collection of old photos, most of this material languished in boxes for years while partner John Phipps gradually moved west to Portland and I moved southwest to Santa Fe. We tried picking up the pieces numerous times but lost momentum as soon as a recording session came to an end or we said goodbye over the phone. Ultimately, the distance proved too great and Remanence slowly drifted apart, leaving 'Sepiadrone' in limbo. ..."
YouTube: Sepiadrone 1 / 11
What the 1910s stained glass windows say about a 19th century Brooklyn tavern
"With its tin ceiling, mosaic tile floor, and handsome mahogany bar,
Teddy’s Bar and Grill is like stepping into a late 19th century time
machine. This corner tavern on Berry and North Eighth Streets in Williamsburg opened in 1887 as a family-run Irish tavern, according to Teddy’s website.
At the time, Brooklyn was a separate city and Williamsburg was a
working-class district of Irish and German immigrants, many of whom
worked along the waterfront a few blocks away in sugar refineries and
other industrial plants. ..."
Israel’s Worst Day at War
"When I need the most accurate analysis
about Israel, the first call I always make is to my longtime friend and
reporting partner there, Nahum Barnea, a veteran Yediot newspaper
columnist. When I called him on Saturday afternoon for his read on the
Hamas attack on Israel, I was stunned by his first response: 'This is
the worst day that I can remember in military terms in the history of
Israel, including the blunder of the Yom Kippur war, which was
terrible.' Nahum is a careful reporter
who has covered every major event in Israel for the past half century,
and when he explained his rationale, I realized it was an
understatement. ..."
NY Times: Opinion | Thomas L. Friedman
Maxim Barkalifa stood on the roof of his neighbor’s house and surveys the damage to another neighbor’s house that was struck by a rocket fired from Gaza in Ashkelon, Israel, on Saturday.
The London Howlin' Wolf Sessions - Howlin' Wolf (1971)
"The London Howlin' Wolf Sessions is an album by blues musician Howlin' Wolf released in 1971 on Chess Records, and on Rolling Stones Records in Britain.
It was one of the first super session blues albums, setting a blues
master among famous musicians from the second generation of rock and roll, in this case Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, Charlie Watts, and Bill Wyman. It peaked at #79 on the Billboard 200. ... Clapton secured the participation of the Rolling Stones rhythm section (pianist Ian Stewart,
bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts), while Dayron assembled
further musicians, including 19-year-old harmonica prodigy Jeffrey Carp, who died in 1973 at age 24. ..."
What happened when Howlin' Wolf hooked up with rock royalty to make an album (Video)
YouTube: The London Howlin' Wolf Sessions 1 / 13
The Neil Young song that attacks Starbucks
"Neil Young
has consistently voiced his concerns throughout his career. While his
constant desire to stand up for what’s right has earned him several
enemies over the years, nobody can question Young’s authenticity, and
his unwillingness to stay quiet deserves to be respected. It’s a
character trait that continues to follow him today, with businesses from
Spotify to Starbucks among those in the firing line. ... Young was eventually the victor as the GMA were unsuccessful in their
attempt to overturn Vermont’s decision to enforce labelling on
genetically modified produce. However, it’s improbable he’s returned to
Starbucks to get his daily coffee fix. ..."
Neil Young's New Music Video Mocks Starbucks, Monsanto, and GMOs (Video)
Neil Young’s new anti-GMO song confuses science on Starbucks, Monsanto
Cooking with Madame d’Aulnoy By Valerie Stivers
"The fairy tales of Mary-Catherine le Jumel de Barneville, Baronesse
d’Aulnoy—first published in French in the 1690s—are full of jewel-like
foods, poisoned drinks, and violent feats of baking. The cooking is
extreme. In one story, 'Finette-Cendron,' a Cinderella figure, pleases
her fairy godmother by baking her a cake with 'two pounds of butter';
later, she serves her a feast made from two chickens, a cock, and 'two
little rabbits that were being fed up with cabbage.'... Lest anyone find d’Aulnoy’s repasts and their power unrealistic, the
opposite is true, as I discovered while attempting to re-create the food
with my friend Celia Bell, whose novel, The Disenchantment, published this May, was inspired by d’Aulnoy’s life and work. ..."
The Paris Review - Author Archives: Valerie Stivers
Music That Listens to Itself (Playlist)
"I just got back home from the 'Music That Listens to Itself' event that I hosted in Berkeley at the Alembic.
Here, quickly, is the evening’s 80-minute playlist (I trimmed one track
to get the full set to fit). The first six tracks came from the recent
Disquiet Junto project (0611)
that engaged with the theme of the evening. More details soon. I had a
blast. Major thanks to Erik Davis, Samuel Plattner, and everyone who
came. Each of the Junto tracks in the list links to its SoundCloud page,
and each of the other six links to the album, on Bandcamp, where it
originated. ..."
Carl Jung on the Power of Tarot Cards: They Provide Doorways to the Unconscious & Perhaps a Way to Predict the Future
"... The eminent psychiatrist Carl Jung, however, might have done so. As Mary K. Greer explains, in a 1933 lecture Jung went on at length about his views on the Tarot, noting the late Medieval cards are 'really the origin of our pack of cards, in which the red and the black symbolize the opposites, and the division of the four—clubs, spades, diamonds, and hearts—also belongs to the individual symbolism. They are psychological images, symbols with which one plays, as the unconscious seems to play with its contents.' ..."
Mary K. Greer's Tarot Blog: Carl Jung and Tarot (Video)
Tarot: A Gateway to the Unconscious
Let's Ride: Art history after Black studies
"BLACK STUDIES—as modeled by the transdisciplinary work of contemporary thinkers such as Kimberlé Crenshaw, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Saidiya Hartman, Kara Keeling, Katherine McKittrick, Christina Sharpe, Fred Moten, and Frank B. Wilderson III—has grown increasingly central to critical thought in the art world and the academy, with especially urgent implications for art-historical praxis: How do the discipline’s notions of objecthood and objectivity shift in light of transatlantic slavery’s production of persons as property? How must art-historical methods, given their origins in racist, sexist, and colonialist epistemologies, be retooled to engage with complexities of Black life and expression that are designed to evade capture?..."
Living Dub Volume One & Two - Burning Spear
"Like many records from the first murky decade of reggae's mature period,
this one has a complicated history. It is the dubwise companion to
Burning Spear's classic album of 1978, Social Living. However, Social Living was also released under the title Marcus Children. Living Dub, Vol. 1, which consisted of dub mixes by Sylvan Morris,
was originally released as a vinyl record shortly after the album on
which it is based, but the CD reissue released under that title in 1993
actually consists of a completely different set of dub mixes by Barry O'Hare; the original mixes were released on CD ten years later, on the revived Burning Spear label, as Original Living Dub, Vol. 1. ..."
allmusic: Vol. 1 (Audio), allmusic: Vol. 2 (Audio)
W - Living Dub Vol. 1, W - Living Dub Vol. 2
YouTube: Living dub vol 1 38:50, Living dub vol 2 39:49
Glasgow to the rescue! Blast of realism gives the new Scottish galleries punch
"One thing rapidly becomes clear in these lavish new purpose-built galleries of Scottish art: Scotland likes itself. Or at least, Scottish curators are far fonder of their country than their opposite numbers at Tate Britain and the National Portrait Gallery are of the UK as a whole. Whereas these London museums have recently opened rehangs that call out past injustices and national guilt, Edinburgh’s new look at Scotland’s artistic story is a celebration. It’s also ravishing. ..."
Passion for place … detail from Wandering Shadows, 1878, Peter Graham.
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