Maps of the April 2024 Total Solar Eclipse


"On April 8, the moon will slip between the Earth and the sun, casting a shadow across a swath of North America: a total solar eclipse. By cosmic coincidence, the moon and the sun appear roughly the same size in the sky. When the moon blocks the glare of the sun, the sun’s outer atmosphere, or corona, will be briefly visible. Below are several maps of the eclipse’s path as well as images of what you might experience during the event. The eclipse will begin at sunrise over the Pacific Ocean, then cut through Mexico and cross the United States from Texas to Maine. Most of North America will see a partial eclipse, but viewers within the deepest shadow — a band sliding from Mazatlán, Mexico, to the Newfoundland coast near Gander, Canada — will experience a total solar eclipse. ..."
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The Cult of the Criterion Collection: The Company Dedicated to Gathering & Distributing the Greatest Films from Around the World

"There was a time, not so very long ago, when many Americans watching movies at home neither knew nor cared who directed those movies. Nor did they feel particularly comfortable with dialogue that sometimes came subtitled, or with the 'black bars' that appeared below the frame. The considerable evolution of these audiences’ general relationship to film since then owes something to the adoption of widescreen televisions, but also to the Criterion Collection: the home-video brand that has been targeting its prestige releases of acclaimed films squarely at cinephiles — and even more so, at cinephiles with a collecting impulse — for four decades now. ..."




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Looking for Lorca in New York


"For a son of the titular city, reading Federico García Lorca’s Poet in New York is akin to curling into your lover, your nose dipped in the well of their collarbone, as they detail your mother’s various personality disorders. Yes, Federico, yes, my mother is thoroughly racist and takes every opportunity to remind me, her sometimes destitute child, about the silent cruelty of money. 'At least you got to leave,' I want to tell him. 'Imagine being stuck with her for the rest of your life.' He would likely understand my irrational attachment; after all, he was so consumed by Spain, its art and its politics, that his country would go on to swallow him whole. Still, it is crucial for those of us with this sort of umbilical tether to unwind it and test how far it might stretch. ..."





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Carlo Giustini – Custodi (2019), Manifestazioni (2018)


"Since the release of La Stanza di Fronte, Treviso sound artist and cassette tape lover Carlo Giustini’s debut album, on ACR at the beginning of last year, the young musician’s music has traveled along a clear trajectory. The spectral drones and use of fidelity/absence-as-sound that dominated that curious tape have remained steadfast elements in Giustini’s work, but as he progressed through various releases on labels such as Bad Cake, Purlieu, and No Rent the presence of melody and other more traditional ambient qualities have become increasingly prominent. Custodi, his second release on the Rohs! ..."



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Soho Weekly News


"The folks pictured above are a small sampling of the talent that made up the Soho Weekly News over its run from 1973 to 1982. Thanks to a generous donation from Allan and Joanna Wolper of their rare, bound collection of 24 volumes of the Soho Weekly News, the newspaper will be preserved when it travels with the rest of the Soho Memory Project Archive to the New York Historical Society, its future home. But before any of this happens, let’s have a look inside this treasure trove of downtown history with none other than Allan Wolper himself, who has written a Soho Weekly News Who’s Who of sorts, from Edward Gorey and Rex Reed to Bruce Springsteen and beyond. The many boldfaced names included here are a testament to the paper’s journalistic excellence. ..."



Style Section spread photographed by Robert Mapplethorpe
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Phill Niblock (1933–2024)


"How different Phill Niblock’s life would have been if he hadn’t moved into a third-floor loft on Centre Street, near New York’s Chinatown, in 1968. It was his home for the rest of his life, and it was there that the composer/filmmaker/photographer transformed the Experimental Intermedia Foundation, originally a performing-arts organization founded by choreographer Elaine Summers, into one of the premier artist-run experimental-music venues of downtown New York. Spontaneously inaugurating its concert series in 1973 with a gig of his own—relocated at the last minute from the Kitchen, which was deemed unusable after a blood-soaked performance by Hermann Nitsch the night before—he hosted hundreds of now-legendary artists. It was the most convivial and soulful avant-garde music spot imaginable: The performances took place in Phill’s spacious living room, complete with a formidable sound system with self-built speakers, while the socializing centered in the kitchen. ..."


2024 January: Phill Niblock

Arthur Russell, Elodie Lauten, and others performing at Experimental Intermedia, New York, 1983–84.
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The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen

Mary Bowman compares the "feigned" historical echoing of Beren and Lúthien in the "Tale of Aragorn and Arwen" with Dante's echoing of Lancelot and Guinevere in his tale of Paolo and Francesca, here in an 1862 painting by Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

"'The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen' is a story within the Appendices of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. It narrates the love of the mortal Man Aragorn and the immortal Elf-maiden Arwen, telling the story of their first meeting, their eventual betrothal and marriage, and the circumstances of their deaths. Tolkien called the tale 'really essential to the story'. In contrast to the non-narrative appendices it extends the main story of the book to cover events both before and after it, one reason it would not fit in the main text. Tolkien gave another reason for its exclusion, namely that the main text is told from the hobbits' point of view. The tale to some extent mirrors the "Tale of Beren and Lúthien", set in an earlier age of Middle-earth. This creates a feeling of historical depth, in what scholars note is an approach similar to that of Dante in his Inferno. ..."




In Peter Jackson's The Lord of The Rings film trilogy, the tale is brought from the appendix into the main narrative, and (shown) Arwen brings the banner of the White Tree to Aragorn, and they are married. In the book these are separate events. Aragorn is shown wearing a circlet; Tolkien described the crown in the book as a taller version of the helmets of the city guard, and in a later letter as resembling the Hedjet of Upper Egypt
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“It’s This Line / Here” : Happy Belated Birthday to James Schuyler


"... The tiny, beloved 'Salute'—which is not the poem that I mean to discuss—both gathers and separates, does and then undoes what the poem says Schuyler meant to do but never did. (And isn’t this, the play of assembly and disassembly, to a certain extent just what verse is? How part and whole relate or fail to as the poem unfolds in time is a basic drama of poetic form.) Schuyler’s enjambments—at once distinct and soft, like the edge of a leaflet or the margin of a petal—are sites of hesitation where meanings collect before they’re scattered or revised. ..."



Fairfield Porter -  Portrait of James Schuyler
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Anthéne & David Cordero, Lost Under the Sea (Home Normal)


"Behind the nom de musique Anthéne is Torontonian Brad Deschamps, who also runs the fine label Polar Seas. David Cordero is from Cádiz, the ancient Spanish port. Both are prolific ambient composers worth cherishing. This album, featuring a photo of a foggy Toronto harbor by the former, is the result of file trading between the two and inspired by the vastness of the Atlantic that separates them. In its serene, beatless unfolding, Lost Under the Sea is Platonic-ideal ambient music, soft and comely with a hint of mysterious. The duo seamlessly mesh their guitars, tapes, 'modular,' glockenspiel and the merest wisp of wordless vocals to produce a very gentle undertow. There is actually nothing patently aquatic to the sound of Lost Under the Sea, no burbling brooks or sloshing waves, even though each title refers to water. As a whole, wet or dry, it is an exemplary album, and the penultimate track “Across Estuaries” is one of the most gorgeous pieces you’ll ever hear.  - Stephen Fruitman"




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Rudeboy: The Story of Trojan Records (2019)

""The story of Trojan Records, the most iconic British ska/rocksteady/reggae label, is inextricably linked to that of the Jamaican community in Britain. For seven years, the label — alongside very few others — served as the cultural voice for those who had recently traded the warm beaches of the West Indies for the rain-lashed streets of Hackney. It was a voice that sung for different reasons: sometimes with thoughts of home, sometimes lovelorn, sometimes with warnings or messages to the youth. Then it collapsed. Rudeboy: The Story of Trojan Records, directed by Nicolas Jack Davies, is the latest attempt to grasp the musical and social significance of the ska/rocksteady/reggae evolution. And it does not do it alone. A legion of greying legends appear across Rudeboy — Bunny Lee, Toots Hibbert, Pauline Black, and Derrick Morgan, to name but a few — and grant the audience some expert insights. ..."

Honi Soit

Discogs (Video)

amazon

YouTube: Rudeboy: The Story of Trojan Records (official trailer)

YouTube: Rudeboy: The Story of Trojan Records    1:25:16

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Too Little, Too Late: On American Media Executives’ Hypocritical Support of Palestinian Journalists

Internally displaced Palestinians gather to collect food donated by a charity group, in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, Palestine, March 14, 2024.

"When it comes to righteous causes, I generally believe it is important to leave space for people to have an onramp to join at any time. If someone has not been actively supporting campaigns against racism, transphobia or injustice of various kinds, I do not want stigma or shame to keep any individual from joining the cause. The best response when someone shows up for the first time at an activism meeting or organizational space is not to embarrass them but to say, 'Welcome aboard!' However, I do not extend the same grace to welcoming people nor institutions in positions of enormous power, especially when they are still causing and benefiting from the unjust conditions people with less power than they wield are organizing against. It is in this spirit in which I read an open letter, 'News outlets express solidarity with journalists in Gaza' to be too little, too late, and too hypocritical. ..."





Palestinians gather to receive aid outside an UNRWA warehouse as Gaza residents face crisis levels of hunger, in Gaza City, March 18.
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The Clash – "White Riot" (1977), White Riot - Directed By Rubika Shah (2020)


"'White Riot';is a song by English punk rock band the Clash, released as the band's first single in March 1977 and also included on their self-titled debut album. ... There are two versions of the song: the single version (also appearing on the US version of the album released in 1979), was one of the first songs they recorded at CBS Studio 3 on Whitfield Street in Central London, after signing with CBS Records. ... Lyrically, the song is about class economics and race and thus proved controversial; some people thought it was advocating a kind of race war. ... In an interview with the New Musical Express in December 1976, Joe Strummer responded angrily to the suggestion that some people misinterpreted the 'White Riot' lyrics as racist, saying, 'They're not racist! They're not racist at all!'. Strummer pointed out that inner-city black youth were now fighting back against poverty and heavy-handed policing. 'White Riot' was a call to arms to white youth to fight back in the same way and have, in the words of the song, 'a riot of my own'. ..."

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An elegy for a surreal East Village dive bar that welcomed those in the shadows


"There’s something about legendary East Village bars that leave New Yorkers mourning them even decades after they close their doors. The tenth anniversary of the shuttering of Mars Bar in 2011, the gritty dive on Second Avenue and East First Street, merited tribute posts recalling its eclectic mix of regulars. Brownie’s, on Avenue A, pulled the plug in 2002, but Gen X fans are still reminiscing about the bands they saw there. So it seems unusual that one old-school East Village haunt has no Facebook fan group posting photos and videos, no articles bemoaning the reasons behind its closure. 
That haunt would be Eileen’s Reno Bar, a hole in the wall at 175 Second Avenue between 11th and 12th Streets. ..."


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VA - The World Needs Changing. Street Funk & Jazz Grooves 1967-1976 (2013)


"... Fortunately for those of you who like multi-artist collections, we’re sending a couple your way in the next two months, starting off with this wonderful look at black American music from the late 60s to the mid-1970s – basically from the start of funk to the rise of disco. The music within brings together a cross section of great sounds that would grace – and in many cases already have – any DJ’s record box. Take Little Eva, whose medley of ‘Get Ready / Uptight’ was championed by Eddie Piller at Snowboy’s Goodfoot Night at Madam Jo Jo’s and is now a clubland staple. Willard Posey’s medley was a big Keb Darge spin at the same venue a decade earlier, whilst Esther Marrow’s wondrous vocal version of ‘Walk Tall’ has for a long time been one of my DJ secret weapons. ..."






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A Researcher Chisels New Perspectives on Ancient Art

Sculpted in 521 BCE, the Behistun relief in Iran is a massive carving with more than 400 lines of inscription and huge figurines. Its size, location and visibility suggest it was used for propaganda.

"Whether pelted by sleet in spring or slapped by a harsh summer sun, groups of graduate and post-doctoral students have clambered, undaunted, through the rocky Zagros Mountains near Iraq’s border with Iran. Their feet slipping in the mud and skittering through ravines, they have lugged tripods and long-lens, high-resolution digital cameras to document reliefs that artists carved into the limestone mountainside more than 3,000 years ago. This spring marks the seventh expedition that Zainab Bahrani, chair of Columbia University’s Department of Art History and Archaeology, has conducted in northern Iraq and southwestern Turkey since establishing the Mapping Mesopotamian Monuments project in 2012.  ..."


A centuries-older stone staircase and rock reliefs, paying equal attention to the site’s Islamic and pre-Islamic elements.
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Ström Noir – Jouska & Hands Like Clouds – Mountain King (Blue Marble 1972)


"Blue Marble 1972 is a new label from Poland, launched with unique styling. Its music is boxed in a taller, slightly skinnier version of the classic digipak, which is a great look, particularly when graced by such nice cover art and striking typography. These are the imprint’s first two releases. The legend of the 'mountain king' is a pan-European messianic fable re-told countless times, about an ancient monarch or champion who sleeps under a distant mountain and who, when the time is come, will rise and lead his people to glory. Mountain King by Hands Like Clouds is the tenth-year anniversary edition of a one-off effort made available only in a tiny run by the Polish ambient artist who records as Ghosts of Breslau, accompanied by a host of sidemen from the Portuguese psychedelic folk group The Joy of Nature. ..."

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Big Road Blues Show: Learning The Blues – Forgotten Blues Heroes 25

Willie Guy Rainey, Palmetto, GA, Sept. 1978

"Today’s show is part of a semi-regular feature I call Forgotten Blues Heroes that spotlights great, but little remembered and little recorded blues artists that don’t really fit into my weekly themed shows. This time out, several down home musicians who recorded a handful of records between the late 60s and early 80s. Singer and guitar/ukulele player Lewis 'Rabbit' Muse was born in Virginia, in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. He recorded two fine, long-out-of-print albums, for the Outlet label in the mid-70s. Willie Guy Rainey played music at parties and on the streets of small towns near Atlanta. He finally began playing bars in Atlanta and was 'discovered' by music teacher, Ross Kapstein. Guy recorded one album, Willie Guy Rainey in 1978 with the help of Kapstein for Southland in 1978 and was the subject of a short film. George and Ethel McCoy were a brother and sister duo who lived in St. Louis and who’s aunt was Memphis Minnie. ..."


Rabbit Muse, back cover of Muse Blues 
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Gallery New Orleans

Double galleries at the LaBranche Buildings in the French Quarter

"In New Orleans, a gallery is a wide platform projecting from the wall of a building supported by posts or columns. Galleries are typically constructed from cast iron (or wrought iron in older buildings) with ornate balusters, posts, and brackets. The intricate iron balconies and galleries of the French Quarter are among the renowned icons of New Orleans. The City of New Orleans provides specific definitions for platforms projecting from the face of the building, differentiating between balconies and galleries. Balconies typically have a projection width of up to 4 feet (1.2 m), lacking supporting posts and a roof structure. In contrast, galleries are platforms extending beyond property lines to cover the full width of the public sidewalk, supported by posts or columns at the street curb. Galleries may or may not include a roof cover. ..."

Pontalba's monogram on ironwork


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Hélène Vogelsinger – Bird Singer

Panharmonium by Rossum Electronic

"1. Favourite knob/fader/switch on a piece of gear and why? There are so many! I’ll go with the first one that comes to mind; The satisfaction of turning an arpeggio into a celestial pad in just a few seconds, it’s by turning the mix knob of the Panharmonium (Rossum Electronic) that you can achieve it. Layering is truly integral to my musical identity. And this module is just incredible for that purpose. There isn’t a piece where it’s not present. ... 3. What setup do you bring on holiday/tour/commute etc.? It’s been years and years since I’ve properly been on vacation, but when I travel, it’s never without my session setup; my two modular cases, my small Mackie mixer, my portable recorders, and the battery that powers all this little world. It fills up the car trunk quite a bit, I must admit, but nothing is impossible with my old Volvo; the modularmobile  I always have at least one recorder on me, to capture as many sounds and atmospheres as possible. A reflex that stayed with me after my video game sound design training. ..."



Two modular cases in the trunk of The ModularMobile
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The Hundred Years' War on Palestine - Rashid Khalidi (2020)


"The Hundred Years' War on Palestine is a 2020 book by Rashid Khalidi, in which the author describes the Zionist claim to Palestine in the century spanning 1917–2017 as late settler colonialism and an instrument of British and then later American imperialism, doing so by focusing on a series of six major episodes the author characterizes as 'declarations of war' on the Palestinian people. In the book, Khalidi—historian and Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University—argues that the struggle in Palestine should be understood, not as one between two equal national movements fighting over the same land, but rather as 'a colonial war waged against the indigenous population, by a variety of parties, to force them to relinquish their homeland to another people against their will.' In addition to the more traditional sources and methods employed by a historian, the author in this book draws on family archives, stories passed down through his family from generation to generation, and his own experiences, as an activist in various circles and as someone who has been involved in negotiations among Palestinian groups and with Israelis. ..."





Large bundles of personal possessions are carried on the head of Palestinian women and children flee the Israeli offensive that established the state of Israeli in 1948.
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Strategy Is a Craft

Protesters demonstrate at Zuccotti Park on the second anniversary of the start of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

"In their new book, Practical Radicals: Seven Strategies to Change the World, Deepak Bhargava and Stephanie Luce argue that progressives need a strategy upgrade. As they explain, “We wrote this book because we think that the practice of rigorous strategy on the Left has deteriorated in recent years.” This development, they believe, stands in contrast to tendencies among conservatives, who since the 1970s have committed themselves to a comprehensive—and premeditated—drive to broaden their coalition, win control of key social institutions, and wield state power. ..."




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How Humanity Got Hooked on Coffee: An Animated History

"Few of us grow up drinking coffee, but once we start drinking it, even fewer of us ever stop. According to legend, the earliest such case was a ninth-century Ethiopian goatherd named Kaldi, who noticed how much energy his ruminant charges seemed to draw from eating particular red berries. After chewing a few of them himself, he experienced the first caffeine buzz in human history. Despite almost certainly never having existed, Kaldi now lends his name to a variety of coffee shops around the world, everywhere from Addis Ababa to Seoul, where I live. His story also opens the animated TED-Ed video above, 'How Humanity Got Hooked on Coffee.' ..."

His story also opens the animated TED-Ed video above, “How Humanity Got Hooked on Coffee.”


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, 2023 March:  Understanding Espresso: A Six-Part Series Explaining What It Takes to Pull the Ideal Shot

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Healthcare in Gaza is in a state of acute trauma

A Palestinian man walks past a heavily damaged building of the author's alma mater, Islamic University of Gaza [UIG}, in Gaza City, on February 15, 2024.

"On October 7, my morning began like any other, at least on the surface. As a surgical resident who takes great pride in his job, I did my rounds with patients amid the usual hustle and bustle of the hospital, and then scrubbed in to operate on an emergency case alongside one of my mentors. When I felt the metal coldness of the scalpel in my hand, however, perhaps for the first time in my career, I did not feel a thrill. I did not experience the profound joy that normally comes with the opportunity to improve a person’s life on the operating table. My attending surgeon sensed something was amiss, and asked me what was wrong. I shared with him the news I had received from my mother back home: the bombing had started. Gaza, my home, was under attack. He listened, and tears started to form in his eyes. When I saw him, a non-Palestinian, share my pain, something cracked in me, and I broke down. ..."





NY Times: The first seaborne aid to Gaza could depart Cyprus as early as Saturday.

Palestinian children suffering from malnutrition receive treatment at a health care center in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on March 5, 2024.
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Kahil El'Zabar's 'Spirit Groove' ft. David Murray


"Legendary multi-percussionist and spiritual jazz master Kahil El’Zabar continues his quest of spirit through groove in his collaboration with tenor sax colossus, David Murray. ‘Spirit Groove’ is the divining moment upon their incredible journey to meaningful art. This is a phenomenal album, adding an entirely new, elevated dimension to the Spirit of Groove! In the Kahil El'Zabar's own words ‘Spirit Groove’ "intends to move you nakedly with a deep sense of dance on a Mind/Body/Spirit level. From the mouths of Bebop music masters, who were my mentors and that I also had the distinct honor to play with – such as Dizzy Gillespie, Cannonball Adderley, Eddie Harris, Malachi Favors, Jodie Christine, Sonny Stitt, Gene Ammons, and Rahsaan Roland Kirk, they all expressed to me that in the beginning of Bebop, people everywhere danced with Spirit to the music of Charlie Parker! This is the moment to rekindle the motion of social relevance within the legacy of jazz as an improvised people’s movement for social change!... ”



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The Women at the Table: Writers, Artists, and Photographers in the Early Days of the Voice

Nell Blaine (photographer unknown), ca. the late 1950s. The image has been heavily airbrushed and highlighted with white retouching paint, a common practice in those days. (The “Pentagon” note in the upper-right corner may refer to the Pentagon Printing Co., one of many print service houses in the city in the postwar era.)

"In the current season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Abe Weissman—protagonist Midge Maisel’s father—is greeted by the crabbily avuncular staff on his first day of work as a Village Voice theater critic. 'Kennedy for President' posters are plastered throughout the bustling office, and as the editor makes introductions around a conference table plunked right in the middle of the hubbub, we meet the only woman on the editorial staff, Bernie, who is given the straightforward title 'News.' Considering that the story is set in 1960, that’s about right, since at the real-world Voice that year, Mary Perot Nichols was listed simply as 'News' on the masthead, editing other journalists and writing her own coverage of street-level concerns in the city. ..."

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The Art and History of Lettering Comics


"... INTRODUCTION by Neil Gaiman: They say that Laozi, the semi-legendary Old Master, wrote down what he knew about the Way in the Tao Te Ching at the request of a city gatekeeper, before leaving the city, and walking out of history into the western wilderness. I wrote my first comics for Karen Berger at DC Comics in 1987. It was called Black Orchid, and was painted by Dave McKean. 'I’m assigning Todd Klein as letterer,' said Karen. 'Todd’s the best we have.' Todd lettered Black Orchid, beginning perhaps my longest professional relationship, and I did not know how lucky I was then. But I knew I wanted Todd for Sandman, and I never had cause ever to regret that decision. No matter how strange or difficult or time-consuming my lettering request, Todd would always come through for me. He made magic. ..."


Zap Comix #0 back cover, © Robert Crumb
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