Geoff Dyer: ‘A gas mask on a tree stopped me in my tracks – it shows the air itself can be toxic’

A memorial and a prophecy … A gas mask on a damaged tree on the road to Kreminna in Ukraine's Luhansk oblast.

"This photograph of a gas mask on a tree beside a track in Kreminna in Ukraine’s Luhansk oblast stopped me in my tracks. The original caption in the Guardian reads 'tree' but it looks like the remains of a tree, more like a planted post. Has the rest of it – the parts that make it a tree – been damaged by war? Whatever the explanation there is a hint, in the mottled pattern of the bark, of a giraffe’s neck, that vulnerable loneliness of the vertical amid the overwhelmingly horizontal. By a careful choice of angle the photographer has also imparted an animating slinkiness, a slightly feminine torsion, to the immobile wood. ..."




‘A ghost of her former self’ … an image from Peter Mitchell’s book The Scarecrows 1974-2015
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Modulisme 104: Raoul Van Herpen


"Raoul Van Herpen is an electro-acoustic music composer and improvising musician from the Netherlands. In writing music he draws heavily on modern composing + improvisation techniques and loves to explore new 'territories' and play with noise, electronics, textures, Wurlitzer piano, clarinet, saxophone + flute and DIY Synhtesizers. Combining electronics, acoustics and silence. …"




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The Slits’ Ari Up laments the loss of “female rebellion” in music: “I didn’t know it would come to this”


"'Ari is wonderful and terrible in equal measure,' writes Viv Albertine in her memoir, Clothes, Clothes, Clothes, Music, Music, Music, Boys, Boys, Boys. When The Slits formed, Ari Up (real name Ariane Daniele Forster) was just 14 years old. A wild child who’d only moved to London from Germany a few years prior -Up was a totally unique presence who was totally consumed by music. According to Albertine, she was 'loud' and 'boisterous' but also 'a talented and committed musician' who simply didn’t care what she looked like. She was the perfect person to front a punk band. Full of energy and dissatisfaction with 'double standards' and 'false people,' Up tore up the stage, screaming, shouting, jumping, dancing, and even pissing in front of eager crowds. ..."



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Three New York City subway stops, three different design styles


"How many ways are there to style a subway entrance sign? In New York City, dozens of designs and typefaces are used across the subway system—often with no rhyme or reason. Take this gold and white sign on William Street. It’s for a side entrance/exit for the Fulton Street station, affixed to a 20th century office building called the Royal Building. Its long tapered shape, the white block (a light?) at the top—I’ve never seen anything like it. ... This last subway sign image comes from the East 23rd Street 6 train entrance, I believe. The typeface and tile feels classical, and the V instead of a U is a nice Roman touch. Why this design for this stop? I don’t know—but I do know that all the variety of styles in the subway make traveling underground a little more interesting. ..."


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How do film cameras actually work?


"There’s no denying that there’s an unrivalled aesthetic beauty to film photography when compared to its digital counterpart. While there’s undoubtedly an advantage of convenience (and often cost) when it comes to shooting digital, the result of a well-shot and developed film photograph cannot be beaten. As society leans ever further into technological reliance, there’s been a pushback against digital modes of creation, with many artists preferring analogue devices and techniques, and nowhere is this more prevalent than in photography. But that raises the question, particularly in digital natives, of how a film camera actually works. ..."


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Subcontinental Synth: David Tudor and the First Moog in India

David Tudor, ca. 1974. Handwritten recipes from Tudor’s cookbook. 

"By all accounts David Tudor was a superb Indian cook. He was other things, too. Widely considered to be the finest performer of the increasingly demanding new piano music of the midcentury, Tudor, who died in 1996 at the age of 70, maintained a busy touring schedule as the accompanist for Merce Cunningham’s dance company for more than 40 years. ... He was in constant demand in the fifties and sixties for performances of contemporary works for piano, with ardent admirers, including Morton Feldman, LaMonte Young, Earle Brown, Christian Wolff, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Pierre Boulez; and in the late sixties, to Cage’s dismay, he moved away from performing the works of others and became a pioneering composer of live electronic music in his own right—a shift signaled by his visionary Bandoneon! (a combine), a complex early cybernetic environment that 'composed itself' using inputs from the eponymous accordion-like instrument, which Tudor used to activate a system of sound, light, video, and mobile sculptural loudspeakers. ..."

 
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Letter from New York: Greg Tate on the Art of Lockdown and Days of Rage - by Greg Tate (2020)

Burnt Sugar’s last gig, at the Apollo, before the Covid-19 lockdown.

"The four of us began quarantine in mid-March with, appropriately enough, a 'Last Supper' against the backdrop of a balmy, preternaturally quiet, and already desolate central Harlem night. The worthy constituents were myself and three of my besties: BG and HK, two academics who are also curators, and our host, the doyenne TC, a movie producer who has worked many years with various legendary Black indie filmmakers. TC and BG are both serious foodies and spectacular cooks; HK and I are both serious eaters, especially of their fine fixings. TC is also a much-loved thrower of grand dinner parties in her immaculate art-lined Harlem apartment. It’s where many of the neighborhood’s veteran boho-activist cognoscenti and ninjarati have spent several recent New Years’ Eves reveling until the breakadawn. ..."


2021 December: Greg Tate

Jean-Michel Basquiat, Six Crimee, 1982.
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BSA Images Of The Week: 07.07.24


"... Could this be an advertisement for the new album by Future and Metro Boomin? A spectrum of emotions and styles, the new collection is from two guys whose collaborative efforts have been making significant waves in the music industry for a half decade. Debuting at number 1, as an album 'We Don’t Trust You' has been described as a monumental success, showcasing the synergy between Future’s distinctive rap style and Metro Boomin’s innovative production. The out of context graffiti message, 'We Don’t Trust You,' captures a poignant irony: while distrust might seem like a safeguard, history shows that a society where trust is deeply eroded becomes fertile ground for manipulation by autocrats and tyrants. And now, here are images from our ongoing conversation with the street, this week, including: Praxis, Homesick, Lexi Bella, Modomatic, Danielle Mastrion, Mort Art, Claw Money, Jorit, Isabelle Ewing, Paolo Tolentino, JG, Marthalicia Matarrita, Gia, and 1RL. ..."


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Skin Flesh & Bones Meet The Revolutionaries - Fighting Dub 1975-1979


"First recorded in 1975 with the original album featuring dub cuts of some of Lloyd Campbell's hits, this album was seen as the forerunner to the 'rockers' sound made famous by Sly Dunbar. Sly is in the band alongside Jackie Jackson, Hux Brown, Rad Bryan and Ansell Collins. There's also 8 bonus tracks, Jah Woosh, Vin Gordon /The Revolutionaries and four from Skin Flesh & Bones. Worth checking out."




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The Lord of the Rings The Motion Picture Trilogy (Extended Editions)


"... I preordered this and received it today, on the day it was to be released. Just finished watching The Fellowship of the Ring and there's definitely a noticeable improvement over the older blu-rays. Nice and clear picture, not grainy at all. Is it worth getting if you already own the original blu-ray set? I guess it depends how much you like this trilogy but it's definitely an upgrade and for $30 I'd say it's worth getting. All 3 movies come in one case and the case has a slipcover."


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Leon Keita - Limited Dance Edition No​.​16


"Midway through the Mandingue groove inferno that is 'Dakan Sate, Korotoumi' I knew I had found a gem. Hypnotic guitar solos, heavy bass riffs, psychedelic organ lines, and funky horns … what more could you want? That was in 2006. I was in Bobo Dioulasso, the second largest city in Burkina Faso and one of its major centres of Mandingue culture. Here the sounds of nearby Mali and Guinea had fused with local styles, giving birth to a rich musical scene: bands such as Bembeya Jazz, Super Djata Band and other Mandingue giants were among the best-sellers of the region, and record dealers had once imported them in great quantities from distributors in Abidjan or Cotonou, the cities where most local artists had their LPs manufactured. ..."



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The story of New York’s oldest Titanic memorial, unveiled exactly one year after the disaster


"The R.M.S. Titanic went to its watery grave in the Atlantic Ocean on the morning of April 15, 1912. Few cities felt the tragedy as deeply as New York City. At the end of its maiden voyage, the luxurious ship was set to dock at the White Star Line’s Pier 59, near today’s Chelsea Piers. Instead, 706 dazed survivors picked up by the R.M.S. Carpathia disembarked a few blocks away at Pier 54—greeted by a crowd of thousands desperate for news about the iceberg that sank the ship and the whereabouts of family members. St. Vincent’s Hospital tended to survivors; Lower Manhattan hotels put them up as guests. The Women’s Relief Committee, a newly formed group made up of prominent society ladies, raised thousands of dollars for stranded passengers, especially those in steerage. ..."


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James Joyce and Samuel Beckett’s favourite pub in Dublin


"'Oh, Ireland, my first and only love, Where Christ and Caesar are hand in glove!' the great James Joyce declared. Has any man ever loved his homeland as much as he did? He considered the landscape over and over in every piece of writing. It makes sense, though, that Ireland is richer than most countries in literature and art, giving the world some of the brightest talents it has ever known. Even tighter than a wide nation, some of the best minds even gathered in the same pub. Some cities have absolutely desecrated their literary history. Once beloved watering holes where writers would cosy up in the corner with their notepads are now Wetherspoons, or especially in the case of London, have been overrun by suits ruining the meditative, creative peace with rants about their finance jobs or loud football reactions. ..."


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Afropollination: Residency Power in the Global Underground


"In 2022 and 2023 Piranha Arts, in collaboration with Nyege Nyege, organized two six-week residencies in Kampala, Uganda and Hamburg, Germany. Thirty artists from across Africa and Germany came together to deconstruct and reimagine their art for a new generation of creatives. Practicing, performing, and exchanging in unlikely places, across languages and hemispheres, this residency program attacked ideas of appropriation, heritage, collaboration, and creation. Beyond difficulty and drama, past the ecstatic noise of festivals, this is a story of explosive creativity, diehard cultural exchange, and avant-garde community, from Kampala to Hamburg. ..."


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Herbert Kohl and James Hinton: Golden Boy as Anthony Cool (1972)


"Herbert Kohl and James Hinton’s 'Golden Boy as Anthony Cool,' published in 1972, is a seminal work in the study of urban graffiti and street culture. Not only an academic exploration; it’s a journey into the heart of graffiti as a form of personal expression, rebellion, and cultural identity. Kohl’s insightful essays paired with Hinton’s evocative photographs provide a window into the lives of young people in the urban landscapes of New York City and Los Angeles as they simultaneously boil, wane and flourish in the late 60s and early 70s. These vibrant and vibrating communities are chronicled, whether affluent suburbs or struggling neighborhoods, each appears to brim with stories cryptically told through tags and murals on walls and doors. ..."



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Echoes of the Jazz Age


"'Echoes of the Jazz Age' is a short essay by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald that was first published in Scribner's Magazine in November 1931. The essay analyzes the societal conditions in the United States which gave rise to the raucous historical era known as the Jazz Age and the subsequent events which led to the era's abrupt conclusion. The frequently anthologized essay represents an extended critique by Fitzgerald of 1920s hedonism and is regarded as one of Fitzgerald's finest non-fiction works. ... Fitzgerald's essay instead posits various technological innovations and cultural trends as fostering the societal conditions which typified the Jazz Age. He attributes the era's sexual revolution to a combination of both Sigmund Freud's sexual theories gaining salience among young Americans and the invention of the automobile allowing youths to escape parental surveillance. Echoing Voltaire's belief that novels influence social behavior, Fitzgerald cites the literary works by E. M. Hull, D. H. Lawrence, Radclyffe Hall, and others as influencing Americans to question their sexual norms. ..."



Flappers and patrons in front of The Krazy Kat, one of the famous speakeasies during the Jazz Age.
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(Djibouti Archives Vol. 1) Super Somali Sounds from the Gulf of Tadjoura; Mogadishu's Finest: The Al​-​Uruba Sessions


"In 2019, Ostinato Records became the first label granted access to the grand Archives of Radiodiffusion-Télévision de Djibouti (RTD), a vault of secrets and stories from East Africa. The first in our Djibouti Archives series is a seminal anthology of 4 Mars, a 40-member Somali supergroup behind the most streamed and downloaded track on our Grammy-nominated Sweet As Broken Dates compilation. The personal band of a political party, 4 Mars' sound reveals a brand new history of the world. ..."

"Seven years in the making, the official retrospective of one of Somalia's most famous and beloved private bands, Iftin. Digitized from cassettes recorded between 1982 and 1987 at the legendary Al-Uruba hotel's secret studio and the jams for the masses performed in the basement of Somalia's national theater. Banaadiri rhythms from Somalia's south, Mogadishu's finest vocalists, Dhaanto reggae-like guitar licks, and smoldering brass blend seamlessly with the sounds of Asia, the Middle East, and Africa to form one of rawest, most cosmopolitan eras of music anywhere. Iftin's Mogadishu is where the world's sounds begin and end. ..."

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World Central Kitchen halts operations in Gaza after strike kills staff


"International food charity World Central Kitchen (WCK) is suspending its operations in Gaza following the death of seven of its workers in an Israeli air strike. Three of the killed aid workers were British citizens, WCK said. The charity said those killed were part of an aid convoy that was leaving a warehouse in central Gaza on Monday. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has acknowledged that Israel's forces hit 'innocent people'. Gaza's Hamas-run media office also blamed Israel. WCK is one of the main suppliers of desperately needed aid to Gaza. It said that it would 'be making decisions about the future of [its] work soon'. According to the charity, the aid convoy was hit while leaving the Deir al-Balah warehouse, 'where the team had unloaded more than 100 tons of humanitarian food aid brought to Gaza on the maritime route.' The convoy was made up of three vehicles, including two that were armoured. The BBC understands that all three were hit in the strike. ..."





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The Caitlin Clark Show Rolls On


"One way to view the meteoric growth of women’s college basketball is through the career arc of its current protagonist: Caitlin Clark, the University of Iowa’s stone-cold mad bomber. Her first college game came in an eerily quiet setting: no fans, players spaced out on bleachers and some wearing masks to protect against the coronavirus. Eventually that season, the atmosphere livened up with cardboard cutouts in the seats. ... The early rematch of last year’s national championship game ended fittingly, with the ball in Clark’s hands as she dribbled out the final seconds of Iowa’s 94-87 regional final victory over L.S.U. that was covered, as usual, in her fingerprints. If Clark exceeded her own standards — with 41 points, 12 assists and 7 rebounds — so, too, did the game, which was free of jawing, dismissive gestures and score settling. ..."






 
 
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How Did Conspiracy Theories Come to Dominate American Culture?


"Americans see hoaxes and plots everywhere: from climate change to immunizations to almost anything having to do with Hillary Clinton. But why? Is the constant stream of conspiracy theories a side effect of social media? Are conspiracy theories a product of the increasing polarization of politics? Or have they always been around and for some reason we just notice them more now? We can start to answer the last question: in their modern form, they have been around for at least two hundred years. The United States was less than ten years old when New England religious leaders sounded the alarm about the Illuminati’s plans to destroy the republic. And this was only the beginning. ..."





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Camus on Cassette: the 10 best existentially philosophical songs ever written


"Albert Camus once wrote, 'Maybe Christ died for somebody but not for me.' The inherent punk musicology of the French philosopher’s quote became apparent when Patti Smith borrowed heavily from it for the first line she would ever present to the world: 'Jesus died for somebody’s sins, but not mine.' This touchstone between the two worlds typifies how the expressive potential of music is often the most existentially questioning medium of any art form. There is a deft beauty to being able to probe at the greatest questions man has ever mused upon in three sweet minutes that can float by without ever scathing your psyche if your mood doesn’t much care to grapple with the wherefores of the human comedy. However, that same song can catch you on a window-gazing day, and it seems to encapsulate the purpose of life somewhere in its sweet refrain. ..."



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Alligator Records: Crucial Blues Chicago, Crucial Slide Guitar Blues, Crucial Harmonica Blues, Crucial Guitar Blues, Crucial Texas Blues

“One of three simultaneously released, budget-priced Alligator blues compilations (the other two are Crucial Guitar Blues and Crucial Harmonica Blues), Crucial Chicago Blues is a 12-track anthology of the Chicago-based label's hometown artists. Harp players such as Carey Bell, James Cotton, and Junior Wells share space with guitarists Fenton Robinson, Magic Slim, Son Seals, and Lonnie Brooks, who nearly steals the show with his solo on a live "Cold Lonely Nights." Muddy Water's pianist, Pinetop Perkins, is the only keyboard entry and oldest performer. In fact, the album should put "contemporary" in its title, since the classic blues performers most fans associate with Chicago -- such as Otis Rush, Muddy Waters, and Howlin' Wolf -- were never Alligator artists and hence are not included. ..."

AllMusic

YouTube: Various – Crucial Chicago Blues 49:09

YouTube: Various – Crucial Slide Guitar Blues 53:25

YouTube: Various – Crucial Harmonica Blues 47:57

YouTube: Various – Crucial Guitar Blues 57:13

YouTube: Various – Crucial Texas Blues 53:38

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The Rent Was Too High So They Threw a Party


"Minnie Pindar was at home  in Harlem on a Saturday in 1929, and she had a party to throw. She and her sister, Lucibelle Pindar, had passed out invitations, printed on cheap, white card stock, promising a good time in their ground floor apartment at 149 West 117th Street. 'Refreshments Just It' and 'Music Won’t Quit,' the invitation read. Their invitation, one of dozens of similar party invitations tucked into the Langston Hughes papers at Yale’s Beinecke Library, hints at the rich but difficult lives of Black people living in New York at the dawn of the Harlem Renaissance. On that Saturday, Nov. 2, the Pindar sisters likely readied their home to welcome guests. Maybe they moved the furniture to make room for dancing. Maybe Ms. Pindar wore her best dress. There would likely be revelry and laughter that night, but throwing the party was a necessity. Every guest was expected to give them a quarter. The rent was due. ..."


 
 A black and white video shows a bustling street scene in New York in 1939.
 
2009 February: Harlem Renaissance, 2010 August: A Nightclub Map of Harlem, 2010 October: Apollo Theater, 2014 May: History of Harlem, 2014 November: A Harlem Throwback to the Era of Billie Holiday, 2015 February: A Nightclub Map of Harlem, 2017 June: During Prohibition, Harlem Night Clubs Kept the Party Going, 2018 March: How a Group of Journalists Turned Hip-Hop Into a Literary Movement, 2018 March: Rent party, 2018 December: The Sheck Wes story, 2019 January: Apollo Theater Is Celebrated in a New Graphic Novel, 2019 April: Minton's Playhouse, 2019 June: Loïs Mailou Jones, 2019 June: An Artist on Paying Homage to Harlem, and Using Found Fabrics in Paintings, 2019 October: Lenox Lounge, 2020 March: Bebopped and Rebopped: The Births of Bebop and Invisible Man, 2020 July: The Theater Where Ella Fitzgerald Got Her Start, 2020 August: A Walk Through Harlem, New York’s Most Storied Neighborhood
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Weimar culture

The Blue Angel (1930) was directed by Josef von Sternberg.

"Weimar culture was the emergence of the arts and sciences that happened in Germany during the Weimar Republic, the latter during that part of the interwar period between Germany's defeat in World War I in 1918 and Hitler's rise to power in 1933. 1920s Berlin was at the hectic center of the Weimar culture. Although not part of the Weimar Republic, some authors also include the German-speaking Austria, and particularly Vienna, as part of Weimar culture. Germany, and Berlin in particular, was fertile ground for intellectuals, artists, and innovators from many fields during the Weimar Republic years. The social environment was chaotic, and politics were passionate. ... Leading Jewish intellectuals on university faculties included physicist Albert Einstein; sociologists Karl Mannheim, Erich Fromm, Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, and Herbert Marcuse; philosophers Ernst Cassirer and Edmund Husserl; political theorists Arthur Rosenberg and Gustav Meyer; and many others. ..."






Prostitutes buy cocaine capsules from a drug dealer in Berlin, 1930. 
The capsules sold for 5 marks each.
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Hüsker Dü, The Fastest Band In The World


"Hüsker Dü began when Greg Norton met Grant Hart at a record store in West St. Paul. Bob Mould comes to a Ramones show and the power trio is born. The band creates a label, Reflex records, and soon bond with Dead Kennedys front man, Jello Biafra. The Huskers put out the first Minnesota hardcore vinyl, Land Speed Record. The Replacements are their major rivals, comments Tommy Stinson."




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