The Essential Don DeLillo


"... And to ask that of DeLillo, who by the time of that interview had poured out almost a dozen novels in a torrent of productivity, probing his interests in everything from sports to mathematics to the inflection points of the American century … well, no wonder the man had a reputation for being paranoid. In fact, despite all of DeLillo’s fascination with terrorism and death cults and the impotence of the individual swept up in unstoppable social forces, I’ve never considered him to be an especially paranoid writer. Anxious, sure — anxiety being one of his great themes, and one of the reasons he has so often seemed prophetic — but as a stylist he’s too cool and too alert to absurdity to be a true paranoid. I mean cool in every sense of the word: a little chilly, a little detached, and also ironic and knowing and hip, cool like the jazz he has cited as an influence on his sentences.


2021 May: Don DeLillo

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Taking the Lagos train


"For a moment, Pride & Prejudice finally had some sound. For Nigerians familiar with the movie, and who have also taken a train from and/or to Lagos, there’s a particularly unchanging experience that is having a look at the 2005 adaptation of the famous Jane Austen novel. 'Having a look' is perhaps the most appropriate term, as the movie is always shown, without sound, meaning it’s not so much being viewed as it is an item of display. But on this occasion, there was a modicum of sound, hard to make out, but existent because this was in the quiet of the Business Class section of the train. If there’s an element to highlight the disparity of societal position via Nigerian trains; it’s probably this: the quiet that affords one to almost hear what is regularly unheard, a level of moving comfort attained; unlike in the Standard Class, where it’s more congested, there’s less room to sit, and there’s as little possibility as there is interest in whatever audio is coming out of that Joe Wright movie. ..."




Blue line, red line, railway stations and airport
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Revolutionary cinema: ranking the 10 greatest Italian neorealism movies


"... On the opposite end of that spectrum is the Italian neorealism movement of the 1940s and 1950s, a cinematic ideology that protested generations of social oppression. For decades leading up to the start of the Second World War, the cinema industry in Italy was tightly regulated by the government, with Telefoni Bianchi movies, which promoted the prosperity of the country, being the sole type of film being made. Yet, these films simply didn’t reflect the reality of contemporary Italy, with the struggles of the poorest people being seemingly ignored by those in power. ..."

  


"... As Italy struggled to climb out from its ruins in hopes of newfound political stability and redefinition after the era of fascism that had preceded it, the most prominent filmmakers of the country banded together. They created the neorealism movement, a cultural collective that sought to accurately portray the harsh realities of poverty, economic devastation and the personal wreckage that had become of Italy’s inhabitants. Prior to the movement’s origins, the Italian film industry had primarily been comprised of overly sentimental, glossy, Hollywood-like studio-led productions that largely overlooked what had indeed become of Italy during the awful global conflict. By contrast, the films of Roberto Rossellini, Vittorio De Sica and Luchino Visconti started to closely examine the hardships of everyday life in Italy, sticking to an ethos of using non-professional actors and shooting on location to capture an unbridled air of authenticity and honesty. ..."





"... By shooting on location and primarily employing non-professional actors, the films of the Italian neorealist movement breathe authenticity, providing an escape from the over-produced studio works of the era and a dedication to weaving narratives just as they would occur in real life. But who exactly are the key figures in the Italian neorealism movement? To answer that very question, we’ve compiled a list of the directors who saw it as their personal goal to push the cinematic efforts of their native Italy into new frontiers by exploring the economic, political and social conditions of the country following World War II. ..."


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Charley Booker


"“Charley Booker (September 3, 1925 – September 20, 1989) was a blues singer and guitarist from the Mississippi Delta, who recorded in the early 1950s for Modern Records. Charley Booker was born in 1925 on a plantation between the Mississippi communities of Moorhead and Sunflower, the son of Lucius Booker. There is some doubt about his date of birth: while the 1925 birth date  was given by Booker in interviews, social security records give the  earlier date of September 3, 1919. He learned to play guitar from his uncle, who had played with Charley Patton, and Booker stated that as a child he had himself seen Patton perform near Indianola. He worked occasionally as a musician from the late 1930s. By the early 1940s Booker had moved to Leland, and in 1947 he moved to Greenville, where he worked with pianist Willie Love, and also met or worked with musicians such as Elmore James, Sonny Boy Williamson II, Little Milton, Ike Turner  and Houston Boines. By 1951 he had his own radio show (possibly on the  WDVM station), and in 1952 he was approached by Ike Turner to record for  Modern Records. …”





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See Inside the Last Original Artist Lofts in New York


"It wasn’t uncommon for artists to afford rent without wealthy patrons before developers and high-rises took a chokehold of Manhattan. They gleefully lived and worked where they slept, mostly in lofts, even if it was technically illegal. A new book is opening the curtains to the last creative residential sanctuaries left in the city. Photographer Joshua Charow’s Loft Law: The Last of New York City’s Original Artist Lofts, newly released on Damiani Books, captures a fading way of life. Since the 20th century, as manufacturers departed neighborhoods such as Soho and the Bowery, artists moved into these industrial spaces. They set up homes and studios in these spaces illegally, while building vibrant communities. In 1982, loft-living was widespread enough that city enacted the Loft Law, recognizing their occupants as legal tenants, with the bonus of regulated rent. ..."




Carmen Cicero, Bowery
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Beja Power! Electric Soul & Brass from Sudan's Red Sea Coast - Noori & His Dorpa Band (2022)


"... A soundtrack of Sudan's revolution and the first ever international release of the Beja sound, performed by Noori and his Dorpa Band, an unheard outfit from Port Sudan, a city on the Red Sea coast in eastern Sudan and the heart of Beja culture. Electric soul, blues, jazz, rock, surf, even hints of country, speak fluently to styles and chords that could be Tuareg, Ethiopian, Peruvian or Thai—all grounded by hypnotic Sudanese grooves, Naji's impeccable, haunting tenor sax, and of course, Noori's tambo-guitar, a self-made unique hybrid of an electric guitar and an electric tambour, a four-string instrument found across East Africa. ..."




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The Secret History of the Original Deep-Dish Crust

From March 1945, the only known image of Richard Riccardo and the deep-dish pizza he created. 

"Chicago deep-dish pizza was first created at Pizzeria Uno, and its essence lies in its distinctive crust.  It turns out there was not just one Uno’s crust, but several as it changed over time. What’s been lost — until now — is the original recipe. The most surprising part of the original dough is how different it is from what we expect deep-dish pizza to be like today. In 2013, I discovered what I believe to be the original deep-dish dough recipe created by Pizzeria Uno’s founder, Richard Riccardo. The recipe, detailed in this article for the first time since 1945, produces a thinner, lighter, vaguely cake-like golden-brown crust that’s distinctly different than the thicker, heavier biscuit-like crust now served at deep-dish pizzerias such as Pizzeria Uno, Gino’s East, and Lou Malnati’s. ..."





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The Battle for the Streets of New York


"On a recent morning, the intersection of East 77th Street and Lexington Avenue presented a vivid illustration of the tumult. A taxi trying to make a left turn had to maneuver around a Verizon crew digging up the asphalt. A box truck was parked in the bus lane, and the M102 bus, with its accordionlike belly, was forced to change lanes and snake around it. Dozens of people streamed out of the subway and into the crosswalk. A man pushing a double stroller navigated between the subway entrance and a sidewalk compost box. A woman’s shopping cart wheels got stuck in a crack in the sidewalk. CitiBikes and delivery bikes whizzed by. A cargo bike stopped in front of a FedEx truck that was unloading packages next to a bike lane. Lively, energetic streets make city living attractive — people to watch, windows to browse, benches to sit on, trees for shade. ..."

 
This scene of Park Avenue near 57th Street was typical of 1930s traffic. Over 10 million cars went through the Holland tunnel in 1930.
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Scandal Brought Reforms to Soccer. Its Leaders Are Rolling Them Back.

Gianni Infantino, the FIFA president, center, in Washington in April. He has overseen the weakening of changes he championed as a candidate for the position.

"The 12-page report was intended to save soccer’s governing body, FIFA, in its moment of existential crisis. Filled with reform proposals and drawn up by more than a dozen soccer insiders in December 2015, the report was FIFA’s best chance to show business partners, U.S. investigators and billions of fans that it could be trusted again after one of the biggest corruption scandals in sports history. In bullet points and numbered sections, the report championed high-minded ideas like accountability and humility. It also proposed concrete and, for FIFA, revolutionary changes: transparency in how major decisions were reached; term limits for top leaders and new limits on presidential power; and the abolition of well-funded committees widely viewed as a system of institutional graft. ..."


A deal negotiated in secret by the South American soccer confederation will allow it to host several matches in the 2030 World Cup.
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Sincerely, Detroit - Apollo Brown (2019)


"... Detroit has an indelible legacy in hip-hop. From artists like J Dilla to Black Milk, from Denaun Porter to Apollo Brown, Detroit's music has a sound unlike any other. When Apollo Brown set out to create the tribute to his home, he knew he needed to do the city justice. Featuring over fifty Detroit artists, Apollo Brown’s new double disc album, 'Sincerely, Detroit,' is a love letter to the culture. From different eras and different walks of life, veterans and newcomers alike lend their styles and deliveries to the twenty-one track album. Featuring artists like Royce Da 5’9”, Black Milk, Trick Trick, Elzhi, Slum Village and many, many more, 'Sincerely, Detroit' is a nearly comprehensive look at the styles and flavors of Detroit. While the world watches Detroit for influence, Apollo is back to remind people that Detroit sets a standard for others to follow and is a creative haven for Hip-hop. ..."





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The Squirrel: Joe Strummer’s favourite pub in London


"The streets of London have been weathered by a countless array of historical events. From the days when William Blake detailed the 'chartered streets' of the city, to the recent years of skyscrapers and gentrification, the city never lost its penchant for one thing: drinking. There is scarcely a street in the city that has not, at one point, housed an honest London boozer – some more honest than others. The drinking holes of the city have provided a home to a variety of notable characters over the years, including the punk rock icon Joe Strummer.  It should come as no real surprise that Strummer held a deep appreciation for the pub. ..."


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Mid-Afternoon Map: Pick Your Palestine Monopoly


"In recent weeks, student protests over the war in Gaza have generated an increasingly outraged debate, pitting people who are so outraged by the protestors’ rhetoric that they refuse to be outraged by the war against people who are so outraged by the war they refuse to be outraged by the protestors’ rhetoric. Much as voicing any criticism of Israel apparently makes you a Hamas supporter, suggesting that protests might be more effective with fewer actual Hamas supporters now makes you complicit in genocide. Walking by a pro-Palestine rally in Dupont Circle several months ago, the very first thing I heard was the chant 'We don’t want no two-state / We want ’48.' As a historian, I’m always glad to hear people shouting about history. But as someone who still thinks that two states represent the least impossible of the good solutions to the current catastrophe, I was outraged to hear it rejected so emphatically for a more impossible, more problematic alternative. ..."


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May 2024 solar storms


"The solar storms of May 2024 are a series of powerful solar storms with intense to extreme solar flare and geomagnetic storm components that have been ongoing since 10 May 2024 during solar cycle 25. The geomagnetic storm was the most powerful to affect Earth since 2003, and produced aurorae at far lower latitudes than usual in both northern and southern hemispheres. On 8 May 2024, a solar active region which had been assigned the NOAA region number 3664 produced an X1.0-classand multiple M-class solar flares and launched several coronal mass ejections (CMEs) toward Earth. On 9 May, the active region produced an X2.25- and X1.12-class flare each associated with a full-halo CME. ..." 



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From Then 'Til Now - Roots Architects


"... Bringing together over 50 of Jamaica's greatest session musicians, whose work spans from the birth of reggae in the late 1960s until today, Roots Architects is the largest gathering of Jamaican musical talent on one all-instrumental album. Never before have so many veterans, who helped create the immortal rhythms that made reggae internationally successful, been assembled to play on new material without vocals. This album aims to celebrate and pay tribute to the unsung heroes of reggae music: the rhythm builders or Roots Architects. ..."




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Power Before Petroleum


"Wind, bones, and other historical energy sources"

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You Are Being Lied to About Gaza Solidarity Camps by University Presidents, Mainstream Media, and Politicians

Between salah and shabbat prayers, students at Columbia’s encampment listen to a speaker at sunset. April 19.

"Saturday was a gloriously beautiful spring day in Chicago, and as I wandered into the 'Liberation Zone' which has taken over DePaul University’s quad, a kind lady asked me if I would like some lunch. I declined because I was headed to a BBQ in a couple of hours, but I took her up on some coffee, thanked her, and asked her if she was affiliated with the Vincentian Catholic university. 'No,' she told. 'I’m just Palestinian.' I recognized her from previous visits to that particular Gaza Solidarity Encampment, one of four I have visited over the last few weeks: Columbia University’s (where, as a PhD student at NYU, I once took some classes), Northwestern University’s (where I am on the faculty and am a member of Educators for Justice in Palestine), and the University of Chicago’s (where, like at DePaul, I was there to observe and to offer faculty de-escalation support if needed). The lady had been at DePaul every day, serving free food (often donated by Palestinian restaurants) to hundreds of people. She, like everyone there that day, was extremely welcoming. ..."




Student demonstrators from Columbia University form a human chain in front of Broadway and West 116th Street after five campus buildings were cleared of protesters on April 30, 1968.
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Democracy is losing the propaganda war - Anne Applebaum


"On June 4, 1989, the Polish Communist Party held partially free elections, setting in motion a series of events that ultimately removed the Communists from power. Not long afterward, street protests calling for free speech, due process, accountability, and democracy brought about the end of the Communist regimes in East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Romania. Within a few years, the Soviet Union itself would no longer exist. Also on June 4, 1989, the Chinese Communist Party ordered the military to remove thousands of students from Tiananmen Square. The students were calling for free speech, due process, accountability, and democracy. Soldiers arrested and killed demonstrators in Beijing and around the country. Later, they systematically tracked down the leaders of the protest movement and forced them to confess and recant. Some spent years in jail. Others managed to elude their pursuers and flee the country forever. ..." 


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A Monumental Legacy

An aquatint by English landscape painter Thomas Daniell depicts the Taj Mahal. Daniell traveled India with his nephew William Daniell, drawing scenes from across the country and later publishing them in a multivolume collection, Oriental Scenery, 1795 and 1808.

"... Artist Sita Ram’s 1815 chalk-and-watercolor-on-paper piece is as exquisite as its magnificent subject: the world’s most famous Islamic mausoleum. Visible are a tender gray-white sky and a swaying garden of lush mango trees. Between these layers of gray and green, like a creamy floating cloud, stands the Taj Mahal. 'The Taj Mahal by moonlight' is one of more than 200 surviving works that the Indian painter created on a yearlong trip with his employer, Warren Hastings, an official with the British East India Company, which at the time was the equivalent of the world’s biggest trading corporation. The inspiration for the art that has transcended time corresponds to Hastings’ nightly visit to the Taj Mahal in 1815, which he describes as a once-in-a-lifetime experience, adding an epithet to the monument as 'uncommonly striking.' He also confessed how the visit left an 'impression of gratification' for him. ..."


“Reminiscences of Imperial Delhi” consists of 89 folios containing approximately 130 paintings of Mughal and pre-Mughal monuments of Delhi, as well as other contemporary material, and accompanying text written by Sir Thomas Theophilus Metcalfe, the governor-general’s agent at the imperial court (1795-1853). 

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Jean-Michel Basquiat, Flyboy in the Buttermilk - Greg Tate (1989)

 

"In these scant lines, Frederick Douglass succinctly describes the ongoing crisis of the Black intellectual, that star-crossed figure on the American scene forever charged with explaining Black folks to white folks and with explaining Black people to themselves — often from the perspectives of a distance refracted by double alienation. If you want to hide something from a negro put it in a book. Douglass knew from experience the compound oppression of being poorly fed and poorly read, but also of having to stand Black and proud in isolated situations where nobody else Black was around to have your back. When the windchill factor plummets that low, all that can steady you is the spine of cultural confidence and personal integrity. ..."



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Masterpieces of Koto - Michio Miyagi (1956)


"The plucked zither derived from the Chinese guzheng spread through east Asia, arriving in Japan over 1400 years ago, and was incorporated into gagaku court music. As it was adapted over several hundred years, it became associated with blind musicians, notably the 17th-century performer Yatsuhashi Kengyō who is credited with making major adaptations to the instrument and for taking it from the courts to the common people. Similarly, Michio Miyagi (b. Kobe, April 7, 1894) was a blind virtuoso of the instrument who was both an innovator and preservationist of its lineage. ... His recording of "Haro no Umi (Spring Sea)" in the 1930s with the touring French violinist Renée Chemet is strikingly similar to work produced a decade later by Eastward-looking Californian avant-gardists of the 1940s including Henry Cowell, Lou Harrison, and John Cage. ..."



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The Freaks Came Out to Write: The Definitive History of the Village Voice, the Radical Paper That Changed American Culture


"Midway between the glitz of Times Square and the grind of Wall Street, Greenwich Village used to be New York’s ulterior zone, a refuge for artists and agitators, dropouts and sexual dissidents. With the New York Times established as the city’s greyly official almanac, in 1955 this bohemian enclave acquired its own parochial weekly, the Village Voice. The rowdy, raucous Voice deserved its name, and now, following its closure in 2018 (it has since been revived as a quarterly), it has an appropriately oral history. The collage of interviews in The Freaks Came Out to Write extends from the paper’s idealistic beginnings to its tawdry decline, when it scavenged for funds by running sleazy ads for massage parlours. The Voice’s origins were proudly amateurish. One early contributor was a homeless man recruited from a local street; equipment consisted of two battered typewriters, an ink-splattering mimeograph machine and a waste paper basket for rejected submissions. ..."




The Village Voice offices c1975: ‘Contributors denounced one another in abusive slogans scrawled on the walls of the office toilet.’
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On Queens Soccer Fields, Immigrants Find Each Other and a Sense of Home

No matter the weather or season, players gather in Corona for soccer games.

"Ender Mora arrived at the soccer field in Flushing Meadows Corona Park one Sunday afternoon with a couple of new Venezuelan friends who had gotten off a bus at Port Authority four hours earlier, after a journey from the Texas border. The two 20-year-olds had no socks, wore only thin jackets and looked confused and exhausted. While waiting for his turn on the field, Mr. Mora, wearing his soccer uniform, busied himself bringing them bottles of water, sandwiches and warmer coats. ... For decades, the field in Corona, Queens, in the shadow of the borough landmark the Unisphere, has been home to numerous soccer leagues of mostly Latin American immigrants. The teams are loosely organized around national identity. The latest team to join their ranks, called La Vinotinto, is all Venezuelans. ..."



Jorge Sotello administers Islas Malvinas players in the Estudiantil Soccer League on Oct. 15.
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Cool Cats Invasion (Highlife, Juju & Palm​-​wine)


"This is classic collection of Highlife, Palm-wine music & Juju from Nigeria & Ghana, from the 50's & 60's.... and includes unavailable tracks by Earnest Olatunde Thomas, known as Tunde Nightingale or The Western Nightingale, who was a Nigerian singer and guitarist, best known for his unique jùjú music style, following in the tradition of Tunde King... As well as legendary Afrobeat pioneer Fela Ransome Kuti's first recordings of highlife and calypso, recorded in London in 1959... Highlife, type of West African popular music and dance that originated in Ghana in the late 19th century, later spread to western Nigeria, and flourished in both countries in the 1950s. The earliest form of highlife was performed primarily by brass bands along the Ghanaian coast. By the early 20th century these bands had incorporated a broader array of instruments (primarily of European origin), a vocal component, and stylistic elements both of local music traditions and of jazz. Highlife thus emerged as a unique synthesis of African, African American, and European musical aesthetics. ..."


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Shanty town


"A shanty town, squatter area or squatter settlement is a settlement of improvised buildings known as shanties or shacks, typically made of materials such as mud and wood. A typical shanty town is squatted and in the beginning lacks adequate infrastructure, including proper sanitation, safe water supply, electricity and street drainage. Over time, shanty towns can develop their infrastructure and even change into middle class neighbourhoods. They can be small informal settlements or they can house millions of people. First used in North America to designate a shack, the term shanty is likely derived from French chantier (construction site and associated low-level workers' quarters), or alternatively from Scottish Gaelic sean. Globally, some of the largest shanty towns are Ciudad Neza in Mexico, Orangi in Pakistan and Dharavi in India. They are known by various names in different places, such as favela in Brazil, villa miseria in Argentina and gecekondu in Turkey. Shanty towns are mostly found in developing nations, but also in the cities of developed nations, such as Athens, Los Angeles and Madrid. Cañada Real is considered the largest informal settlement in Europe, and Skid Row is an infamous shanty town in Los Angeles. ..."


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Black Clouds Above The Bow, All Hands Bury The Cliffs At Sea by Wanderwelle 


"Based in Amsterdam and active since the middle of last decade, Wanderwelle is the ambient duo of Phil van Dulm and Alexander Bartels, with Black Clouds Above the Bows their latest full-length release and the first in a trilogy that’s focused on the climate crisis and its detrimental effects on global coastal regions. Crucial to the recording’s final form are antique cavalry trumpets, their natural sound digitally altered to gripping and suitably dark effect. Growing in power as the eight pieces unwind through rigorous invention and inspired purpose, the CD is out now through Important Records, who will be releasing the second part of the trilogy, All Hands Bury the Cliffs at Sea, on vinyl later this year. ..."



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Columbia Said It Had ‘No Choice’ but to Call the Police

Columbia University

"Exactly 56 years to the day after the 1968 student occupation at Columbia University was violently cleared by the New York Police Department, hundreds of police officers moved into the Manhattan campus on Tuesday night to quell a different kind of antiwar protest. A total of 109 people were arrested as police officers entered Columbia’s main campus, which was on lockdown, and cleared Hamilton Hall of a group of pro-Palestinian demonstrators who had broken in and occupied it the night before. It was a dizzying and, to many students and faculty, disturbing 24 hours on campus. Last time, students were protesting the Vietnam War and Columbia’s plans to expand its campus into Harlem. This time, students were protesting the Israeli offensive in Gaza that has killed about 34,000 people, according to health officials there, and trying to force the university to divest from companies with ties to Israel. ..."

 




California State Polytechnic University
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