The moment Dennis Hopper shot a tree while high on acid: “The tree was a grizzly bear”

“During the 1960s, an increased interest in drug use, sexual freedom and progressive politics bewitched the youth, leading to the hippie movement. Dennis Hopper dove headfirst into the world of drugs and alcohol, but he knew that the optimism spouted by hippies was futile. His directorial debut, Easy Rider, captured the dying breaths of the era, starring alongside Peter Fonda as a motorcycle rider travelling through the freeing expanses of the USA. Unfortunately, the characters both suffer tragic fates, with Hopper pointing out the false promises set out by America, supposedly the land of the free. ..."

FAR OUT (Video)

FAR OUT: The 10 craziest Dennis Hopper stories (Video)

FAR OUT: When John Wayne threatened to kill Dennis Hopper: “Where is that commie hiding?” (Video)

Outrageous Dennis Hopper Stories That Prove This Man Had No Chill

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Jazz Re:freshed Continues to Be Ground Zero for the New London Jazz Scene


"London’s young jazz renaissance of the last several years is the result of a tight group of artists, promoters, and labels working together to create a united scene. Central to the movement’s evolution was the community of musicians that coalesced around West London event series Jazz re:freshed, which celebrated its 20th anniversary last year. Established by Adam Moses and Justin McKenzie in 2003, the Thursday night sessions became a platform for London’s emerging jazz underground—its supportive environment gave everyone from Nubya Garcia to Ashley Henry a place to hone their skills. Five years later, Jazz re:freshed has evolved to include a record label, started with a simple vision. ..."

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Star-Spangled Banner Performances: The 15 Most Awe-Inspiring Versions


"... With its wide range of notes, 'The Star-Spangled Banner' is considered to be one of the most challenging songs to sing. Performed regularly at sports games and ceremonial events, a handful of singers and musicians have the chance to perform the song live each year, as audiences listen with bated breath. Over the decades, many of the country’s biggest stars have tackled the song (some better than others), making their mark on the hallowed tune. Here’s a look back at 15 of the best 'Star-Spangled Banner' performances – from soulful balladry to all-out guitar shreds – proving that 'traditional' doesn’t always need to be dull. ..."

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Last Refuge of a Rock Critic: A Bicentennial Search for Patriotism - Greil Marcus


"Editors’ note, June 29, 2023: There was so much happening in New York City during the Bicentennial all those years ago that the Village Voice spread its coverage over two issues, spanning June 28 to July 12, 1976. The Big Apple was ready to party: King Kong had just left town and the Democrats were rolling in, preparing for their quadrennial convention two years after a Republican president — a liar, cheat, and bully who attempted to use his office to punish political and personal enemies — had resigned in disgrace. There was some sort of cosmic justice in Richard Nixon flaming out after winning re-election in a landslide but before he could preside over the Bicentennial, that nationwide celebration of American democracy’s survival after one civil war, two world conflicts, and countless cultural battles. It was in the Spirit of ’76 that Greil Marcus, author of the previous year’s Mystery Train — a monumental collection of essays delving into the heart of rock ’n’ roll to reveal a luminous chunk of America’s soul — undertook a wide-ranging disquisition on the meaning of patriotism in the pages of the Village Voice. (Mark Alan Stamaty’s boisterous, labyrinthine cartoons added to the wild and woolly mood.) ... My, how times have changed. —R.C. Baker ..."

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5 Minutes That Will Make You Love Wayne Shorter


"This month we feature Wayne Shorter, the iconoclastic composer and tenor saxophonist whose work with Art Blakey, Miles Davis, Weather Report and through his own solo discography has influenced generations of like-minded visionaries to push the boundaries of jazz. Since his death in 2023 at 89, it’s felt like he’s still around. That’s because his music always felt so otherworldly and progressive, as if it were beamed in from outer space or somewhere deep into the future. Shorter rose to prominence in the late 1950s and early ’60s as a member of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, where his husky and complex sound proved a worthy complement to Blakey’s propulsive rhythms. ..."


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Rebel Music: 11 Of The Best Reggae Protest Songs


"Whether warning rudies of doom around the corner, fighting for the legalization of cannabis, or battling dark forces in politics, the best reggae protest songs have spoken to their times and yet continue to resonate today. Here are 11 of the best reggae protest songs that remain timeless classics. ... Peter Tosh: Legalize It (1976) First released as a Jamaican single on Peter Tosh’s own Intel Diplo label, 'Legalize It' was a typically forthright slice of rebel-rousing by the former Wailer. Over a one-drop rhythm with The Wailers Band and The I-Threes providing the backing, Tosh demands that the herb be set free, pointing out the hypocrisy of its contraband status by stating that judges and doctors smoke it. He also lists its medical benefits as well as its place as a relaxant for animals (one Rasta name for it was 'lamb’s bread'). ..."

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Three Letters from Rilke - Rainer Maria Rilke


"Rainer Maria Rilke and the Expressionist painter Paula Modersohn-Becker met in the summer of 1900 in the German artists’ colony of Worpswede, which lies to the north of Bremen in a flat, windswept landscape of peat bogs, heather, and silver birch trees. Born just a year apart in the mid-1870s, Modersohn-Becker and Rilke were trailblazers in art and poetry at the dawn of the twentieth century. Their correspondence bears witness to their lively, ongoing dialogue and underlying creative affinities. Modersohn-Becker’s haunting portrait of Rilke, and Rilke’s meditative poem 'Requiem for a Friend,' written in the aftermath of Modersohn-Becker’s untimely death, commemorate the importance each held in the other’s life. Below are three letters from Rilke to Modersohn-Becker, written late in the year 1900. —Jill Lloyd ..."


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Nigeria’s storied expression of joy: the tale of Fuji music


"Much of the world’s greatest music output has its roots in the continent of Africa. Music has been an integral part of culture and society across the continent for centuries, with Nigeria, in particular, being a beacon of musicality. From the unforgettable political activism of Fela Kuti, the synth pioneer William Onyeabor and, in more recent years, the global popularity of Burna Boy’s Afrobeat fusion, Nigeria has always seemed to be flying the flag for African music on a global scale. Obviously, it would be narrow-minded to view Nigerian music as a genre in itself since the country’s musicians have explored a vast range of styles and genres over the years. One of the most joyous genres to come from Nigeria is Fuji music. ..."
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37-08 Utopia Parkway: Joseph Cornell’s House

Left: Joseph Cornell in his backyard in Flushing, New York, 1969. Right: Joseph Cornell’s home at 3708 Utopia Parkway.

"I said, What does it feel like in there? What do you mean, she said. I said, For example, is it light or is it dark? She said, It’s light by the windows. And then she said, It’s airy if the windows are open. Is that all She said it was a bad time. She would rather I not come inside the house. Boxes were everywhere. Everything was in the boxes. She said that her brother had died on New Year’s Day. More boxes. And that it was fine. She said she really didn’t have anything to offer me. She said she knew nothing about the previous resident Joseph Cornell, other than that he’d existed—and that a different man had lived in the house in between them. That it had been remodeled in the nineties. She had moved there for the street’s flatness—she appreciated flatness in a street. Utopia Parkway. The artist Joseph Cornell lived a lot of his life at her home at 37-08 Utopia Parkway. ..."



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Supreme Court Says Prosecutors in Jan. 6 Case Overstepped


"The Supreme Court ruled on Friday that prosecutors had overstepped in using an obstruction law to charge a member of the mob that stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., writing for the majority, read the law narrowly, saying it applied only when the defendant’s actions impaired the integrity of physical evidence. Lower courts will now apply that strict standard, and it will presumably lead them to dismiss charges against many defendants. The most prominent defendant charged using the law in question is former President Donald J. Trump, as part of the federal case accusing him of plotting to subvert the 2020 election. ..."



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Black Slavery Days - Various Artist


"A truly exceptional song showcasing the pinnacle of Jack Ruby's productions, "Black Slavery Days" by The Skulls stands out as a remarkable gem that gained significant popularity in the Ochi Rios sound system scene. The lead singer of The Skulls, Tony Thomas, penned all their tunes, bringing his experience from singing with the original Justin Hinds & the Dominos group. This piece is a manifestation of pure 70's roots music in all its glorious essence."



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Watch Patti Smith Read from Virginia Woolf, and Hear the Only Surviving Recording of Woolf’s Voice


"In the video above, poet, artist, National Book Award winner, and 'godmother of punk' Patti Smith reads a selection from Virginia Woolf’s 1931 experimental novel The Waves, accompanied on piano and guitar by her daughter Jesse and son Jackson. The “reading” marked the opening of 'Land 250,' a 2008 exhibition of Smith’s photography and artwork from 1965 to 2007, at the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain in Paris. I put the word 'reading' in quotes above because Smith only reads a very short passage from Woolf’s novel. ..."

I put the word “reading” in quotes above because Smith only reads a very short passage from Woolf’s novel. The rest of the dramatic performance is Smith in her own voice, possibly improvising, possibly reciting her homage to Woolf—occasioned by the fact that the start of the exhibition fell on the 67th anniversary of Woolf’s death by suicide.


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The Slip: The New York City Street That Changed American Art Forever – Prudence Peiffer


"From the mid-1950s to a decade later, one dead-end street in Lower Manhattan quietly hothoused seismic changes in American art. Amid the former sail-making warehouses of Coenties Slip, on the East River in what’s now the Financial District, a disparate group of artists – including Robert Indiana, Ellsworth Kelly, Agnes Martin, James Rosenquist, Delphine Seyrig, Lenore Tawney and Jack Youngerman – gathered to live and work. From these unheated and unventilated lofts came innovations in post-Abstract Expressionist painting and sculpture – hard-edge abstraction (Kelly, Martin), Pop (Rosenquist, Indiana) – as well as in avant-garde cinema (in which Seyrig was a key figure). As opposed to Ab Ex, furthermore, the creative figures were often gay, female or both. In critic and art historian Prudence Peiffer’s meticulously researched and lucidly written memoir of the thoroughfare and its significant occupants, the street serves as a metaphor for a Manhattan art life that’s barely available anymore. ..."




Agnes Martin & Ellsworth Kelly, Coenties Slip, NYC
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Shark Tale

The Gulf Stream, 1899

"Winslow Homer loved a good repoussoir: Locking the foreground and background into a taut tug-of-war charged his small paintings with titanic vigor. Rocks, waves, boats, and leaping fish bound toward the viewer, while some kind of natural force draws the eye back into the painting. That push-and-pull is emotional as well as compositional: We do not know whether to sympathize with or ridicule his subjects. What, then, are we to make of the repoussoir in Winslow Homer’s The Gulf Stream, 1899: a dark, red-flecked wave swelling in the foreground and teeming with criss-crossing sharks? Based on sketches and watercolors made during the artist’s visits to the Bahamas and Florida in 1884 and 1898, the work is the centerpiece of 'Crosscurrents,' one of the largest reconsiderations of Homer in a lifetime, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. ..."

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In New York City’s Subway System, There’s Beauty in the Mundane

As part of his 2018 “Beacons” series, displayed on the platform walls of the 167th Street B/D station, Rico Gatson derived a mosaic portrait of James Baldwin from a photo by Steve Schapiro.
Credit...

"The New York City subway commute can be unpleasant: the rats, the packed cars, the schedule changes, the smells. But Contemporary Art Underground: MTA Arts & Design New York (The Monacelli Press, $60), by Sandra Bloodworth and Cheryl Hageman, invites us to see extraordinary beauty in the mundane. Showcasing the more than 100 site-specific projects that have been commissioned by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority for the city’s subway platforms, overpasses and tunnels since 2015, this book also documents the artists’ creative processes in drawings, models and photographs. Along the walls of the B/D train station on 167th Street, Rico Gatson created 'Beacons,' eight portraits of Black and Latino leaders with connections to the Bronx. He modeled each mosaic on black-and-white photographs, adding bright rays 'coming out of a Pan-African sensibility of black, red and green,' Gatson has said, 'but expanding with yellow and orange and sometimes evolving into silver and gold.' ..."


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A Book Club of Two: The Time I Started a James Joyce Reading Group in College


"I’d bought my copy of James Joyce’s Ulysses at a Barnes and Noble in Manhattan in 1999, the summer before I left for college, along with a stack of other novels that I was convinced my much-smarter classmates would have already read. How I even decided which novels those were, I am still not sure, but I carried that bronze Modern Library copy of Ulysses to college in Baltimore, and then it moved with me from dorm to dorm. In three years, I never opened it once. Then one summer I packed it in a steamer trunk and brought it all the way to Oxford, where I had enrolled in a summer course focused on the works of Joyce… but even then, I failed to read it. Over four weeks in that class, I’d enjoyed Dubliners and Portrait of the Artist and managed to keep up with our Irish professor’s lectures on secular epiphanies and Irish nationalism and unattached third person points of view—and then we turned to the mammoth, 768-page Ulysses. ..."


2011 March: Passages from James Joyce's "Finnegans Wake" (1965-67), 2013: Dubliners, 2014 May: The Dead (1987 film), 2014 May: “Have I Ever Left It?” by Mark O'Connell, 2014 July: Digital Dubliners, 2014 September: Read "Ulysses Seen", A Graphic Novel Adaptation of James Joyce’s Classic, 2015 January: The Mapping Dubliners Project, 2015 February: Davy Byrne’s, 2016 January: Port and Docks, 2016 February: Hear James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake Read Unabridged & Set to Music By 17 Different Artists, 2016 April: Nassau Street, 2016 May: Stephen’s Green, 2016 October: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), 2016 November: Skerries, 2017 January: Walking Ulysses | Joyce's Dublin Today, 2018 October: Bloomsday Explained, 2020 March: Ireland’s Voices, 2020 June: Stephen Dedalus, 2020 November: The Homeric Parallel in Ulysses: Joyce, Nabokov, and Homer in Maps, 2021 January: The Socialism of James Joyce, 2021 March: Imagining Nora Barnacle’s Love Letters to James Joyce Image, 2022 January:  The Difficult Odyssey of James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’
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New York’s First Black Librarians Changed the Way We Read

In 1925, the New York Public Library system established the first public collection dedicated to Black materials at its 135th Street branch in Harlem, now known as the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.

"It was a banner day in the history of American libraries — and in Black history. On May 25, 1926, the New York Public Library announced that it had acquired the celebrated Afro-Latino bibliophile Arturo Schomburg’s collection of more than 4,000 books, manuscripts and other artifacts. A year earlier, the library had established the first public collection dedicated to Black materials, at its 135th Street branch in Harlem. Now, the branch would be home to a trove of rare items, from some of the earliest books by and about Black people to then-new works of the brewing Harlem Renaissance. Schomburg was the most famous of the Black bibliophiles who, starting in the late 19th century, had amassed impressive 'parlor libraries' in their homes. ..."






The 135th Street branch in 1938. Catherine Latimer, the first curator of the division of Negro history, literature and prints, sits in the background on the left. 
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RIP Billymark’s


"Billymark’s West was a normal bar. That was its greatest virtue, probably. It had a pool table, a jukebox, booths, a beer-and-shot special. It was a little dingy and dark. There was a TV and, somewhat oddly, a lot of Beatles-themed memorabilia. The prices were not so bad, by New York standards, though drinks weren’t as cheap as they could have been, either. There was graffiti in the bathroom. It was in some ways the Platonic ideal of a bar, such that it might seem familiar to you even if you’d never been. It had its own story, of course: it opened in 1956 and was taken over in 1999 by two brothers, Billy and Mark, one of whom was usually at the bar. They were the kind of guys you would describe as 'characters' in part because they were playing a well-worn role. Billy—whom I saw more often—would call me 'honey' and then charge me a price for my Miller High Life that seemed, each time, to be made up on the spot. ..."

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Fatboy Slim - Role Model (Official Video)


"Fatboy Slim has dropped a new music video to accompany his single, 'Role Model'. You can watch the clip below. Directed DX and rxr314, the piece uses digital manipulation to make it look like hig- profile 20th and 21st Century celebrities are singing the track's lyrics. Bill Murray, David Bowie, John Lennon, Blondie, Jimi Hendrix, George Clooney, Jeff Bridges as The Big Lebowski, Iggy Pop, and Bob Marley all feature. ... 'Role Model' was originally unveiled last month on digital and physical format, with a limited 500-pressing run also available on special edition acid-print vinyl. The release coincides with 30 years of Fatboy Slim's own Southern Fried Records, the label carrying the single. ..."


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Paris Vagabond – Jean-Paul Clébert (1954)

 

“So many books about Paris are concerned with the rich, matronly capital city, but this one, originally published in French in 1952, is about the postwar Paris of the poor and their not always successful efforts to eat, drink and stay warm. It’s a picture of a bohemian Paris that has now all but disappeared, though I say ‘bohemian’ advisedly since Jean-Paul Clébert (who was born in 1926 and died in 2011) had a horror of the picturesque. A middle-class boy, Clébert ran away from a Jesuit boarding school at 17 and joined the French Resistance. After World War II, he decided to live rough, scribbling notes about the things he observed and stuffing them away for safekeeping. Then one day he sat down to write. This method produced a remarkably vivid, detailed book that seems to have been composed with no method, its narrative marked by a chaotic and cheerfully self-acknowledged spontaneity. ..."

NY Times

Google: Paris Vagabond – Jean-Paul Clébert

W – Jean-Paul Clébert

amazon

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57 Sandwiches That Define New York City


"You can tell a lot about a city by the sandwiches it keeps. Not just its tastes or its vices — cured meats — but also its fascination with myriad cultures, its appreciation for stellar ingredients and its desire for delicious convenience. Over the last three months, the New York Times Food staff has crisscrossed all five boroughs in search of heroes, bodega icons, inspired crossovers, meatless wonders and more. This list isn’t a ranking — though every one of these sandwiches is marvelous to eat, with one hand or two — but a way of surveying New York as the culinary destination it is. Why sandwiches? Well, what other food item could be as dynamic, diverse and entertaining as New York City itself? ..."
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Florida Funk: Funk 45s from the Alligator State


"Funk45 label boss Jazzman Gerald and obsessive collector Malcolm Catto present 21 rare and unreleased slices of heavy funk from the Alligator State! Having spent the past 3 years travelling the length and breadth of Florida - trekking through the everglades, sampling the dubious delights of 'swamp deer' and snatching rare 45s from the jaws of 20ft gators - they escaped back to the UK with an amazing selection of music that highlights Florida as one of the funkiest states in the USA! From driving percussive instrumentals by obscure small-town groups, to heartfelt slabs of soul; from tropical Latin grooves to funk so raw that James Brown himself gave his personal blessing, Florida has a little bit of everything! All the tracks have been fully licensed from the original artists, and the CD (and double gatefold vinyl) come with previously unpublished photos and meticulous, in-depth liner notes from 100% original research telling the story of funky soul music in Florida."

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‘Fite Dem Back’: How Linton Kwesi Johnson used poetry as a “cultural weapon”


"For as long as the written word has existed, poetry and prose have been used by various writers to challenge authority and injustice. Racism and prejudice permeated virtually every aspect of society during the 1970s in Britain, reflecting a rise in far-right hate groups and political parties around the same time. Hence, it was only a matter of time before a generation of radical new writers and musicians emerged to challenge these prejudices, with poets like Linton Kwesi Johnson pioneering styles of anti-fascist poetry. Having relocated from his birthplace in Jamaica to Brixton as a young man in the 1960s, Johnson was able to witness the horrors of fascism and widespread racist attitudes in the UK firsthand. The nostalgic image of 1960s London suggests that the entire city was some kind of utopia, populated by modernists, Mini Coopers and exciting new art movements. ..."


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An Ode to Luby's and the Southern Cafeteria

"Luby’s Cafeteria holds a special place in the hearts of Texans, including my own. When I was a child in the 1990s, the cafeteria option was always open when my Chinese American family  went out to eat. Everybody could choose what they wanted. Prices were reasonable. Wheeled high chairs enabled parents to roll their babies along the serving line. Cafeterias – where workers put food on customers’ plates for them – took off  in the United States soon after Henry Ford invented the assembly line. The two are kin, but instead of a car rolling past stationary workers, the diners slide their trays down the line to receive a slice of prime rib, chicken fried steak or even trout almondine. A diner can watch as somebody on the other side scoops up green beans or squash casserole at one station and another tongs cornbread muffins or yeast rolls onto your plate. It’s an assembly line at its finest, a monument to the idea of early-20th-century progress. The cafeteria made dining more efficient while maintaining the quality and variety of foods that paying customers expected. ..."

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How is Uefa trying to make Euro 2024 more sustainable?


“‘The most sustainable European Championship of all time.’ It is a big statement, but that is Uefa’s aim for this summer’s tournament in Germany. To be the ‘most sustainable’ is, of course, difficult to quantify, with many factors involved. It is also hard to make comparisons because of the historical growth of the tournament. But, however Uefa defines it, European football’s governing body and German football are making big strides to reduce the impact of Euro 2024. What is being done? Sustainability has been an integral part of Euro 2024 since the 2018 bidding process, with its strategy focusing on environmental, social and governance pillars. …”

BBC
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How Q Became Everything


"You can track QAnon’s arc, like most things in America, through its relationship with corporate brands. Although the conspiracy movement emerged out of fringe imageboards in 2017, its first viral successes came on Facebook and YouTube, where its lore envisioning Donald Trump fighting an elite cabal of liberal pedophiles was honed and refined. When Covid came in 2020, QAnon ballooned under lockdowns, putting it in the mainstream, but leaving it short of actually being mainstream. Call it the Wayfair era. In July 2020, followers of QAnon began spreading a particular pedophilic panic: the absurd notion that the online furniture retailer was selling children for sexual abuse via armoire orders. Non-Q masses took the bait: 'Mentions of Wayfair and trafficking have exploded on Facebook and Instagram over the past week,' the Associated Press wrote at the time, noting that related TikTok hashtags 'together amassed nearly 4.5 million views.' A national human trafficking hotline issued a press release warning that a flood of calls about the conspiracy had distracted them from genuine work. ..."



A QAnon conspiracy theory button sits affixed to the purse of an attendee of the Nebraska Election Integrity Forum on Saturday, Aug. 27, 2022, in Omaha, Neb. Former President Donald Trump is increasingly embracing and endorsing the QAnon conspiracy theory, even as the number of frightening real-world incidents linked to the movement increase. On Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2022, using his Truth Social platform, Trump reposted an image of himself — wearing a Q lapel pin — overlaid with the words “The Storm is Coming."
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Supreme Court Upholds Access to Abortion Pill

The decision will most likely fuel efforts to restrict access to abortion pills in other ways.

"The Supreme Court on Thursday maintained access to a widely available abortion pill, rejecting a bid from a group of anti-abortion organizations and doctors to unravel the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the pill. In a unanimous decision, written by Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, the court held that the plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge the F.D.A.’s actions. Justice Kavanaugh wrote that the groups could instead seek greater regulatory or legislative restrictions on the drug, mifepristone, and noted that doctors who oppose abortion are shielded by so-called conscience protections in federal law, which mean they are not required to provide treatment that would 'violate the doctors’ religious beliefs or moral convictions.' ..."




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Glacis ~ Perseverance (2024)


"In December 2015 I moved with my family to the Scottish Borders. Having lived my entire life in cities this was my first time living in the countryside. It was remote, living in a cottage on a farm up a single track road. Out the front window was an old farmhouse, looking down on these quaint workers' cottages. Out the back window were endless fields along with the sound of silence. And yet the countryside is never silent. We simply cannot hear the incredible noise made by animals and plants that exist all around us. One of the first things I did when we moved to the Borders was source and purchase an upright piano. I’d not had access to one since I lived at my parents house in Dundee. Overstrung. The only choice. It took time to source one and to ensure that it was capable of being tuned. It was a beautiful creature too. Simple on the outside but when the front was removed the inner detailing was like a snakeskin - something that my piano tuner commented he had never seen before. ..."

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Madge Gill: The artist whose brush was guided by a ghost


"Any decent artist will be all too aware that inspiration can strike at the most unexpected moments. Throughout history, artists have drawn inspiration from countless unexpected avenues, from the childhood hallucinations of Yayoi Kusama to L.S. Lowry’s penchant for factory towers and smog. Even the mysterious supernatural plane has acted as inspiration for the world of painting, but none more so than Madge Gill, the celebrated outsider artist who was helped along by the spirit world. The realm of outsider art is as broad and varied as the artistic medium itself. Generally, the term can be applied to any artist who was not classically trained in the art world, meaning that a lot of outsider art is made by self-taught visionaries willing to push the boundaries of what can be considered profound art. Madge Gill’s work is particularly beloved within the realm of outsider art, managing to capture a complex range of emotions and themes through various different mediums. ..."

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Read Your Way Through New Orleans


"New Orleans is a tourist destination frequented as much for its local dishes (gumbo, jambalaya, among others) as for the spectacle that is Mardi Gras — where you may run into drunk college students on spring break, but could also bump into the Grammy Award-winning artist Jon Batiste. By some counts, it’s one of the most festive cities in America, with a party or two happening almost every week. Behind all the festivities, though, is a rich and dark history. The city is an eclectic mix of Caribbean, French, Spanish and Native American cultures, and, depending on which neighborhood you encounter, you may feel a sense of disorientation. ... The literature of New Orleans is an important supplement to your experience of the city. These books are both a compass to guide you through its many different influences and a celebration of the free spirit that has made the city a haven for itinerant artists, writers and travelers in search of a new perspective. ..."

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Crosshatching the City: ‘Stan Mack’s Real Life Funnies’ Overheard the Voices of New York


"In 1974, illustrator and cartoonist Stan Mack found himself asking the graphic arts virtuoso Milton Glaser, who had just taken over as design director of the Village Voice, if he could do a piece in which he would essentially 'wander the city, listening to people and sketching them.' Glaser upped the ante, telling Mack to 'do it as a weekly comic strip. They’re circulation builders: people turn to them first before going on to the serious stuff.' Mack rose to the challenge, and for more than 30 years he took pencils, pens, and sketchbooks to bars, restaurants, art galleries, movie queues, sex clubs, parks, and anywhere else New York’s denizens gathered. Now, 50 years later, hundreds of Stan Mack’s Real Life Funnies have been transmuted from yellowed newsprint into big glossy pages between hardcovers. ..."




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Teddy's Bar & Grill


"The most distinctive feature of Teddy’s Bar at 96 Berry Street is the projecting wood and sheet-copper corner storefront with a beautiful decorative-glass transom reading 'Peter Doelger’s Extra Beer'. Portions of the storefront were rebuilt after a car crashed into it about 10 years ago, but most of it – and all of the decorative glass - dates to at least 1907. That stained-glass transom is the source of much of the mythology that surrounds 96 Berry, tying it to a 19th-century beer baron and a 20th-century Hollywood icon. The odds that either ever set eyes on the building are practically nil. What actually happened at 96 Berry Street is far less glamorous than movie stars and beer barons, but it tells the story of Williamsburg and Brooklyn in the decades surrounding the turn of the 20th century, one of shifting populations and changing capitalist landscapes. And at the very least, this story is true. ..."




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Cut UP. Deconstructing W. S. Burroughs - Various Artists


"... Between the end of the 1950s and the beginning of the 1960s, the literary and stylistic technique of William S. Burroughs (Saint Louis 1917-Lawrence 1997) influenced an entire generation that was, in those years, in direct collision with the social system. A somewhat controversial and brilliant figure, a man on the fringes of civilization. From his mind emerged the creative writing technique that burst onto the scene under the name of Cut-Up. This procedure was previously introduced by the Dadaist poet Tristan Tzara, involving cutting words from an existing text to generate a new meaning by mixing the various words in a different order. Burroughs took this technique to the extreme, making it very popular and influencing every artistic realm, particularly the field of rock and experimental music. The list of his disciples in the musical domain is extensive, including names like David Bowie, Patti Smith, Frank Zappa, Sonic Youth, Bob Dylan, and Throbbing Gristle, to name just a few. It is from this devotion to the technique and the persona of this legendary writer that the homage by the Unexplained Sounds Group and the musicians involved in the project is born, paying tribute to the great American writer. ..."

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Tintin inspired away kit homage to cartoonist Hergé


"... adidas and the Royal Belgian Football Association (RBFA) proudly present the new home and away kits for Belgium’s national teams. The new home kit features a luxurious dark shade of red, stand-out gold details and a fashion inspired graphic pattern that has been embossed in the jersey. The away kit is a homage to Belgian cartoonist Hergé and the comic character he is most known for: Tintin. Fitting the outfit Tintin was most featured in, the away kit for the Belgian Red Devils features a blue jersey with characteristic white collar, brown shorts, and white socks. The home and away jersey share a fashion inspired graphic pattern that has been embossed in the jersey, giving it a luxurious look, and making the jerseys’ appearance slightly different as light hits it. ..."

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Patti Smith Reads Her Final Letter to Robert Mapplethorpe, Calling Him “the Most Beautiful Work of All”


"If you go to hear Patti Smith in concert, you expect her to sing 'Beneath the Southern Cross,' 'Because the Night,' and almost certainly 'People Have the Power,' the hit single from Dream of Life. Like her 1975 debut Horses, that album had a cover photo by Robert Mapplethorpe, whom Smith describes as 'the artist of my life' in Just Kids, her memoir of their long and complex relationship. A highly personal work, that book also includes the text of the brief but powerful goodbye letter she wrote to Mapplethorpe, who died of AIDS in 1989. If you go to hear Smith read a letter aloud, there’s a decent chance it’ll be that one. ..."

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