Stompin' at the Savoy: The Original Indie-Label 1944-1961


"This four-disc overview of Savoy Records masterful achievement in issuing jump blues, R&B, doo wop, and proto-rock and soul records is one handsome collection. There are 84 tracks spanning the years 1944 (two years after Savoy went into business) and ending in 1961. While the majority of cuts were originally issued on Savoy, there are more than a few that come form one of Savoy's acquisitions -- of National in 1957. Here, the relative unknowns, such as Miss Sharecropper, the Dreams, and Chuz Alfred are side by side with Hot Lips Page, Billy Eckstine, Joe Turner, Doc Pomus, Wild Bill Moore, Nappy Brown, Jimmy Scott, and Big Maybelle just to mention a few. The first three discs here are arranged from 1944-'47, 1948-'51 1951-'55, 1955-'61 and are governed simply by subjective selection. The remastered sound is fine, warm and true and the liners annotate each track in detail. Savoy has been issuing compilation CDs for a long time now, but they've never done anything as fine as this -- especially for the budget price. ..."



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How Do You Restore a Chestnut Forest or an Apple Orchard? Very Slowly.

At the New England Botanic Garden at Tower Hill, in Boylston, Mass., the grafted heirloom apple trees are already big enough to bloom. But fruit isn’t expected for a few more years.

"'Explore what’s in bloom now,' exclaims a banner on the New England Botanic Garden at Tower Hill’s website. And, indeed, there is much to see. The dramatic property in Boylston, Mass., includes two conservatories and 18 distinct gardens, both formal and naturalistic. The grounds offer sweeping views across the vast Wachusett Reservoir, as well as hiking trails that tuck into wilder portions of the garden’s nearly 200 acres. As director of horticulture, Mark Richardson is always attuned to the calendar of displays that his team provides to delight more than 225,000 visitors a year. But the garden has two additional compelling botanical projects — the planting of blight-resistant American chestnuts and the restoration of a historic apple collection lost to disease — that don’t show off in the same way. At least, not yet. ..."


The Boylston, Mass., site includes 18 distinct gardens, both naturalistic and formal. The Secret Garden is tucked under grand twin staircases and pergolas.
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Staffrider: Transient literatures and maps


"'Staffriders' are young working-class men who hang their bodies on the sides and on top of moving trains. By doing this they are playing with ideas of death and danger in attempting to avoid the electricity and the force of the moving train’s speed that moves the train. Staffriding is rooted in apartheid’s extractive economy and its demand for cheap black labor. Staffriders are the byproducts of an overcrowding influx of human labor moving from platform to platform in a rush against time to stamp their clock sheet ahead of the boss. They live on working-class economic margins, due to their unstable relationship to wage labor which prevents them from affording the cost of a train ticket. Overworked, underpaid, and with dompasses controlling their mobility, these young men respond to their precarious status by taking chances with time. ..."




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Chaos and Confusion: Tech Outage Causes Disruptions Worldwide


"Airlines grounded flights. Operators of 911 lines could not respond to emergencies. Hospitals canceled surgeries. Retailers closed for the day. And the actions all traced back to a batch of bad computer code. A flawed software update sent out by a little-known cybersecurity company caused chaos and disruption around the world on Friday. The company, CrowdStrike, based in Austin, Texas, makes software used by multinational corporations, government agencies and scores of other organizations to protect against hackers and online intruders. But when CrowdStrike sent its update on Thursday to its customers that run Microsoft Windows software, computers began to crash. ..."


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Musique Automatique : Königssee


"This one is quite simple, I'm using a technique Loopop showed in his video a few weeks ago :    • Sampler trick: Steve Reich/William Ba...   The idea is to use your tracks as virtual tape loops to get intricate and evolving patterns. ... Since this technique doesn't rely on the sequencer, I don't press Play at the beginning. Instead, I press a MIDI trig key that triggers a slow fade-in on the Pattern Volume (this is done with the MIDI loopback). The 8 loops are already playing freely in the background, not synchronized in any way. To get more variations on the long run, the volume of each track is very slowly modulated by a LFO. Tracks come and go, sometimes collide or leave room for each other. It's pretty cool to observe I think. ..."


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DONALD TRUMP’S FIRST TERM IS A WARNING


"This week, Republicans have tried to rewrite the four years of Trump’s presidency as a time of unparalleled peace, prosperity and tranquility: 'the strongest economy in history,' as Senator Katie Britt of Alabama put it. The difference between Trump and Biden? 'President Trump honored the Constitution,' said Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota. Gov. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia offered Mr. Trump’s first term as an example of “common-sense conservative leadership.” The record of what Mr. Trump actually did in office bears little resemblance to that description. Under his leadership, the country lurched from one crisis to the next, from the migrant families separated at the border to the sudden spike in prices caused by his trade war with China to the reckless mismanagement of the Covid pandemic. And he showed, over and over, how little respect he has for the Constitution and those who take an oath to defend it. For Americans who may have forgotten that time, or pushed it from memory, we offer this timeline of his presidency. Mr. Trump’s first term was a warning about what he will do with the power of his office — unless American voters reject him. ..."

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A Sense of Rebellion


"A Podcast Series by Evgeny Morozov. Original music by Brian Eno. Forget the military or Silicon Valley: we owe our smart technologies - from toothbrushes to beds - to a band of eccentric 1960s hippies. Hidden away in a secretive, privately funded lab on Boston’s waterfront, these visionaries developed intimate, personal technologies a decade before Steve Jobs. But their rebellion was fraught with obstacles: the military-industrial complex, corporate resistance, and the founders’ larger-than-life personalities. As Silicon Valley adopted their ideas, the lab's vision for more humane and diverse technologies was twisted into something entirely different. A decade in the making, this podcast unravels their captivating and often tragic tale. It's all here: Cold War psychiatry, Maoism, LSD, the Rockefellers, Scientology, CIA’s forays into extrasensory perception, and even the advent of tech libertarianism. ..."


 
 

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Move Over, La Guardia and Newark: 18 Artists to Star at New J.F.K. Terminal

Global and rising talents at Terminal 6 (clockwise from top left): Charles Gaines, Laure Prouvost, Kerstin Brätsch, Nina Chanel Abney, Felipe Baeza, Eddie Martinez, Dyani White Hawk, Nevin Aladag.

"John F. Kennedy International Airport’s new Terminal 6, scheduled to open in 2026, will host installations by 18 contemporary artists hailing from seven countries, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey announced on Tuesday. The $4.2 billion facility in Queens will showcase the largest number of works of any New York airport by major figures from the United States, including Nina Chanel Abney, Teresita Fernandez, Charles Gaines and Barbara Kruger, alongside emerging international talents such as Felipe Baeza from Mexico, Kerstin Brätsch from Germany, and Uman, born in Somalia (all now living in New York). ..."

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How Spain ruthlessly exploited England’s lack of collective quality at Euro 2024


“Spain were worthy winners of the Euro 2024 final, but the investigation from England’s perspective should not be about how their opponents in Berlin were better on the night, but how they were so much better for the entire tournament. If you were to rank the 14 team performances by those two sides at this competition, in order of quality, you would list the seven by Spain and then the seven England ones. That was the extent of the difference. Spain impressed and enthralled in each game. They had weaknesses, like every side, but those weaknesses generally arose from their bravery and their commitment to attack. …”


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‘It was inhuman’: Why the Copa America final was delayed and dangerously close to disaster

“The black gates at the southwest entrance of Hard Rock Stadium had been closed for one hour and 45 minutes when a young child was hoisted on a guardian’s shoulders amid the crush of people waiting to get in for the CopaAmérica final. The boy waved his hands toward the police officers and security guards standing next to the lone door that was opening to let people into the stadium. He put his hands together as if in prayer, pleading with them to let him in. …”

NY Times/The Athletic

NY Times/The Athletic: Fox’s Copa America final coverage showed network is incapable of covering off-field turmoil(Video)

NY Times/The Athletic: Argentina are special – Copa America proves they just win

YouTube: FINAL COPA AMERICA‼️ COLOMBIA VS ARGENTINA 

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Turing test

"The Turing test, originally called the imitation game by Alan Turing in 1950, is a test of a machine’s ability to exhibit intelligent behaviour equivalent to, or indistinguishable from, that of a human. Turing proposed that a human evaluator would judge natural language conversations between a human and a machine designed to generate human-like responses. The evaluator would be aware that one of the two partners in conversation was a machine, and all participants would be separated from one another. The conversation would be limited to a text-only channel, such as a computer keyboard and screen, so the result would not depend on the machine’s ability to render words as speech. If the evaluator could not reliably tell the machine from the human, the machine would be said to have passed the test. ..."

W – Turing test

W – Alan Turing

Slate: A Computer Program Finally Passed the Turing Test?

Guardian: What is the Turing test? And are we all doomed now?

YouTube: The original “Turing Test” paper is unbelievably visionary

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WOOL Urban Art Festival 2024: Celebrating a Decade of Street Art in Covilhã

Mário Belém. Wool 2019 Editon. Covilha, Portugal. June, 2024. 

"The WOOL Urban Art Festival, held annually in Covilhã, Portugal, is a renowned celebration of street art that has been transforming the city walls since its inception in 2011. This festival, sponsored and organized by a dedicated team committed to promoting social, cultural, and economic transformation through public art, has become a pivotal event in the urban art calendar. Covilhã, a city with a rich history in the wool industry, provides a unique backdrop –  with its steep cobblestone streets and historic architecture, offering a perfect canvas for murals and installations. 


Daniela Guerreiro. Wool 2024. Covilha, Portugal. June, 2024.
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40 Years of Experimental Dub Label On-U Sound Records: Nine Essential LPs


"By the time he was 21, Adrian Sherwood had already made several attempts at launching a record label. Sherwood—then a young London producer and DJ working with reggae and post-punk bands—co-founded Carib Gems, a label created to distribute Jamaican recordings locally, followed by Hitrun, through which he began to release some of his own productions. Then came 4D Records, briefly. It wasn’t until his fourth try, On-U Sound, which he co-founded with Kishi Yamamoto in 1980, that Sherwood ended up parlaying his love of reggae and dub into what he calls his 'life journey.' ..."

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Ley Lines: Palestine

Rasha Nahas, Amrat

"What is the sound of Palestine? For those in Gaza, the hum of Israeli drones permeates a soundscape punctuated by air strikes and the cries of children. Then there’s the sound of songbirds providing respite to embattled families, creatures whose ability to freely fly across man-made borders has been a motif of Palestinian literature for decades. But above all, Palestinian music in its rich history and diversity has remained a crucial thread knitting together a people in exile. Popular muses like Mohammed Assaf, rural folk traditions like dabke, militant resistance singers hailing the fedayeen, and diasporic innovators all display different articulations of Palestinian resistance and sumud (steadfastness). Contributions from musicians in solidarity have also been crucial in influencing the sound of Palestine. ... The notion that culture can transcend boundaries has become a bit of a truism, but in the case of Palestine, the fugitive, ephemeral nature of music has become a crucial tactic for connecting to one another and the land. Each Palestinian enclave is surrounded and separated; a system of city-specific IDs prevents Palestinians from moving freely within their own territory. Some Gazans have never left the Strip. ..."

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Editorial Board: Donald Trump Is Unfit to Lead.


"Next week, for the third time in eight years, Donald Trump will be nominated as the Republican Party’s candidate for president of the United States. A once great political party now serves the interests of one man, a man as demonstrably unsuited for the office of president as any to run in the long history of the Republic, a man whose values, temperament, ideas and language are directly opposed to so much of what has made this country great. It is a chilling choice against this national moment. For more than two decades, large majorities of Americans have said they are dissatisfied with the direction of the country, and the post-Covid era of stubborn inflation, high interest rates, social division and political stagnation has left many voters even more frustrated and despondent. ..."

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Cooking Peppermint Chiffon Pie with Flannery O’Connor - Valerie Stivers


"Flannery O’Connor’s favorite meal at the Sanford House restaurant in Milledgeville, Georgia, where she lunched regularly with her mother, was fried shrimp and peppermint chiffon pie. O’Connor, after a diagnosis of lupus brought her home to Milledgeville in 1951, led a life in a farmhouse outside of town with her domineering mother, Regina, that bore some resemblance to a nun’s. Every morning started with Catholic Mass followed by cornflakes and a thermos of coffee in her spinster bedroom while she wrote for three hours. The writing time, she said, was her 'filet mignon.' Otherwise it seems she found most pleasures, especially the physical kind, to be base. In her fiction an amorous girl goes up to the hayloft with a man and gets her wooden leg stolen in the story 'Good Country People.' ..."


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The Vodoun Effect – Funk & Sato from Benin’s Obscure Labels 1972-1975


"Recording more than 50 albums and hundreds of 45s, Orchestre Poly-Rythmo were one of the most prolific bands of the 20th century. They were also one of the best. An innovative group that developed its own distinctive style of hard-driving funk but still found time to record in just about every style imaginable, from highlife, Afrobeat, and rumba to rock, jazz, soul, and folk. And yet, as of today, they don’t even have a Wikipedia page. That peers of Bembeya Jazz National, Orchestra Baobab, Rail Band, OK Jazz, Fela’s Africa 70, and every other great African band of the 1950s-70s has managed to remain this obscure and unheard is frankly baffling– and attributable more to the capricious nature of fame than any other single factor. The band’s geographic location probably didn’t help. ..."



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Belliphonic Bodies: Soundscapes of the Invasion

Taken while recording the soundscape of Kuyalnik in Odesa.

"War is an extremely aural experience, with sounds entering into the collective memory of affected societies. Its violence can only be fully understood when its acoustic aspects are also taken into consideration. These can help foster better understanding and empathy with affected persons and societies, while also examining how sound can influence the way war is presented and remembered. Wartime soundscapes can be quite variable and also highly personal, encompassing far more than the sounds of weaponry; conversations, movement, and nature, as well as silence and the lack of sound all play a part. Digging into their experiences and artistic work, artist Elza Gubanova and artist/curator Leon Seidel explore the sounds of war in Ukraine through various lenses, in conversation with the Ukrainian artist Oleh Shpudeiko aka Heinali and the Ukrainian curator Natalia Revko. ..."

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When Judith Jones Brought Sylvia Plath and Julia Child to American Bookshelves


"In November 1960, almost a year to date after William Koshland, longtime staffer at Knopf, delivered the manuscript of the book that would become Mastering the Art of French Cooking to editor Judith Jones, he stopped by her desk with another book in hand. This one was slim—a collection of poetry, Koshland said. Judith’s love of verse was almost as well-known around the office as her interest in food. Koshland said the volume was the poet’s debut. It had just been published in the UK by Heinemann; it wanted to know if Knopf would be interested in purchasing the American rights and publishing the book in the States. Koshland asked Judith if she’d give it a look. Judith set aside the work she’d been doing, opened to the first poem, and read: Perhaps you consider yourself an oracle / Mouthpiece of the dead, or of some god or other. / Thirty years now I have labored / To dredge the silt from your throat. / I am none the wiser. The collection was called The Colossus and Other Poems. Its author was Sylvia Plath. ..."

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The Sad State of Underground Retail in New York City


"At Columbus Circle, only one of the 40 shops that opened in its underground market eight years ago is still open today. At Fulton Center, the decade-old mall in a Lower Manhattan subway station is nearly vacant. In Midtown, empty storefronts line the Port Authority and Rockefeller Center stations. The state of retail in New York City’s vast underground subway system is, in a word, bleak. Nearly three-quarters of spaces in the transit network are empty, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, a downward trend that began before the coronavirus pandemic but was exacerbated by it and the rise of remote and hybrid work. For travelers, the empty storefronts have created a sense of unease and urban decay. ..."

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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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