Venice Film Festival 2010

"One of Europe’s most prestigious film festivals, the Venice Film Festival is an opportunity not only to see cinema in one of the most beautiful cities in the world, but also to catch exciting new films fresh before they go on to play at the Toronto Film Festival in September."
MUBI

Robert Fisk

Wikipedia - "Robert Fisk (born 12 July 1946) is an English writer and journalist from Maidstone, Kent. Middle East correspondent of the The Independent, he has primarily been based in Beirut for more than 30 years. He has published a number of books and has reported from the United States's attack on Afghanistan and the same country's 2003 invasion of Iraq."
Wikipedia, The Independent - Robert Fisk.
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

Tarantula

Wikipedia - "Tarantula is an experimental novel by Bob Dylan, written between 1965 and 1966. It employs stream of consciousness writing, somewhat in the style of Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, and Allen Ginsberg. One section of the book parodies the Leadbelly song 'Black Betty'. Reviews of the book liken it to his self-penned liner notes to two of his albums recorded around the same time, Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited."
Wikipedia, Google, Tommy Devine's Cosmos Report

2001: A Space Odyssey

Wikipedia - "2001: A Space Odyssey (often referred to simply as 2001) is a 1968 epic science fiction film directed by Stanley Kubrick released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and written by Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke. The film deals with thematic elements of human evolution, technology, artificial intelligence, and extraterrestrial life, and is notable for its scientific realism, pioneering special effects, ambiguous imagery that is open-ended to a point approaching surrealism, sound in place of traditional narrative techniques, and minimal use of dialogue."
Wikipedia, W - Comics, Uncyclopedia, YouTube - TRAILER, Stanley Kubrick: The Prophecy of 2001 Part 1, Part 2

Stan Brakhage, Joseph Cornell - The Wonder Ring,1955

"The gentle The Wonder Ring (1955) is an important early film by Stan Brakhage, which Cornell commissioned as a record of New York's Third Avenue el before it was torn down. Curiously lacking in people, the film focuses on the rhythms of the ride and reflections in train windows, finding a real-world version of the superimpositions Brakhage would later create in the lab."
Stan Brakhage, Joseph Cornell - The Wonder Ring,1955

Judy Chicago

The Dinner Party
Wikipedia - "Judy Chicago (born Judy Cohen on July 20, 1939) is a feminist artist, author, and educator. Chicago has been making work since the mid 1960s. Her earliest forays into art-making coincided with the rise of Minimalism, which she eventually abandoned in favor of art she believed to have greater content and relevance. Major works include The Dinner Party and The Holocaust Project.
Wikipedia, W -The Dinner Party, Judy Chicago, Brooklyn Museum, When Women Rule the World: Judy Chicago in Thread, YouTube - The Dinner Party, Right Out of History: Judy Chicago's Dinner Party, Judy Chicago on Q TV

Creedence Clearwater Revival

Wikipedia - "Creedence Clearwater Revival (often abbreviated CCR) was an American rock band that gained popularity in the late 1960s and early 1970s with a number of successful singles drawn from various albums. The group consisted of lead vocalist, lead guitarist, and primary songwriter John Fogerty, his brother and rhythm guitarist Tom Fogerty, bassist Stu Cook, and drummer Doug Clifford. Their musical style encompassed rock and roll and swamp rock genres." Wikipedia, last.fm, YouTube - Have you ever seen the rain?, Proud Mary, Green River, Born On The Bayou, I Put A Spell On You, Heard It Through The Grapevine, Down on the corner, Bad Moon Rising, Midnight Special, Fortune Son, Lookin' Out My Backdoor

La La La Human Steps on Mondo Beyondo

"The Canadian dance troupe La La La Human Steps performs on Bette Midler's Mondo Beyondo."
YouTube - La La La Human Steps on Mondo Beyondo

The Weavers

Wikipedia - "The Weavers were an American folk music quartet based in the Greenwich Village area of New York City. They sang traditional folk songs from around the world, as well as blues, gospel music, children's songs, labor songs, and American ballads, and selling millions of records at the height of their popularity."
Wikipedia, The Weavers, YouTube - Irene Goodnight, Union Miners, When The Saints Go Marching In, Tzena, Tzena, Tzena, Around The World, The Sinking of the Reuben James, If I Had a Hammer, Kisses Sweeter Than Wine, Wimoweh

Stephan Balkenhol

"The exhibition presents recent works by Stephan Balkenhol: free-standing sculptures and reliefs in wood, as well as some prints on wooden panels that concentrate on the human figure, both nude and clothed."
U. Brown, artnet, Contemporary Art Daily

Espresso

Wikipedia - "Caffè espresso, or just espresso is a concentrated coffee beverage brewed by forcing hot water under pressure through finely ground coffee."
Wikipedia, W - Espresso machine, Coffee Drinks Illustrated, CoffeeGeek, YouTube - The Perfect Espresso

The Full Spectrum: Josef Albers

"We had the opportunity to travel to CT and visit The Albers foundation. His work and theories on color made quite an impact on me when I was a student at the Cleveland Institute of Art. So I was thrilled to make this piece."
Vimeo

Thyra Hilden, Pio Diaz

Wikipedia - "The Danish-Argentinean artist couple destabilize European cultural history by setting building and monuments on fire. Thyra Hilden (1972) and Pio Diaz (1973) have for many years excelled in the production of large scale video work, projected on monuments and buildings."
City On Fire

Hugh Mundell

Wikipedia - "What seemed likely to be a brilliant career was cut short when Mundell was shot to death while driving with Junior Reid in Kingston, Jamaica in 1983. Many accounts of the incident exist which are all speculative; some reporting that the cause was an argument over a fridge, others that it was in revenge for a burglary, others still that it was over a woman."
Wikipedia, Reggae Reviews, Roots Archives, last.fm, YouTube - Rare acoustic performance (1979), Jah Will Provide + Hungry (Dub Version), Jah Fire, My Mind, Why Do Blackman Fuss And Fight, Africa Must Be Free By 1983, Africa Must Be Free By 1983 (dub), Africa Dub, Milion Miles, Let's All Unite

Poetry Rain

"Reading about the Chilean artists' collective Casagrande's recent poetry rain over Berlin reminded me of Ed Dorn's confetti cards mailed to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968. Kyle Waugh has written an excellent account of the confetti poems for Jacket. I haven't seen the confetti poems for years, but I did dig up a scan I made when I was a graduate student in the Poetics Program at Buffalo."
Mimeo Mimeo

Blue Cheer

Wikipedia - "Blue Cheer were an American psychedelic blues-rock band that initially performed and recorded in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and were sporadically active from that point on until 2009. Based in San Francisco, Blue Cheer played in a psychedelic blues-rock style, and are also credited as being pioneers of heavy metal (their cover of 'Summertime Blues' is sometimes cited as the first in the genre), punk rock, stoner rock, doom metal, experimental rock, and grunge."
Wikipedia, YouTube - Summertime Blues, The Hunter, Parchment Farm

TRESPASS: A HISTORY OF UNCOMMISSIONED URBAN ART Is Coming To Stores This Month

"In early 2007, after finishing up curating our 11 Spring exhibition, Sara and I received a phone call from a wonderful book editor named Ethel Seno. Ethel, who had recently finished working with David LaChapelle on Heaven To Hell, was looking for her next project and had been speaking to her boss, Benedikt Taschen, about doing a big book on urban art. She asked if we were interested in collaborating."
Wooster Collective, TASCHEN: Trespass. A History of Uncommissioned Urban Art, 2

Allen Ginsberg, Neal Cassady - 1965

YouTube - RARE FILM 1, 2, 3, 4

Disc jockey

Wikipedia - "A disc jockey (also known as 'DJ' or deejay) is a person who selects and plays recorded music for an audience. Originally, disk referred to phonograph records, while disc referred to the Compact Disc, and has become the more common spelling. Today, the term includes all forms of music playback, no matter the source."
Wikipedia

My Life in the Bush of Ghosts

Wikipedia - "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts is a 1981 album by Brian Eno and David Byrne, titled after Amos Tutuola's 1954 novel of the same name. The album was re-released in expanded form in 2006. Receiving strong reviews upon its release, My Life is now regarded as a high point in the discographies of Eno and Byrne."
Wikipedia, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, YouTube - America is waiting, Home, Strange Overtones, Very Very Hungry (bootleg), Les Hombres Ne Le Sauront Jamals, The Jezebel Spirit (bootleg)

Blade Runner

Wikipedia - "Blade Runner is a 1982 American science fiction film, directed by Ridley Scott and starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, and Sean Young. The screenplay, written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples, is based loosely on the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick."
Wikipedia, Blade Runner in the News, Blade Runner the movie, YouTube - theatrical trailer

Heat Waves in a Swamp: The Paintings of Charles Burchfield

"Although he lived next door to Niagara Falls, artist Charles Burchfield (1893–1967) chose to focus his nature-based art on the ground beneath his feet. Curated by artist Robert Gober, this exhibition features over one hundred major watercolors, drawings, oils on canvas, sketches, notebooks, journals, and doodles by this visionary American artist."
Whitney, Wikipedia, New Yorker

The New American Poetry 1945-1960

Wikipedia - "The New American Poetry 1945-1960 was a poetry anthology edited by Donald Allen, and published in 1960. It aimed to pick out the 'third generation' of American modernist poets, and included quite a number of poems fresh from the little magazines of the late 1950s. In the longer term it attained a classic status, with critical approval and continuing sales."
Wikipedia, amazon, Google

Isaac Hayes

Wikipedia - "Isaac Lee Hayes, Jr. (August 20, 1942 – August 10, 2008) [1] was an American songwriter, musician, singer, and occasionally an actor. Hayes was one of the creative geniuses behind the southern soul music label Stax Records, where he served both as an in-house songwriter and as a record producer, teaming with his partner David Porter during the mid-1960s."
Wikipedia, last.fm, YouTube - Walk On By, Shaft, Don't Let Go, Soulville, Chocolate Salty Balls

Speakeasy

Wikipedia - "A speakeasy, also called a blind pig or blind tiger, is an establishment that illegally sells alcoholic beverages. Such establishments came into prominence in the United States during the period known as Prohibition (1920–1933, longer in some states). During this time, the sale, manufacture, and transportation (bootlegging) of alcoholic beverages was illegal throughout the United States."
Wikipedia

Forró

Wikipedia - "Forró is a kind of Northeastern Brazilian dance that developed from European styles of folk music such as 'Chula' and 'Xotis' (term that originated the derivate 'Xote'), as well as a word used to denote the different genres of music which accompanies the dance. Both are much in evidence during the annual Festa Junina (June Festival), a part of Brazilian traditional culture which celebrates some Catholic saints. The most celebrated day of the festival is known as São João."
Wikipedia, National Geographic Society, YouTube - Forrowest, Nonsensical, Asa Branca, NUBLU, Brazilian dance-forró

The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series)

Wikipedia - "The Twilight Zone is an American anthology television series created by Rod Serling, which ran for five seasons on CBS from 1959 to 1964. The series consisted of unrelated episodes depicting paranormal, futuristic, dystopian, or simply disturbing events; each show typically featured a surprising plot twist and was usually brought to closure with some sort of message."
Wikipedia, npr, YouTube - The Twilight Zone

How Power Has Transformed Women’s Tennis

Kim Clijsters
"ON THE DAY BEFORE Wimbledon started, when the club grounds had not yet opened to the public, Justine Henin, the diminutive Belgian tennis great, stepped onto practice court No. 3, then still an emerald patch of unspoiled grass. The sun had just come out after several cloudy days, and all around, players, their coaches and families, yammering in various languages, exchanged greetings like veteran bunkmates on the first day at summer camp. Not Henin. Having unretired last year as suddenly as she quit 16 months earlier — saying she had got all she wanted from the sport — she remained absorbed with her coach, Carlos Rodriguez, in their warm-up routine."
NYT, NYT - video, NYT - Women Who Hit Hard

Monopoly Man: Interview with Street Artist Alec

"Economic crashes, healthcare in crisis and a world where helplessness feels like your only companion. These forces seap into our conversations, occupy minds and invade our way of life day after day. How does one react? How does one respond? Street Art Alec reaches deep into our childhoods and take the most iconic figure of power and money, the monopoly guy, and re appropriates it into a effective and witty social commentary that something has 'going terribly wrong'."
The Dirt Floor, flickr, Wooster Collective - Alec Monopoly, An Introduction (Video)

Derek and the Dominos

Wikipedia - "Derek and the Dominos were a blues-rock band formed in the spring of 1970 by guitarist and singer Eric Clapton with keyboardist Bobby Whitlock, bassist Carl Radle and drummer Jim Gordon, who had all played with Clapton in Delaney, Bonnie & Friends."
Wikipedia, W - 1, last.fm, YouTube - It's Too Late, Little wing, Layla, Crossroads, Bell Bottom Blues

Glow stick

Wikipedia - "A glow stick is a single-use translucent plastic tube containing isolated substances which when combined make light through a chemical reaction-induced chemiluminescence which does not require an electrical power source. Millions of glow sticks are sold annually with the main purpose being for recreational use."
Wikipedia

George Maciunas

Flux Year Box 2, c.1966
Wikipedia - "George Maciunas (Lithuanian: Jurgis Mačiūnas, pronounced ma-chew-nas; born 8 November 1931 in Kaunas, Lithuania; died 9 May 1978 in Boston, Massachusetts, United States) was a Lithuanian-born American artist. He was a founding member of Fluxus, an international community of artists, architects, composers, and designers."
Wikipedia, Art Not Art

Psychedelic rock

Wikipedia - "Psychedelic rock is a style of rock music that is inspired or influenced by psychedelic culture and attempts to replicate and enhance the mind-altering experiences of psychedelic drugs. It emerged during the mid 1960s among folk rock and blues-rock bands in United States and Britain. It often used new recording techniques and effects and drew on non-Western sources such the ragas and drones of Indian music.""
Wikipedia

Sounds from Tomorrow's World: Sun Ra and the Chicago Years, 1946-1961

"When Herman Poole 'Sonny' Blount settled on Chicago’s South Side in 1946, he did so rather inconspicuously. Though studious and intelligent, Blount had dropped out of college. He had also spent some time in an Alabama prison for registering as a conscientious objector during World War II. Quiet, intellectual and somewhat eccentric, there was little to suggest that over the next two decades, Blount would become Sun Ra, one of jazz music’s most innovative and respected band leaders."
U. Chicago, Chicago Jazz Archive, Design Observer, Encyclopedia of Alabama, YouTube - Cosmic Rays, Dreaming **Ultra Rare Doo Wop** (1955), Sun Ra - Cry Of Jazz - Intro (Part 1), Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6

Negro Leagues: New Postage Stamp Series Unveiled

"Almost all of them are gone now, fading memories kept alive through grainy photos and dog-eared newspaper clippings their children and grandchildren keep near. But now the black baseball players and their contributions to the culture and history of a country that once shunned them are being honored. The U.S. Postal Service released a set of stamps Thursday honoring early Negro Leagues players."
Books on Baseball, Kansas City