Silas Hogan & other Swamp Blues artists

"Silas Hogan wasn’t quite as individualistic as any of the ‘big four’ Swamp Blues guys but any one of those records he made at Crowley, Louisiana could serve as an excellent illustration of the idiom making him almost the archetype swamp blues man. He had the gravitas (and his own version of the slow blues) of Lightnin’ Slim, the Jimmy Reed soundalike harp sound on his medium tempo chugalongs, a compositional style that emphasised the down and out aspects of life – rats and roaches get mentions as do chemicals, bearing in mind this was oil country – and he wasn’t even averse to the odd foray into swamp pop territory. But he was no spring chicken when the first record proudly bearing the name 'Silas Hogan' rolled off the Excello production line in 1962. ..."
Silas Hogan & other Swamp Blues artists (Video)
W - Swamp blues
Lazy Lester helped invent the swamp-blues sound half a century ago (Video)
allmusic (Audio)
Discogs - 1, 2

2013 October: Silas Hogan

Four Ways of Looking at Agnès Varda

"Over the course of an adventurous career that encompassed narrative and documentary filmmaking as well as photography, sculpture, and video installation, Agnès Varda was a shape-shifter who merged her deep engagement with social reality with a playful, endlessly inventive approach to form. But no matter how sweeping her vision or how risk-taking her style, her work was always rooted in moments of intimacy and her tenderness toward the lives she depicted. To celebrate the release of The Complete Films of Agnès Varda earlier this week, we spoke with four contemporary filmmakers—Ashley Connor, Anna Rose Holmer, Kirsten Johnson, and Lauren Wolkstein—about the scenes from her oeuvre that resonate most deeply with them. Their selections, drawn from different periods in Varda’s six-decade filmography, turn our attention to her genius for capturing small gestures and exchanges that illuminate complicated human truths. ..."
Criterion (Video)

May 2011: The Beaches of Agnès, 2011 December: Interview - Agnès Varda, 2013 February: The Gleaners and I (2000), 2013 September: Cinévardaphoto (2004), 2014 July: Black Panthers (1968 doc.), 2014 October: Art on Screen: A Conversation with Agnès Varda, 2015 September: Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962), 2017 February: Plaisir d’amour en Iran (1976), 2017 April: Agnès Varda’s Art of Being There, 2017 April: AGNÈS VARDA with Alexandra Juhasz, 2017 August: Agnès Varda on her life and work - Artforum, 2017 October: Agnès Varda’s Ecological Conscience, 2018 March: Faces Places - Agnès Varda and JR (2017), 2018 July: Vagabond (1985), 2019 March: Agnès Varda, Influential French New Wave Filmmaker, Is Dead at 90, 2019 April: Mur Murs (1980), 2020 May: Socialism and cha-cha-cha: Agnès Varda's photos of Cuba forgotten for 50 years

Reissued: African Vinyl in the 21st Century

"The golden age of vinyl records is long past in Africa, but the market for rare and reissued African vinyl outside the continent has been growing steadily since the early 2000s. DJs and collectors have turned an obsession with rare records and forgotten gems from Cape Town to Tangiers into an international reissue and compilation industry, led by record labels such as Soundway, Strut and Analog Africa. This program explores some of the complex and shifting dynamics of neocolonialism, cultural ownership and audience in the African vinyl market. We’ll hear stories from label owners, DJs and artists, touching on controversies around Nigerian disco funk reissues, new career opportunities for sometimes-obscure African artists, the unique vinyl culture in South Africa, and much more. Produced by Morgan Greenstreet and Alejandro Van Zandt-Escobar, with Nenim Iwebuke. ..."
Afropop (Audio)
Afropop: Reissued: African Vinyl Playlist (Video)
Soundcloud (Audio)
YouTube: Reissued: African Vinyl in the 21st Century - 22 videos

CBGBs And The Birth Of New York Punk

"You’ve probably heard of CBGBs, but we’d wager you’ve never given a second’s thought to what the initials stand for. It might be one of the great misnomers in rock, because its name stood for Country, Bluegrass & Blues. But the initials CBGB would become completely intertwined with the American punk and new wave movement that coalesced inside its less-than-salubrious portals. The club was opened by owner Hilly Kristal at 315 Bowery in New York’s East Village, on the intersection with Bleecker Street. ... This shadowy, dank and entirely unglamorous location incubated some of the most urgent, edgy and creative rock music ever performed. From Patti Smith to the Ramones, Television to Talking Heads and Blondie to Joan Jett, CBGB was the headquarters of cutting edge American music and the place where lifetime-long careers were born. ..."
udiscover (Video)
amazon: CBGB & OMFUG: Thirty Years from the Home of Underground Rock

2009 April: CBGB, 2011 January: CBGB's the roots of punk documentary, 2013 September: CBGB's Final Show With Patti Smith - 15 October 2006, 2016 May: 1976-1978 CBGB's House Photographer, 2016 December: Live at CBGB's (1976), 2018 October: Punking Out, a Short 1978 Documentary Records the Beginning of the Punk Scene at CBGB’s, 2019 May: A Conservative Impulse in the New Rock Underground

Ghost Storefront Revealed in NYC’s Upper East Side

"A 19th-century storefront has been revealed on Lexington Avenue and East 73rd Street in the Upper East Side Historic District. Photographer Ryan Lahiff spotted the antique signage and ornamentation which had previously been covered up by white paint and scaffolding. With the scaffolding gone and the paint stripped away, those who walk by can see into the past of this historic building. The storefront was previously occupied by Le Terraine, a store that sold kitchenware. That store has since closed and the awnings which used to hang over the storefront have been removed. The removal of the awnings revealed a splendidly ornate first story cornice that runs nearly the entire length of the Lexington Ave. facade. ..."
untapped cities
W - East 73rd Street Historic District

Kayhan Kalhor

"Kayhan Kalhor ( Persian: كيهان كلهر‎) (born 24 November 1963 in Kermanshah, Iran) is a Kurdish kamancheh player from Iran, composer and master of classical Iranian traditional music. ... Kayhan Kalhor has a wide range of musical influences, uses several musical instruments, and crosses cultural borders with his work, but at his center he is an intense player of the Kamancheh. In his playing Kalhor often pins Iranian classical music structures to the rich folk modes and melodies of the Kurdish tradition of Iran. Kalhor has composed works for and played alongside the famous Iranian vocalists Mohammad Reza Shajarian and Shahram Nazeri. ..."
Wikipedia
Kayhan Kalhor (Video)
YouTube: Kayhan Kalhor Setar Solo 55:34, Kayhan Kalhor: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert 11:59

Into the Night: Cabarets and Clubs in Modern Art

Rudolf Schlichter Damenkneipe (Women's Club), c. 1925
"Opening 4 October 2019, Into the Night: Cabarets and Clubs in Modern Art explores the social and artistic role of cabarets, cafés and clubs around the world. Spanning the 1880s to the 1960s, the exhibition presents a dynamic and multi-faceted history of artistic production. The first major show staged on this theme, it features both famed and little-known sites of the avant-garde – these creative spaces were incubators of radical thinking, where artists could exchange provocative ideas and create new forms of artistic expression. Into the Night offers an alternative history of modern art that highlights the spirit of experimentation and collaboration between artists, performers, designers, musicians and writers such as Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Loïe Fuller, Josef Hoffmann, Giacomo Balla, Theo van Doesburg and Sophie Taeuber-Arp, as well as Josephine Baker, Jeanne Mammen, Aaron Douglas, Jacob Lawrence, Ramón Alva de la Canal and Ibrahim El-Salahi. ..."
Barbican
Into the Night: Cabarets and Clubs in Modern Art, Barbican review - great theme, disappointing show
Joseph Scissorhands
amazon
YouTube: Curator Florence Ostende on Into the Night: Cabarets and Clubs in Modern Art

Recreation at the Barbican of the bar at Cabaret Fledermaus, designed by Josef Hoffmann

What Do Paramilitaries in the Streets of Portland Signal for November?

"In recent weeks, the Trump administration has begun pulling paramilitary forces from various domestic security agencies and dispatching them to domestic protests within the US. Headlines like the infamous Tom Cotton op-ed, 'Call in the Troops,' are not helping us achieve any clarity on what exactly they are doing and which agencies they come from. All of this, of course, is happening four months ahead of a presidential vote in which one of the candidates (the president) has been cagey about accepting the results of the election. We asked writers and veterans Phil Klay and Matt Gallagher, along with military scholar Risa Brooks, to consider the developments of the last month, in Portland and elsewhere, and to look ahead to November. ..."
LitHub

2020 July: Portland Protest Tactics: Umbrellas, Pool Noodles and Fire, 2020 August: Inside the Battle for Downtown Portland

Students for a Democratic Society: A Graphic History - Harvey Pekar

"For the blink of an eye in the 1960s, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), was the 900-pound gorilla on the American left, commanding center stage and drawing up the game plans for anti-war and radical activity. And yet by the end of the decade it was more like Franz Kafka's Hunger Artist: alone, self-isolated, emaciated, a victim of its own delusions and blunders. ... But there are other histories, thousands of them that make the movement harder to pin down tidily: the personal stories of individuals who gave their lives to it, and it is those stories that historian Paul Buhle, artist and writer Harvey Pekar, and artist Gary Dumm attempt to capture in their 'Students for a Democratic Society: A Graphic History.' ..."
Saluting peace, love and the heyday of '60s activism
amazon

2009 December: Harvey Pekar, 2018 August: Jazz Jams With Harvey Pekar

The Particular Texture and Joy of Homemade Ice Cream

"Because my husband, Michael, and I lived in the same neighborhood in Brooklyn before we met, we share memories that go back to our childhoods. We remember when there was a Woolworth’s on Avenue J — it was where I bought candy with my weekly allowance. We remember blackout cake from Ebinger’s and pizza from DiFara, now famous but then the local slice joint. So one recent night, when we were finishing dinner and Michael said, 'I was thinking about the ice cream at that restaurant near Coney Island Avenue,' I jumped in and said, 'Remember how it always had itsy bits of ice in it!' It was just the point he wanted to make. The ice was always there, but somehow still always unexpected. I liked it. ..."
NY Times

2014 August: Ice Cream, 2016 March: Spring comes to brownstone Brooklyn in 1949, 2016 July: Gelato, 2017 May: Maximalism or Minimalism? The Modern Ice Cream Lover’s Dilemma, 2020 January: First Snow By Jill Talbot

Carbona Not Glue

Going Underground - The Jam
"As I’ve written elsewhere, proto-punk music was pioneered by Boomer refuseniks like Wayne Kramer, Jonathan Richman, Fred 'Sonic' Smith, Iggy Pop, Johnny Thunders, Patti Smith, not to mention HILOBROW friends David Johansen and Richard Hell. Borrowing a joke from The Voidoids’ 1977 debut album, I’ve nicknamed this cohort of Boomer refuseniks (born 1944–1953) the Blank Generation. The first distinct music scene to claim the punk label appeared in New York around 1974, hence the start date for this series’ purview. ..."
Hilobrow (Video)

Kill the Poor - Dead Kennedys

Almost Blue - Underground Horns (2014)

"In ALMOST BLUE, their highly anticipated third album, Underground Horns are mixing Afro Funk, New Orleans, Haitian and Ethio Jazz elements into a deep grooving sonic gumbo. They are calling their trademark sound 'MUSIC FOR THE PEOPLE!' For the most part this album is instrumental but the song Creole features djembe player Okai on vocals, singing in his parents native tongue Haitian Creole. There are other tunes with African or African diaspora rhythms like Goodbye Pork Pie Hat (Highlife) and Mopti, written by world music pioneer Don Cherry Full Moon is a funk burner and House Song incorporates impulses from electronic music but in a completely acoustic setting. And there are Ethio Jazz tunes: Cha Cha, written by Mulatu Astatke and the originals Ethio and Almost Blue. ..."
FYE
Bandcamp (Audio)
amazon
YouTube: creole (Live), Ethio, soul wave (Live)

The Dark Fairy Tale of Atalanta

“Our faith will never fade” reads the inscription at a gathering spot for Atalanta’s most devoted supporters.
"BERGAMO, Italy — ... It was hard to believe it was happening at the time. It is even harder to believe it happened now. That day was, possibly, the proudest in the modest history of Atalanta. A great tide had made the short journey from Bergamo, the prosperous, pretty city where the soccer team is based, to Milan for the first leg of their Champions League, round-of-16 tie against Valencia. Atalanta had never breathed such rarefied air. It had, in truth, scarcely even contemplated it. The whole town, it seemed, had been transplanted for the night. ..."
NY Times
NY Times: The Champions League Returns With a Plan for Everything

Atalanta’s stadium stood empty for months after the game.

Big Table

"... And there lies much of my dissatisfication with Big Table: those 10,000 copies. What category of magazine is Big Table really? It is considered a Mimeo Revolution publication, Clay and Phillips’ Secret Location regards it as such in their book and on the website (please check out Steve Clay’s online version of Secret Location, it is a tremendous resource), and the success of Big Table was instrumental in inspiring the explosion of Mimeo Revolution publications into the 1960s, but with a print run of that size it is really something else. It comes out of the Modernist tradition of little magazines like Little Review or transition. The publication of Naked Lunch being akin to the publication of Joyce’s Ulysses. Naked Lunch is the Beat Ulysses or Wake and Burroughs is the generation’s Joyce. ..."
Reality Studio: Big Table
From a Secret Location: Big Table

Big Youth - Natty Universal Dread 1973-1979

"It should come as no surprise that the first collection to do full justice to the career of reggae DJ Big Youth was released by the Blood & Fire label, which has already distinguished itself with an exquisite catalog of reissues and collections designed to bring the music of reggae's classical period (the early to mid-'70s) back into the marketplace.  ... As always, the digitally restored sound is exquisite, but this set does mark the first time that Blood & Fire has messed up on packaging. It's beautiful and the booklet is jam-packed with rare photos and extensive liner notes, but the individual disc sleeves are equipped with annoying and self-destructing styrofoam spindles. Don't let that fact dissuade you from buying this marvelous collection, but be forewarned. ..."
Holland Tunnel
W - Natty Universal Dread 1973–1979
Discogs (Video)
amazon
YouTube: Big Youth - Natty Universal Dread (1973-1979)(3XCD) 2:43:52

What Would It Look Like to Decolonize Cartography? A Volunteer Group Has Ideas

“The Spread of Christianity throughout Europe” by Jordan Engel (all images courtesy Decolonial Atlas)
"European colonizers first imposed borders on the Americas by drafting maps. Arbitrary lines, written to justify genocide, became symbols of private prosperity in the so-called 'New World.' Indigenous cultures were supplanted by the Western canon, which developed an alternative history of the lands to vindicate itself. Settler colonialism continues to inflect mainstream media, rationalizing housing segregation and police violence as byproducts of law and order. One volunteer group is working against this narrative, decolonizing cartography in an effort to envision the world before and after capitalist exploitation. Since 2014, the Decolonial Atlas has restored Indigenous maps of the US and Canada in Native languages; questioned how Africa and Asia might look without borders; and charted environmental impacts of global pollution, deforestation, and warfare. ..." Mike B.
Hyperallergic
The Decolonial Atlas

151 People Killed by Police in June 2020 by Jordan Engel, data from Fatal Encounters

Comics as Place - Ivan Brunetti

Robert Crumb, “A Short History of America,” panel 1, 1979
"Most comics focus on the actions of a figure, and the narrative develops by following that figure as it moves through its environment, or as it is commonly referred to by cartoonists, who have the often tedious, time-consuming task of actually drawing it, the background. One widely used cartoonist’s trick is to draw/establish the setting clearly and then assiduously avoid having to redraw it in subsequent panels, or at least diminish the number of background details as the sequence progresses. After all, once this setting/background has seeped into the reader’s brain, the reader can and will fill in the gaps. ..."
The Paris Review

Chris Ware, Untitled, (excerpted – 1/2 page), from Quimby the Mouse, 2003

The Sopranos - Season 3

"The third season of the HBO drama series The Sopranos began airing on March 4, 2001 and concluded on May 20, 2001, consisting of thirteen episodes. The third season was released on DVD in region 1 on August 27, 2002. The story of season three focuses on the relationship between Tony and his children — Meadow, as she begins her first year at Columbia University, and Anthony Jr., who is having behavioral troubles in high school. Tony's relationship with his aging mother, Livia, is brought to a head. Dr. Melfi experiences a horrifying personal trauma, but begins to make real progress in discovering the root causes of Tony's panic attacks. Also featured heavily are Christopher's rise in the mob when he becomes a made man, and Tony's extramarital affair with another one of Dr. Melfi's patients, Gloria. ..."
Wikipedia
W - Meadow Soprano, W - A.J. Soprano, W - Bada Bing!
RecapGuide
The Dark, Complex Excellence of The Sopranos Season 3
Top 5 Episodes: The Sopranos – Season 3 (Video)
AV Club: The Sopranos - Season 3
The Closing Credits Song For Every Episode of The Sopranos (Season 3) (Video)
YouTube: The Sopranos Season 3 opening, "Wow, listen to Mr Mob Boss", Tony Gives Advice To A Stripper, Lady Gaga Appears on The Sopranos, AJ doesn't know what the gutters are, "Caused an early retirement for somebody else", Tony and Gloria hook up for the first time

2020 July: The Sopranos - Season 1, 2020 July: Season 2

Max Richter - Sleep (2015)

"The audacious composer Max Richter has created an eight-hour piece meant to serve as a sleep aid. But it is more than that. For these 31 uninterrupted pieces, Richter accepts the extraordinary challenge of not only aiding sleep but also translating the act into art. If you listen while you’re awake, many of these pieces conjure dreamy states, where ideas seem fluid and flexible and the world around you seems somehow softer. It is hard to know what to make of Sleep, the new eight-hour album and therapeutic project from the perennially audacious British composer Max Richter. ..."
Pitchfork
W - Sleep (album)
amazon
SoundCloud - From Sleep (Full Album) 2015 (Audio)
YouTube: Sleep Album (II Hour) 2:00:58, Sleep 7 videos

2019 May: The Blue Notebooks (2004)

Pierre Bonnard (1867–1947): The Late Interiors

Before Dinner, 1924
"The artistic legacy of Pierre Bonnard (1867–1947) calls to mind the many dazzling bathing paintings of Marthe, his wife and muse of nearly fifty years, modeling in the bathtub, toweling her ever-youthful figure, or gazing at her nude likeness at her toilette. These shimmering visions of still waters, iridescent tiles, and private escapes have been in the public eye for many decades. The social and cultural milieu of Bonnard takes us back to another era, that of the later years of the nineteenth century, when a group of young artists commingled in Paris as friends and fellow painters. ..."
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Eight Essentials to Know About Pierre Bonnard
frieze: What a ‘Slow Look’ at Pierre Bonnard’s Harmonic, Memory-Drenched Paintings Reveals

Dining Room in the Country, 1913

2012 January: Pierre Bonnard

Idris Ackamoor & The Pyramids - Shaman! (2020)

"... The latest album from the band now billed as Idris Ackamoor & The Pyramids is Shaman!, a daring suite that incorporates sub-Saharan jazz, free jazz, Afrobeat, Afro-Cuban music, spoken word, and more. As is often the case with legacy groups, various issues—including health—have led to the regular alteration of the line-up, but as far as Ackamoor is concerned, The Pyramids have an open-door policy on allowing former members to return home. Recorded in London for Strut Records, Shaman! features Pyramids co-founder Simmons on flute, longtime band member Sandra Poindexter on violin, Bobby Cobb on guitar, and three new members from Europe in Jack Yglesias, Ruben Ramon Ramos, and Gioele Pagliaccia. ..."
Idris Ackamoor & The Pyramids Continue Their Musical Odyssey on “Shaman!” - Bandcamp (Audio)
Discogs (Video)
amazon
YouTube: Virgin (Live) - Music City Sessions, Theme for Cecil

This Week's Sky at a Glance, August 7 – 15

"... Tuesday August 11. ■ Last-quarter Moon (exactly so at 12:45 p.m. EDT). ■ The Perseid meteor shower should be at its strongest late tonight. But the Moon (in Taurus) rises around midnight, and its light will interfere somewhat during the prime meteor hours from midnight to dawn. So you might do best before then, from about 11 p.m. through moonrise. Perseid Vic August 2020. The radiant point of the Perseid shower gets fairly well up in the northeast by 11 p.m., so the meteors become more frequent. The higher a shower's radiant, the more meteors are seen all across the sky.  ..."
Sky and Telescope

The Complete Guide to Middle-earth - Robert Foster (1971)

"The Complete Guide to Middle-earth is a reference book for the fictional universe of J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth, compiled and edited by Robert Foster. Originally published in 1971 as A Guide to Middle-Earth, before the publication of The Silmarillion, the first edition contained only information from The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. In 1978, a new edition (The Complete Guide to Middle-earth: from The Hobbit to The Silmarillion), containing material from The Silmarillion, was published. ..."
Tolkien Gateway
W - The Complete Guide to Middle-earth
LOTR Project
amazon
W - Middle-earth
YouTube: Tolkien Maps Interview

2010 January: The Lord of the Rings, 2018 January: An Atlas of Literary Maps Created by Great Authors: J.R.R Tolkien’s Middle Earth, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island & More, 2019 January: The Largest J.R.R. Tolkien Exhibit in Generations Is Coming to the U.S.: Original Drawings, Manuscripts, Maps & More, 2020 January: Hear Christopher Tolkien (RIP) Read the Work of His Father J.R.R. Tolkien, Which He Tirelessly Worked to Preserve

Gil Scott-Heron ‎– We’re New Again (A Reimagining By Makaya McCraven)

"XL Recordings celebrates the 10 year anniversary of the late great Gil Scott-Heron’s final studio recording I’m New Here, prior to his passing in May of 2011, with a re-worked version of the album by visionary Chicago-based composer, producer, and drummer Makaya McCraven, titled We’re New Again. Where the original 2010 album heavily featured Scott-Heron’s deep baritone vocals and poetry, combined with minimal electronic beats by producer Richard Russell, these new renditions have much more of an analog jazz feel, incorporating McCraven’s signature production style of blending together newly recorded instrumental backing grooves with spliced up samples, and re-working it all together in post-production. ..."
beat caffeine: Makaya McCraven brings new life to Gil Scott-Heron’s final recording (Audio)
NY Times: Gil Scott-Heron’s Legacy Is a Work in Progress
Discogs (Video)
amazon
YouTube: I'm New Here, New York is Killing Me, I'll Take Care of You, This Can't Be Real, Running

2017 January: Pieces of a Man (1971), 2017 April: Winter in America - Gil Scott-Heron / Brian Jackson (1974), 2018 February: I'm New Here (2010), 2019 May: "The Bottle" - Gil Scott-Heron/Brian Jackson (1974)

How Virginia Woolf Kept Her Brother Alive in Letters

For Virginia Woolf, correspondence became a way to transcend a climate of illness—to envision a future she couldn’t see.
"Hours after watching her twenty-six-year-old brother die, Virginia Stephen wrote a letter to one of her dearest friends. In that letter, written on November 20, 1906, she did not utter a word about her brother’s death; she did not so much as mention his name. Virginia was twenty-four—six years from marrying and becoming Virginia Woolf, nine years from publishing her first novel. She and her three siblings had just returned from a trip to Greece and Turkey, which had ended in disaster. Thoby Stephen, Virginia’s eldest brother, had been infected with typhoid. ..."
New Yorker

2019 April: Bloomsbury Group, 2019 April: Feminize Your Canon: Violet Trefusis

Unwanted Truths: Inside Trump’s Battles With U.S. Intelligence Agencies

Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call, via Getty Images
"In early July of last year, the first draft of a classified document known as a National Intelligence Estimate circulated among key members of the agencies making up the U.S. intelligence community. N.I.E.s are intended to be that community’s most authoritative class of top-secret document, reflecting its consensus judgment on national-security matters ranging from Iran’s nuclear capabilities to global terrorism. The draft of the July 2019 N.I.E. ran to about 15 pages, with another 10 pages of appendices and source notes.According to multiple officials who saw it, the document discussed Russia’s ongoing efforts to influence U.S. elections: the 2020 presidential contest and 2024’s as well. ..."
NY Times

The Assassination of Saint Peter Martyr, c1507, by Giovanni Bellini

"St Peter Martyr was a medieval inquisitor who, it is said, was murdered by the heretics he was so good at catching. Bellini’s painting makes the story both real and fairytale-like with its eerie setting in a shady woodland. In this dark and obscure wood, Saint Peter and a companion are set upon by the medieval equivalent of 'terrorists', whose opposition to the Catholic religious order is equated with brutality and evil. The assassins are members of the Cathar sect, which believed the material world was utterly evil; it was popular in parts of south-western France between the 12th and 14th centuries. Bellini’s juxtaposition of pastoral landscape and extreme violence makes this propaganda story utterly compelling. ..."
The National Gallery (Video)
W - The Assassination of Saint Peter Martyr

Gregory Isaacs - Slum In Dub (1978)

"1978 Slum In Dub album re-issued on CD and 180 gram vinyl in its original cover. Gregory Isaacs, the Cool Ruler, or Lonely Lover, the man with the laconic voice and equally laconic delivery who sings as easily of matters of the heart or earthly horrors is well known to all Jamaican enthusiasts, but few realise that he also sat the other side of the studio glass and was a very proficient producer too. Gregory Isaacs wrote much of his own work and also produced it, so it shouldn’t be any surprise to find that this dub album consisting of mainly Mr Isaacs’s work was produced by him too. Although the mixing, which is of course the major enjoyment factor of any dub album, was done by a talented protégée of King Tubby; Lloyd ‘Jammy’ James who started out as ‘Prince’ but was promoted to ‘King’ a few years later. ..."
Secret Records
Discogs (Video)
amazon
YouTube: Party In The Slum + Dub 1978, Slum (In Dub) 14 videos

Cornerstone

A cornerstone with bronze relief images
"The cornerstone (or foundation stone or setting stone) is the first stone set in the construction of a masonry foundation. All other stones will be set in reference to this stone, thus determining the position of the entire structure. Over time a cornerstone became a ceremonial masonry stone, or replica, set in a prominent location on the outside of a building, with an inscription on the stone indicating the construction dates of the building and the names of architect, builder, and other significant individuals. The rite of laying a cornerstone is an important cultural component of eastern architecture and metaphorically in sacred architecture generally. Some cornerstones include time capsules from, or engravings commemorating, the time a particular building was built. ..."
Wikipedia

Ceremonial masonry stone of the Los Angeles Central Library building, laid in 1925