The ISIS Files

Mosul, 2017. Paperwork littered the remains of ISIS’ bombed-out Ministry of Agriculture.
"MOSUL, Iraq — Weeks after the militants seized the city, as fighters roamed the streets and religious extremists rewrote the laws, an order rang out from the loudspeakers of local mosques. Public servants, the speakers blared, were to report to their former offices. To make sure every government worker got the message, the militants followed up with phone calls to supervisors. When one tried to beg off, citing a back injury, he was told: 'If you don’t show up, we’ll come and break your back ourselves.' The phone call reached Muhammad Nasser Hamoud, a 19-year veteran of the Iraqi Directorate of Agriculture, behind the locked gate of his home, where he was hiding with his family. Terrified but unsure what else to do, he and his colleagues trudged back to their six-story office complex decorated with posters of seed hybrids. They arrived to find chairs lined up in neat rows, as if for a lecture. The commander who strode in sat facing the room, his leg splayed out so that everyone could see the pistol holstered to his thigh. For a moment, the only sounds were the hurried prayers of the civil servants mumbling under their breath. Their fears proved unfounded. ..."
NY Times
NY Times: Extreme Brutality and Detailed Record-Keeping
NY Times: Caliphate (Audio)
YouTube: Breaking News - The ISIS Way: Extreme Brutality and Detailed Record-Keeping

How Far ISIS Spread Across Iraq and Syria and Where It’s Still Holding On

2014 August: The Islamic State, 2014 September: How ISIS Works, 2015 February: The Political Scene: The Evolution of Islamic Extremism, 2015 May: Zakaria: How ISIS shook the world, 2015 August: ISIS Blows Up Ancient Temple at Syria’s Palmyra Ruins, 2015 November: Times Insider: Reporting Europe's Refugee Crisis, 2015 November: Three Teams of Coordinated Attackers Carried Out Assault on Paris, Officials Say; Hollande Blames ISIS, 2015 November: The French Emergency, 2015 December: A Brief History of ISIS, 2015 December: U.S. Seeks to Avoid Ground War Welcomed by Islamic State, 2016 January: Ramadi, Reclaimed by Iraq, Is in Ruins After ISIS Fight, 2016 February: Syrian Officer Gave a View of War. ISIS Came, and Silence Followed., 2016 March: Brussels Survivors Say Blasts Instantly Evoked Paris Attacks, 2016 April: America Can’t Do Much About ISIS, 2016 June: What the Islamic State Has Won and Lost, 2016 July: ISIS: The Cornened Beast, 2016 October: Archaeological Victims of ISIS Rise Again, as Replicas in Rome, 2016 December: Battle Over Aleppo Is Over, Russia Says, as Evacuation Deal Reached, 2017 January: Eternal Sites: From Bamiyan to Palmyra, 2017 February: Tour a City Torn in Half by ISIS, 2017 March: Engulfed in Battle, Mosul Civilians Run for Their Lives, 2017 May: Aleppo After the Fall, 2017 July: Iraqi forces declare victory over Islamic State in Mosul after grueling battle, 2017 July: The Living and the Dead, 2017 October: ISIS Fighters, Having Pledged to Fight or Die, Surrender en Masse

Discogs Mix 69 – Styles In Black

"Based in America’s Pacific Northwest, producer Styles in Black combines the warm nostalgia of lo-fi Hip Hop with bass-heavy, tribal-influenced rhythms. With a wide range of musical styles and collaborations with artists around the globe, his productions range from Chillhop to Trap, Reggae, R&B, and Funk. With two albums on Philos Records and features on outlets such as Chill-Masters, Indie Shuffle, and Stereofox, Styles in Black has steadily crafted a signature sound that is tropical, nostalgic, and exotic. This Styles in Black mix is exclusive to Discogs and takes listeners on a journey across a diverse set of regional sounds. ..."
Disogs (Audio)

Universal Sounds of America (1995)

"Universal Sounds of America features music from radical Afro-American Jazz musicians in the USA in the 1970's. At a time when commercial jazz music was revolving around whether it would sound good in an Elevator at low volume, a number of Jazz musicians were seeking different musical paths. Self Determination, Creative Development, Community and Education were more important to these musicians than economic wealth, fame and stardom. Artists such as The Art Ensemble of Chicago and Sun Ra developed around communal groups. The Art Ensemble, for instance , came out of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) founded in 1965 by Muhal Richard Abrams in Chicago. ..."
Universal Sounds of America
Discogs (Video)
amazon
allmusic (Audio)

Martin Luther King Jr.’s ‘Letter From Birmingham Jail’

"In April 1963, King was jailed in Birmingham, Alabama, after he defied a state court’s injunction and led a march of black protesters without a permit, urging an Easter boycott of white-owned stores. A statement published in The Birmingham News, written by eight moderate white clergymen, criticized the march and other demonstrations. This prompted King to write a lengthy response, begun in the margins of the newspaper. He smuggled it out with the help of his lawyer, and the nearly 7,000 words were transcribed. The eloquent call for 'constructive, nonviolent tension' to force an end to unjust laws became a landmark document of the civil-rights movement. The letter was printed in part or in full by several publications, including the New York Post, Liberation magazine, The New Leader, and The Christian Century. The Atlantic published it in the August 1963 issue, under the headline 'The Negro Is Your Brother.' ...”
The Atlantic
W - Letter from Birmingham Jail
The Atlantic: The Riots That Followed the Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
W - Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

2008 January: Martin Luther King Jr., Martin Luther King Jr. - 1, 2013 August: The March at 50 , 2015 January: Freedom Journey 1965: Photographs of the Selma to Montgomery March by Stephen Somerstein, 2015 February: Spider Martin’s Photographs of the Selma March Get a Broader View, 2015 March: Revisiting Selma, 2015 December: Atlanta: Darker Than Blue, 2016 February: Unpublished Black History, 2018 January: The Evolution of Dr. King, 2018 January: Restoring King

Signs of a French Spring

Rail workers from the Force Ouvrière union on strike in Paris today.
"It’s not just the railroads. From college campuses to supermarkets and airport terminals, unrest is simmering across France. Against the backdrop of the national public railway strike — a highly symbolic struggle that, by all indications, promises to be long and intense — students and workers in other sectors are taking actions of their own. This isn’t the first significant unrest under President Emmanuel Macron — his labor reforms last year were opposed by strikes and days of action — but the current wave is broader in scope. A weekend strike at France’s largest employer, supermarket Carrefour, was followed by strikes on the trains and at airports at the start of this week that have severely impacted transport in the country — and now a burgeoning student movement is joining in support. ..."
Jacobin

2017 February: France, Without a Struggle, Is at a Loss, 2017 April: France Rebels, 2017 April: How the Election Split France, 2017 May: As French Elections Nears, So Does a Step Into the Unknown, 2017 May: The Fertile Ground of French Communism

Do Flashbacks Work in Literature?

Max Ferguson: Time (oil painting), 2006
"Every few days, working on my new novel, my thoughts flash back to something Colm Tóibín said at the Hay-on-Wye literary festival nine months ago: that flashbacks are infuriating. Speaking at an event to celebrate the two hundredth anniversary of Jane Austen’s death, Tóibín said Austen was marvelous because she was able to convey character and plot in the most satisfying way without the 'clumsiness' of the flashback. Today, on the other hand, we have to hear how a character’s parents and even grandparents met and married. Writers skip back and forth in time filling in the gaps in their shaky stories. It is dull and incompetent. Is Tóibín right? I worry, as I prepare to put together a flashback myself. Is there no merit or sense in the device? Didn’t Joyce use it? And Faulkner? Or David Lodge, for that matter? Or John Updike? Or going back before Austen, Laurence Sterne? ..."
NYBooks

Smile Millennium Edition (Bootleg) - Beach Boys

"An impossible dream has become reality. Smile, the great lost Beach Boys album, finally received an official release on Capitol Records in 2011. The musical jigsaw that Brian Wilson couldn’t quite piece together in 1967, has, thanks to the wonders of digital editing, been assembled 44 years behind schedule. It may only be a version of Smile – using the 2004 album Brian Wilson Presents Smile as a template – but that’s good enough for Wilson. ... Pet Sounds (1966) had been a symphonic, heart-tugging album about adolescent love and the coming of age. The intention with Smile – briefly called 'Dumb Angel', a title soon jettisoned – was to explore America’s landscape and history in a theatrical (but also cinematic) style, executed in a spirit of gaiety and fun. ... 'We wanted to try something different with music,' says Brian today. 'We wanted to do something a little more advanced. We wanted to try and top Pet Sounds.' Wilson and his lyricist Van Dyke Parks conceived Smile as a journey across America from east to west; a movie in widescreen Surreal-O-Vision, featuring pioneers and frontiers, cantinas and log cabins, railroads and 'waves of wheat'. ..."
Uncut (Video)
YouTube: Surf's Up (Bootleg, From "SMiLE (Millennium Edition)", Heroes & Villians (Barnyard Suite) [Smile Millennium Edition, Bootleg]
YouTube: Surf's Up (Brian Wilson solo, Autumn 1967), 'Surf's Up' -Brian Wilson's Piano Demo Master Take and Finished Song
YouTube: Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks talk about SMILE

2010 July: Pet Sounds, 2013 October: The Pet Sounds Sessions, 2016 July: Enter Brian Wilson’s Creative Process While Making The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds 50 Years Ago: A Fly-on-the Wall View, 2017 May: "Caroline, No" - Brian Wilson and Tony Asher (1966)
2012 July: Van Dyke Parks, 2015 December: Moonlighting: Live at the Ash Grove (1998), 2016 November: Song Cycle (1967), 2017 March: Jump! (1984), 2017 April: Orange Crate Art - Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks (1995)

Fountain of Youth

The Fountain of Youth, 1546 painting by Lucas Cranach the Elder
Wikipedia - "The Fountain of Youth is a spring that supposedly restores the youth of anyone who drinks or bathes in its waters. Tales of such a fountain have been recounted across the world for thousands of years, appearing in writings by Herodotus (5th century BC), the Alexander romance (3rd century AD), and the stories of Prester John (early Crusades, 11th/12th centuries AD). Stories of similar waters were also evidently prominent among the indigenous peoples of the Caribbean during the Age of Exploration (early 16th century), who spoke of the restorative powers of the water in the mythical land of Bimini. The legend became particularly prominent in the 16th century, when it was attached to the Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León, first Governor of Puerto Rico. According to an apocryphal combination of New World and Eurasian elements, Ponce de León was searching for the Fountain of Youth when he traveled to what is now Florida in 1513, but this is a myth. The legend says that Ponce de León was told by Native Americans that the Fountain of Youth was in Bimini and it could restore youth to anyone. ..."
Wikipedia
W - The Fountain of Youth (Cranach)
W - Lucas Cranach the Elder

The Fountain of Youth (detail)

Studio Caroline: The Parisian Laboratory of African Pop

"Paris in the ’80s was arguably one of the largest global hubs for African music, playing host to musicians from across the African diaspora and generating an enormous volume of releases that few other cities could rival at the time. The situation came about early in the decade, through a perfect storm of affordable studio spaces, newly relaxed broadcasting laws that saw a flourishing of commercial and community radio stations and a record-hungry public with the necessary disposal income to fuel the musical output. At the end of the ’70s, producers and musicians from across the diaspora were setting up shop in the city, selling records from across Europe and Africa as well as the lucrative 'DOM/TOM' market – the French territories of Guadeloupe, Martinique, Guyana and Réunion where many African artists would also tour. Although the broad term 'African music' overgeneralises what is evidently the product of many countries that are culturally, economically, linguistically and musically distinct, the meetings and collaborations of musicians and players from countries like Congo, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire and Senegal led to the development of a geographically specific aesthetic emanating from Paris – pulling in influences, techniques and styles from across Africa, the Caribbean and America to create a kind of Pan-African pop music that resonated far beyond the city itself. ..."
Red Bull Music Academy Daily (Video)

The Letters of Sylvia Plath, Volume I: 1940-1956

"The arrival of the collected letters of Sylvia Plath – this is only volume one; a second will follow next year – provides something of an object lesson in the weird desperation involved in what we might call heritage publishing. Of course we understand that Faber (and in the US, Harper) is thrilled to have this long-dead poetic genius on its list; such pride isn’t misplaced. But whether this means that every word Plath ever wrote, up to and including her scholarship applications, is of interest to anyone other than truffling biographers and PhD students is another matter altogether. Lugging around this rusty anchor of a book – it runs to more than 1,400 pages – what I felt mostly was exasperation. The notion that Plath’s every utterance is sacred would be dumb even if she ranked with Keats or Waugh as one of the truly great letter writers. The fact that she clearly doesn’t – the majority of those in this volume, written to her mother, Aurelia, are marked by their quotidian sameyness – only makes it seem the more vacuous. ..."
Guardian
New Yorker: The Letters of Sylvia Plath and the Transformation of a Poet’s Voice
NY Times: Sylvia Plath’s Letters Reveal a Writer Split in Two
amazon

2008 February: Sylvia Plath, 2011 May: "Daddy" (Video), 2017 July: Ariel (1965)

Atlantic Blues: Chicago (1986)

"Chess is arguably the first label for blues, but behemoth Atlantic has enough of the stuff -- albeit a bit past its prime -- to still warrant a multi-disc box. This separately sold part of that package takes in some of the giants from the Illinois epicenter of urban blues. Two of the best, Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters, as well as latter-day Windy City queen Koko Taylor, are featured on cuts taped live at the 1972 Ann Arbor Blues Festival. Back in the studio, the mighty tandem of Buddy Guy and Junior Wells mixes it up with Dr. John and Eric Clapton, while Southern blues scion Duane Allman contributes fine slide work to a couple of top-notch Otis Rush performances. Freddie King's three numbers, featuring honking sax star King Curtis and the arrangements of soul great Donny Hathaway, take the prize, though. Not a good primer, maybe, but a solid blues roundup all the same."
allmusic
Discogs
YouTube: Atlantic Blues Chicago 1:14:30

Meet the Straphanger Who Talked Back to Those Damn Fiverr Ads

"You have seen the ads — oh, God, have you seen them. Ever since the cheap-ass labor provision company Fiverr ('Freelance Services Marketplace for the Lean Entrepreneur') started plastering New York City subway cars with its 'In Doers We Trust' ad campaign early last year, straphangers have been complaining about their Tony Robbins-on-meth taglines: If 'Thinking big is still just thinking,' does that mean Fiverr — whose business model is built on having freelancers post tasks they’re willing to do for as little as $5 — wants us all to leap into self-starterdom before we look? Is 'Sleep deprivation is your drug of choice' an attempt to compliment hard workers, or a call to work yourself to death? It all felt like, as Jia Tolentino wrote for the New Yorker, being hit each morning with a firehose of jargon 'through which the essentially cannibalistic nature of the gig economy is dressed up as an aesthetic.' Sometime in the last few days, one subway rider decided to strike back using the oldest of urban protest tools: the magic marker. ..."
Voice
New Yorker: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working Yourself to Death
Here’s an Ad That Should Inspire Entrepreneurs Everywhere to Get Their Act Together (Video)

What We Can Learn from Neruda’s Poetry of Resistance

"When I first embarked on writing a biography of Pablo Neruda over a decade ago, I wanted to explore the political power of poetry and its capacity to inspire social change. Neruda’s social verse was an integral part of the humanity he expressed; even without pen in hand, he boldly inserted himself into direct action. I happened to finish the book—Neruda: The Poet’s Calling—at the end of Trump’s first hundred days in office. As a result, the questions that I’d been exploring for years suddenly took on new urgency. As resistance increasingly becomes the operative word in our current political reality, what can one of the most important and iconic resistance poets of the past century offer us? What might he give us as we continue to shape the next chapter in our own cultural story? Some answers, or at least perspectives, can be found in the vivid details of Neruda’s life and work. Neruda’s legacy was directly shaped by the historical events in which he played a part. ..."
The Paris Review

February 2009: Pablo Neruda, 2011 November: 100 Love Sonnets, 2015 November: The Body Politic: The battle over Pablo Neruda’s corpse, 2015 December: In Chile, Where Pablo Neruda Lived and Loved, 2016 May: Windows that Open Inward - Pablo Neruda. Milton Rogovin, Photographing.

Stitt Meets Brother Jack - Sonny Stitt (1962)

"In honor of the upcoming listening party at Baby's On Fire, this week's featured album art is a Sonny Stitt cover. On Prestige 7244, Stitt Meets Brother Jack (1962), Don Schlitten is given both photography and design credits. ... Schlitten is most often discussed in jazz history as a producer, record label founder, and otherwise jazz industry entrepreneur. For Prestige 7244, Stitt Meets Brother Jack (1962), Schlitten situates Sonny Stitt mid-note and focused-gaze awash in a field of salmon complemented by gold and white type. ... Indeed Levin's notes go on to mention the comparison to Bird, but Stitt is responsible for composing many of the tracks on the album, and he is accompanied by a soulful and energetic ensemble that includes Jack McDuff on the organ; Eddie Diehl on guitar; Art Taylor on drums; Ray Barretto on conga; and together they create a unique albeit steady sound. Sonny Stitt is surely an underrated jazz great and both aesthetic treatments by Schlitten here are fitting portrayals of his cool character."
The Entrepreneur's Color Tint
W - Stitt Meets Brother Jack
Discogs
YouTube: Stitt Meets Brother Jack [Full Album] 38:32

Twin Peaks VR Lets You Live Inside A Dream

"The Red Room has been a beloved setting in fanmade Twin Peaks VR experiments for years, and that’s exactly how this project started too. But Orly Rodriguez is quickly expanding his virtual reality experience called The Archivist: VR to include other iconic locations, such as the RR Diner, the Roadhouse and the Twin Peaks Sheriff’s Department. Jam with Carl at the Fat Trout Trailer Park or ask Jeffries about Judy. You can even hang out with the woodsmen above the convenience store or, if you step over the bodies of Sam and Tracey on the penthouse floor, you can inspect the inside of the glass box in New York. ..."
Twin Peaks VR Lets You Live Inside A Dream (Video)
An Echo Of Owls: watching repeats of Twin Peaks eleven years later

2008 September: Twin Peaks, 2010 March: Twin Peaks: How Laura Palmer's death marked the rebirth of TV drama, 2011 October: Twin Peaks: The Last Days, 2014 October: Welcome to Twin Peaks, 2015 June: David Lynch: ‘I’ve always loved Laura Palmer’, 2015 July: Twin Peaks Maps, 2016 May: Hear the Music of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks Played..., September: Twin Peaks Tarot Cards For The Magician Who Longs To See Through The Darkness Of Future Past, 2014 September: David Lynch: The Unified Field, 2014 December: David Lynch’s Bad Thoughts - J. Hoberman, 2015 March: Lumière and Company (1995), 2015 April: David Lynch Creates a Very Surreal Plug for Transcendental Meditation, 2015 December: What Is “Lynchian”?, 2017 March: Anatomy of a Fascinating Disaster: Fire Walk With Me, 2017 April: Trading Card Set of the Week – Twin Peaks (Star Pics, 1991), 2017 April: Your Complete Guide to Rewatching "Twin Peaks", 2018 February: Twin Peaks: The Return, or What Isn’t Cinema?

The Imitation Of A Memory: Pizzi Cannella On Painting, Poetry, And The New School Of Rome

Veduta, 2018, mixed media on canvas,
"In a vitrine in the far corner of the gallery, a black and white photograph presents a man apparently deep in thought. Pierro Pizzi Cannella sits hunched over in an office chair, just a hint of white beard poking out from the shadow of his black hoodie like some reaper wracked with concern for the dead, his shadow cast against two canvases, on the wall of his studio in Rome. The same two paintings can be found here on the walls of Partners & Mucciaccia in Mayfair. In each one, an antique metal garden chair, one blackened, as if rotting, the other fading, almost crumbling into dust. Each chair is placed beside a table in matching style. They have the appearance, somehow, of a memory or a dream, caught slowly evanescing into the dense swathes of paint that fill the backdrop of the painting. ..."
The Quietus
Piero Pizzi Cannella

Veduta o paesaggio, 2012

Culture of Quebec

Wikipedia - "The Culture of Quebec emerged over the last few hundred years, resulting predominantly from the shared history of the French-speaking North Americans majority in Quebec. It is noteworthy in the Western World; Quebec is the only region in North America with a French-speaking majority, as well as one of only two provinces in Canada where French is a constitutionally-recognized official language. ... As of 2006, 79% of all Quebecers list French as their mother tongue; since French is the official language in the province, up to 95% of all residents speak French. History made Quebec a meeting place for cultures, where people from around the world experience America, but in the main from the point of view of a linguistic minority surrounded by the larger English-speaking culture. ... The Encyclopædia Britannica describes contemporary Quebec culture as a post-1960s phenomenon resulting from the Quiet Revolution, an essentially homogeneous socially liberal counter-culture phenomenon supported and financed by both of Quebec's major political parties, who differ essentially not in a right-vs-left continuum but a federalist-vs-sovereignty/separatist continuum. ..."
Wikipedia

2009 August: Quebec City, 2015 October: History of the Acadians, 2016 September: Keeping the Student Strike Alive

Macao - Josef von Sternberg and Nicholas Ray (1952)

Wikipedia - "Macao is a 1952 black-and-white film noir adventure directed by Josef von Sternberg and Nicholas Ray. Producer Howard Hughes fired director von Sternberg during filming and hired Nicholas Ray to finish it. The drama features Robert Mitchum, Jane Russell, William Bendix, and Gloria Grahame. Three strangers arrive at the port of Macao on the same ship: Nick Cochran (Robert Mitchum), a cynical-but-honest ex-serviceman, Julie Benson (Jane Russell), an equally cynical, sultry night club singer, and Lawrence Trumble (William Bendix), a traveling salesman who deals in both silk stockings and contraband. ..."
Wikipedia
Not Coming
MUBI: Macao - Trailer
YouTube: Jane Russell - One for My Baby

Baseball Loves the Long Ball. But for How Long?

"Imagine teleporting into a baseball video game. That, John Mozeliak said, is how he felt watching college hitters on a recent visit to a Division I program. All the data that might appear on the screen of a virtual game was available, in real time, during batting practice. ... Give elite athletes an incentive to play a certain way — and the tools to show them how — and this is what you get: a convergence of talent and technology that has rapidly turned baseball into a test of power at the plate and on the mound. Hitters seek home runs and pitchers hunt strikeouts, and both statistics reached unprecedented levels last season: 6,105 homers and 40,104 strikeouts. But as a new season dawns, many baseball people wonder where the game evolves from here. It is not a question of if things will change, they say, only when and how. ..."
NY Times
NY Times - A.L. Preview: Watch Out, the Houston Astros Got Better
NY Times - N.L. Preview: Cubs Mix Michelangelo and Theo Epstein’s ‘More Stuff’
FiveThirtyEight: Your Guide To The 2018 American League
FiveThirtyEight: Your Guide To The 2018 National League
FiveThirtyEight: How Our MLB Predictions Work
FiveThirtyEight: The Complete History Of MLB
NY Times: Aaron Judge Is Baseball’s Most Powerful Hitter (Audio)
The Ringer: The Ringer Staff’s 2018 MLB Season Predictions (Video)
The Ringer: The Casual Fan’s Cheat Sheet for the 2018 MLB Season (Video)
W - 2018 Major League Baseball season

The young sluggers Jose Altuve and Carlos Correa have thrived with the Astros.

Nick Mauss: Transmissions

"For his first solo museum exhibition in the United States, artist Nick Mauss (b. 1980) presents Transmissions, a multidisciplinary work exploring the relationship between modernist ballet and the avant-garde visual arts in New York from the 1930s through ’50s. Over the past decade, Mauss has pursued a hybrid mode of working that merges the roles of curator, artist, and scholar. At the Whitney he brings together his own works, alongside historical photographs, sculptures, paintings, drawings, film and video from the Whitney’s holdings and those of other public and private collections—all presented within a layered exhibition design by Mauss that allows for the works to be seen in a new light. Central to the exhibition is a daily performance by four dancers made in collaboration with Mauss as an interpretative reaction to the artworks and archival materials on display. ..."
Whitney (Video)
NY Times - Review: ‘Transmissions’ Evokes a Climate (Poetic, With a Chance of Ballet)
ArtMag: Ornament Is No Crime

Video 50 - Robert Wilson (1978)

"Video 50 is an extraordinary video sketchbook, a highly original, visually dramatic and frequently humorous collection of one hundred abbreviated 'episodes' produced for television. Unfolding as a series of thirty-second vignettes, this enigmatic essay in style is characterized by a deadpan theatricality, symbolist imagery, surrealist juxtapositions and repetition of key visual motifs. Indelible images, precisely composed — a man teetering above a waterfall, a floating chair, a winking eye, a parrot against the New York skyline — are accompanied by an 'architectural' sound score that includes spoken 'phonetic patterns' rather than words. Fusing his surprising visual logic and rhythms with unexpected temporal manipulations, Wilson creates a work of startling wit and poetry. -- EAI ..."
UbuWeb (Video)
'Robert Wilson: Video 50' installation redefines the nature of filmmaking

2008 April: Robert Wilson, 2010 January: Einstein on the Beach, 2010 July: The CIVIL warS, 2011 May: Einstein on the Beach: The Changing Image of Opera , 2011 August: Stations (1982), 2012 February: Absolute Wilson, 2012 August: Einstein on the Blog: Christopher Knowles’ Typings, 2013 March: The Life and Times of Joseph Stalin, 2013 April: Death, Destruction and Detroit, 2013 October: crickets audio recording slowed way down, 2013 October: Beached, 2014 January: The Louvre invites Robert Wilson - Living Rooms, 2014 November: The Old Woman - Robert Wilson, Mikhail Baryshnikov and Willem Dafoe, 2015 May: Watermill Quintet: Robert Wilson Curates New Performances, 2015 June: THE EARTH MOVES. A documentary about Einstein on the Beach.

After the Strongman

"At the headquarters of Zimbabwe’s ruling party, a portrait of the former dictator, Robert Gabriel Mugabe, stared down from a high wall enclosing a bank of elevators. He wore a gray suit, a white-dotted navy tie, and a matching pocket square. His etched jowls were imposing. He looked much younger than 93. I took a moment to gape. So far, on my trip to Harare, three weeks after a coup deposed Mugabe in November 2017, I had seen no pictures of the man. Once mandated in state buildings, they had been taken down swiftly after the coup. A teacher I met described the scene in her school on the day of his resignation. ... For a while there were blank spaces—empty rectangles where once there were portraits—throughout the capital. Then, on the third day of my visit, a picture of the new president, Emmerson 'E.D.' Mnangagwa, went up behind the reception desk at my hotel, above the aquarium full of flat, orange fish. In the party headquarters, I went up and down in the crammed elevator with its sweating, besuited apparatchiks. It was only when I came back to the foyer that I saw why Mugabe’s picture was still there: It had been painted, not pasted, onto the tiled wall. It would take a while before someone could get up there on a ladder and scrape it off. ..."
New Republic
NY Times: A Strongman Nicknamed ‘Crocodile’ Is Poised to Replace Mugabe (Video) Nov. 2017
W - Robert Mugabe

Unknown Pleasures

FACT 45, Always Now, Sep 1981
"Peter Saville was born in Manchester on 9 Oct 1955 and later studied graphic design at Manchester Polytechnic. After meeting the Grenada TV presenter Tony Wilson at a 'very, very bad Patti Smith gig in late 77 or early 78,' he was commissioned, at age 23, to design a poster for Wilson’s new club - The Factory. The poster, which in typical Saville fashion arrived too late, was not based on the prevailing punk aesthetic but on Jan Tschichold’s Die Neue Typographie. As he later stated 'I found Tschichold’s elegantly ordered aesthetic more appealing than the anarchic style of punk graphics. I found a parallel in it for the New Wave that was evolving out of Punk.' In 1978 Wilson, along with Saville, unemployed actor Tony Erasmus, producer Martin Hannett and band manager Rob Gretton created Factory Records. The chaotic, quixotic and now legendary label set up operations in Erasmus’ home on Palantine Road in Manchester. Because no one had any idea what they were doing, Saville was given a remarkably wide latitude in design. ..."
codex99

2008 March: Ian Curtis, 2009 August: Factory: Manchester From Joy Division To Happy Mondays, 2010 November: Love Will Tear Us Apart, 2012 February: An Ideal for Living EP, 2012 May: Unknown Pleasures, 2013 May: "Atmosphere"/ "Dead Souls", 2016 December: John Peel Session (1979), 2017 July: Closer (1980), 2018 January: She's Lost Control (1979)

Destination Moon (1950), Explorers on the Moon (1954)

Wikipedia - "Destination Moon (French: Objectif Lune) is the sixteenth volume of The Adventures of Tintin, the comics series by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. The story was initially serialised weekly in Belgium's Tintin magazine from March to September 1950 before being published in a collected volume by Casterman in 1953. The plot tells of young reporter Tintin and his friend Captain Haddock who receive an invitation from Professor Calculus to come to Syldavia, where Calculus is working on a top-secret project in a secure government facility to plan a manned mission to the Moon. Developed in part through the suggestions of Hergé's friends Bernard Heuvelmans and Jacques Van Melkebeke, Destination Moon was produced following Hergé's extensive research into the possibility of human space travel – a feat that had yet to be achieved – with the cartoonist seeking for the work to be as realistic as possible. During the story's serialisation, Hergé established Studios Hergé, a Brussels-based team of cartoonists to aid him on the project. Hergé concluded the story arc begun in this volume with Explorers on the Moon, while the series itself became a defining part of the Franco-Belgian comics tradition. Critics have praised the illustrative detail of the book, but have expressed mixed views of the narrative. ..."
W - Destination Moon, W - Explorers on the Moon
[PDF] Destination Moon, [PDF] Explorers on the Moon
vimeo: Destination Moon 41:44, YouTube: Explorers on the Moon
amazon: Destination Moon, Explorers on the Moon

2008 May: Georges Remi, 1907-1983, 2010 July: The Adventures of Tintin: Breaking Free, 2011 December: Prisoners of the Sun, 2012 January: Tintin: the Complete Companion, 2012 December: Snowy, 2015 August: The Black Island (1937), 2015 September: King Ottokar's Sceptre (1938), 2015 December: Red Rackham's Treasure (1943), 2016 July: Captain Haddock, 2017 April: Cigars of the Pharaoh (1934)

Playing Favourites: Jex Opolis

"Andrew Ryce hears some thrift-store bangers in the company of the rising Brooklyn-based artist. At one point during our interview, Jered Stuffco picked a cheesy record from his past to, in his words, 'keep it real.' Stuffco is the kind of DJ who plays anything that grabs him, regardless of what it is, where it came from or how cool it is. Kitschy Italo sits next to out-there European house, Brazilian pop, soulful American funk and leftfield cover songs. It all sounds refreshingly honest. Collecting rare and unusual records is in vogue right now, but Stuffco is more of an offline collector, preferring blind buys in local thrift stores over rare-record hunting or obsessive Discogs browsing. Stuffco, a Canadian who lives in Brooklyn, patiently scours every nook and cranny of a city. ..."
Resident Advisor (Video)

Mulatu Astatke & The Heliocentrics - Inspiration Information (2009)

"The third in Strut Records' Inspiration Information collaborative series pairs Mulatu Astatke, 66-year-old father of Ethio-jazz, with London-based astral funk collective the Heliocentrics. The collaboration began with an appearance at London club Cargo in 2008, and has finally borne recorded fruit in the form of an intriguing album that's equal parts sweaty funk and blissfully meditative jams. Astatke has come to be appreciated outside specialist circles in recent years. His music featured heavily in Jim Jarmusch's 2005 film Broken Flowers, and before that, in 1998, an entire edition of the Ethiopiques album series was devoted to his work. His sound intertwines funk and jazz elements with traditional Ethiopian folk melodies and echoes of Coptic Church music. Astatke's compositions frequently combine his own vibraphone and conga playing with the distinctive sound of the lyre-like krar, which works with five tones instead of the seven-note scale typical of western music. These disparate elements combine to create a heady blend that feels both sacred and profane. ..."
BBC
Will Johnson Loves You Just The Same: Mulatu Astatke
amazon
YouTube: Inspiration Information Vol. 3 1:03:34

2016 January: New York–Addis–London: The Story of Ethio Jazz 1965–1975, 2017 March: Mulatu Astatke - Ethiopiques, Vol. 4: Ethio Jazz & Musique Instrumentale, 1969-1974

Spotlight on Toronto

"I’m in Barcelona writing a screenplay—a writer cliché, I know. I’ve been here a couple weeks and am at a bar with some friends. We’re at a language exchange, where locals and expats gather to practice the newest language on their list, be it Spanish, English, French, or Catalan. Really though, it’s just an excuse to meet new people. 'You’re from Toronto?' asks one of the locals. 'I always wanted to go. My cousin visited last year and said it’s real cool. People are friendly... and don’t judge each other.' I must admit there’s a certain feeling of pride when someone from a city I think is so interesting, thinks the same of mine. It feels like a dose of street cred, especially because Toronto has always been a bit of an underdog to other global cities. But over the years, there’s been a palpable change in our reputation. ..."
New Yorker
TIFF

The Winners and Losers From the Elite Eight

"The NCAA tournament brings stunning upsets, thrilling buzzer-beaters, and a plethora of unforgettable moments that could only be created in a single-elimination tournament featuring a bunch of college players. So who shined the most in March Madness’s Elite Eight round? Let’s dive into a special edition of Winners and Losers. Winner: Loyola-Chicago Magic. We call them Cinderellas because we believe that some sort of fairy godmother has gifted a seemingly forgettable team with a moment of glory. It should be impossible for UMBC to beat Virginia without the help of magic. It’s supposed to run out by midnight—but it hasn’t for Loyola-Chicago, as the Ramblers are headed to the Final Four. Loyola hadn’t been to the NCAA tournament since 1985, and it is now two games away from a national championship. ..."
The Ringer (Video)

Impossible City: New Orleans - Text by Tim Culvahouse. Photos by Virginia Hanusik.

First Street, Central City, New Orleans
"I don’t suppose any city in North America has been parsed so thoroughly in the last dozen years as has New Orleans. Before the failed levees drowned it in brackish water and press coverage and architectural competitions, the city was largely a mystery to anyone who hadn’t been there, and to most people who had. Now we are inundated with studies and proposals, paeans and diatribes, portraits and dramatizations, Treme and NCIS. We might even imagine we have the full picture of New Orleans. But of course that’s not true. The New Orleans of popular imagination is loud and colorful, often crowded, in your face. Certainly Bourbon Street is, so Virginia Hanusik’s picture at sunrise is a minor revelation. The last bars have closed, at four or five, and all that’s left is the sour smell of oysters, vomit, and stale beer. Every so often, in the cool drift from an open door, there comes a sweet trace of dark liquors, breathed out from shadowed wood. ..."
Places

2012 September: Jazz Parades: Feet Don't Fail Me Now, 2017 December: Astoria Hotel, 2017 December: The 'Eternality' of Graffiti, 2018 February: Nine Albums to Get You Ready for Mardi Gras in New Orleans, 2018 March: Carnival of the Grotesque: Kara Walker’s Insistent Resistance in New Orleans

Hours Alone by Holli Carrell

"I moved to New York City because there was nothing to do but move to New York City. A girl like me from Utah romanticizes about this sort of thing when she’s fifteen — sees herself smoking off a fire escape somewhere artistic, like the West Village, with nothing else but a punchbowl and a wad of cash in her back pocket. I hadn’t been to New York in six years — since I was seventeen and staying in Midtown with my mother, hailing cabs to Ellen’s Stardust, and venturing no further than 59th street. My mantra: If it isn’t going to work out in New York it isn’t going to work out anywhere. I agree to sublet my childhood best friend’s apartment in Washington Heights. I pay for three months up front because she says it will be 'just right' and I’m all for easy acclimation. She and her husband and their three-month baby are boarding the party plane to Brooklyn. Their apartment is filled to overflow with U-haul boxes that feel like Greco-Roman ruins of the cardboard variety. ..."
This Recording

Ernesto Chahoud presents TAITU - Soul-fuelled Stompers from 1960s - 1970s Ethiopia

"Ernesto Chahoud’s ‘Taitu’ is a collection of soul-fuelled stompers straight from the dancefloors of 1970s Addis Ababa. A breathless journey through the unique Ethio sound that bands were forging at the time, the 24-track compilation is the result of the Lebanese DJ and crate digger’s decadelong love affair with the ‘golden age’ of Ethiopian music. Among the musical gems featured are 7”s by some of the heavyweights of the scene including the godfather of Ethio jazz Mulatu Astatke and Alemayehu Eshete, the vocalist dubbed the ‘Ethiopian Elvis’, alongside tracks by more obscure artists such as Merawi Yohannis and Birkineh Wurga. ... What came out was a distinctly Ethiopian interpretation: pentatonic scales, horn-driven melodies and soul-shattering vocals sung in Amharic. The songs are difficult to box in to one genre but they share a simplicity and rawness, added to by their lo-fi quality – with many recordings made in rudimentary studios with only a couple of mics for the entire band. ..."
BBE Music (Audio)
Darsko. A Hidden Gem Worth Digging For in Bourj Hammoud
Truth & Lies (Video)
amazon, iTunes
YouTube: Ernesto Chahoud presents TAITU (music and pics), Ernesto Chahoud presents TAITU Soul-fuelled Stompers from Ethiopia, Tilahun Gessesse ‎– Aykedashim libe

2017 July: Lebanon: Various artists - Jakarta Radio 010 Mix, 2017 December: From the Counter: Beirut

Public Parks, Private Gardens: Paris to Provence

"Following in the footsteps of nineteenth-century artists who celebrated the out-of-doors as a place of leisure, renewal, and inspiration, this exhibition explores horticultural developments that reshaped the landscape of France and grounded innovative movements—artistic and green—in an era that gave rise to Naturalism, Impressionism, and Art Nouveau. As shiploads of exotic botanical specimens arrived from abroad and local nurserymen pursued hybridization, the availability and variety of plants and flowers grew exponentially, as did the interest in them. The opening up of formerly royal properties and the transformation of Paris during the Second Empire into a city of tree-lined boulevards and parks introduced public green spaces to be enjoyed as open-air salons, while suburbanites and country-house dwellers were prompted to cultivate their own flower gardens. ... The important role of parks and gardens in French life during this period is richly illustrated by paintings, drawings, photographs, prints, illustrated books, and objects in The Met collection by artists extending from Camille Corot to Henri Matisse, many of whom were gardeners themselves. ..."
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art: Exhibition Galleries
Metropolitan Museum of Art: Related Videos (Video)
Habitually Chic
Metropolitan Museum of Art: Public Parks, Private Gardens: Paris to Provence

David Toop Is Still Seeking Out New Sounds

"During his life-long engagement with music, David Toop has taken a shot at just about everything. He started out wanting to be a rock star, a guitarslinger influenced by the rock & roll of the ’50s and the heavier, freer sounds emerging in the ’60s. He went some way towards achieving that dream, appearing on Top of the Pops in 1980, playing guitar with playful new-wave group The Flying Lizards. Somewhere along the way, however, Toop fell in love with the free improvised music emerging from London and he began making hauntingly beautiful music on Brian Eno’s Obscure Records, alongside Max Eastley, as well as releasing various recordings and collaborations on his own Quartz Editions label. And he wrote. The publication of Rap Attack in 1984, one of the first books to seriously examine the then-emergent musical style known as hip-hop, helped transform his career yet again. ..."
Red Bull Music (Video)

2009 October: David Toop, 2014 May: Mondo Black Chamber (2014), 2015 May: Ocean of Sound (1995), 2016 July: The Strange World Of… David Toop