The Specials: 10 of the best

Jerry Dammers with Specials fans in Paris, 1980.
"1 Gangsters. The itchy, restless energy of ska – reggae’s uptight, joyful ancestor – was a perfect complement to the dynamism of punk, as the Automatics discovered in 1977, when they began plying the mixture at pubs and clubs in their hometown of Coventry. But while the group soon cut a demo tape with an eye to getting a record deal, or at least some airtime on the John Peel Show (neither of which happened), it took the intervention of Clash manager Bernie Rhodes to bring Coventry’s finest to the wider world. By the time they appeared as support on the Clash’s On Parole tour in the summer of 1978 – an arrangement aided by singer Neville Staple’s supply of weed to Clash guitarist Mick Jones – the Automatics had renamed themselves the Coventry Automatics and then, finally, the Special AKA, and while their skanks drew more phlegm than applause from the Clash’s pogoing fanbase, they impressed Rhodes enough that he signed them as clients. As part of his plan to whip his new charges into road-ready shape, he shipped them off to France, on a character-building trip beset by disasters. ..."
Guardian (Video)
Guardian - Chalkie Davies’s best photograph: the Specials in Paris

2017 August: Too Much Pressure (1979)

Aftermath: Art in the wake of World War On

Edward Burra. The Snack Bar. 1930
"Marking the 100 years since the end of World War One, Aftermath: Art in the Wake of World War One looks at how artists responded to the physical and psychological scars left on Europe. Art was used in many ways in the tumultuous period after the end of the war, from documenting its destructive impact, to the building of public memorials and as a social critique. This fascinating and moving exhibition shows how artists reacted to memories of war in many ways. George Grosz and Otto Dix exposed the unequal treatment of disabled veterans in post-war society, Hannah Höch and André Masson were instrumental in the birth of new art forms dada and surrealism, Pablo Picasso and Winifred Knights returned to tradition and classicism, whilst others including Fernand Léger and C.R.W Nevinson produced visions of the city of the future as society began to rebuild itself. ..."
Tate
Tate: Edward Burra, The Snack Bar, 1930

Fragile but Fixable: The Collages of Deborah Roberts

"'Fragile but Fixable,' Deborah Roberts’s Los Angeles solo debut, is on view at Luis De Jesus through June 16. In her collages, Roberts takes found images of black women and girls and alters them with pigment and paint, manipulating the optics of advertisement to create new fictions of beauty. 'My art practice,' she writes, in her artist statement, 'takes on social commentary, critiquing perceptions of ideal beauty. Stereotypes and myths are challenged in my work; I create a dialogue between the ideas of inclusion, dignity, consumption, and subjectivity by addressing beauty in the form of the ideal woman.' ..."
The Paris Review
Deborah Roberts
Artsy

Metro and Tram Network of Marseille, France

"... This is my version of the tramway and metro network of Marseille, France. It is one of my recent maps and I have tried to give it a 80s look but I am not sure I got it right. Overall, it’s not necessarily a map for daily use but more an interpretation of the system. Transit Maps says: For a relatively simple network like Marseille’s (with just two Metro lines and three tram lines), a diagram like this is perfectly workable for daily use, Chris. It’s simple, clear and still retains a good sense of how the lines fit together spatially… perhaps with the exception of the way that the M1 Metro dips inside the T2 tram line between Réformés/Canebière and Cinq Avenues. In the end, the way you’ve shown it allows your labelling to remain consistent and all the stations are still in the right place, so it’s really not that big an issue. ..."
TransitMap
Urban Rail
W - Marseille tramway
YouTube: Tramway de Marseille, France

World Cup 2018 team previews: what you need to know about all 32 teams

"The 2018 World Cup might be missing some big nations, but that's what makes this tournament the best in sports. Brazil are looking to bounce back from a travesty in 2014, while Spain, Argentina and France are hoping to dethrone defending champions Germany and their typically deep squad. Can Belgium or Portugal make a splash? Do England have what it takes to challenge too? ESPN FC is previewing every team ahead of the opening game on June 14 in English, Spanish and Portuguese to give a truly global feel to our team profiles. Here's what you need to know about the 32 teams set to do battle in Russia beginning on June 14. ..."
ESPN

Van Morrison live at The London’s Rainbow Theatre on 24th July 1973

"The Caledonia Soul Orchestra was the band created by Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison in 1973. The band is often considered one of the tightest performing backup groups of the 1970s. The band was named after an eighteen minute instrumental outtake on the His Band and the Street Choir album. In 1973 Van Morrison and the Caledonia Soul Orchestra went on a three-month tour of the United States, and Europe with the result of which was the seminal live double album It’s Too Late to Stop Now. The title is taken from the last line in the lyrics in one of Morrison’s songs: 'Into the Mystic' from the 1970 Moondance album. In live performances with The Caledonia Soul Orchestra, he would close the concert with a dynamic, stretched out version of the Astral Weeks song, 'Cyprus Avenue' and then shout out 'IT’S TOO LATE TO STOP NOW!' as he quickly exited stage. ..."
Born To Listen (Video)
Dailymotion: Cyprus Avenue + Wild night

Bookstalls - Joseph Cornell (1930s)

"Bookstalls shows a young boy at the Paris bookstalls, dreaming of travel: dramatic sea voyages, tourists milling about, buying post cards. But we also see the day-to-day life of the Isle of Marken in this found footage; people forking hay and hanging the wash. There's a sharp cut, then, to an Asian country, and for a few moments before the return to Paris, there's the reality, again, of the dream of travel: a rice paddy being harvested, fields being cleared, no labor-saving devices. The bookstalls re-appear, and the boy is done with the fantasy. Within a few a dissolves, the boy seems to have grown into a young man. Cornell's travels through secondhand bookstores were vital to his art, but the film doesn't feel like Cornell's dream life; it feels more like a tentative exercise. Bookstalls is interesting in that its footage looks old and is thus clothed with a feeling of nostalgia. It is also interesting as an exercise in putting pieces of film together. A boy leafs through volumes at a Paris bookstall and he imagines faraway places. The whole film has a homely quality which is endearing. ..."
UbuWeb (Video)

2007 November: Joseph Cornell, 2011 April: Rose Hobart (1936), 2012 December: Joseph Cornell's Manual of Marvels, 2015 May: Joseph Cornell: Navigating The Imagination, 2016 January: Joseph Cornell: Worlds in a Box (1991).      2009 April:Stan Brakhage, 2011 December: Burial Path/The Process/The Machine of Eden, 2012 August: The Dante Quartet (1987) - Stan Brakhage, 2016 July: Gnir Rednow (1960) - Joseph Cornell / Stan Brakhage

Centrists Are the Most Hostile to Democracy, Not Extremists

A rally last September in Berlin for Martin Schulz, the Social Democrats’ candidate for German chancellor.
"The warning signs are flashing red: Democracy is under threat. Across Europe and North America, candidates are more authoritarian, party systems are more volatile, and citizens are more hostile to the norms and institutions of liberal democracy. These trends have prompted a major debate between those who view political discontent as economic, cultural or generational in origin. But all of these explanations share one basic assumption: The threat is coming from the political extremes. On the right, ethno-nationalists and libertarians are accused of supporting fascist politics; on the left, campus radicals and the so-called antifa movement are accused of betraying liberal principles. Across the board, the assumption is that radical views go hand in hand with support for authoritarianism, while moderation suggests a more committed approach to the democratic process. Is it true? Maybe not. My research suggests that across Europe and North America, centrists are the least supportive of democracy, the least committed to its institutions and the most supportive of authoritarianism. ..."
NY Times

Listen to the Stars

"This seven-minute performance video by State Azure focuses tight on a few modules in a larger synthesizer rig. There is no mess of spaghetti wires. There is a limited set of blinking lights. There is a single hand adjusting knobs on a single device. The accompanying liner note references some on-screen technical details, some off-screen support equipment, and some minor post-production activity. Otherwise, 'Starfall,' as the track is called, is just this: a blissfully thin expanse of near-static time, a live ambient performance in which a seeming hush is nudged into the foreground and left to sway slowly this way and that, to pause for a moment, to let little details linger. It’s the music of a planetarium after hours. The lights are simply from the music equipment, not the stars, and those are more than enough. This is the latest video I’ve added to my YouTube playlist of recommended live performances of ambient music. Video originally posted to State Azure’s YouTube channel. More at stateazure.bandcamp.com and soundcloud.com/state-azure. State Azure is based in the U.K."
disquieet (Video)

Boss Tenor - Gene Ammons (1960)

'Tenor saxophonist Gene Ammons' tone can be best described using the qualities of an ideally brewed cup of joe: rounded, bold, smooth, and exhilarating after first taste. Widely regarded as an original founder of the "Chicago school of tenor sax,' Ammons' nonchalant, yet indelible sound—echoing the soft, breathy tone of Lester Young—drove him to a great deal of fame within the post- World War II jazz crowds of the '50s. Ammons, famously nicknamed 'Jug,' had an inherent ability to cultivate new emotion within any obsolete standard, stemming from his signature timbre that was steeped in the blues, gospel, and R&B. Renowned for his versatility, Ammons was well-versed in the bebop tradition, yet greatly influenced the marketable 'soul jazz' movement of the '60s. ..."
All About Jazz
W - Boss Tenor
Discogs
amazon
NPR - Gene Ammons: Boss Tenor Sax
YouTube: Boss Tenor 8 videos

Counter Intelligence: NYC

"From the East River to the Pacific Coast, the map of America is dotted by record stores – some famous, some wildly obscure. On Counter Intelligence, RBMA Radio gets the stories of these storefronts straight from the personalities who run them, soundtracked by their signature records. This week, our episodes focus on shops based in New York City. In advance of their premiere on RBMA Radio, we sent Maxwell Schiano to document each one. ... Other Music – a fiercely independent record shop smack in the middle of one of downtown Manhattan’s most gentrified neighborhoods – has occasionally felt like the sole survivor of a bygone era of the New York music world. When a tiny brick-and-mortar sits right across the street from Tower Records and manages to outlast it by at least ten years, it can feel practically eternal. And few shops are as reliably bustling as this East 4th Street storefront. The specter of rising rents and the music industry’s shift away from physical releasing are finally catching up with Other Music, and at the end of June, the shop will end its two-decade run. Beloved for its deep commitment to a wide range of underground styles, Other Music has helped break bands like Animal Collective and Vampire Weekend, and putting obscurities from Japan, Brazil, France and beyond into wider circulation. Listen in on Friday, as we hear their story."
Red Bull Music Academy Daily

Robert Rauschenberg’s 34 Illustrations of Dante’s Inferno (1958-60)

"Perhaps more than any other postwar avant-garde American artist, Robert Rauschenberg matched, and maybe exceeded, Marcel Duchamp’s puckish irreverence. He once bought a Willem de Kooning drawing just to erase it and once sent a telegram declaring that it was a portrait of gallerist Iris Clert, 'if I say so.' Rauschenberg also excelled at turning trash into treasure, repurposing the detritus of modern life in works of art both playful and serious, continuing to 'address major themes of worldwide concern,' wrote art historian John Richardson in a 1997 Vanity Fair profile, 'by utilizing technology in ever more imaginative and inventive ways…. Rauschenberg is a painter of history—the history of now rather than then.' What, then, possessed this artist of the 'history of now' to take on a series of drawings between 1958 and 1960 illustrating each Canto of Dante’s Inferno? 'Perhaps he sensed a kindred spirit in Dante,' writes Gregory Gilbert at The Art Newspaper, 'that encouraged his vernacular interpretations of the classical text and his radical mixing of high and low cultures.' ..."
Open Culture

2018 Giro d'Italia

Wikipedia - "The 2018 Giro d'Italia is the 101st edition of the Giro d'Italia, one of cycling's Grand Tour races. The Giro started in Jerusalem on 4 May with a 9.7 km (6 mi) individual time trial, followed by two additional stages in Israel. After a rest day, there will be 18 further stages in Italy to reach the finish in Rome on 27 May. The 2018 Giro d'Italia Israel start also paid tribute to Italian cyclist, Gino Bartali, a three-time winner of the Giro d’Italia. Bartali helped rescue hundreds of Italian Jews during the Holocaust and was recognized by Yad Vashem in 2013 as Righteous Among the Nations. ... The 21-day race began with a 10-kilometer time trial in Jerusalem, a 167-kilometer race from Haifa to Tel Aviv and a 229-kilometer race from Beersheba to Eilat. They were the first stages of any Grand Tour event ever that have been held outside Europe. ..."
Wikipedia
W - Giro d'Italia
Discover the route of the Giro d'Italia 2018! Select a stage and see the details
Guardian: Giro d'Italia
Cycling News (Video)

2008 July: Tour de France 2008, 2009 July: Tour de France 2009, 2010 July: Tour de France 2010,  2011 July: Tour de France 2011, 2012 July: 2012 Tour de France, 2015 July: 2015 Tour de France, 2015 July: Tour de France 2015: Team Time Trial Win Bolsters American’s Shot at Podium, 2015 July: Tour de France: Chris Froome completes historic British win, 2016 July: 2016 Tour de France, 2017 July: 2017 Tour de France

A Most Violent Year

"It was neither the best nor the worst of times. But in contrast to the relative placidity of the 1950s, the events of 1968 opened up previously unimaginable vistas to people all across the globe. 'We knew about the Paris commune,' the surrealist artist Jean-Jacques Lebel tells Mitchell Abidor in May Made Me, a new collection of oral histories of that year. 'This was going to happen again' in May 1968, he had felt. 'So you could have the near orgasmic joy of taking part in something much greater than yourself.' The protests began with calls for an end to same-sex dormitories at French universities and quickly developed into a general strike involving some 10 million workers from every segment of French society. By the end of that year, students and, to a lesser degree, workers in nearly every part of the world would rise up. The spirit of 1968 was not merely political. Simultaneously individualist and collectivist, as well as both sober and psychedelic, it was cultural, economic, sexual, hedonistic, spiritual, and transcendental. In a few of its more crucial aspects, it was a wild success. Two 68ers—Jack Straw in Britain and Joschka Fischer in Germany—became foreign secretaries of their countries. The women’s movement, galvanized in large part by the unrelenting male chauvinism of 1968’s leaders, intervened in history, as did movements for racial and ethnic equality. Protests against the war in Vietnam played a role, however indirectly, in ending it. Soviet-style communism did, eventually, topple. Universities were transformed, as was, for a brief moment in time, the Catholic Church. Conscription ended. Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix changed music. ..."
New Republic

In August 1968, Warsaw Pact tanks invaded Czechoslovakia, putting an end to Alexander Dubček's reforms.

The Greatest Refreshment By Janet Flanner

Janet Flanner and Ernest Hemingway at Deux Magots Café in Paris, 1945.
"It is now more than a half century since Paris for the first time began to be included in the memories of a small contingent of youngish American expatriates, richer than most in creative ambition and rather modest in purse. For the most part, we had recently shipped, third class, to France across the Atlantic. We had settled in the small hotels on the Left Bank near the Place Saint-Germain-des-Prés, itself perfectly equipped with a large corner café called Les Deux Magots and an impressive twelfth-century Romanesque church with a small garden of old trees, from whose branches the metropolitan blackbirds sang at dawn, audible to me in my bed close by in the Rue Bonaparte. Though unacquainted with one another, as compatriots we soon discovered our chance similarity. We were a literary lot. Each of us aspired to become a famous writer as soon as possible. After the New York publication of Ernest Hemingway’s 'The Sun Also Rises,' he was the first one to touch fame. As I look back on the stir created by his individual style of writing, what stands out in my memory is the fact that his heroes, like Ernest himself, were of outsize masculinity even in small matters. In a letter he wrote to me, he said that he liked to hunt because he liked to kill. ..."
New Yorker

The Hot New Millennial Housing Trend Is a Repeat of the Middle Ages

A contemporary illustration of a 14th-century dormitory
"For most of human history, people were hunter-gatherers. They lived in large camps, depending on one another for food, childcare, and everything else—all without walls, doors, or picket fences. In comparison, the number of people living in most households in today’s developed countries is quite small. According to the Census Bureau, fewer than three people lived in the average American household in 2010. The members of most American households can be counted on one hand, or even, increasingly, one finger: Single-person households only made up about 13 percent of all American households in 1960. Now, that figure is about 28 percent. ..."
The Atlantic
W - Hunter-gatherer

Why Do Some Parts of New York Have So Many Subways While Others Have None?

"The New York City Subway is the lifeblood of the city, yet it seems perpetually embroiled in crisis; though it’s currently caught in a terrible backlog of deferred maintenance, the city can’t function without it, as the mounting panic over next year’s L train shutdown makes clear. Yet as a circulatory system, it leaves certain limbs significantly undernourished. Why was there only one line for the whole East Side of Manhattan until the Second Avenue line finally opened last year? Why does the G train wind so lonely and awkwardly from Brooklyn to Queens? Why are the Downtown Brooklyn lines such a chaotic thicket of difficult transfers, while other densely populated parts of the borough, like East Flatbush, are devoid of service? The answers are embedded in the subway’s historic origins. While you may know that the subway opened in 1904, that’s not the whole picture. .... Some of those elevated lines — including parts of the M and J/Z in Brooklyn and Queens — are still in use today. And those vanished lines are crucial for understanding why today’s subway system goes where it goes — and why its gaps are where they are. ..."
Voice

Nancy Baker, described in the original Daily News caption as a ‘pretty Manhattanite’ who ‘appears perplexed while studying subway map of new routes,’ peruses the latest iteration of the MTA map after the opening of the Christie Street Connection in 1967.

Farsi Funk, Bosphorus Beats

"A few months ago on a lazy Sunday afternoon, as I was strolling down the quirky fashion drag that is Toronto’s Queen Street, I spotted something in the corner of my eye that seemed just ever so slightly out of context. Stopping for a moment, I looked into the display window of a trendy vinyl store, and eyed there amongst the colourful sleeves of obscure folk and rock albums the word Zendooni (Persian for ‘Prisoner’) in garish yellow lettering above a conspicuously Iranian-looking woman in a field of sunflowers; Funk, psychedelia and pop from the Iranian pre-revolution generation read the description. Lacking a record player, I immediately looked up the album on the Internet upon arriving at home (after enjoying a dose of coffee and pre-Revolution Iranian pop art at nearby R², of course), and discovered that it was yet another pressing by the American record label Light in the Attic, which had previously released albums in a similar vein such as Khana Khana!, as well as a formidable compilation of hits by the Iranian rocker Kourosh Yaghmaei and a previously unreleased selection of songs by the hitherto unknown Tehran-based garage band The Jokers. ..."
Reorient (Video)
Soundcloud: Turkish 70s Groovy Funk, Psychedelic Rock on Vinyl, Turkish 70's Groovy Funk, Psychedelic Rock on Vinyl (Part II)
YouTube: Turkish 70s Groovy Funk, Psychedelic Rock on Vinyl, Turkish 70's Groovy Funk, Psychedelic Rock on Vinyl (Part II)

2017 August: March selection - Ceints de Bakélite, 2018 February: Before And After Bandits: Marc Hollander Of Aksak Maboul & Crammed Discs

Aude White

NY Times: A Love Letter to Italo Calvino, and to New York City
"Aude White is a full-time publicist and some-time artist and writer living in Brooklyn. More of her work is available here. ..."
Aude White - About
Aude White
the cut
The Clothes You Inherit From Your Exes
Instagram

Time Regained - Marcel Proust (1927)

Wikipedia - "Volume Seven: Time Regained - The Narrator is staying with Gilberte at her home near Combray. They go for walks, on one of which he is stunned to learn the Méséglise way and the Guermantes way are actually linked. Gilberte also tells him she was attracted to him when young, and had made a suggestive gesture to him as he watched her. Also, it was Lea she was walking with the evening he had planned to reconcile with her. He considers Saint-Loup's nature and reads an account of the Verdurins' salon, deciding he has no talent for writing. The scene shifts to a night in 1916, during World War I, when the Narrator has returned to Paris from a stay in a sanatorium and is walking the streets during a blackout. He reflects on the changed norms of art and society, with the Verdurins now highly esteemed. He recounts a 1914 visit from Saint-Loup, who was trying to enlist secretly. He recalls descriptions of the fighting he subsequently received from Saint-Loup and Gilberte, whose home was threatened. ... À la recherche made a decisive break with the 19th century realist and plot-driven novel, populated by people of action and people representing social and cultural groups or morals. Although parts of the novel could be read as an exploration of snobbism, deceit, jealousy and suffering and although it contains a multitude of realistic details, the focus is not on the development of a tight plot or of a coherent evolution but on a multiplicity of perspectives and on the formation of experience. ... The significance of what is happening is often placed within the memory or in the inner contemplation of what is described. This focus on the relationship between experience, memory and writing and the radical de-emphasizing of the outward plot, have become staples of the modern novel but were almost unheard of in 1913. ..."
Wikipedia
In Search of Lost Time - characters, resources, video, translations (Video)
amazon

2008 June: Marcel Proust, 2011 October: How Proust Can Change Your Life, 2012 April: Marcel Proust - À la recherche du temps perdu, 2013 February: Marcel Proust and Swann's Way: 100th Anniversary, 2013 May: A Century of Proust, 2013 August: Paintings in Proust - Eric Karpeles, 2013 October: On Reading Proust, 2015 September: "Paintings in Proust" - View of the Piazza del Popolo, Giovanni Battista Piranes, 2015 September: In Search of Lost Time: Swann's Way: A Graphic Novel, 2016 January: In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower (1919), 2016 February: Chasing Lost Time: The Life of C.K. Scott Moncrieff: Soldier, Spy and Translator, 2016 May: The Guermantes Way (1920-21), 2016 August: Marcel Proust’s Search for Lost Time — Patrick Alexander, 2016 October: My Strange Friend Marcel Proust, 2017 March: Sodom and Gomorrah (1921-1922), 2017 August: Letters To His Neighbor by Marcel Proust; translated by Lydia Davis, October: Proust's À la recherche – a novel big enough for the world, 2017 October: Proust Fans Eagerly Await Trove of Letters Going Online, 2017 December: The Prisoner / The Fugitive (1923-1925)

Tarheel Slim - No Time At All (1974)

"Success for a black musician is very often a fleeting thing, though a single hit can often carry an artist for some period of time. In 1959 there was a record on the R&B charts for nearly ten weeks . . . made it into the black top twenty . . . entitled 'It’s Too Late'; artists – Tarheel Slim and Little Ann. It was a minor key blues, with each singing alternate verses. In spite of subsequent recordings, they never matched the sales levels attained by their first effort for a small NYC record label. Work was available on the strength of that one record, and jobs continued into the mid-sixties, but without further hits, it was a downhill spiral. Tarheel Slim was born Alden Bunn in Bailey, N.C. (near Wilson and Rocky Mount) when he got his first guitar – attracted to it by the musicians he’d see playing In the streets whenever his mother would take him to town (they included Gary Davis, who sold Slim his first Natlonal in 1943!) It was these musicians, coupled with his major recorded influence, Blind Boy Fuller (others were Big Bill, and Buddy Moss) that got him going. His mother would buy every Fuller record as it was issued, and this helped him form his guitar style. (Fuller came once to the Rocky Mount area, but Slim missed him – a later area appearance was cancelled due to Fuller’s illness and subsequent death.) ..."
TRIX 3310 – Tarheel Slim: “No Time At All”
Discogs
amazon
YouTube: Some cold, rainy day, So Sweet So Sweet
YouTube: No time at all 56:36
 
2017 July: Tarheel Slim & Little Ann

The Jam - Peel Session

"THE PEEL SESSIONS is an excellent aural snapshot of the seminal first-generation English punk trio. Recorded for the BBC in April of 1977, just after the release of their debut record, this live-in-the-studio recording for legendary UK DJ John Peel's show captures the Jam storming their way through a short set (including three tunes that would show up on their second album) in their best baby-Who style. Very exciting, and incredibly atmospheric--the energy of the era almost seems to function as a fourth band member."
allmusic
YouTube: Peel Session 1977: In The City, Art School, I've Changed My Address, Modern World, Peel Session 1977: All Around The World, London Girl, Bricks And Mortar, Carnaby Street, Peel Session 1979: Thick As Thieves, The Eton Rifles, When You're Young, Saturday's Kids

2009 March: The Jam, 2012 November: "Going Underground", 2013 January: In the City, 2013 February: This Is the Modern World, 2013 July: All Mod Cons, 2013 November: Setting Sons, 2014 January: Sound Affects (1980), 2014 December: Live At Bingley Hall, Birmingham, England 1982, 2015 March: "Town Called Malice" / "Precious", 2015 September: "Strange Town" / "The Butterfly Collector" (1979), 2016 April: "Down In The Tube Station At Midnight" (1979), 2017 January: Absolute Beginners EP (1981), 2017 March: David Watts / "A" Bomb In Wardour Street (1978), 2017 December: The Gift (1982)

Gimme Shelters, Manhattan

The plan to turn the Park Savoy Hotel in Midtown Manhattan into a men's homeless shelter has drawn a range of reactions.
"In the August heat two years ago, residents of Maspeth, Queens, learned of a homeless shelter planned for their neighborhood and erupted in fury, unleashing a campaign of vulgar, racially tinged protests. Maspeth residents picketed a hotel being used as a shelter, spewing hate as homeless children sat inside. They voted the local councilwoman, Elizabeth Crowley, out of office, replacing her with the man who had led their crusade. They shouted down Steven Banks, commissioner of the city’s Human Resources Administration, as he appealed to their sense of compassion during a community meeting, then took their protest to the doorstep of his Brooklyn home. 'Leave Maspeth Alone!' some of their signs read. 'Maspeth Lives Matter!' The city ultimately surrendered. Now, a similar battle is unfolding in the heart of Midtown Manhattan, as residents fight a men’s shelter the city plans to open in the now-shuttered Park Savoy Hotel. The site, on West 58th Street, is one of 90 that Mayor Bill de Blasio has said he will open as part of a yearslong plan. In Maspeth, a mostly white, blue-collar area of Queens, the news of a homeless shelter was met with something barely short of a riot. ..."
NY Times
NY Post: A homeless shelter is coming to Billionaires’ Row

Cecil Taylor (1929-2018), Frank O’Hara, Amiri Baraka

"When the groundbreaking avant-garde jazz pianist and composer Cecil Taylor died last month, there was an outpouring of obituaries and tributes to his genius and influence.  But there was less attention paid to Taylor’s connections to the literary world, and to avant-garde poetry — including his links to New York poets during the 1950s and 1960s — than one might have expected. It’s true that Taylor’s friend and rival, Ornette Coleman — who is often seen, alongside Taylor, as one of the co-founders of free jazz – may have had more extensive contact and social ties than Taylor himself with the poets of the New York School, as I discussed after Coleman died in 2015. But Taylor, who was also a poet, first emerged in the same New York scene, rubbing elbows with poets like Frank O’Hara and Amiri Baraka, and playing some of his earliest gigs at the Five Spot (the legendary jazz club that serves as the site of Frank O’Hara’s famous elegy for Billie Holiday and was a hangout for the downtown, bohemian, literary set).  And he really read (and wrote) the stuff: thanks in part to Baraka, Taylor began to read deeply in the work of poets associated with the 'New American Poetry,' like Charles Olson, Robert Creeley, Robert Duncan, Michael McClure, and Bob Kaufman. ..."
Locus Solus: The New York School of Poets
YouTube: Les grandes répétitions by Cecil Taylor (France) 44:48

2018 April: RIP, Cecil Taylor (1929-2018), May 1018: Jazz Advance (1956)

Zone to Defend (ZAD)

La Boite Noir (the Black Box), one of the cabins destroyed.
Wikipedia - "The expression Zone to Defend or ZAD (French: zone à défendre) is a French neologism used to refer to a militant occupation that is intended to physically blockade a development project. The ZADs are organized particularly in areas with an ecological or agricultural dimension, notably in the permanent blockade village against an airport in Notre-Dame-des-Landes. However the name has also been used by occupations in urban areas, e.g.: in Rouen, in Décines-Charpieu. One of the movement's first slogans was 'ZADs everywhere' and though there are no official figures, in early 2016 there were estimated to have been between 10 and 15 ZADs across France. The acronym 'ZAD' is a détournement of 'deferred development area' (from French: 'zone d'aménagement différé'). In 2015, the French term 'zadiste' (English: Zadist) entered the 2016 edition of Le Petit Robert dictionary as 'a militant occupying a ZAD to oppose a proposed development that would damage the environment.' Appearing in France in the early 2010s, the term was first popularized during the opposition to the airport construction project in Notre-Dame-des-Landes, north of Nantes. The ZAD movement has its origins in challenging large infrastructure projects in defense of the environment, local people's right to decide the future of their territories (at the price, if necessary, of conflict with state power) and the rejection of the capitalist economy. ... In April 2018, there was another attempt to evict the ZADists of the Notre-Dame-des-Landes commune by police with at least 2500 riot police on the scene. The evacuation began April 9th and officialy finished the 13th April with the destruction of 29 squats on 97, but the police is still deployed to secure the roads on the April 23rd. ..."
Wikipedia
ROAR: The revenge against the commons of the ZAD
Verso Archive of Zad
“Everything’s coming together while everything’s falling apart: The ZAD” - Nov 7, 2017 (Video) 36:34

Evictions begin, robocops invade the bocage.

A map of the common projects of the ZAD. (March 2018)

Outliers and American Vanguard

"Anyone interested in American modernism should see 'Outliers and American Vanguard Art' at the National Gallery of Art. Flaws and all, this groundbreaking adventure highlights outstanding, sometimes rarely-seen artworks; revives neglected histories; and reframes the contributions of self-taught artists to this country’s rich visual culture. In recent decades the greatness of these marginalized artists has become increasingly undeniable — whether you call their work folk, primitive, amateur, naïve or, lately, outsider — and demands have gotten louder to include them in a more flexible integrated version of modernism. The show’s predecessors include ambitious surveys like 'Parallel Visions: Modern Artists and Outsider Art' at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1993 and 'The Encyclopedic Palace of the World,' at the 2013 Venice Biennale. But 'Outliers' is different. Limiting its scope to American art, it tries to map the intersections of taught and untaught over the last century, examining not only the place of self-taught art now but how it got here. 'Outliers' represents some five years of meticulous research by Lynne Cooke, senior curator for special projects in modern art at the National Gallery. It is extensive: about 280 artworks by 84 artists — and Ms. Cooke has organized them chronologically, in three sections. ..."
NY Times: A Groundbreaking Show Presents a New, Inclusive Vision of American Art
NGA: American Self-Taught and Avant-Garde Art Explored in Major Traveling Exhibition Organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington
When Artists Move from the Margins to the Center
amazon

Works from the 1968 to 1992 period include, forefront, John Outterbridge’s “Captive Image #1” from 1971-72. And clockwise from far left: Mr. Outterbridge’s “Captive Image #4” (circa 1974-76); Betye Saar’s “Sambo’s Banjo” (1975); and “Untitled” (1976) from Senga Nengudi.

Remembering Tom Wolfe, One of the Central Makers of Modern American Prose

"Tom Wolfe, who died Monday, was—as even those of us who did not share his politics and often deplored his taste and even doubted the fashion wisdom of all the white suits have to admit—one of the central makers of modern American prose. His style, when it emerged, in the mid-nineteen-sixties, was genuinely arresting, and remains startlingly original. Its superficial affect—all those 'Zowies!' and ellipses and broken sentences—was like the sound of AM radio shows in the same period, a collage of attention-seeking screams. But beneath the affectations—no, within them, for, as with any good writer, the mannerisms were the bearers of the morality—was an observer of almost eerie particularity and accuracy. In his best books — 'The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test' and 'The Right Stuff' stand out from among many good ones — Wolfe did something more than get down his time right, as journalists ought to. He found a tone to match the time. Given an American reality of wild-eyed weirdness and psychedelic overcharge—of strip-tease artists bent over by synthetic breasts and cars customized to a point of Bavarian, rococo extravagance—any tone that was not, in itself, overcharged and even a little rococo seemed, he knew, inert. ..."
New Yorker
The Atlantic: The Lexicon of Tom Wolfe
NY Times: Tom Wolfe, ‘New Journalist’ With Electric Style and Acid Pen, Dies at 88
The Paris Review: Tom Wolfe, The Art of Fiction No. 123
W - Tom Wolfe
Tom Wolfe
amazon - Tom Wolfe

Tour May’s Sky: Venus Welcomes Jupiter

The planet Venus is unmistakably bright in the west after sunset. On May 17–18, it's joined by a thin crescent Moon.
"This month's astronomy podcast tells you how to use Venus and the Big Dipper to find many bright stars and constellations. Meanwhile, Jupiter lurks low in the east after darkness falls. During most of this month, the Sun doesn’t set until nearly 8 o’clock, so it’s not really dark until well after dinnertime. And you might even need lightweight long-sleeved clothing or some bug spray to ward off the season’s first wave of insects. But there's always plenty to see in the night sky after the Sun goes down, and May is no exception. Look for hard-to-miss Venus low in the west as darkness falls.You can use Venus to identify several bright stars in its part of the sky. This month's astronomy podcast tells you how to do that — and you'll learn their names too! The Big Dipper is another easy-to-find benchmark in the evening skies of May. ..."
Sky & Telescope (Audio)

A Not So Brief History of Electro

Kraftwerk - Computer Love (1981)
"The genre of electro is as lovable as it is difficult to pin down. The word "electro", sometimes called "electrofunk," describes a wide breadth of electronic music sounds with more or less the same origins. While it took many forms inside the U.S. and eventually internationally, its most steadfast features are groundshaking TR-808 percussion in swift, syncopated patterns and motifs that often invoke technology and ponder the future. By my count, electro first appeared in 1981 and was nothing less than the harbinger of hip-hop and techno, created largely by African-Americans artists and often inspired by European, synth-focused records. It's had a long and fruitful evolution since, seeing occasional resurgences in popularity among DJs and producers while some staunch supporters hold on throughout peaks and valleys. With its recent return to the spotlight on dancefloors and in new release bins, it seems especially worthwhile to examine the history of this portentous genre. ..."
Reverb LP (Video)

Rorschach Audio: Glenn Branca Discusses Reading, Writing & Volume

"'It's like a lot of people fucking jerking off, is what it sounds like to me.' Suffice to say, Glenn Branca is not a fan of improvised music. Not, at least, of improvisation 'the way it's done now,' what he calls 'this Zorn-ish kind of free improv.' We're sat in the darkened breakfast bar of a chain hotel just beyond the Parisian périphérique. Branca, sixty-four years old with greying hair swept back and a slight cloudiness to his eyes suggestive of incipient cataracts, wears a heavy black jacket with half a dozen different pens in the breast pocket. A twilight blue scarf hangs down across a green jumper in rough-hewn wool. The former guitarist in no wave bands Theoretical Girls and The Static, turned composer of epic electric guitar orchestras that once featured the young Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo, wears his black shirt with the collar popped up. 'When free improvisation first broke out – ' he doesn't so much speak as growl, a throaty east coast drawl with a nicotine rasp like a traction engine ' – mainly starting with Coltrane. I mean, really free improvisation – ' his fingers, usually steepled on the table in front of him, briefly extricate themselves to gesture a little theatrically, shades of the actor he once was, ' – it was interesting,' he concedes, somewhat philosophically. ..."
The Quietus (Video)
NY Times - Remembering Glenn Branca: Hear 10 of His Essential Works (Video)
Guardian - Glenn Branca: punk composer who turned minimalism maximal (Video)
Discogs
W - Glenn Branca

A Democratic Spring: 12 Left Challengers Taking On the Party Establishment in 2018

"The shock of Donald Trump’s election inspired an organized, determined resistance on many fronts and in many forms. One could be called a 'democratic spring': a long-germinating rebellion within the Democratic Party that gained strength with Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential bid and might just save the withered institution from itself. The Left has sprouted an independent electoral infrastructure, including the formation of new groups like Our Revolution, Justice Democrats, Indivisible and Brand New Congress; the invigoration of existing political organizations like the Working Families Party; and a shift toward greater electoral engagement by groups like People’s Action and the Democratic Socialists of America. Another trend, propelled by Trump’s grotesque misogyny and the emergence of the #MeToo movement, is a surge in the number of women running for office. As of mid-April, 331 women had filed to run, easily beating the old record of 298, set in 2012. Of those, Democrats outnumber Republicans 248 to 83. ..."
In These Times

Jasper Johns Still Doesn’t Want to Explain His Art

Mr. Johns, in his studio, turned a painting-in-progress away from the camera.
"LOS ANGELES — Not long ago, Jasper Johns, who is now 87 and widely regarded as America’s foremost living artist, was reminiscing about his childhood in small-town South Carolina. One day when he was in the second grade, a classmate named Lottie Lou Oswald misbehaved and was summoned to the front of the room. As the teacher reached for a wooden ruler and prepared to paddle her, Lottie Lou grabbed the ruler from the teacher’s hand and broke it in half. Her classmates were stunned. 'It was absolutely wonderful,' Mr. Johns told me, appearing to relish the memory of the girl’s defiance. A ruler, an instrument of the measured life, had become an accessory to rebellion. I thought of the anecdote the other day in Los Angeles, at the Broad museum’s beautiful retrospective, 'Jasper Johns: Something Resembling Truth.' Coincidentally or not, several of the paintings in the show happen to have rulers affixed to their surfaces. It would be foolish, of course, to view Mr. Johns’s story about the brazen schoolgirl and the broken ruler as the source for those paintings. But is it fair to describe the anecdote as a haunting, an experience that lodged deeply in his brain while a thousand others were promptly forgotten? ..."
NY Times
The Broad: Jasper Johns 'Something Resembling Truth'
W - Jasper Johns

“Untitled” (2016) is the most recent painting in the show and includes one of Mr. Johns’s recurring images of a ruler.

Trilogie de la Mort - Eliane Radigue (1988-1993)

"'Trilogie de la Mort' is considered to be Eliane Radigue's masterpiece. Created between 1988 and 1993 It comprises three hour-long compositions influenced by the Tibetan book of the dead, or the Bardo Thodol, following the cycle of life-death through the six stages of conscience and beyond. Completed in 1988, the first chapter 'Kyema' deals with 'Immediate States' intended to evoke the 'existential continuity' of the being: Kyene (birth), Milam (dream), Samtem (contemplation, meditation), Chikai (death), Chönye (clear light), Sippai (crossing and return). Following the death of her son in a car accident, in 1991 Eliane finished 'Kailasha', drawing inspiration from the paradoxical logic of Escher's interlocking images, and is also symbolic of an imaginary journey around the most sacred of the Himalyan mountains, Mount Kailash, which is considered as a path to other spheres of existence. The cycle completes in 1993 with 3rd chapter, 'Koume', realized at the digitally equipped Studio CIRM in Nice, a marked change from Eliane's previously all analogue techniques. Collected, these are works of profound and intensely focussed beauty intended for deep listening."
Boomkat (Audio)
Éliane Radigue: The Mysterious Power Of The Infinitesimal (Video)
W - Eliane Radigue
Discogs
amazon: Trilogie de la Mort
YouTube: Kyema, Kailasha, Koumé

Paris 1971

New York Film Festival

Wikipedia - "The New York Film Festival (NYFF) is an annual film festival held every autumn in New York City, presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center (FSLC). Founded in 1963 by Richard Roud and Amos Vogel with the support of Lincoln Center president William Schuman, it is one of the longest-running and most prestigious film festivals in the United States. The non-competitive festival is centered around a 'Main Slate' of typically 20-30 feature films, with sidebars for experimental cinema and retrospectives, and recently introduced documentary and trans-media sections. Programming is led by a rotating Selection Committee, chaired by the Director of the New York Film Festival, with many committee members remaining from year to year. Separate committees and individuals program the short film, experimental, and trans-media sections. ..."
Wikipedia
New York Film Festival
NY Times: New York Film Festival Is a Feast for True Believers

The Many Deaths of Punk

"Hard-coded into punk’s DNA is a contradiction worthy of Hegel: A desire to impact the mainstream combined with a disavowal of anything that achieves success. It’s a perfect formula for self-destruction. This core tension has prevented punk from achieving its highest ideals, and has caused the movement to die out several times over. Both Hegel and Fichte could appreciate this self-defeating, 'thesis versus antithesis' dynamic. On the one hand, since the 1970s, punk has optimistically aspired to influence the direction of culture – not just underground subculture, but the actual direction of culture at large. At its most aspirational, punk has indeed wanted to change the world. But embedded within this aspiration is a self-destruct button. ..."
souciant