Lester Young - The Jazz Giants '56 (1956)

"Even critics who feel (against the recorded evidence to the contrary) that little of tenor saxophonist Lester Young's postwar playing is at the level of his earlier performances make an exception for this session. Young was clearly inspired by the other musicians (trumpeter Roy Eldridge, trombonist Vic Dickenson, pianist Teddy Wilson, guitarist Freddie Green, bassist Gene Ramey, and drummer Jo Jones), who together made for a very potent band of swing all-stars. The five songs on this album include some memorable renditions of ballads and a fine version of 'You Can Depend on Me,' but it is the explosive joy of the fiery 'Gigantic Blues' that takes honors. This set, a real gem, is highly recommended. "
allmusic
W - The Jazz Giants '56
W - Lester Young
Discogs
amazon
YouTube: The Jazz Giants 56 5 videos

Jannis of Jakarta Records Shares His 'Arabic 60s/70s Vinyl Mix Part. 2'

"Jannis Stürtz, the co-founder of Cologne-based label Jakarta Records, delivers nearly 40 minutes of vintage music in his Arabic 60s/70s Vinyl Mix Part. 2. Comprising songs that he discovered while touring North Africa with Blitz The Ambassador and participating in Tunisian studio sessions with Oddisee for the Sawtuha compilation, the energetic mix blasts funk-heavy sounds from Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Syria, Lebanon and Egypt and features artists like Lebanese arranger Elias Rahbani and the late Egyptian composer Baligh Hamdi. As Stürtz explains on the soundcloud page for Arabic 60s/70s Vinyl Mix Part. 2, 'while being there I did some digging and found some incredible music from the 60s and 70s. Some of the music in this mix has zero info on the net, was never sold on eBay and has not been 'rediscovered' yet. Others are somewhat classics in the field of arabic groove.' The lack of information is almost refreshing, though, and Arabic 60s/70s Vinyl Mix Part. 2 itself is often electric and entrancing. Listen to it below."
Okay Africa (Audio)
Soundcloud (Audio)

Black Fire: An Anthology of Afro-American Writing (1968)

"While many texts are readily available chronicling the Black Power Movement, the same cannot be said for its 'aesthetic and spiritual sister,' the Black Arts Movement. Black Fire: An Anthology of Afro-American Writing is a rare exception that documents and captures the social and cultural turmoil of the period. Amiri Baraka and Larry Neal, co-editors and contributors to this volume, saw Black Fire as a manifesto to bring about change in Black thought and action, generated from a Black aesthetic. Often considered the seminal work from the Black Arts Movement, Black Fire is a rich anthology and an extraordinary source document, presenting 178 selections of poetry, essays, short stories and plays from cultural critics, literary artists and political leaders. ..."
Africa World
ChickenBones: A Journal - Black Fire: An Anthology of Afro-American Writing
amazon

Taxi Driver - Martin Scorsese (1976)

Wikipedia - "Taxi Driver is a 1976 American neo-noir psychological thriller film directed by Martin Scorsese, written by Paul Schrader, and starring Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Cybill Shepherd, Harvey Keitel, Peter Boyle, Albert Brooks and Leonard Harris. Set in New York City following the Vietnam War, the film tells the story of a lonely veteran (De Niro) working as a taxi driver, who falls for a presidential campaign worker (Shepherd) and befriends an underage prostitute (Foster). Driven insane by the corruption that surrounds him, he plots to assassinate the former's candidate (Harris) and the latter's pimp (Keitel) in the hope of becoming a savior to them and the city. Critically acclaimed upon release and nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Taxi Driver won the Palme d'Or at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival. It is regularly cited by critics, film directors, and audiences alike as one of the greatest films of all time. ..."
Wikipedia
Approaching Menace: The American Pathology of Martin Scorsese’s ‘Taxi Driver’
Open Culture: Robert De Niro’s Taxi Cab License Used to Prepare for Taxi Driver (1976)
Scene Stealers: Martin Scorsese in Taxi Driver (Video)
'Taxi Driver' Oral History: De Niro, Scorsese, Foster, Schrader Spill All on 40th Anniversary
YouTube: Taxi Driver (1976) - [Official Trailer HD]

What Is Socialist Feminism? - Barbara Ehrenreich

"Barbara Ehrenreich’s essay 'What Is Socialist Feminism?' first appeared in WIN Magazine in 1976 and, subsequently, the New American Movement’s Working Papers on Socialism & Feminism. The introduction below is new, written by Ehrenreich for this republication. While Ehrenreich has several quibbles with her original essay — as she details in her prefatory notes below — we’re very pleased to republish it at a moment when more and more people are being exposed to socialist and feminist politics for the first time. ..."
Jacobin

Dele Sosimi ‎– You No Fit Touch Am (2015)

"... Wah Wah 45s are very proud to present the first full-length album in almost a decade from vocalist, keyboard player, Fela Kuti collaborator and afrobeat legend, Dele Sosimi! You No Fit Touch Am represents where Dele is today – something of an untouchable force in the music scene that he has always been such a vital part of. The title is an uncompromising message that this man means business, and with his mammoth afrobeat orchestra on board that is definitely the case. Recorded at the Fish Market Studios in North-West London by Benedic Lamdin (AKA Nostalgia 77) the album provides a musical representation of Dele’s strong socio-political opinions, as well as delivering classic song-writing that could have come straight out of 1970s Lagos! ..."
Wah Wah 45s (Audio)
Wah Wah 45s 1 (Audio)
Discogs
amazon
YouTube: E Go Betta, You No Fit Touch Am, Sanctuary, We Siddon We Dey Look (Straight Molin'), Where We Want Be

Take This Cheat Sheet To The Ballpark To Decide When To Leave

It’s not over until it’s over. But sometimes, it’s basically over.
"Baseball is probably the one major sporting event where there is no shame in leaving a little early. For starters, the games typically range from long to comically long. The average nine-inning Major League Baseball game in 2017 took three hours and five minutes, setting an all-time record. With a new rule to limit mound visits, the average 2018 game is hovering at an even three hours, which is still longer than 'The Godfather' start to finish and would tie for the third longest mark in history. And unlike the current marathon affairs in college football, baseball is not exactly packing the extra minutes with scoring and excitement — unless pitchers jogging in from the bullpen is exciting to you. Plus, the stakes are low. They play 162 of these things. Add it all up and you understand why lines of fans hit the exits to beat the traffic home. ..."
FiveThirtyEight

Konk ‎– Yo! (1983)

m
"Original pressing of the band's first and best LP, very hard to find, on Les Disques de Crepuscule, TWI 143, made in Belgium, 1983, with insert. One could describe the sound of Konk as being pretty similar to the sound of a roomful of people partying down and shaking their rumps. Born from the same early '80s New York dance-funk scene that made groups like Liquid Liquid and ESG the legends they are today, Konk fuse a wide palette of sounds (Afrobeat, post-punk, hip-hop, funk and disco) into one digestible and accessible catchall that's ideally suited for grimy underground dance floors. Most comparable to fellow New Yorkers Defunkt for their super-clean approach to recording, Konk left a lengthy trail of singles in their eight years together, most of which are collected here, along with the best tracks from their only album, 1983's Yo. ..."
Holland Tunnel Dive
W - Konk
Discogs
YouTube: Yo! 36:20

The Calculus Affair (1956)

Wikipedia - "The Calculus Affair (French: L'Affaire Tournesol) is the eighteenth volume of The Adventures of Tintin, the comics series by the Belgian cartoonist Hergé. It was serialised weekly in Belgium's Tintin magazine from December 1954 to February 1956 before being published in a single volume by Casterman in 1956. The story follows the attempts of the young reporter Tintin, his dog Snowy, and his friend Captain Haddock to rescue their friend Professor Calculus, a scientist who has developed a machine capable of destroying objects with sound waves, from kidnapping attempts by the competing European countries of Borduria and Syldavia. ..."
Wikipedia
The Calculus Affair
[PDF] The Calculus Affair
amazon

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), 2018 March: Destination Moon (1950), Explorers on the Moon (1954)

The Jazz Pianist Who Made One Masterpiece And Disappeared

"'I was in my basement practicing, and he came past and knocked on the window,' said the saxophonist Odean Pope recently, remembering the first time he met his friend Hasaan Ibn Ali. 'I was about 16 at the time. I came to the door. He asked me whether I’d like to practice with him. So I told him yes. We struck up a very good relationship, practicing almost every day together. He was so advanced on harmonic concepts, melodic concepts, rhythmic concepts, that he was having difficulty working with anyone and making jobs with anyone. But I was really interested in what he was doing, because he was doing something different.' That would have been around 1954. ... In any case, Ali’s ideas ran ahead of the marketplace. Stylistically, he was in tune with pianists who sat adjacent to bebop — he specifically admired Elmo Hope and Thelonious Monk — and beboppers were interested in fractious phrasing and unresolved dissonance, but even in their context Ali represented an extreme. Starting around 1948 — around the time he changed his name — he became a difficult fit at dance jobs and jam sessions. Whatever the norm was for the job — houserocking R&B, standards, bebop — he would unsettle known tunes with jagged fantasias or cause confusion with his own unconventional music. ..."
Vinyl Me, Please (Audio/Video)
W - Hasaan Ibn Ali
W - The Max Roach Trio Featuring the Legendary Hasaan

The Usual - Photos by Emily Frances

Parkview Diner, Coney Island.
"To step into a diner is to step into a time warp, offering a glimpse inside a world of pay phones, grandma’s chocolate cake, and jukeboxes with 2001’s Billboard Top 40. You can buy the chance to grab a stuffed animal with a claw, or you can rely on the certainty of getting a rubber ball for twenty-five cents. You can order a Western omelette at 6 p.m. This standstill is part of their charm. There is something familiar about these establishments that draws us back to them. And something a little strange. Below, we present snapshots of four diners of Brooklyn."
BKLYNR

The Genius of Tina Weymouth: Breaking Down the Style of Talking Heads and Tom Tom Club’s Basslines

"... Another of my favorite players is also a self-confessed 'complete autodidact,' Tina Weymouth of Talking Heads and Tom Tom Club. As distinctive a player as Mascis, it's impossible to mistake her style for anyone else's. 'I was only playing bass for five months when the band first played [live],' she told an audience in 2014 at the Red Bull Music Academy in Tokyo. 'I did not take a lesson. Nobody taught me.' But unlike many of her self-taught male counterparts with roots in punk and a decades-long association with a band that defined an era, Weymouth, argues Carrie Courogen at PAPER, has been tragically under-recognized. ..."
Open Culture (Video)

Rebel Women: Defying Victorianism

“Age of Brass: Or the Triumphs of Woman's Rights,” 1869
"We may think of the Victorian era as a period of constraints on women’s lives, a time when middle-class ideas about femininity defined women by their roles as guardians of virtue and relegated them to the private, domestic sphere. But 19th-century New York City was full of women who defied those expectations—women of different classes, races, and ideologies who challenged the social expectations that attached to them because of their gender. Some of the things that these women did would not be considered boat-rocking today: a woman could be a rebel simply by speaking in public, by working outside the home, or by disregarding middle-class morality or decorum. Rebel Women explores the lives of activists like Elizabeth Jennings Graham, an African-American New Yorker who refused to get off a segregated trolley in 1854; professionals like Hetty Green, a wealthy businesswoman and broker branded 'the witch of Wall Street'; and working women like Helen Jewett, New York's most prominent courtesan—all of whom challenged the Victorian ideal. ..."
Museum of the City of New York
NY Times: These ‘Rebel Women’ Sought Equality in 19th-Century New York

Glenn Branca: A Guide to the Symphonies

"To most listeners, composer Glenn Branca is best known for his early engagements with the experimental side of rock history. Back in 1981, Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo were two of the guitarists in the orchestra for the premiere of Branca’s Symphony No. 1, and since it was Branca’s own early ’80s imprint, Neutral, that originally released Sonic Youth’s first self-titled EP, the man has been subsumed within that band’s origin story for decades. Likewise, the composer’s short-lived art rock group Theoretical Girls remains a part of CBGB’s aesthetically wild 1970s legacy – making it much easier for some to talk about Branca as a rock icon than as a symphonic visionary. However, now that the iconic club has been 'recreated' both at Newark Airport and on HBO’s Vinyl (and since Sonic Youth’s run appears well and truly over), perhaps it's the right time to tell the Glenn Branca story as something other than a footnote to underground rock lore. (Especially as this summer marks the 35th anniversary of Branca’s Symphony No. 1.) You have to give Branca credit for dedication: as of this writing, his website details 16 different symphonies. ..."
Red Bull Music Academy Daily (Video)

2017 October: Theoretical Girls - U.S. Mille / You Got Me (1978), 2018 May: Rorschach Audio: Glenn Branca Discusses Reading, Writing & Volume

The Essentials of Socialist Writing

"Left-wing writing is often caricatured one of two ways: as impenetrable jargon, weighted with Marxist lingo no-one has the time to look up, or as oversimplified propaganda. Of course one’s politics never precludes one from being an incomprehensible, lazy, or just plain bad writer. But the Left’s history is full of authors who took to the pen because they had an important message to convey, and who worked hard to make sure that message was understood as broadly and deeply as possible. Moreover, it is rarely discussed how the goals of a socialist writer, and the methods required to reach such goals, differ from the capitalist or apolitical writer. To find out, Mark Nowak for Jacobin spoke to author and LeftWord Books chief editor Vijay Prashad about the role of writing in socialist politics. ..."
Jacobin

Kamal Keila’s “Muslims and Christians” Offers a Rare Glimpse Into 1990s Sudanese Jazz

"Had Jannis Stuertz listened to the moldy reels of audiotape just once before digitizing them, the recorded music of Kamal Keila—who is often referred to as Sudan’s James Brown, and one of the godfathers of a nearly forgotten strain of Sudanese jazz—might have been lost forever. Though Stuertz didn’t know it when he first laid eyes on them, the tape reels contained Kamal Keila’s Muslims and Christians, one of the only recorded Sudanese jazz albums in existence. Built on the synthesis of early American rock ‘n’ roll and traditional Sudanese rhythms, instrumentation, and arrangements, Sudanese jazz is an entirely unique and unequivocally African musical innovation. Despite its name, the genre bears little sonic resemblance to what we typically call 'jazz' in the West. Rather, the music that poured out of clubs in Omdurman and Khartoum throughout the ‘60s, ‘70s, and early ‘80s, was closer to what it might sound like if Fela Kuti covered a Bill Haley song for the soundtrack of a Quentin Tarantino film. Timely blasts of horns are reminiscent of funk; guitar strings bent to their breaking point evoke the blues; familiar and foreign rhythms blur into a versatile groove that’s sometimes reggae, sometimes rock, and always addictive, drenched in the joie de vivre of earnest originality. ..."
Bandcamp (Audio)
Soundcloud: Kamal Keila - Taban Ahwak (Release coming soon), Muslims And Christians
Habibi Funk 008: Muslims and Christians (Audio)

Resistance, Rebellion, and Death - Albert Camus (1960)

Wikipedia - "Resistance, Rebellion, and Death is a 1960 collection of essays written by Albert Camus and selected by the author prior to his death. The essays here generally involve conflicts near the Mediterranean, with an emphasis on his home country Algeria, and on the Algerian War of Independence in particular. He also criticizes capital punishment ('Reflections on the Guillotine') and totalitarianism in particular. Camus proclaims the call to justice and the struggle for freedom also declaimed in the Old Testament, particularly the minor prophets. But he does so in a modern context, where God is silent and man is the master of his own destiny. Although he sees no messianic age, he proclaims the hope that by continuous effort, evil can be diminished and freedom and justice may become more prevalent. ..."
Wikipedia
Commentary Magazine: Lionel Abel (Feb. 1, 1961)
amazon

2011 October: Albert Camus on Nihilism, 2014 November: Albert Camus: Soccer Goalie, 2015 May: LISTEN: New Cave And Ellis Soundtrack, 2016 April: Anarchism and Friedrich Nietzsche, 2016 April: Algerian Chronicles (2013), 2017 November: The Stranger (1942)

Renowned Photographer/Artist JR at Galerie Perrotin in NYC

"I first came upon JR‘s ingenious aesthetic ten years ago when I discovered a series of his portraits of Israelis and Palestinians pasted face to face along the Separation Wall in Abu Dis, Jerusalem. Celebrating the similarities between Israelis and Palestinians, the Face 2 Face Project heightened the absurdity of this seemingly endless conflict among cousins — and has stayed with me since. Within this past decade, JR has continued to bring his wondrous talents and socially-conscious vision to dozens of sites across the globe, often giving a voice to those whose voices are silenced. This past week, Galerie Perrotin NYC launched Horizontal featuring an eclectic selection of JR‘s works. ..."
Street Art NYC

2018 March: Faces Places - Agnès Varda and JR (2017)

Red Moon Meets Red Planet in Longest Total Lunar Eclipse of the Century

During a lunar eclipse, Earth's shadow envelops the Moon, as shown in this sequence taken through a small telescope on September 27, 2015.
"104 minutes. That's the length of the longest lunar totality of the 21st century. And it happens Friday, July 27th, when the Moon creeps into Earth's umbra like some thief in the night. If my dad were still alive, he'd probably watch for 10 minutes and be done with it. 'Enough's enough,' he'd say. But for his son and fellow skywatchers, staring down the length of Earth's shadow is never a waste of time. 2018 began with a total lunar eclipse on January 31st nicely split between Eastern and Western Hemispheres. Friday's eclipse is primarily an Eastern Hemisphere affair, visible from Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, and parts of South America. Unlike a total solar eclipse, a total lunar is visible across half the planet wherever the Moon is up in the sky. Just wish my half of the planet was included! ..."
Sky and Telescope

What is the Morally Appropriate Language in Which to Think and Write? - Arundhati Roy

"At a book reading in Kolkata, about a week after my first novel, The God of Small Things, was published, a member of the audience stood up and asked, in a tone that was distinctly hostile: 'Has any writer ever written a masterpiece in an alien language? In a language other than his mother tongue?' I hadn’t claimed to have written a masterpiece (nor to be a 'he'), but nevertheless I understood his anger toward a me, a writer who lived in India, wrote in English, and who had attracted an absurd amount of attention. My answer to his question made him even angrier. 'Nabokov,' I said. And he stormed out of the hall. The correct answer to that question today would of course be 'algorithms.' Artificial Intelligence, we are told, can write masterpieces in any language and translate them into masterpieces in other languages. As the era that we know, and think we vaguely understand, comes to a close, perhaps we, even the most privileged among us, are just a group of redundant humans gathered here with an arcane interest in language generated by fellow redundants. ..."
LitHub

2008 May: Arundhati Roy, 2010 April: "Walking With The Comrades", 2015 November: Politics by Other Means

Stream Online the Complete “Lost” John Coltrane Album, Both Directions at Once

"Expectations ran high when it was announced last month that a lost (!) John Coltrane album, Both Directions at Once, had been discovered by the family of his ex-wife Naima, and would finally be released for fans to hear. Would it prove worthy of Sonny Rollin’s comparison to 'finding a new room in the Great Pyramid'? Such discoveries can lead to dead ends and disappointments as often as to revelations. In this case, the album yields neither, which is not to say it isn’t, as Chris Morris writes at Variety, 'a godsend.' The album lives up to its title, chosen by Coltrane’s son Ravi, as a transitional document, stunning, but not particularly surprising. Hear all 7 cuts on the single-disc version of the release on this page, with typically excellent playing by Coltrane’s classic quartet (bassist Jimmy Garrison, drummer Elvin Jones, and pianist McCoy Tyner) and an early take on 'one of the warhorses of the Coltrane catalog'—'Impressions'—including three additional takes on the Deluxe Version, which you can stream on Spotify here or purchase here. ..."
Open Culture (Video)
W - Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album
YouTube: Both Directions At Once The Lost Album | 1st Impressions - The Vinyl Geek
amazon

2015 March: Attica Blues (1972), 2016 June: Archie Shepp - The Magic of Ju-Ju (1967), 2011 November: John Coltrane Quartet, Live at Jazz Casual, 1963, 2012 March: John Coltrane 1960 - 1965, 2012 September: "Naima" (1959), 2012 October: Blue Train (1957), 2013 April: The World According to John Coltrane, 2013 November: A Love Supreme (1965), 2014 July: New Photos of John Coltrane Rediscovered 50 Years After They Were Shot, 2014 November: Coltrane’s Free Jazz Wasn’t Just “A Lot of Noise”, 2015 February: Lush Life (1958), 2015 May: An Animated John Coltrane Explains His True Reason for Being: “I Want to Be a Force for Real Good”, 2015 July: Afro Blue Impressions (2013), 2015 September: Impressions of Coltrane, 2015 December: Giant Steps (1960), 2016 January: Crescent (1964), 2016 April: The Church of Saint John Coltrane, 2016 July: Soultrane (1958), 2016 December: Dakar (1957), 2017 July: The John Coltrane Record That Made Modern Music, 2017 October: Live at the Village Vanguard (1962), 2017 December: Interview: Archie Shepp on John Coltrane, the Blues and More, 2018 March: Cannonball Adderley Quintet in Chicago (1959), 2018 June: Lost John Coltrane Recording From 1963 Will Be Released at Last

MADONJAZZ #145: African & Middle Eastern Spiritual Sounds

"MADONJAZZ #145: African & Middle Eastern Spiritual Sounds. A 1hr set from Mark Gallagher, a spiritual journey of African field recordings, Middle Eastern gems and Afro-jazz rarities."
MADONJAZZ (Audio)
Mixcloud (Audio)

The Legend of Johnny Twist

"I don’t often take Cottage Grove Avenue on the way home, but traffic forced my hand one warmish Saturday afternoon, and I found myself stopped at a light along a stretch near 65th Street in Woodlawn when the sound of a Muddy Waters tune drifted through my half-open window from somewhere vaguely to my left. I turned my head and saw a vision: a kaleidoscope of red and black and green and gold on a small brick storefront. Inspecting the façade more closely, I realized it was a checkerboard of slogans ('Black Love Is Power,' 'Up with Divine Blackness,' 'Down with Self-Black Hate') and hand-painted pictures (a musical note, a peach-colored saxophone, and, apropos of nothing, a small table on which were perched a pair of peep-toe heels, a pair of polished black oxfords, and a single spectator shoe with a bow of Day-Glo green lace). ..."
Chicago
South Side Weekly
Discogs
YouTube: Elusive Chicago bluesman Johnny Twist, Why I Play The Blues, Go Go Baby, "Bo" Dud & Johnny Twist Sure Is Fun, Bo Dud & Johnny Twist - The Get It

The Sheltering Sound

Paul Bowles in 1987, near his home in Tangier, Morocco.
"In a 1975 interview, the poet Daniel Halpern asked the author and composer Paul Bowles why he’d spent such a significant chunk of his life scrambling about the globe. I imagine Bowles’s speaking voice here as matter-of-fact, exegetic: 'I’ve always wanted to get as far as possible from the place where I was born,' he answered (that place was Flushing, Queens, in 1910; he was the only child of a rancorous, unloving father and a meek, bookish mother). 'Far both geographically and spiritually. To leave it behind. One belongs to the whole world, not just one part of it.' What was Bowles darting around after for all those years? Travel invariably expands a person’s parameters, like air huffed into a balloon: there is an intellectual broadening, a widening of the precincts. But there’s a metaphysical utility to that kind of movement, too. Who among us has not left home expressly to find home, casting about for a place that feels like the right place, that isn’t necessarily the ancestral plot but, instead, is where a person feels whole, awake to something, realized? ..."
New Yorker

2007 November: The Authorized Paul Bowles Web Site, 2010 February: Paul Bowles (1910-1999), 2011: January: Halfmoon (1996), 2013 July: Tellus #23 - The Voices of Paul Bowles, 2014 January: Let It Come Down: the Life of Paul Bowles (1998), 2014 March: The Sheltering Sky (1949), 2015 January: Things Gone & Things Still Here, 2015 October: The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles – a cautionary tale for tourists, 2015 November: The Rolling Stone Interview (May 23, 1974), 2016 June: Let It Come Down (1952), 2016 December: Paul Bowles & the Music of Morocco, 2017 July: Night Waltz: The Music of Paul Bowles

Italian food stores have New York’s best signs

"Most of them are in the city’s faded Little Italy neighborhoods—white, green, and red store signs with 1970s-style letters spelling out an Italian surname and the choice delicacies they sell. Mozzarella, ricotta, tortellini, gnocchi: Whatever the vintage sign says, you know you’re in good hands. So many of these old-school Italian food stores have closed up shop, it’s good to celebrate the ones that remain. Like Piemonte Ravioli on Grand Street. Established in 1920. Reading the 'Made Here Daily' sign in the window makes my mouth water. Same with Russo’s, making mozzarella and fresh pasta since 1908 on East 11th Street—once the center of a mostly defunct Little Italy in today’s East Village. Italian cakes and pastries are baked on the premises at Caffe Roma on Mulberry Street, going strong since 1891. I like this painted ad better than their actual store sign. ..."
Ephemeral New York

Colette: On the Streets and in the Clubs, 1972 – 1985

Colette
"From the very start of her career in the 1970s, Colette was a much-noted presence in the New York art world. It was a time of radical change brought on by the advent of pop art, and a new generation felt free to break the rules that traditionally separated fine art and popular culture. Colette worked without inhibition. Acting out an inner-world of fantasies she began making photographic self-portraits, creating soft fabric environments in which she was often a crucial living presence, and exhibiting self-referential hybrid works that combined sculpture, painting, and photography. By the mid-1980s she was famous here and in Europe for performances in which she slept in store windows and art spaces, street paintings for which she was once arrested, and forays into fashion and music that worked equally well in boutiques, nightclubs and museums. ..."
Gallery98

Kondi Band - The Freetown Tapes 2006-2016

"In 2006, blind Kondi (thumb piano) player Sorie Kondi was surviving by busking on the streets of Freetown, Sierra Leone, abandoned by relatives who had fled the rebel takeover of the city in the late ‘90s. His sound was marked by his electrified Kondi, run through a small distorted amplifier that he carried on his back. Since then, he has recorded and finished five albums, culminating in ‘Without Money No Family’, which caught the ear of US producer / DJ Chief Boima (also of Sierra Leonean descent) after chancing upon a YouTube link. The two joined forces as Kondi Band, combining Sorie's traditionalist performances with Boima's globally-informed electronic production. The duo released an EP this year on Strut, recently performed acclaimed sets to thousands at Transmusicales and Womex, and have received accolades from tastemakers including Gilles Peterson. With a Kondi Band album coming in 2017, Boima has created a free mix to showcase Kondi's incredible history. As well as collecting songs from across Sorie Kondi’s recorded music career, this mix also includes one original and two remixes of songs from ‘Salone’, the forthcoming debut album. ..."
Kondi Band (Audio)
INTLBLK (Video)
Salone by The Kondi Band (Audio)
Kondi Band release debut album ‘Salone’ (Audio)

There Is a Revolution on the Left. Democrats Are Bracing.

Abdul El-Sayed, a liberal candidate for governor of Michigan, worked the crowd at a barbecue in Milford. He is part of a wave of young politicians redefining the left in the Democratic Party.
"DETROIT — For Rachel Conner, the 2018 election season has been a moment of revelation. A 27-year-old social worker, Ms. Conner voted for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 primaries, spurning the more liberal Bernie Sanders, whom many of her peers backed. But Ms. Conner changed course in this year’s campaign for governor, after concluding that Democrats could only win with more daring messages on issues like public health and immigration. And so on a recent Wednesday, she enlisted two other young women to volunteer for Abdul El-Sayed, a 33-year-old advocate of single-payer health care running an uphill race in Michigan to become the country’s first Muslim governor. ... Voters like Ms. Conner may not represent a controlling faction in the Democratic Party, at least not yet. But they are increasingly rattling primary elections around the country, and they promise to grow as a disruptive force in national elections as younger voters reject the traditional boundary lines of Democratic politics. ..."
NY Times
New Republic: The 2018 Midterms Are All About Health Care

#1 - Le Mellotron: Mehmet Aslan • DJ Set

"Now approaching its eighth year, Le Mellotron in Paris has firmly staked its place in the city’s alternative music scene. Recorded at a modest and trendy bar in the heart of Paris, the radio station offers a refreshing taste of what some of the city’s finest DJs and artists are all about. We reached out to learn more about the station’s alluring philosophy and what lays behind the steady rise of Le Mellotron." [00:00] Selda Bağcan - Acıyı Bal Eyledik; [04:32] Barış Manço - Kara Haber; [07:30] Barış Manço - Eğri Eğri (De Los Miedos Edit); [12:46] Osman İşmen Orkestrası - Disco Madımak (Barris K Edit); [17:53] Salma Agha - Come Closer; [23:09] Nur Yoldaş - Nagehan Bustane Faslı (Kaan Düzarat Edit); [27:20] Arşivplak - Volga Nehri; [31:19] Hakkı Bulut - Ben Köylüyüm; [34:15] Steaua De Mare - ?; [39:25] Mazhar Ve Fuat - Nerde Hani (Mehmet Aslan Edit); [48:03] Steaua De Mare - Doamne Ce Greșeală Am (Mehmet Aslan Remix); [55:33] Moğollar - FAIRY TALES / Peri Bacaları; [58:04] RÜYA ÇAĞLA-ODANA SERDİM HALİ"
YouTube: Mehmet Aslan • DJ Set
MixCloud: Mehmet Aslan • DJ Set
French club Badaboum is going to hide DJs behind a curtain (Video/Audio)

Death of a Cyclist - Juan Antonio Bardem (1955)

Wikipedia - "Death of a Cyclist (Spanish: Muerte de un ciclista) is a 1955 social realist Spanish drama film directed by Juan Antonio Bardem and starring Italian actress Lucia Bosè, who was dubbed into Spanish by Elsa Fábregas. It won the FIPRESCI Award at the 1955 Cannes Film Festival. While returning to Madrid after an illicit tryst, a wealthy socialite housewife and a university professor accidentally strike a bicyclist with their car. Although they see that he is still alive after the accident, they know they cannot summon help for him without their affair being revealed. They drive away and leave him to die. After the bicyclist's death is reported in the newspaper, the pair deal with ever-rising tension, borne from their fear that their deeds will be exposed. ..."
Wikipedia
Culture Court
senses of cinema
amazon
YouTube: Death of a Cyclist - Trailer

Le Grand Canal - Claude Monet (1908)

Wikipedia - "Le Grand Canal is an oil on canvas painting by French Impressionist painter Claude Monet (1840–1926). This painting is part of a series of paintings Monet undertook during 1908. This painting series en plein air, is a classic view of the Grand Canal, an attempt to capture the ever-changing face of Venice, as seen from the Palazzo Barbaro, where he stayed during his trip, was painted during a period that is generally regarded by art historians as the peak of his career. It is one of the paintings from this series of Venetian waterscapes by Claude Monet. ... While there Monet completed a series of artwork on the Canale Grande painting the same motif at different times of the day. Monet had the habit of studying the same subject in a varying light, at different times of the day, which resulted during his active career in many distinct Monet series, like for example the Water Lilies series, Poplar series, Rouen Cathedral series, Haystacks series and Charing Cross Bridge series. ..."
Wikipedia
YouTube: Monet’s ‘Le Grand Canal’ | Sotheby's

Who Are You, Jack Whitten? By Jack Whitten

Mr. Whitten in his studio in TriBeCa in 1983.
"... My first studio in New York was a storefront at 369 East 10th Street between Avenue B and Avenue C. Stanley’s Bar was on the corner of Avenue B at 12th Street. The Lower East Side in 1960 was a thriving young art community and Stanley’s Bar was our favorite meeting place. Every night of the week I could speak with Ishmael Reed, Calvin C. Hernton, David Henderson, and other members of the Umbra Group of Poets and Writers. Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg often frequented the bar on off hours. Stanley, the Polish owner, knew Charlie Parker who was also a visitor in the early fifties. I loved to hear Stanley’s stories about Charlie Parker spending hours playing the jukebox and playing Polish polkas! Stanley, like Mike Fanelli who I would meet later in the sixties when I moved to the Lower West Side, was a friend of the artist. You could always get a hot meal on credit, cash a check without having a routine identification card; this was important because who had a bank account? The first time I ever showed a painting in public was at Stanley’s…a small group of collage paintings from 1963. ..."
The Paris Review
W - Jack Whitten
NY Times: Jack Whitten, Artist of Wide-Ranging Curiosity, Dies at 78
art21: An Artist's Life - Jack Whitten (Video)
artnet
YouTube: Jack Whitten on Mapping the Soul

Éliane Radigue: The Mysterious Power Of The Infinitesimal

"Éliane Radigue receives me in the soothing half-light of her apartment located in the middle of a little street in the 14th arrondissement. It’s not a very good day, she informs me at first, as her back is hurting and she nearly canceled our appointment. To show my gratitude, I slip a copy of Ardor into her hands, a book by Roberto Calasso dedicated to the Vedas, the sacred word of the Brahmins. The radiant octogenarian flips through the book with interest, her luminous gaze a near translucent blue. The charm has worked and a rapport is quickly established between us. We get off to a flying start for a four-hour conversation, over the course of which her memories become haphazardly entangled as she blithely skips from one anecdote to the next. ..."
Red Bull Music Academy Daily (Video)

ARP 2500

2014 February: Women And Their Machines: A Think-piece About Female Pioneerism in Electronic Music, 2018 May: Trilogie de la Mort (1988-1993)

Painted Land: In Search of the Group of Seven

JEH MacDonald, The Little Falls Sketch, 1918
"One would think The Group of Seven needs no introduction. Their iconic works are known to millions of Canadians, yet few are familiar with the lives of the artists themselves. Why did they choose locations in the remote, rugged wilderness of northern Ontario? Does anyone know precisely where they went? Past meets present in a film that is evocative in approach, energized by breathtaking cinematography and an uplifting musical score, and offers a new and articulate voice to the artists who were the Group of Seven. Painted Land weaves seamlessly the experiences of Lawren Harris, J.E.H. MacDonald, A.Y. Jackson, Frank Johnston, Arthur Lismer, Franklin Carmichael and A.J. Casson – with the adventures of three modern day sleuths. Historian Michael Burtch, and the writer and photographer team of Gary and Joanie McGuffin are determined to track down the precise locations of these famous paintings. Archival film, letters, journals and photographs of the artists – some of which have never been seen in public – take the viewers back in time. This film weaves this history with a modern day adventure, up mountains, down canyon rivers and over portages with our trio as they try to achieve their own personal quest: to actually ‘walk in the Group of Seven’s footsteps’."
White Pine Pictures (Video)
W - Group of Seven (artists)
W - Painted Land: In Search of the Group of Seven
Painted Land (Video)
vimeo: PAINTED LAND: In Search of The Group of Seven (sizzle reel)

Frederick H. Varley, Stormy Weather - Georgian Bay, 1920

The ROIR Label’s Timeless Documents of Underground Music

"If you had a taste for underground music in the ‘80s, you almost certainly had multiple releases on the ROIR (pronounced 'roar') label in your collection. The tiny New York label’s output was exclusively available on brightly-colored cassettes, with liner notes by noted rock critics like Lester Bangs, Robert Christgau, Byron Coley, Kurt Loder, Jon Pareles, and a pre-Yo La Tengo Ira Kaplan. The catalog included releases by proto-punk and punk legends like the MC5, Television, the New York Dolls (and Johnny Thunders), Nico, the Raincoats, the Dictators, and Suicide, as well as hardcore acts like Flipper and GG Allin, compilations like New York Thrash (featuring the Beastie Boys’ earliest recording), and the Bad Brains’ legendary 'yellow tape.' They also released noisy, arty music by Glenn Branca, Christian Marclay, Laibach, and Einstürzende Neubauten. ..."
Bandcamp (Audio)
ROIR - Bandcamp
W - ROIR
W - List of artists that appear on ROIR

New Orleans Funk 1960/75 - Soul Jazz

"Check the title -- New Orleans funk is not the same thing as New Orleans R&B or soul, so this may not be the sound that you're expecting. Even if it opens with the Meters, this isn't a compilation that plays to familiar sounds or expectations. Instead, it lays the groundwork for funk as it was known in the '70s or plays forgotten, possibly never-heard sounds from the '70s. So there ain't a single cut here that you will have heard or recognize unless you are an unrepentant New Orleans fanatic; some names are familiar -- the Meters, Lee Dorsey, Eddie Bo, Huey Piano Smith, Allen Toussaint, Dr. John, and Robert Parker -- but apart from Professor Longhair's 'Big Chief,' there's not a single thing here that regularly makes New Orleans comps or that will be recognized by anyone outside of the devoted. All 24 selections were chosen on one basis -- whether their recorded grooves were funky enough to be sampled and reappropriated to something else. Most of them are, but that may be beside the point, since this is a collection for record collectors who don't specialize in this style -- they're just looking for grooves. ..."
allmusic
Discogs
amazon
YouTube: New Orleans Funk 1960/75 - Soul Jazz [Full Album]

G Lucas Crane: Time Boiler

"Time Boiler is both a tale of time travel memory loss told in tape collage music and a series of attempts at time compression through musical trials on the performing body. In this program, G Lucas Crane will be tasked with specific times in which to tell each part of the story, cooking down time itself into a series of dense atmospheric collages set to otherworldly video pieces. He will reveal the lost tapes of prophecy and use these mutant tapes of yore to succeed in the trials of the Time Boiler. This performance will illustrate the psychological consequences of time travel on the human mind through a series of live compositions constructed from the depths of his cassette tape archive of ancient sound memories collaged together in the style of an apocalypse DJ. ..."
Roulette (Video)
Roulette: Spotlight on G. Lucas Crane
G. Lucas Crane (Audio / Video)
vimeo: G. Lucas Crane, NYC @ Silent Barn | 09 Apr 2011, g lucas crane live november
YouTube: G. Lucas Crane Explains Himself: Tapes, Analog Livin' and the Silent Barn (2011), G LUCAS CRANE REMIX ON POST APOCALYPTIC MUSIC (2009)

Felipe Jesus Consalvos

"A self-appointed 'artist, healer, and man,' Felipe Jesus Consalvos worked for much of his life as a cigar roller, and he extrapolated the vernacular tradition of cigar band collage to a sophisticated practice. The Havana-born artist immigrated to Miami around 1920, eventually settling in New York and then Philadelphia. His obsessive body of work—over 750 surviving collages on paper, found photographs, musical instruments, furniture, and other unexpected surfaces—was discovered in 1980 at a West Philadelphia garage sale. Consalvos' practice parallels and in some cases prefigures certain contemporaneous developments in Surrealist, Dada, and Futurist and Pop collage, and even poetry. His collages share the biting socio-political satire and absurdist impulse of Dadaists like Kurt Schwitters and Max Ernst, along with abstruse mysticism. ..."
Fleisher Ollman Gallery
W - Felipe Jesus Consalvos
W - Outsider art