Creating feminism in the shadow of male heroes

Tamás Király, Red star dress, 1987.
"The memory of feminism in East Central Europe after 1989 is blurred by the widespread fear to use the term radical feminism – which refers to demands of a deep-rooted social transformation to eliminate the oppression of women in every sphere of life and on every level of society. Gender mainstreaming and post-feminism have largely taken the place of a fight for women’s rights and the talk about women as such – a process that has unfolded in both East and West, but which, curiously, is often seen as an ‘eastern’ problem in the West and a ‘western’ one in the East. When it comes to the interpretation of 1989, a generational clash among feminists complicates not only the process of remembrance but also the future of a feminist movement – beyond boundaries. ..."
Eurozine

An Artist who Cannot Speak English is no Artist by Mladen Stilinović, 1992.

It’s Time to Make Your Own Face Mask Here’s how to do it.

A homemade protective face mask can help limit the spread of the coronavirus.
"It shouldn’t have come to this, but here we are. The world is running out of face masks for health care workers, which is one reason American officials, including the surgeon general, have warned members of the public against buying their own masks for protection against the coronavirus. But that doesn’t mean face masks for the public are a bad idea, if we had enough masks. Contrary to what American officials told us, many studies show that widespread mask-wearing might be a very effective complement to hand-washing, social-distancing and other measures to mitigate the pandemic. ... But how to get your hands on a mask, when there are no masks? The internet has a plan: Make your own. ..."
NY Times (Video)
NY Times: How to Sew a Face Mask

South Side Soul - John Wright (1960)

"Chicago jazz pianist John Wright earned his reputation with a string of LPs for the Prestige label in the early 60s—his 1960 debut made such an impression that its title, South Side Soul, remains his nickname to this day. His discography has been sparse since then, but he's never stopped playing for long, and he's just had an especially eventful week. On Friday, August 29, Wright spoke at the ceremony to formally designate the 3800 block of South Prairie 'Dinah Washington Way,' reminiscing about his interactions with the great singer in the 1950s. Two days later, he hosted the 28th annual (and possibly final) Wright Gathering, a potluck picnic in the park behind his home in south-suburban Matteson where hundreds of friends, family, and fans enjoyed eight hours of jazz jams, the first three sets led by Wright himself. ..."
Chicago Reader (Video)
W - South Side Soul
W - John Wright
Discogs (Video)
amazon
YouTube: South Side Soul 36:02

Book of Dreams - Jack Kerouac (1960)

"Book of Dreams is Jack Kerouac's record of his dream life, a parallel autobiography of the soul, the sleeper's On the Road. 'I got my weary bones out of bed & through eyes swollen with sleep swiftly scribbled in pencil in my little dream notebook till I had exhausted every rememberable item.' Awake of asleep, Jack's mind spun the web of relationships that were the substance of almost everything he wrote: 'In the book of dreams I just continue the same story but in the dreams I had of the real-life characters I always write about. Lost love, madness, castration, cats that speak, cats in danger of their lives, people giving birth to cats, grade school classrooms, Mel Torme, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Tolstoy and Genet all make repeated appearances.' Book of Dreams is Jack Kerouac's record of his dream life, a parallel autobiography of the soul, the sleeper's On the Road. ..."
A Cappella Books
W - Book of Dreams
[PDF] Book of Dreams
amazon

2009 November: Another Side of Kerouac: The Dharma Bum as Sports Nut, 2010 July: Kerouac's Copies of Floating Bear, 2011 March: Jack Kerouac on The Steve Allen Show, 2013 September: On the Road - Jack Kerouac, 2014 May: “Walker Evans and Robert Frank – An Essay on Influence by Tod Papageorge” (1981), 2015 March: Pull My Daisy (1959), 2015 December: Hear All Three of Jack Kerouac’s Spoken, 2016 July: Mexico City Blues (1959), 2017 February: The Jack Kerouac Collection (1990), 2017 May: The Subterraneans (1958), 2017 June: The Town and the City (1950), 2018 January: Big Sur (1962), 2018 March: A Slightly Embarrassing Love for Jack Kerouac, 2019 March: Jack Kerouac’s “Beat Paintings:”...

The Pleiades

"The Pleiades, also known as the Seven Sisters and Messier 45, are an open star cluster containing middle-aged, hot B-type stars located in the constellation of Taurus. It is among the star clusters nearest Earth and is the cluster most obvious to the naked eye in the night sky. The cluster is dominated by hot blue and luminous stars that have formed within the last 100 million years. Reflection nebulae around the brightest stars were once thought to be left over material from the formation of the cluster, but are now considered likely to be an unrelated dust cloud in the interstellar medium through which the stars are currently passing. Computer simulations have shown that the Pleiades were probably formed from a compact configuration that resembled the Orion Nebula. Astronomers estimate that the cluster will survive for about another 250 million years, after which it will disperse due to gravitational interactions with its galactic neighborhood. ..."
Wikipedia
The Pleiades Welcome Venus
The Pleiades
How far away are the Pleiades? (Video)

The Nebra sky disk, dated circa 1600 BC. The cluster of dots in the upper right portion of the disk is believed to be the Pleiades.

In Blackhead, Monhegan - Edward Hopper (1916-19)

In Blackhead, Monhegan, 1916-19 - Edward Hopper
"Blackhead (50m-150 ft) are northside cliffs situated on Monhegan, Manana Island, that have drawn the interest of many artists. The beginnings of the art colony on Monhegan date to the mid-19th century; by 1890, it was firmly established. Two of the early artists in residence from the 1890s, William Henry Singer (1868–1943) and Martin Borgord (1869–1935), left Monhegan to study at the Académie Julian in Paris in 1901. Among many early members who found inspiration on the island were summer visitors from the New York School of Art and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, such as Robert Henri, Frederick Waugh, George Bellows, Edward Hopper and Rockwell Kent. The Monhegan Museum celebrated more the continuing draw of the island for artists in a 2014 exhibit entitled, The Famous and the Forgotten: Revisiting Monhegan’s Celebrated 1914 Art Exhibition. ..."
Wandering Silent Vertexes and Frozen Peaks
MONHEGAN - An Artist's Island by Eunice Agar From American Artist Magazine May 1987
amazon: The Famous and the Forgotten: Revisiting Monhegan’s Celebrated 1914 Art Exhibition

2009 September: Monhegan Island, 2012 August: Monhegan, The Artists' Island, 2014 January: Side By Side on Monhegan: The Henri circle and the American Impressionists

The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen - Vincent van Gogh (1884)

The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen, May 1884
"The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen, alternatively named The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring or Spring Garden, is an early oil painting by the 19th-century Dutch post-Impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh, made in May 1884 while he was living with his parents in Nuenen. Van Gogh made several drawings and oil paintings of the surrounding gardens and the garden façade of the parsonage. The painting had been in the collection of the Groninger Museum since 1962, but was stolen on 30 March 2020 from an exhibition at the Singer Laren museum in Laren, North Holland, Netherlands. ... In Nuenen, Van Gogh documented the changing seasons in his paintings of the parsonage's garden, which was enclosed by a high stone wall and included a duck pond with a boat dock, paths and hedges, flower and vegetable garden plots and an orchard. Preceded by a series of wintery drawings, this painting was probably made in May 1884. It depicts a view of the garden with a dark-clothed female figure in the foreground. ..."
Wikipedia
Parsonage Nuenen, The Netherlands
NY Times: Early van Gogh Painting Stolen From Dutch Museum

2010 March: Van Gogh Museum, 2010 May: Why preserve Van Gogh's palette?, 2012 April: Van Gogh Up Close, 2015 May: Van Gogh and Nature, 2016 January: Van Gogh's Bedrooms, 2016 November: Wheat Fields - Van Gogh series, 2019 April: At Eternity’s Gate - Julian Schnabel (2018)

See Which States and Cities Have Told Residents to Stay at Home

"In a matter of days, millions of Americans have been asked to do what might have been unthinkable only a month ago: Don’t go to work, don’t go to school, don’t leave the house at all, unless you have to. The directives to keep people at home to stunt the spread of the coronavirus began in California, and have quickly been adopted across the country. By Tuesday, more than half the states and the Navajo Nation had told their residents to stay at home as much as possible, with many cities and counties joining in. This means at least 265 million people in at least 32 states, 80 counties, 17 cities, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico are being urged to stay home. ..."
NY Times

Jaybird Coleman (May 20, 1896 – January 28, 1950)

"Burl C. "Jaybird" Coleman (May 20, 1896 – January 28, 1950) was an American country blues harmonica player, vocalist, and guitarist. He was a popular musical attraction throughout Alabama and recorded several sides in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Coleman was born to a family of sharecroppers in Gainesville, Alabama, United States. While he and his three brothers endured hard physical labor, he was exposed to musical influences from his fellow sharecroppers in singing and discovering traditional folk songs. At age 12, he was introduced to the harmonica, in large part teaching himself, and was encouraged by his parents to hone his skills as an alternative to their wearying occupation. He performed locally for small wages at dance halls and parties. ..."
Wikipedia
American Music (Video)
Discogs (Video)
YouTube: Coffee Grinder Blues
YouTube: Jaybird Coleman - Topic

Then Again: A ‘hotbed of radicalism,’ Barre was first in Vermont to elect Socialist mayor

Barre granite workers gather for a photo taken between 1910 and 1915. Union members made up a large portion of local voters, who elected a socialist as mayor in 1916.
"Vermont’s first socialist mayor wasn’t known for his unruly white hair or his Brooklyn accent. He kept his hair short and his mustache neatly trimmed, and if he had a discernible accent, it was a remnant of the brogue he picked up during his childhood in Scotland. Like Bernie Sanders, Robert Gordon wasn’t what the establishment was looking for in a mayor. Business and community leaders were interested in maintaining the status quo, but Gordon saw changes that needed to be made in his adopted home of Barre. By the time Gordon ran for mayor in 1916, Barre had experienced decades of dramatic change. In 1870, Barre had been an unremarkable Vermont town with a population of roughly 1,900. But after the Central Vermont Railroad built a spur to access the local granite quarries, Barre’s population soared. ..."
VTDigger

The Maids - Jean Genet (1947)

"When I was writing my novel Indelicacy, I felt myself in conversation with Jean Genet’s play The Maids. First performed in Paris in 1947, the play is loosely based on the story of the infamous Papin sisters, who murdered their employer in 1933 in Le Mans, France. I’ve never seen the play performed, though I’ve watched the film version from 1975, directed by Christopher Miles. When I first read The Maids, I wasn’t interested in the idea of murder but in Genet’s highly charged representation of the two sisters, their crazed relationship to each other, as well as to their 'Madame,' and in the depiction of class warfare in a domestic space. More recently, I’ve been thinking, too, about its mad circling of artificiality and authenticity, two sides of the same coin. In their roles as maids in the rooms of Madame’s high-class apartment, Solange and Claire become unhinged, especially when they are there alone. ..."
The Paris Review: Be Yourself Again
W - The Maids, W - The Maids (film)
NY Times: Interpreting ‘The Maids’ Through a Shifting Societal Lens
NY Times: Screen: Exciting 'Maids':American Film Theater Presents Genet Work By Vincent Canby (April 22, 1975)
[PDF] The Maids
YouTube: The Maids (1974) - Glenda Jackson, Susannah York - Trailer
DailyMotion: The Maids (1974) 1:33:47

2017 August: Three Stones for Jean Genet told Patti Smith (2013), 2019 September: Jean Genet in Tangier – Mohamed Choukri, Paul Bowles (Translator)

Who Writes History? Competing Narratives about the Conquest of Mexico and the Fall of the Aztec Empire

Butterfly-and Jaguar-Fish in Book 11 of the Florentine Codex (“On Earthly Things”). Ms. Mediceo Palatino 220, 1577, fols. 62v and 63.
"In 1577, a generation after the conquest of Mexico, a unique illustrated book was completed. Called the Florentine Codex, because it’s housed in Florence, the manuscript documents the culture, politics, natural science, and history of the Aztecs (a group of Nahuatl-speaking people who dominated large parts of central Mexico between 1428 and 1521). It does so in a period of Mexican history that was marked by great cultural transformation, social upheaval, and recurrent epidemics. The codex may be thought of as an Encyclopedia Britannica of early-modern Mexico and of Nahua knowledge. It is written in two languages, native Nahuatl and Spanish. Nahuatl, once the lingua franca of Mesoamerica, is one of 68 Indigenous languages still spoken in Mexico. It is considered an endangered language today with an estimated 1.5 million speakers. The codex is therefore not only invaluable for its content but is also an important historical record of this language. ..."
the iris

Finding the concordance between a facsimile of the Florentine Codex and various published translations and transcriptions of the texts.

Pandemic Journal, March 17–22: Anne Enright, Madeleine Schwartz, Joshua Hunt, Anna Badkhen, and Lauren Groff, et al.

A cyclist wearing a mask crossing the Williamsburg Bridge, New York City, March 18, 2020
"Madeleine Schwartz. BROOKLYN, NEW YORK—I am a reluctant biker, but on Monday night I rode from downtown Brooklyn, where I live, to upper Manhattan, where my mother claimed to be having trouble downloading Skype. The road was empty. Two finance bros discussed going to “Nick’s aunt’s townhouse in South Beach.” A few joggers retreated into their AirPods. There were no children on the street. The western length of Manhattan is lined with thousands of apartments worth millions of dollars, most of them built with big glass windows facing the river. I did not see a single face looking outside. ... Anne Enright. DUBLIN, IRELAND—On March 11, the day Donald Trump addressed the nation about Covid-19, I was in the middle of a book tour (the show must go on!) in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. I’d made the decision to travel from Ireland when there were six reported cases of the illness in New York State, and the odds seemed good to me. The situation changed as I traveled, but not much. ..."
NYBooks (Audio)

Chairs piled up outside a restaurant in the old town of Plaka, which is closed for fifteen days during the Covid-19 outbreak, Athens, Greece, March 16, 2020

Medical Expert Who Corrects Trump Is Now a Target of the Far Right

Dr. Anthony S. Fauci after President Trump referred to the “Deep State Department” at a briefing on March 20.
"At a White House briefing on the coronavirus on March 20, President Trump called the State Department the 'Deep State Department.' Behind him, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, dropped his head and rubbed his forehead. Some thought Dr. Fauci was slighting the president, leading to a vitriolic online reaction. On Twitter and Facebook, a post that falsely claimed he was part of a secret cabal who opposed Mr. Trump was soon shared thousands of times, reaching roughly 1.5 million people. A week later, Dr. Fauci — the administration’s most outspoken advocate of emergency measures to fight the coronavirus outbreak — has become the target of an online conspiracy theory that he is mobilizing to undermine the president. ..."
NY Times

Like Water for Chocolate - Common (2000)

"Common has one of the most distinctive voices in hip-hop, and it goes hand in hand with one of the game’s most storied careers. Over the course of three studio albums he had established himself as a lyricist with few challengers, so when it came time to record his fourth studio album, Like Water For Chocolate, he stepped in once again to hit a hard reset on the state of hip-hop. In the wake of influential releases like The Roots’ Things Fall Apart and Mos Def’s Black On Both Sides, Common’s Like Water For Chocolate was part of an ongoing cultural renaissance in hip-hop. A sprawling opus that spans everything from funk to hip-hop, bebop and cool jazz, the album marks the point where the Chicago MC started transforming into the artist we know today, and finds him taking the chance to honour the black trailblazers that came before him. ..."
udiscover (Video)
Wikipedia
Discogs (Video)
amazom
YouTube: The 6th Sense (Official Music Video) ft. Bilal
YouTube: Like Water For Chocolate (Full Album)

Drawn in Colour: Degas from the Burrell @ The National Gallery

Three Women at the Races, 1885
"The Burrell Collection Glasgow is currently closed for a major refurbishment until 2020. Among other things it houses a spectacular collection of works by Hilaire-Germain-Edgar Degas who, as it happens, passed away a hundred years ago this September (1834–1917). So what better way to celebrate this centenary – and display works which would otherwise be gathering dust in a warehouse somewhere – than by loaning this priceless collection to the National Gallery in London, where it nicely complements the National Gallery’s own collection of Degas pastels? ... Pastel became increasingly important to Degas in his later years at a time when, coincidentally, brilliant colour began to play an essential role in the contemporary art he admired, and his own eyesight started to fail. The tactile immediacy and luminous colours of pastel, as well as its ephemeral and fragile quality, allowed him to create astonishingly bold and dynamic works of art, distinct from those of his fellow Impressionists. ..."
Books & Boots
National Gallery
YouTube: Drawn in Colour: Degas from the Burrell at National Gallery

A Brooklyn Dodgers Fan Who Never Gave Up on Ebbets Field

Ebbets Field, the intimate home of the Brooklyn Dodgers from 1913 to 1957.
"Nobody ever accused Rod Kennedy Jr. of thinking too small. A Brooklyn Dodgers fan who took a beating in a Pelham, N. Y., schoolyard in the 1950s defending his team’s honor against partisans of the New York Yankees and Giants, he began making his living 35 years later by manufacturing tiny tin replicas of ballparks. ... Dissatisfied with recapturing Brooklyn’s past in miniature, however, Mr. Kennedy soon enlarged his ambitions by many orders of magnitude, embarking on a quixotic quest to build a one-quarter-scale replica of Ebbets Field to house a Dodgers museum. ... The first major-league challenge was to locate the long-lost plans of Brooklyn’s cathedral of baseball, where the Dodgers played from 1913 to 1957, before famously breaking the borough’s heart by decamping to Los Angeles. The ballpark was demolished in 1960 by a wrecking ball painted with curving seams to resemble a gargantuan baseball. ..."
NY Times

Mr. Kennedy dreamed of rebuilding Ebbets Field at full size, but the largest replica he ever produced was a miniature tin that played “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” when you opened it.

2009 August: Ebbets Field, 2010 June: Red Barber, 2010 August: Shot Heard 'round the World, 2013 October: The Lost Ball Parks: Ebbets Field, 2009 September: Jackie Robinson, 2014 October: How Brooklyn Has Changed on Screen, 2016 March: Black Ball - Jules Tygiel and John Thorn (Essay), 2016 April: The Unsanitized Story of Jackie Robinson, 2016 October: That time a Dodgers fan beat an umpire in 1940, 2017 April: Baseball color line, Baseball's Great Experiment: Jackie Robinson and His Legacy - Jules Tygiel (1983), 2019 February: In Don Newcombe, Baseball Got Its First Black Ace

The History of Murder Ballads and the Women Who Flipped the Script

"Murder ballads are everywhere. From songs, to movies, and beyond, the centuries-old subgenre is ingrained in our culture—and sometimes, we may not even pick up on the violent, and often misogynistic, messages. You may have encountered murder ballads in the podcast Dolly Parton’s America, in which an entire episode it dedicated to how they influenced Parton’s earlier albums, and how she became a feminist icon by flipping the script; on The Hunger Games soundtrack, in which the foreboding song 'The Hanging Tree' draws from Appalachian folk; the bluegrass standard, 'Pretty Polly,'  which has been performed by everyone from jazz guitarist Bill Frisell to Judy Collins to Throwing Muses frontwoman Kristin Hersh; or songs like 'Hey Joe' (popularized by Jimi Hendrix), 'I Used to Love Her' by Guns N’ Roses, or 'Love the Way You Lie' by Eminem (featuring Rihanna)—all of which may not strictly follow the murder ballad formula, but continue the violent lyrical tradition. ..."
She Shreds (Video)

Stop Making Sense - Talking Heads (1984)

"Stop Making Sense is a 1984 American concert film featuring a live performance by American rock band Talking Heads. Directed by Jonathan Demme, it was shot over the course of four nights at Hollywood's Pantages Theater in December 1983, as the group was touring to promote their new album Speaking in Tongues. ... Lead singer David Byrne walks on to a bare stage with a portable cassette tape player and an acoustic guitar. He introduces 'Psycho Killer' by saying he wants to play a tape, but in reality a Roland TR-808 drum machine starts playing from the mixing board. ... With each successive song, Byrne is joined by more members of the band: first by Tina Weymouth for 'Heaven' (with Lynn Mabry providing harmony vocals from backstage), second by Chris Frantz for 'Thank You for Sending Me an Angel', and third by Jerry Harrison for 'Found a Job'. ..."
Wikipedia
YouTube: Stop Making Sense - Trailer
YouTube: Stop making sense (Concert) 1:27:47

2008 September: Talking Heads, 2011 June: Talking Heads: 77, 2011 August: More Songs About Buildings and Food, 2011 October: Fear of Music, 2012 January: Remain in Light, 2012 April: Speaking in Tongues, 2012 June: Live in Rome 1980, 2014 December: "Road To Nowhere" (1985), 2015 May: And She Was (1985), 2011 August: David Byrne: How Architecture Helped Music Evolve, 2012 January: The Knee Plays, 2015 October: My Life in the Bush of Ghosts - Brian Eno / David Byrne (1981), 2016 August: Fear Of Music: Amazing Early Talking Heads Doc From 1979, 2016 June: Performance (1979)

Positively Eighth Street

"Staggering through the aisles of today’s giant bookstores, it’s hard not to imagine that most of the merchandise won’t eventually find its way to the nearest Jersey landfill rather than a reader’s night table. Ever since these behemoth-sized emporiums took root in the 1980s, trafficking in assorted lamps, T-shirts, gewgaws, Simone de Beauvoir coffee mugs, Samuel Beckett tote bags, and — oh yes — books, the importance of the printed has become almost a consumerist afterthought. It’s the effect of the literature that these stores sell — a perfume of culture. So omnipresent has this book sales surround become, it almost seems as if — even to those forty and beyond — it has always been with us. But bookstores used to just sell books. ..."
RealityStudio

Nick Cave's inspiration: pictures and notes from his archive

Nick Cave in Yorkstraße, West Berlin, in August, 1985.
"'What you see in this book lives in the intricate world constructed around the songs, and which the songs inhabit,' writes Nick Cave in his introduction to Stranger Than Kindness. 'It is the material that gives birth to and nourishes the official work.' That intricate world includes drawings, lists, collages, scribbled notes and lyrics, found photographs and several handmade books, creased and stained, sometimes in his own blood. Therein the sacred and the profane, the biblical and the pornographic, exist side by side as they have done in Cave’s songs for about 40 years of often frantic creativity. ..."
Guardian
amazon: Stranger Than Kindness

Handwritten dictionary of words by Nick Cave

2008 August: Nick Cave, 2010 November: Henry Lee - Nick Cave & PJ Harvey, 2011 March: The Boatman's Call, 2011 December: B-Sides & Rarities, 2012 January: Nick Cave & Warren Ellis - White Lunar, 2013 January: "We No Who U R", 2013 April: No More Shall We Part, 2013 June: The Secret Life Of The Love Song/The Flesh Made Word (1999), 2013 October: The Abattoir Blues Tour (2007), 2014 March: Push the Sky Away (2013), 2014 May: Live from KCRW (2013), 2014 July: I Am the Real Nick Cave, 2014 March: God Is In The House (2001), 2015 June: Nocturama (2003), 2015 July: Higgs Boson Blues

Women's cinema

Post-war French director Jacqueline Audry
"Women's cinema is a variety of topics bundled together to create the work of women in film. This can include women filling behind the scene roles such as director, cinematographer, writer, and producer while also addressing the stories of women and character development through screenplays. Renowned female directors include Kathryn Bigelow, who is the only woman to date to win the Academy Award for Best Director, along with many other female directors from around the world such as Alice Guy-Blaché, Dorothy Arzner, Mary Harron, Icíar Bollaín, Jane Campion, Aparna Sen, Sofia Coppola, Agnès Varda, Patty Jenkins, Nancy Meyers, Yasmin Ahmad, Nadine Labaki, Ava DuVernay, Lucrecia Martel, Lynne Ramsay, Greta Gerwig, Rakhshān Banietemad, and Ida Lupino. Many successful cinematographers are also women, including Maryse Alberti, Reed Morano, Rachel Morrison, and Zoe White. Women's cinema recognizes women's contributions all over the world, not only to narrative films but to documentaries as well. ..."
Wikipedia
Women with a movie camera
BBC: Top 100 films directed by women: A new golden age of cinema?
Sight & Sound: the October 2015 issue ($)
15 Women of Cinema History You Should Know

Laura Mulvey

New Art Exhibit Explores Death and its Effect on Those Left Behind

Rachel Grobstein, Ghost Bike, 2019
"As a society, we’re more technologically advance than ever, yet the world feels more dangerous than ever. With concerns around poverty, homelessness, climate change, racial violence, climbing suicide rates and now the threat of a third world war, it’s no wonder so many a preoccupation with the meaning of life and the inevitability of death and dying. Right on cue, a new art exhibition opening in February at BRIC will draw our attention to the universal imminence of death and how the grieving process impacts the living. The exhibit, Death Becomes Her, is a collaboration between BRIC and The Green-Wood Cemetery featuring seven artists: Mimi Bai, Nona Faustine, Rachel Grobstein, Gyun Hur, Heidi Lau, Catalina Ouyang, and Keisha Scarville. ..."
BKReader
BRIC: Death Becomes Her (Video)
Artists Explore Mourning and Loss at BRIC’s ‘Death Becomes Her’ Exhibition in Fort Greene

Detail of ‘The Burial Chamber’ by Heidi Lau

Townes Van Zandt - In The Beginning... (1966)

"Not surprisingly, when one listens to these early recordings of Townes Van Zandt, it's obvious from the start that he was someone and something that arrived fully formed. Even if the songs themselves weren’t quite as refined as they would become, virtually all of the elements are in place: the poetry, the stark melodies, the restless wanderlust, the inherent melancholy and impenetrable darkness; all of which this would inhabit his lyrics and delivery for the rest of his too-short life. The songs on In the Beginning were recorded in his first Nashville recording sessions in 1966, pre-dating the release of For the Sake of the Song by two years. Eight of these ten songs was recorded with Van Zandt playing solo on his guitar. ... Take this for what it is, not some holy grail, but a collection of heretofore unheard and excellent early Van Zandt material, which is in itself a gift."
allmusic (Audio)
popmatters
Discogs (Video)
amazon
YouTube: In The Beginning... 30:54

2014 March: Heartworn Highways - James Szalapski (1975), 2014 September: The 10 Best Townes Van Zandt Songs, 2015 January: Solo Sessions (Jan 17, 1995), 2015 September: Townes Van Zandt & Nanci Griffith - "Tecumseh Valley," 1993, 2016 February: "If I Needed You" - Townes Van Zandt (1972)

Requiem for What's His Name - Marc Ribot & The Rootless Cosmopolitans (1992)

"Requiem for What's His Name is the second album by Marc Ribot & The Rootless Cosmopolitans which was released by the Belgian label Les Disques du Crepuscule in 1992. The album was recorded in New York City at Sound on Sound Recording except 'Commit a Crime' which was recorded live at Desi Stadtteilzentrum in Nuremberg, Germany. Ribot stated 'On the next record, Requiem for What’s His Name, the focus moved towards composition. It’s almost impossible to get hold of it. I was interested in Balkan music at the time, certain ritual music ... in finding stuff I could do without ironic distance.' ..."
Wikipedia
Discogs (Video)
amazon
YouTube: Requiem for What's His Name

2011 February: Selling Water By the Side of the River - Evan Lurie, 2012 September: Marc Ribot, 2013 February: Silent Movies, 2013 November: The Nearness Of You, 2014 January: Full Concert Jazz in Marciac (2010), 2014 May: Gig Alert: Marc Ribot Trio, 2014 September: Marc Ribot Trio with Mary Halvorson at The Stone, 2015 September: Marc Ribot y Los Cubanos Postizos - The Prosthetic Cubans (1998), 2015 November: Marc Ribot Ceramic Dog (2014), 2016 February: Musical Improvisation in the Marlene Dumas Exhibition (2015), 2017 May: Marc Ribot Trio - Fat Man Blues (2015), 2017 July: Err Guitar by Elliott Sharp with Mary Halvorson and Marc Ribot (2017)

The Mauritius Command - Patrick O'Brian (1977)

"The Mauritius Command is the fourth naval historical novel in the Aubrey-Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian, first published in 1977. Aubrey is married and the father of twin girls, owner of a cottage with a fine observatory he built. He is more than ready to be back at sea. He and Stephen Maturin join a convoy charged with taking two well-located islands in the Indian Ocean from the French. The mission provides scope for each man to advance in his specialty. A review written at first publication found the novel to be written in 'language deep with detail and the poetry of fact', appreciating the period detail. A later review, written at the reissue, finds the author a graceful writer but sees a difficulty with the novel's structure, building to climaxes that do not occur. Others writing at that time saw the novel more as part of the long series, with humour, erudition and 'impeccable period detail'. ..."
Wikipedia
Coffee, (1810, Port-Louis, Mauritius)
The Mauritius Command Radio Play (Audio)
amazon

Combat de Grand Port by Pierre-Julien Gilbert

2009 September: Patrick O'Brian, 2013 July: Harbors and High Seas - Dean King and John B. Hattendorf, 2015 October: HMS Surprise (1973), 2016 May: Post Captain (1972), 2019 February: Aubrey–Maturin series, 2019 February: Cooking with Patrick O’Brian By Valerie Stivers, 2019 June: Desolation Island (1978)

Al's French Frys

"... Founded by Al and Genevieve Rusterholz in the late 1940s, Al's French Frys was originally housed in a small hut, open to the elements. Many Chittenden Countians encountered Al’s French Frys stand at the Champlain Valley Fair, where it earned a reputation that has endured for more than half a century. Al’s is now owned by the Bissonette family, headed by Bill Bissonette, who revealed part of the restaurant’s secret when he told a local paper that he starts with Idaho or California russets and fries them twice in a combination of beef tallow and soy bean oil at between 300 and 400 degrees for a total of about seven minutes. There are always lines at Al’s, night and day. ..."
America's Classics: Al's French Frys, South Burlington, VT
Al's French Frys
Google - Al's French Frys
YouTube: JBF Awards 2010: Al's French Frys, Americas Classic Award

Nothing but Blue Skies

Stoke-by-Nayland, 1836, John Constable
"The sky alters our day. As soon as we open our eyes, the light in the window colors the way many of us approach family, school, work. The sky, whether clear, overcast, or threatening storms, is a dramatic visual character in our daily stories. Artists have approached the sky in many ways. John Constable was an influential British painter who harbored an intense curiosity about skies and weather. He went on sketching outings he called 'skying' during which he closely observed the sky and clouds. In Stoke-by-Nayland (1836) the earth is a muddle of dark colors and shapes that blend into one another. ..."
Art Institute of Chicago

Valley of Aosta: Snowstorm, Avalanche, and Thunderstorm, 1836/37, Joseph Mallord William Turner

Haymarket Books

"Our mission is to publish books that contribute to struggles for social and economic justice. We strive to make our books a vibrant and organic part of social movements and the education and development of a critical, engaged, international left. We take inspiration and courage from our namesakes, the Haymarket Martyrs, who gave their lives fighting for a better world. ... Radically independent, Haymarket seeks to drive a wedge into the risk-averse world of corporate book publishing. Our authors include Noam Chomsky, Arundhati Roy, Rebecca Solnit, Angela Davis, Howard Zinn, Amy Goodman, Wallace Shawn, Mike Davis, Winona LaDuke, Ilan Pappé, Richard Wolff, Dave Zirin, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Nick Turse, Dahr Jamail, David Barsamian, Elizabeth Laird, Amira Hass, Mark Steel, Avi Lewis, Naomi Klein, and Neil Davidson. ..."
Haymarket Books

The 48 Hours When Liverpool’s Title Run Screeched to a Halt

Liverpool was on pace to clinch the Premier League title this Saturday at Anfield.
"LIVERPOOL, England — For once, there was no big finale to Jürgen Klopp’s speech. Liverpool’s coach stood in the canteen at Melwood, the club’s training facility, with his players and the club’s staff gathered in front of him. All boundaries had blurred. Star players sat next to interns, all wondering the same thing: What now? Klopp did not, as he ordinarily would, end his talk with a rhetorical flourish, or a war cry, or even a joke. Instead, as he sent everyone home for the foreseeable future, he stressed two simple messages. ..."
NY Times