Interview: Steinski

"Steve Stein never seemed like the most likely candidate to become a hip-hop legend. By the time he discovered the early New York rap scene at the turn of the 1980s, he was almost 30 years old. He was also white, Jewish and in steady employment as an advertising executive. Yet during the mid-to-late 1980s, Stein would pioneer hip-hop’s cut-and-paste culture, first alongside friend (and fellow advertising worker) Douglas DiFranco and then later as a solo artist. As Double Dee and Steinski, the pair produced a series of seminal – and highly illegal – mash-ups, known as “Lessons,” which included breakbeats, scratches and vocal samples from a dizzying array of records. ..."
Red Bull Music Academy (Video)
Outtakes: Steinski
YouTube: Double Dee & Steinski - Lesson 1 & 2 & 3 (OLD SCHOOL MASTERMIXES), Lesson 2 James (Brown Mix) TOMMY BOY RECORDS 1985, lesson 3, Lesson 1_The Payoff Mix

2009 February: Double Dee and Steinski, 2016 March: What Does It All Mean? 1983-2006 Retrospective

The Theater Where Ella Fitzgerald Got Her Start

"On Nov. 21, 1934, Ella Jane Fitzgerald appeared at the Apollo. It was the Harlem theater’s first amateur night, and Fitzgerald was just 17. Her friends had dared her. ... She had originally entered the show to dance, but after watching the Edwards Sisters’ dazzling tap-dancing act from the wings, she told him, 'I said there’s no way I’m going out there and try to dance.' As she stood awaiting her cue, the M.C. told her, 'Just do something.' In a raggedy dress and workman’s boots, Fitzgerald, who was then homeless and living on the streets of Harlem, looked out at the 1,500-seat theater with its glittering chandeliers and glamorous crowd. ..."
NY Times

The Savoy Ballroom in 1940.

The Sopranos (season 2)

Wikipedia -"The second season of The Sopranos aired on HBO from January 16 to April 9, 2000. The second season was released on DVD in region 1 on November 6, 2001. The story of the season focuses on Tony's growing mistrust of one of his closest friends Big Pussy Bonpensiero, who is revealed to be an FBI informant. Dr. Melfi continues meeting with Tony despite her growing disgust of his actions and contemplates the nature of their relationship. Tony's sister Janice also returns to New Jersey, and their collectively strained relationship with their mother Livia and each other continues. Meadow is accepted into college, but her personal life intersects with Tony's crime life for the first time. Former boss Jackie Aprile's brother Richie is released from prison and causes trouble for Tony and his business. ..."
W - The Sopranos (season 2)
W - Junior Soprano, W - Christopher Moltisanti, W - Janice Soprano
RecapGuide
The Sopranos: 10 Best Episodes Of Season 2, According To IMDB
Top 5 Episodes: The Sopranos – Season 2 (Video)
The Closing Credits Song For Every Episode of The Sopranos (Season 2) (Video)
YouTube: The Sopranos and Food: Season 2, "What the F@#% do you know about respect?" scene, Season 2 Trailer # 2, Garbage truck scene, Richie Meets Tony and Talks To Christopher, Soprano's Big Pussy road to death, Richie moves on Tony/Bobby in awe of Junior

How George Clinton Made Funk a World View

"In the mid-seventies, George Clinton and his band Funkadelic were working on a new song, 'Get Off Your Ass and Jam,' at a studio in Los Angeles. At the time, Funkadelic was basically a psychedelic-rock band that took apart soul ballads, and its heavy, sprawling jams felt like an endurance test. If you made it through them, then you tasted true freedom. The musicians were taking a break when, according to Clinton, a white kid wandered into the session—probably 'a smack addict,' as he recalled in his memoir, from 2014, 'Brothas Be, Yo Like George, Ain’t That Funkin’ Kinda Hard on You?' The kid asked if they would give him twenty-five dollars for a guitar solo. Clinton was sufficiently bemused to agree. He played 'like he was possessed,' Clinton wrote. ..."
New Yorker
The Atlantic: The Funkadelic Album That Predicted the Future

2009 January: George Clinton, 2010 December: Mothership Connection - Houston 1976, 2011 October: Funkadelic - One Nation Under A Groove, 2011 October: "Do Fries Go With That Shake?", 2012 August: Tales Of Dr. Funkenstein – The Story Of George Clinton & Parliament/Funkadelic, 2015 July: Playing The (Baker's) Dozens: George Clinton's Favourite Albums, 2015 August: Chocolate City (1975), 2016 February: Maggot Brain - Funkadelic (1971), 2016 June: P-Funk All Stars - Urban Dancefloor Guerillas (1983), 2017 March: Up for the Down Stroke - Parliament (1974), 2017 May: P-Funk mythology, 2019 September: Tear the Roof Off the Sucker: An Introduction to Parliament Funkadelic, 2019 December: Cosmic Slop - Funkadelic (1973)

The Edge of the Map

Olaus Magnus, Carta marina (detail), 1539.
"In the collections of Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey, there’s a round ceramic disk, about the size and shape of a cobblestone, with the barest image of a face on it. Two eyes in a mushroom-shaped head, a mouth opened in a howl or scream of some kind. Radiocarbon dating puts its age at about seven hundred years old, which would make it one of the earliest known images of the Jersey Devil. The Lenape knew it as Mësingw, a spirit being vital to preserving the balance of the forest. Mësingw ('Living Solid Face,' 'Masked Being,' or 'Keeper of the Game'), according to Herbert C. Kraft, who devoted his life to researching and documenting Lenape culture, was of prime importance to the Lenape. ..."
The Paris Review

Welcome to the Great Indoors: Museums Beckon in the Berkshires

In Blane De St. Croix’s ecologically minded show, a huge sheet of Styrofoam suggests melting permafrost and worn rock formations.
"WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Museums that seemed on the brink of reopening in New York are staying shut after Gov. Andrew Cuomo modified the state’s reopening plan last week. In California, arts institutions that had briefly reopened have had to padlock their doors once again. As the coronavirus epidemic continues to intensify across the country, museums have had to recalibrate their plans for renewed engagement. Remember when you thought your 'first' museum visit would feel like a payoff as the pandemic abated? Here in the Berkshires, after four months when the only museums I saw were on my phone screen, I went to two: the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, and the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in neighboring North Adams. ..."
NY Times

2018 April: Betting on the Berkshires

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. ..."
bandcamp (Audio)
The Freetown Tapes: A Mixtape From Sierra Leone's Thumb Piano Master Sorie Kondi & Chief Boima

David Smith

“Untitled,” 1963. Spray enamel on paper. 14 x 19”
"... American sculptor David Smith produced a distinctive body of work using commercial aerosol paint almost immediately upon its invention in the mid-nineteen-fifties. Wielding the spray can with the assurance of a welder's torch and the immediacy of a paintbrush, Smith combined the sensations of sculpting, painting, and drawing. In these works on paper and canvas the artist freely explored the interplay of mass and weightless form. David Smith: Sprays, curated by Candida Smith, the artist's daughter, and Peter Stevens, Director of the David Smith Estate, is the first in depth exhibition of the artist's Sprays in nearly thirty years. The exhibition includes more than seventy works on paper and canvas dating from 1958 to 1964, many of which have not been exhibited before and three related sculptures. ..."
Gugosian
David Smith: Sprays (Video)
Brooklyn Rail: David Smith Cubes and Anarchy
The Estate of David Smith
W - David Smith
YouTube: DAVID SMITH: Sprays at Gagosian Gallery, Madison Avenue

Sprays, created in HWVR picturing David Smith’s Quixote Don, 1958-1959, White Egg with Pink, 1958, Untitled, 1962 and Untitled, 1959

How John Steinbeck’s Final Novel Grappled With Immigration and Morality

"There’s a very good reason that readers return again and again to John Steinbeck’s fiction when it comes to its handling of class in America. Steinbeck wrote about economic desperation far better than most, and approached some of his fiction with an eye towards the grander systems that left many impoverished. Steinbeck’s name has also served as shorthand for a kind of socially-aware fiction. But while Steinbeck’s work often grappled with class and poverty, one novel from his late period grappled with questions of immigration—and did so in ways that resonate uncomfortably with Trump-era America. That novel is 1961’s The Winter of Our Discontent. ..."
LitHub
John Steinbeck's 5 Most Iconic Works

2012 July: East of Eden, 2019 January: Tortilla Flat (1935)

How Ornette Coleman Freed Jazz with His Theory of Harmolodics

"The term free jazz may have existed before Ornette Coleman’s The Shape of Jazz to Come arrived in 1959. Yet, however innovative the modal experiments of Coltrane or Davis, jazz still adhered to its most fundamental formulas before Coleman. 'Conventional jazz harmony is religiously chord-based,' writes Josephine Livingstone at New Republic, 'with soloists improvising within each key like balls pinging through a pinball machine. Coleman, in contrast, imagined harmony, melody, and rhythm as equal constituents.' This philosophy, jazz critic Martin Williams wrote upon hearing Coleman’s debut, was necessary to free jazz from its formal constraints. ..."
Open Culture (Video)

2019 July: Complete Science Fiction Sessions (2000), 2020 July: How Ornette Coleman Shaped the Jazz World: An Introduction to His Irreverent Sound

Various — ‘Nigeria 70: No Wahala: Highlife, Afro​-​Funk & Juju 1973​-​1987’

"The U.K.'s Strut label is well-known among music fiends for its fine compilations, unusual yet savvy collaborations, and provocative new releases. ... In addition, they have released countless collections of rare disco, funk, Afrobeat, African pop, and steamy reggae from the catacombs of history. Among the label's accomplishments are the Nigeria 70 comps that began release in 2001; they are chock-full of stunning cross-pollinations of funk, jazz, rock, soul, and traditional African musics. Nigeria 70: No Wahala (Highlife, Afro-Funk & Juju 1973-1987) is the fourth volume in the series and the first in more than eight years. It is one of the more provocative and satisfying entries in the collection. Compiled by Duncan Brooker with copious notes and interviews by Quinton Scott, this set collects 12 fine specimens of West African groove music, seamlessly sequenced. ..."
allmusic (Audio)
Discogs (Video)
amazon
YouTube: Nigeria 70: No Wahala: Highlife, Afro​-​Funk & Juju 1973​-​1987 1:12:22

Portland Protest Tactics: Umbrellas, Pool Noodles and Fire

Federal forces and protesters clashed near the federal courthouse in Portland, Ore., early Wednesday.
"PORTLAND, Ore. — Shields were made of pool noodles, umbrellas and sleds. The body armor was pieced together with bicycle helmets and football pads. The weapons included water bottles and cigarette lighters. Facing federal forces who came to Portland to subdue them, many of the city’s protesters have taken to the streets this week with items scrounged from home. Then they have assembled at the federal courthouse each night with sometimes starkly different visions of how to put their tools to use. In 55 consecutive nights of protest in Portland, no two have been alike. The protests began on May 29, after the killing of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis. ..."
NY Times (Video)
***NY Times: Federal Officers Hit Portland Mayor With Tear Gas (Video)
NY Times: Chaotic Scenes in Portland as Backlash to Federal Deployment Grows (Video)
NY Times: A Navy Veteran Had a Question for the Feds in Portland. They Beat Him in Response. (Video)
NY Times: From Antifa to Mothers in Helmets, Diverse Elements Fuel Portland Protests (Video)

Chaotic scenes continued to play out in Portland, Ore., early Wednesday amid the growing backlash to the presence of camouflaged federal agents.

The Great Migration - Baltimore Magazine

"Jacob Logan saw an opportunity. It was 1945, and Cherry Hill was finally being developed to alleviate housing shortages for the Black veterans and World War II defense workers that had flooded into Baltimore. After years of delays because of white backlash at other proposed sites, the Cherry Hill project—the first suburban-style planned community for African Americans, and perhaps most conspicuous example of residential segregation by design ever in the United States—went up quickly once it got the go-ahead. Families rushed into the new rowhouses and apartment buildings before basic infrastructure, such as a school, shopping center, or grocery store, were even in place. Originally from the rural South, Logan worked at the Bethlehem-Fairfield docks, having come to Baltimore during the war to build Liberty ships. Despite a fifth-grade education, he’d also managed to save and invest in a small corner grocery in a nearby Black section of South Baltimore by the time construction in Cherry Hill began. ..."
Baltimore Magazine

Map of The Great Migration

Army of Shadows - Jean-Pierre Melville (1969)

Lino Ventura plays Philippe Gerbier, immediate commander of a French Resistance group whose leader is largely unknown among the ranks.
"The most personal film by the underworld poet Jean-Pierre Melville, who had participated in the French Resistance himself, this tragic masterpiece, based on a novel by Joseph Kessel, recounts the struggles and sacrifices of those who fought in the Resistance. Lino Ventura, Paul Meurisse, Jean-Pierre Cassel, and the incomparable Simone Signoret star as intrepid underground fighters who must grapple with their conception of honor in their battle against Hitler’s regime. Long underappreciated in France and unseen in the United States, the atmospheric and gripping thriller Army of Shadows is now widely recognized as the summit of Melville’s career, channeling the exquisite minimalism of his gangster films to create an unsparing tale of defiance in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds."
Criterion (Video)
W - Army of Shadows
Roger Ebert: Existential Resistance
NY Times: 'Army of Shadows' Takes a Hard Look at a Horrible and Marvelous Time (April 2006)
YouTube: Army of Shadows - Trailer

2015 January: Le Cercle Rouge (1970), 2017 June: Jean-Pierre Melville’s Cinema of Resistance, 2017 November: Un Flic (1972), 2018 November: Two Men in Manhattan (1959), 2020 June: Jean-Pierre Melville: Who does that for anyone?

Bernadette Mayer - Memory

"'Look at very small things with your eyes / & stay warm,' wrote Bernadette Mayer, addressing herself in the 1968 poem 'The Way to Keep Going in Antarctica.' 'Nothing outside can cure you but everything’s outside,' she continues. For the past five decades, Mayer, the author of more than 30 volumes, has marked herself as a cataloguer par excellence of everyday life, attuned to the rhythms of the world and her position as an artist in it. Steeped in the conceptualism of the 1970s, her early work eschewed the boundaries of genre and form to capture life’s grand moments and its minute details. In 1971, then age 26, she set out to synthesize such experiences in an artistic investigation of memory by recording the world as she lived it over the course of a single month. ..."
The Nation: An Emotional Science Project - Bernadette Mayer’s Memory.
Everyday Life, Revisited—with Bernadette Mayer’s Memory
Locus Solus: The New York School of Poets - Bernadette Mayer’s “Memory” as an “Everyday-Life Project”
Brooklyn Rail - On Memory : Bernadette Mayer with Phillip Griffith
ARTFORUM - Interviews, Bernadette Mayer (Video)
amazon

2008 December: Bernadette Mayer, 2016 June: Thirteen poems by Bernadette Mayer, 2019 June: The Poetry Project’s Half-Century of Dissent

Best Reggae Producers: 10 Pioneers Of Jamaica’s Musical Legacy

King Tubby
"The best reggae producers pioneered new sounds and recording techniques. They also ensured that Jamaica was recognized as a country capable of creating worldwide stars. From helping to sow the seeds of hip-hop to ushering in the 'version,' or creating utterly unique music that couldn’t have been made by anyone else, in any other place, the best reggae producers deserve to be held up alongside any other sonic innovators in musical history. Here are the best reggae producers of all time. Think we’ve left someone off the list? Let us know in the comments section." Duke Reid, Coxsone Dodd, Dandy Livingstone, Lee “Scratch” Perry, King Tubby, King Jammy, Harry Mudie, Leslie Kong, Keith Hudson, Rupie Edwards.
udiscover (Video)

Lee “Scratch” Perry

Rereading Mrs. Dalloway at the Same Age as Mrs. Dalloway

"Recently, I began rereading Mrs. Dalloway for what was easily the eighth or tenth time. It might just be my favorite novel, the one on that changing list of Books-I-Proselytize-About which stays there, not that it needs my proselytizing. I had not read it in several years, so I opened it with a deep pleasure, an anticipation of how lost I would become in it, how enveloped by the sensations and the emotions and the sentences themselves. But when I reached the passage above, early in the book, I saw that something had changed. I was now Clarissa’s age exactly. ..."
LitHub
LA Review - Me and Mrs Dalloway: On Losing My Mother to COVID-19
The Criterion, Vol.4, No.1: About the Issue
[PDF] The Criterion, On Being Ill

Mrs Dalloway. Flower detail.

I Want You - Marvin Gaye (1976)

"Marvin Gaye’s I Want You was originally released 40 years ago this month, and the timing feels somewhat fitting given today’s essential dialogue about the existential value of black life. You can’t make a convincing argument that black lives matter if you’re not also willing to acknowledge that black sexuality, romance, and love—aspects that have been historically threatened, circumscribed, and limited by the horrors of slavery and legally enforced systems of segregation and brutality—matter too. ... Like no other record before or since, I Want You captures the distilled feeling and aesthetics of black sensuality, sex, and simmering erotic desire—right down to the seductive bump ‘n’ grind cover art by the late great Ernie Barnes. ..."
I Want You Still: Celebrating 40 Years of Marvin Gaye’s Sensual Classic (Video)
W - I Want You (Marvin Gaye album)
Guardian - Ernie Barnes: the overlooked legacy of the athlete turned celebrity artist, W - Ernie Barnes
Discogs (Video), amazon
YouTube: I want you 1976 (Virus Mix), I Want You 1976 Soul Purrfection Version, I want you extended remix 62889, I Want You (Remix) (Mike Maurro Mix)

Ernie Barnes

2016 July: "Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)" (1971), 2011 October: What's Going On

Debatable: Is open debate under threat?

Noam Chomsky, left, and J.K. Rowling
"Last week, 153 writers, artists and academics — including J.K. Rowling, Noam Chomsky and Nell Irvin Painter — signed an open letter in Harper’s Magazine warning of a threat to intellectual life in the United States. 'The free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted,' the letter reads, condemning 'a new set of moral attitudes and political commitments that tend to weaken our norms of open debate and toleration of differences in favor of ideological conformity.' ..."
NY Times (Video)

French TEE carriages and posters around 1970

Un nouveau Mistral
"In the late 1960s domestic long-distance trains were added to the Trans Europ Express (TEE) network of first-class trains. Paul Arzens designed colorful TEE carriages and sharp-cut locomotives for the French national railways. Matching posters for these SNCF carriages were created by graphic designer Philippe Foré. He played with lines and colors to express speed and strength. The posters promoted legendary trains such as the Mistral and Capitole. ..."
RETOURS
RETOURS: The tracks of two Alpinists
RETOURS: The New Travel Land

Mac McRaw: 60 Raw Ones – Straight Out The SP!

"Mac McRaw is back once again with a new project for all the B-Boys, B-Girls, DJs, Producers, Breakers, and all those who love the classic sounds coming straight out of the SP1200. Crafting beats that snap necks and wreck shop, Mac gives us 60 raw beats from 1993 to 2020. These beats are all on one disk, are ten seconds only and run like a mix tape. The cool thing is that they run from slowest to fastest beat, 84 BPM to 120 BPM. Inter-dispersed with SP1200 lyric samples and drops from legendary DJs and producers like Audessey, Breakbeat Lou, Boogie Blind, Chucky Smash, Danny Dan The Beatman, DJ Nu-Mark, Dooley-O, Forrest Getem Gump, Gensu Dean, Johnny Juice, J-Zone, Lewis Parker, Mr Supreme, Mr Walt, Oxygen, Phill Most Chill, Skeme Richards, and UGeorge, this is one mix tape we can definitely get behind here in 2020. ..."
flea market funk (Audio)
bandcamp (Audio)
AE Productions (Audio)
Discogs

On Lessons From August Wilson’s Jitney

"Jitney ran for a limited revival at the Mark Taper Forum prior to the quarantines that recently swept through L.A. County. ... A part of August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 'Century Cycle' of plays, meant to cover 100 years of Black life in Pittsburgh, Jitney, written in 1979 and first performed in 1982, remains eerily prescient for the times we find ourselves in now. Set in 1977, the play follows a cab station in Pittsburgh, where several Black American drivers operate ‘jitneys’ – or unlicensed taxis – as vehicle services for the poor Black community where ‘official’ cabs will not go. Each driver has his own personal burdens to bear: the youngest, Youngblood, is a hot-tempered Vietnam veteran attempting to save money to buy a house for himself, his girlfriend, and their young child. ..."
Riot Material
KPBSAugust Wilson’s ‘Jitney’ Depicts The Mundane And Finds Something Profound (Audio)
W - Jitney (play)
[PDF] Jitney

L-R: Ray Anthony Thomas (as Turnbo), Steven Anthony Jones (as Becker), Anthony Chisholm (Fielding), Keith Randolph Smith (Doub) and Amari Cheatom (Youngblood) in August Wilson’s Jitney, directed by Ruben Santiago-Hudson.

2017 July: Fences (2016), 2017 August: The Ground on Which I Stand, a Speech on Black Theatre and Performance (1992), 2018 July: Pittsburgh Cycle, 2018 August: August Wilson in St. Paul: A MN Original Special, 2020 May: August Wilson's Blues Poetry

Black Atlantic lives

Conakry, Guinea.
"Last month, the brother of George Floyd appealed to the UN Human Rights Council to stop racist violence and the killing of black people in the US. While the current US administration continues to ignore and amplify systemic racism, Philonise Floyd looked well beyond his national borders for help. As he declared, 'Black lives do not matter in the United States of America.' Floyd’s statement comes alongside weeks of anti-racist protests in cities across the world, with activists and ordinary citizens mobilized and enraged by events in the US. However, this 'global conversation' on American racial injustice is not a new one. ... The example of a small country like Guinea shows how intimately black Atlantic lives are connected through shared pain, protest, and hope. ..."
Africa is a Country
W - Guinea

Progress in Play: Board Games and the Meaning of History

The Chronological Star of the World, An Entertaining Game, published by John Marshall of London, 1818
"Players moving pieces along a track to be first to reach a goal was the archetypal board game format of the 18th and 19th centuries. Alex Andriesse looks at one popular incarnation in which these pieces progress chronologically through history itself, usually with some not-so-subtle ideological, moral, or national ideal as the object of the game. ..."
The Public Domain Review

Healthy Living, created by the doctors and textbook authors K. W. Lapin and A. S. Berljand, and published by the Soviet Commission on Public Health, Rostov-on-Don or Moscow, 1926

The Sopranos - Season 1

"The first season of The Sopranos aired on HBO from January 10 to April 4, 1999.  ... The season introduces DiMeo Crime Family Capo Tony Soprano and his family, as well as his troubled relationship with his mother Livia. Also troubled is his relationship with his Uncle Junior, who becomes locked in a power struggle with Tony after the death of the Crime Family Boss, Jackie Aprile. Tony also begins therapy sessions with Dr. Melfi after his panic attacks become more frequent. Meanwhile, Tony's daughter Meadow becomes aware of her father's true profession while preparing to get into college, and Tony's nephew Christopher attempts to write a screenplay about his crime life and anxiously awaits becoming a made man. Due to Junior's plotting of an assassination, Tony also gets embroiled in a plot against childhood friend Artie Bucco, a charming but obsequious restaurateur. ..."
W - The Sopranos (season 1)
W - Tony Soprano, W - Carmela Soprano, W - Jennifer Melfi
RecapGuide: The Sopranos - Season 1
The Sopranos: 10 Best Episodes Of Season 1, According To IMDb
Top 5 Episodes: The Sopranos – Season 1 (Video)
Season 1 - Music (Video)
YouTube: The Sopranos Dictionary | HBO, Episode 1 Ducks Depart The Pool & Tony Has a Panic Attack

Orbital Patterns Goes Deep

"'A Vessel in the Fog,' uploaded to the YouTube channel of the musician who goes by Orbital Patterns just this Monday, is a live ambient piece. Textures twist and turn like clouds of smoke, turning in the air before vaporizing and being replaced by something else, something similar and yet apart. There’s numerous such elements at any given time, packed like sediment in a vibrant terrarium: surface noise, and muffled chords, and crunchy percussives like fall leaves under foot, and what sounds like psychedelic guitar riffs going round and round. It’s a beautiful piece, gaining depth as it goes, a deep bass tone slowly making itself heard and lending a slow, thoughtful pace to what might otherwise be an understated roil. It is clearly, so to speak, the title vessel. Video originally posted at youtube.com. More at instagram.com/0rbitalpatterns and twitter.com/orbitalpatterns."
disquiet (Video)
YouTube: A Vessel In The Fog/eurorack modular lofi ambient, Ellipsis/eurorack modular lofi ambient, Full Of Unspoken Words/eurorack modular lofi ambient, Cant Push The Sun/eurorack modular lofi ambient, Torn From The Morning/eurorack modular lofi ambient

Baadasssss Songs: A History Of Blaxploitation Soundtracks

"Its title might read more like a Blaxploitation spoof rather than the real deal, but, when it was released in April 1971, Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss song ushered in a whole new era of filmmaking. Despite a rudimentary plot – even by the standards of the time – the fact that writer, director, actor and musician Mario Van Peebles masterminded, starred in and financed the whole thing himself proved that a new genre of film could attract a black audience to the cinemas – and that that same audience could, finally, see characters they related to up on the big screen. Released during funk music’s heyday, the film also boasted a soundtrack written by Peebles and performed by nascent funk group Earth, Wind And Fire. This marriage of sound and vision would help to define Blaxploitation films, as a host of artists clamoured to assert their street cred and soundtrack these cinematic tales of ghetto life. ..."
udiscover (Audio/Video)

C/2020 (NEOWISE)

Finding Charts
"C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) or Comet NEOWISE is a retrograde comet with a near-parabolic orbit discovered on March 27, 2020, by astronomers using the NEOWISE space telescope. At that time, it was a 10th-magnitude comet, located 2 AU (300 million km; 190 million mi) away from the Sun and 1.7 AU (250 million km; 160 million mi) away from Earth. By July 2020, it was bright enough to be visible to the naked eye. It is one of the brightest comets in the northern hemisphere since Comet Hale–Bopp in 1997. Under dark skies, it can be clearly seen with the naked eye and might remain visible to the naked eye throughout most of July 2020. ... For observers in the northern hemisphere, in the morning, the comet appears low above the north-eastern horizon, below Capella. In the evening, the comet can be seen low in the north-western sky. ..."
W - C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE), W - NEOWISE (pre-hibernation)
How to see Comet NEOWISE
Stellarium Astronomy Software
NASA: NASA’s Parker Solar Probe Spies Newly-Discovered Comet NEOWISE
YouTube: I filmed Comet Neowise with my 12 inch Telescope !!!!, How to view comet NEOWISE at night, and in the morning

Comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE from Slovakia, Europe.

‘We Have One Last Chance to Save America’: This Powerful New Anti-Trump Ad Will Bring Tears to Your Eyes

"Eleven Films released a powerful new anti-Trump ad on Thursday, featuring footage from recent protests calling for racial justice in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. 'In November, we have one last chance to save America. #VoteForOurLives,' Eleven Films wrote above the ad on Twitter, where it quickly racked up hundreds of thousands of views. Titled 'The Dangerous Ones', the two-minute, 29-second ad is set to the song of the same name, performed by Kasey Anderson. It was funded by the Resistance. 'We’re almost there,' a title screen reads near the end of the ad. 'We’ve been through hell. We must vote.' Watch it below."
TOWLEROAD (Video)
YouTube: Eleven Films
YouTube: BREAKING The Dangerous Ones

Psychedelic Blues: When The Blues Turned On And Tuned Out

"After psychedelia came to a boil in the late 60s, the blues and rock heroes of the 50s took a brief but thrilling walk on the wild side, with fuzz guitars, wah-wah effects, and epic jams to the fore. It was the Age of Aquarius, and the blues was busy being psychedelicized. The psychedelic blues period for Chicago titans like Muddy and Wolf and first-generation rock’n’rollers like Bo, Chuck Berry, and Little Richard wasn’t a long one but it blasted a hole in preconceptions on either side of the stylistic fence. And the impact was as unforeseen as it was long-lasting. Baby boomer rockers and Chicago blues originators spent a good portion of the 60s doing a dizzying do-si-do together. ... But by the late 60s, the countercultural explosion had pulled rock fans further from away the genre’s musical roots, so a few savvy souls decided to do something about it. ..."
udiscover (Video/Audio)

Exploring Wes Anderson’s wonderful cinematic commercials

"American filmmaker Wes Anderson is easily one of the most unique artistic voices in contemporary cinema. Now famous for his beautiful films such as Fantastic Mr. Fox, Moonrise Kingdom, The Grand Budapest Hotel and more, his work stands out in cinematic tradition because of their eccentric visual and narrative styles. Some critics even cite him as the 'modern-day example of an auteur'. The critically acclaimed director is not just responsible for making cinematic masterpieces. Over the course of his career, Anderson has also directed some of the best commercials of the 21st century for top companies like American Express, Prada, Hyundai and AT&T. The clips also feature a few of his biggest collaborators such as actors Jason Schwartzman and Adrian Brody, cinematographer Robert Yoeman and co-writer Roman Coppola. Here are some of the brilliant commercials that Wes Anderson directed. ..."
FAR OUT (Video)

2013 November: Wes Anderson Honors Fellini in a Delightful New Short Film, 2013 November: Rushmore (1998), 2013 Decemher: Hotel Chevalier (2007), 2014 March: Wes Anderson Collection, 2014 April: The Perfect Symmetry of Wes Anderson’s Movies, 2014 July: The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), 2014 August: Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009), 2014 December: Welcome to Union Glacier (2013), 2015 January: Inhabiting Wes Anderson’s Universe, 2015 July: Books in the Films of Wes Anderson: A Supercut for Bibliophiles, 2015 November: Moonrise Kingdom (2012), 2015 December: Chapter 8: "The Grand Budapest Hotel", 2016 June: Here's pretty much every song used in a Wes Anderson film, 2016 November: Watch Come Together, Wes Anderson’s New Short Film...., 2018 September: Isle of Dogs (2018), 2020 May: Honest Trailers - Every Wes Anderson Movie