Mosfilm

Wikipedia - "Mosfilm ... is a film studio, which is often described as the largest and oldest in Russia and in Europe. Its output includes most of the more widely-acclaimed Soviet films, ranging from works by Tarkovsky and Eisenstein (commonly considered the greatest Soviet directors), to Red Westerns, to the Akira Kurosawa co-production (Дерсу Узала / Dersu Uzala) and the epic Война и Мир / War and Peace."
Wikipedia, Mosfilm, YouTube - Mosfilm

Gordon Monahan

Syncopated Precipitation - Kitchener City Hall Fountain Pool
Wikipedia - "Gordon Monahan (born 1956 in Kingston, Ontario) is a Canadian pianist and composer of experimental music. He has been active since at least 1978. Along with his own work, he has performed works by other composers such as John Cage, James Tenney, Udo Kasemets and Roberto Paci Dalò. Recently, he has also created site-specific sound installations."
Wikipedia, Gordon Monahan, Dusted Reviews - Theremin in the Rain, YouTube - Aeolian Winds Over Claybank Saskatchewan, Speaker Swinging, Gordon Monahan - WC Wood Refrigerator, piano, A Magnet That Speaks Also Attracts, Spontaneously Harmonious in Certain Kinds, Aquaeolian Whirlpool, Theremin Pendulum, Sauerkraut Synthesizer

The Art of Noises

Wikipedia - "The Art of Noises (L'arte dei Rumori) is a Futurist manifesto, written by Luigi Russolo in a 1913 letter to friend and Futurist composer Francesco Balilla Pratella. In it, Russolo argues that the human ear has become accustomed to the speed, energy, and noise of the urban industrial soundscape; furthermore, this new sonic palette requires a new approach to musical instrumentation and composition."
Wikipedia, Musica Futurista, The Art of Noises, amazon

Sylvia Plath - "Daddy"

"The poem is read by Sylvia herself."
YouTube

Mark Greene

Bedside
"Background paintings created for animations and books over the last ten years."
Brooklyn Art Project, (1)

The Diamonds

Wikipedia - "The Diamonds were a Canadian vocal quartet of the 1950s and early 1960s who rose to prominence performing mostly cover versions of songs by black musicians. The original members were Dave Somerville (lead), Ted Kowalski (tenor), Phil Levitt (baritone), and Bill Reed (bass)."
Wikipedia, YouTube - Little Darlin

Manet, the Man who Invented Modernity

Amazone, Manet
"More than a one man retrospective for Edouard Manet (1832-1883), the exhibition Manet, the Man who Invented Modernity explores and highlights the historical situation around him, including the reaffirmed legacy of Romanticism, the impact of his contemporaries and the changes in the media at the time."
Musée d'Orsay, (1)

Patti Smith Group

"Stockholm 1976."
YouTube - Pale Blue Eyes/Louie Louie, Free Money, Ask The Angels, We're gonna have a real good time

Popol Vuh: Abschied (1972)

"1972 was a fine year for German albums (Fausts So Far; Neu!; Keine Macht by Ton Steine Scherben; Cluster II; Schulzes Irrlicht). One the opposite end of the spectrum to Can's groove-fest Ege Bamyasi, the best of the year is probably the dreamy Hosianna Mantra. Graceful, haunting new age music, without any of the tacky connotations you naturally associate with this 'genre'..."
YouTube - Abschied (1972), Hosianna-Mantra, Kyrie 1973, Morgengruss II, Wehe Khorazin (1981), Der Grosse Krieger, Der Ruf, Einsjager & Siebenjager 1/2, 2/2, Du Sohn Davids Ⅰ&Ⅱ

December 2010: Aguirre, the Wrath of God
August 2008: Popol Vuh

An American history lesson with Gore Vidal

"How the mess were all in today came about explained by the one and only Gore Vidal."
YouTube - 1, 2, 3

Jeppe Hein

Circus Hein, Atelier Calder Saché, 2009
Wikipedia - "Jeppe Hein (born 1974, Copenhagen, Denmark) is an artist based in Berlin and Copenhagen. Hein is widely known for his production of experiential and interactive artworks that can be positioned at the junction where art, architecture, and technical inventions intersect. Notable in their formal simplicity and frequent use of humor, his sculptures and installations engage in a lively dialogue with the traditions of Minimalism and Conceptual art of the 1970s."
Wikipedia, Jeppe Hein, Google, YouTube - The Curve, Interaktiver Wasserpavillon in München, Appearing rooms

Laurie Spiegel

Wikipedia - "Laurie Spiegel (born September 20, 1945 in Chicago) is an American composer. She has worked at Bell Laboratories, in computer graphics, and is known primarily for her electronic-music compositions and her algorithmic composition software Music Mouse. She also plays the guitar and lute."
Wikipedia, Laurie Spiegel, Interview with Laurie Spiegel, YouTube - Improvisations on a 'Concerto Generator', Temporary Replacement, Appalachian Grove 1 edit (1974 electronic ambient minimal avant-garde), Part 1: Laurie Spiegel Bell Labs Interview 1984, Part 2

Holger Hiller

Wikipedia - "Holger Hiller (born 26 December 1956 in Hamburg) is a German musician. Holger Hiller studied art at the art school in Hamburg, where he met Walter Thielsch and Thomas Fehlmann and recorded first works with them. With Fehlmann he later founded the band Palais Schaumburg in 1980, of which he was the singer. At the same time his solo career began. Hiller was one of the first musicians in Europe to use the sampler as his main or sole instrument."
Wikipedia, Holger Hiller, YouTube - Ohi Ho Bang Bang, Oben im Eck, Das Feuer (Pilooski Edit), Budapest-Bukarest, Jonny

J. M. W. Turner

The Slave Ship, or Slavers Throwing overboard the Dead and Dying — Typhoon coming on. 1840
Wikipedia - "Joseph Mallord William Turner RA (23 April 1775–19 December 1851) was an English Romantic landscape painter, watercolourist and printmaker. Turner was considered a controversial figure in his day, but is now regarded as the artist who elevated landscape painting to an eminence rivalling history painting. Although renowned for his oil paintings, Turner is also one of the greatest masters of British watercolour landscape painting. He is commonly known as 'the painter of light' and his work regarded as a Romantic preface to Impressionism."
Wikipedia, WebMuseum, TATE, Metropolitan Museum of Art - Video

November 2007: J. M. W. Turner

Brian Eno - "Drums Between the Bells"

"Brian Eno first came across the work of Rick Holland in the late 90’s during the Map-Making project; a series of collaborative works between students of the Royal College, the Guildhall School of Music, the Royal Academy of Music, the Royal College of Music, the National Youth Orchestra and the English National Ballet, among others."
Brian Eno, (1)

Fela Kuti & Egypt 80 - "Beasts of No Nation!"

"This is a rare footage of the late great Afrobeat legend, FELA KUTI & EGYPT 80 getting down to another Underground Spiritual Game/Sound, 'BEASTS OF NO NATION!'"
YouTube - 1/2, 2/2

Alan Wolfson - Miniature - Urban Sculptures

"Alan Wolfson creates handmade miniature sculptures of urban environments. Complete with complex interior views and lighting effects, a major work can take several months to complete. The pieces are usually not exact representations of existing locations, but rather a combination of details from many different locations along with much of the detail from the artist's imagination."
Alan Wolfson

The Story of Jamaican Music vol 2 - Rebel Music

"One of the reasons why reggae lends itself to a sweeping, historical documentary, is that the reggae audience demands innovation, yet still values mass appeal. Reggae has moved through a series of clear and distinct phases, with only a minor fragmentation between deejays and singers, conscious and rude."
YouTube - 1/7, 2/7, 3/7, 4/7, 5/7, 6/7, 7/7

Hotel Palenque (1969)

"Hotel Palenque perfectly embodies the artist’s notion of a 'ruin in reverse.' During a trip to Mexico in 1969, he photographed an old, eccentrically constructed hotel, which was undergoing a cycle of simultaneous decay and renovation. Smithson used these images in a lecture presented to architecture students at the University of Utah in 1972, in which he humorously analyzed the centerless, 'de-architecturalized' site. Extant today as a slide installation with a tape recording of the artist’s voice, Hotel Palenque provides a direct view into Smithson’s theoretical approach to the effects of entropy on the cultural landscape."
Guggenheim, UbuWeb - Hotel Palenque (1969), Bootleg film / documentation / artwork by Alex Hubbard - Video

Charles Marville

Wikipedia - "Charles Marville was the pseudonym of Charles François Bossu (1813 – c. 1879), a French photographer who mainly photographed architecture and landscapes. He used both paper and glass negatives. He is most well known for taking pictures of ancient Parisian quarters before they were destroyed and rebuilt under 'Haussmannization', Baron Haussmann's new plan for modernization of Paris. He was originally trained to paint, engrave, and illustrate."
Wikipedia, W - Category:Charles Marville, Lee Gallery, The Globe and Mail - Video

Chess Records and Chicago Blues History Fair Documentary

"This is a documentary produced with a friend for the Chicago History Fair. It outlines the blues' roots and how it changed in Chicago to become what blues is known as today."
YouTube

Minimoog

Wikipedia - "The Minimoog is a monophonic analog synthesizer, invented by Bill Hemsath and Robert Moog. It was released in 1970 by R.A. Moog Inc. (Moog Music after 1972), and production was stopped in 1981. ... The Minimoog was designed in response to the use of synthesizers in rock and pop music. Large modular synthesizers were expensive, large, and delicate, and were not ideal for live performance; the Minimoog was designed to include the most important parts of a modular synthesizer in a compact package, without the need for patch cords."
Wikipedia, Moog Minimoog, YouTube - Demonstration of the Moog Minimoog, Dr Bob Moog demonstrates the Minimoog

Grapefruit

Wikipedia - "Grapefruit is an artist's book written by Yoko Ono, originally published in 1964. It has become famous as an early example of conceptual art, containing a series of 'event scores' that replace the physical work of art – the traditional stock-in-trade of artists – with instructions that an individual may, or may not, wish to enact."
Wikipedia, yoko ono grapefruit, anazon, YouTube - YOKO ONO reading from her "GRAPEFRUIT" poem book

Martha Rosler, Semiotics of the Kitchen, 1975.

"'I was concerned with something like the notion of "language speaking the subject," and with the transformation of the woman herself into a sign in a system of signs that represent a system of food production, a system of harnessed subjectivity.' – Martha Rosler"
artforum - Video, YouTube - Visual artist Martha Rosler talks about her work for NY Times

September 2008: Martha Rosler

Lindsay Cooper – Rags (1980)/The Golddiggers (1983)

"A two-CD collection called Songs From the Bridge, which included these and other works; it was issued in 1998. Cooper’s last major work was the haunting and harrowing Sahara Dust, in collaboration with Australian singer/writer/director Robyn Archer. Sahara Dust is a meditation on the Gulf War. ... The interplay between Minton’s voice singing and ringing out the poetry with the hypnotic winds, reeds, piano, and electronics is almost unbearable in its import. Yet it is so seductive the listener cannot help but to draw nearer the sound."
The Undercoverman, YouTube - Melodrama (1983 The Gold Diggers UK Canterbury Avant RIO Prog Henry Cow), The Golddiggers 3 - Celeste's Room (1983), The hanging garden, Assasination Waltz, Women's Wrongs 2 (1980)

December 2009: Lindsay Cooper

Edward Dorn Reads from The North Atlantic Turbine (1967)

"Edward Dorn reads from 'The North Atlantic Turbine'
Wait by the Door awhile Death, there are others
A Notataion on the evening of November 27, 1967
A Theory of Truth; The North Atlantic Turbine"
UbuWeb

AVANT

Drive-In show up the block at Gabrielle Bryers Gallery, 1983.
Wikipedia - "AVANT, also known as AVANT street art guerrilla collective, was the artist group active in New York City from 1980 to 1984. By 1984 AVANT had produced thousands of acrylic on paper paintings and plastered them on walls, doors, bus-stops and galleries city-wide. Principal artists were Christopher Hart Chambers, David Fried, and Marc Thorne."
Wikipedia, AVANT - Street Art New York City, 1980's

Astor Piazzolla - Milonga del angel

"Astor Piazzolla’s Milonga del angel is a track that is adored by many. Astor Piazzolla named this song after the title of his 1993 album which carries the same title. The Milonga is a type of music that immediately precedes the tango music and the tango dance. Therefore, many references to milonga often refers to a type of dance similar to the tango but is executed more softly than the original tango. To accompany this lighter form of dance, the Milonga often starts slow and sentimental to reflect how soft the feeling and emotions should be."
Astor Piazzolla Tango Nuevo - Video

Chihuly: Through the Looking Glass

"Over the course of his career, Dale Chihuly has revolutionized the art of blown glass, moving it into the realm of large-scale sculpture and establishing the use of glass—inherently a fragile but also magical material—as a vehicle for installation and environmental art. This exhibition of new and archival works represents the breadth and scope of the artist’s creative vision over the last four decades."
mfa

Your Life, Your Map

"A gallery of personalized subway maps from readers of The Times."
NYT

The Misfits

Wikipedia - "The Misfits is a 1961 American drama film written by Arthur Miller, directed by John Huston, and starring Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe, Montgomery Clift, Thelma Ritter, and Eli Wallach. It was the final film appearance for both Gable and Monroe. It was not a commercial success at the time of its release, but it garnered critical respect for its script and performances."
Wikipedia, A review by Damian Cannon, amazon, YouTube - 'The Misfits' - Trailer [1961], Marilyn Monroe, Montgomery Clift - Phonebooth, John Huston, Punch-drunk Perce, Eli Wallach

Mother Earth - "Make A Joyful Noise"

"Make a Joyful Noise is the follow-up to 1968's Living With the Animals. This time out, Mother Earth neatly divided their joint appreciations for rural and urban American music: à la the thematic 'City Side' and 'Country Side.' The City Side is an R&B workout, powered by a robust horn section and the vocals of Rev. Ron Stallings on burning soul cuts such as 'Stop That Train,' Tracy Nelson's killer performance on Naomi Neville's cooker 'What Are You Trying to Do,' and sultry read of Little Willie John's babymaker 'Need Your Love So Bad'."
CD Universe, W - Mother Earth, W - Tracy Nelson, Robert Christgau - Mother Earth, amazon - "Make A Joyful Noise", YouTube - LIVING WITH THE ANIMALS, When It All Comes Down, Down So Low, You Won't Be Passing Here No More

Andreas Cellarius and his Harmonia Macrocosmica

"The Dutch-German mathematician and cosmographer Andreas Cellarius is well known to map historians and historians of astronomy as the author of the Harmonia Macrocosmica (first published in 1660), a folio-sized work that is commonly regarded to be one of the most spectacular cosmographical atlases that was published in the second half of the seventeenth century."
Andreas Cellarius and his Harmonia Macrocosmica, The Plates with an English Translation of the Title Captions, YouTube - Harmonia Macrocosmica

ESG

Wikipedia - "ESG (Emerald, Sapphire and Gold) are a band from the South Bronx, New York, U.S.. The band originally consisted of the Scroggins sisters Maria (congas, vocals), Renee (vocals), and Valerie (drums), and friends David Miles (guitar) and Leroy Glover (bass). A later incarnation of the band consisted of Deborah, Maria (congas, vocals), Renee (guitar, vocals), and Valerie Scroggins (drums). ESG have been influential across a wide range of musical genres, including hip hop, post punk, disco, and dance-punk."
Wikipedia, YouTube - UFO, You're No Good, Chistelle (A South Bronx Story compilation), Moody, Dance to the Beat of Moody

Scratch Orchestra

Wikipedia - "The Scratch Orchestra was an experimental musical ensemble founded in the spring of 1969 by Cornelius Cardew, Michael Parsons and Howard Skempton. The Orchestra reflected Cardew's musical philosophy at that time. This meant that anyone could join, graphic scores were used (rather than traditional sheet music), and there was an emphasis on improvisation."
Wikipedia, W - Cornelius Cardew, The Scratch Orchestra, YouTube - Scratch Orchestra - STARS, Cornelius Cardew & The Scratch Orchestra - The Great Learning (Paragraph 1), The Great Learning (Paragraph 2), TWO Scratch Orchestra with front card H264 for ICA

Mexican muralism

José David Alfaro Siqueiros (1896 - 1974)
Wikipedia - "Mexican muralism is a Mexican art movement. The most important period of this movement took place primarily from the 1920s to the 1960s, though it exerted an influence on later generations of Mexican artists. The movement stands out historically because of its political undertones, the majority of which are of a Marxist nature, or related to a social and political situation of post-revolutionary Mexico."
Wikipedia, YouTube - Mexican Muralists

Strawberry Alarm Clock

Wikipedia - "Strawberry Alarm Clock is a psychedelic rock band from Los Angeles best known for their 1967 hit 'Incense and Peppermints'. The group took its name as an homage to the Beatles' psychedelic hit 'Strawberry Fields Forever', reportedly, at the suggestion of their record company Uni Records."
Wikipedia, YouTube - Incense and Peppermints, Rainy Day Mushroom Pillow, Strawberries mean love

"Tonight I Can Write" - Pablo Neruda

"Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
Write for example, 'The night is shattered
and the blue stars shiver in the distance.'
The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. ..."
YouTube - Andy Garcia

February 2009: Pablo Neruda

"Sound" (1966-67)

Morton Feldman
"The first installment of a short film featuring Rahsaan Roland Kirk, John Cage and David Tudor among others. Directed by Dick Fontaine."
YouTube - pt.1, pt.2, pt.3

"Waste Land" - Vik Muniz

"Often working in series, Vik has used dirt, diamonds, sugar, string, chocolate syrup and garbage to create bold, witty and often deceiving images drawn from the pages of photojournalism and art history."
Waste Land - Video, NYT: "Where Art Meets Trash and Transforms Life", Waste Land Image, YouTube - Vik Muniz - Pictures of Garbage: Irmã

"Red Headed Stranger" - Willie Nelson

Wikipedia - "Red Headed Stranger is a 1975 album by American outlaw country singer Willie Nelson. A concept album, Red Headed Stranger is about a fugitive on the run from the law after killing his wife. Sparse and jumbled, with brief, poetic lyrics, no one involved in the creation of the album thought it would sell well."
Wikipedia, amazon, YouTube - Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain, Red Headed Stranger, Can I Sleep In Your Arms

White Material

"Film-going is a total experience, so, when I went to see Claire Denis’s White Material in San Francisco this week, I had to sit through an advertisement for visiting South Africa and having a marvelous time. I’ve seen the ad before, and it gets increasingly depressing. There is lovely scenery and a complacent couple who can’t wait to get back there to regain the best Thai cooking of their lives and the rapturous experience of seeing elephants come to drink in the evening."
TNR: "David Thomson on Films: 'White Material'", Wikipedia, Slant Magazine, Criterion - Video

Fairport Convention - Maidstone 1970

"First part of the film of Fairport performing in Maidstone in 1970 near my school in Oakwood Park."
YouTube - pt1, pt2, pt3, Matthews Southern Comfort - pt4, pt5, Fairport Convention pt6

Underground Art: Chris Marker's "PASSENGERS" Exhibit

"We should thank the voracious observers among us for keeping a look out—they seem so few, amongst all the unquestioning images of the contemporary media. Foremost among mobile visionaries, if by age and certainly by reputation, is Left Bank quasi-nouvelle vague affiliate and all around proliferate and perspicacious explorer of images and interrogator of the world around us, Chris Marker."
MUBI

Ship Graveyards: Abandoned Ships, Boats and Shipyards

"Ships and boats are ancient inventions whose rise parallels the spirit of human adventure. From antiquity to modernity great powers have relied on shipping to expand empires, while grand liners transported tourists to far flung places previously only accessible to the imagination."
Urban Ghost, Cockatoo Island Project, Photography by Patrick Boland, Hours of Darkness, Twisted Sifter

Songs of Innocence and Experience

Wikipedia - "Songs of Innocence and Experience is an illustrated collection of poems by William Blake. It appeared in two phases. A few first copies were printed and illuminated by William Blake himself in 1789; five years later he bound these poems with a set of new poems in a volume titled Songs of Innocence and of Experience Showing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul."
Wikipedia, The Other Pages, Google

The Birka Jazz Archive

James P. Johnson: New York Jazz, 10" LP 1950
"Records we have bought and sold over the years - the rare and the beautiful!"
David Stone Martin, Columbia RecordsBlue Note 1500 series, Atlantic Records, France, Sweden 1960s, Germany, The Birka Jazz Archive

The Silvertones

Wikipedia - "The Silvertones (who also recorded as The Musketeers and The Muskyteers) were a Jamaican reggae harmony group formed in 1964, best known for their recordings for Lee 'Scratch' Perry in the early 1970s."
Wikipedia, YouTube - Smile, It's Real, True Confession, Stop Crying (Studio One 12"), Blue Bird, Take A Little Love

German Expressionism: The Graphic Impulse

Emil Nolde. Young Couple. 1913. Lithograph.
"From E. L. Kirchner to Max Beckmann, artists associated with German Expressionism in the early decades of the twentieth century took up printmaking with a collective dedication and fervor virtually unparalleled in the history of art. The woodcut, with its coarse gouges and jagged lines, is known as the preeminent Expressionist medium, but the Expressionists also revolutionized the mediums of etching and lithography to alternately vibrant and stark effect."
MoMA, MoMA: German Expressionism

Neil Young delivers emotional speech about philanthropy

"Young co-founded the Farm Aid benefit concerts and the Bridge School, which educates children with severe speech and physical impairments. His two sons have cerebral palsy, while his daughter, Amber -- who helped Young navigate the red carpet on a frigid spring Sunday -- suffers from epilepsy, like Young himself."
No Depression