Jammin' the Blues (1944)

"Jammin' the Blues is a 1944 short film in which several prominent jazz musicians got together for a rare filmed jam session. It features Lester Young, Red Callender, Harry Edison, Marlowe Morris, Sid Catlett, Barney Kessel, Jo Jones, John Simmons, Illinois Jacquet, Marie Bryant, Archie Savage and Garland Finney. Barney Kessel is the only white musician in the film. He was seated in the shadows to shade his skin, and for closeups, his hands were dyed with berry juice."
Wikipedia
YouTube: Jammin' the Blues

The Sinking Bear & Ray Johnson’s A Book About Death

"At the forthcoming New York Art Book Fair at MoMA/PS 1 (September 19-22) there will be a dual exhibit in the Ray Johnson Room (Gallery Y) devoted to Sinking Bear and Ray Johnson’s A Book About Death, displayed along with related ephemera and zines. Boo-Hooray and Division Leap are co-publishing the exhibition catalogue The Sinking Bear, the first publication dedicated to the most insane, beautiful and innovative mimeo zine of the 1960s. Edited by the mysterious Soren Agenoux (by differing accounts a mail artist, playwright, suspected thief and forger) The Sinking Bear arose from a loose circle of artists associated with various downtown New York scenes, particularly the circle around the poetry newsletter Floating Bear, edited by Diane Di Prima and Leroi Jones, which not only filled a vital role allowing poets to share and refine their work, but also provided fodder for the rather vitriolic ridicule presented in Sinking Bear, which balanced a fine line between imitating Floating Bear and acting like its nemesis."
BOO-HOORAY
RealityStudio: Floating Bear 24

The Dead (1987 film)

Wikipedia - "The Dead is a 1987 film directed by John Huston, starring his daughter Anjelica Huston. The Dead was the last film that Huston directed, and it was released posthumously. According to Pauline Kael, 'Huston directed the movie, at eighty, from a wheelchair, jumping up to look through the camera, with oxygen tubes trailing from his nose to a portable generator; most of the time, he had to watch the actors on a video monitor outside the set and use a microphone to speak to the crew. Yet he went into dramatic areas that he'd never gone into before - funny, warm family scenes that might be thought completely out of his range. Huston never before blended his actors so intuitively, so musically.'"
Wikipedia
W - The Dead (1914)
The Dead - James Joyce
Guardian: 'I think he died for me'
Roger Ebert
NYT: The Dead (1987)
YouTube: The Dead, ".. upon all the living and the dead."

2011 March: Passages from James Joyce's "Finnegans Wake" (1965-67), 2010 March: Ulysses Seen, 2013 February: ULYSSES “SEEN” is moving to Dublin!, 2013: Dubliners.

L.A. Turnaround - Bert Jansch (1974)

Wikipedia - "L.A. Turnaround is the ninth album by Scottish folk musician Bert Jansch, released in 1974. Two of the songs were recorded in Paris in 1973, and the others were recorded in Los Angeles in 1974. The album was produced by former Monkee and Country rock artist Michael Nesmith, who also played guitar. Other guest musicians include Red Rhodes (steel guitar), Byron Berline (fiddle, mandolin) and Jesse Ed Davis (guitar)."
Wikipedia
allmusic
YouTube: "L A Turnaround" - Full Album

April 2010: Bert Jansch, 2011 October: Bert Jansch (November 1943 – October 2011), 2014 February: Bert Jansch / John Renbourn - Bert & John (1966).

Don Ward

"'Don’t worry,' Don says, upon hearing that his next customer has never had her shoes shined before. 'I’ll be gentle.' He instructs her to climb into an office chair bolted to a red-and-gray plywood box the size of a refrigerator, and sit down on a grubby towel printed with the White House’s insignia. 'I brought it from home,' he says, pausing for laughter. He throws a stained towel over her knees and skirt, to protect her modesty ('It’s not my birthday!'), and starts in on the story of how Don Ward, who prefers to be known only as Don — 'Cher can have only one name; so can I' — runs a successful business shining shoes at the corner of Sixth Avenue and Forty-seventh Street in Manhattan, just south of the headquarters of Fox News."
New Yorker - Making Money: There's No Business Like Shoe Busines
YouTube: No Your City: Episode 3 (Don), Don Ward: Shoe Shiner Extraordinaire

Kraftwerk - "The Telephone Call" (1987)

Wikipedia - "'The Telephone Call' (German: 'Der Telefon-Anruf') is a 1987 single by German techno group Kraftwerk, on the 1986 album Electric Café. 'The Telephone Call' was number one on the dance charts for two weeks, and was the second single that Kraftwerk took to number one in four months. ... The song's music video features each member of the band answering a telephone (Ralf Hutter's being a combination of a telephone and a synthesiser). None of the band members are seen singing the song in the video except for a silhouette Karl Bartos, but when the camera pans around it is revealed to in fact be Wolfgang Flur. He is also seen at a typewriter typing 'You're so close, but far away'. At several other points in the video, various other iconic images are seen including a dangling phone on a wire and an eye staring through a hole in a wall, the latter appearing for only one second in the video. The images give the video an unsettling feeling."
Wikipedia
YouTube: The Telephone Call, The Telephone Call (long version)

2008 April: Kraftwerk, 2011 March: Kraftwerk and the Electronic Revolution, 2011 March: Kraftwerk - Documentary, 2011 April: Krautrock: The Rebirth of Germany, 2011 May: Autobahn, 2011 October: Trans-Europe Express, 2012 February: Retrospective 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8, 2012 October: Radio-Activity.

Mondo Black Chamber - David Toop (2014)

"David Toop is a composer/musician, author and curator based in London. Since 1970 he has worked in many fields of sound art, listening practice and music, including improvisation, sound installations and video works, field recordings, pop music production, music for television, theatre and dance. He has recorded Yanomami shamanism in Amazonas, appeared on Top of the Pops with the Flying Lizards, exhibited sound installations in Tokyo, Beijing and London's National Gallery, and performed with artists ranging from John Zorn, Evan Parker, Bob Cobbing and Ivor Cutler to Akio Suzuki, Elaine Mitchener, Lore Lixenberg, Scanner and Max Eastley."
SubRosa (Video)
Morr Distro (Video)

2009 October: David Toop

Fela Kuti - Upside Down (1976)

"Upside Down, released in 1976, is one of the more unusual items in Fela Kuti's discography from the period. Not structurally -- it's the usual two-song, half-hour deal, the songs beginning with several minutes of instrumental solo trades before the socially conscious lyrics enter. The song 'Upside Down' itself, however, is sung not by Kuti but by Sandra Akanke Isidore. She was a woman that he met during his stay in the United States at the end of the 1960s, and who is credited with helping to elevate his own social awareness and ethnic identity. It's basically like hearing a track by this artist with a different vocalist, then. Although Isidore's pipes aren't as strong as Kuti's, it makes for something refreshingly different in the midst of all those similar two-song releases from the mid-'70s. The other track, 'Go Slow,' is a little jazzier, and puts less emphasis on lyrics than most Kuti tracks, with the singing largely limited to chants that punctuate the instrumental arrangement."
allmusic
YouTube: Upside Down, Go Slow

Tim Rollins and K.O.S.

Tim Rollins and K.O.S., A Midsummer Night's Dream, 2009
"Tim Rollins (b. 1955, Pittsfield, Maine) studied fine art at the University of Maine and earned a BFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York. After graduate studies in art education and philosophy at New York University, Rollins began teaching art for special education middle school students in a South Bronx public school. In 1984, he launched the Art and Knowledge Workshop in the Bronx together with a group of at-risk students who called themselves K.O.S. (Kids of Survival). In 1997, the documentary, Kids of Survival: The Art and Life of Tim Rollins & K.O.S. was widely received at the London Film Festival, Cinema de Real, France and the Hamptons International Film Festival."
Lehmann Maupin
W - Tim Rollins and K.O.S.
Guardian: 'A fantastic field of visual ecstasy' – the art of Tim Rollins and KOS
Tim Rollins and K.O.S.: A History (Video)
YouTube: Tim Rollins part1, part2, part3, part4, part6

Erik den Breejen

Harry Nilsson (All My Life), 2013
"Erik den Breejen was born in Berkeley, California in 1976. He studied art and music at U.C. Santa Cruz before transferring to the California College of Arts and Crafts (now California College of the Arts), where he majored in painting. Den Breejen moved to New York in 2000 and received his MFA from Cornell University in 2006. He has exhibited throughout the United States and Europe. Key solo exhibitions include Smile at Freight+Volume in New York (2011) and Image, Music, Text at the UNTITLED Art Fair in Miami (2012). His work is in collections throughout the world. He lives and works in Brooklyn, NY."
Freight + Volume
Erik den Breejen
One River Gallery
Beach Boys, Artists and Copyright Lawsuits
NYT: Erik den Breejen: ‘Smile’
Erik den Breejen on SMiLE (+ more)
YouTube: Erik den Breejen Smile at FREIGHT & VOLUME

The Ñewmerican Dream: Yoav Litvin Talks to Ñewmerica

"Ñewmerica is a collective of artists, which includes LNY, Icy and Sot, Mata Ruda, NDA and Sonni. Each well-known to street art enthusiasts in New York City and worldwide, they joined forces in 'The Birth of a Nation,' currently on display at Exit Room in Bushwick. After a fantastic opening chocked full of performances, raffles and other fun surprises, I returned to Exit Room to re-examine the art.  The first piece one encounters is an installation piece constructed by the group —  'La Inmortal Deli,' a bodega stocked with hand-embellished bottles and cigarette boxes. Outside the bodega are pieces by each of the artists in the main hall of Exit Room."
Street Art NYC

Transatlantic Sessions 4 (2009)

"Folk musicians come together in what have been called 'the greatest backporch shows ever', as Shetland fiddle virtuoso Aly Bain and dobro ace Jerry Douglas host a Highland gathering of the cream of Nashville, Irish and Scottish talent. Artists featured in the complete series include James Taylor, Julie Fowlis, Dan 'Man of Constant Sorrow' Tyminski, Jerry Douglas, Aly Bain, Allan MacDonald, Martha Wainwright, Mairead ni Mhaonaigh, Karen Matheson, Donal Lunny, Rosanne Cash, Emily Smith, Mike McGoldrick, Dezi Donnelly, Allison Moorer, Karen Casey, Liam O'Maonlai, Stuart Duncan and Ronan Browne."
BBC
W - Transatlantic Sessions 4
YouTube: Karan Casey & James Taylor - The King's Shilling, Motherless Children - Rosanne Cash, Maili Dhonn - James Graham, Black, Black, Black - Ronan Browne, How She Does It - Allison Moorer, Dan Tyminski - I Am A Man of Constant Sorrow, Aly Bain- Kid On The Mountain Set

2013 December: Programme One, Programme Two, 2014 March: Programme Three

Los Angeles: Double Face

"Whatever else may be wrong in a political way -- like the inadequacy of the Great Depression techniques applied to a scene that has long outgrown them; like old-fashioned grafter's glee among the city fathers over the vast amounts of poverty-war bread that Uncle is now making available to them -- lying much closer to the heart of L.A.'s racial sickness is the co-existence of two very different cultures: one white and one black. While the white culture is concerned with various forms of systematized folly -- the economy of the area in fact depending on it -- the black culture is stuck pretty much with basic realities like disease, like failure, violence and death, which the whites have mostly chosen -- and can afford -- to ignore. ... - Thomas Pynchon: from A Journey into the Mind of Watts, in New York Times Magazine, 12 June 1966"
Tom Clark

Lewis Warsh

"... I made my first collages in 1996. They were image-based, like most collages, cut-outs from magazines. I did a series of 24 4x6 collages on poster boards. I always wanted to do collages and artist's books so I decided to do it. In the early 90s I'd begun a series of poems where I collaged and then arranged often a hundred or more lines, with a space between each line. Each poem consisted of 3-4 pages of these lines, mostly lines from poems that I'd discarded. There was no obvious connection between each of the lines but I tried to arrange them so they created a hidden narrative. 17 of these poems were collected in the book, The Origin of the World (Creative Arts, 2001), named after Courbet's famous painting. (I didn't realize that it was famous until afterwards.)"
Granary Books
W - Lewis Warsh
Lewis Warsh
Poetry Foundation
PennSound
YouTube: A Reading By The Overpass 2/9/2011

The Soul of Black Peru (1995)

"The Afro-Peruvian style heard on The Soul of Black Peru compilation originated hundreds of years ago from the Spanish slave trade. The music is a mix of African, Spanish, and Andean traditions, due to the fact that the slaves who came to Peru were not from one specific region, so they did not have a common language to communicate with. It's easy to break the music down and see which culture contributed what -- the lyrics are all sung in Spanish (Spain), have a slight melancholy approach (similar to the Yaravi form from the Andes), and boast interesting rhythms (Africa). The musical form is just starting to catch on in other parts of the world, and deservedly so. And since this is heartfelt, emotional music, fans outside of the world music circle can easily grasp and appreciate it."
allmusic
W - The Soul of Black Peru
YouTube: The Soul of Black Peru

Dancing in the dark - John O'Mahony

"One of the world's most influential choreographers, she is based in an obscure German town where her avant garde, often violent, work attracted furious hostility. Her own company rebelled over her methods but more recently, after she overcame personal tragedy, critics have noted a lighter touch."
Guardian

2008 May: Pina Bausch, 2009 June: Pina Bausch 1940-2009, 2012 August: Pina Bausch Costumes.

Storm de Hirsch - Peyote Queen (1965)

"Storm de Hirsch was a very important player in the New York Avant-Garde film scene of the 1960s, though her biography and work are generally left out of the history. Like many experimental filmmakers at the time, she did not begin her artistic career as a filmmaker. She had been a poet and published a number of works in the early 60's. She wanted to find a new mode of expression for her thoughts that went beyond words on the page, which is when she turned to filmmaking. Despite lack of recognition, she was very present in the underground film movement and socialized with every big name on the scene, filmmakers such as Stan Brakhage, Jonas Mekas, Shirley Clarke and others."
UbuWeb (Video)
W - Storm de Hirsch
Storm De Hirsch Filmography
YouTube: Divinations

The 78 Project

"The 78 Project is a documentary and recording journey inspired by Alan Lomax and his quest to capture music where it lived throughout the early 20th century. Our project brings the spirit of his work into the present as we pair breakthrough musicians with the songs and the fascinating recording technology of the past. With just one microphone, one authentic 1930′s Presto direct-to-acetate disk recorder, and one blank lacquer disc, musicians are given one take to cut a record anywhere they choose. What we have found is that the film, music and feelings that result defy space and time, living music inspired by ghosts."
The 78 Project (Video)
The 78 Project Feature-length Documentary Film (Video)
NPR: That Old-Time Sound, Captured Live In The Moment (Video)
Back to the Future By William Gibson

Brownstone

Fort Greene
Wikipedia - "Brownstone is a brown Triassic or Jurassic sandstone which was once a popular building material. The term is also used in the United States to refer to a terraced house (rowhouse) clad in this material. ... There are many brownstones throughout numerous New York City neighborhoods, especially in the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Park Slope, Clinton Hill, Fort Greene, Cobble Hill, Prospect Heights, Brooklyn Heights, and Bedford Stuyvesant. The Manhattan neighborhood of the Upper West Side, too, retains many brownstones. New York City brownstones are highly desired, and usually cost several million dollars to purchase."
Wikipedia
NYT: Bidding Farewell to a City’s Precious Stone
New York City is Officially Out of Brownstone
Historic Preservation Victory: Brooklyn Brownstones Saved from Demolition
Brownstone Quarry That Helped Build New York Closes

The 5000 Spirits or Layers of the Onion - Incredible String Band (1967)

"In 1967, Joe Boyd had signed the Incredible String Band, who were then down to Robin Williamson, Mike Heron, and Licorice McKechnie, to Elektra. The 5000 Spirits or Layers of the Onion had been crafted in a cottage in Glasgow, but Boyd wanted a proper recording studio to get it on tape. He chose engineer John Wood's Chelsea studio for the sessions. Recorded on a four-track machine, Boyd and Wood proceeded to capture the very best of the dozens of songs Williamson and Heron brought in. ... The meld of all ISB’s influences are heard on 'Gently Tender,' a beautiful if somewhat anarchic tune where flutes, acoustic blues, hand drums, bass, gimbri, and sitar are all employed. This set stands as one of the true masterpieces in the group's catalog."
allmusic
W - The 5000 Spirits or Layers of the Onion
YouTube: First Girl I Loved, Painting box, My Name Is Death, The Mad Hatter's Song, The Hedgehog's Song, The 5000 Spirits or Layers of the Onion...

2008 August: Incredible String Band, 2012 April: Troubled Voyage In Calm Weather - The Early Years of the Incredible String Band

Up Close on Baseball's Borders

"Steve Rushin of Sports Illustrated has called the line running through Connecticut that separates Yankee fans and Red Sox fans the Munson-Nixon line. Mr. Rushin came up with the name — in honor of the late Yankee catcher Thurman Munson and the retired Red Sox right fielder Trot Nixon — in 2003, and he had to guess where the line ran: 'north of New Haven but south of Hartford, running the breadth of central Connecticut.' We don’t have to guess anymore."
NYT: Up Close on Baseball's Borders
Atlantic Cities: Every U.S. County's Favorite Baseball Team (According to Facebook)
Baseball’s Borders

The Perfect Symmetry of Wes Anderson’s Movies

"Video essayist Kogonada previously made some brilliant observations about the visual obsessions of some of cinema’s greatest formalists. Stanley Kubrick, as Kogonada elegantly points out, composes most of his shots using one-point perspective. Once called out, it becomes a motif that’s really hard to ignore. Yasujiro Ozu – a director who has more cinematic eccentricities than just about any other major director – had a fascination with windows, doorways and corridors."
Open Culture (Video)

Gustave Caillebotte

Vue de toits (Effet de neige)
Wikipedia - "Vue de toits (Effet de neige) ... is an oil painting by French impressionist Gustave Caillebotte executed in the winter of 1878 and 1879. The canvas measures 81 by 65 centimetres (32 in × 26 in). It was originally gifted by Caillebotte's brother in 1894 to the Musée du Luxembourg, then transferred to the Musée du Louvre in 1929. ... Vue de toits depicts snow covered rooftops in Montmartre, Paris from a high vantage point, possibly a balcony. Here Caillebotte employs a largely monochromatic palette of grays, adding additional color to highlight building features. This perspective was not at all common in French paintings, and in fact Caillebote may have been inspired by the photographic works of Hippolyte Bayard."
W - Vue de toits (Effet de neige)
Musée d'Orsay: Gustave Caillebotte, Rooftops in the Snow (snow effect)
W - Gustave Caillebotte
Gustave Caillebotte
NPR - Gustave Caillebotte: Impressions Of A Changing Paris (Video)
YouTube: The Complete Paintings

"Jealous Guy" - John Lennon (1971)

Wikipedia - "'Jealous Guy' is a song written and performed by John Lennon which first appeared on his 1971 album Imagine. It is one of the most commonly covered Lennon songs, with at least 92 recorded cover versions, the most notable being Roxy Music's version, which reached number one in several countries three months after John Lennon's death. ... A promotional video was made for the song in 1971. It showed, mostly in a continuous overhead shot by helicopter, John and Yoko travelling in a hearse from their Tittenhurst Park mansion to a nearby lake, where they were then shown hopping into a rowing boat."
Wikipedia
YouTube: "Jealous Guy" (Original Video 1971)

2009 September: John Lennon - Live in New York City (Madison Square Garden 1972)

Irit Batsry

Fuller's Flow, 2003
"Born in Israel in 1957, Irit Batsry has lived and worked in New York since 1983. She received a degree in fine art from the Bezalel Academy of Art in Jerusalem in 1983 and, once settled in New York City, became an instructor and on-line editor for Film/Video Arts. She has had an extensive video and media art career and is renowned for her experimental videos in the early eighties. Her single and multi-channel videos and installations have been shown in museums and galleries around the world, including the Institute of Contemporary Art (London, England), the National Gallery (Washington, U.S.), the Reina Sofia Museum (Madrid, Spain) and the Witte de With (Rotterdam, the Netherlands)."
The Daniel Langlois Foundation
Irit Batsry (Video)
Irit Batsry, Recent Work
Shoshana Wayne Gallery
Volta Show (vimeo)
vimeo: Recently Uploaded
YouTube: There are not my images (Neither there nor Here)

Raúl Ruiz

Wikipedia - "Raúl Ernesto Ruiz Pino (25 July 1941 – 19 August 2011) was an experimental Chilean filmmaker, writer and teacher whose work is best known in France. He directed over 100 films. ... According to Ruiz in a 1991 interview, Three Sad Tigers 'is a film without a story, it is the reverse of a story. Somebody kills somebody. All the elements of a story are there but they are used like a landscape, and the landscape is used like story.' He was something of an outsider among the politically oriented Chilean filmmakers of his generation such as Miguel Littín and Patricio Guzmán, his work being far more ironic, surrealistic and experimental. In 1973, shortly after the military coup d'état led by the dictator Augusto Pinochet, Ruiz and his wife (fellow director Valeria Sarmiento) fled Chile and settled in Paris, France."
Wikipedia
MUBI
NYT: Raúl Ruiz, Prolific Director of Cryptic Films, Dies at 70
Guardian
YouTube: Exiles - Raul Ruiz, Visions - 1985, The Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting

Johnny Cash - Ridin' The Rails The Great American Train Story (1974)

"There's nothing that stirs my imagination like the sound of a steam locomotive - that lonesome whistle cutting through the night and that column of black smoke & steam throwing shadows across the land. When I was a boy the trains ran by my house and they carried with them a promise that somewhere down the track anything would be possible." --Johnny Cash
YouTube: Ridin' The Rails The Great American Train Story 51:39

Massacre (Live - Warsaw Summer Jazz Days, Poland, 2000)

"British guitarist Fred Frith moved to N.Y.C. in 1979, and within a year had formed the improv rock trio Massacre with bassist Bill Laswell and drummer Fred Maher. The group released Killing Time in 1981 and then called it quits a year later. Frith and Laswell rejoined, this time with drummer Charles Hayward, in 1998 to record an album in the same vein, under the Massacre name. Funny Valentine was released on the Tzadik label later that same year. In 2001 the group released Meltdown, a six-track set recorded at Robert Wyatt's Meltdown Festival in London in June 2001, followed by 2007's Lonely Heart, which was recorded live at two festivals in Europe in January and June 2003."
allmusic
W - Massacre
YouTube: Massacre (2001) 1:04:54

Bonfire of the Humanities

"People dress like kings and queens in the capital of Mali, even in the dirt streets on the far side of the river. The women walk down mud lanes wearing immaculate gowns with puffed shoulders, gold detailing, and beadwork. The dudes are natty, too, in safari suits, crisp office boy outfits, or the grand boubou, the national robing that makes any man walk like a giant. Only the heroic boys everywhere—young teens carrying loads, pushing groceries, directing trucks—go around in recycled jeans and T-shirts. In squalor the people must be regal."
Outside
Tuareg region
The smuggled hard drives of Timbuktu
Ancient Manuscripts from the Desert Libraries of Timbuktu

"I Can't Stand Myself (When You Touch Me)" - James Brown (1967)

Wikipedia - "'I Can't Stand Myself (When You Touch Me)', also known as 'I Can't Stand It', is a song written and recorded by James Brown in 1967. It is the most successful of the handful of recordings he made with The Dapps, a band of white musicians led by Beau Dollar. The single release of the song, on which its tempo was mechanically sped up, rose to #4 on the Billboard R&B chart and #28 on the Pop chart. The single's B-side, 'There Was a Time', also charted. 'I Can't Stand Myself (When You Touch Me)' was included on the 1968 album I Can't Stand Myself When You Touch Me, where it was labeled 'Pt. 1'. A 'Pt. 2', which appeared later in the album, never received a single release."
Wikipedia
YouTube: Can't Stand It & Give It Up 1969

The Gutters in Buena Vista Park are Made Out of Old Headstones

"San Francisco is a city of secrets. Hidden tunnels and bricked-up passageways, sunken ships and rebuilt palaces. With our backfilled downtown, railcar tracks that lead into empty parking lots, and stairways that sneak you from one neighborhood to another, we are the Winchester Mystery House of urban areas. One of the secrets is right beneath your nose, and you’ve likely passed it at least once. Maybe you’ve walked your dog there. Or gone to play tennis at one of the hidden-gem tennis courts that locals like to keep all to themselves. Maybe, like me, you’ve cut through Buena Vista Park from Haight Street, zigzagging your way down toward Market on your morning commute-with-a-view, all blissfully ignorant that you were in the presence of hundreds of headstones. ..."
The Bold Italic

Hear Patti Smith Read 12 Poems From Seventh Heaven, Her First Collection (1972)

"So it’s National Poetry Month, and the Academy of American Poets recommends 30 Ways to Celebrate, including some old standbys like memorizing a poem, reading a poem a day, and attending a reading. All sensible, if somewhat staid, suggestions (I myself have been re-reading all of Wallace Stevens’ work—make of that what you will). Here’s a suggestion that didn’t make the list: spend some time digging the poetry of Patti Smith. A living breathing legend, Smith doesn’t appear in many academic anthologies, and that’s just fine. What she offers are bridges from the Beats to the sixties New York art scene to seventies punk poetry and beyond, with spandrels made from French surrealist leanings and rock and roll obsessions."
Open Culture (Video)
YouTube: Reading at St. Mark's Church, NYC (1972), St Marks - "Oath", "Oath" 1973 reading, Babelfield 1978, Feedback and Poetry, Interview, Stockholm October 1976, A Reading Of Virginia Woolf, Letter to Mapplethorpe

Richard Baker

Installation view, “Richard Baker: Holiday”
"For the past decade, Richard Baker has developed two distinct but related bodies of work, one in oil and the other in gouache: the oil paintings depict tabletops covered with all sorts of printed ephemera and bric-a-brac; the gouaches are of book covers and, more recently, record covers. In 2012, however, Baker began breaking down the neat division between the oil paintings and works on paper by making something silly — a Whoopee cushion — out of paper and painting it pink. At the same time, while a poetry book cover and a novelty store standby might not seem to have that much in common, it seems to me that they are or were a part of the artist’s life, and that he is unembarrassed about these details."
Richard Baker Kicks Out the Jams
Tibor de Nagy
artnet
RICHARD BAKER with JOHN YAU

The Ballad of Geeshie and Elvie

"In the world of early-20th-century African-American music and people obsessed by it, who can appear from one angle like a clique of pale and misanthropic scholar-gatherers and from another like a sizable chunk of the human population, there exist no ghosts more vexing than a couple of women identified on three ultrarare records made in 1930 and ’31 as Elvie Thomas and Geeshie Wiley. There are musicians as obscure as Wiley and Thomas, and musicians as great, but in none does the Venn diagram of greatness and lostness reveal such vast and bewildering co-extent. ..."
NY Times (Video)

2013 July: Geeshie Wiley

Lost Kingdoms: Hindu-Buddhist Sculpture of Early Southeast Asia, 5th to 8th Century

"This is the first international loan exhibition to explore the sculptural art produced in the earliest kingdoms of Southeast Asia. From the first millennium onward, powerful kingdoms emerged in the region, embracing much of Indic culture to give political and religious expression to their identities. Early Hinduism (Brahmanism) and Buddhism arrived early, first witnessed by Sanskrit inscriptions, and shortly thereafter by a proliferation of large-scale religious imagery."
MetMuseum
MetMuseum: Exhibition Objects
NYT: Gathering of Gods From Places Long Forgotten
YouTube: Ancient Sculptures from Myanmar on Display in New York

Ludlow Massacre

Wikipedia - "The Ludlow Massacre was an attack by the Colorado National Guard and Colorado Fuel & Iron Company camp guards on a tent colony of 1,200 striking coal miners and their families at Ludlow, Colorado, on April 20, 1914. Some two dozen people, including women and children, were killed. The chief owner of the mine, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., was widely criticized for the incident. The massacre, the culmination of a bloody widespread strike against Colorado coal mines, resulted in the violent deaths of between 19 and 26 people; reported death tolls vary but include two women and eleven children, asphyxiated and burned to death under a single tent. The deaths occurred after a daylong fight between militia and camp guards against striking workers. ..."
Wikipedia
Ludlow Massacre: A look back at Colorado's deadly coal war
Justice Story: Women, kids killed in bloody 1913 Ludlow Massacre during coal strike
YouTube: Howard Zin about Ludlow Massacre, Ludlow Massacre: The Bloody Debate Over Unions in Colorado. A documentary by Jackson Fields, Colorado Experience: Ludlow Massacre, "Ludlow Massacre" by Woody Gunthrie, April 20th 1914

Sabrosa

"Sabrosa Son Sistema (as the name suggests), bring a sound system style of fun, tropical, afro-latin good times sounds for the dancefloor. Dedicated to the forgotten rhythms of a tropical revolution, taking an unchartered exploration into the gritty sand swept back streets of Africa, the Caribbean Islands and Latin America, alongside it’s strongly rooted African lineage. Your guides, PepeSol and Paprika…..dig deep into an afro latin soundscape of dusty grooves, tropical heat and a syncopated sound system culture. ..."
Sabrosa
Mixcloud (Video)
Soundcloud (Video)

Carla Fernández: The Barefoot Designer: A Passion for Radical Design and Community

"Carla Fernández: The Barefoot Designer: A Passion for Radical Design and Community will explore the traditions and techniques of indigenous Mexican artisans and how they can be applied to modern fashion and styles. Carla Fernández has gained international recognition for her extraordinary approach to documenting and preserving the rich textile heritage of Mexico's indigenous communities by transforming it into beautiful contemporary clothing, and proving tradition is anything but static. This first-ever fashion exhibition at the Gardner Museum explores the development of a new language in visual design that Fernández has built over two decades. She uses a method called 'the Square Root' based on the Mexican tradition of making clothing from squares and rectangles. This process emphasizes forms of fabric and delicate, thoughtful construction based on whole fabric, as opposed to cutting in curves and molding to the body."
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
Carla Fernández: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
T Magazine - On View | Turning Ancient Craft Techniques into Modern Fashion

Revisited & Remixed 1970-1999 - Popol Vuh (2011)

"It’s being released on June 24 by SPV Records to mark the 10th anniversary of Vuh founder Florian Fricke’s death. The first disc sub-titled Planet Side, is essentially a ‘best of’, showcasing twelve classic tracks from the catalogue of the seminal band, whose singular and acutely spiritual music traversed classical minimalism, Eastern music, new age electronics, progressive rock and, in their latter years, ambient techno. The majority are taken from their soundtracks for Werner Herzog’s movies Nosferatu, Cobra Verde and Aguirre, but there are also selections from their debut Affenstunde and a clutch of more electronic-leaning pieces from the 1990s. It’s hardly the definitive compilation – there are no selections from the wonderful Hosianna Mantra, for example – but it serves as a fine introduction to the band for newcomers."
FACT
amazon
YouTube: Cosmic Side/ Remixed (Revisted and Remixed) 1:18:29

2008 August: Popol Vuh, 2010 December: Aguirre, the Wrath of God, 2011 May: Abschied (1972), 2013 May: Fitzcarraldo - Werner Herzog, 2913 September: Hosianna Mantra (1972).

A New Chapter

1938, Lower East Siders. Hester St. between Allen and Orchard Streets.
"For more than 25 years, the Tenement Museum has been telling the stories of 97 Orchard Street. And while 200,000 visitors a year can attest to its fascinating history, our beloved building does have one flaw: it closed in 1935, but the neighborhood kept evolving around it! That’s why we’re planning new exhibits exploring the stories of immigrants who settled on the Lower East Side in the mid to late 20th century. In the years following World War II, the Lower East Side became home to an increasing number of Chinese immigrants, Puerto Rican migrants, and Jewish Holocaust survivors. New foods, languages and customs came along with these residents, and the neighborhood reflected the change. At 103 Orchard Street – currently home to our visitor center – all three of these groups lived side by side, sharing struggles and aspirations despite their very different backgrounds."
Tenement Museum

2012 December: Lower East Side

"All Along the Watchtower" - Bob Dylan (1968)

Wikipedia - "'All Along the Watchtower' is a song written and recorded by the American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. The song initially appeared on his 1967 album John Wesley Harding, and it has been included on most of Dylan's subsequent greatest hits compilations. Since the late 1970s, he has performed it in concert more than any of his other songs. Different versions appear on four of Dylan's live albums. Covered by numerous artists in various genres, 'All Along the Watchtower' is strongly identified with the interpretation Jimi Hendrix recorded for Electric Ladyland with the Jimi Hendrix Experience."
Wikipedia
Reason to Rock
allmusic
YouTube: "All Along the Watchtower" - Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Neil Young, Willie Nelson and Crazy Horse (Farm Aid - September 18, 1994), Richie Havens (Mountain Jam V - 5/31/09), Eric Johnson, Dave Mason

Gray's Anatomy - Spalding Gray (1996)

Wikipedia - "Gray's Anatomy is an 80-minute film directed by Steven Soderbergh in 1996 involving a dramatized monologue by actor/writer Spalding Gray. The title is taken from the classic human anatomy textbook, Gray's Anatomy, originally written by Henry Gray in 1858. The monologist film is about Spalding Gray, the main character, who is diagnosed with a rare ocular condition called 'Macular pucker'. After hearing all of his options, such as Christian Science, Native American sweat lodges, and the 'Elvis Presley of psychic surgeons' to name a few, and the dangers of what surgery could bring, he decides to go through the other forms of medicine provided. This in turn takes him on a journey around the world and steers him away from surgery more so because of religious reasons, often in a dramatic and humorous fashion."
Wikipedia
Criterion: Gray’s Anatomy: The Eyes of the Beholder By Amy Taubin
YouTube: Gray's Anatomy - Trailer
YouTube: Gray's Anatomy (1996) Directed by Steven Soderbergh 1:19:14

2011 November: Spalding Gray, 2013 March: A Personal History of the American Theatre

Happy Motoring

"Rand McNally published its first road atlas on April 15, 1924. It was called—in a touching testament to the marketing of yore—the Rand McNally Auto Chum. Many hours of intrepid googling have failed to yield a photo of the Chum, but I did find a retrospective of atlas covers, and this commemorative press release, which catalogs some of the decidedly unchummy features of the 1924 atlas."
The Paris Review
Yale: Hitting the Road: The Art of the American Road Map

Hillsborough anniversary: You'll Never Walk Alone

"A service marking the 25th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster has ended with the crowd uniting to sing You'll Never Walk Alone. The song has long been associated with Liverpool Football Club and has also come to symbolise the families' campaign for justice. The tribute was led by singer Gerry Marsden, with 96 balloons released, one for each of the people who lost their lives."
YouTube: BBC - Hillsborough anniversary: You'll Never Walk Alone, Bells rung to mark anniversary
Guardian: Families and fans mark 25 years since the Hillsborough disaster (Video)
Independent: Hillsborough disaster anniversary: 25th anniversary of tragedy that claimed lives of 'The 96' marked as nearly 25,000 attend Anfield service (Video)
W - Hillsborough disaster
YouTube: HILLSBOROUGH DISASTER LIVE NEWS COVERAGE OF THE DAY 1989
YouTube: Hillsborough - Searching for the Truth (2012) | Part 1, Part 2
NYT: When a Game Turned Into a Disaster
ESPN: HILLSBOROUGH Directed by Daniel Gordon

Kevin O'Mara

Valence Cemetery, dating back to 1867
"What to say? You probably noticed that this isn't a portfolio site. The images aren't categorized or tagged or labeled or even titled. They're just pictures. I like the stream of consciousness effect that comes from clicking and viewing and clicking and viewing and never knowing what's coming next. I just want to give you something distracting (and hopefully interesting) to look at."
Kevin O'Mara
New Orleans

Michel Deguy

"... Michel Deguy is a nomad poet, traversing all spaces and times, and his poems act as a space to bring interaction, rather than a fusion of disparate things. If his early collections were occupied with his constant exploration of the space outside the periphery of Being, his succeeding works gave a central stage to the language and role of metaphor. Famous for a lively style bursting with neologisms, rare words and coinages, his late works show the poet as a traveler, lover and mass media consumer, with his poetry bearing the signs and discourses of the reality of the modern world. According to Michel Deguy, the essence of any relation to that world is to be found in the element of desire."
Michel Deguy - Professor of Poetry
Cerise Press
YouTube: The Artist in the Poet: Words, Language and Poetry 2004 1/9, 2/9, 3/9, 4/9, 5/9, 6/9, 7/9, 8/9, 9/9

Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas By Hunter Thompson | Nov 11, 1971

"We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like 'I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive. ...' And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about 100 miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas. And a voice was screaming: 'Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?' Then it was quiet again. My attorney had taken his shirt off and was pouring beer on his chest, to facilitate the tanning process. 'What the hell are you yelling about?' he muttered, staring up at the sun with his eyes closed and covered with wraparound Spanish sunglasses. 'Never mind,' I said. 'It's your turn to drive.' I hit the brakes and aimed the Great Red Shark toward the shoulder of the highway. No point mentioning those bats, I thought. The poor bastard will see them soon enough. ..."
Rolling Stone
W - Hunter S. Thompson
Free Online: Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
W - Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (film)
PutLocker: Watch Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Version 1 (Video)

Symphony No. 3 - Henryk Górecki

Wikipedia - "The Symphony No. 3, Op. 36, also known as the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs ... is a symphony in three movements composed by Henryk Górecki in Katowice, Poland, between October and December 1976. The work is indicative of the transition between Górecki's dissonant earlier manner and his more tonal later style. It was premièred on 4 April 1977, at the Royan International Festival, with Stefania Woytowicz as soprano and Ernest Bour as conductor. A solo soprano sings a different Polish text in each of the three movements. The first is a 15th-century Polish lament of Mary, mother of Jesus, the second a message written on the wall of a Gestapo cell during World War II, and the third a Silesian folk song of a mother searching for her son killed by the Germans in the Silesian uprisings. The first and third movements are written from the perspective of a parent who has lost a child, and the second movement from that of a child separated from a parent. The dominant themes of the symphony are motherhood and separation through war."
Wikipedia
W - Henryk Górecki
NPR: Henryk Gorecki, Composer Of 'Symphony Of Sorrowful Songs,' Dies At Age 76 (Video)
YouTube: Symphony Nº 3, of "Sorrowful Songs" | Dawn Upshaw. London Sinfonietta, David Zinman

Introspective - Pet Shop Boys (1988)

"Featuring a mere six tracks, most of them well over six minutes in length, Introspective was a move back to the clubs for the Pet Shop Boys. Over the course of the album, they incorporated various dance techniques that were currently in vogue, including Latin rhythms and house textures. The title isn't entirely an arch joke, however. Like Actually, Introspective was an exploration of distant, disaffected yuppies, which naturally resulted in a good deal of self-analyzation. Melodically, the essential song structures were as strong and multi-layered as the previous album, yet that was hard to hear beneath the varying rhythmic textures that composed the bulk of each track."
allmusic
W - Introspective
YouTube: Left To My Own Devices, Domino Dancing, Domino Dancing - 1, I'm Not Scared, Always on my mind/In my House, It's all right, I Want A Dog ( First Version )
YouTube: Pet Shop Boys - Introspective (Whole Album HQ) - 1988

2008 September: Pet Shop Boys, 2010 November: Pet Shop Boys - 1985-1989, 2011 January: Behaviour, 2011 May: Very, 2011 December: Bilingual, 2012 March: "Always on My Mind", 2012 August: Nightlife, 2012 September: "Where the Streets Have No Name (I Can't Take My Eyes off You)", 2012 December: Release, 2013 March: Pandemonium Tour, 2013 November: Leaving.

Witness: Art and Civil Rights in the Sixties

"Witness: Art and Civil Rights in the Sixties offers a focused look at painting, sculpture, graphics, and photography from a decade defined by social protest and American race relations. In observance of the fiftieth anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, this exhibition considers how sixty-six of the decade’s artists, including African Americans and some of their white, Latino, Asian American, Native American, and Caribbean contemporaries, used wide-ranging aesthetic approaches to address the struggle for racial justice."
Brooklyn Museum
These Are The Artists Of The Civil Rights Movement
Voice: Beautiful and Violent Art from the Civil Rights Movement at New Brooklyn Museum Show Witness
NBC: Witness: Art and Civil Rights in the Sixties (Video)