Collected French Translations: Poetry - John Ashbery (2014)

"In a 1956 letter to Kenneth Koch, John Ashbery wrote: 'I hate all modern French poetry, except for Raymond Roussel', specifying: 'I do like my own wildly inaccurate translations of some of the 20th-century ones, but not the originals'. The editors of this book rather solemnly gloss this as Ashbery musing on 'his own hard work', and his 'difficulties in building a canon for his own new poetic journeys'. They may be right, but the comment is also funny and provocative, taking a dandy-esque line on the tired debates (tired even then and comprehensively exhausted now) about accuracy and fidelity in translation. ... Though several poets may be familiar – Reverdy, Breton, Supervielle, Eluard – others, such as Daumal, Ganzo, Lubin, Blanchard, Roche, will not. ..."
Guardian: Collected French Translations: Poetry by John Ashbery – review
Bookfurum
BOMB: John Ashbery by Adam Fitzgerald
amazon

John Ashbery (right) and Pierre Martory stroll along the Seine in Paris, 1958

United States of America - United States of America (1968)

"The invaluable Sundazed label reissues this 1968 psych-pop masterpiece, adding 10 tracks worth of audition tapes, B-sides, and alternate takes. The United States of America was never immortalized by Pepsi commercials or Time-Life 20-disc retrospectives: The band barely lasted two years, released only one album (which Columbia's marketing department sat on its hands to promote), and ended up a cult favorite that would later be speculated as a phantom influence for the Krautrock sound. But 36 years after its release, USA's self-titled album still stands above the work of most of their Monterey-era, psych-rock peers, and this long-awaited reissue tacks on 10 tracks' worth of audition tapes, B-sides, and alternate takes. ..."
Pitchfork
W - United States of America
Dusted
One album wonders: The United States of America's The United States of America (Video)
YouTube: The United States of America- The United States of America 1968 Album Completo + Bonus 1:07:35

Ingrid Bergman — In Her Own Words (2015)

"Ingrid Bergman, whose personal life could seem more electrifying than her movies, had the kind of towering self-possession that is a requisite for immortal stars, but also for modern women. ...  Bergman’s voluminous personal archives have been a valuable resource for assorted popular biographies and academic studies, enriching the historical record of her films, family and loves. As its title indicates, 'Ingrid Bergman — In Her Own Words' tells yet another version of that life, through its subject’s words and pictures, embellishing them with written and on-camera reminiscences from both intimates and acquaintances. ..."
NY Times: Here’s Looking at ‘Ingrid Bergman — In Her Own Words’
Slant
amazon
YouTube: Ingrid Bergman in Her Own Words Official Trailer 1 1:39

2016 March: Journey to Italy - Roberto Rossellini (1954), 2016 March: Stromboli - Roberto Rossellini (1950)

Firsthand Account: The Assassination of Malcolm X

"The civil rights leader Malcolm X was killed Feb. 21, 1965, at a rally in New York City. Hear from a witness and visit the site of the assassination — in the past, present and in 360 video."
NY Times (Video)
NY Times: Malcolm X
Recalling The Assassination Of Malcolm X
YouTube: WITNESSED: THE ASSASSINATION OF MALCOLM X (2015)

2008 August: Malcolm X, 2012 August: Malcolm X at Oxford, 1964, 2016 February: The Legacy of Malcolm X

Wire - “Dot Dash”, "Options R" (1978)

"Through the three distinct stages of their career, Wire has never been known to give much thought to their singles. Their records from the mid-80s and early-00s should probably be heard in 'best of' compilations to avoid the occasional missteps and their three flawless albums from the 70s are so densely packed and perfectly constructed that listening to individual cuts seems somewhat odd. But one single sticks out in Wire’s discography, both because it’s one of the best tracks from their first incarnation and because it’s only appeared in one or two places over their entire forty-year span. ..."
1978: Wire - “Dot Dash”
(Discography): Dot Dash
Discogs
YouTube: Dot Dash (1978), Options R

2009 January: Wire, 2012 January: On the Box 1979., 2013 September: Chairs Missing (1978), 2014 June: 154 (1979), 2014 July: Document And Eyewitness (1979-1980), 2015 April: The Ideal Copies: Graham Lewis Of Wire's Favourite Albums, 2015 July: Pink Flag (1977), 2015 December: The Peel Sessions Album (1989).

A Spell to Bind Donald Trump and All Those Who Abet Him: February 24th Mass Ritual

"This document has been making the rounds in a number of magical groups both secretive and public. It was allegedly created by a member of a private magical order who wishes to remain anonymous. I make no claims about its efficacy, and several people have noted it can be viewed as more of a mass art/consciousness-raising project (similar to the 1967 exorcism and levitation of the Pentagon), than an actual magical working. But many are clearly taking it very seriously. I have been receiving a number of suggestions and variants for this ritual, and have posted some of them at the end. ..." (Tinker Greene)
Extra Newsfeed

William Kentridge: Thick Time

A film still from The Refusal of Time
"South African artist William Kentridge (b.1955, Johannesburg) is renowned for his animated expressionist drawings and films exploring time, the history of colonialism and the aspirations and failures of revolutionary politics. In this major exhibition of six large-scale installations by the artist, music and drama are ruptured by revolution, exile and scientific advancement. Highlights include the film work Second-hand Reading (2013), installation O Sentimental Machine (2015) and The Refusal of Time (2012), an immersive work created with composer Philip Miller, projection designer Catherine Meyburgh, choreographer Dada Masilo, scientist Peter Galison and collaborators from around the world."
Whitechapel Gallery (Video)
Guardian: William Kentridge review – love and propaganda on a trip through the stars
artbook - William Kentridge: Thick Time
William Kentridge at London’s Whitechapel Gallery
amazon
UbuWeb: William Kentridge (b. 1955)

2009 November: William Kentridge, 2011 April: The Insolent Eye: Jarry in Art, 2013 August: Stereoscope (1999), 2015 October: “More Sweetly Play the Dance” (2015), 2016 December: NAI010 (2016)

How New York City Gets Its Electricity

"When you turn on a light or charge your phone, the electricity coming from the outlet may well have traveled hundreds of miles across the power grid that blankets most of North America — the world’s largest machine, and one of its most eccentric. Your household power may have been generated by Niagara Falls, or by a natural-gas-fired plant on a barge floating off the Brooklyn shore. But the kilowatt-hour produced down the block probably costs more than the one produced at the Canadian border. Moreover, a surprising portion of the system is idle except for the hottest days of the year, when already bottlenecked transmission lines into the New York City area reach their physical limit. ..."
NY Times
YouTube: NEW YORK 101: How New York City Gets Its Electricity

The Encyclopedia of Reggae: The Golden Age of Roots Reggae

"We recently spoke with Mike Alleyne, author of The Encyclopedia of Reggae: The Golden Age of Roots Reggae, an indispensable book for reggae, dub and world music fans. Alleyne is currently at work on a book about Jimi Hendrix, which he describes as 'a reference book for interested fans who aren’t necessarily total fanatics' and will have an encyclopedic structure covering key records, musicians, labels and other associated people and places in Hendrix’s career, also including posthumous releases. He hopes to have it out in 2017 which will mark the fiftieth anniversary of the first Jimi Hendrix Experience album. Here's what Mike had to say about the golden age of reggae. ..."
Mike Alleyne, author of "The Encyclopedia of Reggae..."
amazon

Other Places (Chicago, Michigan, Ohio, Rhode Island, Iowa, and Beyond)

The Actualist Anthology, edited by Morty Sklar and Darrell Gray, 1977
"The literary climate in the Midwest began to heat up in 1958 when The Chicago Review, as its Spring number, presented an issue devoted to the San Francisco Renaissance. This included a chapter from the then-unpublished Naked Lunch by the notorious William S. Burroughs, as well as work by Duncan, Ginsberg, Ferlinghetti, McClure, and others. Editors Irving Rosenthal and Paul Carroll gathered and published more such 'Beat' material in the Autumn 1958 issue. As they prepared the Winter issue, the Chicago Daily News published an article entitled 'Filthy Writing on the Midway'; as a consequence, that issue was suppressed by a cowardly administration, galvanizing and energizing the literary underground. ..."
from a secret location

10th Anniversary Edition of Love Is Hell - Matt Groening

"It's the 10th Anniversary Edition of Love Is Hell! A book that's been in the making for a solid decade! This medium-sized guide is now available to the public with extra bonus fun-pages never-before-included in previous volumes of the same name! Slightly less scrawny than the original Love Is Hell, this behemoth-style handbook is jam-packed with all the info YOU need to keep your love-fight burnin'! Frankly written and profusely illustrated by famed cartoonist and merchandising monarch Matt Groening, Love Is Hell is the answer to all your Quandaries de l'Amour, or, as we say in American, Love Quandaries. ..."
amazon

2015 March: Life in Hell

Breathing Free

Edward Laning and assistants work on his Ellis Island mural.
"Two days before the Fourth of July, Judge Marilyn Go walked into the ceremonial courtroom of the Theodore Roosevelt Federal Courthouse in downtown Brooklyn. She was there to grant citizenship to the 267 people seated and waiting. In front of her were faces of all ages and colors. The greatest numbers were from China, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Bangladesh, India, and South Korea, though there are also immigrants from Nepal, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Guyana, Israel, and Liberia; in all, over 50 countries were represented. Here was a microcosm of the global poor — a cross section of nations wracked by civil war and poverty. ... On August 25, 1937, the artist Edward Laning was dismayed to read in the New York Herald Tribune that his mural would not stay on the walls. 'That Big Mural Won’t Stay Put Even If Pasted,' said the headline. New Yorkers had long been anticipating the completion of the work, due to be installed at Ellis Island, but because of a new adhesive being used, the surface of the mural was 'bulging out in tiny ripples and large bubbles which had to be pricked and ripped and then pasted back more firmly.' This was not welcome news, as delays had already drawn out the project for four years. ..."
BKLYNR
W - Edward Laning

A detail from Laning’s The Role of the Immigrant in the Industrial Development of America.

Fela Kuti - He Miss Road (1975)

"He Miss Road was produced by none other than Ginger Baker, who was a semi-regular jamming partner of Fela Kuti's as well as a close friend. And the tunes Fela wrote for this platter are wild, cosmic, sexy as hell, and deeply saturated in funk à la James Brown. The B-3 solo at the beginning of the title track is simply a device for inviting the band in. The B-3 is way up in the mix, supercharged. The echo effects Baker used on the organ and the horns add a nice touch and create a different textural quality, one that is spacious, to be sure, but still rooted in the shamanic repetition as the riff goes on forever no matter what instruments enter or leave the mix. ... This is one of Fela's cookers, an album from his most creative period, and it reigns among the best in his extensive catalog."
allmusic
TAIS Awards
Discogs
YouTube: He Miss Road (Full Album)

Agnès Varda - Plaisir d’amour en Iran (1976)

"How to talk about love while staring at the mosque or talk about architecture when in bed. This short is a sort of a variation on the relationship between Pomme and Ali Darius from Agnès Varda’s One Sings The Other Doesn’t. Made at a time when Iran had a seemingly revolving door for incoming European directors and bottomless funding for their projects, Plaisir d’amour en Iran is a short, sort of love story between a handsome Iranian (Ali Raffi) and a visiting French woman (Valérie Mairesse). The film was shot at the Shah Masjed in romantic Esfehan."
blejz
Portrait of a Vagabond: An Appreciation of Agnès Varda
The Left Bank Revisited: Marker, Resnais, Varda
UbuWeb: 35mm, Starring: Valérie Mairesse, Ali Raffi   6 min

August 2010: Agnès Varda, May 2011: The Beaches of Agnès, 2011 December: Interview - Agnès Varda, 2013 February: The Gleaners and I (2000), 2013 September: Cinévardaphoto (2004), 2014 July: Black Panthers (1968 doc.), 2014 October: Art on Screen: A Conversation with Agnès Varda, 2015 September: Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962).

Cranky, Creative, and Controversial: Recalling artists' collectives of the late ’50s and early ’60s.

Bob Thompson, "Announcement for opening at Delancey Street Museum," 1959
"When I arrived in New York City after college, I moved into a tiny, one-bedroom apartment at Seventeenth Street and Third Avenue. It had a fire escape that was perfect for the burglar who climbed up it a few months later. Since I worked at Esquire then, uptown on Madison Avenue, I described my new home to friends as a cozy, downtown abode, walking distance from Greenwich Village. It took me several years and several moves to discover that downtown was an elusive word, whose meaning depended on whom you talked to, and where you lived. My home on Seventeenth Street was followed by one on Pearl Street with a view of the Brooklyn Bridge and followed later by a loft in a Centennial building in SoHo, where three massive front windows gave me a view of the cast-iron buildings across the street. ..."
Guernica
Illegal Living

2017 January: Inventing Downtown: Artist-Run Galleries in New York City, 1952–1965

Zeena Parkins - Mouth=Maul=Betrayer (1996)

"Part of the Radical Jewish Culture series put out by John Zorn's Tzadik label, Zeena Parkins' Mouth Equals Maul Equals Betrayer perhaps more than any other album lives up to the name of the series. This work is aggressive, energetic, intellectually complex, challenging, and highly structured. At times it reads like the soundtrack to a classic gangster film of the '40s -- the music is often not a stylistic match for that time period, but the feeling of violence and darkness is communicated throughout. Indeed, this is a labor of Parkins' Gangster Band, the ensemble consisting of her sisters and several other supporting musicians, as well as it is a thematic work about gangsters themselves. ... This music exists on the edge of contemporary composition, but everywhere it stretches, it grasps and holds on solidly to what Parkins was trying to achieve, making the striving all the more triumphant."
allmusic (Video)
Discogs, amazon
YouTube: Lucky, Hod

2011 January: Zeena Parkins, 2012 December: Fred Frith, Ikue Mori, Zeena Parkins / sound. at REDCAT, 2014 October: Janene Higgins & Zeena Parkins (2000), 2012 October: Ikue Mori, 2015 March: Phantom Orchard: Zeena Parkins and Ikue Mori, 2016 April: News from Babel (1983-1986), 2016 May: Something Out There (1987).

Lee Lozano: Private Book 1

"Before her self-imposed exile from the art world, Lee Lozano (1930–99) was a highly regarded painter who defined a generation of American artists infusing conceptualism with a new intensity. A prolific writer and documenter of both her art and her relationships, the public and private, Lozano kept a series of personal journals from 1968 to 1972 while living in New York’s SoHo neighborhood. Eleven of these private books survive, containing notes on her work, detailed interactions with artist friends and commentary on the alienations of gender politics, as well as philosophical queries into art’s role in society and humorous asides from daily life. ..."
ArtBook
NY Times: Lee Lozano, Surely Defiant, Drops In
W - Lee Lozano
Lee Lozano, Lee Lozano: Notebooks 1967–70
Lee Lozano: Dropout Piece
Lee Lozano’s Decide to Boycott Women (Re-performed)
amazon: Private Book 1
YouTube: Tools at HAUSER & WIRTH

A Season in Hell - Arthur Rimbaud (Robert Wyatt, Carl Prekopp, Elizabeth Purnell, 2009)

"A Season in Hell is an abridged radio reworking of French poet Arthur Rimbaud's intense masterpiece of spiritual disillusionment, narrated by Carl Prekopp with a soundscape by Bristol composer Elizabeth Purnell and poems sung by Robert Wyatt. ... Here, producer Sara Davies gives a fascinating account of the journey from the idea of turning the work into radio, through various artistic twists and turns, to the version listeners will hear on Saturday. About thirty years ago I was in a bar in a small Mexican town where a French actor gave a thoroughly eccentric performance of some of Rimbaud's poetry to a musical accompaniment. ..."
BBC
YouTube: A Season in Hell - Robert Wyatt, Carl Prekopp, Elizabeth Purnell 30:10
YouTube: A Season in Hell - Robert Wyatt, Carl Prekopp, Elizabeth Purnell 56:25

2008 May: Arthur Rimbaud, 2010 November: Arthur Rimbaud - 1, 2012 October: Patti Smith: Poem about Arthur Rimbaud (Subtitulado), 2012 December: Writers’ Houses Gives You a Virtual Tour of Famous Authors’ Homes, 2013 August: Arthur Rimbaud Documentary, 2013 November: julian peters comics - The Drunken Boat by Arthur Rimbaud, 2014 June: In Which We Begin To Roar With Laughter At Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud, 2015 May: Illuminations - Arthur Rimbaud (John Ashbery - 1875), 2016 March: Rimbaud in New York, 2016 December: The Photography of Poet Arthur Rimbaud (1883).

Hidden Gems in Common Deep-Sky Objects

"Many of the deep-sky objects we point our telescopes toward have pleasant surprises, some in plain sight, others hidden and more challenging. Let me introduce you to a few. As kids, we'd take our allowance and buy these boxes of Cracker Jack filled with caramel-coated popcorn and peanuts. I never much cared for the molasses-flavored popcorn, but the peanuts were tasty. Both took a backseat to the paper-wrapped prize at the bottom of the box. Sometimes I'd fish out the prize before even bothering with the goodies, tearing it open to get something cool like a plastic T-rex, whistle, or even a magnifying glass. Deep-sky objects are like that. You might seek out a galaxy and discover an unexpected double star in the same field of view. A star cluster may include a striking asterism or an appealing red star. But you've got to rifle through the popcorn and peanuts first to find the prize. I've selected eight of my favorites, all well-placed in the evening sky this month. ..."
Sky & Telescope

Balthazar - Lawrence Durrell (1958)

Wikipedia - "Balthazar, published in 1958, is the second volume in The Alexandria Quartet series by British author Lawrence Durrell. Set in Alexandria, Egypt around World War II, the four novels tell essentially the same story from different points of view and come to a conclusion in Clea. Balthazar is the first novel in the series that presents a competing narrator, Balthazar, who writes back to the narrating Darley in his 'great interlinear.' ... The book begins with the Narrator living on a remote Greek island with Nessim's illegitimate daughter from Melissa (now either four or six years old – marking the time that has elapsed since the events of Justine); however the tone is very dark and opposed to the light and airy reminiscence of Prospero's Cell – Durrell's travelogue-memoir of his life on Corfu. The prolonged nature-pieces, which are a highlight of Durrell's prose, still intervene between straight linear narrative – but are uniformly of askesis and alone-ness – and have a more pronounced 'prose-painting' feel to them pre-figuring Clea. ..."
Wikipedia
NY Times: Alexandria Revisited (August 21, 1958)
Pseudo-Intellectual Reviews

2011 December: The Alexandria Quartet - Lawrence Durrell, 2013 September: Villa that inspired Lawrence Durrell faces demolition, as Egypt allows heritage to crumble, 2014 August: Prospero’s Cell (1945), 2015 April: Bitter Lemons (1953–1956), 2015 May: Caesar's Vast Ghost: Aspects of Provence, 2016 July: Reflections on a Marine Venus (1953), 2016 September: The Greek Islands, 2016 October: Justine (1957)

Charles Alston

The Family, 1955
Wikipedia - "Charles Henry Alston (November 28, 1907 – April 27, 1977) was an African-American painter, sculptor, illustrator, muralist and teacher who lived and worked in the New York City neighborhood of Harlem. Alston was active in the Harlem Renaissance; Alston was the first African-American supervisor for the Works Progress Administration's Federal Art Project. Alston designed and painted murals at the Harlem Hospital and the Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Building. In 1990 Alston's bust of Martin Luther King, Jr. became the first image of an African American displayed at the White House. ..."
Wikipedia
artnet
CIVIL RIGHTS ERA AFRICAN AMERICAN ART: SPIRAL GROUP
Whitney: The Family, 1955

Sun Ra Arkestra Boiler Room London Live Set

"The half-century reign of afrofuturism pioneer and cosmic jazzologist Sun Ra has undoubtedly shaped music's modern-day climate – from jazz, soul and hip hop, all the way to techno. Now, his legacy lives on through his 'Intergalactic Arkestra'. With 30+ musicians altogether, the Arkestra trained and toured with Sun Ra until the very end of his life in 1993 – and continue to play his revolutionary music to this day under the direction of alto-saxophonist and longtime Sun Ra collaborator, Marshall Allen. We had the honour of live broadcasting a small arrangement of the original Sun Ra Arkestra, directed by Marshall Allen at the Union Chapel in Islington, London."
Boiler Room (Video)
Soundcloud: Sun Ra Arkestra Boiler Room London Live Set 1:42:23
YouTube: Sun Ra Arkestra Boiler Room London Live Set 1:42:23

Joni Mitchell - Hejira (1976)

"Joni Mitchell's Hejira is the last in an astonishingly long run of top-notch studio albums dating back to her debut. ... But by and large, this release is the most overtly jazz-oriented of her career up to this point -- hip and cool, but never smug or icy. 'Blue Motel Room' in particular is a prototypic slow jazz-club combo number, appropriately smooth, smoky, and languorous. 'Coyote,' 'Black Crow,' and the title track are by contrast energetically restless fast-tempo selections. The rest of the songs here cleverly explore variants on mid- to slow-tempo approaches. None of these cuts are traditionally tuneful in the manner of Mitchell's older folk efforts; the effect here is one of subtle rolls and ridges on a green meadow rather than the outgoing beauty of a flower garden. ... Performances are excellent, with special kudos reserved for Jaco Pastorius' melodic bass playing on 'Refuge of the Roads' and the title cut. This excellent album is a rewarding listen."
allmusic
W - Hejira
Desert island albums #1: Joni Mitchell — Hejira (1976)
YouTube: Coyote (The Band - 1976)
YouTube: Hejira full album

2015 July: Blue (1970), 2015 Novemer: 40 Years On: Joni Mitchell's The Hissing Of Summer Lawns Revisited, 2016 August: On For the Roses (1972), 2016 November: Court and Spark (1974)

France, Without a Struggle, Is at a Loss

In Chartres, France, people holding blackboards showing the most important election issues for them, including health, peace, education and unity.
"PARIS — It’s unprecedented: In the course of a few months, French voters, the media and polls have knocked several of the biggest contenders out of the presidential race. First, it was Cécile Duflot, the main leader of the Greens, who was defeated in her party’s primary. Then came Nicolas Sarkozy, a former head of state, and Alain Juppé, a former prime minister who for months had been a heavy favorite — both eliminated in the primary for the right and center-right. After that it was the president of France himself, the Socialist François Hollande, whose unpopularity led him to renounce even running. Finally, out went Manuel Valls, until very recently France’s prime minister. He lost the left-wing primary. ..."
NY Times
The Nation: Lyon, the Capital of a Europe in Crisis

Big Joe Williams (October 16, 1903 – December 17, 1982)

Wikipedia - "Joseph Lee 'Big Joe' Williams (October 16, 1903 – December 17, 1982) was an American Delta blues guitarist, singer and songwriter, notable for the distinctive sound of his nine-string guitar. ... Born in Oktibbeha County, a few miles west of Crawford, Mississippi, Williams as a youth began wandering across the United States busking and playing in stores, bars, alleys and work camps. In the early 1920s he worked in the Rabbit Foot Minstrels revue. He recorded with the Birmingham Jug Band in 1930 for Okeh Records. In 1934, he was in St. Louis, Missouri, where he met the record producer Lester Melrose, who signed him to Bluebird Records in 1935. He stayed with Bluebird for ten years, recording such blues hits as 'Baby, Please Don't Go' (1935) and 'Crawlin' King Snake' (1941), both of which were later covered by many other musicians. ..."
Wikipedia
Me and Big Joe Williams by Michael Bloomfield
allmusic
Discogs
amazon: Blues on Highway 49 (Video)
YouTube: Baby Please Don't Go, She Left Me A Mule To Ride, Big Joe Williams pt 1, pt 2

2014 September: "Baby, Please Don't Go", 2016 February: West Oakland - 1940s and ’50s

Army veterans return to Standing Rock to form a human shield against police

A permit has been granted for the oil pipeline to cross the Missouri river, following Donald Trump’s executive order.
"US veterans are returning to Standing Rock and pledging to shield indigenous activists from attacks by a militarized police force, another sign that the fight against the Dakota Access pipeline is far from over. Army veterans from across the country have arrived in Cannon Ball, North Dakota, or are currently en route after the news that Donald Trump’s administration has allowed the oil corporation to finish drilling across the Missouri river. The growing group of military veterans could make it harder for police and government officials to try to remove hundreds of activists who remain camped near the construction site and, some hope, could limit use of excessive force by law enforcement during demonstrations. ..."
Guardian - Army veterans return to Standing Rock to form a human shield against police
Guardian - Standing Rock chairman looks to history as divisions emerge among activists (Video)
Guardian - Revealed: FBI terrorism taskforce investigating Standing Rock activists

2016 September: A History and Future of Resistance, 2016 November: Dakota Access Pipeline protests, 2016 December: Police Violence Against Native Americans Goes Far Beyond Standing Rock, 2016 December: Dakota Protesters Say Belle Fourche Oil Spill 'Validates Struggle', 2017 January: A Murky Legal Mess at Standing Rock, 2017 January: Trump's Move On Keystone XL, Dakota Access Outrages Activists

The Last Days of Oakland - Fantastic Negrito (2016)

"Blues in the 21st century usually falls into two camps: hip revivalists raised on rock who are ready to shred and traditionalists content to confine the music on a narrow path. Fantastic Negrito -- the new persona of Xavier Dphrepaulezz, who previously pledged allegiance to Sly Stone in the '90s -- disregards this playbook by offering a fresh take on blues with his 2016 album, The Last Days of Oakland. ... There's a reason why this album is named after his hometown: it's an album about Oakland, just as it's an album about Xavier, yet this city by the Bay stands in for any other city in America, just as Fantastic Negrito speaks for anybody frustrated by the loss of humanity in this era of gentrifications."
allmusic
Fantastic Negrito celebrates East Bay, new album release
NPR (Video)
amazon
Soundcloud: The Last Days of Oakland - Complete Album
YouTube: Fantastic Negrito: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

Band for Life - Anya Davidson (2016)

"For the last few years, Chicago-based cartoonist Anya Davidson has quietly been making waves in alternative comics circles. Her work, which evokes the bombastic action of Jack Kirby as immediately as it does a riot grrrl zine, is bold and brash. Her bulky, blocky figures clash and collide with one another in a cacophony of pen and ink. It’s the kind of genre-busting, high- and low-culture-blending comic perfectly at home in a post-Fort Thunder alternative comics scene, and for those in the know, Davidson has been a cartoonist to follow. ... Paste exchanged a few emails with Davidson to discuss the upcoming graphic novel, covering everything from the book’s beginning to her recent work as a comics critic. ..."
paste
Fantagraphics
Anya Davidson’s Band for Life to be collected
Anya Davidson

Reason, creativity and freedom: the communalist model - Eleanor Finley

2016 municipal assembly in Naples
"In the aftermath of Donald Trump’s election, devastating images and memories of the First and Second World Wars flood our minds. Anti-rationalism, racialized violence, scapegoating, misogyny and homophobia have been unleashed from the margins of society and brought into the political mainstream. Meanwhile, humanity itself runs in a life-or-death race against time. ... The term communalism originated from the revolutionary Parisian uprising of 1871 and was later revived by the late-twentieth century political philosopher Murray Bookchin (1931-2006). Communalism is often used interchangeably with 'municipalism', 'libertarian municipalism' (a term also developed by Bookchin) and 'democratic confederalism' (coined more recently by imprisoned Kurdish political leader Abdullah Öcalan). ..."
ROAR

2014 September: Anarchism in America (1983), 2015 August: The Prophet Farmed: Murray Bookchin on Bernie Sanders, 2015 October: Post-Scarcity Anarchism (1971), 2015 October: The Ecology of Freedom (1982), 2016 July: Murray Bookchin’s New Life.

Otis Redding & Carla Thomas - King & Queen (1967)

"Otis Redding never recorded a lighter, more purely entertaining record than King & Queen, a collection of duets with Stax labelmate Carla Thomas. In all likelihood inspired by a series of popular duets recorded by Marvin Gaye -- indeed, 'It Takes Two,' Gaye's sublime collaboration with Kim Weston, is covered here -- the record serves no greater purpose than to allow Redding the chance to run through some of the era's biggest soul hits, including 'Knock on Wood,' 'Tell It Like It Is,' and 'When Something Is Wrong with My Baby,' and while clearly not a personal triumph on a par with either Otis Blue or The Dictionary of Soul, the set is still hugely successful on its own terms. Redding and Thomas enjoy an undeniable chemistry, and they play off each other wonderfully; while sparks fly furiously throughout King & Queen, the album's highlight is the classic 'Tramp,' where their battle of the sexes reaches its fever pitch in supremely witty fashion."
allmusic
W - King & Queen
BBC
Genius (Video)
YouTube: Otis Redding & Carla Thomas - King & Queen (Full Album)

The Second Avenue Subway Is Here!

Conceived nearly a century ago, the line became Governor Cuomo’s obsession. Illustration by Ben Wiseman
"New Yorkers view their subway system with reproachful pride. We fixate on its virtues and faults, as though the subway lines were our children. We want so much for them, and yet they so often disappoint. When their latest report cards arrived, just after Christmas, the top grades went to the 1 line, the 7, and the L. The goats were the 5 and the A. The A train at least has an anthem, and the vestigial grandeur of connecting old Harlem to Bed-Stuy. ... The subway-line rankings, based on such categories as cleanliness, crowding, and frequency of service, come from the Straphangers Campaign, a project underwritten by the New York Public Interest Research Group. Straphangers also issues year-end top-ten worst and best lists. ..."
New Yorker

2017 January: Second Avenue Subway

The Place of Many Fish

"There is no road to Iqaluit. You fly in or, in the summer for a few weeks, you can arrive by boat. It’s a city of 8,000 people at the western point of Frobisher Bay, on Baffin Island, just below the Arctic Circle. Its name means 'Place of Many Fish' in the Inuktitut language. Its history is one of travelers and centuries of nomads of the water, land and ice. Seventeen years ago Iqaluit became the capital of Canada’s farthest northeast territory, Nunavut. It was around then that it began attracting more people from the Canadian South and even around the world. ..."
AramcoWorld
W - Iqaluit
YouTube: Life in Iqaluit Nunavut

Various - O Samba (1989)

"This is a compilation of samba from the collecting hands of David Byrne of Talking Heads fame. The selections primarily focus on the modern forms of the genre, more specifically on the studio end of the spectrum, with little or no relation to the large-scale productions associated with Carnaval in Rio. There are bits of reference to the classic sambas of the '60s in the songs here, and explorations into jazz on the side. Nods to Afro-Cuban influences are thick in the lyrics, going so far as to have a full song from the Candomble traditions based on the Yoruba orishas. Beyond this, though, there's a whole range of modern Brazilian music present in the background of these tracks, as slighter influences from MPB and Tropicalia quietly creep in now and then. ..."
allmusic
Luaka Bop
W - Music of Brazil
Discogs, iTubes
YouTube: O Samba

The problem with modern politics, summarised.

"This is how the media and common knowledge portrays politics: the left to right scale, with 'hippie Commies' to the left and 'suited rich people' to the right, with 'ordinary Joe' in the middle. It is, naturally, a huge oversimplification. This is how politics actually looks (with markers for US politics and the average voter). Most people will naturally be in that populism group, most 'loony lefty libtards' in the 3 categories down-left (social liberalism, social democracy and democratic socialism) and 'right wing Fascist Nazis' in the 3 up-right (conservatism, neo-conservatism and national conservatism). It's very rare you ever meet a political group outside these centralised groups, but perception is often accentuated by the media. ..."
imgur

Meredith Monk - Book of Days (1988)

"Book of Days opens, in color, with 20th-century workmen blasting a brick wall, leaving a hole that opens into a black-and-white small town in the Middle Ages. Men, women and children glide about their daily tasks, stopping to answer sometimes tellingly anachronistic questions from 20th-century interviewers... The medieval Christians are dressed in white; the Jews are in black robes, each marked with a yellow circle. Both are stricken by the plague, for which the Jews are blamed. ... Book of Days is a very beautiful visual play of surfaces and textures, from brick to rough-plastered wall and from the luminous innocence that lights the girl's face to the canny innocence illuminating the face of the crone, played by Ms. Monk, who teaches her to embrace her visions. ..."
Meredith Monk
NY Times: Meredith Monk's Blend Of Medieval and Modern Life (1990)
W - Book of Days
Disogs
amazon, iTunes
YouTube: Book of Days (extract) 2:40
YouTube: Book of Days 1:14:30

2008 March: Meredith Monk, 2009 September: Songs of Ascension - Meredith Monk and Ann Hamilton, 2011 February: Meredith Monk: A Voice For All Time, 2011 August: Ellis Island, 2012 December: Turtle Dreams, 2013 February: Quarry: The Rally (Live, 1977), 2014 November; 10 Things You Might Not Know About Meredith Monk, 2015 April: Volcano Songs (1994), 2015 June: Ellis Island, 2016 April: 16 Millimeter Earrings and the Artist’s Body (1966/1998), 2016 December: Beginnings (2009).

John Constable, The Wheat Field (1816)

"'I live almost wholly in the fields and see nobody but the harvest men,' wrote Constable to his fiancée in August 1815. That summer, working primarily outdoors, he painted The Wheat Field, a view across a valley in his native Suffolk. Plowmen cut down the golden wheat, reapers bundle the stalks, and gleaners collect leftover grains, while a boy and his dog guard lunch. The figures seem to be a natural part of the landscape, captured at a specific moment in time. Yet the artist carefully organized each element of the composition to craft an idyllic harvest scene. ..."
The Clark (Video)
NGA

2008 July: John Constable, 2014 November: The Hay Wain, 2009 October: Hay in Art, 2010 March: Van Gogh Museum, 2010 May: Why preserve Van Gogh's palette?, 2012 April: Van Gogh Up Close, 2015 May: Van Gogh and Nature, 2016 January: Van Gogh's Bedrooms, 2016 November: Wheat Fields - Van Gogh series.

The Museum Of Giant Puppets In Vermont Is Not For The Faint Of Heart

You’ll find an assortment of over five decades of puppets, masks, paintings and graphics in a 150-year-old barn.
"When someone mentions puppets, you might conjure up images of Pinocchio or some warm and fuzzy creatures you’ve seen at children’s shows, but the puppets at the Bread and Puppet Theater are much, much different. At this 150-year-old barn in Glover, Vermont you’ll find giant puppets that are sometimes whimsical, sometimes political and more often than not, a bit unsettling. From the setting to the puppets within, this is one giant puppet museum in VT that is not for the faint of heart. ..."
Only In Your State

2009 October: The Bread and Puppet Theater, 2013 September: Peter Schumann on 50 years of the Bread and Puppet Theater, 2015 May: Bread and Puppet Cheap Art Posters

A day like any other (PoemTalk #85) - James Schuyler, 'February'

"... John Ashbery gave the introduction, emphasizing how reluctant Schuyler was to read in public. He noted: 'As far as I know, this is the first public [reading] he has ever given.' One can tell from the tone of Ashbery’s remarks that he felt that he and the audience were in for a rare treat, a savoring for which years of waiting were worthwhile. Schuyler then read 17 poems, and one of them indeed was 'February.' The poem was published in Freely Espousing (p. 15) and reprinted in Selected Poems (p. 6) and in Collected Poems (p. 4). ..."
Jacket2
Peter Gizzi - A Note on "February"

2008 January: James Schuyler, 2009 October: James Schuyler: Six New Recordings Added, 2011 March: Broadway: A Poets and Painters Anthology, 2011 December: An Anthology of New York Poets, 2012 July: A Schuyler of urgent concern, 2013 July: In Fairfield Porter / James Schuyler country: Penobscot Bay, Maine, 2014 November: Just the Thing: Selected Letters of James Schuyler 1951-1991, 2015 October: The Morning of the Poem (1980),June 2016: New Video of James Schuyler’s Legendary Debut Reading in 1988, 2016 August: A few of Schuyler's revisions - Charles North, 2016 December: James Schuyler - “December”.

Terry Riley - A Rainbow in Curved Air (1969)

Wikipedia - "A Rainbow in Curved Air is the third album by experimental music and classical minimalism pioneer Terry Riley. Through the use of overdubbing, the composer, a keyboard virtuoso, plays all the instruments on the title track: electric organ, electric harpsichord (Rock-Si-Chord), dumbec (or goblet drum), and tambourine. The largely improvisational nature of the work, based on modal scales, owes much to jazz and Hindustani classical music. Some jazz musicians had explored overdubbing techniques before, notably Bill Evans, one of Riley's piano 'heroes', on his classic album Conversations with Myself from four years earlier, with its three piano tracks; but Riley uses a far wider range of instruments and colors. ..."
Wikipedia
Pitchfork
amazon, iTunes
YouTube: A Rainbow in Curved Air - Full CD, A Rainbow in Curved Air - Live in Cologne 1974 (full concert)

December 2007: Terry Riley, March 2010: In C, December 2010: Terry Riley & Gyan Riley, April 2011: Terry Riley - Shri Camel: Morning Corona, Terry Riley rare footage, live in the 70s, 2014 March: Kronos Quartet Plays Terry Riley: Salome Dances for Peace (1989), 2014 June: Solo piano works, Moscow Conservatory. April 18th, 2000.

David Axelrod’s Hip-Hop Influence in 7 Highly Sampled Songs

"David Axelrod, who passed away over the weekend at age 83, was for a while something of an unsung hero of production and arrangement. During his most active years, from 1963 to 1970, he was an A&R man and producer for Capitol Records, with his two biggest commercial successes coming in the form of Lou Rawls' velvet-smooth R&B and Julian 'Cannonball' Adderley's funk-crossover soul-jazz. Through those two artists, you get a strong sense of what Axelrod was capable of bringing to the table: a composer and arranger as comfortable with grand symphonic gestures as he was with direct-hit funk. He could make a record sound like it belonged in a small country church or a massive cathedral, whether the spirituality was explicitly divine or subsumed in something more personal. Aside from Isaac Hayes, virtually nobody's compositions could hit that sweet spot between 'beautiful music' opulence, uncannily strange pop-psychedelia, and deeper-than-deep soul quite like Axelrod. ..."
Pitchfork (Video)
Wikipedia
Discogs

MoMA Takes a Stand: Art From Banned Countries Comes Center Stage

Henri Matisse’s Tiari, 1930, and Periwinkles / Moroccan Garden, 1912, and Charles Hossein Zenderoudi, K+L+32+H+4. Mon père et moi (My Father and I), 1962. ARTNEWS
"President Trump’s executive order banning travel and rescinding visas for citizens of seven majority-Muslim nations does not lack for opponents in New York — from Kennedy Airport, where striking taxi drivers joined thousands of demonstrators, to the United Nations, whose new secretary general, António Guterres, said the measures 'violate our basic principles.' ... A Picasso came down. Matisse, down. Ensor, Boccioni, Picabia, Burri: They made way for artists who, if they are alive and abroad, cannot see their work in the museum’s most august galleries. ..."
NY Times

Miniatures (A Sequence Of Fifty-One Tiny Masterpieces) (1980)

"... Originally issued in 1981, Miniatures is a concept compilation album that is certain to delight the listener on a multitude of fronts simultaneously. Conceived in 1980 by Morgan Fisher (erstwhile keyboardist for Mott the Hoople) as a means of addressing the scope of music and musicians that he loved but lacked time enough to release, Miniatures draws from an array of artists whose submissions exist within the strict framework of a 60-second maximum track length. The pieces wriggle excitedly in their rapid and unrelenting succession, sequenced with insight sufficient to create an infinitely curious netherworld. ..."
Soundohm
Discogs, amazon: Miniatures One + Two
YouTube: john white - scene de ballet, Dave Vanian - Night time, Ralph Steadman - Sweetest Love (Lament After A Broken Sashcord On A Theme Of John Donne), Band One: 1/1. ollie halsall & john halsey / bum love 1/2. the residents / we're a happy family + bali ha'i 1/3. roger mcgough / the wreck of the hesperus 1/4. morgan fisher / green and pleasant 1/5. john otway / mine tonight, Morgan Fisher Story - Interview by Iain McNay - 2008

A Photographic Exploration of Northern British Landscapes

"Watching the landscapes in the north of England in counties such as Nottinghamshire and South Yorkshire “change inexorably” over time is what motivated photographer Theo Simpson to embark upon his own investigations into the region and its histories. ... He presents elegiac, sublime photographic explorations of vernacular architecture bathed in golden light alongside more austere, typological black and white recordings of forms and structures, and varying materials and objects he’s collected when rifling through archives and local newspapers. ..."
AnOther

11 Memoirs by 20th-Century American Radicals

"With the Trump era now a week old and storm clouds gathering, many decent, salt-of-the-earth Americans not previously given to shows of popular unrest, never mind civil disobedience or outright violence, may find themselves newly curious about America’s radical past, in particular the radical left. For the big picture, there is always the work of the late and ever-insightful Howard Zinn, but then sometimes your curiosity craves a more intimate literature: the memoir. ... For those who prefer their radical history first-hand, the 20th century provides in abundance, from the anarchist riots and unionist shutdowns of the early century to the interwar New York intellectuals, always flirting with offshoots of the Russian Revolution, to the new wave activists of the late 60s and early 70s, with the violence, infighting, despair, and a few strands of hope and inspiration that followed. ..."
LitHub