Venice Film Festival 2010


"One of Europe’s most prestigious film festivals, the Venice Film Festival is an opportunity not only to see cinema in one of the most beautiful cities in the world, but also to catch exciting new films fresh before they go on to play at the Toronto Film Festival in September."
MUBI

Robert Fisk


Wikipedia - "Robert Fisk (born 12 July 1946) is an English writer and journalist from Maidstone, Kent. Middle East correspondent of the The Independent, he has primarily been based in Beirut for more than 30 years. He has published a number of books and has reported from the United States's attack on Afghanistan and the same country's 2003 invasion of Iraq."
Wikipedia, The Independent - Robert Fisk.
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

Tarantula


Wikipedia - "Tarantula is an experimental novel by Bob Dylan, written between 1965 and 1966. It employs stream of consciousness writing, somewhat in the style of Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, and Allen Ginsberg. One section of the book parodies the Leadbelly song 'Black Betty'. Reviews of the book liken it to his self-penned liner notes to two of his albums recorded around the same time, Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited."
Wikipedia, Google, Tommy Devine's Cosmos Report

2001: A Space Odyssey


Wikipedia - "2001: A Space Odyssey (often referred to simply as 2001) is a 1968 epic science fiction film directed by Stanley Kubrick released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and written by Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke. The film deals with thematic elements of human evolution, technology, artificial intelligence, and extraterrestrial life, and is notable for its scientific realism, pioneering special effects, ambiguous imagery that is open-ended to a point approaching surrealism, sound in place of traditional narrative techniques, and minimal use of dialogue."
Wikipedia, W - Comics, Uncyclopedia, YouTube - TRAILER, Stanley Kubrick: The Prophecy of 2001 Part 1, Part 2

Stan Brakhage, Joseph Cornell - The Wonder Ring,1955


"The gentle The Wonder Ring (1955) is an important early film by Stan Brakhage, which Cornell commissioned as a record of New York's Third Avenue el before it was torn down. Curiously lacking in people, the film focuses on the rhythms of the ride and reflections in train windows, finding a real-world version of the superimpositions Brakhage would later create in the lab."
Stan Brakhage, Joseph Cornell - The Wonder Ring,1955

Judy Chicago


The Dinner Party
Wikipedia - "Judy Chicago (born Judy Cohen on July 20, 1939) is a feminist artist, author, and educator. Chicago has been making work since the mid 1960s. Her earliest forays into art-making coincided with the rise of Minimalism, which she eventually abandoned in favor of art she believed to have greater content and relevance. Major works include The Dinner Party and The Holocaust Project.
Wikipedia, W -The Dinner Party, Judy Chicago, Brooklyn Museum, When Women Rule the World: Judy Chicago in Thread, YouTube - The Dinner Party, Right Out of History: Judy Chicago's Dinner Party, Judy Chicago on Q TV

Creedence Clearwater Revival


Wikipedia - "Creedence Clearwater Revival (often abbreviated CCR) was an American rock band that gained popularity in the late 1960s and early 1970s with a number of successful singles drawn from various albums. The group consisted of lead vocalist, lead guitarist, and primary songwriter John Fogerty, his brother and rhythm guitarist Tom Fogerty, bassist Stu Cook, and drummer Doug Clifford. Their musical style encompassed rock and roll and swamp rock genres." Wikipedia, last.fm, YouTube - Have you ever seen the rain?, Proud Mary, Green River, Born On The Bayou, I Put A Spell On You, Heard It Through The Grapevine, Down on the corner, Bad Moon Rising, Midnight Special, Fortune Son, Lookin' Out My Backdoor

La La La Human Steps on Mondo Beyondo


"The Canadian dance troupe La La La Human Steps performs on Bette Midler's Mondo Beyondo."
YouTube - La La La Human Steps on Mondo Beyondo

The Weavers


Wikipedia - "The Weavers were an American folk music quartet based in the Greenwich Village area of New York City. They sang traditional folk songs from around the world, as well as blues, gospel music, children's songs, labor songs, and American ballads, and selling millions of records at the height of their popularity."
Wikipedia, The Weavers, YouTube - Irene Goodnight, Union Miners, When The Saints Go Marching In, Tzena, Tzena, Tzena, Around The World, The Sinking of the Reuben James, If I Had a Hammer, Kisses Sweeter Than Wine, Wimoweh

Stephan Balkenhol


"The exhibition presents recent works by Stephan Balkenhol: free-standing sculptures and reliefs in wood, as well as some prints on wooden panels that concentrate on the human figure, both nude and clothed."
U. Brown, artnet, Contemporary Art Daily

Espresso


Wikipedia - "Caffè espresso, or just espresso is a concentrated coffee beverage brewed by forcing hot water under pressure through finely ground coffee."
Wikipedia, W - Espresso machine, Coffee Drinks Illustrated, CoffeeGeek, YouTube - The Perfect Espresso

The Full Spectrum: Josef Albers


"We had the opportunity to travel to CT and visit The Albers foundation. His work and theories on color made quite an impact on me when I was a student at the Cleveland Institute of Art. So I was thrilled to make this piece."
Vimeo

Thyra Hilden, Pio Diaz


Wikipedia - "The Danish-Argentinean artist couple destabilize European cultural history by setting building and monuments on fire. Thyra Hilden (1972) and Pio Diaz (1973) have for many years excelled in the production of large scale video work, projected on monuments and buildings."
City On Fire

Hugh Mundell


Wikipedia - "What seemed likely to be a brilliant career was cut short when Mundell was shot to death while driving with Junior Reid in Kingston, Jamaica in 1983. Many accounts of the incident exist which are all speculative; some reporting that the cause was an argument over a fridge, others that it was in revenge for a burglary, others still that it was over a woman."
Wikipedia, Reggae Reviews, Roots Archives, last.fm, YouTube - Rare acoustic performance (1979), Jah Will Provide + Hungry (Dub Version), Jah Fire, My Mind, Why Do Blackman Fuss And Fight, Africa Must Be Free By 1983, Africa Must Be Free By 1983 (dub), Africa Dub, Milion Miles, Let's All Unite

Poetry Rain


"Reading about the Chilean artists' collective Casagrande's recent poetry rain over Berlin reminded me of Ed Dorn's confetti cards mailed to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968. Kyle Waugh has written an excellent account of the confetti poems for Jacket. I haven't seen the confetti poems for years, but I did dig up a scan I made when I was a graduate student in the Poetics Program at Buffalo."
Mimeo Mimeo

Blue Cheer


Wikipedia - "Blue Cheer were an American psychedelic blues-rock band that initially performed and recorded in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and were sporadically active from that point on until 2009. Based in San Francisco, Blue Cheer played in a psychedelic blues-rock style, and are also credited as being pioneers of heavy metal (their cover of 'Summertime Blues' is sometimes cited as the first in the genre), punk rock, stoner rock, doom metal, experimental rock, and grunge."
Wikipedia, YouTube - Summertime Blues, The Hunter, Parchment Farm

TRESPASS: A HISTORY OF UNCOMMISSIONED URBAN ART Is Coming To Stores This Month


"In early 2007, after finishing up curating our 11 Spring exhibition, Sara and I received a phone call from a wonderful book editor named Ethel Seno. Ethel, who had recently finished working with David LaChapelle on Heaven To Hell, was looking for her next project and had been speaking to her boss, Benedikt Taschen, about doing a big book on urban art. She asked if we were interested in collaborating."
Wooster Collective, TASCHEN: Trespass. A History of Uncommissioned Urban Art, 2

Allen Ginsberg, Neal Cassady - 1965


YouTube - RARE FILM 1, 2, 3, 4

Disc jockey


Wikipedia - "A disc jockey (also known as 'DJ' or deejay) is a person who selects and plays recorded music for an audience. Originally, disk referred to phonograph records, while disc referred to the Compact Disc, and has become the more common spelling. Today, the term includes all forms of music playback, no matter the source."
Wikipedia

My Life in the Bush of Ghosts


Wikipedia - "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts is a 1981 album by Brian Eno and David Byrne, titled after Amos Tutuola's 1954 novel of the same name. The album was re-released in expanded form in 2006. Receiving strong reviews upon its release, My Life is now regarded as a high point in the discographies of Eno and Byrne."
Wikipedia, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, YouTube - America is waiting, Home, Strange Overtones, Very Very Hungry (bootleg), Les Hombres Ne Le Sauront Jamals, The Jezebel Spirit (bootleg)

Blade Runner


Wikipedia - "Blade Runner is a 1982 American science fiction film, directed by Ridley Scott and starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, and Sean Young. The screenplay, written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples, is based loosely on the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick."
Wikipedia, Blade Runner in the News, Blade Runner the movie, YouTube - theatrical trailer

Heat Waves in a Swamp: The Paintings of Charles Burchfield


"Although he lived next door to Niagara Falls, artist Charles Burchfield (1893–1967) chose to focus his nature-based art on the ground beneath his feet. Curated by artist Robert Gober, this exhibition features over one hundred major watercolors, drawings, oils on canvas, sketches, notebooks, journals, and doodles by this visionary American artist."
Whitney, Wikipedia, New Yorker

The New American Poetry 1945-1960


Wikipedia - "The New American Poetry 1945-1960 was a poetry anthology edited by Donald Allen, and published in 1960. It aimed to pick out the 'third generation' of American modernist poets, and included quite a number of poems fresh from the little magazines of the late 1950s. In the longer term it attained a classic status, with critical approval and continuing sales."
Wikipedia, amazon, Google

Isaac Hayes


Wikipedia - "Isaac Lee Hayes, Jr. (August 20, 1942 – August 10, 2008) [1] was an American songwriter, musician, singer, and occasionally an actor. Hayes was one of the creative geniuses behind the southern soul music label Stax Records, where he served both as an in-house songwriter and as a record producer, teaming with his partner David Porter during the mid-1960s."
Wikipedia, last.fm, YouTube - Walk On By, Shaft, Don't Let Go, Soulville, Chocolate Salty Balls

Speakeasy


Wikipedia - "A speakeasy, also called a blind pig or blind tiger, is an establishment that illegally sells alcoholic beverages. Such establishments came into prominence in the United States during the period known as Prohibition (1920–1933, longer in some states). During this time, the sale, manufacture, and transportation (bootlegging) of alcoholic beverages was illegal throughout the United States."
Wikipedia

ForrĂł


Wikipedia - "ForrĂł is a kind of Northeastern Brazilian dance that developed from European styles of folk music such as 'Chula' and 'Xotis' (term that originated the derivate 'Xote'), as well as a word used to denote the different genres of music which accompanies the dance. Both are much in evidence during the annual Festa Junina (June Festival), a part of Brazilian traditional culture which celebrates some Catholic saints. The most celebrated day of the festival is known as SĂŁo JoĂŁo."
Wikipedia, National Geographic Society, YouTube - Forrowest, Nonsensical, Asa Branca, NUBLU, Brazilian dance-forrĂł

The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series)


Wikipedia - "The Twilight Zone is an American anthology television series created by Rod Serling, which ran for five seasons on CBS from 1959 to 1964. The series consisted of unrelated episodes depicting paranormal, futuristic, dystopian, or simply disturbing events; each show typically featured a surprising plot twist and was usually brought to closure with some sort of message."
Wikipedia, npr, YouTube - The Twilight Zone

How Power Has Transformed Women’s Tennis


Kim Clijsters
"ON THE DAY BEFORE Wimbledon started, when the club grounds had not yet opened to the public, Justine Henin, the diminutive Belgian tennis great, stepped onto practice court No. 3, then still an emerald patch of unspoiled grass. The sun had just come out after several cloudy days, and all around, players, their coaches and families, yammering in various languages, exchanged greetings like veteran bunkmates on the first day at summer camp. Not Henin. Having unretired last year as suddenly as she quit 16 months earlier — saying she had got all she wanted from the sport — she remained absorbed with her coach, Carlos Rodriguez, in their warm-up routine."
NYT, NYT - video, NYT - Women Who Hit Hard

Monopoly Man: Interview with Street Artist Alec


"Economic crashes, healthcare in crisis and a world where helplessness feels like your only companion. These forces seap into our conversations, occupy minds and invade our way of life day after day. How does one react? How does one respond? Street Art Alec reaches deep into our childhoods and take the most iconic figure of power and money, the monopoly guy, and re appropriates it into a effective and witty social commentary that something has 'going terribly wrong'."
The Dirt Floor, flickr, Wooster Collective - Alec Monopoly, An Introduction (Video)

Derek and the Dominos


Wikipedia - "Derek and the Dominos were a blues-rock band formed in the spring of 1970 by guitarist and singer Eric Clapton with keyboardist Bobby Whitlock, bassist Carl Radle and drummer Jim Gordon, who had all played with Clapton in Delaney, Bonnie & Friends."
Wikipedia, W - 1, last.fm, YouTube - It's Too Late, Little wing, Layla, Crossroads, Bell Bottom Blues

Glow stick


Wikipedia - "A glow stick is a single-use translucent plastic tube containing isolated substances which when combined make light through a chemical reaction-induced chemiluminescence which does not require an electrical power source. Millions of glow sticks are sold annually with the main purpose being for recreational use."
Wikipedia

George Maciunas


Flux Year Box 2, c.1966
Wikipedia - "George Maciunas (Lithuanian: Jurgis Mačiūnas, pronounced ma-chew-nas; born 8 November 1931 in Kaunas, Lithuania; died 9 May 1978 in Boston, Massachusetts, United States) was a Lithuanian-born American artist. He was a founding member of Fluxus, an international community of artists, architects, composers, and designers."
Wikipedia, Art Not Art

Psychedelic rock


Wikipedia - "Psychedelic rock is a style of rock music that is inspired or influenced by psychedelic culture and attempts to replicate and enhance the mind-altering experiences of psychedelic drugs. It emerged during the mid 1960s among folk rock and blues-rock bands in United States and Britain. It often used new recording techniques and effects and drew on non-Western sources such the ragas and drones of Indian music.""
Wikipedia

Sounds from Tomorrow's World: Sun Ra and the Chicago Years, 1946-1961


"When Herman Poole 'Sonny' Blount settled on Chicago’s South Side in 1946, he did so rather inconspicuously. Though studious and intelligent, Blount had dropped out of college. He had also spent some time in an Alabama prison for registering as a conscientious objector during World War II. Quiet, intellectual and somewhat eccentric, there was little to suggest that over the next two decades, Blount would become Sun Ra, one of jazz music’s most innovative and respected band leaders."
U. Chicago, Chicago Jazz Archive, Design Observer, Encyclopedia of Alabama, YouTube - Cosmic Rays, Dreaming **Ultra Rare Doo Wop** (1955), Sun Ra - Cry Of Jazz - Intro (Part 1), Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6

Negro Leagues: New Postage Stamp Series Unveiled


"Almost all of them are gone now, fading memories kept alive through grainy photos and dog-eared newspaper clippings their children and grandchildren keep near. But now the black baseball players and their contributions to the culture and history of a country that once shunned them are being honored. The U.S. Postal Service released a set of stamps Thursday honoring early Negro Leagues players."
Books on Baseball, Kansas City

Laurent Grasso


"Born in France in 1972, Laurent Grasso has developed a fascination with the visual possibilities related to the science of electromagnetic energy, radio waves, and naturally occurring phenomena. Grasso also explores these sciences as they apply to paranormal activity, a favorite subject of 18th century scientists and philosophers, often used as parlor entertainment during the Victorian era."
Laurent Grasso, YouTube - Projection, 2005, Gakona at Palais de Tokyo, Fossil noise of the Big Bang

Agnès Varda


Wikipedia - "Agnès Varda (born 30 May 1928) is a French film director and professor at European Graduate School. Her movies, photographs, and art installations focus on documentary realism, feminist issues, and social commentary — with a distinct experimental style."
Wikipedia, senses of cinema, NYT, YouTube - The Beaches of Agnes, The Gleaners and I, Cléo de 5 à 7, Salut les cubains (1962-63) Part1, Part 2, Le Bonheur, L'Opera Mouffe I, II, Interview, BBC Interview

White Dove Review


"In the late 1950s, Ron Padgett, Joe Brainard, Dick Gallup, the members of what John Ashbery called the 'Tulsa wing' of the New York School (Ted Berrigan was the fourth horseman of that group), started an magazine in Tulsa, Oklahoma while they were in high school called White Dove Review. It is one of the great magazines of the period, paved the way for the mimeo explosion that followed in New York City and ushered in the Second Generation of the New York School."
the top shelf

Anne Morgan's War: Rebuilding Devastated France, 1917–1924


"This exhibition brings to life the extraordinary work undertaken by a small team of American women volunteers who left comfortable lives in the United States to devote themselves to relief work in France during and after World War I. Their dynamic leader was Anne Morgan (1873–1952), a daughter of the financier Pierpont Morgan. As she rallied potential volunteers and donors on speaking tours across the United States, Morgan harnessed the power of documentary photography to foster a humanitarian response to the plight of French refugees."
The Morgan Library & Museum, W - 1

Village People


Wikipedia - "Village People is a concept disco group formed in the United States in 1977, well known for their on-stage costumes depicting American cultural stereotypes, as well as their catchy tunes and suggestive lyrics."
Wikipedia, last.fm, YouTube - YMCA, Go West, In the Navy, Macho Man, New York City, San Francisco, Just a gigolo

Lee Friedlander


Wikipedia - "Lee Friedlander (born July 14, 1934) is an American photographer and artist. In the 1960s and 70s, working primarily with Leica 35mm cameras and black and white film, Friedlander evolved an influential and often imitated visual language of urban "social landscape," with many of the photographs including fragments of store-front reflections, structures framed by fences, posters and street-signs."
Wikipedia, artnet, YouTube

The Bazaar Years


"Man Ray was one of the greatest Surrealist painters and photographers of the 20th century. From 1934 to 1942, he produced a body of work for Harper's Bazaar, photographing personalities in the society, entertainment, and literary worlds as well as the fashions of Chanel, Schiaparelli, Molyneux, featured with his own artwork and those of his friends Constantin Brancusi and Alberto Giacometti. Man Ray had an immediate impact on fashion photography. His work made use of many of the innovative and unorthodox techniques he experimented with."
UbuWeb

Russian types


Washerwoman
"During the 1860s, several photographers based in Moscow and St. Petersburg produced series of cartes-de-visite showing Russian 'types.' These remarkable portraits provide a fascinating record of working-class townspeople, artisans, street vendors and peasants, some staged performing an activity, such as drinking tea or gaming, and some photographed in the performance of their occupation."
flickr

Canned Heat


Wikipedia - "Canned Heat is a blues-rock/boogie rock band that formed in Los Angeles, California, USA, in 1965. The group has been noted for its own interpretations of blues material as well as for efforts to promote the interest in this type of music and its original artists. It was launched by two blues enthusiasts, Alan Wilson and Bob Hite, who took the name from Tommy Johnson's 1928 'Canned Heat Blues', a song about an alcoholic who had desperately turned to drinking Sterno, generically called 'canned heat'."
Wikipedia, Canned Heat, last.fm, YouTube - Going up the country, On The Road Again, Let's Work Together, Shake and Boogie, World in a Jug

Dance notation


A Fouette-en-Tournant in Labanotation
Wikipedia - "Dance notation is the symbolic representation of dance movement. It is analogous to movement notation but can be limited to representing human movement and specific forms of dance such as Tap dance. Various methods have been used to visually represent dance movements including..."
Wikipedia, Baroque Dance, Dance Writing

Lenny Bruce


Wikipedia - "Leonard Alfred Schneider (October 13, 1925 – August 3, 1966), better known by the stage name Lenny Bruce, was an extremely influential and controversial American stand-up comedian, writer, social critic and satirist of the 1950s and 1960s, whose comedy revolved heavily around the social stigmas and taboos of the era in which he lived. His 1964 conviction in an obscenity trial was followed by a posthumous pardon, the first in New York state history."
Wikipedia, Lenny Bruce, Lenny Bruce without tears, All Alone, THE TRIALS OF LENNY BRUCE, YouTune - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

The Grain Terminal


Red Hook
"On the far side of Red Hook Park’s soccer and baseball fields, locked-up behind a fence made of enormous concrete blocks, lays the last vestige of Red Hook's industrial grandeur: The New York Port Authority Grain Terminal. This massive 429-foot long and 12-story high beige-colored fortress was built in 1922 for the purpose of washing, drying and storing grain from the Great Lakes, before the grain was loaded onto freight ships and delivered to breweries, distilleries and flour mills. Ultimately, the terminal was built to invigorate New York State’s Canal System and compete with railroad-owned stationary elevators."
Wooster Collective, flickr

The Warriors


Wikipedia - "The Warriors is a 1979 American cult action/thriller film directed by Walter Hill and based on Sol Yurick's 1965 novel of the same name. Like the novel, the film borrows elements from the Anabasis by Xenophon."
Wikipedia, The Warriors Blog, Slant, Film School Rejects, YouTube, Warriors Vs. Baseball Furies, The Warriors Vs The Orphans Fight, Ready or Not (vs. The Fugees)
The Warriors Movie part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8, part 9

Tom Tom Club


Wikipedia - "Tom Tom Club is an American new wave band founded in 1981 by husband and wife team Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz, both also known for being bandmembers of Talking Heads."
Wikipedia, Tom Tom Club, last.fm, YouTube - Genius of Love, Genius of Love - 1, Wordy Rappinghood

A Nightclub Map of Harlem


"I was at my friend Jojo’s house about a year and a half ago, watching some old VHS tapes of dance stuff she had. Among the home movies she had was a taped documentary featuring Cab Calloway. He was checking out this amazing cartoon map of Harlem from back in the 30’s and remembering all the places. Since then I’ve been trying to find a readable copy of it."
Mike Thibault, "More Jazz Maps", Big Think - "Go late!": A Night-Club Map of Harlem