30 - Merry Christmas!!

"Released just a few days before Christmas 1957, his song 'Jingle Bell Rock' was a big hit. Uniquely, it also re-emerged four out of the next five years, and sold so well that it repeated each time as a top hit, and became a Christmas classic still played to this day."
1. Jingle Bell Rock - Bobby Helms
2. Brenda Lee - Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree
3. Elvis Presley - If I get home on Christmas Day
4. Santa Claus Wants Some Lovin' - Albert King
5. I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas
6. James Brown - Soulful Christmas
7. Little Saint Nick - The Beach Boys
8. The Beatles - Christmas Record 1968
9. Otis Redding - Merry Christmas Baby
10. Johnny Cash, Orbison, Jerry Lee and Perkins - This Train is Bound for Glory
11. Cheech And Chong ~ Santa Claus And His Old Lady
12. John and Yoko - Happy Christmas (War Is Over)
13. Porky Pig- Blue Christmas,
14. Hall and Oates Jingle Bell Rock
15. Jeff Foxworthy Redneck 12 Days Of Christmas
16. Ray Charles - Merry Christmas Baby
17. James Brown - Santa Claus, Go Straight To The Ghetto
18. Sex Pistols - Jingle Bells
19. Billy Idol - Jingle Bell Rock
20. Kurtis Blow - Christmas Rapping
21. The Waitresses - Christmas Wrapping
22. Brian Setzer - Run Rudolph Run
23. George Thorogood and the Destroyers - Rock n roll christmas
24. Blue Christmas Bon Jovi Live
25. Bob Dylan - Must Be Santa
26. RUN-DMC - Christmas In Hollis
27. LL Cool J - Jingling Baby
28. Snoop Doggy Dogg - Santa Claus Goes Straight To The Ghetto
29. Eminem - Jingle Bells
30. Was (Not Was) - Christmas Time in Motor City

Anna Oppermann

Porträt Herr S., 1969-1989, Installations
"Throughout her career Anna Oppermann, who died in 1993 at the age of 53, faced considerable criticism. Standing in front of the thousands of paper scraps, notes and photographs that make up her self-styled ‘Ensembles’, it’s not hard to see why. At first they appear to be intimate archives exposed to public scrutiny, and it soon becomes apparent that a detailed examination would require a magnifying glass and endless amounts of time."
frieze, PS 1, Google

The Holocaust We Don’t See: Lanzmann’s Shoah Revisited

"Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah, opening this month in New York twenty-five years after its original release, is one of the great works of art of the twentieth century. As it begins, Simon Srebnik, a Polish Jew who was one of two survivors of Chełmno, returns to the death facility at Lanzmann’s request, and sings a song of his boyhood—about a white house, a house that is no longer—in the language of a country that was his homeland as it was of millions of Jews for centuries, a Poland made wretched by war."
NYBooks

November 2009: Wikipedia, NYT, Institute for Historical Review, Guardian, SHOAH'S ABSENCE, YouTube, (1), (2) - Raul Hilberg

Captain Beefheart, Art-Rock Visionary, Dead At 69

"Sad news out of California today for the avant-garde and experimental rock world: Rocks Off has learned from multiple online sources that Don Van Vliet of influential rockers Captain Beefheart passed away today at the age of 69 after a battle with multiple sclerosis. Van Vliet's management confirmed his death to Rolling Stone."
Houston Press, Rolling Stone, WFMU - Captain Beefheart's 10 Commandments of Guitar Playing, The Radar Station's Beefheart weblog, Rolling Stone: Ten Essential Captain Beefheart Songs, YouTube - I'm Gonna Boogiarize You Baby, Dirty Blue Gene, Click Clack, Sure 'Nuff 'N Yes I Do

October 2009: Wikipedia, W - Trout Mask Replica, Beefheart, the crackling cyberverse of CAPTAIN BEEFHEART & the MAGIC BAND, allmusic, allmusic 1. YouTube - Beefheart on Letterman, Live In Belgium 1969, Ice Cream for Crow (HIgh Resolution), Upon the my oh my, Big Eyed Beans from Venus

Poetry in 1960 — A Symposium

"Al Filreis, Bob Perelman, Ron Silliman, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Chris Funkhouser, Erica Kaufman, Judith Goldman, Kristen Gallagher, Danny Snelson, Michael S. Hennessey, Charles Bernstein and Mel Nichols."
PennSound

"A Walk Across the Rooftops" with Trisha Brown

"Trisha Brown, the most widely acclaimed choreographer to emerge from the post-modern era, first came to public notice when she began showing her work with the Judson Dance Theater in the 1960s. This experimental group united dancers with musicians, visual artists, writers, and filmmakers in the creation of performance works that sought to erase the distinction between art and daily life."
WorldNews

"Overlay" - Lucy Lippard

"Overlay is Lucy Lippard's classic book on contemporary art and its connection to prehistoric sites and symbols. Viewed by critics, artists, art historians, and students as the essential text on how prehistoric images have been 'overlayed' onto contemporary art by today's artists, Overlay is for anyone interested in the possibility of reintegrating art into the fabric of society as a whole, as in prehistoric times."
amazon, Fly by news, women and water (Video)

Charles Ives: Holidays Symphony

"Coming of age at the dawn of the twentieth century, Charles Ives saw the halcyon days of his youth fading fast. Not willing to let them go, he invented a striking new musical language to enshrine the feelings and ideals of a simpler time. But many, shocked by passages like the 'fireworks' in ‘Fourth of July,’ found his new-fangled methods at odds with the memories he was trying to preserve. Did Ives go too far? Or did he succeed in turning his memories into music?"
Keeping Score, pbs, Holidays Symphony, amazon

Patrick Martinez's "Come In We're Closed"

"From Patrick: Another day without a dollar. Many small independent mom and pop businesses have been closing up left and right all across the United States. All that is left behind is a cold empty vacant space. Martinez utilizes the space to engage the viewer or passer by on the street with a colorful visual dialog and touching on what people are going through finically during the current recession."
Wooster Collective, Patrick Martinez - News

Steve Reich - South Bank Show

"Excellent UK documentary charting the career of contempory composer Steve Reich."
YouTube - South Bank Show - part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6

Student Strike of 1970

UW students marching west down NE 45th towards I-5, May 5, 1970
Wikipedia - "In the aftermath of the American Invasion of Cambodia on April 30, 1970, four students were killed at Kent State University on May 4, 1970 in Ohio, as well as two students at Jackson State College in Mississippi on May 14/15. More than 450 university, college and high school campuses across the country were shut down by student strikes and both violent and non-violent protests that involved more than 4 million students."
Wikipedia, May 1970 Student Strike, HISTORICAL IMPACT OF KENT STATE and THE NATIONAL STUDENT STRIKE - May, 1970

Mississippi Sheiks

Wikipedia - "The Mississippi Sheiks were a popular and influential guitar and fiddle group of the 1930s. They were notable mostly for playing country blues but were adept at many styles of United States popular music of the time, and their records were bought by both black and white audiences."
Wikipedia, last.fm, YouTube - He Calls That Religion, I am the Devil, Fingering With Your Fingers, Honey babe let the deal go down, Grinding Old Fool

Life Imitates Art - Alex Katz

Blue Umbrella #2, 1972
"Seconds after she entered, she was followed by her husband, painter Alex Katz. I know Ada from having seen, consumed dozens of paintings, prints and drawings that Alex Katz has painted of his wife over a remarkable 50+ year career. I’ve seen her at cocktail parties, I’ve seen her at the beach, I seen her with a scarf around her head, I’ve seen her under the delicate arcing curves of an umbrella."
Truffle Hunting, Smithsonian: Behind the Canvas with Artist Alex Katz (Video)
February 2008: Wikipedia, Alex Katz, artnet

Christo’s ‘Over the River’: An Act of Homage

Christo: Over The River, Project For The Arkansas River, State of Colorado
"Since 1992, the artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude—known for such works as Wrapped Reichstag (1995) and The Gates in Central Park (2005)—have been pursuing Over the River, their plan to suspend great swathes of luminescent fabric over a 42-mile section of the Arkansas River in Salida, Colorado for a period of two weeks."
NYBooks

Shadows (1959) - John Cassavetes

Wikipedia - "Shadows (1959) is an improvisation inspired film about interracial relations during the Beat Generation years in New York City, and was written and directed by John Cassavetes. The film stars Ben Carruthers, Lelia Goldoni, Hugh Hurd, and Anthony Ray. Many film scholars consider Shadows one of the highlights of independent film in the U.S. In 1960 the film won the Critics Award at the Venice Film Festival."
Wikipedia, YouTube - Shadows (1959) part1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8, part 9
September 2009: Wikipedia, The John Cassavetes Pages, PBS

New York Daily Photo

"New York City - a place of diversity. Visit a daily photo blog of the timely, the timeless, the classic, the unexpected and the hidden gems by a long time resident who shares his love of New York."
New York Daily Photo

After Extra Time - Michael Nyman

Wikipedpa - "After Extra Time is a 1996 album by Michael Nyman with the Michael Nyman Band containing three tributes to Nyman's fandom of Association football: After Extra Time, the soundtrack to The Final Score, and Memorial. The latter is described as a remix, but is simply the 1992 recording from The Essential Michael Nyman Band. It was included in order to put it together with his two other football-inspired works (he has since written another: see Acts of Beauty • Exit no Exit)."
Wikipedia, Michael Nyman - The Final Score (A Concerto for Football) Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell - William Blake

Wikipedia - "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell is a book by the English poet and printmaker William Blake. It is a series of texts written in imitation of biblical books of prophecy but expressing Blake's own intensely personal Romantic and revolutionary beliefs. Like his other books, it was published as printed sheets from etched plates containing prose, poetry, and illustrations. The plates were then coloured by Blake and his wife Catherine."
Wikipedia, Google, Gailgast Field, amazon

In The Anthology of Rap

"From the school yards of the South Bronx to the tops of the Billboard charts, rap has emerged as one of the most influential cultural forces of our time. In The Anthology of Rap, editors Adam Bradley and Andrew DuBois demonstrate that rap is also a wide-reaching and vital poetic tradition born of beats and rhymes."
Adam Bradley, In The Anthology of Rap, Slate: Fact-Check the Rhyme, Slate: It Was Written, Slate: Stakes Is High, NPR, The New Yorker: Word, Jay-Z, Understand Rap, WSJ: Hip-Hop Goes to Harvard, NPR: Music, YouTube - Comedy Central: Chris Rock on Rap music.
amazon: In The Anthology of Rap, amazon: Decoded, amazon: Jay-Z, amazon: Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip Hop, amazon: Shakespeare's Metrical Art.

John Ashbery - Hotel Lautreamont (Elfland Version)

Dalen, Telemarken, Norway, c. 1890: photochrome print, Detroit Publishing Co., 1905 (Library of Congress)
"Blandishments, chitchat, jokes, parodies, personae and all kinds of slang circulate freely through Ashbery's (April Galleons) latest collection. As always, his work will frustrate readers who must know just what it's about. Curious and spectacular details no sooner come up than they vanish; distractions and even boredom have their places; and Ashbery's central preoccupations--passing time, the ambiguities of identity--are as ordinary as they are enduring."
amazon, TOM CLARK: Beyond the Pale

Terry Riley & Gyan Riley

"Thursday, June 24th, 2010, the internationally renowned Kronos Quartet will honor composer Terry Riley at Music in the Mountains SummerFest. Riley is one of the most significant composers of the 20th century, steeped in jazz as well as traditional Indian music. As a pianist and singer, Riley is still actively performing all over the world."
YouTube - Live in Grass Valley, CA

Crusades

Wikipedia - "The Crusades were a series of religiously sanctioned military campaigns waged by much of Roman Catholic Europe, particularly the Franks of France and the Holy Roman Empire. The specific crusades to restore Christian control of the Holy Land were fought over a period of nearly 200 years, between 1095 and 1291. Other campaigns in Spain and Eastern Europe continued into the 15th century."
Wikipedia

David Moss - "Terrain" (1980)

"This is David Moss' first solo LP after he took part to a few collective albums and a duo during the 1970s, all involving guitarist Baird Hersey."
UbuWeb

Tom Lehrer

"Thomas Andrew 'Tom' Lehrer (born April 9, 1928) is an American singer-songwriter, satirist, pianist, and mathematician. He has lectured on mathematics and musical theater. Lehrer is best known for the pithy, humorous songs he recorded in the 1950s and 1960s."
Wikipedia, YouTube - The Vatican Rag, Pollution, Element, New Math

Ed Sanders - Henri Matisse

"Ed Sanders performing his poetry in 1982 film Poetry in Motion."
YouTube

On Line: Drawing Through the Twentieth Century

"Drawing conventionally has been associated with pen, pencil, and paper, but artists have drawn lines on walls, earth, ceramics, fabric, film, and computer screens, with tools ranging from sticks to scrapers to pixels. Looking beyond institutional definitions of the medium, On Line (on view from November 21, 2010 to February 7, 2011) argues for an expanded history of drawing that moves off the page into space and time."
MoMA, amazon, YouTube

R. Steven Moore

Wikipedia - "Robert Steven Moore (born January 18, 1952) is an American singer, songwriter, and musician. In addition to having numerous albums released on labels around the world, the prolific Moore has self-released over 400 cassette and CD-R albums since 1968, as well as dozens of home videos, mostly through the R. Stevie Moore Cassette Club, a home-based label. His eclectic work incorporates a variety of musical styles, both popular and experimental.'
Wikipedia, R. Steven Moore, last.fm, PERFECT SOUND FOREVER, YouTube - Back in Time (1986), I Need Your Love (1974), State of Affairs (1981), Irony (1977), The Winner (1975), Human Race (2000), Another Day Slips Away (2006), I Like To Stay Home (1986)

The Clash - Bankrobber

Wikipedia - "Bankrobber is a song, and a single by The Clash. The song was not released on any of their studio albums, instead appearing on their compilation Black Market Clash."
Wikipedia, YouTube - Bankrobber, The Clash and Mikey Dread, The Clash, Mikey Dread, In New Jersey - Bankrobber

Nebula

Wikipedia - "A nebula (from Latin: 'cloud'; pl. nebulae or nebulæ, with ligature or nebulas) is an interstellar cloud of dust, hydrogen gas, helium gas and other ionized gases. ... In these regions the formations of gas, dust, and other materials "clump" together to form larger masses, which attract further matter, and eventually will become big enough to form stars. The remaining materials are then believed to form planets, and other planetary system objects."
Wikipedia, Hubble Site, YouTube - Tour of our galaxy's visible nebulae

Helen Petts

"Helen Petts is a film-maker, a photographer and a painter who often works in collaborations with improvising musicians, but who also makes very solitary work alone in the landscape. Her work explores rhythm, texture, sound and chance events and often involves long, intense, close-up images."
Helen Petts, YouTube -Marclay, Beresford, Lee, Butcher, Okkyung Lee and Steve Beresford, Okkyung Lee and Christian Marclay, Bass. (Guillaume Viltard - solo 1), Guillaume Viltard - solo, Akio Suzuki, Akio Suzuki and John Butcher, John Butcher, John Russell, Dominic Lash, Alex Ward, Aleks Kolkowski, Chris Burn

Ann Hamilton: An Inventory of Objects

"Ann Hamilton: An Inventory of Objects is a major new publication of the work of one of today's most important and influential artists. The book is a comprehensive catalogue of Hamilton's object-based work from 1984 to 2006. The more than 130 color plates document photographs, sculpture, video, audio and language pieces (both unique and editioned), as well as multiples and prints."
amazon, Google, Charlie Rose - Ann Hamilton

Moyra Davey - Speaker Receiver

"Kunsthalle Basel is delighted to announce 'Speaker Receiver', the first institutional show in Europe of works by Moyra Davey. Born in Canada in 1958, the artist lives and works in New York. Davey's practice encompasses photography, film and video, as well as reading and writing. She conceives of the latter two activities as inseparable and equally significant techniques of working: her alert, incisive readings of philosophy and literature prompt new writing, which in turn reflects back on already existing texts, building, as it does, on fragments, memories and quotations."
like you, Sternberg, Duke, KUNSTHALLE, YouTube - Moyra Davey on Choosing Photography, Moyra Davey on Finding Ideas and Working with Multiple Media, Moyra Davey on Documentation and the Transition from Analog to Digital

The City Lights Pocket Poets Series

Wikipedia - "The City Lights Pocket Poets Series is a series of poetry collections published by Lawrence Ferlinghetti and City Lights Books of San Francisco since August 1955. The series is most notable for the publication of Allen Ginsberg's literary milestone 'Howl', which led to an obscenity charge for the publishers that was fought off with the aid of the ACLU."
Wikipedia, City Lights

At San Quentin - Johnny Cash

Wikipedia - "At San Quentin is a recording of a live concert given by Johnny Cash to the inmates of San Quentin State Prison. As well as being released on record the concert was filmed by Granada Television."
Wikipedia, YouTube - San Quentin, Folsom Prison Blues, Wanted Man, Boy Named Sue, He Turned The Water Into Wine, June Carter & Johnny Cash - Jackson, June Carter & Johnny Cash - Darlin' Companion

On the Passage of a few People through a Rather Brief Moment in Time: The Situationist International 1956-1972

"A video documentary combining exhibition footage of the Situationist International exhibitions with film footage of the 1968 Paris student uprising, and graffiti and slogans based on the ideas of Guy Debord (one of the foremost spokesmen of the Situationist International movement)."
UbuWeb

Censorship

Nikolai Yezhov, standing to the right of Joseph Stalin, was shot in 1940. He was edited out of the photo by Soviet censors after his execution as a form of damnatio memoriae.

Wikipedia - "Censorship is suppression of speech or other communication which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or inconvenient to the general body of people as determined by a government, media outlet, or other controlling body."
Wikipedia

Van Doesburg and the International Avant-Garde

"For van Doesburg, there was an underlying unity between the anarchic Dada movement and the more ordered aesthetic of De Stijl. ‘The Dadaist spirit pleases me more and more’, he wrote to Tristan Tzara in October 1921."
Tate, Antonio Miranda, Google - "Letters from the avant-garde: modern graphic design"

Gilligan's Island

Wikipedia - "Gilligan's Island is an American television situation comedy created and produced by Sherwood Schwartz and originally produced by United Artists Television. The series featured Bob Denver, Alan Hale, Jr., Jim Backus, and Tina Louise, and aired for three seasons on the CBS network, from September 26, 1964, to September 4, 1967."
Wikipedia, Slash Control, YouTube - Gilligan's Island, Gilligan and The Skipper are Killed

The Sonics

Wikipedia - "The Sonics are an American garage rock band from Tacoma, Washington, originating from the early and mid-1960s. Among The Sonics' contemporaries were The Kingsmen, The Wailers, The Dynamics, The Regents, and Paul Revere & the Raiders. This movement is credited with founding Seattle's music scene which survives to the present."
Wikipedia, YouTube - Psycho a Go-Go, Boss Hoss, Strychnine, The Witch, Have Love, Will Travel

Che Guevara in popular culture

Wikipedia - "Appearances of Argentine Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara (1928–1967) in popular culture are common throughout the world. Although during his lifetime he was a highly politicized and controversial figure, in death his stylized image has been transformed into a worldwide emblem for an array of causes, representing a complex mesh of sometimes conflicting narratives. Che Guevara's image is viewed as everything from an inspirational icon of revolution, to a hipster logo of radical chic."
Wikipedia

Parliament Funkadelic - Mothership Connection - Houston 1976

"It was Halloween night and Parliament Funkadelic was about to tear the roof off the Houston Summit, ready to bless the crowd with their cosmic brew of interplanetary funk. George Clinton, Bernie Worrell, Bootsy Collins and the rest of the P-Funk collective were riding the success of their first Top 5 R&B hit, 'Give Up The Funk (Tear The Roof Off The Sucker),' a track that had earned them the kind of radio play that would bring the masses out to see them live in a stadium-sized arena."
YouTube - Swing Down Sweet Chariot, Dr. Funkenstein, Cosmic Slop, Do That Stuff, Gamin' On Ya, Standing On the Verge of Gettin' It On, Undisco Kidd, Give Up The Funk, Funkin' For Fun, Night of the Thumpasorus Peoples, Children of Productions, Comin' 'round the Mountain, P-Funk Wants to Get Funked Up

Fresh Stuff From Michael Aaron Williams in Austria

"From Michael: 'some of them had white roses in them to symbolize how street children are vulnerable to losing there innocence on the streets.'"
Wooster Collective

Myst, Riven

Wikipedia - "Myst puts the player in the role of the Stranger, who uses a special book to travel to the island of Myst. There, the player uses other special books written by an artisan and explorer named Atrus to travel to several worlds known as 'Ages'. Clues found in each of these Ages help reveal the back-story of the game's characters. The game has several endings, depending on the course of action the player takes."
Wikipedia, W - Riven, Myst Worlds, amazon, YouTube - Myst, Riven

Ho Chi Minh Trail Project

"In cooperation with the Long March Project, the Ho Chi Minh Trail project will be run in Beijing from June to September, 2010. Its theme is ‘from creation to rehearsal’. The Long March Project is one of the most influential curatorial projects in China promoting the development of Chinese contemporary art and discourse."
Ho Chi Minh Trail Project, (1), Photo Gallery

Ernest Cole

Wikipedia - "Ernest Cole (1940 - February 19, 1990) was a South African photographer."
Wikipedia, NYT, YouTube

The Shrine – Lagos

"In the past week the Nigerian authorities have finally succeeded in closing the legendary Shrine venue in Lagos. The Shrine club originally formed part of the 'Kalakuta Republic' founded by Fela Kuti in the early 70s (which also included a recording studio and commune), and was the stage where Fela developed the Afrobeat sound. It’s not the first time the venue has been closed by the authorities – The original Shrine was already destroyed in 1977 – but unfortunately it appears this latest closure may be final."
Laboca, Aphrodesia, amazon, YouTube - Lagos Jump - Visit to Fela's Shrine, Live at the Africa Shrine(Fela Death)

Orson Welles - The One Man Band (1995)

"ORSON WELLES: THE ONE-MAN BAND is a fascinating glimpse at this extraordinary man's final years - made with the cooperation of Oja Kodar, Welles' longtime companion, to whom he bequeathed a wealth of unedited films and fragments when he died in 1985. Granted exclusive access to Welles' heretofore unseen archives - and drawing from almost two tons of film cans containing fragments, shorts, project ideas, and sketches - the filmmakers are led by Kodar through the rich but unfulfilled Welles legacy."
UbuWeb

The Subway Issue

"The Subway in Pictures. A gallery of New York Times photography documenting 10 decades of New York City’s subway system."
NY Tiimes

Classified X

"A history of the racially stereotyped portrayal of African Americans in cinema. Written and narrated by Melvin Van Peebles, director of 'revolutionary' film Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song. Van Peebles is no angel, his films have been called exploitative, but this history is powerful. Watch ALL 6 PARTS to see how stereotyped representations have evolved from early cinema to today."
YouTune - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6