Hurricane Irene 2011 (Hurricanes and Tropical Storms)

"Hurricane Irene, which first hit the Bahamas on Wednesday, Aug. 24, 2011, is a slow-moving massive storm. It advanced at 14 miles an hour, half the speed of typical hurricanes along the coast, in an unusually broad path that extended more than 260 miles from the center in some directions. It has affected at least a dozen states along the East Coast of the United States."
NYT, NYT: Readers’ Photos of Hurricane Irene, NYT: Damage and Flooding Scar Atlantic Seaboard, CBS News (Video), YouTube - Hurricane "Irene" 2011 (Video)

Michael Nyman Band

"The Michael Nyman Band, formerly known as the Campiello Band, is a group formed as a street band for a 1976 production of Carlo Goldoni's 1756 play, Il Campiello directed by Bill Bryden at the Old Vic. The band did not wish to break up after the production ended, so its director, Michael Nyman, began composing music for the group to perform, beginning with 'In Re Don Giovanni', written in 1977. Originally made up of old instruments such as rebecs, sackbuts and shawms alongside more modern instruments like the banjo and saxophone in order to produce as loud a sound as possible without amplification, it later switched to a fully amplified lineup of string quartet, double bass, clarinet, three saxophones, horn, trumpet, bass trombone, bass guitar, and piano. This line up has been variously altered and augmented for some works."
Wikipedia, YouTube - Chasing Sheep is Best Left to Shepherds, Water Dances, The Heart Asks Pleasure First, Dreams of a Journey, Wedding Tango, The Promise

Tolkien Library

"The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, may be the most important and influential fantasy books ever published. Next to these, Tolkien wrote and published an enormous amount of other books: Farmer Giles of Ham, Smith of Wootton Major, Roverandom, Mr. Bliss, Children of Hurin, Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun... to name some. The aim of this website is to show all books which are curently inside the Tolkien Library."
Tolkien Library, YouTube

Horst Ademeit

"White Columns is pleased to present the first solo exhibition in the United States by Dusseldorf-based Horst Ademeit (b. 1937.) Working independently, and outside of the context of art, since the late 1980s Ademit has embarked on an obsessive program of collecting evidence – through photography and meticulous note-keeping – that would establish, in his mind, the existence of what he called 'cold rays,' unseen forces that he believed severely impaired and impacted upon his life and surroundings."
White Columns, Hamburger Bahnhof, ArtCritical, Galerie Susanne Zander

The Band - The Weight, Across the Great Divide, Rag Mama Rag...

"The Weight, Across the Great Divide, Rag Mama Rag. The night they drove old dixie down, Up on Cripple. Rockin' chair. Unfaithful servant. Whispering Pines, King Harvest."
YouTube, (2), (3), (4), (5)

David Byrne: How Architecture Helped Music Evolve

"Since the break-up of Talking Heads in 1991, David Byrne has made a good career for himself as a solo artist, working in film and music, and also becoming an active supporter of cycling. Overtly intellectual, Byrne has given lectures on a great variety of topics – from Carl Jung to the ways in which venue and context shape artistic creation. The TED talk above was given in February 2010 in Long Beach, California, and here David Byrne presents his ideas on the interrelationship between music and architecture."
YouTube - Open Culture

Lightnin’ Hopkins

Wikipedia - "Sam John Hopkins (March 15, 1912 – January 30, 1982), better known as Lightnin’ Hopkins, was an American country blues singer, songwriter, guitarist and occasional pianist, from Houston, Texas."
Wikipedia, YouTube - Baby Please Dont Go, Goin Down Slow, Mojo Hand, Rare Performances 1960-1979 - Parte 1, Parte 2, Parte 3, Parte 4, Parte 5, Parte 6, Parte 7, Parte 8, Parte 9, Texas blues legend - Where Lightnin' Strikes

Sterling Ruby

Installation view of Pig Pen
Wikipedia - "Sterling Ruby is a multi-disciplinary artist who has become known for his richly glazed biomorphic ceramics, large-scale spray-painted canvases, poured urethane sculptures, various forms of collage, and video work. ... He takes his subject matter from a wide range of sources, including marginalized societies, maximum security prisons, modernist architecture, artifacts and antiquities, graffiti, the mechanisms of warfare, and urban gangs. His work has often been cited as invoking minimalism as a means to expose underlying systems and social power structures."
Wikipedia, Foxy Production, Sprueth Magers, YouTube - Lifestyle Sterling Ruby

Cyanotype - Christian Marclay

"Christian Marclay is a New York based visual artist and composer whose innovative work explores the juxtaposition between sound recording, photography, video and film. As a performer and sound artist Christian Marclay has been experimenting, composing and performing with phonograph records and turntables since 1979 to create his unique 'theater of found sound.' A dadaist DJ and filmmaker, his installations and video/film collages display provocative musical and visual landscapes."
USF, Met Museum

James Sturm

"The educator and cartoonist James Sturm is another of my favorite people in comics. He's the co-founder of The Center For Cartoon Studies, the author of 2010's fine book Market Day and one of the driving forces behind the publication of Denys Wortman's New York. If there were a tree chart of 2010 comics events and underlying issues with lines drawn to the cartoonists engaged in some element of said issues, Sturm would appear on it looking like a marionette with tangled strings."
CR Holiday Interview #17, NYT: In One Sad Day, an Old World Artisan Confronts a New World, npr: 'Market Day': Beauty And History In Handmade Art, Products by James Sturm, James Sturm Heads to the "Market", Slate: Life Without the Web, YouTube - The Conversation: Giving Up the Web

New Wave Time Warp

Joy Division - “Love Will Tear Us Apart” YouTube
"thirty years ago
today, people wore
shiny things"
New Wave Time Warp

Jitish Kallat - Public Notice 3

"In the first major presentation in an American museum of Jitish Kallat’s work, the contemporary Indian artist has designed a site-specific installation that connects two key historical moments—the First World Parliament of Religions held on September 11, 1893, and the terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on that very date, 108 years later. The resulting work, Public Notice 3, creates a trenchant commentary on the evolution, or devolution, of religious tolerance across the 20th and 21st centuries."
The Art Institute of Chicago, YouTube - Jitish Kallat's Public Notice 3 at the Art Institute of Chicago

Eddie Cochran

Wikipedia - "Eddie Cochran (October 2, 1938 – April 17, 1960), was an American rock and roll pioneer who in his brief career had a small but lasting influence on rock music through his guitar playing. Cochran's rockabilly songs, such as 'C'mon Everybody', 'Somethin' Else', and 'Summertime Blues', captured teenage frustration and desire in the late 1950s and early 1960s."
Wikipedia, YouTube - Summertime Blues, C'mon Everybody, Money Honey, Nervous breakdown, Don't blame it on me, Be honest with me, Long Tall Sally, White lightening, Teenage Heaven, Live Fast, Love Hard, Die Young (1955)

Philip Glass Ensemble - "Train/Spaceship"

"Philip Glass Ensemble perform 'Train/Spaceship' live at Sadler's Wells Theatre in London in 1982."
YouTube, (1)

Robert Breer

Robert Breer, top, in a shot from “Fist Fight” (1964).
Wikipedia - "Robert Carlton Breer (September 30, 1926 – August 11, 2011) was an experimental filmmaker, painter, and sculptor. 'A founding member of the American avant-garde,' Breer was most well known for his films, which combine abstract and representational painting, hand-drawn rotoscoping, original 16mm and 8mm film footage, photographs, and other materials."
Wikipedia, frieze, mubi, Robert Breer, Kinetic Poet of the Avant-Garde, YouTube - Eyewash (1959), A Man And His Dog Out For Air (1957), Blazes (1961), Swiss Army Knife with Rats and Pigeons (1980), 69 (1968), 70 (1970), Robert Breer, Screening Room with Robert Breer (1976)

Gaspesia: Les portraits en papier -- Fresh Stuff From Dan Bergeron

"The large-scale portraits in Gaspesia: Les portraits en papier represent former employees of Papiers Gaspesia, a pulp and paper mill founded in 1912 by Percy Milton Chandler in Chandler, Quebec. Named for the mill’s founder, the port city’s economy and social organization depended heavily upon this industry."
Wooster Collective

"I Only Want You to Love Me" - Rainer Maria Fassbinder

"The title of this documentary on Rainer Maria Fassbinder is just slightly changed from the title of a film that director made in 1976, entitled Ich Will Doch Nur, Dass Ihr Mich Liebt ('I Only Want You to Love Me'). The wunderkind of postwar German filmmaking died at age 36 in 1982 after making over 50 films in his short fifteen year career. He tended to produce resolutely experimental films using members of his theatrical troupe, the 'Anti-Theater'."
bing, YouTube

"Spirit in the Night" - Bruce Springsteen

Wikipedia - "'Spirit in the Night' is a song written and originally recorded by New Jersey based singer/songwriter Bruce Springsteen for his debut album Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. (1973). It was also the second single released from the album."
Wikipedia - "Spirit in the Night", YouTube - "Spirit in the Night", Live 1973 in Los Angeles

Madness

Wikipedia - "Madness are a British pop/ska band from Camden Town, London, that formed in 1976. The band continue to perform with their most recognised lineup of seven members, although their lineup has varied slightly over the years. They were one of the most prominent bands of the late-1970s 2 Tone ska revival."
Wikipedia, YouTube - One Step Beyond, Night Boat To Cairo, Baggy Trousers, Our House

Amateur astronomy

Wikipedia - "Amateur astronomy, also called backyard astronomy and stargazing, is a hobby whose participants enjoy watching the night sky (and the day sky too, for sunspots, eclipses, etc.), and the plethora of objects found in it, mainly with portable telescopes and binoculars. Even though scientific research is not their main goal, many amateur astronomers make a contribution to astronomy by monitoring variable stars, tracking asteroids and discovering transient objects, such as comets."
Wikipedia, Amateur Astronomers, Backyard Astronomy

Lavender Lake

"The Gowanus Canal is located in the heart of Brooklyn, bordering the neighborhoods of Carroll Gardens and Red Hook. When the canal opened in 1866, it quickly became the nation’s busiest commercial waterway and also the most polluted. The resulting growth of foundries, oil-storage facilities, dye works, printing plants, cement factories, tanneries, coal yards, chemical plants, paint and ink factories produced so much pollutants that the waterway was dubbed 'Lavender Lake' by locals, inspired by the opaque bluish-purple color of the water."
Charles Le Brigand (Video), Forgotten NY

Nine Planets Without Intelligent Life

"A philosophical road comic about two unemployed robots on an improvised interplanetary voyage of self discovery."
Bohemian Drive, The Webcomic Overlook #134: Nine Planets Without Intelligent Life

Jungle Brothers

Wikipedia - "The Jungle Brothers are an American hip hop group that pioneered the fusion of jazz and hip-hop and also became the first hip-hop group to use a house-music producer. The group began performing in the mid-1980s and released its first album, Straight Out the Jungle, in July 1988. With Afrocentric lyrics and innovative beats, the Jungle Brothers were critically acclaimed and soon joined the influential Native Tongues collective."
Wikipedia, YouTube - Straight out the Jungle, Doin' Our Own Dang (Remix), I'll House You (The Gee St.Reconstruction), Because I Like It Like That, Brain, On The Run

Get Happy!! - Elvis Costello the Attractions

Wikipedia - "The fourth album by Elvis Costello, his third with the Attractions, Get Happy!! is notable for being a dramatic break in tone from Costello's previous 'trilogy' of commercially successful albums, and for being heavily influenced by R&B and soul music. The cover art was intentionally designed to have a 'retro' feel, to look like the cover of an old LP with ring wear on both front and back. The title may be a reference to gospel music, where 'getting happy' is synonymous with receiving the Holy Spirit (a meaning that Costello himself hints at in the liner notes to the 2003 edition of the album). The title may also refer to the Harold Arlen/Ted Koehler song of the same name."
Wikipedia, YouTube - High Fidelity, I Stand Accused, I Can't Stand Up For Falling Down, Possession, New Amsterdam, Love For Tender

Misty Woodford: Polaroids

'Pat with New Clothing Form'
"Misty Woodford is a writer and photographer. More of her Polaroids, taken on a 1967 land camera, can be seen here."
The Paris Review, far-afield

Tex Williams

Wikipedia - "Sollie Paul Williams (August 23, 1917–October 11, 1985), known professionally as Tex Williams, was an American Western swing musician from Ramsey, Illinois. He is best known for his talking blues style; his biggest hit was the novelty song, 'Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! (That Cigarette)', which held the number one position on the Billboard charts for six weeks in 1947."
Wikipedia, B-Westerns, YouTube - Smoke Smoke That Cigarette, That's What I Like About The West, Every Night, The Talking Boogie, Let's Go Rockabilly

Postmodernism: Style and Subversion 1970–1990

WET magazine, 1979. April Greiman and Jayme Odgers.
"Of all movements in art and design history, postmodernism is perhaps the most controversial. This era defies definition, but it is a perfect subject for an exhibition. Postmodernism was an unstable mix of the theatrical and theoretical. It was visually thrilling, a multifaceted style that ranged from the colourful to the ruinous, the ludicrous to the luxurious."
V&M. Postmodernism: Style and Subversion 1970–1990.

Graffiti Taxonomy: Paris, 2009

"A study depicting the stylistic diversity found in Parisian graffiti tags. Now on display at Fondation Cartier’s Born In The Streets – Graffiti exhibition until November 29, 2009. Over 2,400 graffiti tags were photographed from April 24 to April 28, 2009, from each of Paris’s 20 districts. All photographs were archived, tagged and sorted by letter. The ten most commonly used letters by Paris graffiti writers were identified for further study (A,E,I,K,N,O,R,S,T and U). From each letter grouping, eighteen tags were isolated to represent the diversity and range of that specific character."
Graffiti Taxonomy: Paris, 2009 (Video), Graffiti Taxonomy

Dollars Trilogy

Wikipedia - "The 'Dollars Trilogy' (Italian: Trilogia del dollaro), also known as the 'Man with No Name Trilogy', refers to the three 'Spaghetti Westerns' starring Clint Eastwood and directed by Sergio Leone: A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965), and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)."
Wikipedia, A Watershed Role for Clint Eastwood, A Ground Breaking Film for Sergio Leone..., amazon, YouTube - A Fistful Of Dollars, For A Few Dollars, The Good The Bad and The Ugly

Andy Denzler

Wikipedia - "Andy Denzler (3rd August 1965 in Zurich) is a Swiss artist. The art media he works with comprise painting, printing, screen printing, graphic design, sculpture and drawing. ... Andy Denzler’s works move between abstraction and reality. With the classic means of oil painting, the artist endeavors to fathom the borderlines between fiction and reality. He presents his own perception of the world in his pictures. They are snap-shots of events that take place, blurred, distorted movements, Freeze Frames that stylistically move between Photorealism and Abstract Expressionism. In his paintings Denzler frequently alludes to other media."
Wikipedia, Andy Denzler