Fela Kuti - Upside Down (1976)

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

Tim Rollins and K.O.S.

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

Erik den Breejen

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

The Ñewmerican Dream: Yoav Litvin Talks to Ñewmerica

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

Transatlantic Sessions 4 (2009)

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

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

Los Angeles: Double Face

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

Lewis Warsh

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

The Soul of Black Peru (1995)

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

Dancing in the dark - John O'Mahony

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

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

Storm de Hirsch - Peyote Queen (1965)

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

The 78 Project

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

Brownstone

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

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

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

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

Up Close on Baseball's Borders

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

The Perfect Symmetry of Wes Anderson’s Movies

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

Gustave Caillebotte

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

"Jealous Guy" - John Lennon (1971)

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

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

Irit Batsry

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

Raúl Ruiz

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

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

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

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

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

Bonfire of the Humanities

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Richard Baker

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

The Ballad of Geeshie and Elvie

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

2013 July: Geeshie Wiley

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

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

Ludlow Massacre

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

Sabrosa

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