Gatsby to Garp: Modern Masterpieces from the Carter Burden Collection

"Between 1973 and 1996 Carter Burden, a cultural benefactor and former New York City councilman, assembled the greatest collection of modern American literature in private hands. This exhibition brings together nearly one hundred outstanding works from the collection, including first editions, manuscripts, letters, and revised galley proofs. Authors featured in this unparalleled exhibition are some of the twentieth century's most celebrated—William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Allen Ginsberg, Ernest Hemingway, Langston Hughes, John Irving, Henry James, Jack Kerouac, Norman Mailer, Toni Morrison, J. D. Salinger, Gertrude Stein, John Steinbeck, John Updike, Tennessee Williams, and Richard Wright, among others."
Morgan Library & Museum
NY Times: The Joys of Judging a Book by Its Cover

The MFA Handbook: A Guide to the Collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

"This is a new, fully updated and redesigned edition of the definitive guide to the most enduring masterpieces in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Featuring more than 500 objects from all times and places (nearly 100 of them new to this edition)—Native American ceramics to European shoes, Egyptian funerary arts to Warhol silkscreens, not to mention the Museum’s world-renowned collections of paintings and sculpture—The MFA Handbook provides a window on works that have surprised, delighted, and inspired visitors since the MFA first opened its doors in 1876."
The MFA Handbook
MFA Guide
amazon

Revisiting the Nightmares of World War I

"A moonscape of craters, mud and shattered stumps fills a wall-sized video screen; you can hear shrieking shells and shattering blasts; an enormous British howitzer, meant to pulverize the enemy’s defenses, points toward the fields. The only thing missing in this gallery, devoted to the Battle of the Somme at the Imperial War Museum here, is the ability to conceive of 20,000 British dead and 37,000 wounded or missing in the first day of fighting, and more than a million casualties over all during five months. It is one of the most powerful presentations at the new First World War Galleries here, suggesting that this seemingly futile battle was actually a turning point."
NY Times
IWM London
1914.org
Casson Mann
The World at War, 1914–1918 (Video)
NY Times: Visceral Reality vs. the Big Picture
History: Outbreak of World War I (Video)
Slate: Everything You Need to Know About How World War I Began in Four Minutes (Video)

Jimmy Reed - Ain't That Lovin' You Baby? (1956)

Know I love ya, babe?
Know I love ya, babe?
Know I love ya, babe?
But you don't even know my name

Let me tell ya, baby
I'll tell ya what I would do
I would rob, steal, kill somebody
Just ta get back home ta you
YouTube: Ain't That Lovin' You Baby?

Phil Ochs in Concert (1966)

"During much of the career of this great performer, this so-called live album was the only recording that supposedly represented Phil Ochs as he was heard in concert -- in other words, solo. While his major studio albums concentrated on orchestral productions, sometimes bordering on unlistenable pretension or slightly uncomfortable band tracks, his live performances inevitably consisted of just one man with his voice and guitar, at least until his ill-fated rock & roll venture near the end of his popularity. ..."
allmusic
W - Phil Ochs in Concert
Phil Ochs remembered - Perfect Sound Forever
Shadows That Shine
YouTube: Phil Ochs in Concert

2010 July: Draft dodger, Conscientious objector, War resister, 2008 September: Phil Ochs, 2011 December: All the News That's Fit to Sing, 2012 February: There but for Fortune, 2013 February: Pleasures of the Harbor, 2014 March: "Draft Dodger Rag" (1965).

Matt Weingarden - Dust & Grooves

"Matt Fine Wine, 44, lives in Brooklyn NY. He’s a magazine editor and a Funk & Soul DJ. collects mostly 45s. Q: What prompted you to start collecting? A: I grew up in Detroit and was listening to CKLW radio, a renowned, influential station just across the Detroit River in Windsor, Ontario, from about the time I was 5. The first record I bought was something I heard on CKLW and fell in love with: 'Ben' by Michael Jackson, from the rat movie of the same name. I was obsessed with it at age 8. Soon after that, I moved on from CKLW to the local great AM oldies station, WHND, 'Honey Radio.' I listened to that for years. The 45-buying floodgates were open."
MATT WIENGARDEN (MR. FINEWINE) - BROOKLYN, NY (Video)
NY Mag: Matt Weingarden
WFMU: Downtown Soulville with Mr. Fine Wine: Playlists and Archives (Video)
MixCloud: Jazzman Radio Feat. Matt ‘Mr Fine Wine’ Weingarden (Video)

Cement Eclipses from Isaac Cordal

"Isaac Cordal's cement sculptures play hide and seek among cracked walls and drain pipes in his project titled 'Cement Eclipses.' In this project, Cordal calls attention to everyday people whose lives and dramas play out hidden all around the world. See if you can spot them all!"
Wooster Collective

2011 May: Isaac Cordal

The Islamic State

"The Islamic State, a hardline Sunni jihadist group that formerly had ties to al Qaeda, has conquered large swathes of Iraq and Syria. Previously known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the group has announced its intention to reestablish the caliphate and has declared its leader, the shadowy Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as the caliph. The lightning advances the Islamic State made across Syria and Iraq in June shocked the world. But it's not just the group's military victories that have garnered attention — it's also the pace with which its members have begun to carve out a viable state. Flush with cash and US weapons seized during its advances in Iraq, the Islamic State's expansion shows no sign of slowing down. In the first week of August alone, Islamic State fighters have taken over new areas in northern Iraq, encroaching on Kurdish territory and sending Christians and other minorities fleeing as reports of massacres emerged."
VICE (Video)
PBS: Losing Iraq | FRONTLINE (Video)
NY Times: Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) (Video)
W - Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
W - Anarchist symbolism

Jacques Dupin

"Jacques Dupin, a poet, art critic and cultural eminence in France whose influence straddled the avant-garde literary world and the commercial market in paintings and sculptures by major 20th-century artists, died on Oct. 27 at his home in Paris. He was 85. Family members who confirmed his death said he had been ill for several years. Mr. Dupin was for a long time one of the directors of the renowned Galerie Maeght in Paris, which represented Joan Miró, Marc Chagall, Alberto Giacometti, Francis Bacon, Wassily Kandinsky and other modern artists. As both a poet and an art dealer, he had a wide circle of friends. Bacon and Giacometti painted his portrait. The American poet John Ashbery, another friend, translated a seminal monograph written by Dupin in 1961 about Giacometti, which was published in English in 2003."
NY Times
W - Jacques Dupin
amazon: Jacques Dupin
Of Flies and Monkeys By Jacques Dupin Translated by John Taylor
Poetry International
The Yale Anthology of Twentieth-Century French Poetry by Mary Ann Caws (Editor)

Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction

"'How would you like to be remembered?' the director David Lynch asks the actor Harry Dean Stanton during the documentary 'Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction.' 'Doesn’t matter,' is the laconic reply, and you know he means it. It does matter, however, to the Swiss filmmaker Sophie Huber, who seems to have chosen a particularly tough subject for her first feature. Guarded in the extreme and bereft of vanity, Mr. Stanton, now 87, may have plumbed the inner workings of close to 200 characters, but he’s cagey about revealing his own."
NY Times
W - Harry Dean Stanton
amazon
YouTube: Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction | Official Trailer, Harry Dean Stanton says it all

Go West

Wikipedia - "'Go West' is a song by the 1970s disco group Village People. The song eventually found greater success when it was covered in 1993 by the synthpop duo Pet Shop Boys. ... The song's title is attributed to the nineteenth century quote 'Go West, young man' commonly attributed to Horace Greeley, a rallying cry for the colonization of the American West; though Victor Willis denies writing the song with a gay theme in mind, 'Go West' is generally understood as an expression of the 1970s sentiment of San Francisco as a utopia for the Gay Liberation movement."
Wikipedia
shmoop
YouTube: Village People - Go West, Pet Shop Boys - Go West, Pet Shop Boys - Go West++

2010 August: Village People, 2008 September: Pet Shop Boys, 2010 November: Pet Shop Boys - 1985-1989, 2011 January: Behaviour, 2011 May: Very, 2011 December: Bilingual, 2012 March: "Always on My Mind", 2012 August: Nightlife, 2012 September: "Where the Streets Have No Name (I Can't Take My Eyes off You)", 2012 December: Release, 2013 March: Pandemonium Tour, 2013 November: Leaving, 2014 April: Introspective (1988).

The Paris of Toulouse-Lautrec: Prints and Posters - MoMA

'La Troupe de Mademoiselle Églantine', 1896.
"A preeminent artist of Belle Époque Paris, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864–1901) brought the language of the late-19th-century avant-garde to a broad public through his famous posters, prints, and illustrations for journals and magazines. A cultural nexus, he connected artists, performers, authors, intellectuals, and society figures of his day, creating a bridge between the brothels and society salons of the moment. His work allows entry into many facets of Parisian life, from politics to visual culture and the rise of popular entertainment in the form of cabarets and café-concerts."
MoMA
NY Times: Imbibing a World of Delight and Degradation
WSJ - The Paris of Toulouse-Lautrec: Prints and Posters
W - Moulin Rouge
BBC: Toulouse-Lautrec exhibit brings classic Paris to NY (Video)

Photoville Exhibition Returning to Brooklyn Bridge Park

"United Photo Industries, the Brooklyn photography cooperative probably best known for 'The Fence' – the 1,000-foot-long photo installation that began in Brooklyn in 2012 and has since had versions in Boston and Atlanta – will set up its third annual Photoville, a pop-up, modular exhibition space, in Brooklyn Bridge Park from Sept. 18 to 28. The project, at Pier 5 in the park, will include 60 exhibitions, most presented in 20-by-40-foot shipping containers repurposed as mini-galleries, with several outdoor installations as well. Also planned are more than 25 talks, panels and hands-on workshops, and a series of multimedia presentations and author readings."
NY Times
About THE FENCE - Photoville
Photoville Photoville
Photoville - Brooklyn Bridge Park
kickstarter :Photoville - Brooklyn Bridge Park (Video)

Red Hot + Blue: A Tribute To Cole Porter (1990)

"Cole Porter did not die of AIDS, but he is generally acknowledged to have been at least bisexual, which seems to be the justification for assembling an AIDS charity album in which contemporary artists perform songs he wrote in the 1920s, '30s, '40s, and '50s. Producer/creators Leigh Blake and John Carlin (along with Steve Lillywhite, credited as supervising musical producer, who produced several of the individual tracks) appear to have suggested to the artists that they simply take Porter's lead sheets and come up with arrangements and recordings in their own individual styles. Leading off the album, Neneh Cherry demonstrates how far that can be from traditional approaches to Porter's music. ..."
allmusic
W - Red Hot + Blue: A Tribute To Cole Porter
W - Cole Porter
YouTube: Tom Waits - It's Alright With Me, Annie Lennox - Every Time We Say Goodbye, David Byrne - Don't Fence Me In, So in love - k.d. lang, Neneh Cherry - I've Got You Under My Skin, Iggy Pop & Debbie Harry Sing "Did You Evah", Les Negresses Vertes - I Love Paris

Au Pairs - Stepping Out of Line: The Anthology (2006)

"This is it -- every studio recording made by Au Pairs, one of the smartest, sharpest bands of the post-punk era. Stepping Out of Line contains the two albums, 1981's Playing with a Different Sex and the following year's Sense and Sensuality, as well as all the non-album material, three tracks from a BBC session, a live version of 'Piece of My Heart,' one previously unreleased track, and a handful of demos for a third album that never materialized. Most of the non-album material surfaced on RPM's reissues of the two albums, but those discs vanished shortly after release, and an attempt on the part of Cherry Red to condense the best of it all onto one disc in 1999 came up short. No one could possibly give this band's output too much attention."
allmusic
W - Stepping Out of Line: The Anthology
stylusmagazine
Only the Lonely
YouTube: Set Up (Live), Come Again (Live), Intact (Live)
YouTube: Stepping Out of Line: The Anthology +++

2008 May: Au Pairs, 2012 October: Au Pairs @ Pinkpop 1982.

Fantastic Mr. Fox - Wes Anderson (2009)

Wikiedia - "Fantastic Mr. Fox is a 2009 American stop-motion animated comedy film based on the Roald Dahl children's novel of the same name. This story is about a fox who steals food each night from three mean and wealthy farmers. The farmers are fed up with Mr. Fox's theft and try to kill him, so they dig their way into the foxes' home. However, the animals are able to outwit the farmers and live underground. Produced by Indian Paintbrush and Regency Enterprises, and released in the autumn of 2009, the film features the voices of George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, and Owen Wilson. For director Wes Anderson, it was his first animated film and first film adaptation."
Wikipedia
New Yorker: Wild, Wild Wes
Slate: Outfoxed
NY Times: Don’t Count Your Chickens
amazon
YouTube: Fantastic Mr. Fox - Official Theatrical Trailer

2013 November: Wes Anderson Honors Fellini in a Delightful New Short Film, 2013 November: Rushmore (1998), 2013 Decemher: Hotel Chevalier (2007), 2014 March: Wes Anderson Collection, 2014 April: The Perfect Symmetry of Wes Anderson’s Movies, 2014 July: The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014).

Children's Games - Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1560)

Children's Games, 1560
Wikipedia - "Children's Games is an oil-on-panel by Flemish renaissance artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder, painted in 1560. It is currently held and exhibited at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. ... The children, who range in age from toddlers to adolescents, roll hoops, walk on stilts, spin hoops, ride hobby-horses, stage mock tournaments, play leap-frog and blind man's bluff, perform handstands, inflate pigs' bladders and play with dolls and other toys. They have also taken over the large building that dominates the square: it may be a town hall or some other important civic building, in this way emphasizing the moral that the adults who direct civic affairs are as children in the sight of God. This crowded scene is to some extent relieved by the landscape in the top left-hand corner; but even here children are bathing in the river and playing on its banks."
Wikipedia
Center for History and New Media
amazon: Inside Bruegel: The Play of Images in Children's Games

2010 May: Peasant, 2011 March: "The Harvesters", Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 2012 February: The Mill and the Cross - Lech Majewski, 2012 December: The Lord of Misrule and the Feast of Fools., 2013 July: Netherlandish Proverbs.

Bukka White - Parchman Farm (1970)

Wikipedia - "'Parchman Farm' or 'Parchman Farm Blues' is blues song first recorded by American Delta blues musician Bukka White in 1940. It is an autobiographical piece, in which White sings of his experience at the infamous Mississippi State Penitentiary, known as Parchman Farm. ... One was 'Parchman Farm Blues', which he recorded that day (all twelve were recorded over two days, May 7 and 8, 1940). The song has the elements of Delta blues, including a one-chord modal arrangement and a slide guitar break. However, the melody line is distinctive and relies less on blue notes. White delivers the vocal in his characteristic grainy, guttural style accompanied by his acoustic guitar, with Washboard Sam on washboard percussion."
Wikipedia
W - Bukka White
Discogs: Parchman Farm (1970)
allmusic
YouTube: Parchman Farm Blues, Aberdeen Mississippi Blues (Live), Fixin' To Die, Pine Bluff Arkansas, Shake 'Em On Down, Black Train Blues, Strange Place Blues, Where Can I Change My Clothes, Sleepy Man Blues, Good Gin Blues, High fever Blues, District Attorney Blues, Bukka's Jitterbug Swing, Special Steamline

Derrida (2002)

Wikipedia - "Derrida is a 2002 American documentary film directed by Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering Kofman about the French philosopher Jacques Derrida. It premiered at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival before being released theatrically on October 23, 2002. The film uses interviews shot by the filmmakers, footage of Derrida's lectures and speaking engagements, and personal footage of Derrida at home with his friends and family. In several scenes, Ziering Kofman also reads excerpts from Derrida's work or otherwise describes aspects of his life.Derrida also focuses on Derrida's thesis that scholars tend to ignore important biographical information when discussing philosophers' lives. In one scene, Derrida comments that he would be most interested in hearing about famous philosophers' sex lives because this topic is seldom addressed in their writings."
Wikipedia
Derrida: A 2002 Documentary on the Abstract Philosopher and the Everyday Man
YouTube: Derrida (2002)

2010 January: Jacques Derrida

Ice Cream

"Conehead - Over the past few years, ice cream—that wonderful, bliss-inducing treat of our boyhoods—has been reinvigorated by the food world's small-batch, artisanal tinkerers. (Have you tried bourbon-infused ice cream?) The result has been a wonderful (but sometimes dizzying) reinvention of a classic. Thankfully, Alan Richman, a lifelong lover of the Cold Arts, is here to share the 31 things he knows to be true about getting the most out of this perfect food. ... 3. Steve Herrell is the godfather of American ice cream. He opened Steve's, outside the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1973 and produced the first ultrapremium scoop-shop ice cream by slowing down an old White Mountain ice cream freezer operating in the front of his shop. Herrell is to ice cream what Julia Child was to French cooking and what Alice Waters is to farm-to-table."
GQ
"I Scream" - Anne Fadiman (The Paris Review)
W - Ice Cream
W - Steve's Ice Cream, W - Ben & Jerry's, W - Häagen-Dazs, W - Good Humor, W - Bungalow Bar
W - Category:Ice cream brands

Papa's Got a Brand New Bag - James Brown (1965)

"Who could know back in 1965 that James Brown's two-minute King single 'Papa's Got a Brand New Bag' would be the start of a musical revolution. The track had a dubious beginning. Brown hadn't recorded for King Records for over a year, partly due to the legal skirmish that surrounded the singer. ... On the session were drummer Melvin Parker, his brother, Maceo Parker, on baritone sax, guitarist Jimmy Nolan, organist/sax player Nat Jones, and the bass line was played by Sam Thomas or Bernard Odum. The horn section included St. Clair Pickney, Joe Dupars, Eldee Williams, Al Clark, Wilmer Milton, Ron Tooley, and Levi Rasbury. Nolan, Maceo Parker, and Pickney would become key players in helping to shape Brown's funky musical version in the coming years. When submitted to Syd Nathan of King Records, the track was over seven minutes long."
allmusic
W - Papa's Got a Brand New Bag
YouTube: Papa's Got A Brand New Bag 1967 14:51

SCOPE Basel

Page by Eva Kaczor
"In proximity to SCOPE Basel's 4,000m² pavilion, will be a large-scale presentation of Jean Tinguely's brilliant musical performance 'Cyclope' along with several restaurants, bars, and clubs orchestrating 'pop-ups' along the once-industrial riverfront. SCOPE is delighted to be at the center of this focused cultural moment in Basel. SCOPE Basel will welcome 75 International Exhibitors alongside 20 Breeder Program Galleries, offering a view of the contemporary art market available nowhere else. Exhibitors hail from four continents and over twenty countries including China, Mexico, Japan, Korea, Brazil, Italy, Iran, Russia, Turkey, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, Germany, UK, Spain, and Canada."
SCOPE Basel 2014

The Best Beer in Baseball

"Several years ago, craft beer started taking off at Cincinnati’s Great American Ballpark. From 2011-2012, sales went up by 20 percent. From 2012-2013, they were up 47 percent. So when it came time to create a new hangout in a highly trafficked spot on the third-base concourse, the ballpark went all-in on craft-style beers. The new Reds Brewery District – an 84-foot-long bar with more than 50 taps – included more than 20 craft offerings when it opened this spring. There were local beers from Cincinnati brewers like Christian Moerlein, MadTree, Blank Slate, Fifty West, Rhinegeist, Mt. Carmel, and Rivertown. There were national options from well-regarded breweries like Founders, Bell’s, West Sixth and Great Lakes."
Washington Post

Keuschheitslegende - Pina Bausch (1979)

The Legend of Virginity, A Scene from Pina Bausch's Ballet - Helmut Newton
"Inspired by Pina Bausch’s Ballet Keuschheitslegende,in which life-sized crocodiles creep around onstage amongst dancers, Helmut Newton would capture a ballerina–quite literally–in the belly of the beast, taking the transgressive ballet just a step further. For Vogue China’s 10th Anniversary issue, Mario Testino would photograph model Liu Wen also interacting with a crocidile, however, in the contemporary version, the woman seemingly dominates the animal rather than serving as its prey."
Part Nouveau
Tanztheater Wuppertal
Bettina Stöß | Datenschutzhinweis
flickr: RasMarley

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

A Skin Too Few - The Days of Nick Drake (2002)

"How do you film a biography of an enigma who died at such a young age (26) that he barely had a life? One way is to keep it short. During part of this tender tribute, the camera gazes at the pastoral landscape around Tanworth-in-Arden, the village where the English singer-songwriter grew up in upper-middle-class comfort. With his haunting music playing in the background, these scenes define the film, whose principal voice belongs to Drake's sorrowful older sister, Gabrielle, as a cinematic tone poem as much as a biography."
NY Times
Review by Andy Smith
YouTube: A Skin Too Few - The Days of Nick Drake 1, 2, 3, 4

2012 July: Nick Drake, 2013 May: Five Leaves Left, 2014 February: Bryter Layter (1970).

Prospero’s Cell - Lawrence Durrell (1945)

"... It was October, the perfect time to arrive clasping a much-read copy of his Prospero’s Cell, a glimpse of Corfu as it once was, overlaid with all the poetic imagination of the writer-traveller as a young man. With his expansive, all-encompassing opening line, Somewhere between Calabria and Corfu the blue really begins, Durrell takes us out of ourselves and along with him as he crosses into Greek waters from the heel of Italy and into a new life of light and heat. Reading it on a gloomy winter afternoon in the northern hemisphere is like injecting the grey sky with vivid blues and emeralds. The book purports to be an evocative diary in which he is a serious young writer living blissfully in the sun, deeply in love both with his new wife and the freedom that Greece represents in the 1930s. The idea of escape – from political and economic uncertainty; there are plenty of parallels with our times -  is a strong undertow."
Songs of Blue and Gold: Lawrence Durrell’s Island of Corfu
Prospero's Cell - Lawrence Durrell: A Review
white house, green water
Days of heaven: The story of a marriage on the island of Corfu
amazon: Prospero's Cell
YouTube: Visit Kalami in Corfu, Greece, Journey on the way to Corfu Greece Storm at Sea

2011 December: The Alexandria Quartet - Lawrence Durrell, 2013 September: Villa that inspired Lawrence Durrell faces demolition, as Egypt allows heritage to crumble.

Popol Vuh - Letzte Tage-Letzte Nächte (1976)

"As Florian Fricke moved away from an early synthesizer-centered sound and embraced organic instrumentation in his quest to fuse Eastern and Western musical and spiritual traditions, Popol Vuh's rock orientation became more pronounced. That aspect derived largely from the contributions of electric guitarists Conny Veit (on Hosianna Mantra and Seligpreisung) and Daniel Fichelscher (on Seligpreisung, Einsjäger & Siebenjäger, and Das Hohelied Salomos). Letzte Tage - Letzte Nächte is the band's boldest foray into rock territory. On Das Hohelied Salomos, Fichelscher's guitar often eclipsed Fricke's piano; here, his presence is even more emphatic. That's not to say that the band has lost its equilibrium -- this is another classic Popol Vuh exercise in balancing and reconciling apparent opposites. An opening pair of instrumentals sets the tone. ..."
allmusic
W - Letzte Tage-Letzte Nächte
YouTube: Kyrie (Live), Dort ist der Weg, Letzte Tage, Letzte Nachte, Der grosse Krieger, Oh wie weit ist der weg hinauf

2008 August: Popol Vuh, 2010 December: Aguirre, the Wrath of God, 2011 May: Abschied (1972), 2013 May: Fitzcarraldo - Werner Herzog, 2913 September: Hosianna Mantra (1972), 2014 April: Revisited & Remixed 1970-1999 (2011).

Rules of Travel - Rosanne Cash (2003)

"At every level, Rules of Travel distinguishes itself. A latecomer to songwriting, Rosanne Cash delivers plenty of compelling material, fully comparable in quality to the album's two non-original cuts. She comes up with fresh and intriguing chord changes to end verses and choruses on the title track, and images whose rugged eloquence perfectly fits the early-morning mumble of Steve Earle on 'I'll Change for You.' On 'September When It Comes,' she switches to a more homespun, folkloric imagery that suits her father's weathered, timeless rumble. ... Though her voice is hardly the most impressive instrument in country music, Cash knows how to compensate by using an understated approach to more quietly highlight the essence of a song. Given the quality of what she gives herself to work with on Rules of Travel, it's a method that can't miss."
allmusic
W - Rules of Travel
YouTube: I'll Change For You, Rules Of Travel, September When It Comes, Beautiful pain, Western Wall, Last Stop Before Home

2010 March: Rosanne Cash, 2012 January: Black Cadillac, 2012 April: "I Was Watching You"  , 2012 July: The Wheel, 2012 February: Live From Zone C, 2014 February: The River & the Thread (2014).

Conceptual Art by Kate Ericson and Mel Ziegler

"Constitution On Tour," 1991, Model train cars and tracks, sandblasted and metal brackets.
"The artists Kate Ericson and Mel Ziegler, who worked together from the late 1970s until Ms. Ericson’s death in 1995, fused Conceptual art, community action and Americana in ways few others have, before or since. For a 1991 project in Charleston, S.C., they painted the exterior of a house just outside the city’s historic district in a riotous camouflage of colors (each one drawn from a list approved by the city’s Board of Architectural Review, which probably had not anticipated anyone wanting to use them all at once)."
NY Times
Kate Ericson and Mel Ziegler
America Starts Here: Kate Ericson and Mel Ziegler
amazon: America Starts Here: Kate Ericson and Mel Ziegler

Mercy Dee Walton

"Mose Allison certainly recognized the uncommon brilliance of pianist Mercy Dee Walton. The young, jazz-based Allison faithfully covered Walton's downtrodden 'One Room Country Shack' in 1957, four years after Walton had waxed the original for Los Angeles-based Specialty Records (his original was a huge R&B smash). Walton was a Texas émigré, like so many other postwar California R&B pioneers, who had played piano around Waco from the age of 13 before hitting the coast in 1938."
allmusic
W - Mercy Dee Walton
Illustrated Mercy Dee Walton discography
YouTube: Lonesome cabin blues, Romp and stomp blues, Red Light, One Room Country Shack, Baba-Du-Lay Fever, Mercy Dee Walton & Lady Fox - Big Minded Daddy, Come Back Maybellene, Bird Brain Baby, Stubborn Woman, Oh Oh Please, MERCY DEE WALTON & THELMA "LADY FOX" WALTON - RENT MAN BLUES, My Woman Knows the Score

Louvre

"Paris-based writer Andrew Hussey travels through the glorious art and surprising history of an extraordinary French institution to show that the story of the Louvre is the story of France. As well as exploring the masterpieces of painters such as Veronese, Rubens, David, Chardin, Gericault and Delacroix, he examines the changing face of the Louvre itself through its architecture and design. Medieval fortress, Renaissance palace, luxurious home to kings, emperors and more recently civil servants, today it attracts eight million visitors a year. The documentary also reflects the very latest transformation of the Louvre – the museum’s recently-opened Islamic Gallery."
BBC
Louvre (Video)
W - Louvre
NY Times: At Louvre, Many Stop to Snap but Few Stay to Focus
amazon: Louvre: 400 Masterpieces, The Louvre: All the Paintings, The Pocket Louvre
YouTube: BBC Treasures of the Louvre
YouTube: Visit the Louvre Museum, Twenty Minutes at the Louvre Museum,

Michael de Kok

"Landscape paintings by Dutch artist Michael de Kok are currently featured at the Bertrand Delacroix Gallery in Chelsea. In various paintings of roadside, and field, and farmland, De Kok’s goal is to provide the impact of a subject at any given moment. Whether it be of a mountain, road, or building, he emphasizes vastness by incorporating concepts such as line, shape, and form evenly. In addition, De Kok illustrates wide open spaces rising above blurred horizon lines and smoothly alternating between light and dark effects by using earthly colors and smooth brush strokes."
Examiner: Earthly landscape paintings in Chelsea
Michael de Kok

'Every hour a glass of wine' – the female writers who drank

Marguerite Duras in France, c1955.
13 June 2014. "If you write a book about alcohol and male writers, as I did, the one question you'll be asked more than any other is: what about the women? Are there any alcoholic female writers? And are their stories the same, or different? The answer to the first question is easy. Yes, of course there are, among them such brilliant, restless figures as Jean Rhys, Jean Stafford, Marguerite Duras, Patricia Highsmith, Elizabeth Bishop, Jane Bowles, Anne Sexton, Carson McCullers, Dorothy Parker and Shirley Jackson."
Guardian

Joseph Mitchell

Wikipedia - "Joseph Mitchell (July 27, 1908 - May 24, 1996) was an American writer best known for the work he published in The New Yorker. He is known for his carefully written portraits of eccentrics and people on the fringes of society, especially in and around New York City. ... In 1931, he took a brief break from journalism to work on a freighter that sailed to Leningrad and brought back pulp logs to New York City. He returned to journalism after this interlude and continued to write for New York newspapers until he was hired by St. Clair McKelway at The New Yorker in 1938."
Wikipedia
New Yorker: Joseph Mitchell’s Ear for New York
Journeys with Joseph Mitchell
Joseph Mitchell: mysterious chronicler of the margins of New York
Joe Mitchell’s Secret
amazon: Joseph Mitchell
YouTube: Reimagining Joseph Mitchell's New York
vimeo: The City Concealed: Up in the Fulton Ferry Hotel

Lutz Glandien

Wikipedia - "Lutz Glandien (born 1954) is a Berlin-based German avant garde composer and musician. He has composed a number of classical and electroacoustic pieces, released four solo albums, and collaborated with English percussionist Chris Cutler to record two acclaimed avant-rock albums, Domestic Stories (1992) and P53 (1996). ... He began building his own musical instruments for his compositions and produced numerous electroacoustic musicial works, including Scenes From No Marriage, later released on CD in 1994. He also set up his own studio and created soundtracks for over 60 radiophonic pieces, documentary films, video performances, exhibitions and sound installations."
Wikipedia
Lutz Glandien
Scaruffi
allmusic: The 5th Elephant: Virtualectric Stories
YouTube: Die Entdeckung des Monochords, Album 5Th Elephant, Chris Cutler, Lutz Glandien - None are disbarred (Dagmar Krause), Chris Cutler, Lutz Glandien - Unquiet Days in Eden (Dagmar Krause), 365 for piano, Chris Cutler, Lutz Glandien - Seven Veils (Dagmar Krause), Chris Cutler, Lutz Glandien - Up to our Elbows (Dagmar Krause)
YouTube: Videos

Ebenezer Obey

Wikipedia - "Ebenezer Obey (born 1942), nicknamed the 'Chief Commander,' is a Nigerian pop musician. Obey, whose full name is Ebenezer Remilekun Aremu Olasupo Obey-Fabiyi, was born in Idogo, Ogun State, Nigeria of Egba-Yoruba ethnic background. He is of the Owu subgroup of the Egba. He began his professional career in the mid-1950s after moving to Lagos. After tutelage under Fatai Rolling-Dollar's band, he formed a band called The International Brothers in 1964, playing highlife–jùjú fusion. The band later metamorphosed into Inter-Reformers in the early-1970s, with a long list of Juju album hits on the West African Decca musical label."
Wikipedia
YouTube: Ori Bayemi, Miliki Sound (Complete Album - Side 1), Miliki Sound (Complete Album - Side 2), Board Members, Jaye Agoro, Decca WA 1974 Side 1, Decca WA 1974 Side 2, Iba Fun Oba Eledumare / Paulina

The Well-Tuned Piano - La Monte Young (1987)

Wikipedia - "The Well-Tuned Piano is a long, improvisatory, solo piano work by La Monte Young. Young has never considered the composition 'finished,' and dates the piece as 1964-73-81-Present. A typical performance lasts five to six hours. ... The two have often collaborated on projects that combine visual art and music, including The Well-Tuned Piano. As an audience member at a live performance of The Well-Tuned Piano, one is surrounded by the, 'pure and intense color sensations,' of The Magenta Lights. These lights are magenta in color and are installed into the performance area and projected throughout the space."
Wikipedia
[PDF]
Well Tuned Piano 81.x.25 - soundinstallationart
The Well-Tuned Piano 81 X 25, 6:17:50 - 11:18:59 PM NYC
The Well-Tuned Piano 81 X 25 (Gramavision) Press Quotes
Scott Hull on the Production of La Monte Young’s The Well Tuned Piano
YouTube: The well tuned piano [5 CD] (1987) 5:01:52

2009 May: La Monte Young, 2010 January: Just intonation

A century of fire hydrants cooling New York kids

"I’m not sure exactly when the first New York City fire hydrant was wrenched open so neighborhood kids could play in the cool rush of water on a hot summer day. But this very New York way to chase away the heat may have caught on and been officially sanctioned in the late teens, when John Hylan was mayor (below, in 1921, in a NYC Municipal Archives photo). 'The mayor is particularly good to children,' the Queens borough president was quoted saying in a New York Times article from 1925."
Ephemeral New York
Ephemeral New York: How city kids cooled off in the heat wave of 1953

The Gardener’s Garden: Great Dixter

"High on the list of garden pilgrimages is Great Dixter, the passion project of the late “imperial wizard” of English horticulture, Christopher Lloyd. The audacious gardener and celebrated writer’s Edwyn Lutyens-designed manor house, open to the public for nearly six decades, launches the first episode of NOWNESS’s weekly Great Gardens series, here captured by photographer and filmmaker Howard Sooley. 'Christo was like Paddington Bear with teeth,' reflects Sooley, who first visited Great Dixter in 1989 through friend, co-gardener and filmmaker Derek Jarman. Located in England’s East Sussex countryside, the semi-formal grounds, now under the stewardship of head gardener Fergus Garrett, are an exercise in planned imperfection, with imaginatively topiaried yew hedges and Yorkstone paving providing the framework for the seasonally changing tapestry of vibrant colors, bold form and spirited texture."
NOWNESS (Video)
Great Dixter
W - Great Dixter

Transatlantic Sessions 5

Douglas Eadie: "... And such richness. Jerry and Aly at the musical helm... Our youngest, nineteen year-old Nashville prodigy Sarah Jarosz (a fast learner, Sarah picked up in a morning enough of the language of Eden to be able to join in a Gaelic chorus). Our oldest (unless you count 'Victoria', his even older instrument), legendary bass-player Danny Thompson. In between, some of the truly greats of the bluegrass, Appalachian, Irish and Scottish traditions. We had a ball making Transatlantic Sessions Five and the general consensus is that it's our best yet. We hope you have a ball with it too."
Music Scotland
YouTube: Reels - Aly Bain, John McCusker, Mike McGoldrick, John Doyle, Declan O'Rourke - Time Machine, Joan Osborne - Saint Teresa, Oran a Cloiche - Kathleen MacInnes and Sarah Jarosz, Declan O'Rourke - Galileo (Someone Like You), Eddi Reader — Leezie Lindsay, Fire in My Hands - Iain Morrison, Eric Bibb - Don't Ever Let Nobody Drag Your Spirit Down

2013 December: Programme One, Programme Two, 2014 March: Programme Three, 2014 April: Programme 4

Lunch Poems - Frank O'Hara (1964)

Wikipedia - "Lunch Poems is a book of poetry by Frank O'Hara published in 1964 by Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s City Lights, number 19 in their Pocket Poets series. The collection was commissioned by Ferlinghetti as early as 1959, but O'Hara delayed in completing it. Ferlinghetti would badger O'Hara with questions like, 'How about lunch? I'm hungry.' 'Cooking', O'Hara would reply. O'Hara enlisted the help of Donald Allen who had published O'Hara's poems in New American Poetry in 1960.  ... The poems in this collection contain O'Hara's characteristically breezy tone, containing spontaneous reactions to things happening in the moment. Many of them appear to have been written on O'Hara's lunch hour. The poems contain numerous references to pop culture and literary figures, New York locations, and O'Hara's friends."
Wikipedia
Poets
The Atlantic - Frank O'Hara's Lunch Poems: 21st-Century Poetry Written in 1964
amazon
YouTube: 'The Day Lady Died' and 'Song', 'Having a coke with you'

2008 January: Frank O'Hara, 2010 February: USA: Poetry, 2010 October: Stones: Larry Rivers and Frank O’Hara,  2011 October: City Poet: The Life and Times of Frank O'Hara - Brad Gooch, 2012 December: USA: Poetry, Frank O'Hara (1966), 2013 June: A Visual Footnote to O’Hara’s “The Day Lady Died”: New World Writing and The Poets of Ghana, 2013 March: Happy Birthday, Frank O’Hara: The Beloved Poet Reads His “Metaphysical Poem”, 2014 June: Remembering Frank O’Hara’s Apartments.

Fela Kuti - Everything Scatter/Noise for Vendor Mouth

"Perhaps one risks charges of artistic insensitivity by saying so, but by the mid-'70s Kuti's records were becoming predictable and formulaic to an extent. It was a good formula -- played and sung with conviction -- and if any individual record or two were the only evidence of his work, they would be properly respected as important music. However, it isn't too easy to differentiate, in large degrees, between his numerous releases of the era that comprised two (and exactly two) ten- to 15-minute songs. These were built from several minutes of instrumental interplay between electric keyboards, horns, and percussion to a vocal declaiming general platitudes about injustice and African identity, with energetic contributions from backup singers. The two 1975 albums Everything Scatter and Noise for Vendor Mouth, combined on one disc for this CD reissue, have four such songs."
allmusic
YouTube: Noise For Vendor Mouth, Mattress, Everything Scatter, Who No Know Go Know

South Village

127-131 MacDougal - South Village National Register
Wikipedia - "The South Village is a largely residential area in Lower Manhattan in New York City, directly below Washington Square Park. Known for its immigrant heritage and Bohemian history, the South Village overlaps areas of Greenwich Village and SoHo. The architecture of the South Village is primarily tenement-style apartment buildings, indicative of the area's history as an enclave for Italian-American immigrants and working-class residents of New York. ... By the 1920s, however, as the Village had fallen out of fashion with New York’s patricians, artists, bohemians, and radical thinkers began to populate the area, and the institutions which served them, such as jazz clubs and speakeasies became commonplace throughout the area. By the 1950s and 60s, many of these had become coffeehouses and folk clubs for hippies, beatniks, and artists. These South Village establishments were frequented by some of the most significant players in these cultural movements, including Bob Dylan, Jack Kerouac, James Agee, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Sam Shepard and Jackson Pollock."
Wikipedia
NY Times: After 2 Years, a Meeting on Village Landmarks
South Village Historic District
Part of Greenwich Village made New York’s newest historic district
YouTube: Greenwich Village Sunday - 1960

2011 July: East Village, 2011 February: Greenwich Village, 2009 May: Washington Square Park.

Roger Angell: A Baseball Companion

"On Saturday in Cooperstown, Roger Angell was given the J. G. Taylor Spink Award, the baseball Hall of Fame's writing writing honor. His sports writing career is a happy accident that began in 1962 when Angell went to spring training to write about New York's new team, the Mets. He was a 41-year-old fiction editor at the New Yorker and a lifelong baseball fan. He had no intention of becoming a sports writer, but he continued writing about baseball, twice, sometimes more each season. Angell wrote about the game as a fan. His accounts are dense yet leisurely, always packed full of acute observation."
The Stacks
NY Times: Revered Essays on the Game Lead to a Hall of Fame Honor
The Two Rogers
New Yorker: Roger Angell
New Yorker: Hall of Fame Weekend: Roger Angell’s Baseball Writing
Wikipedia
SI: The Passion of Roger Angell: The best baseball writer in America is also a fan
amazon: Roger Angell

In Which We Inter This Miasma Within Us

"Hors d’oeuvre. Seven weeks over the summer was the longest transitory state I’ve ever been in. It’s a suspension, a floating, letting the water take all of your weight and rising to the surface and bobbing gently. It was sitting down at the table with a hollow stomach, and not being able to look at the menu beforehand. My flight home took off at 6 in the morning, and I let an airport smoothie fill the hours between New Orleans and San Francisco."
This Recording

You Think You Love Vintage Paperback Books? These People Love Vintage Paperback Books

"The books outnumbered the people on Sunday afternoon at the Glendale Civic Auditorium. Sure, the Los Angeles Vintage Paperback Collectors Show, which has been going on for 35 years, drew a good crowd. There were lines of folks waiting for autographs from a number of authors, including Harlan Ellison. Still more were browsing the aisles. They, however, were no match for the sheer amount of books here. Paperbacks small enough to fit into a pocket or handbag were carefully kept in plastic bags were displayed on tables and shelves. Thousands more filled bins. Vendors organized titles into handy categories. There were the 'hardboiled' books, crime novels starring detectives who think they've seen it all. The 'sleaze' catchall was perhaps self-explanatory. One booth even had a section of 'vintage nurse' titles."
LA Weekly
more paperback covers: movie tie-ins, crime, etc.
vintage crime fiction paperback covers

The Aesthetes: Expats of Tangier, Morocco

Laure Welfing, “Gipi” de Richemont Salvy
"In a shrinking world, Tangier is a place where eccentricity is celebrated, where fiscal nomads and expatriates thrive in the midday sun, where light filters through the palms and makes an atmosphere of dreaming. With its bright colors and whiff of old scandal, it is a place of the mind, stranded perfectly at a gathering point of sweet-scented opposites. It is a high meeting place of the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, Europe and Africa, sanctity and sin, where men and women have long set out to find themselves between the devil and the deep blue sea."
T Magazine (Video)

Cheap at Half the Price - Fred Frith (1983)

Wikipedia - "Cheap at Half the Price is a 1983 solo album by English guitarist, composer and improviser Fred Frith. It was Frith's fifth solo album, and was originally released in the United States on LP record on The Residents' Ralph record label. It was the third of three solo albums Frith made for the label. Cheap at Half the Price was recorded by Frith at his home in New York City on a 4-track machine. He played all the instruments himself, with the exception of bass guitar on two tracks, and drums, for which he used tapes and samples previously recorded by other drummers. The record differed from Frith's previous experimental albums in that it consisted largely of pop-like songs, and he sang for the first time."
Wikipedia
allmusic
YouTube: The Welcome, Heart Bares, Flying in the Face of Facts, Same Old Me, Some Clouds Do, Some Clouds Don't, Absent Friends, Cap the Knife

Summer Treats in the Met’s European Galleries

Manet “Le Printemps” (1881)
"Before 10 a.m. on a recent steamy morning, lines started forming up the front steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, with visitors clutching New York City street maps waiting patiently for the doors to open. While the museum has always been a magnet for tourists during the summer months, New Yorkers who frequent the Met should be aware that there are many new things to see in its permanent galleries. Keith Christiansen, chairman of the museum’s European paintings department, has shaken things up a bit, hanging works lent for the summer and uniting treasures that have recently returned home after traveling to exhibitions around the world. For the first time in more than a decade, for example, all 17 of the Met’s paintings by Vincent van Gogh can be seen at once."
NY Times

No Wave: Post-Punk. Underground. New York. 1976-1980

DNA
"No Wave. Post-Punk. Underground. New York. 1976-1980 is the first book to visually chronicle the collision of art and punk in the New York underground of 1976 to 1980. This in-depth look at the avant-garde movement of the 70s and 80s focuses on the true architects of No Wave from James Chance to Lydia Lunch to Glenn Branca, as well as the luminaries who intersected the scene, such as Debbie Harry, Brian Eno, Iggy Pop, and Richard Hell. This rarely documented scene, the creative stomping ground of young artists and filmmakers from Jean-Michel Basquiat to Jim Jarmusch, as well as the musical genesis for the post-punk explosions of Sonic Youth, is here revealed for a new generation of fans and collectors."
Ecstatic Peace
NY Times: A Brief, Noisy Moment That Still Reverberates (Photo)
W - No Wave
Dangerous Minds