A Harlem Throwback to the Era of Billie Holiday

"Around 8 p.m. on a recent Saturday, a few dozen people were gathered in a narrow, dimly lit Harlem brownstone. Couples smoked in the backyard beneath Christmas lights; a group of Chilean expats sought a corkscrew; a man and his young son searched for seats. From the basement downstairs, Bill Saxton, a bebop saxophonist, could hear the anticipatory chatter. All these people had come to his place. A few minutes later, standing with his band in the tiny parlor, he honked his sax loudly. The track lights dimmed. 'Welcome to Bill’s Place,' he told the crowd. Every Friday and Saturday night, 148 West 133rd Street becomes a B.Y.O.B. jazz club that is perhaps the only underground spot left in a neighborhood that once teemed with them."
NY Times
Bill's Place (Video)
Harlem Place

Just the Thing: Selected Letters of James Schuyler 1951-1991

"On April 10, 1989 James Schuyler wrote a letter to a young poet named Peter Gizzi. Gizzi had solicited poems from Schuyler for Gizzi's magazine O-Blek. In his previous letter to Schuyler, Gizzi must have asked 'What have you been reading?' ... The letter is included in the new collection Just the Thing: Selected Letters of James Schuyler 1951-1991, which [William] Corbett has worked on for the past 13 years."
rain taxi
“Baby Sweetness Blew His Cool Again ... ” - W. S. Di Piero
Ravishing: James Schuyler’s hungry eye
Jacket 29: ‘Simply, Freely, Clearly’
Kiss and tell in the New York poetry world
Notebook (James Schuyler Letter, &c.)

2008 January: James Schuyler, 2009 October: James Schuyler: Six New Recordings Added, 2011 March: Broadway: A Poets and Painters Anthology, 2011 December: An Anthology of New York Poets, 2012 July: A Schuyler of urgent concern, 2013 July: In Fairfield Porter / James Schuyler country: Penobscot Bay, Maine.

The Islamic State Versus Lebanon

"As the Islamic State massacred its way throughout Iraq and Syria this summer, a separate battle took place in neighboring Lebanon, as IS fighters invaded the Lebanese border town of Arsal, beheading captured soldiers and unleashing waves of lethal car bombs. Hezbollah, one of the world's strongest guerrilla armies, has also become involved—the group is either defending Lebanon or making things worse, depending on who you ask. VICE News traveled to Lebanon to explore the battle being waged by one of the world's fiercest militant groups against one of the Middle East's smallest and most fragile nations."
VICE (Video)
Guardian: Tackling Islamic State: a message from Lebanon

Bagel

Wikipedia - "A bagel (also spelled beigel) is a bread product, traditionally shaped by hand into the form of a ring from yeasted wheat dough, roughly hand-sized, which is first boiled for a short time in water and then baked. The result is a dense, chewy, doughy interior with a browned and sometimes crisp exterior. Bagels are often topped with seeds baked on the outer crust, with the traditional ones being poppy or sesame seeds. Some also may have salt sprinkled on their surface, and there are also a number of different dough types such as whole-grain or rye."
Wikipedia
W - Montreal-style bagel
W - Bialy
Slate: A Short History of the Bagel
NY Times: Was Life Better When Bagels Were Smaller?
YouTube: Hot Bagels, St. Viateur Bagel Shop ~Montreal

Albert Camus: Soccer Goalie

"Albert Camus, born 101 years ago today, once said, 'After many years in which the world has afforded me many experiences, what I know most surely in the long run about morality and obligations, I owe to football.' He was referring to his college days when he played goalie for the Racing Universitaire Algerios (RUA) junior team. Camus was a decent player, though not the great player that legend later made him out to be. For Jim White, author of A Matter of Life and Death: A History of Football in 100 Quotations, soccer perhaps taught Camus a few things about selflessness, cooperation, bravery and resilience."
Open Culture
Telegraph - Albert Camus: thinker, goalkeeper
NY Times: ‘Philosophy Football’ (Video)
Goalkeeper, Philosopher, Outsider: Albert Camus
W - Albert Camus

Karl Addison in Moscow: The Fisherman and the Depleted Sea

"Karl Addison was in Moscow recently for the MOST art festival and based his mural on a Russian fairy tale by Alexander Pushkin entitled The Fisherman & The Fish, written in 1833.  'The mural is a symbol from this folklore showing the Old Man with the Fish and to the corner his Wife as the Sea,' says Addison, 'Each level of the Sea is a darker and dark blue symbolizing the five requests she makes – making the Sea grow darker and violent each time.' Additionally the artist says his mural is a commentary on the modern methods of fishing that are rapidly killing off entire species."
Brooklyn Street Art

Berlin’s Boulevard of Broken Dreams

Karl-Marx-Allee Block C South, 1951.
"In the late eighties, the German Democratic Republic was bleeding people like money; the Iron Curtain was coming apart at the seams. November 9, 1989, would be the turning point, the evening on which the Socialist party allowed what had once been unimaginable. In Block C South of the Karl-Marx-Allee, Otto Stark sat in the quiet of his apartment, tuning in to the historic national blunder that precipitated the fall of the Berlin Wall: one of the few international press conferences in East Germany’s history, with one very ill-prepared party spokesman, Günter Schabowski, at the microphone."
Paris Review - Part 1, Part 2
Atlantic: The Berlin Wall, 25 Years After the Fall


2009 July: The Berlin Wall, 2009 October: Berlin Wall, 2013 March: Berlin East Side Gallery, 2013 September: Stasi Museum.

Jackie Brown (1997)

Wikipedia - "Jackie Brown is a 1997 crime drama film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. It is an adaptation of Elmore Leonard's novel Rum Punch, the first adaptation from Tarantino, and stars Pam Grier in the title role. The film pays homage to 1970s blaxploitation films, particularly the films Coffy and Foxy Brown, both of which also starred Grier in the title roles. The film's supporting cast includes Robert Forster, Robert De Niro, Samuel L. Jackson, Bridget Fonda and Michael Keaton. ... Jackie Brown (Pam Grier) is a flight attendant for a small Mexican airline, the latest step down for her career as the attendant, since she used to work for larger airlines."
Wikipedia
Roger Ebert
The GQ&A: Pam Grier
amazon: Jackie Brown (Two-Disc Collector's Edition)
YouTube: Jackie Brown Official Trailer #1

Paris 1900, The City of Entertainment

Henri Gervex, Une soirée au Pré-Catelan, 1909
"The exhibition ‘Paris 1900, The City of Entertainment’ is an invitation to the public to relive the splendour of the French capital at the time when the Paris Exposition Universelle was heralding the arrival of the 20th century. More than ever before, Paris was seen throughout the world as a sparkling city of luxury with a sophisticated way of life. Over 600 works will plunge visitors to the Petit Palais into the atmosphere of Belle Époque Paris. There will be paintings, objets d’art, costumes, posters, photographs, films, furniture, jewellery and sculptures. The technical inventions, the cultural effervescence, and the sheer elegance of Parisian women will be staged and displayed as representative legends of that Paris whose image has been promoted in literature and the cinema throughout the world."
Petit Palais
Guardian: Paris 1900: the city of entertainment - in pictures
Paris Voice
Paris 1900, an exhibition at the Petit Palais (Video)
YouTube: Paris 1900: The City of Entertainment

Interview with Jem Cohen

"Jem Cohen may be one of the quintessential New York Filmmakers of our era. Peerless in his knack for chronicling urban transformation (decay or otherwise), I was first exposed to Cohen’s work via his 2004 feature Chain – itself a narrative/documentary hybrid and product of Cohen’s contemplative 16mm shooting style, tracing and marking the aesthetic anonymities of America’s ever-proliferating malls and office buildings. It’s a tired trope that a good movie makes its setting as much a character as any flesh and blood actor, but Cohen’s body of work thrives on legitimate ongoing visual, scenographic testimony – a repeat encounter. ..."
The White Review (Video)
vimeo: Gravity Hill Newsreels

2014 January: Jem Cohen, 2014 June: Museum Hours (2012).

Union Square

Wikipedia - "Union Square is an important and historic intersection in Manhattan in New York City, New York, located where Broadway and the former Bowery Road – now Fourth Avenue – came together in the early 19th century; its name celebrates neither the Federal union of the United States nor labor unions but rather denotes that 'here was the union of the two principal thoroughfares of the island'. Today, Union Square Park is bounded by 14th Street on the south, Union Square West on the west side, 17th Street on the north, and on the east Union Square East, which links together Broadway and Park Avenue South to Fourth Avenue and the continuation of Broadway."
Wikipedia
YouTube: Walking in Manhattan - Union Square, Union Square Manhattan in Full HD 2011, Chess at Union Square

Eccentric Soul: The Capsoul Label

"Capsoul, short for 'Capitol City Soul,' was a small independent label from Columbus, OH, that was extant from 1970 to 1974 and rolled out a small number of singles in that time. Columbus may have been the base of operations, but the label's sound existed somewhere in between the many larger independents of the time: Stax, Motown, Brunswick, and Philly International. ... It's a legend to soul collectors, one of those magical moments when parts that shouldn't work together do and the results knock the dust off of even the most jaded ears. Mix together big beat drums, sweet soul strings, bottomless bass, ringing vibraphone, moody electric piano, and a seasoned vocal quartet who turn in a magical ballad performance and you're close to what 'You Can't Blame Me' achieves."
allmusic
W - Eccentric Soul: The Capsoul Label
NPR - Capsoul: Ohio's Answer to Motown
YouTube: Eccentric Soul: The Capsoul Label

Habitat - Stéphane Missier

"Habitat is a project initiated by Stéphane Missier and Kris Manchester. Habitat is an instinctive observation of our urban environment, and a celebration of the unpredictable moments and fleeting creativity in everyday life. In December 2013, we had the pleasure to kick-start the quadrilogy at Miami Art Basel, followed by a pop-up exhibition at Espace MASSIVart in Montréal. Both opening nights were great successes as we gathered more than 700 people for each vernissage. In May 2014, 'Habitat' was included as part of C2MTL. And while we are currently prepping-up for the last chapter in Paris in October 2014, the art sits comfortably in Sid Lee’s lobby in their Montréal office."
Stéphane Missier

A Most Wanted Man (2014)

Wikipedia - "A Most Wanted Man is a 2014 British espionage-thriller film based on the novel of the same name by John le Carré, directed by Anton Corbijn and written by Andrew Bovell. The film stars Philip Seymour Hoffman, Rachel McAdams, Willem Dafoe, Robin Wright, Grigoriy Dobrygin, Daniel Brühl and Nina Hoss. It premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival and competed in the main competition section of the 36th Moscow International Film Festival and the 40th Deauville American Film Festival. It is the last of Hoffman's films released before his death."
Wikipedia
W - A Most Wanted Man
NY Times: A Search and Destroy Thyself Mission (Video)
Slate
YouTube: A Most Wanted Man - Official Trailer

Robert Rauschenberg: Works on Metal

"Rasputin's Revenge Early Winter (Glut)" (1987)
"... [Robert] Rauschenberg’s protean outlook ushered in a new era of postwar American art in the wake of Abstract Expressionism with a free and experimental approach that drew inspiration from conceptual, materialist, and gestural precedents. His inventive use of discarded materials and appropriated images eviscerated distinctions between medium and genre, abstraction and representation, while his 'flatbed picture plane,' which absorbed found objects into the realm of paintings, forever changed the relationship between artwork and viewer."
Gagosian
Widewalls
YouTube: Works on Metal

2008 May: Robert Rauschenberg, 2013 July: Rauschenberg Research Project

Water tower

Wikipedia - "A water tower is an elevated structure supporting a water tank constructed at a height sufficient to pressurize a water supply system for the distribution of potable water, and to provide emergency storage for fire protection. In some places, the term standpipe is used interchangeably to refer to a water tower, especially one with tall and narrow proportions. Water towers often operate in conjunction with underground or surface service reservoirs, which store treated water close to where it will be used. Other types of water towers may only store raw (non-potable) water for fire protection or industrial purposes, and may not necessarily be connected to a public water supply."
Wikipedia

Lost Generation

Le Dome, in Montparnasse, Paris, circa the 1920s
Wikipedia - "The 'Lost Generation' was the generation that came of age during World War I. The term was popularized by Ernest Hemingway, who used it as one of two contrasting epigraphs for his novel, The Sun Also Rises. In that volume Hemingway credits the phrase to Gertrude Stein, who was then his mentor and patron. In A Moveable Feast, published after Hemingway's and Stein's deaths, Hemingway claims that Stein heard the phrase from a garage owner who serviced Stein's car.  ... This generation included distinguished artists such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, T. S. Eliot, John Dos Passos, Waldo Peirce, Isadora Duncan, Abraham Walkowitz, Alan Seeger, and Erich Maria Remarque.
Wikipedia
PBS: Lost Generation
YouTube: The Lost Generation

Marquee Moon - Television (1977)

"Marquee Moon is a revolutionary album, but it's a subtle, understated revolution. Without question, it is a guitar rock album -- it's astonishing to hear the interplay between Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd -- but it is a guitar rock album unlike any other. Where their predecessors in the New York punk scene, most notably the Velvet Underground, had fused blues structures with avant-garde flourishes, Television completely strip away any sense of swing or groove, even when they are playing standard three-chord changes. Marquee Moon is comprised entirely of tense garage rockers that spiral into heady intellectual territory, which is achieved through the group's long, interweaving instrumental sections, not through Verlaine's words."
allmusic
W - Marquee Moon
Pitchfork
Counterbalance No. 25: Television’s 'Marquee Moon'
YouTube: Television - Marquee Moon (1977) - Full Album

2007 November: Tom Verlaine, 2010 March: Tom Verlaine - 1, 2011 October: Warm and Cool, 2012 Nov: Little Johnny Jewel, 2012 December: Words from the Front, 2013 July: Flash Light, 2013 October: See No Evil, 2014 October: Dreamtime (1981).

Finding Marlowe

"It was hot and I was late for lunch. I was feeling mean, like I’d been left out in the sun too long. We were meeting at a joint on La Brea, the kind of place where the booths have curtains you can pull shut if you need a little privacy. I slid across cool leather and got my first good look at Louise Ransil, a wisp of a redhead with high cheekbones and appraising eyes. She sat with her hands folded on the worn table, a stack of old paperbacks next to her. Ransil had a script she’d been peddling to the studios. I’d started reading it — a detective caper set in 1930s Los Angeles — and wanted to find out about the claim on the title page."
LA Times (Video)

2009 September: The Maltese Falcon, 2013 July: Raymond Chandler

Umbo

The Roving Reporter, photomontage, 1926
Wikipedia - "Umbo, born Otto Umbehr (January 18, 1902 – May 13, 1980), was a German photographer. He was born in Dusseldorp and is known for his photo journalism as well as artworks. Otto was the second of six children of industrial architect Karl Friedrich Umbehr. His mother Frieda died when he was a young boy. He was trained in Duisburg, Aachen and Düsseldorf. In 1921 he studied at the Bauhaus in Weimar where he became acquainted with Johannes Itten, Oskar Schlemmer, Paul Citroen, Wassily Kandinsky and Eva Besnyö. He was influenced by László Moholy-Nagy, one of the most important photographers of the Bauhaus."
Wikipedia
Metropolitan Museum of Art - Umbo: Mystery of the Street
The Art Institute of Chicago
Weimar
Google

2001: A Space Odyssey - Stanley Kubrick (1968)

Wikipedia - "2001: A Space Odyssey is a 1968 science fiction film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick. The screenplay was written by Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, and was partially inspired by Clarke's short story 'The Sentinel'. Clarke concurrently wrote the novel 2001: A Space Odyssey which was published soon after the film was released. The story deals with a series of encounters between humans and mysterious black monoliths that are apparently affecting human evolution, and a voyage to Jupiter tracing a signal emitted by one such monolith found on the Moon. The film is frequently described as an epic, both for its length and scope, and for its affinity with classical epics."
Wikipedia
The lasting appeal of 2001: A Space Odyssey (Video)
amazon
2001: A Space Odyssey Internet Resource Archive
NYBook: Playing Chess With Kubrick
Typeset In The Future
YouTube: Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey Trailer, 2001: A Space Odyssey - Official Trailer [1968]

2008 August: Stanley Kubrick, 2010 September: 2001: A Space Odyssey, 2011 February: A Stanley Kubrick Odyssey - A Tribute, 2011 April: Killer's Kiss (1955), 2011 December: Chicago (1949), 2012 October: Dr. Strangelove (1965), 2013 April: LACMA, 2014 January: Day of the Fight (1951), 2014 September: Photos of New York Life in the 40s.

Raunchy and Revered: Zap Comix, Now in a Coffee Table Boxed Set

"The cartoonist Gilbert Hernandez still recalls vividly the first time he saw Zap Comix as a boy. It was issue No. 2, and it oozed with druggy phantasmagorias, sex, over-the-top violence, sex, demons and, yes, sex. It was funny, too, 52 pages of, as the cover promised, 'Gags, jokes, kozmic trooths' — all for 50 cents. ... And while it never really went away — the most recent issue came out in 2004 — Zap, born in late 1967 in the fever dreams of R. Crumb, is emphatically back in a big way. Fantagraphics Books of Seattle in November is publishing “The Complete Zap,” a strikingly designed $500 hardcover boxed set of more than 1,100 pages. Not bad for a black-and-white comic book series whose first issue cost a quarter in 1968."
NY Times
amazon: The Complete Zap Comix Boxed Set

Edward Dorn - The Collected Poems 1956 - 1974

"Another volume plucked from the old Just Buffalo library before the sale. When we were putting our archive together for The Poetry Collection at SUNY Buffalo, I came across a great photo of Dorn Reading for Just Buffalo in 1977. I sent a jpeg of it to Tom Raworth a few years back, which he posted to his website. I can't seem to find it at the moment, but if you look for images of Dorn, you'll probably find it somewhere. In it he is probably about 50. He stands before a pair of old windows, wearing jeans, cowboy boots, a black shirt and a leather jacket. His arms are leaning on what appears to be some kind of bar -- possibly a gymnast's apparatus or more likely a dancer's. He looks rather like a movie star. I think the reading took place at the Allentown Community Center, which I am told was Just Buffalo's original home. Maybe some of the older Buffalo crowd can add some of their memories of the event."
Pearlblossom Highway
amazon
Edward Dorn Papers

2007 December: Edward Dorn, 1929-1999, 2011 February: Slinger, 2011 April: The North Atlantic Turbine, 2012 September: Fulcrum Press, 2014 September: Tom Clark - Edward Dorn (1929-1999).

Gustave Courbet - The Artist's Studio (1854 and 1855)

The Artist's Studio (1855)
"The enormous Studio is without doubt Courbet's most mysterious composition. However, he provides several clues to its interpretation: 'It's the whole world coming to me to be painted', he declared, 'on the right, all the shareholders, by that I mean friends, fellow workers, art lovers. On the left is the other world of everyday life, the masses, wretchedness, poverty, wealth, the exploited and the exploiters, people who make a living from death'. ... The critic Champfleury is seated on a stool, while Baudelaire is absorbed in a book. The couple in the foreground personify art lovers, and near the window, two lovers represent free love."
Musée d'Orsay
W - The Artist's Studio
YouTube: Courbet's The Artist's Studio, Participate in the restoration of The Artist's Studio

"Key to the Highway" (1940)

Wikipedia - "'Key to the Highway' is a blues standard first recorded by blues pianist Charlie Segar in 1940. The song was also recorded by Jazz Gillum and Big Bill Broonzy in 1940–41, and it was later a R&B record chart success for Little Walter in 1958. ... Musically, however, there are differences in the recorded versions. Charlie Segar's original 'Key to the Highway' was performed as a mid-tempo twelve-bar blues. When Jazz Gillum recorded it later that year with Broonzy on guitar, he used an eight-bar blues arrangement (May 9, 1940 Bluebird B 8529). In two different interviews, Gillum gave conflicting stories about who wrote the song: in one, he claimed sole authorship, in another he 'specified Broonzy as the real author'."
Wikipedia
YouTube: Charles Segar, Jazz Gillum, Little Walter, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, Derek & the Dominos

Blue Gene Tyranny - A Letter From Home, the branching harmonies. White Button Moon.

"Improvisation is maybe too general a word to describe the musical approach used in this concert. Thinking-with-feeling-at-the-piano (contemplating, commenting, investigating sound with and without meaning or allusions, obsessing, and so on) is perhaps more to the point. Specific techniques are being collected in the on-going piece called The Time-Transposing Pianist. ... 'Blue' Gene Tyranny, composer and pianist of avant-garde music, has toured extensively in solo and group concerts throughout the U.S., Europe, Canada, Mexico and Brazil. He also played in teenage rock bands and for a gospel church. He has composed over fifty works for electronic, instrumental and vocal ensembles, over thirty film and video soundtracks, and fifty scores for dance and theatre productions."
UbuWeb (Video)

2013 August: Various – Lovely Little Records (1980)

Captured: A Film/Video History of the Lower East Side

"Captured is the definitive anthology of New York's underground cinema in its creators' own words. New York's Lower East Side has been a fountain of creativity and art since the early 1950s, a free-wheeling bazaar of ideas and artists that has challenged and shaped mainstream culture. Captured tells the story of film and video in the Lower East Side and the East Village in the artists' own words. Over one hundred contributors discuss the early years with Allen Ginsburg, Andy Warhol, Jack Smith, Taylor Mead, and Jonas Mekas, as well as the wild '70s and '80s with Jim Jarmusch, Steve Buscemi, Louis Guzman, Nick Zedd, and many others. Movements such as No Wave and the Cinema of Transgression are covered, as is the story of Pull My Daisy, considered among the true progenitors of 'indie film.'"
Seven Stories Press
NY Times: The Lower East Side, Up Close and Personal
NY Times: On Homelessness, Street Style and Drugs (Video)
NY Times: Last Bohemian Turns Out the Lights
The Villager: All sides of Lower East Side film scene in new book
My times with Taylor Mead
W - Clayton Patterson
Captured (Video)
YouTube: Clayton Patterson "Captured" interview on film, Keeping It Real With Clayton Patterson, Clayton Patterson, photographer - Here's the Thing... Ep. 13, Native Underground: 'The Lower East Side OG Clayton Patterson'

The Best By Roger Angell

"I missed Christy Mathewson somehow but caught almost everyone else, down the years—Lefty Grove, Carl Hubbell, Sandy Koufax, Bob Gibson, Jack Morris, Curt Schilling, Randy Johnson—but here was the best. Madison Bumgarner, the Giants’ left-handed ace, coming on in relief last night in the fifth inning of the deciding seventh game of this vibrant World Series, gave up a little opening single, then retired fourteen straight Kansas City batters, gave up another hit, and then closed the deal. The Giants won, 3–2, claiming their third World Championship in five years. ... He had won a game in each of the Giants’ World Championships, in 2012 and 2010, and now, at twenty-five, stands at 4-0 in the classic, with an earned-run average of 0.25. He was pitching on two days’ rest but also on manna: possibly the best October pitcher of them all."
New Yorker

2014 August: Roger Angell: A Baseball Companion

The Low End Theory - A Tribe Called Quest (1991)

"While most of the players in the jazz-rap movement never quite escaped the pasted-on qualities of their vintage samples, with The Low End Theory, A Tribe Called Quest created one of the closest and most brilliant fusions of jazz atmosphere and hip-hop attitude ever recorded. The rapping by Q-Tip and Phife Dawg could be the smoothest of any rap record ever heard; the pair are so in tune with each other, they sound like flip sides of the same personality, fluidly trading off on rhymes, with the former earning his nickname (the Abstract) and Phife concerning himself with the more concrete issues of being young, gifted, and black."
allmusic
W - The Low End Theory
Genius (Video)
YouTube: The Low End Theory (Full Album)

2011 May: A Tribe Called Quest

Free: Stream Songs from Bob Dylan’s Upcoming Release, The Basement Tapes Complete

"As his loyal fans already know, Bob Dylan will release next week a six-CD collection called The Basement Tapes Complete: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 11, which features 139 songs recorded during the late 1960s, when, Dylan, recovering from a motorcycle accident, holed himself up in a basement in Saugerties, NY and began playing music casually with The Band. The story behind the making of The Basement Tapes gets nicely told by Sasha Frere-Jones in the latest edition of The New Yorker, and over at NPR you can now stream a selection of songs from the upcoming Basement Tapes release."
Open Culture (Video)
Guardian - Bob Dylan and the Band: The Basement Tapes Complete review – rickety, strange and utterly timeless(Video)

About Susan Roth And Her Art

Age of Bronze, 1987
"... That incident took place in 1980 and within a year led to the gesturally brushed and stained and occasionally collaged raw and unstretched canvases that in the creative process were forcefully pushed about and folded and radically shaped into bas-relief paintings boldly declaring Susan Roth’s first full and fully personal maturity. Fully mature in the scope and sureness of their ambition, and fully personal in the freshness of vision through which they expand and deepen our understanding of painting’s arsenal of resources, above all in what they have to say about the drawing/painting connection."
Left Bank Art Blog
flickr: radical shape
flickr: Steel Paintings
Susan Roth: Painting Collage, Collaging Painting

Bob Willoughby

William Burroughs - Paris, 1962
Wikipedia - "Robert Hanley 'Bob' Willoughby (June 30, 1927, Los Angeles, California – 18 December 2009, Vence, France) was an American photographer. Popular Photography called him 'The man who virtually invented the photojournalistic motion picture still.' ... Between 1948 and 1954, his exhibitions of photographs of jazz musicians and dancers led to a contract with Globe Photos. Later, he worked for Harper's Bazaar magazine where his photographs illustrated arts and culture articles. His big break came when he was assigned by six magazines to photograph Judy Garland during the filming of A Star is Born (1954). ... Much of Willoughby's popularity stemmed from his ability to capture film stars in unguarded moments of repose and vulnerability."
Wikipedia
Bob Willoughby
TIME: Bob Willoughby, Hollywood Photo Legend
YouTube: The Silver Age of Hollywood

Rohmer in Paris (2013)

"'I want to take you on a journey, a cinephilic journey,' says filmmaker Richard Misek in his accented English. He then goes on to preach the pleasures of ‘cinephilia’, which is of course a term for the love of cinema – but please, somebody, come up with a new descriptor for this passionate pursuit! Misek’s obsession with French New Wave director, Eric Rohmer’s oeuvre, was sparked when he accidentally walked into frame of one of his films. Here he uses footage from Rohmer’s movies to explore the many connections and themes of the filmmaker’s work, primarily focusing on the films that he made in and about Paris. Misek’s exploration is part documentary, part experimental film, and the result is as informative as it is pretentious."
FilmInk
Éminence grise. Éric Rohmer On Blu-ray.
NOWMESS: Rohmer in Paris (2013)

2010 February: Eric Rohmer

Future Eligibles

"Let’s get Dock Ellis into the Hall of Fame. Oh, not really, of course—by the Hall’s statistical criteria, he isn’t even close. But after a visit to Cooperstown in September, I found myself imagining a Hall of Fame that would enshrine him. Ellis is unquestionably famous, after all—infamous, too. ... Evidence keeps mounting that Dock—always flamboyant, often controversial—was the emblematic player of his era, the seventies, with its dubious introduction of such artificialities as the designated hitter and Astroturf; the acrimonious battle for free agency; and all those drugs."
Paris Review

2009 November: Dock Ellis

Autechre

Wikipedia - "Autechre are an English electronic music duo consisting of Rob Brown and Sean Booth, both from Rochdale, Greater Manchester. Formed in 1987, they are one of the most prominent acts signed to Warp Records, a label known for its pioneering electronic music and through which all Autechre albums have been released. While heavily associated with IDM (intelligent dance music), Booth and Brown are ambivalent about relating their sound to established genres. Their music has exhibited a gradual shift in aesthetic throughout their career, from their earlier work with clear roots in techno, house, electro and hip hop, to later albums that are often considered experimental in nature, featuring complex patterns of rhythm and subdued melodies."
Wikipedia
Autechre — L-event
allmusic
SOS
The Quietus - Anatomy Of An Engima: An Interview With Autechre
YouTube: Foil, plyPhon, Second Bad Vibel(Chris Cunningham), Chiastic Slide 1:09:04, Dropp

Blek le Roc

"Blek le Rat, born Xavier Prou in Boulogne-Billancourt, Paris in 1951, was one of the first graffiti artists in Paris, and the originator of stencil graffiti art. He began his artwork in 1981, painting stencils of rats on the street walls of Paris, describing the rat as 'the only free animal in the city', and one which 'spreads the plague everywhere, just like street art'. His name originates from a childhood cartoon 'Blek le Roc', using 'rat' as an anagram for 'art'. Initially influenced by the early graffiti art of New York City after a visit in 1971, he chose a style which he felt better suited Paris, due to the differing architecture of the two cities."
Blek le Roc
Blek le Roc: ORIGINAL STENCIL PIONEER
YouTube: Blek Le Rat / Original Stencil Pioneer, Blek Le Rat Documentary, blek le rat

Jim Carroll - Catholic Boy (1980)

"... Jim Carroll is one of the very few authors who convincingly brought his work from the printed word to the rock & roll stage, growing into a passionate and commanding rock singer as well as a tough, intelligent songwriter, and his first album, Catholic Boy, best captures his strengths. Carroll's memoir The Basketball Diaries made clear he had an uncanny knack for capturing the dark and gritty rhythms of the New York streets, while his poetry collections such as Living at the Movies recorded the edgy grace of his verse, and Carroll was able to merge both of those qualities on his songs for Catholic Boy. Of course, this being rock & roll, it's the gritty stuff that's stands out best, especially the unrelenting 'People Who Died' and the pained and bitter title cut."
Wikipedia
W - Catholic Boy
NY Times: Jim Carroll’s Long Way Home
Salmagundi Syncopation
YouTube: People Who Died, Nothing is true, Wicked Gravity, Three Sisters, Day and Night

2009 September: Jim Carroll

Drawing Attention to Chicago's Anti-Homeless Measures With 'Compartment 13'

"Homeless people in Chicago face many of the same challenges as low- to no- income people around the world. But city officials took those troubles one step further by constructing steepled anti-homeless barricades this summer at a makeshift homeless encampment on Chicago's Northwest Side. The following comic shows what happens when a group of men and women with nowhere else to go are told to move along."
CityLab
Illustrated Press, Symbolia

"I'm in the Mood" - John Lee Hooker (1951)

"'I'm in the Mood' was a huge hit for John Lee Hooker, as the 1951 single reached #1 in the R&B chart. Reported to have sold a million copies, it was in fact one of the most successful R&B singles of the early 1950s, and if the figure is accurate, one of the highest-selling blues recordings of all time. Listening to it a half-century later, it's astonishing that such a raw and crude recording could have been so successful, but those were different times and ones in which lack of technical sophistication wasn't a handicap to popularity. ... But the reward of 'I'm in the Mood' is indeed the mood itself of the recording: stark, spooky, and earthy, the relatively sweetly crooned title-chorus making it more memorable than several other of Hooker's similar early recordings."
allmusic
Soundcloud: Shoes - In the Mood For Dub SHOES014
YouTube: I'm In The Mood, John Lee Hooker Bonnie Raitt 1991

Grand Design: Pieter Coecke van Aelst and Renaissance Tapestry

Detail from “Saint Paul Directing the Burning of the Heathen Books”
"The first major monographic exhibition devoted to the great 16th-century Netherlandish artist Pieter Coecke van Aelst (1502-1550) will open at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on October 8, 2014. Grand Design: Pieter Coecke van Aelst and Renaissance Tapestry will explore the artist’s career and reunite many of the finest surviving drawings, panel paintings, and cartoon fragments from his hand with 19 of the spectacular Renaissance tapestries that were made to his designs. These massive hangings were the ultimate medium for Coecke’s artistic expression, yet while they were being woven, he never touched them; they were executed by weavers who superbly translated his vision with brilliant silks, wools, and precious metal-wrapped threads."
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Blog
Yale: Grand Design: Pieter Coecke van Aelst and Renaissance Tapestry
NY Times: In Weft and Warp, Earth, Heaven and Hell

Janene Higgins & Zeena Parkins (2000)

"Harpist Zeena Parkins, who has played in many contemporary groups such as Butch Morris's Conduction, the Skeleton Crew, John Zorn's Cobra, the quintet No Safety (which she co-founded), and The Gangster Band, and video artist Janene Higgins have been presenting their unique multimedia duo performances since the mid-1990's, beginning with a series they dubbed 'Eyewash'. On this videotape, they present an excerpt from their enthralling piece 'Arch' in which Parkins, improvises, elegantly and at times wildly, on an electric harp of her own design and on accordion, her sound palette ranging through ethereal to earthy timbres. Higgins simultaneously creates spellbinding video synthesis in real time, contrasting lyrical physical forms (bodies and architecture) with mysterious abstract colorizations and non-narrative movements projected on several screens."
UbuWeb (Video)

2011 January: Zeena Parkins, 2012 November: News from Babel, 2012 December: Fred Frith, Ikue Mori, Zeena Parkins / sound. at REDCAT, 2013 October: Art Bears Songbook - 2010-09-19 - Rock In Opposition Festival.

The Marriage of Maria Braun - Rainer Werner Fassbinder (1979 BRD Trilogy)

Wikipedia - "The Marriage of Maria Braun is a 1979 West German film directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. The film stars Hanna Schygulla as Maria, whose marriage to the soldier Hermann remained unfulfilled due to World War II and his post-war imprisonment. Maria adapts to the realities of post-war Germany and becomes the wealthy mistress of an industrialist, all the while staying true to her love for Hermann. The film was one of the more successful works of Fassbinder and shaped the image of the New German Cinema in foreign countries. The film is the first in Fassbinder's BRD Trilogy, followed by Veronika Voss and Lola."
Wikipedia
Guardian - Rainer Werner Fassbinder: The Marriage of Maria Braun
Roger Ebert
NY Times
Jim's Reviews - Fassbinder's BRD Trilogy
YouTube: Singing in the ruins.
YouTube: The Marriage of Maria Braun 2:00:02

2014 May: Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 2014 June: Effi Briest (1974), 2014 July: Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974), 2014 September: A Little Chaos: A Short Crime Film by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Enfant Terrible of New German Cinema, 2014 October: Lola - (1981 BRD Trilogy).

Building for the Next Big Storm

"'All of this was hit pretty hard,' said Kai-Uwe Bergmann, sweeping his arm from the East River toward the looming sprawl of the Baruch Houses, a public housing complex that sits along the Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive on the Lower East Side. 'If another storm hits here in the future, it will be just as bad, probably worse.' Mr. Bergmann’s job is to ensure that it doesn’t happen. As a partner at the Bjarke Ingels Group, a Danish architecture firm, he is one in a cast of hundreds trying to fortify New York against another storm like Hurricane Sandy, which ripped through the region two years ago this week. In the storm’s aftermath, there were calls for a single big fix, like sea gates that would close off New York Harbor to swells of rising water."
NY Times (Video)

Nagual Site - Bill Laswell and Sacred Systems (1998)

"Slightly more traditional in its approach than much of bassist/producer Bill Laswell's fusionary world music outings, the mesmerizing Nagual Site was one of the first releases from head Chieftan Paddy Maloney's eclectic label, Wicklow. A breathtakingly original Indian/ambient music fusion, the lushly-textured album prominently features the vocal talents of Gulam Mohammed Khan and Sussan Deyhim, as well as more subtle contributions from frequent Laswell co-conspirators like guitarist Nicky Skopelitis, bassist Jah Wobble, Indian percussion masters Badal Roy and Zakir Hussain, and former P-funk keyboardist Bernie Worrell. Remarkably seamless and organic, this is one of Laswell's most heady stylistic brews."
allmusic
Silent Watcher
W - Nagual Site
YouTube: Black lotus, Driftwork, Saiya Nikasegaye

2014 May: Bill Laswell - ROIR Dub Sessions (2003)

Iconic BAM Artists: Pina Bausch

"Over the 36 years in which Pina Bausch (1940—2009) shaped the work of Tanztheater Wuppertal, she created an oeuvre that casts an unerring gaze at reality, while simultaneously giving us the courage to be true to our own wishes and desires. Bausch was appointed director of dance for the Wuppertal theater in 1973. The form she developed in those early years was wholly unfamiliar. In her performances the players did not merely dance; they spoke, sang, and sometimes laughed or cried. Dance-theater evolved into a unique genre, inspiring choreographers across the globe and influencing theater and classical ballet in the process. Its success can be attributed to the fact that Bausch made a universal human need the key subject of her work—the need for love, intimacy, and emotional security."
BAM: Pina Bausch (Video)
Tanztheater Wuppertal - Pina Bausch: Schedule

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

Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

Wikipedia - "The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library is the rare book library and literary archive of the Yale University Library in New Haven, Connecticut. Situated on Yale University's Hewitt Quadrangle, the building was designed by Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and completed in 1963. Established by a gift of the Beinecke family and given its own endowment, the library is financially independent from the university and is co-governed by the University Library and Yale Corporation."
Wikipedia
Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
Blog
New Video Provides Overview of Beinecke Renovation Project (Video)

The Long Count Fight

Wikipedia - "The Long Count Fight or the Battle Of The Long Count was the boxing rematch between world Heavyweight champion Gene Tunney and former champion Jack Dempsey, held on September 22, 1927, at Soldier Field in Chicago. Just 364 days before, on September 23, 1926, Tunney had beaten Dempsey by a ten round unanimous decision to lift the world Heavyweight title, in Philadelphia. The first fight between Tunney and Dempsey had been moved out of Chicago because Dempsey had learned that Al Capone was a big fan of his, and he did not want Capone to be involved in the fight. Capone reportedly bet $50,000 on Dempsey for the rematch, which fueled false rumors of a fix. Dempsey was favored by odds makers in both fights, largely because of public betting which heavily tilted towards Dempsey."
Wikipedia
Dempsey loses on long count
Gene Tunney -vs- Jack Dempsey 1927 (Rare Long Count film)
The Dempsey-Tunney Fight of 1926
YouTube: Jack Dempsey vs Gene Tunney - The Long Count (1927)

Pierre Reverdy

Wikipedia - "Pierre Reverdy (... September 13, 1889 – June 17, 1960) was a French poet whose works were inspired by and subsequently proceeded to influence the provocative art movements of the day, Surrealism, Dadaism and Cubism. The loneliness and spiritual apprehension that ran through his poetry appealed to the Surrealist credo. He, though, remained independent of the prevailing 'isms,' searching for something beyond their definitions. His writing matured into a mystical mission seeking, as he wrote: 'the sublime simplicity of reality.' ... Reverdy arrived in Paris in October 1910, devoting his early years there to his writing. It was in Paris, at the artistic enclave centered around the Bateau-Lavoir in Montmartre that he met Guillaume Apollinaire, Max Jacob, Louis Aragon, André Breton, Philippe Soupault and Tristan Tzara. All would come to admire and champion Reverdy’s poetry. Reverdy published a small volume of poetry in 1915."
Wikipedia
The Poetry Foundation
"Seven Poems", Pierre Reverdy, translated by Kenneth Rexroth
The Paris Review: Contra Dancing with Pierre Reverdy
Mary Ann Caws on Pierre Reverdy
Three Percent: Pierre Reverdy

Robert Wyatt Story (BBC Four, 2001)

"Robert Wyatt’s story is as compelling as the endlessly imaginative music that it yielded. Like that of the best songwriters, his work is a world unto itself, instantly recognizable, not least of all due to his high, quavering vocals and almost cubist approach to lyrics. Involved in every avant-garde of British music since the ’60s—from prog rock to punk and postrock—Wyatt began his career as the drummer and vocalist for the Canterbury band Soft Machine, a seminal prog-rock outfit heavily into jazz time-signatures and modal drift. In 1973, Wyatt fell from the fourth-floor window of a friend’s home, becoming paralyzed from the waist down."
BOMB
YouTube: Robert Wyatt Story 1:08:01

2010 November: Robert Wyatt, 2011 October: Sea Song, 2012 October: Comicopera, 2013 March: The Last Nightingale, 2013 September: Solar Flares Burn for You (2003), 2014 March: Cuckooland (2003).

Kirby Scudder

"... One of those participating in Zuccotti Park that day was New York-based artist and arts activist Lopi LaRoe. Lopi, who works under the moniker 'Lmnopi,' is a former Santa Cruz resident. She has continued her work with the organization helping with disaster relief in the wake of super storm Sandy under Occupy Sandy and has been active in the fight against fracking in New York state. After spending much of the 1990s in Santa Cruz, she received a BFA in painting and printmaking from SUNY Purchase in New York."
Kirby Scudder: Activist Lmnopi's rebirth as a painter
Lmnopi
Lmnopi Maize