Telling the Story of Slavery

"Discussing the legacy of slavery in America is still a complex and difficult conversation to have. How do we confront this horrible and defining period of our shared history? This is a film about a place that is attempting to do just that: The Whitney Plantation. It’s a former plantation, founded in 1752 and located in Louisiana along the historic River Road, which winds down the Mississippi toward New Orleans. John Cummings, a lawyer who founded the museum, spent sixteen years planning and over eight million dollars of his own money to restore this site, which honors the memory of those who were enslaved on plantations and whose labor helped build this country. The Whitney Plantation is not a place designed to make people feel guilt, or to make people feel shame. It is a site of memory, a place that that exists to further the necessary dialogue about race in America."
New Yorker (Video)
Whitney Plantation
Photo Gallery - Whitney Plantation
NY Times: Building the First Slavery Museum in America

2012 April: Flash of the Spirit: African & Afro-American Art & Philosophy - Robert Farris Thompson, 2013 September: Slave Capitalism, 2014 April: 12 Years a Slave, 2015 March: The Life Of A Slave From Cradle To The Tomb, 2015 July: The Atlantic Slave Trade in Two Minutes.

In Which Jean Cocteau Gives Elan To This Milieu

"The first thing Jean Marais noticed about Jean Cocteau was that he kept a scarf knotted so tightly around his neck he could barely imagine how blood got to the man's brain. Marais was a mimbo of 24, an aspiring actor. (He was born when Cocteau himself was 24.) A procurer had selected Marais for Cocteau, who hoped to find an unknown star to feature in his adaptation of Oedipus the King. Marais approached Cocteau for the audition at the man's opium den in the Hotel Castille. Cocteau was unimpressively, disgustingly clad in a bathrobe dotted with cigarette holes and various other fluids. His hands were ghastly pale because he kept his shirtsleeves buttoned so tightly. Marais was not one for detail; furthermore he would take any suitable work. ..."
This Recording

2009 March: Jean Cocteau

This Place

Nick Waplington
"This Place explores the complexity of Israel and the West Bank, as place and metaphor, through the eyes of twelve internationally acclaimed photographers. Featuring more than 600 photographs by Frédéric Brenner, Wendy Ewald, Martin Kollar, Josef Koudelka, Jungjin Lee, Gilles Peress, Fazal Sheikh, Stephen Shore, Rosalind Fox Solomon, Thomas Struth, Jeff Wall, and Nick Waplington, This Place offers not a single, monolithic vision, but rather an intricate and fragmented portrait, alive to all the rifts and paradoxes of this important and much contested place. Between 2009 and 2012, the twelve artists spent extended periods in Israel and the West Bank, free to approach their subjects as they chose. ..."
Brooklyn Museum
NY Times: Capturing Human Moments Amid Chaos in Israel and the West Bank

Maximum Joy

"Bristol, England-based post-punk band Maximum Joy were formed in 1979 by trumpeter and saxophonist Tony Wrafter -- following the breakup of his previous band Glaxo Babies -- and vocalist and clarinetist Janine Rainforth. Bassist Dan Catsis and drummer Charlie Llewellin, both of whom were also in Glaxo Babies, eventually joined up, as did former Pop Group guitarist John Waddington. There were some lineup changes during the band's short existence, including the addition of a young Nellee Hooper. Signed to the Y label, Maximum Joy issued a trio of 12" and 7" singles, highlighted by 'Stretch,' prior to recording Station MXJY (1982), their lone album, with Adrian Sherwood. ..."
allmusic
W - Maximum Joy
Maximum Joy - Next
Spotify
YouTube: Stretch, Why Can't We Live Together, Building Bridges, White & Green Place (extraterrestrial mix), In The Air, "In The Air" Dub, Simmer till Done (7" version), Funk Rock Inspirations, Silent Street & Silent Dub, John Peel 12th September 1981, Kid Jensen

2010 August: 99 Records

George Bellows - North River (1908)

"... While the pastoral hills had been landscaped, the railroad still ran through (the train tunnel would be built by relief workers during the Depression). Civic groups decried the intrusion of industry and rail travel on nature, but Bellows manages a harmony reminiscent of modern artists, and even photographers. John Pfahl’s late-nineteen-eighties series of smoke from Bethlehem Steel’s smokestacks raises the same question that Bellows does: What is a cloud? [George] Bellows’s 'North River,' painted in 1908, looks down past the snow-covered bench on the hills of Riverside Park, past working piers and ships exhaling steam as they work along the white-watered, steel-blue river. ..."
New Yorker: "Go See Bellows" By Robert Sullivan
Telegraph - An American Experiment, at National Gallery, Seven magazine review
mystudios

Outward Bound - Eric Dolphy (1960)

"The follow-up album to Outward Bound, Eric Dolphy's second effort for the Prestige/New Jazz label (and later remastered by Rudy Van Gelder) was equally praised and vilified for many reasons. At a time when the 'anti-jazz' tag was being tossed around, Dolphy's nonlinear, harshly harmonic music gave some critics grist for the grinding mill. A second or third listen to Dolphy's music reveals an unrepentant shadowy side, but also depth and purpose that were unprecedented and remain singularly unique. The usage of bassist George Duvivier and cellist Ron Carter (an idea borrowed from Dolphy's days with Chico Hamilton) gives the music its overcast color base, in many ways equally stunning and uninviting. Dolphy's ideas must be fully embraced, taken to heart, and accepted before listening. The music reveals the depth of his thought processes while also expressing his bare-bones sensitive and kind nature. ..."
allmusic
W - Outward Bound
YouTube: Out There (1960) [Full Album]

2013 August: Out to Lunch! (1964), 2014 October: Outward Bound (1960), 2015 November: Eric Dolphy His Life and Art

Rebel Music: Race, Empire and the New Muslim Youth Culture (2014)

"The subject matter of 'Rebel Music: Race, Empire and the New Muslim Youth Culture' could not be more far-reaching unless its author, Hisham D. Aidi, had unearthed data about youth culture and musical influences on other planets. As far as Earth goes, his highly original and ambitious book has got it covered. 'Rebel Music' exhibits a breathtaking familiarity with different forms of radicalizing music and the widely different ways it is understood in different cultures, with a special emphasis on Islamic youth. Mr. Aidi starts his book simply in the South Bronx, an epicenter of young Muslims’ hip-hop obsession. ..."
NY Times
NPR: 'Rebel Music': When Hip-Hop Met Islam (Video)
New Texts Out Now: Hisham Aidi, Rebel Music (Listen)
[PDF] ALH Online Review, Series
PBS: Take a tour of Muslim youth culture through ‘Rebel Music’ (Video)
Hisham Aidi’s ‘Rebel Music’ Remixes Race, Faith, and Geography
amazon
vimeo: “Rebel Music: Race, Empire, and the New Muslim Youth Culture” with Hisham Aidi (Fall 2015)
YouTube: Rebel Music

2014 September: Claude McKay and Gnawa Music

Grand Central is filled with acorns and oak leaves

"Even when you’re rush through Grand Central Terminal, it’s impossible not to glance up and notice its breathtaking treasures, like the beautiful light fixtures, clocks, and painted or tiled ceilings. But there’s a decorative theme running through the station that’s a little more subtle and easy to miss: acorns and oak leaves. An acorn tops the iconic brass clock above the information booth. Marble garlands of oak leaves and acorns decorate the original 1913 water fountains. They’re also on the ceiling, chandeliers, and staircases. So what’s with all the harvest images? It’s a Vanderbilt thing. The Vanderbilt heirs financed the construction of the terminal, and the family crest is all about acorns and oaks leaves. ..."
Ephemeral New York

2010 December: Grand Central Terminal, 2014 February: The New York Transit Museum: Grand by Design

Glen Brown & Tommy McCook - Horny Dub (1976)

"One of the Holy Grails of reggae collectors. The torturous story goes that this album, produced by Glen Brown and featuring the legendary Tommy McCook blowing sax across a great selection of Brown's early rhythms and beautifully mixed with that full fat reverberated sound by King Tubby, first crept out in Jamaica as early as 1974 on a Micron white label in minute quantity apparently entitled The Sannic Sounds and credited to Tommy McCook and The Pantomine All Stars. ..."
Dub Vendor
YouTube: Horny Dub [Glen Brown Meets Tommy McCook At Cross Roads Caledonia Place - 1976]

2012 October: Tommy McCook, 2013 April: Blazing Horns/Tenor in Roots

The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution

"Change was coming to America and the fault lines could no longer be ignored—cities were burning, Vietnam was exploding, and disputes raged over equality and civil rights. A new revolutionary culture was emerging and it sought to drastically transform the system. The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense would, for a short time, put itself at the vanguard of that change. THE BLACK PANTHERS: VANGUARD OF THE REVOLUTION is the first feature length documentary to explore the Black Panther Party, its significance to the broader American culture, its cultural and political awakening for black people, and the painful lessons wrought when a movement derails. Master documentarian Stanley Nelson goes straight to the source, weaving a treasure trove of rare archival footage with the voices of the people who were there: police, FBI informants, journalists, white supporters and detractors, and Black Panthers who remained loyal to the party and those who left it."
The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution (Video)
PBS - The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution (Video)
Mother Jones: This New Film Will Change the Way You Think About the Black Panthers (Video)
Washington Post: Fifty years later, America still can’t understand the Black Panthers (Video)
The most radical thing the Black Panthers did was give kids free breakfast
Ex-Black Panther Leader Elaine Brown Slams Stanley Nelson’s ‘Condemnable’ Documentary
[PDF] The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution

2011 December: Black Panther Party, 2014 July: Black Panthers (Agnès Varda, 1968 doc.), 2015 January: The Black Panthers Revisited, 2015 February: Black Panther Newspapers.

Jonas Mekas

Wikipedia - "Jonas Mekas (Lithuanian: [ˈjonɐs ˈmækɐs]; born December 24, 1922) is a Lithuanian-American filmmaker, poet and artist who has often been called 'the godfather of American avant-garde cinema.' His work has been exhibited in museums and festivals worldwide. ... In 1954, together with his brother Adolfas Mekas, he founded Film Culture, and in 1958, began writing his 'Movie Journal' column for The Village Voice. In 1962, he co-founded Film-Makers' Cooperative and the Filmmakers' Cinematheque in 1964, which eventually grew into Anthology Film Archives, one of the world’s largest and most important repositories of avant-garde film. He was part of the New American Cinema, with, in particular, fellow film-maker Lionel Rogosin. He was a close collaborator with artists such as Andy Warhol, Nico, Allen Ginsberg, Yoko Ono, John Lennon, Salvador Dalí, and fellow Lithuanian George Maciunas. ..."
Wikipedia
Jonas Mekas (Video)
Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Experimental Film Pioneer Jonas Mekas on the Early Days of New York's Avant-Garde
Senses of Cinema - Jonas Mekas
Guardian - Jonas Mekas: the man who inspired Andy Warhol to make films (Video)
Jonas Mekas's anthology film archives (Video)
YouTube: Salvador Dali, Happenings, Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania, Bed-In John Lennon & Yoko Ono, Cinema Is Not 100 Years Old, As I was Moving Ahead, Occasionally I saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty, An American Film Director at Work: Martin Scorsese, A Walk (1990) 58:19
YouTube: Jonas Mekas - In Focus - The Artist's Studio 23:03

Midnight Radio. Written by Ehud Lavski. Art by Yael Nathan.

"It’s a prospect that would intrigue any die-hard, adventurous music lover: There’s this mysterious, staticky, barely audible radio station playing the best songs ever each midnight, but no one in town knows 'a goddamned thing' about it, not even the handful of other people who have heard it. That’s the situation facing the unnamed heroine of Midnight Radio a sexy, noir-tinged comic written by Ehud Lavski and drawn by Yael Nathan. The short story is currently featured at both of their respective Tumblrs and is a reminder of a time in the not-so-distant past when radio, in its wild, pre-Clear Channel days, held sway over its loyal audience and seemed to wield some potent, intangible magic power over listeners. ..."
Read This: A haunting little comic about a mysterious radio station
EL Comics: Midnight Radio

Bob Dylan - The Bootleg Series, Vol. 9: The Witmark Demos: 1962-1964

"In his 2004 memoir, Chronicles, Volume One, Bob Dylan writes of encountering Mike Seeger in the early 1960s in Greenwich Village, and being left spellbound by the effortless mastery the folk legend exhibited in his interpretations of a dizzying array of traditional American song forms. ... The 47 songs collected on The Bootleg Series, Vol. 9: The Witmark Demos: 1962-1964 allow us to witness how Dylan went about doing just that. Representing the fruits of his first two publishing contracts (with Leeds Music and with M. Witmark & Sons), the set reveals a much subtler and more fascinating journey than the popular shorthand myth of Dylan's shifting cleanly from folk apprentice to political firebrand to poetic rock'n'roller. ..."
Pitchfork
W - The Bootleg Series, Vol. 9: The Witmark Demos: 1962-1964
allmusic
vimeo: “The Witmark Demos: 1962-1964”
YouTube: The Witmark Demos: 1962-1964 (The Bootleg Series Vol. 9)

Lillipution Art on Electric Poles: Patrick Picou Harrington in Albany

"These quiet bits of visual punctuation on telephone poles in Albany caught our eye recently and we thought immediately of fairies, pixies, and sprites. Who else would care enough to adorn wooden telephone poles along a non-descript strip of sidewalk in the Delaware Avenue section of the New York State capital? Each assembly is a collage, an individually drilled collection of wood pieces painted and glued and arranged according to its own eclectic sense of order. Some are geometric, others organic in form, they strike you as a form of city folk art because of their handmade and idiosyncratic nature, but they not quite 'crafty'. Themes are surreal and unfixed, or scientifically diagrammatic, or campy reassemblies of 60s pop sci-fi and hair-salon motifs. Certainly the pieces are outside – You may not refer to them 'outsider art' however. ..."
Brooklyn Street Art

The Merchant of Four Seasons - Rainer Werner Fassbinder (1971)

Wikipedia - "The Merchant of Four Seasons (German: Händler der vier Jahreszeiten) is a 1971 West German film written and directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, starring Hans Hirschmüller (de) and Irm Hermann. The plot follows the life of a fruit-peddler, living in 1950s West Germany, who is driven over the edge by an uncaring society. The title derives from the French expression for a fruit and vegetable seller, 'un marchand des quatre-saisons'. The film explores issues of class prejudices, domestic violence, infidelity, family discord, depression and self-destructive behavior. ..."
Wikipedia
Criterion: Eric Rentschler on The Merchant of Four Seasons (Video)
Slant
Senses of Cinema
YouTube: The Merchant of Four Seasons - Trailer

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), 2014 October: The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979 BRD Trilogy), 2014 December: Veronika Voss (1982 - BRD Trilogy), 2015 January: Digital Anthology: Rainer Werner Fassbinder - $0.99.

Unpublished Black History

Martin Luther King Jr.
"Revealing moments in black history, with unpublished photos from The New York Times’s archives. We’ll add images daily in February. Read the introduction. Join us for candid conversations about race, updates on this project, and the Race/Related newsletter."
NY Times
WNYC: New York Times unveils lost snapshots of black history

Chasing Lost Time: The Life of C.K. Scott Moncrieff: Soldier, Spy and Translator

"Charles Kenneth Scott Moncrieff’s Englishing of Proust — widely and immediately agreed to be one of the greatest literary translations of all time — very nearly didn’t happen. Scott Moncrieff only suggested the project to his publisher after they rejected a collection of satirical squibs in verse (sample: ‘Sir Philip Sassoon is the Member for Hythe;/ He is opulent, generous, swarthy and lithe.’). Like any good hack, he had another suggestion up his sleeve: there was this character Proust just starting to be published — making a bit of noise in France. ... His sort-of mentor Edmund Gosse agreed: ‘Since you told me you were translating Proust I have not felt happy. Not here, O son of Apollo, are haunts meet for thee.’ Ah, hindsight. Translating Proust wasn’t all CK did in his astoundingly busy life. ..."
Soldier, poet, lover, spy: just the man to translate Proust
Guardian
Telegraph
W - Charles Kenneth Scott Moncrieff
amazon
vimeo: Jean Findlay, “Chasing Lost Time: The Life of C.K. Scott Moncrieff: Soldier, Spy, and Translator” 42:11

2008 June: Marcel Proust, 2011 October: How Proust Can Change Your Life, 2012 April: Marcel Proust - À la recherche du temps perdu, 2013 February: Marcel Proust and Swann's Way: 100th Anniversary, 2013 May: A Century of Proust, 2013 August: Paintings in Proust - Eric Karpeles, 2013 October: On Reading Proust, 2015 September: "Paintings in Proust" - View of the Piazza del Popolo, Giovanni Battista Piranes, 2015 September: In Search of Lost Time: Swann's Way: A Graphic Novel, 2016 January: In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower (1919).

God Don't Never Change: The Songs Of Blind Willie Johnson (2016)

"Alligator Records is proud to announce the first quarter 2016 release of God Don't Never Change: The Songs Of Blind Willie Johnson. The album (to be issued on CD and vinyl) features newly recorded versions of the iconic slide guitarist/vocalist's most seminal material. Tom Waits, Lucinda Williams, Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi, Cowboy Junkies, The Blind Boys Of Alabama, Sinéad O'Connor, Luther Dickinson, Maria McKee, and Rickie Lee Jones all deliver deeply moving interpretations of Johnson's otherworldly 'gospel blues' music. ... Blind Willie Johnson recorded a total of 30 songs between 1927 and 1930 for Columbia, leaving behind a priceless legacy of the unforgettable music he created by marrying the raw, gospel fervor of his voice with the steely blues fire of his guitar. ...""
Alligator
Alligator (Video)
amazon
W - "God Don't Never Change"
YouTube: Blind Willie Johnson - God Don't Never Change

Syrian Officer Gave a View of War. ISIS Came, and Silence Followed.

"BEIRUT, Lebanon — Ours was an unusual, sometimes operatic, correspondence that unfolded over more than a year. Abu al-Majd, a Syrian police officer who was being deployed more and more often like a soldier, texted at all hours, sending news from the front lines and grumbling about boring, sunbaked patrols, his complaints sometimes punctuated by expressions of terror, pride or doubt. For us, it was a critical window into the raging war in Syria that we were too often forced to follow from afar. For him, it seemed, as much as anything, about having a connection to people who lived outside the claustrophobia of war, yet cared about what he was going through. On May 19 last year, Abu al-Majd sent a pair of snapshots. One showed him in fatigues, smoking a water pipe and starting to smile, as if a friend had just walked in; two cups of Turkish coffee, still foamy, stood on a table. ..."
NY Times

2014 August: The Islamic State, 2014 September: How ISIS Works, 2015 February: The Political Scene: The Evolution of Islamic Extremism, 2015 May: Zakaria: How ISIS shook the world, 2015 August: ISIS Blows Up Ancient Temple at Syria’s Palmyra Ruins, 2015 November: Times Insider: Reporting Europe's Refugee Crisis, 2015 November: Three Teams of Coordinated Attackers Carried Out Assault on Paris, Officials Say; Hollande Blames ISIS, 2015 November: The French Emergency, 2015 December: A Brief History of ISIS, 2015 December: U.S. Seeks to Avoid Ground War Welcomed by Islamic State, 2016 January: Ramadi, Reclaimed by Iraq, Is in Ruins After ISIS Fight.

Cloudland - Pere Ubu (1989)

"In a press handout that accompanied the original release of Pere Ubu's Cloudland, David Thomas quipped 'We'd never been asked to write a pop record before. I guess it never occurred to anyone.' Given the sonic Dadaism of much of Pere Ubu's work, what's most startling is not that it took so long for someone to suggest they make a pop record but that they were able to comply so successfully. Stephen Hague, who had previously worked with the Pet Shop Boys, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark and New Order, produced these sessions, and Cloudland boasts a glossy surface that was unprecedented for Pere Ubu's work; the drums sounded crisp and tight, the songs included traditional melodies and melodic keyboard lines, Allen Ravenstine's noisy punctuations were pushed to the back of the mix, and the harmonies sounded as if they were performed by actual professionals. ..."
allmusic
W - Cloudland
UbuProjex
DROWNED IN SOUND
YouTube: Breath (Live)
YouTube: Breath & Race The Sun & Cry & Why Go Alone, Waiting For Mary & Ice Cream Truck & Bus Called Happiness & Monday Night, Love Love Love & Lost Nation Road & Fire & Nevada!, The Wire & Flat & The Waltz & Pushin'

2008 April: Pere Ubu, 2010 July: Pere Ubu - 1, 2012 November: David Thomas And The Pedestrians - Variations On A Theme, 2013 February: Dub Housing, 2014 September: Carnival of Souls (2014), 2015 June: Street Waves / My Dark Ages (1976), 2016 January: Live at the Longhorn: April 1, 1978.

Denécheau Jâse Musette - Amour Java (2016)

"You can find here track previews from artist Denécheau Jâse Musette new album Amour Java, released 15.01.2016 and containing 16 tracks. Listening online to Denécheau Jâse Musette - Amour Java track previews is free and does not require registration. If other releases and albums by Denécheau Jâse Musette, are available here, those previews can also be listened to free online. Additionally, you can subscribe to all new albums by Denécheau Jâse Musette and thus not miss a release."
Muzoic
Soundcloud
YouTube: Jâse Musette (Live), Il est trop tard, Jâse Musette
YouTube: Amour Java, Java d'un soir, La novaraise, Valse parisienne, Get Out Under the Moon / Viens sur mon épaule, Ah ! Les papouilles javanaises

Maggot Brain - Funkadelic (1971)

Wikipedia - "Maggot Brain is the third studio album by the American funk band Funkadelic, released in 1971 on Westbound Records. It was the last album that featured the original Funkadelic lineup; shortly after Maggot Brain was recorded, Tawl Ross, Eddie Hazel, Billy Nelson, and Tiki Fulwood left the band for various reasons. The album incorporates musical elements of psychedelic music, rock, gospel, and soul, with significant variation between each track. ..."
Wikipedia
"'Maggot Brain' is a song by the band Funkadelic. It appears as the lead track on their 1971 album of the same name. The original recording of the song, over ten minutes long, features little more than a spoken introduction and a much-praised extended guitar solo by Eddie Hazel. ... According to legend, George Clinton, under the influence of LSD, told Eddie Hazel during the recording session to imagine he had been told his mother was dead, but then learned that it was not true. The result was the 10-minute guitar solo for which Hazel is most fondly remembered by many music critics and fans. Though several other musicians began the track playing, Clinton soon realized how powerful Hazel's solo was and faded them out so that the focus would be on Hazel's guitar. Critics have described the solo as 'lengthy, mind-melting' and 'an emotional apocalypse of sound.' The entire track was recorded in one take. The solo is mostly played in a pentatonic minor scale in the key of E minor over another guitar track of a simple arpeggio. Hazel's solo was played through a fuzzbox and a Crybaby Wah wah pedal; some sections of the song utilize a delay effect. ..."
W - Maggot Brain
allmusic
Pitchfork
Spotify
YouTube: Maggot Brain - Houston 1978 (Live)
YouTube: Maggot Brain (full album)

2009 January: George Clinton, 2010 December: Mothership Connection - Houston 1976, 2011 October: Funkadelic - One Nation Under A Groove, 2011 October: "Do Fries Go With That Shake?", 2012 August: Tales Of Dr. Funkenstein – The Story Of George Clinton & Parliament/Funkadelic, 2015 July: Playing The (Baker's) Dozens: George Clinton's Favourite Albums, 2015 August: Chocolate City (1975).

1965-1975: Another Vietnam

1973. A Viet Cong guerrilla stands guard in the Mekong Delta.
"For much of the world, the visual history of the Vietnam War has been defined by a handful of iconic photographs: Eddie Adams’ image of a Viet Cong fighter being executed, Nick Ut’s picture of nine-year-old Kim Phúc fleeing a napalm strike, Malcolm Browne’s photo of Thích Quang Duc self-immolating in a Saigon intersection. Many famous images of the war were taken by Western photographers and news agencies, working alongside American or South Vietnamese troops. But the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong had hundreds of photographers of their own, who documented every facet of the war under the most dangerous conditions. ... One hundred eighty of these unseen photos and the stories of the courageous men who made them are collected in the book Another Vietnam: Pictures of the War from the Other Side."
Mashable
W - War Remnants Museum

Awakening the Bowery’s Ghosts

Over 700 artifacts were collected from the construction site at 50 Bowery in Lower Manhattan.
"One afternoon in October 2013, as work at a construction site in Chinatown was winding down for the day, an amateur historian known for his renegade research tactics, Adam Woodward, slipped through an open gate wearing a suit and tie. After nosing around in the pit, which was to accommodate the foundation for a 22-story luxury hotel, he sounded the alarm, a Paul Revere of the Bowery. ... The photos he later posted of ax-hewn joists, twisted metal and crumbling bricks electrified the conservation community. If his suspicions were correct, Mr. Woodward had discovered the remains of the Bull’s Head Tavern, where Gen. George Washington assembled with his troops on Evacuation Day in 1783, when British troops left Manhattan. ..."
NY Times

Joan Mitchell Retrospective: Her Life and Paintings

"In partnership with the Kunsthaus Bregenz and in close cooperation with the Joan Mitchell Foundation in New York, the Museum Ludwig is presenting a major retrospective of the legendary artist Joan Mitchell (1925–1992). The show focuses on her painting, ranging from early works from the 1950s to her later work during the final years of her life. Mitchell’s work is placed within the art-historical context of the period following Abstract Expressionism or in the milieu of the New York School. With some thirty paintings, some of which are very large-format and span several panels, the show at the Museum Ludwig presents one of the most important figures in twentieth-century art. Furthermore, a large part of the exhibition is dedicated to the first extensive presentation of archival material from the Joan Mitchell Foundation. With film recordings and photographs as well as correspondence, invitations, posters, and other ephemera, Joan Mitchell’s vibrant personality and her various relationships to artists, authors, and other figures from the cultural world of her time are illuminated. ..."
Joan Mitchell Foundation: Joan Mitchell Retrospective
Joan Mitchell Foundation
Did Joan Mitchell Have the Finest Mind in Modern American Art?
amazon: Joan Mitchell Retrospective: Her Life and Paintings
vimeo: Joan Mitchell Retrospective: Her Life and Paintings

2009 July: Joan Mitchell

XXL’s A Great Day in Hip Hop: 16 Years Later (2014)

"Back in 1991, when I was in my late 20s, I was good friends with a talented photographer named Alice Arnold. A short white chick from California, she knew more about jazz than most black people our age, including me. Alice schooled me on the design of classic Blue Note album covers, the music of Charles Mingus, and the pictures of various photographers. One evening, while chilling in her Lower East Side apartment, she asked me if I had ever seen Art Kane’s photograph 'A Great Day in Harlem.' Although I’d been raised on those uptown streets, I was ashamed to admit that I had no idea what she was talking about. However, when Alice showed me the reproduction of Kane’s picture, I realized it was the same image I’d seen for years in Harlem barbershops, bookstores, and record shops. ..."
Red Bull (Video)
September 29, 1998: Hip-Hop’s Greatest Day
MixCloud: The Greatest Day in Hip Hop History Sept. 29 - 1998 | Mixed by A.T.M.S. | 2014 | Part I

2015 October: A Great Day in Harlem

Top 20 Basketball Rookie Cards of All-Time

"When talking about overall popularity and the sheer volume of collectors, basketball generally takes a backseat to baseball and football. However, strong international demand and the tendency for elite NBA players to become global stars, puts basketball rookie cards in a special category. The following list counts down the top 20 basketball rookie cards of all-time. It can be difficult to determine the best order when dealing with cards from different eras, especially given the evolution of cards. A combination of value and historical significance were used to compile this list. This is by no means the definitive list of top basketball rookies, because there are just too many variables to base that list on. It is simply our view of the top 20 basketball rookie cards currently available to collectors. ..."
Cardboard Connection

"I Shot the Sheriff" / "Stir It Up" - Bob Marley and the Wailers (1973)

Wikipedia - "''I Shot the Sheriff' is a song written by Bob Marley and released in 1973. ... The story is told from the point of view of a narrator who admits to having killed the local sheriff, and claims to be falsely accused of having killed the deputy sheriff. The narrator also claims to have acted in self-defense when the sheriff tried to shoot him. The song was first released in 1973 on The Wailers' album Burnin'. Marley explained his intention as follows: I want to say 'I shot the police' but the government would have made a fuss so I said 'I shot the sheriff' instead… but it's the same idea: justice. ..."
Wikipedia
SOS
allmusic
YouTube: I shot the sheriff (Live), Stir It Up
YouTube: I Shot The Sheriff, Stir It Up

Susan Hiller

Rough Seas, 1982
Wikipedia - "Susan Hiller (born 1940) is an American-born artist who lives in London, UK. Her art practice includes installation, video, photography, performance and writing. ... Beginning her artistic practice in the early 1970s, Hiller was influenced by the visual language of Minimalism and Conceptual art and now cites Minimalism, Fluxus, Surrealism and her study of anthropology as major influences on her work. Hiller's first exhibition was a group show at Gallery House in London in 1973. ..."
Wikipedia
Susan Hiller
Tate (Video)
Lisson Gallery
Guardian
Artsy

Marc Ribot: Musical Improvisation in the Marlene Dumas Exhibition (2015)

"Eclectic guitarist Marc Ribot has recorded a wide variety of music over his career, including working with Elvis Costello and on Tom Waits' Rain Dogs. He has also recorded compositions for classical guitar by Haiti's Franz Casseus, a friend of his parents, and has participated actively in New York City's downtown avant-garde music scene for some time, notably as a member of the Lounge Lizards. Ribot's solo albums include Rootless Cosmopolitans and Requiem for What's His Name; later Ribot worked with his avant-garde jazz-rock fusion band, Shrek, whose eponymous debut was released in 1994. With a new group, Los Cubanos Postizos, he also issued The Prosthetic Cubans in 1998; Muy Divertido! followed two years later...."
SoundHound
YouTube: Musical Improvisation in the Marlene Dumas Exhibition

2011 February: Selling Water By the Side of the River - Evan Lurie, 2012 September: Marc Ribot, 2013 February: Silent Movies, 2013 November: The Nearness Of You, 2014 January: Full Concert Jazz in Marciac (2010), 2014 May: Gig Alert: Marc Ribot Trio, 2014 September: Marc Ribot Trio with Mary Halvorson at The Stone, 2015 September: Marc Ribot y Los Cubanos Postizos - The Prosthetic Cubans (1998), 2015 November: Marc Ribot Ceramic Dog (2014).

Grove Press

Wikipedia - "Grove Press is an American publishing imprint that was founded in 1951. Imprints include: Black Cat, Evergreen, Venus Library, and Zebra. ... Under Rossett's leaderhip, Grove introduced American readers to European avant-garde literature and theatre, including French authors Alain Robbe-Grillet, Jean Genet, and Eugène Ionesco. In 1954 Grove published Samuel Beckett's play Waiting for Godot after it had been refused by more mainstream publishers. ... Grove published most of the American Beats of the 1950s (Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, and Allen Ginsberg) as well as poets like Frank O'Hara of the New York School and poets associated with Black Mountain and the San Francisco Renaissance such as Robert Duncan. ... The defining movements of the 1960s in America -- the antiwar, civil rights, black power, counterculture, and student movements in the United States -- along with revolutions across the globe, were debated, exposed, and discussed in Grove’s publications as was the sexual revolution. ..."
Wikipedia
W - Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Grove Press | WWEnd
vimeo: Strange Victories: Grove Press, 1951-1985 in the Special Collections Research Center at Syracuse University Library

2010 October: Evergreen Review

Club Passim

Wikipedia - "Club Passim is an American folk music club in the Harvard Square area of Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was opened by Joyce Kalina (now Chopra) and Paula Kelley in 1958, when it was known as Club 47 (based on its then address, 47 Mount Auburn Street, also in Cambridge; it moved to its present location on Palmer Street in 1963), and changed its name to simply Passim in 1969. ... At its inception, it was mainly a jazz and blues club, but soon branched out to include ethnic folk, then singer/songwriter folk. Artists who have performed there include Joan Baez, Shawn Colvin, Bob Dylan, Tom Rush, Joni Mitchell, Suzanne Vega, Muddy Waters, and many others. ..."
Wikipedia
Club Passim
NPR - Club Passim: 50 Years Of Folk Legends (Video)

Posterboy’s bold tribute to a murdered Peruvian activist

"In December 2014, Posterboy attempted one of their most bold installations yet. He was in Lima, Peru. It was election season. And just a few months before, a prominent environmental activist had been brutally murdered. Edwin Chota was killed by illegal loggers, who operate with impunity in the Amazon rainforests of Peru. Chota had been on a campaign to kick out the illegal loggers and reclaim the lands for the indigenous people of the area. After being repeatedly threatened by loggers and having those threats ignored by the authorities, Chota and three other men were killed for their activism...."
Vandalog (Video)

Cristina Iglesias: Tres Aguas

"Toledo stands above the fast flowing waters of the River Tagus. Its waters were drawn up by the first communities into their fountains, cisterns and baths, and so the settlement flourished. ... The three sculptural works that make up the project bring water to the fore; it courses through channels and travels back into the ground after animating the surfaces of the works so they come to resemble the overgrown bed of some ancient river. Visitors are taken on a journey through the city as they visit each work, from a mudéjar water tower to the city's main public space and then onto a hidden location within a convent, a place not normally open for visitors. Conceived as a journey into the heart of the city, Iglesias' project aligns the hard materials of architecture and the fluidity of water to deliver a sequence of large-scale sculptural works that bring the river back into the body of this historic city."
CRISTINA IGLESIAS
YouTube: Guided Tour for Tres Aguas, Toledo

"'If I Needed You" - Townes Van Zandt (1972)

Wikipedia - "'If I Needed You' is a song written by Townes Van Zandt and performed on his 1972 album The Late Great Townes Van Zandt. It was covered 9 years later by American country music artists Emmylou Harris and Don Williams as a duet, and was released in September 1981 as the first single from Harris' album Cimarron. ... Townes Van Zandt's 'If I Needed You' was not only covered by Emmylou Harris and Don Williams, but also by Andrew Bird on Hands of Glory, Guy Clark on Songs and Stories, Lyle Lovett on Step Inside This House, and others. The song was also recorded by Doc Watson for his record Then and Now. On his record Live at the Old Quarter, Townes introduces the song 'If I Needed You' by saying, 'This was recorded by Doc Watson, and it really blew my mind, you know…' ..."
Wikipedia
YouTube: If I Needed You

2014 March: Heartworn Highways - James Szalapski (1975), 2014 September: The 10 Best Townes Van Zandt Songs, 2015 January: Solo Sessions (Jan 17, 1995), 2015 September: Townes Van Zandt & Nanci Griffith - "Tecumseh Valley," 1993.

L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E - Bruce Andrews and Charles Bernstein

Wikipedia - "The Language poets (or L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poets, after the magazine of that name) are an avant garde group or tendency in United States poetry that emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The poets included: Leslie Scalapino, Stephen Rodefer, Bruce Andrews, Charles Bernstein, Ron Silliman, Barrett Watten, Lyn Hejinian, Bob Perelman, Rae Armantrout, Carla Harryman, Clark Coolidge, Hannah Weiner, Susan Howe, and Tina Darragh. Language poetry emphasizes the reader's role in bringing meaning out of a work. It played down expression, seeing the poem as a construction in and of language itself. In developing their poetics, members of the Language school took as their starting point the emphasis on method evident in the modernist tradition, particularly as represented by Gertrude Stein, William Carlos Williams, and Louis Zukofsky. Language poetry is an example of poetic postmodernism. Its immediate postmodern precursors were the New American poets, a term including the New York School, the Objectivist poets, the Black Mountain School, the Beat poets, and the San Francisco Renaissance. ..."
Wikipedia
L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E Magazine: (Ed.) Bruce Andrews and Charles Bernstein
BOMB: Charles Bernstein by Jay Sanders
Poetry Previews
Poetry Foundation: Language poetry

Bernie and the Millennials

"On Tuesday night, Alexandra Schwartz, a critic at the New Yorker, posted a piece criticizing the young supporters of Bernie Sanders. Ordinarily, I’d be mildly irritated by an article titled 'Should Millennials Get Over Bernie Sanders?' In this instance, I’m grateful. It clarifies the dividing line between Sanders’s supporters in the electorate and the liberal journalists who can’t abide them. First, some context. Exit polls from Iowa, according to Vox, show that 'Sanders absolutely dominated young adult voters, in a way that even Barack Obama couldn’t in 2008.' Eighty-four percent of voters under thirty, and 58 percent of voters between thirty and forty-four, cast their ballots for Sanders. ..."
Jacobin

The Cuban Money Crisis (March 2015)

"The currency crisis starts about 75 feet into Cuba. I land in the late afternoon and, after clearing customs, step into the busy arrivals hall of Havana’s airport looking for help. I ask a woman in a gray, military-like uniform where I can change money. 'Follow me,' she says. But she doesn’t turn left, toward the airport’s exchange kiosk. Called cadecas, these government-run currency shops are the only legal way, along with banks, to swap your foreign money for Cuba’s tourist tender, the CUC. Instead, my guide turns right and only comes clean when we reach a quiet area at the top of an escalator. ..."
Bloomberg Business

2009 April: Chelsea Visits Havana, 2011 June: Robert Farris Thompson, 2012 September: Where Is Cuba Going?, 2012 November: Carlos Garaicoa, 2013 August: Cuba 2012 (BBC Documentary), 2014 November: U.S. to Restore Full Relations With Cuba, Erasing a Last Trace of Cold War Hostility, 2015 February: A Day In the Life of Havana, 2015 August: ¡Cuba, Cuba! 65 Years of Photography.

Cyanotypes: Photography's Blue Period

"Invented by Sir John Herschel in 1842, cyanotypes are photographs with a distinctive Prussian blue tonality produced by treating paper with an iron-salt solution. The treated paper can be developed using only the sun, which made cyanotypes a favored technique among amateur photographers through the turn of the twentieth century. Cyanotypes: Photography's Blue Period will trace the rise of these 'blueprint photographs' beginning with the botanical photogenic drawings printed by Anna Atkins in the 1850s. The exhibition will also feature contemporary artists who have recently revived the process manipulating the medium to varied expressive effects. ..."
Worcester Art (Video)
NY Times: Cyanotype, Photography’s Blue Period, Is Making a Comeback (Photo)

Truth Is Fragmentary - Gabrielle Bell (2014)

"... An anomaly to both of these observations, cartoonist Gabrielle Bell’s gift makes both forms not only palatable but frequently delightful. Bell’s new compilation from Uncivilized Books, Truth Is Fragmentary, focuses on her travels to Sweden, France, Switzerland, Norway and Colombia, plus three Julys of daily diaries and a few other autobiographical works. The graphic novel’s cover, showing the cartoonist stressed-out in an airport waiting area, isn’t a great indication of the content within. That’s not to say Bell isn’t neurotic or fully open about her stressors and anxieties, but the book and its protagonist don’t come off as perpetually whiny. ..."
Paste
The Comics Journal
amazon: Truth is Fragmentary: Travelogues & Diaries

2011 September: Gabrielle Bell, 2012 August: The Voyeurs

"Souvenirs" - John Prine & Steve Goodman (1973)

"All the snow has turned to water,
Christmas days have come and gone.
Broken toys and faded colours are all that's left to linger on.
I hate graveyards and old oawn shops,
For they always bring me tears.
I can't forgive the way they robbed me of my childhood souvenirs."
YouTube: Souvenirs

2010 February: John Prine, 2011 October: John Prine - 1, 2012 May: Diamonds in the Rough., 2013 September: Sweet Revenge (1973).

The Mixtape 28 — The sound of independence-era Africa

Bembeya Jazz National
"For many of the African countries that declared independence from colonial rule in the 1950s and 60s, the post-independence era was characterised by a radical restructuring of social and political life. In some nations such as Guinea, political self-realisation went hand-in-hand with cultural renaissance — with music firmly at the heart of the project. Guinea, led by Sékou Touré, was emblematic of the approach adopted by many of the predominantly left-wing governments of the continent. Musical traditions that had often been marginalised by the colonial powers were now boosted to help shape the political climate of the self-rule era. This mixtape has been put together by Tocantins, a record collector and occasional DJ based in London, whose interests focus on the popular musics of West Africa and Latin America. ..."
The Calvert Journal (Soundcloud)

The Garden of Earthly Delights - Hieronymus Bosch (1490 - 1510)

Wikipedia - "The Garden of Earthly Delights is the modern title given to a triptych painted by the Early Netherlandish master Hieronymus Bosch, housed in the Museo del Prado in Madrid since 1939.  ... The triptych is painted in oil on oak and is formed from a square middle panel flanked by two other oak rectangular wings that close over the center as shutters. The outer wings, when folded, show a grisaille painting of the earth during the biblical narrative of Creation. The three scenes of the inner triptych are probably (but not necessarily) intended to be read chronologically from left to right. The left panel depicts God presenting Eve to Adam, the central panel is a broad panorama of socially engaged nude figures, fantastical animals, oversized fruit and hybrid stone formations. The right panel is a hellscape and portrays the torments of damnation. ..."
Wikipedia
The Garden of Earthly Delights by Jheronimus Bosch an online interactive adventure (Video)
Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights
15 Things You Should Know About Bosch’s 'The Garden of Earthly Delights'

2011 November: Hieronymus Bosch

Ahmad Jamal Trio - "Darn That Dream" (1959)

"The beatmaking community/culture shares a number of similarities to the jazz community of the 1940s, 50s, and 60s. Both communities/cultures were comprised of what I like to call 'anonymous heroes,' acclaimed musicians not necessarily known by the general public or even the broader musical scene, yet fervently respected among their peers. ... With 'Darn That Dream,' presented for MusicStudy, you truly hear what makes the Ahmad Jamal trio so unique. Jamal's piano is airy and roomy, his phrasing—spaced well as usual—glides more than it rumbles. But the impact of each of his notes are strong still the same. Crosby's bass is steady, swinging in time to the various ghost notes that Jamal plays. And Fournier's drums shuffle along with a perched subtlety, occasionally rapping the snare with a punch and a light jab. ..." Standing in the background around the piano: Hank Jones, Ben Webster, George Duvivier, Papa Jo Jones, Nat Hentoff, and Harold Ashby.
BeatTips MusicStudy: Ahmad Jamal Trio - "Darn That Dream"
YouTube: Darn That Dream

Store Front II - James and Karla Murray

"James and Karla Murray have been capturing impeccable photographs from the streets of New York City since the 1990s; Store Front II chronicles their continued efforts to document a little-known but vitally important cross-section of New York’s 'Mom and Pop' economy. The Murrays’ penetrating photographs are only half the story, though. In the course of their travels throughout the city’s boroughs the Murrays have taken great care to document the stories behind the scenery. Their copious background texts, gleaned largely from interviews with the stores’ owners and employees, bring wonderful color and nuance to the importance of these unique one-off establishments. The Murrays have rendered the out of the way bodegas, candy shops and record stores just as faithfully as the historically important institutions and well known restaurants, bars and cafes. ..."
Gingko Press
City Lab: Photographing New York's Endangered Mom and Pop Stores
A Friendly Photographic Reminder That CBGB Is Now a Boutique Outlet
Guardian: Closing down: the couple chronicling New York's disappearing storefronts

2014 April: Store Front - The Disappearing Face of New York

"Alternative Ulster" - Stiff Little Fingers (1979)

"On Friday night, Belfast's Ulster Hall played host to one of the most unconventional and radically influential voices of peace in Northern Ireland. Stiff Little Fingers, the band that epitomised punk's anti-sectarian message, took to the stage - and were mobbed as they thrashed out their most famous song: 'Alternative Ulster', written during the Troubles and a rejection of the tribal and sectarian labels hung upon the people of Ulster from birth. ... Twenty-four hours earlier, the domination of tribal politics had been made concrete and clear. Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionists and Sinn Fein, the party that thrived and evolved through the violent campaign of the Provisional IRA, were triumphant. ..."
Guardian: Alternative Ulster will have to wait
allmusic
Alternative Ulster - Lyrics
Spotify
YouTube: Alternative Ulster (Live)
YouTube: Alternative Ulster, 78 RPM

Chronixx - Here Comes Trouble (2014)

"... While holding a copy of Chronixx's current EP Dread and Terrible, an enthusiastic [Jimmy] Fallon told his audience he'd heard the upbeat Rasta anthem 'Here Comes Trouble' while vacationing in Jamaica at Goldeneye Resort and Hotel owned by Island Records founder-turned-hotel-and-rum magnate Chris Blackwell. (Earlier this year, Chronixx signed a publishing deal with Blackwell's Blue Mountain Publishing). Fallon inquired about the artist and subsequently booked him to perform on the show, four days ahead of the artist's free concert on July 26 as part of Central Park's annual SummerStage series, produced by the City Parks Foundation. ..."
Billboard
Reggaeville (Video - Dub)
YouTube: Dread And Terrible [ FULL ALBUM ]