Gardens by France’s Most Revered Landscape Designer

"Gardens are 'an expression of faith' and 'the embodiment of hope,' wrote the revered English landscape architect Russell Page in his memoir, 'The Education of a Gardener,' in 1962. If you’re lucky, you start with a blank slate and some time in the future, years later, it may become something like what you had in mind. Gardens are forever evolving and growing, like children to adulthood, and like all things in nature, they can be hobbled by disease, or refashioned for the times or, on occasion, brutally destroyed before reaching maturity — life interrupted. They hold a beauty and a sadness — seasonally, of course, from those early sprouts pushing through the softened earth of spring, to the autumn, when the leaves fade and fall and the barrenness of winter sets in, but also in their impermanence. Gardens continually remind us of our mortality. ..."
NY Times
W - French landscape garden
W - French formal garden
7 Basics To Designing A French Style Garden

Chess Club Rhythm & Soul (1996)

"The Chess Records catalogue (including as it does the output of such subsidiary labels as Cadet, Checker and Argo) is one of the finest collections of Black music recordings ever made by one record company. Chess Club Rhythm & Soul showcases the many club gems given birth to by founders Leonard and Phil Chess in the musical melting pot that was the Chicago of the late 50s and 60s. Pure blues classics like Little Walter's My Babe and Sonny Boy Williamson's heart-felt pleading blues Help Me rub shoulders with soulful funky jazz sides by Ramsey Lewis, Brother Jack McDuff and Lou Donaldson. ..."
Ace Records
Discogs
YouTube: Chess Club Rhythm & Soul 1:15:25

Sly & Robbie - Riddim: The Best of Sly and Robbie in Dub 1978-1985

"... RIDDIM collects the duo's own work in the dub vein between 1978 and 1985. While Sly & Robbie have lent their trademark sound to recordings that range all over the stylistic map, it's perfectly suited to the deep, heady vibe of instrumental dub. Shakespeare's pulsing, organic bass bobs and weaves between Dunbar's fractured, rimshot-filled rhythms, creating grooves that are at once spare, elemental, complex, and irresistible. Ironically, Sly & Robbie man the mixing boards on only a few tracks here, allowing guest producers to assist in constructing their soundscapes. The result is a lengthy, completely satisfying set of instrumental dub that spotlights the talents of one of the world's most notorious rhythm sections."
allmusic
YouTube: Riddim: The Best of Sly & Robbie in Dub 1978-1985

2012 March: Horace Andy + Sly & Robbie - Livin´ It Up, 2013 March: Taxi Connection live 1986

Bob Dylan and The Band - "Like A Rolling Stone" (1966)

Wikipedia - "'Like a Rolling Stone' is a 1965 song by the American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. Its confrontational lyrics originated in an extended piece of verse Dylan wrote in June 1965, when he returned exhausted from a grueling tour of England. Dylan distilled this draft into four verses and a chorus. 'Like a Rolling Stone' was recorded a few weeks later as part of the sessions for the forthcoming album Highway 61 Revisited. ... Critics have described the track as revolutionary in its combination of different musical elements, the youthful, cynical sound of Dylan's voice, and the directness of the question 'How does it feel?' 'Like a Rolling Stone' transformed Dylan's image from folk singer to rock star, and is considered one of the most influential compositions in postwar popular music. ..."
Wikipedia
W - Electric Dylan controversy
SoundHound
W - Gates of Eden (song)
YouTube: Bob Dylan and The Band - Like A Rolling Stone, Gates of Eden - 5/7/65 - Free Trade Hall, Manchester, England
DailyMotion: Like a Rolling Stone (Live @ Newport Festival, 1965)

French Comics Framed Festival

"This exhibition presents a selection of over 80 graphic novel illustrations from Franco-Belgian works. Staged under the beautiful arcades of the iconic Foundation Building of The Cooper Union, renowned for its programs in arts and architecture, it offers a journey through the formal and thematic evolutions of comics published in Paris and Brussels over the past 70 years. ... Most of these works have attracted U.S. publishers’ attention and have been translated into English. Entitled French Comics Framed and divided into three sections, the exhibition aims to expose the varied architectures that structure the design and narrative of the bande dessinée form."
The French Comics Association
French Culture
French Comics Framed Festival In New York City

The Larry Goodell / Duende Archive

The Fervent Valley editors on road by the Thunderbird Bar in Placitas: Larry Goodell, Lenore Goodell, Stephen Rodefer, Bill Pearlman and Charlie Vermont
"The Larry Goodell / Duende Archive is a unique record of the thriving poetry and small press cultures of the Southwest (and New Mexico in particular) from the early 1960s to the present. This rich trove of materials emerges from and documents key moments of the burgeoning Mimeograph Revolution. The widespread movement of small presses and little magazines was bolstered by the Vancouver and Berkeley Poetry Conferences of 1963 and 1965. ..."
Granary Books

Alistair MacLeod - No Great Mischief (1999)

"This extraordinary novel, telling the story of the substantial branch of the MacDonald clan that settled on Cape Breton Island off Nova Scotia, offers every satisfaction except an ending as quietly mighty as what has gone before. At the end of the text, Alistair MacLeod acknowledges the 'spiritual assistance' that came his way during its completion, but from a reader's point of view the notes of reconciliation and transcendence in the closing pages license the sentimentality that has been suppressed so long and so well. No Great Mischief is not a historical novel, except in the sense that the MacDonalds see everything in terms of their ancestry. ..."
Guardian - The sporran legion
NY Times
NY Times - "No Great Mischief"
W - No Great Mischief
A LESSON IN THE ART OF STORYTELLING: AN INTERVIEW WITH ALISTAIR MacLEOD
amazon

2011 June: The Lost Salt Gift of Blood - Alistair MacLeod, 2016 February: Island (2001), 2015 October: History of the Acadians

Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker - Vortex Temporum

Rehearsal in Bochum, October 2013, Ruhrtriennale
"Time flies, runs out, stands still. But can it be visible? In this penetrating work by the inimitable Belgian choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker (En Atendant & Cesena, 2013 Next Wave), seven dancers inhabit late French composer Gérard Grisey’s three distinct ways of perceiving the passing seconds, using his spectral 1996 masterpiece Vortex Temporum as guide. Pairing off with seven roving musicians from Ictus Ensemble, they offer a meticulous, measure-by- measure translation of Grisey’s score, inscribing the air with shadows of its sonic textures. Circles form within circles in this meditative procession in which bodies twist, a piano turns, and time spirals on, luminous and legible."
BAM (Video)
Rosas
BAM: Neither (Video)
BAM: Remains (Video)

2009 July: Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, 2012 December: Rosas Danst Rosas (1983), 2013 September: Re : Rosas!, 2014 March: Maison Martin Margiela with H&M (2012).

NHL 2016-17

"The NHL's 2016-17 regular season will commence Wednesday, Oct. 12, with a four-game slate, highlighted by the Edmonton Oilers playing their first game at their new arena, Rogers Place. The 1,230-game regular-season schedule - 82 games per team - will conclude Sunday, April 9. After closing Rexall Place last season, the Oilers will open their new home against the provincial rival Calgary Flames. ..."
NHL
Washington Post - NHL 2016-17 Preview: Playoff projections and pivotal stats for every team
Guardian - NHL 2016-17 predictions: our writers call the winners, losers and also-rans
ABC - NHL Power Rankings: Penguins begin in top perch, but could Sharks or Caps capitalize?
W - History of the National Hockey League

Mali: Khaira Arby – Gossip (2012)

"... Khaira Arby is known as the Nightingale of the North in her home country of Mali. In a career spanning four decades, she has faced everything from family objections to her chosen path to death threats from the Wahabist hard-liners who surged into her home town of Timbuktu in 2012, destroying her studio and attempting to outlaw all recorded music. Now she’s back with her fifth studio album, Gossip, which reflects the turbulent recent history of her country and mirrors the complex mix of ethnicities and cultures that make up Mali today. ..."
Guardian - John Doran (SoundCloud)
Guardian - Women of Timbuktu find their voice again after nightmare of jihadi rule
Forced Exposure
RootsWorld
Spotify
allmusic (Video)
YouTube: Khaira, Khaira Arby: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

Bitter Rice - Dino De Laurentiis (1949)

Wikipedia - "Bitter Rice ... is a 1949 Italian film made by Lux Film, written and directed by Giuseppe De Santis. Produced by Dino De Laurentiis, starring Silvana Mangano, Raf Vallone, Doris Dowling and Vittorio Gassman, Bitter Rice was a commercial success in Europe and the United States. It was a product of the Italian neorealism style. The Italian title of the film is based on a pun; since the Italian word riso can mean either 'rice' or 'laughter', riso amaro can be taken to mean either 'bitter laughter' or 'bitter rice'. Although Bitter Rice did not win any awards, it was nominated for the 1950 Academy Award for Best Story and entered into the 1949 Cannes Film Festival. ..."
Wikipedia
Film Noir of the Week
NY Times
Trailers From Hell
Criterion (Video)
amazon
YouTube: Bitter Rice - Trailer

Peter Gizzi - Jack Spicer, Bruce Conner and the Art of the Assemblage

"Emotion and innovation is something I’ve thought a lot about relative to my own writing but it’s also something I’ve confronted in very concrete ways in the writing of Jack Spicer, and I thought I would focus here on Spicer’s work, specifically the affinity between his poetry and West-Coast assemblage art, and in particular the film work of Bruce Conner. I am interested in the ways both Spicer and Conner use history as a material texture while leaving gaps within their work to draw the reader into an intimate and emotional engagement with these materials. In 1965 when Jack Spicer wrote, 'get those words out of your mouth and into your heart,' he voiced an imperative to both poet and reader, addressing the perilous honesty that the lived life of the poem demands. ..."
The Sienese Shredder

The Real Christopher Columbus

“A New and Complete System of Geography” by Charles Theodore Middleton.
"Arawak men and women, naked, tawny, and full of wonder, emerged from their villages onto the island’s beaches and swam out to get a closer look at the strange big boat. When Columbus and his sailors came ashore, carrying swords, the Arawaks ran to greet them, brought them food, water, gifts. He later wrote of this in his log. ..."
Jacobin
8 Myths and Atrocities About Christopher Columbus and Columbus Day
YouTube: The REAL History Of Christopher Columbus

J.B. Lenoir - Down In Mississippi (1966)

"... In 1965-66 Lenoir recorded a number of political songs for European release, including 'Shot on James Meredith,' 'Alabama March,' 'Born Dead,' 'Vietnam Blues,' and the biting 'Down in Mississippi,' for producer Willie Dixon at the behest of German promoters Horst Lippman and Fritz Rau. Lenoir and his Afro-American Blues Band performed some of these songs during a 1965 tour of Europe. The material was reportedly deemed too controversial for release in the United States at the time and only appeared on American labels years later. ..."
Mississippi Blues Commission
YouTube: Down In Mississippi (Full Album)

2011 May: J.B. Lenoir, 2014 October: Natural Man

Sarah Glidden On the Campaign Trail with Jill Stein: Illustration at The Nib.com

"If you haven't yet, be sure to head over to The Nib.com to check out Sarah Glidden's latest comic contribution. Glidden joins this politically controversial figure on the road as she moves along in her Green Party campaign. It makes for a deeply compelling read and profile on this contentious figure. Glidden, a renowned champion of objective comics journalism offers an inside perspective on Stein's idealistic agenda, seemingly clashing a refreshing dose of ambition with its potential absence of pragmmatism. ..."
Drawn and Quarterly
TheNib - Spoiler: On The Campaign Trail With Jill Stein

2016 August: Jill Stein, 2016 September: “The Spoiler” Speaks, 2016 September: Jill Stein’s Ideas Are Terrible. She Is Not the Savior the Left Is Looking For.

Afrika 70 / Fela Kuti - Stalemate/Fear Not for Man (2000)

"Although the original liner notes report that Stalemate was 'recorded during the Kalakuta crisis,' the album is surprisingly non-confrontational. Modern day notes explain that the singer was distracted by a number of outside issues, such as his sudden homelessness and legal battles with Decca West Africa, but the album's decidedly lighthearted tone is perhaps an attempt to demonstrate to his oppressors that Kuti had escaped the Kalakuta conflict with his health and determination intact. ..."
allmusib
Discogs
W - Stalemate
amazon
YouTube: Stalemate/Fear Not for Man

Maureen Gallace

Blue Beach Shack, 2013
"Gallace is an artist who works within the self-imposed confines of a rigorously limited scale and subject matter. She is a painter of small, unpeopled landscapes in which a modest number of elements – a house, a barn, a boat; bushes, grass, sky – recur with a quietly mesmerising insistence. In focusing on a particularly favoured motif, the idealised form of a windowless white New England cottage, Gallace succeeds in isolating something universally familiar yet utterly mysterious. Though instantly recognisable as a work by Gallace each individual painting is a unique rumination on stillness and structure. ..."
Kerlin Gallery: Bio
Kerlin Gallery

2015 September: Maureen Gallace - 1

Cruel intentions

"The Danish philosopher and theologian Søren Kierkegaard (1813–55) was firmly convinced that his first philosophical book was also to be his last. His family’s grim medical history led him to assume that he would die young, and he felt that his short time would be more agreeably spent as a rural pastor. But 'things did not go as I expected and intended', he later wrote. 'Oh, no.' Because that book, Either/Or (1843), quickly propelled Kierkegaard to literary celebrity and signalled the beginning of one of history’s most frantic writing careers. ..."
The Times Literary Supplement

2011 July: Søren Kierkegaard, 2013 April: Repetition (1843), 2013 December: The Quotable Kierkegaard, 2014 October: Fear and Trembling - Søren Kierkegaard (1843), 2014 December: The Dark Knight of Faith - Existential Comics, 2015 July: I still love Kierkegaard, 2015 October: The Concept of Anxiety (1844).

Languages Inhabited: Teju Cole's Favourite Albums

"My early memories are of loving visual art – drawing and painting – and of learning to read quite young. Music was sort of peripheral. There was plenty of it around, and in good variety, everything from '70s soul to classical in my parents' LPs, but there was also Michael Jackson and all the Nigerian music that poured out of the cars and shops of the city. I was into 'Thriller', but not more or less than my schoolmates. And then there was the R&B of the late '80s and early '90s. I think the big musical moment happened for me in my second year of college, after I went to the US. That was when I really got into both jazz and classical, at the same time. I was amazed at how well certain things held up to repeated listenings: Coltrane, Mahler, Beethoven. Not long after came 'world music', and I had a similarly stunned reaction to my first encounters with the likes of Ali Farka Touré and Oumou Sangaré. ..."
The Quietus

William Faulkner The Snopes Trilogy (1940, 1957, 1959)

"The Snopeses have always been there. No sooner did Faulkner come upon his central subject—how the corruption of the homeland, staining its best sons, left them without standards or defense—than Snopesism followed inexorably. Almost anyone can detect the Snopeses, but describing them is very hard. The usual reference to 'amorality,' while accurate, is not sufficiently distinctive and by itself does not allow us to place them, as they should be placed, in a historical moment. Perhaps the most important thing to be said is that they are what comes afterwards: the creatures that emerge from the devastation, with the slime still upon their lips. ..."
New Republic - Faulkner: End of a Road
W - Snopes trilogy
Top 100 Novels #71: Snopes
The Nation -  Ragged, Unkempt, Strange: On William Faulkner
amazon

2011 September: Southern Gothic, 2014 February: William Faulkner, 2015 October: William Faulkner Draws Maps of Yoknapatawpha County, the Fictional Home of His Great Novels, 2015 November: Interviews William Faulkner, The Art of Fiction No. 12, 2016 April: Absalom, Absalom!! (1936), 2016 May: The Sound and the Fury (1929).

Hip Hop Raised Me: DJ Semtex

"So, describe the book Semtex? 'Epic, historic and rich' – three powerful words, because ‘Hip Hop Raised Me’ isn’t just a book. It’s a comprehensive, detailed and almost certainly an essential addition to any hip hop observer, fan and stan alike – a literary collection. Today marks the official release of Hip Hop Raised Me, The Book and we think it’s time to dig a little deeper into the book, talking to none other than the man behind the words, and find out exactly how Hip Hop raised DJ Semtex. ..."
Nation of Billions
amazon
YouTube:Hip Hop Raised Me, The Book by DJ Semtex

101 small ways you can improve your city

Mural for Philadelphia activist Tim Spencer, a key supporter of local mural programs
" Sometimes the smallest things we can do for our neighborhoods can have the biggest impact. At Curbed, we know the power of a vegetable garden planted in a vacant lot or a library installed on a sidewalk. For Micro Week, we want to share 101 urban interventions and ideas that show how even the tiniest changes can make our cities better places. We've scoured cities all around the world for small ideas with huge potential, and asked some of our favorite urban thinkers for tiny ways to make outsized transformations. And we divided them all up into six sections to help focus your efforts. We hope this serves as a resource for urban inspiration—and that you'll contribute your own thoughts in the comments. ..."
CURBED (Video)

Trump in Deep Trouble on Eve of Second Debate

"If the Presidential election continues on its current course, historians may well look back on the third weekend in September as the moment when Donald Trump came closest to the White House, while millions of Americans reached for the Xanax. That Saturday, Hillary Clinton’s lead over Trump narrowed to one percentage point in the widely watched Real Clear Politics poll average, which combines the results from a number of surveys. ... These polls were taken before Friday afternoon, when the Washington Post published extracts from a 2005 taped conversation in which Trump boasted about kissing and groping women, saying at one point, 'When you’re a star they let you do it,' and adding, 'Grab them by the pussy.' ..."
New Yorker

A Brief History of Who Ruined Burning Man

"In 1986, at the very first Burn, a crowd of complete strangers gathered around the Man once it was lit it on fire. Nobody had invited them. They didn’t know anything about the 10 Principles, or understand what The Man was about. They just saw something cool and wanted to participate. They had no gifts. Strangers ruined Burning Man. In 1989, the Cacophony Society first publicized Burning Man. Now people who weren’t Larry and Jerry’s friends (or random strangers on the beach) could hear about it and show up, which was a betrayal of everything that an open event held in a public place stood for. The Cacophony Society ruined Burning Man. ..."
burning man project

2007 November: Burning Man, 2009 August: Burning Man - 1, 2013 January: Timelapse-icus Maximus 2012 "A Burning Man for Ants"

Archaeological Victims of ISIS Rise Again, as Replicas in Rome

Two defaced busts from the second and third century are displayed inside the Colosseum in Rome as part of an exhibition, “Rising From Destruction: Ebla, Nimrud, Palmyra.” ...
"A statue of a human-headed winged bull from the Northwest Palace in Nimrud, Iraq, that was bulldozed by the Islamic State last year to great outcry has been faithfully recreated using modern technology and put on exhibit at the Colosseum in Rome to spur discussion of the possible reconstruction of war-torn archaeological sites. Full-scale reconstructions were also made of two damaged Syrian sites: the archive room of Ebla and a portion of a ceiling from the Temple of Bel in Palmyra, as examples of how conflict can devastate a nation’s fragile heritage. ..."
NT 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, 2016 February: Syrian Officer Gave a View of War. ISIS Came, and Silence Followed., 2016 March: Brussels Survivors Say Blasts Instantly Evoked Paris Attacks, 2016 April: America Can’t Do Much About ISIS, 2016 June: What the Islamic State Has Won and Lost, 2016 July: ISIS: The Cornened Beast.

That time a Dodgers fan beat an umpire in 1940

"It happened on September 16, 1940. The Brooklyn Dodgers, stuck 10 games behind first-place Cincinnati, were playing the Reds at Ebbets Field in front of 6,782 fans. Among those fans was a 21-year-old petty criminal named Frank Germano, who lived at 128 33rd Street, opposite Green-Wood Cemetery, according to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. ..."
Ephemeral New York

Brutalism Is Back

"IN THE RANK OF UNFLATTERING monikers for an artistic style, 'Brutalism' has got to score near the top. Like the much kinder-sounding 'Fauvism' or 'Impressionism,' it was a term of abuse for the work of architects whose buildings confronted their users — brutalized them — with hulking, piled-up slabs of raw, unfinished concrete. These same architects, centered on the British couple Alison and Peter Smithson, enthusiastically took up Brutalism as the name for their movement with a kind of pride, as if to say: That’s right, we are brutal. We do want to shove your face in cement. For a world still climbing gingerly out of the ruins of World War II, in need of plain dealing and powerful messages, this brand of architectural honesty was refreshing. ..."
T-Magazine

Klimt and the Women of Vienna’s Golden Age, 1900–1918

“Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II.”
"This exhibition examines the Klimt's sensual portraits of women as the embodiment of fin-de-siècle Vienna. The show is organized by Klimt scholar Dr. Tobias G. Natter, author of numerous publications about Gustav Klimt and the art of Vienna 1900, including the indispensable catalogue raisonnée of Klimt’s paintings, published in 2012. The Neue Galerie is the sole venue for the exhibition, which will be on view through January 16, 2017. ..."
neuegalerie
Surrendering to the Women of Vienna
The Women In Gustav Klimt’s Life Come Together For One Juicy Exhibition
amazon

Jerome Myers, "Their Life (aka End Of The Walk), 1907

"... In 1895, Myers found work in the art department of the New York Tribune. With savings of two hundred and fifty dollars from this job, he traveled to Paris in 1896. Upon his return to New York City, with only twenty dollars left, he rented, for seven dollars a month, a studio at 232 West 14th Street in a former five-story mansion, 'equipped with a skylight and converted to the use of artists.' There, his next door neighbor was Edward Adam Kramer, a painter just one year older than Myers himself. While Myers' art training had been limited to short stints at New York's Cooper Union and the Art Students League, Kramer had acquired his education in the European art centers of Munich, Berlin, and Paris. ..."
Alchetron (Video)

Rupie Dan - My Black Race (& Dub) (1982)

"Top 80s jah shaka selection. Heavy heavy tune. For those that overstand. Riddim similar or same as Al Campbell - Down The Drain. B side is a killer dub version. Produced by Rupie Dan and Tony Addis at Addis Ababa studios, Shakas regular studio at them times for years. Shaka used to tear down the dance with this tune!! Original press blank label pre-release Flag 12". This one is seriously rare and sought after by all serious collectors and soundman. ..."
popsike
YouTube: My Black Race (& Dub)