"Instant Karma! (We All Shine On)" - Lennon/Ono with the Plastic Ono Band (1970)

Wikipedia - "'Instant Karma!' – sometimes referred to as 'Instant Karma! (We All Shine On)' – is a song written by English musician John Lennon, released as a single on Apple Records in February 1970. In the UK, the single was credited to 'Lennon/Ono with the Plastic Ono Band'.  ...  'Instant Karma!' was written, recorded and released within a period of ten days, making it one of the fastest-released songs in pop music history. The recording was produced by Phil Spector, marking a comeback for the American producer after his self-imposed retirement in 1966, and leading to him being offered the producer's role on the Beatles' Let It Be album (1970). ..."
Wikipedia
The Beatles Bible
The Story of John Lennon’s ‘Instant Karma!’
YouTube: Instant Karma!, Instant Karma (Live in New York City), Yoko Ono : "Who Has Seen the Wind?"

2009 September: John Lennon - Live in New York City (Madison Square Garden 1972), 2014 April: "Jealous Guy" (1971), 2014 May: Mind Games (1973), 2014 July: Out of the Blue, 2014 December: Double Fantasy - John Lennon/Yoko Ono (1980), 2015 August: John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band (1970).

The Library of Babel - Jorge Luis Borges (1941)

Wikipedia - "'The Library of Babel' is a short story by Argentine author and librarian Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986), conceiving of a universe in the form of a vast library containing all possible 410-page books of a certain format and character set. ... Borges' narrator describes how his universe consists of an enormous expanse of adjacent hexagonal rooms, each of which contains the bare necessities for human survival—and four walls of bookshelves. Though the order and content of the books is random and apparently completely meaningless, the inhabitants believe that the books contain every possible ordering of just 25 basic characters (22 letters, the period, the comma, and the space). ..."
Wikipedia
[PDF] The Library of Babel
Open Culture: Visit The Online Library of Babel: New Web Site Turns Borges’ “Library of Babel” Into a Virtual Reality
Open Culture: What Does Jorge Luis Borges’ “Library of Babel” Look Like? An Accurate Illustration Created with 3D Modeling Software
amazon

2009 August: Jorge Luis Borges, 2013 May: Jorge Luis Borges - 1, 2013 October: Borges: Profile of a Writer Presents the Life and Writings of Argentina’s Favorite Son, Jorge Luis Borges, 2016 May: Borges and $: The Parable of the Literary Master and the Coin.

Tommy Brown

"Discovered by the Griffin Brothers while touring in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1950, Brown recorded for Savoy Records in Atlanta under his own name -- with the Griffins' band in support -- before moving north to Washington, DC, to join the brothers in their touring and recording unit. His first Dot Records recording with the Griffin Brothers was a cover version of Dave Bartholomew's 'Tra-La-La,' and it was a huge success, peaking at number seven in the R&B charts in August 1951. This was followed by an even bigger hit in December when Brown’s emotional 'Weepin’ & Cryin' reached number three, and heralded a succession of such histrionic records. ..."
allmusic
W - Tommy Brown
Weepin' Tommy Brown
BlackCat Rockabilly
YouTube: Southern Women, Double Faced Deacon, Honky tonk, The House Near the Railroad, Atlanta Boogie, Griffin Brothers - Weepin' and Cryin', Remember Me

An Immersive Audio Tour of the East Village’s Famed Poetry Scene, Narrated by Jim Jarmusch

"A peek at the photos on a realtor’s listing for a New York City one bedroom apartment formerly occupied by Beat poet Allen Ginsberg is a dispiriting reminder of how much the East Village has changed. And that listing is over six years old! Daniel Maurer, the editor of Bedford + Bowery, and a Ginsberg fan whom history has compelled to take over a portion of his hero’s formerly sprawling digs, wrote amusingly of shoddy renovations and his upstairs neighbor, punk rock icon Richard Hell. ..."
Open Culture (Video)

2014 September: Passing Stranger :: The East Vilage Poetry Walk, 2009 May: Washington Square Park, 2010 January: Judson Memorial Church, 2011 February: Greenwich Village, 2011 July: East Village, Manhattan, 2012 July: MacDougal Street, 2013 August: The Village: 400 Years of Beats and Bohemians, Radicals and Rogues, a History of Greenwich Village, 2014 August: South Village, 2015 August: East Village Other, 2014 October: Houston Street, 2015 September: Folk City: New York and the Folk Music Revival, 2016 January: Chumley's, 2016 March: 25 Radical Things to Do in Greenwich Village, 2016 March: The most charming building on East 13th Street, 2016 October: Stuyvesant Street, 2014 February: The 11 Best Classic Diners and Luncheonettes in NYC, 2015 December: Gem Spa

After Nothing Comes - Aidan Koch

"In quiet moments, after the roar of a concert or the consistent rapport of an intoxicating conversation, true friendship is realized. It is is not until this connection is solidified, to wait for another day, that one may understand how perfectly another person fits into their life. These moments of quiet contemplation and reminiscing are just as important as the active, energetic parts. This quiet moment is where true narrative brilliance is found, as Aidan Koch makes clear with After Nothing Comes. The book is comprised of a selection of Koch’s zines spanning six years, from 2008 to 2014. It’s what any zinemaker can only hope their work is: concise, self-knowing, and unlike anything else available. ..."
TCJ
Koyama Press
Koyama exclusive: After Nothing Comes spotlights a bold cartoonist’s evolution

Don't Mourn-Organize!: Songs of Labor Songwriter Joe Hill (1990)

"Joe Hill's powerful songs moved Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Utah Phillips, Si Kahn, and countless others to blend politics and song. This dramatic tribute to the Industrial Workers of the World songwriter and activist Joe Hill, features songs by and about Hill performed by Billy Bragg, Hazel Dickens, Earl Robinson, Paul Robeson, and others. Compiled by Lori Elaine Taylor."
Smithsonian Institution (Video)
London Celtic Punks (Video)
Discogs
iTunes, Spotiry
YouTube: Don't Mourn-Organize!: Songs of Labor Songwriter Joe Hill

Nonstop Metropolis: A New York Atlas (2016)

"If you ask any New Yorker, they’ll tell you—their city is the center of the world. And according to the MTA or Google, the Big Apple’s core is somewhere in lower Manhattan. But traditional maps don’t show the locations familiar to the city’s millions of denizens: the corner in Queens where you can overhear Zulu and Jamaican patois, the trucks selling jerk chicken and dirty rice outside Hasidic synagogues in Brooklyn, the Staten Island Ferry that RZA and Ghostface Killah rode to go to grindhouse theaters in Times Square. In their new atlas, Nonstop Metropolis, Rebecca Solnit and Joshua Jelly-Schapiro share 26 maps of New York that prioritize bachata over Broadway, phở over pizza. ..."
WIRED: Nonstop Metropolis’ Stunning Maps Show NYC the Way Locals See It
Nonstop Metropolis: An Atlas of Maps Reclaiming New York’s Untold Stories and Unseen Populations
UCPress
Guardian: Nonstop metropolis: viewing a city's crazy, diverse, complex history as an atlas
Nonstop Metropolis: The Remix
Kickstarter (Video)

French and Indian War

Battle of Quebec, 13 September 1759, painted by Captain Hervey Smyth
Wikipedia - "The French and Indian War (1754–1763) comprised the North American theater of the worldwide Seven Years' War of 1756-1763. The war pitted the colonies of British America against those of New France, with both sides supported by military units from their parent countries of Great Britain and France, as well as by Native American allies. At the start of the war, the French North American colonies had a population of roughly 60,000 European settlers, compared with 2 million in the British North American colonies. The outnumbered French particularly depended on the Indians. Following months of localised conflict, the metropole nations declared war on each other in 1756, escalating the war from a regional affair into an intercontinental conflict. ..."
Wikipedia
W - General Wolfe
YouTube: History Brief: The French and Indian War

Eddie Hazel - Rest in P (1994)

"Like Jams From the Heart, Rest in P isn't a full-length LP but rather a compilation of vault recordings dug up to satisfy P-Funk fans' insatiable hunger for Eddie Hazel material. A Japanese import, Rest in P actually manages to eclipse the brief four-song Jams of the Heart by featuring that material under different song titles as well as additional material. Standout moments include the three epic jams: 'Juicy Fingers' (14 minutes), 'We Three' (12 minutes), and 'No, It's Not!' (nine-and-a-half minutes). ... Either way, this is still a fine collection of Hazel's unreleased studio work from the late '70s that will provide ample insight to this man's ongoing legacy as an under appreciated funk-metal guitarist."
allmusic
W - Rest in P
YouTube: Rest In P

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), 2016 February: Maggot Brain - Funkadelic (1971), 2016 June: P-Funk All Stars - Urban Dancefloor Guerillas (1983).

Why Bernie Was Right

"This past April, just days before the critical New York primary, the Bernie Sanders campaign released a new ad it hoped would help overcome its rival’s home-state advantage and take the Vermont senator over the top. ... The pointedly unsubtle attack hit upon the central theme of the Sanders campaign, and its critique of frontrunner (and eventual nominee) Hillary Clinton. Making note of Clinton’s lucrative speaking fees from Wall Street banks it also employed coded class rhetoric to charge her — and by extension the entire Washington political establishment — of enjoying an incestuous, transactional relationship with powerful private interests at the expense of average Americans. This was the essence of the populist, social-democratic message upon which Sanders founded his presidential campaign. ..."
Jacobin

2016 January: Donald Trump and the Joys of Toy Fascism, 2016 January: Sanders Is Not Trump, 2016 January: Donald Trump’s Twitter Insults: The Complete List (So Far), 2016 February: Bernie and the Millennials, 2016 April: Lost in TRUMPLANDIA, 2016 April: Bernie Sanders and the History of American Socialism, 2014 September: Anarchism in America (1983), 2015 August: The Prophet Farmed: Murray Bookchin on Bernie Sanders, 2015 October: Post-Scarcity Anarchism (1971), 2015 October: The Ecology of Freedom (1982), 2016 July: Murray Bookchin’s New Life,  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.

100 Years of Sun Ra – A Special Black Classical Broadcast

"Today marks the centennial of the arrival of prolific jazz composer and bandleader Sun Ra to Planet Earth. Born on May 22nd 1914, Ra, previously known as Herman Poole ‘Sonny’ Blount, would go on to play a varied and highly pivotal role on the outer reaches of the jazz realm, producing music that can best be described in places as otherworldly and building a formidable and much sought after discography, underpinned by many recordings alongside his free jazz ensemble the Sun Ra Arkestra. ..."
The Jazz Meet (Video) 5:56:36
Jazz Times: Sun Ra Music Archive Reissues 21 Albums Exclusively for iTunes

Lotte Lenya Sings Kurt Weill's The Seven Deadly Sins & Berlin Theater Songs (1997)

"A combined digital edition of Die Sieben Todsünden and Lotte Lenya Sings Berlin Theatre Songs of Kurt Weill, a pair of recordings given additional weight and texture as a result of Lenya recording them after visiting Berlin following a 20-year absence from the city -- she was heartbroken on seeing the devastation that had resulted from World War II. Die Sieben Todsünden is a nine-part work for vocal ensemble and soloist, while the Berlin Theatre Songs collection essentially rifles the Kurt Weill canon for highlights, coming up, as expected, with 'Moritat vom Mackie Messer' and 'Seeräuberjenny,' amongst others. Familiarity, however, makes the songs -- and the recordings -- no less a treasure. ..."
allmusic
W - Lotte Lenya
amazon
iTunes ($), Spotify
YouTube: Lotte Lenya sings Kurt Weill, Pirate Jenny

2009 December: Kurt Weill & Bertolt Brecht, 2011 August: W - Communards’ Wall 1871, 2012 March: The Threepenny Opera - Bertolt Brecht, Kurt Weill, 2012 July: Supply and Demand: Songs by Brecht / Weill & Eisler - Dagmar Krause, 2013 March: Pina Bausch - "The Seven Deadly Sins", 2015 February: The Partnership: Brecht, Weill, Three Women, and Germany on the Brink.

Kerry James Marshall’s Paintings Show What It Means to Be Black in America

“De Style” 1993
"People say we’re in the middle of a second civil rights movement, and we are. The only surprise is that the first one ever ended. The artist Kerry James Marshall was there for it. He was just a kid then, born in Birmingham, Ala., in 1955. But kids take in a lot. He was in Birmingham in 1963, when white supremacists dynamited a Baptist church and killed four young girls. He was 9 and living in Los Angeles in 1965 when Watts went up in flames. He remembers all that, just as he also remembers growing up in those years in a loving family: mother, father, sister, brother. Home. ..."
NY Times

2011 January: Kerry James Marshall

Syria/Turkey: DJ K-Sets – Popular Kurdish Cassette mix

"... As a music fan, you occasionally chance across a resource on the web that makes your heart leap with joy because of the numerous new sonic pathways it opens up . That is exactly what happened when Spanish compiler Manuel Sánchez sent me a link to his awesome DJ K-Sets web page. This is one of the best sets of Middle Eastern tapes I’ve come across, and the names of the mixes are enough to tantalise alone: Canaanite Galaxy; Destroy Route; Tel Aviv Bus Station; Tehran Electro Tunes; Iberia Ancient Songs … I’ll certainly be revisiting this page until I’ve soaked up each and every mix. ... I couldn’t agree more. -- John Doran"
Guardian (Video)

Frank O’Hara’s “For Bob Rauschenberg,” on His Birthday

Robert Rauschenberg, “Estate” (1963)
"Today is the birthday of the groundbreaking painter Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008), who would’ve turned 91 today. Rauschenberg, who Frank O’Hara once called 'the enfant terrible of the New York School,' was of course both a good friend and inspiration to O’Hara, Ashbery, and their circle in the 1950s and 1960s. This link is nowhere more apparent than in a wonderful poem by Frank O’Hara called 'For Bob Rauschenberg' (1959), which I’ve always felt should be better known. ..."
Locus Solus: The New York School of Poets

2008 January: Frank O'Hara, 2010 February: USA: Poetry, 2010 October: Stones: Larry Rivers and Frank O’Hara,  2011 October: City Poet: The Life and Times of Frank O'Hara - Brad Gooch, 2012 December: USA: Poetry, Frank O'Hara (1966), 2013 June: A Visual Footnote to O’Hara’s “The Day Lady Died”: New World Writing and The Poets of Ghana, 2013 March: Happy Birthday, Frank O’Hara: The Beloved Poet Reads His “Metaphysical Poem”, 2014 June: Remembering Frank O’Hara’s Apartments, 2014 August: Lunch Poems (1964), 2014 November: In Which The Elements of Disbelief Are Very Strong In The Morning, 2014 December: Hymns of St. Bridget & Other Writings, by Bill Berkson and Frank O’Hara, 2013 June: Cedar Tavern, 2016 April: Experiments with the New York School of Poets.

Nova Scotia Lighthouse

Louisbourg, Cape Breton
"For centuries Nova Scotia’s lighthouses have helped protect seafaring visitors and our own hard working people who looked to the sea for their living. Standing proudly against the elements, they embody the province’s maritime history and spirit. Today, lighthouses continue to dot the coastlines of Nova Scotia from Cape Forchu to Louisbourg. The Nova Scotia Lighthouse Preservation Society maintains a list of lighthouses on their website, including ones that are open to the public. ..."
Nova Scotia Lighthouse
Nova Scotia Lighthouse: Top 25 Attractions
All Lighthouses To Visit
Lighthouses of Canada: Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia
YouTube: Peggy's Cove Lighthouse, Port Bickerton Lighthouse(s), French Point Lighthouse, Black Rock Lighthouse, Bass River & Five Islands Lighthouses

2015 October: History of the Acadians, 2012 February: Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, 2012 December: Vanishing Cape Breton Fiddler, 2011 June: The Lost Salt Gift of Blood - Alistair MacLeod, 2016 February: Island (2001), 2016 October: Alistair MacLeod - No Great Mischief (1999)

Tom Waits Sings and Tells Stories in "Tom Waits: A Day in Vienna", a 1979 Austrian Film

"The film begins at a derelict gas station. A paper sign, peeling from the wall, warns in German that open flames and smoking are dangerous and strictly forbidden. In walks Tom Waits, smoking a cigarette. 'This reminds me of a place I used to work in National City, California, called Spotco Self Service,' Waits says as he leans against a pump. 'I worked for a gentleman named Charles Spotco. I was always late for work. I used to stay out at night. I’d come dragging to work, used to get there about ten-thirty in the morning.' ..."
Open Culture (Video)

2012 July: Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards, 2013 March: Burma Shave, 2013 May: "Ol' '55", 2013 July: The Heart of Saturday Night (1974), 2014 January: Blood Money, 2014 March: Telephone call from Istanbul (1987), 2014 November: Rain Dogs (1985), 2015 February: Mule Variations (1999), 2015 April: Swordfishtrombones (1983), 2015 July: Alice (2002), 2015 September: Tom Waits On The Tube Live UK TV 1985, 2015 December: Franks Wild Years (1987), 2016 January: "Bad as Me" (2011), 2016 April: 'It's perfect madness', 2016 May: Real Gone (2002).

Stevie Wonder ~ Master Blaster (Jammin') Reggae Purrfection Version (1980)

Wikipedia - "'Master Blaster (Jammin)' is a 1980 single by American singer-songwriter Stevie Wonder from his 1980 album Hotter than July. The song, built on a heavy reggae feel, is an ode to reggae legend Bob Marley; Wonder had been performing live with Marley (billing him as an opening act) on his US tour in the fall of that year. Lyrics mention 'children of Jah' and the end of the civil war in Zimbabwe. ..."
Wikipedia
Genius
YouTube: Master Blaster (Jammin') Reggae Purrfection Version

NBA 2016-17

"It's time for our last big preseason tradition: plopping all 30 teams into tiers to snapshot their place in the league hierarchy at this precious moment when everyone is 0-0. These are not strict power rankings, and the order within each bucket doesn't necessarily matter. At least a half-dozen teams could slide up or down a tier, or even across three; the gooey center of the NBA is unusually muddled. ..."
ESPN - Zach Lowe's annual tiers of the NBA (Video)
NBA 2016-17 GM Survey
NBA: 2016-17 Season Preview: Team-by-team previews (Video)
FiveThiryEight: The Complete History Of The NBA
Washington Post: The Top 100 players for the 2016-17 NBA season
2016 SLAM Top 50
Wikipedia

2011 June: American Basketball Association, 2012 November: Your Guide to the Brooklyn Nets, 2013 October: Rucker Park, 2015 June: Basketball’s Obtuse Triangle,  2015 October: Loose Balls - Terry Pluto (2007), 2015 November: The Sounds of Memphis, 2015 December: Welcome to Smarter Basketball, 2015 December: New York, New York: Julius Erving, the Nets-Knicks Feud, and America’s Bicentennial, 2016 January: A Long Hardwood Journey, 2016 March: American Hustle - Alexandra Starr.

How Posters Work

"As a medium of communication, the poster has a long history and a wide range of social functions, from selling a product to promoting a cause. Despite the rise of digital media, the print poster remains a vital and oftentimes radical form of visual communication. Featuring rarely-seen posters from Cooper Hewitt’s permanent collection, How Posters Work demonstrates how some of the world’s most creative designers have employed and pushed the boundaries of two-dimensional design, harnessed the mechanics and psychology of perception, and mastered the art of storytelling to produce powerful acts of visual communication. ..."
Cooper Hewitt
Cooper Hewitt to Present Special Exhibition “How Posters Work”
The Atlantic
amazon
SKILLSHARE (Video)

Twelve letters from Kenneth Irby to Edward Dorn

"Kenneth Irby and Ed Dorn’s decades-long correspondence is perhaps unique among poetic endeavors. Here, we collect their letters from 1963 to 1974 — the start of their relationship — when Irby was in his twenties and reconciling his academic pursuits with an 'increasing commitment to writing.' With the Black Mountain shorthand and Irby’s odd epistolary style largely intact, these letters constitute key primary documents within our larger celebration of Irby’s work."
Jacket2

2007 December: Edward Dorn, 1929-1999, 2011 April: The North Atlantic Turbine, 2012 September: Fulcrum Press, 2014 September: Tom Clark - Edward Dorn (1929-1999), 2015 November: The Collected Poems 1956 - 1974, 2015 December: Recollections of Gran Apachería (1974), 2016 April: By the Sound (1965), 2016 July: Gunslinger.

Penguin Cafe Orchestra - Union Cafe (1993)

"The Penguin Café Orchestra are a British classical ensemble formed in 1974 by Simon Jeffes (a guitar student at the Royal Academy) aiming to play ethnic music with the austerity of Western chamber music and the decadent languor of the café-concerto. The sound of this orchestra is fatuous and elegant, unaffected by the turmoil of modern life. Their music is as abstract as it is concrete: cabaret and ethnic folk elements are injected into baroque and renaissance music skeletons. Old-fashioned, nostalgic, theatrical and lofty, calligraphic but never parodistic, this exercise in revival aims to rebuild an atmosphere (the one of bourgeois families from the end of past century strolling to the city centre on Sundays) more than a sound. Every composition is a synthesis of music from certain period and exotic arrangements."
Perfect Sound Forever
Discogs
YouTube: Union Cafe [FULL ALBUM]

2012 February: Penguin Cafe Orchestra, 2014 April: Genesis and History of the Penguin Cafe Orchestra

Humberto Solas - Lucia (1969)

"At last we're privileged to see Humberto Solas's 'Lucia,' completed in 1969, when the director was 26; it opened at the First Avenue Screening Room on Tuesday. Spanning nearly 70 years of Cuban history, this extraordinary movie focuses on three generations of women whose lives reflect the society around them. ... Some differ sharply in their responses to the three parts of 'Lucia.' I found this section lushly overacted — almost in the style of silent movies. The women have been directed to flutter and squeal until they appear like a parody of winsome maidenhood. Operatic music throbs whenever the lovers' eyes meet, and the enthusiastic battle scene seems straight out of one of our Westerns: It's odd that a Cuban film maker should have used such mossy capitalistic models. ..."
NY Times (March 1, 1974)
Film Reference
Albany U.
YouTube: Lucía

Jerusalem 1000–1400: Every People Under Heaven

"Beginning in about the year 1000, Jerusalem captivated the world's attention as never before. Why did it hold that focus for the next four centuries? A kind of Jerusalem fever gripped much of the world from about 1000 to 1400. Across three continents, thousands made their way to the Holy City—from Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions alike. Generals and their armies fought over it. Merchants profited from it. Patrons, artists, pilgrims, poets, and scholars drew inspiration from it. Focusing their attention on this singular spot, they praised its magic, endowed its sacred buildings, and created luxury goods for residents and visitors. As a result, the Holy City shaped the art of this period in significant ways. ..."
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Guardian: Jerusalem rebuilt in New York’s green and pleasant land
amazon
Metropolitan Museum of Art: Jerusalem 1000–1400: Every People Under Heaven

Stuyvesant Street

Wikipedia - "Stuyvesant Street is one of the oldest streets in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It runs diagonally from 9th Street at Third Avenue to 10th Street near Second Avenue, all within the East Village, Manhattan neighborhood. The majority of the street is included in the St. Mark's Historic District. ... Stuyvesant Street originally ran east through Petrus Stuyvesant's farm or "bowery" from Bowery Road, which today is Fourth Avenue, to the Stuyvesant manor house. The manor house burned down in October 1778 and the family sold the remaining cemetery and chapel, which today is the site of St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery. ..."
Wikipedia
Forgotten New York
The Oldest Building in the Village?
History of NYC Streets: Stuyvesant Street, One of Manhattan’s Few Diagonal Streets

A.B. Crentsil

"As lead vocalist of the Sweet Talks, the house band at the Talk of the Town Hotel in the coastal city of Tema, A.B. Crentsil ruled over Ghana's highlife scene in the '70s. Accompanied by such future Ghanaian star vocalists Jewel Ackah and Pat Thomas, and guitarist Eric Agyeman, Crentsil helped to create some of the most exciting sounds in West Africa. Initially featuring guitarist Smart Nkansah and second vocalist Pope Flynn, Sweet Talks made its debut in December 1973. ..."
allmusic
Discogs
W - A.B. Crentsil
YouTube: Egya Noah, Highlife Classic Old School, Greatest Hits, A.B. Crentsil and the Osookoo Stars - Ghana RARE Funk

23 maps that explain how Democrats went from the party of racism to the party of Obama

"The Democratic Party is the longest-existing political party in the US, and arguably the world. But in its over 180 year existence, it's completed a remarkable ideological and geographic transformation. Originally a staunch defender of Southern slavery, the party now wins the support of most nonwhite voters. Once an advocate of rural interests against coastal elites, the party now draws much of its strength from cities and coastal areas. These maps tell the tale of the Democratic Party's origins, its various metamorphoses, and the sources of its strength — and weaknesses — today. ..."
Vox (July 29, 2016)

Lothar Osterburg

Under the El, 2011
"Lothar Osterburg makes photogravures of small, sculpted models of windmills, lighthouses, sailboats among others, staged in evocative settings. Built from memory of readily available materials, the models have a dreamlike quality which is enhanced by the placement of the camera within their world; the perspective is that of a person with in the set, obscuring the actual size of the objects. The viewer, drawn into the scene, fills the gap created by the absence of people. The smallest models are photographed through a magnifying glass or with a macro lens. With this extremely short focal range, the scenes become ambiguous, mysterious, or even ominous while somehow retaining the playful quality typical of Osterburg’s hand. ..."
Lesley Heller: Bio
Lesley Heller - Babel
Lesley Heller

Ikue Mori (with Robert Quine and Marc Ribot) - Painted Desert (1997)

"Guitarist Robert Quine has claimed that Painted Desert is his session, but it wasn't released as such 'because of legalities.' Ikue Mori, under whose name this album was released, views it more as a meeting between Quine and herself that was directed by producer John Zorn. Either way, Painted Desert is a stunning work of guitar and drum machine/sampler trios. Mori recorded her parts, which rely primarily on tom tom and cymbal sounds, and then gave the tapes to Quine and Marc Ribot, who improvised guitar parts. The music sometimes sounds as if the guitarists decided to record a Ennio Morricone tribute. ..."
allmusic
Nothin' Sez Somethin'
Discogs
amazon
YouTube: Painted desert, Mojave, Cheyenne, Santa Ana Excursion, Desperado

2012 December: Fred Frith, Ikue Mori, Zeena Parkins / sound. at REDCAT, 2012 October: Ikue Mori, 2015 March: Phantom Orchard: Zeena Parkins and Ikue Mori.

Univers Zero - Heatwave (1986)

"For years after its release, Heatwave was presumed to be the Univers Zero group finale, until the band re-emerged over a decade later with The Hard Quest in 1999. On Heatwave, the transition from acoustic chamber music to electric rock is complete, and the somewhat uncertain steps of Uzed, Univers Zero's previous release, have become purposeful and confident. Almost all the Uzed musicians have returned for this date, together with Andy Kirk on keyboards and original Univers Zero violist/violinist Patrick Hanappier. ..."
allmusic
W - Heatwave
YouTube: Heatwave [FULL ALBUM]

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - James Joyce (1916)

Wikipedia - "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is the first novel of Irish writer James Joyce. A Künstlerroman in a modernist style, it traces the religious and intellectual awakening of young Stephen Dedalus, a fictional alter ego of Joyce and an allusion to Daedalus, the consummate craftsman of Greek mythology. Stephen questions and rebels against the Catholic and Irish conventions under which he has grown, culminating in his self-exile from Ireland to Europe. The work uses techniques that Joyce developed more fully in Ulysses (1922) and Finnegans Wake (1939). ..."
Wikipedia
New Yorker: Has James Joyce Been Set Free?
NY Times: On Reading ‘Portrait of the Artist’ as a Young Man
amazon
YouTube: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce (FULL Audiobook)

2011 March: Passages from James Joyce's "Finnegans Wake" (1965-67), 2010 March: Ulysses Seen, 2013 February: ULYSSES “SEEN” is moving to Dublin!, 2013: Dubliners, 2014 May: The Dead (1987 film), 2014 May: “Have I Ever Left It?” by Mark O'Connell, 2014 July: Digital Dubliners, 2014 September: Read "Ulysses Seen", A Graphic Novel Adaptation of James Joyce’s Classic, 2015 January: The Mapping Dubliners Project, 2015 February: Davy Byrne’s, 2016 January: Port and Docks, 2016 February: Hear James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake Read Unabridged & Set to Music By 17 Different Artists, 2016 April: Nassau Street, 2016 May: Stephen’s Green.

Top 500 Greatest Post-Punk Songs

"Post-Punk is undoubtedly my favourite music genre ever. The Chameleons are my favourite band of all time and for me the greatest album ever made was 1983's 'Script of The Bridge' which is a post-punk masterpiece. The Chameleons are well represented in this playlist but this is not a personal favourites chart. I tried to compile this as a good representation of the best post-punk tracks ever released with 'Love Will Tear Us Apart' by the mighty Joy Division setting the benchmark. The noughties saw the emergence of bands like Interpol, Editors and Franz Ferdinand who were clearly influenced by post-punk. I've included a good few of these post-punk revival bands as well as it's always nice to compare the era's."
YouTube: Top 500 Greatest Post-Punk Songs

Behold! October’s Quietus Comics Round-Up Column

"As Autumn arrives so do another pair of comic festivals, with The Lakes International Comic Art Festival on this weekend, soon to be followed by Thought Bubble in Leeds from 1st to 6th November. With plenty of more mainstream creators, plus the usual small press crew, both look like excellent events well worth travelling to. And so, on to the comics. ..."
The Quietus

Whole Earth Catalog

Wikipedia - "The Whole Earth Catalog (WEC) was an American counterculture magazine and product catalog published by Stewart Brand several times a year between 1968 and 1972, and occasionally thereafter, until 1998. The magazine featured essays and articles, but was primarily focused on product reviews. The editorial focus was on self-sufficiency, ecology, alternative education, 'do it yourself' (DIY), and holism, and featured the slogan "access to tools". While WEC listed and reviewed a wide range of products (clothing, books, tools, machines, seeds, etc.), it did not sell any of the products directly. ..."
Wikipedia
MoMA
Guardian: Stewart Brand's Whole Earth Catalog, the book that changed the world
Open Culture
Open Culture - The Whole Earth Catalog Online: Stewart Brand’s “Bible” of the 60s Generation
amazon - The Last Whole Earth Catalog: Acess to Tools, The Next Whole Earth Catalog: Access to Tools

2009 April: CoEvolution Quarterly, 2013 December: THE WHOLE EARTH: California and The Disappearance of The Outside, 2015 July: Watch Stewart Brand’s 6-Part Series How Buildings Learn, With Music by Brian Eno

How the U.S. Became More Involved in the War in Yemen

Graffiti in Sana protesting American drone strikes.
"More than 10,000 people have been killed in Yemen’s civil war. This week, the United States became more directly involved in the conflict, which already included Saudi Arabia and insurgents with ties to its sectarian rival, Iran. The Houthis, a Yemeni insurgent group, took over Sana, the capital, in 2014 and unseated the government months later with the help of rogue army units. They have since secured control of a large part of the country. ..."
NY Times
NY Times: Yemen
New Yorker: A Homemade Museum for Yemeni Refugees in Djibouti
Al Jazeera: Yemen

Building Socialism in Cuba

"In July 2016, thanks to a 20 percent reduction in oil shipments from Venezuela, Cuba’s economy minister Marino Murillo announced a 6 percent cut in electricity and a 28 percent cut in fuel. Meanwhile, he ordered an immediate drop in public sector energy use, with consequent working-hour reductions for state employees, and warned of possible blackouts, raising the specter of the dark and hungry days of the Special Period of the nineties. This turn of events delivered another blow to Raúl Castro’s attempts to establish a Cuban version of the Sino-Vietnamese model, which maintains a one-party state while opening the economy to private enterprise and the market. ..."
Jacobin
The Politics of Che Guevara: Theory and Practice

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, 2016 February: The Cuban Money Crisis (March 2015), 2016 March: Cuba on the Edge of Change.

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