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

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)

Creative Africa

"From contemporary photography, fashion, and architecture to centuries-old sculpture, Creative Africa presents the visionary work of artists throughout Africa. At the heart of the season is Look Again: Contemporary Perspectives on African Art, a major exhibition drawn from the Penn Museum’s distinguished African collection. Creative Africa also boasts a dynamic schedule of programs, artist talks, family festivals, and community conversations."
Philadelphia Museum of Art
NY Times: Philadelphia Offers a Full-Fledged Summer of African Art
New Exhibit: Creative Africa Opens at Philadelphia Museum of Art
YouTube: Creative Africa at the Philadelphia Museum of Art