The House of Twenty Thousand Books - Sasha Abramsky

"The House of Twenty Thousand Books is the story of Chimen Abramsky, an extraordinary polymath and bibliophile who amassed a vast collection of socialist literature and Jewish history. For more than fifty years Chimen and his wife, Miriam, hosted epic gatherings in their house of books that brought together many of the age’s greatest thinkers. The atheist son of one of the century’s most important rabbis, Chimen was born in 1916 near Minsk, spent his early teenage years in Moscow while his father served time in a Siberian labor camp for religious proselytizing, and then immigrated to London, where he discovered the writings of Karl Marx and became involved in left-wing politics. He briefly attended the newly established Hebrew University in Jerusalem, until World War II interrupted his studies. Back in England, he married, and for many years he and Miriam ran a respected Jewish bookshop in London’s East End. ..."
NYRB (Video)
Washington Post: ‘The House of Twenty Thousand Books’ re-creates an intellectual milieu
amazon

Days Have Gone By - John Fahey (1967)

"Sam Graham once referred to Fahey as the 'curmudgeon of the acoustic guitar,' while producer Samuel Charters noted that Fahey 'was the only artist I ever worked with whose sales went down after he made public appearances.' This tumultuous spirit, in turn, made tumultuous music on albums like Days Have Gone By, filled with odd harmonics, discord, and rare beauty. ... Fahey has often been grouped with new age music but this -- especially with his early work -- is somewhat of a misnomer. New age strives to build harmony; Fahey revels in conflict. Days Have Gone By is another rewarding reissue of the master's classic '60s work and will be eagerly greeted by guitar aficionados."
allmusic
W - Days Have Gone By
The Fahey Files - Days Have Gone By
amazon
YouTube: Days have gone by 10 videos

2009 March: John Fahey, 2011 March: Your Past Comes Back to Haunt You (The Fonotone Years 1958-1965), 2012 September: Fare Forward Voyagers (Soldier's Choice), 2013 February: The Mill Pond, 2013 August: Railroad (1983), 2013 December: Dances of the Inhabitants of the Invisible City of Bladensburg (1973), 2016 January: The Transfiguration of Blind Joe Death (1965).

VF Mix 75: North African 78s by Ceints de Bakélite

"At first sight, writing a piece about 78 rpm records for The Vinyl Factory might seem a bit paradoxical. Apart from a few exceptions, 78 rpm records were indeed not made of vinyl but rather of a mixture mainly composed of shellac. These thick and heavy records were produced from the late 1880’s and lasted until the 1950’s in western countries, one or even two decades later in some other places like India or South Africa. 78 rpm is a generic term that actually refers to a wide and fascinating variety of records. From the 5″ records produced in Germany by Emile Berliner in 1889 to French 20″ centre-start Pathé records from the 1910’s, their sizes are anything but standard and would probably delight DJ Food and his odd-sized records list. Their speed also varied from 60 to 130 rpm until it was standardized in the 1920’s. ..."
The Vinyl Factory (Mixcloud) 52:31

 Donald Trump’s Rise Has Coincided With an Explosion of Hate Groups

"Two Indian immigrants in Kansas shot by a man hurling anti-Muslim insults. Bomb threats and vandalism menacing Jewish community centers. Children bullying classmates of color with pro-Trump taunts. With reports like these erupting across the country, you wouldn’t be alone in suspecting that America was becoming a more hateful place, or that our current administration might have something to do with it. But now we also have some statistics to illuminate the apparent feedback loop between Pennsylvania Avenue policies and Main Street violence. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) annual census of 'extremist' groups, 'The number of hate groups in the United States rose for a second year in a row in 2016 as the radical right was energized by the candidacy of Donald Trump.' ..."
The Nation
Rolling Stone: Trump the Destroyer
Intelligence Report, Southern Poverty Law Center
The “Trump Effect” - Southern Poverty Law Center (Video)
[PDF] The Trump Effect - Southern Poverty Law Center
Ten Days After: Harassment and Intimidation in the Aftermath of the Election - Southern Poverty Law Center

2017 January: Hate Map | Southern Poverty Law Center

NYC Subway Film #1: The Incident - Larry Peerce (1967)

Wikipedia - "The Incident is a 1967 American neo noir film written by Nicholas E. Baehr (based on his teleplay Ride with Terror, which had been previously adapted as a 1963 television film), directed by Larry Peerce and starring Beau Bridges, Tony Musante, Brock Peters and Martin Sheen in his first film role. It tells the story of two young hoodlums who, after mugging a man at knifepoint, board a New York City subway train and terrorize the passengers. The film was made for a budget of $1,050,000. ... The New York City Transit Authority denied permission to film on its property, including background shots, but the filmmakers shot them anyway. Cinematographer Gerald Hirschfeld and an assistant rode the subway with a hidden camera, and when its sound was noticed, they stopped and came back later to finish the job. Hirschfeld said in an interview that he filmed in black and white in order to get 'the most realistic style of photography possible'; test shots were taken in muted color but they were deemed a distraction from the desired 'somber' effect. ..."
Wikipedia
The Big Ugly: Larry Peerce’s ‘The Incident’
The Incident (1967) New York Subway Noir
NY Times: 'The Incident' on View at Two Theaters:Tale of Subway Terror Is Taken From TV
W - IRT Jerome Avenue Line, W - 170th Street (IRT Jerome Avenue Line)
YouTube: "The Incident" with Tony Musante and Martin Sheen
YouTube: The Incident 1:39:31

Linval Thompson ‎– She Is Mad With Me / Stop Your War (1979)

"Thompson was raised in Kingston, Jamaica, but spent time with his mother in Queens, New York, and his recording career began around the age of 20 with the self-released 'No Other Woman,' recorded in Brooklyn, New York. Returning to Jamaica in the mid 1970s he recorded with Phil Pratt, only to return to New York to study engineering. ... Although he continued to work as a singer, he became increasingly prominent as a producer, working with key artists of the late roots and early dancehall era such as Dennis Brown, Cornell Campbell, The Wailing Souls, Barrington Levy and Trinity, with releases through Trojan Records as well as his own Strong Like Sampson and Thompson Koos record labels. ..."
Midnight Raver
YouTube: She Is Mad With Me

From Kongo to Othello to Tango to Museum Shows

Peter Paul Rubens, Head of an African Man Wearing a Turban, ca. 1609
"... This discovery helped inspire 'Revealing the African Presence in Renaissance Europe,' an inventive show at the Walters that enlists familiar faces of art history to spotlight lesser-known ones in social history. Focusing on the period between 1480 to 1610, an era of increased contact as trade routes expanded, diplomats traveled more widely, and Africans were imported to Europe en masse to serve as slaves, the show includes works by Dürer, Rubens, Pontormo, and Veronese, among many others, depicting Africans living in or visiting Europe. The museum describes the show as an effort to restore an identity to individuals who have been invisible–in various senses of the word. ..."
Art News
The Image of the Black in Western Art
The Image of the Black in Western Art: Featured Audio (Video)
The African Presence in México: From Yanga to the Present
Washington Post: Philip Kennicott on 'African Presence in Mexico' at Anacostia Community Museum
Tate: Afro Modern: Journeys through the Black Atlantic
Metropolitan Museum of Art: African Art, New York, and the Avant-Garde (Video)
NY Times: A Continent’s Art on a Long American Journey

2017 February: Robert Farris Thompson: Canons of the Cool, 2017 March: Africa's Great Civilizations, 2017 March: Revealing the African Presence in Renaissance Europe

The Boys of Sheriff Street - illustrated by Jacques de Loustal and written by Jerome Charyn (2016)

"Jerome Charyn is one of our great American writers. ... For this review, we look at 'The Boys of Sheriff Street,' illustrated by Jacques de Loustal and written by Jerome Charyn. This is a beautifully tragic love story–at an exquisitely high level of artistry. Graphic novels are not always what some people may expect, not even aspiring cartoonists. ... And so it is with this book which is 80 pages. That’s perhaps more of a European standard–but it works so well. Consider this work quite the treat with its theatrical and painterly flourish. ..."
Comics Grinder
Just Well Mixed
W - Jerome Charyn
amazon

A Night at Birdland Vol. 1 - Art Blakey (1954)

"When Art Blakey founded the Jazz Messengers, his initial goal was to not only make his mark on the hard bop scene, but to always bring younger players into the fold, nurture them, and send them out as leaders in their own right. Pianist Horace Silver, trumpeter Clifford Brown, and saxophonist Lou Donaldson were somewhat established, but skyrocketed into stardom after this band switched personnel. Perhaps the most acclaimed combo of Blakey's next to the latter-period bands with Lee Morgan and Wayne Shorter, the pre-Messengers quintet heard on this first volume of live club dates at Birdland in New York City provides solid evidence to the assertion that this ensemble was a one of a kind group the likes of which was not heard until the mid-'60s Miles Davis Quintet. ... This recording, as well as subsequent editions of these performances, launches an initial breakthrough for Blakey and modern jazz in general, and defines the way jazz music could be heard for decades thereafter. Everybody must own copies of all volumes of A Night at Birdland."
allmusic
W - A Night at Birdland Vol. 1
amazon
YouTube: A Night at Birdland Vol. 1 58:09

New York by New Yorkers: A Local's Guide to the City's Neighborhoods

"New York City's five boroughs consist of 303 neighborhoods, according to the official designations of the Department of City Planning, from Allerton in the east Bronx to Yorkville in Manhattan. But when it comes to neighborhoods, officialness is beside the point. ... All of these places are rooted in city history and lore — and all are constantly changing. When you think of Bensonhurst, does it bring to mind the opening scene of Saturday Night Fever, or the panoply of Asian shops that line 86th Street today? ... It likely depends on when and where you were raised and your knowledge of history — plenty of 21st-century New Yorkers, after all, see ghosts of the Five Points every time they walk through Manhattan's Foley Square, thanks to Luc Sante's Low Life and Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York. ..."
VOICE

Io Anthology: Literature, Interviews, and Art from the Seminal Interdisciplinary Journal, 1965 -1993

"Publication of the Io Anthology: Literature, Interviews, and Art from the Seminal Interdisciplinary Journal is an exciting event. I’ve been intrigued with Io ever since coming across a used issue some years ago. This was the Olson-Melville Sourcebook, The New Found Land issue #22 at the now long gone Acorn Books on Polk St in San Francisco. I remember marveling over the manner in which the contents were a mixture of critical and creative work ever so loosely tied together in so far as they responded to the works of 20th century poet Charles Olson and 19th century novelist Herman Melville no matter how tangentially—for instance, I wondered: 'what are satellite images of the planet Jupiter doing in here?'. The issue was clearly in large part inspired by Olson’s Call Me Ishmael, his infamously reworked dissertation on Melville wherein the creative and the critical are so thoroughly blurred there is no clear categorical choice for where the writing falls between the two. ..."
The Rumpus
Lindy Hough
Google

Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)

Wikipedia - "The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), members of which are commonly termed 'Wobblies', is an international labor union that was founded in 1905 in Chicago, Illinois in the United States of America. The union combines general unionism with industrial unionism, as it is a general union whose members are further organized within the industry of their employment. The philosophy and tactics of the IWW are described as 'revolutionary industrial unionism', with ties to both socialist and anarchist labor movements. In the 1910s and early 1920s, the IWW achieved many of their short-term goals, particularly in the American West, and cut across traditional guild and union lines to organize workers in a variety of trades and industries. At their peak in August 1917, IWW membership was more than 150,000. ..."
Wikipedia
IWW
PBS - People & Events: The Industrial Workers of the World
Documents, Essays and Analysis for a History of the Industrial Workers of the World
IWW posters
IWW VERMONT
YouTube: Free Speech and the IWW, Industrial Workers of the World- Educational Presentation, The Wobblies Full Documentary 1:28:39

2010 April: Little Red Songbook, 2016 September: Don't Mourn-Organize!: Songs of Labor Songwriter Joe Hill (1990), 2017 January: The Rebel Girl

Moonlight - Barry Jenkins (2016)

Wikipedia - "Moonlight is a 2016 American, coming-of-age, drama film written and directed by Barry Jenkins based on Tarell Alvin McCraney's unpublished semi-autobiographical play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue. It stars Trevante Rhodes, André Holland, Janelle Monáe, Ashton Sanders, Naomie Harris, and Mahershala Ali. The film presents three stages in the life of the main character. It explores the difficulties he faces with his own sexuality and identity, including the physical and emotional abuse he receives as a result of it. ..."
Wikipedia
NY Times - ‘Moonlight’: Is This the Year’s Best Movie? (Video)
New Yorker: “Moonlight” Undoes Our Expectations
Vogue: Moonlight’s Cinematographer on Filming the Most Exquisite Movie of the Year
The Atlantic: Moonlight Is a Film of Uncommon Grace
YouTube: Moonlight

Border Crossings: Issue 139 – Painting

Letterpress Box #4, 2015
"The Beauty of Being Boxed In. The work of Winnipeg artist Brian Hunter traces a process of ongoing and inventive transformation with the object he is painting, transforming into different subjects. A letterpress box that was used as a display case for trinkets his wife’s grandmother had collected has been changed into a body of paintings that touches on everything from architecture to an engagement with the history of modernist painting. All his paintings in this series are oil on wood; the largest is 36 x 48 inches, the smallest 10 x 8 inches. ..."
Border Crossings
Border Crossings: August 2016 – Volume 35, Number 3

Marvin Gaye - I Want You (1976)

"Marvin Gaye’s I Want You was originally released 40 years ago this month, and the timing feels somewhat fitting given today’s essential dialogue about the existential value of black life. You can’t make a convincing argument that black lives matter if you’re not also willing to acknowledge that black sexuality, romance, and love—aspects that have been historically threatened, circumscribed, and limited by the horrors of slavery and legally enforced systems of segregation and brutality—matter too. So as we join in the #blacklivesmatter fight, we would do well to recall that #blackerotics have always been an indispensable tool of community recalcitrance and survival. ..."
Pitchfork - I Want You Still: Celebrating 40 Years of Marvin Gaye’s Sensual Classic (Video)
W - I Want You
allmusic
amazon
YouTube: "I want You" Rare footage of GREATNESS (Live)
YouTube: I Want You 38:09

2016 July: "Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)" (1971)

Trisha Brown, Choreographer and Pillar of American Postmodern Dance, Dies at 80

Trisha Brown rehearsing members of her troupe in 1991 in her work “Foray Foret.”
"Trisha Brown, the choreographer and exemplar of the founding generation of American postmodern dance, died on Saturday in San Antonio. She was 80. Barbara Dufty, the executive director of Ms. Brown’s dance company, confirmed the death. Ms. Brown had been treated for vascular dementia since 2011. Few dance inventors have so combined the cerebral and sensuous sides of dance as Ms. Brown did, and few have been as influential. Her choreography, showcased primarily in New York, helped shape generations of modern dance creators into the 21st century. [ Mikhail Baryshnikov, Laurie Anderson and other artists speak on working with Ms. Brown. ] ..."
NY Times
NY Times: 5 Artists on Working With Trisha Brown (Video)

2008 May: Trisha Brown, 2010 December: "A Walk Across the Rooftops", 2011 January: Trisha Brown - Floor of the Forest (1970), 2011 March: Pioneers of the Downtown Scene, New York 1970s, 2012 February: Dance/Draw, 2016 January: Dance, Valiant & Molecular, 2016 February: Set and Reset (1983), Newark (1987), Present Tense (2003).

Van Dyke Parks - Jump! (1984)

Wikipedia - "Jump! is a studio album by Van Dyke Parks. It was released in 1984 on Warner Bros.. The album (and its accompanying children's book) is a retelling of Joel Chandler Harris's Uncle Remus tales. Parks mixes numerous musical styles. On Jump! these include bluegrass, Tin Pan Alley, 1930s jazz, and Broadway musical. ..."
Wikipedia
Guardian - Van Dyke Parks: 'I was victimised by Brian Wilson's buffoonery'

Wikipedia - "Br'er Rabbit /ˈbrɛər/ (Brother Rabbit), also spelled Bre'r Rabbit or Brer Rabbit or Bruh Rabbit, is a central figure as Uncle Remus tells stories of the Southern United States. Br'er Rabbit is a trickster who succeeds by his wits rather than by brawn, provoking authority figures and bending social mores as he sees fit. ... The Br'er Rabbit stories can be traced back to trickster figures in Africa, particularly the hare that figures prominently in the storytelling traditions in West, Central, and Southern Africa. These tales continue to be part of the traditional folklore of numerous peoples throughout those regions. In the Akan traditions of West Africa, the trickster is usually the spider Anansi, though the plots in his tales are often identical with those of stories of Br'er Rabbit. ..."
W - Br'er Rabbit
Paste Magazine
Genius
YouTube: Jump! 36:08

2012 July: Van Dyke Parks, 2015 December: Moonlighting: Live at the Ash Grove (1998), 2016 November: Song Cycle (1967)

Human Interest: Scott Rothkopf on Jasper Johns

"I’m Scott Rothkopf, the Whitney’s chief curator, and we’re in the exhibition Human Interest which I co-curated, looking at Jasper Johns’s Racing Thoughts. The term racing thoughts can be related to a sense of anxiety. I think it also can be related to creativity—to all the different thoughts that are appearing before us in this picture, and the way that Johns kind of gathers them together, but without one conclusion. When I look at this painting, I am in a certain headspace that feels kind of dreamy, almost. It keeps giving me more every time I look at it, and I don’t think it’s something I’ve ever fully solved. It is a portrait containing many portraits within it. ..."
Whitney (Video)

2012 November: Dancing around the Bride, 2014 November: Sturtevant: Double Trouble, 2015 January: Dial-A-Poem Poets - Big Ego (1978), 2016 November: John Cage: Lecture on the Weather (1975)

The Vibrators - Pure Mania (1977)

"Were the Vibrators real punks? Maybe not, but then again, were the Stranglers? Or Eddie and the Hot Rods? Even more to the point, was Steve Jones? Plenty of rock careerists jumped onto the punk/new wave bandwagon in the wake of the Sex Pistols' success (and more than a few folks, like Jones, stumbled into the new movement by accident), but unlike most of them, the Vibrators took to the fast/loud/stripped down thing like ducks to water, and both Knox (aka Ian Carnarchan) and Pat Collier had a genius for writing short, punchy songs with sneering melody lines and gutsy guitar breaks. If the Vibrators were into punk as a musical rather than a sociopolitical movement, it's obvious that they liked the music very much, and on that level their debut album stands the test of time quite well. ... Maybe Pure Mania isn't purist's punk, but it's pure rock & roll, and there's nothing wrong with that."
allmusic
W - Pure Mania
iTunes
YouTube: Pure Mania

Spread Art NYC Presents 20 Big Years — an Artistic Tribute to Biggie Smalls — at the Bishop Gallery through Tomorrow

Danielle Mastrion, Crook from the Brook
"Continuing through tomorrow, Sunday, at the Bishop Gallery is 20 Big Years, an artistic tribute to the late Biggie Smalls. Presented by Spread Art NYC, it features works in a range of styles by over a dozen of our favorite local artists. Pictured above is a portrait of Biggie painted by Ben Angotti. Here are several more images from the exhibit. ... A particular highlight of the exhibit is the collaborative piece by Rocko and Zimer, who had painted the now-iconic Biggie tribute mural on Bedford and Quincy. You can check that one out out — along with over 20 other tribute pieces — through tomorrow at the Bishop Gallery, 916 Bedford Avenue in Bed-Stuy."
Street Art NYC
The Notorious B.I.G.’s Legacy to Be Celebrated With New York Art Show (Video)

2016 January: Brooklyn, the Remix: A Hip-Hop Tour (2013)

Paris Commune 1871

French troops assaulting a barricade during the Paris Commune.
Wikipedia - "The Paris Commune (French: La Commune de Paris, IPA: [la kɔmyn də paʁi]) was a radical socialist and revolutionary government that ruled Paris from 18 March to 28 May 1871. Following the defeat of Emperor Napoleon III in September 1870, the French Second Empire swiftly collapsed. In its stead rose a Third Republic at war with Prussia, which laid siege to Paris for four months. A hotbed of working-class radicalism, France's capital was primarily defended during this time by the often politicized and radical troops of the National Guard rather than regular Army troops. In February 1871 Adolphe Thiers, the new chief executive of the French national government, signed an armistice with Prussia that disarmed the Army but not the National Guard. ..."
Wikipedia
ROAR - On this day in 1871: Paris Commune established
New Yorker: The Fires of Paris
THE WAR OF THE PARIS COMMUNE, 1871
W - Communards' Wall
Pere-Lachaise: The Communards Wall and More at the World’s Most Famous Cemetery
Guardian - La Commune: a lesson in audacity
YouTube: The Paris Commune

"California Sun" - The Rivieras (1963)

Wikipedia - "'California Sun' is a song written and originally recorded by Henry Glover and Morris Levy and performed by Joe Jones. It was then released by Roulette Records in the winter of 1961. The most successful version of the song was released by the Rivieras in 1964 and became the group's biggest hit in their short career. This song was the result of their first recording session at Chicago's Columbia Recording Studios in 1963 (purchased by manager Bill Dobslaw). The lineup for this session included Marty Fortson on vocals and rhythm guitar, Joe Pennell on lead guitar, Doug Gean on bass, Otto Nuss on organ, and Paul Dennert on drums. ..."
Wikipedia
W - The Rivieras
YouTube: California Sun

Civil Disobedience - Henry David Thoreau (1849)

Wikipedia - "Resistance to Civil Government (Civil Disobedience) is an essay by American transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau that was first published in 1849. In it, Thoreau argues that individuals should not permit governments to overrule or atrophy their consciences, and that they have a duty to avoid allowing such acquiescence to enable the government to make them the agents of injustice. Thoreau was motivated in part by his disgust with slavery and the Mexican–American War (1846–1848). ... The word civil has several definitions. The one that is intended in this case is 'relating to citizens and their interrelations with one another or with the state', and so civil disobedience means 'disobedience to the state'. ... This misinterpretation is one reason the essay is sometimes considered to be an argument for pacifism or for exclusively nonviolent resistance. For instance, Mahatma Gandhi used this interpretation to suggest an equivalence between Thoreau's civil disobedience and his own satyagraha. ..."
Wikipedia
Open Culture: Henry David Thoreau on When Civil Disobedience and Resistance Are Justified (1849)
Civil Disobedience

2009 April: Henry David Thoreau, 2012 September: Walden, 2015 March: A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849)

Thrilling Short Film Captures Madness of NYC Subway System in Quick, Two-Second Clips

"The New York City subway system comprises 24 separate lines, 469 different stations, and more than 31,000 individual turnstiles. Laid out end to end, its 840 miles of track could stretch from the five boroughs to Chicago, and its 6,300-plus trains currently serve some 5.6 million riders each day. And despite the intricacies involved in maintaining an operation of this magnitude, it turns out one of the best ways to conceptualize the organized chaos that is the New York City subway system is to boil the insanity down into a two-minute experimental film. ..."
VOICE (Video)
MTA

Up for the Down Stroke - Parliament (1974)

"Kicking off with one of prime funk's purest distillations -- the outrageously great title track, with a perfect party chorus line and uncredited horns (presumably the Horny Horns were involved somehow) adding to the monster beat and bass -- Up for the Down Stroke finds Parliament in rude good health. As was more or less the case through the '70s, Parliament took a slightly more listener-friendly turn here than they did as Funkadelic, but often it's a difference by degrees. Just listening to some of Bernie Worrell's insane keyboard parts or Bootsy Collins' bass work here is enough to wake the dead. ..."
allmusic
W - Up for the Down Stroke
Pitchfork
amazon, iTunes
YouTube: UP FOR THE DOWN STROKE-1974 TV Commercial-1st Casablanca
YouTube: Up For The Down Stroke (Full Album)

2009 January: George Clinton, 2010 December: Mothership Connection - Houston 1976, 2011 October: Funkadelic - One Nation Under A Groove, 2011 October: "Do Fries Go With That Shake?", 2012 August: Tales Of Dr. Funkenstein – The Story Of George Clinton & Parliament/Funkadelic, 2015 July: Playing The (Baker's) Dozens: George Clinton's Favourite Albums, 2015 August: Chocolate City (1975), 2016 February: Maggot Brain - Funkadelic (1971), 2016 June: P-Funk All Stars - Urban Dancefloor Guerillas (1983).

Embrace The Contradictions: The Strange World Of... The KLF

"When a young Scotsman named Bill Drummond arrived in Liverpool in the early seventies to complete his art school education, the city was overflowing with eccentric, creative characters, visionaries and dreamers. Perhaps the most influential of these was the beat poet and former merchant seaman Peter O'Halligan, who Drummond encountered in an old warehouse on Mathew Street- formerly home to the legendary Cavern Club, but by 1974 all but derelict. O'Halligan was very interested in dreams, especially one experienced in 1927 by the pioneering Swiss psychologist Carl Gustav Jung. As recorded on page 223 of Jung's book Memories, Dreams, Reflections, Jung found himself in a 'dark, sooty city' he identified as Liverpool (a place he never actually visited) and concluded that it was quite literally 'the pool of life'. Jung considered this the most significant dream he ever had. ..."
The Quietus (Video)

2009 May: The KLF, 2011 June: Justified & Ancient, 2013 May: "3 a.m. Eternal", 2013 November: "America: What Time Is Love?" / "What Time Is Love?"

 Algeria’s New Imprint

"A few months ago, I was deep in conversation with Hichem Lamraoui, one of the principal buyers for the Librairie du Tiers Monde in downtown Algiers, when an elegantly dressed young woman rushed into the store and asked the cashier if she could see the books from Éditions Barzakh. She wasn’t talking about a particular author or series—she wanted to see the entire run of Barzakh’s titles. It was as if someone at McNally Jackson in Manhattan or Moe’s in Berkeley had asked whether there was a section devoted to New Directions. But in this bookstore, the best in Algiers, the Barzakhs sit together on a bookshelf directly across from the entrance. They are small, narrow, and taller than average, so they fit easily in the hand. ..."
The Nation
W - Barzakh Editions

2011 February: Raï, 2011 November: The Battle of Algiers (1957), 2012 February: An Intro To Rebel Hip-Hop Of The Arab Revolutions, 2013 March: Poems for the Millennium: The University of California Book of North African Literature

"It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" - Bob Dylan (1965)

Wikipedia - "'It's All Over Now, Baby Blue' is a song written and performed by Bob Dylan and featured on his Bringing It All Back Home album, released on March 22, 1965 by Columbia Records (see 1965 in music). The song was recorded on January 15, 1965 with Dylan's acoustic guitar and harmonica and William E. Lee's bass guitar the only instrumentation. The lyrics were heavily influenced by Symbolist poetry and bid farewell to the titular 'Baby Blue.' There has been much speculation about the real life identity of 'Baby Blue', with suspects including Joan Baez, David Blue, Paul Clayton, Dylan's folk music audience, and even Dylan himself. ..."
Wikipedia
allmusic
Genius (Video)
Rolling Stone (Video)
YouTube: "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue"

2014 August: "Subterranean Homesick Blues" - Bob Dylan (1965), The Bootleg Series Vol. 12: The Cutting Edge 1965–1966, 2016 September: "Maggie's Farm"/"On the Road Again" (1965)

Robert Lepage - 887. Ex Machina

Wikipedia - "Robert Lepage, CC OQ (born December 12, 1957) is a French Canadian playwright, actor, film director, and stage director, one of Canada's most honoured theatre artists. ... In 1994, Lepage founded Ex Machina, a multidisciplinary production company, for which he is artistic director. Lepage and Ex Machina have toured numerous productions internationally to critical and popular acclaim, most notably The Seven Streams of the River Ota (1994) and Elsinore (1995). Lepage was invited in 1994 to direct August Strindberg's A Dream Play at Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm, Sweden. ..."
Wikipedia
Ex Machina (Video)
BAM (Video)
Epidemic: Performances
YouTube: EX MACHINA/ROBERT LEPAGE - 887 - REf15, Playwright and Director Robert Lepage's Unique Creative Style

2010 October: Clanking, Ponderous Rheingold: The Met's New Valhalla Machine (Robert Lepage)

Roma - Federico Fellini (1972)

Wikipedia - "Roma, also known as Fellini's Roma, is a 1972 semi-autobiographical, poetic comedy-drama film depicting director Federico Fellini's move from his native Rimini to Rome as a youth. Roma is formed of a series of loosely connected episodes. The plot is minimal, and the only 'character' to develop significantly is Rome herself. ... Federico Fellini recounts his youth in Rome, an extremely crude, corrupt, cruel city, without shame or morals. A memorable scene is one where he, along with his friends in their young teens, go to a third-class theater to see some simple shows. People do not applaud; instead whistles, burps, fart sounds and angry tirades are hurled against the poor actors, who eventually have had enough of their audiences' vulgar rudeness, leading them to turn against the public. ..."
Wikipedia
Roger Ebert
Criterion Collection (Video)
Criterion Collection - Roma: Rome, Fellini’s City
Blu-ray Review: Criterion Goes Far With FEDERICO FELLINI'S ROMA
YouTube: Roma

13 stories of Art Nouveau beauty in Manhattan

"The magnificent boulevards of Prague and Vienna are resplendent with Art Nouveau building facades, lobbies, and public transit entrances. But the sinuous lines and naturalistic curves characteristic of this artistic style never caught on in turn-of-the-century New York, where architects seemed to prefer the stately Beaux Arts or more romantic Gothic Revival fashion. It’s this rarity of Art Nouveau in Gotham that makes the 13-story edifice at 20 Vesey Street so spectacular. Completed in 1907, this is the former headquarters for the New York Evening Post—the precursor to today’s New York Post, founded in 1801 by Alexander Hamilton. ..."
Ephemeral New York

Moroccan Tape Stash Of The Air - Live Today on Bodega Pop Live

"Moroccan Tape Stash comes alive this week, as I join Gary Sullivan, curator of the great Bodega Pop blog, on WFMU's Give The Drummer Radio for a special episode of his Bodega Pop Live show. You can find us live on the interweb today - Wednesday September 21, 4-7PM PDT, or in the archives thereafter. Follow this link, and join us for some Gab and Groove, Gnawa and Ghiwane, Chaâbi and Chikhat, and much more!"
Moroccan Tape Stash (Video)

"Hey Joe"

Wikipedia - "'Hey Joe' is an American popular song from the 1960s that has become a rock standard and as such has been performed in many musical styles by hundreds of different artists. 'Hey Joe' tells the story of a man who is on the run and planning to head to Mexico after shooting his unfaithful wife. The song was registered for copyright in the U.S. in 1962 by Billy Roberts, however, diverse credits and claims have led to confusion about the song's authorship. The earliest known commercial recording of the song is the late-1965 single by the Los Angeles garage band The Leaves; the band then re-recorded the track and released it in 1966 as a follow-up single which became a hit. The most well-known version is The Jimi Hendrix Experience's 1966 recording, their debut single. ..."
Wikipedia
“Hey Joe” didn’t start or end with Jimi Hendrix (Video)

2010 September: Jimi Hendrix, 2013 November: Watch Jimi Hendrix: Hear My Train A Comin’, the New PBS Documentary, 2014 July: Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock: The Complete Performance in Video & Audio (1969), 2014 October: Live at Monterey (1967), 2015 March: "Little Wing" (1967), 2015 November: Jimi Hendrix Plays the Delta Blues on a 12-String Acoustic Guitar in 1968, 2016 December: Band of Gypsys (1970).

Greystones

The Coast, Greystones, Co. Wicklow, photographed between 1900 and 1939.
"The southernmost of three favorite vacation spots for the Kearney family in 'A Mother,' Greystones is situated about 17 miles (27 km) south of Dublin’s city center on the eastern coast of Ireland. It is a small fishing village that became a popular summer holiday retreat when the railroad connected the town to Dublin in 1855. Today it would take about an hour to travel to Greystones from Dublin by train. Accounting for number of stops and speed differences, we might estimate a similar if not longer travel time for the Kearneys at the turn of the the twentieth century. The locale is named for the grey stones that form a wall along the center of the coast. On the north end of the wall lies the harbour and on the south the train station and beach. The reference appears in only one Dubliners story and as a part of a typical Joycean trinity. ..."
Mapping Dubliners Project

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, 2016 October: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), 2016 November: Skerries, 2017 January: Walking Ulysses | Joyce's Dublin Today.

Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker - Counter Phrases (2000)

"Counterphrases is an evening of cinema with live music. Ten shorts by Thierry De Mey set to music by ten composers with ten danced phrases choreographed by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and performed by Rosas. These ten films encapsulate the best of De Keersmaeker and De Mey’s collaboration: twenty years of assiduously practicing variation, of perpetually inventing algorithms, filters, and formulae that twist movement and space according to the capricious mathematics of pleasure. All of this is filmed – O Belgitude! – in exquisite flower-filled gardens and under impressionistic drizzling rain. The ten composers of Counterphrases will each work on one of the variations separately, after the films have been edited, and will be completely unaware of what the others are doing. ..."
Ictus
UbuWeb: Counter Phrases. Directed by Thierry de Mey. Choreography by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker.

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), 2016 October: Vortex Temporum.

N.C.A.A. Bracket Predictions: Who the Tournament Experts Pick

Wake Forest guard Brandon Childress driving
"Everyone has an opinion on the N.C.A.A. tournament. But instead of listening to Uncle Louie or Aunt Ruth to fill out your bracket, maybe it’s a better bet to appeal to authority. Here’s a roundup of the early selections from people in a position to know. Let’s start with the home team. Marc Tracy and Zach Schonbrun of The New York Times are offering up some upsets. They include No. 12 Princeton over Notre Dame, No. 12 Middle Tennessee State over Minnesota, No. 12 U.N.C.-Wilmington over Virginia, No. 10 Marquette over South Carolina and, most daringly, No. 14 Florida Gulf Coast over Florida and No. 14 Iona over Oregon. ..."
NY Times
Sporting News - NCAA Tournament bracket 2017: Upset predictions, Final Four pick in West Region (Video)
FiveThirtyEight: 2017 March Madness Predictions
Washington Post: March Madness: The No. 5 seeds most likely to be upset by No. 12s
NY Times: The Best and Worst of the N.C.A.A. Tournament
ESPN: A full guide to every team in the 2017 NCAA tournament (Video)
CBS Sports - 2017 March Madness bracket predictions: NCAA Tournament picks, winners, upsets (Video)
NY Times: N.C.A.A. Bracket: Printable March Madness Schedule

2011 June: American Basketball Association, 2012 July: Doin’ It In The Park: Pick-Up Basketball, NYC, 2012 November: Your Guide to the Brooklyn Nets, 2013 March: March Madness 2013, 2013 October: Rucker Park, 2014 January: History of the high five, 2015 February: Dean Smith (February 28, 1931 – February 7, 2015), 2015 June: Basketball’s Obtuse Triangle, 2015 September: Joint Ventures: How sneakers became high fashion and big business, 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: The Last Shot: City Streets, Basketball Dreams (1994), 2016 January: A Long Hardwood Journey, 2016 March: American Hustle - Alexandra Starr

Robert Stone - Damascus Gate (1998)

"Robert Stone doesn't need the approaching millennium to push him toward fantasies of Armageddon. Since starting out as a novelist in the 1960's he has been loaded for Leviathan, writing with Melvillean chutzpah, his harpoon aimed at the heart of apocalyptic America. But Stone's latest novel is set in Jerusalem in the early 1990's, making manifest the metaphor lurking behind much of his work and raising the stakes of Damascus Gate, which has an emblematic urgency unusual even for a writer of Stone's ambition. Stone's new novel takes its name from one of the gates of the Old City of Jerusalem. Though most of the book's characters live in the city's newer neighborhoods, it is the Old City -- with its ancient, uneasy divisions of Muslim, Christian and Jew, and its labyrinthine passageways snaking toward the Temple Mount -- that ignites their imaginations and desires. ..."
NY Times
New Republic: Holy Plots
Al Jadid: Political Novel Set in Jerusalem
amazon

2013 September: Outerbridge Reach (1993), 2015 January: Robert Stone (August 21, 1937 – January 10, 2015)

Ray Agee

"Known primarily for his tough 1963 remake of the blues standard 'Tin Pan Alley' (featuring the moaning lead guitar of Johnny Heartsman) for the tiny Sahara logo, vocalist Ray Agee recorded for a myriad of labels both large and small during the 1950s and '60s without much in the way of national recognition outside his Los Angeles home base. That's a pity -- he was a fine, versatile blues singer whose work deserves a wider audience (not to mention CD reissue). The Alabama native was stricken with polio at age four, leaving Agee with a permanent handicap. After moving to L.A. with his family, he apprenticed with his brothers in a gospel quartet before striking out in the R&B field with a 1952 single for Eddie Mesner's Aladdin Records (backed by saxist Maxwell Davis' band). From there, his discography assumes daunting proportions; he appeared on far too many logos to list (Elko, Spark, Ebb, and Cash among them)."
allmusic
W - Ray Agee
Discogs
YouTube: Top Tracks - Ray Agee, 12 videos
YouTube: Tin Pan Alley, I’m Losing Again, Mr. Clean, Real Real Love, It’s Hard To Explain

Ginane Makki Bacho

"Lebanese artist Ginane Makki Bacho uses a series of sculptures inspired by the brutality of ISIS to reflect on humanity’s innate thirst for violence, questioning what it truly means to be civilised. Ginane Makki Bacho was welding together scrap metal to make a toy truck for her grandson when the idea for her next series struck her. The truck, complete with caterpillar treads made from an old bike chain, reminded her of video footage she’d seen of ISIS convoys – tanks, trucks and motorbikes bristling with armed men and black flags. Bacho never gave the truck to her grandson. Instead, she created two gunmen to place inside it, and began welding an army. ..."
SELECTIONS: The Barbarity of Civilisation (Video)
beirut
Ginane Makki Bacho & Fathallah Zamroud, Material Remains
YouTube: Civilization, Material Remains

Anatomy of a Fascinating Disaster: Fire Walk With Me

"David Lynch’s Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me opened in theaters 20 years ago this week. Booed at Cannes and mostly shivved by critics, Lynch’s exploration of the last days of small-town homecoming queen and future MacGuffin Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) — a prequel to the brilliant-then-canceled ABC TV series he’d created with Mark Frost in 1990 — would eventually make back around $4 million of the $10 million a French film-financing company had given Lynch to make it, although it did big business in Japan. Lynch wouldn’t make another feature for five years. (It was his longest-ever vacation from filmmaking, at the time; it’s now been almost six years since the premiere of Inland Empire, although Lynch has been busy making records with Danger Mouse, selling coffee beans on the Internet, directing Dior commercials, and teaching Russell Brand to catch the big fish.) ..."
Grantland (Video)
Review: TWIN PEAKS: THE MISSING PIECES
W - Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me
Telegraph - Fire Walk With Me: the film that almost killed Twin Peaks (Video)
YouTube: Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992) Trailer

2008 September: Twin Peaks, 2010 March: Twin Peaks: How Laura Palmer's death marked the rebirth of TV drama, 2011 October: Twin Peaks: The Last Days, 2014 October: Welcome to Twin Peaks, 2015 June: David Lynch: ‘I’ve always loved Laura Palmer’, 2015 July: Twin Peaks Maps, 2016 May: Hear the Music of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks Played..., September: Twin Peaks Tarot Cards For The Magician Who Longs To See Through The Darkness Of Future Past, 2014 September: David Lynch: The Unified Field, 2014 December: David Lynch’s Bad Thoughts - J. Hoberman, 2015 March: Lumière and Company (1995), 2015 April: David Lynch Creates a Very Surreal Plug for Transcendental Meditation, 2015 December: What Is “Lynchian”?.