Morocco's Cinema City

"'Walk past ancient Egypt and then turn left at Tibet,' says Amine Tazi, general manager of Africa’s largest film and studio complex. 'That’s where we filmed the Saudi tv series Omar,' about the second caliph of Islam, Omar ibn al-Khattab. If the desert film sets look even vaguely familiar to a visitor, he explains, that’s because they probably are: Recently they were also backdrops for, among other things, episodes of the us television hits Homeland and Game of Thrones. But Omar took a full six months of shooting to produce 30 episodes, in Arabic. That was solid business for the two studios Tazi manages, Atlas and CLA, which were, until this year, solely responsible for making the town of Ouarzazate, poised between the Sahara desert and the Atlas Mountains in eastern Morocco, into a continental capital of cinema. ..."
AramcoWorld

The Customer is Always Wrong - Mimi Pond (2017)

"The Customer is Always Wrong is the saga of a young naïve artist named Madge working in a restaurant of charming drunks, junkies, thieves, and creeps. Oakland in the late seventies is a cheap and quirky haven for eccentrics and Mimi Pond folds the tales of the fascinating sleaze-ball characters that surround young Madge into her workaday waitressing life. Outrageous and loving tributes and takedowns of her co-workers and satellites of the Imperial Cafe create a snapshot of a time in Madge’s life where she encounters who she is, and who she is not. Told in the same brash yet earnest style as her previous memoir Over Easy, Pond’s storytelling gifts have never been stronger than in this epic, comedic, standalone graphic novel. Madge is right back at the Imperial with its great coffee and depraved cast, where things only get worse for her adopted restaurant family while her career as a cartoonist starts to take off. ..."
Drawn and Quarterly
The Comics Journal
Mimi Pond
amazon

Three Decks, Six Minutes, Twelve Layers

"If you were to just hear — rather than also watch — this track by the artist known as Amulets, you might wonder about the little clickety clacks that occur six times, first at five seconds in, then at half a minute in, and then at just past the minute-and-a-half marker, and then again in quicker succession, within 30 seconds of each other, toward the track’s end. These clicks, sharp and fragile, appear amid and yet apart from the otherwise wooly-lush six minutes of music. ... This is the latest video I’ve added to my YouTube playlist of recommended live performances of ambient music. Video originally posted at youtube.com. More from Amulets, aka Randall Taylor, at amuletsmusic.com and amulets.bandcamp.com."
disquiet - THREE FOUR TRACKS (LIVE TAPE LOOP AMBIENT / EXPERIMENTAL) (Video)
AMULETS shows how to make a tape loop out of a cassette (Video)
Amulets (Video)
facebook
YouTube: LIVE AMBIENT MUSIC MADE FROM CASSETTE TAPE LOOPS - THE SUITCASE OF DRONE, SUITCASE OF DRONE - AMBIENT / DRONE TAPE LOOPS, KORG VOLCA KEYS CV SYNC WITH TASCAM 4 TRACK TAPE LOOP (AMBIENT/EXPERIMENTAL), AMBIENT WALKMAN SYMPHONY (LIVE IMPROVISED TAPE LOOPS), AMULETS - KNOW YOUR AMERICA // NPR TINY DESK CONTEST 2016 [LIVE CASSETTE TAPE LOOPING]

Midnight Cowboy - John Schlesinger (1969)

"Midnight Cowboy is a 1969 American drama film based on the 1965 novel of the same name by James Leo Herlihy. The film was written by Waldo Salt, directed by John Schlesinger, and stars Jon Voight alongside Dustin Hoffman. Notable smaller roles are filled by Sylvia Miles, John McGiver, Brenda Vaccaro, Bob Balaban, Jennifer Salt and Barnard Hughes. The film won three Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay. It was the first gay-related Best Picture winner. In addition, it was the only X-rated film ever to win Best Picture, though its rating has since been changed to R. It has since been placed 36th on the American Film Institute's list of the 100 greatest American films of all time, and 43rd on its 2007 updated version. In 1994, the film was deemed 'culturally, historically or aesthetically significant' by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. ..."
Wikipedia
AMC: Filmsite
Guardian - The film that makes me cry: Midnight Cowboy
15 Uncensored Facts About Midnight Cowboy (Video)
Midnight Cowboy: The “X-rated” film that won 3 Academy Awards
NY Times (By Vincent Canby May 26, 1969)
YouTube: Trailer - HQ, Opening Scene

Lords of the Flea

Spring rolls, from a vendor at Smorgasburg.
"It’s an unseasonably warm day in early November, the ground wet and puddle-speckled from showers that blew over earlier. Everyone’s removing hats, folding up scarves, tucking jackets under armpits. Though the day is just an anomaly in Brooklyn’s steady descent into winter (the next day would be gray and chilly), it has the exuberant feel of early spring. It’s ideal weather for Smorgasburg, the outdoor food market. Today being Saturday, Smorgasburg is at East River State Park in Williamsburg, a bare-bones space facing the water. (On Sundays, the fair moves to the Brooklyn Bridge Park in DUMBO.) Food vendors have set up their stalls in the shade of a waterfront high-rise, their chalk signs advertising freshly made offerings: pupusas with pickled cabbage, organic beef hot dogs topped with sesame slaw, blood-orange donuts, beet burgers. Near one stall, a boy chows down on some sort of fusion taco; pulled pork and pickled radish dangle ominously, but he expertly cradles the tortilla, managing not to add any new stains to his soccer jersey. ..." (Dec. 19, 2013)
BKLYNR

What to Make of the Red Sox’s Apple Watch Scandal

Sign-stealing has long been a strategy for baseball teams to predict how a pitcher will throw, but the controversy about the Red Sox’s behavior underscores the litigiousness of modern sports.
"In 1948, while locked in a tight pennant race, the Cleveland Indians resorted to some shady maneuvers, what the team’s owner, Bill Veeck, later cheekily described in his memoir as 'gamesmanship—the art of winning without really cheating.' The team had its groundskeeper mess with the height of the grass and the pitcher’s mound to better suit its players, moved the outfield fence in or back depending on each day’s opponent, and, most deviously, instituted a system of sign-stealing. A team employee, sitting in the center-field scoreboard, would use a portable telescope to spy on the opposing catcher’s fingers, decipher the code he was using with his pitcher to call pitches, and signal the next pitch to the batter by putting up a white or dark card in an opening in the scoreboard, where the hitters knew to look. ... Veeck, who died in 1986, would have approved of the stratagem copped to by the Boston Red Sox this week. On Tuesday, the team admitted to using an Apple Watch as part of a ploy to steal signs from opposing teams during recent home games, including those against their archrival, the New York Yankees. ..."
New Yorker
NY Times: How Red Sox Used Tech, Step by Step, to Steal Signs From Yankees
The Ringer: The Red Sox Have Given Us Spygate 2.0 and I Am Abso-Freaking-Lutely Thrilled (Video)
Vanity Fair: Sports Media Slam Red Sox for High-Tech Cheating
SI (Video)
ESPN: Dustin Pedroia downplays scandal: 'Don't think this should be news' (Video)

Boston Red Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia sits in the dugout prior a game against the Cleveland Indians.

2017 April: Baseball color line, 2017 June: Racist taunts stir up ancient pains in Boston

Horace Silver Trio and Art Blakey - Sabu (1953)

"Several early-'50s sessions were culled to produce this must-have collection of pianist Horace Silver in a rare trio setting. Together with longtime partner Art Blakey on drums and the likes of Gene Ramey, Curly Russell, and Percy Heath on bass, Silver masterfully swings through several of his most famous compositions and a few standards. Classic tunes like 'Horoscope,' 'Quicksilver,' 'Ecaroh,' and 'Opus de Funk' are given superb readings here as Silver and Blakey display their legendary kinship. Silver's powers of interpretation are in full stride as well, with great standards like 'Thou Swell,' 'I Remember You,' and 'How About You' getting sparkling, fresh-sounding treatments. Also included in this set are two startling all-percussion jams from Blakey and conga master Sabu Martinez that foreshadow Blakey's groundbreaking Orgy in Rhythm sessions a few years later."
allmusic
W - Horace Silver Trio and Art Blakey - Sabu
amazon
YouTube: Horace Silver Trio & Art Blakey + Sabu [1953] | Full Album

2017 March: A Night at Birdland Vol. 1 - Art Blakey (1954)

Namwali Serpell

"Namwali Serpell was born in Zambia in 1980. She lives in San Francisco. Her first novel, The Old Drift, is forthcoming with Hogarth Press (Penguin Random House) in 2018. Serpell won the 2015 Caine Prize for African Writing for her story, 'The Sack.' In 2014, she was chosen as one of the Africa 39, a Hay Festival project to identify the most promising African writers under 40. In 2011, she received a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award. Serpell's first published story, 'Muzungu,' was selected for The Best American Short Stories 2009, shortlisted for the 2010 Caine Prize, and anthologized in The Uncanny Reader. ..."
Namwali Serpell
NYBooks: Namwali Serpell
W - Namwali Serpell
The 2015 Shortlist (Audio)
Namwali Serpell on "The Sack"
YouTube: Namwali Serpell on Short Stories, Lunch Poems: Namwali Serpell

NYBooks: Glossing Africa - Côte d’Ivoire, 1972

Holger Czukay (1938-2017)

"Holger Czukay, the co-founder and bassist of the iconic Krautrock band Can, has died, Cologne newspaper Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger reports. He was 79. He was reportedly found dead in the original Can studio in Weilerswist (formerly a movie theater) near Cologne, where he had allegedly been living. His cause of death is unknown. The band released a statement Wednesday via Facebook—read it below. Czukay’s death marks the second loss for the band this year; founding drummer Jaki Liebezeit passed away in January. A prolific inventor, Czukay helped pioneer sampling, which at the time involved the laborious process of manually cutting tape. Aside from his work with Can, he released several solo albums, including his most recent, 2015’s Eleven Years Innerspace. ..."
Pitchfork (Video)
Can hero Holger Czukay on Stockhausen, shortwave radio and being “too intriguing” (Video)
Rolling Stone: Can Co-Founder Holger Czukay Dead at 79 (Video)
YouTube: Krautrock: Holger Czukay's Take, Eurythmics - Never Gonna Cry Again (Live Holger Czukay 1981), Träum Mal Wieder, On The Way To The Peak Of Normal - Ode to Perfume

2011 September: Can, 2011 February: Plight & Premonition, 2011 June: Persian Love, 2013 October: Flux + Mutability - David Sylvian and Holger Czukay (1989) , 2014 June: Holger Czukay - Der Osten Ist Rot, Rome Remains Rome (1984/7), 2016 March: Invaders Of The Heart - Jah Wobble (1982), 2017 April: Jah Wobble, The Edge, Holger Czukay - Snake Charmer (1983), 2017 June: The Legend Lives On… Jah Wobble In Betrayal (1980), 2017 July: Can - The Singles (2017).

Why Culture Matters

Sun Records Studio
"New York Times op-ed columnist Bari Weiss recently decried what she calls the 'increasingly strident left' for its 'separate-but-equal' rhetoric around the question of cultural appropriation. According to Weiss, 'charges of cultural appropriation are being hurled at every corner of American life: the art museum, the restaurant, the movie theater, the fashion show, the novel and, especially, the college campus.' Cultural appropriation has become a flash point for debate. From sites as ordinary as dining rooms to those as lofty as the opera house, conflict has erupted over perceived power imbalances in cultural exchange. But Weiss seems unaware that the Left is hardly unified on this matter, with debates on cultural appropriation and identity politics perpetually starting feuds and ending friendships. ..."
Jacobin

An Incomplete History of Protest: Selections from the Whitney’s Collection, 1940–2017

Annette Lemieux (b. 1957), Black Mass, 1991.
"Through the lens of the Whitney’s collection, An Incomplete History of Protest looks at how artists from the 1940s to the present have confronted the political and social issues of their day. Whether making art as a form of activism, criticism, instruction, or inspiration, the featured artists see their work as essential to challenging established thought and creating a more equitable culture. Many have sought immediate change, such as ending the war in Vietnam or combating the AIDS crisis. Others have engaged with protest more indirectly, with the long term in mind, hoping to create new ways of imagining society and citizenship. ..."
Whitney
Whitney (Audio)
Guardian: A brief history of protest art from the 1940s until now - in pictures

The Bronx

Wikipedia - "The Bronx (/ˈbrɒŋks/) is the northernmost of the five boroughs of New York City, within the U.S. state of New York. It is geographically south of Westchester County; north and east of the island and borough of Manhattan to the south and west across the Harlem River; and north of the borough of Queens, across the East River.  ... About a quarter of the Bronx's area is open space, including Woodlawn Cemetery, Van Cortlandt Park, Pelham Bay Park, the New York Botanical Garden, and the Bronx Zoo in the borough's north and center. ... In the 19th and 20th centuries, the Bronx received many immigrant groups as it was transformed into an urban community, first from various European countries (particularly Ireland, Germany, and Italy) and later from the Caribbean region (particularly Puerto Rico, Jamaica, and the Dominican Republic), as well as African American migrants from the southern United States. This cultural mix has made the Bronx a wellspring of both Latin music and hip hop. ..."
Wikipedia
The Perfect Day in The Bronx
NYCgo - The Bronx
NPR: Forget 'The Bronx Is Burning.' These Days, The Bronx Is Gentrifying (Video)
Hip-hop history began in the Bronx 44 years ago today (Video)
YouTube: Street Scenes of the Bronx, New York City, Insider Guide: The South Bronx's Grand Concourse, Arts: South Bronx Rising, Da South Bronx - da Old Soundview Neighborhood Today

2009 June: City Island, Seaport of the Bronx, 2015 January: Anna Matos on WallWorks NY — A New Gallery Space in the South Bronx, 2015 July: ¡Presente! The Young Lords in New York, 2015 November: Bronx Cheer, 2016 February: Rebel Music: Race, Empire and the New Muslim Youth Culture (2014), 2016 May: The Birth of the Bronx's Universal Hip Hop Museum, 2016 June: Who Makes the Bronx, 2017 March: New York by New Yorkers: A Local's Guide to the City's Neighborhoods, 2017 August: From Lagos to the Bronx, Photographer Osaretin Ugiagbe Documents the In-Between

Big Box Of Surfin' USA

"Over 200 (!!) tracks of vibrato-laden guitars, thwackin' drums, root-note bass, rough-toned tenor sax and plaintive pleas to former beach bunnies. This is the best of original era American Surf music. Including THE BEACH BOYS, JAN & DEAN, DICK DALE, DUANE EDDY, LINK WRAY and loads more! Time to polish your board, and gas up the Woody!"
Wayside

John Ashbery (July 28, 1927 – September 3, 2017)

Paris, 1959. Photo by Walter Silver.
"The greatest American poet of the last fifty years has died. I read and taught John Ashbery for years, and occasionally wrote about him. The idea of greatness clung about him as it does to only a handful of writers alive at any time. His early work was serene and beautiful; he then became rather frantic and trippy. He had a period of majesty unrivalled in recent poetry, stretching from the seventies through the nineties. His last phase was a kind of inventory of his mind, among the most interesting anyone has ever known. His method was to 'snip off a length' of his consciousness, he said. It was, in part, a strike against the solemnities of achieved reputation, which confronted him everywhere in the forms of syllabi and colloquia. ..."
New Yorker - Postscript: John Ashbery

"John Ashbery, an enigmatic genius of modern poetry whose energy, daring and boundless command of language raised American verse to brilliant and baffling heights, died early Sunday at age 90. Ashbery, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and often mentioned as a Nobel candidate, died at his home in Hudson, New York. His husband, David Kermani, said his death was from natural causes. Few poets were so exalted in their lifetimes. Ashbery was the first living poet to have a volume published by the Library of America dedicated exclusively to his work. His 1975 collection, Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror, was the rare winner of the American book world’s unofficial triple crown: the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle prize. In 2011, he was given a National Humanities Medal and credited with changing 'how we read poetry'. ..."
Guardian: Poet John Ashbery dies age 90

Guardian: The Songs We Know Best: John Ashbery’s Early Life by Karin Roffman
Guardian: John Ashbery obituary (Video)
NY Times: John Ashbery, a Singular Poet Whose Influence Was Broad, Dies at 90
W - John Ashbery
PennSound (Video)

Photograph: Eamonn McCabe

Istanbul: Memories and the City - Orhan Pamuk

Wikipedia - "Istanbul: Memories and the City is a largely autobiographical memoir by Orhan Pamuk that is deeply melancholic. It talks about the vast cultural change that has rocked Turkey – the unending battle between the modern and the receding past. It is also a eulogy to the lost joint family tradition. Most of all, it is a book about Bosphorus and Istanbul's history with the strait. ... The personal memories of the author are intertwined with literary essays about writers and artists who were connected in some way to Istanbul. A whole chapter is dedicated to Antoine Ignace Melling, a 19th-century Western artist who made engravings about Constantinople. Pamuk's favourite Istanbuli writers, who meant inspiration for him and also became figures of his book, are Yahya Kemal Beyatlı, Reşat Ekrem Koçu, Abdülhak Şinasi Hisar, Ahmet Rasim and Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar. His favourite Western travelogue writers play a similar role like Gérard de Nerval, Théophile Gautier and Gustave Flaubert. The book is illustrated by the photographs of Ara Güler, among other professional photographs, chosen by Pamuk because of the melancholic atmosphere of his pictures. ..."
Wikipedia
NY Times: Orhan Pamuk’s Istanbul
amazon
YouTube: Prose reading by Orhan Pamuk, Nobel Laureate in Literature

2012 April: The Museum of Innocence (2008)

"There Is Power in a Union" - Traditional, arranged by Billy Bragg

Wikipedia - "'There Is Power in a Union' is a song written by Joe Hill in 1913. The Industrial Workers of the World (commonly known as the Wobblies) concentrated much of its labor trying to organize migrant workers in lumber and construction camps. They sometimes had competition for the attention of the workers from religious organizations. The song uses the tune of Lewis E. Jones' 1899 hymn "There Is Power in the Blood (Of the Lamb)". 'There Is Power in a Union' was first published in the Little Red Songbook in 1913. The song has been recorded several times. Billy Bragg recorded a song with the title 'There Is Power in a Union' on the Talking with the Taxman About Poetry album; this has different words and is set to the tune of 'Battle Cry of Freedom'. ..."
Wikipedia
"There Is Power in a Union" Lyrics (Audio)
YouTube: "There Is Power in a Union" (With intro + Live), "There Is Power in a Union"

2011 November: Billy Bragg, 2012 November: Strange Things Happen (Live on The Tube 1984), 2012 December: The Internationale, 2013 May: Mermaid Avenue: The Complete Sessions, 2014 June: Tooth & Nail (2013), 2014 September: Peel Session, 2014 December: Don't Try This at Home (1991), 2015 April: Between the Wars EP (1985), 2016 August: Workers Playtime (1987), 2016 November: A love letter to the lyrics of Levi Stubbs’ Tears.

Get NYPL Digital Collections Tab for Your Browser

"A month ago, we released Surveyor—a new tool for geotagging photos in our collections. Thousands of people have already helped us put the history of New York City on the map (but we still need your help). To make exploring our beautiful, historical street photos of NYC even easier, we’re releasing a new tool: the NYPL Digital Collections Tab. NYPL Digital Collections Tab is a browser extension that shows a curated image of New York City from our Digital Collections every time you open a new tab. Inspired by Google’s Earth View—which shows global satellite imagery in new tabs—adding the extension to your browser is a great way to discover photos from the Library’s collections. And if you think you know where in New York City the photo in your tab was taken, one click will bring you to Surveyor! ..."
New York Public Library

2015 May: Mapping the New York That Once Was

Fernando Pessoa’s Disappearing Act

"If ever there was a writer in flight from his name, it was Fernando Pessoa. Pessoa is the Portuguese word for 'person,' and there is nothing he less wanted to be. Again and again, in both poetry and prose, Pessoa denied that he existed as any kind of distinctive individual. 'I’m beginning to know myself. I don’t exist,' he writes in one poem. 'I’m the gap between what I’d like to be and what others have made of me. That’s me. Period.' In his magnum opus, 'The Book of Disquiet'—a collage of aphorisms and reflections couched in the form of a fictional diary, which he worked on for years but never finished, much less published—Pessoa returns to the same theme: 'Through these deliberately unconnected impressions I am the indifferent narrator of my autobiography without events, of my history without a life. These are my Confessions and if I say nothing in them it’s because I have nothing to say.' ..."
New Yorker

2008 March: Fernando Pessoa, 2012 October: The Book of Disquiet, 2012 November: Fernando Pessoa and Co.: Selected Poems, 2014 May: Aspects by Fernando Pessoa, 2016 March: Passoa's Trunk - 13+ ways of looking at a poem.

"Sister Morphine" - Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and Marianne Faithfull (1969)

Wikipedia - "'Sister Morphine' is a song written by Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and Marianne Faithfull. Faithfull released the original version of the song as the B-side to her Decca Records single 'Something Better' on 21 February 1969. ... In the U.K. Faithfull's single was withdrawn by Decca due to the drug reference in the title, after an estimated 500 copies had been issued, but in other countries the single remained in release. In some territories such as the Netherlands, Italy and Japan, 'Sister Morphine' appeared on the A-side. ...  After a legal battle Faithfull retained her rights as a co-author, acknowledged by the 1994 Virgin Records reissue of the Stones' album catalogue from Sticky Fingers through Steel Wheels. The personnel for the Faithfull version is Marianne on vocals, Jagger on acoustic guitar, Ry Cooder on slide guitar and bass guitar, Jack Nitzsche on piano and organ, and Charlie Watts on drums. The Stones' version features Jagger on vocals, Richards on acoustic guitar and backing vocals, Cooder and Nitzche again on slide guitar and piano respectively, Bill Wyman on bass, and Watts again on drums. ..."
Wikipedia
allmusic
YouTube: The Rolling Stones (RARE LIVE VERSION), Marianne Faithfull, The Rolling Stones (Port Chester, N.Y. 1997), Marianne Faithfull (Jazz Open Stuttgart 2009)


2008 June: Marianne Faithfull, 2010 November: Marianne Faithfull - 1, 2013 January: Broken English: Deluxe Edition, 2013 November: Before the Poison (2005), 2014 August: Kissin' Time (2002), 2014 October: Broken English short film by Derek Jarman (1979), 2015 March: Give My Love to London (2014), 2017 March: Strange Weather (1987)

2015 August: Exile on Main Street (1972), 2015 October: "Let's Spend the Night Together" / "Ruby Tuesday" (1967), 2015 December: Brian Jones Presents the Pipes of Pan at Joujouka (1971), 2016 January: Some Girls (1978), 2016 January: The Rolling Stones (EP), 2016 March: Five by Five (EP - 1964), 2016 May: "The Rolling Stones: Charlie Is My Darling — Ireland 1965", 2016 December: Singles Collection: The London Years (1989), 2017 June: Their Satanic Majesties Request (1967)

Found in an NYC Junk Shop: Forgotten Postcards between Two Haiku Masters

"Found at the bottom of an old mailbox in a New York antiques store, what’s written on the back of these postcards perfectly captures the iconic arts scene in New York’s early 1960s– a city that was hosting the likes of Bob Dylan, Andy Warhol, Jack Kerouac and countless more forgotten artists, jazz musicians and poets of an era gone by… The handwritten notes and unreleased poetry brought to life with illustrations, are all from a Haiku poet known as the Arizona Zipper, addressed to Cor Van de Huevel, another Haiku poet particularly influential in bringing Haiku to New York and the United States in the 1960s. Together, the pair were the pioneers of American Haiku poetry in the 1960s. But for those that don’t know, by now you might very well be asking yourself– what the heck is Haiku?! Haiku is the ancient Japanese art of a very short form of poetry. ..."
MESSY NESSY
Cor Van de Huevel
Poets & Writers
amazon: Books by Cor van den Heuvel
FORA.tv: 07. Cor van den Heuvel Reads

The Nubians of Plutonia / Bad and Beautiful - Sun Ra and his Myth Science Arkestra (c.1958-1959)

"Along with his Arkestra, astral traveler and free jazz cornerstone artist Sun Ra amassed an unthinkably dense discography that chronicled their explorations in sound that grew away from the big-band sound of their beginnings into increasingly more experimental and spectral fare as the years went on. Even when engaging in more standard genres of music, Ra and company were a far cry from traditional, and the often murky, underwater-by-way-of-outer-space recording quality of many of their albums just added to the otherworldly feel of their music. This collection pairs two fantastic albums made in different times of transition for the group. ... The album still finds the band playing standards, but hints at the spectral territory they would soon branch off into with more daring percussion choices and interestingly spacious dynamics."
allmusic
W - The Nubians of Plutonia / Bad and Beautiful
W - Bad and Beautiful
amazon
YouTube: The Nubians of Plutonia (1958-59) 7 videos

I used to lead tours at a plantation. You won’t believe the questions I got about slavery.

The Old Plantation (Slaves Dancing on a South Carolina Plantation), ca. 1785-1795
"Up until about a year ago, I worked at a historic site in the South that included an old house and a nearby plantation. My job was to lead tours and tell guests about the people who made plantations possible: the slaves. The site I worked at most frequently had more than 100 enslaved workers associated with it— 27 people serving the household alone, outnumbering the home's three white residents by a factor of nine. Yet many guests who visited the house and took the tour reacted with hostility to hearing a presentation that focused more on the slaves than on the owners. ..."
Vox (Video)

Too Much Pressure - The Selecter (1979)

Wikipedia - "Too Much Pressure is the first album by British ska band The Selecter. After the band's official formation in 1979 in Coventry, following the release of a song entitled 'The Selecter' by an unofficial incarnation of the band, the band's hit single 'On My Radio' prompted their labels 2 Tone and Chrysalis to ask the band to record their debut album. ... The album contains original material, mostly composed by band founder and guitarist Neol Davies, as well as numerous ska and reggae cover versions, in a similar fashion to the Specials' debut album. ... Critical reception to Too Much Pressure was positive. Robert Christgau of The Village Voice awarded the album a score of 'A-', advising listeners to 'play loud.^' He commented how, 'except for songwriter-guitarist Neol Davies, these two-toners are black, reassuring in a movement that calls up fears of folkie patronization. Lead singer's a woman, too, a refreshing piece of progress no matter how self-consciously progressive its motives.' ..."
Wikipedia
The Hackskeptic's View (Video)
amazon, Spotify, iTunes
YouTube: Too Much Pressure (Live), On My Radio (Live), Missing Words (Live), Murder (Live)

Marseille

Wikipedia - "Marseille, also known as Marseilles, is a city in France. The capital of the Bouches-du-Rhône department and Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, Marseille, on France's south coast, is the country's second largest city, after Paris, with a population of 852,516 in 2012, and an area of 241 km² (93 sq mi), the 3rd-largest metropolitan area in France after Paris and Lyon. Known to the ancient Greeks and Romans as Massalia (Greek: Μασσαλία, Massalía), Marseille was the most important trading centre in the region and the main commercial port of the French Republic. Marseille is now France's largest city on the Mediterranean coast and the largest port for commerce, freight and cruise ships. ..."
Wikipedia
Lonely Planet
Telegraph
YouTube: Marseille

2014 April: Night Walk in Marseille

Visions of Johanna - Bob Dylan (1966)

Wikipedia - "'Visions of Johanna' is a song written and performed by Bob Dylan on his 1966 album Blonde on Blonde. Dylan first recorded the song in New York City in November 1965, under the working title of 'Freeze Out', but was dissatisfied with the results. When the Blonde on Blonde recording sessions moved to Nashville in February 1966, Dylan attempted the composition again with different musicians, and decided to release this performance. All the alternate versions of the song have been officially released, but some only on a limited edition collectors set: many of them are November 1965 or later 1966 studio outtakes, and two others live performances from his 1966 world tour. Several critics have acclaimed 'Visions of Johanna' as one of Dylan's highest achievements in writing, praising the allusiveness and subtlety of the language. ..."
Wikipedia
Guardian: Watch the video for Bob Dylan's Visions of Johanna (Video)
"Visions of Johanna"
YouTube: Visions Of Johanna (Belfast 6 May 66)

Capturing Love, the Brooklyn Way

"'One of the things that I noticed quickly,' the photographer Andre Wagner said of moving to Bushwick, Brooklyn, from Omaha in 2012, is 'how you can see the affection of people out in public because so many things happen on the streets.' Mr. Wagner drew upon his background in social work when he started taking photos. 'Living in Brooklyn, I see a lot of that family interaction, which I’m really interested in capturing.' He took these photos in April, roaming between Downtown Brooklyn, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Williamsburg and Bushwick. Mr. Wagner is also interested in the way different people come together on New York City subways and buses. ..."
NY Times (Video)
NY Times: Sunday Best in Harlem and Brooklyn
Meet Andre D. Wagner, The Photographer Documenting The Poetic Side Of New York City (Video)
Andre D. Wagner
Instagram

Something Wild - Jonathan Demme (1986)

Wikipedia - "Something Wild is a 1986 American action comedy film directed by Jonathan Demme and starring Melanie Griffith, Jeff Daniels and Ray Liotta. It was screened out of competition at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival. This film has some elements of a road movie, and it has acquired a cult status. In New York City, Charlie Driggs (Jeff Daniels) is a seemingly conventional banker whose wife has left him. In a café, a brunette (Melanie Griffith) who calls herself Lulu spots him leaving without paying. After a teasing confrontation, the two leave in a car that, Lulu says, she acquired from a divorce. They embark on a bizarre adventure, including crashing and abandoning the car, stealing from a liquor store and leaving a diner without paying. ..."
Wikipedia
Roger Ebert
NY Times: Something Genre Crossing, Something Bold
YouTube: Something Wild - Official Trailer, Something Wild clip

Soccer in Sun and Shadow - Eduardo Galeano (1993)

"Eduardo Galeano — the famous Uruguayan writer, journalist, and political activist — passed away Monday at the age of 74. He was most widely celebrated (and defamed) for his incisive critiques of Western imperialism and capitalism, as well as his lilting, graceful prose. ... Soccer fans will know him as the author of El fútbol a sol y sombra, or Soccer in Sun and Shadow. The book offers a cultural history of the beautiful game, using his trademark poignant verse to shape history and politics and economics and personal experience into a sort of paper sculpture— beautiful, unexpected, and somewhat transient. There’s a lot of darkness in the story Galeano tells—the 'shadow' in the book title, as it were—yet he unfurls and shares his joy and love for the sport throughout. Football, for Galeano, was an intimate and indelible part of life— and more often than not, it represented the better parts of it. Galeano was more than a fan; he was a pilgrim, telling a story that was equal parts hard labor sentence, passionate love affair and fleeting moment of rapture. ..."
Paste
Guardian - Eduardo Galeano: Uruguayan whose writing got right to the heart of football
Under the Sun
Google
amazon

2015 April: Eduardo Galeano (3 September 1940 – 13 April 2015)

Judson Dance Theater

"Performance of Yvonne Rainer's The Mind is a Muscle: Trio A, Judson Memorial Church, Greenwich Village, New York, 1966
Wikipedia - "Judson Dance Theater was a collective of dancers, composers, and visual artists who performed at the Judson Memorial Church in Greenwich Village, Manhattan New York City between 1962 and 1964. It grew out of a composition class taught by Robert Dunn, a musician who had studied with John Cage. The artists involved were avant garde experimentalists who rejected the confines of Modern dance practice and theory, inventing as they did the precepts of Postmodern dance. ... The first Judson concert took place on July 6, 1962, with works created by Steve Paxton, Fred Herko, David Gordon, Alex and Deborah Hay, Yvonne Rainer, Elaine Summers, William Davis, and Ruth Emerson. ..."
Wikipedia
ARTFORUM: Judson Memorial Dance Theater 50th Anniversary
The First Concert of Dance at the Judson Dance Theater
NY Times: HOW THE JUDSON THEATER CHANGED AMERICAN DANCE By JACK ANDERSON (Jan. 31, 1982)
[PDF] Judson Church: Dance, an essay by George Jackson
YouTube: A JUDSON DANCE THEATER

Program for Fantastic Gardens, Judson Dance Theater, 1964. Design: Carol Summers.

Steeped in controversy: Tea guru in the fight of a lifetime

A hand-carved door on David Lee Hoffman's property.
"David Lee Hoffman will not show me his tea cave. The Lagunitas cave where Hoffman, owner of the Phoenix Collection, is aging tens of thousands of pounds of tea is well-known in the industry. 'All in This Tea,' Les Blank’s 2007 documentary about Hoffman, pictures him loading boxes into it. Marin County, which has been suing Hoffman for more than a decade to bring his 2-acre estate to code, has listed the cave in its extensive complaints. Yet Hoffman still treats it as a secret. 'It’s not open to the public,' he tells me. That may be because most of the teas stored at the Last Resort, his home and 'ecological research center' in the Lagunitas hills, are puers, a genre of Chinese tea equivalent to cult Cabs or single-malt scotches. Hoffman is one of the most storied tea vendors in the United States, and his puers may be worth millions of dollars, albeit to a minuscule cadre of collectors. ..."
Steeped in controversy: Tea guru in the fight of a lifetime
Inside Druid Heights, a Marin County counter-culture landmark
Act Now: Save The Last Resort - A Working Model of Sustainability in Marin County, CA (Video)
W - All in This Tea
True Films (Video)
YouTube: All In This Tea (Bullfrog Films clip)

2013 April: Les Blank

5 Cassette Players Walk into an Aphex Twin Cover

"The past week or so have been big news in Aphex Twin land, from the opening of his own digital superstore, at aphextwin.warp.net, packed with extra tracks and candid bits of liner notes, to a headlining gig at a Japanese music festival, and the subsequent inevitable price spike for a commemorative tape of the concert. Lost in the tumult was this little video cover of 'Rhubarb,' the third track from the Selected Ambient Works Volume 2 album. In the video it’s being performed on the Crudman — well, on a quintet of Crudmen. The Crudman is an ingenious hack of a Walkman. ..."
disquiet (Video)

How Mushrooms Became Magic

"If you were an American scientist interested in hallucinogens, the 1950s and 1960s were a great time to be working. Drugs like LSD and psilocybin—the active ingredient in magic mushrooms—were legal and researchers could acquire them easily. With federal funding, they ran more than a hundred studies to see if these chemicals could treat psychiatric disorders. That heyday ended in 1970, when Richard Nixon signed the Controlled Substances Act. It completely banned the use, sale, and transport of psychedelics—and stifled research into them. ... For Slot, that was a shame. He tried magic mushrooms as a young adult, and credits them with pushing him into science. ..."
The Atlantic

Balcony Seats to the City

A newly arrived immigrant eats noodles on the fire escape in New York City.
"Even in quickly evolving New York City, there’s something romantic about slowing down, stepping out of the fast currents of foot traffic, and looking up. Few neighborhoods will disappoint. Look up high, especially in Manhattan, and you can see the built history of the big city play out in the architectural details and ornamental facades of buildings, awnings and balconies standing out like grooves in record, ready to reveal the story of each block. Within the skyscraper canyons of Midtown, you can spot the pinnacles of great towers, and the cranes of greater towers in the making. But look a little lower, around the corners and in the alleyways, and you’ll see a structure with a romantic connection to an older New York City, zig-zagging down towards the streets. ..."
CURBED (Video)

Paul Violi Archive

Flyer for Paul Violi reading at 98 Greene Street Loft, May 8, [197?].
"The Paul Violi archive offers the opportunity to explore the life and work of poet and small press publisher Paul Violi. It is particularly strong in its illumination of the poet's creative process, especially as viewed through the lens of his unique relationship with fellow poets Tony Towle and Charles North. ... Paul Violi was born on July 20, 1944 in Brooklyn, New York and grew up in Greenlawn, Long Island. He spent time at St. Mark's Poetry project and was an active part of the New York poetry world. Violi was the Poetry Project’s interim Director (1977) and also served on its advisory board (1978–1981). In spring 1970, he took a workshop at the Poetry Project with Tony Towle where he also met Charles North. The three developed a unique, supportive and creative relationship that lasted until Violi’s death in 2011. ..."
Granary Books
W - Paul Violi
Paul Violi
Poetry Foundation
NY Times: Paul Violi, a Poet Both Wry and Sly, Dies at 66

Le Mellotron presents Paris DJs X Todd Simon

"4 years ago Paris DJs invited Le Mellotron to cook up two mixes exploring the link between Jazz and Hip Hop. 2 years ago Le Mellotron hosted an exclusive Paris DJs mix of Latino Funk & Hispanic Jerk covers on their site. Last year Le Mellotron invited Paris DJs on their former boat on the Seine in the center of Paris for a 3 hours takeover where founders Djouls, Loik Dury & Grant Phabao were there deejaying 45s and some of their own productions. Following up on what has now become a tradition, this summer on monday, june 22nd, Le Mellotron are glad to invite again Paris DJs, for a 2 hours DJ set with special guest Todd Simon, coming straight from Los Angeles and bringing a box of 45s for a super fun set blending jazz, afrobeat, upbeat-jamaican and off the radar funk!! ..."
ParisDJ (Audio)
ParisDJ: Le Mellotron - From Jazz To Hip Hop (Audio)
ParisDJ: Le Mellotron - From Jazz To Hip Hop, PT. 2 (Audio)
ParisDJ: Le Mellotron (Audio)

RIP Village Voice 1955-2017

"Without it, if you are a New Yorker of a certain age, chances are you would have never found your first apartment. Never discovered your favorite punk band, spouted your first post-Structuralist literary jargon, bought that unfortunate futon sofa, discovered Sam Shepard or charted the perfidies of New York’s elected officials. Never made your own hummus or known exactly what the performance artist Karen Finley did with yams that caused such an uproar over at the National Endowment for the Arts. The Village Voice, the left-leaning independent weekly New York City newspaper, announced on Tuesday that it will end print publication. The exact date of the last print edition has not yet been finalized, according to a spokeswoman. ..."

NY Times: After 62 Years and Many Battles, Village Voice Will End Print Publication
Esquire: Generations of Village Voice Writers Reflect on the Paper Leaving the Honor Boxes
NPR: New Yorkers Mourn End Of An Era As 'Village Voice' Ceases Print Edition
NPR: Former Village Voice Editors And Writers Remember Its Outsized Impact On Music
It Takes a Village: A ‘Village Voice’ Reading List
W - Village Voice
Google - The Village Voice


Village Voice: The Shaggs, Music Downtown - Kyle Gann, The Voice Lays Off J Hoberman, John Wilcock: New York Years, 1954-1971 (Ethan Persoff and Scott Marshall), Love Goes to Buildings On Fire: Five Years in New York City That Changed Music Forever, The Essential Ellen Willis, Ocean of Sound - David Toop (1995), Tom Johnson - The Voice of New Music: New York City 1972–1982, 50 Years After Dylan Played Forest Hills, Al Kooper Recalls 1965's Electric Summer, St. Mark’s Place: It’s Party Time in the East Village!, Mark Alan Stamaty, Gem Spa, Village Voice NYC Albums , Jonas Mekas, J. Hoberman, The Quad Cinema's Facelift Caps Off a New Golden Age of NYC Cinema, Damn. - Kendrick Lamar (2017), Jeremiah Moss Was Here

March selection - Ceints de Bakélite

"It’s been long time since I haven’t posted anything on the blog, even though I have bought some great 78s in the past months. Instead of writing a long article as usual, I decided this time to share with you a selection of recordings from my collection. I only wrote a very short description for each track. Instrumental Zourna (Turkey). An hypnotic track from Turkey featuring a Zurna solo with a drum accompaniment. A record from the late 20’s or early 30’s on the British branch of Columbia. Its central label features a sticker from the now-disappeared shop of Léon Nichanian, that used to sell Armenian, Greek and Turkish records in Paris’ Belleville neighbourhood. ..."
Ceints de Bakélite (soundcloud)

The City So Nice They Can’t Stop Making Movies About It By A.O. Scott

Filming “Taxi Driver” on the streets of New York.
"According to City Hall, on any given day there are around 120 film and television projects in production in New York. About 12,000 permits are issued a year, resulting in the intermittent irritation of non-industry-connected residents as we try to park our cars or push our strollers. We might complain, but really we wouldn’t want it any other way. Trailers, craft service tables and production assistants policing sidewalks with clipboards and walkie-talkies have long been fixtures of New York life. They are also the building blocks of a virtual city, a second metropolis extracted from and existing alongside the real one. For natives, transplants and tourists alike, it can be hard to tell where the actual New York leaves off and its cinematic doppelgänger begins. And it would be downright impossible to pick just one movie that sums up the experience of the city. Still, it might be interesting to try. ..."
NY Times
One Film, One New York (Video)