Walden on the Rocks - Ariel Dorfman

J.M.W. Turner: Wreckers—Coast of Northumberland, with a Steam-Boat Assisting a Ship off Shore, 1834
"The bodies are strewn everywhere along the beach. Burials are complicated because nobody knows the names of the dead—mostly women and children fleeing famine and poverty, trying to reach the land of plenty that has been promised to them but finding, instead, an early end in turbulent waters. Spectators gape at the debris from the recent shipwreck 'cracked up like an eggshell on the rocks,' while others go about their business. ... This scene of devastation and indifference seems torn from the latest headlines or photos from around the world, just one more group of refugees appearing fleetingly on our screens and in our consideration. ... The eyewitness referred to above, without whom we might not remember the incident at all, was none other than Henry David Thoreau. ..."
NYBooks

November 2007: J. M. W. Turner, 2009 April: Turner & Italy, 2011 June: J. M. W. Turner - 1, 2014 June: In Which We Find His Theory Of Color Implausible, 2014 May: Ruin Lust, 2014 September: The EY Exhibition: Late Turner – Painting Set Free, 2016 June: Turner’s Whaling Pictures, 2017 March: Turner’s Modern and Ancient Ports: Passages through Time, 2017 July: Turner set free: Nature as roughhouse theater by W.S. Di Piero

2009 April: Henry David Thoreau, 2012 September: Walden, 2015 March: A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849), 2017 March: Civil Disobedience (1849), 2017 April: The Maine Woods (1864), 2017 June: This Ever New Self: Thoreau and His Journal, 2017 July: Pond Scum - Henry David Thoreau’s moral myopia. By Kathryn Schulz, 2017 July: Walden, a Game, 2017 October: Walden Wasn’t Thoreau’s Masterpiece

As Greenland Melts, Where’s the Water Going?

"In the summer of 2015, two New York Times journalists joined a team of researchers in Greenland that was conducting a unique experiment: directly measuring a river of meltwater runoff on the top of the ice. Now, the scientists have published the results of that work. A key finding — that not as much meltwater flows immediately through the ice sheet and drains to the ocean as previously estimated — may have implications for sea-level rise, one of the major effects of climate change. The scientists say it appears that some of the meltwater is retained in porous ice instead of flowing to the bottom of the ice sheet and out to sea. ..."
NY Times

Vermont Progressive Party

Wikipedia - "The Vermont Progressive Party is a political party in the United States. It was founded in 1999 and is active only in the U.S. state of Vermont. The party is largely social democratic and progressive. ... The Vermont Progressive Party originated with the independent campaign of Bernie Sanders for mayor of Burlington (prior to being elected mayor Sanders was a leader in the VT Liberty Union Party). ... Progressives started running for the Burlington City Council and getting elected from the poor, student, and middle-class areas of Burlington. They cleaned up the waterfront, which had been left trashed by industry, started citywide recycling, and established a public/private partnership with a land trust to make low- and moderate-income rental and home ownership available. The Progressive Administration started a women’s small business technical assistance program and an affirmative action ordinance for the awarding of city contracts. ..."
Wikipedia
Vermont Progressive Party
Vermont’s Cautionary Tale
Dare to Win: A Brief History of Vermont’s Progressive Party
NY Times: As Vermont Goes, So Goes the Nation?

Hirtle’s Beach - Rose Bay NS

"A nature enthusiast’s paradise. Categorized as a living beach because the beach moves and shifts at the whim of the ocean. Hirtle’s Beach is ever changing. Here you will find more than three kilometers of white sand, rolling surf, fresh sea air, drumlin cliffs and breathtaking views. Hirtle's Beach appeals to the whole family, as there are 2 small lakes for kids to swim in, and those not up to the chill of the atlantic ocean waves!"
South Shore Connect
W - Kingsburg, Nova Scotia
YouTube: Hirtle's Beach

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

Stars of the Lid - And Their Refinement of the Decline (2007)

"After the near symphonic exercise of engaging the void that was Tired Sounds of Stars of the Lid in 2001, it was hard to believe there was anything left to do. Wrong. Brian McBride and Adam Wiltzie emerged from the studio in early 2007 with the equally huge And Their Refinement of the Decline. The notion of symphonic here is, without doubt, still present, but not in any normal way. Over two very differently themed discs, and three LPs, Stars of the Lid engage long conceptual ideas from a place one can only call micro-minimalism. An obsession with drones fading in and out on all kinds of instruments is what takes precedent here, whether that be a string section, a solo cello, harp, trumpet or a children's choir. (Yes, all of them are here, and more.) Don't worry, all this deep fixation with drones and classical music doesn't mess up Stars of the Lid's sense of humor. ..."
allmusic
Pitchfork
W - And Their Refinement of the Decline
amazon
YouTube: "...And Their Refinement of the Decline" - Full Album

impLOG – Holland Tunnel Dive / On B’Way (1979)

"impLOG was the solo project of Don Christensen after leaving New York No Wave group The Contortions in 1979. He began making music using found sounds, a Univox drum machine, guitar stomp boxes, Casio keyboards and percussion instruments. Eventually Don gave a demo tape to Charles Ball at Lust/Unlust Records, who loved it, and released the 'Holland Tunnel Dive' b/w 'On B’way' 12” in 1980. 'Holland Tunnel Dive' is a monotone lament, with a narrator reciting a list of all that is missing in his life along to a sparse, mechanical beat. A variable speed Milwaukee drill creeps its way into the song, eventually reaching cacophonous levels. After four minutes of industrial motorik, an upbeat saxophone riff breaks out unexpectedly, unsettling the listener even further. On the B-side is a deranged version of the Lieber and Stoller show tune 'On Broadway', featuring lead guitar by Jody Harris of the Contortions. The record perfectly captures the dark and seedy vibe of downtown New York in the early 80’s. All songs have been remastered from the original master tapes for vinyl by George Horn at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley. The jacket is an exact replica of the original. On the front cover is an illustration of a hydraulic pump against a taxi-cab yellow background. Each copy includes a double sided insert with lyrics, never before seen photos and liner notes by Don Christensen."
Dark Entries Records (Video)
Juno Download
YouTube: Holland Tunnel Dive, On B’Way

The Comedic Beauty of Laura Owens’s Work

“Untitled” (2013)
"A new self-awareness entered painting toward the end of the 20th century, which initiated an irreverent, sometimes but not always loving interrogation of the medium. Artists of several generations and many stripes pushed this approach forward, ransacking painting’s history and conventions, examining it as both a commodity and an object in space, toying with its taboos and its pursuit of a signature style. One of the most innovative explorers of this vanguard has been Laura Owens, the subject of a jubilant, chameleonic midcareer survey now on view at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Ms. Owens loves painting but she approaches it with a rare combination of sincerity and irony. Distinguished by a sly, comedic beauty, her work has a playful, knowing, almost-Rococo lightness of being in which pleasure, humor, intelligence and a seductive sense of usually high color mingle freely. ..."
NY Times
New Yorker: The Radical Paintings of Laura Owens
YouTube: Laura Owens: Hugo Boss Prize 2016 Nominee

2013 March: Laura Owens, 2015 March: The Forever Now: Contemporary Painting in an Atemporal World

After The Heat - Brian Eno, Dieter Moebius and Hans-Joachim (1978)

Wikipedia - "After The Heat is a 1978 album by Brian Eno, Dieter Moebius and Hans-Joachim Roedelius (the latter two being the core members of Cluster), credited to 'Eno Moebius Roedelius'. The album represents the second collaboration by the trio, the first being 1977's Cluster & Eno. As with the previous album, After The Heat was created in collaboration with the influential 'krautrock' producer Conny Plank. ... Comparing the album to the musicians' previous collaboration Cluster & Eno (1977), Pitchfork wrote in their favourable retrospective review: 'A few piano-centered instrumentals hint at the sound of the earlier record, but After The Heat exists in a fantastic sphere of its own.' All songs composed by Brian Eno, Dieter Moebius and Hans-Joachim Roedelius. ..."
Wikipedia
Remembering Dieter Moebius of Cluster (Video)
Discogs
YouTube: After the Heat [Full Album]

Living Well Is the Best Revenge By Calvin Tomkins

Gerald and Sara Murphy with friends at a beach in the French Riviera, late 1920s.
(July 28, 1962) "A writer like F. Scott Fitzgerald, whose life can almost be said to have attracted more attention than his work, may have to wait a long time before his literary reputation finds its true level. Although 'Tender Is the Night,' the novel Fitzgerald liked best of the four he published during his lifetime, was generally considered a failure when it first appeared (even by Fitzgerald, who tried to improve its standing by writing a revised version that nearly everybody agreed was much worse), it has been quietly assuming, over the years, something like the status of an American classic. Sales in the past twelve months exceeded five hundred and fifty thousand copies, or about forty-five times the sale of the original edition. The book, which was out of print when Fitzgerald died, in 1940, is now available in four editions, and is required reading in a large number of college courses in American literature. ..."
New Yorker

2014 January: View the Passport Photos of F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf & Other Cultural Icons, 2014 August: Gatsby to Garp: Modern Masterpieces from the Carter Burden Collection, 2014 November: Lost Generation, 2015 November: The Crack-Up (1945)

Lines

Lines 1 (September 1965).
"Aram Saroyan, the son of one of America’s most beloved novelists, grew up on New York’s West End Avenue and attended Trinity School, a private prep school in the same neighborhood. He attended the University of Chicago for a while and had his first poem published in the Nation. Returning to New York, he worked at Bookmasters bookstore near Times Square and at Virginia Admiral’s Academy Typing Service (she was a poet and the mother of actor-to-be Robert De Niro). After traveling cross-country to show his poems to Robert Creeley, then in Placitas, New Mexico, Saroyan was finally ready, at age twenty-one, to start his own little magazine, Lines, in 1964. ..."
From a Secret Location
Reality Studio: Lines Archive
W - Aram Saroyan
Lines Magazine (Ed.) Aram Saroyan
Jacket2: Stone Cutting All The Way
[PDF] Works – Saroyan Complete - Cuneiform Press

Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt and Robert Rehfeldt

"There is a tradition that places the archive amidst a set of notions indebted to Jacques Derrida’s meditations on ‘fever’, ‘spectres’ and ‘hauntings’. The archive, in this respect, represents an exploration of the dark side of history; a navigation of, exploration of, hidden pasts. ‘A: The Mail Art Archive of Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt and Robert Rehfeldt’ at ChertLüdde, Berlin, takes a wholly different tact, luminously associating the archive with fluid concepts such as networks, friendships and anonymity. Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt was born in East Germany in 1932 and relocated to Berlin in 1950, where she met her husband, the experimental artist Robert Rehfeldt. In 1970, she began her ‘Typewritings’ series, which she continued until the Berlin Wall came down in 1989. Her recently rediscovered catalogue comprises almost 1,000 of these works: geometric visual poems, typewritten on A4 paper so as to be distributed by mail, which range from abstract typographic repetitions to emotional linguistic experiments to renderings of architectural shapes, objects and human silhouettes. ..."
frieze
A –The Mail Art Archive of Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt and Robert Rehfeldt
Paulo Bruscky & Robert Rehfeldt “Home Archives” and Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt “Signs FIction”at Chert, Berlin
“SIGNS FICTION: Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt” and “HOME ARCHIVES: Paulo Bruscky & Robert Rehfeldt’s Mail Art Exchanges from East Berlin to South America”
W - Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt
W - documenta

Michael Flynn Pleads Guilty to Lying to the F.B.I.

"President Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, pleaded guilty on Friday to lying to the F.B.I. about conversations with the Russian ambassador last December during the presidential transition, bringing the special counsel’s investigation into the president’s inner circle. Mr. Flynn, who appeared in federal court in Washington, acknowledged that he was cooperating with the investigation by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, into Russian interference in the 2016 election. His plea agreement suggests that Mr. Flynn provided information to prosecutors, which may help advance the inquiry. The development came at a particularly sensitive moment for the White House, just as Mr. Trump and Republican congressional leaders are toiling to hold together a tenuous coalition to push through a large tax cut plan. It marked an unwelcome headline at a time when the president’s team is hoping to focus public attention on what they argue is an impressive list of accomplishments in his first year. ..."
NY Times (Video)
NY Times: Trump Is Cracking Up
Flynn pleads guilty to lying to the FBI (Video)

Peter Gordon: The Love of Life Orchestra Founder’s Formative Years

"Peter Gordon’s music embodies many things: funk, minimalism, rock, disco, classical music, post-punk, and the creative ferment of downtown New York. Stumbling upon his odd and rich discography – much of it performed with his long-running, rotating group known as the Love of Life Orchestra – is like uncovering a hidden treasure. Many of Gordon’s old friends and collaborators, such as the late Arthur Russell, have been extensively documented in recent years through books and reissues, but Gordon remains a bit of an enigma. His music received a high-profile push thanks to James Murphy, who prominently featured Gordon and the Love of Life Orchestra in his Fabriclive.36 mix, assembled with LCD Soundsystem drummer Pat Mahoney in 2010. Later that same year, a revelatory reissue of Gordon’s music from the ’70s and ’80s was released on DFA Records, which included two little-heard tracks recorded with Russell. ..."
Red Bull Music Academy Daily

2010 December: Love of Life Orchestra, 2015 November: Extended Niceties EP (1980), 2017 April: Various Artists - The Fruit of the Original Sin (1981)

Graham Greene - The Heart of the Matter (1948)

"A policeman's lot is not a happy one. The white (and dark) man's burden must always be heavy. And man's debt to man will be forever in arrears -- from West Africa to the West End, from Brooklyn to Bucharest. Generations of novelists have wrestled with these melancholy truisms. It is a pleasure to report that Graham Greene, in 'The Heart of the Matter,' has wrestled brilliantly with all three -- and scored three clean falls. Mr. Greene (as a well-earned public knows) is a profound moralist with a technique to match his purpose. From first page to last, this record of one man's breakdown on a heat-drugged fever-coast makes its point as a crystal-clear allegory -- and as an engrossing novel. Mr. Greene has chosen a carefully unnamed spot on Africa's coastline as his backdrop: we are told merely that it adjoins Vichy-held territory across one of its sluggish, tan-colored rivers, that the time is the wrong end of World War II. ..."
NY Times (July 1948)
W - The Heart of the Matter
Crime and the City: Freetown and Its Colonialist Vice
[PDF] Heart of the Matter
amazon

Watch Footage of the Velvet Underground Composing “Sunday Morning,” the First Track on Their Seminal Debut Album The Velvet Underground & Nico (1966)

"Before its many layers of well-deserved hagiography, the Velvet Underground’s first album emerged in 1967 on its own terms, in near obscurity, introducing something so mysteriously cool and hauntingly grim and beautiful. Goth and punk and post-punk and New Wave and chamber pop and shoegaze and indie folk and Britpop and noise and drone and No Wave… all came decades later. But first there was The Velvet Underground & Nico. ... [Tyler] Wilcox describes in his history how all of those qualities—luck, and Andy Warhol, included—brought the five original VU members together in 1965; how the band debuted with Nico at the Delmonico Hotel 1966, occasioning the New York Herald Tribune’s headline, 'Shock Treatment for Psychiatrists'; and how their lo-fi drone and Medieval folk meets decadent, literary 60s pop derived from influences like Booker T. & The MG’s and avant-garde minimalist La Monte Young. It’s one thing to read about this total re-imaging of rock and roll, and another thing entirely to see it. Unfortunately, little film of the band exists from that time—some of it very fragmentary or very rare. ..."
Open Culture (Video)

2010 August: Heroin, 2011 June: All Tomorrow's Parties - The Velvet Underground, 2011 June: The Velvet Underground, 2012 November: Songs for Drella - Lou Reed and John Cale, 2013 October: Lou Reed (1942 - 2013), 2014 June: The Bells (1979), 2014 August: New York (1989), 2015 June: Capitol Theatre Passaic, NJ 9/25/1984, 2015 October: The Blue Mask (1982), 2016 March: New Sensations (1984), 2016 May: Coney Island Baby (1976), 2017 March: Celebrating Lou Reed: 1942–2013

The Treasures Blooming in Canada’s Largest Seed Catalog Archive

"The Royal Botanical Gardens—an 87-year-old, 2,422-acre swath of historic parks and gardens headquartered in Burlington, Ontario—is home to wonders animal, vegetable, and mineral. There’s a turtle tank in the main building’s lobby, native fish in the wetlands, and wild ducks and bald eagles flying over patches of protected land. Plants, of course, are everywhere, from rock gardens to nature trails to a two-story indoor greenwall. When I visited in early November, workers were building a miniature train set that snakes around an entire atrium, through scale models of Niagara Falls and the CN Tower. ..."
Atlas Obscura
W - Royal Botanical Gardens (Ontario)

Life Style - Barrington Levy (1983)

"Originally released in 1983 'Life Style' is probably the most sought after and one of the best Roots Reggae albums by Barrington Levy. Born in 1964 Barrington Levy started his career at the age of 15.He became famous early with his hits produced by Henry 'Junjo' Lawes on the 'Roots Radics' Riddims. Recorded at Channel One, Arranged & Produced by Alvin 'GG's' Ranglin 'Life Style' is reissued on vinyl for the first time."
Sounds of the Universe
Barrington Levy
YouTube: Barrington Levy's Life Style (1983 Full Album)

2012 September: Barrington Levy, 2015 July: Love Your Brother Man: The Early Years

The glorious mansions on a lovely Harlem block

"Nineteenth century New York had lots of freestanding, single-family mansions. Few survive today, but one Harlem block is host to four. These bells-and-whistles monuments to wealth and status do a pretty good job blending in with the walkups that surround them. You’ll find these mansions at St. Nicholas Place and 150th Street, in the middle of Harlem’s Sugar Hill neighborhood. Sugar Hill is roomy and lovely, but I don’t think the name was in use when James Bailey (of Barnum and Bailey Circus fame) decided to build this magnificent castle of a home in 1888 (below, in 1895). It’s a Medieval limestone mansion with 64 windows of mosaic glass and 30 rooms at 10 St. Nicholas Place—an offshoot of St. Nicholas Avenue, a high and wide road popular among the Gilded Age rich who went coaching there. ..."
Ephemeral New York

Spain’s Conflict Over Catalonia Is Covering Up Massive Political Corruption

A pro-independence demonstration asking for the release of jailed Catalan activists and leaders in Barcelona, November 11, 2017.
"'Franco has died,' read the tongue-in-cheek headline of the November 11 editorial in El País, Spain’s self-proclaimed newspaper of record. The headline recalled the televised announcement on November 20, 1975, by then prime minister Arias Navarro informing the nation of its leader’s passing—and, unwittingly, of Chevy Chase’s running gag on Saturday Night Live ('Generalissimo Franco is still dead'). The editorial meant to poke fun at foreign commentators who resort to comparisons with the Franco regime to describe the way Spain’s central government has handled Catalonia’s bid for independence. On November 5, Belgium’s former prime minister Elio Di Rupo branded Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy an 'authoritarian Francoist' on Twitter. These comparisons are 'absurd,' El País wrote, calling Di Rupo’s claim 'offensive,' 'intolerable,' and equivalent to calling Angela Merkel 'a totalitarian Nazi.' ..."
The Nation

2017 October: Catalonia Leaders Seek to Make Independence Referendum Binding, 2017 October: Catalonia: Past and Future - Luke Stobart, 2017 October: Spain moves to take over Catalonia after region declares independence

One Stop Record Shop

"Legendary guitarist Earl King ('Lonely, Lonely Nights' and 'Let the Good Times Roll') claimed that he walked into the One Stop Record Shop one day in late 1963 and was told 'All your gang is in the back.' Sure enough, behind the stacks of 45s and LPs he found Professor Longhair, Tommy Ridgley, Eddie Bo, and others huddled around the store’s piano. This was the same room where in early 1960 a teenaged Irma Thomas auditioned for Ron and Ric Records’ Joe Ruffino, which led to her cutting the hit 'Don’t Mess With My Man' (the preceding lyric is 'You can have my husband, but please…'). The record jumpstarted the career of the future Soul Queen of New Orleans. ..."
A Closer Walk (Video)
YouTube: JOHNNY 'GUITAR' WATSON - Those Lonely, Lonely Nights, Don't Mess With My Man - Irma Thomas, Let The Good Times Roll- Shirley & Lee

2014 February: Johnny "Guitar" Watson - Space Guitar: The Essential Early Masters, 2015 October: Don't Mess With My Man - Irma Thomas (1959)

Cinematic Atlas: A Guide to Martin Scorsese's New York

"New York means a great deal to many filmmakers, perhaps none more so than Martin Scorsese. Part of the generation that included Coppola and Spielberg, Scorsese was born in 1942 in Queens. His work, so often tied closely to his Italian-American, Roman Catholic background, stands among the best in American cinema. New York has a mythic status for natives and non-New Yorkers alike, in no small part because of the dozens of movies that are set in the city. Scorsese's New York films capture the darker sides of the city. His camera fixates on the violent and unseemly. For this project, Complex visited outdoor locations from six of Scorsese's New York films—Mean Streets (1973), Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980), After Hours (1985), Goodfellas (1990), Bringing Out the Dead (1999)—and photographed the sites as they look today. Many have changed dramatically, some have not. Some remain static within neighborhoods that are barely recognizable now compared to what the filmmaker's camera captured. ..."
Complex

2009 August: Marty Scorsese, 2010 September: The Directors: Martin Scorsese (2000), 2012 February: The Vision Thing, 2015 March: Mean Streets (1973)

Drawn to Greatness: Master Drawings from the Thaw Collection

Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863), Moroccans Outside the Walls of Tangier, 19th century, watercolor and opaque white watercolor over graphite on wove paper
"This exhibition highlights more than 150 master drawings from the Thaw Collection, one of the world’s finest private collections containing over 400 sheets. Assembled over the last fifty years, and made a promised gift to the Morgan in 1975, the collection has now been given in full to the museum by Life Trustee Eugene V. Thaw and his wife, Clare. Drawn to Greatness focuses on pivotal artists and key moments in the history of draftsmanship. Works by major masters from the Renaissance to the modern era will be on view, including Mantegna, Rubens, Rembrandt, Canaletto, Piranesi, Watteau, Fragonard, Goya, Ingres, Turner, Daumier, Redon, Degas, Cézanne, Gauguin, van Gogh, Matisse, Picasso, and Pollock. Listen to the audio guide narrated by Colin B. Bailey, Director of the Morgan Library & Museum, and curators John Marciari, Jennifer Tonkovich, Isabelle Dervaux, and Ilona van Tuinen. ..."
The Morgan (Video)

Sun Ra - Spaceship Lullaby (1954-60)

"Evidence Records' Singles collection was the first inkling for many that Sun Ra had rehearsed and led vocal groups during his Chicago phase. Now Atavistic is shedding considerably more light on the subject with the release of Spaceship Lullaby, a collection of rehearsals Ra held with the Nu-Sounds, the Lintels, and the Cosmic Rays. The first batch of tunes are the Nu-Sounds with Ra on piano and Robert Barry on drums. ... The Lintels sound like a considerably less professional group, and it is unknown whether Ra worked with them beyond this session. There's another set with the Nu-Sounds and just Ra on piano, but the best is probably saved for last with the Cosmic Rays rehearsing with the full Arkestra. There's a bit more distortion on these tracks (the rest sound remarkably good for home rehearsals), but it's worth hearing if only for the vocal version of 'Africa,' which appeared on Nubians of Plutonia. There are some flaws in the tapes, but given the rarity of this material, that's a minor quibble. Sun Ra fans will be thrilled that this material exists at all to be heard, and the chance to hear Sun Ra giving directions is like a peek behind the curtain. Excellent."
allmusic
Discogs
amazon
YouTube: Chicago 1954-60 [FULL ALBUM] 1:16:52

How Spike Lee and Denzel Washington Turned ‘Malcolm X’ Into a Hollywood Epic

"In the aftermath of the L.A. riots, a determined filmmaker and a brilliant actor overcame budget concerns and voices of dissent to transform the life story of a radical black thinker into a cinematic masterpiece. ... Here’s a footnote to that history. Elsewhere in Los Angeles the very same day, in a screening room on the Warner Bros. lot, a group of studio execs were finally getting to see the four-hour cut of their latest gamble, a $33 million epic that had gone so far over budget the editor and director had at one point been locked out of the editing room by the bond company hired by the studio. The movie was Spike Lee’s Malcolm X. From the start, it’d been a storied production. There’d been 20-odd years of false starts, a public shake-up of directors, protests decrying the potential mishandling of the material, and constant fights over money, length, and scope. ..."
The Ringer (Video)
Voice: Read Our 1992 Profile of Spike Lee and the Making of “Malcolm X” (Video)
W - Malcolm X (1992 film)
amazon

2008 August: Malcolm X, 2012 August: Malcolm X at Oxford, 1964, 2016 February: The Legacy of Malcolm X,  2017 February: Firsthand Account: The Assassination of Malcolm X, 2017 November: Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power

New York Mixtape (1+2)

"After two and half months away, Jenny and I returned to New York. We spent our time in London well – hanging with friends, writing, reading and patching our bruised psyches back together. We were better for it. Coming back felt strange – at once like we had never left and no longer belonged. We only spent a week in the city. It was mostly a social call, checking in with those closest to our hearts before departing south to Mexico City. My only plan was to wander between my favorite record shops and take some photos for the New York installment of my series The Big Dig. I had told myself I wasn’t allowed to buy any records during our travels. It didn’t make any sense to add any weight to my already overflowing bags. ..."
The Hum (Video)

Andrew Castrucci and Bullet Space: An Art Squat in the 1980s & ’90s

"In the mid-1980s, as gentrification encroached on the East Village, the neighborhood’s eastern fringe remained a lawless landscape of abandoned buildings and rubble-strewn lots. Here in 'Alphabet City,' amid the thriving drug trade, intrepid squatters surreptitiously reclaimed unused real estate. In 1986, a group of artist squatters led by Tenesh Webber sledgehammered their way into 292 East Third Street, between Avenues C and D. Accommodating living spaces as well as an exhibition space, Bullet Space quickly became a nexus for the East Village tradition of politically radical, semi-legal street art, producing works like the handmade artists’ book Your House Is Mine, an unrivaled embodiment of the downtown aesthetic. ..."
Gallery 98 - 98 Bowery

Paris Wants to Build a Few Garden Bridges

The pedestrian Pont Des Arts in central Paris
"London had been fielding serious plans to construct a green link across the river Thames for five years before ultimately cancelling the project last spring. Now, it’s apparently Paris’s turn and the French capital is going a step further—it wants three of them. New plans for car-free urban river bridges ripe with trees and shrubs comes as part of a huge international city redevelopment project piloted by the C40 Cities group. Called Reinventing Cities, its inspiration is specifically Parisian, as it is modeled on the French Capital’s Reinvent Paris architectural competition, currently in its second round. Right now, City Hall is inviting applicants to tender projects for three sites on the eastern section of the River Seine, to construct planted bridges that would allow pedestrians and bikes to cross with greater ease. ..."
CityLab

We Be All Africans - Idris Ackamoor & The Pyramids (2016)

"Spiritual jazz has always been a fringe denomination. And it's difficult to pin down for good reason; its name is less to do with the sound of this particular jazz, rather more that it’s jazz with a particular message – religious, political or both. Although more celebrated today, the cosmic messages chanted through Sun Ra's music were previously seen as esoteric, perhaps occultish, with focus mostly being on his mental instability. But now, it's this 'spiritual' jazz that Ackamoor draws from the most: Sun Ra and Pharaoh Sanders are paid reference to in nods across his new album, We Be All Africans. ..."
The Quietus
amazon
Soundcloud: We Be All Africans
YouTube: We be all Africans (Full album) 37:37

SPK - Zamia Lehmanni: Songs of Byzantine Flowers (1986)

" Everything else SPK did was either industrial grind or fluffy dance-pop. Zamia Lehmanni lies along the axis of Graeme Revell's other solo projects (see below) and is gorgeous throughout. Its cover is red, gold, and black and the liner notes quote decadent poets in the original French along with a description of copper-colored blossoms from 'Against Nature.' by J. K Huysmans. You can see the dew on the leaves in a garden enclosed by mold-covered stone walls. The music is urgent gamelan with sampled laments by the former residents of Bikini Atoll (they were removed for the US atomic bomb tests and as a result lost their sense of place. They never again flourished--they only persisted). Byzantium and bikinis aside, you can also use it as music for a drowned world resurrected. In peaceful lagoons, amid the seaweed-wrapped ruins, one can take one's solitary ease and dream of growing gills for a return to the sea. ..."
soundohm
W - SPK
W - Zamia Lehmanni: Songs of Byzantine Flowers
Discogs
YouTube: Zamia Lehmanni: Songs of Byzantine Flowers [FULL ALBUM] 48:17

Watch At the Museum, MoMA’s 8-Part Documentary on What it Takes to Run a World-Class Museum

The Museum of Modern Art's atrium has hosted works like James Lee Byars's “The Mile-Long Paper Walk,” performed, above, by Katie Dorn.
"If you've ever visited the Museum of Modern Art — and probably even if you haven't — you'll have a sense that the place doesn't exactly run itself. As much or even more so than other museums, MoMA keeps the behind-the-scenes operations behind the scenes, presenting visitors with coherent art experiences that seem to have materialized whole. But that very purity of presentation itself stokes our curiosity: No, really, how do they do it? Now, MoMA has offered us a chance to see for ourselves through a new series of short documentaries called At the Museum, a look at and a listen to the nuts and bolts of one of America's mostly highly regarded art institutions. ..."
Open Culture (Video)

A Priceless Pizzeria in Brooklyn

"Over 50 years ago, in 1965, Italian immigrant Domenico DeMarco opened Di Fara Pizza in the Midwood section of Brooklyn. To this day, it's considered by critics and locals alike to be 'the best of the best,' as former chef Anthony Bourdain reportedly put it back in 2007. There's a lot of pizza in New York City. It's a cliché maybe, but Di Fara Pizza is considered by many to be New York City's best pizza. It's notoriously expensive ($30 for a regular cheese pizza), and has a notoriously long wait (over an hour, easy). It's also dangerously delicious. And I should know — I ventured deep into Brooklyn to try Di Fara's legendary pizza for myself. This is what it's like! ..."
The 'best' pizza in NYC costs $30 for a regular pie — and it's ridiculously delicious
New Yorker: A Priceless Pizzeria in Brooklyn (Video)

2014 June: Pizza, 2014 October: Viva La Pizza! The Art of the Pizza Box (NYC), 2016 July: Q&A: Antoinette Balzano and Cookie Cimineri of Totonno’s, 2017 September: The Pizza Show

Cabaret Voltaire - The Original Sound Of Sheffield '83 / '87 (2001)

"When Cabaret Voltaire signed to Some Bizarre in 1983, it was an industrial band with a cult following. That all changed when the first album under the deal hit the streets: The loss of founding member Christopher Watson forced a rethink, and the group emerged as a lean electronic duo, still dedicated to experimental funk but with a much colder and danceable format. Some Bizarre's distribution deal with Virgin also brought the Cabs to a much wider audience, both at home and on the dancefloor.  ... Those broken up by the omission can find a bunch of it on this album's companion work, the Conform to Deform box set, which also includes a number of the flip sides of the tracks found here, as well as a number of rarities.) This is the sound that launched a thousand techno acts."
allmusic
W - The Original Sound Of Sheffield '83 / '87
amazon
YouTube: The Original Sound of Sheffield '83/'87 [Full Album] 1:14:28

2009 December: Cabaret Voltaire, 2015 June: #7885 (Electropunk to Technopop 1978-1985)

Dead Ball Situation

Tostão, No. 9, and Pelé, No. 10, celebrate Carlos Alberto’s final goal for Brazil in the World Cup final against Italy on June 21, 1970, Mexico City
"Begin, as Wallace Stevens didn’t quite say, with the idea of it. I so like the idea of Simon Critchley, whose books offer philosophical takes on a variety of subjects: Stevens, David Bowie, suicide, humor, and now football — or soccer, as the US edition has it. (As a matter of principle I shall refer to this sport throughout as football.) 'All of us are mysteriously affected by our names,' decides one of Milan Kundera’s characters in Immortality, and I like Critchley because his name would seem to have put him at a vocational disadvantage compared with Martin Heidegger, Søren Kierkegaard, or even, in the Anglophone world, A. J. Ayer or Richard Rorty. (How different philosophy might look today if someone called Nobby Stiles had been appointed as the Wykeham Professor of Logic.) ..."
Harpers
amazon: What We Think About When We Think About Soccer

Let Us Now Praise Pharoah Sanders, Master of Sax

"In A.B. Spellman’s essential 1966 book, Four Lives in the Bebop Business, Ornette Coleman said the following: 'The best statements Negroes have made, of what their soul is, have been on tenor saxophone.' As wise as Coleman was, it’s a debatable point: Charlie Parker and Ornette himself both ignited revolutions on alto. But it makes sense, too. Whether Lester Young, Dexter Gordon, or Albert Ayler (to name just a few), black musicians gave their lives to that instrument, told their stories through it, and crafted and refined — and defined — the tenor saxophone’s various sounds and textures. ..."
Voice (Video)
Pharoah Sanders: Tauhid // Jewels Of Thought // Summun Bukmun Umyun - Deaf Dumb Blind (Video)
amazon: Four Lives in the Bebop Business

2015 December: Maleem Mahmoud Ghania With Pharaoh Sanders - The Trance Of Seven Colors (1994), 2016 January: Ptah, The El Daoud - Alice Coltrane & Pharoah Sanders (1970), 2016 November: Tauhid (1967), 2017 May: The Pharoah Sanders Story: In the Beginning 1963-1964

Yoknapatawpha County

Yoknapatawpha County is a fictional area of Mississippi that William Faulkner invented to make as a setting for almost all of his texts.
Wikipedia - "Yoknapatawpha County, pronounced [jɒknəpəˈtɔfə] is a fictional Mississippi county created by the American author William Faulkner, based upon and inspired by Lafayette County, Mississippi, and its county seat of Oxford, Mississippi (which Faulkner renamed Jefferson). Faulkner often referred to Yoknapatawpha County as 'my apocryphal county'. From Sartoris onwards, Faulkner would set all but four of his novels in the county (Soldiers' Pay, Pylon, The Wild Palms and A Fable were set elsewhere), as well as over 50 of his stories. Absalom, Absalom! includes a map of Yoknapatawpha County drawn by Faulkner. The word Yoknapatawpha is derived from two Chickasaw words—Yocona and petopha, meaning 'split land'. Faulkner said to a University of Virginia audience that the compound means 'water flows slow through flat land'. Yoknapatawpha was the original name for the actual Yocona River, a tributary of the Tallahatchie which runs through the southern part of Lafayette County. ..."
Wikipedia
William Faulkner: Yoknapatawpha County
People, Places, and Events: A Faulkner Glossary
amazon: Yoknapatawpha, Images and Voices: A Photographic Study of Faulkner’s County

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), 2016 October: The Snopes Trilogy (1940, 1957, 1959), 2016 December: Light in August (1932), 2017 February: As I Lay Dying (1930), 2017 June: The Wild Palms (1939), 2017 August: Sanctuary (1931). 2017 September: The Unvanquished (1938), 2017 October: 20 Pieces of Writing Advice from William Faulkner

Paul Blackburn - The Nets (1961)

"... But a rather different influence is reflected in (Paul) Blackburn’s next book, The Nets. Composed mostly in Spain and southern France from 1954 to 1957 (though not published until 1961 in New York), The Nets contains a number of poems structured around the numerology and symbolism of the Celtic tree alphabet as explicated in Robert Graves’s The White Goddess (1947); Blackburn had early on admired this influential work and visited with Graves a number of times in Mallorca. The best of the other Nets poems, less allusive—and less obscure—also tend to give a mythic cast to ordinary events of Blackburn’s life in Europe, while keeping them firmly anchored to the present. ..."
Poetry Foundation
[PDF] The Nets

2008 August: Paul Blackburn, 2012 November: Yankee go home (PoemTalk #59), 2013 January: Cronopios and Famas - Julio Cortazar (Paul Blackburn), 2013 August: Paul Blackburn and Das Rhinegold, 2015 May: The Grinding Down, 2015 August: The Cities (1967). , 2016 March: Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit: A Bouquet for Flatbush (1960), 2017 July: Proensa: An Anthology of Troubadour Poetry

Mysterious object confirmed to be from another solar system

Artist's impression of `Oumuamua, the first confirmed interstellar asteroid
"Astronomers are now certain that the mysterious object detected hurtling past our sun last month is indeed from another solar system. They have named it 1I/2017 U1(’Oumuamua) and believe it could be one of 10,000 others lurking undetected in our cosmic neighbourhood. The certainty of its interstellar origin comes from an analysis that shows its orbit is almost impossible to achieve from within our solar system. Its name comes from a Hawaiian term for messenger or scout. Indeed, it is the first space rock to have been identified as forming around another star. Since asteroids coalesce during the process of planet formation, this object can tell us something about the formation of planets around its unknown parent star. ..."
Guardian (Video)
W - 'Oumuamua
BBC: Bizarre shape of interstellar asteroid
YouTube: First Interstellar Asteroid Wows Scientists

‘Oumuamua is rocketing through our Solar System at 44km a second.

ECM’s Catalog Is Finally Streaming. Here Are 21 Essential Albums.

Manfred Eicher, the founder of ECM Records, with Naná Vasconcelos, Pat Metheny and the engineer Jan Erik Kongshaug.
"Sound quality has always mattered to Manfred Eicher, the meticulous and exploratory producer who founded ECM (Edition of Contemporary Music) Records in 1969 and has produced the vast majority of its recordings. ECM has released an extraordinary catalog that encompasses jazz, classical music and cross-cultural fusions from composers and performers like Keith Jarrett, Vijay Iyer, Arvo Pärt and Meredith Monk. Across styles, the label’s hallmark has been the contemplative detail of its music, a kind of acoustic enhanced realism. ECM was long a holdout against streaming services that have to contend with bandwidth limits and non-optimal soundcards in computers and phones, as well as deals that minimize the value of music. But as of Nov. 17, everything on ECM will be available through the major streaming services, awaiting discovery by new listeners. Here The New York Times music critics and contributors choose 21 ECM albums to begin the exploration. Use your best playback system. JON PARELES. ..."
NY Times (Audio)

BSA Film Friday: 11.17.17

"Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities. Now screening :
1. We’re Street (Somos Rua) – Rollerblading as Urban Art and Performance
2. PEZA – Yoseba MP
3. Don’t Fret Does Commercial Gig for Sports Team
4. “Complex Meshes” Miguel Chevalier, Fabian Forban, Krista Kim, REO
Brooklyn Street Art (Video)

12 groovy 45s from the Paris DJs private record store

"More than 10.000 records (new releases or reissues handpicked by the Paris DJs team, plus the big stocks from Grant Phabao & Djouls' collection) have already been listed on Paris DJs' private record store. We opened it on Discogs a year ago while Parisian people may contact us to give us a visit adn save on shipping costs. Since then already 1.500 records have been sold. Soon we'll start listing the records from other members of the crew, it never truly ends… But thousands of records is maybe too much so we thought we should share regularly some insight, and list some selections of some of the cool music we have in store for you. Here's a first one, twelve 45s, cool & groovy stuff in different styles. ..."
ParisDJs (Video)

What Christian Artifacts of the Middle East Can Show Us About Tolerance

"PARIS — Behind the famous dilating windows Jean Nouvel designed for its Seine-side home, the Institut du Monde Arabe has presented a string of recent shows that have deepened and diversified France’s understanding of Islam. From 'The Thousand and One Nights' (2012) to 'Hajj: The Pilgrimage to Mecca' (2014) and the epic 'Ocean Explorers' (2016), exhibitions here have disclosed the breadth of Islamic culture and history, and their intimate, centuries-long links with the West. But Islam is not the only religion in the Arab world, and this autumn the institute, which celebrates its 30th birthday this month, has turned its attention to another faith. 'Eastern Christians: 2,000 Years of History,' a vital, thorough, and sometimes astonishingly gorgeous exhibition, explores the birth and transmission of Christianity from Jesus’ death to the present day. ..."
NY Times
Oriental Christians: 2,000 Years of History

23 Stupendous Vocabulary Words I Learned From ‘Calvin & Hobbes’

"I almost had to repeat kindergarten because I procrastinated on learning to read. Faced with this threat, I hit the books, and by the end of the year I had achieved a 5th grade reading level. I credit Bill Watterson and Gary Larson for this; I remember sitting in my dad’s apartment at ages six and seven, each of us curled up with one of his Calvin & Hobbes or The Far Side volumes. While he savored the pages, I soldiered through the multisyllabic speech bubbles, pausing every now and then to ask things like, 'Daddy, what does hypothetical mean?' ..."
#AmReading

2011 January: Calvin and Hobbes, 2015 March: Bill Watterson talks: This is why you must read the new ‘Exploring Calvin and Hobbes’ book, Calvin and Markov

Ambrose Adekoya Campbell: London Is The Place For Me 3

"History, they say, is written by the victors. Without a doubt, it's written by the governing majority, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the near invisibility, until very recently, of black and African people in chronicles of British life and culture. Honest Jons provides a vibrant antidote to this Eurocentric bias with the London Is The Place For Me compilation series (not to mention, of course, restoring some important early black British music to the racks). Volume 1 looked at Trinidadian calypso recorded in London in the 1950s; Volume 2 broadened the field to include music made by African artists. This latest volume stays with London-made African music of the 1950s but, unlike its predecessors, focuses on just one musician: Ambrose Adekoya Campbell, the trailblazing grandaddy of all African musicians who've since arrived in the city. ..."
All About Jazz
Discogs
YouTube: London Is The Place For Me 3 1:06:19
YouTube: London Is the Place for Me Part Three: Ambrose Adekoya Campbell

A Chess Novice Challenged Magnus Carlsen. He Had One Month to Train.

"HAMBURG, Germany— Max Deutsch went through a month of training before he traveled across the ocean, sat down in a regal hotel suite at the appointed hour and waited for the arrival of the world’s greatest chess player. Max was not very good at chess himself. He’s a 24-year-old entrepreneur who lives in San Francisco and plays the sport occasionally to amuse himself. He was a prototypical amateur. Now he was preparing himself for a match against chess royalty. And he believed he could win. ... Magnus Carlsen is a 26-year-old world champion from Norway who has become a global celebrity because of chess. He belongs alongside Garry Kasparov and Bobby Fischer in any conversation about the most talented players ever. Max’s original idea had been to beat a computerized simulation of Magnus. But when The Wall Street Journal stumbled across his 'Month to Master' project while reporting another story, it offered to put him in touch with the real-life version. Max was game. ..."
WSJ (Video)

Wire - Live at the Roxy, London – April 1st & 2nd 1977/Live at CBGB Theatre, New York – July 18th 1978

"Previously only available as bootlegs or as part of the limited edition Wire: 1977-1979 box set, this is the first time these historic live recordings have been made widely available. Their importance lies in the fact that they catch the band live at two pivotal stages of their evolution. Caught on tape some five months before recording Pink Flag, Disc One comprises both complete 25-minute sets from the band’s appearances at the Roxy’s punk festival. Interestingly enough, they include covers of JJ Cale’s 'After Midnight' and the Dave Clark Five’s 'Glad All Over'. Not actually recorded at the legendary punk rock hovel (but just around the corner, in front of a small audience in an old run down theatre, by long-gone NY radio station WPIX), the CBGB recording offers a fascinating contrast. With CBGB’s owner Hilly Kristal credited as executive producer, the sonics are fuller and the performances considerably more assured across the 11-song set, made up of tracks from Pink Flag and the yet-to-be-recorded Chairs Missing.  ..."
Record Collector
W - Live at the Roxy, London – April 1st & 2nd 1977/Live at CBGB Theatre, New York – July 18th 1978
amazon, iTunes
YouTube: Live at The Roxy, London - April 2, 1977 - FULL SET - HD Audio 25:40

2009 January: Wire, 2012 January: On the Box 1979., 2013 September: Chairs Missing (1978), 2014 June: 154 (1979), 2014 July: Document And Eyewitness (1979-1980), 2015 April: The Ideal Copies: Graham Lewis Of Wire's Favourite Albums, 2015 July: Pink Flag (1977), 2015 December: The Peel Sessions Album (1989), “Dot Dash”, "Options R" (1978), 2017 June: Outdoor Miner / Practice Makes Perfect (1979).

The Wages of Fear - Henri-Georges Clouzot (1953)

Wikipedia - "The Wages of Fear (French: Le salaire de la peur) is a 1953 French-Italian thriller film directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot, starring Yves Montand, and based on the 1950 French novel Le salaire de la peur (lit. 'The Salary of Fear') by Georges Arnaud. When an oil well owned by an American company catches fire, the company hires four European men, down on their luck, to drive two trucks over mountain dirt roads, loaded with nitroglycerine needed to extinguish the flames. ... In 1982, Pauline Kael called it 'an existential thriller—the most original and shocking French melodrama of the 50s. ... When you can be blown up at any moment only a fool believes that character determines fate. ... If this isn't a parable of man's position in the modern world, it's at least an illustration of it. ... The violence ... is used to force a vision of human existence.' ..."
Wikipedia
Roger Ebert
Guardian - The Wages of Fear: No 8 best action and war film of all time
amazon
YouTube: Wages of Fear - Trailer