The writing on the wall of an East Side tenement

"Sometimes in New York you come across a building that’s trying to tell you something. Take this red-brick tenement on the corner of Second Avenue and 109th Street. At some point in the past, ads were painted on the facade—designed to catch the eyes of Second Avenue El riders and pedestrians in a neighborhood that was once a Little Italy, then became Spanish Harlem by the middle of the century. Now, perhaps nine decades later, enough faded and weathered paint remains to give us a clue as to what the ads were about. The ad on the right side of the facade might look familiar to faded-ad fans; that familiar script used to be painted all over the city. Fletcher’s Castoria was a laxative produced by Charles Fletcher all the way back in 1871. The company promoted the product until the 1920s with ads on the sides of buildings, a few of which can still be seen today. ..."
Ephemeral New York

Lagos, City of Hustle, Builds an Art ‘Ecosystem’

"LAGOS, Nigeria — Cars snaked out from the hideous traffic and deposited the city’s elite, dressed to impress, at the Civic Center, a concrete-and-steel edifice fronting Lagos Lagoon. Women exuding Vogue beauty and power paused on the patio to give television interviews. Art X Lagos was living up to its reputation as a happening. Not just collectors, but the hip, the curious, the Instagram crowd, thronged West Africa’s principal fair in November. ... This enormous city — with no official census, population estimates range from 13 million to 21 million — is dynamic by disposition. Yes, the roads are clogged, political corruption is rampant, and the power cuts trigger armies of generators spewing noxious fumes. But Lagosians — who are proud of their 'hustle,' a mix of effort, imagination, and brash optimism — will turn any challenge into enterprise. ..."

NY Times
Art X Lagos
Okay Africa: Here's What Went Down at the Third Edition of ART X Lagos (Audio)
Art X Lagos: More Than an Art Fair, a Platform for Pan-African Creativity (Video)

Untitled (Igbo Landing) (group of figures from series; 2018), Gerald Chukwuma.

Blues Jukes & Jazz Streets with Bill Ferris and Doreen Ketchens

"We travel from Mississippi juke joints to the streets of the French Quarter to hear from those who record and perform music. Folklorist Bill Ferris recounts his experience documenting blues, gospel, fife & drum music and folk arts in the Mississippi delta and hill country. Ferris recently compiled his recordings in the Voices of Mississippi boxed set. Then, New Orleans’ queen of the clarinet Doreen Ketchens serenades us from her post at Royal and St. Peters Street. Doreen tells how the clarinet brought her from the family’s sweet shop in Treme to a global stage. Plus, hot takes from Hot Tuna, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Lavern Baker and Marvin Gaye."
American Routes (Audio)
Voices of Mississippi: Artists and Musicians Documented by William Ferris (Audio)
Forced Exposure (Audio)
amazon

On the Anxiety and Vanity of Marcel Proust, Debut Novelist

The gate to “Charles Swann’s Garden” at Illiers-Combray.
"With the publication of Swann’s Way on November 14th, 1913, Marcel Proust found immediate fame. In the weeks that followed publication, a number of laudatory reviews appeared. Lucien Daudet, in a long front-page article in Le Figaro, praised Proust’s novel in terms that still hold true. Among his many astute remarks, this one singles out a major aspect of Proust’s achievement: 'Never, I believe, has the analysis of everything that constitutes our existence been carried so far.' Daudet called his friend a genius and his book a masterpiece. Robert Dreyfus, in another article in Le Figaro, characterized Swann’s Way as a 'strong and beautiful work.' Jean Cocteau, in Excelsior, also called the book a masterpiece, saying that it 'resembles nothing I know and reminds me of everything I admire.' With such acclaim and all the tremendous amount of work that remained to complete and publish what Proust assumed would be the two remaining volumes, The Guermantes Way and Time Regained, he had no inkling that a catastrophic, global event was about to alter the world as he knew it and also cause him to greatly enlarge the scope of his novel, already a work of nearly unprecedented length. When World War I began in August 1914, one of its immediate consequences for Proust was that publishing houses closed because all able-bodied men and all the lead used for setting type were needed in the war effort. Proust found himself without a publisher, a press, or a deadline. ..."
LitHub

The beach in front of the Grand-Hôtel in Cabourg.

2008 June: Marcel Proust, 2011 October: How Proust Can Change Your Life, 2012 April: Marcel Proust - À la recherche du temps perdu, 2013 February: Marcel Proust and Swann's Way: 100th Anniversary, 2013 May: A Century of Proust, 2013 August: Paintings in Proust - Eric Karpeles, 2013 October: On Reading Proust, 2015 September: "Paintings in Proust" - View of the Piazza del Popolo, Giovanni Battista Piranes, 2015 September: In Search of Lost Time: Swann's Way: A Graphic Novel, 2016 January: In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower (1919), 2016 February: Chasing Lost Time: The Life of C.K. Scott Moncrieff: Soldier, Spy and Translator, 2016 May: The Guermantes Way (1920-21), 2016 August: Marcel Proust’s Search for Lost Time — Patrick Alexander, 2016 October: My Strange Friend Marcel Proust, 2017 March: Sodom and Gomorrah (1921-1922), 2017 August: Letters To His Neighbor by Marcel Proust; translated by Lydia Davis, October: Proust's À la recherche – a novel big enough for the world, 2017 October: Proust Fans Eagerly Await Trove of Letters Going Online, 2017 December: The Prisoner / The Fugitive (1923-1925), 2018 May: Time Regained (1927), 2018 September: Céleste Albaret, 2018 November: In the Footsteps of Marcel Proust

Deepwater Horizon oil spill

Wikipedia - "The Deepwater Horizon oil spill (also referred to as the BP oil spill/leak, the BP oil disaster, the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, and the Macondo blowout) is an industrial disaster that began on April 20, 2010, in the Gulf of Mexico on the BP-operated Macondo Prospect, considered to be the largest marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry and estimated to be 8% to 31% larger in volume than the previous largest, the Ixtoc I oil spill, also in the Gulf of Mexico. The U.S. government estimated the total discharge at 4.9 million barrels (210 million US gal; 780,000 m³). After several failed efforts to contain the flow, the well was declared sealed on September 19, 2010. Reports in early 2012 indicated that the well site was still leaking. A massive response ensued to protect beaches, wetlands and estuaries from the spreading oil utilizing skimmer ships, floating booms, controlled burns and 1.84 million US gallons (7,000 m³) of oil dispersant. ..."
Wikipedia
W - Deepwater Horizon (film)
Guardian: Deepwater Horizon and the Gulf oil spill - the key questions answered
Guardian: Deepwater Horizon oil spill
Guardian: The 'well from hell' – my fight with BP to film Deepwater Horizon (Video)
YouTube: Deepwater Horizon Blowout Animation, Deepwater Horizon (2016) Official Movie Trailer

Frank Robinson 1935-2019

"Frank Robinson, a trailblazing figure who was Major League Baseball's first African-American manager and one of its greatest players during a career that spanned 21 seasons, died Thursday after a prolonged illness. He was 83. Known as much for his leadership, toughness and raging competitive fire as his sheer greatness as a player -- that is, crowding home plate so much that he dared pitchers to throw inside -- Robinson was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame with 89.2 percent of the vote in his first year of eligibility in 1982. 'Frank Robinson's resume in our game is without parallel, a trailblazer in every sense, whose impact spanned generations,' Commissioner Rob Manfred said. 'He was one of the greatest players in the history of our game, but that was just the beginning of a multifaceted baseball career.' ... Robinson hit 586 home runs and was a 14-time All-Star and the only player to win Most Valuable Player Awards in both leagues -- 1961 for the Reds in the National League, '66 for the Orioles in the American League. ..."
MLB (Video)
ESPN: Frank Robinson, MVP, first black manager, dies at 83 (Video)
W - Frank Robinson
Baseball Reference

‘Essence of Son Oriental’ – A Brief Moment With Compay Segundo

"Cuban guitarist, singer and songwriter Máximo Francisco Repilado Muñoz Telles (1907 – 2003), better known by his artist name Compay Segundo (second voice/vocals) is one of those artists who’s music and story are one of a kind. Ranging in styles from Afro-Cuban Son to Guaracha and Danzon Repilado is rightfully considered by some to be one of the most influential Cuban musicians to date. With his distinct sound Repilado enjoyed some popularity in Cuba and elsewhere from 1950’s to 70’s but after that slowly drifted into obscurity. He was all but forgotten and working as a cigar roller when US producer Ry Cooder went to Cuba in the late 1990’s to preserve the dying artform and the original sound of Son. Cooder assembled the band Buena Vista Social Club from elderly Cuban musicians and chose Segundo, then in his 90’s to be the frontman of the band. Their eponymous album became a worldwide hit and was responsible for restoring life to the traditional Cuban music. ..."
Musicama Condo (Audio)
Soundcloud (Audio)
AfroCubaWeb
W - Compay Segundo
YouTube: Colección Perlas Cubanas #1. (Full Album/Álbum Completo) 47:52

10 Books That Capture Paris In The 1920s

"Countless movies, plays and books have been written about Paris in the 1920s, and together they give a sense of the unique atmosphere of the city during the années folles (crazy years). A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway. This novel is an ode to Hemingway’s time spent living in Paris with his first wife, Hadley, and their baby. It is during these years that Hemingway became familiar with Gertrude Stein, Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Ezra Pound, among many other artists and writers of the ‘Lost Generation’. In his direct and to-the-point prose, Hemingway beautifully and simply describes Paris as he sees it. A Moveable Feast is an excellent guide to Hemingway’s favourite haunts in the Latin Quarter, Saint-Germain-des-Près and Rue Mouffetard. ..."
culture trip

2014 November: Lost Generation

A Short History of Punk: From Late 50s Rockabilly and Garage Rock to The Ramones & Sex Pistols

"Seems there was a time when the dominant story of punk was the story of British punk. If you knew nothing else, you knew the name Sid Vicious, and that seemed to sum it up. Maybe it was only in the mid-nineties, around the time Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain released Please Kill Me: the Uncensored Oral History of Punk that more people began to popularly understand the lineage of late sixties garage rock, the Velvet Underground, Detroit’s Iggy and the Stooges, and the early CBGB scene in the mid-seventies crowned by the sound of The Ramones, Patti Smith, Blondie, and Talking Heads. Now even that story can seem oversimplified, sketched out in brief on the way to discussing the literary triumph of Patti Smith, cultural interventions of David Byrne, career highlights of punk power couple Debbie Harry and Chris Stein, or the many, always fascinating doings of Iggy Pop. ..."
Open Culture (Video)

The Hopes and Fears of Afghanistan’s Generation Z

Doctor Mohammad Jawed Momand, 22, poses for a picture in Kabul, Afghanistan, on January 30, 2019.
"As the Donald Trump administration signals the possibility of cutting the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan after more than 17 years of conflict, Mohammad Ismail, a photographer with Reuters, spent time visiting with and photographing some of the young adults living in the city of Kabul. This generation is war-weary and ready for peace, but they are now contemplating an uncertain future as talks take place that might allow the Taliban to regain some level of power. Ismail: 'For young people who were babies when the Taliban were driven from power by a U.S.-led campaign in 2001, the prospect of peace with the hard-line Islamists brings a daunting mix of hope and fear. For villagers in rural Afghanistan, where traditional ways have always counted for more than central government law, life may not change much. But for the young of Kabul and other cities, there is much to lose, in particular the freedoms restored after the Taliban were ousted—from playing music, to modeling and adopting trendy haircuts—which they’ve grown up with.'”
The Atlantic

Jazz on Film… Film Noir (5 CD set)

"I love jazz, I love film soundtracks, and I love film noir. So when a new label Moochin’ About released a lavish five-CD set entitled Jazz on Film: Film Noir, it didn’t take too much arm-twisting to get me to have a listen. It also helped that this collection came heralded by some of the most universally favourable reviews and comments I’ve read in a long time. Not to mention awards. But despite all that, when I sat down to listen I was taken by surprise. And completely knocked out. Assembled by Jazzwise writer Selwyn Harris and CD compilation producer Jason Lee Lazell, this set is a treasure trove. The first score, on Disc 1 is A Streetcar Named Desire composed by Alex North. Perhaps most famous for writing the melody for Unchained (that’s right, the ‘Unchained Melody’) Alex North has some serious jazz connections. Streetcar is often spoken of as the first film score to make real use of jazz, while Yusef Lateef’s rapturous version of his ‘Love Theme from Spartacus’ is a classic, as is Paul Horn’s album of North’s music from Cleopatra. We could argue over whether A Streetcar Named Desire is a film noir —but Selwyn Harris makes a strong case for it in the booklet notes. ..."
London Jazz News
moochin about (Audio)
Discogs
amazon
YouTube: MOOCHIN ABOUT Jazz on Film... Film Noir 7 videos

Pound Notes, Canned Soup and Common Goals

John McCorry, the chief executive of the West End food bank in Newcastle, collecting donations before a match at St. James’ Park.
"NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE, England — Bill Corcoran is in his usual spot, in the shadow of St. James’ Park, opposite Shearer’s bar, rattling his bucket, when a pack of a dozen Manchester United fans marches past. They are wearing black jackets, hoods raised to stave off the cold. Just as they reach Corcoran, they launch into a deeply unflattering, mildly profane chant about the man after whom the bar is named: Alan Shearer, favorite son of both Newcastle the city and Newcastle the team. A few home fans jeer in response. The heckling just makes the interlopers sing louder. Toward the tail of the group, one man spots Corcoran, and veers in his direction. He pulls his wallet from his pocket, and leafs through a fistful of green, orange and purple notes. ..."
NY Times

Where Does Art Belong?

Hilma af Klint’s Group IX/SUW, The Swan, No. 17, 1915.
"Whom is an artwork for, and where does it belong? Every modern or contemporary artist has either had to answer these questions, or else accept the ready-made answer that our culture offers: Just do your work and let the invisible hand of the market sort out its fate. Hilma af Klint was among the few who rejected that idea. She thought her work was for people who didn’t exist yet, and that it belonged in a temple—where, as we all know, money changers have no place. It’s hard to think of any artist more determined to take the eventual fate of her art into her own hands than this Swedish painter, whose work is now on view at New York’s Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum through April 23. Curated by Tracey Bashkoff with David Horowitz, the exhibition, 'Hilma af Klint: Paintings for the Future,' is the first comprehensive presentation of the artist’s work in the United States. ..."
The Nation
Guggenheim - Hilma af Klint: Paintings for the Future (Video)
Whitney - Andy Warhol—From A to B and Back Again (Video)
MoMA - Bruce Nauman: Disappearing Acts(Video)

Bruce Nauman, Contrapposto Studies, i through vii (detail). 2015/16. Seven-channel video.

Sandpaper Is a Form of Change - Hainbach

"Repetition may be, as Brian Eno famously put it, a form of change, but so too is slow deterioration as a result of sharp edges and rough surfaces. The latter is the process employed by the musician Hainbach in 'Three Tape Loops Destructing Over Three Hours.' (It’s actually close to three and a half hours.) The source audio is piano that Hainbach recorded himself. In the extended video, the resulting tape recordings are seen and heard to slowly come apart as they are exposed to various knife blades and sandpaper. Soft tones give way to serrated noise. The ear hears continuity amid the destruction, as the abbrasive texture itself becomes a sonic element in the mix. It’s worth noting that the project began as a challenge from Simon the Magpie, whose curse-laden, manic proposal is about as distinct from Hainbach’s sedate, reflective pace as could be imagined. This is the latest video I’ve added to my YouTube playlist of recommended live performances of ambient music. Video originally posted at Hainbach’s YouTube channel."
disquiet (Video)
Hainbach (Video)
YouTube: Three Tape Loops Destructing Over Three Hours, Performing Electronic Music | My Live Setup 16:27

Blue and white tiles line the Queensboro Bridge

"New York City’s many bridges are frequently praised for their beauty. But The Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge (yep, the former mayor’s name was officially added in 2011) might be the most lovely. The cantilever span itself is graceful and elegant, of course. But what sets the Queensboro apart might be the smaller design motifs and decoration the bridge architects insisted on before it officially opened in 1909. Among these are the decorative lampposts at the entrance to the bridge, and vaulted, Cathedral-like ceilings lined with famous Guastavino tiles under the Manhattan-side bridge approach, the commercial space known as Bridgemarket. ..."
Ephemeral New York
W - Queensboro Bridge

MADONJAZZ #150: The Spirit of Africa & Asia

"An 1hr set of all vinyl spiritual African and Asian gems. It includes African inspired jazz sounds from The Ethnic Heritage Ensemble, Indian inspired jazz from Don Cherry, French avant-garde jazz, American cult sitar jazz, Italian African ethnic grooves to raw African and Bangladeshi field recordings of ritual healing music."
MADONJAZZ #150 (Audio)

Venezuela’s Very Normal Revolution

Juan Guaidó spoke to reporters in Caracas on Thursday, with his wife, Fabiana Rosales, left, and young daughter, Miranda.
"CARACAS, Venezuela — It was a sunny Friday afternoon in a town square. A pleasant breeze rustled the leaves of the palm trees that shaded crowds of people waiting around a small, open-air stage. The president squeezed through the tightly packed audience, stood before a lectern, and gave a brief, reassuring speech before hundreds of smiling onlookers. Then he took questions from reporters, and after joining the crowd in singing the national anthem, left. In many countries around the world, this scene would be perfectly normal — a campaign event, perhaps, or the dedication of a memorial. But this is Venezuela and this was Juan Guaidó, the head of the National Assembly, who took the oath of office as interim president on Jan. 23 in a direct challenge to President Nicolás Maduro, the man who represents the normal that Venezuelans are so horribly used to. ..."
NY Times
NY Times: An Urgent Call for Compromise in Venezuela
NY Times: The U.S. Needs to Stay Out of Venezuela
NY Times: Juan Guaidó: Venezuelans, Strength Is in Unity
A Military Coup in Venezuela? Not Without the Military’s Support (disponible en español)
Washington Post: Venezuela’s opposition leader calls movement against Maduro ‘unstoppable’ (Video)
NY Times: Venezuela
Guardian: Why is Venezuela in crisis? – video explainer (Video)
PBS: Will U.S. intervention in Venezuela help or harm its people? (Video)

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes: Works on Paper and Paintings

Portrait of a Woman in Profile, circa 1857-60
"Michael Werner Gallery, New York is pleased to present an exhibition of works by French painter Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (1824-1898), opening 30 November. Comprising loans from private and public collections, this exhibition presents a selection of works on paper and paintings by a seminal artist of the late nineteenth century. ... Pierre Puvis de Chavannes was born in Lyon, France in 1824, the youngest of four children in a family descended from Burgundy nobility. Puvis anticipated a career in engineering, following his father, until his studies were interrupted by the death of his mother, an illness and lengthy convalescence, and an eventual sojourn in Italy meant to help him regain his health. The latter experience, in particular his exposure to Giotto and Piero della Francesca, made a deep impression on Puvis, who determined to pursue a life in art upon his return to Paris in 1848. ..."
Michael Werner Gallery, New York
NY Times: A French Painter, Fallen From Fame, Gains Historical Weight
YouTube: Restoration of Pierre Puvis de Chavannes’ Philosophy Mural Panel 22:28

2008 August: Pierre Puvis de Chavannes

Looking For The Veedon Fleece, Van Morrison’s Elusive Treasure

"Facing facts, the rightful retrospective adulation bestowed by critics upon Morrison’s Astral Weeks never matched its contemporary soft sales, only limping to RIAA gold certification some three decades later. Born untrendy amid the tumult of hippie hipness, as was the sad fate of other deprived masterpieces of its era like John Coltrane’s posthumously exploratory Om, the Velvet Underground’s post-Warhol scorcher White Light / White Heat and the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band’s self-explanatory The Doughnut in Granny’s Greenhouse, it needed more time to cook in the ears and reveal itself as vital to (sub)culture. It took an entire decade for the oft irascible pen of rock writer Lester Bangs to properly shine his gonzo mercy upon it, personally selecting the album for fellow Astral Weeks advocate Greil Marcus’ literary thought experiment Stranded: Rock and Roll for a Desert Island. While Marcus’ positive review of that 1968 classic in the hallowed pages of Rolling Stone led to its final standing as the magazine’s chosen album of the year, it was a different story altogether six years later when Veedon Fleece rolled around. ..."
Vinyl Me, Please (Audio)
W - Veedon Fleece
vimeo: Veedon Fleece 47:17
YouTube: Veedon Fleece - Full Album 12 videos

Aubrey–Maturin series

Wikipedia - "The Aubrey–Maturin series is a sequence of nautical historical novels—20 completed and one unfinished—by Patrick O'Brian, set during the Napoleonic Wars and centering on the friendship between Captain Jack Aubrey of the Royal Navy and his ship's surgeon Stephen Maturin, a physician, natural philosopher, and intelligence agent. The first novel, Master and Commander, was published in 1969 and the last finished novel in 1999. The 21st novel of the series, left unfinished at O'Brian's death in 2000, appeared in print in late 2004. The series received considerable international acclaim and most of the novels reached The New York Times Best Seller list. ... The series focuses on two main characters, naval officer Jack Aubrey and physician, naturalist, and spy Stephen Maturin, and the ongoing plot is structured around Aubrey's ascent from Lieutenant to Rear Admiral in the Royal Navy during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. ..."
W - Aubrey–Maturin series
The Patrick O'Brian Compendium
The Patrick O'Brian Mapping Project
Ships of Jack Aubrey
The Patrick O'Brian Novels
The Paris Review: Patrick O'Brian, The Art of Fiction No. 142
W - Patrick O'Brian

Review: Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian

Silk Stockings and Socialism - Sharon McConnell-Sidorick

Strike sympathizers tie up traffic at the Apex Hosiery Mill on May 6, 1937.
"'However calm the remainder of America may seem to be,' the magazine Labor’s News reported on February 21, 1931, 'Philadelphia has been giving the impression of being on the brink of revolution.' The epicenter of the convulsion was the city’s industrial district, where hosiery workers — organized by the socialist-led American Federation of Full-Fashioned Hosiery Workers (AFFFHW) — were on strike against thirty nonunion mills in the city. In the initial hours, over a dozen mills were completely closed down. Police violence, mass arrests, and worker retaliation were the order of the day. The arrests swept up large numbers of young people, especially young women, who fought police on the picket lines and filled the jails, all while wearing stylish 'modern' apparel and silk stockings. Neighborhood residents streamed out of their row houses in a militant show of solidarity, only to be detained as well. The 1931 strike dramatized the potent cocktail of union politics — youth and culture, solidarity and community — that dominated this outpost of working-class socialism in the 1920s and ’30s. ..."
Jacobin
Silk, Sweat, and Socialism
Fierce & Fashionable: Philadelphia Female Labor Fighters Of The 20s & 30s
Socialism Comes to Philadelphia
amazon: Silk Stockings and Socialism: Philadelphia's Radical Hosiery Workers from the Jazz Age to the New Deal

Jonas Mekas 1922–2019

"Reading an obituary for Jonas Mekas, the preeminent champion of underground cinema who died on January 23rd at the age of 96, I was struck by the fact that he started off writing for a Second World War-era underground newspapers in his native Lithuania, as part of the resistance against the Nazis. Mekas’s commitment to the idea of a revolutionary-minded underground obviously preceded his aesthetic activism in the early 1960s in making what he dubbed the 'New American Cinema,' an emerging wave of independently made, poetic, personal films, accessible via screenings in a variety of off-the-beaten-path downtown New York locations. ... Jonas created an alternative establishment for alternative films; while many saw underground movies as a fad of the 60s, he obviously sensed a permanence to their value and position in the culture that warranted such institutional foundations. ..."
The Wire
Guardian: 'I was very angry' – the last interview with Jonas Mekas, godfather of avant garde film
NY Times - Jonas Mekas: A Poet With a Movie Camera
A Conversation Between Film Legend Jonas Mekas and Director Jim Jarmusch
Jonas Mekas on the Poetry of Filmmaking and Living
artbook: Conversations with Filmmakers
Voice - ‘I’m Like the Last Leaf of a Big Tree’: A Conversation With Jonas Mekas
5 Jonas Mekas Films You Must Watch (Video)

Voice: Jonas Mekas

2014 October: Captured: A Film/Video History of the Lower East Side, 2016 February: Jonas Mekas, 2017 July: Patti Smith Sang Some Lou Reed at a Gala For Anthology Film Archives’ Expansion, 2017 August: Jonas Mekas talks about Movie Journal, 2018 May: Scrapbook of the Sixties: Writings 1954 - 2010

Robert Rich & Brian Lustmord - Stalker (1995)

"In 1995, Robert Rich joined underground sound design legend B. Lustmord (aka Lustmord / Brian Williams) for an extended journey inspired by the title and the hypnotic minimalism of Andrei Tarkovsky’s mesmerizing future-fiction film Stalker. The album reveals the ambiguity lurking at the fringes of perception. A provocative contribution to the early ‘dark ambient’ scene. The album slowly reveals a psychoactive soundscape of shape-shifting shadows, dense subharmonic massings, subtle drone textures and ambiguous sound events lurking at the fringes of perception. The seemingly unlikely pairing of Robert Rich, he of slow, gradually evolving electronic music, and B. Lustmord, creator of doomy, ambient industrial experiments – known for his work with Tool, SPK, Puscifer and The Melvins, has yielded a sublime musical entity known as 'Stalker'. ..."
Hearts of Space Records
W - Stalker (album)
Discogs
amazon
YouTube: Stalker ~ full album 1:08:12

Polar Vortex Live Updates: Extreme Cold Weather Grips Midwest

Temperatures plummeted on Wednesday and could break records. Officials throughout the region declared states of emergency and urged people to stay inside.
"CHICAGO — A deep, brutal cold set in across the Midwest on Wednesday, sending temperatures plummeting to depths that stunned even Midwesterners, a group accustomed to shrugging off winter. The cold that seized the middle of the country was the sort that makes cars moan, that makes breathing hurt, that makes any bit of exposed skin sting. Cities like Chicago had been preparing for the deep freeze for days, so when it arrived, much of life had come to a standstill. Colleges and schools were closed all around, and even the United States Postal Service had stopped deliveries in some places. Workers were sent home, meetings canceled, parties called off. ..."
NY Times (Video)
NY Times: How to Avoid Frostbite and Hypothermia in Extreme Cold Weather
NY Times: A Closer Look at the Polar Vortex’s Dangerously Cold Winds
CBS News: Tracking the polar vortex as wind chills hit dangerous levels (Video)

Philip Perkins - Drive Time (1985)

"Philip Perkins was born in 1951 in Coatesville, Pennsylvania. During the first half of the 1970s he made numerous experimental films in Eugene, Oregon before relocating to San Francisco in 1977. Starting 1979, he focused on sound engineering and music, yet still making videos for local bands The Residents, Tuxedomoon or MX-80, for instance. ... ‘Drive Time’ is a collection of audio vignettes encompassing recordings of various human leisure and outdoor activities (conversations, Christmas party, funfair,  mechanical piano, outdoor orchestral music, muzak, geese, gulls, rain, etc), interweaved with keyboard and guitar music, in addition to what Perkins calls ‘simple musique concrete tricks’. The final mix, an elaborate audio survey of contemporary human activities, shows Perkins’ mastering of studio techniques, clever arrangements and melodic skills. ..."
Continuo
Discogs (Video)
amazon
YouTube: "Drive Time" side a (baby 8), side B (baby 9)

Frozen bubbles

"Cold winter weather can lead to amazing spectacles, such as ice wheels in flowing rivers, boulders of ice on lakes and even caves made of ice. While some formations like these can be rare to find in nature, others can be easy to make right in your backyard. Blowing bubbles that turn into orbs of ice is a simple experiment that can be done at home when the weather is cold enough. Those attempting to make frozen bubbles can use regular bubble solution or a homemade solution comprised of one part water, four parts dish soap and a dash of light corn syrup. Regardless of which bubble solution is used, one more ingredient is needed and can be supplied by Mother Nature only. ..." (Tinker G.)
How to create remarkable frozen bubbles in winter
YouTube: Shattering Bubbles, frozen bubbles in calgary, How To Freeze Soap Bubbles

Sound Portraits Radio #15 Robert Ashley w/ Doron Sadja

"A distinguished figure in American contemporary music, Robert Ashley holds an international reputation for his work in new forms of opera and multi-disciplinary projects. In the mid 1960s Ashley founded the Sonic Arts Union with Alvin Lucier, Gordon Mumma, and David Behrman, and later directed the Mills College Center for Contemporary Music. His recorded works are acknowledged classics of language in a musical setting, and he is best known for his epic opera-for-television, Perfect Lives, which is centered around Ashley’s hypnotic voice. Distinctly original in style, and distinctly American in their subject matter and in their use of American language, Robert Ashley’s operas are 'so vast in their vision that they are comparable only to Wagner’s Ring cycle or Stockhausen’s seven-evening Licht cycle. In form and content, in musical, vocal, literary and media technique, they are, however, comparable to nothing else.' - The Los Angeles Times"
Mixcloud (Audio)

2008 March: Robert Ashley, 2012 April: Sonic Arts Union, 2012 July: Various - Lovely Little Records, 2013 October: The Old Man Lives in Concrete, 2014 March: Robert Ashley, 1930-2014, 2016 March: Perfect Lives (1977-83), 2016 June: Music Word Fire and I Would Do It Again: The Lessons (1981)

Paul Sérusier’s ‘The Talisman’, a prophecy of colour

The Talisman
"Paul Sérusier’s Landscape at the Bois d’Amour has now acquired a peculiar status: it is a work which is viewed less for its own merits than for its iconic role in the history of painting. This small plein air study painted 'under the guidance of Gauguin' in Brittany, in the little village of Pont-Aven in October 1888, soon became the symbol of a genuine aesthetic revolution for the Nabis (prophets, in Hebrew). When Sérusier returned to the Académie Julian and presented this synthetic landscape with its pure colours and simplified forms to this group of young artists, they adopted it as their 'talisman'. It later found its way into the collection of Maurice Denis, who helped to establish its credentials as a founding work by providing an account of its creation in an article published in the magazine L'Occident in 1903. Sérusier’s study became the focal point for a sort of origin myth which reinforced the story of a 'painting lesson' from Gauguin as the source of inspiration for the young painter’s manifesto for an art which sought to replace the mimetic approach with a 'colourful equivalent'. ..."
Musée d'Orsay

The Left Hemisphere - Dominions, Faculties, Predilections & Peoples

"This is a map of the left hemisphere of the brain, seen through the lens of a 17th Century Explorer. I have taken the broad functional areas of the left hemisphere of the brain and drawn them as separate continents, as if driven apart by shifting tectonic plates. These continents contain settlements and features with names inspired by the functions found in each particular brain area. The Great Age of Discovery, refers to a period between the 15th and 18th Centuries when Europeans explored the world by sea and 'discovered' new lands. Of course many of these countries were already occupied by indigenous peoples, but from a European explorer's perspective, they were brand new. The quest to understand the structure and function of the brain has similarly been a process of exploration and discovery - the territory is already there, science is our method of exploration and mapping. ..."
The Left Hemisphere - About (Video)
The Left Hemisphere
W - Age of Discovery

Summit Series 1972

Wikipedia - "The Summit Series, or Super Series (in Russian Суперсерия СССР — Канада; Superseriya SSSR — Canada), known at the time simply as the Canada–USSR Series, was an eight-game series of ice hockey between the Soviet Union and Canada, held in September 1972. It was the first competition between the Soviet national team and a Canadian team represented by professional players of the National Hockey League (NHL), known as Team Canada. ... The series was organized with the intention to create a true best-on-best competition in the sport of ice hockey. The Soviets had become the dominant team in international competitions, which disallowed the professional players of Canada. Canada had had a long history of dominance of the sport prior to the Soviets' rise. ... The Canadians scored three in the third, the final one scored with 34 seconds left, by Paul Henderson. The series was played during the Cold War, and intense feelings of nationalism were aroused in fans in both Canada and the Soviet Union and players on the ice. ..."
Wikipedia
NY Times: In 1972, Hockey’s Cold War Boiled Over
1972 Summit Series
YouTube: Cold War on Ice Summit Series '72 1:22:41

The 1959 Project: A New Photoblog Takes a Day-By-Day Look at 1959, the Great Watershed Year in Jazz

"If you’ve hung around Open Culture long enough, you’ve heard said that 1959 was a watershed year for jazz—the year of modal classics Giant Steps and Kind of Blue, 'harmolodic' masterpiece The Shape of Jazz to Come, and the forever cool Time Out and Mingus Ah Um. Sixty years later in 2019, these experiments and confident leaps forward continue to mark pivotal moments in modern music—moments documented heavily by the photographers who gave the albums their inimitable look. To celebrate that year in musical breakthroughs and photographic near-perfection, sportswriter and jazz history 'superfan' Natalie Weiner has launched a blog called The 1959 Project. ..."
Open Culture
The 1959 Project (Video)

Jacob Miller - Healing Of The Nation (1978)

"Jacob Miller returns yet again to one of his favorite themes, the legalization of ganja for ‘Healing of the Nation’. This time around he addresses himself directly to the Jamaican government, with a series of respectful and well reasoned arguments. ‘You no fight against the rum-man, you no fight against the wine-man, you no fight against the cigarette smoking, yet you know, yes you know, these things give cancer.’ Instead, the Jamaican government expends vast amount of resources chasing down and jailing the colliemen, when in fact, according to Miller, collie cures cancer. There’s little, if any research, to support that claim, but still the singer has a case to make when he declares that an end to criminalization would bring about a healing of the nation. ...”
allmusic
Genius
W - Jacob Miller
Discogs (Video)
YouTube: Healing Of The Nation / Dub