Artistic License: Six Takes on the Guggenheim Collection

"The first-ever artist-curated exhibition mounted at the Guggenheim celebrates the museum’s extensive collection of modern and contemporary art. Curated by Cai Guo-Qiang, Paul Chan, Jenny Holzer, Julie Mehretu, Richard Prince, and Carrie Mae Weems— artists who each have had influential solo shows at the museum—Artistic License brings together both well-known and rarely seen works from the turn of the century to 1980. Each artist was invited to make selections to shape a discrete presentation, one on each of the six levels of the rotunda. With the museum’s curators and conservators, they searched through the collection in storage, encountering renowned masterpieces while also finding singular contributions by less-prominent figures. ..."
Guggenheim (Video)
NY Times: The Guggenheim’s Collection, as Seen by Six Art Stars
WSJ - ‘Artistic License: Six Takes on the Guggenheim Collection’ Review: An Artist-Led Sampler

The Secret to Shopping in Used Bookstores

"Summer is a good season for bookstores. As the weather warms, more foot traffic passes by on the street. Front doors can be left open to entice wander-ins. The relaxed flow of summer reading lends itself to spontaneous finds plucked from the shelf instead of purposeful winter tomes. And visitors tend to linger as the daylight hours lengthen. At least some do. There’s another type of customer encounter that happens at least once a shift at the used bookstore where I work, sometimes a dozen times. A customer walks in, beelines to where I’m helming the front desk, and asks a variation of the same question: 'Do you have this specific book?' I’ve worked at the register for two used bookstores—the nonprofit Housing Works Bookstore in New York City’s Soho and the cooperatively run Adobe Bookstore in San Francisco’s Mission District—so I’ve fielded this question hundreds of times. It’s usually easy to answer. ..."
LitHub
W - Used bookstore

The melancholy feel of Central Park in autumn

"At the turn of the 20th century, social realism was all the rage among New York’s painters, who created masterpieces inspired by the city’s tenements, saloons, and gritty waterfront. Impressionist artist Paul Cornoyer was different. Cornoyer painted New York’s blurred edges, bathing buildings and trees and people and puddles of water in somber tones or reflective streaks of rain or snow. At first glance 'Central Park Autumn,' from 1910, seems placid and benign; we’re at the boat pond close to East 73rd Street, a favorite of parkgoers then and now. But the autumn leaves and subdued bench sitters create a sense of melancholy stillness. Cornoyer 'has painted for us the New York that he felt,' one critic wrote in 1909, a year before this painting was completed."
Ephemeral New York

2019 January: A Gilded Age painter’s rainy, wintry New York

XLR8R Influences Podcast 16: Kevin Saunderson

"Born in New York but raised in Detroit, USA, Kevin Saunderson joined Belleville High School where he befriended two like-minded students: Derrick May and Juan Atkins. As teens, they bonded over music, citing the pop, disco, and funk records spun by DJ Charles 'The Electrifying Mojo' Johnson as a profound influence—and they went on to create the Detroit techno sound, shifting the global music landscape in an unprecedented way. Starting off as a DJ and under the technically-focused guidance of Atkins, Saunderson began producing, and he put his early work on the Atkins’ legendary Metroplex. Following this period of discovery, Inner City, arguably Saunderson’s greatest achievement, came to be. The result of an accidental pairing with Paris Grey, Inner City established itself as one of the world’s most influential dance acts. ..."
XLR8R (Audio)
MixCloud (Audio)

The Hugo Boss Prize 2018: Simone Leigh, Loophole of Retreat

"Over the course of her career, Simone Leigh (b. 1967, Chicago) has continuously and insistently centered the black female experience. In Loophole of Retreat, an exhibition presented on the occasion of Leigh winning the 2018 Hugo Boss Prize, she layers form, sound, and text to fashion narratives of resilience and resistance. The project’s title is drawn from the writings of Harriet Jacobs, a formerly enslaved abolitionist who in 1861 published an account of her struggle to achieve freedom, including the seven years she spent hiding from her master in a tiny crawl space beneath the rafters of her grandmother’s home. This act of defiant fortitude, which forged a 'loophole of retreat' from an unjust reality, serves as a touchstone for Leigh’s long-standing commitment to honoring the agency of black women and their power to inhabit worlds of their own creation. ..."
Guggenheim (Video)
Brooklyn Rail
W - Simone Leigh

The Life and Times of Alvin Baltrop

“Pier 52 (Gordon Matta-Clark’s “Day’s End”),” n.d. (1975–1986)
"A quiet man who supported himself doing odd jobs such as street vendor, jewelry designer, photography printer, and cab driver, Bronx native Alvin Baltrop left an important body of work after his untimely death in 2004 that only now is garnering the serious attention it deserves. Like the startling images of Peter Moore, Robert Mapplethorpe, Peter Hujar, and Gordon Matta-Clark, the photographs of Alvin Baltrop memorialize New York City at a breaking-point moment amid ruin and chaos. As such, they constitute an important document, remarkable both for its social import as well as for its groundbreaking visual dare. Rarely shown during his lifetime, Baltrop’s images return us to that conflicted era when the city was on the brink of a financial crisis; they convey the raw energy that characterized some of the city’s most impassioned grassroots campaigns for survival. ..."
Bronx Museum
Interview: How Alvin Baltrop Captured the Intimate Queer History of Manhattan’s West Side Piers
W - Alvin Baltrop
amazon

Yabby You - Jesus Dread (1972-1977)

"The 1970s were a time of social consciousness in Jamaica. Reggae music played a significant role in this awareness largely through Bob Marley, but artistes like Yabby You kept the fire burning at the grass roots. Yabby You produced some of the decade's most inspirational reggae and along with Augustus Pablo, is rated among the music's visionaries. His King Tubby's Prophesy of Dub and Blazing Horns featuring saxophonist Tommy McCook and trumpeter Bobby Ellis, are considered Yabby You's best work. British reggae historian Steve Barrow has described his 1975 debut album, Conquering Lion, as a 'true cornerstone of Jamaican roots music'. Yabby You (real name Vivian Jackson) crafted a remarkable catalogue despite severe physical challenges. In his youth, he suffered from malnutrition and battled arthritis which caused him to use crutches for most of his life. ..."
Holland Tunnel Dive
Discogs (Video)
YouTube: Jesus Dread (1972-1977) 1:52:19

A Quest to Protect the World's Last Silent Places

"In 2005, Gordon Hempton placed a small stone on a log in the Hoh Rainforest of Washington’s Olympic National Park, one of the quietest places in the world. He dubbed his miniature cairn One Square Inch of Silence. If he could keep the rock free of human noise pollution, Hempton reasoned, many surrounding square miles would be free of it, too. Hempton, now 66, lives in the small town of Joyce, less than 15 miles from the park. He’s been recording endangered natural soundscapes around the world for more than 37 years. A documentary he made about his work, Vanishing Dawn Chorus, won an Emmy Award in 1992. 'The earth is a solar-powered jukebox,' he likes to say. For years, One Square Inch of Silence worked: Hempton monitored the spot and alerted noisemakers—mainly commercial airlines—of their trespasses via recordings and letters. ..."
Outside
Bird Note: Sound Escapes (Audio)
YouTube: Vanishing Dawn Chorus 49:57

2008 September: Birds, 2008 June: Bird Songs, 2017 April: Of a Feather, 2017 June: Bird Sounds, 2017 July: Beautifully Designed Tiny Houses... For Birds, 2019 September: The Crisis for Birds Is a Crisis for Us All, 2019 March: She Invented a Board Game With Scientific Integrity. It’s Taking Off., 2019 June: Where Birds Meet Art . . . After Dark, 2019 September: The Crisis for Birds Is a Crisis for Us All

The New MoMA Is Here. Get Ready for Change.

Before moving into its expanded building, curators at the Museum of Modern Art used foam-core models and miniature artworks to prepare more than 60 collection galleries. Here, Amy Sillman’s installation, “The Shape of Shape.”
"Picasso and Braque were looking a little forlorn: unsure of their new home, unsure of their new acquaintances. It was early September, six anxious weeks from the reopening of the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan. After three years of piecemeal renovations, the museum had shut its doors for the summer, preparing for a top-to-bottom rehang of the world’s finest collection of modern and contemporary art, with about 47,000 additional square feet to play with. Two senior curators were still installing the cardinal gallery, the one with 'Les Demoiselles d’Avignon,' Pablo Picasso’s grand, violent painting of five contorted Catalan prostitutes. ..."
NY Times

Henri Matisse’s “The Red Studio” (1911) and Henri Rousseau’s “The Dream” (1910) await new homes.

Ursula K. Le Guin’s Revolutions

"In the second book of Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea cycle, the wizard Ged tells the priestess Arha that she has a choice. Stay and serve the nameless grim gods of the tomb, as she has done the last ten years of her life, or walk away from them into the light. Arha knows nothing but the dark, not even her original name. Before a religious order named her Arha, the Eaten One, she was Tenar; she had a family, an identity, choices. She can be Tenar again, but only if she can admit that she’s wasted her entire life on false gods, and only if she follows Ged out of the tombs and into a world she has never really known. The Earthsea books are set in a world where dragons are real and so is magic. As Arha’s choice so poignantly demonstrates, Le Guin explored these fantastical worlds out of an interest in the liberatory possibilities of the human imagination. ..."
Dissent

Ursula K Le Guin - T-Shirt

2015 October: Ursula Le Guin, 2018 January: Ursula K. Le Guin, Acclaimed for Her Fantasy Fiction, Is Dead at 88

Treasure Hunting in the Hall of the Deep-Sky King

The pentagonal figure of Cepheus, the King, stands above Polaris at nightfall in October.
"When my kids were younger they loved to listen to the iconic In the Hall of the Mountain King from Edvard Grieg's Peer Gynt. The music so perfectly captures Peer's desperate attempt to escape the mountain trolls and the troll king. But just when all seems hopeless, he's saved by the rays of the rising Sun and the sound of distant church bells, two things the beasts cannot bear. At nightfall in October, Cepheus, King of the Sky, looks down upon the chilling earth and tempts skywatchers with similar riches. None of us need fear his wrath — these treasures are free for the taking. I'm always amazed how much Cepheus has to offer, so much that I'm only going to describe a few of my favorites. ..."
Sky & Telescope

The Iris Nebula, named for the flower, is 1,300 light-years away and 6 light-years across. The massive, young star at center, HD 200775, illuminates a region of space rich in dust grains. Light reflected from the grains gives the nebula its blue color.

Sun Ra Arkestra’s Marshall Allen on Dedicating His Life to Music

"Sun Ra – visionary, mystic, poet, angel, pianist and jazz arranger extraordinaire – might have departed this planet over 20 years ago, but his spirit and musical influence still reverberate today. The 25-piece Arkestra, with 90 year old alto saxophonist Marshall Allen at the helm, continues to travel the spaceways playing all around the world and spreading Ra’s myth far and wide. From barber shop harmonies and big band swing, to freeform electronics and New York noise, to Black Panthers, Walt Disney covers, space chants and the original unquantized snare: we’re still just catching up with Sun Ra’s vision. In this excerpt from his recent interview with RBMA Radio, Allen charts his way through the group’s cosmic history. ..."
Red Bull Music Academy Daily (Video)

Sun Ra at the Montreux Jazz Festival, 1976

An Introduction to the Blues: The Delta Greats, Electric Pioneers, and More Blues Artists You Should Know

Robert Johnson
".... It also doesn’t help that the blues have been around as a distinct, recognizable form for about 100 years and that thousands (upon thousands) of musicians have performed, recorded, and considered themselves 'blues artists.' Needless to say, crafting a definitive—let alone comprehensive—list of important blues musicians and recordings is almost impossible. But that said, here is your introduction to the blues. Since I can’t present you with a comprehensive introduction, my approach here is to focus on my favorites. My list is subjective, obviously, and incomplete, but it does represent a cross-section of what I think is some of the greatest electric, acoustic, traditional, and raw blues music available. ..."
Reverb LP (Video)

John Lee Hooker

Trump–Ukraine controversy

"The Trump–Ukraine controversy is an ongoing political scandal in the United States. It concerns allegations that U.S. President Donald Trump and top administration officials encouraged foreign interference in the 2020 American elections for Trump's 'own personal political interests.' The controversy began in the wake of a whistleblower report that alleged an abuse of power by Trump and administration officials in 'order to advance his personal interests' before, during and after a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. This report was based upon the accounts of more than 'half a dozen U.S. officials' and, at least in part, 'direct knowledge of certain alleged conduct. The allegations were among the most serious ever made against an American president, with historians widely calling it 'unprecedented' in American history. The whistleblower complaint, filed by a CIA officer, alleged that 'the President of the United States is using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election.' ..."
Wikipedia
On Fox, Trump Is Not At The Center Of The Ukraine Story
W - Democratic National Committee cyber attacks
Russia 'interfered in three elections' as it targeted Britain, Macedonia, U.S. and Ukraine in string of 'brazen' cyber attacks aimed at destabilising democracies around the world

Pictures show the cache of equipment seized from the men. They attempted to smash up some of the phones (inset) when they realised authorities were on to them

065° BEL BIGUINE LA - selected by Les Mains Noires

"At last! At last a new French West Indies compilation! And not the least! We are very happy and quite proud to present 'Bel Biguine La', a special selection focusing on rare early Biguine dirty recordings from Guadeloupe and Martinique from late 50s and 60s! 12 rare tracks accompanied by liner notes about the songs, the musicians and the incredible Disques Emeraude, very first record label to record Guadeloupian music in Guadeloupe and run by Robert Mavounzy’s brother, Marcel Mavounzy. ... Until the early 50s, all the creole records were produced and recorded in Paris by majors like Columbia, Pathé-Marconi, Odeon, etc. The musicians were, between others, Sam Castendet, Eugène Delouche, Alexandre Stellio, Al Lirvat. Honoré Coppet track and the other from his brother Barrel Coppet are perfect example of those metropolitan recordings even if they are from late 50s and early 60s. ..."
les mains noires (Audio)
mixcloud (Audio)

Pen + Brush 120th

"Pen + Brush was founded in 1894 as a private club for women artists and writers. This makes it older than any other professional women’s organization in the United States as well as most New York art institutions, including the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney. The Pen and Brush Club, as it was then called, was legally incorporated in 1912, eight years before women gained the right to vote. The famous muckraker Ida Tarbell served as its president for 30 years (1913–1943), and early honorary members included two first ladies (Eleanor Roosevelt and Edith Wilson) and the Nobel prize-winning author Pearl S. Buck. The club was headquartered in a grand 19th century brownstone on 10th Street that was a hub for distinguished professional women. ..."
Brooklyn Rail
Pen + Brush
W - Salmagundi Club
NYC-ARTS: Profile: Pen + Brush (Video)

Valentine’s Day Party at the Pen and Brush Club, 1932. Courtesy Pen + Brush.

John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band (1970)

"John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band is the debut solo album by English musician John Lennon. It was released in 1970, after Lennon had issued three experimental albums with Yoko Ono and Live Peace in Toronto 1969, a live performance in Toronto credited to the Plastic Ono Band. ... In July 1970, Lennon started to record demos of songs he wrote that would show up on John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, and on one particular day, the 26th, Lennon recorded numerous demos of his song 'God', which includes the line 'I don't believe in Beatles'. Lennon's therapy was never completed due to the expiry of his US visa. ... Throughout the album Lennon touches on many personal issues: his abandonment by his parents, in 'Mother'; the means by which young people are made into soldiers, in 'Working Class Hero'; a reminder that, despite his rage and pain, Lennon still embraces 'Love'; and 'God', a renunciation of external saviours. ..."
Wikipedia
Rolling Stone: John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band By Lester Bangs
John Lennon – John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band (Video/Audio)
#23: John Lennon, "Plastic Ono Band" (1970)
MoMA: John Lennon, Plastic Ono Band with Yoko Ono
Discogs (Video)
amazon
YouTube: Mother, Working Class Hero, God, Power To The People

2009 September: John Lennon - Live in New York City (Madison Square Garden 1972), 2014 January: Michael Rakowitz - The Breakup, 2014 April: "Jealous Guy" (1971), 2014 May: Mind Games (1973), 2014 July: Out of the Blue, 2014 December: Double Fantasy - John Lennon/Yoko Ono (1980),  2016 October: "Instant Karma! (We All Shine On)" (1970), 2017 January: Cold Turkey - John Lennon (1969), 2017 April: Revolution - The Beatles (1968)

Jean Genet in Tangier – Mohamed Choukri, Paul Bowles (Translator)

"On a sultry afternoon in the summer of 1973, the American playwright Tennessee Williams stepped into a post office in Tangier to retrieve a package. Like countless other artists and writers - from Mark Twain and Eugène Delacroix in the 19th century to Paul Bowles, Truman Capote, William S Burroughs, Allen Ginsburg, Jack Kerouac, Jean Genet and Henri Matisse in the 20th - Williams travelled often to the coastal Moroccan city. With its wild beauty, its jumbled history, its tangle of influences and its peculiar former status as an international zone, Tangier held out to expatriates the promise of adventure and reflection. For some, it was a sleepy, sea-swept city suffused in orange light, a quiet place to live and work. For others, it was dangerous, foreign and exotic, full of spies, tramps and mercenaries. ..."
Our man in Tangier
Kirkus Reviews
W - Jean Genet
W - Mohamed Choukri
[PDF] Jean Genet in Tangier
amazon

Through the novels of Paul Bowles and William Burroughs particularly, Tangier exists and persists in the literary imagination – perhaps as an atmosphere rather than a location – as securely as Dublin is identified with James Joyce.

2017 August: Three Stones for Jean Genet told Patti Smith (2013)

The Catch - September 29, 1954

Willie Mays hauls in Vic Wertz's drive at the warning track in the 1954 World Series.
"The Catch refers to a defensive play made by New York Giants center fielder Willie Mays on a ball hit by Cleveland Indians batter Vic Wertz on September 29, 1954, during Game 1 of the 1954 World Series at the Polo Grounds in Upper Manhattan, New York City. In the top of the 8th inning with the score tied 2–2, Giants starting pitcher Sal Maglie walked Indians lead off hitter Larry Doby. Al Rosen singled, putting runners on first and second. New York manager Leo Durocher summoned left-handed relief pitcher Don Liddle to pitch to Cleveland's Wertz, a left-handed batter. Wertz worked the count to two balls and one strike before hitting Liddle's fourth pitch approximately 420 feet (130 m) to deep center field. In many stadiums the ball would have been a home run, which would have given the Indians a 5–2 lead. However, the Polo Grounds was larger than average, and Mays, who was playing in shallow center field, made an on-the-run, over-the-shoulder catch at the warning track for the out. ..."
Wikipedia
YouTube: Willie Mays makes "The Catch", an amazing over-the-shoulder grab

Exoplanet Hunter Sees a Black Hole-Shredded Star

This computer-simulated image shows gas from a tidally shredded star (orange) falling into a black hole (tiny dark dot in upper left). Some of the gas also is being ejected at high speeds into space (stream stretching right).
"What happens when a supermassive black hole shreds a star? One such tidal disruption event (TDE) is showing astronomers that there’s still a lot we don’t know about these rare, distant, and brilliant phenomena. It’s pretty rare that a black hole tears into a close-venturing star — a Milky Way-type galaxy might see a supernova every century, but only see a TDE every 10,000 or 100,000 years.  Now, though, automated telescopes scanning the night sky are catching more and more star-shredding events as they happen throughout the universe. ..."
Sky & Telescope (Video)
Gargantuan Black Hole Shreds Star in Rare Cosmic Find (Video)

2015 June: Black Hole Hunters, 2019 April: Black Hole Image Revealed for First Time Ever

Why the Trump Impeachment Inquiry Is the Only Option

"The peaceful transfer of presidential power through free and fair elections is the crowning glory of American democracy. It concretizes the people’s will, conferring legitimacy, assuring stability. President Trump may have finished second in the popular vote, but he is the legitimate president. In the normal course of events, his mismanagement of the nation’s affairs would be left for the electorate to repudiate, through support of a challenger in a primary race or, failing that, in the general election. But the course of events is not normal. Mr. Trump campaigned as an iconoclast, but it became clear early in his administration that his disruptiveness was aimed less at bringing fresh thinking to bear on stale policymaking than at assaulting the vital institutions of governance themselves. He has attacked the legitimacy of law enforcement, of intelligence agencies, of Congress and of the courts — of anyone he judges to threaten him politically. ..."
NY Times
NY Times: Why The Times Editorial Board Supports an Impeachment Inquiry
NY Times: White House Classified Computer System Is Used to Hold Transcripts of Sensitive Calls - A Guide to Impeachment
NY Times - Trump’s Efforts to Push Ukraine Toward a Biden Inquiry: A Timeline
***NY Times: IMPEACHMENT Six Times Opinion
W - Mueller Report (June 9, 2019)

The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum - Heinrich Böll (1974)

Wikipedia - "The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum, or: How violence develops and where it can lead ... is a 1975 film adaptation of the novel of the same name by Heinrich Böll, written for the screen by Volker Schlöndorff and Margarethe von Trotta. Schlöndorff and von Trotta wrote the script with an emphasis on the vindictive and harsh treatment of an innocent woman by the public, the police and the media. The film stars Angela Winkler as Blum, Mario Adorf as Kommissar Beizmenne, Dieter Laser as Tötges, and Jürgen Prochnow as Ludwig. Katharina Blum is an innocent woman who works as a housekeeper for a famous corporate lawyer, Hubert Blorna, and his wife Trude. Her life is ruined by an invasive tabloid reporter, Werner Tötges, who works for a tabloid simply known as The Paper. Katharina lands in the papers when the police begin to investigate her in connection with Ludwig Götten, a man she has just met and quickly fallen in with love, and who is accused of being an anarchist, a bank robber, and an alleged terrorist. ..."
Wikipedia
W - Heinrich Böll
amazon
MUBI: The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum
YouTube: The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum

Lee Morgan - Cornbread (1967)

“Philadelphia horn-blower Lee Morgan had been with Blue Note Records for almost nine years when he recorded Cornbread, his 12th album for the label, in a single session held on Saturday, 18 September 1965. Originally from Philadelphia, Morgan was a precociously-talented trumpet prodigy who made his debut recording at the tender age of 18 for Alfred Lion’s famous label, on 4 November 1956.  … Cornbread’s nine-minute-long title track was the first of four songs composed by the trumpeter on the album. It was driven by a boogaloo-style groove created by Ridley, Higgins and Hancock that had been the salient feature of ‘The Sidewinder’. Rendered in a finger-clicking soul-jazz vein, the tune also had a catchy harmonised horn line and featured some blazing trumpet improv from Morgan. Hank Mobley takes the second solo, Jackie McLean the third, followed by Herbie Hancock with an inventive passage of busy extemporisation. …”
‘Cornbread’: Lee Morgan’s Tasty Blue Note Classic (Video/Audio)
LondonJazzCollector (Audio)
W – Cornbread
Discogs (Video)
amazon

2018 January: I Called Him Morgan (2017), 2015 December: Art Blakey - Paris Jam Session (1959), 2019 May: "I Remember Clifford" - Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers (feat. Lee Morgan) (1958)

Habibi Funk, the label playing hide and seek in Medina

"In the alleyways of Casablanca, a man is walking around with a photo in his hand, questioning the locals sitting on cafe terraces, in the hope that one of them recognises the mysterious singer whom he discovered by chance on a ‘45 turntable, hidden behind broken electronic devices and stacked in a second-hand shop. This man is Jannis Stürtz. He is stomping through Medina in search of the foundations for what would eventually become Habibi Funk in 2015: ‘In the beginning, it was way more difficult. For example, trying to find Fadoul was like a one-year process. We found someone who recognised the photo and then we only knew where his family used to live ten years ago, and we just had the name of a neighbourhood in Casablanca, not the street name or anything.’ ..."
Pan African Music (Video)
YouTube: Jannis (Habibi Funk) • Vinyl Set • Le Mellotron

2017 June: Ahmed Malek and Other Treasures From Habibi Funk’s North African Crate - Digging Expeditions, 2017 July: Lebanon: Various artists - Jakarta Radio 010 Mix, 2017 December: From the Counter: Beirut, 2018 June: "Habibi Funk 001 Mix" by Jannis of Jakarta Records (Mix of Arabic 60s & 70s)

Why Can’t New York City Build More Gems Like This Queens Library?

"Against a phalanx of mostly dreary new apartment towers, the soon-to-open Hunters Point Community Library by Steven Holl Architects is a diva parading along the East River in Queens, south of the famous Pepsi sign. With its sculptured geometry — a playful advertisement for itself — it’s even a little like the Pepsi sign. Compact, at 22,000 square feet and 82 feet high, the library is among the finest and most uplifting public buildings New York has produced so far this century. It also cost something north of $40 million and took forever to complete. So it raises the question: Why can’t New York build more things like this, faster and cheaper? ..."
NY Times
Queens Public Library: Long-stalled Hunters Point library will finally open next week (Video)

Rooftop bleachers offer sweeping views of Manhattan and a place to stage events.

Fania Records: How A New York Label Took Salsa To The World

"Just as Chess Records is synonymous with the blues, Motown with soul and Blue Note with jazz, New York’s Fania Records is inextricably tied to the sound of Latin-American salsa music. The label was the brainchild of an unlikely partnership between an accomplished Caribbean musician from the Dominican Republic and a Brooklyn-born Italian-American who was a former police officer turned divorce lawyer. Johnny Pacheco and Gerald 'Jerry' Masucci met in 1962 when the latter became the former’s divorce attorney. But they also shared a mutual love of Latin music (Masucci had worked in Cuba at one time) and, in 1964, they decided to start a record label that began as a small-time operation on the Big Apple’s mean streets but which would eventually become a global brand that conquered the world. ..."
udiscover (Video/Audio)
Vinyl Me, Please Partnering With Fania On Three Reissues, Merch, And VMP Classics Record Of The Month (Video/Audio)

2014 October: Fania at Fifty