Light and Shadow: The Story of Hector Zazou

"It was September 8, 2008. Somewhere between the dying moments of the night and the early morning hours, Pierre Job, who most of his colleagues and friends called Hector Zazou, 'Zaz,' or 'Zazou,' passed away at the age of 60. He was a musician, producer, director, journalist and activist. Worldly, idealistic, intellectual and a dreamer. Autumnal, tormented, pragmatic... A father, friend and enemy, he was a man of elusive dualities. Given the quantity of undeveloped works he left behind him, he probably still had plenty to say. ... A mutant discography unlike any other, notable for its catalog of collaborators: Brian Eno, Harold Budd, Asia Argento, Fred Frith, Henry Kaiser, John Cale, Marc Hollander, Papa Wemba, Björk, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Jon Hassell, Gerard Depardieu, Bill Laswell. ..."
Red Bull Music Academy (Video)

2008 September: Hector Zazou, 2011 December: Sahara Blue, 2015 November: Chansons des mers froides (1994)

Artist in Exile: The Visual Diary of Baroness Hyde de Neuville

“Corner of Greenwich Street” (1810)
"Self-taught and ahead of her time, Anne Marguérite Joséphine Henriette Rouillé de Marigny, Baroness Hyde de Neuville (1771–1849) was the first woman artist in America to leave a substantial body of work. Granted exile by Napoleon, she first made her mark in New York City and later Washington, D.C., and her art celebrates the people and scenes of the early American republic, documenting the young country’s history, culture, and diverse population. Neuville’s status as a woman and an outsider made her an astute observer of people from varied backgrounds, and her work documents such significant figures as one of the first visitors to America from China and the earliest accurate portrayals of Indigenous Americans. The first serious consideration of her life and art, this exhibition showcases 114 watercolors and drawings by Neuville, including many that were recently discovered. A scholarly catalogue accompanies the exhibition and is available for purchase in the NYHistory Store. ..."
New-York Historical Society
Woman of the World
W - Anne Marguerite Hyde de Neuville
amazon

Break’s Bridge, Palatine, New York, 1808.

How Qassim Suleimani Wielded His Enormous Power in Iraq

"In the four decades since the 1979 Iranian Revolution, few Iranian leaders have achieved the global profile attained by Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, the military commander killed in an American airstrike on Thursday. After the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Suleimani emerged as the United States’s most capable adversary in that country. His American counterpart at a key point during the occupation, Gen. David Petraeus, described Suleimani as 'a truly evil figure' in a letter to Robert Gates, then the U.S. defense secretary. Over the years, Suleimani gained a reputation as a fearsome military leader who controlled a network of ideologically driven militia proxies across the Middle East. A more nuanced portrait of Suleimani emerges from a leaked archive of secret Iranian spy cables obtained by The Intercept_...."
The Intercept_

2019 March: ISIS Caliphate Crumbles as Last Village in Syria Falls ++, 2019 November: The Iran Cables, 2020 January: Iran Vows ‘Forceful Revenge’ After U.S. Kills General, 2020 January: Iran Loses Its Indispensable Man

John Coltrane’s Handwritten Outline for His Masterpiece A Love Supreme

"Today we present a rare document from the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History: Coltrane's handwritten outline of his groundbreaking jazz composition A Love Supreme. Recorded in December of 1964 and released in 1965, A Love Supreme is Coltrane's personal declaration of his faith in God and his awareness of being on a spiritual path. 'No road is an easy one,' writes Coltrane in a prayer at the bottom of his own liner notes for the album, 'but they all go back to God.' If you click the image above and examine a larger copy of the manuscript, you will notice that Coltrane has written the same sentiment at the bottom of the page. "All paths lead to God." The piece is made up of a progression of four suites. ..."
Open Culture (Audio)

2011 November: John Coltrane Quartet, Live at Jazz Casual, 1963, 2012 March: John Coltrane 1960 - 1965, 2012 September: "Naima" (1959), 2012 October: Blue Train (1957), 2013 April: The World According to John Coltrane, 2013 November: A Love Supreme (1965), 2014 July: New Photos of John Coltrane Rediscovered 50 Years After They Were Shot, 2014 November: Coltrane’s Free Jazz Wasn’t Just “A Lot of Noise”, 2015 February: Lush Life (1958), 2015 May: An Animated John Coltrane Explains His True Reason for Being: “I Want to Be a Force for Real Good”, 2015 July: Afro Blue Impressions (2013), 2015 September: Impressions of Coltrane, 2015 December: Giant Steps (1960), 2016 January: Crescent (1964), 2016 April: The Church of Saint John Coltrane, 2016 July: Soultrane (1958), 2016 December: Dakar (1957), 2017 July: The John Coltrane Record That Made Modern Music, 2017 October: Live at the Village Vanguard (1962), 2017 December: Interview: Archie Shepp on John Coltrane, the Blues and More, 2018 March: Cannonball Adderley Quintet in Chicago (1959), 2018 June: Lost John Coltrane Recording From 1963 Will Be Released at Last, 2018 July: Stream Online the Complete “Lost” John Coltrane Album, Both Directions at Once, 2018 November: Jazz Deconstructed: What Makes John Coltrane’s “Giant Steps” So Groundbreaking and Radical?

Survey: Robert Crumb & 78 rpm records

"Cartoonist Robert Crumb is responsible for one of the greatest album covers of all time, Cheap Thrills, the debut album of 1960s musical icon Janis Joplin with her rock band Big Brother and the Holding Company. In 1967, Crumb founded the first successful underground comix publication, Zap Comix (which Janis Joplin herself was an avid reader of) in San Francisco, during the rise of the counterculture movement, the 'Summer of Love', and was considered a cult hero among the hippy community. Crumb himself actually had no interest in rock music at the time. His great love was towards music from the Jazz Age during the 1920s, including genres such as country, blues, jazz, jive, ragtime, and hillbilly. Crumb, who admired this style of music from a young age, is also known for being one of the world's leading collectors of 'SP records', which existed before the introduction of vinyl records (LP, EP). ..."
visvim
Red Bull Music Academy (Video)
Open Culture: R. Crumb’s Vibrant, Over-the-Top Album Covers (1968-2004)

2008 August: Robert Crumb, 2010 October: Comics No. 1, 2011 October: Pioneers of Country Music Trading Cards, 2012 August: R. Crumb: The Complete Record Cover Collection, 2015 May: R. Crumb Describes How He Dropped LSD in the 60s & Instantly Discovered His Artistic Style, 2015 June: Heroes of the Blues Boxed Trading Card Set by R. Crumb, 2018 March: Aline Kominsky-Crumb, 2019 March:R. Crumb’s Portraits of Aline and Others

How to Buy? Say You’ll Sell.

Erling Braut Haaland and Salzburg fans enjoyed a torrid, if brief, romance.
"Takumi Minamino was the first of Red Bull Salzburg’s prized assets to go, snaffled up by Liverpool almost as a souvenir of the European champion’s winter visit to Austria. Erling Braut Haaland took a little longer. According to his agent, a dozen clubs had been pursuing Haaland, the 19-year-old Norwegian striker. including Manchester United and Juventus. Haaland took time to consider each and every one before deciding, in those drifting, dozing days between Christmas and New Year’s Day, to join Borussia Dortmund. For Salzburg, the departures of Minamino and Haaland will be bittersweet. ..."
NY Times

An East Side apartment house’s Medieval touches

"If the Cloisters is your kind of art museum, then the eight-story building at 40 East 62nd Street is probably your kind of apartment house. Built in 1911—right about when this block between Park and Madison Avenues was transitioning from a stretch of single-family homes and horse stables—it takes its cues from a Medieval castle. 'Designed by Albert J. Bodker, it is a startling work, a Medieval-style tapestry of brick and glazed terra cotta, with an ebulliently ornamental parapet and vertical bays of windows to light the parlors,' wrote Christopher Gray in a 2006 New York Times piece. Fierce griffins, foliage, a pointed-arch entrance, battlements, and shields make the building seem like it belongs in Middle Ages, according to the Upper East Side Historic District Designation Report from 1981. ..."
Ephemeral New York

Iran Loses Its Indispensable Man

Protesters in Seattle on Saturday after the airstrike on Friday that killed Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani of Iran.
"The United States has killed Major General Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’s Quds Force. The United States is now in a hot war with Iran after having waged war via proxies for the past several decades. This doesn’t mean war, it will not lead to war, and it doesn’t risk war. None of that. It is war. I don’t claim to be an expert on Iran—when I served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for Middle East policy, I used to remind my Iran team at the Pentagon that my regional expertise ended at the Shatt al-Arab waterway that divides Iraq and Iran, and with them, the Arabic- and Farsi-speaking regions of the Middle East. ..."
The Atlantic
NY Times: Opinion - Congress, Stop President Trump’s Rush to War With Iran
The Nation: Who Will Stop Trump’s War on Iran?
The Atlantic: The Embassy Attack Revealed Trump’s Weakness

Persian Love - Holger Czukay (1979)

"In 1977 Holger Czukay left Can, the band he was part of since its inception in 1968. After acting as the bass player for the band on the classic albums they released in the beginning of the 70s, he moved to a role similar to Brian Eno’s on Roxy Music’s first albums, manipulating tapes and producing sounds via short wave radios and other sources. In 1978 he labored on an album that immediately upon its release in 1979 became a hugely influential recording for many artists due to its unique use of sampling. The art of sampling in musical recordings existed long before Holger Czukay recorded the album Movies, on which the addictive Persian Love appears. ..."
The Music Aficionado (Video)
Granta
Discogs (Video)
YouTube: Persian love, Cool In The Pool

2011 September: Can, 2011 February: Plight & Premonition, 2013 October: Flux + Mutability - David Sylvian and Holger Czukay (1989) , 2014 June: Holger Czukay - Der Osten Ist Rot, Rome Remains Rome (1984/7), 2016 March: Invaders Of The Heart - Jah Wobble (1982), 2017 April: Jah Wobble, The Edge, Holger Czukay - Snake Charmer (1983), 2017 June: The Legend Lives On… Jah Wobble In Betrayal (1980), 2017 July: Can - The Singles (2017), 2017 September: Holger Czukay (1938-2017), 2019 September: Cinema (2018)

Iran Vows ‘Forceful Revenge’ After U.S. Kills General

President Trump authorized the attack early Friday at Baghdad International Airport that killed Iran’s top security and intelligence commander, Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani.
"Around the time that an overnight airstrike killed Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, a deployment of the elite Army Rangers based in the United States boarded transport aircraft bound for the Middle East on Thursday night, a Pentagon official said. This week, the Defense Department readied 4,000 paratroopers based at Fort Bragg, N.C., for a similar security mission to Kuwait, 750 of which have already deployed. General Suleimani, a powerful strategist who represented Iran’s influence across the region, was killed by an American drone at Baghdad’s airport, in an attack that had been authorized by President Trump and that ratcheted up tensions between Washington and Tehran. Iran’s leaders quickly promised retaliation for the general’s killing. Iraq’s Parliament planned to hold an emergency session over the weekend to address the airstrike, which Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi called 'a brazen violation of Iraq’s sovereignty and a blatant attack on the nation’s dignity.' ..."
NY Times (Video)
NY Times: Qassim Suleimani, Master of Iran’s Intrigue, Built a Shiite Axis of Power in Mideast (Video)
NY Times - Maps: How the Confrontation Between the U.S. and Iran Escalated
BBC - Qasem Soleimani: Iran vows 'severe revenge' for top general's death (Video)
CBS: Iran vows revenge for U.S. killing of top commander Qassem Soleimani (Video)
Telegraph - Iran vows 'severe vengeance' after US takes out top general Qassim Soleimani in Baghdad airstrike (Video)
W - Qassim Suleimani

Snow at Argenteuil - Claude Monet (1874–1875)

"Snow at Argenteuil (French: Rue sous la neige, Argenteuil) is an oil-on-canvas landscape painting from the Impressionist artist Claude Monet. It is the largest of no fewer than eighteen works Monet painted of his home commune of Argenteuil while it was under a blanket of snow during the winter of 1874–1875. This painting—number 352 in Wildenstein’s catalogue of the works of Monet—is the largest of the eighteen. The attention to detail evident in the smaller paintings is less evident in this larger picture. Instead, Monet has rendered large areas of the canvas in closely like tones and colours of blue and grey. The application of smaller strokes of greens, yellows, reds and darker blues breaks up these large expanses, and the almost choreographed dispersal of these various colours helps bind the picture together. Paint at the depicted road surface is thicker than elsewhere in the painting, and impasto is suggestive of the feel of disturbed snow. ..."
Wikipedia
The National Gallery

Feminism in Latin America

Ecuador, supporters of a proposed reform to the country’s abortion laws rallied around the slogan “niñas no madres” (girls not mothers).
"Feminism in Latin America is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and achieving equal political, economic, cultural, personal, and social rights for Latin American women. This includes seeking to establish equal opportunities for women in education and employment. Those who practice feminism by advocating or supporting the rights and equality of women are called feminists. Latin American Feminism exists in the context of centuries of colonialism, the transportation and subjugation of slaves from Africa, and mistreatment of native people. The origins of Latin American Feminism can be traced back to the 1960s and 1970s social movements where it encompasses the women’s liberation movement, but prior feminist ideas have expanded before there were written records. With various regions in Latin America and the Caribbean, the definition of feminism varies across different groups where there has been cultural, political, and social involvement. The emergence of Latin American feminism movement is contributed to five key factors. ..."
Wikipedia
The Nation: This Was the Decade of Feminist Uprisings in Latin America
5 Feminist Murals From Across Latin America

This mural adds a pop of Latina sentiment to traditional feminist iconography.

The (Quiet) Death of a Legendary Parisian Bookstore

"When it was announced that the legendary bookshop Le Pont Traversé would definitely close down on the 31st of December in Paris, many French TV stations put in phone calls and tried to convince Josée Comte-Béalu to do a filmed interview. She refused every single one of them.'They are like vultures,' she said on a recent afternoon, while Paris was paralyzed by an unrelenting general strike and suspended public transportation. Her carefully cluttered bookshop was unusually calm, and Josée took advantage of the quiet moment to attach a price tag to her opaline glass chandelier—a rare early 20th century piece, now for sale along with the rest of her 11,000 books. ..."
LitHub
The Old Butcher’s Bookshop, Paris

Hemingway Triumphant: Portrait of the Artist as a Great Man by Mario Vargas Llosa

"March, 1986. When Borges wrote that the novelists of the United States had made a literary virtue of brutality, he no doubt had Hemingway in mind. Not only because there is so much violence in Hem­ingway’s novels but because in perhaps no other modern writer do physical prowess, courage, brute force, and the spirit of destruction achieve the same dignity. In Hemingway, to suffer or to cause suffering is not an unfortunate fatality of the human condition: It is the test through which man transcends his miserable circum­stances and wins moral greatness. He was, unquestionably, a great writer. The proof is that he is still alive as a novelist even though his values have been discredited. There is an instructive paradox in this. ..."
Voice

2012 June: "The Spanish Earth", Written and Narrated by Ernest Hemingway, 2014 November: Lost Generation, 2015 September: Ernest Hemingway: Between Two Wars, 2017 February: In Our Time (1925), 2018 May: The Greatest Refreshment By Janet Flanner, 2019 February: 10 Books That Capture Paris In The 1920s

War of the League of Cambrai

Northern Italy in 1494; by the start of the war in 1508, Louis XII had expelled the Sforza from the Duchy of Milan and added its territory to France.
"The War of the League of Cambrai, sometimes known as the War of the Holy League and by several other names, was a major conflict in the Italian Wars of 1494–1559. The main participants of the war, fought from 1508 to 1516, were France, the Papal States and the Republic of Venice, joined at various times by nearly every significant power in Western Europe, including Spain, the Holy Roman Empire, England, the Duchy of Milan, the Republic of Florence, the Duchy of Ferrara and Swiss mercenaries. ... Under the leadership of Francis I, who had succeeded Louis on the throne of France, the French and Venetians would, through victory at Marignano in 1515, regain the territory they had lost; the treaties of Noyon and Brussels, which ended the war the next year, would essentially return the map of Italy to the status quo of 1508. ..."
Wikipedia
YouTube: The 15th Century - Prelude to the Italian Wars 1., The Kingdom of Naples - Prelude to the Italian Wars 2., The Battle of Fornovo 1495 - The Italian Wars 3., The Battle of Cerignola 1503 & The Battle of Garigliano - The Italian Wars 4., The Battle of Agnadello 1509 - War of the League of Cambrai - The Italian Wars 5., The Battle of Ravenna 1512 - The Italian Wars 6, Battle of Novara 1513 and Battle of Marignano 1515 - Italian Wars 7., Battle of Bicocca 1522 and Battle of Sesia 1524 - The Italian Wars 8., The Battle of Pavia 1525 - The Italian Wars 9.

In 1515, the Franco-Venetian alliance decisively defeated the Holy League at the Battle of Marignano.

Times Square Ball

Technicians eye the new improved New Years ball, with halogen lamps for greater visibility, in New York City in 1978.
"The Times Square Ball is a time ball located in New York City's Times Square. Located on the roof of One Times Square, the ball is a prominent part of a New Year's Eve celebration in Times Square commonly referred to as the ball drop, where the ball descends down a specially designed flagpole, beginning at 11:59:00 p.m. ET, and resting at midnight to signal the start of the new year. In recent years, the festivities have been preceded by live entertainment, including performances by musicians. ... The prevalence of the Times Square ball drop has inspired similar 'drops' at other local New Year's Eve events across the country; while some use balls, some instead drop objects that represent local culture or history. ..."
Wikipedia
Forbes - Countdown To 2020: How Waterford Crystal Designs The Iconic Ball For The Times Square New Year’s Eve Celebration
The Times Square Ball Drop is Epic. This is the Family Behind the New Year’s Tradition.
YouTube: New Year’s Eve 2020: Times Square Ball Is Ready for its Big Night | NBC New York

The giant numbers use a total of 618 9-watt energy-efficient LED bulbs, according to the Times Square Alliance.

What to See with Your New Telescope

See if you can identify these noteworthy features around the time of full Moon. Some of the most prominent craters display bright rays: splashes of impact debris.
"Maybe you just got a shiny new telescope to call your own. Congratulations — you could be on your way to discovering many amazing, far, deep things in the night sky. Although most of them are so far and faint that just locating and detecting them is the challenge! Whether your new scope is a long, sleek tube or a compact marvel of computerized wizardry, surely you're itching to try it out. 'Here are three crucial tips for getting started,' advises Alan MacRobert, a senior editor at Sky & Telescope magazine. ..."
Sky & Telescope
Sky & Telescope - Observing the Great Orion Nebula
Sky & Telescope - Binoculars for Astronomy: Ultimate Guide to Selecting and Buying
Sky & Telescope - Observing
***Sky & Telescope - The Best Meteor Showers in 2020

This chart shows where to find the Orion Nebula, in Orion's Sword below the trio of stars forming Orion's Belt. Only the brightest stars (the largest dots) on this chart are readily visible to the unaided eye.

The Musical Legacy of Amiri Baraka

It’s Nation Time - African Visionary Music (1972
"January 2017 marked the third anniversary of the death of poet, activist, playwright and music historian Amiri Baraka, formerly known as LeRoi Jones. For nearly five decades, Baraka stood as a critical figure in black art and literature, helping to lay the groundwork for a radical black aesthetic whose influence has seeped into hip-hop, black theater and spoken word. The central thesis in Baraka’s work was the idea that the history of the black experience in America could be traced through the changes and new developments in black music. In an interview with late NAACP chairman Julian Bond, Baraka laid out his belief that 'Where the music goes, that’s where the people go. The music reflects the people.' ..."
Red Bull Music Academy (Video)
W - Amiri Baraka

Eliane Radigue ‎– Songs Of Milarepa (1992)

"Performed (Arp synthesizer) and recorded by Eliane Radigue; Robert Ashley, English voice; Lama Kunga Rinpoche, Tibetan voice. Double CD of all 5 of Radigue's songs in tribute to the Tibetan saint and poet from the eleventh century. Two of the tracks date from an 1983 LP (Radigue's first release), two are previously unreleased and the final 62-minute track was previously issued as a sole CD in 1987. The material is performed by Radigue (synthesizer and recording), Robert Ashley (English voice) and Lama Kunga Rinpoche (Tibetan voice). Radigue was born in France and has studied under Pierre Shaeffer and Pierre Henry; her musical has an extremely organic and mystical electronics vibe, and has been previously documented on Phill Niblock's XI label, as well as Metamkine and Lovely. Milarepa is a great saint and poet of Tibet who lived in the 11th Century. ..."
Lovely
Lovely: Album Notes
Discogs (Video)
amazon
vimeo: Songs of Mirapela

2018 May: Trilogie de la Mort (1988-1993), 2018 October: The Deeply Meditative Electronic Music of Avant-Garde Composer Eliane Radigue, 2019 February: Adnos I-III, 2019 May: Occam Ocean, Vol. 1 (2017)

Fighting Words - Elizabeth Warren

"To launch her campaign, back in January, Sen. Elizabeth Warren had a number of locations to choose from. She could have started in Norman, Oklahoma, the setting of her ragged-edge-of-the-middle-class origin story, where her prairie populism could have been brought to the fore. She spent years in Houston, Philadelphia, and Boston, too, all chock full of their own useful imagery for a campaign. Instead, she chose Lawrence, Massachusetts, for her opening salvo, linking her campaign to the Bread and Roses strike, led in 1912 largely by radical immigrant seamstresses and other garment workers. It would be the first of three speeches setting up what Warren sees as the driving force of her campaign: the labor movement — more precisely, the women- and immigrant-led labor movements of the 19th and early 20th centuries. ..."
The Intercept_

Garment Workers Picketing, circa 1909.

2019 April: Socialism, but in Iowa, 2019 September: Working Families Party

Charles Ives: Piano Sonata No. 2 & Violin Sonata No. 4

"Despite much of the compositional output of American modernist Charles Ives (1874-1954) remaining unperformed until after his death, he is now well-established as a significant and pioneering composer whose works 'continue to find new friends and vigorous champions worldwide.' So observes Geoffrey Block in his excellent liner notes. His Concord Sonata, for piano with optional viola and flute (in first and last movements) is a complex programmatic work centred on the lives of four significant figures in the transcendentalism movement of mid-19th-century Concord, Massachusetts: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, the Alcott family (including Louisa May), and Henry Thoreau. Like many of Ives’ other works, it incorporates borrowings from hymns and popular song, in this case set within a sophisticated conceptual framework that adds Beethoven to the mix. Monumental and intricate, it’s given an assured and sensitive reading by Finnish pianist Joonas Ahonen. ..."
Limelight (Audio)
W - Piano Sonata No. 2
Apple Music Preview (Audio)
Spotify (Audio)

2008 September: Charles Ives, 2010 December: Holidays Symphony, 2012 August: Symphony No. 2, 2012 December: Decoration Day, 2014 March: Central Park in the Dark (1906), 2018 December: Three Places in New England (1911/14), 2019 May: Universe Symphony (1911 and 1928)

Who Tops the 2019 ‘Nation’ Honor Roll?

"Impeachment is a big deal. So is the 2020 presidential election. Plenty of advocates for executive accountability and even a few White House contenders are deserving of honor. But The Nation’s annual honor roll has always had a bias toward those who do the steady work of advancing economic, social, and racial justice but do not always enjoy the spotlight. Here are a few of 2019’s most valuable progressive officials, activists, organizations, and ideas that are shaping the future. ... The August Chicago magazine headline said it all: 'How Socialism Permeated City Council.' One of 2019’s biggest local politics stories was the renewal of municipal socialism in cities across the country, as a new generation of city councilors and school board members, many associated with and backed by the Democratic Socialists of America, swept into office. ..."
The Nation

Carlos Ramirez-Rosa

Belasco Theatre

"The Belasco Theatre is a Broadway theater which opened in 1907 at 111 West 44th Street in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Originally known as the Stuyvesant Theatre, it was designed by architect George Keister for impresario David Belasco. The interior featured Tiffany lighting and ceiling panels, rich woodwork and expansive murals by American artist Everett Shinn, and a ten-room duplex penthouse apartment that Belasco utilized as combination living quarters/office space. ... This theater is the subject of an urban legend that David Belasco's ghost haunts the theater every night. Some performers in the shows that played there have even claimed to have spotted him or other ghosts during performances. It was also reported that after Oh! Calcutta! (a musical revue with extensive full frontal male and female nudity) played at the theater, the ghost of David Belasco stopped appearing. ..."
Wikipedia
Belasco Theatre (Video)
NY Times: A Temple of Drama, Burnished
The Haunting of Broadway's Spirited Belasco Theatre

So Why Did I Defend Paul Bowles?

Paul Bowles, photographed for Vogue, Tangier, Morocco, 1946
"In the mid-1990s, I used to lead literary walking tours of 'Paul Bowles’s Tangier' for friends or literary pilgrims visiting from the US. We would meet at Madame Porte, the famed tearoom downtown, where Jane Bowles and Tennessee Williams spent many a rainy afternoon writing in 1948. The place, crawling with Italian and German spies during World War II, is mentioned in Let It Come Down, Paul’s exquisite novel about 1950s Tangier. From there, we’d walk across to Paradise, the equally fabled bar where Jane once removed the wig she wore in later life and began stripping. Then we’d walk to the Hotel Muniria, where Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg resided, and where, upstairs in Room 9, William Burroughs wrote Naked Lunch. From there, we’d cross the boulevard to Café de Paris, a haunt of Jean Genet. ..."
NYBooks

The Gran Café de Paris, Tangier, Morocco, 1950

2007 November: The Authorized Paul Bowles Web Site, 2010 February: Paul Bowles (1910-1999), 2011: January: Halfmoon (1996), 2013 July: Tellus #23 - The Voices of Paul Bowles, 2014 January: Let It Come Down: the Life of Paul Bowles (1998), 2014 March: The Sheltering Sky (1949), 2015 January: Things Gone & Things Still Here, 2015 October: The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles – a cautionary tale for tourists, 2015 November: The Rolling Stone Interview (May 23, 1974), 2016 June: Let It Come Down (1952), 2016 December: Paul Bowles & the Music of Morocco, 2017 July: Night Waltz: The Music of Paul Bowles, 2018 July: The Sheltering Sound, 2019 September: Jane Bowles

Jean-Jacques Pigeon

"... Pigeon began drawing from a young age, inspired by the nature surrounding him. It was during the ‘70s that the artist had a real revelation during a Pierre Soulages exhibition at Centre Pompidou in Paris. The artist then attended art classes, in which he learned Bauhaus techniques and discovered the works of Simon Hantaï, a painter from the New York School, as well as the Minimalists of the United States. Pigeon later produced his initial canvases Hantaïeries pollockiennes and began questioning artistic concerns. Pigeon believes that art is a space for reflection rather than a place for a crafty act. His work is very open; before, the painter’s work was distinguished by the broad and vertical knots, whereas now, his work is more free and delicate. In this way, the painter wanders in the plants that he paints today. Greenery, flowers and stalks are at the heart of his work, allowing him to explore his art. ..."
Jean-Jacques Pigeon
Asia Contemporary Art
YouTube: CONTEMPORARY ART : The painter Jean-Jacques Pigeon (Work in progress)

How 2 Soviet Émigrés Fueled the Trump Impeachment Flames

"On a warm summer evening last year, Lev Parnas stepped aboard a private cruise around New York Harbor for a gathering of some of Rudolph W. Giuliani’s closest friends. The passengers sipped wine and cocktails while they sailed past the Statue of Liberty, singing along as another guest, the entertainer Joe Piscopo, belted out 'Theme from New York, New York.' Mr. Giuliani, a personal lawyer to President Trump, relaxed on the open deck in a bright blue polo shirt as the sun set over Lower Manhattan, a video of the event shows. The August 2018 cruise, which was won in a charity auction, came at a pivotal moment in Mr. Giuliani’s relationship with Mr. Parnas and his associate Igor Fruman, both Soviet-born businessmen from Florida who were among the newest entrants to his circle. Mr. Parnas had recently struck up a friendship with Mr. Giuliani while recruiting him for a business deal, but now the men were on the verge of something bigger: teaming up to unearth damaging information on Mr. Trump’s political rivals. ..."
NY Times
NY Times - How Not to Plot Secret Foreign Policy: On a Cellphone and WhatsApp

Lev Parnas, left, and Igor Fruman, who helped Rudolph W. Giuliani carry out shadow diplomacy in Ukraine, were arrested in October on campaign finance charges.

Ranking the Top 100 Websites in the World

"As a greater portion of the world begins to live more of their life online, the world’s top 100 websites continue to see explosive growth in their traffic numbers. To claim even the 100th spot in this ranking, your website would need around 350 million visits in a single month. Using data from SimilarWeb, we’ve visually mapped out the top 100 biggest websites on the internet. Examining the ranking reveals a lot about how people around the world search for information, which services they use, and how they spend time online. ... The 100 biggest websites generated a staggering 206 billion visits in June 2019. Google, YouTube, and Facebook took the top spots, followed by Baidu and Wikipedia. Below is the full ranking. ..."
Visual Capitalist
View the full-resolution version of this visualization

NORAD Tracks Santa

"NORAD Tracks Santa is an annual Christmas-themed program that occurs on December 24 and has existed since 1955. It is a community outreach function of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). Every year on Christmas Eve, NORAD tracks Santa Claus leaving the North Pole as he journeys around the world on his mission to deliver presents to children. The program is in the tradition of the September 1897 editorial 'Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus' in the New York Sun. On December 24, 1948, the United States Air Force issued a communique claiming that an 'early warning radar net to the north' had detected 'one unidentified sleigh, powered by eight reindeer, at 14,000 feet [4,300 meters], heading 180 degrees.' ... It was the first time that the United States Armed Forces issued a statement about tracking Santa Claus's sleigh on Christmas Eve, although it was a one-time event, not repeated over the next several years. ..."
Wikipedia
NORAD Tracks Santa
YouTube: Follow Santa's sleigh with NORAD's Santa Tracker (LIVE)

Blue Note Records: Beyond the Notes (2019)

"Blue Note Records: Beyond the Notes, a stylish and engaging new documentary by Sophie Huber, opens in the recording studio, with a top-tier crew of modern jazz musicians going about their business. From his station behind a keyboard rig, Robert Glasper calls out ideas for an arrangement; Ambrose Akinmusire's trumpet, warming up, can be heard in the background. An establishing shot introduces Don Was, the musical polymath serving as Blue Note's president, as a hipster Buddha in the control booth. As Was explains to the camera, we're watching a session for the Blue Note All-Stars, a group with an obvious name and celebratory purpose, having originally been assembled in commemoration of the label's 75th anniversary. ..."
NPR: New Documentary 'Blue Note: Beyond The Notes' Surpasses Its Purpose (Video)
“Music Is A Portal”: Sophie Huber On Blue Note Documentary ‘Beyond The Notes’ (Video)
amazon

The lost images of anarchist Barcelona

Anarchists march on the streets of Barcelona during the Spanish Civil War.
"It was a Barcelona where taxis were prohibited, waiters and shoe shiners did not accept tips, hats were frowned upon, and the notes of The International rang out from every corner. A city where approximately 70 percent of the businesses were collectivized, with their offices occupied by workers and militiamen. Anarchist Barcelona, a unique libertarian experiment in Europe which had its decisive moment between July 1936 and May 1937, has been the subject of various studies and textbooks. However, the studies and textbooks of this exceptional period have been lacking the graphic history which had been presumed lost. ..."
ROAR
Jacobin: Spain Through Orwell’s Eyes
New Republic: The Spain Orwell Never Saw
amazon: Spain in Our Hearts: Americans in the Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939

Two militia reading the anarchist newspaper “Solidaridad Obrera.”

2011 July: Spanish Civil War - 75 Year, 18 July, 2011 August: Down and Out in Paris and London, 2012 March: 1984 (For the Love of Big Brother), 2012 June: "The Spanish Earth", Written and Narrated by Ernest Hemingway, 2013 January: The Real George Orwell, 2015 August: Songs of the Spanish Civil War, 2016 September: George Orwell - Homage to Catalonia (1938), 2017 January: Guernica (2016), 2019 September: What Makes Guernica So Shocking? ...