Deep Art Nature

Are These the Most Distant Galaxies Yet Seen?

HD1, the candidate for the most distant galaxy discovered to date, appears as the red object in the center of the zoom-in image.

“Astronomers may have found the most distant galaxies ever seen. In two papers posted to the arXiv preprint server, Yuichi Harikane (University of Tokyo) and an international team report the detection of two sources that appear to blaze at us from a mere 330 million years after the Big Bang. In astronomers’ lingo, that corresponds to a redshift of 13. The studies have been submitted for publication but are not yet peer-reviewed. Observers have previously found a handful of galaxies in the universe’s first few hundred million years. ...”

Sky & Telescope

Scientific American: Astronomers Spot Most Distant Galaxy Yet, 13.5 Billion Light-Years from Earth

This timeline shows how the discoveries of these two candidate early galaxies fit in with the history of the universe.

Made To Measure

“Crammed’s legendary Composers’ Series is reactivated in 2021, with the release of new albums, and remastered vinyl reissues of several classics. Inaugurated in 1984, Crammed's MADE TO MEASURE composers’ series set out to chart a map of some of the most interesting instrumental music of the era. Thirty-five albums came out during the series’ first decade, harbouring a great variety of inventive musical adventures which often weaved aspects of neoclassical/chamber music, ambient, electronica, minimalism, experimental avant-rock, soundscape creation & more. ...”

Crammed (Video)

Genre b(l)ending: An introduction to eclectic world of Crammed Discs in 20 records (Video)

2014 November: Aksak Maboul, 2017 July: Made to Measure, Vol. 1 (1984), 2018 February: Before And After Bandits: Marc Hollander Of Aksak Maboul & Crammed Discs, 2020 March: Tout a une fin / Blaue Bleistift (2020), 2020 August: Aksak Maboul ‎– Figures (2020), 2020 September: From Aksak Maboul to Crammed Discs, Marc Hollander Envisions a Musical Melting Pot

Bucha’s Month of Terror

We visited Bucha, documented dozens of killings of civilians, interviewed scores of witnesses and followed local investigators to uncover the scale of Russian atrocities.

“BUCHA, Ukraine — A mother killed by a sniper while walking with her family to fetch a thermos of tea. A woman held as a sex slave, naked except for a fur coat and locked in a potato cellar before being executed. Two sisters dead in their home, their bodies left slumped on the floor for weeks. Bucha is a landscape of horrors. From the first day of the war, Feb. 24, civilians bore the brunt of the Russian assault on Bucha, a few miles west of Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital. Russian special forces approaching on foot through the woods shot at cars on the road, and a column of armored vehicles fired on and killed a woman in her garden as they drove into the suburb. But those early cruelties paled in comparison to what came after. ...”

NY Times: The following images depict graphic violence.

Open Culture (Video)

NY Times: A Stricken Ukrainian City Empties, and Those Left Fear What’s Next

GRID - Ukraine war in photos: April 11

Local residents pass by a destroyed church, which served as a military base for Russian soldiers, on Sunday in Lukashivka, Ukraine.

Jules Bastien-Lepage

At Harvest Time (1880)

“Jules Bastien-Lepage was a French painter noted for his sentimental genre painting of rural life. Despite growing up during the era of Impressionism, his style of plein air painting was closer to the naturalism of the Realism art movement than the light-oriented art of Claude Monet (1840-1926). Ironically, a number of Impressionist painters - in Scotland, Holland, America and Australia - preferred to adopt his style of naturalist realist painting rather than Impressionism proper. The French realist writer Emile Zola, who described Bastien-Lepage as ‘the grandson of Courbet and of Millet’, later charactized his painting as: ‘Impressionism corrected, sweetened and adapted to suit the taste of the masses.’ ...”

Visual Arts Cork

W - Jules Bastien-Lepage

YouTube: Jules Bastien Lepage: A collection of 37 paintings

2020 January: A Cultural History of the Potato as Earth Apple

Haymaking (1877)

A midcentury printmaker celebrates machine age New York City

Allen Street, 1929

“As the machine age took hold in the United States in the early 20th century, some artists took a darker view of the mechanization of urban society—seeing isolation and alienation amid skyscrapers, automobiles, and steel bridges. Painter and printmaker Louis Lozowick, however, found something to celebrate. Lozowick isn’t a household name, but his backstory will sound familiar. Born in Ukraine in 1892, he immigrated to New York City in the early 1900s, according to Artnet. ...”

Ephemeral New York

In Mariupol’s Drama Theater, a Cry for ‘Mama!’ That Offered Brief Relief

yahoo: The Donetsk Regional Drama Theatre in Mariupol, Ukraine

“LVIV, Ukraine — ... Ms. [Viktoria] Dubovitskaya, interviewed last month at a shelter in Lviv, in western Ukraine, said she and her two young children were among the many civilians sheltering in Mariupol’s Drama Theater on March 16 when it was devastated by a Russian airstrike. A wall fell onto her 2-year-old daughter, Nastya, and in those horrific first moments, Ms. Dubovitskaya recalled, she did not know if the girl had survived.Finally, she heard it: “Mama!” Nastya screamed. A mattress that had been propped up against the wall fell against her daughter, cushioning the blows. Under the shattered masonry, Nastya was alive, but the place where they had taken refuge for 11 days, along with hundreds of others, was destroyed. ...”

NY Times

VOX: Here’s what the ICC can actually do about Putin’s war crimes

NY Times - ‘Everything Was Destroyed’: War Hits Ukraine’s Farms

The Intercept_ - Zelenskyy Is Absolutely Right: The U.N. Must Be Reformed. But It Never Will Be. (Video)

The Nation: The Little Picketers of Russia

NY Times: Officials Say Russian Art, Seized by Finns, Should Return Home

Crates of art from Russian museums that were seized by Finnish customs officials. Officials later decided the art, which had been on loan to institutions in the West, was not subject to sanctions.

2022 Winter Music Preview ~ Ambient and Drone

“We absolutely love this time of year at A Closer Listen. As we survey the musical landscape, we see over 200 new releases on the near horizon and our hearts are filled with hope. Artists continue to be inspired, labels continue to release albums, and we have the privilege of previewing a healthy selection of new music. This might turn out to be a pretty good year after all. Over a quarter of our winter announcements are found in the fields of ambient and drone ~ perfect sounds to accompany snowed-in evenings with candlelight and friends, or perhaps a good book. ...”

a closer listen (Audio)

Virginia bluebells

“Mertensia virginica (common names Virginia bluebells, Virginia cowslip, lungwort oysterleaf, Roanoke bells) is a spring ephemeral plant with bell-shaped sky-blue flowers, native to eastern North America. Virginia bluebells have rounded and gray-green leaves, borne on stems up to 24 in (60 cm) tall. They are petiolate at the bottom of the flower stem and sessile at the top. Flowerbuds are pink. Flowers have five petals fused into a tube, five stamens, and a central pistil (carpel). They are borne in mid-spring in nodding spiral-shaped cymes at the end of arched stems. Flowers are usually blue, but white or pink flowers occur rarely. ...”

Wikipedia

YouTube: Capital Naturalist: Virginia Bluebells

‘The City Lives’: With Russian Forces Gone, Kyiv Starts to Revive

Residents returned and businesses opened their doors after a month of Russian artillery attacks on Ukraine’s capital subsided.

“KYIV, Ukraine — On Feb. 25, the day after Russia invaded Ukraine, Kolya Rybytva gathered his grandmother and younger sister and left Kyiv ‘quickly and without unnecessary sentiments,’ he said, heading west. His parents and brother stayed behind to help in the war effort. ... At the time, Mr. Rybytva, 24, understood that he might never return. But two weeks ago, he did, re-entering Kyiv, the capital, just as Ukrainian forces were starting to push Russian troops out of the suburbs and, eventually, into a full retreat. After a month of artillery attacks that ravaged buildings and had Kyiv residents seeking shelter in the subway stations, a sense of relative calm is being restored. ...”

NY Times (Video)

GRID - GlobalUkraine mystery: Why have so many Russian generals been killed?

NY Times: Fiona Hill on Whether Ukraine Can Win — and What Happens if Russia Loses (Audio)

Smithsonian: The 20th-Century History Behind Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine (March 4, 2022), Nazi collaborator monuments in Ukraine (Jan. 2021)

The debate over how to remember Ukraine's World War II history, as well as its implications for Ukrainian nationalism and independence, is key to understanding the current conflict.

Union vs. Hertha: why is the Berlin derby such a special fixture?

“Hertha Berlin and Union Berlin will meet three times in 2021/22 and when they do, the eyes of the world will fall on the German capital for a fixture that brings together football, politics and history in a once divided city. Union won the first top-flight meeting of the sides in November of 2019/20, when substitute Sebastian Polter got the only goal from the penalty spot late on, while Hertha romped to a 4-0 victory in the return on Matchday 27. The Old Lady got the better of things in the first encounter of last season, winning 3-1 at home, while the return at the Stadion an der Alten Försterei ended 1-1. …”

Bundesliga (Video)

What makes the Berlin derby such a special fixture in Bundesliga? (Video)

The Analyst – Berlin Blues: Hertha’s Battle for Bundesliga Survival

W – Hertha BSC, W – 1. FC Union Berlin

****ESPN: Union thrash embattled Hertha 4-1 in Berlin derby

Berlin was a divided between the Allied powers after WWII and Checkpoint Charlie was one of the few access points between the East and West.

Six Definitive Songs: The ultimate beginner's guide to Husker Du

“It’s a tale as old as time: Upstate New Yorker pretends to be a Manhattanite as he arrives in the cold, dank eternal winter of Minnesota for college. He meets a record store clerk with a mohawk and reputation for selling weed, and they bond over a love of punk rock. They enlist the only other punk rock-loving clerk to start a band. ... The origins of Husker Du, the legendary St. Paul punk-turned-alternative rock trio consisting of guitarist Bob Mould, drummer Grant Hart, and bassist Greg Norton, are modest. ...”

FAR OUT (Video)

10 Best Hüsker Dü Songs (Video)

W - Zen Arcade, YouTube: Zen Arcade • 1 / 23

He Is a Child of War’: Giving Birth Amid Chaos in Ukraine

An estimated 265,000 Ukrainian women were pregnant when the war broke out, according to the United Nations Population Fund.

“KYIV, Ukraine — Before the war, Alina Shynkar’s gynecologist advised her to avoid stress during her pregnancy, suggesting she spend time ‘just watching cartoons and being silly.’ It was simple enough advice, but not so easy to follow after air-raid sirens wailed, artillery booms rattled windows and vicious street fighting broke out a few miles away from her maternity hospital. Then, keeping calm for her baby became Ms. Shynkar’s quiet, personal battle in the Ukraine war. She checked into Maternity Hospital No. 5 in the capital, Kyiv, before the war began in late February for bed rest because of a risk of preterm labor, only to witness the hospital unravel into a chaotic, panicked state weeks later. ...”

NY Times

VOX: Ukraine’s disappeared

POLITICO: Ukraine’s 'iron general' is a hero, but he's no star (Video)

LitHub - Putin’s Attack on Ukraine is an Attack on Its Language: Poetry by Kateryna Kalytko

NY Times: Opinion | Some of the Biggest Brands Are Leaving Russia. Others Just Can’t Quit Putin. Here’s a List.

Silence: Lectures and Writings – John Cage (1961)

“This collection of essays and presentations by noted composer and musical innovator John Cage attempts to capture on paper both the intellectual and stylistic creativity with which he approached his work. In both the themes of the collection and the internal arrangement of the individual pieces, the author explores the nature of music, music’s relationship to sound, and the value of incorporating randomness into what had previously been an ordered, carefully considered art form. ...”

Bookrags

W – Silence: Lectures and Writings

Google: Silence: Lectures and Writings

amazon: Silence: Lectures and Writings, 50th Anniversary Edition

Allan Molho on Keeping the Memory of Robert Janz Alive

“In late fall, the fiercely independent and inventive multimedia artist Robert Janz died at the age of 88. Since moving to Tribeca several decades ago, he had transformed his neighboring streets into an unconventional open air gallery. Intent on enriching our awareness and appreciation of the ephemeral with his artworks and poems, he quietly raged against consumerism, greed, egotism and human defilement of the environment. Earlier this year, photographer and artist Allan Molho graced Duane Street — just several steps from where Robert Janz had lived — with the installation pictured above in his honor. What follows is an interview with Allan, along with photos of Robert Janz‘s work that Allan Molho had captured. ...”

Street Art NYC

Document the War Crimes in Ukraine

“The apocalyptic images of bodies sprawled in the mud among twisted tanks, charred walls and splintered trees in Bucha and other Ukrainian cities speak to the brutality of the war that Vladimir Putin started. The knowledge that more such horrors, many more, will be revealed as Russian troops retreat cries out for a reckoning. President Biden called for a war crime trial, and President Emmanuel Macron of France declared there were ‘clear’ indications of war crimes. Human Rights Watch reported documented cases of rape and summary executions. Ukrainian and international investigators have already begun collecting evidence and interviewing witnesses. It is imperative that this work be done promptly and scrupulously. ...”

NY Times: Opinion | The Editorial Board

New Yorker: Collecting Bodies in Bucha

Aljazeera - Ukraine forces appear to kill captured Russians in video: Report (Video)

GRID - The war in data, week six: The aftermath of massacres

Carl Stone – Mom's (1992)

“‘Carl Stone was one of the first contemporary composers to take a serious look at sampling technology, and Mom’s is his masterpiece’: So begins the All Music Guide review for Carl Stone’s great 1991 album, Mom’s. (Look for the link to the review in the comments.) To be more specific, the title track is a jubilant, kinetic symphony of ecstatic international samples, with brief bits of sounds from perhaps Mali, Haiti, Korea, and Poland cut into slivers and sculpted into a piece for contemporary dance. It’s like several hours of travel shows in 11 minutes. Listen.”

BIG EARS - Listen: Carl Stone’s Great Album, Mom’s (Video)

allmusic (Audio)

Discogs (Video)

2010 August: Carl Stone, 2012 September: Carl Stone' DARDA performance Super Deluxe Tokyo, 2013 December: Tetsu Inoue and Carl Stone - pict.soul (2001), 2016 August: Electronic Music from the Seventies and Eighties (2016)

Men Are Dogs: Emmelyn Butterfield-Rosen on Titian’s Poesie for Philip II

Titian, Diana and Callisto, 1556–59

“Few faces to meet the public spotlight in recent years have more to tell about the mental mechanisms of male shame, impunity, and self-absolution than that of the furry brown-and-white-spotted Spanish pointer staring out of Titian’s Diana and Callisto, 1556–59. This dog has been a bad dog, as he seems to know. (I say “he” since, according to the visual logic of gender organizing the suite of pictures of which Diana and Callisto forms one-sixth, Titian’s ‘big dog’ simply can’t be a bitch.) ...”

ARTFORUM

“Titian: Women, Myth & Power,” 2021–22, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston.

Siege of Mariupol

"The Siege of Mariupol is an ongoing military engagement between Russia and Ukraine which began on 24 February 2022, during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, as part of the Eastern Ukraine offensive. The city of Mariupol is located in the Donetsk Oblast in Ukraine, and is claimed by the Russian-backed separatist Donetsk People's Republic. The Red Cross described the situation as "apocalyptic", and Ukrainian authorities have accused Russia of engineering a major humanitarian crisis in the city, with city officials reporting that over 5,000 civilians have been killed, as of 28 March. ...”

W - Siege of Mariupol

The Intercept: Ukraine War Sparks Fears of More Gas Extraction in Quake-Prone Region

GRID - Former CIA leader: Time for NATO to ‘take more risks’ in Ukraine

NY Times: Traces of Lives Cut Short: Bread on a Park Bench, Blood Pooled Nearby

NY Times - Opinion | ‘At Night I Dream of Mariupol’: Nine Accounts of Surviving a Russian Siege

2022 Steel Prices: Russian-Ukrainian War Affect On Price & Supply (Video)

Created Space: A Case for John Ashbery's Chelsea Apartment

Chelsea: Ashbery's domestic environment is an organic, mutable living-quarters-cum-laboratory. Office.

“In 1891, after nearly thirteen years of construction and seemingly endless modifications, Hudson River School painter Frederic Edwin Church’s 250-acre Persian-fantasy estate, Olana, was finally completed. ... Much like Olana, poet John Ashbery’s domestic environments—consisting of his house in Hudson, New York, and his apartment in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City—are stand-alone works of art conceived and composed with the same level of conscious artistry that informs his poetry. For Ashbery, the domestic urge, the operation of homebuilding, operates in tandem with the work that is conventionally recognized as his creative output. ...”

RainTaxi

Chelsea: The glass is a permeable membrane, the site of a truce between the flux of life outside and the controlled experience within. Living room.

The Upsetter: The Life & Music Of Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry (2009)

“Dub fans rejoice, a documentary about the legendary Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry is available to watch online. The Upsetter: The Life & Music Of Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry is one of the instalments of the Roots & Revolution: Reggae On Film series, dedicated to tracking the genre’s worldwide impact.Originally Released back in 2009, the film is narrated by Benicio del Toro and stars Perry himself alongside a cast of famous faces, including Paul McCartney, whose post-Beatles band, Wings, worked in Perry’s Black Ark studio in the 1970s. The documentary arrives six months after the death of the reggae pioneer in August 2021. ...”

Lee 'Scratch' Perry documentary now available on The Criterion Collection (Video)

W - The Upsetter (film)

Criterion - The Upsetter: The Life & Music Of Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry

2021 September: Lee “Scratch” Perry, 2022 February: Battle Of Armagideon (1986)

Bucha massacre

Photo of Bucha civilians reportedly killed by Russian soldiers.

“The Bucha massacre was a series of Russian war crimes involving the killing of civilians, committed in areas controlled by the Russian Armed Forces in the Ukrainian city of Bucha during the Battle of Bucha, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Photographic and video evidence of the massacre emerged on 1 April 2022 after Russian forces withdrew from the city. According to the mayor more than 300 inhabitants of the city were found dead in the aftermath. Ukraine has requested the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate what had happened in Bucha. Russian authorities denied any wrongdoing and described footage and photographs of dead bodies as a provocation or a staged performance by Ukrainian authorities. These denials have been refuted by Bellingcat, The Economist, BBC, and The New York Times. ...”

Wikipedia (Video)

NY Times: The War Moves East, as Putin Looks for a Victory

Aljazeera - Bucha victim: ‘Russian troops beat me, doused me in diesel fuel’

GRID - Ukraine war in photos, April 4: Horrors in Bucha — and one moment of hope

NY Times: Satellite images show bodies lay in Bucha for weeks, despite Russian claims. (Video)

A man evacuating on Monday from a residential area in Kharkiv that has been under continued bombing. Smoke from fires caused by recent artillery strikes can be seen in the background.

All Espresso Drinks Explained: Cappuccino, Latte, Macchiato & Beyond

“What separates the Cappuccino from the Latte, and the Macchiato from the Double Espresso? These are some important questions–questions that demand answers. And European Coffee Trip–a YouTube channel run by two Czech guys with a love for specialty coffee–has answers. Above, they break it all down for you. Find timestamps for the different variations below. 0:58 Single Espresso 1:35 Double Espresso 1:55 Americano 2:18 Lungo 2:37 Filter coffee (no espresso!) 3:16 Cappuccino 3:46 Espresso Macchiato 4:07 Cortado/Piccolo 4:30 Flat White 4:54 Caffé LatteIf you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newsletter, please find it here. ...”

Open Culture (Video)

2010 September: Espresso, 2013 April: The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World, 2013 May: Coffeehouse, 2015 June: Barista, 2015 August: Coffee Connections at Peddler in SoHo, 2015 November: The Case for Bad Coffee, 2016 January: 101 Places to Find Great Coffee in New York (2014), 2017 June: How Cold Brew Changed the Coffee Business, 2017 September: Our 7 Favorite Literary Coffee Shops, 2017 October: Clever Literary Coffee Poster, 2017 October: Coffee as Existential Statement: A Crisis in Every Cup on Valencia Street, 2018 February: The Trencherman: A Tale of Two Coffee Shops, 2020 April: Unfair trade, April 2020: A (Very) Brief History of NYC Espresso, 2020 May: The Islamic History of Coffee, 2021 January: The Life Cycle of a Cup of Coffee: The Journey from Coffee Bean, to Coffee Cup, 2021 June: Philosophers Drinking Coffee: The Excessive Habits of Kant, Voltaire & Kierkegaard, 2021 July: The invisible addiction: is it time to give up caffeine?, August 2021: The Birth of Espresso: How the Coffee Shots The Fuel Our Modern Life Were Invented, 2021 October: Brew: A Brief History of Coffee, 2021 November: Coffee and Climate Have a Complicated Relationship, 2022 January: The Bialetti Moka Express: The History of Italy’s Iconic Coffee Maker, and How to Use It the Right Way

Fela's stories: Confusion Break Bone

“Abidjan, 2001: I receive an unlikely offer. I’m invited to stage the play Le Fou du Carrefour [’the crossroads’ madman’] in Lagos, Nigeria, under the title Madness Junction. This urban fable was penned by the great Ivorian playwright Hyacinthe Kakou in 1994, and depicts a frenetic African city invaded by garbage and other toxic waste originating from industrialized countries. The city’s arteries are blocked. Vehicles can no longer move freely, workers can no longer get to their respective occupations… The people grumble. The cops beat them down. The economy is blocked, the country is suffocated. Everyone complains, but no one does anything. ...”

Pan African Music (Video)

Casualty of war in Ukraine: The global food supply

“Ever since the war in Ukraine began, the global cost has been measured largely in terms of casualties, refugees, the need for humanitarian aid, and — when it comes to the global economy — the rise in the price of oil and gas. Far less attention has been paid to other commodities that have less to do with energy and everything to do with feeding hundreds of millions of people all around the world. Russia and Ukraine are both powerhouse producers and exporters of basic food staples — wheat, barley, corn and sunflower oil in particular. Taken together, the two countries have accounted for roughly 25 percent of exports of those staples to the rest of the world. ...”

GRID

Aljazeera - ‘Now or never’ to avoid climate catastrophe: UN (Video)

W - Russian oligarchs

YouTube: Ukraine war: International condemnation over Bucha killings (Al Jazeera)

NY Times: In a Kyiv Suburb,‘They Shot Everyone They Saw’

Crushed civilian cars on the main road leading out of Bucha on Sunday.

A colorful mural on a tenement wall honors the immigrants who built Yorkville

“German bakeries and bars no longer line the streets, German language newspapers aren’t readily available at newsstands, and the smell of beer wafting from local breweries vanished after the last brewer closed its doors in 1965, according to an AMNY article from 2018. But one tenement on York Avenue continues to pay homage to the German immigrants and their descendants who made East 86th Street a hub of culture and energy through much of the late 19th and 20th centuries. ...”

Ephemeral New York