"On December 31st, 2001, Patti Smith and her band played at the Bowery Ballroom! This was the second of a two-night stint at the venue and the show contains a nice mix of Smith’s poetry readings and emotional performances of classic songs like ‘Summer Cannibals,’ ‘Frederick’, and ‘Redondo Beach.’ Patti started the show with a very powerful poem reflecting on the events of 9/11 and the immediate aftermath. The band rings in the new year at around the 10-minute mark of Part 3, right after a rousing rendition of ‘Be My Baby.’ ...”
African Origins and Adaptations in African American Music
"Africans brought their own cultures and way of life to the Americas. As enslaved Africans they participated in African rituals and music-making events. They told stories, sang, danced, played African and African-derived instruments, and more broadly, celebrated life as they had done in Africa. In North America their introduction to European culture and music came from participating in or witnessing the religious and social activities of slaveholders, which they reinterpreted to conform to their own cultural practices and musical values through processes of adaption and resistance. ...”
The Old Plantation: Slave Dance and Music,ca. 1785-1795. Watercolor on paper, attributed to John Rose, Beaufort County, SC.
A Culture in the Cross Hairs
"Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has taken the lives of tens of thousands
of soldiers and civilians, and unleashed the most severe humanitarian
and refugee crisis in Europe since World War II. It has also dealt a
grievous blow to Ukrainian culture: to its museums and monuments, its
grand universities and rural libraries, its historic churches and
contemporary mosaics.
Since the invasion in February, The New York Times’s Visual
Investigations team has been tracking evidence of cultural destruction
across Ukraine. By assessing hundreds of photos and videos from social
media and Ukrainian government databases, analyzing satellite imagery
and speaking to witnesses, we have identified and independently verified
339 sites nationwide that sustained substantial damage. ... These
documented cases represent only a partial picture of the devastation,
with much of what is still unaccounted for believed lost.
Libraries, architectural treasures, statues, churches, houses of
culture, museums, cinemas, sports facilities, theaters and
archaeological sites have been damaged or destroyed. ...”
A newspaper magnate builds a soundproof, Venetian-style mansion steps from Fifth Avenue
"The year 1900 wasn’t a good one for Joseph Pulitzer—the rich and influential owner of the New York World, one of Gilded Age Gotham’s most popular and sensational newspapers. His elegant mansion at 10 East 55th Street, designed by Stanford White, had been destroyed by a fire earlier that year. Two household servants died in the blaze, according to architectural historian Andrew Alpern, author of Luxury Apartment Houses in Manhattan: an Illustrated History. His health was in bad shape as well. ...”
The Pagan School
"‘The Pagan School‘ is an essay by the French writer Charles Baudelaire. First published in 1852, it is critical of the neopaganism of its time, which existed in explicit form among supporters of the French Revolution of 1848. From this starting point, Baudelaire criticised a broader trend of striving for material beauty and sensory pleasure, which he said would leave people unsatisfied and make it hard to maintain relationships. ... ‘The Pagan School’ is in line with Baudelaire's aversion to pantheistic views and contains a specifically modern rejection of classicism. It addresses the modern idea of the god Pan as an embodiment of revolutionary momentum, which Baudelaire viewed as artificial. ...”
2009 February: Charles Baudelaire, 2012 December: Impressionism and Fashion, 2017 January: How Baudelaire Revolutionized Modern Literature
Baudelaire preferred Honoré Daumier's comical visions of ancient history and described Sappho (pictured here by Daumier) as a "patroness of hysterical women".
Argentina, caught in economic depression, gets something to cheer in World Cup win
"BUENOS AIRES — An incredibly tense World Cup final, if not the best of all time. An extraordinary victory for Argentina that crowns the career of superstar Lionel Messi. A new hope for a country in deep crisis. Argentina beat France in a penalty shoot-out after the match ended tied 3-3, causing hundreds of thousands of citizens to pour into the streets of Buenos Aires to celebrate, chant and dance. The obelisk, the landmark monument of the South American capital that houses over 17 million people in its broader agglomeration, was quickly covered in a sea of people. ...”
Argentina will hold general elections in October next year
Ukraine war: How pathologists identify victims of Russia's invasion
"Oleh Podorozhnyy leads the way through the dimly lit corridors of his morgue, past windows covered with sandbags, to a large white container in the back yard. As soon as its heavy metal door is cracked open, the cloying smell of death rushes out. Piled inside in white bags are the remains of civilians killed when the town of Izyum was occupied by Russian troops. Many have been dead for months. The body bags are marked with numbers and the barest of details, scrawled in black pen. Weeks after Izyum was liberated, the remains of 146 people found there have still not been identified. They're here because the main morgue is overwhelmed with more unidentified bodies from Russian missile strikes and mass graves across the Kharkiv region. ...”
"God teaches us to forgive, but I will never forgive the murderers," Olena Ihnatenko said at the funeral for her murdered son
Argentina beat France on penalties to win World Cup: Messi’s legacy, Mbappe’s hat-trick
"One of the most exciting World Cup finals of all time was won on penalties by Argentina after Kylian Mbappe had scored a hat-trick to force the shootout. Argentina were coasting to victory with an hour gone with the score at 2-0 thanks to goals by Lionel Messi and Angel Di Maria. But when Di Maria came off in the 64th minute the game changed, and France and Mbappe’s confidence grew and grew. … Argentina went ahead through Messi’s close-range finish but Gonzalo Montiel’s handball gave Mbappe the chance to complete his hat-trick. He went the same way with his second penalty, hard to Emiliano Martinez’s right. Martinez was Argentina’s hero in the shootout, saving a spot kick from Kingsley Coman before Aurelien Tchouameni put his effort wide. Montiel, who had given away the penalty in the 117th minute, scored the one that sealed the victory. …”
The Analyst – Argentina 3-3 France: Debate Over as Lionel Messi Finally Wins The World Cup
SI: Argentina, Messi Win Epic World Cup Final in PKs, Overcoming Mbappe’s Hat-Trick Heroics (Video)
Guardian – Argentina 3-3 France (aet, 4-2 on pens): World Cup final player ratings
CNN: Stepping out of Maradona’s shadow. How Lionel Messi won over the hearts of all of Argentina
The Athletic: Lionel Messi doesn’t need the ball to hurt you (Video)
Qatar 2022: Shifting sands where the real and almost-real collide
"1 - Fake Qatar fans. It is one of the strangest minor stories of the strangest of World Cups. Shortly before the opening game, Qatar versus Ecuador, a group of men in uniform Qatari team-coloured T-shirts emerged en masse into a vacant area behind the goal and started making noise, doing choreographed dances and leaping about with apparently genuine excitement, something they kept up through the game irrespective of what was happening on the pitch. … 4 - Fake Venice shopping centre. The motorised gondolas at the Villaggio Mall, a Qatari classic. This is a place that loves a bit of urban mimesis. Doha and its surrounds also have a fake Place Vendôme, a fake Champs-Élysées, even a fake Hackney in the guise of Stadium 974, with its billionaire-hipster aesthetic, the pretence of being built out of glossily reclaimed shipping containers. …”
1 – Qatar fans enjoy the pre match atmosphere prior to the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 Group A match between Qatar and Ecuador at Al Bayt Stadium on November 20, 2022 in Al Khor, Qatar.
Special report: Qatar, the World Cup and the war on truth
"For a brief few moments it looked like the World Cup
was being rigged in real time, amplifying an explosive conspiracy
theory seen by millions around the world. In the days running up to the
tournament opener between hosts Qatar and Ecuador
on November 20, a viral tweet suggested the South Americans had been
bribed to deliver a 1-0 defeat. The claim mutated from the Twitter feed
of someone named Amjad Taha to other social media sites and news outlets
around the world. …”
The Athletic (Video)
Guardian – As Qatar’s World Cup ends it is time for truth: Fifa chose death and suffering
Guardian – Qatar 2022: this World Cup has taken place in a crime scene
World Corrupt (Audio)
Putin’s War: The Inside Story of a Catastrophe
"They never had a chance. Fumbling blindly through cratered farms, the troops from Russia’s 155th Naval Infantry Brigade had no maps, medical kits or working walkie-talkies, they said. Just a few weeks earlier, they had been factory workers and truck drivers, watching an endless showcase of supposed Russian military victories at home on state television before being drafted in September. One medic was a former barista who had never had any medical training. Now, they were piled onto the tops of overcrowded armored vehicles, lumbering through fallow autumn fields with Kalashnikov rifles from half a century ago and virtually nothing to eat, they said. Russia had been at war most of the year, yet its army seemed less prepared than ever. ...”
They plod through Ukraine with old maps like this one from the 1960s, recovered from the battlefield, or no maps at all.
Italian Journey - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1786 to 1788)
"Italian Journey ... is Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's report on his travels to Italy from 1786 to 1788 that was published in 1816 & 1817. The book is based on Goethe's diaries and is smoothed in style, lacks the spontaneity of his diary report and is augmented with the addition of afterthoughts and reminiscences. ... By May 1788 he had travelled to Italy via Innsbruck and the Brenner Pass and visited Lake Garda, Verona, Vicenza, Venice, Bologna, Rome and Alban Hills, Naples and Sicily. He wrote many letters to a number of friends in Germany, which he later used as the basis for Italian Journey. ...”
NY Times: Goethe Italian Journey
Invader “4000” Opens in Paris with Exhibition and Mosaic Encyclopedia
"Infusing meaning into numbers is one way to identify benchmarks, recognizing that time takes us forward regardless of our intentions. For street artist Space Invader, the act of recording and cataloging his two-decade Space Invaders project ‘is very much an ongoing meta-work, constantly expanding and transforming.’ Marking that passage of time and his seemingly indefatigable dedication to it around the world, the artist releases ‘4000′, his new book – and accompanying exhibition – that celebrates the completion of 4,000 installed mosaics. ...”
Manhattan, NY
What happened in the Russia-Ukraine war this week? Catch up with the must-read news and analysis
"... Senior Ukrainian officials say Vladimir Putin is preparing for a major new offensive in the new year, Isobel Koshiw and Peter Beaumont reported, despite a series of humiliating battlefield setbacks for Russia in recent months. In an interview with the Guardian, Ukraine’s defence minister, Oleksii Reznikov, said that while Ukraine was now able to successfully defend itself against Russia’s missile attacks targeting key infrastructure, including the energy grid, evidence was emerging that the Kremlin was preparing a broad new offensive. Reznikov’s comments echoed similar remarks made to the Economist this week – including from the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the head of the armed forces, Gen Valerii Zaluzhnyi, and the chief of ground forces, Col Gen Oleksandr Syrskii. ...”
People rest in a subway station, being used as a bomb shelter during a rocket attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, Dec. 16, 2022. Ukrainian authorities reported explosions in at least three cities Friday, saying Russia has launched a major missile attack on energy facilities and infrastructure. Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko reported explosions in at least four districts, urging residents to go to shelters.
Inside Mar-a-Lago, Where Thousands Partied Near Secret Files
"Mar-a-Lago is the primary home of former President Donald J. Trump. It is also a private club reserved for 500 members and a venue for parties and fund-raisers that are frequently attended by hundreds of people at a time. ... A New York Times investigation reveals how easily accessible classified documents may have been to the thousands of guests who visited Mar-a-Lago in the months after Mr. Trump left office. The Times created a 3-D model of Mar-a-Lago and reviewed images from social media and other sources to show how people were, at times, within feet of the materials. ...”
Afrofuturism in Black Music
"The term Afrofuturism invokes writers such as Octavia E. Butler, Samuel Delany, Ytasha L. Womack, Ishmael Reed, and Mark Dery who coined the term in 1992. Even the great Zora Neale Hurston has been described as an Afrofuturist. And when the focus shifts to Black music, the following names often appear: Sun Ra, Parliament-Funkadelic, Grace Jones, OutKast, Erykah Badu, Flying Lotus, and Janelle Monáe. But While Afrofuturism has been characterized as a philosophy, a movement, and a cultural aesthetic, among other things, there has been little discussion of the spiritual principles that essentially comprise the conceptual foundation of Afrofuturism in music. ...”
Sun Ra
The Infrared Hunt for Russian Troops in the Battle for Bakhmut
"BAKHMUT, Ukraine — Wind howled through leafless trees and through the windows of the blown-out apartment building as the surveillance team marched up flights of stairs covered with broken glass. The cold numbed their fingers as they set up their equipment: a laptop-size thermal imaging sight, its tripod and a Starlink satellite dish and battery. The job was straightforward: The small team of several men, led by an American known as Wolf, would be Ukraine’s eyes on their battle for Bakhmut that night, huddling in the Soviet-style apartment and staring at the white-and-black glow of infrared images as it tried to identify Russian positions.In front of them was a panoramic view of Bakhmut, a city in Ukraine’s east, mostly without power and devastated by six months of concerted shelling. ...”
An explosion lighted up the sky as a small surveillance team for the Ukrainian Army scanned the horizon over Bakhmut, in eastern Ukraine.
France beat Morocco to reach final: Mbappe v Messi, Amrabat’s tackle and a rare fast start
W – Antoine Griezmann “France withstood an impressive Morocco display to set up a World Cup final with Argentina on Sunday that pits Kylian Mbappe against his Paris Saint-Germain team-mate Lionel Messi. Theo Hernandez,
who came into the France side in the first game when his brother Lucas
suffered a tournament-ending knee injury, scored the opening goal after
just five minutes, acrobatically steering the ball past goalkeeper Yassine Bounou. …”
The Athletic
NY Times: Why Antoine Griezmann Is France’s Most Important Player
Guardian: France bring Morocco’s adventure to an end and reach World Cup final
Guardian: Antoine Griezmann’s devilment gives France the edge when it matters
The Analyst: France 2-0 Morocco: France Through to Fourth Final in Last Seven World Cups
“Julian Alvarez and Lionel Messi starred for Argentina as they swept past Croatia to seal a place in the World Cup final. Messi opened the scoring from the spot after Alvarez was fouled by the Croatia goalkeeper Dominik Livakovic.
Then Alvarez bundled his way through a scrambling Croatia defence to
make it two before the break, and the two players combined for a
brilliant third goal in the 69th minute. …”
The Athletic:Argentina beat Croatia to reach final: Alvarez stars, magical Messi assist, goodbye Modric
Guardian: Inspired Lionel Messi takes Argentina past Croatia and into World Cup final
The Analyst – Argentina 3-0 Croatia: Lionel Messi is One Game From Immortality
NY Times: Lionel Messi’s World Cup Magic Continues in Argentina’s Romp Over Croatia (Video)
The Best Experimental Music of 2022
"Welcome to the year-end edition of Best Experimental Music on Bandcamp, in which we’ve picked 12 of our favorites from 2022. There was so much great experimental music on the site this year that no list could truly represent the breadth and depth of it all, but we are sure that these releases below are worthy of your time. Presented in alphabetical order by artist, our selections include ground-shaking drones, songs sung by artificial intelligence, a moving musical elegy, an homage to the VHS tape, and a 71-minute magnum opus. ...”
Defenses Carved Into the Earth
"Trenches are not new to Ukraine. Trench warfare has long been a feature of the battle in eastern Ukraine for the Donbas region. Ukrainians fight from their own trenches on their side of the line near Popasna, where Russians are waging an intense campaign to dislodge Ukrainian troops from the city of Bakhmut. But the pace and the scale of Russian construction over the last couple of months is unmatched. All of the structures in the image above appeared within six days. The fortifications show how Russia’s military is trying to set up more robust, defensible positions against Ukrainian pressure, often with the help of natural obstacles like rivers. ...”
The Climate Impact of Your Neighborhood, Mapped
"New data shared with The New York Times reveals stark disparities in how different U.S. households contribute to climate change. Looking at America’s cities, a pattern emerges. Households in denser neighborhoods close to city centers tend to be responsible for fewer planet-warming greenhouse gases, on average, than households in the rest of the country. Residents in these areas typically drive less because jobs and stores are nearby and they can more easily walk, bike or take public transit. And they’re more likely to live in smaller homes or apartments that require less energy to heat and cool. ...”
Counter Intelligence: Detroit
"From the East River to the Pacific Coast, the map of America is dotted by record stores – some famous, some wildly obscure. On Counter Intelligence, RBMA Radio gets the stories of these storefronts straight from the personalities who run them, soundtracked by their signature records. This week, our episodes focus on shops based in Detroit. In advance of their premiere on RBMA Radio, we sent Maxwell Schiano to document each one. ...”
Donors meet in Paris to get Ukraine through winter and Russian bombing
"Dozens of countries and international organizations threw their weight and more than $1 billion in aid pledges behind an urgent new push Tuesday to keep Ukraine powered, fed, warm and moving amid the onset of winter. An international donor conference in Paris quickly racked up substantial promises of financial and in-kind support, a defiant response to sustained Russian aerial bombardments that have plunged millions into the cold and dark by targeting critical infrastructure. ...”
Ukrainian citizens make their way through snow on Dec. 7, 2022 in Borodyanka.
Angelo Badalamenti, Composer for ‘Twin Peaks,’ Is Dead at 85
"Angelo Badalamenti, an internationally sought-after composer who wrote the hypnotic theme to ‘Twin Peaks,’ David Lynch’s 1990s television drama series, and the music for five Lynch films, including 'Blue Velvet' (1986), died on Sunday at his home in Lincoln Park, N.J. He was 85. ... Mr. Badalamenti was at the piano behind Isabella Rossellini when she sang ‘Blue Velvet’ at the Slow Club in Lumberton, N.C., a flower-filled, picket-fence kind of town with a very dark side. Aside from the title song, a Bobby Vinton hit from 1963, he had composed much of the film’s music. ...”
The Disturbing Paintings of Hieronymus Bosch: A Short Introduction
"Most casual viewers of Hieronymus Bosch’s paintings must acknowledge his artistic skill, and many must also wonder whether he was completely out of his mind. But insanity, however vividly suggested by his imagery, isn’t an especially compelling explanation for that imagery. Bosch painted in a particular place and time — the Netherlands of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century, to be specific — but he also painted within a dominant worldview. ‘He grew up in a time of deep religious anxiety,’ says Youtuber Hochelaga in the video essay above. ...”
2016 February: The Garden of Earthly Delights - Hieronymus Bosch (1490 - 1510), 2016 September: Hieronymus Bosch’s Lost Masterpiece, 2018 September: The Hieronymus Bosch Demon Bird Was Spotted Riding the New York City Subway the Other Day…, 2021 April: The Meaning of Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights Explained
In a Wary Arctic, Norway Starts to See Russian Spies Everywhere
"TROMSØ, Norway — In hindsight, some things just didn’t add up about Jose Giammaria. For one, the visiting researcher at the University of Tromsø, in Norway’s Arctic Circle, was ostensibly Brazilian. But he couldn’t speak Portuguese. Then there was the fact that he self-funded his visit, an oddity in academia, and even planned to extend it — yet he never talked about his research. But he was always helpful, even offering to redesign the home page for the Center for Peace Studies, where he worked. That was until Oct. 24, 2022, when Norway’s security police, the PST, arrived with a warrant to search his office. Days later, they announced his arrest as a Russian spy, named Mikhail Mikushin. ...”
An airport employee inside the control tower at the Tromsø airport, where traffic has been disrupted by unauthorized drones.
How England kept France’s star forward Kylian Mbappe quiet
"There are a handful of players you need to consider for special attention,’ England assistant coach Steve Holland said before the quarter-final against France. ‘You’d have to put (Kylian) Mbappe in that category. We need to look at trying to avoid leaving ourselves in situations where he is as devastating as we’ve seen.’ On a night when Mbappe recorded just one shot and one key pass, and failed to score or assist for the first time when starting a game at this World Cup, here is how England managed to keep him quiet… ”
PUSHING IT FORWARD: ILLicit Creatives Claiming Space on the Streets of Queens, Part II
"After a hiatus of several weeks, we are back with our documentation of ILLicit creatives claiming space on the streets of NYC. Pictured above is MFK, the Metal Fingers Krew; what follows are several more graffiti bombs and throwies captured as we revisited Queens. ...”
Ukraine strikes Wagner HQ in Luhansk, governor says
"Ukrainian forces have struck a headquarters of Russia's Wagner mercenary group in eastern Ukraine, Luhansk's Ukrainian governor has said. Serhiy Haidai said a hotel where the group was based in Kadiivka, Luhansk region, was hit. He added there were major Russian losses. The BBC was unable to independently verify Wagner's presence at the hotel. Wagner are state-sponsored mercenaries who act in the Kremlin's interests, according to Western experts. The private military company, set up by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a former restaurateur and close associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has repeatedly been accused of war crimes and human rights abuses. ...”
NBC News: Drone strikes leave more than a million without power in southern Ukraine, officials say (Video)
Moscow-backed authorities in Melitopol posted images of a fire
At Proust Weekend: The Madeleine Event
"... In the meantime, I attended some panels. When Lydia Davis was beamed in to talk about her award-winning translation of Swann’s Way, I stared at the cat in the lower left-hand corner of the screen. In order to be properly Proustian, I knew, the center of an experience would be hidden in the margins of the event itself. The events of the Weekend transpired in the second-floor ballroom of the Gilded Age mansion that houses Villa Albertine, the French embassy–adjacent artist’s residency program that had organized the event. Most attendees were, I gathered, elderly residents of the Upper East Side and/or miscellaneous French people. ...”
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 October: On Reading Proust, 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, 2019 February: On the Anxiety and Vanity of Marcel Proust, Debut Novelist, 2020 October: 182 Days of Marcel Proust, 2022 June: Paintings in Proust: A Visual Companion to Hardcover – Eric Karpeles
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