deepartnature

[deepartnature]

‘Good Night, and Good Luck’ Revels in Courageous Resistance to Demagogues – 70 Years Ago

George Clooney as Edward R. Murrow, amid the hustle and bustle of an old-school newsroom.

Michael Musto - "A Republican demagogue wrecking lives via fearmongering and distortion is certainly a topical theme, as proven by Good Night, and Good Luck, a new play by George Clooney and Grant Heslov based on the 2005 Clooney-directed film by the same duo. That it also deals with a power figure who effectively fights back against the tyrant and gets him dethroned is perhaps what makes it seem novel in the dire political landscape of 2025, Cory Booker and various judges and DAs notwithstanding. In the award-winning black and white film, David Strathairn played Edward R. Murrow, the fearless broadcast journalist whose TV news show, See It Now, made waves by critiquing 'commie'-baiting Wisconsin senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s. Murrow dared to opine that it was McCarthy and his hyped-up 'Red scare' that was proving a way worse threat to democracy than the left-wingers he was so rabidly targeting. ..."

Voice

W - Good Night, and Good Luck

NY Times; Clooney, Fair and Balanced, in ‘Good Night, and Good Luck’

Good Night and Good Luck Broadway Review. George Clooney as anti-authoritarian crusader

[deepartnature]

Junior Byles & I Roy - Fade Away & Rootsman (1976)

"... Deriving his name, and to some extent his style, from U-Roy, Reid was also heavily influenced in his early career by Dennis Alcapone. I-Roy's lyrics were often humorous, incorporating elements of songs and nursery rhymes. In 1976, he was signed by Virgin Records, who went on to release eight albums via various subsidiary labels, mainly utilising backing tracks played by the Revolutionaries. ... Peel used the ‘Rootsman’ track by 'the excellent DJ I-Roy' to introduce Radio Three listeners to the art of reggae toasting, or Jamaican DJs adding their own vocals to recycled backing tracks (in this case a dub version of ‘Fade Away’ by Junior Byles). ..."

John Peel Wiki

YouTube: Junior Byles & I Roy - Fade Away & Rootsman 12"

[deepartnature]

An Inside Look at the Subway’s Archaic Signal System

"Deep inside a subway station in Brooklyn, in a cramped, industrial room, Dyanesha Pryor pushes in a metal lever on a hulking machine that was installed nearly a century ago. A few hundred feet away, a signal light flashes red and a train that had been rumbling down the local tracks slides to a stop. Ms. Pryor, a transit worker, pulls another lever and a section of rail shifts into place, allowing the local train to merge onto a shared track in front of a waiting express train. She then restores the signal to green and the local rolls into the station. Ms. Pryor repeats this sequence — punctuated by the clank, clank, clank of the levers slamming into place — dozens of times over the course of the day in the hidden control room at the Hoyt-Schermerhorn station. Thousands of subway riders a day depend on Ms. Pryor for a smooth commute. ..."

NY Times

[deepartnature]

Love, Joe: The Selected Letters of Joe Brainard

"Even a cursory glance at the life of Joe Brainard reveals him to have been something of a genius of friendship. Since the artist and writer died of AIDS-induced pneumonia in 1994 at the age of fifty-three, his legacy has been steadfastly tended to by a band of his contemporaries, who jump at the chance to rhapsodize at length not just about the man’s achievements but also his gentleness and unpretentiousness. ... It’s easy to understand the urge to advocate for Brainard’s place in history. A staunchly idiosyncratic devotee of small-scale work, he was well-reviewed during his lifetime without ever becoming a brand name in the art world, partly due to his lack of skill and interest in the business side of his profession. One imagines that, by posthumously shepherding him into the spotlight, his friends are trying to reconcile a long-held desire to see him succeed with their respect for his humility. ..."

BOOKFORUM

NY Times: The Artist Who Remembered Everything

amazon: Love, Joe: The Selected Letters of Joe Brainard

[deepartnature]

Words Like Weapons: Jenny Holzer in the Streets and the Museum, In “Protest”

"If you’ve ever been stopped in your tracks by a cryptic phrase pasted on a lamppost or beamed onto a building, there’s a good chance you’ve crossed paths, at least spiritually, with Jenny Holzer. Before text-based street art became a global, sometimes cerebral, genre, Holzer treated the city as her canvas, her publishing platform, injecting unsettling truths and poetic jabs into public space. Her work speaks, it interrupts, cutting through the usual noise of ads and slogans with smartly honed phrases like 'Abuse of power comes as no surprise' and 'Protect me from what I want.' For those familiar with the language of the street, her words hit like a well-placed burner on a clean wall—brief, bold, impossible to ignore. This Art21 segment from the Protest episode (2007) dives into the heart of Holzer’s practice, showing how she weaponizes language to question authority, mourn the dead, and spark outrage. ..."

Brooklyn Street Art (Video)

[deepartnature]

Eight Essential Releases by Detroit Producer Apollo Brown

"In order to master the art of sampling, an artist has to employ a variety of skill sets. In addition to the technical ability required to chop, loop, and filter the source material, they also need the deep knowledge of records that can only be acquired from years of crate-digging, as well as a hefty amount of imagination and taste required for creative sampling. Born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, veteran hip-hop producer Apollo Brown cut his teeth in Detroit’s storied hip-hop scene. Today, Brown is part of a vanguard of underground hip-hop producers who make samples from old records soar. For the better part of the last two decades, Brown has built up a deep and extensive catalog, crafting rich, soul-infused beats for top-tier rappers. A willing collaborator, the list of artists with whom Brown has worked reads like a who’s who of contemporary rap’s best MCs. ..."

Bandcamp (Audio)

[deepartnature]

Back at It with Hannes Pasqualini

"During the first year of the pandemic, Hannes Pasqualini illustrated and I wrote a half dozen four-panel comics: 'Foghorns' (March 18, 2020), 'Megaphone' (April 6, 2020), 'Mentors' (April 13, 2020), 'Eavesdrop' (June 15, 2020), 'Room Tone' (March 25, 2020), and 'Mnemonic' (October 5, 2020). Doing so was a highlight of that dreadful and stressful year. I’m happy to report that we are back at it, and I hope to have a new comic to share soon, and others soon after that. (The above image is a tiny detail of a work-in-progress.) Meanwhile, Hannes, who is based in Northern Italy, is also at work on some solo material, and here, with permission, is a peek at what he is up to. ..."

disquiet

disquiet: Frame by Frame

Eavesdrop

[deepartnature]

Hania Rani’s Music Is Tranquil. Please Don’t Call It ‘Soothing.’

"When the Polish musician Hania Rani released her first solo album, 'Esja,' in 2019, she knew it was a modest debut. Its subtle piano compositions were moody but pared down, and she worried that its serene atmosphere might limit its mainstream appeal. One year later, the album’s placid vibe turned out to be a blessing. As the world locked down against the Covid pandemic, distressed people were turning to streaming playlists with names like 'Calm Vibes' and 'Peaceful Rhythms' that featured Rani’s music. It became a breakthrough moment. As one critic told BBC radio during lockdown, Rani’s music 'makes your problems and woes all sort of vanish.' But now, Rani, 34, has become a shooting star in a genre of pop-inflected minimalist music often referred to as neoclassical, or alt-classical — though she bristles at the notion that her music is meant to offer therapy. ..."

NY Times

Non Fiction: A Piano Concerto In Four Movements

YouTube: Hania Rani and Ensemble, Berlin, Philharmonie

[deepartnature]

Mario Vargas Llosa

"Jorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa, 1st Marquess of Vargas Llosa (28 March 1936 – 13 April 2025), more commonly known as Mario Vargas Llosa (Spanish: [ˈmaɾjo ˈβaɾɣaz ˈʎosa]), was a Peruvian novelist, journalist, essayist, and politician. Vargas Llosa was one of the Spanish language and Latin America's most significant novelists and essayists and one of the leading writers of his generation. Some critics consider him to have had a more substantial international impact and worldwide audience than any other writer of the Latin American Boom. In 2010, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature'for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt, and defeat'.  ... Vargas Llosa's perception of Peruvian society and his experiences as a native Peruvian influenced many of his works. Increasingly, he expanded his range and tackled themes from other parts of the world. In his essays, Vargas Llosa criticized nationalism in different parts of the world. Like many Latin American writers, Vargas Llosa was politically active. ..."

Wikipedia

NY Times: The Elder Statesman of Latin American Literature — and a Writer of Our Moment

NY Times: Mario Vargas Llosa, Nobel-Winning Peruvian Novelist, Dies at 89

The Paris Review: Mario Vargas Llosa, The Art of Fiction No. 120

amazon: Mario Vargas Llosa

YouTube: Mario Vargas Llosa Interview: Literature Makes Citizens Critical 22:01

[deepartnature]

Dutch Electronic Pioneer Truus de Groot is Just Getting Started

"How did Truus de Groot, who rocked her Dutch homeland as a teen electro-punk firebrand, wind up in sunny Escondido, California surrounded by lush, tropical fauna and huge, hand-carved tikis? The explanation lies in the unpredictable path of her four-and-a-half-decade career. From Amsterdam to New York City, Memphis, and San Diego County, de Groot has been one of electronic music’s under-the-radar innovators, working with members of Sonic Youth, 8 Eyed Spy, The Gun Club, and others along the way. Across her huge discography, she’s brought her arch, synth-centric POV to dance music, post-punk, exotica, cabaret, in-your-face experimentalism, and anything else that whets her artistic appetite. Her early recordings have become coldwave cult classics included in an international array of DJ mixes; but de Groot remains an artist in motion, with multiple projects due in the coming months. Wherever she wanders, her work is an expression of the same spirit that’s filled her from the start. ..."

Bandcamp (Audio)

[deepartnature]

The Mirror - Andrei Tarkovsky (1975)

"Mirror is a 1975 Soviet avant-garde drama film directed by Andrei Tarkovskyand written by Tarkovsky and Aleksandr Misharin. The film features Margarita Terekhova, Ignat Daniltsev, Alla Demidova, Anatoly Solonitsyn, Tarkovsky's wife Larisa Tarkovskaya, and his mother Maria Vishnyakova. Innokenty Smoktunovsky contributed voiceover dialogue and Eduard Artemyev composed incidental music and sound effects. Mirror portrays a dying poet pondering his memories. It is loosely autobiographical, unconventionally structured, and draws on a wide variety of source material, including newsreel footage of major moments in Soviet history and the poetry of the director's father, Arseny Tarkovsky. Its cinematography slips between color, black-and-white, and sepia. Its nonlinear narrative has delighted and frustrated critics and audiences for decades. The film's loose flow of oneiric imageshas been compared with the stream of consciousnesstechnique associated with modernist literature. ..."

Wikipedia

Criterion (Video)

Criterion - Mirror: “All Is Immortal”

The Breeze In The Grass – Elemental Realisation in Tarkovsky’s Mirror (1975).

amazon

[deepartnature]

Rebirth Of The Cool Ruler - Gregory Isaacs (2023)

"The legendary reggae and dancehall producer, King Jammy, offers us a real musical treasure from his archives to present Gregory Isaacs' 'Rebirth Of The Cool Ruler'. This compilation revives Gregory Isaacs' catalog of the 1980s and 1990s by associating it with veterans such as Shaggy, Sean Paul, Bounty Killer, Junior Reid, and many others, as well as new artists of the current generation such as Jesse Royal, Ras Demo, and many others. Each of these artists worked closely with King Jammy based on the multitrack master recordings, continuing a series initiated with Black Uhuru's 'New Sounds Of Freedom' and Dennis Brown's 'Tracks Of Life', both produced by King Jammy. Gregory Isaacs, (1951-2010), remains one of the most important and prolific singers in the history of Jamaican music. ..."

CHRONIQUE: Gregory Isaacs and King Jammy 'Rebirth Of The Cool Ruler'

Bandcamp (Audio)

amazon

YouTube: Rebirth of the Cool Ruler (Prod. by King Jammy) 15 videos

[deepartnature]

City of Glass: It Was a Phone Call That Started It

"Ten years ago, I was not planning to attend the first Comic Arts Brooklyn (CAB) event, scheduled for November 9, 2013. However, when Art Spiegelman asked me to moderate a panel about the graphic novel adaptation of City of Glass that would include himself, Paul Auster, Paul Karasik and David Mazzucchelli, I found myself, ultimately, unable to say no. I first encountered the book in college. It was one of the few graphic novels in the library, and I read it cover to cover, sitting in the stacks. ... When I learned that City of Glass would be reprinted, I put together a special issue to mark the occasion with features including a lengthy interview with Paul Karasik that I conducted in Boston. Notoriously press-averse Mazzucchelli even agreed to answer three questions in writing, and generously shared some fascinating previously unseen images, which appear in the text below. I have been teaching a course on the graphic novel since 2008, and, as I mention in the panel, all of my students read City of Glass. ..."

The Comics Journal (2023)

LitHub - New York Noir: From the Graphic Adaptation of Paul Auster’s New York Trilogy

W - New York Trilogy

amazon: Paul Auster's The New York Trilogy: City of Glass, Ghosts, The Locked Room, The New York Trilogy

[deepartnature]

Mandel: Monday’s House v. NCAA hearing was a moment more than a decade in the making

"On Monday, I returned to U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken’s courtroom for the first time since covering the O’Bannon v. NCAA trial in 2014. That was a three-week debate about whether college athletes making money — any money — would mark the death of the enterprise. Wilken didn’t buy the NCAA’s defense. It was a profound moment in the history of college sports, even if Wilken’s narrow decision for the plaintiffs at the time only led to athletes receiving modest scholarship stipends. 'Back then, the myth of amateurism was impenetrable,' said Michael Hausfeld, the lead attorney for O’Bannon. 'Now it’s totally gone.'  Eleven years later, Hausfeld was also back in Wilken’s courtroom, concerning a much more drastic change to the landscape: The proposed House v. NCAA settlement, which would allow universities to share $20.5 million in revenue in the first year, and escalating from there, with their athletes. ..."

NY Times/The Athletic

NPR: Landmark day for college sports as judge holds final hearing on major NCAA settlement

LSU gymnast Livvy Dunne, shown here competing at Auburn University on February 10, 2023, is the highest-earning female athlete in college athletics. She objects to the proposal saying she earned nothing in her freshman year nor while she was in high school due to NCAA rules.

[deepartnature]

Wall Street Bursts With Anger Over Tariff ‘Stupidity’

"Wall Street billionaires are not used to being on the outside looking in. But that is where they find themselves after President Trump ignored their appeals to call off his tariff plans which they fear could endanger the economy. With the backdrop of rapidly mounting stock market losses, corporate titans have worked every angle — phone calls, social media and even a typically staid shareholder letter — to try to change Mr. Trump’s mind. The day after the president announced his most sweeping round of tariffs last week, chief executives from major banks, including Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase, had a private meeting with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick organized by a lobbying group in Washington. ..."

NY Times

NY Times - An Experiment in Recklessness: Trump as Global Disrupter

[deepartnature]

William and Henry James - Peter Brooks

William and Henry James. Marie Leon, bromide print, early 1900s

"When Henry James decided to come to America in 1904 and 1905, his elder brother, William James, was not immediately pleased. William said that while his wife, Alice, would welcome his visit (she and Henry had a firm bond), he felt 'more keenly a good many of the désagréments to which you inevitably will be subjected, and imagine the sort of physical loathing with which many features of our national life will inspire you.' There follows an account of how traveling Americans ate their boiled eggs, presumably in hotels and on trains, 'bro’t to them, broken by a negro, two in a cup, and eaten with butter.' As a source of physical loathing, this seems a bit excessive: one might linger over William’s attempts to keep Henry’s visit at bay. William’s letter seems more to the point when he notes: 'The vocalization of our countrymen is really, and not conventionally, so ignobly awful … It is simply incredibly loathsome.' William’s discouragement provoked from Henry a declaration of his determination not to be deterred from coming. ..."

The Paris Review

amazon: Henry James Comes Home: Rediscovering America in the Gilded Age

[deepartnature]

The Surprising History of Betty Boop

"Betty Boop has arrived on Broadway, nearly a century after she first boop-oop-a-dooped her way onto the big screen. 'Boop! The Musical,' like the 'Barbie' and 'Elf' films that preceded it, imagines a transformational encounter between an anthropomorphic character and the real world (well, a fictional world full of people). Betty’s journey to the stage has been an unusual one. The original character didn’t have much of a back story, which has made her an appealing blank slate for storytellers. But her image — and Betty, at her core, is a remarkably long-lived illustration — has managed to straddle media and merchandise, surviving court battles and changing mores. ..."

NY Times

W - Betty Boop

amazon: The Life and Times of Betty Boop: The 100-Year History of an Animated Icon - Peter Benjaminson