cover photo



blog archive

main site

artwork

bio






Schwarz



View current page
...more recent posts

Raging Slab has a new double album out called "The Dealer". They played SXSW last week and will be in NYC April 1 @ The Continental


[link] [1 comment]

Ok so now we know, don't steal other kids skateboards; or else. Up agianst the wall Shaggy mother fucker.Support student boycot : Music Banned in School ! (follow the rad threads......)


[link] [add a comment]

"Arquitectonica's design for Rockrose Development Corporation, developers of the 74-acre site in Queens where Pepsi-Cola was bottled and canned until two years ago, is still in development. But it's not too soon to comment on the promise of this project and the obstacles faced by the architects in fulfilling it. The project, expected to cost $1 billion, will occupy almost 22 acres in the northern area of Queens West. It will include seven apartment towers, for a total of 3,000 new units. There will be 13.5 acres of parks, streets and other public spaces.

Arquitectonica is sui generis. Bernardo Fort-Brescia and Laurinda Spear, the firm's principles, were the first American architects of the baby-boom generation to start building on a large scale. The Spear House in Coral Gables, Fla., designed by them in collaboration with Rem Koolhaas, was among the most photographed residential designs of the 1970's. Later, Arquitectonica imprinted itself on the public imagination with the high-rises the firm designed for Brickel Avenue in Miami.

As featured backdrops in the 1980's television series "Miami Vice," these towers helped establish the new image of that city as an economic and cultural crossroads between Latin America and the United States. And they defined the specialty for which Arquitectonica has become known: a highly inventive, often colorful manipulation of the tall building type.

Arquitectonica is the Ricky Martin of contemporary architecture. While retaining Latin roots, the firm has built widely around the world. Its cosmopolitan outlook suits Queens West.

There is nothing profound about this firm's work. On the other hand, there is none of the spurious historical depth asserted by the retro buildings at Battery Park City and Riverside South. This brings us to the obstacle Arquitectonica must reckon with in attempting something fresh. Queens West, sponsored by a division of the Empire State Development Corporation, is stuck with a Battery Park City-clone master plan and design guidelines.

For a site where views are paramount, the guidelines restrict the use of glass in favor of masonry walls. Instead of encouraging new approaches to planning, the master plan mandates neo-traditional towers on bases with uniform street lines. Can the bishop's-crook lampposts, world's-fair benches, hexagonal pavers and other theme-park accessories be far behind? Will we have Gene Kelly look-alike doormen dancing to "Singing in the Rain"? Arquitectonica should be given the widest latitude in responding to the conditions of the site. After all, the context here extends far beyond the neighboring low-rise brick buildings of Long Island City. It also includes the midtown skyline, the river and its bridges, the airports in Queens and, not least, the United Nations headquarters and all it symbolizes for the city and the world beyond."

- Muschamp for NYT


[link] [add a comment]

I got the lot of 7 mixed race moonshiner photos for $63.00 bucks (less than $10.00 each). One guy ran it up to that from $19.99, but thats ok.
[link] [1 comment]

Latest Nowottny sighting :

Marianne Nowottny and State of the Union release

Marianne has contributed a selection to the Elliot Sharp project "State of The Union 2.001." This 3CD set is finally out, released by the Electronic Music Foundation, with a beautiful package designed by Janene Higgins.

There will be a launch event on Monday, Mar. 5, from 7-10PM at Tonic, 107 Norfolk St, NYC with brief performances by Eszter Balint , Jack Womack, and others, plus a live mix of the SOTU set by DJ Nico Mazet. Release below:

State of the Union 2.001

This amazing 3-CD set of contemporary sound and text-based electric and electronic music may be just what you need to live a full life. Composer / performer Elliott Sharp has set aside his saxophone and put his guitar on the shelf for just long enough to collect one-minute music and sound works by 171 leading lights of the international avant-garde, both famous and unknown, that represent a vast array of approaches, attitudes, aesthetics, ethnicities, musical styles, and social persuasions. He describes the collection as "concrete, abstract, enraged, objective, caustic, soulful, sardonic, provocative -- all unfiltered, all clear." It's more than that. It's totally enjoyable. Unmissable. A bandwagon you should get on without missing a beat.

CD 1 includes:

Adriana Sa's 'About Sensorship', Alfred Harth's 'Yogurt Karaoque Park-1', Alan Licht's 'Goon', Allen Kaatz's 'Dub Mix #2', Alma Carey-Zúñiga's 'With Respect to Areo Pagitica', Alvin Curran's 'ERAT VERBUM John', Angela Babin and Lori Bingel's 'Naked Dancing Everywhere', Annie Gosfield's 'Manual Labour Pains', Atau Tanaka's 'mosurge', Becca Schack's 'The Spell', Ben Boone and James Miley's 'Drunken Bastards #2', Benjamin Chadabe's 'Minutes...', Ben Rubin and Mark Hansen's 'Yahoo / Bounce', Black Sifichi's 'State of Things' / 'Barbie and her Perilous Anatomy', Blaise Siwula's 'One Message', Blake Hargreaves and Liam Thurston's 'Check the checky-specs, rock the telebocket', Bob Holman's 'Shredded Peace', Bruce Bennett's 'Speaking in Tongues', Carl Stone's 'V2', C.D.'s 'Adelante de su Presencia', Charles K. Noyes' 'A Minute in the Life', Chop Shop's 'No Title', Chris Haskett's 'ESL for Machines', Christian Marclay's 'Free Jazz Shrunk', Chris Mann's 'Double Standard', Chris Rael's 'Shake off that Coma', Chris Vine's 'State of the A-Bloc', Cook & Swenson's 'America Inc.', Dael Orlandersmith's 'My Riff', D'Divaz's 'crne oci' ('dark eyes', excerpt), Dafna Naphtali's '1 min Bounce', Daniel Matej's 'SHARP (on B-A-C-H)', Dave Soldier and Richard Lair's 'Swing, Swing, Swing', David First's 'Jingle', David Fulton's 'SOTU 2000', David Gans' 'Pat Bucancer', David Greenberger's 'The Apes Lecture', David Taylor's 'Ode to Danny Kaye', Deaf Mute's 'Lathe', Debra DeSalvo's 'Tompkins Square Park', Doug Henderson's 'Zippo', Donald Knaack's 'Abracadabra', Don Ritter's 'Get', Dorgon's '4MS', Duck Baker's 'Rag Me Don't Gag Me', Elio Martusciello's 'Zanara Tigre', Emily XYZ and Virgil Moorefield's 'Separation of Church and State', Eric Mingus' 'Hold On', Eric Rosenzveig's 'A Cop For Every 183 Citizens (Year 2000 / New York City / Millenium Capitol Of The World)', Eric Shanfield's 'Indivisible Cities', Eszter Balint's 'she's drowning', Eyeball 9000's 'Song3.mp3', FemNoir's 'PhoneNoir', Figure's 'Americal', and Foetus' 'Quality Control'.

CD 2 includes:

Frank Rothkamm's 'Sine 0 to 12', Fred Frith's 'Sunshine State', Freight Elevator Quartet's 'Mediate', GenKen Montgomery's 'Lamination As A Virtual Metaphor', Gert Jan Prins' 'ja', Hans Tammen's 'Three Channel Guitar', Harriet Tubman's 'Blossoming', Harry Smith's 'State', Henry Kaiser's 'See No Evil', i.d.'s '_?*+'{'L=', Ikue Mori's 'If...', Jack Womack's 'Nixon in New Orleans', Jacob Burckhardt's 'Tomorrow', Jad Fair's 'Paper and Pen', Jean Marc Montera's 'Ouverte au vent', Jeffrey Ford's 'The Invisible Man's Time Machine', Jenn Reeves' 'The Money', Joel Chadabe's 'Minutes...', Joey Baron's 'Holy Crow', John Duncan's 'Open...' and 'Open -- a gesture of gratitude to the makers of censored sounds you haven't heard, images you haven't seen, ideas you haven't heard or read... yet', John Hudak's 'Fireworks', Johnny Reinhard's 'On Ogur' (from 'Urartu'), Jonathan Bepler's 'Small Harness', Jon Rose's 'USTrash2000', Jorge Mancini and Andrea Fasani's 'Sample - SOTU 2000 / Come To The Origin II', Judy Nylon and Brian Foster's 'L-I-A-R', Kasper Toeplitz's 'No Scale', Katie O'Looney's 'Exploitration', Kato Hideki's 'No Tongue Blues', Kazuhisa Uchihashi's 'Music For States of Union', Keisuke Oki's 'Tokyo Propaganda', Koji Asano's 'A Cold Summer', Lauren Weinger's 'Place Study #9: Marquette Grain Elevator', Leon Gruenbaum's 'Desperate Hearts: State of the Romantic Union', Ligeti / Ritchford's 'Parker's Box', Lloop's 'Tenac', Lo Galluccio's 'All the Pretty Horses / Let em think my wings iz broke', Loren Mazzacane Connors' 'Annabel Lee', Love Todd's 'Dangerous', Lost Satellites' 'Electric Effervescence', Luca Formentini's Vuoto', Luciano Margorani's 'Vendetta!', Manu Sauvage's 'Speach to the Muted', Marc Behrens' 'Real Player fucked my Netscape Settings', Marc C.'s 'The Orbit Room', Marc Ribot's 'Space Walk', Marek Piacek's 'Rainy', Marianne Nowottny's 'Corridors', Marie Goyette's 'Short-Cut: Borodin', Mark Dagley's 'Chinch Bug Blues #2', Mark Howell and Tom Hamilton's 'Smudge on the Radar Screen', Mark Trayle's 'goldT°.2°3', Martha Mooke's 'State of the Underground', Matt Rogalsky's 'Koll Kash', Matthew Shipp's 'Notes Cry Out', Merry Fortune w / FAT's 'Who is it that calls subtley perverse?', Merzbow's 'Cannon Balls', Michael J. Schumacher's 'Sounds End', and Mike Cooper and Max Nagl's 'The Singing Bridge in Rabat'.

CD 3 includes:

Misha Feigin and Steve Good's 'A Chinese Clicking Duck Music in 5 Parts', Murat Nehmet-Nejat's 'A Screw into the Universe', Ned Rothenberg's 'High Jump', Nicolas Collins' 'Puck', Nicolas Dias' 'e-soltitude', Nicolas Mazet's 'Turbulence', Norman Yamada's 'Coin Toss', blaat's '22', Oblique's 'Double Tongued', Doug Theriault and David Chandler's 'y', Ori Kaplan and Geoff Mann's 'Is Jerusalame?', PAK's 'One Minute Political Song', Particle Data Group's 'Interdependence', Pete Missing's 'Digital Out', Phill Niblock's 'Aomori Water', Phillip Johnston's Transparent Quartet's 'Ta-da', Piero Chianura's 'KHISS', Public Works' 'Hoping it's a dream', QPE's 'in signed out', Queen Esther's 'Got To Get Back', Raging Peasants' 'Harry+Albert', ReproRappers' '199.9 Mhz' (G. Peccary version), Roberto Zorzi's 'Stai Zitto!', Roger Kleier's 'Soft Money, Hard Time', Satoko Fuji's 'Sigh', Saturnalia's 'Fre Actions', D.J. Spazecrafte One's '34th Ave...' (Edit), Stefan Poetzsch's '4 Channels Viola', Stefano Bassanese's 'Il Flo Interdentale (The Dental Floss)', Stephen Pope's 'Four Magic Sentences', Stephen Vitiello's 'Caught in the headlights of the Beverly Hillbillies photo cell recording off of a flickering TV screen', Steve Dalachinsky's 'Empire' and 'The Wind', Steve Goldberger's 'Le temps ensuite', Steve Piccolo's 'The Expedition', Tape Beatles' 'Broken Broadcast', Ted Reichman's 'Gaida Dilemma', Telectu's (Jorge Lima Barreto and Vitor Rua) 'Duplicator', The Fitzbergs' 'Fishy Go Swim Swim', Thomas Dimuzio's 'Turnkey', Tom Devaney's 'This Guy Walking In My Head', Tony Daniel's 'Epitaph', Toni Dove's (with Paul Geluso) 'Attention', Tracie Morris' 'Djele', Ut Gret's 'Crease the Sky', Viv Corringham and Gareth Williams' 'Safety or Happiness', Vivian Sisters' 'Freckle People', Voice Crack's 'shock_hack', Wanda Phipps' 'Desire', We's 'Gerbil Wheel', Wendy Atlas Oxenhor's 'Loverman', White Out's 'buzz saw trapped in a perfumery of shrugs', Zammuto's 'Circle of Fits', Zeena Parkins' 'J Cushions E', Z'ev's 'You Never Know', Zbigniew Karkowski's 'amazonas', and Zoot Horn Rollo's 'Solo Below'.

Play State of the Union 2.001 on Random Shuffle!


[link] [1 comment]

ARCHIGRAM Links from looksmart

"The movement came into being in late 1960, in the Hampstead area of London as a self-generated forum for several young and recently graduated architects, the major participants being Peter Cook, Warren Chalk, Ron Herron, David Greene, Dennis Crompton and Mike (Spider) Webb. The uniting theme of the group was their impatience and dissatisfaction with the limited horizons and stultifying practices of contemporary modern architecture. Following the tradition of radical modernism enunciated by Nietzsche ("Whoever wants to be creative . . . . must first . . . . annihilat[e] and destroy values"); and Henrik Ibsen ("The great task of our time is to blow up all existing institutions - to destroy"), this formative group of young architects set out to dismantle the apparatus of modern architecture through a series of consciousness-raising and confrontational manifestos."


[link] [add a comment]

DOCOMOMO

The term DOCOMOMO stands for Documentation and Conservation of the Modern Movement. 



[link] [add a comment]

Raze paradise put up a golf course ?

Fans of Modernism Criticize Cigna's Plan to Raze Offices

To the people with an eye on the bottom line, they are expensive dinosaurs that should be bulldozed for a golf course. But to the architects who gathered at a symposium in New Haven two weekends ago to discuss corporate Modernism, two buildings on the Bloomfield, Conn., campus of Cigna Corporation are icons of the International style that merit praise and preservation.


[link] [add a comment]

E-SKEPTIC MAGAZINE FOR FEBRUARY 14, 2001 Copyright 2001 Skeptic magazine, Skeptics Society, Michael Shermer Permission to print or distribute without permission.
---------------------------------
In this issue of e-Skeptic:
PSYCHIC PARROT
RANDI IN NEW YORK TIMES
PRIORITIES FOR HEALTH
THE HEART AS A BRAIN

---------------------------------
PSYCHIC PARROT
I just filmed a short interview for Wednesday morning (February 15) on ABC's Good Morning America on N'Kisi, the psychic parrot, a Congo African gray parrot who Cambridge University biologist Rupert Sheldrake says is additional evidence for his theory of morphic resonance, a sort of "force" that pervades the cosmos and allows everything to "remember." N'Kisi's owner, Aimee Morgana of Manhattan, read Sheldrake's latest book, "Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home and Other Unexplained Powers of Animals," and sent him videos of her amazing Parrot. N'Kisi, she claims, has a vocabulary of 560 words, which the parrot repeats with such frequency that occasionally the very thoughts that Morgana has, by chance match the words being parroted by the parrot. Of course, that's not how Morgana or Sheldrake see it, so they ran an experiment in which N'Kisi got 32 correct hits out of 123 trials, which, Sheldrake says, is a one in a billion probability of happening by chance; ergo, the parrot is psychic.

I pointed out that N'Kisi missed 91 times, which doesn't sound all that impressive to me, not to mention the protocol for determining what constitutes a hit was rather fuzzy. For example, Morgana was looking at a photograph of a couple embracing, and N'Kisi allegedly says "Can I give you a hug?" THAT was counted as a hit. Of course, we are not told how often N'Kisi blurts out that particular phrase, or other phrases for that matter, nor how many different photos were used by which Sheldrake arrived at his billion to one odds calculation. One reporter who visited N'Kisi had recently lost her cat. When she met the parrot, it apparently blurted out "Remember the cat?" Of course, we are not told what else the parrot said, or what else the reporter was thinking that day.

In other words, the sum of the coincidences equals certainty. Plus, this all sounds like a case of "remember the hits, forget the misses." In science we have to consider the misses as well as the hits. As Frank Sulloways likes to say, "anecdotes to not make a science."

Check it out Wednesday morning, February 15, on ABC's Good Morning America, possibly the first hour they said.
--------------------------------------
RANDI IN NEW YORK TIMES ON SATURDAY
I gave a short interview today to the New York Times for a piece they are doing on James Randi and the power of belief. I was unable to glean if it was to be a light and positive piece, or whether they are going to be critical, so check it out. The reporter said it would probably run on Saturday.
--------------------------------------
PRIORITIES FOR HEALTH
The theme of the current issue of Priorities for Health http://acsh.org/publications/priorities/current.html is pseudoscience. This double issue includes articles on hair analysis, "junk nursing science," so-called repressed memory therapy, and "voodoo science" treatments for autism. Lessons from this issue include: (a) junk science: not necessarily junk nor science, (b) facilitated communication: doesn't reliably facilitate communication, and (c) alleged repressed memories: can become irrepressible. Discuss amongst yourselves at http://acsh.org/forum/altmed/altmed.html
----------------------------------------
BRAIN IN HEART
Speaking of Rupert Sheldrake and weird biology, this from our friends at the Front Range Skeptics, Linda and Emily Rosa and Larry Sarner:

I couldn't believe it! On the ABC Evening News tonight, Deborah Amos had a feature story endorsing "Heart Math" -- one of the kookiest movements of all time! It's also referred to as "energy cardiology."

Heart Math folk believe the heart is another brain, capable of independent thought -- a powerful, supernatural organ responsible for telekenesis, etc. Amos showed the lighter side of Heart Math, but promoted research that claims to show Heart Math's therapeutic value in controlling stress, heart disease and diabetes. School children were shown doing Heart Math meditation exercises. A doctor specializing in Heart Math is now available at abc.com for consultation.

http://www.heartmath.org/
http://www.creativespirit.net/henryreed/study_intuition/library/Article34a.htm
http://www.usneighbor.org/business/article-stress.htm
http://www.drlark.com/pages/heart_anger.php
http://www.creativespirit.net/henryreed/bookreviews/4book9808.htm


Discover Your Heart's Awareness
Experiments at the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research laboratory reveal human-machine interactions suggestive of a mind-over-matter, or psychokinetic (PK), influence. Subjects people who attempt to mentally control the machinery have less success, however, than those who make a heartfelt connection with the machinery as if it were a living being, and dialogue with it, asking it for the favor of its compliance. This finding is one of the ways that Paul Pearsall, Ph.D., in his book, The Heart's Code: Tapping the Wisdom and Power of our Heart Energy (Broadway Books) shares an important new perspective on the intelligent awareness of the heart.

We are familiar with the imaginative powers of the "right brain" versus the pedestrian thought patterns of the "left brain." Pearsall introduces us to the even more revolutionary contrast between the lonely, separatist consciousness of the brain versus the spiritual, humanitarian oneness awareness of the heart. He likens the heart to the sun and the brain to the earth. We once thought that the sun revolved around the earth, but the Copernican revolution reversed that view. A similar revolution is taking place concerning the relative importance of brain and heart.

It was Arizona University's Gary E. Schwartz, M.D. who pioneered the field of "energy cardiology." He found that while brain waves (EEG) are weak and localized around the head, heart waves (EKG) are the body's strongest electromagnetic signal. Whereas it has been previously thought that the brain controlled the heart, through the autonomic nervous system, Schwartz's work led to the discovery that through the circulatory system, which is more pervasive than the nervous system, the heart has even greater control over the brain than vice-versa. Researchers at the Heart-Math Institute like to point out, for example, that it is difficult to quiet the mind when the brain seems to keep pumping out thoughts. However, if you focus an attitude of gratitude through the heart, the brain quiets down. Try it and you'll see. The heart can control the brain when the brain can't control itself.

A finding of energy cardiology is that cells store info-energy as cellular memory. The heart regulates the use of the energy in these memories. Heart transplant recipients, for example, often have memories and personality tendencies belonging to their heart donors.

Pearsall suggests that energy cardiology provides a new basis for the mind-body connection. The heart may provide the link between subtle energy and physical effects. For example, as already mentioned, PK effects are greater when there is a heart connection. Similarly, when spiritual healing is approached as a mechanical exercise, the effect is not as strong as when there is a heart connection between healer and patient. Research at the Heart-Math Institute shows that the EKGs of the two parties involved become in synchrony, and the patient begins to resonate with the healer's info-energy. A similar effect had been shown in the past with brain waves, but now it appears that the underlying cause of the brain wave synchronization is the resonance of the heart connection.

Another tenet of energy cardiology is the spiritual dimension. The heart is associated with love and our connections with others. While the brain is satisfied being a hermit, the heart is a herd animal and profits from being able to resonate with other hearts. Pearsall makes a case that for a healthy heart it is more important who you eat with than what you eat. He even suggests that the heart may be the seat of telepathy, because heart waves have a non-local (aka "psychic") omnipresent existence perceptible by hearts everywhere, making "heart connections" a psychic reality.

My own research combining spiritual development work with psychic training has born out this conjecture. In our "Intuitive Heart" training, we find that when people make heart connections with one another, there is an intuitive, empathic understanding between the two. This intuitive empathy can be easily demonstrated via a simple form of giving a "psychic reading." One form of psychic reading involves heartfelt cellular memories described by Pearsall. Cayce suggested that the best advice we can give another is to speak from our own experience. In an Intuitive Heart reading, one person holds a question or concern secretly in the heart. The other person, acting as the helper, makes a heart connection with the seeker, and prays that a personal memory will come forward into the helper's mind that will prove helpful to the seeker. The helper then tells this memory, and explores the lesson suggested by this experience. People usually find that the memory and its lesson prove to be very relevant for the seeker. Pearsall would say that the seeker's question created info-energy that stimulated a counter-balancing memory dormant within the cells of the helper.


[link] [add a comment]

"When Morty Met John : John Cage, Morton Feldman and New York in the 1950's." Including Margaret Leng Tan performance of Cage's "Suite for Toy Piano" (1948) @ Carnagie Hall, reviewed by Tommasini for NYT


[link] [add a comment]

"I made this jar...."
-Dave


"Along the banks of the Savannah River, Native Americans some 4500 years ago discovered that fire could harden clay to a stone-like consistency. These unknown people mixed Spanish moss or palmetto fibers with the clay to make the earliest known pottery vessels in North America.

The Edgefield area is endowed with rich clay resources including massive deposits of kaolin, sands, feldspars, and pine trees, all necessary for making pottery.

The Old Edgefield District birthed a stoneware tradition based on Chinese technology using English traditional methods making vessels with African slave labor. This area has been dubbed the crossroads of clay because of this international mix.

Beginning shortly after 1800, the Landrum family started true pottery manufactories to supply the S.C. backcountry with necessary everyday utensils. Basically, kitchen and smokehouse utensils were made, but rarely were items made for the table.

This tradition grew to a height circa 1850 when, according to the U.S. census, five potteries employing 35 people produced over 100,000 gallons of pottery. Three out of the five factories were related to the Landrum family. Numerous factories operating over a period of time at a dozen sites produced a variety of wares, including molding wares.

The heart of the Edgefield stoneware tradition involved manufacture of ware using what is termed today "alkaline" glaze, believed to have been derived from information passed to the west by French Jesuit priests living in the orient in the early 18th century describing. Chinese methods for making porcelain. Edgefield potters took similar materials, basically feldspar, wood ashes, lime, and sand-grinding and blending it to make a crude celadon glaze. Most typically formed were storage jars from one-half to 30 gallons commonly used for pickling, sating meat, storing lard, etc. Also, jugs for holding vinegars, wines, and spirituous liquors, pitchers, pans, and bowls for the kitchen; plus pipes and marbles for the simple pleasure of life.

As competition increased, potters, around the early 1840's-began to slip decorate their wares using iron slips and kaolin-based white slips resulting in objects that are today avidly sought and esteemed by scholars and collectors as some of the best folk art in the south. The Edgefield tradition produced many jars and vessels in the swag and tassel design neoclassical inspired and adapted from moldings in Charleston town houses. More rarely, they depicted men on horseback, southern belles in hoop skirts, African-Americans toasting each other, chickens, snakes, crows, and pigs-everyday life around them. Beautifully illustrated in slip are the Rhodes Factory pieces with thistles and tulip designs.

Some of the most interesting and sought-after vessels are those by Dave Pottery-a literate slave trained to set type for Dr. Abner Landrum's Pottersville newspaper. Dave commonly signed and dated his ware, and less often wrote simple verseson his sometimes massive 20 and 30 gallon jars and jugs. Some speak of food, religion, shoes, lions, volcanoes, and money.

Also of African origin are pots termed "face vessels"--usually jugs, but sometimes cups, crocks, or pitchers with a face modeled into the object using white kaolin clay for eyes and teeth. These small objects are powerful expressions reminiscent of African sculpture.

The tradition declined about the time of the Civil War, but still continued to produced similar wares for the agrarian economy, with the tradition finally winding down in the 1930's with the production of flower pots. Edgefield proved a training ground for potters who moved with the westward expansion of America to Georgia, western North Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas. Potters that had actually worked in Edgefield wound up in Texas using traditional Edgefield technologies and making similar objects.

Time brought many changes. The death knell of many potters across the country came with the invention of the Mason screwtop jar in 1858. Combined with the move from the farm to the city, the breakup of the plantations, and the slave economy after the Civil War the tradition died in South Carolina."


[link] [3 comments]

Composer Xenakis dead @ 78

"Like other of his works, "Metastasis" and "Pithoprakta" were regulated by Poisson's Law of Large Numbers, which implies that the more numerous the phenomena, the more they tend toward a determinate end — as in flipping a coin. "I have tried to inject determinism into what we call chance," said Mr. Xenakis, who used the scientific word "stochastic" to give a name to this idea of probability in music."


[link] [add a comment]

......and he lived to tell the story.

I guess this is net kitch, hunh ?


[link] [1 comment]

Mugsy (Capt. Fork) from the old Uncle Floyd Show keeps the fire burning for Floyd Vivino, master humorist.


[link] [add a comment]

More Terry Riley links from the Cortical Foundation , interview and add' links @ qaswa, and some other links from music search


[link] [add a comment]

Terry Riley has been putting a bunch of new old stuff out lately. Latest I've heard was a late 60's piece commissioned for a disco. He puts mean loops and reverb on the soul 45 "Your no good" and it runs 20 min's or so.

Best of all is "Music for the Gift" where he puts the hurt on wild Chet Baker riffs / another piece on the same disc includes a radio narator talking over the entire begining of a live stage performance "...and we can see from here someone is placing objects on the strings of the piano, ......ping..plink...bling.bling...skrunk.... excuse me, I belive that the performance is already underway, so we return you now to the stage where........"

NYC text artist Kenneth Goldsmith also has a radio show on fmu where he features art as music and music as art (concrete poetry/music concrete, etc) here are his *avante* links and these are his playlists (archived for your listening pleasure / and yes, kenny loves Marianne Nowottny).


[link] [7 comments]

Turkey Motel Tour


[link] [add a comment]

from the grass-roots news desk :

Doug's Action Alert #1 UPDATE: Oppose John Ashcroft

There is a lot of good news to report. An unprecedented coalition of 20 progressive activist groups has banded together to lead the charge against Ashcroft's nomination. They include Alliance for Justice, Handgun Control, Human Rights Campaign, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, NARAL, NAACP, People for the American Way and the Sierra Club. They have set up a website HERE which contains all kinds of valuable information on Ashcroft's record and how to proceed with our grassroots effort. Additionally, the Million Mom March has set up a website HERE and People for the American Way has set up a website HERE which includes an on-line petition you can sign. I heartily recommend that you visit all these sites, take in as much info as you can, and then follow their action recommendations.

A new Newsweek poll taken this weekend found more Americans against Ashcroft's confirmation than for it, even though they generally support Bush's other nominees. See: Here for more details. This is exciting news because it shows we are not shouting in the dark. This issue has touched a nerve with a lot of people. Senator Barbara Boxer of California became the first U.S. Senator last week to announce that she would, indeed, oppose the Ashcroft nomination. And many other Democratic Senators are indicating they are leaning against him, including Joe Biden of Delaware and Charles Schumer of New York. Democrats had strong words against Ashcroft on the weekend talk shows like Face the Nation, indicating that they're tuning in to the American people's hostility to this right-wing extremist.

So, what's next? THIS WEEK IS THE BIG WEEK, my friends. Ashcroft's nomination proceedings start tomorrow. He is expected to make a long opening statement promising that he will faithfully uphold laws he formerly opposed. He has been receiving coaching all weekend long over at Bush-Cheney Transition Headquarters. Trent Lott and the right-wingers are turning up the heat by forming a coalition of right-wing activists IN FAVOR of Ashcroft, and they are just beginning their grass-roots effort. What does that mean? IT MEANS CALL, CALL, CALL! And sign the on-line petition at opposeashcroft.com. And, if you haven't sent out your handwritten letters yet, GET THEM OUT TONIGHT! All U.S. Senators' offices will be closely tracking the volume of mail, email and calls they receive both for and against Ashcroft this week. THE STRENGTH OF OUR GRASS-ROOTS EFFORT IS KEY to putting Senators on notice that we do not take this nomination lightly and we will not stand by while Bush tries to eradicate our civil and human rights with right-wing nominees. Write, email and call. This week, it's all a question of volume. The more times you call and the more people you can get to call, the better.

The Ashcroft nomination is shaping up to be the first real political battle of the Bush White House. The strength of our opposition will send a strong signal to Bush how much he can expect to get away with over these next four years. It is up to us to tell the Democrats and the Republicans that we expect them to hold true to Bush's promise of a non-partisan, non-divisive administration. It is up to us to tell the Democrats and the Republicans that the American people expect moderate nominees and that we will not accept radicals on the courts or in the Justice Department.

Finally, if you still have questions about the role of the U.S. Attorney General, I would like to suggest an article from MSN which describes just how important the position is: HERE

Please feel free to pass this message along to any of your friends if you think they might be interested. For those of you who would like to send me comments or questions, feel free to respond.

Sincerely,

DOUG HAXALL


[link] [1 comment]

Blue Note crowd sees the downside of James Brown.

Legendary soul man James Brown provided a New Year's Eve fireworks show of his own. His bizarre behavior stunned a highbrow crowd at the Blue Note jazz club with actions that included: an on-stage rant in a bathrobe; going into the crowd to confiscate a front-row showgoer's camcorder, angrily throwing a patron's chair ala Bobby Knight and saying he had been communicating with the pope. Dozens of showgoers, including a local TV reporter, were seen lining up for refunds during the show. "Never seen anything like it in my life," said one perturbed reveler who clearly did not share the spirit demonstrated by The Godfather of Soul in his signature hit "I Feel Good." Things started going badly early. Revelers were told to arrive at 6 p.m., but the doors didn't open until 7:15. At 9:15, Brown in a bathrobe was spotted engaging in a heated debate with management off to the side of the stage. A few minutes later, Brown was seen having words with two women at a table near the front of the stage. When the two women got up and left, Brown went to their table, tossed one chair and kicked the other. Then, with his arm, he swept everything off their table: beverage glasses, party favors, etc. At 10:15, he returned to the stage in his bathrobe, demanded management turn down the sound and told the crowd that they had probably noticed he was "pretty agitated because these people are trying to take advantage of me." He mentioned that he had been paid $30 million for the performance but that he had given back "all the money." When he eventually came on stage in a suit, he dressed down his drummer at one point, and raised more eyebrows when he said the pope had contacted him and said he -- the pope -- was no longer going to hold audiences with people because he couldn't attract the number of people "that James Brown could." Calls to the Blue Note's local and New York corporate offices for a response were not returned.

Wednesday, January 03, 2001 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal COLUMN: NORM!
[link] [4 comments]

"Music is far older than our species."


[link] [add a comment]

What is it about "form following function" that architect Frank Gehry doesn't get !? All those Titanium tiles used for Bilboa's external skin required silicon based fire-proofing ! Some got spilled, now it looks like hell. What an asshole and how defensive can you get ! It takes a design this problematic to fuck up a Titanium sheathing system ! Brings to mind the Statue of Liberty incident wherein restoration workers pee'd right on her shoulder and it wound up making an oxide statement Warhol could die for.


[link] [30 comments]

Czech Milan Hlansa founder of Plastic People of the Universe, dead from cancer @ 49

"Rock 'n' roll is the medium to express the situation of man in this world and the world to come,"

"We don't do the music just for the sake of the music. You must be the author of your own life."
-M.H.


[link] [add a comment]

The hair of one of Hungary's most popular pop stars has been stolen from the hospital where he died earlier this week, it has been reported. Jimmy Zambo, 42, known by his fans as the "King", died on Tuesday after accidentally shooting himself in the head at home with a pistol. Zambo's long hair was shaved off before surgeons could operate on his brain, although they failed to save him. The hair has now disappeared, the Hungarian daily newspaper Blikk said, quoting hospital officials. Singer of the year Zambo's fans have said they would pay large amounts of money for the star's hair.

According to police reports, Zambo fatally wounded himself in the head at his home in Budapest in the early hours of the morning. He had fired his 9mm Beretta out of a window but failed to realise a bullet was still in the chamber when pulling the trigger a second time. Zambo was voted Hungary's singer of the year in 1993 and had won awards for the best record of the year on several occasions. His 2000 album Christmas With Jimmy has been Hungary's top-selling record for many weeks. Platinum Since March 2000, Zambo had also hosted his own popular show on commercial TV station RTL-Klub. "He was one of the most professional showmen with whom it was always a pleasure to work," commented Imre Szabo Stein, RTL-Klub's director of communications. The singer, whose real first name was Imre, had won the hearts of many Hungarians since coming to prominence. He started his singing career in the State Radio Children's Choir. >From 1982-86 he moved to the US to try his luck on the club circuit before returning to Hungary. All his albums since have gone platinum. Zambo is survived by his wife and three sons.


[link] [add a comment]

Here lies Dick Shawn .

flic vids

flic factoids


[link] [1 comment]