Saturday, July 04, 2009

Conference of the Birds podcast


Check out Stephen Cope's cool podcast here, Conference of the Birds. The generic range and cross-pollination of the podcast is pretty incredible as you can probably tell from the playlist below:

Playlist, Conference of the Birds, 6-23-09 (pre podcast)
Host: Stephen Cope

Key: Artist/ Title/ Album/ Label Location: Label, Date.

HOUR ONE:

Set One:

Pierre Akendengue/ Salut Aux Combattants De La Liberte/Akendengue - Reveil De L'Afrique/
Gabon/France: NTYE/Melodie, 1995.

Jacques Coursil /Frantz Fanon 1952/Clameurs/ USA: Sunnyside, 2007.

Matébis/ Acid/Matébis/ France: Iris Musique, 1999.


Set Two:

Neville Marcano/ Yaraba Shang/ Shango, Shouter & Obeah: Supernatural Calypso from Trinidad
1934-1940/ USA: Rounder, 2001.

Orchestre Poly-Rythmo De Cotonou/ Nouèssénamè/ Volume ONE "The Vodoun Effect" - Funk
And Sato From Benin's Obscure Labels 1972-1975/ Germany: Analog Africa, 2008.

Balla Et Ses Balladins /Bi Diamana Moo/ The Syliphone Years: 1968-1972/UK/Brazil: Stern's
Africa, 2008.

Les Amazones de Guinée/ Alhamdoulilah/ "Wamato"/ UK/Brazil: Stern's Africa, 2008.

Kwabena Nyama / Okunin Nusu/ Ghana: Musique Vin de Palme/ France: Buda Musique, 2000.

F. Kenya's Guitar Band / Madame Zehae Ala (Just As I Am)/ Electric Highlife: Sessions From The
Bokoor Studios/ Canada/USA: HNH International/ Naxos , 2002.

William Parker/ El Puenteseco/ Long Hidden: The Olmec Series/ USA: Aum Fidelity, 2006.

Myra Melford; Be Bread/ Be Bread/ The Image of Your Body/ USA: Cryptogramophone, 2006.


HOUR TWO:

Set Three:

Craig Harris & the Nation of Imagination/ Dreamtime/ Istanbul/ Turkey: Doublemoon, 1998.

Orchestra Di Piazza Vittorio / Ya Baba Maragia/ Orchestra Di Piazza Vittorio/ Germany: Ausfahrt
MV Gmbh, 2006.

Fawzy Al-Aiedy / Layali/ Le Paris Bagdad/ France: Buda Musique, 1998.

Malouma / Lemra/ Nour/ France: Marabi, 2007.

Youssou N'Dour / Baay Niasse/ Egypt/ USA: Nonesuch, 2004.


Set Four:

Bahauddin Qutbuddin Qawwal & Party/ Khyal Ang Qawwali/ Troubadours Of Allah-Sufi Music
from the Indus Valley/ Germany: Wergo, 1999.

Abdel Hadi Halo & The El Gusto Orchestra Of Algiers / Win Saadi/ Abdel Hadi Halo & The El
Gusto Orchestra Of Algiers/ England: Honest Jon's, 2007.

Dahmane El Harrachi/ Elli Mab'gha Yebghini/ Chaabi: Volume 5/ France: Club du Disque Arabe,
2002.


HOUR THREE:

Set Five:

Billy Bang / Ly Ngua O/ Vietnam: reflections/ Canada: Justin Time, 2005.

I Wayan Sadra/ Stay a Maverick / Mana 689: New Music from Indonesia Volume 2: Central Java/
USA: Lyrichord, 1993.

Euis Komariah & Jugala Orchestra/ Bardin/ Jaipongan Java/ Indonesia/UK: Jugala/Globestyle,
1990.

Steve Coleman and Five Elements/ Li Bai, Astrology II, Triad Mutations I/ Weaving Symbolics/
France: Label Bleu, 2006.


Set Six:

Kang Jongsuk & Chang Dokhwa/ Pansori "Simch'ong-Ga" / Traditional Korean Music: Sanjo And
Vocal Music/ Japan: King Record Co., 1995.

Putra Sasak Asli (Cilokaq Modera Pusaka Group)/ Idik Gamak Inak/ Cilokaq Music Of Lombok/
Japan: King Record Co., 1994.

Francis Wong / Autumn Moon Reflected On The Peaceful Lake/ Great Wall/ USA: Asian Improv,
1993.

Equal Interest/ Rondo For Jenny / Equal Interest/ USA: OmniTone, 1999.


End of Playlist

Thursday, July 02, 2009

Peace On A at PennSound


Some recordings of Peace on A events are now up at PennSound. These include Dan Featherston, Eleni Stecopoulos, Dorothea Lasky, Kevin Varrone, and a big group reading for O Books' War and Peace vol. 3, "The Future," which includes CAConrad, Michael Cross, Paolo Javier, Brenda Iijima, Rodrigo Toscano, Bruce Andrews, Evelyn Reilly, Susan Landers, and myself. Thanks again to Michael Hennessey and interns for their invaluable effort!

Wednesday, July 01, 2009

from Externalities

Chemicals syllogistics
We recrudesce around

Any place but here
In the air they call there

When they breathe it in
Their lungs then it becomes

Something more than shared
A private public the more

We bear this logistics out
The more clear it becomes

No one is safe from not
Having the most inter-

Connected view possible
Of when we contract.

Going Places (Doing Stuff) at Flux Factory


Flux Factory Presents:

Going Places (Doing Stuff) Part II, "Best Summer Ever" Edition

Sign up now for the first three tours! Seating is limited. Email rsvp@fluxfactory.org with your name, phone number, and the tour you are interested in.

July 11
Yoni Brook and Liz Barry, "Unheard of"

July 18
Jason Eppink and Matt Green, "Quest for Immortality"

July 25
Moses Gates, "To the Rising Sun"

You get on a bus, you don’t know where you’re going, and then something happens!

Following the success of last summer’s acclaimed “Going Places (Doing Stuff),” Flux Factory will outdo itself and offer even more amazing artist-led tours to the general public. Think of it as "adventure as performance art." The content of the tours is entirely up to the artist, and destinations are kept secret. Artists will have "carte blanche" to lead a bus-full of people on an odyssey around the greater New York/Tri-State area.

This year our tours will be on board a school bus propelled by vegetable oil provided by the Rude Mechanical Orchestra.

Before each tour, we provide only the following information: the artists' name, title of adventure, duration, and a list of needed supplies. In other words, when people sign up for a tour, they know what to bring and how long they’ll be gone, but will have no idea where they’re going or what they’ll experience. Last year's adventures included upstate swimming holes, a trip to a burning city known as "hell on earth," a gastronomic tour through NYC, and a chase after an imaginary character.

There is always mystery in traveling, even if you know where you are headed. Going Places (Doing Stuff) is all about this mystery, asking members of the public to give themselves over to our artists. The excitement of simply stepping on a bus to who-knows-where becomes a metaphor a nd catalyst for the leap of faith inherent to aesthetic experience in general.

Things that may or may not occur:

-Partial or total immersion in various bodies of water
-Impromptu back-of-the-bus dance parties
-Mesmerizing encounters with astonishing and unexpected fleeting beauty that will vanish before you can grasp it, leaving you with indescribable feelings of Baudelairian melancholy and enlightenment
-Naps
-Miscellaneous imbibitions
-Roaring
-Life-affirming encounters with extraordinary individuals and their extraordinary pursuits
-Breaking of world records
-And much more!


All tours will be first-come, first-serve with a suggested donation.

Curated by Jean Barberis.

Participating Artists:
Yoni Brook and Liz Barry, Jason Eppink and Matt Green, Moses Gates, Siobhan Rigg and Carolyn Lambert, Douglas Paulson, Justin Rancourt and Chuck Yatsuk, Jeff Stark, and David Felix Sutcliffe.

Dates an d contents of tours are subject to change.

For documentation of past tours please visit:

http://www.fluxfactory.org/going-places-doing-stuff/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTH-UsiiOQo
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/11/arts/11wspare.html?ex=1373515200&en=5ddc117d0609ba4c&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
http://actiondirection.blogspot.com/2008/09/lost-in-hudson-river-vol-74-bannermans.htmlhttp://actiondirection.blogspot.com/2008/07/lost-in-history-vol-70-all-boro-bonanza.htmlhttp://actiondirection.blogspot.com/2008/07/lost-in-history-vol-67-new-yorkers-go.html

State of Exception Checklist

1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy.
2. Create secret prisons where torture takes place.
3. Develop a thug caste or paramilitary force not answerable to citizens.
4. Set up an internal surveillance system.
5. Harass citizens' groups.
6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release.
7. Target key individuals.
8. Control the press.
9. Treat all political dissidents as traitors.
10. Suspend the rule of law.*

*from Naomi Wolf's The End of America

For Simone and Etel

I.
What if Charles Olson
Had gotten that Fulbright
To travel to Iraq would
We be sitting here right

Now before a revolution
After a war would the sun
Be late in the afternoon
Like some angel of no

One’s culture wishing
Things were different
This world we can see
Everyday with our eyes

Not a subtle one just the
Familiar stench of wealth
In Manhattan's Upper
West Side in contrast

It is so subtle to be
With you in conversation
Admire the bright ivy
Covering the back

Edifice of your apart-
ment building the Persian
Rugs and the books
Missing from your

Bookcases as if you
Were barely moved in
More likely in transit
The simplicity of

Your kitchen the fruit
On your table cherries
And red grapes a warm
Aesthetic of Sufism.

II.
“Such distances are short”
--Etel Adnan

Like the progress one makes
From sign-to-sign site-to-site
Since now we must be earth-bound

We can imagine other ages
Aeons when this isn’t so when
There is here where I is you

And this horizon is continually
Thin always waking smelling sweet
Becoming smells sweeter being

With you there is recourse to
Sensuality a kind of thinking or
Nonsense because the sun says so.

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Goo Gone (at CUP)



GOO GONE
Risk, Responsibility, and Toxins in the Landscape
Tuesday, July 7, 2009, 7–9 pm
The Old American Can Factory (In the courtyard, weather permitting)
232 Third St at Third Ave
Gowanus, Brooklyn
Free and open to the public, RSVP to info@anothercupdevelopment.org
Refreshments provided!

CUP's office is now located in a potential SUPERFUND SITE. Superfund is a federal program that investigates and cleans up the most complex uncontrolled or abandoned hazardous waste sites in the country. There are over 1,331 final and proposed sites on the National Priorities List (NPL), and thousands more wait for approval. Earlier this year, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed adding the Gowanus Canal to this list.

Please join the Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP), and Urban Omnibus for a different kind of Superfund discussion. Artist Brooke Singer, advocate Anne Rabe, and historian Sarah Vogel will discuss the history of the Superfund program, the politics of designation, and the changing legal definitions of toxins, risk, and responsibility. Local experts will also give updates on the status of the Gowanus’ designation.

Anne Rabe is the BE SAFE campaign coordinator for the Center for Health, Environment, and Justice. Anne has 25 years of organizing experience on environmental and social justice issues. From 1990 to 2003, she was director and co-founder of Citizens' Environmental Coalition, a statewide grassroots organization in New York State helping communities harmed by toxic pollution and organizing campaigns on State Superfund, radioactive waste disposal, Kodak's dioxin pollution, and other issues. She has received eight state and national awards for her work.


Brooke Singer is a media artist who lives in New York City. Her work blurs the borders between science, technology, politics, and arts practices. She works across media to provide entry into important social issues that are often characterized as specialized or opaque to the general public. She is currently Assistant Professor of New Media at Purchase College, State University of New York, and co-founder of the art, technology, and activist group Preemptive Media. She recently created Superfund365, an online data visualization and communication tool that highlights 365 of the worst toxic sites across the U.S.:
http://www.superfund365.org/

Sarah Vogel is currently the Program Officer for the Environmental Health program at the Johnson Family Foundation. She received her PhD from Columbia University’s Department of Sociomedical Sciences. Her dissertation, The Politics of Plastics: The Molecular Biography of Bisphenol A, tells the history of the science and politics of this chemical, used in plastics production since the 1950s, known to have estrogen-like properties, and now found in the vast majority of American bodies. Her research and writing considers the question of how we all became a little plastic and the changing meaning of chemical risks and safety over time.

Monday, June 29, 2009

Perplexed Bear


Dottie's photo from a dinner plate last night is begging for a poem about it.