Music Review / Fred Roberts
The Hoodoo Two’s newest EP Werewolff opens with “No Service,” conjuring images of a back country church in the swamplands (it’s that kind of service). The title track “Werewolff” captures the astonishment of a man whose lady turns into a werewolf: “Baby, you look strange tonight in the moonlight” − it can’t end well.
L’arte assume Roma
A couple of months ago we received an e-mail with links to a two-part documentary by Gwen Stacy on street art in Rome, Italy. The short films came from David Capone of Dioniso Punk. It’s a good thing a few of the artists featured in the films speak English, because I would have been lost in translation from the Italian — except for the art, which speaks to the eye, not the ear. Spectacular. We’ve got great wall art in New York, and other places in the States, but the walls of Rome and its socio-political-artistic histories provide a different influence, as seen in these urban canvases. I asked David if he would elaborate a bit on the details of their work…
EuroSound Reviews/Fred Roberts
This set of reviews highlights some European releases of the last months. Maia Vidal is back with her long-awaited third album You’re the Waves. Schnipo Schranke celebrate their triumphant debut with Satt, following months of viral airplay of Pisse (Piss). Sündenrausch debut with a sizzling set of songs focusing on lust: Sündstoff. Last but not least, the Eurnovision compilation delivers a knockout punch to its mainstream counterpart.
Treasures of Thomas Merton/Staff Report
What Smelcer discovered was the most significant “treasure trove” of Mertonalia in history. While numerous archives hold letters, notes, book drafts, etc., almost nothing personal of Merton’s was known to exist. Merton was, after all, a Trappist monk, and therefore poor of earthly possessions by choice. The trove included all the clothing Merton is wearing in photographs from the last years of his life: photos of him in his white monk’s habit and black hooded cowl; photos of him in his iconic denim jacket, jeans, and sailor cap. Everything. The collection included such sacred objects as his rosary and his personal Psalter (Latin hymn book for Gregorian chant). It also included notes, photos, letters, and audiotapes of him talking.
Zanele Muholi / Photographer Interview
It’s time that we see ourselves positively and also in a manner that makes us feel whole and safe and sensible. Those voices connect and keep you going because you know that you are not alone. Before being lovers we come from families. We are born by men and women and I think that these are the documents that are lacking in the mainstream archive right now…
Renée E. D’Aoust/Creative Nonfiction
Mom’s current oncologist says, and I paraphrase: “I’m sorry for what we had to do to you in 1977 to treat breast cancer. We were very aggressive. And I’m sorry that the radiation you received as an infant probably caused cancer.”
Chelsea Horne/Desperate Times in Argentina
Crime does not discriminate. Even in Recoleta, Buenos Aires, one of the wealthiest, safest neighborhoods, citizens are robbed. Efrain, a long-time resident of the area, told a story about how one elderly woman was robbed, at her very doorstep. Twice in one month.
Fred Skolnik / A Freudian Analysis
When it comes to dreams, I am a Freudian. Ten thousand hours of “scientific” experiments on sleeping volunteers to tell us in which part of the night we dream most intensely is just not good enough; and while I am not too keen on psychoanalysis as a therapeutic method (leaning in the direction of existential analysis), I am convinced that Freud described the dream process correctly…
We Are You Project @ Kean Univ.
A AA AAA The We Are Your Project: AAA "An Exhibition on Social Justice & Immigration" ean University's The Human Rights Institute presents The We Are You Project, a comprehensive...
An Interview with Maggie Hopp \ Photographer
In the late 1970s, in NYC, I was fortunate to find a patron and mentor in a far-sighted, deep-pocketed, gentlemanly, low-key, developer – a major player and master of NYC real estate who understood where progress would naturally take place, though he also had a preservationist’s eye. It was he who insisted I take classes and sponsored me for a real estate brokerage license…
LOCAL HEROES, 2015, Hamburg
Axid Rain was my highlight of the 4th semi-final night. They call their genre flatrock, which I attempted to google but finally gave up. They’re a hard rock band, in the classic vein of MTV or Huey Lewis and the News, with a fantastic live show. Frontman Yannick Mense, in his leather hat and seaman’s jacket was all over the stage. Pure charisma and wild guitar riffs. All in all an electrifying performance.
Blood Sport/Steve Bromberg
The smell of death lingers on the savannah. Big Game hunting is a sight to behold. It’s the ultimate expression of the hunter’s feelings of alienation and inadequacy and his frustration with interpersonal relationships. Now, with the discovery of the illegal killing of Zimbabwe’s beloved lion Cecil, “sport” killing has become a searing hot topic.
Field Notes from Cuba/Jim Palombo
In this edition, our Politics Editor Jim Palombo presents his provocative and timely observations following a month-long stay in Cuba.
On Location / Liverpool
This Year’s Liverpool International
Photography Festival Exchange
May Be Biggest Yet
CUBA/Politics-Interview
Following American President Barack Obama’s announcement of the historic agreement to normalize relations with Cuba there has been a considerable amount of speculation as to what happens next, and how normalization will take place between these two neighbors that have been estranged for more than 50 years…
Post WWII Photography in Japan
The atrocities of the war and the massive physical destruction of the country led photographers to adopt a direct approach and to focus on bearing witness and documenting what they saw around them.
Felix Kubin/Music
In October 2014 Finders Keepers Records released a compilation of music from the home recording scene of the early 1980s in Germany. This important collection documents the mood of those times, as well as representing the primeval ooze out of which the...
True Tales of a Fictitious Spy/Excerpt
After all, everyone knows that in the murky, topsy-turvy world of espionage nothing is what it appears to be; what appears to be an ordinary stray visitor to a layman may indeed be a high-ranking intelligence officer.