I got that tip off my G-chat list and hunted down UK funky, a style of electronic dance music that incorporates broken beats and afro beats, according to Wiki. So, house music with a darker African bent due to percussions such as drums, bongos and tambourines.
In 2007, ravers in Aiya Napa came together and to entertain, the DJ mixed London grime (grimey basslines) with funky house, with Coki and Benga’s “Night” being the number one track. Whistle-able tune.
For a lot more, a good aggregation in The Daily Swarm. Wonder if any events in New York.
On July 4, 1983, Linda Montano and Tehching Hsieh shaved their heads. Then, they took a 8-foot long rope, wrapped it around their waists–one at each end–added a padlock, and so begain their Life/Art Experiment.
83
STATEMENT
We, LINDA MONTANO and TEHCHING HSIEH, plan to do a one year performance.
We will stay together for one year and never be alone. We will be in the same room at the same time, when we are inside. We will be tied together at the waist with an 8 foot rope. We will never touch each other during the year.
The performance will begin on July 4, 1983, at 6 p.m., and continue until July 4, 1984, at 6 p. m.
—Linda Montano
—Tehching Hsieh
I came across some of the truly remarkable photographs from their year together in a book of Hsieh’s work. Perhaps it was the sepia-washed tones, or the running shorts from the 80’s, or maybe it was a voyeuristic pleasure derived from watching two humans tied together at the most private of moments, but these photos revealed something about human nature that I cannot quite put my finger on.
I believe the book is now at The Strand bookstore for sale if anyone’s interested, and the Guggenheim and MoMA are running exhibits.
An interview with the artists at the Reading Room; an amazing slideshow of Hsieh’s work at the New York Times; a nice article at NYT.
Rooftop above New Design High, Chinatown (photo courtesy of The Rooftop Films)
The best venue to see underground movies: outdoors. I climbed up 13 flights of very steep stairs, and arrived slightly out of breath at The Rooftop Films latest screening of short films, entitled “New York Nonfiction.” The rooftop was bathed in dark and the muted yellow light of streetlamps. I walked past crowded metal chairs, climbed over people lying/sitting on the hard cement, and grabbed floor space near the front. A massive projector screen created silhouettes of bodies with many entwined arms and legs , like a shadow of a Hindu god.
The offerings last night were stories shot in New York, about New Yorkers. And so, in this city of immigrants, it was vicariously a screening about different cultures and countries. Read about them here.
My favorites: Lessons from a Tailor, where the photography stills were breathtaking and the wisdom of the main character, Martin Greenfield, stood out.
Unattached, about Jewish “singles catastrophe” in the Upper West Side was hilarious, as the elders rued the inability of the younger generation to marry at a young age. The final sequence of a Jewish marriage was poignant, it showed the details without revealing the bigger picture–the groom adjusting a white satin tie, the shadow of the bride entering the marriage hall from behind, while the groom watches far off, and especially, the young woman who waves at the happy dancing couple and leaves, alone, unattached.
Bronx Princess, about 17-year-old Rocky who comes to terms with her adulthood as she tries to navigate between her Ghanian roots and her American ideas of independence. Her mother stole the show. It was a simple story that required great craft to hold our emotional interest. And it did, for when the mother broke down after leaving Rocky in college, so did I.
The after party was passable.
Next Saturday’s offering, New Muslim Cool, about Puerto Rican American rapper Hamza Pérez who has started a new religious community in Pittsburgh’s North Side, sounds promising.
Thursday, April 02, 2009 NEW YORK — Bill Etra’s heart was racing, but he was on too many painkillers because of a spinal injury to know the difference.
But Tarzel, his 8-year-old ferret, could sense something was wrong. He ran round and round the room, panicking and chortling shrilly.
When Etra saw the ferret, he realized that all was not well. He called his wife, who took his pulse: It was 140 beats per minute. They called the ambulance.
“Tarzel has saved my life three times,” said Etra. “My wife says four. His constant humor keeps me from depression.”
To some, ferrets are smelly, dangerous pets that that have been banned in California and Hawaii, and many cities, including New York, Minneapolis and Dallas. To Etra and others, they are indispensable companions, often with medical benefits.
This has led to pockets of resistance in these cities, where some owners willingly break the law for their pets.
Designer Younghui Kim sits with her Hearwear bag (designed by Kim and Milena Berry) which lights up in response to Manhattan's noise levels. Photo courtesy Younghui Kim.
Younghui Kim, 38, floated in the dark waters of Bio Bay in Fajardo, Puerto Rico. Tiny flashes of light went off around her, as tiny water creatures called dinoflagelletes lit up at the slightest friction, like stars on water.
“It was a very peaceful moment,” said Kim. “And I thought, ‘Ah, I’d like to make a skirt that lights like just like this Bio Bay.”
And she did.
Her Stir-It-On skirt, the latest piece in her interactive wearable collection, is made up of layers of deep blue fabric. Within its folds, light-emitting diodes light up with the gentlest of touches detected through a sensor.
Kim laughed as she thought of wearing it on the New York subway.
“It’ll be like Bio Bay,” she said. “People will bump into each other and light up. Sometimes I think about these things and smile because I can see it in my head.”
From Annie Jia’s blog:
My law professor, a veteran first amendment scholar in his 60’s with gray hair and a square face, cried in class yesterday as he read aloud a passage from a Wednesday New York Times article about one black voter on election day.
For those like Miss Harris who withstood jailings and beatings and threats to their livelihoods, all because they wanted to vote, the short drive to the polls on Tuesday culminated a lifelong journey from a time that is at once unrecognizable and eerily familiar here in southwest Georgia. As they exited the voting booths, some in wheelchairs, others with canes, these foot soldiers of the civil rights movement could not suppress either their jubilation or their astonishment at having voted for a African-American for president of the United States.
“They didn’t give us our mule and our acre, but things are better,” Miss Harris, 67, said with a gratified smile. “It’s time to reap some of the harvest.” READ MORE
"Go for broke. Always try and do too much. Dispense with safety nets. Take a deep breath before you begin talking. Aim for the stars. Keep grinning. Be bloody-minded. Argue with the world. And never forget that writing is as close as we get to keeping a hold on the thousand and one things--childhood, certainties, cities, doubts, dreams, instants, phrases, parents, loves--that go on slipping , like sand, through our fingers."
Salman Rushdie
