900,000 New Yorkers Lost at Least 3 Loved Ones to Covid | The New York Times
Nearly one in four New Yorkers lost at least one person close to them, according to a newly released survey. The toll was even higher among people of color.
Abdul Wadud’s Cosmic Cello Music Gets Another Moment in the Sun | The New York Times
For decades, By Myself, the cellist’s defining statement made in 1977, was out of print. Before his 2022 death, he finalized plans for its first-ever re-pressing.
The Greatest Independent Films of the Twentieth Century | The New Yorker
If Hollywood is identifiable by its exclusions, independent filmmaking offered the chance for a crucial corrective—a realm for female filmmakers, Black filmmakers, and others who, by dint of their identity or their ideas, had no place in the mainstream.
Glass with Pear
Or maybe it’s an apple? Either way, it was left on the street in the rain.
Irreversible Entanglements, ‘Nuclear War’ | NPR
“If they push that button,” declares Moor Mother, with a grounding menace, “Your ass gotta go.” There’s little trace of the festive absurdity that Sun Ra brought to that line, which suggested a party at the edge of apocalypse. But just as the threat of nuclear deployment has screamed back to relevance, Irreversible Entanglements gives “Nuclear War” a heavy-gauge upgrade — shape-shifting in and out of a groove, but always rooted in the terrifying hypothetical at hand. Bringing Sun Ra’s tune back into our orbit, the band creates a mutually assured apprehension.
Bill Orcutt Guitar Quartet: Tiny Desk Concert
Orcutt brought along a who’s who of forward-thinking guitarists to perform these rowdy, giddy and shreddy pieces: Wendy Eisenberg, Ava Mendoza and Shane Parish, who transcribed the original recordings. From a frenzied hoedown (“Or from behind”) and feedback-humming drone-pop (“In the rain”) to something resembling Henry Cow playing Norwegian black metal (“In profile”) and paradoxically Brutalist complexity (“Or head on”), each song is a short burst of finger-flicked frenzy
Users can search by title, opus number, composer, conductor, orchestra, ensemble, instrument, period and soloist, among other parameters. Like a GPS for classical music, the app allows for highly detailed, deliberate searches, but its 50 million data points also facilitate easy discovery and a delightful sense of serendipity. A themed playlist from Khatia Buniatishvili will lead you in one direction; a “Track by Track” walk-through by pianist Víkingur Ólafsson through his album “Mozart & Contemporaries” will lead you in another.
Happy 100th Birthday, 16-Millimeter Film | The New York Times
[T]oday, as high-definition media saturate our lives, some directors choose 16 millimeter precisely for its rougher look. It reminds us that what we’re watching is not the world as is, but filtered and transformed, with great creativity, through a chemical process.