Abbie Conant won an audition for first trombone in the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra. But the conductor, Sergiu Celibidache, preferred a man upfront and demoted her. Conant speaks about coping with that as she looks back at her tenacious struggle for justice. Conant’s husband, the composer William Osborne was instrumental in a feminist campaign against sexism at the Vienna Philharmonic. As he said at the time, “If it were just the Vienna Philharmonic, the whole issue would be much too parochial to bother with. The real issue is that women are not treated fairly …”
These Many Years Later, Algren for Real
For the first time, yesterday, I saw the DVD cover art of “The End Is Nothing the Road Is All,” a 2015 documentary. I was poking around on my laptop when I came across it by accident. Except for the fact that it showed up on Facebutt, which I try to avoid, it was a nice surprise.
Imagine That!
A Swiss Counterweight to Conformism
UPDATED with videos of the performance. In the heart of St. Gallen, a town not far from Zurich, where Dada began, there is a haven for the outlandish and the curiously extravagant. It is a place for the exchange of ideas and information, passionate discussion, chamber music, and for poetry. The American poet Louise Landes Levi, who is based in Japan, performed there on Tuesday, June 7.
A Uranium Jubilee for the Queen of the Arms Trade
How Queen Elizabeth II profits. Text by Heathcote Williams. Editing and narration by Alan Cox.
Annette Gordon-Reed on the Art of Biography
The distiguished historian is slated to give this year’s Annual Leon Levy Biography Lecture on Wednesday (May 4 at 6 p.m. ET), in a free, online presentation open to the public. Her investigative, multigenerational biography “The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family” won both the 2008 Pulitzer Prize in History and the National Book Award.
Ben Vautier: ‘What to Do?’
The noted Nice-based Fluxus writer and artist Ben Vautier sends out a message, regularly by email, to friends and others. But the one that came the other day was unusual. Rather than simply conveying news of cultural and artistic events that personally interest him, it was something of a ‘cris de coeur.’
Hard Landing Ahead
Lawrence Summers on Inflation and Recession
Lawrence Summers on Inflation and Recession
Summers is the Charles W. Eliot University Professor at the Harvard Kennedy School and is President Emeritus of Harvard University. He is also a former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury. Summers is interviewed by Stephanie Flanders, Senior Executive Editor and Head of Bloomberg Economics, Bloomberg.
The Phenomenon Called AOC
“How did Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, an unknown bartender and activist, become the youngest woman to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives and one of its most talked-about figures? And what is her possible future?” Those are the two biggest questions to be posed to Lisa Miller, Rebecca Traister, and Michael Kazin at the Leon Levy Center for Biography.
Craig Unger: On Trump, Putin, and the GOP
This interview looks at a huge can of worms poisoning American democracy.
He notes that Trump was identified as a potential KGB asset in the Cold War days, details a lavish junket held for powerful former GOP Congressman Tom DeLay, and talks about more than 250 million dollars that poured “without even breaking a sweat” into super-PACs aligned with Russian interests.
Zelensky Thanks Russian Anti-War Protesters
… especially this one: Marina Ovsyannikova, who held up an anti-war sign on Russia’s main TV news broadcast. She was reported missing but has now appeared in court.
Until There Is No Dream to Dream
This is balm for dreamers.
Vlad the Impaler
‘You’re occupiers. You are fascists. Why the fuck did you come here with your guns?’ Ukrainian woman confronting Russian soldiers in Henichesk, in southern Ukraine. ‘Take these seeds and put them in your pocket so, at least, sunflowers will grow on your graves.’ (Translated by Alex Abramovich)
‘Bells ring / silently the evening / rolls in its void’ — Paul Celan
Let’s All Say Goodbye to Spotify
The music-streaming service claims that “listening is everything.” But it’s tone deaf. And many agree. As do we.
News as Muse
David Erdos: ‘A Penis for Christmas’
In the grand tradition of Heathcote Williams’s verse polemics, the poet David Erdos rounds on British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the latest scandal of his corrupt administration.
William Burroughs Reminds Us
‘The Rulers of This Most Insecure of All Worlds Are Rulers By Accident, Inept Frightened Pilots’
‘Not one-man rule or rule of aristocracy or plutocracy but a small group elevated to positions of power by random pressures and subject to political and economic factors that leave little room for decisions. They are representatives of abstract forces that reach power through surrender of self.’
‘A Low-Rent Shangri-La Beyond Borders’
‘As the steep streets bow to the river,
I have been falling through holes
for some months seeking a new underworld …’ — David Erdos
Mustill Artworks Newly Archived at Emory University
Norman Ogue Mustill (1931-2013) was an American artist, who primarily used collage as his medium. He was born in Montreal, Canada and was educated at the Montreal Museum of Art and Ecole Des Beaux Artes. During the 1950s, Mustill lived in New York (New York), Los Angeles (California), and Mexico City (Mexico). He moved to San Francisco (California) in 1960, which led to collaboration with filmmakers, painters, and poets of the beat generation. Mustill was not interested in being a public figure and avoided the art world. He adopted the middle name “Ogue,” which he took from the fashion magazine Vogue to protest the fashionable.” — Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library