Celebrating Community
The surprising thing about New York black metal band Liturgy in 2020 isn’t frontperson Hunter Hunt-Hendrix coming out as transgender. It might be interesting. It no doubt informs her obscure-anyway songwriting. And she’s to be commended for the forthright and thoughtful coming out video she posted to her YouTube channel in August. But it’s not the most exciting thing about […]
The Argentinian band Reynols wasn’t widely known even before they disappeared for some 17 years. They just don’t do the kind of music that gets a band known. That might change with the release of the new Gona Rubian Ranesa, arguably the most musical album they’ve put out, but really it won’t. Which is a shame, because Reynols represent everything […]
Negativland has been successfully prophesying doom for 40 years now, their secret all along being using society’s words against itself. Pioneers in sampling and culture jamming, the outfit is perhaps most notorious for a petty, prolonged and hilarious copyright battle with U2, but they’ve had a longer, more varied and for more subversive career than simply lambasting Ireland’s most famously […]
What a year. Like a lot of eras, 2020 doesn’t fit easily into pre-defined calendar definitions. Did the 19th century end in in 1900 or 1914? Did the World Wars end in 1945 or 1989? The 20th century certainly came to a close on September 11, 2001, or was that just America? And 2020 probably began with the first Democratic […]
Europe’s reaction to the autumnal second Covid wave has been different nation by nation, revealing the priorities and the weaknesses of each country. Today the most discussed field where these differences break out is about keeping or not schools open. Countries like Scandinavian nations, Ireland,UK, Germany or France have decided not to shut down classrooms, even if cases have increased […]
I first met Roman Perez through a mutual friend, Juan Carlos Pinto, a local Brooklyn artist. Juan Carlos invited me to the blessing ceremony of a mural he made in Newkirk Plaza. The mural decorates the inside of a tunnel connecting Newkirk Plaza to a pedestrian street. “Come to my showing of the mural. And I want to introduce you […]
The grasslands, hills, and prairies of Staten Island’s Freshkills Park project seems like something out of The Sound of Music, or a Midwestern nature landscape. While New York City may not be synonymous with nature, this lesser-known development could put a dent in that perception. Freshkills is developing into the largest park in New York City, even bigger than Central […]