Quote Of The Week

"All this is far from being life as I feel it, as I see it, as I know it, as I wish to know it."

Goodnight To The Kid

Gary Carter

Rest In Peace

Vintage Wounds

Read: Wounded City (1981)

Quote Of The Week

"If you end up with a boring miserable life because you listened to your mom, your dad, your teacher, your priest, or some guy on television telling you how to do your shit, then you deserve it."

Brooklyn ♥ Ramones

Photograph by Lee Greenfeld © 2012

A Gallery Of Cool, Take Ten

Anna Karina

Christopher Hitchens

Keith Richards, James Brown, and John Belushi

Gregg Ginn (with Black Flag)

The Specials

Steampacket

Angelic Upstarts

Jesse Hector (with The Hammersmith Gorillas)

Dig: Previous Gallery Of Cool

The Design Of Dissent

"Let it be told to the future world, that in the depth

of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive,

that the city and the country, alarmed at one common

danger, came forth to meet and to repulse it."

Poster by Milton Glaser

Quote Of The Week

"For the perfect idler, for the passionate observer it becomes an immense source of enjoyment to establish his dwelling in the throng, in the ebb and flow, the bustle, the fleeting and the infinite. To be away from home and yet to feel at home anywhere; to see the world, to be at the very center of the world, and yet to be unseen of the world, such are some of the minor pleasures of those independent, intense and impartial spirits, who do not lend themselves easily to linguistic definitions. The observer is a prince enjoying his incognito wherever he goes. "

Ennui

Tea leaves thwart those who court catastrophe,

designing futures where nothing will occur:

cross the gypsy’s palm and yawning she

will still predict no perils left to conquer.

Jeopardy is jejune now: naïve knight

finds ogres out-of-date and dragons unheard

of, while blasé princesses indict

tilts at terror as downright absurd.

The beast in Jamesian grove will never jump,

compelling hero’s dull career to crisis;

and when insouciant angels play God’s trump,

while bored arena crowds for once look eager,

hoping toward havoc, neither pleas nor prizes

shall coax from doom’s blank door lady or tiger.

From the Blackbird journal, 2006

The Order Of The Day

King Stitt

Rest In Peace

"According to his only child Beverley Spark, King Stitt — whose real name is Winston Spark — died at 1:15 pm at his home in Nannyville, St Andrew, yesterday. No cause was given for his death." ... Story continues here: Toaster KING STITT Is Dead (Jamaican Observer)

Quote Of The Week

"One should judge a man mainly from his depravities. Virtues can be faked. Depravities are real."

Signed, Epstein's Mother

Robert Hegyes

Rest In Peace

Grateful Flag?

"Unlike the punks of the Seventies, this new generation also has some respect for the hippies and the values they embraced in the Sixties. Around the Black Flag office and rehearsal room, in Redondo Beach, California, one frequently sees long-haired roadies wearing Grateful Dead T-shirts and playing Aoxomoxoa or Workingman's Dead on their boom boxes. Greg Ginn says one of his dreams is for Black Flag to open for the Grateful Dead." -Rolling Stone, 1985

Quote Of The Week

"A place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively, wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it, loves it so radically that he remakes it in his own image."

Adiós Amigos

A.I.T.A. is on a brief hiatus... Back in roughly two weeks.

Quote Of The Week

"Holidays are in no sense an alternative to the congestion and bustle of cities and work. Quite the contrary. People look to escape into an intensification of the conditions of ordinary life, into a deliberate aggravation of those conditions: further from nature, nearer to artifice, to abstraction, to total pollution, to well above average levels of stress, pressure, concentration and monotony — this is the ideal of popular entertainment. No one is interested in overcoming alienation; the point is to plunge into it to the point of ecstasy. That is what holidays are for."

The Faith And The Fury

"In the environment of the slum, the courage to display yourself is your only capital, and crime is the productive process which converts such capital to the modern powers of the world, ego and money."

"There was a period... when it looked as if graffiti would take over the world, when a movement which began as the expression of tropical peoples living in a monotonous iron-gray and dull brown brick environment, surrounded by asphalt, concrete, and clangor, had erupted biologically as though to save the sensuous flesh of their inheritance from a macadamization of the psyche, save the blank city wall of their unfed brain by painting the wall over with giant trees and petty plants of a tropical rain-forest, and like such a jungle, every plant large and small spoke to one another, lived in profusion and harmony of a forest."

Buy: The Faith Of Graffiti [book]

Dig: Jon Naar - The Birth Of Graffiti 

Dig: Jon Naar's official photography site

Quotes by Norman Mailer, from The Faith Of Graffiti

Mesmerization Eclipse

Larry "Rhino" Reinhardt

Rest In Peace

"Larry 'Rhino' Reinhardt, a man considered by those who knew him best to be amongst the top southern rock guitarists of all time, died on Monday. The one-time Iron Butterfly guitarist and co-founder of '70s rock group Captain Beyond died of sclerosis of the liver, his longtime significant other Tracey Hooper told the Bradenton Herald. Reinardt was 63-years-old." ... Story continues here: Iron Butterfly Guitarist And Captain Beyond Founder Dies (Ultimate Classic Rock)

Quote Of The Week

"Alas, human vices, however horrible one might imagine them to be, contain the proof (were it only in their infinite expansion) of man's longing for the infinite; but it is a longing that often takes the wrong route. It is my belief that the reason behind all culpable excesses lies in this depravation of the sense of the infinite."

Into The Future

"We have it in our power to begin the world over again."

A Gallery Of Cool, Take Nine

Francoise Hardy

Crisis

Lauren Bacall

The Purple Hearts

Laurel Aitken

The Birds

Lou Reed and Nico

Ringo Starr

[ Previous Galleries Of Cool: 1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8 ]

Quote Of The Week

"How comforting it is, once or twice a year, to get together and forget the old times."

Point Of No Return

Sean Bonniwell

Rest In Peace

I feel quite fortunate to have corresponded on and off with Sean Bonniwell for a brief period of time, sparked by him digging a review I wrote of a Music Machine reissue (Ignition, to be precise). He was really a one of a kind person, and a truly underrated and beyond-gifted songwriter. His incredible body of work speaks more than a mere eulogy ever could... May he rest in peace.

A.I.T.A. Hall Of Fame: Peter Laughner

 

"Ain't it fun when you know that you're gonna die young."

To most who dig deep into rock history and search for its underbelly, Peter Laughner is remembered as a founding member of Cleveland's legendary 1970s proto-punks Rocket From The Tombs and Pere Ubu, as well as a gifted rock critic from the days when they really mattered. To me, Laughner's legacy lies just as much in the solo acoustic cuts he laid down, many recorded the night before he left this mortal coil due to years of alcohol and drug abuse (you can almost taste the speed on all four takes of his manic "Ridin' On Ice"). "First Taste Of Heartache" and both versions of the brilliant "The Junkman" — recorded on that fateful night — belong on the same playlist as the sonic-ache/tragi-folk as put forth by the likes of Nick Drake, Tim Hardin, Townes Van Zandt, and Gary Higgins, though with a slant which is more Lou Reed than Bob Dylan. Speaking of Dylan, Laughner's cracked take on "Visions Of Johanna" is the ultimate cover version of what is one of Zimmy's true lyrical masterpieces. On these tapes he also showed his love of deep blues and poetry, via heartfelt covers of the great Robert Johnson, and songs paying tribute to two of the greatest poets to have walked this green earth... All this from a man who died at 24 years old.

Dig: Peter Laughner bio (by Richie Unterberger)
Dig: A selection of Peter Laughner's rock criticism

Download: "Amphetamine" * • Download: "Ain't It Fun" *
Download: "Visions Of Johanna" • Download: "32.20 Blues"
Download: "Me And The Devil Blues" • Download: "Baudelaire"

Download: "Sylvia Plath" • Download: "First Taste Of Heartache"
Download: "It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Man to Cry" **

Download: "Dear Richard" ** • Download: "The Junkman 1"
Download: "Ridin' On Ice 2" • Download: "The Junkman 2"

* Laughner with RFTT
** Laughner with Friction

Quote Of The Week

"Without free, self-respecting, and autonomous citizens, there can be no free and independent nations. Without internal peace, that is, peace among citizens and between the citizens and their state, there can be no guarantee of external peace. A state that denies its citizens their basic rights becomes a danger to its neighbors as well: internal arbitrary rule will be reflected in arbitrary external relations. The suppression of public opinion, the abolition of public competition for power and its public exercise opens the way for the state power to arm itself in any way it sees fit."

Christopher Hitchens, R.I.P.

"Take the risk of thinking for yourself, much more happiness,
truth, beauty, and wisdom will come to you that way." -Hitch

Christopher Hitchens was a hero (a word I reserve for very few), and I am absolutely devastated by his death. Reading Letters To A Young Contrarian in 2001 was a real life-changer, and after that I devoured pretty much every word the man wrote, not to mention tried to watch all his debates and TV appearances. Even if I didn't always agree with him, I always respected his opinion and marveled at his wit, compassion, bravery, incredible depth of knowledge, style, and love of the arts. Through Hitchens, I dove full-on into Orwell's writings (with much reward), fell in love with the poetry of Auden, and questioned stances I once held with great pride. I also felt like someone "got me" and articulated some of my deepest held views better than I ever could have hoped to have done on my own. Though he gave so very much, his loss is truly immeasurable.

Read: Hitchens at Vanity Fair • Read: Hitchens at The Atlantic

Read: A Great Journalist’s Greatest Magazine Stories (via Longform)
Read: Hitchens Obituaries (via The Richard Dawkins Foundation)

Dig: "Herewith, Hope It Serves. As Always, Christopher."
Dig: The Immortal Rejoinders of Christopher Hitchens

Dig: God Is Not Great (Hitchens documentary trailer)
Dig: Five Great Christopher Hitchens Debates

220 Years?

"By signing this defense spending bill, President Obama will go down in history as the president who enshrined indefinite detention without trial in U.S. law. In the past, Obama has lauded the importance of being on the right side of history, but today he is definitely on the wrong side." -Kenneth Roth, Human Rights Watch

Read: NDAA Set To Become Law

Read: Happy Bill Of Rights Day

Adult Crash

"Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into

the world, he is responsible for everything he does."

From Existentialism Is Humanism, 1946

Quote Of The Week

"The greatest revolution of our generation is the discovery that human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives."

The Wanderer And His Shadow

I found out the morning after. I was in my folks' bedroom, kicking my feet into the blankets while lying on my stomach watching TV, as I did most mornings. My mom had already left for work, and my dad was in the bathroom preparing for his day to come. As always, the tiny radio he had in there with him was blasting the morning news. I was lost in the world of Fred and Barney when out he walked, red-eyed and with a face loaded with shaving cream. He told me John Lennon, who was one of my heroes in a time when I still had them, had been shot and killed. I was shocked. I felt like someone I actually knew died. The Beatles — along with Dylan and the Stones — brought me some of my earliest memories of happiness; days when I was content just sitting on the floor in my room, alone with a meagre stack of glorious vinyl and the sounds that took me away to other worlds. The moment I found out about Lennon dying also sticks with me as it was the first time I can recall seeing my dad cry, or at least be near tears. I finally saw him as human, and realized that my now-dead hero was also human; all too human.

Post originally titled 30 Years Ago Today, published 12/8/10.