Quote Of The Week

"New Year's Eve is like every other night; there is no pause in the march of the universe, no breathless moment of silence among created things that the passage of another twelve months may be noted; and yet no man has quite the same thoughts this evening that come with the coming of darkness on other nights."

The Will To Revolt

"Regardless of the staggering dimensions of the world about us, the density of our ignorance, the risks of catastrophes to come, and our individual weakness within the immense collectivity, the fact remains that we are absolutely free today if we choose to will our existence in its finiteness, a finiteness which is open on the infinite. In fact, any man who has known real loves, real revolts, real desires, and real will, knows quite well that he has no need of any outside guarantee to be sure of his goals; their certitude comes from his own drive."

From The Ethics of Ambiguity, 1947

Quote Of The Week

"Success loves a witness, but failure can't exist without one."

Just Say No!

Photograph by Lee Greenfeld © 2012

Quote Of The Week

"We are all so guilty at the way we have allowed the world around us to become more ugly and tasteless every year that we surrender to terror and steep ourselves in it."

Doomed To Repetition?

"A date which will live in infamy."

A Vanishing City

Photograph by Lee Greenfeld © 2012

Thread Of Time #4

For the forth installment of Thread Of Time, we at A.I.T.A. depart from the '60s and present the legendary Feel Lucky Punk?!!, a compilation of incredibly rare, late '70s and early '80s raw punk-rock singles from Australia and the States. Released in 1991, the now-classic Feel Lucky is on par with the best of the incredible Killed By Death series, in both the genius and stupidity departments, and includes classics from the likes of The Queers, Psycho Surgeons, The Mad, Nervous Eaters, Hillside Stranglers, The Lewd, Unnatural Axe, Freestone, and others. If you desire in-the-red, ham-fisted and knuckle-dragging songs about serial killers, dictators, veneral diseases, and general misanthropy, this one's for you.

Download: Feel Lucky Punk?!!

Dig: Thread Of Time #1-3

Quote Of The Week

"People were standing up everywhere shouting, "This is me! This is me!" Every time you looked at them they stood up and told you who they were, and the truth of it was that they had no more idea who or what they were than he had. They believed their flashing signs, too. They ought to be standing up and shouting, "This isn't me! This isn't me!" They would if they had any decency... Then you might know how to proceed through the flashing bullshit of this world."

Flashing Echo

Sound Business is must-watch 1981(?) documentary on the UK reggae sound system scene, with a focus on the legendary Sir Coxsone Outernational Sound System. Narrated by the great Mikey Dread.

Stone Free

Quote Of The Week

"Live each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each."

Uh... Thanks?

Repetition Or, Actuality?

"One sticks a finger into the ground to smell what country one is in; I stick my finger into the world—it has no smell. Where am I? What does it mean to say: the world? What is the meaning of the world? Who tricked me into this whole thing and leaves me standing here? Who am I? How did I get into the world? Why was I not asked about it, why was I not informed of the rules and regulations and just thrust into the ranks as if I had been bought from a peddling shanghaier of human beings? How did I get involved in the big enterprise called actuality? Why should I be involved? Isn’t it a matter of choice? If I am compelled to be involved, where is the manager—I have something to say about this. Is there no manager? To whom shall I make my complaint? After all, life is a debate—may I ask that my observations be considered? If one has to take life as it is, would it not be best to find out how things go?"

From Repetition: A Venture In Experimental Psychology, 1843

Quote Of The Week

"To find everything profound — that is an inconvenient trait. It makes one strain one's eyes all the time, and in the end one finds more than one might have wished."

Tell Tale Signs

Photograph by Lee Greenfeld © 2012

The Upsetter!

The Upsetter: The Life And Music of Lee Scratch Perry charts 70 years in the life of Lee Scratch Perry, in his own words, through an exclusive interview given to American filmmakers Ethan Higbee and Adam Bhala Lough in Switzerland. It is equally a documentation of 30 years of Jamaican music and culture and a character study of one of the most creative and inspiring human beings alive today.

A Coney Island Of My Mind #14

Photograph by Lee Greenfeld © 2012

Future/Now

Dig: Testimonials & Live Reviews

Quote Of The Week

"You can indulge your righteous rage but the things it comes out of are pretty cheap. The trick is to make yourself an instrument of your own policy. Whether you like it or not, that's the highest effectiveness man has achieved."

In Veneration

Photograph by Lee Greenfeld © 2012

Get Down And Get With It!

It doesn't get much better than this, friends.

And Death Shall Have No Dominion

And death shall have no dominion.
Dead men naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
Under the windings of the sea
They lying long shall not die windily;
Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through;
Split all ends up they shan't crack;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break loud on the seashores;
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
Though they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
And death shall have no dominion.

From The Poems of Dylan Thomas, 1943

Shake Appeal

Celebrations For A Grey Day

"Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost."

-John  Quincy Adams

Quote Of The Week

"Do stuff. Be clenched, curious. Not waiting for inspiration's shove or society's kiss on your forehead. Pay attention. It's all about paying attention. Attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. Stay eager."

Shadowy, Yet Unbroken

Be silent in that solitude,

Which is not loneliness — for then

The spirits of the dead, who stood

In life before thee, are again

In death around thee, and their will

Shall overshadow thee; be still.

* Excerpted from Spirits Of The Dead

Life Goes On

Photograph from the incredible Humans Of New York site

Laughing To Keep From Crying

Terry Callier

Rest In Peace

"Callier – whose full first name was Terrence – began his career in music five decades ago, when he recorded a single for Chicago blues, jazz and rock label Chess Records. His debut album, The New Folk Sound Of Terry Callier, was released in 1968." ... Story continues here: Singer Terry Callier Dies Aged 67 (The Telegraph)

Listen: "It's About Time" (Prestige, 1968), "Ordinary Joe" (Cadet, 1972), "Dancing Girl" (Cadet, 1972), "Holdin' On" (Elektra, 1978), "Dolphins" (Heavenly, 1997) *

* Fred Neil cover, with Beth Orton

Brooklyn Is Not Expanding

Quote Of The Week

"Without books the development of civilization would have been impossible. They are the engines of change, windows on the world, "Lighthouses" as the poet said "erected in the sea of time." They are companions, teachers, magicians, bankers of the treasures of the mind. Books are humanity in print."

A Gallery Of Cool, Take Thirteen

Gene Clark

Michael Caine and Bobby Moore

Jane Asher

Secret Affair

Lauren Bacall

The scene at The Factory

Dig: Gallery Of Cool, Take Twelve

Quote Of The Week

"Deception, flattering, lying, deluding, talking behind the back, putting up a false front, living in borrowed splendor, wearing a mask, hiding behind convention, playing a role for others and for oneself — in short, a continuous fluttering around the solitary flame of vanity — is so much the rule and the law among men that there is almost nothing which is less comprehensible than how an honest and pure drive for truth could have arisen among them. They are deeply immersed in illusions and in dream images; their eyes merely glide over the surface of things and see 'forms.'"

On The Suffering Of The World

"If the immediate and direct purpose of our life is not suffering then our existence is the most ill-adapted to its purpose in the world: for it is absurd to suppose that the endless affliction of which the world is everywhere full, and which arises out of the need and distress pertaining essentially to life, should be purposeless and purely accidental. Each individual misfortune, to be sure, seems an exceptional occurrence; but misfortune in general is the rule."

From Parerga And Paralipomena, 1851

The Punk Meets The Godfather

Quote Of The Week

"The insatiable thirst for everything which lies beyond, and which life reveals is the most living proof of our immortality."

Quote Of The Week

"The sickness of our times for me has been just this damn thing that everything has been getting smaller and smaller and less and less important, that the romantic spirit has dried up, that there is no shame today.... We're all getting so mean and small and petty and ridiculous, and we all live under the threat of extermination."

Words For A Rainy Day

Photograph by Lee Greenfeld © 2012

Quote Of The Week

"Works of art, in my opinion, are the only objects in the material universe to possess internal order, and that is why, though I don't believe that only art matters, I do believe in Art for Art's sake."

Autumn Song

With long sobs
the violin-throbs
of autumn wound
my heart with languorous
and monotonous
sound.

Choking and pale
When I mind the tale
the hours keep,
my memory strays
down other days
and I weep;

and I let me go
where ill winds blow
now here, now there,
harried and sped,
even as a dead
leaf, anywhere.

From Poèmes Saturniens, 1866

Quote Of The Week

"However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion."

Broken Sky

Photograph by Lee Greenfeld © 2012

Quote Of The Week

"For me to remember friendship is to recall those conversations it seemed a sin to break off: the ones that made the sacrifice of the following day a trivial one."

Quote Of The Week

"A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depend on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving."

Protest And Survive?

"If then, if you have lived in despair, then whatever else you won or lost, for you everything is lost, eternity does not acknowledge you, it never knew you, or, still more dreadful, it knows you as you are known, it manacles you to your self in despair."

From The Sickness Unto Death, 1849

Quote Of The Week

"Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world would do this, it would change the earth."

Buddha-Pest

Photography by Lee Greenfeld © 2012

Quote Of The Week

"There are two modes of establishing our reputation: to be praised by honest men, and to be abused by rogues. It is best, however, to secure the former, because it will invariably be accompanied by the latter."

They Fly So High...

A Coney Island Of My Mind #13

Photograph by Lee Greenfeld © 2012

A Gallery Of Cool, Take Twelve

Bob Dylan

Claudia Cardinale

The Byrds

Panic

Ella and Louis

Thor's Hammer

Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller

Small Faces

Dig: Gallery Of Cool, Take Eleven

Quote Of The Week

"I was as afraid as the next man in my time and maybe more so. But with the years, fear had come to be regarded as a form of stupidity to be classed with overdrafts, acquiring a venereal disease or eating candies. Fear is a child's vice and while I loved to feel it approach, as one does with any vice, it was not for grown men and the only thing to be afraid of was the presence of true and imminent danger in a form that you should be aware of and not be a fool if you were responsible for others."

Moonlight Mile

Photograph by Lee Greenfeld © 2012

The Concept As Metaphor

"Once upon a time, in some out of the way corner of that universe which is dispersed into numberless twinkling solar systems, there was a star upon which clever beasts invented knowing. That was the most arrogant and mendacious minute of "world history," but nevertheless, it was only a minute. After nature had drawn a few breaths, the star cooled and congealed, and the clever beasts had to die. One might invent such a fable, and yet he still would not have adequately illustrated how miserable, how shadowy and transient, how aimless and arbitrary the human intellect looks within nature. There were eternities during which it did not exist. And when it is all over with the human intellect, nothing will have happened."

From On Truth And Lie In An Extra-Moral Sense, 1873

Quote Of The Week

"Certain things around us will change, become easier or harder, one thing or the other, but nothing will ever really be any different... We have made our decisions, our lives have been set in motion, and they will go on and on until they stop. But if that is true, then what? I mean, what if you believe that, but you keep it covered up, until one day something happens that should change something, but then you see nothing is going to change after all. What then? Meanwhile, the people around you continue to talk and act as if you were the same person as yesterday, or last night, or five minutes before, but you are really undergoing a crisis, your heart feels damaged."

Punk Lives?

Photograph by Lee Greenfeld © 2012

Quote Of The Week

"The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life."

A Coney Island Of My Mind #12

Photograph by Lee Greenfeld © 2012

Quote Of The Week

"One of the qualities of liberty is that, as long as it is being striven after, it goes on expanding. Therefore, the man who stands in the midst of the struggle and says, "I have it," merely shows by doing so that he has just lost it."

Stand And Be Counted

"Between stimulus and response there is a space.In that space is our power to choose our response.In our response lies our growth and our freedom."

Your Dreams Were Your Ticket Out

"Style is knowing who you are, what you

want to say, and not giving a damn." -Gore Vidal

Brooklynites have a pride that is unmatched, and while the borough has gone through many changes as of late, one thing holds true, Brooklynites from the '70s and '80s have style, and we know it. This style was exhibited in many ways, from the way we dressed, walked (with a knowing swagger), talked (despite mythology, there's more than just one Brooklyn accent), made a stoop our own, or how we wrote on subway trains, walls, and later, canvasses.

While street-art is often referred to as a worldwide movement — and it truly has has become one, co-opted by small commercial interests and big business alike — the art-form got its humble, ink-stained start in the five boroughs of NYC, kicked-off by city-kids for city-kids. The County Of Kings can lay claim to breeding and nurturing many a talented and acclaimed urban artist, hailing from places as diverse as Red Hook, Coney Island, Park Slope, and Bedford Stuyvesant. 

The Brooklyn Yes Indeed show intends to highlight an art movement and subculture that has grown leaps and bounds from its insular D.I.Y. origins, by showcasing artwork that shows the trajectory of a clutch of Brooklyn artists who have taken their work from the trains and walls of our great city onto the next level. In addition to canvas and sculpture work, the exhibit includes photography in an effort to give a context as to where the art was birthed, and by whom.

Brooklyn Yes Indeed — featuring artwork from legendary Brooklyn artists

JOUST (pictured), Mr. KAVES, KEO, RIBS, Jamel Shabazz, and TRIKE — opens

July 27th at Urban Folk Art Studios and runs through the end of the Summer.

The show was curated by David "Chino" Villorente and Lee Greenfeld.

The Rose Colored Glasses Of Life

Photograph by Lee Greenfeld © 2012