We have seen President Zelensky’s oratory on several occasions, most recently when he addressed the U.S. Congress. He is a master at communicating the plight of his nation, which has been under nonstop assault since last February 24. Putin thought that he would quickly decapitate the leadership, send Zelensky fleeing or kill him, and take control of Ukraine in a matter of days or weeks.

That didn’t happen. Shocking the world, Ukraine pushed Russian forces away from Kyiv, then slowly but surely pushed them out of many of its cities and towns. Now Ukraine endures a daily flood of missiles and drones aimed at destroying its infrastructure—a war crime—intended to cut off power, heat, and water to the civilian population. The point of the Russian onslaught is to terrorize the population.

Please watch and read President Zelensky’s inspiring words to the Ukrainian people. His message: we are united and…

“Portland-based software developer Corey Mohler never took a philosophy class in college. But when it comes to popular philosophy, his Existential Comics rule the Internet. He’s made well over 100 of them since 2013, encompassing thinkers from the pre-Socratic Greeks to contemporary philosophers like Peter Singer and Robert Nozick. The existentialists do tend to appear the most, as you’d expect from the site’s name (and the fact that its logo is a cartoon of Jean-Paul Sartre), but Mohler showcases an extensive knowledge of every topic his works cover. Most importantly, he shares that knowledge easily and openly with uninitiated readers. You can click a ‘Didn’t Get The Joke?’ tab below each comic for a brief explanation of the concepts that comic explores, and on the blog section of the website, there’s an excellent beginner’s guide to philosophy—what books to read, how to read them, and other web resources to explore…

With the New Year here, it’s time for my annual post focusing on some of the novels that will reach round-number anniversaries in the next 12 months.

I’ll work chronologically backwards, starting with 1998-published books turning 25 in 2023. I’ll only mention novels I’ve read, except for two of which I’ve only seen the movie version.

Not sure this qualifies, but Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone was first published in the United States a quarter-century ago, in 1998. That novel initially came out in the United Kingdom the previous year under the title of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’sStone — kicking off J.K. Rowling’s outstanding, wildly popular seven books of wizard world-building. The second novel, HarryPotter and the Chamber of Secrets, made its page-turning debut everywhere in ’98.

Perhaps the best novel of ’98 was The Poisonwood Bible, about a very problematic American missionary in…

“The October Revolution in Jazz was a four-day festival of new jazz music which took place at the Cellar Café in New York City. It occurred from October 1–4, 1964, and was organized by composer and trumpeter Bill Dixon. The success of the festival was directly responsible for the formation of the Jazz Composers Guild. During a trip to Helsinki, Finland with Archie Shepp in the summer of 1962, Dixon began to develop embouchure difficulties. The situation deteriorated to the point where, by the following summer, Dixon stopped playing in public in order to focus on correcting the issue. He also began concentrating on writing and arranging. Shepp, meanwhile, began collaborating with John Tchicai, with whom he would soon form the New York Contemporary Five. Dixon composed and arranged a number of the pieces that would be performed and recorded by the NYCF, and also…

A Concert of Dance Nos. 14, 15, 16, by Robert Morris. New York: Judson Dance Theater, 1964.

“In 1968, Village Voice critic Jill Johnston proclaimed that between 1962 and 1964 a ‘revolution’ had occurred at Judson Memorial Church. With its exhibition Judson Dance Theater: The Work is Never Done, MoMA brings visitors into this seminal moment when a collective of choreographers and downtown artists across disciplines came together to create and show new works in non-commercial spaces, works that transformed the definitions of art and how we experience it. MoMA pushes the boundaries and conventions of the museum space as well, beginning the exhibition in the Atrium, where a video installation and a series of live performances take place daily, showing the work of preeminent choreographers from Judson Dance Theater: Yvonne Rainer, Deborah Hay, David Gordon, Lucinda Childs, Steve Paxton, and Tricia Brown. As the subtitle suggests, ‘the work…

May 2, 1959

“…. What is The 1959 Project? Most jazz fans find themselves suffering from golden age syndrome at some point or another; for the casual listener it might define their relationship with the music, given that so many of the genre’s seminal (and best-selling) records are now well-worn classics. A fair number of them, in fact, were released or recorded 60 years ago, and thus form the inspiration for this (quite probably foolhardy) endeavor. But for me, and I imagine for others, the best thing about jazz music isn’t the albums. It’s the privilege of getting to witness musicians’ search for authentic expression in real time; to see their masterful technique in service of some fleeting, genuine thought that will never be heard again in the exact same way. It’s a fundamentally live experience, which makes the golden age syndrome more painful — we might listen to Kind Of…

“The Fall (French: La Chute) is a philosophical novel by Albert Camus. First published in 1956, it is his last complete work of fiction. Set in Amsterdam, The Fall consists of a series of dramatic monologues by the self-proclaimed ‘judge-penitent’ Jean-Baptiste Clamence, as he reflects upon his life to a stranger. In what amounts to a confession, Clamence tells of his success as a wealthy Parisian defense lawyer who was highly respected by his colleagues. His crisis, and his ultimate ‘fall’ from grace, was meant to invoke, in secular terms, the fall of man from the Garden of Eden. The Fall explores themes of innocence, imprisonment, non-existence, and truth. In a eulogy to Albert Camus, existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre described the novel as ‘perhaps the most beautiful and the least understood’ of Camus’ books. Clamence often speaks of his love for high, open…

“The Nazgûl (from Black Speechnazg, ‘ring’, and gûl, ‘wraith, spirit’), introduced as Black Riders and also called Ringwraiths, Dark Riders, the Nine Riders, or simply the Nine, are fictional characters in J. R. R. Tolkien‘s Middle-earth. They were nine Men who had succumbed to Sauron‘s power through wearing Rings of Power, which gave them immortality but reduced them to invisible wraiths, servants bound to the power of the One Ring and completely under Sauron’s control. The Lord of the Rings calls them Sauron’s ‘most terrible servants’. Their leader, known as the Lord of the Nazgûl or the Witch-king of Angmar, had once been the King of Angmar in the north of Eriador. At the end of the Third Age, their main stronghold was the city of Minas Morgul at the entrance to Sauron’s realm, Mordor…

“A slice of greasy blues soul that draws from the Willie Dixon classic ‘Back Door Man,’ Clarence Carter’s ‘Back Door Santa,’ co-written with Marcus Daniel for the 1968 compilation Soul Christmas, adds a touch of raunch to the holiday celebrations. ‘I ain’t like old Saint Nick,’ Carter barks over a bleating horn section and chopping funk guitar, ‘he don’t come but once a year. I come runnin’ with my presents every time you call me dear.’ By 1968, Clarence Carter was no stranger to the cheating oeuvre, having scored a Top 6 pop hit in 1967 with the breathtaking ‘Slip Away‘ – two impeccably crafted minutes of Muscle Shoals soul that masterfully balances regret, longing and lust on the rough edge of Carter’s pleading, powerful voice. … Wilson Pickett, Aretha Franklin, Joe Tex, Arthur Alexander, Percy Sledge and countless others recorded signature, career-defining songs there…

“‘What is a body artist? Someone who is his own test tube,’ quips painter David Salle about performance artist, filmmaker, and writer Vito Hannibal Acconci, probably the prime example of an artist who experiments on himself and his own life, using his body and its movements as his materia artistica. Born in New York City in 1940, Acconci returned to the Lower East Side in 1964 to teach at Brooklyn College and the School of Visual Arts after graduating from Holy Cross College and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Acconci was first a writer, and with his sister-in-law, Bernadette Mayer, edited one of the most experimental of all the early mimeo magazines. 0 to 9 included works by a phalanx of literary experimentalists, including the minimalist works of Aram Saroyan and Clark Coolidge, along with the graphic works of artists Sol LeWitt, Michael Heizer, and Robert Smithson, and performance-oriented work…