Treasures in the Trash: A Secret Museum Inside a New York City Department of Sanitation Garage

in Environment, Museums | October 14th, 2019

Like many New York­ers, retired san­i­ta­tion work­er Nel­son Moli­na has a keen inter­est in his fel­low cit­i­zens’ dis­cards.

But where­as oth­ers risk bed­bugs for the occa­sion­al curb­side score or dump­ster dive as an envi­ro-polit­i­cal act, Molina’s inter­est is couched in the cura­to­r­i­al.

The bulk of his col­lec­tion was amassed between 1981 and 2015, while he was on active duty in Carnegie Hill and East Harlem, col­lect­ing garbage in an area bor­dered by 96th Street, Fifth Avenue, 106th Street, and First Avenue.

At the end of every shift, he stashed the day’s finds at the garage. With the sup­port of his cowork­ers and high­er ups, his hob­by crept beyond the con­fines of his per­son­al area, fill­ing the lock­er room, and even­tu­al­ly expand­ing across the mas­sive sec­ond floor of Man­hat­tan East San­i­ta­tion Garage Num­ber 11, at which point it was declared an unof­fi­cial muse­um with the uncon­ven­tion­al name of Trea­sures in the Trash.

Because the muse­um is sit­u­at­ed inside a work­ing garage, vis­i­tors can only access the col­lec­tion dur­ing infre­quent, spe­cial­ly arranged tours. Hunter College’s East Harlem gallery and the City Reli­quary have host­ed trav­el­ing exhibits.

The Foun­da­tion for New York’s Strongest (a nick­name orig­i­nal­ly con­ferred on the Depart­ment of San­i­ta­tion’s foot­ball team) is rais­ing funds for an off­site muse­um to show­case Molina’s 45,000+ trea­sures, along with exhibits ded­i­cat­ed to “DSNY’s rich his­to­ry.”

Molina’s for­mer cowork­ers mar­vel at his unerr­ing instinct for know­ing when an undis­tin­guished-look­ing bag of refuse con­tains an object worth sav­ing, from auto­graphed base­balls and books to keep­sakes of a deeply per­son­al nature, like pho­to albums, engraved watch­es, and wed­ding sam­plers.

There’s also a fair amount of seem­ing­ly dis­pos­able junk—obsolete con­sumer tech­nol­o­gy, fast food toys, and “col­lectibles” that in ret­ro­spect were mere fad. Moli­na dis­plays them en masse, their sheer num­bers becom­ing a source of won­der. That’s a lot of Pez dis­pensers, Tam­agotchis, and plas­tic Furbees that could be clut­ter­ing up a land­fill (or Ebay).

Some of the items Moli­na sin­gles out for show and tell in Nico­las Heller’s doc­u­men­tary short, at the top, seem like they could have con­sid­er­able resell val­ue. One man’s trash, you know…

But city san­i­ta­tion work­ers are pro­hib­it­ed from tak­ing their finds home, which may explain why Depart­ment of San­i­ta­tion employ­ees (and Molina’s wife) have embraced the muse­um so enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly.

Even though Moli­na retired after rais­ing his six kids, he con­tin­ues to pre­side over the muse­um, review­ing trea­sures that oth­er san­i­ta­tion work­ers have sal­vaged for his approval, and decid­ing which mer­it inclu­sion in the col­lec­tion.

Preser­va­tion is in his blood, hav­ing been raised to repair rather than dis­card, a prac­tice he used to put into play at Christ­mas, when he would present his sib­lings with toys he’d res­cued and res­ur­rect­ed.

This thrifty ethos accounts for a large part of the plea­sure he takes in his col­lec­tion.

As to why or how his more sen­ti­men­tal or his­tor­i­cal­ly sig­nif­i­cant arti­facts wound up bagged for curb­side pick­up, he leaves the spec­u­la­tion to vis­i­tors of a more nar­ra­tive bent.

Sign up for updates or make a dona­tion to the Foun­da­tion for New York’s Strongest’s cam­paign to rehouse the col­lec­tion in an open-to-the-pub­lic space here.

To inquire about the pos­si­bil­i­ty of upcom­ing tours, email the NYC Depart­ment of San­i­ta­tion at to***@ds**.gov.

Pho­tos of Trea­sures in the Trash by Ayun Hal­l­i­day, © 2018

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The First Muse­um Ded­i­cat­ed Exclu­sive­ly to Poster Art Opens Its Doors in the U.S.: Enter the Poster House

The Muse­um of Fail­ure: A Liv­ing Shrine to New Coke, the Ford Edsel, Google Glass & Oth­er Epic Cor­po­rate Fails

The Dis­gust­ing Food Muse­um Curates 80 of the World’s Most Repul­sive Dish­es: Mag­got-Infest­ed Cheese, Putrid Shark & More

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Although she lives and works inside Nel­son Molina’s for­mer pick up zone, she has yet to see any of her dis­cards on dis­play. Join her in NYC on Mon­day, Octo­ber 7 when her month­ly book-based vari­ety show, Necro­mancers of the Pub­lic Domain cel­e­brates the art of Aubrey Beard­s­ley. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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William Burroughs Meets Francis Bacon: See Never-Broadcast Footage (1982)

in Art, Literature, Television | October 14th, 2019

The writ­ing of William S. Bur­roughs and the paint­ings of Fran­cis Bacon take us into often trou­bling but nev­er­the­less com­pelling real­i­ties we could­n’t pos­si­bly glimpse any oth­er way. Some of that effect has to do with the inim­itable (if often unsuc­cess­ful­ly imi­tat­ed) styles they devel­oped for them­selves, and some with what was going on in their unusu­al lives as well as the even wilder realms of their minds. And though no schol­ars have yet turned up a Bur­roughs mono­graph on Bacon’s art, or Bacon-paint­ed illus­tra­tions for a Bur­roughs nov­el — just imag­ine Naked Lunch giv­en that treat­ment — those minds did meet now and again in life, start­ing in Moroc­co six decades ago.

“The two men first met in Tang­iers in the 1950s when Bur­roughs was tech­ni­cal­ly on the run for mur­der­ing his wife after a ‘shoot­ing acci­dent’ dur­ing a drunk­en game of William Tell,” writes Dan­ger­ous Minds’ Paul Gal­lagher. “Bacon was then in a bru­tal and near fatal rela­tion­ship with a vio­lent sadist called Peter Lacey who used to beat him with a leather stud­ded belt.” None oth­er than Allen Gins­berg made the intro­duc­tion between the two men, “as he thought Bacon paint­ed the way Bur­roughs wrote.” But Bur­roughs saw more dif­fer­ences than sim­i­lar­i­ties: “Bacon and I are at oppo­site ends of the spec­trum,” he once said. “He likes mid­dle-aged truck dri­vers and I like young boys. He sneers at immor­tal­i­ty and I think it’s the one thing of impor­tance. Of course we’re asso­ci­at­ed because of our mor­bid sub­ject mat­ter.”

Bacon and Bur­roughs rem­i­nisce about their first meet­ing — what they can remem­ber of it, any­way — in an encounter filmed by the BBC for a 1982 doc­u­men­tary on the writer. “Are­na fol­lowed him to the home and stu­dio of old friend Fran­cis Bacon, where he drops in for a cup of tea and a catch up,” says the BBC’s site. “This meet­ing has nev­er been broad­cast.” But you can see their con­ver­sa­tion pre­sent­ed in a ten-minute edit in the video above. Gal­lagher notes that the cam­era-shy Bur­roughs gets into the spir­it of things only when the talk turns to his favorite sub­jects at the time: “Jajou­ka” — a Moroc­can vil­lage with a dis­tinct musi­cal tra­di­tion — “Mayans, and immor­tal­i­ty.” Bacon, “waspish, bitchy, glee­ful like a naughty school­boy,” throws out barbs left and right about his fel­low artists and Bur­roughs’ fel­low writ­ers.

Bacon also recalls his and Bur­roughs’ “mutu­al friend­ship with Jane and Paul Bowles,” the famous­ly bohemi­an mar­ried cou­ple known for their writ­ing as well as their expat life in Moroc­co, “going on to dis­cuss Jane Bowles’ men­tal decline and the tragedy of her last years being tend­ed to by nuns, a sit­u­a­tion which Bacon thought ghast­ly. Iron­i­cal­ly, Bacon died just over a decade lat­er being tend­ed to by nuns after becom­ing ill in Spain (an asth­ma attack).” Even the most knowl­edgable fans of Bur­roughs, Bacon, and all the illus­tri­ous fig­ures in their world­wide cir­cles sure­ly don’t know the half of what hap­pened when they got togeth­er. And though this ten-minute chat adds lit­tle con­crete infor­ma­tion to the record, it still gets us imag­in­ing what all these artis­tic asso­ci­a­tions might have been like — fir­ing up our imag­i­na­tions being the strong suit of cre­ators like Bacon and Bur­roughs, even decades after they’ve left us to our own real­i­ty.

via Dan­ger­ous Minds

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Visu­al Art of William S. Bur­roughs: Book Cov­ers, Por­traits, Col­lage, Shot­gun Art & More

Gun Nut William S. Bur­roughs & Gonzo Illus­tra­tor Ralph Stead­man Make Polaroid Por­traits Togeth­er

When William S. Bur­roughs Appeared on Sat­ur­day Night Live: His First TV Appear­ance (1981)

The Dis­ci­pline of D.E.: Gus Van Sant Adapts a Sto­ry by William S. Bur­roughs (1978)

Who Was Joan Vollmer, the Wife William Bur­roughs Alleged­ly Shot While Play­ing William Tell?

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

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H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds Becomes a New BBC Miniseries Set in Edwardian England

in Literature, Sci Fi, Television | October 14th, 2019

H.G. Wells began writ­ing the nov­el that would become The War of the Worlds in the Eng­land of the mid-1890s. As a set­ting for this tale of inva­sion from out­er space, he chose the place he knew best: Eng­land of the mid-1890s. Stag­ing spec­ta­cles of unfath­omable mal­ice and fan­tas­ti­cal destruc­tion against such an ordi­nary back­drop made The War of the Worlds, first as a mag­a­zine ser­i­al and then as a stand­alone book, a chill­ing­ly com­pelling expe­ri­ence for its read­ers. Orson Welles under­stood the effec­tive­ness of that choice, as evi­denced by the fact that in his famous­ly con­vinc­ing 1938 radio adap­ta­tion of Wells’ nov­el, the hos­tile aliens land in mod­ern-day New Jer­sey.

Sub­se­quent adap­ta­tions have fol­lowed the same prin­ci­ple: in 1953, the first War of the Worlds Hol­ly­wood film set the action in 1950s Los Ange­les; the lat­est, a Steven Spiel­berg-direct­ed Tom Cruise vehi­cle that came out in 2005, set it in the New York and Boston of the 2000s. But now, set to pre­miere lat­er this year on BBC One, we have a three-part minis­eries that returns the sto­ry to the place and time in which Wells orig­i­nal­ly envi­sioned it — or rather, the place and very near­ly the time. Shot in Liv­er­pool, the pro­duc­tion recre­ates not the Vic­to­ri­an Eng­land in which The War of the Worlds was first pub­lished but the brief Edwar­dian peri­od, last­ing rough­ly the first decade of the 20th cen­tu­ry, that fol­lowed it.

In a way, a peri­od War of the Worlds reflects our time as clear­ly as the pre­vi­ous War of the Worlds adap­ta­tions reflect theirs: tele­vi­sion view­ers of the 2010s have shown a sur­pris­ing­ly hearty appetite for his­tor­i­cal dra­ma, and often British his­tor­i­cal dra­ma at that. Think of the suc­cess ear­li­er this decade of Down­ton Abbey, whose upstairs-down­stairs dynam­ics proved grip­ping even for those not steeped in the British class sys­tem. This lat­est War of the Worlds, whose trail­er you can watch at the top of the post, uses sim­i­lar themes, telling the sto­ry of a man and woman who dare to be togeth­er despite their class dif­fer­ences — and, of course, amid an alien inva­sion that threat­ens to destroy the Earth. It remains to be seen whether the minis­eries will rise to the cen­tral chal­lenge of adapt­ing The War of the Worlds: will the emo­tions at the cen­ter of the sto­ry be as con­vinc­ing as the may­hem sur­round­ing them?

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hear Orson Welles’ Icon­ic War of the Worlds Broad­cast (1938)

Hor­ri­fy­ing 1906 Illus­tra­tions of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds: Dis­cov­er the Art of Hen­rique Alvim Cor­rêa

Ray Harryhausen’s Creepy War of the Worlds Sketch­es and Stop-Motion Test Footage

Edward Gorey Illus­trates H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds in His Inim­itable Goth­ic Style (1960)

Things to Come, the 1936 Sci-Fi Film Writ­ten by H.G. Wells, Accu­rate­ly Pre­dicts the World’s Very Dark Future

Stream Mar­cel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, a BBC Pro­duc­tion Fea­tur­ing Derek Jaco­bi (Free for a Lim­it­ed Time)

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

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How Grace Slick Wrote “White Rabbit”: The 1960s Classic Inspired by LSD, Lewis Carroll, Miles Davis’ Sketches of Spain, and Hypocritical Parents

in Music | October 11th, 2019

I nev­er know what to do with the fact that Jef­fer­son Air­plane became Jef­fer­son Star­ship became Starship—purveyors of “We Built This City,” a “bar­na­cle made of syn­the­siz­ers and cocaine,” writes GQ, and an hon­ored guest on worst-of lists every­where. (Also a song co-writ­ten by none oth­er than Elton John lyri­cist Bernie Taupin).

It might seem peev­ish to get so worked up over how bad “We Built this City” is, if it didn’t derive from the lega­cy of one of the best bands of the 1960s. Even Grace Slick dis­avows it. “This is not me,” she says.

Of course, by 1985, all of Slick’s best collaborators—the great Jor­ma Kauko­nen, Jack Cas­sidy, Paul Kant­ner, Mar­ty Balen, Spencer Dry­den, et al.—had moved on, and it was that volatile col­lec­tion of musi­cal per­son­al­i­ties that made psych rock clas­sics like “Some­body to Love” and the slinky, drug­gy, Lewis Car­roll-inspired bolero “White Rab­bit” so essen­tial.

Grace Slick is a great singer and song­writer, but she need­ed a band as uncan­ni­ly tal­ent­ed as Jef­fer­son Air­plane to ful­ly real­ize her eccen­tric vision, such as the acid rock song about drug ref­er­ences in Alice in Won­der­land, played in the style of Span­ish folk music and Miles Davis’ Sketch­es of Spain.

Before she wrote “White Rab­bit,” Slick dropped acid and lis­tened to Davis’ jazz/folk/classical exper­i­ment “over and over for hours,” she told The Wall Street Jour­nal in 2016. “Sketch­es of Spain was drilled into my head and came squirt­ing out in var­i­ous ways as I wrote ‘White Rab­bit.’”

No less­er band could have tak­en this swirl of influ­ences and turned into what the Poly­phon­ic video at the top calls a dis­til­la­tion of the entire era. But “White Rab­bit” didn’t always have the per­fect­ly exe­cut­ed inten­si­ty we know from 1967’s Sur­re­al­is­tic Pil­low and Jef­fer­son Airplane’s com­mand­ing per­for­mance at Wood­stock (above).

In 1965, LSD was still legal. Grace Slick was work­ing, she tells WSJ, “as a cou­ture mod­el at I. Magnin in San Fran­cis­co.” Before sign­ing on as the singer for Jef­fer­son Air­plane, she formed The Great Soci­ety with her then-hus­band Jer­ry Slick. She wrote “White Rab­bit” for that ensem­ble and the band first per­formed it “in ear­ly ’66,” she says, “at a dive bar on Broad­way in San Fran­cis­co.”

Below, you can hear a 6‑minute live ver­sion of The Great Society’s “White Rab­bit.” It’s unrec­og­niz­able until Slick starts to sing over four min­utes into the song. We are not like­ly to be remind­ed of Miles Davis. But when Slick brought “White Rab­bit” to Jef­fer­son Air­plane, as the Poly­phon­ic video demon­strates, they real­ized its full poten­tial, ref­er­ences to Sketch­es of Spain and all.

Record­ed in 1966, the sin­gle “kicked off” the fol­low­ing year’s Sum­mer of Love, “cel­e­brat­ing the grow­ing psy­che­del­ic cul­ture” and freak­ing out par­ents, who pas­sion­ate­ly hat­ed “White Rab­bit.” These were the very peo­ple Slick want­ed to pay atten­tion. “I always felt like a good-look­ing school­teacher singing ‘White Rab­bit,’ ” she says. “I sang the words slow­ly and pre­cise­ly, so the peo­ple who need­ed to hear them wouldn’t miss the point. But they did.”

Slick’s own par­ents were a lit­tle freaked out when she start­ed her first band, after an inter­view she gave the San Fran­cis­co Chron­i­cle got back to them. “I argued in favor of mar­i­jua­na and LSD,” she says. “It was painful for them, I’m sure, but I didn’t care whether they mind­ed. Par­ents were crit­i­ciz­ing a generation’s choic­es while sit­ting there with their glass­es of scotch.” They were also reg­u­lar­ly pop­ping pills, although “the ones that moth­er gives you,” she sang, “don’t do any­thing at all.”

“To this day,” she says, “I don’t think most peo­ple real­ize the song was aimed at par­ents who drank and told their kids not to do drugs. I felt they were full of crap, but write a good song, you need a few more words than that.” And to turn a good song into an instant clas­sic, you need a band like Jef­fer­son Air­plane.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Lis­ten to Grace Slick’s Hair-Rais­ing Vocals in the Iso­lat­ed Track for “White Rab­bit” (1967)

Jef­fer­son Air­plane Plays on a New York Rooftop; Jean-Luc Godard Cap­tures It (1968)

Dick Clark Intro­duces Jef­fer­son Air­plane & the Sounds of Psy­che­del­ic San Fran­cis­co to Amer­i­ca: Yes Par­ents, You Should Be Afraid (1967)

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness.

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Download 435 High Resolution Images from John J. Audubon’s The Birds of America

in Art, Biology, Nature | October 11th, 2019

In our expe­ri­ence, bird lovers fall into two gen­er­al cat­e­gories:

Keen­ly obser­vant cat­a­loguers like John James Audubon …

And those of us who can­not resist assign­ing anthro­po­mor­phic per­son­al­i­ties and behav­iors to the 435 stars of Audubon’s The Birds of Amer­i­ca, a stun­ning col­lec­tion of prints from life-size water­col­ors he pro­duced between 1827 and 1838.

Our sus­pi­cions have lit­tle to do with biol­o­gy, but rather, a cer­tain zesti­ness of expres­sion, an overem­phat­ic beak, a droll gleam in the eye.

The Audubon Society’s new­ly redesigned web­site abounds with trea­sure for those in either camp:

Free high res down­loads of all 435 plates.

Mp3s of each specimen’s call.

And vin­tage com­men­tary that effec­tive­ly splits the dif­fer­ence between sci­ence and the unin­ten­tion­al­ly humor­ous locu­tions of anoth­er age.

Take for instance, the Bur­row­ing Owl, as described by self-taught nat­u­ral­ist Thomas Say (1787–1834):

It is delight­ful, dur­ing fine weath­er, to see these live­ly lit­tle crea­tures sport­ing about the entrance of their bur­rows, which are always kept in the neat­est repair, and are often inhab­it­ed by sev­er­al indi­vid­u­als. When alarmed, they imme­di­ate­ly take refuge in their sub­ter­ranean cham­bers; or, if the dread­ed dan­ger be not imme­di­ate­ly impend­ing, they stand near the brink of the entrance, brave­ly bark­ing and flour­ish­ing their tails, or else sit erect to recon­noitre the move­ments of the ene­my.

The notes of ornithol­o­gist John Kirk Townsend (1809 – 1851) sug­gest that not every­one was as tak­en with the species as Say (who was, in all fair­ness, the father of Amer­i­can ento­mol­o­gy):

Noth­ing can be more unpleas­ant than the bag­ging of this species, on account of the fleas with which their plumage swarms, and which in all prob­a­bil­i­ty have been left in the bur­row by the Bad­ger or Mar­mot, at the time it was aban­doned by these ani­mals. I know of no oth­er bird infest­ed by that kind of ver­min. 

The Com­mon Gallinule, above, sug­gests that there’s often more to these birds than meets the eye. His some­what sheep­ish look­ing coun­te­nance belies the red hot love life Audubon recounts:

… the man­i­fes­ta­tions of their ama­to­ry propen­si­ty were quite remark­able. The male birds court­ed the females, both on the land and on the water; they fre­quent­ly spread out their tail like a fan, and moved round each oth­er, emit­ting a mur­mur­ing sound for some sec­onds. The female would after­wards walk to the water’s edge, stand in the water up to her breast, and receive the caress­es of the male, who imme­di­ate­ly after would strut on the water before her, jerk­ing with rapid­i­ty his spread tail for awhile, after which they would both resume their ordi­nary occu­pa­tions.

Being that we are firm­ly plant­ed in the sec­ond type of bird lover’s camp, this ornitho­log­i­cal cor­nu­copia main­ly serves to whet our appetite for more Falseknees, self-described bird nerd Joshua Bark­man’s beau­ti­ful­ly ren­dered web­com­ic.

Yes, Audubon’s Indi­go Bird, aka Petit Pape­bleu, “an active and live­ly lit­tle fel­low” who “pos­sess­es much ele­gance in his shape, and also a cer­tain degree of firm­ness in his make” was sep­a­rat­ed by a cen­tu­ry or so from “Mood Indi­go”—we pre­sume that’s the tune stuck in Barkman’s bird’s head—but he does look rather pre­oc­cu­pied, no?

Pos­si­bly just think­ing of meal­worms…

Explore Audubon’s Birds of Amer­i­ca by chrono­log­i­cal or alpha­bet­i­cal order, or by state, and down­load them all for free here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Cor­nell Launch­es Archive of 150,000 Bird Calls and Ani­mal Sounds, with Record­ings Going Back to 1929

What Kind of Bird Is That?: A Free App From Cor­nell Will Give You the Answer

Explore an Inter­ac­tive Ver­sion of The Wall of Birds, a 2,500 Square-Foot Mur­al That Doc­u­ments the Evo­lu­tion of Birds Over 375 Mil­lion Years

Mod­ernist Bird­hous­es Inspired by Bauhaus, Frank Lloyd Wright and Joseph Eich­ler

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Join her in NYC on Mon­day, Novem­ber 7 for her month­ly book-based vari­ety show, Necro­mancers of the Pub­lic Domain. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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Free: Download the Sublime Sights & Sounds of Yellowstone National Park

in Biology, Life, Nature | October 10th, 2019

Moments before writ­ing these words I was feel­ing a lit­tle stressed—a not uncom­mon expe­ri­ence for most every­one these days. Then I watched the 25-sec­ond video of a bighorn sheep, above, and some­thing hap­pened. Not an epiphany or moment of Zen. Just a momen­tary sus­pen­sion of human woe as the ani­mal silent­ly munched, a crea­ture so unlike myself and yet so moti­vat­ed by the same basic needs.

How much bet­ter to observe the sheep first­hand, in its home at Yel­low­stone Nation­al Park? But per­haps we can, through our com­put­ers, touch into a lit­tle of the rem­e­dy Oliv­er Sacks sug­gest­ed for our mod­ern trau­mas. Nature gives us “sense of deep time,” the neu­rol­o­gist wrote, which “brings a deep peace with it, a detach­ment from the timescale, the urgen­cies of dai­ly life… a pro­found sense of being at home, a sort of com­pan­ion­ship with the earth.”

Research has found that watch­ing nature doc­u­men­taries can bring on real con­tent­ment, con­firm­ing what mil­lions of Nation­al Geo­graph­ic devo­tees already know. Now, at the Nation­al Park Service’s site, you can immerse your­self in vir­tu­al vis­its with not only our silent bighorn sheep friend, but the song of a moun­tain blue­bird, or cho­rus­es of howl­ing wolves. The audio library con­tains dozens more such melo­di­ous and haunt­ing sounds from Yellowstone’s bio­pho­ny.

The video library is replete with not only short clips of ani­mals doing what ani­mals do, but also video tours like that above, in which we learn how park rangers cap­ture and han­dle bison in their con­ser­va­tion efforts at the park. Then there are stun­ning land­scape videos like that below of Low­er Falls viewed from Look­out Point in the spring of 2017, with sooth­ing nat­ur­al white noise from the rush­ing water and blow­ing wind.

All of this con­tent is avail­able for down­load and free for any­one to use. Remix the sounds of falling snow, gey­sers, and moun­tain lions; make as many nature gifs as you desire. As you do, bear in mind that while humans might great­ly benefit—both psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly and culturally—from the dig­i­tal preser­va­tion of the nat­ur­al world, the true pur­pose may be to help us under­stand why we need to step back and pre­serve the real thing.

Just above see a (non­down­load­able) video from Yel­low­stone on the impor­tance of lis­ten­ing to and con­serv­ing the land’s nat­ur­al soundscapes—a fea­ture of the world that best thrives in the near absence of human involve­ment.

Enter the sound library here, and the video library here.

via Kot­tke

Relat­ed Con­tent:

How the Japan­ese Prac­tice of “For­est Bathing”—Or Just Hang­ing Out in the Woods—Can Low­er Stress Lev­els and Fight Dis­ease

Watch 50 Hours of Nature Sound­scapes from the BBC: Sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly Proven to Ease Stress and Pro­mote Hap­pi­ness & Awe

The British Library’s “Sounds” Archive Presents 80,000 Free Audio Record­ings: World & Clas­si­cal Music, Inter­views, Nature Sounds & More

10 Hours of Ambi­ent Arc­tic Sounds Will Help You Relax, Med­i­tate, Study & Sleep

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness.

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David Gilmour Makes His Live at Pompeii Concert Film Free to Watch Online

in Music | October 10th, 2019

On a hot Octo­ber day in 1971, Pink Floyd and their crew assem­bled their live gear in an emp­ty ancient Pom­peii amphithe­ater and, with a film crew along for the ride, record­ed one of the first epic con­certs of their career, play­ing “Echoes,” “Set the Con­trols for the Heart of the Sun,” “Care­ful with that Axe, Eugene,” and oth­er prog num­bers that set the stage for Dark Side of the Moon. A few years lat­er, they’d be play­ing in sta­di­ums actu­al­ly filled with peo­ple, and well, you know the rest.

In 2016, gui­tarist David Gilmour returned to the same amphithe­ater with his cur­rent band in tow, and filmed anoth­er con­cert movie (also called “Live at Pom­peii”). This time the sta­di­um was filled (though not on the ancient seats), night­time was exchanged for day­time, and the set list was a com­bi­na­tion of Floyd clas­sics, old­er rar­i­ties like “Fat Old Sun” and “One of the These Days”, and plen­ty of tracks from his then new solo album Rat­tle That Lock, released in 2015.

Gilmour opt­ed not to play “Echoes,” telling Rolling Stone that it was too much a Rick Wright song and didn’t feel right to play it with­out him. It was the first pub­lic per­for­mance in the ancient Roman amphithe­atre since AD 79. (The gui­tarist was also made an hon­orary cit­i­zen of Pom­peii).

Well, Gilmour just released the full con­cert on YouTube after a world­wide cin­e­ma screen­ing of the con­cert in 2017. The YouTube playlist con­tains tracks that weren’t in the film, so for fans, this is just an extra spe­cial bonus.

The band includes Chester Kamen on gui­tars, a ses­sion musi­cian who has played with both Gilmour and Waters on var­i­ous occa­sions; Guy Pratt, who’s been Pink Floyd’s tour­ing bassist since Roger Waters split; Chuck Leavell of the All­man Broth­ers; Greg Phllinganes, and Steve DiS­tanis­lao.

The show begins as the last rays of sun­light dis­ap­pear behind Mt. Vesu­vius, a nice Floy­di­an touch. It ends, appro­pri­ate­ly enough, with “Com­fort­ably Numb,” (embed­ded above) but not with an exact copy of its famous gui­tar solo.

“I just try and let the solo come out,” Gilmour said in the same Rolling Stone inter­view. “I couldn’t play the one off the album. I try not too think about it too much.”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch Pink Floyd Play Live Amidst the Ruins of Pom­peii in 1971 … and David Gilmour Does It Again in 2016

David Gilmour Invites a Street Per­former to Play Wine Glass­es Onstage With Him In Venice: Hear Them Play “Shine On You Crazy Dia­mond”

David Gilmour Talks About the Mys­ter­ies of His Famous Gui­tar Tone

Ted Mills is a free­lance writer on the arts who cur­rent­ly hosts the artist inter­view-based FunkZone Pod­cast and is the pro­duc­er of KCR­W’s Curi­ous Coast. You can also fol­low him on Twit­ter at @tedmills, read his oth­er arts writ­ing at tedmills.com and/or watch his films here.

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The Women of Rock: Discover an Oral History Project That Features Pioneering Women in Rock Music

in Music | October 10th, 2019

If you’ve won­dered why projects cel­e­brat­ing women in the his­to­ry of rock are need­ed, maybe all you need to do is lis­ten to women in rock. Sto­ries of boys’ clubs in the indus­try, from record labels to jour­nal­ists to fan­doms, are ubiq­ui­tous, which is why so many voic­es are pushed to the mar­gins, say rock his­to­ri­ans like Tanya Pear­son, direc­tor of the Women of Rock oral his­to­ry project.

Mar­gin­al­iza­tion hap­pens not only on stages and stu­dios but at the lev­el of mem­o­ry and preser­va­tion. “Canons influ­ence how we remem­ber the past,” Pear­son writes. “Rock jour­nal­ism, media, and schol­ar­ship per­pet­u­ates a one sided, andro­cen­tric rock nar­ra­tive…. Women do not eas­i­ly fit and so they con­tin­ue to be under­rep­re­sent­ed. If they are rep­re­sent­ed at all, they are not giv­en the same lev­el of atten­tion or grant­ed the same access to audi­ence as their male coun­ter­parts.”

Women of Rock, a “col­lec­tion of dig­i­tal inter­views and writ­ten tran­scripts housed at the Sophia Smith Col­lec­tion at Smith col­lege,” focus­es “pri­mar­i­ly on artists who have been left out of the pop­u­lar rock nar­ra­tives.”

Pear­son and her vol­un­teer col­lab­o­ra­tors hope that “by cre­at­ing space for women, trans, and gen­der non­con­form­ing artists to share their per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al his­to­ries” the project can “con­tribute to their per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al his­to­ries and accu­rate pop­u­lar rock nar­ra­tives.”


Pear­son cre­at­ed the project while an under­grad­u­ate at Smith, find­ing her­self “frus­trat­ed by the scant details avail­able about her favorite musi­cians,” writes Sharon Han­non at Please Kill Me. “The main rea­son I start­ed this project,” she tells Han­non, “was that it’s some­thing I wish I had access to when I was 13 or 14,” a time in her life when she was “des­per­ate­ly search­ing for rep­re­sen­ta­tion.” The prob­lem wasn’t that women like her did not exist in rock, but that she couldn’t find out much about them.

The site’s cur­rent ros­ter of inter­vie­wees is an inter­est­ing and impres­sive mix. It includes women who have been inte­gral to punk, indie, and alter­na­tive rock—like Lydia Lunch (fur­ther up), Nina Gor­don and Louise Post of Veru­ca Salt, Alice Bag, Shirley Man­son, Julie Cafritz, Melis­sa Auf der Mauer, Kristin Hersh, Mary Tim­o­ny, Kira Rossel­er, JD Sam­son, Aman­da Palmer, and Exene Cer­van­ka. (Sad­ly, Kim Shat­tuck of the Muffs, who passed away recent­ly, isn’t fea­tured.) And there are less­er-known artists who deserve a much wider audi­ence, like Brie (Howard) Dar­ling, a mem­ber of the crim­i­nal­ly under­rat­ed Fan­ny, and whose full inter­view you can see below.

All of these women have sto­ries to tell about sur­viv­ing in a “male dom­i­nat­ed busi­ness” as Tra­cy Bon­ham says in the trail­er at the top of the post. Sto­ries about “the patri­ar­chal sys­tem,” as Shirley Man­son says in her inter­view fur­ther up, “that allows men to thrive” and push­es women out. All of these musi­cians also tell us sto­ries about themselves—their child­hoods, influ­ences, strug­gles, and pas­sions, leav­ing behind a record in which future women rock­ers and rock his­to­ri­ans among the cur­rent gen­er­a­tion of 13- and 14-year-old kids can see them­selves.

See the pro­jec­t’s YouTube chan­nel for more full inter­views and inter­view clips and vis­it the Women of  Rock site for more.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Meet Fan­ny, the First Female Rock Band to Top the Charts: “They Were Just Colos­sal and Won­der­ful, and Nobody’s Ever Men­tioned Them”

New Web Project Immor­tal­izes the Over­looked Women Who Helped Cre­ate Rock and Roll in the 1950s

How Joan Jett Start­ed the Run­aways at 15 and Faced Down Every Bar­ri­er for Women in Rock and Roll

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness.

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