I came upon this incredible clip of the great Gilberto Gil in 1972, 8 years after the military coup, while the dictatorship was certainly still censoring and suppressing dissenters. I guess this was around the time Caetano Veloso returned after living in exile in London. What a wonderful song. It gave me a brief moment of hope for what we have coming here. Then I remembered that during the last Trump term we just got more T Swift, style/genre mashups, riffs learned off of YouTube, etc. I guess that’s what happens when all culture disappears from the creative landscape. Maybe we’ll get some powerful music around 2033?
Went to a fun theremin workshop at WFMU’s Monty Hall in Jersey City with the lovely Dorit Chrysler. I’ve had a fascination with this instrument since I first heard of it in the late 80s — but it always seemed so mysterious and I never had the slightly clue how to navigate playing one. The class opened with Ms. Chrysler playing a piece of her music, which was really moving. After a short talk, she invited folks up to fumble around the 6 thereminis that they had around the stage (each with a pair of earbuds attached) a few times. One interesting point Dorit made was that both trained musicians and non-trained everybodies would be in the same boat playing the theremin for the first time. The one question I had was in relation to Chysler saying she was a “lefty,” so the tone arm of the theremin was on left. This confused me because I couldn’t really comprehend which side of the instrument (the volume or the tone) would be considered the “main” side (e.g., like the frets of a guitar). She confessed that it really hard to say and that you “really need both hands equally”. It was just a matter of what feels right. There were about 60 people in attendance but they said they’ll be doing smaller workshops (one person per theremin) throughout the year 2025.
The Flatbush neighborhoods of Ditmas Park and Midwood are a bit of a food wasteland compared to the rest of NYC. The highest quality restaurant is a pizza and whiskey place, the incredible Wheated — but you’re not going to find that much else. But there is one exception: middle eastern food. Here’s a quick list of the best options I’ve tried to date:
The unfortunately named Istanblue Kebab House on Avenue J a few doors down from the legendary but now fallen-from-grace DiFara Pizza (RIP Dom!) is a surprisingly great Turkish option. The lahmacun is just absolutely phenomenal but you really cannot go wrong with anything on the menu. The lamb chops, adana kebabs and the like are all grilled to perfection. The times I’ve gone with my girlfriend and/or others they always bring out free extra stuff (e.g., puffy lavaş bread, Turkish tea, desserts). There are numerous locations across Brooklyn but I cannot speak about the others.
Lahmacun from Instanblue
Ayat is a Palestinian restaurant with a number of locations across the region and an understandably activist bent (the seafood section of their menu is titled “From the River to the Sea” !!). The best options here are the Palestinian dishes like Lamb Ouzi Royale (a bit like a lamb biryani), Zahr Ma Laban (cauliflower/lamb stew) and Mansaf. As great as it is, I feel like they’ve had some staffing issues because the quality varies from visit to visit.
A range of goodies from Ayat
Dunya Kebab might be my favorite of the three, at least currently. I’ve kept it pretty simple here as my first order here, the basic chicken breast kebab with qabeli-topped rice was is cooked so perfectly each time, I don’t want to stray. The mantu dumplings are also exceptional. I’ll eventually branch out and try more stuff.
Mantu (beef filled dumplings) from Dunya
This shouldn’t be a surprise but all three use a bit too much sodium in their cooking. I always find myself guzzling water all night after eating at any of the three. So I can’t partake TOO often but they are all great.
16 days in Provence in September was a good idea. Here is a recap of the top 10 places we visited, as well as a few things to avoid. Overall, it was a good itinerary. We drove around a lot and lucked out with a hybrid vehicle, so the gas bill was cheap. Photo slide show below.
10 Locations Worth Visiting in Provence
Avignon: Stayed here for the duration of the trip. We got an apartment with a parking garage and a balcony with a nice view of the Palace of the Popes. The town is very low-key in a great way. It’s a little bustling around the palace and bridge but never got that bad. Great restaurants and market, good record store. Close to a lot of other great things. What more do you need?
Roussillon: Gorgeous. Ochre overload. Ochre-load. The ‘Le Sentier de Ochre’ hike around rich hues. The ochre buildings in the town are beautiful. Can’t miss.
Around (but not) St. Remy de Provence: The St. Paul’s asylum, where Vincent committed himself to with Van Gogh walk, completely fascinating. Next to it is Glanum, Roman ruins from the first century BC (with Gaul/Salyen roots from 6th century BC). it was destroyed in a mudslide and apparently Van Gogh was painting olive trees there without any idea there was a buried city beneath. Also behind the asylum is the excellent vineyard/olive oil maker Domaine De Métifiot. Top shelf 00 and Rosé.
Pont du Gard / Uzès: First century roman aqueduct in VG+ condition. Kids playing in the water beneath it. A stunning hike up, over, and back. Nearby Uzès is as charming a French town as you could want. Had a fantastic 3-4 course dinner for next to nothing. Would probably be worth staying only there for a week. We returned for the market day, which was the best of the markets we visited.
Arles: Unexpectedly my favorite city of the trip. Spent two days there. Just beautiful. Adorable micro-Coliseum and other Roman goodies. Stylish old streets. Art everywhere. We were there during their annual photography fest, art photos all over town. Van Gogh painted here a lot, and they kept the square of his first post ear slash hospital garden looking more or less the same as in his paintings. There’s also an excellent sprawling art complex LUMA. Frank Gehry tower, choice exhibitions, places to hang and chill.
Swipe below (captions are basically impossible to read. Sorry.) More destinations below
Saignon
Cassis street
Cassis harbor
Cassis
Pont du Gard
Pont du Gard
Roussillon
Le Sentier des Ocres, Roussillon
Behind the Saint Paul asylum
Puppetheads at flea market, Avignon
Bourgeois on an infinity lake, Château La Coste
Château La Coste
Les Baux de Provence
Les Baux de Provence
Fougasse in Uzès
Arles Arena
Arles Arena
View of square, Arles
The Pont Saint-Bénézet, also known as the Pont d’Avignon
3 old benches in Avignon
Calanques National Park
Calanques National Park
Saint-Saturnin-lès-Apt
Saignon
Les Baux de Provence
View from our flat in Avignon
Les Baux de Provence
Arles
LUMA, Arles
LUMA, Arles
Château La Coste
Avignon
Le Sentier des Ocres, Roussillon
Avignon from the across the Rhône river
Uzès fountain close up
Uzès
Saignon rock
Saignon
Saint-Saturnin-lès-Apt
Madelines de Christophe, Aix-en-Provence
Hospital in Arles; Vibe with (swiped) souvenir Van Gogh
Uzès Castle
Arles
Les Baux de Provence
Château La Coste
Avignon on our final night.
Aix-en-Provence: From the Cezanne paintings. Famous Madelines and excellent Corsican food. Great market (not as great as Uzès). Cool streets and squares. Overpriced LPs at the flea market.
Cassis: had to see the sea so we went to Cassis. Great location, with many of the usual downsides associated with great locations. Thought about a hike in next door in gorgeous Calanques National Park – but decided 2 hour hike to get to one beach seemed extreme — so we took a nice boat ride from Cassis to see more calanques in less time. I took a dip in the Mediterranean. Had a hot dog with French fries, both on a baguette. We also had to park up the hill and take a bus down/up.
Saignon and Saint-Saturnin-lès-Apt: 2 quiet villages of the Luberon that are not too far from each other and both are excellent destinations. Saignon is just gorgeous and the “Saignon Rock” was built by Paleolithic people and was used as an observatory. You can walk up! Photos in slide show. The town Saint Saturnin is low-key and wonderful but at the top are amazing roman castle ruins, an old damn, etc. Visiting these two towns will make for a perfect Provencal day.
Les Baux-de-Provence: rock plateau village, former brutal medieval stronghold and Bronze Age troglodyte village before that (habitation dating to 6000 BC). The town is touristy AF but worth it for the incredible views and wild old ruins
Château La Coste: Winery and art/architecture destination with incredible location/views and a somewhat suspicious array of 50+ works from seemingly every famous living (or recently deceased) sculptor. Very cool, though easy to imagine the evil billionaire owner (hotelier Paddy McKillen) checking off a list. Art…what a racket. Tons of great works but none of it beat the views. Funny that there are works famous sculptors Bob Dylan (I enjoyed his rail car) and Michael Stipe.
Perhaps Avoid in Provence
La Isla de La Sorgue: was very irritating during their overpriced market day. Not that much to see. Everyone takes the exact same Instagram photo in the one picturesque corner. The Venice of Provence? Definitely not.
Gordes: I don’t know. Shrug. Crowded parking lots. Not that interesting. Maybe we didn’t walk down the mountain far enough.
St. Remy old town: Over the top touristy. A few nice fountains, including one dedicated to native crackpot Nostradamus. However, the nearby stuff mentioned above is awesome. Spend your time there. Les Baux is great and not that far, either.
I first saw kalkmalerier, chalk-painted church frescoes, on Bornholm, a Danish isle in the Baltic Sea (south of Sweden and north of Poland) in 2023. The Østerlars round church had some frescoes from the 1100s and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. They all had a comic “Sunday Funnies” sort of vibe and illustrated sometimes brutal, violent scenarios in a light, whimsical way. igh art. I soon learned that there were 600 churches across Denmark adorned with kalkmalerier and I needed to see as many as possible during our 3 weeks across the 3 peninsulas of the kingdom, which is about the size of Colorado.
The frescoes date back to the 1100s and were created through the 1600s — but they were covered up after the reformation with lime wash and were hidden until they were discovered and restored in the late 1800s. After 14th century were in more of a gothic style.
That first trip in 2023 we saw kalkmalerier across the 3 of the 4 round churches on Bornholm (Østerlars, Olsker, Nylars), then the Lygby church north of Copenhagen, then the Bellinge church near Odense on Fyn. When we went back in 2024 (my girlfriend is Danish), we visited the Aarhus Cathedral and traveled south of Copenhagen to the isle of Møn to see the most famous and possibly best examples of kalmalerier. These frescoes were created by the anonymous “Elmelunde Master” in the late 1400s/early 1500s across 3 churches on the island (Elmelunde, Keldby, Fanefjord). This guy was kind of an early Warhol, replicating work across the different places of worship, with some sick, violent variations. We will be visiting DK again this summer and will be seeking out new and wild kalkmalerier examples once again.
Swipe for photos (apologies that the captions with locations are basically impossible to read):
Elemunde Church, Møn, Denmark
Keldby Church, Møn, Denmark
Østerlars Church, Bornholm
Nylars Church, Bornholm
Keldby Church, Møn, Denmark
Bellinge Church, near Odense, Denmark
Bellinge Church, near Odense, Denmark
Elemelunde Church, Møn, Denmark
Fanefjord Church, Møn, Denmark
Elmelunde Church, Møn, Denmark
Lyngby Church, Lyngby, Denmark
Østerlars Church, Bornholm
Nylars Church, Bornholm
Lyngby Church, Lyngby, Denmark
Fanefjord Church, Møn, Denmark
Elmelunde Church, Møn, Denmark
Elmelunde Church, Møn, Denmark
Bellinge Church, near Odense, Denmark
Store Heddinge Church, near Stevens Klint, Højerup, Denmark
2 images from Aarhus Cathedral, Aarhus, Denmark
Aarhus Cathedral, Aarhus, Denmark
Keldby Church, Møn, Denmark
Keldby Church, Møn, Denmark
Keldby Church, Møn, Denmark
Vibe’s dad’s book on Kalkmalerier from mid and east Jutland
I heard Al Gore talk about the “information superhighway” and I was intrigued. Not a joke. I didn’t even own a computer until I was 30, in 1996 (a Mac Quadra) but I was interested in the idea of putting my xeroxed zine CapSoul Reviews online. A year or so later, I shared an idea with my friend Dan Cook of Gimme Gimme Records (ex-NY, now LA). I thought we should take his rarest records and post them to the internet, promoting his store in the process. Was it mainly a plan to get my hands on some holy grail wax? Probably. He curated the playlists amazingly, maximizing elite record collector interest. I found a piece of code that embedded “Shockwave Audio” (which later evolved into Flash). I just needed to change the file name and it streamed the song and it was smoother and sounded better than other stuff out there (like RealAudio). I digitized some incredible vinyl. I wrote some funny blurbs. Made some primitive web graphics.
I was working at a public relations agency at the time and they had “Bacon’s” books with contacts for every editor in every newspaper and magazine in the US. I began faxing the URL to various tech and music beat writers. I dropped little postcards with the URL at Kim’s Video on St. Marks. The site was written up or mentioned in Details, the Rotterdam Dagblad, USA Today, etc – as well as popular web-based link portals like Suck.com, memepool (which now has a cryptocurrency named after it), and others. The Beastie Boys heard it, through future Grand Royal CEO Ian C Rogers. Grand Royal. RareMusic would eventually become a streaming channel on GrandRoyal.com. I was also approached by the fine people at Word magazine, which was a really cool site, to do a monthly playlist with blurbs for what they called “Junk Radio”
Image via Archive.org ‘Wayback Machine’. I updated the site monthly for at least a year but this is the only version of the site they have.
I ended up getting a job as a web producer at Comedy Central and I didn’t feel like coming home at night to work on yet another website. The channel was live on Grand Royal, until they went bankrupt, and that was the end of RareMusic.com. I stored the files on Iomega Zip drives lol. All gone. I do have CDs of the music we posted though. I’ve been making my way through lately, which is why it’s on my mind.
Undiscovered Brooklyn 