Lovefoxxx at Ballroom Marfa, May 27, 2012. Photo courtesy of Jana Ayena.

We’re all over Rookie these days — maybe our demographic — and today they have an interview with Lovefoxxx of CSS, who played for us last Memorial Day and totally brought the party (as evidenced in the photo above). Lovefoxxx shares photos from their recording sojourn in Los Angeles, love for reggae (Ballroom hears that), recommendations for new Latin American bands (Kumbia Queers, we may be coming for you) and their new single “Dynamite.” One great bit:

CSS is about to start shooting a makeover show for the web, where you’ll also be giving people relationship and life advice. What’s some advice you would give our readers?
You can show compassion without dimming yourself down. Be true. Be a flower.

Be true. Be a flower. Planta is out June 11.

Add the mushrooms, salt, and white pepper and cook, stirring, until the mushrooms begin to caramelize and all the liquid has evaporated, about 20 minutesArya, S.
The researcher observes that these words suggest or recommend a very unique ministry.

At the beginning of 2009, as part of Deloitte’s commitment to being at the fore of supporting its clients with tax services in the region, Deloitte launched an International Tax Center of Excellence in Dubai.

put that responsibility on ourselves and we have to find a way to do that every night.

I also really like their bun cha Hanoi.
Kocharovsky, Y.

“We try to make the foreign less foreign,” he says of Under told Stories.

Space Is the Place screens at 8pm on 29 May 2013 at the Crowley Theater in Marfa, Texas as part of Ballroom’s New Growth Film Program, co-curated by Rashid Johnson and Josh Siegel, MoMA. Admission is free and open to the public.

Like Shards From Some Vanished Civilization: An Introduction to Space Is the Place

In the 1970s, Sun Ra wasn’t yet recognized as the eccentric genius that he is understood as today. He’d been leading bands for almost three decades, placing ecstatic chanting alongside percolating synthesizer pieces, using improvisational percussion and cosmic expansions of big band styles to create a voluminous if obscure repertoire that placed classic jazz and swing in an extraterrestrial timeline. This destabilized polyglot sound was too conspicuously wacky to fit in with the jazz establishment or its free jazz fringes, and though he’d already graced the cover of Rolling Stone in 1969, his music seemed as equally confusing for the Anglo psychedelic music scene.

His canonization as one of the pioneers of Afrofuturism would have to wait until later in his career, though of course his work now looks right at home next to similar explorations from Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock, and would help set the stage for Funkadelic’s Afro-cosmic psychedelia, MC5’s liberation rock, Sonic Youth’s deep noise grooves and the Boredoms’ melted drum ensembles.

One place where Sun Ra did find a home was as an artist-in-residence at the University of California at Berkeley, where he delivered a series of lectures in 1971 under the heading “The Black Man in the Cosmos, Hyperstition and Fast-Forward Theory.” The course’s now legendary syllabus included the King James Bible, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, work from 19th century occultist Madame Blavatsky, poetry from Henry Dumas, as well as texts about the pagan roots of the Catholic Church, Egyptology and African American folklore.

Someone in the Berkeley AV department had the foresight to record one of these lectures — archived at ubu.com — wherein Sun Ra holds forth in such a way as to indicate that he’s both serious about his cosmological thinking, while at the same time deliberately provoking laughter from the gathered students as he tsk-task-tsks his chalk across the blackboard.

Team Ballroom. Not pictured: Jennifer Trammell, who arranged the outing, and Carlos Lujan, who generously pitched in.

Yesterday we cleaned the two miles around Prada Marfa as part of the Adopt-a-Highway program, and we were lucky to have a cloudy(-ish), cool(-ish) day for our inaugural trash duty. We collected 14 bags of trash (!) and came across a few treasures, including a complete calf skeleton (!!) and a high-powered camera lens (!!!). Our tips: Wear boots, avoid white jeans, bring gloves, find camera lenses. See you next quarter.

Click here for more info on these free screenings.

Hot on the heels of her intense performance as Nazyuta in “Devils at Play“, Susannah Lipsey announces the one-year anniversary of Freda, her Marfa-based “concept and lifestyle store.”

“Hope you all can join us this Saturday 5/25 for a FULL DAY of celebration as FREDA turns 1!” Lipsey writes on MarfaList.

Middle row, from left: Austin Traylor, Walnut Ridge; Keith Heitzman, Hilliard Davidson; Jourdan Wickliffe, StN’y aurait il que le taxi.
Battle pleaded guilty last February to fatally shooting Kelly T.
My hope is that it brings understanding and FRIENDLY conversation to the table.
, professeur à l’université de Hokkaido.
In her statement, Ms.
Their racist owner is coughing in the dustbin of history.

Une source militaire jordanienne confirme

Une source militaire jordanienne a confirm mercredi la chute d avion de l de l dans la r de Raqa, dans le nord de la Syrie, et la capture de son pilote par l Etat islamique (EI), selon l officielle Petra.

Rebecca Solnit at the nature walk at Mimms Ranch, 2 September 2012. Photo by Elizabeth Chapman.

For the 10th anniversary of her “arrival” at the Tom Dispatch online journal, Rebecca Solnit contributes “Too Soon To Tell: The Case for Hope, Continued“, a deeply inspirational essay. An excerpt …

“If you take the long view, you’ll see how startlingly, how unexpectedly but regularly things change. Not by magic, but by the incremental effect of countless acts of courage, love, and commitment, the small drops that wear away stones and carve new landscapes, and sometimes by torrents of popular will that change the world suddenly. To say that is not to say that it will all come out fine in the end regardless. I’m just telling you that everything is in motion, and sometimes we are ourselves that movement.”

It’s a moving piece of writing from a thinker with such a wide range of influence that she’s credited as one of the leading lights of the anti-war movement, contributed profound essays to photographic catalogs by Richard Misrach and James Evans, and is cited as possible inspiration for the christening of Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s daughter. She’s also the author of such modern-day classics as A Field Guide to Getting Lost, A Paradise Built in Hell and Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas.

Solnit was a participant in the 2012 edition of Marfa Dialogues: You can listen to an interview with her while she was visiting us out here in the Big Bend at Marfa Public Radio. Her new book, The Faraway Nearby, comes out on June 13.

The Shea Butter Irrigation System as shot by Marfalogical Exploration

Marfalogical Exploration — a group “travelling Marfa to learn how to be successful as professional artists” — stopped by Ballroom back in March to take some snapshots of New Growth, and to chat with Rosa and Erin …

“Upon arrival in Marfa at 12:30 PM, we went straight to Ballroom Marfa to see Rashid Johnson’s show, entitled New Growth. Rosa McElheny, the Exhibitions & Programs Coordinator and Erin Kimmel, the Associate Curator at Ballroom were kind enough to to meet with us.

We were really inspired by our meeting with Rosa because she was recently in the same position that we are in now, since she completed her undergraduate degree in 2011. We chatted about reasons for attending graduate school and finding residencies- she recommended searching residencyunlimited.org.

Rosa also answered questions that I had about how they organized Ballroom’s Marfa Dialogues program. I was curious about how they recruited Michael Pollan (one of my heros) and Rebecca Solnit, among others in Marfa. Hamilton Fish, published of the Washington Spectator, co-presented Marfa Dialogues. The upcoming program this fall will be held in NYC.”

Glasstire just posted the second article in a two-part series on CineMarfa, the film festival founded by Marfa residents David Hollander and Jennifer Lane in 2011. In short, Glasstire’s Peter Lucas was feeling it. From CineMarfa 2013 (Part 1: The Festival)

“Because it is relatively small, free, laid back, and has an audience heavy in artists and cultural investigators, there was little distinction between the intermingling festival organizers, official guests, and audience members – all of whom were there simply to see films and to share their thoughts and ideas. (Of course, that should be the case at all film festivals, but believe me, it’s rare.) Discussions about the films, and art and life in general, spilled out between screenings onto the front steps, and in pockets at the Lost Horse Saloon and Padre’s Bar and Grill, at the festival’s rooftop cocktail hour at Hotel Paisano and the closing party at the Chicken Coop.”

Lucas also provides an enthusiastic assessment of the festival’s programming in CineMarfa 2013 (Part 2: The Films), including a look at the work of local filmmaker (recently seen in the role of Staff Sgt. Baldy in “Devils at Play”) Joe Cashiola …

“West Texas Cloud Appreciation Society, a Texas-paced, work-in-progress documentary essay by Marfa-based filmmaker Joseph Cashiola, provided glimpses of the area’s diversity of characters and happenings—from ranching and cowboy poetry to punk rock house parties, UFO conventions, and art parades. The wilder life is brought down to earth with shots of the landscape and sky, and by scenes with folks like Marfa bar owner Ty Mitchell and Valentine, Texas artist Boyd Elder. This painted an intriguing portrait of the unique planet that is West Texas, and its screening being packed with enthusiastic locals reminded me that I was in the middle of it.”

In other film news, the Marfa Film Festival is gearing up for its return on June 26, and here at the Ballroom we’re putting the finishing touches on the New Growth film program, curated by Rashid Johnson and Josh Siegel. And, of course, we’re looking forward to the arrival of Alix Pearlstein in July as part of the Artists’ Films International program. Stay tuned for more information.

Fantastic interview with Eleanor Friedberger over at Rookie, plus they’ve got another song — “She’s a Mirror” — from her forthcoming album available for streaming. An excerpt from the Q&A:

“How does it feel to get attention for making something personal public?

Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s awkward. I like having anonymity, don’t like being the focus of attention.

The good part about attention I think is obvious, but what is the difficult part?

It’s never good to doubt yourself. I mean, for example, I like getting dressed some days, but it’s such fine line of deciding how much time you are going to spend thinking about what you are going to wear when you know people are going to be looking at you. That is something I do think about, but when you think about it a little too much it turns unhealthy. I am conscious of people looking at me, whether it’s in photos or while I’m performing. In those situations I try to be free as possible, because if you overthink it, it does your head in. That’s when people start getting a little goofy. Sometimes I think I should be more diva-ish [laughs], that maybe I am little too normal and balanced to make it in this industry.”

Personal Record is out June 4 on Merge. Can’t wait that long for new Eleanor jams? Check out the 7-inch she recorded during her Ballroom residency here in Marfa, available from the Ballroom store and iTunes.

“Devils at Play” screenwriter James DiLapo in studio at KRTS. Catch the re-broadcast of his “Talk at Ten” interview today at 6:30p (CST). RSVP for tomorrow’s two live performances of “Devils at Play” here.