Blogowitz

In London on November 3rd, the day after the midterm elections in America, political conversations among expats concentrates mainly on two things: the Tea Party and America’s economy. “With the Tea Party, if we can’t agree on lowering the deficit and taxes, if we can’t do that, then we haven’t done our job,” said Stacy [...]

In 2004 Florent de La Tullaye and Renaud Barret encountered Leon “Ricky” Likabu playing music on the streets of Kinshasa. A victim of poliomyelitis, he was joined by fellow wheelchair-bound musicians and street youth. Together, with old beat-up or hand-made instruments, the group played what could only be described as folk music: honest, heart-felt songs [...]

Onstage, 68-year-old Mulatu Astatke is as subtle and understated as the Ethiopian jazz he created. The music, a hybrid of traditional Ethiopian music and jazz, is subdued, somewhat melancholy, and at times psychedelic. Mr Astatke, the originator and composer of songs in this canon, plays his principal instrument, the vibraphone, with a light touch. Between [...]

On the belief that poets, not politicians, can help bring about tangible political change, London’s Southbank Center will again host its biennial Poetry International festival, nine days’ worth of readings, music, translations and new poetry commissions. The festival, which runs from Oct. 30 to Nov. 7 in various venues within Southbank, has political roots. Ted [...]

Since the middle of last month, the Mexican-born artist Damián Ortega has been in London gathering up bits of news — newspaper stories, photojournalism, graphics — from local, national and international publications. He’ll now spend the next three months repurposing his stash as art, in the form of sculpture, installation and prototypes for future projects. [...]

To commemorate the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, Harry Shearer, an actor, author, director and part-time New Orleans resident, has created “The Big Uneasy”, an investigative documentary in which he also stars. The film screened recently at the Curzon Soho cinema in London, followed by a question and answer session with Shearer. Shearer is best [...]

Last summer members of The Roots performed a fiery tribute to Ornette Coleman, a free-jazz saxophone legend. With Vernon Reid on guitar and David Murray on saxophone, the show featured several generations of inventive African-American musicians on a London stage. The result was largely exciting, occasionally long-winded and certainly momentous. In a similar spirit of [...]

The upcoming 2012 London Olympic and Paralympic Games are less than two years away, but right now is a great time to see the the actual park area in all of its dusty, transitional, dug-up glory. The area’s water supply, which runs through a series of canals, had filled with tons of trash and was [...]

Despite co-founding Spotify, a music-streaming service, Swedish-born Daniel Ek loves vinyl records. But don’t be fooled. Ek is intent on making music more accessible and mobile, and his iPhone and digital-music library are never far from his side. “People amass more music now than ever, but it’s not about ownership. It’s about accessibility,” he says. [...]

There’s no specific theme to this year’s festival, just a requirement that everything simply be “funny,” according to Ms. Briggs. “We have such a broad range of acts that pretty much every single subject, genre, experience, commodity, activity, emotion, thought and need is covered. We wouldn’t ever dare ask an act ‘Oooh, would you mind [...]