in 1970, a polish musician released a jazzy psychedelic-soul album inspired by gospel music and traditional poetry. the opening track is a 17-minute rhapsody inspired by a 19th-century polish poem, using gregorian chants. it’s been called “the greatest polish rock album”
I highly recommend people also check out William Greaves' film about the Harlem Renaissance that he put out while he was alive.
Plays like a PBS special (it was one, I believe) but it actually gets to some really interesting depths about the artists.
https://t.co/mhV5j6hBVV
Some of my favorite examples of Africans blending Traditional Clothing with European clothing resulting in a hybrid attire that just looks so Damm good
Most people don't know this, but Salvador Dalí built his entire career on tapping into his unconscious mind on purpose.
Dalí's most famous trick was a micro-nap he called "slumber with a key." He'd sit in a heavy Spanish-style armchair, head tilted back against the leather, both arms hanging completely limp off the armrests, and in his left hand he'd hold a heavy metal key pinched lightly between his thumb and forefinger.
Directly under that hand, on the floor, he'd place an upside-down plate. He'd then let himself drift into sleep. The instant he actually fell asleep, his muscles would go slack, the key would slip out of his fingers, hit the upside-down plate, and the clang would jolt him awake.
The whole nap was meant to last less than a quarter of a second. He called that half-second window the "taut and invisible wire which separates sleeping from waking," and he'd immediately sketch the hallucinations he saw in that flash.
The melting clocks, the elephants on stilts, the burning giraffes, a lot of that came straight out of those quarter-second naps. He picked the trick up from Capuchin monks and wrote it down as one of his "50 Secrets of Magic Craftsmanship."
Jackson’s letters, which eventually comprised Soledad Brother, became a massive global sensation, selling over 400,000 copies. His writings deeply captivated French intellectual circles. The legendary French avant-garde dramatist and novelist Jean Genet was so moved by the raw texture of Jackson's writing that he traveled to the U.S. and wrote the famous introductory foreword for the book's release in the fall of 1970.