Just Opened:

Darkcho is an album of #mystical #Hasidic music, that sounds more like an #indie #folk #rock album with tradition than what you would expect of a #religious album. The music is very real, very #meditative and very very #human. A #physical copy of this #record is hard to find. As we look at the art we see how #mysterious it all is. Hand written lyrics and notes cover the panels, but there is no label, there is no #website, there is no way of finding out any more information and to top it all off, when you flip the cover over you read these fascinating words: “These songs collected here belong to the Jewish people. They originate from #holiness. They speak of self nullification and redemption, the need for healing and discovering the depths of the #Holy #One #Blessed Be He in this #world and the next. We take no recognition for any part of the material, lest the actual performing of the music itself.“

We couldn’t let the album not be heard, so we have put together a digital release with a new painting by the #singer, in order to ensure that the #world hears it, aged in the barrels of #Eastern #European folklore and steeped in centuries of #Jewish #musical #tradition. The album plays like a #Tarantino #soundtrack to the #deepest, most #spiritual moments of #life; full of depth and #style, antiquity and #freshness.

Get it at http://bancs.bandcamp.com (at Bancs Media)

Do you have ALL THE KNOWLEDGE about the world of Harry Potter?  Are your Muggle-born friends constantly turning to you for advice navigating the ever-shifting staircases of Hogwarts? Do you secretly have lesson plans ready for the day you get hired as the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor?  

Or do you just know a lot about the wonderful world of Harry Potter and want to share it with the Dashcon attendees?

Whatever your particular brand of HP love, the Harry Potter committee at Dashcon is looking for a few friendly, knowledgeable, and FUN people to be panelists at a Q&A session for fans of all ages.  Whether your specialty is the etymology of spells, the use of folklore in character names, or your memorization of the Marauder’s Map - feel free to apply as a panelist!

We need your help!

Jewish cemetery in Yeghegis, Armenia, 13th century

Female Bust, 1936 ~ Pablo Picasso

A History of True Detective’s New Theme Song, ‘Nevermind’

Going into the premiere episode of True Detective season two, we knew the answers to almost all of the show’s most basic, production-based mysteries: who’d star, who’d direct, and where the season would be set. But there was still one crucial piece of the puzzle missing: Who would sing the theme song? As we learned, the answer to that question turned out to be pretty awesome: none other than Leonard Cohen.

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Yemenite Jewish children, Sana'a, Yemen, Circa 1909. By Hermann Burchardt.

West African women, unlike their East African sisters, eschew the bright reds and other primary colors. They allow themselves black, white, ocher, yellow and beige earth tones. They do employ blue, but it is the blue black, electric indigo or the soft, subtle blue of West African mornings. Maya Angelou, Art of Africa, Even the Stars Look Lonesome.

Design Patterns from Ghana. Though the colour palette is broader than defined by Maya Angelou I like that the excerpt distinguishes the way colours (and of course designs) vary in African countries and in particular how this is tied to the landscape.

The first pattern reminds me a little of a kolam called Sita Mudichu (Sita’s Knot). and the last of the simple pulli (dot) kolam.

Pic Source.

Sonia Delaunay, Flamenco Singers, known as Large Flamenco, 1915-1916. Tate Modern, London. © CAM – Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian / © Pracusa 2014083.

About:

Sonia Delaunay’s innovative explorations of color and form began with a quilt she made for her son in 1911 that would spur a breakthrough in the history of abstraction. She had moved from Moscow to Paris at age 20, where she first encountered Post-Impressionism and Fauvism, inspiring her to push further toward non-objective art. Along with her husband, Robert Delaunay, she developed a bright blend of Cubism and Futurism that would be dubbed Orphism by critic Guillaume Apollinaire in 1910—though Delaunay preferred the term “Simultaneous Contrasts”. In addition to painting, she created textiles as “exercises in color,” under the Maison Delaunay label, even creating costumes for Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. In 1964, Delaunay became the first living woman to be given a retrospective at the Louvre.

Source:  artsy​ - http://bit.ly/1J7BPUq

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Mrs. Sarah Netanyahu receiving the four species  from Chabad Rabbis at the Prime Minister’s Sukkah.

Also seen in the photograph the Chief Rabbis of Israel.  

Jewish children say goodbye to their parents through a fence after being separated for deportation in Lodz, Poland .

via reddit