Japanese Cartoons from the 1920s and 30s Reveal the Stylistic Roots of Anime

in Animation, Comics/Cartoons | November 5th, 2012

Those who have become inter­est­ed in Japan in the past twen­ty years have done so, like­ly as not, because of Japan­ese ani­ma­tion, best known by the Japan­ese term “ani­me.” And why not? Japan’s take on the car­toon has at this point evolved so high and so dis­tant from its west­ern coun­ter­parts that you some­times can’t help star­ing, trans­fixed. Even the word “car­toon” now seems too friv­o­lous to apply. Roll the clock back eighty or nine­ty years, and Japan­ese ani­ma­tion looks decid­ed­ly more… car­toon­ish. But even then, you can eas­i­ly see an excit­ing­ly dif­fer­ent aes­thet­ic in play. First behold the short above, which since its 1933 pro­duc­tion has become a sur­pris­ing­ly pop­u­lar watch on Youtube. Seem­ing­ly influ­enced by the Amer­i­can ani­ma­tion of the time, this fable of fox ver­sus rac­coon still gar­ners acclaim with its craft. Acclaim from com­menters, any­way: “Much smoother than the cur­rent ani­mes,” writes one. “Not only the qual­i­ty. Sto­ry is also fun­ny and peace­ful.”

Go back a few years fur­ther, to 1929, and you find a strik­ing­ly more for­eign view­ing expe­ri­ence in The Stolen Lump. Tak­ing the form of a stan­dard live-action silent pic­ture, with inter­ti­tles and every­thing, the film adapts a fairy tale about an old man who hap­pens upon a pack of ten­gu. He asks these super­nat­ur­al crea­tures to remove what looks like a goi­ter from his face, but when they do, he inspires jeal­ousy in his vil­lage. Final­ly, for an offer­ing that will seem mod­ern by com­par­i­son, watch Pri­vate Norakuro, from 1935, below. It orig­i­nal­ly appeared as just one sto­ry, in one medi­um of sev­er­al, of the prat­fall-heavy mil­i­tary adven­tures of the tit­u­lar anthro­po­mor­phic pup­py. Cre­ator  Sui­hō Tagawa drew the humor from his own time in the Impe­r­i­al Japan­ese Army, to the delight of Japan­ese read­ers and view­ers. The delight last­ed up until World War II, any­way, when the coun­try stopped look­ing so kind­ly on mil­i­tary satire. But Norakuro would soon emerge from retire­ment, going on to star in major ani­mat­ed films and serve as a mas­cot of the Japan Self Defense Force.

Relat­ed con­tent:

The Ear­ly Days of Ani­ma­tion Pre­served in UCLA’s Video Archive

The Best Ani­mat­ed Films of All Time, Accord­ing to Ter­ry Gilliam

Ger­tie the Dinosaur: The Moth­er of all Car­toon Char­ac­ters

Lots of Free Ani­mat­ed Films in our col­lec­tion of 500 Free Movies Online

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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Richard Feynman Talks Physics with Fred Hoyle in Take the World From Another Point of View, 1973

in Physics, Science | November 5th, 2012

The famous Amer­i­can physi­cist Richard Feyn­man used to take hol­i­days in Eng­land. His third wife, Gweneth Howarth, was a native of West York­shire, so every year the Feyn­man fam­i­ly would vis­it her home­town of Rip­pon­den or the near­by ham­let of Mill Bank.

In 1973 York­shire pub­lic tele­vi­sion made a short film of the Nobel lau­re­ate while he was there. The result­ing film, Take the World From Anoth­er Point of View, was broad­cast in Amer­i­ca as part of the PBS Nova series. The doc­u­men­tary fea­tures a fas­ci­nat­ing inter­view, but what sets it apart from oth­er films on Feyn­man is the inclu­sion of a live­ly con­ver­sa­tion he had with the emi­nent British astro­physi­cist Fred Hoyle.

A native York­shire­man, Hoyle did ground­break­ing the­o­ret­i­cal work on the syn­the­sis of ele­ments in stars and was a lead­ing pro­po­nent of the Steady State the­o­ry of cos­mol­o­gy. In the film, the British astro­physi­cist and the Amer­i­can par­ti­cle physi­cist walk down to the local pub, Rip­pon­den’s his­toric Old Bridge Inn, for a live­ly con­ver­sa­tion on physics and the nature of sci­en­tif­ic dis­cov­ery. You can read along with a tran­script of the film at the Cal­tech Web site.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Richard Feyn­man Presents Quan­tum Elec­tro­dy­nam­ics for the Non­Sci­en­tist

‘The Char­ac­ter of Phys­i­cal Law’: Richard Feyn­man’s Leg­endary Lec­ture Series at Cor­nell, 1964

Richard Feyn­man Enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly Explains How to Think Like a Physi­cist in His Series Fun to Imag­ine (1983)

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Making The Planet of the Apes: Roddy McDowall’s Home Movies and a 1966 Makeup Test

in Film, Television | November 5th, 2012

By most accounts, when Rod­dy McDowall appeared on The Car­ol Bur­nett Show in full Plan­et of the Apes make­up, the host was gen­uine­ly fright­ened, a tes­ta­ment to the extra­or­di­nary work of leg­endary, Oscar-win­ning make­up artist John Cham­bers (who as Ben Affleck’s new film Argo reveals, also did work for the CIA). The hand­some char­ac­ter-actor McDowall spent a good por­tion of his film career in make­up, most mem­o­rably as the char­ac­ters Cor­nelius, Cae­sar, and Galen (on the 1974 TV show) of the Plan­et of the Apes series. A home movie buff and pho­tog­ra­ph­er, McDowall doc­u­ment­ed the lengthy process of his Apes’ make­up (above), applied here by artist Don Cash and his assis­tants. Shot and edit­ed by McDowall, and set to excerpts from the dra­mat­ic Jer­ry Gold­smith Apes score, the film also includes a quick shot of Mau­rice Evans in the first minute, game­ly smok­ing a cig­a­rette in full Dr. Zaius make­up.

The Plan­et of the Apes fran­chise is one of the most suc­cess­ful and long-run­ning sci-fi series of all time. Adapt­ed from a 1963 nov­el by French writer Pierre Boulle, the orig­i­nal 1968 film spawned four sequels, Tim Burton’s 2001 remake, the 2011 pre­quel Rise of the Plan­et of the Apes, and its sequel, the upcom­ing Dawn of the Plan­et of the Apes, slat­ed for the spring of 2014. Then, of course, there’s a world of mer­chan­dise, com­ic books, and a car­toon series. The longevi­ty of the series is due in no small part to Chamber’s remark­ably durable visu­al real­iza­tion of Boulle’s premise. How­ev­er, few peo­ple know how much dif­fer­ent the film might have looked had it stayed true to the aes­thet­ic of a 1966 stu­dio pitch/makeup test. In the video right above, set up in the first few min­utes with hand-drawn stills and voice-over nar­ra­tion, Charleton Hes­ton plays Thomas (lat­er changed to Tay­lor), Edward G. Robin­son is Dr. Zaius, James Brolin is Cor­nelius and Lin­da Har­ri­son is Zira (lat­er played by Kim Hunter). This film shows a much more advanced, sci­en­tif­ic ape soci­ety than the result­ing first film, lim­it­ed by bud­get con­cerns, would be able to.

Josh Jones is a doc­tor­al can­di­date in Eng­lish at Ford­ham Uni­ver­si­ty and a co-founder and for­mer man­ag­ing edi­tor of Guer­ni­ca / A Mag­a­zine of Arts and Pol­i­tics.

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Le Blog de Jean-Paul Sartre Discovered

in Comedy, Philosophy | November 4th, 2012

Wednes­day, 22 July, 1959: 10:50 A.M.

This morn­ing over break­fast S. [short for Simone]. asked me why I looked so glum.

“Because,” I said, “every­thing that exists is born for no rea­son, car­ries on liv­ing through weak­ness, and dies by acci­dent.”

“Jesus,” S. said. “Aren’t you ever off the clock?”

Thurs­day, 16 July, 1959: 7:45 P.M.

When S. returned this after­noon I asked her where she had been, and she said she had been in the street.

“Per­haps,” I said, “that explains why you look ‘rue’-ful.”

Her blank stare only rein­forced for me the futil­i­ty of exis­tence.

*  *  *  *  *
Find more blog posts full of com­ic exis­ten­tial angst over at The New York­er, and then, if you want to get seri­ous and bone up on Jean-Paul Sartre’s exis­ten­tial­ist phi­los­o­phy, check out these fine resources:

Sartre, Hei­deg­ger, Niet­zsche: Three Philoso­phers in Three Hours (BBC doc­u­men­taries)

Wal­ter Kaufmann’s Lec­tures on Niet­zsche, Kierkegaard and Sartre (1960, Audio)

75 Free Phi­los­o­phy Cours­es from Great Uni­ver­si­ties

Sartre’s famous lec­ture Exis­ten­tial­ism is a Human­ism (1946) that oth­er­wise appears in our col­lec­tion of Free eBooks.

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An Acoustic History of Punk Rock Sheds Light on NYC’s Lower East Side (NSFW)

in History, Music, Video - Arts & Culture | November 3rd, 2012

With elec­tric­i­ty just restored to low­er Man­hat­tan and sub­ways still sig­nif­i­cant­ly dis­abled six days after Hur­ri­cane Sandy, it seems a fit­ting time for an unplugged His­to­ry of Punk Rock and Its Devel­op­ment on the Low­er East Side, 1950 to 1975.

This neigh­bor­hood salute comes cour­tesy of anti-folk hero/comic book writer Jef­frey Lewis, who was­n’t born until late in the peri­od he describes, but he’s got tons of street cred, hav­ing grown up with­out a TV in one of the very build­ings whose dark­ened stair­wells have dom­i­nat­ed recent head­lines. The clip was orig­i­nal­ly avail­able as a mini cd, pack­aged with FUFF #1, one of Lewis’ com­ic books. Here, he deliv­ers the goods in one cat­er­waul­ing, NSFW, eight-minute take, accom­pa­ny­ing him­self on a stick­er cov­ered acoustic gui­tar. The break­neck, charm­ing­ly off-key primer name checks every­one from The Holy Modal Rounders and the Fugs to Pat­ti Smith and Richard Hell, with son­ic exam­ples of their work crammed between instruc­tive rhyming recita­tive.

To whit:

In ’71, Lester Bangs first writes the word ‘punk’
to describe ’60s enthu­si­as­tic teenage rock junk
’72, Lenny Kaye puts out the ’60s Garage comp. ‘Nuggets’
and coins the phrase ‘punk-rock’ in the lin­er notes of it
Though punk-rock would soon come to mean some­thing dif­fer­ent
from what Lester and Lenny thunk
(They meant raw 60s punk songs)

Even if you’re still pissed about that John Var­vatos bou­tique open­ing in the build­ing that once housed CBG­Bs, please con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to help New York­ers clob­bered by Hur­ri­cane Sandy. Espe­cial­ly if Lewis’ trib­ute has expand­ed your men­tal pic­ture of who an elder­ly per­son on today’s Low­er East Side might be.

Those with the pow­er to do so can down­load FUFF #1 in dig­i­tal form, and lis­ten to the His­to­ry of Punk Rock on the Low­er East Side via leg­endary New Jer­sey radio sta­tion WFMU.

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Take a Vir­tu­al Tour of CBGB, the Ear­ly Home of Punk and New Wave

The Clash: West­way to the World

The Talk­ing Heads Play CBGB, the New York Club that Shaped Their Sound (1975)

- Ayun Hal­l­i­day is the author of the Zinester’s Guide to NYC.

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The Rijksmuseum Puts 125,000 Dutch Masterpieces Online, and Lets You Remix Its Art

in Art, Design, Museums, Technology | November 2nd, 2012

The Rijksmu­se­um in Ams­ter­dam is one of the grand Euro­pean muse­ums. Home to many of the Dutch mas­ters (Rembrandt’s Night Watch, which seems to glow from its cen­ter, and Vermeer’s Milk­maid, to name just a few), the muse­um is locat­ed on the city’s Muse­umplein, sur­round­ed by the small­er Vin­cent Van Gogh muse­um and mod­ern Stedelijk.

All those mas­ter­pieces are now avail­able for close-up view online at the Rijksmu­se­um’s dig­i­tized col­lec­tion. Users can explore the entire col­lec­tion, which is hand­i­ly sort­ed by artist, sub­ject, style and even by events in Dutch his­to­ry. The new dig­i­tal archive has all the same great learn­ing poten­tial as any oth­er online col­lec­tion. It’s search­able, as is the muse­um’s library.

But the Dutch are a whim­si­cal peo­ple, so it seems right that, in dig­i­tiz­ing its col­lec­tion, the muse­um went a step fur­ther than fur­ther. Not only can users cre­ate their own online gal­leries from select­ed works in the museum’s col­lec­tion, they can down­load Rijksmu­se­um art­work for free to dec­o­rate new prod­ucts. (Note: users will need to cre­ate a free account to get start­ed.)

By vis­it­ing the muse­um’s Rijksstu­dio, art lovers can cre­ate their own “sets” of Rijksmu­se­um works. Sets can include images of just flow­ers (think of the lus­cious ros­es and tulips in Dutch still life paint­ings of the 1600s), faces appear­ing in por­traits, or paint­ings of Ams­ter­dam itself through the ages. Just select a work of art and drop it into your own image col­lec­tion. Then use these select­ed images to cre­ate your own per­son­al­ized prod­ucts. From tat­toos to wall­pa­per to scoot­ers (yes, scoot­ers) to smart phone skins. Unusu­al yet every­day items of all shapes and sizes can now bear the image of gor­geous art. The art is free and the object could be as sim­ple as a T‑shirt.

All of this can be done with the bless­ings and sup­port of the muse­um, which pro­vides links to sites that offer var­i­ous forms of print­ing on demand.

What bet­ter way to make the col­lec­tion acces­si­ble to the pub­lic? Some might say it is sac­ri­lege to put Rembrandt’s face on the side of a van; the Rijksmu­se­um encour­ages it. None of the artists are alive any­way to claim copy­right infringe­ment, now are they?

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Rembrandt’s Face­book Time­line

Google “Art Project” Brings Great Paint­ings & Muse­ums to You

16th-Cen­tu­ry Ams­ter­dam Stun­ning­ly Visu­al­ized with 3D Ani­ma­tion

Kate Rix writes about dig­i­tal media and edu­ca­tion. Read more of her work at and thenifty.blogspot.com.

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13 Lectures by The Great Courses

in Online Courses | November 2nd, 2012

brain image

Note: The free lec­tures by The Great Cours­es have been tak­en offline. But no wor­ries, you can find over 33,000 hours of free lec­tures from top uni­ver­si­ties in our col­lec­tion, 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties. They’ll keep you busy for years to come.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

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Russell Brand and Tracey Ullman Sing the Wonders of “Asstrology” in Eric Idle’s What About Dick?

in Comedy | November 2nd, 2012

Mon­ty Python alum­nus and Spa­malot cre­ator Eric Idle’s new musi­cal What About Dick? tells the sto­ry of the “birth of a sex toy invent­ed in Shag­is­tan in 1898 by Deep­ak Obi Ben Kings­ley” (Eddie Izzard). It’s also about the decline of the British Empire as told by a piano (Idle). Oh, there’s quite a bit more, but I won’t rehearse the plot—let’s get right to a clip, shall we? In the above num­ber, “What About Asstrol­o­gy,” Aunt Mag­gie (Tracey Ull­man) and the young Dick (Rus­sell Brand), who live togeth­er in an Edwar­dian nov­el, sing about her meta­phys­i­cal tal­ent for read­ing the future on people’s bums. The exchange begins: “What is it exact­ly that you do?” to which Ull­man responds in Cock­ney, “I’m an aaassss read­er.” Then they launch into song. Yes, it’s as ridicu­lous as it sounds, and as fun­ny (if that’s what you’re into), and par­takes of the Pythons’ unique abil­i­ty to skew­er the pre­ten­sions of reli­gion, new age goofi­ness, and hocus pocus of all kinds with clas­sic music hall humor and flat­u­lence jokes.

So mark your cal­en­dars: this Novem­ber 13 is “Dick Day,” when What About Dick? is avail­able for dig­i­tal down­load, and you’ll want to get your hands on it (sor­ry). Idle ratch­ets up his pro­fane silli­ness with a cast “you’ll nev­er see… togeth­er again doing some­thing like this.” Idle has assem­bled the finest minds of British com­e­dy for a show he calls “Oscar Wilde on acid or like Down­ton Abbey, only fun­nier”: Brand, Ull­man, Idle, Bil­ly Con­nol­ly, Tim Cur­ry, Eddie Izzard, Jane Leeves, Jim Pid­dock, and Sophie Win­kle­man. If this cast doesn’t make you shoot out of your chair and yell Hooray for Dick! or some­thing like that, you’re clear­ly not the prop­er audi­ence for this show.

Go ahead, watch the trail­er right above and vis­it the offi­cial site for updates and more awk­ward, off-col­or Britishisms.

Josh Jones is a doc­tor­al can­di­date in Eng­lish at Ford­ham Uni­ver­si­ty and a co-founder and for­mer man­ag­ing edi­tor of Guer­ni­ca / A Mag­a­zine of Arts and Pol­i­tics.

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