The Beatles Perform in a Spoof of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 1964

in Comedy, Television | June 27th, 2013

In late April of 1964, Eng­land was cel­e­brat­ing the 400th birth­day of William Shake­speare. At the same time, “Beat­le­ma­nia” was in full swing. And for a brief moment, two of Britain’s cul­tur­al trea­sures inter­sect­ed when the Bea­t­les per­formed in a play­ful send-up of A Mid­sum­mer Night’s Dream.

The sketch was record­ed in Lon­don on April 28, 1964. Only the month before, the Bea­t­les had made their Amer­i­can debut on the Ed Sul­li­van Show. The Shake­speare­an spoof was part of a one-hour British TV spe­cial called “Around the Bea­t­les.” It’s from the play-with­in-a-play in Act 5, Scene 1 of A Mid­sum­mer Night’s Dream, in which a group of actors make a mess of the clas­sic Pyra­mus and This­be sto­ry from Ovid’s Meta­mor­phoses.

Pyra­mus and This­be, a source of inspi­ra­tion for Shake­speare’s Romeo and Juli­et, are a pair of star-crossed lovers whose feud­ing par­ents for­bid them from see­ing one anoth­er. They live next-door to each oth­er but are sep­a­rat­ed by walls. Through a crack in one wall they whis­per their love and make plans to meet on a moon­lit night under a mul­ber­ry tree. This­be arrives first, only to see a lion with blood drip­ping from its mouth after eat­ing its prey. Ter­ri­fied, she drops her veil and runs. Pyra­mus arrives soon after­ward and sees both the blood and the veil. He assumes the lion has killed This­be, so he falls on his sword and dies. This­be returns and finds Pyra­mus dead. She takes his sword and kills her­self.

In the sil­ly Bea­t­les sketch, Paul McCart­ney plays Pyra­mus, John Lennon plays This­be, Ringo Starr plays the Lion and George Har­ri­son plays Moon­shine. When Lennon was asked why he took the role of the maid­en, he said, “Because if any­one likes dress­ing up more stu­pid than the rest, I enjoy it, you know. I was asked to do it because they thought I had the deep­er voice.”

via Brain­Pick­ings

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Peter Sell­ers Per­forms The Bea­t­les “A Hard Day’s Night” in Shake­speare­an Mode

Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour Sings Shakespeare’s Son­net 18

Shakespeare’s Satir­i­cal Son­net 130, As Read By Stephen Fry

Find Shake­speare’s Col­lect­ed Works in our Free eBooks and Free Audio Books Col­lec­tions

Down­load Shake­speare Cours­es from our Col­lec­tion of Free Online Cours­es

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Wes Anderson’s First Short Film: The Black-and-White, Jazz-Scored Bottle Rocket (1992)

in Film | June 27th, 2013

“The only Wes Ander­son movie I like is Bot­tle Rock­et,” declares the char­ac­ter Beat­nik Vam­pire in Dorothy Gam­brel­l’s com­ic strip Cat and Girl. He does so in a bid for suprema­cy dur­ing a cul­tur­al “slap fight” con­sist­ing of a vol­ley of claims like “I saw Mod­est Mouse in Berlin in 1999” and “Cuban food made by Mex­i­cans is bet­ter than Ital­ian food made by Alba­ni­ans.” Even if we’ve avoid­ed par­tic­i­pat­ing in such one-ups­man­ship ses­sions dis­guised as con­ver­sa­tions, we’ve all wit­nessed them. But should you one day need your own trump card, I give you Wes Ander­son­’s first short film above. Watch it, and you can then cred­i­bly insist the fol­low­ing: “The only Wes Ander­son movie I like is Bot­tle Rock­et. No, the orig­i­nal.”

In the late nineties, Ander­son and his col­lab­o­ra­tors found them­selves in a posi­tion to make their beloved break­through Rush­more on the strength of its pre­de­ces­sor Bot­tle Rocket, their 1996 fea­ture debut. But even that film, a now-appre­ci­at­ed but then lit­tle-seen sto­ry of three deeply ama­teur crim­i­nals on the run through the green open spaces of Texas star­ring now-famous act­ing broth­ers Owen and Luke Wil­son, fol­lowed anoth­er. Four years ear­li­er, Ander­son and Owen Wil­son, who’d met in a play­writ­ing class at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas, Austin, put togeth­er the thir­teen-minute short you see here. It tries out the con­cept of thieves in train­ing, albeit in a very dif­fer­ent style from the one we’ve come to regard, over twen­ty years lat­er, as Ander­son­ian. Wes, if you read this, know that I’d like to see you do some­thing in black-and-white again. With a jazz score.

via Dan­ger­ous Minds

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Wes Ander­son from Above. Quentin Taran­ti­no From Below

Bill Mur­ray Intro­duces Wes Anderson’s Moon­rise King­dom (And Plays FDR)

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on lit­er­a­ture, film, cities, Asia, and aes­thet­ics. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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Helen Keller & Annie Sullivan Appear Together in Moving 1930 Newsreel

in History | June 27th, 2013

Helen Keller was born on this day in 1880, some 133 years ago. If you don’t know the Helen Keller sto­ry, you can watch The Mir­a­cle Work­er below, the 1962 film star­ring Pat­ty Duke and Anne Ban­croft. You’ll learn about how Keller, at 19 months, con­tract­ed a dis­ease — either scar­let fever or menin­gi­tis, it’s still not clear — that left her deaf and blind. You’ll also learn how Annie Sul­li­van, her beloved teacher, taught her to com­mu­ni­cate by spelling words into her hand. Their rela­tion­ship would last 49 years. And you’ll dis­cov­er how Keller became the first deaf­blind per­son to earn a Bach­e­lor of Arts degree, en route to becom­ing an activist, author and over­all source of inspi­ra­tion. In the clip above, filmed rough­ly 83 years ago, Helen Keller and Annie Sul­li­van appear in the flesh. Cap­tured in an old news­reel, Sul­li­van explains how Keller learned to talk and, in the final line, Helen mov­ing­ly declares, “I am not dumb now!” Find more Helen Keller vin­tage footage below.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Helen Keller Speaks About Her Great­est Regret — Nev­er Mas­ter­ing Speech

Helen Keller Pays a Vis­it to Martha Graham’s Dance Stu­dio Cir­ca 1954

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Watch a Surprisingly Moving Performance of John Cage’s 1948 “Suite for Toy Piano”

in Music | June 27th, 2013

At some point dur­ing his 1948 mania for the Rube Gold­berg pieces of pre­pared pianos, John Cage, inspired by min­i­mal­ist French com­pos­er Erik Satie, decid­ed to turn back to melody for a moment. Still build­ing with a dull per­cus­sive tonal palate, he wrote sole­ly for the key­board this time… of a toy piano. “Suite for Toy Piano” con­sists of five short move­ments, none over two min­utes. Cage liked the abra­sive chim­ing and lim­it­ed range of the instru­ment.

The piece can be mechan­i­cal or struc­tural­ly immer­sive, depend­ing on the play­er. In the per­for­mance above, Por­tuguese pianist Joana Gama achieves the lat­ter effect, imbu­ing the com­po­si­tion with dynam­ic ener­gy many oth­er ren­di­tions lack, though I do not know whether Cage intend­ed a flat affect. In any case, he tend­ed to appre­ci­ate impro­visato­ry takes on his work at all times, so he wouldn’t have been both­ered.

The sur­round­ing audience—shuffling, whis­per­ing, wheezing—only add to Gama’s inten­si­ty. The event marked the 2011 open­ing of the Cen­tre for Art and Archi­tec­ture Affairs in Guimarães, Por­tu­gal.

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Wash­ing­ton, DC. Fol­low him @jdmagness

Relat­ed Con­tent:

John Cage Plays Ampli­fied Cac­ti and Plant Mate­ri­als with a Feath­er (1984)

John Cage Unbound: A New Dig­i­tal Archive Pre­sent­ed by The New York Pub­lic Library

John Cage Per­forms Water Walk on “I’ve Got a Secret” (1960)

The Con­tro­ver­sial Sounds of Silence: John Cage’s 4’33″ Per­formed by the BBC Sym­pho­ny Orches­tra

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The Art of Punk Presents a New Documentary on The Dead Kennedys and Their Gritty Aesthetics

in Art, Music | June 26th, 2013

Last week, Col­in Mar­shall told you all about The Art of Punk, the new doc­u­men­tary series from the Muse­um of Con­tem­po­rary Art in Los Ange­les. This week, the series con­tin­ues with a new video look­ing at The Dead Kennedys and the artist behind their strik­ing art­work, Win­ston Smith. A “punk art sur­re­al­ist” known for his “hand-carved” col­lages, Smith is per­haps best known for cre­at­ing The Dead Kennedys’ icon­ic logo and oth­er arrest­ing images (see a slideshow here). The new MOCA video cov­ers all of that, and then some, above.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Punk Meets High Fash­ion in Met­ro­pol­i­tan Muse­um of Art Exhi­bi­tion PUNK: Chaos to Cou­ture

Hen­ry Rollins Remem­bers the Life-Chang­ing Deci­sion That Brought Him From Häa­gen-Dazs to Black Flag

Mal­colm McLaren: The Quest for Authen­tic Cre­ativ­i­ty

The His­to­ry of Punk Rock

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Free Business Courses: Discover Our New Collection (and Offer Your Own Suggestions)

in Business, Online Courses | June 26th, 2013

business free online course photoAlmost dai­ly, read­ers write us and ask for cours­es that can deep­en their pro­fes­sion­al edu­ca­tion. Some want to learn new tech skills. Oth­ers want to bone up on sta­tis­tics and cal­cu­lus. And still oth­ers want to learn about project man­age­ment. We decid­ed to address this by cre­at­ing a new col­lec­tion of Free Online Busi­ness Cours­es. So far, we’ve com­piled a list of 145 busi­ness-ori­ent­ed cours­es and relat­ed resources. Some cours­es come from lead­ing  uni­ver­si­ties. Oth­ers come from gov­ern­ment, non-prof­its and the occa­sion­al MOOC provider. The list is fair­ly rich. But we will keep adding to it over time. If you know of a great course (or a great busi­ness resource that’s free) please tell us in the com­ments below, or send us an email via this page. We would love to ben­e­fit from your col­lec­tive wis­dom. And you will be help­ing many peo­ple in the process, dur­ing a tough eco­nom­ic time. Vis­it: 145 Free Online Busi­ness Cours­es.

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The Atlas of True Names Restores Modern Cities to Their Middle Earth-ish Roots

in Life, Random, Travel | June 26th, 2013

atlas 2

I was born in the City of the Flow­land Peo­ple, made my way to Stink Onion upon reach­ing matu­ri­ty, then onward to New Yew Tree Vil­lage where I have lived for the last 217 moons.

Look up some of your key co-ordi­nates in The Atlas of True Names and you too can have a per­son­al his­to­ry as myth­ic-sound­ing as mine. The maps—for the UK, USA, Cana­da, and World—replace mod­ern geo­graph­i­cal names with the orig­i­nal ety­mo­log­i­cal roots of cities, coun­tries, and bod­ies of water, trans­lat­ed into Eng­lish. Their web­site picks the “Sahara desert” to illus­trate the true name selec­tion process. Their cho­sen label “The Tawny One” has its basis in es-sahra, trans­lat­ed from the Ara­bic as “the fawn col­ored desert”. It would be inter­est­ing to learn how many pro­fes­sion­al trans­la­tors lent a hand with the ety­mo­log­i­cal pars­ing. There are a lot of lan­guages in this world and we all know the hav­oc Google Trans­late can wreak.

Mar­ried car­tog­ra­phers (and Lord of the Rings fans) Stephan Hormes and Silke Peust acknowl­edge that there could be alter­nates to their trans­la­tions. This should come as a relief to the civic boost­ers of Philadel­phia. Quib­blers will no doubt enjoy tak­ing issue with Hormes and Peust’s choic­es. Hope­ful­ly, any result­ing inter­net brawls will take place on a higher—and dustier—plateau than those where vul­tures pick hap­less celebri­ties to shreds.

Order one of these maps and pack it along on your sum­mer road trip. Even if younger fam­i­ly mem­bers can’t be both­ered to learn how to nav­i­gate with­out a phone, the nar­ra­tive­ly rich names are sure to leav­en those long hours in the car. (How bad­ly do you have to go, Jason? Can you hold out until Table or should Dad­dy pull over in the Val­ley of the Dark­land Dweller?) 

It’s liv­ing his­to­ry in trav­el ver­sion.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Dis­cov­er J.R.R. Tolkien’s Per­son­al Book Cov­er Designs for The Lord of the Rings Tril­o­gy

Down­load Eight Free Lec­tures on The Hob­bit by “The Tolkien Pro­fes­sor,” Corey Olsen

Willie Nel­son Audi­tions for The Hob­bit Film Sequel, Turns 80 Today

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is the author of sev­en books includ­ing the increas­ing­ly obso­lete Zinester’s Guide to NYC and No Touch Mon­key! and Oth­er Trav­el Lessons Learned Too Late. Fol­low her @AyunHallliday

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Louis Armstrong’s 1964 Interview with a Pair of Intrepid Kid Reporters

in Animation, Music, Radio | June 26th, 2013

In the sum­mer of 1964, two young boys from the North Shore sub­urbs of Chica­go took a tape recorder and set out to inter­view jazz leg­end Louis Arm­strong for their high school radio sta­tion. Arm­strong was play­ing a con­cert at the Ravinia Fes­ti­val in High­land Park, not far from the boys’ school in Win­net­ka. He agreed to an inter­view, and as a group of pro­fes­sion­al reporters from the city’s major news out­lets wait­ed impa­tient­ly out­side his dress­ing room door, Arm­strong spent 20 min­utes answer­ing ques­tions for a lit­tle 10-watt FM radio sta­tion.

The sto­ry is told above, in the lat­est install­ment of PBS’s ongo­ing ani­ma­tion project with Blank on Blank, a group that brings unheard inter­views back to life. Michael Ais­ner, who was 15 when he met Arm­strong, and his friend James R. Stein, who was 14, recount their adven­ture and play a few high­lights from the inter­view. Arm­strong explains how he got the nick­name “Satch­mo” and talks a lit­tle about his Dick­en­sian child­hood and how he learned to play the coro­net in the Home for Col­ored Waifs in New Orleans. He talks about the need for prac­tic­ing hard every day, and about the tal­ent that was his tick­et out of the slums. “You’ve got to be good,” Arm­strong says, “or bad as the dev­il.”

Relat­ed con­tent:

Louis Arm­strong and His All Stars Live in Bel­gium, 1959

Watch the Ear­li­est Known Footage of Louis Arm­strong Per­form­ing Live in Con­cert (Copen­hagen, 1933)

Muham­mad Ali Plans to Fight on Mars in Lost 1966 Inter­view with Child Reporter

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