The Lyrics of Johnny Cash’s “I’ve Been Everywhere” Charted on a Dynamic Google Map

johnny cash mapped

The coun­try music clas­sic “I’ve Been Every­where” was first record­ed by Lucky Starr in Aus­tralia in 1962, then lat­er adapt­ed by Hank Snow, var­i­ous oth­er artists, and even­tu­al­ly the great John­ny Cash. The lyrics begin:

I was tot­ing my pack along the dusty Win­nemuc­ca road
When along came a semi with a high an’ can­vas-cov­ered load
“If you’re goin’ to Win­nemuc­ca, Mack, with me you can ride.”
And so I climbed into the cab and then I set­tled down inside
He asked me if I’d seen a road with so much dust and sand
And I said, “Lis­ten, I’ve trav­eled every road in this here land!”

I’ve been every­where, man
I’ve been every­where, man
Crossed the desert’s bare, man
I’ve breathed the moun­tain air, man
Of trav­el I’ve had my share, man
I’ve been every­where

I’ve been to:
Reno, Chica­go, Far­go, Min­neso­ta
Buf­fa­lo, Toron­to, Winslow, Sara­so­ta
Wichi­ta, Tul­sa, Ottawa, Okla­homa
Tam­pa, Pana­ma, Mat­tawa, La Palo­ma
Ban­gor, Bal­ti­more, Sal­vador, Amar­il­lo
Tocopil­la, Bar­ran­quil­la, and Padil­la, I’m a killer

I’ve been to:
Boston, Charleston, Day­ton, Louisiana
Wash­ing­ton, Hous­ton, Kingston, Texarkana
Mon­terey, Fara­day, San­ta Fe, Tal­lapoosa
Glen Rock, Black Rock, Lit­tle Rock, Oskaloosa
Ten­nessee, Ten­nessee, Chicopee, Spir­it Lake
Grand Lake, Dev­il’s Lake, Crater Lake, for Pete’s sake

And that’s not all of the loca­tions the nar­ra­tor trav­els to. If you chart and con­nect all of the des­ti­na­tions men­tioned in the song — as Iain Mul­lan has done in this handy, dynam­ic map — you’ll find that the singer cov­ers some 112,515 miles (or 181,075 kilo­me­ters). Even bet­ter, you can watch the trav­els take place in real-time on a Google map. Just click play, and you will be on your way.

For more trav­els on a Google map, don’t miss our recent post:

Jack Kerouac’s On The Road Turned Into Google Dri­ving Direc­tions & Pub­lished as a Free eBook

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George Washington’s 110 Rules for Civility and Decent Behavior

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In “George Wash­ing­ton’s Extreme Makeover,” nov­el­ist Dou­glas Cou­p­land imag­ines the first Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca sci­ence-fic­tion­al­ly trans­port­ed “from atop his horse some­where in the Vir­ginia coun­try­side into a Lev­el 3 clean room 500ft beneath that exact same spot some 230-odd years lat­er, cir­ca 2014” where “a crew of doc­tors, den­tists and exodon­tists wear­ing haz­mat suits” would heal his every 18th-cen­tu­ry ail­ment and replace his every fail­ing 18th-cen­tu­ry body part. All of Wash­ing­ton’s mil­i­tary and polit­i­cal accom­plish­ments sound even more impres­sive in light of his life­time of severe bod­i­ly (and espe­cial­ly den­tal, though not involv­ing wood) dis­com­fort, but even if his admir­ers can’t yet pull him ahead in time for such thor­ough phys­i­cal adjust­ments, they can, right here and now, pay the best-known found­ing father trib­ute by fol­low­ing his rec­om­mend­ed behav­ioral adjust­ments, cod­i­fied in his rules of civil­i­ty.

“As a young school­boy in Vir­ginia,” says an NPR fea­ture on the sub­ject, “George Wash­ing­ton took his first steps toward great­ness by copy­ing out by hand a list of 110 ‘Rules of Civil­i­ty & Decent Behav­ior in Com­pa­ny and Con­ver­sa­tion.’ Based on a 16th-cen­tu­ry set of pre­cepts com­piled for young gen­tle­men by Jesuit instruc­tors, the Rules of Civil­i­ty were one of the ear­li­est and most pow­er­ful forces to shape Amer­i­ca’s first pres­i­dent, says his­to­ri­an Richard Brookhis­er.” Brookhis­er’s book Rules of Civil­i­ty: The 110 Pre­cepts That Guid­ed Our First Pres­i­dent in War and Peace appeared a decade ago, but you can still read the rules them­selves (“for ease of read­ing, punc­tu­a­tion and spelling have been mod­ern­ized”) below:

1. Every action done in com­pa­ny ought to be with some sign of respect to those that are present.

2. When in com­pa­ny, put not your hands to any part of the body not usu­al­ly dis­cov­ered.

3. Show noth­ing to your friend that may affright him.

4. In the pres­ence of oth­ers, sing not to your­self with a hum­ming voice, or drum with your fin­gers or feet.

5. If you cough, sneeze, sigh or yawn, do it not loud but pri­vate­ly, and speak not in your yawn­ing, but put your hand­ker­chief or hand before your face and turn aside.

6. Sleep not when oth­ers speak, sit not when oth­ers stand, speak not when you should hold your peace, walk not on when oth­ers stop.

7. Put not off your clothes in the pres­ence of oth­ers, nor go out of your cham­ber half dressed.

8. At play and attire, it’s good man­ners to give place to the last com­er, and affect not to speak loud­er than ordi­nary.

9. Spit not into the fire, nor stoop low before it; nei­ther put your hands into the flames to warm them, nor set your feet upon the fire, espe­cial­ly if there be meat before it.

10. When you sit down, keep your feet firm and even, with­out putting one on the oth­er or cross­ing them.

11. Shift not your­self in the sight of oth­ers, nor gnaw your nails.

12. Shake not the head, feet, or legs; roll not the eyes; lift not one eye­brow high­er than the oth­er, wry not the mouth, and bedew no man’s face with your spit­tle by approach­ing too near him when you speak.

13. Kill no ver­min, or fleas, lice, ticks, etc. in the sight of oth­ers; if you see any filth or thick spit­tle put your foot dex­ter­ous­ly upon it; if it be upon the clothes of your com­pan­ions, put it off pri­vate­ly, and if it be upon your own clothes, return thanks to him who puts it off.

14. Turn not your back to oth­ers, espe­cial­ly in speak­ing; jog not the table or desk on which anoth­er reads or writes; lean not upon any­one.

15. Keep your nails clean and short, also your hands and teeth clean, yet with­out show­ing any great con­cern for them.

16. Do not puff up the cheeks, loll not out the tongue with the hands or beard, thrust out the lips or bite them, or keep the lips too open or too close.

17. Be no flat­ter­er, nei­ther play with any that delight not to be played with­al.

18. Read no let­ter, books, or papers in com­pa­ny, but when there is a neces­si­ty for the doing of it, you must ask leave; come not near the books or writ­tings of anoth­er so as to read them unless desired, or give your opin­ion of them unasked. Also look not nigh when anoth­er is writ­ing a let­ter.

19. Let your coun­te­nance be pleas­ant but in seri­ous mat­ters some­what grave.

20. The ges­tures of the body must be suit­ed to the dis­course you are upon.

21. Reproach none for the infir­mi­ties of nature, nor delight to put them that have in mind of there­of.

22. Show not your­self glad at the mis­for­tune of anoth­er though he were your ene­my.

23. When you see a crime pun­ished, you may be inward­ly pleased; but always show pity to the suf­fer­ing offend­er.

24. Do not laugh too loud or too much at any pub­lic spec­ta­cle.

25. Super­flu­ous com­pli­ments and all affec­ta­tion of cer­e­monies are to be avoid­ed, yet where due they are not to be neglect­ed.

26. In putting off your hat to per­sons of dis­tinc­tion, as noble­men, jus­tices, church­men, etc., make a rev­er­ence, bow­ing more or less accord­ing to the cus­tom of the bet­ter bred, and qual­i­ty of the per­sons. Among your equals expect not always that they should begin with you first, but to pull off the hat when there is no need is affec­ta­tion. In the man­ner of salut­ing and resalut­ing in words, keep to the most usu­al cus­tom.

27. ‘Tis ill man­ners to bid one more emi­nent than your­self be cov­ered, as well as not to do it to whom it is due. Like­wise he that makes too much haste to put on his hat does not well, yet he ought to put it on at the first, or at most the sec­ond time of being asked. Now what is here­in spo­ken, of qual­i­fi­ca­tion in behav­ior in salut­ing, ought also to be observed in tak­ing of place and sit­ting down, for cer­e­monies with­out bounds are trou­ble­some.

28. If any one come to speak to you while you are are sit­ting stand up, though he be your infe­ri­or, and when you present seats, let it be to every­one accord­ing to his degree.

29. When you meet with one of greater qual­i­ty than your­self, stop and retire, espe­cial­ly if it be at a door or any straight place, to give way for him to pass.

30. In walk­ing, the high­est place in most coun­tries seems to be on the right hand; there­fore, place your­self on the left of him whom you desire to hon­or. But if three walk togeth­er the mid­dest place is the most hon­or­able; the wall is usal­ly giv­en to the most wor­thy if two walk togeth­er.

31. If any­one far sur­pass­es oth­ers, either in age, estate, or mer­it, yet would give place to a mean­er than him­self in his own lodg­ing or else­where, the one ought not to except it. So he on the oth­er part should not use much earnest­ness nor offer it above once or twice.

32. To one that is your equal, or not much infe­ri­or, you are to give the chief place in your lodg­ing, and he to whom it is offered ought at the first to refuse it, but at the sec­ond to accept though not with­out acknowl­edg­ing his own unwor­thi­ness.

33. They that are in dig­ni­ty or in office have in all places prece­den­cy, but whilst they are young, they ought to respect those that are their equals in birth or oth­er qual­i­ties, though they have no pub­lic charge.

34. It is good man­ners to pre­fer them to whom we speak before our­selves, espe­cial­ly if they be above us, with whom in no sort we ought to begin.

35. Let your dis­course with men of busi­ness be short and com­pre­hen­sive.

36. Arti­fi­cers and per­sons of low degree ought not to use many cer­e­monies to lords or oth­ers of high degree, but respect and high­ly hon­or then, and those of high degree ought to treat them with affa­bil­i­ty and cour­tesy, with­out arro­gance.

37. In speak­ing to men of qual­i­ty do not lean nor look them full in the face, nor approach too near them at left. Keep a full pace from them.

38. In vis­it­ing the sick, do not present­ly play the physi­cian if you be not know­ing there­in.

39. In writ­ing or speak­ing, give to every per­son his due title accord­ing to his degree and the cus­tom of the place.

40. Strive not with your supe­ri­or in argu­ment, but always sub­mit your judg­ment to oth­ers with mod­esty.

41. Under­take not to teach your equal in the art him­self pro­fess­es; it savors of arro­gan­cy.

42. Let your cer­e­monies in cour­tesy be prop­er to the dig­ni­ty of his place with whom you con­verse, for it is absurd to act the same with a clown and a prince.

43. Do not express joy before one sick in pain, for that con­trary pas­sion will aggra­vate his mis­ery.

44. When a man does all he can, though it suc­ceed not well, blame not him that did it.

45. Being to advise or rep­re­hend any one, con­sid­er whether it ought to be in pub­lic or in pri­vate, and present­ly or at some oth­er time; in what terms to do it; and in reprov­ing show no signs of cholor but do it with all sweet­ness and mild­ness.

46. Take all admo­ni­tions thank­ful­ly in what time or place soev­er giv­en, but after­wards not being cul­pa­ble take a time and place con­ve­nient to let him know it that gave them.

47. Mock not nor jest at any thing of impor­tance. Break no jests that are sharp, bit­ing, and if you deliv­er any thing wit­ty and pleas­ant, abstain from laugh­ing there­at your­self.

48. Where­in you reprove anoth­er be unblame­able your­self, for exam­ple is more preva­lent than pre­cepts.

49. Use no reproach­ful lan­guage against any one; nei­ther curse nor revile.

50. Be not hasty to believe fly­ing reports to the dis­par­age­ment of any.

51. Wear not your clothes foul, or ripped, or dusty, but see they be brushed once every day at least and take heed that you approach not to any uncleaness.

52. In your appar­el be mod­est and endeav­or to accom­mo­date nature, rather than to pro­cure admi­ra­tion; keep to the fash­ion of your equals, such as are civ­il and order­ly with respect to time and places.

53. Run not in the streets, nei­ther go too slow­ly, nor with mouth open; go not shak­ing of arms, nor upon the toes, kick not the earth with your feet, go not upon the toes, nor in a danc­ing fash­ion.

54. Play not the pea­cock, look­ing every where about you, to see if you be well decked, if your shoes fit well, if your stock­ings sit neat­ly and clothes hand­some­ly.

55. Eat not in the streets, nor in the house, out of sea­son.

56. Asso­ciate your­self with men of good qual­i­ty if you esteem your own rep­u­ta­tion; for ’tis bet­ter to be alone than in bad com­pa­ny.

57. In walk­ing up and down in a house, only with one in com­pa­ny if he be greater than your­self, at the first give him the right hand and stop not till he does and be not the first that turns, and when you do turn let it be with your face towards him; if he be a man of great qual­i­ty walk not with him cheek by jowl but some­what behind him, but yet in such a man­ner that he may eas­i­ly speak to you.

58. Let your con­ver­sa­tion be with­out mal­ice or envy, for ’tis a sign of a tractable and com­mend­able nature, and in all caus­es of pas­sion per­mit rea­son to gov­ern.

59. Nev­er express any­thing unbe­com­ing, nor act against the rules moral before your infe­ri­ors.

60. Be not immod­est in urg­ing your friends to dis­cov­er a secret.

61. Utter not base and friv­o­lous things among grave and learned men, nor very dif­fi­cult ques­tions or sub­jects among the igno­rant, or things hard to be believed; stuff not your dis­course with sen­tences among your bet­ters nor equals.

62. Speak not of dole­ful things in a time of mirth or at the table; speak not of melan­choly things as death and wounds, and if oth­ers men­tion them, change if you can the dis­course. Tell not your dreams, but to your inti­mate friend.

63. A man ought not to val­ue him­self of his achieve­ments or rare qual­i­ties of wit; much less of his rich­es, virtue or kin­dred.

64. Break not a jest where none take plea­sure in mirth; laugh not aloud, nor at all with­out occa­sion; deride no man’s mis­for­tune though there seem to be some cause.

65. Speak not inju­ri­ous words nei­ther in jest nor earnest; scoff at none although they give occa­sion.

66. Be not froward but friend­ly and cour­te­ous, the first to salute, hear and answer; and be not pen­sive when it’s a time to con­verse.

67. Detract not from oth­ers, nei­ther be exces­sive in com­mand­ing.

68. Go not thith­er, where you know not whether you shall be wel­come or not; give not advice with­out being asked, and when desired do it briefly.

69. If two con­tend togeth­er take not the part of either uncon­strained, and be not obsti­nate in your own opin­ion. In things indif­fer­ent be of the major side.

70. Rep­re­hend not the imper­fec­tions of oth­ers, for that belongs to par­ents, mas­ters and supe­ri­ors.

71. Gaze not on the marks or blem­ish­es of oth­ers and ask not how they came. What you may speak in secret to your friend, deliv­er not before oth­ers.

72. Speak not in an unknown tongue in com­pa­ny but in your own lan­guage and that as those of qual­i­ty do and not as the vul­gar. Sub­lime mat­ters treat seri­ous­ly.

73. Think before you speak, pro­nounce not imper­fect­ly, nor bring out your words too hasti­ly, but order­ly and dis­tinct­ly.

74. When anoth­er speaks, be atten­tive your­self and dis­turb not the audi­ence. If any hes­i­tate in his words, help him not nor prompt him with­out desired. Inter­rupt him not, nor answer him till his speech be end­ed.

75. In the midst of dis­course ask not of what one treats, but if you per­ceive any stop because of your com­ing, you may well entreat him gen­tly to pro­ceed. If a per­son of qual­i­ty comes in while you’re con­vers­ing, it’s hand­some to repeat what was said before.

76. While you are talk­ing, point not with your fin­ger at him of whom you dis­course, nor approach too near him to whom you talk, espe­cial­ly to his face.

77. Treat with men at fit times about busi­ness and whis­per not in the com­pa­ny of oth­ers.

78. Make no com­par­isons and if any of the com­pa­ny be com­mend­ed for any brave act of virtue, com­mend not anoth­er for the same.

79. Be not apt to relate news if you know not the truth there­of. In dis­cours­ing of things you have heard, name not your author. Always a secret dis­cov­er not.

80. Be not tedious in dis­course or in read­ing unless you find the com­pa­ny pleased there­with.

81. Be not curi­ous to know the affairs of oth­ers, nei­ther approach those that speak in pri­vate.

82. Under­take not what you can­not per­form but be care­ful to keep your promise.

83. When you deliv­er a mat­ter do it with­out pas­sion and with dis­cre­tion, how­ev­er mean the per­son be you do it to.

84. When your supe­ri­ors talk to any­body hear­ken not, nei­ther speak nor laugh.

85. In com­pa­ny of those of high­er qual­i­ty than your­self, speak not ’til you are asked a ques­tion, then stand upright, put off your hat and answer in few words.

86. In dis­putes, be not so desirous to over­come as not to give lib­er­ty to each one to deliv­er his opin­ion and sub­mit to the judg­ment of the major part, espe­cial­ly if they are judges of the dis­pute.

87. Let your car­riage be such as becomes a man grave, set­tled and atten­tive to that which is spo­ken. Con­tra­dict not at every turn what oth­ers say.

88. Be not tedious in dis­course, make not many digres­sions, nor repeat often the same man­ner of dis­course.

89. Speak not evil of the absent, for it is unjust.

90. Being set at meat scratch not, nei­ther spit, cough or blow your nose except there’s a neces­si­ty for it.

91. Make no show of tak­ing great delight in your vict­uals. Feed not with greed­i­ness. Eat your bread with a knife. Lean not on the table, nei­ther find fault with what you eat.

92. Take no salt or cut bread with your knife greasy.

93. Enter­tain­ing any­one at table it is decent to present him with meat. Under­take not to help oth­ers unde­sired by the mas­ter.

94. If you soak bread in the sauce, let it be no more than what you put in your mouth at a time, and blow not your broth at table but stay ’til it cools of itself.

95. Put not your meat to your mouth with your knife in your hand; nei­ther spit forth the stones of any fruit pie upon a dish nor cast any­thing under the table.

96. It’s unbe­com­ing to heap much to one’s mea. Keep your fin­gers clean and when foul wipe them on a cor­ner of your table nap­kin.

97. Put not anoth­er bite into your mouth ’til the for­mer be swal­lowed. Let not your morsels be too big for the jowls.

98. Drink not nor talk with your mouth full; nei­ther gaze about you while you are drink­ing.

99. Drink not too leisure­ly nor yet too hasti­ly. Before and after drink­ing wipe your lips. Breathe not then or ever with too great a noise, for it is unciv­il.

100. Cleanse not your teeth with the table­cloth, nap­kin, fork or knife, but if oth­ers do it, let it be done with a pick tooth.

101. Rinse not your mouth in the pres­ence of oth­ers.

102. It is out of use to call upon the com­pa­ny often to eat. Nor need you drink to oth­ers every time you drink.

103. In com­pa­ny of your bet­ters be not longer in eat­ing than they are. Lay not your arm but only your hand upon the table.

104. It belongs to the chiefest in com­pa­ny to unfold his nap­kin and fall to meat first. But he ought then to begin in time and to dis­patch with dex­ter­i­ty that the slow­est may have time allowed him.

105. Be not angry at table what­ev­er hap­pens and if you have rea­son to be so, show it not but on a cheer­ful coun­te­nance espe­cial­ly if there be strangers, for good humor makes one dish of meat a feast.

106. Set not your­self at the upper of the table but if it be your due, or that the mas­ter of the house will have it so. Con­tend not, lest you should trou­ble the com­pa­ny.

107. If oth­ers talk at table be atten­tive, but talk not with meat in your mouth.

108. When you speak of God or His attrib­ut­es, let it be seri­ous­ly and with rev­er­ence. Hon­or and obey your nat­ur­al par­ents although they be poor.

109. Let your recre­ations be man­ful not sin­ful.

110. Labor to keep alive in your breast that lit­tle spark of celes­tial fire called con­science.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Smith­son­ian Picks “101 Objects That Made Amer­i­ca”

Dis­cov­er Thomas Jefferson’s Cut-and-Paste Ver­sion of the Bible, and Read the Curi­ous Edi­tion Online

A Short His­to­ry of Amer­i­ca, Accord­ing to the Irrev­er­ent Com­ic Satirist Robert Crumb

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

Paul McCartney Offers a Short Tutorial on How to Play the Bass Guitar

It sounds like a cliché, but if I learned any­thing in grad school, it’s that I know very lit­tle. I apply the same insight to music. While I’ve played guitar—six string and bass—with some con­sis­ten­cy for over twen­ty years, I’d be the first to say that my room for improve­ment is infi­nite­ly large, and I’m always keen to sit at the feet of a mas­ter and beg, bor­row, or steal what­ev­er I can. So when I dis­cov­ered that Paul McCart­ney had an instruc­tion­al video on Youtube I leapt at the chance to see what I could pick up.

Right­ly renowned for his mas­tery of every rock instru­ment, McCart­ney plays near­ly all the parts on most of his solo albums (and on many Bea­t­les tracks as well). He does so on “Ever Present Past” from 2007’s Mem­o­ry Almost Full, and he released tuto­r­i­al videos for each part of the song as part of the pro­mo for the album. In the video above, Sir Paul teach­es the bass part, casu­al in jeans and t‑shirt and wield­ing his clas­sic Hofn­er vio­lin bass (“me lit­tle baby”). The over­ar­ch­ing les­son? Keep it sim­ple.

As McCart­ney says, the bass part is “real­ly sim­ple,” and glo­ri­ous­ly so. While McCart­ney has writ­ten some very com­plex music, his play­ing style is on the whole very straight­for­ward and melod­ic. On “Ever Present Past,” he plays most­ly root notes on the bass, eschew­ing flour­ish­es and “fid­dly bits,” though he encour­ages you to add them if you wish. First, he shows us the notes on bass alone, and an inset in the video shows their posi­tion on the fret­board. Then, a full track comes in, and he plays along (hear the stu­dio ver­sion in the offi­cial video above).

The tuto­r­i­al was pro­duced by “Now Play It,” a “new and excit­ing way to learn and play your favorite songs” by artists like KT Tun­stall, Blondie, Cold­play, Radio­head, and many more, often with the orig­i­nal musi­cians as teach­ers. You’ll have to pay for most of the con­tent on the site, though there are some nifty free pre­views. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, it appears that the full “Ever Present Past” les­son—with McCart­ney teach­ing his drum and rhythm and lead gui­tar parts—is no longer avail­able on the “Now Play It” site (you can see a teas­er trail­er here). But you can watch a snip­pet of the acoustic gui­tar les­son above. And if you’re eager to see more of McCartney’s range of instru­men­tal skill, check out the clip below from a 1997 episode of Oprah in which he plays the song “Young Boy” from that year’s Flam­ing Pie, while pro­ject­ed on screens behind him are three more McCart­neys on bass, drums, and lead gui­tar.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

James Tay­lor Gives Free Acoustic Gui­tar Lessons Online

Learn to Play Instru­ments (and Also Some Music The­o­ry) Online

“Hum­ming­bird,” A New Form of Music Nota­tion That’s Eas­i­er to Learn and Faster to Read

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

The Curious Story of How Bootlegged Hollywood Movies Helped Defeat Communism in Romania

Chuck Nor­ris helped defeat Com­mu­nism in Roma­nia… or at least the black mar­ket VHS tapes of his movies did. That’s what Roman­ian film­mak­er Ilin­ca Calu­gare­anu argues in her New York Times Op Ed piece and in a relat­ed doc­u­men­tary short, which you can see above.

Nico­lae Ceaus­es­cu’s regime was noto­ri­ous­ly bru­tal and oppres­sive, even by War­saw Pact stan­dards. In his mad efforts to erad­i­cate all for­eign debt, he impov­er­ished his peo­ple while build­ing a mas­sive, opu­lent palace for him­self in the heart of Bucharest. He shut down all radio sta­tions out­side of the cap­i­tal and restrict­ed all tele­vi­sion broad­casts to a mere two hours a day. And what was pro­grammed was, by all accounts, pret­ty dull unless you’re a fan of Com­mu­nist pro­pa­gan­da.

So it isn’t a suprise that when an enter­pris­ing entre­pre­neur began to flood the black mar­ket with boot­leg VHS tapes of Hol­ly­wood block­busters in the mid-80s, they were met with great illic­it excite­ment. “It was amaz­ing to do some­thing ille­gal dur­ing Com­mu­nism, some­thing not Com­mu­nist. Watch­ing impe­ri­al­ist movies,” says one inter­vie­wee.

Movies like Flash­dance, Taxi Dri­ver, and Miss­ing in Action became hits. Arnold Schwarzeneg­ger, Sylvester Stal­lone and, yes, Chuck Nor­ris all became under­ground stars. Yet while Roman­ian audi­ences were wowed by the spec­ta­cle of car chas­es, machine gun fights and explod­ing heli­copters, they were equal­ly trans­fixed by things that West­ern audi­ences might over­look — the rel­a­tive lux­u­ry of a typ­i­cal Amer­i­can abode, for instance.  It was a pow­er­ful reminder that things were far bet­ter in the West than at home. “You could see what those peo­ple had, what they ate, what free­doms they had, how they spoke to one anoth­er,” says anoth­er inter­vie­wee. “It was com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent. And some­how, under­neath it all, you felt … what free­dom was.”

Yet the pecu­liar thing about all these VHS bootlegs is that they were all dubbed by the same per­son, a young trans­la­tor named Iri­na Mar­gare­ta Nis­tor. “As Hol­ly­wood movies became ubiq­ui­tous through the black mar­ket, this voice became one of the most rec­og­niz­able in Roma­nia,” writes Calu­gare­anu. “Yet no one knew who she was.”

Nis­tor under­stand­ably worked in secret, con­scious that a bru­tal crack­down could hap­pen at any moment. But one nev­er came. Ceausescu’s regime met a swift and bloody end on Christ­mas Day, 1989. As she looks back on her time as a trans­la­tor and an unwit­ting under­ground celebri­ty, Nis­tor beams with a qui­et pride, explain­ing that her actions were “a way to trick the Com­mu­nists. That was my biggest sat­is­fac­tion.”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

How to Spot a Com­mu­nist Using Lit­er­ary Crit­i­cism: A 1955 Man­u­al from the U.S. Mil­i­tary

How the CIA Secret­ly Fund­ed Abstract Expres­sion­ism Dur­ing the Cold War

A Short His­to­ry of Roman­ian Com­put­ing: From 1961 to 1989

Jonathan Crow is a Los Ange­les-based writer and film­mak­er whose work has appeared in Yahoo!, The Hol­ly­wood Reporter, and oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low him at @jonccrow.

 

How To Think Like a Psychologist: A Free Online Course from Stanford

free-course-how-to-think-like-a-psychologist-In ear­ly Jan­u­ary, we brought you a set of 15 tips to help you stick to your New Year’s res­o­lu­tions, straight from The Willpow­er Instincta best­selling book by Dr. Kel­ly McGo­ni­gal. Today, we’re high­light­ing a course that McGo­ni­gal orga­nized for Stanford’s Con­tin­u­ing Stud­ies Pro­gram, enti­tled How To Think Like a Psy­chol­o­gist. The premise is sim­ple: McGo­ni­gal intro­duces promi­nent Stan­ford psy­chol­o­gists, who pro­ceed to dis­cuss their research and explain pre­cise­ly why their field hap­pens to be so fas­ci­nat­ing, after which McGo­ni­gal leads a short dis­cus­sion with the guest. An audi­ence Q&A ses­sion fol­lows.

Each of the course’s six lec­tures is a neat­ly pack­aged primer on a researcher’s area of exper­tise: Greg Wal­ton gives a detailed talk about his work on aca­d­e­m­ic stig­ma, and the role it plays in the achieve­ment gap so evi­dent in Amer­i­can edu­ca­tion, while in lat­er lec­tures, James Gross dis­cuss­es his research on emo­tion­al reg­u­la­tion, and Brid­get Mar­tin Hard explains the ben­e­fits of study­ing ani­mals to bet­ter under­stand humans. The strength of the course lies both in its acces­si­bil­i­ty, and its lev­el of depth: one does not need a back­ground in sci­ence to learn some­thing tan­gi­ble about cur­rent psy­cho­log­i­cal research. What’s more, one gets a sense of how rel­e­vant psy­chol­o­gy is as a prac­ti­cal sci­ence, gov­ern­ing every fleet­ing thought and social inter­ac­tion.

How To Think Like a Psy­chol­o­gist is cur­rent­ly avail­able on iTune­sU. You can find it list­ed in our col­lec­tion of Free Online Psy­chol­o­gy Cours­es, part of our col­lec­tion, 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More.

Ilia Blin­d­er­man is a Mon­tre­al-based cul­ture and sci­ence writer. Fol­low him at @iliablinderman, or read more of his writ­ing at the Huff­in­g­ton Post.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Pow­er of Empa­thy: A Quick Ani­mat­ed Les­son That Can Make You a Bet­ter Per­son

Carl Gus­tav Jung Explains His Ground­break­ing The­o­ries About Psy­chol­o­gy in Rare Inter­view (1957)

Jacques Lacan’s Con­fronta­tion with a Young Rebel: Clas­sic Moment, 1972

New Ani­ma­tion Explains Sher­ry Turkle’s The­o­ries on Why Social Media Makes Us Lone­ly

Raymond Chandler’s Ten Commandments for Writing a Detective Novel

Pro­mo por­trait pho­to of author Ray­mond Chan­dler, via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

Ray­mond Chan­dler – along with his hard­boiled brethren like Dashiell Ham­mett and James M. Cain – sand­blast­ed the detec­tive nov­el of its deco­rous­ness and instilled it with a sweaty vital­i­ty. Chan­dler, through the eyes of his most famous char­ac­ter Philip Mar­lowe, nav­i­gat­ed a thin­ly veiled Los Ange­les through the des­per­a­tion of those on the low end of society’s totem pole and through the greed and venal­i­ty of those at the top.

Instead of cre­at­ing self-con­tained locked room mys­ter­ies, Chan­dler cre­at­ed sto­ries that looked out­ward, strug­gling to make sense of a moral­ly ambigu­ous world. He ded­i­cat­ed his career to the genre, influ­enc­ing gen­er­a­tions of writ­ers after him. His very name became syn­ony­mous with his terse, pun­gent style.

So it isn’t ter­ri­bly sur­pris­ing that Chan­dler had some very strong opin­ions about crime fic­tion. Below are his ten com­mand­ments for writ­ing a detec­tive nov­el:

1) It must be cred­i­bly moti­vat­ed, both as to the orig­i­nal sit­u­a­tion and the dénoue­ment.

2) It must be tech­ni­cal­ly sound as to the meth­ods of mur­der and detec­tion.

3) It must be real­is­tic in char­ac­ter, set­ting and atmos­phere. It must be about real peo­ple in a real world.

4) It must have a sound sto­ry val­ue apart from the mys­tery ele­ment: i.e., the inves­ti­ga­tion itself must be an adven­ture worth read­ing.

5) It must have enough essen­tial sim­plic­i­ty to be explained eas­i­ly when the time comes.

6) It must baf­fle a rea­son­ably intel­li­gent read­er.

7) The solu­tion must seem inevitable once revealed.

8) It must not try to do every­thing at once. If it is a puz­zle sto­ry oper­at­ing in a rather cool, rea­son­able atmos­phere, it can­not also be a vio­lent adven­ture or a pas­sion­ate romance.

9) It must pun­ish the crim­i­nal in one way or anoth­er, not nec­es­sar­i­ly by oper­a­tion of the law.… If the detec­tive fails to resolve the con­se­quences of the crime, the sto­ry is an unre­solved chord and leaves irri­ta­tion behind it.

10) It must be hon­est with the read­er.

These com­mand­ments are oblique jabs at the locked room who­dunits pop­u­lar dur­ing the Gold­en Age of the detec­tive nov­el dur­ing the 1920s and 30s. Chan­dler deliv­ers a much more point­ed crit­i­cism of these works in his sem­i­nal essay about crime fic­tion, The Sim­ple Art of Mur­der.

After tak­ing thor­ough­ly apart the mur­der mys­tery The Red House by A. A. Milne (yes, the writer of Win­nie the Pooh), Chan­dler rails against detec­tive sto­ries where the machi­na­tions of plot out­strip any sem­blance of real­i­ty. “If the sit­u­a­tion is false, you can­not even accept it as a light nov­el, for there is no sto­ry for the light nov­el to be about.”

He goes on to trash oth­er British mys­tery writ­ers like Agatha Christie and par­tic­u­lar­ly Dorothy L. Say­ers, who Chan­dler paints not only as a hyp­o­crit­i­cal snob but also as bor­ing. “The Eng­lish may not always be the best writ­ers in the world, but they are incom­pa­ra­bly the best dull writ­ers,” he quips.

Chan­dler then offers praise to his hard­boiled col­league Dashiell Ham­mett who infus­es his sto­ries with a sense of real­ism. “Ham­mett gave mur­der back to the kind of peo­ple that com­mit it for rea­sons, not just to pro­vide a corpse; and with the means at hand, not with hand-wrought duelling pis­tols, curare, and trop­i­cal fish….He was spare, fru­gal, hard­boiled, but he did over and over again what only the best writ­ers can ever do at all. He wrote scenes that seemed nev­er to have been writ­ten before.”

Whether con­scious or not, this pas­sage is a fair descrip­tion of Chan­dler as well.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hear Ray­mond Chan­dler & Ian Fleming–Two Mas­ters of Suspense–Talk with One Anoth­er in Rare 1958 Audio

Ray­mond Chandler’s 36 Great Unused Titles: From “The Man With the Shred­ded Ear,” to “Quick, Hide the Body”

Watch Ray­mond Chandler’s Long-Unno­ticed Cameo in Dou­ble Indem­ni­ty

Jonathan Crow is a writer and film­mak­er whose work has appeared in Yahoo!, The Hol­ly­wood Reporter, and oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low him at @jonccrow.

Beat the Devil: Watch John Huston’s Campy Noir Film with Humphrey Bogart & Gina Lollobrigida (1953)

Beat the Devil (1953) poster

What came out when John Hus­ton, Humphrey Bog­a­rt, Gina Lol­lo­b­rigi­da, Jen­nifer Jones, Peter Lorre, and Tru­man Capote col­lab­o­rat­ed? You would­n’t expect a far­ci­cal, near­ly impro­vised study in eccen­tric­i­ty, but here we have it. Beat the Dev­il, which you can watch above, sim­ply con­fused audi­ences when it opened in 1953, but human­i­ty has since — with, for bet­ter or for worse, the thor­ough­go­ing sens­es of unse­ri­ous­ness and irony we’ve cul­ti­vat­ed — come to appre­ci­ate it. This sto­ry of would-be ura­ni­um pirates strand­ed in an Ital­ian port on their way to Kenya began, like Stan­ley Kubrick­’s Dr. Strangelove, as an adap­ta­tion of a high-mind­ed, stone-faced nov­el, in this case an epony­mous one by Claud Cock­burn (father of the late Alexan­der Cock­burn, author of, yes, The Nation’s “Beat the Dev­il” col­umn). Also like Dr. Strangelove, it took a dose of absur­di­ty some­where in pre-pro­duc­tion, turn­ing from dra­ma into com­e­dy.

Bog­a­rt, not just one of the film’s stars but one of its major investors, thought he’d signed up for a Gra­ham Greene-ish thriller but wound up in what many con­sid­er the first “camp” film. He must sure­ly have come to under­stand the scope of his mis­ap­pre­hen­sion by the time Tru­man Capote turned up on set, rewrit­ing a whole new script — if the proud mid­cen­tu­ry film indus­try would have dig­ni­fied it with that term — on the fly, throw­ing togeth­er new and more ridicu­lous scenes each day. This and oth­er uncon­ven­tion­al pro­duc­tion strate­gies have all become part of the body of Beat the Dev­il lore, which Roger Ebert exam­ines in (speak­ing of ulti­mate val­i­da­tion) his “Great Movies” essay on the pic­ture. He includes a telling quote from Hus­ton, who sup­pos­ed­ly told Jones, “Jen­nifer, they’ll remem­ber you longer for Beat the Dev­il than for Song of Bernadette.” Adds Ebert: “True, but could Hus­ton have guessed that they would remem­ber him more for Beat the Dev­il than for Moby Dick?”

Beat the Dev­il has been added to our col­lec­tion, 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More. It also appears in our list of Free Noir Films.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Jean-Paul Sartre Writes a Script for John Huston’s Film on Freud (1958)

How Ray Brad­bury “Became” Her­man Melville and Wrote the Script for John Huston’s Moby-Dick (1956)

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

Hear Italo Calvino Read Selections From Invisible Cities, Mr. Palomar & Other Enchanting Fictions

The Trav­els of Mar­co Polo—tales told by the Venet­ian explor­er to Ital­ian romance writer Rus­tichel­lo da Pisa—purportedly describes in great detail Polo’s encounter with “The East,” a place in the medieval Euro­pean mind as alien and fan­tas­ti­cal as the inter­stel­lar realms of sci­ence fic­tion. Like oth­er trav­el nar­ra­tives of the peri­od (notably the spu­ri­ous Trav­els of Sir John Man­dev­ille), Polo’s sto­ries mixed accu­rate geo­graph­i­cal and cul­tur­al infor­ma­tion with folk­lore, myth, and Ori­en­tal­ist mis­ap­pre­hen­sion. While the appear­ance of mon­sters and mar­vels seems capri­cious to the mod­ern read­er, these ele­ments may have felt almost mun­dane to Polo’s con­tem­po­raries. Or maybe not. After all, the Ital­ian title of Polo’s trav­el­ogue—Il Mil­ione—may refer to Polo’s rep­u­ta­tion as the teller of “a mil­lion” lies.

But let us leave the puz­zles of authen­tic­i­ty to his­to­ri­ans. As read­ers, we get lost in these fas­ci­nat­ing romances because the worlds they describe are both so strange yet so unset­tling­ly famil­iar. Medieval trav­el­ogues like Polo’s open up the pos­si­bil­i­ty of fairy king­doms with out­landish cus­toms thriv­ing almost with­in reach. These tales of strange and unknown lands were, after all, promi­nent inspi­ra­tion for C.S. Lewis’s Nar­nia books. (Lis­ten to the Chron­i­cles of Nar­nia in a free audio for­mat here).

For grown-up read­ers, no author bet­ter evokes the uncan­ny geopol­i­tics of the medieval imag­i­na­tion than Ita­lo Calvi­no, whose Invis­i­ble Cities imag­ines Polo’s sup­posed jour­ney to the impe­r­i­al seat of Mon­gol ruler Kublai Khan. In Calvino’s novel—more a col­lec­tion of prose-poems—Polo regales Khan with his accounts of 55 exot­ic cities, while the busy emperor’s func­tionar­ies come and go. “At some point,” says author Eric Wein­er, “you real­ize that Calvi­no is not talk­ing about cities at all, not in the way we nor­mal­ly think of the word. Calvino’s cities—like all cities, really—are con­struct­ed not of steel and con­crete but of ideas. Each city rep­re­sents a thought exper­i­ment.”

Sim­i­lar obser­va­tions can be made of any of the author’s odd­ly enchant­i­ng alle­gor­i­cal fic­tions—Sea­mus Heaney called Calvi­no’s sto­ries “fan­tas­tic dis­plays” inspired by “sym­me­tries and arith­metics.” In the audio above, you can hear the author read selec­tions from sev­er­al of his works, includ­ing Invis­i­ble Cities and Mr. Palo­mar, a work of “even more arch­ness and archi­tec­tur­al inven­tion.” Do not be daunt­ed by Calvino’s Ital­ian. I find it very pleas­ing to lis­ten to, even if I do not under­stand it all. But if you’d rather skip ahead to the Eng­lish por­tion of his reading—recorded at the 92nd St. Y on March 31st, 1983—it begins at 8:40 where Calvi­no reads from a sec­tion of Invis­i­ble Cities called “Thin Cities.” In this excerpt, Polo tells Khan of a place called “Armil­la”:

Whether Armil­la is like this because it is unfin­ished or because it has been demol­ished, whether the cause is some enchant­ment or only a whim, I do not know. The fact remains that it has no walls, no ceil­ings, no floors: it has noth­ing that makes it seem a city except the water pipes that rise ver­ti­cal­ly where the hous­es should be and spread out hor­i­zon­tal­ly where the floors should be: a for­est of pipes that end in taps, show­ers, spouts, over­flows […]

 You can read the remain­der of the “Armil­la” sec­tion here, along with oth­er selec­tions from Invis­i­ble Cities. A por­tion of the text of Mr. Palo­mar is avail­able here. Calvino’s read­ing is long—nearly an hour and a half—and very reward­ing, both for the rich musi­cal­i­ty of his accent­ed Eng­lish and the spell­bind­ing charms of his philo­soph­i­cal fic­tions. And if you are so inspired, you may wish to read Calvi­no’s short essay “Why Read the Clas­sics?” to which I often turn for a fuller grasp his wide-rang­ing lit­er­ary inher­i­tance.

via The Paris Review

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Expe­ri­ence Invis­i­ble Cities, an Inno­v­a­tive, Ita­lo Calvi­no-Inspired Opera Staged in LA’s Union Sta­tion

Watch a Whim­si­cal Ani­ma­tion of Ita­lo Calvino’s Short Sto­ry “The Dis­tance of the Moon”

John Tur­tur­ro Reads Ita­lo Calvino’s Ani­mat­ed Fairy Tale

550 Free Audio Books: Down­load Great Books for Free

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

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