Heavy Metal: BBC Film Explores the Music, Personalities & Great Clothing That Hit the Stage in the 1980s

in Film, Music | January 7th, 2014

In 1982, John Michael Osbourne was playing a show at the Veterans Memorial Auditorium, in Des Moines, Iowa. During the set, a fan tossed a bat onstage. Having drunkenly bitten off a dove’s head some months earlier, Osbourne obeyed his instincts and decapitated the bat in similar fashion. With a single bite, Osbourne, known as Ozzy to his legion fans, had become the most notorious example of metal’s dangerous, ungodly ways.

Those wary of metal’s loud sounds and louder hair will likely be surprised by what they find in the BBC documentary, Heavy Metal (1989), above. Interspersed amidst headbanging performances by Metallica, Motorhead, and Slayer, Heavy Metal includes several entertaining interviews, including an arrestingly sedate Osbourne together with Geezer Butler, Black Sabbath’s bassist and lyricist, who discuss launching their careers in a blues band. How does Osbourne justify the grim, confronting nature of Black Sabbath’s lyrics?

“It’s heavy metal, so you’ve got to put a heavy lyric to it. I suppose writing about the darker forces and about the darker sides of, whatever, fits the music. You would hardly write about a love song to that… kind of heaviness.”

In contrast with their brash, outsized personas, most interviewees are surprisingly demure. Axl Rose’s boasts of Guns N Roses’ musical integrity aside, Black Sabbath, Napalm Death, and Iron Maiden all prove disappointing ambassadors of satan-worship, providing lucid commentary on the state of metal, the differences between its American and English varieties, and codpieces. Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson, whose non-musical pursuits include beer brewing, piloting commercial aircraft, penning novels, and Olympic-level fencing, distinguishes himself as the most thoughtful and engaging of the bunch.

For an entertaining look at the state of metal in 1989, watch the full documentary here. It’s also listed in our collection of Free Documentaries, part of our collection of 635 Free Movies Online.

Ilia Blinderman is a Montreal-based culture and science writer. Follow him at @iliablinderman.

Horror Legend Christopher Lee Presents a Heavy Metal Version of The Little Drummer Boy

Orson Welles Records Two Songs with the 1980s Heavy-Metal Band Manowar

by Ilia Blinderman | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

Listen to Eight Interviews of Orson Welles by Filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich (RIP)

in Film | January 7th, 2014

Image by Carl Van Vechten, via Wikimedia Commons

Orson Welles never wrote a proper autobiography, but we have a book that comes close: This is Orson Welles, assembled by critic Jonathan Rosenbaum and filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich (Targets, The Last Picture Show, Paper Moon) out of a series of in-depth recorded conversations between Bogdanovich and Welles. That volume has given the younger filmmaker something of a sub-career as the older one’s Boswell, which has led to a certain degree of ribbing about his willingness to trot out an Orson Welles anecdote for every context. Though I’ve always enjoyed hearing Bogdanovich’s interpretations of Welles, they always get me curious to hear the stories of the life and career of the man who made The War of the Worlds, Citizen Kane, and (my personal favorite) F for Fake straight from, well, the man who made The War of the Worlds, Citizen Kane, and F for Fake. You can do just that at the Internet Archive, which offers nearly four hours of audio of the very interviews that gave This is Orson Welles its source material. (Audio starts at the 12 second mark.)

“I first met Orson Welles toward the end of 1968,” says Bogdanovich in his introduction, “and not long after we began taping our conversations for a book about his career that he hoped would ‘set the record straight.’ We started in his bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel, and then resumed a couple of weeks later in Guaymas, Mexico, where Orson was acting in the movie of Catch-22.” Their talks continued in places from New York’s Plaza Hotel and Rome’s Hotel Eden to, for whatever reason, Carefree, Arizona, exploring not just the well-known chapters of Welles’ career, but his experiences with now-overlooked or never-completed projects like most of his countless radio dramas, his early adaptation of Cecil Day-Lewis’ Smiler with a Knife, and his later adaptation of Kafka’s The Trial. Some may accuse Bogdanovich of over-milking his association with Welles, but if I had conversations this fascinating with perhaps the most respected auteur in American film history, I’d probably talk about them all the time too.

Orson Welles’ Last Interview and Final Moments Captured on Film

Orson Welles Explains Why Ignorance Was His Major “Gift” to Citizen Kane

Revisit Orson Welles’ Iconic ‘War of the Worlds’ Broadcast That Aired 75 Years Ago Today

Orson Welles Meets H.G. Wells in 1940: The Legends Discuss War of the Worlds, Citizen Kane, and WWII

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

by Colin Marshall | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Designers Charles & Ray Eames Create a Promotional Film for the Groundbreaking Polaroid SX-70 Instant Camera (1972)

in Photography | January 6th, 2014

For several decades of its history, the Polaroid was called a “Land Camera” after the company’s founder Edwin Land, and the product line included not only consumer devices but also high-end machines like the SX-70, a folding SLR camera introduced in 1972. The SX-70 boasted a host of impressive features that allowed photographers to achieve the effects of non-instant SLRs such as “changes in depth of field, double exposure, fixed-point focusing, and closeup photography.” The SX-70 made a considerable impression on famed husband and wife design team Charles and Ray Eames, so much so that they produced the 11-minute advertisement above describing in detail the SX-70’s highly complex operations. In his introduction, Charles Eames tells us that no less an authority than Alfred Stieglitz “favored any means that might free the photographer’s whole energies so that they could be channeled in the direction of the decision, the picture itself.” Thus, Edwin Land’s inventions are given the imprimatur of the father of fine art photography himself, and in 1972, the SX-70 was Land’s highest achievement to date.

The Polaroid instant camera seems to have come full circle from consumer toy to utilitarian snapshot-maker to artists’ experimental tool to instrument of retro-hipsterism to consumer toy again. But the physical, real-world Polaroid aesthetic almost met its end in 2008 when the company discontinued production of its instant film, prompting the creators of the Impossible Project to “[save] analog instant photography from extinction by releasing various, brand new and unique instant films.” VP Dave Bias demonstrates the project’s device, which allows smartphone photogs to print images on Polaroid-style film. Responding to the massive demands of 21st century détourned nostalgia, Polaroid has introduced new lines of instant cameras, and Fuji is also bridging the Instagram/Polaroid divide with a portable printer this spring. But what the Impossible Project highlights—as the Eames did in ‘72—is just how much the Polaroid became a means of making fine art as well as kitsch, a too often unremarked upon application of the famous instant camera and the visual aesthetics it bequeathed the digital age.

via Mental Floss

The Masterful Polaroid Pictures Taken by Filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky

Italian Photographer Maurizio Galimberti Creates Cubist Polaroid Collages of Artists & Celebrities

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

by Josh Jones | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

Sir Patrick Stewart Demonstrates How Cows Moo in Different English Accents

in Comedy, Politics, Radio, Theatre | January 6th, 2014

Having spent the fall lounging in the bath dressed as a lobster, and gamboling around New York City with Waiting for Godot cast mate Ian McKellen, the irrepressible Patrick Stewart brought 2013 to a close by indulging a curious fan of NPR’s How To Do Everything podcast.

Her question? What do English cows sound like when they moo.

The knighted star does not skimp on his answer, even if, as he repeatedly suggests, one cannot do the subject justice in less than an entire afternoon. The dialects of British cows, like those of their human counterparts, underscore that theirs is a society “dominated by class, social status and location.”

The moo of a cow from West Oxfordshire, home to Prime Minister David Cameron, is quite conservative compared to the lusty bellow of a specimen from West Yorkshire, where Stewart grew up. (The latter is so astonishing, he immediately offers to produce it twice.)

Cockney cows, a breed whose ranks have thinned considerably since Shakespeare’s day, sound like sheep.

Mayfair cows sound like former Prime Minister Sir Alec Douglas-Home.

As an extra treat, Stewart generously agrees to the host’s request for an American cow, impersonating a Nevada-dweller, a geographic homage to the original questioner as well as his bride, jazz singer Sunny Ozell.

Is there anything this man can’t — or won’t — do?

via Laughing Squid

Ayun Halliday wishes her favorite playwright a very happy birthday. Follow her @AyunHalliday

Peter Sellers Reads The Beatles’ “She Loves You” in Four Different Accents

Patrick Stewart Talks Candidly About Domestic Violence in a Poignant Q&A Session at Comicpalooza

Acclaimed BBC Production of Hamlet, Starring David Tennant (Doctor Who) and Patrick Stewart (Star Trek)

by Ayun Halliday | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

The Ten-Year Lunch: Watch the Award-Winning Documentary About the Great Writers Who Sat at the Algonquin Round Table

in Film, History | January 6th, 2014

After reaching the rank of Sergeant during World War I, Alexander Woollcott returned to New York to become a drama critic for the New York Times. Woollcott was a man of large bulk and outsized personality, whose sharp, acerbic wit made him popular with his readers. According to The Ten-Year Lunch, an Oscar-winning documentary about the New York group of writers and journalists known as the Algonquin Round Table, Woollcott’s quick tongue made his bombastic presence nearly unbearable to his friends:

When he returned from the war, Woollcott boasted of his military adventures so often and so loudly that his friends grew tired of listening. He began every sentence with “When I was in the theatre of war…” Irritated by his pomposity, press agent Murdoch Pemberton lured Woollcott [to the Algonquin Hotel] with the promise of an ace pastry chef. The idea was to hold a sort of roast, at which a number of critics and journalists from around town would come and poke fun at him.

For better or worse, the attempt to puncture Woollcott’s ego at the Algonquin Hotel was unsuccessful. Rather than take offence, Woollcott was flattered by the attention, and the various figures in attendance also thoroughly enjoyed themselves. Serendipitously, the legendary luncheons of the Algonquin Round Table were born.

Most of the Table’s members had taken part in the war, to one degree or another: journalist Ruth Hale and her syndicated-columnist husband Heywood Broun had been war correspondents; New Yorker founder Harold Ross had edited the military newspaper Stars & Stripes; acclaimed columnist Franklin Pierce Adams had made Captain. Other members included poet and critic Dorothy Parker, a tragic romantic who had become the city’s most quotable woman. (Parker’s inexhaustible supply of witticisms still feels fresh today: when asked to use the word horticulture in a sentence, Parker replied, “You can lead a whore to culture, but you can’t make her think.”) Parker’s best friend was humorist and essayist Robert Benchley, who had once written an essay exploring Newfoundland fishing rights for his International Law class at Harvard from the unorthodox perspective of the fish. Frequently joining them was Neysa McNein, a sought-after illustrator who hosted the Table’s afternoon gatherings in her studio, where Irving Berlin could occasionally be found playing the piano.

The near-daily meetings at the Algonquin Hotel fostered a close-knit cultural fraternity of New York’s best writers, illustrators, and artists. The group vacationed together at their jointly-owned Vermont island, played games of poker wagering houses and honeymoons, and criticized each other’s work. Whenever a member of the Round Table would make a conceited remark, everyone would immediately rise and bow, honoring their friend’s regal affectations. The only exception to the rule was Woollcott, whose bread and butter pomposity was tolerated by virtue of its regularity.

With its interviews of original Table members, the documentary is a tantalizing look at the lives of the men and women who ruled New York’s cultural milieu during the heyday of the printed word. Equal parts wish for the idyllic past and history of New York’s biggest cultural players, The Ten-Year Lunch leaves one with a pang of oddly potent nostalgia. We can’t recommend it enough.

In the image above, see Art Samuels, Charlie MacArthur, Harpo Marx, Dorothy Parker and Alexander Woollcott

Ilia Blinderman is a Montreal-based culture and science writer. Follow him at @iliablinderman.

by Ilia Blinderman | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

The Beatles Perform a Fun Spoof of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1964)

in Music, Television | January 6th, 2014

Before Brian Epstein discovered The Beatles in 1961, they looked nothing like the British mop-top mods of their early sixties pop phase. As the Quarrymen, they aped the looks of American fifties rockers (see a slideshow in this fan-made video of “In Spite of All the Danger”): Sometimes they dressed like folk revivalists in checkered shirts and jeans, sometimes like a Carl Perkins rockabilly band in matching suits and skinny ties, and sometimes like pompadoured greasers straight out of West Side Story.

But even after the band acquired its distinctive look and wrote a cache of original songs, they were still “competing for increased exposure just like everybody else.” This meant numerous goofy publicity stunts, every one of which they seemed to thoroughly love. In one such affair, the foursome taped a television special called “Around the Beatles,” a reference to the theater-in-the-round studio setup. In the first part of the program, they donned yet another costume, Shakespearean dress, and staged a spoof of Act V, Scene I of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in honor of Shakespeare’s 400th anniversary. (See the original black-and-white BBC broadcast from April 28, 1964 above. The show was broadcast in America on ABC that November, in color.)

After some fanfare, “Around the Beatles” opens on Ringo, in hose and doublet, firing a cannon. Then we get the obligatory hoard of screaming teenage fans singing the praises of each Beatle and marching into the studio with signs and banners. After another trumpet fanfare, the play begins, and we’re off into slapstick British comedy, with a mugging Paul as Pyramus, sneering John as Thisbe, smirking George as Moonshine, and a scene-chewing Ringo as Lion. The hecklers in the box seats were scripted, mostly (one yells “go back to Liverpool!”—probably not a plant). Overall the silly skit confirms what I’ve always maintained: if the Beatles’ hadn’t made it as musicians, they’d have done well to stay together as a comedy troupe.

The second part of the special featured musical performances from several other acts and, of course, from the Beatles themselves. See the band bop along to a medley of “Love Me Do”/ “Please Please Me”/ “From Me to You”/ “She Loves You”/ “I Want to Hold Your Hand” above. They prerecorded the music on April 19th and mimed the performances, as you can surely tell from the total lack of amplifiers onstage. This was, as it is again, the way of things in pop music on television. But if you are one of those who think The Beatles didn’t put on a good live show, Colin Fleming at The Atlantic begs to differ, with a thorough explication of rare recordings from an October 1963 performance in Stockholm.

via Brain Pickings

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

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

by Josh Jones | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Lego Video Shows How David Bowie Almost Became “Cobbler Bob,” Not “Aladdin Sane”

in Comedy, Music | January 5th, 2014

In October, 1973, David Bowie made his last live appearance as Ziggy Stardust. (Watch it here.) Pretty soon, Bowie would morph into a new persona Aladdin Sane and later The Thin White Duke. But, for a moment there, he almost went with another unlikely character, “Cobbler Bob.” Or so that’s the playful scenario that English comedian and actor Adam Buxton imagines in this short lego video. Enjoy.

When you’re done having a laugh and ready for something more serious, we’d encourage you to see these related posts:

The Story of Ziggy Stardust: How David Bowie Created the Character that Made Him Famous

David Bowie Recalls the Strange Experience of Inventing the Character Ziggy Stardust (1977)

David Bowie Sings ‘I Got You Babe’ with Marianne Faithfull in His Last Performance As Ziggy Stardust

David Bowie Releases Vintage Videos of His Greatest Hits from the 1970s and 1980s

via Metafilter

by OC | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

The Science of Willpower: 15 Tips for Making Your New Year’s Resolutions Last from Dr. Kelly McGonigal

in Life, Psychology | January 5th, 2014

At the stroke of midnight, millions of New Year’s resolutions went into effect, with the most common ones being lose weight, get fit, quit drinking and smoking, save money, and learn something new. Unfortunately, 33% of these resolutions will be abandoned by January’s end. And upwards of 80% will eventually fall by the wayside. Making resolutions stick is tricky business. But it’s possible, and Stanford psychologist Kelly McGonigal has a few scientifically-proven suggestions for you.

For years, McGonigal has taught a very popular course called The Science of Willpower in Stanford’s Continuing Studies program, where she introduces students to the idea that willpower is not an innate trait. Rather it’s a “complex mind-body response that can be compromised by stress, sleep deprivation and nutrition and that can be strengthened through certain practices.” For those of you who don’t live in the San Francisco Bay Area, you can also find McGonigal’s ideas presented in a recent book, The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It, which just came out in paperback yesterday. Below, we have highlighted 15 of Dr. McGonigal’s strategies for increasing your willpower reserves and making your New Year’s resolution endure.

Will power is like a muscle. The more you work on developing it, the more you can incorporate it into your life. It helps, McGonigal says in this podcast, to start with small feats of willpower before trying to tackle more difficult feats. Ideally, find the smallest change that’s consistent with your larger goal, and start there.
Choose a goal or resolution that you really want, not a goal that someone else desires for you, or a goal that you think you should want. Choose a positive goal that truly comes from within and that contributes to something important in life.
Willpower is contagious. Find a willpower role model — someone who has accomplished what you want to do. Also try to surround yourself with family members, friends or groups who can support you. Change is often not made alone.
Know that people have more willpower when they wake up, and then willpower steadily declines throughout the day as people fatigue. So try to accomplish what you need to — for example, exercise — earlier in the day. Then watch out for the evenings, when bad habits can return.
Understand that stress and willpower are incompatible. Any time we’re under stress it’s harder to find our willpower. According to McGonigal, “the fight-or-flight response floods the body with energy to act instinctively and steals it from the areas of the brain needed for wise decision-making. Stress also encourages you to focus on immediate, short-term goals and outcomes, but self-control requires keeping the big picture in mind.” The upshot? “Learning how to better manage your stress is one of the most important things you can do to improve your willpower.” When you get stressed out, go for a walk. Even a five minute walk outside can reduce your stress levels, boost your mood, and help you replenish your willpower reserves.
Sleep deprivation (less than six hours a night) makes it so that the prefrontal cortex loses control over the regions of the brain that create cravings. Science shows that getting just one more hour of sleep each night (eight hours is ideal) helps recovering drug addicts avoid a relapse. So it can certainly help you resist a doughnut or a cigarette.
Also remember that nutrition plays a key role. “Eating a more plant-based, less-processed diet makes energy more available to the brain and can improve every aspect of willpower from overcoming procrastination to sticking to a New Year’s resolution,” McGonigal says.
Don’t think it will be different tomorrow. McGonigal notes that we have a tendency to think that we will have more willpower, energy, time, and motivation tomorrow. The problem is that “if we think we have the opportunity to make a different choice tomorrow, we almost always ‘give in’ to temptation or habit today.”
Acknowledge and understand your cravings rather than denying them. That will take you further in the end. The video above has more on that.
Imagine the things that could get in the way of achieving your goal. Understand the tendencies you have that could lead you to break your resolution. Don’t be overly optimistic and assume the road will be easy.
Know your limits, and plan for them. Says McGonigal, “People who think they have the most self-control are the most likely to fail at their resolutions; they put themselves in tempting situations, don’t get help, give up at setbacks. You need to know how you fail; how you are tempted; how you procrastinate.”
Pay attention to small choices that add up. “One study found that the average person thinks they make 14 food choices a day; they actually make over 200. When you aren’t aware that you’re making a choice, you’ll almost always default to habit/temptation.” It’s important to figure out when you have opportunities to make a choice consistent with your goals.
Be specific but flexible. It’s good to know your goal and how you’ll get there. But, she cautions, “you should leave room to revise these steps if they turn out to be unsustainable or don’t lead to the benefits you expected.”
Give yourself small, healthy rewards along the way. Research shows that the mind responds well to it. (If you’re trying to quite smoking, the reward shouldn’t be a cigarette, by the way.)
Finally, if you experience a setback, don’t be hard on yourself. Although it seems counter-intuitive, studies show that people who experience shame/guilt are much more likely to break their resolutions than ones who cut themselves some slack. In a nutshell, you should “Give up guilt.”

To put all of these tips into a bigger framework, you can get a copy of Kelly McGonigal’s book, The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It. Or you can get The WillPower Instinct, as a free audio book, if you care to try out Audible.com’s free trial program.

If you live in the SF Bay Area, you can take Kelly’s The Science of Willpower course that begins on January 13. (Anyone can enroll, and yes, I know that because I help run the Continuing Studies program at Stanford.)

Finally you might also want to peruse How to Think Like a Psychologist (iTunes Video), a free online course led by Kelly McGonigal. It appears in our collection of 800 Free Courses Online.

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

Free Online Psychology Courses (Part of our list of 800 Free Online Courses)

by OC | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

Heavy Metal: BBC Film Explores the Music, Personalities & Great Clothing That Hit the Stage in the 1980s

Listen to Eight Interviews of Orson Welles by Filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich (RIP)

Designers Charles & Ray Eames Create a Promotional Film for the Groundbreaking Polaroid SX-70 Instant Camera (1972)

Sir Patrick Stewart Demonstrates How Cows Moo in Different English Accents

The Ten-Year Lunch: Watch the Award-Winning Documentary About the Great Writers Who Sat at the Algonquin Round Table

The Beatles Perform a Fun Spoof of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1964)

Lego Video Shows How David Bowie Almost Became “Cobbler Bob,” Not “Aladdin Sane”

The Science of Willpower: 15 Tips for Making Your New Year’s Resolutions Last from Dr. Kelly McGonigal

Essentials

Support Us

Free Courses

Receive our Daily Email

FREE UPDATES!

GET OUR DAILY EMAIL

Free Movies

Free Language Lessons

Free eBooks

Free Audio Books

Free Textbooks

K-12 Resources

Free Art & Images

Free Music

Writing Tips

Archive

Personal Finance

Categories

Great Lectures

Sign up for Newsletter

About Us

Great Recordings

Book Lists By

Syllabi

Favorite Movies

Archives

Search