Joni Mitchell’s Application for a Tenure Track Philosophy Position

in Comedy, Philosophy | February 9th, 2015

joni philosophy

Image by Asy­lum Records (Bill­board page 2) [Pub­lic domain], via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

Michael Stipe has a teach­ing gig at NYU. Lyn­da Bar­ry has one at UW-Madi­son. Sun Ra gave a clas­sic lec­ture at UC-Berke­ley. So why can’t we imag­ine Joni Mitchell land­ing a job at a uni­ver­si­ty too? That’s what Jedidi­ah Ander­son did, when he wrote a satir­i­cal piece over at McSweeney’s called “Joni Mitchell Applies for a Tenure Track Phi­los­o­phy Posi­tion.” It begins:

Dear Search Com­mit­tee:

I am apply­ing for the posi­tion of Assis­tant Pro­fes­sor in Phi­los­o­phy. I am an advanced doc­tor­al can­di­date in Phi­los­o­phy (with minors in Urban Stud­ies and Eng­lish), and expect to defend my dis­ser­ta­tion in May, 2015.

My dis­ser­ta­tion, Both Sides Now applies a bilat­er­al, hylo­mor­phic analy­sis to the phe­nom­e­non that is described by the sig­ni­fi­er “clouds.” Hav­ing been con­sti­tut­ed in West­ern dis­course both pos­i­tive­ly as “rows and flows of angel hair,” “ice cream cas­tles in the air,” “feath­er canyons every­where,” and neg­a­tive­ly as objects that exist sole­ly to obscure the sun, express rain and snow, and hin­der the achieve­ment of var­i­ous goals, we can con­clude that after the appli­ca­tion of this bilat­er­al, hylo­mor­phic analy­sis that due to these con­tra­dic­to­ry “up” and “down” epis­te­molo­gies of cloud tropes, the real­i­ty of clouds is some­how still under­stud­ied, hav­ing been ignored in favor of their Pla­ton­ic form/sign, and that we real­ly don’t “know” clouds at all.

You can read the rest of her “appli­ca­tion” here and then spend the evening dream­ing about tak­ing Joni’s class­es on Pla­to, Exis­ten­tial­ism, and Urban Devel­op­ment. I know I will.

You can find more great Joni Mitchell mate­r­i­al below.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Vin­tage Video of Joni Mitchell Per­form­ing in 1965 — Before She Was Even Named Joni Mitchell

James Tay­lor and Joni Mitchell, Live and Togeth­er (1970)

The Music, Art, and Life of Joni Mitchell Pre­sent­ed in a Superb 2003 Doc­u­men­tary

Free Online Phi­los­o­phy Cours­es

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What Films Should Get Into The Criterion Collection? Video Series “Three Reasons” Makes the Case

in Film | February 9th, 2015

Most film fans I know have played this game: which movie, if you called the shots over there, would you bring into the Cri­te­ri­on Col­lec­tion? While the fun con­ver­sa­tions that result nec­es­sar­i­ly elide all the dif­fi­cul­ties — acquir­ing the rights, find­ing restor­able mate­ri­als, design, dis­tri­b­u­tion — of actu­al­ly get­ting a film onto Cri­te­ri­on’s ros­ter of high-qual­i­ty, fea­ture-inten­sive home video releas­es, they do illu­mi­nate one’s own cin­e­mat­ic val­ues, even if only with idle talk.

Japan-based film­mak­er, artist, design­er, and gal­lerist Robert Nishimu­ra plays the game too, but he does­n’t do it idly. On his blog, he fea­tures the high­ly con­vinc­ing DVD cas­es he’s designed for such dream Cri­te­ri­on releas­es as Kim Ki-young’s The House­maid, Akio Jissoji’s Life of a Court Lady, and Wern­er Her­zog’s Fitz­car­ral­do. He also has a Vimeo chan­nel called For Cri­te­ri­on Con­sid­er­a­tion, where he goes so far as to craft new “trail­ers” of the films he’d like to see in the Col­lec­tion, each offer­ing three rea­sons why they qual­i­fy. His pitch for Bar­ry Son­nen­feld’s 1997 Men in Black cites its sta­tus as a “galac­ti­cal­ly fun­ny block­buster,” visu­als enhanced by “Rick Bak­er’s spe­cial FX,” and a script even more enhanced with “Ed Solomon’s one-lin­ers.”

Evi­dent­ly a lover of less­er-seen Japan­ese pic­tures and the idio­syn­crat­ic qua­si-Hol­ly­wood releas­es of the 1970s (but then again, aren’t all cinephiles?), he’s also made videos argu­ing for films like Hiroshi Teshi­ga­hara’s Kobo Abe nov­el adap­ta­tion The Man With­out a Map (the log­i­cal fol­low-up to Cri­te­ri­on­s’s real box set of Teshi­ga­hara-Abe col­lab­o­ra­tions) and Michael Cimi­no’s faint­ly homo­erot­ic heist pic­ture Thun­der­bolt and Light­foot. And all the way on the oth­er end of the spec­trum from Men in Black, he advo­cates for the likes of Per­fumed Night­mare, Kid­lat Tahimik’s “play­ful cri­tique of Amer­i­can cul­tur­al dom­i­nance,” “exer­cise in mag­i­cal real­ism,” “semi-auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal explo­ration of inno­cence,” and cor­ner­stone of inde­pen­dent Philip­pine cin­e­ma.

Nishimu­ra’s out­put of videos and cov­er designs seems to have slowed in recent years, and I hope for one expla­na­tion and one expla­na­tion only: that he’s spent the time nego­ti­at­ing a healthy salary from peo­ple at Cri­te­ri­on eager to hire him.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Slavoj Žižek Names His Favorite Films from The Cri­te­ri­on Col­lec­tion

Steve Buscemi’s Top 10 Film Picks (from The Cri­te­ri­on Col­lec­tion)

120 Artists Pick Their Top 10 Films in the Cri­te­ri­on Col­lec­tion

The Art of Restor­ing Clas­sic Films: Cri­te­ri­on Shows You How It Refreshed Two Hitch­cock Movies

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture as well as the video series The City in Cin­e­ma and writes essays on cities, lan­guage, 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.

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All You Need is Love: The Keys to Happiness Revealed by a 75-Year Harvard Study

in Health, Life, Psychology | February 9th, 2015

The lat­est install­ment from PBS’ Brain­Craft video series intro­duces us to two sci­en­tif­ic stud­ies that teach us a thing or two about what brings us hap­pi­ness. One set of results comes from Dr. John Gottman’s Fam­i­ly Research Lab­o­ra­to­ry (a.k.a. the “Love Lab”); the oth­er from the Har­vard Grant Study, a 75-year study that has traced the lives and devel­op­ment of 268 Har­vard sopho­mores from the class­es of 1939–1944. Although the study focus­es on priv­i­leged white men (the demo­graph­ic that attend­ed Har­vard Col­lege dur­ing the 1930s and 40s), the Har­vard Grant Study has yield­ed con­clu­sions that apply to a broad­er pop­u­la­tion.

One of the longest-run­ning stud­ies of adult devel­op­ment, the study has found, for exam­ple, that alco­holism has some of the most ruinous effects on mar­riages, fam­i­ly finances and per­son­al health. Like­wise, it reveals that lib­er­als have sex much fur­ther into old age than their con­ser­v­a­tive peers.

But those aren’t the big take­aways — the con­clu­sions that talk about hap­pi­ness. If you watch the inter­view below with George Vail­lant, the long­time direc­tor of the study, you will hear him con­clude that hap­pi­ness isn’t about “con­form­ing, keep­ing up with the Jone­ses. It is about play­ing, and work­ing, and lov­ing. And lov­ing is prob­a­bly the most impor­tant. Hap­pi­ness is love.”

Accord­ing to Vail­lant, “warmth of rela­tion­ships through­out life have the great­est pos­i­tive impact on ‘life sat­is­fac­tion.’ ” When we have warm rela­tion­ships with our par­ents, spous­es, friends and fam­i­ly, we expe­ri­ence less dai­ly anx­i­ety and a greater sense of over­all plea­sure; we have bet­ter health (includ­ing low­er lev­els of demen­tia lat­er in life); and we’re more effec­tive at work and make more mon­ey.

Essen­tial­ly The Bea­t­les had it right, “All you need is love. Love is all you need.”

You can read more about the Har­vard study over at The Atlantic.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

A Guide to Hap­pi­ness: Alain de Bot­ton Shows How Six Great Philoso­phers Can Change Your Life

Take the ‘Hap­pi­ness Exper­i­ment’

Free Online Psy­chol­o­gy Cours­es

A Crash Course on Psy­chol­o­gy: A 30-Part Video Series from Hank Green

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Rare Interview: Tim Curry Discusses The Rocky Horror Picture Show, During the Week of Its Release (1975)

in Film, Television | February 9th, 2015

A defin­ing role can be both bless­ing and curse. In August of 1975, the week the The Rocky Hor­ror Pic­ture Show opened, its 29-year-old star, Tim Cur­ry gave an inter­view to STOIC, the Stu­dent Tele­vi­sion Of Impe­r­i­al Col­lege.

In between clips of Curry’s Frank-n-Furter sashay­ing through such des­tined-to-become cult favorites as “Sweet Trans­ves­tite” and “The Time Warp,” in fish­nets, mer­ry wid­ow, and maquil­lage designed by David Bowie’s per­son­al make­up artist, the actor enter­tained questions…in lus­cious black and white!

Kudos to the young inter­view­er, Mark Cald­well, for nev­er inter­rupt­ing or try­ing to elbow his way into the spot­light with jokey asides or dou­ble enten­dres. The reward is a seri­ous con­sid­er­a­tion of the film­mak­ing process and the actor’s craft.

(Bear in mind that it would be at least a year until mid­night audi­ences at New York’s Waver­ly The­ater start­ed throw­ing toast, rice, and toi­let paper at the screen, thus ini­ti­at­ing an entire script’s worth of audi­ence par­tic­i­pa­tion.)

Hav­ing orig­i­nat­ed the role on the Lon­don stage (he audi­tioned with Lit­tle Richard’s “Tut­ti Frut­ti”) and reprised it in L.A., Cur­ry was clear­ly ready to put some space between him­self and his icon­ic cre­ation, announcing—correctly, as it turns out—that any sequels would have to pro­ceed with­out him.

Then he clammed up for three decades, refus­ing to dis­cuss his most icon­ic role until 2005, when he broke the silence dur­ing an inter­view on NPR’s Fresh Air .

It’s clear that Cur­ry saw the mak­ing of the film as a seri­ous busi­ness, but Rocky Hor­ror fans will find plen­ty of juicy morsels to feed their obses­sion. Even vir­gins will enjoy the sto­ry of Frank’s evolv­ing accent —from mid­dle Euro­pean to “Bel­gravia Host­ess with the Mostest.”

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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Watch 570 Million Years of Evolution on Earth in 60 Seconds

in Biology | February 8th, 2015

570 mil­lions years of evo­lu­tion. That’s a lot of ground to cov­er. And it could be like watch­ing paint dry. But not when it flies by in 60 sec­onds, with a groovy sound­track by I‑Konic. First come the arthro­pods. Next some friend­ly fish, all fol­lowed by land plants, fly­ing insects, amphib­ians, and rep­tiles. Way down the line, at the very end, the first humans arrive on the scene. But don’t blink, you might miss it.

To get a lit­tle more detail on how this all hap­pened, I’d sug­gest watch­ing Carl Sagan explain evo­lu­tion in a clas­sic 8‑minute ani­ma­tion.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

New Ani­mat­ed Web Series Makes the The­o­ry of Evo­lu­tion Easy to Under­stand

Richard Dawkins Explains Why There Was Nev­er a First Human Being

Free Online Biol­o­gy Cours­es

16,000 Pages of Charles Darwin’s Writ­ing on Evo­lu­tion Now Dig­i­tized and Avail­able Online

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B.B. King Explains in an Animated Video Whether You Need to Endure Hardship to Play the Blues

in Music | February 6th, 2015

George Har­ri­son had a beloved gui­tar named Lucy. B.B. King has one named Lucille. Curi­ous, that.

Above, in a new ani­mat­ed video by Blank on Blank, B.B. explains the sto­ry behind the nam­ing of his leg­endary gui­tar, and then answers the big ques­tion: Do you real­ly need to endure hard times to play the blues?  No spoil­ers here.

The audio was record­ed in Sep­tem­ber, 1985 by Warn­er Bros. A&R man­ag­er Joe Smith. While writ­ing a book on the music indus­try, Smith taped inter­views with leg­endary fig­ures like Dave Brubeck, Lou Reed, Paul McCart­ney, Joan Baez, Her­bie Han­cock, David Bowie, George Har­ri­son, Yoko Ono, James Brown, Bo Did­dley, Jer­ry Gar­cia, Chris­tine McVie, Mick Jag­ger, Lin­da Ron­stadt and more. Each inter­view runs 30–60 good min­utes. They’re fas­ci­nat­ing to lis­ten to, and you can find them on iTunes and the web.

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!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Free Archive of Audio Inter­views with Rock, Jazz & Folk Leg­ends Now on iTunes

Maya Angelou Tells Studs Terkel How She Learned to Count Cards & Hus­tle in a New Ani­mat­ed Video

Blank on Blank Ani­ma­tions Revive Lost Inter­views with David Fos­ter Wal­lace, Jim Mor­ri­son & Dave Brubeck

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William S. Burroughs’ Home Movies, Featuring Patti Smith, Allen Ginsberg, Steve Buscemi & Cats

in Literature | February 6th, 2015

Giv­ing Gus Van San­t’s Drug­store Cow­boy a re-watch a cou­ple of weeks ago, I found I espe­cial­ly enjoyed William S. Bur­roughs’ appear­ance toward the end as — what else? — an aged but wise drug user in whose benev­o­lent pres­ence Matt Dil­lon’s pro­tag­o­nist comes to life-chang­ing con­clu­sions. That pic­ture rep­re­sent­ed a break into the main­stream, or close to it, for Van Sant, a direc­tor pre­vi­ous­ly known for Mala Noche, a stark black-and-white take on street hus­tlers on Port­land’s Skid Row.

But Bur­roughs’ pres­ence, among oth­er things, allowed Drug­store Cow­boy to keep a cer­tain raw edge. If you real­ly want to see Bur­roughs’ in a con­text of cin­e­mat­ic raw­ness, though, have a look at these home movies. We’ve pulled them out of the inter­net’s attic as a cel­e­bra­tion of the Naked Lunch author’s 101st birth­day. Only light­ly and taste­ful­ly edit­ed, these VHS gems (part one, part two) can­did­ly depict Bur­roughs at home in Lawrence, Kansas in 1996, just a year before his death.

They also find him in the com­pa­ny of such notable friends as Pat­ti Smith, Steve Busce­mi, and Allen Gins­berg, smok­ing, drink­ing, and — in Smith’s case — bust­ing out the gui­tar. Cats, as promised, roam through the frame. You might not call Bur­roughs him­self, made some­what less exu­ber­ant by time, the life of the par­ty, but he does seem to have radi­at­ed a kind of askew ani­mat­ing spir­it until the end. It cer­tain­ly kept him sur­round­ed by coun­ter­cul­tur­al lumi­nar­ies, all of them sure­ly still as keen as that young phar­ma­cy-rob­ber to learn from him.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Mak­ing of Drug­store Cow­boy, Gus Van Sant’s First Major Film (1989)

Hear a Great Radio Doc­u­men­tary on William S. Bur­roughs Nar­rat­ed by Iggy Pop

William S. Bur­roughs Reads His First Nov­el, Junky

William S. Bur­roughs on the Art of Cut-up Writ­ing

William S. Bur­roughs on Sat­ur­day Night Live, 1981

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture as well as the video series The City in Cin­e­ma and writes essays on cities, lan­guage, 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.

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Watch Between Time and Timbuktu, an Obscure TV Gem Based on the Work of Kurt Vonnegut

in Comedy, Literature, Television | February 6th, 2015

Just won­der­ing, who among us knows how to sing the zip code of Boston’s pub­lic tele­vi­sion sta­tion, WGBH-TV?

If you war­bled “02134” with­out hes­i­ta­tion, you prob­a­bly grew up watch­ing a beloved children’s tele­vi­sion show of the 70s.

It turns out Zoom wasn’t the only cool pro­gram WGBH hatched in 1972. On March 13, just a cou­ple of months after Zoom’s debut, the sta­tion aired Between Time and Tim­buk­tu, a 90-minute spe­cial inspired by the work of Kurt Von­negut.

The script was writ­ten by David Odell, who lat­er won an Emmy for The Mup­pet Show, but Von­negut advised, pinch­ing char­ac­ters and scenes from such favorites as Cat’s Cra­dle, Sirens of Titan, and “Har­ri­son Berg­eron.”

Von­negut also wrote the intro­duc­tion to the pub­lished script, a paper­back quick­ie enhanced by pro­duc­tion stills and pho­tos tak­en by Vonnegut’s wife, Jill Kre­mentz. It was as good a forum as any for him to announce his retire­ment from film, which he cit­ed as a medi­um “too clank­ing and real” for his com­fort.

The show itself is like­ly to cause nos­tal­gia for television’s free­wheel­ing, Mon­ty Python era.

Though 1972 wasn’t an entire­ly sil­ly peri­od, if you’ll recall. The Viet­nam War was rag­ing, with Wal­ter Cronkite hold­ing down the CBS Evening News desk.

Between Time and Tim­buk­tu cap­i­tal­izes on the vet­er­an broad­cast­er’s ubiq­ui­ty by cast­ing come­di­an Ray Gould­ing of Bob and Ray fame, as an appro­pri­ate­ly grave Wal­ter Gesund­heit. Bob joined him at the news desk as a fic­ti­tious for­mer astro­naut. Von­negut was appre­cia­tive of their efforts, stat­ing that Amer­i­can come­di­ans had prob­a­bly done more to shape his think­ing than any oth­er writer.

Also look for William Hick­ey, who played Prizzi’s Honor’s genial, aged mafia don, in the lead role of Stony Stevenson—now there’s a peri­od char­ac­ter name! If you’ll remem­ber, Stony is also the first civil­ian in space, at least accord­ing to the Sirens of Titan.

via The Air­ship

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Kurt Von­negut Urges Young Peo­ple to Make Art and “Make Your Soul Grow”

Kurt Von­negut: Where Do I Get My Ideas From? My Dis­gust with Civ­i­liza­tion

Kurt Von­negut Explains “How to Write With Style”

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, home­school­er, and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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