Martin Scorsese on How “Diversity Guarantees Our Cultural Survival,” in Film and Everything Else

in Film, Life | February 14th, 2017

Image by “Sieb­bi,” Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

When Fed­eri­co Felli­ni died in 1993, New York Times obit­u­ary writer Bruce Weber made a con­fes­sion: “I nev­er cared for his movies.” In a dec­la­ra­tion of “rag­ing mid­dle­brow-ism” echoed by Dan Kois’ 2011 admis­sion of his lack of inter­est in “eat­ing my cul­tur­al veg­eta­bles,” Weber writes that “Last Year at Marien­bad was such a baf­fle­ment years ago that I gave up on it and fell asleep in the the­ater, and chances are I’ll nev­er go back and see it again. Among windy Amer­i­can nov­els I still pre­fer Lone­some Dove to Grav­i­ty’s Rain­bow and, to extend the argu­ment to non-nar­ra­tive forms, as inno­v­a­tive as John Cage and Andy Warhol were, I still hear noise and see a soup can.”

This drew a response from no less accom­plished a film­mak­er — and no less omniv­o­rous a film-lover – than Mar­tin Scors­ese. The direc­tor of Taxi Dri­ver, Rag­ing Bull, and Good­fel­las found dis­tress­ing less Weber’s opin­ion than “the under­ly­ing atti­tude toward artis­tic expres­sion that is dif­fer­ent, dif­fi­cult or demand­ing,” liken­ing it to that of a then-recent Bud­weis­er com­mer­cial asso­ci­at­ing “for­eign films” (of which we’ve pre­vi­ous­ly fea­tured Scors­ese’s list of 39 essen­tials) with “weak­ness, com­plex­i­ty, tedi­um. I like action-adven­ture films too. I also like movies that tell a sto­ry, but is the Amer­i­can way the only way of telling sto­ries?”

The issue goes well beyond cin­e­ma and Scors­ese knows it, fram­ing it not just as a mat­ter of “film the­o­ry” but as one of “cul­tur­al diver­si­ty and open­ness. Diver­si­ty guar­an­tees our cul­tur­al sur­vival. When the world is frag­ment­ing into groups of intol­er­ance, igno­rance and hatred, film is a pow­er­ful tool to knowl­edge and under­stand­ing.” By the end of his response, Scors­ese argues not against Weber but against the very mind­set that “cel­e­brates igno­rance” (and “unfor­tu­nate­ly con­firms the worst fears of Euro­pean film­mak­ers”) by, like that beer spot, ask­ing ques­tions such as “Why are for­eign movies… so for­eign?” only to con­clude, “Why ask why?”

Scors­ese, in turn, clos­es with a few ques­tions of of his own:

Is this closed-mind­ed­ness some­thing we want to pass along to future gen­er­a­tions?

If you accept the answer in the com­mer­cial, why not take it to its nat­ur­al pro­gres­sion:

Why don’t they make movies like ours?
Why don’t they tell sto­ries as we do?
Why don’t they dress as we do?
Why don’t they eat as we do?
Why don’t they talk as we do?
Why don’t they think as we do?
Why don’t they wor­ship as we do?
Why don’t they look like us?

Ulti­mate­ly, who will decide who “we” are?

You can read Scors­ese’s full response at Let­ters of Note.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Mar­tin Scors­ese Reveals His 12 Favorite Movies (and Writes a New Essay on Film Preser­va­tion)

Mar­tin Scors­ese Cre­ates a List of 39 Essen­tial For­eign Films for a Young Film­mak­er

Mar­tin Scors­ese Makes a List of 85 Films Every Aspir­ing Film­mak­er Needs to See

Mar­tin Scors­ese Intro­duces Film­mak­er Hong Sang­soo, “The Woody Allen of Korea”

Mar­tin Scors­ese Names His Top 10 Films in the Cri­te­ri­on Col­lec­tion

Mar­tin Scors­ese Names the 11 Scari­est Hor­ror Films

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities and cul­ture. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer, the video series The City in Cin­e­ma, the crowd­fund­ed jour­nal­ism project Where Is the City of the Future?, and the Los Ange­les Review of Books’ Korea Blog. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

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224 Books About Music in David Byrne’s Personal Library

in Books, Music | February 14th, 2017

Image by LivePict, via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

The mean­ing of the word “library” has nev­er been more ambigu­ous. When we can vir­tu­al­ly car­ry library-sized col­lec­tions of images, music, lit­er­a­ture and ref­er­ence data in our pock­ets, what are phys­i­cal libraries but muse­ums of a sort? Of course, from the point of view of librar­i­ans espe­cial­ly, this isn’t true in the least. Libraries are fortress­es of free speech, pub­lic edu­ca­tion, and “infor­ma­tion lit­er­a­cy” at the com­mu­ni­ty lev­el. Rather than obso­lete or sec­ondary, they may be more nec­es­sary than ever.

On a larg­er view both of these things are true. For mil­lions of peo­ple, phys­i­cal libraries have become sec­ondary and will remain so, but they also remain com­mu­ni­ty resources of para­mount impor­tance. As Ted Mills post­ed here in the sum­mer of 2015, Talk­ing Heads front­man, “poly­math and all-around swell per­son David Byrne” affirmed that lat­ter sta­tus of the phys­i­cal library when he leant out 250 books on music from his per­son­al library to them­selves be leant out at a library host­ed by the 22nd annu­al Melt­down Fes­ti­val and London’s Poet­ry Library.

“I love a library,” wrote Byre in his own Guardian essay announc­ing the project.

I grew up in sub­ur­ban Bal­ti­more and the sub­urbs were not a par­tic­u­lar­ly cos­mopoli­tan place. We were des­per­ate to know what was going on in the cool places, and, giv­en some sug­ges­tions and direc­tion, the library was one place where that wider excit­ing world became avail­able. In my lit­tle town, the library also had vinyl that one could check out and I dis­cov­ered avant-garde com­posers such as Xenakis and Mes­si­aen, folk music from var­i­ous parts of the world and even some pop records that weren’t get­ting much radio play in Bal­ti­more. It was tru­ly a for­ma­tive place.

Hav­ing grown up in the DC sub­urbs in the years before the inter­net, I can relate, and would add the impor­tance of local music stores and afford­able all-age venues. But Byrne has nev­er stayed tied to the media of his youth. Dur­ing his sev­er­al decades as a cul­tur­al crit­ic and arts edu­ca­tor, he has made ecu­meni­cal use of mun­dane new tech­nolo­gies to inter­ro­gate the sta­tus of oth­er old­er forms. One recent project, for exam­ple, con­sist­ed of a 96-page book and 20-minute DVD about his exper­i­ments in Pow­er­Point art. One of the ques­tions raised by the project, writes Veronique Vienne, is whether the book is “an anti­quat­ed cul­tur­al arti­fact” in an age of hyper­vi­su­al­iza­tion.

Clear­ly for Byrne him­self, the answer is no, and that answer is close­ly con­nect­ed to the ques­tion of com­mod­i­fi­ca­tion vers­es open access, whether through libraries or free online archives. “The idea of read­ing books for free,” he writes, “didn’t kill the pub­lish­ing busi­ness, on the con­trary, it cre­at­ed nations of lit­er­ate and pas­sion­ate read­ers. Shared inter­ests and the impulse to cre­ate.” Byrne’s library reflects a life­time of shared inter­ests and cre­ative inspi­ra­tion. He him­self has spent his life writ­ing about music in spite of the clever max­im that such a ven­ture is like “danc­ing about archi­tec­ture.” It is, he writes, “stim­u­lat­ing and inspir­ing nonethe­less.”

In the spir­it of shar­ing infor­ma­tion and cham­pi­oning libraries, Brain Pick­ings’ Maria Popo­va pub­lished a list of near­ly all of the titles in Byrne’s lend­ing library, with links to pub­lic library edi­tions near you through World­Cat. Find the full list below, cour­tesy of David Byrne’s site, and see Brain Picking’s list and short essay here.

1. 40 Watts from Nowhere: A Jour­ney into Pirate Radio by Sue Car­pen­ter
2. A div­ina come­dia dos Mutantes by Car­los Cal­a­do
3. A Pho­to­graph­ic Record: 1969–1980 by Mick Rock
4. A Thelo­nious Monk: Study Album by Lionel Grig­son
5. A Whole Room for Music: A Short Guide to the Bal­four Build­ing Music Mak­ers’ Gallery by Helene La Rue
6. Acoustic Ter­ri­to­ries: Sound Cul­ture and Every­day Life by Bran­don Labelle
7. Acoustics for Radio and Tele­vi­sion Stu­dios by Christo­pher Gil­ford
8. Africa Dances by Geof­frey Gor­er
9. African Music: A People’s Art by Fran­cis Bebey
10. African Rhythm and African Sen­si­bil­i­ty by John Miller Cher­noff
11. Afro-Amer­i­can Folk Songs by H.E. Kre­hbiel
12. AfroPop! An Illus­trat­ed Guide to Con­tem­po­rary African Music by Sean Bar­low & Ban­ning Eyre
13. All You Need to Know About the Music Busi­ness by Don­ald S. Pass­man
14. Aloud: Voic­es from the Nuy­or­i­can Poets Cafè by Miguel Algar­in & Bob Hol­man
15. An Illus­trat­ed Trea­sury of Songs by Nation­al Gallery of Art
16. And They All Sang: Adven­tures of an Eclec­tic Disc Jock­ey by Studs Terkel
17. Arranged Mar­riage by Wal­lace Berman & Robert Watts
18. Audio Cul­ture: Read­ings in Mod­ern Music by Cristoph Cox & Daniel Warn­er
19. Austin City Lim­its: 35 Years in Pho­tographs by Scott New­ton & Ter­ry Lick­ona
20. Bacha­ta: A Social His­to­ry of a Domini­can Pop­u­lar Music by Deb­o­rah Paci­ni Her­nan­dez
21. Ban­dal­ism: The Rock Group Sur­vival Guide by Julian Ridg­way
22. Beats of the Heart: Pop­u­lar Music of the World by Jere­my Marre & Han­nah Charl­ton
23. Best Music Writ­ing 2001 by Nick Horn­by & Ben Schafer
24. Best Music Writ­ing 2002 by Jonathan Lethem & Paul Bres­nick
25. Best Music Writ­ing 2003 by Matt Groen­ing & Paul Bres­nick
26. Best Music Writ­ing 2006 by Mary Gait­skill & Daphne Carr
27. Best Music Writ­ing 2007 by Robert Christ­gau & Daphne Carr
28. Bicy­cle Diaries by David Byrne
29. Black Music of Two Worlds by John Storm Roberts
30. Black Rhythms of Peru: Reviv­ing African Musi­cal Her­itage in the Black Pacif­ic by Hei­di Car­olyn Fei­d­man
31. Blues Gui­tar: The Men Who Made the Music by Jas Obrecht
32. Bossa Nova: The Sto­ry of the Brazil­ian Music that Seduced the World by Ruy Cas­tro
33. Bots­ford Col­lec­tion of Folk Songs Vol­ume 1 by Flo­rence Hud­son Bots­ford
34. Bots­ford Col­lec­tion of Folk Songs Vol­ume 2 by Flo­rence Hud­son Bots­ford
35. Bound for Glo­ry by Woody Guthrie
36. Bour­bon Street Black: The New Orleans Black Jazzman by Jack V Buerkle & Dan­ny Bark­er
37. Brazil­ian Pop­u­lar Music and Cit­i­zen­ship by Idel­ber Ave­lar & Christo­pher Dunn
38. Bru­tal­i­ty Gar­den: Trop­i­calla and the Emer­gence of a Brazil­ian Coun­ter­cul­ture by Christo­pher Dunn
39. Bug Music: How Insects Gave Us Rhythm and Noise by David Rothen­berg
40. But Beau­ti­ful: A Book About Jazz by Geoff Dyer
41. Can­cioneiro Vini­cius De Moraes by Orfeu
42. Cap­tur­ing Sound: How Tech­nol­o­gy Has Changed Music by Mark Katz
43. Catch a Fire: The Life of Bob Mar­ley by Tim­o­thy White
44. Cham­bers by Alvin Luci­er & Dou­glas Simon
45. Chin­aber­ry Side­walks: A Mem­oir by Rod­ney Crow­ell
46. Chris Stein/Negative: Me, Blondie and the Advent of Punk by Deb­o­rah Har­ry, Glenn O’Brien & Shep­ard Fairey
47. Clan­des­ti­no: In Search of Manu Chao by Peter Cul­shaw
48. Clothes Music Boys by Viv Alber­tine
49. Coci­nan­do! Fifty Years of Latin Cov­er Art by Pablo Ygle­sias
50. Con­jun­to by John Dyer
51. Con­ver­sa­tions with Glenn Gould by Jonathan Cott
52. Con­vers­ing with Cage by Richard Koste­lan­etz
53. Copy­rights & Copy­wrongs: The Rise of Intel­lec­tu­al Prop­er­ty and How it Threat­ens Cre­ativ­i­ty by Siva Vaid­hyanathan
54. Danc­ing in Your Head: Jazz, Blues, Rock and Beyond by Gene San­toro
55. Desert Plants: Con­ver­sa­tions with Twen­ty-Three Amer­i­can Musi­cians by Wal­ter Zim­mer­man
56. Dic­cionario de Jazz Lati­no by Nat Che­di­ak
57. Dic­cionario del Rock Lati­no by Nat Che­di­ak
58. Dri­ving Through Cuba: Rare Encoun­ters in the Land of Sug­ar Cane and Rev­o­lu­tion by Car­lo Gebler
59. Drum­ming at the Edge of Mag­ic: A Jour­ney into the Spir­it of Per­cus­sion by Mick­ey Hart & Jay Stevens
60. Essays on Music by Theodor W. Adorno
61. Exper­i­men­tal Music: Cage and Beyond by Michael Nyman
62. Fair Use: The Sto­ry of the Let­ter U and the Numer­al 2 by Neg­a­tiv­land
63. Fela Fela: This Bitch of a Life by Car­los Moore
64. Fetish & Fame: The 1997 MTV Video Music Awards by David Fel­ton
65. Fin­ish­ing the Hat: Col­lect­ed Lyrics (1954–1981) with Atten­dant Com­ments, Prin­ci­ples, Here­sies, Grudges, Whines and Anec­dotes by Stephen Sond­heim
66. Folk and Tra­di­tion­al Music of the West­ern Con­ti­nents by Bruno Net­tl
67. Folk Song Style and Cul­ture by Alan Lomax
68. Folk: The Essen­tial Album Guide by Neal Walers & Bri­an Mans­field
69. For­mal­ized Music: Thought and Math­e­mat­ics in Com­po­si­tion by Ian­nis Xenakis
70. Fotografie in Musi­ca by Gui­do Harari
71. Gen­e­sis of a Music by Har­ry Partch
72. Give my Regards to Eighth Street: Col­lect­ed Writ­ings of Mor­ton Feld­man by B.H. Fried­man
73. Graviko­rds, Whirlies, & Pyro­phones: Exper­i­men­tal Musi­cal Instru­ments by Bart Hop­kin
74. Guia Esen­cial De La Sal­sa by Jose Manuel Gomez
75. Gui­tar Zero: The New Musi­cian and the Sci­ence of Learn­ing by Gary Mar­cus
77. Hear­ing Cul­tures: Essays on Sound, Lis­ten­ing, and Moder­ni­ty by Veit Erl­mann
78. Here Come the Reg­u­lars: How to Run a Record Label on a Shoe­string Bud­get by Ian Ander­son
79. He Stopped Lov­ing Her Today: George Jones, Bil­ly Sher­rill and the Pret­ty-Much Total­ly True Sto­ry of the Mak­ing of the Great­est Coun­try Record of All Time by Jack Isen­hour
80. Hip Hop: The Illus­trat­ed His­to­ry of Break Danc­ing, Rap Music and Graf­fi­ti by Steven Hager
81. Hit Men by Fred­er­ic Dan­nen
82. Hitsville: The 100 Great­est Rock ‘n’ Roll Mag­a­zines 1954–1968 by Alan Betrock
83. Homo Aes­theti­cus: Where Art Comes From and Why by Ellen Dis­sanayake
84. Hot Stuff: Dis­co and the Remak­ing of Amer­i­can Cul­ture by Alice Echols
85. How Music Works: The Sci­ence and Psy­chol­o­gy of Beau­ti­ful Sounds, from Beethoven to the Bea­t­les and Beyond by John Pow­ell
86. Hun­gry for Heav­en: Rock and Roll and the Search for Redemp­tion by Steve Turn­er
87. I Have Seen the End of the World and it Looks Like This by Bob Schnei­der
88. I’ll Take You There Mavis Sta­ples: The Sta­ple Songers, and the March Up Freedom’s High­way by Greg Kot
89. In Pur­suit of Silence: Lis­ten­ing for Mean­ing in a World of Noise by George Prochnik
90. Indi­an Music by B. Chai­tanya Deva
91. It Ain’t Easy: Long John Baldry and the Birth of the British Blues by Paul Myers
92. Japan­ese Music and Musi­cal Instru­ments by William P. Malm
93. Javanese Game­lan by Jen­nifer Lind­say
94. Jazz by William Clax­ton
95. Knit­ting Music by Michael Dorf
96. La Travi­a­ta: In Full Score by Giuseppe Ver­di
97. Lau­rie Ander­son by John How­ell
98. Leon Geico: Cron­i­ca de un Sueno by Oscar Finkel­stein
99. Lex­i­con of Musi­cal Invec­tive by Nico­las Slonim­sky
101. Light Strings: Impres­sions of the Gui­tar by Ralph Gib­son & Andy Sum­mers
102. Lis­ten Again: A Momen­tary His­to­ry of Pop Music by Eric Weis­bard
103. Lis­ten­ing Through the Noise: the Aes­thet­ics of Exper­i­men­tal Elec­tron­ic Music by Joan­na Demers
104. Lis­ten to This by Alex Ross
105. Look, I Made a Hat: Col­lect­ed Lyrics (1981–2011) with Atten­dant Com­ments, Ampli­fi­ca­tions, Dog­mas, Harangues, Digres­sions, Anec­dotes and Mis­cel­lany by Stephen Sond­heim
106. Love Goes to Build­ings on Fire: Music Made New in New York City in the ’70s by Will Her­mes
107. Love in Vain: The Life and Leg­end of Robert John­son by Allen Green­berg
108. Love Saves the Day: A His­to­ry of Amer­i­can Dance Music Cul­ture by Tim Lawrence
109. Low by Hugo Wilck­en
110. Luck­ing Out: My Life Get­ting Down and Semi-dirty in Sev­en­ties New York by James Wol­cott
111. Macum­ba: The Teach­ings of Maria-Jose, Moth­er of the Gods by Serge Bram­ly
112. Man­go Mam­bo by Adal
113. Mas­ters of Con­tem­po­rary Brazil­ian Song: MPB 1965–1985 by Charles Per­rone
114. Max’s Kansas City: Art, Glam­our, Rock and Roll by Steven Kash­er
115. Me, the Mob, and the Music: One Hel­lu­va Ride with Tom­my James and the Shon­dells by Tom­my James
116. Miles: The Auto­bi­og­ra­phy by Miles Davis with Quin­cy Troupe
117. Min­ger­ing Mike: The Amaz­ing Career of an imag­i­nary Soul Super­star by Dori Hadar
118. Mis­ter Jel­ly Roll: The For­tunes of Jel­ly Roll Mor­ton, New Orleans Cre­ole and “Inven­tor of Jazz” by Alan Lomax
119. Mix Tape: The Art of Cas­sette Cul­ture by Thurston Moore
120. Music by Paul Bowles
121. Music and Com­mu­ni­ca­tion by Ter­ence McLaugh­lin
122. Music and Glob­al­iza­tion: Crit­i­cal Encoun­ters by Bob W. White
123. Music and the Brain: Stud­ies in the Neu­rol­o­gy of Music by Mac­Don­ald Critch­ley & R. A. Hen­son
124. Music and the Mind by Antho­ny Storr
125. Music and Trance: A The­o­ry of the Rela­tions between Music and Pos­ses­sion by Gilbert Rouget
126. Music Cul­tures of the Pacif­ic, The Near East, and Asia by William P. Malm
128. Music in Cuba by Ale­jo Car­pen­tier
129. Music, Lan­guage and the Brain by Anirud­dh D. Patel
130. Musi­ca Cubana Del Arey­to a la Nue­va Tro­va by Dr. Cristo­bal Diaz Ayala
131. Musi­cal Instru­ments of the World: An Illus­trat­ed Ency­clo­pe­dia with More than 4,000 Orig­i­nal Draw­ings by Ruth Midge­ly
132. Musi­cophil­ia: Tales of Music and the Brain by Oliv­er Sacks
133. My Music by Susan D Crafts, Daniel Cav­ic­chi & Charles Keil
134. New York Noise: Art and Music from the New York Under­ground 1978–88 by Stu­art Bak­er
135. Noise: A Human His­to­ry of Sound & Lis­ten­ing by David Hendy
136. Noise: The Polit­i­cal Econ­o­my of Music by Jacques Attali
137. Nota­tions by John Cage
138. Ocean of Sound: Aether Talk, Ambi­ent Sound and Imag­i­nary Worlds by David Toop
139. On Son­ic Art by Trevor Wishart
140. Opera 101: A Com­plete Guide to Learn­ing and Lov­ing the Opera by Fred Plotkin
141. Patron­iz­ing The Arts by Mar­jorie Gar­ber
142. Per­fect­ing Sound For­ev­er: An Aur­al His­to­ry of Record­ed Music by Greg Mil­ner
143. Pet Shop Boys: Lit­er­al­ly by Chris Heath
144. Pop­u­lar Musics of the Non-West­ern World: An Intro­duc­to­ry Sur­vey by Peter Manuel
145. The Pow­er of Music: Pio­neer­ing Dis­cov­er­ies in the Sci­ence of Song by Ele­na Mannes
146. Pre­sent­ing Celia Cruz by Alex­is Rodriguez-Duarte
147. Psy­chot­ic Reac­tions and Car­bu­re­tor Dung by Lester Bangs
148. Queens of Havana: The Amaz­ing Adven­tures of the Leg­endary Anacaona, Cuba’s First All-Girl Dance Band by Ali­cia Cas­tro
149. Recor­dan­do a Tito Puente: El Rey del Tim­bal by Steven Loza
150. Reflec­tions on Mace­don­ian Music: Past and Future by Dim­itri­je Buzarovs­ki
151. Remem­ber­ing the Future by Luciano Berio
152. Repeat­ed Takes: A Short His­to­ry of Record­ing Music and Its Effect on Music by Michael Chanan
153. Rev­o­lu­tion in the Head: The Bea­t­les Records and the Six­ties by Ian Mac­don­ald
154. Rhythm & Blues in New Orleans by John Broven
155. Rock ‘n’ Roll is Here to Pay: The His­to­ry of Pol­i­tics in the Music Indus­try by Steve Shap­ple & Reebee Garo­fa­lo
156. Rock Archives by Michael Ochs
157. Rock Images: 1970–1990 by Claude Gassian
158. Rock Lives: Pro­files and Inter­views by Tim­o­thy White
159. Sal­sa Guide­book for Piano & Ensem­ble by Rebe­ca Mauleon
160. Sal­sa: The Rhythm of Latin Music by Ger­ard Sheller
161. Sal­si­ol­o­gy: Afro-Cuban Music and the Evo­lu­tion of Sal­sa in New York City by Ver­non W. Bog­gs
162. Sam­ba by Alma Guiller­mo­pri­eto
163. Son­ic Trans­ports: New Fron­tiers in Our Music by Cole Gagne
164. Son­ic War­fare: Sound, Affect, and the Ecol­o­gy of Fear by Steve Good­man
165. Souled Amer­i­can: How Black Music Trans­formed White Cul­ture by Kevin Phin­ney
166. Sound­ing New Media: Immer­sion and Embod­i­ment in the Arts and Cul­ture by Frances Dyson
167. Sound­ings by Neu­berg­er Muse­um
168. South to Louisiana: The Music of the Cajun Bay­ous by John Broven
169. Spaces Speak, Are You Lis­ten­ing: Expe­ri­enc­ing Aur­al Archi­tec­ture by Bar­ry Bless­er & Lin­da-Ruth Salter
170. Spir­it Ris­ing: My Life, My Music by Angelique Kid­jo
171. Star­mak­ing Machin­ery: The Odyssey of an Album by Geof­frey Stokes
172. Stock­hausen: Con­ver­sa­tions with the Com­pos­er by Jonathan Cott
173. Stolen Moments: Con­ver­sa­tions with Con­tem­po­rary Musi­cians by Tom Schn­abel
174. Stomp­ing the Blues by Albert Mur­ray
175. Tan­go: The Art His­to­ry of Love by Robert Far­ris Thomp­son
176. Text-Sound Texts by Richard Koste­lan­etz
177. The ABCs of Rock by Melis­sa Duke Mooney
178. The Agony of Mod­ern Music by Hen­ry Pleas­ants
179. The Anthro­pol­o­gy of Music by Alan P. Mer­ri­am
180. The Art of Ask­ing: How I Learned to Stop Wor­ry­ing and Let Peo­ple Help by Aman­da Palmer
181. The Bea­t­les: Record­ing Ses­sions by Mark Lewisohn
182. The Book of Drugs: A Mem­oir by Mike Dougher­ty
183. The Brazil­ian Sounds: Sam­ba, Bossa Nova, and the Pop­u­lar Music of Brazil by Chris McGowan & Ricar­do Pes­san­ha
184. The Faber Book of Pop by Hanif Kureishi & Jon Sav­age
185. The Great Ani­mal Orches­tra: Find­ing the Ori­gins of Music in the World’s Wild Places by Bernie Krause
186. The Human Voice by Jean Cocteau
187. The Kacham­ba Broth­ers’ Band: A Study of Neo-Tra­di­tion­al Music in Malawi by Ger­hard Kubik
188. The Last Hol­i­day: A Mem­oir by Gil Scott-Heron
189. The Latin Tinge: The Impact of Latin Amer­i­can Music on the Unit­ed States by John Storm Roberts
190. The Life and Times of Lit­tle Richard: The Quasar of Rock by Charles White
191. The Merge Records Com­pan­ion: A Visu­al Discog­ra­phy of the First Twen­ty Years by Merge Records
192. The Music Instinct by Philip Ball
193. The Music of Brazil by David P. Apple­by
194. The Mys­tery of Sam­ba: Pop­u­lar Music and the Nation­al Iden­ti­ty in Brazil by Her­mano Vian­na
195. The New Woman Poems: A Trib­ute to Mer­cedes Sosa by Nestor Rodriguez Lacoren
196. The Per­former Pre­pares by Robert Cald­well
197. The Ratio­nal and Social Foun­da­tions of Music by Max Weber
198. The Record: Con­tem­po­rary Art and Vinyl by Trevor Schoon­make
199. The Record­ing Angel: Music, Records and Cul­ture from Aris­to­tle to Zap­pa by Evan Eisen­berg
200. The Rest is Noise: Lis­ten­ing to the Twen­ti­eth Cen­tu­ry by Alex Ross
201. The Rolling Stone Inter­views: The 1980s by Var­i­ous
202. The Shape of Things to Come: Prophe­cy and the Amer­i­can Voice by Greil Mar­cus
203. The Sound Book: The Sci­ence of the Son­ic Won­ders of the World by Trevor Cox
204. The Sun and the Drum: African Roots in Jamaican Folk Tra­di­tion by Leonard Bar­rett
205. The Think­ing Ear by R. Mur­ray Schafer
206. The Tra­di­tion­al Music of Japan by Kishibe Shi­geo
207. The Tri­umph of Music: The Rise of Com­posers, Musi­cians and Their Art by Tim Blan­ning
208. The Veil of Silence by Dju­ra
209. The Wilco Book by Dan Nadel
210. This Busi­ness of Music: The Defin­i­tive Guide to the Music Indus­try by M. William Krasilovsky & Sid­ney Shemel
211. This is Your Brain on Music: The Sci­ence of Human Obses­sion by Daniel J. Lev­itin
212. Through Music to Self by Peter Michael Hamel
213. West African Rhythms for Drum­set by Roy­al Har­ti­gan
214. What Good are the Arts? by John Carey
215. White Bicy­cles: Mak­ing Music in the 1960’s by Joe Boyd
216. Who Shot Rock & Roll: A Pho­to­graph­ic His­to­ry 1955–Present by Gail Buck­land
218. Whose Music? A Soci­ol­o­gy of Musi­cal Lan­guages by John Shep­ard, Phil Vir­d­en, Gra­ham Vul­liamy, Trevor Wishart
219. Why is This Coun­try Danc­ing: A One-Man Sam­ba to the Beat of Brazil by John Krich
220. Woody Guthrie: A Life by Joe Klein
221. The Rough Guide to World Music: Latin and North Amer­i­ca, Caribbean, India, Asia, and Pacif­ic: An A‑Z of the Music, Musi­cians and Discs by Simon Broughton & Mark Elling­ham
222. The Rough Guide to World Music: Sal­sa to Souk­ous, Cajun to Calyp­so by Simon Broughton, Mark Elling­ham, David Mud­dy­man & Richard Tril­lo
223. World: The Essen­tial Album Guide by Adam McGov­ern
224. Yakety Yak: The Mid­night Con­fes­sions and Rev­e­la­tions of Thir­ty-Sev­en Rock Stars and Leg­ends by Scott Cohen

Relat­ed Con­tent:

David Byrne’s Per­son­al Lend­ing Library Is Now Open: 250 Books Ready to Be Checked Out

David Byrne & Neil deGrasse Tyson Explain the Impor­tance of an Arts Edu­ca­tion (and How It Strength­ens Sci­ence & Civ­i­liza­tion)

David Byrne: How Archi­tec­ture Helped Music Evolve

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

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375+ Episodes of William F. Buckley’s Firing Line Now Online: Features Talks with Chomsky, Borges, Kerouac, Ginsberg & More

in Politics, Television | February 13th, 2017

On most issues, I’m clear about where I stand and why, and I used to find it enlight­en­ing to debate informed peo­ple who felt strong­ly about oppos­ing posi­tions. Some­times we would get each oth­er to budge a lit­tle bit, or—at the very least—sharpen the artic­u­la­tion of our views. These days, I often find myself in echo cham­bers, preach­ing to choirs, and oth­er clichés about epis­temic clo­sure. It’s a sit­u­a­tion that alarms me, and yet I find even more alarm­ing the lev­els of cyn­i­cism, invec­tive, bad faith, threats, and mis­in­for­ma­tion that per­vade so much par­ti­san debate.

I know I’m not alone in this lament. What we’ve lost—among oth­er human­ist virtues—is what philoso­phers and rhetori­cians call the “prin­ci­ple of char­i­ty,” gen­er­al­ly defined as mak­ing the clear­est, most intel­lec­tu­al­ly hon­est inter­pre­ta­tion we can of an opponent’s views and argu­ing against them on those mer­its. The prin­ci­ple of char­i­ty allows us to have civ­il dis­agree­ments with peo­ple whose ethics we may dis­like, and it there­by fur­thers dis­cus­sion rather than sti­fles it.

We may all have our own sto­ry about who is to blame for the break­down of the dis­course, but before we start yelling at each oth­er all over again, we could per­haps take some time to learn from exam­ples of polit­i­cal debate done well. One long-run­ning exam­ple involves a fig­ure whose views I’ve usu­al­ly found abhor­rent (and some of which he him­self lat­er called “rep­re­hen­si­ble”), but whose abil­i­ty to defend them in char­i­ta­ble spar­ring match­es with peo­ple from every pos­si­ble place on the spec­trum (or horse­shoe), I’ve found very com­pelling.

I write here of William F. Buck­ley, the well-heeled, Ivy League-edu­cat­ed (many have said elit­ist) founder of the Nation­al Review. What­ev­er per­son­al strengths or flaws we wish to ascribe to Buck­ley, we should agree on a few facts: Dur­ing his tenure as the host of Fir­ing Line—an often oppo­si­tion­al inter­view pro­gram in which Buck­ley chat­ted up con­ser­v­a­tive fel­low trav­el­ers and sparred with left­ist intel­lec­tu­als, artists, and activists—we see over and over again that he made an effort to actu­al­ly read his oppo­nents’ views first­hand; to clar­i­fy his under­stand­ing of them; and to base his dis­agree­ment on the the argu­ments rather than the real or imag­ined moti­va­tions of the mes­sen­ger.

Over 375 episodes of Fir­ing Line have been made avail­able on YouTube by the Hoover Insti­tu­tion at Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty. You can find com­plete episodes on Hoover’s YouTube chan­nel here (there are prob­a­bly more to come), and see their web site for an archive of full pro­grams and tran­scripts avail­able online.

Buck­ley did­n’t always engage in rea­soned debate: he issued many ugly per­son­al and racial attacks in print. He threat­ened to punch both Gore Vidal and Noam Chom­sky (jok­ing­ly, per­haps). But Fir­ing Line wasn’t only about its host: its suc­cess depend­ed also on the for­mat, the audi­ence, and the qual­i­ty of the dis­cus­sion and the guests. Take the few exam­ples here. At the top of the post, Buck­ley dis­cuss­es the Viet­nam War with Chom­sky. The lat­ter may be inca­pable of rais­ing his voice, but notice also Buckley’s cool exte­ri­or. While his gen­teel man­ner­isms rubbed many the wrong way, whether or not we like his demeanor, he con­sis­tent­ly employs meth­ods of clar­i­fi­ca­tion and argu­men­ta­tion rather than per­son­al attack (stray threats of punch­ing aside).

Nowhere in evi­dence is the cur­rent style of scream­ing over guests with whom the host dis­agrees. We find  sim­i­lar recep­tive­ness in Buck­ley’s inter­view with Allen Gins­berg, and even with Black Pan­ther Eldridge Cleaver, whom Buck­ley obvi­ous finds dis­taste­ful, and whose vio­lent rhetoric and vio­lent past may war­rant the reac­tion in many peo­ple’s esti­ma­tion. Nev­er­the­less, even in this extreme case, we see how the dis­cus­sion tracks along in such a way that view­ers actu­al­ly learn some­thing about the views on offer. Some may be unable to coun­te­nance either par­tic­i­pan­t’s ideas, and yet may come still away from the exchange exam­in­ing the basis of their own posi­tion.

Buck­ley didn’t only debate pol­i­tics. As in his inter­view with Gins­berg, many of his foils were lit­er­ary fig­ures, and many of them pri­mar­i­ly dis­cussed writ­ing. Fir­ing Line brought us great tele­vi­sion like the dis­cus­sions fur­ther up with Jorge Luis Borges, with Eudo­ra Wel­ty and Walk­er Per­cy above, and, below, with Nor­man Mail­er. The show ran from 1966 to 1999 and owed much of its pres­tige to the two pub­lic tele­vi­sion stations—from New Jer­sey and South Car­oli­na, respectively—who host­ed it and allowed for its rar­i­fied audi­ence.

Though it may not have been wide­ly viewed, Fir­ing Line’s influ­ence res­onat­ed wide­ly in its impact on oth­er cul­tur­al fig­ures and venues. Grant­ed, we see Buck­ley’s bias­es on dis­play. Make what you will of the fact that—although the peri­od of the show’s air­ing saw at least two waves of feminism—Buckley rarely inter­viewed women unless they already agreed with him. On the whole, how­ev­er, through­out the show’s 33-year run its host lis­tened to, engaged hon­est­ly with, and attempt­ed to under­stand oth­er points of view.

h/t Emer­son

Relat­ed Con­tent:

James Bald­win Bests William F. Buck­ley in 1965 Debate at Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty

William F. Buck­ley Flogged Him­self to Get Through Atlas Shrugged

William F. Buck­ley v. Gore Vidal – 1968

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

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The Velvet Underground’s John Cale Plays Erik Satie’s Vexations on I’ve Got a Secret (1963)

in Music, Television | February 13th, 2017

Few of us today, in search of uncon­ven­tion­al artistry, would imag­ine mid-20th-cen­tu­ry CBS game shows as a promis­ing resource. But look­ing back, it turns out that Amer­i­can tele­vi­sion of that era — a time and place when more peo­ple were exposed to the very same media than any before or since — man­aged to bring a sur­pris­ing num­ber of gen­uine cre­ators before its main­stream-of-the-main­stream audi­ence. In 1960, for instance, exper­i­men­tal com­pos­er John Cage per­formed Water Walk, his piece for a bath­tub, pitch­er, and ice cubes, on I’ve Got a Secret.

Three years lat­er, Cage’s near-name­sake John Cale took the show’s stage to play Erik Satie’s “melan­cholic yet dead­pan, eccle­si­as­ti­cal yet demon­ic” Vex­a­tions. Though Cage did­n’t make a reap­pear­ance for the occa­sion, he did have a con­nec­tion to the music itself.

Dat­ing to 1893 or 1894 and unpub­lished dur­ing Satie’s life­time, Vex­a­tions’ score con­tains a note from the com­pos­er: “Pour se jouer 840 fois de suite ce motif, il sera bon de se pré­par­er au préal­able, et dans le plus grand silence, par des immo­bil­ités sérieuses,” tak­en by the piece’s inter­preters to mean that they should play it 840 times in a row.

Or at least that’s how Cage and col­lab­o­ra­tor Lewis Lloyd inter­pret­ed it when they staged its first pub­lic per­for­mance in 1963 at the Pock­et The­atre in Man­hat­tan. Its rotat­ing ros­ter of play­ers, under the ban­ner of the Pock­et The­atre Piano Relay Team, includ­ed a 21-year-old Cale. One week lat­er on I’ve Got a Secret, the young Welsh­man’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in this dar­ing per­for­mance con­sti­tut­ed the secret the play­ers had to guess. Hav­ing deter­mined that his achieve­ment has some­thing to do with music, one lady asks the crit­i­cal ques­tion: “Does it have any­thing to do with endurance?”

Yes, replies Cale, although the episode’s oth­er secret-bear­er, Karl Schen­z­er of the Liv­ing The­ater, may have per­formed the real act of endurance as the sole audi­ence mem­ber who stayed to watch the whole eigh­teen hours and forty min­utes. (He cer­tain­ly got a deal: Cage, believ­ing that “the more art you con­sume, the less it should cost,” gave each audi­ence mem­ber a five-cent refund for every twen­ty min­utes they stayed.) I’ve Got a Secret’s home view­ers then saw and heard Cale play Vex­a­tions, or at least 1/840th of it. They would hear from him again in his capac­i­ty as a found­ing mem­ber of the Vel­vet Under­ground — a band some of them would learn about a cou­ple years lat­er on the very same net­work’s Evening News with Wal­ter Cronkite.

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:

Nico, Lou Reed & John Cale Sing the Clas­sic Vel­vet Under­ground Song ‘Femme Fatale’ (Paris, 1972)

Lou Reed, John Cale & Nico Reunite, Play Acoustic Vel­vet Under­ground Songs on French TV, 1972

Watch William S. Bur­roughs’ Ah Pook is Here as an Ani­mat­ed Film, with Music By John Cale

John Cage Per­forms Water Walk on US Game Show I’ve Got a Secret (1960)

A Son­ic Intro­duc­tion to Avant-Garde Music: Stream 145 Min­utes of 20th Cen­tu­ry Art Music, Includ­ing Mod­ernism, Futur­ism, Dadaism & Beyond

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities and cul­ture. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer, the video series The City in Cin­e­ma, the crowd­fund­ed jour­nal­ism project Where Is the City of the Future?, and the Los Ange­les Review of Books’ Korea Blog. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

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Listen to a Marathon Reading of Elie Wiesel’s Night

in Audio Books, History, K-12, Letters, Life, Literature | February 13th, 2017

A cou­ple of weeks ago on Jan­u­ary 27, Inter­na­tion­al Holo­caust Remem­brance Day, a diverse group gath­ered for a marathon read­ing of Night, Nobel Prize win­ner, Elie Wiesel’s mem­oir of his youth­ful expe­ri­ences as a pris­on­er in Auschwitz and Buchen­wald.

The event was orga­nized in part by the Nation­al Yid­dish The­atre—fit­ting giv­en that Night was orig­i­nal­ly writ­ten in Yid­dish, though first pub­lished in French. The theater’s artis­tic direc­tor and sev­er­al actors from past pro­duc­tions claimed sev­er­al of the read­ing slots, but left more than six­ty to be filled by par­tic­i­pants from an inten­tion­al­ly broad pool.

There were rab­bis and Broad­way per­form­ers, a New York­er writer, the Con­sul Gen­er­al of Ger­many, and the Hun­gar­i­an Ambas­sador to the UN…

Stu­dents and edu­ca­tors…

A num­ber of Holo­caust sur­vivors…

Dr. Ruth Wes­t­heimer and Wiesel’s grown son, Elisha, who observed:

At a time when this coun­try is feel­ing so divid­ed, when so much neg­a­tiv­i­ty is cir­cu­lat­ing about those who are dif­fer­ent from our­selves — those who have dif­fer­ent eth­nic­i­ties, reli­gions or even dif­fer­ent polit­i­cal lean­ings — my father’s words are an impor­tant reminder of the dan­gers of the ‘us ver­sus them’ men­tal­i­ty.

It took the vol­un­teer read­ers a lit­tle over four hours to get through the slim vol­ume, which shows up on many Amer­i­can high schools’ required read­ing lists.

The free event was co-spon­sored by the Muse­um of Jew­ish Heritage—A Liv­ing Memo­r­i­al to the Holo­caust, whose loca­tion in low­er Man­hat­tan was quite con­ve­nient to anoth­er impor­tant event tak­ing place that day—an inter­faith ral­ly to protest Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s exec­u­tive order ban­ning immi­grants from 7 coun­tries, sus­pend­ing entry for all refugees for a peri­od of four months, and call­ing for “extreme vet­ting” screen­ings.

There may be times when we are pow­er­less to pre­vent injus­tice, but there must nev­er be a time when we fail to protest.

- Elie Wiesel, Nobel Peace Prize Accep­tance Speech, Decem­ber, 1986

h/t Jeff N.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Elie Wiesel (RIP) Talks About What Hap­pens When We Die

Mem­o­ry of the Camps (1985): The Holo­caust Doc­u­men­tary that Trau­ma­tized Alfred Hitch­cock, and Remained Unseen for 40 Years

Yes, the Holo­caust Hap­pened, Even If a Top Google Search Result Says It Didn’t

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Her play Zam­boni Godot is open­ing in New York City in March 2017. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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Hear the First Jazz Record, Which Launched the Jazz Age: “Livery Stable Blues” (1917)

in Music | February 10th, 2017

Through turn-of-the-cen­tu­ry Amer­i­ca mean­dered blues, blue­grass, and “old time” music. Gospel hymns, waltzes, and march­es. Per­haps the first tru­ly nation­al musi­cal style, Rag­time took a lit­tle bit from all of these and fused them togeth­er, influ­enc­ing every­thing from the crud­est vaude­ville to the work of some of Europe’s most inno­v­a­tive com­posers, includ­ing Antonin Dvořák, Claude Debussy, and Erik Satie. But rag­time was still very much tied to the past, to its late 19th roots in min­strel­sy and march­es.

Then in 1917, a sound arrived that was so per­fect­ly in tune with the age that it became sin­gu­lar­ly evoca­tive of next decade to come. This was jazz, of course, or “jass,” as it was spelled on “Liv­ery Sta­ble Blues,” the first record of such music ever released, com­posed and played by the Orig­i­nal Dix­ieland ‘Jass’ Band. The music arrived with the force of the “garage rock of the 1960s…. It was sim­ple music played with so much irrev­er­ence that it proved irre­sistible” to Amer­i­cans caught up in the coun­try’s rapid urban­iza­tion and mod­ern­iz­ing.

The first jazz record was tran­si­tion­al music—not nec­es­sar­i­ly a jazz big bang moment; “loos­er and more spon­ta­neous than the rag­time that had swept the coun­try at the turn of the cen­tu­ry,” writes Geof­frey Himes at Smith­son­ian, “but lack­ing the impro­vised solos and elas­tic rhythm of jazz to come.” Just as in the emer­gence of rock and roll in the 1950s, most jazz fans first came to know white groups like the Orig­i­nal Dix­ieland ‘Jass’ Band before they met the black New Orlea­ni­ans who invent­ed the music.

But imme­di­ate­ly after “Liv­ery Sta­ble Blues” the mar­ket was awash with both “jass” and “jazz” releas­es, includ­ing the first by a black Amer­i­can jazz act, Wilbur Sweat­man and his Jass Band, and a jazz record from the leg­endary blues pio­neer W.C. Handy from Mem­phis. Between 1916 and 1917, jazz went nation­wide: New York, Chica­go, St. Louis, San Fran­cis­co, and just about every­where else in-between. As it spread its ori­gins became mud­dled. “Just how the Jazz Band orig­i­nat­ed and where it came from is very hard to say,” wrote the sleeve of one lat­er 1917 release.

Music his­to­ri­ans agree that jazz was born in the night­clubs and on the streets of New Orleans, the home town of the Orig­i­nal Dix­ieland ‘Jass’ Band. But “the ques­tion of who did what first,” writes Scott Alexan­der, “and what was rag­time and what was jazz is often a divi­sive ques­tion among those who are inter­est­ed in ear­ly jazz.” Yet when it comes to mak­ing pop his­to­ry, “Liv­ery Sta­ble Blues” had greater impact than some­what sim­i­lar-sound­ing records released around the same time. “The band was a sen­sa­tion” writes Himes. And almost overnight the sound of jazz became the sound of 20th-cen­tu­ry Amer­i­ca.

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!

via Smith­son­ian

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Langston Hugh­es Presents the His­to­ry of Jazz in an Illus­trat­ed Children’s Book (1955)

1959: The Year That Changed Jazz

The His­to­ry of Spir­i­tu­al Jazz: Hear a Tran­scen­dent 12-Hour Mix Fea­tur­ing John Coltrane, Sun Ra, Her­bie Han­cock & More

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

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Why We Love Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons”: An Animated Music Lesson

in Animation, K-12, Life, Music, TED Talks | February 10th, 2017

Remem­ber lis­ten­ing to Peter and the Wolf as a child, how the nar­ra­tor would explain that cer­tain instru­ments cor­re­spond to par­tic­u­lar char­ac­ters:  the duck — an oboe, the wolf — three horns, and so on?

In the above TED-Ed les­son (mem­o­rably ani­mat­ed by Com­pote Col­lec­tive), music his­to­ri­an Bet­sy Schwarm ful­fills much the same role for The Four Sea­sons by Anto­nio Vival­di. (Stream it here.)

Why are we so drawn to this Baroque con­cer­to? Is it because we asso­ciate it with brunch?

The hun­dreds of movies and com­mer­cials that have fea­tured it?

(Direc­tor Robert Ben­ton chose Vival­di rather than an orig­i­nal com­pos­er for the score of Kramer vs. Kramer, argu­ing that “Con­cer­to in C Major for Man­dolin & Strings” cap­tured the trou­bled Man­hat­tan couple’s refined lifestyle far bet­ter than the John Williams-esque bom­bast the ear asso­ciates with some many oth­er cin­e­mat­ic hits of the peri­od. The 1979 film’s suc­cess sent “The Four Sea­sons” to the top of the charts.)

These pleas­ant asso­ci­a­tions no doubt account for some of our fond­ness, but Pro­fes­sor Schwarm posits that the sto­ries con­tained in the melodies are what real­ly reel us in.

Basi­cal­ly, we’re in the thrall of a musi­cal weath­er report, rev­el­ing in the way Vival­di man­ages to bring to life both the birdies’ sun­ny spring song and the sud­den thun­der­storm that dis­rupts it.

Sum­mer rolls out the mete­o­ro­log­i­cal big guns with a hail­storm.

Autumn’s cool­er night­time tem­per­a­tures keep the wine-flushed peas­ants from turn­ing their har­vest cel­e­bra­tions into a full-on bac­cha­nal.

Win­ter? Well per­haps you’re tucked up con­tent­ed­ly in front of the fire­place right now, grat­i­fied to be hear­ing your own com­fort echoed in the largo sec­tion.

Inspired by the land­scape paint­ings of artist, Mar­co Ric­ci, Vival­di penned four poems that dri­ve the move­ments of his most famous work. Their trans­la­tions, below, are nowhere near as elo­quent to the mod­ern listener’s ear, but you’ll find that read­ing them along with your favorite record­ing of the Four Sea­sons will cor­rob­o­rate Pro­fes­sor Schwarm’s the­sis.

Spring – Con­cer­to in E Major

Alle­gro

Spring­time is upon us.

The birds cel­e­brate her return with fes­tive song,

and mur­mur­ing streams are soft­ly caressed by the breezes.

Thun­der­storms, those her­alds of Spring, roar, cast­ing their dark man­tle over heav­en,

Then they die away to silence, and the birds take up their charm­ing songs once more.

Largo

On the flower-strewn mead­ow, with leafy branch­es rustling over­head, the goat-herd sleeps, his faith­ful dog beside him.

Alle­gro

Led by the fes­tive sound of rus­tic bag­pipes, nymphs and shep­herds light­ly dance beneath the bril­liant canopy of spring.

Sum­mer – Con­cer­to in g‑minor

Alle­gro non molto

Beneath the blaz­ing sun’s relent­less heat

men and flocks are swel­ter­ing,

pines are scorched.

We hear the cuck­oo’s voice; then sweet songs of the tur­tle dove and finch are heard.

Soft breezes stir the air….but threat­en­ing north wind sweeps them sud­den­ly aside. The shep­herd trem­bles, fear­ful of vio­lent storm and what may lie ahead.

Ada­gio e piano — Presto e forte

His limbs are now awak­ened from their repose by fear of light­ning’s flash and thun­der’s roar, as gnats and flies buzz furi­ous­ly around.

Presto

Alas, his worst fears were jus­ti­fied, as the heav­ens roar and great hail­stones beat down upon the proud­ly stand­ing corn.

Autumn – Con­cer­to in F Major

Alle­gro

The peas­ant cel­e­brates with song and dance the har­vest safe­ly gath­ered in.

The cup of Bac­chus flows freely, and many find their relief in deep slum­ber.

Ada­gio molto

The singing and the danc­ing die away

as cool­ing breezes fan the pleas­ant air,

invit­ing all to sleep

with­out a care.

Alle­gro

The hunters emerge at dawn,

ready for the chase,

with horns and dogs and cries.

Their quar­ry flees while they give chase.

Ter­ri­fied and wound­ed, the prey strug­gles on,

but, har­ried, dies

Win­ter – Con­cer­to in F‑minor

Alle­gro non molto

Shiv­er­ing, frozen mid the frosty snow in bit­ing, sting­ing winds;

run­ning to and fro to stamp one’s icy feet, teeth chat­ter­ing in the bit­ter chill.

Largo

To rest con­tent­ed­ly beside the hearth, while those out­side are drenched by pour­ing rain.

Alle­gro

We tread the icy path slow­ly and cau­tious­ly, for fear of trip­ping and falling.

Then turn abrupt­ly, slip, crash on the ground and, ris­ing, has­ten on across the ice lest it cracks up.

We feel the chill north winds coarse through the home despite the locked and bolt­ed doors…

this is win­ter, which nonethe­less brings its own delights.

 


You can down­load the Wichi­ta State Uni­ver­si­ty Cham­ber Play­ers’ record­ing of Vivaldi’s “Four Sea­sons” for free here.

See how well you retained your TED-ED les­son with a mul­ti­ple choice quiz, then read more here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Why We Love Rep­e­ti­tion in Music: Explained in a New TED-Ed Ani­ma­tion

Stream 58 Hours of Free Clas­si­cal Music Select­ed to Help You Study, Work, or Sim­ply Relax

The World Con­cert Hall: Lis­ten To The Best Live Clas­si­cal Music Con­certs for Free

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Her play Zam­boni Godot is open­ing in New York City in less than three weeks. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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Abstract: Netflix’s New Documentary Series About “the Art of Design” Premieres Today

in Design, Television | February 10th, 2017

All over the world, so many kids grow­ing up, stu­dents look­ing for a major, and even adults angling for a career change say they want to get into “design.” But what do they mean? The word encom­pass­es a bewil­der­ing­ly wide (and ever-expand­ing) range of dis­ci­plines, respect­ed and expe­ri­enced prac­ti­tion­ers of eight of which the new Net­flix doc­u­men­tary series Abstract takes as its sub­jects: archi­tect Bjarke Ingels, illus­tra­tor Christoph Nie­mann, inte­ri­or design­er Ilse Craw­ford, stage design­er Es Devlin, graph­ic design­er Paula Sch­er, pho­tog­ra­ph­er Pla­ton, auto­mo­bile design­er Ralph Gilles, and shoe design­er Tin­ker Hat­field.

“I can guess what you’re think­ing, because I have watched a lot of design doc­u­men­taries,” writes Abstract cre­ator (and WIRED edi­tor-in-chief) Scott Dadich. “Restrained, pol­ished, pret­ty — so many of them look like a mov­ing ver­sion of a cof­fee table book. You’ve got soft­ly lit inter­views, eso­teric con­ver­sa­tions, and sub­tle track­ing shots of wide land­scapes beneath unob­tru­sive music. Most of it is clean, min­i­mal, and bor­ing as hell.”

Instead, he and his col­lab­o­ra­tors have matched each of the design­ers this series pro­files with a dif­fer­ent doc­u­men­tar­i­an with their own dis­tinct style: the direc­to­r­i­al ros­ter includes Mor­gan Neville (who made Best of Ene­mies, the recent doc­u­men­tary on Gore Vidal and William F. Buck­ley) and Bri­an Oakes (direc­tor of Jim: The James Foley Sto­ry).

Indiewire’s Liz Shan­non Miller describes the series as doc­u­ment­ing, among oth­er things, the work­spaces of these design­ers in a kind of detail “on the lev­el of MTV’s Cribs.” Though “per­son­al lives are kept rel­a­tive­ly out of the pic­ture, Abstract man­ages to get sur­pris­ing­ly inti­mate with the cre­ators at its cen­ter.” You can get a taste of that from the clip just above of Ingels’ episode in which he explains what his team want­ed to do with the game of “urban Tetris” that was build­ing the VM Hous­es in Copen­hagen. “It cre­at­ed a lot of noise,” he says of the hous­ing pro­jec­t’s dar­ing design, one that still catch­es the atten­tion of passers­by today.

All of Abstract’s episodes come out today, but before you binge on them (and if you don’t have a Net­flix mem­ber­ship, you can always sign up for their free one-month tri­al), you can read this Archi­tec­tur­al Digest inter­view on it with Ingels and Neville. “This show is about peo­ple who are intense­ly curi­ous and try­ing to under­stand, in a very prac­ti­cal way, how to make the world we live in a bet­ter place, whether it’s a more com­fort­able place or a more effi­cient place or a more egal­i­tar­i­an place,” says Neville. And what does that require? “Under­stand­ing that life is always evolv­ing, the world is always evolv­ing, and that means that yesterday’s answers might be the answers to a dif­fer­ent ques­tion than what the ques­tion is today,” says Ingels. “So it always starts with ask­ing ques­tions and refram­ing the ques­tion” — and of course, as you’ll wit­ness count­less times through­out the length of the show, ven­tur­ing an answer.

Abstract is a Rad­i­cal­Me­dia pro­duc­tion made in asso­ci­a­tion with Tremo­lo Pro­duc­tions. It was exec­u­tive pro­duced by Mor­gan Neville, Scott Dadich (Edi­tor in Chief of WIRED), and Dave O’Connor, Jon Kamen and Justin Wilkes.

via Kot­tke

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Pao­la Antonel­li on Design as the Inter­face Between Progress and Human­i­ty

Saul Bass’ Oscar-Win­ning Ani­mat­ed Short Pon­ders Why Man Cre­ates

Saul Bass’ Advice for Design­ers: Make Some­thing Beau­ti­ful and Don’t Wor­ry About the Mon­ey

Pow­ers of Ten: The 1968 Doc­u­men­tary by Leg­endary Design­ers Ray and Charles Eames

Sketch­es of Artists by the Late New Media Design­er Hill­man Cur­tis

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities and cul­ture. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer, the video series The City in Cin­e­ma, the crowd­fund­ed jour­nal­ism project Where Is the City of the Future?, and the Los Ange­les Review of Books’ Korea Blog. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

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