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

in Comedy, Television | June 27th, 2013

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

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

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

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

via Brain­Pick­ings

Relat­ed Con­tent:

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

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

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

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

Down­load Shake­speare Cours­es from our Col­lec­tion of Free Online Cours­es

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Watch Monty Python’s “Summarize Proust Competition” on the 100th Anniversary of Swann’s Way

in Comedy, Literature, Television | June 25th, 2013

Mar­cel Proust’s Swan­n’s Way, the first vol­ume of In Search of Lost Time, appeared in 1913. This year, exact­ly a cen­tu­ry lat­er, Proust enthu­si­asts, both indi­vid­u­al­ly and insti­tu­tion­al­ly, have found all man­ner of ways to cel­e­brate. The Mor­gan Library and Muse­um, for instance, put on an exhi­bi­tion of “a fas­ci­nat­ing selec­tion of the author’s note­books, pre­lim­i­nary drafts, gal­ley-proofs, and oth­er doc­u­ments from the col­lec­tion of the Bib­lio­thèque nationale de France” — lit­er­ar­i­ly seri­ous stuff. For a Proust cen­ten­ni­al expe­ri­ence equal­ly lit­er­ary but far less seri­ous, why not watch the Mon­ty Python sketch above depict­ing the “All-Eng­land Sum­ma­rize Proust Com­pe­ti­tion”?

The sit­u­a­tion presents the chal­lenge you’d expect: con­tes­tants must relate, in fif­teen sec­onds, the entire­ty of Proust’s sev­en-vol­ume mas­ter­work, “once in a swim­suit, and once in evening dress.” The attempt of one hap­less par­tic­i­pant, por­trayed by Gra­ham Chap­man, runs as fol­lows: “Proust’s nov­el osten­si­bly tells of the irrev­o­ca­bil­i­ty of time lost, the for­fei­ture of inno­cence through expe­ri­ence, the rein­stall­ment of extra-tem­po­ral val­ues of time regained. Ulti­mate­ly, the nov­el is both opti­mistic and set with­in the con­text of a humane reli­gious expe­ri­ence, re-stat­ing as it does the con­cept of atem­po­ral­i­ty. In the first vol­ume, Swann, the fam­i­ly friend, vis­its…” But ah, too long. Watch the whole thing and find out if Michael Pal­in’s char­ac­ter fares any bet­ter at sum­ma­riz­ing the unsum­ma­riz­able, and, this hap­pen­ing in Mon­ty Python’s real­i­ty, how quick­ly it will all cease to mat­ter any­way.

Works by Proust can be found in our col­lec­tion of Free eBooks.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

New Ani­mat­ed Film Tells the Life Sto­ry of Mon­ty Python’s Gra­ham Chap­man

John Cleese’s Eulo­gy for Gra­ham Chap­man: ‘Good Rid­dance, the Free-Load­ing Bas­tard, I Hope He Fries’

Mon­ty Python’s Best Phi­los­o­phy Sketch­es

Mon­ty Python Chan­nel Launch­es on Youtube

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

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A Lover’s Spat Set to the Lyrics of 17 Beatles Songs

in Comedy, Music | June 22nd, 2013

Those of us who spent hours sit­ting in front of the record play­er with our dads’ Radio Shack recorders, striv­ing to dupli­cate the hilar­i­ty of Dick­ie Good­man’s nov­el­ty hit 1975 “Mr. Jaws,” will find much to appre­ci­ate in the staged spat above.

Musi­cal pranksters Col­lec­tive Caden­za raid­ed the Bea­t­les’ cat­a­logue for sev­en­teen songs to dri­ve the nar­ra­tive of a sus­pi­cious wife con­fronting her phi­lan­der­ing hus­band. Which hussy sent him that pas­sion­ate text? Lady Madon­na? Julia? Michelle? Eleanor Rig­by seems to have more com­ic poten­tial than a tired ageist dig, and giv­en their high pro­duc­tion val­ues, I’m mys­ti­fied that the cre­ators shied away from hir­ing a real­is­ti­cal­ly hot plumber.

Per­haps I’m over-think­ing things. It’s a lark, that’s all. Don’t expect Shake­speare, and you won’t lose sleep won­der­ing why they failed to include “I Am the Wal­rus.”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

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

Hold Me Clos­er, Tony Dan­za and Oth­er Mis­heard Lyrics for Your Lis­ten­ing Plea­sure

Ayun Hal­l­i­day had a girl­ish crush on Paul, then switched to George, before wis­ing up and going with John. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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Want to Know What Makes the Troops Laugh? Comedian Louis CK in Afghanistan (Quite NSFW)

in Comedy, Video - Politics/Society | June 17th, 2013

The oth­er day, a teenaged friend asked me if the war in Afghanistan is still going on. The answer is yes. Pre­sum­ably, it won’t be when he reach­es draft age.

In the mean­time, here’s some extreme­ly NSFW footage of Louis CK enter­tain­ing the troops at Bagram Air­field in Afghanistan a few years back. Look­ing for a quick overview of what makes the troops laugh? Cinnabon, schlub­by mid­dle aged dudes com­par­ing them­selves unfa­vor­ably to the audi­ence’s rock hard lean­ness, and the F word. The one whose non-slang def­i­n­i­tion is “a bun­dle of sticks.”

Giv­en the make up of the crowd, it made me uneasy. This was most assured­ly not a preach­ing-to-the-choir sit­u­a­tion, though the young audi­ence mem­ber who filmed the rou­tine with­out the ben­e­fit of a tri­pod notes: ” I did­n’t even know who he was before this set. He’s one of my top 3 favorites now. I just want­ed oth­er peo­ple to see him like I did. I wish I could have a con­ver­sa­tion with him!”

Hope­ful­ly, by now, hero wor­ship will have steered him to the sec­ond episode of CK’ s semi­au­to­bi­o­graph­i­cal show, in which extreme­ly forth­com­ing gay come­di­an, Rick Crom, schools a table­ful of straight pok­er bud­dies on var­i­ous sex­u­al prac­tices. His mat­ter-of-fact demeanor leads CK to ask how a queer crowd might react to his “fag­got” rou­tine. The fact that CK also pro­duced and script­ed this show is enough to con­vince me that his aim is true.

It’s worth not­ing that the pre­sum­ably straight (watch his oth­er videos) Youtu­ber who filmed and hosts this video liked ‘Louis CK — Laugh­ing at Gay Peo­ple” but also the Fred­die Mer­cury Google Doo­dle.

Giv­en CK’s mad respect for any­one serv­ing in the mil­i­tary, per­haps this young man can con­vince him that it’s time to retire “retard” as a pejo­ra­tive … even if he’s talk­ing about his own kids.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Sur­re­al Short Films of Louis C.K., 1993–1999

Louis CK Ridicules Avant-Garde Art on 1990s MTV Show

Sein­feld, Louis C.K., Chris Rock, and Ricky Ger­vais Dis­sect the Craft of Com­e­dy (NSFW)

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is also sick of epilep­sy as punch­line or short­cut. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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Paul McCartney Talks Beatles & Wings with Stephen Colbert, Performs 6 Songs Live

in Comedy, Music | June 13th, 2013

The Col­bert Report opened last night with a seg­ment called “Stephen Col­bert’s Trib­ute to Hav­ing Paul McCart­ney on His Show, Fea­tur­ing Paul McCart­ney, With Spe­cial Guest Stephen Col­bert.” And, for the next 12 min­utes, Paul and Stephen cov­ered a lot of ground. Because McCart­ney has just released mate­r­i­al from Wings — a 1976 con­cert film called Rock­show and a reis­sue of Wings Over Amer­i­ca — the con­ver­sa­tion begins with the Wings era: how Mac­ca start­ed all over again; drove to gigs in a van, with no hotel reser­va­tions booked; even­tu­al­ly record­ed a fine album (Band on the Run) in Nige­ria, amidst a cholera out­break; and began per­form­ing live for the first time in years … which led to inevitable ques­tions about the Bea­t­les: why they stopped per­form­ing live in 1966, and how their song­writ­ing evolved. It all ends with inter­view­er and inter­vie­wee singing a charm­ing duet of Irv­ing Berlin’s 1936 clas­sic “Cheek to Cheek.” Lat­er, McCart­ney treat­ed the Col­bert crowd to six songs. We’ve embed­ded a cou­ple of clips below. You can watch the full 60-minute show here.

Lis­ten to What the Man Said

Birth­day

via Rolling Stone

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Louis CK Ridicules Avant-Garde Art on 1990s MTV Show

in Art, Comedy | June 10th, 2013

In the 1990s, some­where on his long road to star­dom, Louis CK made an appear­ance on a satir­i­cal “Artu­men­tary” aired by MTV. In it, CK plays the role of David Cross, a would-be artist who spe­cial­izes in pho­tograph­ing toi­lets filled with ink — a not-so-sub­tle metaphor for the tripe that often gets passed off as avant-garde art. In case there’s any ambi­gu­i­ty about the under­ly­ing mes­sage, Cross add wry­ly, “Basi­cal­ly, see, MTV will show you a lot of crap, and they’ll tell you it’s art. But I show you crap, and it’s, like, art.”

via Petapix­el

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Sur­re­al Short Films of Louis C.K., 1993–1999

How the Great George Car­lin Showed Louis CK the Way to Suc­cess (NSFW)

David Lynch Teach­es Louis C.K. How to Host The David Let­ter­man Show

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Buzz Aldrin and Thomas Dolby Geek Out and Sing “She Blinded Me With Science”

in Comedy, Music, Science | June 6th, 2013

Buzz Aldrin is maybe the coolest ex-astro­naut alive, with the pos­si­ble excep­tion of Sto­ry Mus­grave. Both of these guys are forg­ing ahead with life at the age when less­er humans pack it in. At 77, Mus­grave has a five-year-old son and plans to go back into space soon (as a tourist); 83-year-old Aldrin is devel­op­ing a new sci-fi series based on his 1996 nov­el Encounter with Tiber. Cool, right? Just maybe don’t ask Buzz to dance to ‘80s syn­th­pop. He does have a great sense of humor, though.

Watch Aldrin duet with Thomas Dol­by on “She Blind­ed Me With Sci­ence” above. Buzz gets to shout “Sci­ence!” and bop back and forth like your grand­fa­ther rock­ing out at your wed­ding recep­tion. It’s cute. The per­for­mance hap­pened dur­ing a day­long Smith­son­ian con­fer­ence called “The Future is Here.” Aldrin was one of the four­teen fea­tured speak­ers who deliv­ered “nar­ra­tive talks that focused on both great tri­umphs and future inno­va­tions in sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy.”

via Boing Boing

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Moon Dis­as­ter That Wasn’t: Nixon’s Speech In Case Apol­lo 11 Failed to Return

Live: Watch NASA’s Cov­er­age of Aster­oid As It Buzzes By Earth

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

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Watch 5 Filmmakers Recall Their Most Cringeworthy Moments at the Movies with Mom & Dad

in Comedy, Film, Life | May 17th, 2013

In sixth grade, my friend Amy Osborn’s par­ents took us to a screen­ing of Annie Hall. The bed­room scenes with Car­ol Kane, Janet Mar­golin and Diane Keaton were chaste by today’s stan­dards. The repar­tee was so beyond my frame of ref­er­ence, it caused but lit­tle dis­com­fort. What did me in was the two-line exchange between a car­toon Woody Allen and Snow White’s Wicked Queen con­cern­ing her peri­od (or lack there­of). Are You There God? It’s Me, Mar­garet was our sacred text, but its most sen­sa­tion­al sub­ject matter—menstruation—was deeply taboo out­side of my 1970’s Indi­ana tribe. I could have died, know­ing Mr. Osborn was sit­ting right there. The one con­so­la­tion was that my own par­ents weren’t.

These awk­ward encoun­ters can be defin­ing, which explains why the Tribeca Film Fes­ti­val sought to fer­ret them out as part of its One Ques­tion series. It’s impres­sive that the four direc­tors and one pro­duc­er fea­tured above decid­ed to pur­sue careers in film after inad­ver­tent­ly shar­ing with their par­ents such ten­der moments as a mas­tur­bat­ing Philip Sey­mour Hoff­man in Todd Solondz’s sem­i­nal (par­don the pun) Hap­pi­ness or the relent­less deflo­ration scene at the top of Lar­ry Clark’s Kids.

Per­haps you can relate. If so, please spill the gory details below. Pro­vid­ed you’re strong enough to revis­it the trau­ma, what was your most cringe-induc­ing moment at the movies with your mom or dad, or—let’s not be ageist here—your kids?

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Grow­ing Up John Waters: The Odd­ball Film­mak­er Cat­a­logues His Many For­ma­tive Rebel­lions (1993)

The Sto­ry Of Men­stru­a­tion: Watch Walt Disney’s Sex Ed Film from 1946

Dustin Hoff­man Talks Sex from the Com­fort of His Own Bed (1968)

Ayun Hal­l­i­day grows less ashamed with every pass­ing year. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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