Maya Angelou’s Secret to Living Your Best Life

in Life, Literature | February 28th, 2018

Humans are proud of ratio­nal­i­ty, maybe to a fault. It can come at a sig­nif­i­cant cost: the ten­den­cy to over­com­pli­cate the sim­plest of tasks, not the least being the task of life itself. Trea­tise after trea­tise, dis­course after dis­course, book after book, lec­ture after lec­ture appears over the cen­turies, promis­ing to show us how to live the good life. We strug­gle, amidst the hun­dreds of oth­er oper­a­tions we must per­form at any giv­en time, to remem­ber com­plex eth­i­cal sys­tems in the moment, to incor­po­rate new pos­tures and rou­tines.

Per­haps this is why we have mys­tics and poets, to cut through the tan­gles of log­i­cal thought, to remind us of the unchang­ing essen­tials: Rumi and Rilke, William Blake, Emi­ly Dick­in­son, and Maya Angelou, who daz­zled read­ers and audi­ences with advice both elo­quent and plain­spo­ken, tran­scen­dent and imma­nent­ly down-to-earth. Angelou’s impas­sioned, warm deliv­ery and hard-won wis­dom made her an excel­lent spokesper­son for some uni­ver­sal truths that get glossed over or explained away in the scram­ble to improve and enrich our­selves, such as the advice she gives on Oprah’s OWN net­work, above: “Just do right.”

We might recoil at the seem­ing naiveté: “who is right?,” “what is right?,” “how does any­one know what is right?,” “what if your right is my wrong?” etc. All rea­son­able ques­tions up for rea­son­able debate. But Angelou isn’t inter­est­ed here in phi­los­o­phy but in life. “Just do right” speaks to a deep­er part of us, the part we col­lo­qui­al­ly call a con­science, though maybe no such thing appears in an fMRI scan. “Just do right,” she says, and you pret­ty much know what that is. “You don’t real­ly have to ask any­body,” she says. “The truth is, right may not be expe­di­ent, it may not be prof­itable, but it will sat­is­fy your soul. It brings you the kind of pro­tec­tion that body­guards can’t give you.”

Com­pas­sion, a clean con­science, a good rep­u­ta­tion: this is the stuff of the good life, dis­tilled down to its essence, at the heart of Greek, Roman, African, Chi­nese, Indi­an, Native Amer­i­can, and every oth­er world phi­los­o­phy and reli­gion. We may find no more a suc­cinct uni­ver­sal encour­age­ment, and warn­ing, than in Angelou’s advice:

Try to live your life in a way that you will not regret years of use­less virtue and iner­tia and timid­i­ty…. You make your own choic­es… pick up the bat­tle and make it a bet­ter world, just where you are.

This wis­dom requires no high the­o­ry and is avail­able to every­one free of charge—find out how you can make things bet­ter in your com­mu­ni­ty, stop ago­niz­ing over pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and mon­ey, and “just do right” right where you are. If this sounds too easy or too hard, lis­ten to Angelou describe in brief what it takes in the clip above, and why “courage is the most impor­tant of the virtues.”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Maya Angelou Reads Her Poem “On the Pulse of Morn­ing” (1993) 

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

What is the Good Life? Pla­to, Aris­to­tle, Niet­zsche, & Kant’s Ideas in 4 Ani­mat­ed Videos

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

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What Ancient Chinese Philosophy Can Teach Us About Living the Good Life Today: Lessons from Harvard’s Popular Professor, Michael Puett

in Life, Philosophy, TED Talks | February 26th, 2018

It has at times been con­cern­ing for some Bud­dhist schol­ars and teach­ers to watch mind­ful­ness become an inte­gral part of self-help pro­grams. A casu­al atti­tude toward the prac­tice of mind­ful­ness med­i­ta­tion can make it seem acces­si­ble by mak­ing it seem relax­ing and effort­less, which often results in miss­ing the point entire­ly. What­ev­er the school, lin­eage, or par­tic­u­lar tra­di­tion from which they come, the source texts and sages tend to agree: the pur­pose of med­i­ta­tion is not self improvement—but to real­ize that there may, indeed, be no such thing as a self.

Instead, we are all epiphe­nom­e­non aris­ing from com­bi­na­tions of ever-shift­ing ele­ments (the aggre­gates, or skand­has). The self is a con­ven­tion­al­ly use­ful illu­sion. This notion in the ancient Indi­an texts has its echo in Scot­tish enlight­en­ment philoso­pher David Hume’s so-called “bun­dle the­o­ry,” but Hume’s thoughts about the self have most­ly remained obscure foot­notes in west­ern thought, rather than cen­tral premis­es in its philoso­phies and reli­gions. But as thinkers in India took the self apart, so too did philoso­phers in ancient Chi­na, before Bud­dhism reached the coun­try dur­ing the Han Dynasty.

Har­vard Pro­fes­sor Michael Puett has been lec­tur­ing on Chi­nese phi­los­o­phy to audi­ences of hun­dreds of students—and at 21st cen­tu­ry tem­ples of self-actu­al­iza­tion like TED and the School of Life. He has co-authored a book on the sub­ject, The Path: What Chi­nese Philoso­phers Can Teach Us About the Good Life, drawn from his enor­mous­ly pop­u­lar uni­ver­si­ty cours­es, in which he expounds the philoso­phies of Con­fu­cius, Men­cius, Zhuangzi, and Xun­zi. The book has found a ready audi­ence, and Puett’s “Clas­si­cal Chi­nese Eth­i­cal and Polit­i­cal The­o­ry” is the 3rd most pop­u­lar class among Har­vard under­grad­u­ates, behind intro to eco­nom­ics and com­put­er sci­ence. What Pro­fes­sor Puett offers, in his dis­til­la­tion of ancient Chi­nese wis­dom, is not at all to be con­strued as self-help.

Rather, he says, “I think of it as sort of anti-self-help. Self-help tends to be about learn­ing to love your­self and embrace your­self for who you are. A lot of these ideas are say­ing pre­cise­ly the opposite—no, you over­come the self, you break the self. You should not be hap­py with who you are.” Lest this sound like some form of vio­lence, we must under­stand, Puett tells Tim Dowl­ing at The Guardian, that in “break­ing” the self, we are only doing harm to an illu­sion. As in the Bud­dhist thought that took root in Chi­na, so too in the ear­li­er Con­fu­cian­ism: there is no self, just a “a messy and poten­tial­ly ugly bunch of stuff.”

While our cur­rent cir­cum­stances may seem unique in world his­to­ry, Puett shows his stu­dents how Chi­nese philoso­phers 2,500 years ago also expe­ri­enced rapid soci­etal change and upheaval, as his co-author Chris­tine Gross-Loh writes at The Atlantic; they nav­i­gat­ed and under­stood “a world where human rela­tion­ships are chal­leng­ing, nar­cis­sism and self-cen­tered­ness are on the rise, and there is dis­agree­ment on the best way for peo­ple to live har­mo­nious­ly togeth­er.” A major­i­ty of stu­dents at Har­vard are dri­ven to pur­sue “prac­ti­cal, pre­de­ter­mined” careers. By teach­ing them Con­fu­cian and Daoist phi­los­o­phy, Puett tries to help them become more spon­ta­neous and open to change.

What­ev­er we call it, the inter­act­ing phe­nom­e­non that give rise to the self can­not, we know, be observed in any­thing resem­bling an unchang­ing steady state. Yet West­ern cul­ture (for sev­er­al moti­vat­ed rea­sons) has lagged far behind both intu­itive and sci­en­tif­ic obser­va­tions of this fact. Puet­t’s stu­dents have been told, “’Find your true self, espe­cial­ly dur­ing these four years of col­lege,’” and “try and be sin­cere and authen­tic to who you real­ly are” in mak­ing choic­es about careers, part­ners, pas­sions, and con­sumer prod­ucts. They take to his class because “they’ve spent 20 years look­ing for this true self and not find­ing it.”

In the two lec­tures above—a short­er one at the top from TEDx Nashville and a longer talk above for Ivy, “The Social Uni­ver­si­ty”—you can get a taste of Puett’s enthu­si­as­tic style. Chi­nese phi­los­o­phy, “in its strong form,” he says above, “can tru­ly change one’s life.” Not by mak­ing us more empow­ered, per­son­al­ly-ful­filled agents who re-cre­ate real­i­ty to bet­ter meet our nar­row specs. But rather, as he tells Dowl­ing, by train­ing us “to become incred­i­bly good at deal­ing with this capri­cious world.”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

An Intro­duc­tion to Con­fu­cius’ Life & Thought Through Two Ani­mat­ed Videos

The Philo­soph­i­cal Appre­ci­a­tion of Rocks in Chi­na & Japan: A Short Intro­duc­tion to an Ancient Tra­di­tion

Learn Islam­ic & Indi­an Phi­los­o­phy with 107 Episodes of the His­to­ry of Phi­los­o­phy With­out Any Gaps Pod­cast

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

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Hunter S. Thompson’s Decadent Daily Breakfast: The “Psychic Anchor” of His Frenetic Creative Life

in Food & Drink, Life, Literature, Magazines, Writing | February 26th, 2018

Image  via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

Is break­fast real­ly the most impor­tant meal of the day?

It cer­tain­ly seems so from all the care­ful­ly staged pho­tos of overnight oat­meal on Insta­gram.

The phys­i­cal and men­tal ben­e­fits are well doc­u­ment­ed. A nutri­tious meal in the morn­ing boosts blood glu­cose lev­els, improv­ing con­cen­tra­tion, boost­ing ener­gy lev­els and main­tain­ing healthy weight.

Sad­ly, many Amer­i­cans gob­ble their break­fasts on the fly. How many hun­dreds of film and tele­vi­sion scenes have you seen where­in the main char­ac­ters hur­tle through the kitchen snatch­ing bananas, gra­nola bars, and trav­el mugs on their way to the door?

The late gonzo jour­nal­ist Hunter S. Thomp­son would sure­ly not have approved, though he may have enjoyed the sense of supe­ri­or­i­ty these morn­ing scram­bles would have engen­dered.

This was a man who bragged that he could “cov­er a hope­less­ly scram­bled pres­i­den­tial cam­paign bet­ter than any six-man team of career polit­i­cal jour­nal­ists on The New York Times or The Wash­ing­ton Post and still eat a three-hour break­fast in the sun every morn­ing.”

Report­ing for Rolling Stone in “Fear and Loathing on the Cam­paign Trail 76,” he inti­mat­ed that he viewed break­fast with the “tra­di­tion­al­ized rev­er­ence that most peo­ple asso­ciate with Lunch and Din­ner.”

One won­ders who exact­ly he meant by “most peo­ple”?

Tex­ans? The Irish? Rabelais?

Regard­less of whether he had been to bed, or what he had got­ten up to the night before, he insist­ed upon a mas­sive repast—consumed al fres­co, and prefer­ably in the nude. The sun he enjoyed bask­ing in was usu­al­ly at its zenith by the time he sat down. The meal, which he called the “psy­chic anchor” of “a ter­mi­nal­ly jan­gled lifestyle, con­sist­ed of the fol­low­ing:

Four bloody Marys

Two grape­fruits

A pot of cof­fee

Ran­goon crêpes

A half-pound of either sausage, bacon, or corned beef-hash with diced chilies

A Span­ish omelette or eggs Bene­dict

A quart of milk

A chopped lemon for ran­dom sea­son­ing

Some­thing like a slice of Key lime pie

Two mar­gar­i­tas

And six lines of the best cocaine for dessert

Last sum­mer, a Dan­ish Vice reporter recre­at­ed Thompson’s break­fast of choice, invit­ing a poet friend (and “aspir­ing alco­holic”) to par­take along with him. It end­ed with him vom­it­ing, naked, into a shrub. His guest, who seems to be made of stur­dier stuff, praised the eggs bene­dict, the Bloody Marys, and dessert.

Thomp­son pre­ferred that his first meal of the day be con­sumed solo, in order to get a jump on the day’s work. In addi­tion to the edi­ble menu items, he required:

Two or three news­pa­pers

All mail and mes­sages

A tele­phone

A note­book for plan­ning the next twen­ty four hours

And at least one source of good music

Read “Fear and Loathing on the Cam­paign Trail 1976” here. The key break­fast quote reads as fol­lows:

I like to eat break­fast alone, and almost nev­er before noon; any­body with a ter­mi­nal­ly jan­gled lifestyle needs at least one psy­chic anchor every twen­ty four hours, and mine is break­fast. In Hong Kong, Dal­las, or at home—and regard­less of whether or not I have been to bed—breakfast is a per­son­al rit­u­al that can only be prop­er­ly observed alone, and in a spir­it of gen­uine excess. The food fac­tor should always be mas­sive: Four bloody Marys, two grape­fruits, a pot of cof­fee, Ran­goon crêpes, a half-pound of either sausage, bacon, or corned beef-hash with diced chilies, a Span­ish omelette or eggs Bene­dict, a quart of milk, a chopped lemon for ran­dom sea­son­ing, and some­thing like a slice of Key lime pie, two mar­gar­i­tas, and six lines of the best cocaine for dessert… Right, and there should also be two or three news­pa­pers, all mail and mes­sages, a tele­phone, a note­book for plan­ning the next twen­ty four hours, and at least one source of good music… All of which should be dealt with out­side, in the warmth of the hot sun, and prefer­ably stone naked.

And just in case, here is a recipe for Crab Ran­goon Crepes…

Relat­ed Con­tent:

How Hunter S. Thomp­son Gave Birth to Gonzo Jour­nal­ism: Short Film Revis­its Thompson’s Sem­i­nal 1970 Piece on the Ken­tucky Der­by

Hear the 10 Best Albums of the 1960s as Select­ed by Hunter S. Thomp­son

Read 11 Free Arti­cles by Hunter S. Thomp­son That Span His Gonzo Jour­nal­ist Career (1965–2005)

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

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When Archie Bunker’s Advice on Gun Control Becomes Mainstream GOP Policy (1972)

in Life, Television | February 23rd, 2018

The more things change, the more the talk­ing points stay the same. Just swap teach­ers for air­plane pas­sen­gers, and watch a sil­ly sit­com punch­line morph into actu­al GOP pol­i­cy.

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Finding Meaning in Music: A Short Documentary on How a Young Tech Pioneer, Confronting His Mortality, Prepared for His Final Violin Performance

in Life, Music | February 19th, 2018

The doc­tor breaks the news. You have ter­mi­nal can­cer, and you might have only a few months to live. How would you spend those final days? That’s a ques­tion that Eric Sun had to con­front when doc­tors told him he had a glioblas­toma, an aggres­sive form of brain can­cer, in 2016. Only 32 years old, Sun had stud­ied com­put­er sci­ence and eco­nom­ics at Stan­ford, then went to work at Face­book in 2008. Every­thing was on track. Until it was­n’t. Then big deci­sions had to be made.

Last month, the New York­er pub­lished a poignant pro­file on Sun, doc­u­ment­ing how, fac­ing mor­tal­i­ty, he found refuge–and maybe some kind of deep­er meaning–in music. The relat­ed video above, “Find­ing Mean­ing in Music,” lets you see Sun return­ing to his life­long passion–playing violin–and get­ting ready for his final per­for­mance. In the end, it’s art that nour­ish­es the soul.

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:

Death: A Free Phi­los­o­phy Course from Yale Helps You Grap­ple with the Inescapable

Why Vio­lins Have F‑Holes: The Sci­ence & His­to­ry of a Remark­able Renais­sance Design

Holo­caust Sur­vivor Vik­tor Fran­kl Explains Why If We Have True Mean­ing in Our Lives, We Can Make It Through the Dark­est of Times

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Tim Minchin Presents “9 Rules to Live By” in a Funny and Wise Commencement Speech (2013)

in Graduation Speech, Life | February 19th, 2018

Tim Minchin isn’t much of a role mod­el in the hair brush­ing depart­ment, but in every oth­er way the pro­lif­ic comedian/actor/writer/musician/director inspires.

He’s unabashed­ly enthu­si­as­tic about sci­ence, a life­long learn­er who’s a strong believ­er in the pow­er of exer­cise, trav­el, and thank you notes….

He uses his star­dom and tal­ent for pen­ning con­tro­ver­sial lyrics to raise aware­ness and mon­ey for such caus­es as the UK’s Nation­al Autis­tic Soci­ety and a local char­i­ty formed to send adults who, as chil­dren, were sex­u­al­ly abused by Catholic cler­gy, to Rome.

His cre­ative out­put is prodi­gious.

And he’s one hel­lu­va com­mence­ment speak­er.

In 2013, his alma mater, the Uni­ver­si­ty of West­ern Aus­tralia, award­ed him an Hon­orary Degree of Doc­tor of Let­ters and invit­ed him to address the grad­u­at­ing class.

The speak­er insist­ed up front that an “inflat­ed sense of self impor­tance” born of address­ing large crowds was the only thing that posi­tioned him to give such an address, then went on to share a fun­ny 9‑point guide to life that stressed the impor­tance of grat­i­tude, edu­ca­tion, intel­lec­tu­al rig­or, and kind­ness toward oth­ers.

If you haven’t the time to watch the entire 12-minute speech, above, be sure to cir­cle back lat­er. His advice is hilar­i­ous, heart­warm­ing, and mem­o­rable.

In extrap­o­lat­ing the essence of each of his nine “life lessons” below, we dis­cov­ered many bonus lessons con­tained there­in (one of which we include below.)

Tim Minchin’s 9 Rules To Live By

  1. You don’t have to have a dream. Be micro-ambi­tious and see what hap­pens as you pur­sue short-term goals…
  2. Rather than chas­ing hap­pi­ness for your­self, keep busy and aim to make some­one else hap­py.
  3. Remem­ber that we are lucky to be here, and that most of us — espe­cial­ly those of us with a col­lege edu­ca­tion, or those active­ly seek­ing to edu­cate them­selves to a sim­i­lar degree—will achieve a lev­el of wealth that “most humans through­out his­to­ry could not have dreamed of.”
  4. Exer­cise. Among oth­er things, it helps com­bat depres­sion. 
  5. Iden­ti­fy your bias­es, prej­u­dices, and priv­i­leges and do not exempt your own beliefs and opin­ions from intel­lec­tu­al rig­or.
  6. Be a teacher!  Swell the ranks of this noble pro­fes­sion.
  7. Define your­self by what you love, rather than what you despise, and lav­ish praise on the peo­ple and things that move you.
  8. Respect those with less pow­er than your­self, and be wary of those who do not. 
  9. Don’t be in a rush to suc­ceed. It might come at a cost. 

BONUS.  Uphold the notion that art and sci­ence are not an either/or choice, but rather com­pli­ment each oth­er. “If you need proof—Twain, Dou­glas Adams, Von­negut, McE­wan, Sagan and Shake­speare, Dick­ens for a start. …The arts and sci­ences need to work togeth­er to improve how knowl­edge is com­mu­ni­cat­ed. “

Read the full tran­script of Minchin’s com­mence­ment speech here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

NPR Launch­es Data­base of Best Com­mence­ment Speech­es Ever

David Lynch Gives Uncon­ven­tion­al Advice to Grad­u­ates in an Unusu­al Com­mence­ment Address

Jon Stewart’s William & Mary Com­mence­ment Address: The Entire World is an Elec­tive

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

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Amanda Palmer Sings a Heartfelt Musical Tribute to YA Author Judy Blume on Her 80th Birthday

in Books, Life, Literature, Music | February 16th, 2018

Art saves lives, and so does author Judy Blume. While some of her nov­els are intend­ed for adult read­ers, and oth­ers for the ele­men­tary school set, her best known books are the ones that speak to the expe­ri­ence of being a teenage girl.

For many of us com­ing of age in the ‘70s and ‘80s, Blume was our best—sometimes only—source when it came to sex, men­stru­a­tion, mas­tur­ba­tion, and oth­er top­ics too taboo to dis­cuss. She answered the ques­tions we were too shy to ask. Her char­ac­ters’ inte­ri­or mono­logues mir­rored our own.

The hon­esty of her writ­ing earned her mil­lions of grate­ful young fans, and plen­ty of atten­tion from those who still seek to keep her titles out of libraries and schools.

While her sto­ries are not auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal, her com­pas­sion is born of expe­ri­ence.

Here she is on Are You There, God? It’s Me, Mar­garet, a tat­tered paper­back copy of which made the rounds of my 6th grade class, like the pre­cious con­tra­band it was:

When I was in sixth grade, I longed to devel­op phys­i­cal­ly like my class­mates. I tried doing exer­cis­es, resort­ed to stuff­ing my bra, and lied about get­ting my peri­od. And like Mar­garet, I had a very per­son­al rela­tion­ship with God that had lit­tle to do with orga­nized reli­gion. God was my friend and con­fi­dant. But Mar­garet’s fam­i­ly is very dif­fer­ent from mine, and her sto­ry grew from my imag­i­na­tion.

On It’s Not the End of the World:

…in the ear­ly sev­en­ties I lived in sub­ur­ban New Jer­sey with my hus­band and two chil­dren, who were both in ele­men­tary school. I could see their con­cern and fear each time a fam­i­ly in our neigh­bor­hood divorced. What do you say to your friends when you find out their par­ents are split­ting up? If it could hap­pen to them, could it hap­pen to us?

At the time, my own mar­riage was in trou­ble but I was­n’t ready or able to admit it to myself, let alone any­one else. In the hope that it would get bet­ter I ded­i­cat­ed this book to my hus­band. But a few years lat­er, we, too, divorced. It was hard on all of us, more painful than I could have imag­ined, but some­how we mud­dled through and it was­n’t the end of any of our worlds, though on some days it might have felt like it.

And on For­ev­er, which won an A.L.A. Mar­garet A. Edwards Award for Out­stand­ing Lit­er­a­ture for Young Adults, 20 years after its orig­i­nal pub­li­ca­tion:

My daugh­ter Randy asked for a sto­ry about two nice kids who have sex with­out either of them hav­ing to die. She had read sev­er­al nov­els about teenagers in love. If they had sex the girl was always punished—an unplanned preg­nan­cy, a hasty trip to a rel­a­tive in anoth­er state, a gris­ly abor­tion (ille­gal in the U.S. until the 1970’s), some­times even death. Lies. Secrets. At least one life ruined. Girls in these books had no sex­u­al feel­ings and boys had no feel­ings oth­er than sex­u­al. Nei­ther took respon­si­bil­i­ty for their actions. I want­ed to present anoth­er kind of story—one in which two seniors in high school fall in love, decide togeth­er to have sex, and act respon­si­bly.

The heart­felt lyrics of Aman­da Palmer’s recent paean to Blume, who turned 80 this week, con­firm that the singer-song­writer was among the legions of young girls for whom this author made a dif­fer­ence.

In her essay, “Why Judy Blume Mat­ters,” Palmer recalls com­ing up with a list of influ­ences to sat­is­fy the sort of ques­tion a ris­ing indie musi­cian is fre­quent­ly asked in inter­views. It was a “care­ful­ly curat­ed” assort­ment of rock and roll pedi­gree and obscu­ri­ties, and she lat­er real­ized, almost exclu­sive­ly male.

This song, which name checks so many beloved char­ac­ters, is a pas­sion­ate attempt to cor­rect this over­sight:

Per­haps the biggest com­pli­ment you could give a writer ― or a writer of youth fic­tion ― is that they’re so indeli­ble they van­ish into mem­o­ry, the way a dream slips away upon wak­ing because it’s so deeply knit­ted into the fab­ric of your sub­con­scious. The expe­ri­ences of her teenage char­ac­ters ― Dee­nie, Dav­ey, Tony, Jill, Mar­garet ― are so thor­ough­ly enmeshed with my own mem­o­ries that the line between fact and fic­tion is deli­cious­ly thin. My mem­o­ries of these char­ac­ters, though I’d pre­fer to call them “peo­ple” ― of Dee­nie get­ting felt up in the dark lock­er room dur­ing the school dance; of Dav­ey list­less­ly mak­ing and stir­ring a cup of tea that she has no inten­tion of drink­ing; of Jill watch­ing Lin­da, the fat girl in her class, being tor­ment­ed by gig­gling bul­lies ― are all as vivid, if not more so, as my own mem­o­ries…

Palmer’s hus­band, Neil Gaiman, puts in a cameo in the video’s final moments as one of many read­ers immersed in Blume’s oeu­vre.

Read­ers, did a spe­cial book cov­er from your ado­les­cence put in an appear­ance?

For more on Judy Blume’s approach to char­ac­ter and sto­ry, con­sid­er sign­ing up for her $90 online Mas­ter Class.

Name your own price to down­load Judy Blume by Aman­da Palmer here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Judy Blume Now Teach­ing an Online Course on Writ­ing

Hear Aman­da Palmer’s Cov­er of “Pur­ple Rain,” a Gor­geous Stringfelt Send-Off to Prince

Aman­da Palmer Ani­mates & Nar­rates Hus­band Neil Gaiman’s Uncon­scious Mus­ings

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

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Designer Creates Origami Cardboard Tents to Shelter the Homeless from the Winter Cold

in Design, Life | February 13th, 2018

Dur­ing the day, Xavier Van der Stap­pen runs an elec­tric car com­pa­ny. At night, the Bel­gian entrepreneur/designer helps spear­head the ORIG-AMI project, which cre­ates origa­mi-style card­board tents designed to shield Brus­sels’ home­less from the bit­ter cold of win­ter. Card­board is light and portable. It holds heat fair­ly well. And the card­board tents (as opposed to oth­er struc­tures) are legal on Brus­sels’ streets. The cost for each life-sav­ing struc­ture? Only $36.

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.

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

How to “Hijack” Ama­zon Prime for Good: Short Video Shows How Prime & Oth­er Instant Deliv­ery Ser­vices Can Eas­i­ly Help the Home­less

MIT Cre­ates Amaz­ing Self-Fold­ing Origa­mi Robots & Leap­ing Chee­tah Robots

How Josephine Bak­er Went From Home­less Street Per­former to Inter­na­tion­al Super­star, French Resis­tance Fight­er & Civ­il Rights Hero

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Open Culture was founded by Dan Colman.