Bob Dylan Plays Tom Petty’s “Learning to Fly” Live in Concert (and How Petty Witnessed Dylan’s Musical Epiphany in 1987)

in Life, Music | October 23rd, 2017

While per­form­ing in Den­ver this past week­end, Bob Dylan paid trib­ute to Tom Pet­ty, play­ing a cov­er of his 1991 track, “Learn­ing to Fly.” Most will remem­ber their time togeth­er in the Trav­el­ing Wilburys. But real­ly their rela­tion­ship was cement­ed before that, when the musi­cians embarked on the long True Con­fes­sions Tour in 1986. That’s when Dylan lost his mojo and near­ly end­ed his career, then sud­den­ly found new inspi­ra­tion again, all while Tom Pet­ty and the Heart­break­ers shared the same stage.

In his 2004 mem­oir, Chron­i­cles: Vol­ume 1, Dylan laid out the sce­nario:

I’d been on an eigh­teen month tour with Tom Pet­ty and The Heart­break­ers. It would be my last. I had no con­nec­tion to any kind of inspi­ra­tion. What­ev­er had been there to begin with had all van­ished and shrunk. Tom was at the top of his game and I was at the bot­tom of mine. I could­n’t over­come the odds. Every­thing was smashed. My own songs had become strangers to me. It was­n’t my moment of his­to­ry any­more. There was a hol­low­ing singing in my heart and I could­n’t wait to retire and fold the tent. One more big pay­day with Pet­ty and that would be it for me. I was what they called over the hill.… The mir­ror had swung around and I could see the future — an old actor fum­bling in garbage cans out­side the the­atre of past tri­umphs.

Every­thing final­ly came to a head one night when Dylan per­formed with Pet­ty and the Heart­break­ers in Locarno, Switzer­land. He writes again in Chron­i­cles, “For an instant, I fell into a black hole… I opened my mouth to sing and the air tight­ened up–vocal pres­ence was extin­guished and noth­ing came out.” Pan­icked, Dylan used every trick to get start­ed. Noth­ing worked, until, he then cast his own “spell to dri­ve out the dev­il.” That’s when “Every­thing came back, and it came back in mul­ti­di­men­sion.” A com­plete “meta­mor­pho­sis had tak­en place.” He adds: “The shows with Pet­ty fin­ished up in Decem­ber, and I saw that instead of being strand­ed some­where at the end of the sto­ry, I was actu­al­ly in the pre­lude to the begin­ning of anoth­er one.” With­out out it, we would­n’t have Oh Mer­cy, Time Out of Mind, Love and Theft, or Mod­ern Times.

You can watch footage of the epiphany con­cert on Youtube. It took place on Octo­ber 2, 1987–thirty years and three days before Pet­ty’s death on Octo­ber 5, 2017.

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

A 17-Hour, Chrono­log­i­cal Jour­ney Through Tom Petty’s Music: Stream the Songs That Became the Sound­tracks of Our Lives

Watch Tom Pet­ty (RIP) and the Heart­break­ers Per­form Their Last Song Togeth­er, “Amer­i­can Girl”: Record­ed on 9/25/17

Bob Dylan & The Grate­ful Dead Rehearse Togeth­er in Sum­mer 1987: Hear 74 Tracks

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An Online Trove of Historic Sewing Patterns & Costumes

in Design, History, Life, Museums, Random | October 20th, 2017

As Hal­loween draws nigh, our thoughts turn to cos­tumes.

Not those rub­bery, poor­ly con­struct­ed, sexy and/or gory off-the-rack ready­mades, but the sort of lav­ish, his­tor­i­cal­ly accu­rate, home-sewn affairs that would have earned praise and extra can­dy, if only our moth­er had been inclined to spend the bulk of Octo­ber chained to a sewing machine.

Not that one needs the excuse of a hol­i­day to suit up in a fluffy 50’s crino­line, a Tudor-style kir­tle gown, or a 16th-cen­tu­ry Flem­ish out­fit with all the trim­mings.…

Accoun­tant Artemisia Moltaboc­ca, cre­ator of the his­tor­i­cal and cos­play cos­tum­ing blog Cos­tum­ing Diary, has primed our pump with a list of free his­tor­i­cal medieval, Eliz­a­bethan and Vic­to­ri­an pat­terns, includ­ing ones for the gar­ments men­tioned above.

Click through the many links on her site and you may find your­self tum­bling down a rab­bit hole of some oth­er cos-play­er’s gen­eros­i­ty.

That link to the cus­tom corset pat­tern gen­er­a­tor may set you on the road to cre­at­ing a per­fect­ly fit­ted Viking apron or a good-for-begin­ners tunic. (“Bring out yer dead!”)

Fan­cy even more choic­es? Moltabocca’s Free His­tor­i­cal Cos­tume Pat­terns Pin­ter­est board is a ver­i­ta­ble trove of dress-up fun.

The Los Ange­les Coun­ty Muse­um of Art’s Cos­tume and Tex­tiles Project has detailed down­load­able PDFs to walk you through con­struc­tion of such anachro­nis­tic fin­ery as a 1940’s Zoot Suit, a 19th-cen­tu­ry boy’s frock (above), and a man’s vest with remov­able chest pads (hub­ba hub­ba).

An 1812 Ohio Mili­tia Officer’s Coat from the Ohio His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety.

A pair of Nan­keen Trousers cour­tesy of the Roy­al Ontario Muse­um.

A bul­let bra (hub­ba bub­ba redux!)—pair it with a 1940s Vogue hat and hand­bag and you’re ready to go!

A Regency Drawn Bon­net and an Improved Seam­less Whale­bone Under­skirt from E. & J. Holmes & Co, Boston, 1857.

If you’re feel­ing less than con­fi­dent about your sewing abil­i­ties, you might make like an upper-class Roman in an Ion­ian chi­ton.

Or just curl a syn­thet­ic wig!

Press some­one else’s seams with a straight­en­ing iron, then kick back and enjoy the vin­tage ads, pho­tos of antique gar­ments, and the peri­od infor­ma­tion that often accom­pa­nies these how-tos. And check out the 1913 patent appli­ca­tion for Marie Perillat’s Bust Reduc­er, a mir­a­cle inven­tion designed to “pre­vent flesh bulging while pro­vid­ing self adjustable, com­fort­able, hygien­ic sup­port.”

Begin with some of Cos­tum­ing Diary’s his­tor­i­cal sewing pat­terns before delv­ing into its mas­sive pat­tern col­lec­tion board on Pin­ter­est.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Browse a Col­lec­tion of Over 83,500 Vin­tage Sewing Pat­terns

Kandin­sky, Klee & Oth­er Bauhaus Artists Designed Inge­nious Cos­tumes Like You’ve Nev­er Seen Before

1930s Fash­ion Design­ers Pre­dict How Peo­ple Would Dress in the Year 2000

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine. Her cur­rent sewing project is 19 head­pieces for Theater of the Apes Sub-Adult Division’s upcom­ing pro­duc­tion of Ani­mal Farm at the Tank in New York City. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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Cult Director John Waters Hosts a Summer Camp for Naughty Adult Campers: Enrollment for the 2018 Edition Opens Today

in Comedy, Film, Games, Gender, Life, Nature | October 16th, 2017

I hat­ed sports at camp, so at this camp I think we should reward every team that los­es. This would be the camp where the fat peo­ple get picked first in dodge ball. 

- Film­mak­er-cum-Camp Direc­tor John Waters

I can think of many chil­dren who would scram­ble toward the refuge of the com­pas­sion­ate state­ment above, but Camp John Waters is a decid­ed­ly adult activ­i­ty.

The Pope of Trash shares actor Bill Mur­ray’s rel­ish for odd­ball set­tings in which he can meet the pub­lic as some­thing close to a peer. But where­as Mur­ray spe­cial­izes in sur­prise drop-in appear­ances—recit­ing poet­ry to con­struc­tion work­ers, crash­ing parties—Waters favors more immer­sive expe­ri­ences, such as hitch­hik­ing coast to coast.

His lat­est stunt brought him and 300 fel­low trav­el­ers to a rus­tic Con­necti­cut facil­i­ty (from Sept 22–24) that nor­mal­ly hosts cor­po­rate team build­ing events, fam­i­ly camps, and week­end get­aways for play­ful 20-to-30-some­things keen to make new friends while zip lin­ing, play­ing ping­pong, and par­ty­ing in the main lodge.

ART­news pegged the inau­gur­al ses­sion thus­ly:

 The Waters camp com­bines two of the more absurd devel­op­ments in con­tem­po­rary leisure: the celebri­ty-based get­away (see also: the Gronk Cruise) and a cer­tain recre­ation­al aes­thet­ic that seems to advo­cate for a sort of devel­op­men­tal pur­ga­to­ry.

Here,  there were no reluc­tant, home­sick campers, weep­ing into their Slop­py Joes. This was a self-select­ing bunch, eager to break out their wigs and leop­ard print, weave ene­my bracelets at the arts and crafts sta­tion, and bypass any­thing smack­ing of offi­cial out­door recre­ation, save the lake, where inflat­able pink flamin­gos were avail­able for aquat­ic lol­ly­gag­ging.

“Who real­ly wants to go wall climb­ing?” the founder him­self snort­ed in his wel­com­ing speech, adding that he would if Joe Dalle­san­dro, the Warhol super­star who accord­ing to Waters “for­ev­er changed male sex­u­al­i­ty in cin­e­ma,” wait­ed up top.

Naughty ref­er­ences to water sports aside, cer­tain aspects of the camp were down­right whole­some. Pine trees and s’mores. Canoes and cab­ins. Pre­sum­ably there was a camp nurse. (In Waters’ ide­al world, this posi­tion would be filled by Cry Baby’s Traci Lords.)

Waters’ rec­ol­lec­tions of his own stint at Maryland’s Camp Hap­py Hol­low seem pri­mar­i­ly fond. It makes sense. Any­one who tru­ly loathed sum­mer camp would be unlike­ly to recre­ate the expe­ri­ence for them­selves and their fel­low adults.

Camp Waters harkens back to the 1950s trans­gres­sions its direc­tor mer­ri­ly fess­es up to hav­ing par­tic­i­pat­ed in: unfil­tered cig­a­rettes and short sheet­ed beds, cir­cle jerks and panty raids. From here on out the sub­ver­sion will be tak­ing place in the sun­light.

Anoth­er spe­cial camp mem­o­ry for Waters is regal­ing his cab­in mates with an orig­i­nal, seri­al­ized hor­ror sto­ry. He retells it on Celebri­ty Ghost Sto­ries, above:

At the end there was this hideous gory thing and then all the kids had night­mares and their par­ents called the camp and com­plained — and I’m still doing that! It was the begin­ning of my career…. It was a won­der­ful les­son for me as a 10-year-old kid that I think helped me become what­ev­er I am today. It gave me the con­fi­dence to go ahead, to believe in things, to believe in behav­ior I couldn’t under­stand, to be drawn to sub­ject mat­ter I couldn’t under­stand.

Reg­is­tra­tion for Camp John Waters 2018 opens today at noon, so grab the bug spray and get ready to sing along:

There is a camp in a place called Kent

It’s name is Camp John Waters

For here we come to spend the night

For we all love to fuck and fight

Camp John Waters — rah rah rah!

Camp John Waters — sis­boom­bah!

Camp John Waters — rah rah rah!

Three cheers for Camp John Waters!

Could Waters’ own con­tri­bu­tion to such camp clas­sics as Meat­balls, Lit­tle Dar­lings and Wet Hot Amer­i­can Sum­mer be far behind?

Relat­ed Con­tent:

John Waters’ RISD Grad­u­a­tion Speech: Real Wealth is Nev­er Hav­ing to Spend Time with A‑Holes

John Waters Nar­rates Off­beat Doc­u­men­tary on an Envi­ron­men­tal Cat­a­stro­phe, the Salton Sea

The Phi­los­o­phy of Bill Mur­ray: The Intel­lec­tu­al Foun­da­tions of His Comedic Per­sona

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine. She attend­ed Gnaw­bone Camp in Gnaw­bone, Indi­ana, recap­tur­ing that hap­py expe­ri­ence three decades lat­er as the Mail Lady of Beam Camp.  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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20,000 Americans Hold a Pro-Nazi Rally in Madison Square Garden in 1939: Chilling Video Re-Captures a Lost Chapter in US History

in Current Affairs, Film, History, Life | October 13th, 2017

Our country’s bipar­ti­san sys­tem ensures that every elec­tion will give rise to a win­ning side and a los­ing side—and depress­ing­ly, a siz­able group who refrained from cast­ing a vote either way.

There are times when the divide between the fac­tions does not seem insur­mount­able, when lead­ers in the high­est posi­tions of author­i­ty seem sin­cere­ly com­mit­ted to reach­ing across the divide….

And then there are oth­er times.

Ear­li­er in the year, the Women’s March on Wash­ing­ton and its hun­dreds of sis­ter march­es gave many of us rea­son to hope. The num­bers alone were inspir­ing.

But his­to­ry shows how great num­bers can go the oth­er way too.

With many Amer­i­can high school his­to­ry cur­ricu­lums whizzing through World War II in a week, if that, it’s dou­bly impor­tant to slow down long enough to watch the 7 minute doc­u­men­tary above.

What you’re look­ing at is the 1939 “Pro-Amer­i­can Ral­ly” (aka Pro-Nazi Ral­ly) spon­sored by the Ger­man Amer­i­can Bund at Madi­son Square Gar­den on George Washington’s 207th Birth­day. Ban­ners embla­zoned with such slo­gans as “Stop Jew­ish Dom­i­na­tion of Chris­t­ian Amer­i­cans,” “Wake Up Amer­i­ca. Smash Jew­ish Com­mu­nism,” and “1,000,000 Bund Mem­bers by 1940” dec­o­rat­ed the great hall.

New York City May­or Fiorel­lo LaGuardia—an Epis­co­palian with a Jew­ish mother—considered can­cel­ing the event, but ulti­mate­ly he, along with the Amer­i­can Jew­ish Com­mit­tee and the Amer­i­can Civ­il Lib­er­ties Com­mit­tee decreed that the Bund was exer­cis­ing its right to free speech and free assem­bly.

A crowd of 20,000 filled the famous sports venue in mid-town Man­hat­tan to capac­i­ty. 1,500 police offi­cers were present to ren­der the Gar­den “a fortress impreg­nable to anti-Nazis.” An esti­mat­ed 100,000 counter-demon­stra­tors were gath­er­ing out­side.

Police Com­mis­sion­er Lewis J. Valen­tine bragged to the press that “we have enough police here to stop a rev­o­lu­tion.”

The most dis­turb­ing moment in the short film comes at the 3:50 mark, when anoth­er secu­ri­ty force—the Bund’s Ord­nungs­di­enst or “Order Ser­vice” pile on Isidore Green­baum, a 26-year-old Jew­ish work­er who rushed the podi­um where bun­des­führer Fritz Julius Kuhn was fan­ning the flames of hatred. Valentine’s men even­tu­al­ly pulled them off, just bare­ly man­ag­ing to save the “anti-Nazi” from the vicious beat­ing he was under­go­ing.

Report­ed­ly he was beat­en again, as the crowd inside the Gar­den howled for his blood.

The uni­formed youth per­form­ing a spon­ta­neous horn­pipe in the row behind the Bund’s drum and bugle corps is a chill­ing sight to see.

Direc­tor Mar­shall Cur­ry was spurred to bring the his­toric footage to Field of Vision, a film­mak­er-dri­ven doc­u­men­tary unit that com­mis­sions short films as a rapid response to devel­op­ing sto­ries around the globe. In this case, the devel­op­ing sto­ry was the “Unite the Right” white nation­al­ist ral­ly in Char­lottesville, which had occurred a mere two days before.

“The footage is so pow­er­ful,” Cur­ry told an inter­view­er, “it seems amaz­ing that it isn’t a stock part of every high school his­to­ry class. But I think the ral­ly has slipped out of our col­lec­tive mem­o­ry in part because it’s scary and embar­rass­ing. It tells a sto­ry about our coun­try that we’d pre­fer to for­get. We’d like to think that when Nazism rose up, all Amer­i­cans were instant­ly appalled. But while the vast major­i­ty of Amer­i­cans were appalled by the Nazis, there was also a sig­nif­i­cant group of Amer­i­cans who were sym­pa­thet­ic to their white suprema­cist, anti-Semit­ic mes­sage. When you see 20,000 Amer­i­cans gath­er­ing in Madi­son Square Gar­den you can be sure that many times that were pas­sive­ly sup­port­ive.”

Field of Vision co-founder Lau­ra Poitras recalled how after meet­ing with Cur­ry, “my first thought was, ‘we need to put this film in cin­e­mas,’ and release it like a news­reel.”’  The Alamo Draft­house cin­e­ma chain screened it before fea­tures on Sep­tem­ber 26 of this year.

The Atlantic has pho­tos of the “Pro-Amer­i­can Ral­ly” and oth­er Ger­man Amer­i­can Bund-spon­sored events in the days lead­ing up to WWII here. Also read an account that appeared in a 1939 edi­tion of The New York Times here.

The Inter­na­tion­al Social­ist Review cov­ers the counter-demon­stra­tions in many eye­wit­ness quotes.

via Pale­o­Fu­ture

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Edu­ca­tion for Death: The Mak­ing of Nazi–Walt Disney’s 1943 Pro­pa­gan­da Film Shows How Fas­cists Are Made

Philoso­phers (Includ­ing Slavoj Žižek) and Ethi­cists Answer the Ques­tion: Is It OK to Punch Nazis?

Helen Keller Writes a Let­ter to Nazi Stu­dents Before They Burn Her Book: “His­to­ry Has Taught You Noth­ing If You Think You Can Kill Ideas” (1933)

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

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Drone Footage Captures the US Postal Service Eerily Delivering Mail to Neighborhoods Razed by the California Fires

in Life | October 13th, 2017

About 90 miles north of here, a series of fires, fanned by high winds, have destroyed 191,000 acres and left 31 peo­ple dead. In the town of San­ta Rosa alone, the fires con­sumed more than 2,800 homes overnight, turn­ing entire neigh­bor­hoods into cin­ders and ash. Cap­tured by a drone, the footage above shows the com­plete dev­as­ta­tion. It also adds a sur­re­al touch–the US Postal Ser­vice duti­ful­ly deliv­er­ing mail to emp­ty street address­es.

If you would like to assist with the relief effort (mon­e­tar­i­ly or oth­er­wise), please vis­it the San­ta Rosa Fire Depart­ment web­site.

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90,000 Fans Sing “I Won’t Back Down” at University of Florida Football Game: A Goosebump-Inducing Tribute to Tom Petty

in Life, Sports | October 10th, 2017

Tom Pet­ty grew up in Gainesville, Flori­da, in the back­yard of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Flori­da. On Sat­ur­day, dur­ing a foot­ball game against LSU, some 90,000 Gators fans gave Pet­ty a rau­cous send off, singing “I Won’t Back Down” in uni­son. Don’t know about you, but it gave me the chills.

BTW, if you’re won­der­ing what the occa­sion­al boos are all about, it’s the U. of Flori­da fans tak­ing the LSU march­ing band to task for dis­rupt­ing the Pet­ty sing-along. Or so it was per­ceived.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Tom Pet­ty Takes You Inside His Song­writ­ing Craft

Jason Aldean Per­forms “I Won’t Back Down” on SNL–A Mov­ing Trib­ute the Vic­tims of the Las Vegas Shoot­ing & Tom Pet­ty

A 17-Hour, Chrono­log­i­cal Jour­ney Through Tom Petty’s Music: Stream the Songs That Became the Sound­tracks of Our Lives

Watch Tom Pet­ty (RIP) and the Heart­break­ers Per­form Their Last Song Togeth­er, “Amer­i­can Girl”: Record­ed on 9/25/17

Prince, Joined by Tom Pet­ty, Plays a Mind-Blow­ing Gui­tar Solo On “While My Gui­tar Gen­tly Weeps”

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Alan Watts Explains the Meaning of the Tao, with the Help of the Greatest Nancy Panel Ever Drawn

in Comics/Cartoons, Life, Philosophy | October 9th, 2017

A Nan­cy pan­el is an irre­ducible con­cept, an atom, and the com­ic strip is a mol­e­cule. — comics the­o­rist Scott McCloud

A lit­tle over ten years ago, car­toon­ist Jim Woodring iso­lat­ed a sin­gle image from Ernie Bushmiller’s long-run­ning and deeply polar­iz­ing Nan­cy com­ic strip, cel­e­brat­ing it on his blog, the Woodring Mon­i­tor, as “the great­est Nan­cy pan­el ever drawn.”

What makes this pan­el the great­est? Woodring declined to elab­o­rate, though his read­ers eager­ly shared the­o­ries—and some befuddlement—in the com­ments sec­tion:

Slug­go has reached the per­fect state of no-effort, the satori-like denial of the “small mind” and all of the suf­fer­ing that comes with it.

… it’s the com­ic equiv­a­lent of a koan—something designed to tie our ratio­nal mind in knots so that we can glimpse enlight­en­ment.

Slug­go smiles because he knows a secret. He says no because he rejects con­sen­sus real­i­ty. He floats along because he doesn’t fight life—he sees the main­te­nance of the har­mo­ny and is one with that har­mo­ny. He knows all paths lead away from home. Instead he goes with­in and knows free­dom.

“I am con­tent. I need noth­ing, I will do noth­ing, I am fine as I am.”

Anoth­er fan, Glyph Jock­ey’s Lex 10, took it one step fur­ther, remov­ing the speech bub­ble before tak­ing Slug­go on an ani­mat­ed trip through the cos­mos, nar­rat­ed by philoso­pher Alan Watts:

In the state of being in accor­dance with the Tao, there is a cer­tain feel­ing of weight­less­ness, par­al­lel to the weight­less­ness that peo­ple feel when they get into out­er space or when they go deep into the ocean.

Gab­by Pahinui’s “Pu’uanahulu” and Ramayana imagery bestow added hyp­not­ic appeal.

Revis­it this strange lit­tle ani­mat­ed gem the next time your head­’s about to explode from stress. Don’t ques­tion or get too hung up on mean­ings, just go with the flow, like Slug­go and Watts.

Could oth­er Nan­cy pan­els serve as vehi­cles for Taoist enlight­en­ment? May­haps:

Bushmiller’s strong point was nev­er the con­tent of his com­ic strip’s jokey plots—a friend once described him as ‘a moron on an acid trip.’ In fact, the gags were even sim­pler than was nec­es­sary for a ‘chil­dren’s’ strip. That’s because they were just a vehi­cle for the con­trolled and bril­liant manip­u­la­tion of rep­e­ti­tion and vari­ety that gave the strip its unique visu­al rhythm and com­po­si­tion. Bush­miller chore­o­graphed his famil­iar for­mal ele­ments inside the tight­est frame of any major strip, and that helped make it the most beau­ti­ful, as a whole, of any in the papers.” — Tom Smuck­er, The Vil­lage Voice, 1982

Recent­ly, Bushmiller’s Nan­cy has been enjoy­ing a renais­sance. The strip that many casu­al read­ers of the fun­ny pages dis­missed as bor­ing or dumb is revered by many cel­e­brat­ed car­toon­ists, includ­ing Bill Grif­fith, Daniel Clowes, and Art Spiegel­man.

This month sees the pub­li­ca­tion of Paul Karasik and Mark New­gar­den’s How to Read Nan­cy, a book length analy­sis of one sin­gle strip, which also func­tions as a how-to and his­to­ry of the com­ic medi­um. This hot­ly antic­i­pat­ed vol­ume has in turn giv­en rise to a live­ly online How To Read Nan­cy Read­ing Group, a hotbed of fan art, altered pan­els, and Nan­cy strips from around the world.

Invite your pals over to play com­ic the­o­rist Scott McCloud’s Dadaist game Five Card Nan­cy or take the online ver­sion for a solo spin.

And for those who require con­text, here is the orig­i­nal strip from which the float­ing Slug­go pan­el is drawn.

Appar­ent­ly the key to the Tao is a plas­tic ham­mock…

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Wis­dom of Alan Watts in Four Thought-Pro­vok­ing Ani­ma­tions

Three Charles Bukows­ki Books Illus­trat­ed by Robert Crumb: Under­ground Com­ic Art Meets Out­sider Lit­er­a­ture

Fol­low Car­toon­ist Lyn­da Barry’s 2017 “Mak­ing Comics” Class Online, Pre­sent­ed at UW-Wis­con­sin

Down­load Over 22,000 Gold­en & Sil­ver Age Com­ic Books from the Com­ic Book Plus Archive

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

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Jason Aldean Performs “I Won’t Back Down” on SNL–A Moving Tribute the Victims of the Las Vegas Shooting & Tom Petty

in Life, Music | October 7th, 2017

Just days ago, Jason Aldean was per­form­ing on stage in Las Vegas when bul­lets start­ed reign­ing down, killing 58 con­cert­go­ers and wound­ing hun­dreds. Tonight, he opened Sat­ur­day Night Live with a poignant tribute–both to the vic­tims of the mas­sacre and rock­er Tom Pet­ty, who passed away ear­li­er this week.

Above, watch Aldean sing Pet­ty’s defi­ant 1989 anthem, “I Won’t Back Down.” Remem­ber the lives lost to sense­less vio­lence. Pray that we’ll even­tu­al­ly care enough, as a nation, to do some­thing about it. Think about music’s abil­i­ty to restore the soul. And thank SNL for ris­ing to yet anoth­er impor­tant occa­sion. 

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Open Culture was founded by Dan Colman.