Truman Capote Narrates “A Christmas Memory,” a 1966 TV Adaptation of His Autobiographical Story

in Books, Life, Literature, Television | December 9th, 2016

It’s fruit­cake weath­er, so bust out your han­kies.

You’ll need them by the end of this 1966 tele­vi­sion adap­ta­tion of Tru­man Capote’s auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal 1956 sto­ry, “A Christ­mas Mem­o­ry,” above.

As hol­i­day spe­cials go, it’s bless­ed­ly free of raz­zle daz­zle. Capote’s Depres­sion-era Christ­mases in rur­al Alaba­ma were short on tin­sel and long on wind­fall pecans.

Com­bined with flour, sug­ar, dried fruit, and some hard-pur­chased whiskey, these gifts of nature yield­ed deli­cious cakes the main char­ac­ters send to a long list of recip­i­ents rang­ing from FDR to a young man whose car broke down in front of their house, who snapped the only pho­to­graph of the two of them togeth­er.

The nos­tal­gia may feel a bit thick at times. Both the sto­ry and the hour-long adap­ta­tion are a love let­ter to an eccen­tric, much old­er cousin, Nan­ny Rum­b­ley Faulk, known as Sook. She was part of the house­hold of dis­tant rela­tions where Capote’s moth­er, Lil­lie Mae, spent a por­tion of her child­hood, and on whom she lat­er dumped the 3‑year-old Tru­man.

Sook was “the only sta­ble per­son” in his life, Capote told Peo­ple mag­a­zine thir­ty years after her death.

And accord­ing to Capote’s aunt, Marie Rud­is­ill, “the only per­son that Sook ever cared any­thing about was Tru­man.”

Her inter­ests, while not in keep­ing with those of a lady of her time, place, race, and class, held enor­mous appeal for a lone­ly lit­tle boy with few play­mates his own age. Believ­ing in ghosts, tam­ing hum­ming­birds and cur­ing warts with an “old-time Indi­an cure” are just a few of Sook’s hob­bies he men­tions in the sto­ry, where­in her only name is “my friend.” She is:

small and spright­ly, like a ban­tam hen; but due to a long youth­ful ill­ness, her shoul­ders are piti­ful­ly hunched. Her face is remarkable–not unlike Lin­col­n’s, crag­gy like that, and tint­ed by sun and wind; but it is del­i­cate too, fine­ly boned, and her eyes are sher­ry-col­ored and timid.

Actress Geral­dine Page, then 43 and a favorite of Capote’s con­tem­po­rary, play­wright Ten­nessee Williams, imbued the “six­ty-some­thing” Sook with wide eyes and wild hair.

But the real star of the show is Capote him­self as nar­ra­tor. That famous nasal whine sets his “Christ­mas Mem­o­ry” apart from more gold­en-throat­ed hol­i­day voiceover work by Burl Ives, Greer Gar­son, and Fred Astaire. It also cuts through the trea­cle, as Bart Simp­son would say.

You can find “A Christ­mas Mem­o­ry” in this col­lec­tion.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

John Waters Makes Hand­made Christ­mas Cards, Says the “Whole Pur­pose of Life is Christ­mas”

Bob Dylan Reads “‘Twas the Night Before Christ­mas” On His Hol­i­day Radio Show (2006)

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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Noam Chomsky & Harry Belafonte Speak on Stage for the First Time Together: Talk Trump, Klan & Having a Rebellious Heart

in Current Affairs, Life | December 9th, 2016

Noam Chom­sky, now 88 years old, made his career study­ing lin­guis­tics at MIT. Har­ry Bela­fonte, 89, became the “King of Calyp­so,” pop­u­lar­iz­ing Caribbean music in the 1950s. Yes, the two men come from dif­fer­ent worlds, but they share some­thing impor­tant in common–a long com­mit­ment to social jus­tice and activism. Bela­fonte used his fame to cham­pi­on the Civ­il Rights move­ment and Mar­tin Luther King Jr., and also helped orga­nize the March on Wash­ing­ton in 1963. Chom­sky protest­ed against the Viet­nam War, putting his career on the line, and has since become one of Amer­i­ca’s lead­ing voic­es of polit­i­cal dis­sent.

On Mon­day, these two fig­ures appeared onstage for the first time togeth­er. Speak­ing at River­side Church in NYC, before a crowd of 2,000 peo­ple, Chom­sky and Bela­fonte took stock of where Amer­i­ca stands after the elec­tion of Don­ald Trump. Nat­u­ral­ly, nei­ther man looks for­ward to what Trump has to bring. But they’re not as glum about the future as many oth­er vot­ers on the left. Chom­sky espe­cial­ly reminds us that Amer­i­ca has made great strides since 1960. The Unit­ed States is a far more civ­i­lized coun­try over­all. And it’s much easier–not to men­tion less dangerous–to effect change today than a half cen­tu­ry ago. It’s just a mat­ter of get­ting out there and putting in the hard work. Mean­while, Bela­fonte urges us to have a “rebel­lious heart” and leaves with this spir­it­ed reminder, “there’s still some ass kick­ing to be done!”

via @JohnCusack

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Great Cul­tur­al Icons Talk Civ­il Rights: James Bald­win, Mar­lon Bran­do, Har­ry Bela­fonte & Sid­ney Poiti­er (1963)

Noam Chom­sky vs. William F. Buck­ley, 1969

Noam Chomsky’s Wide-Rang­ing Inter­view on a Don­ald Trump Pres­i­den­cy: “The Most Pre­dictable Aspect of Trump Is Unpre­dictabil­i­ty”

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Tim Robbins’ Improv Classes Transform Prisoners’ Lives & Lower Recidivism Rates

in Comedy, Life, Politics, Psychology, Theatre | December 5th, 2016

If a 20‑something, Yale-edu­cat­ed New York­er reporter feels ner­vous step­ping in to her first ever improv class, imag­ine the stakes for your aver­age inmate, whose sur­vival depends on a suc­cess­ful­ly mono­lith­ic pro­jec­tion of tough­ness and con­trol.

Con­trol is actu­al­ly some­thing the Actors’ Gang Prison Project seeks to cul­ti­vate in its incar­cer­at­ed par­tic­i­pants. The Actors’ Gang’s Artis­tic Direc­tor, Tim Rob­bins, who found­ed the rad­i­cal­ly exper­i­men­tal ensem­ble fresh out of col­lege, notes a well-doc­u­ment­ed con­nec­tion between an inabil­i­ty to con­trol one’s emo­tions and crim­i­nal activ­i­ty.

Unchecked rage may have put these play­ers behind bars, but explor­ing a wide vari­ety of emo­tions behind the safe­ty of the Actors’ Gang’s mask-like white pan­cake make-up has proven lib­er­at­ing.

The dull prison rou­tine leaves pris­on­ers favor­ably inclined toward any divert­ing activ­i­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly those that allow for cre­ative expres­sion. Shake­speare has made an impact on this pop­u­la­tion. Why not com­me­dia dell’arte-influenced improv?

It’s a tru­ly ther­a­peu­tic fit, as Actors Gang ensem­ble mem­ber Sabra Williams, the founder of the Prison Project, explains in her TED Talk, below.

Par­tic­i­pants are sub­ject­ed and held to the rig­or­ous phys­i­cal­i­ty and emo­tion­al hon­esty at the core of this group’s aes­thet­ic. Per­son­al con­nec­tion to the vis­i­tors is lim­it­ed to what­ev­er may tran­spire in-the-moment, but with­in the prison pop­u­la­tion, rela­tion­ships blos­som. Both guards and pris­on­ers speak of new­found empa­thy.

The emo­tion­al insights aris­ing from these spon­ta­neous explo­rations teach par­tic­i­pants how to dif­fuse aggres­sive sit­u­a­tions, present a more pos­i­tive face to the world, and inter­act gen­er­ous­ly with oth­ers. In between class­es, par­tic­i­pants write in jour­nals, with a goal of shar­ing aloud.

Gang signs, mimed weapons, and bod­i­ly con­tact are out of bounds. Wild inven­tion often car­ries the day.

Par­tic­i­pants have zero recidi­vism, and a wait­ing list in the hun­dreds attests to the program’s pop­u­lar­i­ty.

You can learn more about the Actors’ Gang ten-year-old Prison Project here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

B.B. King Plays Live at Sing Sing Prison in One of His Great­est Per­for­mances (1972)

Inmates in New York Prison Defeat Harvard’s Debate Team: A Look Inside the Bard Prison Ini­tia­tive

What Pris­on­ers Ate at Alca­traz in 1946: A Vin­tage Prison Menu

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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Richard Feynman’s Poignant Letter to His Departed Wife Arline: Watch Actor Oscar Isaac Read It Live Onstage

in Letters, Life | November 30th, 2016

Media vita in morte sumus, goes the medieval line of poet­ry that lent the Eng­lish Book of Com­mon Prayer its most mem­o­rable expres­sion: “In the midst of life we are in death.” The remain­der of the poem extrap­o­lates a the­ol­o­gy from this obser­va­tion, some­thing one can only take on faith. But what­ev­er way we dress up the mys­tery of death, it remains ever-present and inevitable. Yet we might think of the mot­to as a palin­drome: In the midst of death, we are in life. The dead remain with us, for as long as we live and remem­ber them. This is also a mys­tery.

Even the­o­ret­i­cal physi­cists must con­front the pres­ence of the depart­ed, and few scientists—few writers—have done so with as much poignan­cy, direct­ness, elo­quence, and humor as Richard Feyn­man, in a let­ter to his wife Arline writ­ten over a year after she died of tuber­cu­lo­sis at age 25. Feyn­man, him­self only 28 years old at the time, sealed the let­ter, writ­ten in 1946, until his own death in 1988. “Please excuse my not mail­ing this,” he wrote with bit­ter humor in the post­script, “but I don’t know your new address.” Even in the midst of his pro­found grief, Feynman’s wit sparkles. It is not a per­for­mance for us, his posthu­mous read­ers. It is sim­ply the way he had always written—in let­ter after let­ter—to Arline.

In the video above, Oscar Isaac, who has embod­ied many a wise­crack­ing roman­tic, gives voice to the long­ing and pain of Feynman’s let­ter, in which the physi­cist con­fess­es, “I thought there was no sense to writ­ing.” Some­how, he could not help but do so, end­ing with stark­ly ambiva­lent truths he was unable to rec­on­cile with what he col­lo­qui­al­ly calls his “real­is­tic” nature: “You only are left to me. You are real.… I love my wife. My wife is dead.” Read the full let­ter below, via Let­ters of Note. For more from their Let­ters Live series, see Bene­dict Cum­ber­batch read Kurt Vonnegut’s let­ter to the school that banned his nov­el Slaugh­ter­house Five.

Octo­ber 17, 1946

D’Arline,

I adore you, sweet­heart.

I know how much you like to hear that — but I don’t only write it because you like it — I write it because it makes me warm all over inside to write it to you.

It is such a ter­ri­bly long time since I last wrote to you — almost two years but I know you’ll excuse me because you under­stand how I am, stub­born and real­is­tic; and I thought there was no sense to writ­ing.

But now I know my dar­ling wife that it is right to do what I have delayed in doing, and that I have done so much in the past. I want to tell you I love you. I want to love you. I always will love you.

I find it hard to under­stand in my mind what it means to love you after you are dead — but I still want to com­fort and take care of you — and I want you to love me and care for me. I want to have prob­lems to dis­cuss with you — I want to do lit­tle projects with you. I nev­er thought until just now that we can do that. What should we do. We start­ed to learn to make clothes togeth­er — or learn Chi­nese — or get­ting a movie pro­jec­tor. Can’t I do some­thing now? No. I am alone with­out you and you were the “idea-woman” and gen­er­al insti­ga­tor of all our wild adven­tures.

When you were sick you wor­ried because you could not give me some­thing that you want­ed to and thought I need­ed. You needn’t have wor­ried. Just as I told you then there was no real need because I loved you in so many ways so much. And now it is clear­ly even more true — you can give me noth­ing now yet I love you so that you stand in my way of lov­ing any­one else — but I want you to stand there. You, dead, are so much bet­ter than any­one else alive.

I know you will assure me that I am fool­ish and that you want me to have full hap­pi­ness and don’t want to be in my way. I’ll bet you are sur­prised that I don’t even have a girl­friend (except you, sweet­heart) after two years. But you can’t help it, dar­ling, nor can I — I don’t under­stand it, for I have met many girls and very nice ones and I don’t want to remain alone — but in two or three meet­ings they all seem ash­es.

You only are left to me. You are real.

My dar­ling wife, I do adore you.

I love my wife. My wife is dead.

Rich.

PS Please excuse my not mail­ing this — but I don’t know your new address

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Bene­dict Cum­ber­batch Reads Kurt Vonnegut’s Incensed Let­ter to the High School That Burned Slaugh­ter­house-Five

‘The Char­ac­ter of Phys­i­cal Law’: Richard Feynman’s Leg­endary Course Pre­sent­ed at Cor­nell, 1964

Richard Feyn­man Cre­ates a Sim­ple Method for Telling Sci­ence From Pseu­do­science (1966)

 

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Performance Artist Marina Abramović Describes Her “Really Good Plan” to Lose Her Virginity

in Art, Life | November 29th, 2016

Los­ing your virginity–it’s not a sub­ject we’ve pre­vi­ous­ly dis­cussed much here at Open Cul­ture. Nor is it a sub­ject about which we’d claim to have great exper­tise. (After all, you lose it only once in life.)

But per­for­mance artist Mari­na Abramović has giv­en the whole endeav­or some seri­ous thought. As she explains in the BBC Radio 4 video above, she wait­ed until she was 24 years old. Hav­ing seen pre­co­cious friends make mis­takes, she han­dled things in her own spe­cial way. A Per­ry Como album. A bot­tle of Alban­ian whisky. An expe­ri­enced, emo­tion­al­ly unin­volved part­ner. They all fig­ured into what she calls–now 45 years later–her “real­ly good plan.”

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:

In Touch­ing Video, Artist Mari­na Abramović & For­mer Lover Ulay Reunite After 22 Years Apart

Mari­na Abramović and Ulay’s Adven­tur­ous 1970s Per­for­mance Art Pieces

The Artists’ and Writ­ers’ Cook­book Col­lects Recipes From T.C. Boyle, Mari­na Abramović, Neil Gaiman, Joyce Car­ol Oates & More

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The Only Surviving Behind-the-Scenes Footage of I Love Lucy, and It’s in Color! (1951)

in Comedy, Life, Music, Television, Video - Arts & Culture | November 25th, 2016


The endur­ing pop­u­lar­i­ty of come­di­an Lucille Ball’s 6‑season sit­com, I Love Lucy, has result­ed in so many full-col­or col­lectibles, occa­sion­al view­ers may for­get that the show was filmed in black and white.

More ardent fans may have tuned in for the spe­cial col­orized episodes CBS aired a cou­ple of years ago, but the only exist­ing col­or footage of Lucy and her hus­band and co-star, Desi Arnaz, was cap­tured by a stealthy stu­dio audi­ence mem­ber.

The ubiq­ui­ty of smart phones have made unau­tho­rized celebri­ty shots com­mon­place, but con­sid­er that this reg­u­lar Joe man­aged to smug­gle a 16mm movie cam­era into the bleach­ers of pro­duc­er Jess Oppen­heimer’s tight­ly con­trolled set. This covert oper­a­tion on Octo­ber 12, 1951 shed light on the true col­ors of both the Trop­i­cana night­club and Ricar­do apart­ment sets.

Oppenheimer’s son, Jess, even­tu­al­ly obtained the footage, insert­ing it into the appro­pri­ate scenes from “The Audi­tion,” the episode from which they were snagged.

The Har­po Marx-esque Pro­fes­sor char­ac­ter Lucy plays is a holdover from both the pilot and the vaude­ville show she and Arnaz cre­at­ed and toured nation­al­ly in 1950, in an attempt to con­vince CBS that audi­ences were ready for a com­e­dy based on a “mixed mar­riage” such as their own.

In addi­tion to Arnaz’ unbri­dled con­ga play­ing, the home movie, above, con­tains a love­ly, unguard­ed moment at the 2:40 mark, of the stars calm­ly await­ing slat­ing, side by side on the sound­stage.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Bat­girl Fights for Equal Pay in a 1960s Tele­vi­sion Ad Sup­port­ing The Equal Pay Act

Watch the First Com­mer­cial Ever Shown on Amer­i­can TV, 1941

Watch Dragnet’s 1967 LSD Episode: #85 on TV Guide’s List of the Great­est Episodes of All Time

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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New Animation Brings to Life a Lost 1974 Interview with Leonard Cohen, and Cohen Reading His Poem “Two Slept Together”

in Animation, Life, Music, Poetry | November 21st, 2016

Leonard Cohen was graced with a dis­tinc­tive slow burn of a voice, a man­ly purr well suit­ed to the louche mys­ter­ies of his most famous lyrics.

His death prompt­ed a post-elec­tion out­pour­ing from his already crest­fall­en fans, who sought cathar­sis by shar­ing the myr­i­ad ways in which his music had touched their lives.

As Cohen remarked in a 1995 inter­view with the New York Times: 

Music is like bread. It is one of the fun­da­men­tal nour­ish­ments that we have avail­able, and there are many dif­fer­ent vari­eties and degrees and grades. A song that is use­ful, that touch­es some­body, must be mea­sured by that util­i­ty alone. ‘Cheap music’ is an unchar­i­ta­ble descrip­tion. If it touch­es you, it’s not cheap. From a cer­tain point of view, all our emo­tions are cheap, but those are the only ones we’ve got. It’s lone­li­ness and long­ing and desire and cel­e­bra­tion.

Rolling Stone dubbed Cohen the Poet Lau­re­ate Of Out­rage And Roman­tic Despair. It’s far from his only nick­name, but it man­ages to encom­pass most of the oth­er 325 that super fan Allan Showal­ter col­lect­ed for his Cohen­cen­tric site.

Have you used Cohen’s music to “illu­mi­nate or dig­ni­fy your court­ing” (to bor­row anoth­er phrase from that Times inter­view)?

If so, you deserve to know that those seduc­tive lyrics aren’t always what they seem.

For one thing, he nev­er got car­nal with Suzanne.

Dit­to the “Sis­ters of Mer­cy.” Turns out they real­ly “weren’t lovers like that.” Cohen var­ied the facts a bit over the years, when called upon to recount this song’s ori­gin sto­ry. The loca­tion of the ini­tial meet­ing was a mov­ing tar­get, and ear­ly on, van­i­ty, or per­haps a rep­u­ta­tion to uphold, caused him to omit a cer­tain crit­i­cal detail regard­ing the night spent with two young women he bumped into in snowy Edmon­ton.

The 1974 radio inter­view with Kath­leen Kendel, above—straight from the horse’s mouth, and fresh­ly ani­mat­ed for PBS’ Blank on Blank series—brings to mind that pil­lar of young male sex com­e­dy, the close-but-no-cig­ar erot­ic encounter.

PBS’ Blank on Blank ani­ma­tor, Patrick Smith, wise­ly employs a light­ly humor­ous touch in depict­ing Cohen’s wild imag­in­ing of the delights Bar­bara and Lor­raine had in store for him. Whether or not they looked like the Dou­blemint Twins is a ques­tion for the ages.

The ani­ma­tion kicks off with a read­ing of his 1964 poem, “Two Went to Sleep,” an ellip­ti­cal jour­ney into the realm of the uncon­scious, a set­ting that pre­oc­cu­pied Cohen the poet. (See the far less pla­ton­ic-seem­ing “My Lady Can Sleep” and “Now of Sleep­ing” for starters…)

You can hear the inter­view Blank on Blank excerpt­ed for the above ani­ma­tion in its entire­ty here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hear Leonard Cohen’s Final Inter­view: Record­ed by David Rem­nick of The New York­er

How Leonard Cohen’s Stint As a Bud­dhist Monk Can Help You Live an Enlight­ened Life

Ani­mat­ed Video: John­ny Cash Explains Why Music Became a Reli­gious Call­ing

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er, Leonard Cohen fan 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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The Hobo Ethical Code of 1889: 15 Rules for Living a Self-Reliant, Honest & Compassionate Life

in History, Life | November 18th, 2016

hbo-code

Who wants to be a bil­lion­aire?

A few years ago, Forbes pub­lished author Rober­ta Chin­sky Matu­son’s sen­si­ble advice to busi­nessper­sons seek­ing to shoot up that gold­en lad­der. These law­ful tips espoused such famil­iar virtues as hard work and com­mu­ni­ty involve­ment, and as such, were eas­i­ly adapt­able to the rabble—artists, teach­ers, any­one in the ser­vice indus­try or non-prof­it sec­tor…

It must pain her that so many bil­lion­aires have been behav­ing so bad­ly of late. Let’s hope so, any­way.

While there’s noth­ing inher­ent­ly wrong with aspir­ing to amass lots of mon­ey, the next gen­er­a­tion of bil­lion­aires are play­ing fast and loose with their souls if their pri­ma­ry role mod­els are the ones dom­i­nat­ing today’s head­lines.

Wouldn’t it be grand if they looked instead to the Hobo Eth­i­cal Code, a seri­ous stan­dard of behav­ior estab­lished at the Hobo Nation­al Con­ven­tion of 1889.

Giv­en the peri­patet­ic lifestyle of these migra­to­ry work­ers, it was up to the indi­vid­ual to hold him or her­self to this knight­ly stan­dard. Hoboes prid­ed them­selves on their self-reliance and hon­esty, as well as their com­pas­sion for their fel­low humans.

The envi­ron­ment and the most vul­ner­a­ble mem­bers of our soci­ety stand to ben­e­fit if tomorrow’s bil­lion­aires take it to heart.

The Hobo Eth­i­cal Code

1. Decide your own life; don’t let anoth­er per­son run or rule you.

2. When in town, always respect the local law and offi­cials, and try to be a gen­tle­man at all times.

3. Don’t take advan­tage of some­one who is in a vul­ner­a­ble sit­u­a­tion, locals or oth­er hobos.

4. Always try to find work, even if tem­po­rary, and always seek out jobs nobody wants. By doing so you not only help a busi­ness along, but ensure employ­ment should you return to that town again.

5. When no employ­ment is avail­able, make your own work by using your added tal­ents at crafts.

6. Do not allow your­self to become a stu­pid drunk and set a bad exam­ple for locals’ treat­ment of oth­er hobos.

7. When jungling in town, respect hand­outs, do not wear them out, anoth­er hobo will be com­ing along who will need them as bad­ly, if not worse than you.

8. Always respect nature, do not leave garbage where you are jungling.

9. If in a com­mu­ni­ty jun­gle, always pitch in and help.

10. Try to stay clean, and boil up wher­ev­er pos­si­ble.

11. When trav­el­ing, ride your train respect­ful­ly, take no per­son­al chances, cause no prob­lems with the oper­at­ing crew or host rail­road, act like an extra crew mem­ber.

12. Do not cause prob­lems in a train yard, anoth­er hobo will be com­ing along who will need pas­sage through that yard.

13. Do not allow oth­er hobos to molest chil­dren; expose all moles­ters to authorities…they are the worst garbage to infest any soci­ety.

14. Help all run­away chil­dren, and try to induce them to return home.

15. Help your fel­low hobos when­ev­er and wher­ev­er need­ed, you may need their help some­day.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

How to Live a Good Life? Watch Phi­los­o­phy Ani­ma­tions Nar­rat­ed by Stephen Fry on Aris­to­tle, Ayn Rand, Max Weber & More

The Pow­er of Empa­thy: A Quick Ani­mat­ed Les­son That Can Make You a Bet­ter Per­son

Rules for Teach­ers in 1872 & 1915: No Drink­ing, Smok­ing, or Trips to Bar­ber Shops and Ice Cream Par­lors

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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