Jim Carrey Commencement Speech: It’s Better to Fail at What You Love Than Fail at What You Don’t

in Graduation Speech, Life | June 22nd, 2014

The come­di­an Jim Car­rey, who remains ded­i­cat­ed to the prac­tice of Tran­scen­den­tal Med­i­ta­tion, gave a com­mence­ment speech at the Mahar­ishi Uni­ver­si­ty of Man­age­ment, which com­bines teach­ing tra­di­tion­al sub­jects (math, busi­ness admin­is­tra­tion, etc.) with less con­ven­tion­al top­ics like TM and “Sus­tain­able Liv­ing.” In the speech, Car­rey put some things in per­spec­tive for the grad­u­ates: “The deci­sions we make in this moment are based in either love or fear. So many of us choose our path out of fear dis­guised as prac­ti­cal­i­ty. What we real­ly want seems impos­si­bly out of reach and ridicu­lous to expect so we nev­er ask the uni­verse for it.” And then, draw­ing on his own per­son­al expe­ri­ence, par­tic­u­lar­ly as a child, he offers this advice: “I learned many, many lessons from my father, but not least of which is that you can fail at some­thing you don’t want, so you might as well take a chance doing what you love.” You can watch the full speech here.

via Devour

Relat­ed Con­tent:

David Lynch Explains How Med­i­ta­tion Enhances Our Cre­ativ­i­ty

‘This Is Water’: Com­plete Audio of David Fos­ter Wallace’s Keny­on Grad­u­a­tion Speech (2005)

Jim Car­rey Sings a Pret­ty Damn Good Cov­er of The Bea­t­les “I Am the Wal­rus”

Alan Watts Intro­duces Amer­i­ca to Med­i­ta­tion & East­ern Phi­los­o­phy (1960)

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Michael Palin’s Tour of the Best Loved Monty Python Sketch Locations

in Comedy, Life, Travel | June 14th, 2014

In 1999, trav­el pre­sen­ter and found­ing mem­ber of Mon­ty Python, Michael Palin, led view­ers on a tour of Python­land, a col­lec­tion of unre­mark­able Lon­don loca­tions where some of the com­e­dy troupe’s most famous sketch­es were filmed.

Unlike fel­low Python Ter­ry Jones, the pleas­ant woman who responds to Pal­in’s knock at 94 Thor­pe­bank Road is not expect­ing a new gas cook­er, though judg­ing from the way she is dressed, she is await­ing a tele­vi­sion crew. Hav­ing spent sev­er­al decades lis­ten­ing to boys (and then men) inces­sant­ly recit­ing their fave Python bits, it’s a tri­fle hard for me to believe that any­one could claim zero knowl­edge of the show’s exis­tence. Maybe things are dif­fer­ent here in the States…

For­tu­nate­ly for the tele­vi­sion audi­ence, old Joe, next door at no. 92, does remem­ber the show’s takeover of the neigh­bor­hood, includ­ing John Cleese’s sil­ly walk out of no. 107, back when it was a shop.

The star betrays his age at the West Lon­don home that was the set­ting of the Seduced Milk­man skit. Palin is less shocked that the scant­i­ly clad Don­na Read­ing has been replaced by a dis­in­ter­est­ed young bloke in an apron than that the small size of the room served as a hold­ing pen for the punch­line’s five oth­er way­ward milk­men. Me too. I can’t imag­ine a 21st-cen­tu­ry crew agree­ing to lug their equip­ment up a flight of stairs, let alone shoot in a room that’s no big­ger than it appears to be on film.

Palin also swings by Ted­ding­ton Lock to demon­strate his fabled Fish Slap­ping Dance with a uni­formed atten­dant and no fish. At the end of every call, Palin presents the cur­rent occu­pant with a fac­sim­i­le Eng­lish Her­itage plaque. (More than ten years lat­er, Palin toast­ed the instal­la­tion of a fake blue plaque hon­or­ing his late col­league Gra­ham Chap­man at the lat­ter’s favorite pub.)

If you’re a Python pil­grim look­ing to make a day of it, here are a few more spots that will round things up to an even dozen. The no-longer-in-print Japan­ese guide­book that Palin relies on in the videos is some­thing of a grail, but only to those who speak Japan­ese.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Mon­ty Python’s Best Phi­los­o­phy Sketch­es

Watch All of Ter­ry Gilliam’s Mon­ty Python Ani­ma­tions in a Row

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

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is a Brook­lyn-based author, per­former, direc­tor and the Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine. Fol­low her@AyunHalliday

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Rik Mayall Voices the Animation “Don’t Fear Death” Just Months Before His Untimely Passing

in Animation, Life | June 10th, 2014

To para­phrase an acquaintance’s trib­ute to Rik May­all (leg­endary British come­di­an who died yes­ter­day at age 56), the cult com­e­dy The Young Ones turned a gen­er­a­tion of Amer­i­can mis­fits into Anglophiles before they’d ever set foot in Britain. I was one of those kids, stay­ing up late to catch the riotous­ly slap­stick show about four slack­er room­mates who mer­ci­less­ly abused each oth­er to insane degrees while attend­ing “Scum­bag Col­lege.” Fea­tur­ing musi­cal appear­ances by British alter­na­tive heroes like Mad­ness, Dexys Mid­night Run­ners, Motör­head, and The Damned, the show only ran for 12 episodes, but it had an enor­mous influ­ence on both sides of the Atlantic as a Mon­ty Python for absur­dist post-punk 80s brats.

May­all co-cre­at­ed and co-wrote the show, and his anar­chic gal­lows humor per­me­at­ed every episode. He lat­er went on to write and/or star in sit­coms Bot­tom and The New States­man, and had a beloved, if brief, role in the Rowan Atkin­son com­e­dy Black­ad­der. Short­ly before his death, May­all voiced the ani­ma­tion above, “Don’t Fear Death,” for Chan­nel 4. Writ­ten and pro­duced by Louis Hud­son and Ian Raven­scroft, this per­fect vehi­cle for Mayall’s snide sen­si­bil­i­ties explores “the ben­e­fits of being dead,” includ­ing nev­er hav­ing to “waste one more sin­gle, soul-crush­ing hour in your mind­less dead-end job.” Luck­i­ly for his fans, May­all avoid­ed that hor­ri­ble fate and instead cre­at­ed some of the most mem­o­rably obnox­ious char­ac­ters in British com­e­dy his­to­ry, although writer Lau­rence Marks tells the BBC he was “the antithe­sis” of those char­ac­ters, “a qui­et, polite, car­ing gen­tle­man.”

See May­all below do an ear­ly ver­sion of his Young Ones char­ac­ter in a clas­sic 80s stand-up rou­tine .

via Dan­ger­ous Minds

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’

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

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Philip Seymour Hoffman Contemplates Happiness in New Animated Video

in Animation, Life | June 4th, 2014

The ani­mat­ed video series Blank on Blank returns with a pre­vi­ous­ly unaired inter­view with Philip Sey­mour Hoff­man, the tal­ent­ed actor who died of a hero­in over­dose ear­li­er this year. The audio, record­ed at the Rubin Muse­um of Art in Decem­ber, 2012, fea­tures Hoff­man in con­ver­sa­tion with philoso­pher Simon Critch­ley. The top­ic is hap­pi­ness — some­thing that Hoff­man is care­ful to dis­tin­guish from hedo­nis­tic plea­sure. “I would def­i­nite­ly say plea­sure is not hap­pi­ness, because I kill plea­sure.” “I take too much of it and make it unplea­sur­able. Like too much cof­fee and you are mis­er­able.” “There is no plea­sure that I haven’t actu­al­ly made myself sick on.”  Wrestling with the con­cept, the actor tells Critchely that he found hap­pi­ness in one thing — the time he spent with his chil­dren, “When I see them enjoy each oth­er in front of me, and then they let me enjoy them in turn, that brings a feel­ing which I would say is hap­pi­ness.” But that feel­ing, as pow­er­ful as it is, proves ephemer­al. It does­n’t last. So when it comes around, don’t miss it.

You can watch the com­plete unan­i­mat­ed inter­view below:

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Mihaly Czik­szent­mi­ha­lyi Explains Why the Source of Hap­pi­ness Lies in Cre­ativ­i­ty and Flow, Not Mon­ey

Hitch­cock on Hap­pi­ness

A Guide to Hap­pi­ness: Alain de Bot­ton Shows How Six Great Philoso­phers Can Change Your Life

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Patti Smith Presents Top Webby Award to Banksy; He Accepts with Self-Mocking Video

in Art, Life, Music | May 30th, 2014

Pre­sent­ing at the 18th annu­al Web­by Awards last week, God­moth­er of Punk Pat­ti Smith man­aged to Adele Dazeem street art provo­ca­teur Banksy not once, but twice. Banksky? Ban-ski? It’s a mea­sure of the lady’s august stand­ing that emcee Pat­ton Oswalt passed on the com­ic oppor­tu­ni­ties of this giant blun­der. He did call her “fuck­ing adorable,” but I like to think he did so with the kind­est of inten­tions.

As to why an artist famous for using the real world as his can­vas should be dubbed “Per­son of the Year” by an out­fit that rec­og­nizes excel­lence on the Inter­net, Smith was noth­ing short of elo­quent. The imper­ma­nence of his oft-ille­gal­ly installed cre­ations make them the per­fect can­di­date “to be archived, shared and stored … through the World Wide Web.” (Appar­ent­ly, she only just real­ized this is a syn­onym for the Inter­net, but no mat­ter. I’m with Oswalt! It would be a cringe­wor­thy admis­sion in just about any­body else, but from her, it’s pret­ty dang cute.)

The nec­es­sar­i­ly low-pro­file hon­oree sur­prised no one by fail­ing to accept his award in per­son. Rather than send­ing Sacheen Lit­tle­feath­er as his proxy, he prof­fered a delight­ful, self-mock­ing short film, which you can see above.

The short revis­its some of the high points of “Bet­ter In Than Out,” last fal­l’s month-long, piece-a-day takeover of New York City. Keep your eyes peeled for Sirens of the Lambs, a truck haul­ing a load of squeak­ing, osten­si­bly doomed plush farm ani­mal toys and Queens, an inflat­able tag thrown up on his final day as “Artist in Res­i­dence for the City of New York.”

My favorite work from his autum­nal siege of my city was Art Sale, in which he stocked a Cen­tral Park ven­dor table with half a mil­lion dol­lars’ worth of uncred­it­ed sten­cil art, then installed a decid­ed­ly unhip-look­ing senior cit­i­zen to man it. The day’s receipts totaled $420 from a hand­ful of tourists, one of whom suc­cess­ful­ly bar­gained her way into a 2‑for‑1 deal.

I want to know more about these peo­ple who unwit­ting­ly lucked into such a lucra­tive role in 21st-cen­tu­ry art his­to­ry, but to my con­ster­na­tion, they seem to be fly­ing incog­ni­to, just like the artist who so increased their val­ue. You know, the guy who’s all over the inter­net, with­out reveal­ing his iden­ti­ty? The Web­by Awards’ Per­son of the Year!?

Maybe if I spend anoth­er hour pok­ing around online… (A bad use of time, for all but Pat­ti Smith, who claimed it took her 48 min­utes to unsuc­cess­ful­ly down­load the video we can click with such ease, above.)

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Banksy Cre­ates a Tiny Repli­ca of The Great Sphinx Of Giza In Queens

Watch Pat­ti Smith Read from Vir­ginia Woolf, and Hear the Only Sur­viv­ing Record­ing of Woolf’s Voice

Hear Pat­ti Smith Read 12 Poems From Sev­enth Heav­en, Her First Col­lec­tion (1972)

Ayun Hal­l­i­day occa­sion­al­ly tears her­self  free of the Inter­net to labor over The East Vil­lage Inky, an entire­ly hand­writ­ten, illus­trat­ed zine. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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NPR Launches Database of Best Commencement Speeches Ever

in Graduation Speech, Life | May 23rd, 2014

best grad speeches npr

NPR has cre­at­ed a brand new com­mence­ment speech data­base, “an inspi­ra­tion machine full of wise and fun­ny words going back to 1774.” You can search the data­base by name, school, date or theme. Take a spin and you will find speech­es by Adri­enne Rich at Dou­glass Col­lege (1977), the Dalai Lama at Tulane (2013), David Fos­ter Wal­lace at Keny­on Col­lege (2005), J.K. Rowl­ing at Har­vard  (2008), Jill Abram­son at Wake For­est (2014), Joseph Brod­sky at U. of Michi­gan (1988), Ray Brad­bury at Cal­tech (2000) and much more. Most of the speech­es are pre­sent­ed in text for­mat, some in video.

On NPR’s blog, they’ve high­light­ed some of the key take­aways from the long his­to­ry of com­mence­ment speech­es: Be kind, dream, remem­ber his­to­ry, embrace fail­ure, don’t give up, etc.  Right above, you can see NPR’s new ani­ma­tion fea­tur­ing for­mer Clin­ton and Oba­ma speech­writer Jon Lovett at Pitzer Col­lege’s com­mence­ment.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

“Wear Sun­screen”: The Sto­ry Behind the Com­mence­ment Speech That Kurt Von­negut Nev­er Gave

Dis­si­dent Poet Joseph Brod­sky Gives Six Life Tips to Col­lege Grads (1988)

‘This Is Water’: Com­plete Audio of David Fos­ter Wallace’s Keny­on Grad­u­a­tion Speech (2005)

Meryl Streep Gives Grad­u­a­tion Speech at Barnard

Neil Gaiman Gives Grad­u­ates 10 Essen­tial Tips for Work­ing in the Arts

David Byrne’s Grad­u­a­tion Speech Offers Trou­bling and Encour­ag­ing Advice for Stu­dents in the Arts

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Watch “Bottle,” an Award-Winning Stop Motion Animated Tale of Transoceanic Correspondence

in Animation, K-12, Life | April 29th, 2014

When I was in high school, my boyfriend showed me a film he had shot with his dad’s Super 8. It fea­tured a pair of golf clubs escap­ing from the garage and hus­tling down the dri­ve­way. I was bedaz­zled by his tech­nique, and amazed that that’s how he spent his week­ends before he met me.

I thought of those films the oth­er day on a tour of Cal Arts with a prospec­tive stu­dent. As part of ori­en­ta­tion, our group was shown “Bot­tle,” an award-win­ning stop motion short cre­at­ed when writer-direc­tor Kirsten Lep­ore was a grad stu­dent in the exper­i­men­tal ani­ma­tion pro­gram. 

In the minute or so it took our guide to remem­ber how to turn the sound on, I was actu­al­ly dread­ing it. I like nar­ra­tive. Fun­ny. Made­line Sharafi­an’s flat ani­ma­tion “Omelette,” which we were shown before “Bot­tle” as rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the sort of work going on in the famed Char­ac­ter Ani­ma­tion depart­ment, deliv­ered on both counts.

Exper­i­men­tal, though? I pic­tured a Dali-esque com­put­er gen­er­at­ed land­scaped star­ring an anony­mous ball, and longed for Scot­t’s dad’s golf clubs. They had so much per­son­al­i­ty.

I am delight­ed to report that those clubs could­n’t hold a can­dle to the cast you will meet above. I don’t want to spoil any sur­pris­es. Suf­fice it to say that the fin­ished prod­uct involves sand, snow, the ocean, flot­sam, jet­sam, a bot­tle, many miles, and many, many hours of labor. If that, com­bined with an utter­ly charm­ing sto­ry­line, adds up to exper­i­men­tal, then I am all for exper­i­men­ta­tion. My kid was ready to change her major after see­ing it, but maybe I am the one who needs to attend.

Watch the mak­ing of video below to get a feel for the sort of wringer Lep­ore put her­self and her crew through. Obvi­ous­ly not a week­end project.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hard­er Than It Looks: How to Make a Great Stop Motion Ani­ma­tion

Big Bang Big Boom: Graf­fi­ti Stop-Motion Ani­ma­tion Cre­ative­ly Depicts the Evo­lu­tion of Life

Watch The New Amer­i­ca, a Stop Motion Ani­ma­tion Star­ring 800+ Laser Engraved Wood Blocks

Ayun Hal­l­i­day’s golf clubs nev­er stopped run­ning. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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Animated Life Lesson from Auschwitz: Make Sure All of Your Words Could Be Your Very Last

in Life | April 29th, 2014

In 2008 com­pos­er Ben­jamin Zan­der gave a TED Talk called “The Trans­for­ma­tive Pow­er of Clas­si­cal Music”. Despite the title, the talk end­ed with some thoughts on the pow­er of words. Year lat­er, those poignant remarks have been ani­mat­ed by See­saw Stu­dios. Just a lit­tle some­thing to con­tem­plate as you start your day.

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