Hunter S. Thompson Sets His Christmas Tree on Fire, Nearly Burns His House Down (1990)

in Literature, Random | December 18th, 2015

It was some­thing of a Christ­mas rit­u­al at Hunter S. Thomp­son’s Col­orado cab­in, Owl Farm. Every year, his sec­re­tary Deb­o­rah Fuller would take down the Christ­mas tree and leave it on the front porch rather than dis­pose of it entire­ly. That’s because Hunter, more often than not, want­ed to set it on fire. In 1990, Sam Allis, a writer for then for­mi­da­ble TIME mag­a­zine, vis­it­ed Thomp­son’s home and watched the fiery tra­di­tion unfold. He wrote:

I gave up on the inter­view and start­ed wor­ry­ing about my life when Hunter Thomp­son squirt­ed two cans of fire starter on the Christ­mas tree he was going to burn in his liv­ing-room fire­place, a few feet away from an unopened wood­en crate of 9‑mm bul­lets. That the tree was far too large to fit into the fire­place mat­tered not a whit to Hunter, who was sport­ing a dime-store wig at the time and resem­bled Tony Perkins in Psy­cho. Min­utes ear­li­er, he had smashed a Polaroid cam­era on the floor.

Hunter had decid­ed to video­tape the Christ­mas tree burn­ing, and we lat­er heard on the replay the ter­ri­fied voic­es of Deb­o­rah Fuller, his long­time sec­re­tary-baby sit­ter, and me off-cam­era plead­ing with him, “NO, HUNTER, NO! PLEASE, HUNTER, DON’T DO IT!” The orig­i­nal man­u­script of Hell’s Angels was on the table, and there were the bul­lets. Noth­ing doing. Thomp­son was a man pos­sessed by now, full of the Chivas Regal he had been slurp­ing straight from the bot­tle and the gin he had been mix­ing with pink lemon­ade for hours.

The wood­en man­tle above the fire­place appar­ent­ly still has burn marks on it today. It’s one of the many things you can check out when Owl Creek starts run­ning muse­um tours in the near future.

Fol­low Open Cul­ture on Face­book and Twit­ter and share intel­li­gent media with your friends. Or bet­ter yet, sign up for our dai­ly email and get a dai­ly dose of Open Cul­ture in your inbox. And if you want to make sure that our posts def­i­nite­ly appear in your Face­book news­feed, just fol­low these sim­ple steps.

via Gothamist

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hunter S. Thompson’s Har­row­ing, Chem­i­cal-Filled Dai­ly Rou­tine

Hunter S. Thomp­son, Exis­ten­tial­ist Life Coach, Gives Tips for Find­ing Mean­ing in Life

Read 10 Free Arti­cles by Hunter S. Thomp­son That Span His Gonzo Jour­nal­ist Career (1965–2005)

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A Fittingly Strange Animation of What’s Going On Inside Charles Manson’s Mind

in Animation, Random | October 22nd, 2015

In 1968, Charles Man­son lis­tened to The Bea­t­les’ White Album and came away think­ing that Amer­i­ca was on the verge of an apoc­a­lyp­tic race war between whites and blacks. As Man­son imag­ined it, the race war would be trig­gered by a shock­ing, chaot­ic event called “Hel­ter Skel­ter” — a named bor­rowed from a song on the White Album. And, like most mega­lo­ma­ni­acs, Man­son put him­self at the cen­ter of the dra­ma. In the sum­mer of 1969, Man­son had mem­bers of his cult com­mit a series of infa­mous mur­ders in South­ern Cal­i­for­nia, hop­ing that African-Amer­i­cans would be blamed and the race war would begin. Instead, a lengthy police inves­ti­ga­tion led to Man­son’s arrest on Decem­ber 2, 1969 and his con­vic­tion soon there­after, mak­ing him then, and now, one of Amer­i­ca’s noto­ri­ous inmates.

Through the 1980s, Man­son, even though behind bars, remained a very pub­lic fig­ure, giv­ing high pro­file inter­views to Tom Sny­der, Char­lie Rose, and Ger­al­do Rivera. But then, he began to fade from view, for what­ev­er rea­sons. For the past 20 years, we haven’t heard much from him. Until this came along. Above, you can watch Leah Shore’s ani­ma­tion of nev­er-before-heard phone con­ver­sa­tions between Charles Man­son and Mar­lin Maryn­ick (who lat­er pub­lished a best-sell­ing biog­ra­phy called Charles Man­son Now). Fit­ting­ly strange, the ani­ma­tion reminds us of the very odd things going on inside Man­son’s mind. Off kil­ter as ever, he goes in all kinds of unex­pect­ed direc­tions.

via Vice

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Time Neil Young Met Charles Man­son, Liked His Music, and Tried to Score Him a Record Deal

Tim­o­thy Leary’s Wild Ride and the Fol­som Prison Inter­view

Aleis­ter Crow­ley: The Wickedest Man in the World Doc­u­ments the Life of the Bizarre Occultist, Poet & Moun­taineer

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Postage Stamps from Bhutan That Double as Playable Vinyl Records

in Music, Random | October 16th, 2015

Bhutan_record_stamps

The tiny, Himalayan king­dom of Bhutan has a unique nation­al aspi­ra­tion that sets it apart from its neigh­bors, Chi­na and India. (And cer­tain­ly the Unit­ed States too.) Rather than increas­ing its gross nation­al prod­uct, Bhutan has instead made it a goal to increase the Gross Nation­al Hap­pi­ness of its cit­i­zens. There’s wealth in health, not just mon­ey, the Bhutanese have argued. And since the 197os, the coun­try has tak­en a holis­tic approach to devel­op­ment, try­ing to increase the spir­i­tu­al, phys­i­cal, and envi­ron­men­tal health of its peo­ple. And guess what? The strat­e­gy is pay­ing off. A 2006 glob­al sur­vey con­duct­ed by Busi­ness Week found that Bhutan is the hap­pi­est coun­try in Asia and the eighth-hap­pi­est coun­try in the world.

It’s per­haps only a nation devot­ed to hap­pi­ness that could throw its sup­port behind this — postage stamps that dou­ble as playable vinyl records. Cre­at­ed by an Amer­i­can entre­pre­neur Burt Todd in the ear­ly 70s, at the request of the Bhutanese roy­al fam­i­ly, the “talk­ing stamps” shown above could be stuck on a let­ter and then lat­er played on a turntable. Accord­ing to Tod­d’s 2006 obit­u­ary in The New York Times, one stamp “played the Bhutanese nation­al anthem,” and anoth­er deliv­ered “a very con­cise his­to­ry of Bhutan.” Thanks to WFMU, our favorite inde­pen­dent free form radio sta­tion, you can hear clips of talk­ing stamps above and below. Don’t you feel hap­pi­er already?

via The Reply All Pod­cast

Fol­low Open Cul­ture on Face­book and Twit­ter and share intel­li­gent media with your friends. Or bet­ter yet, sign up for our dai­ly email and get a dai­ly dose of Open Cul­ture in your inbox. And if you want to make sure that our posts def­i­nite­ly appear in your Face­book news­feed, just fol­low these sim­ple steps.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

How to Clean Your Vinyl Records with Wood Glue

Sovi­et Hip­sters Boot­legged West­ern Pop Music on Dis­card­ed X‑Rays: Hear Orig­i­nal Audio Sam­ples

How Vinyl Records Are Made: A Primer from 1956

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The Falling Water: A Rube Goldberg Machine That Makes a Fine Cocktail

in Creativity, Food & Drink, Random | October 2nd, 2015

Joseph Her­sch­er, a kinet­ic artist from New Zealand, has a knack for mak­ing some pret­ty imag­i­na­tive Rube Gold­berg machines. Back in 2012, we showed you The Page Turn­er, a device that gives cre­ative assis­tance to any­one still read­ing news­pa­pers in a print for­mat. Next week, we’ll hope­ful­ly get a chance to fea­ture his most recent con­trap­tion. (Stay tuned for more on that.) But for now, as we head into the week­end, let’s admire The Falling Water, Her­scher’s cock­tail-mak­ing machine that plays on the name of a famous Frank Lloyd Wright cre­ation. You can watch it go above. And for those who want to play along at home, here is the recipe for the drink:

- 30mls (1Oz) 42BELOW Fei­joa Vod­ka
— Ch’i or Lemon­ade
— Long slice of seed­less cucum­ber
— Ice

Cut a long thin piece of cucum­ber on a diag­o­nal.
Rest it against the inside of a High­ball glass.
Fill the glass with ice, add 42BELOW Fei­joa.
Top with Ch’i or Lemon­ade.

Enjoy!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

An Ani­mat­ed Tour of Falling­wa­ter, One of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Finest Cre­ations

The Page Turn­er: A Fab­u­lous Rube Gold­berg Machine for Read­ers

F. Scott Fitzger­ald Con­ju­gates “to Cock­tail,” the Ulti­mate Jazz-Age Verb (1928)

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As Benevolent Dictator, Vladimir Nabokov Would Abolish Muzak & Bidets: What Would Make Your List?

in Literature, Random | October 1st, 2015

nabokov abolish

In 1969, the BBC’s James Moss­man con­duct­ed an exten­sive inter­view with Vladimir Nabokov, which was first pub­lished in a mag­a­zine called The Lis­ten­er, and lat­er in a book enti­tled Strong Opin­ions. Some of Moss­man­’s ques­tions were seri­ous: “You’ve said that you’ve explored time’s prison and have found no way out. Are you still explor­ing…? Some were lighter: “Why do you live in hotels?” (Answer here.) And still oth­er ques­tions fell some­where in between, like: “If you ruled any mod­ern indus­tri­al state absolute­ly, what would you abol­ish?” It turns out that loud nois­es, muzak, bidets, and insec­ti­cides made the great nov­el­ist and lep­i­dopter­ist’s list.

Which rais­es the ques­tion, if allowed to play benev­o­lent dic­ta­tor for a day, what would you oblit­er­ate? Me? I’d prob­a­bly start with almost any­thing like­ly to appear in today’s Bill­board Top 5 — dreck that’s not too far from muzak.

via Bib­liok­lept

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Vladimir Nabokov Names the Great­est (and Most Over­rat­ed) Nov­els of the 20th Cen­tu­ry

Vladimir Nabokov’s Delight­ful But­ter­fly Draw­ings

Vladimir Nabokov Cre­ates a Hand-Drawn Map of James Joyce’s Ulysses

Vladimir Nabokov Makes Edi­to­r­i­al Tweaks to Franz Kafka’s Novel­la The Meta­mor­pho­sis

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Discover The Backwards Brain Bicycle: What Riding a Bike Says About the Neuroplasticity of the Brain

in Psychology, Random, Science, YouTube | August 21st, 2015

Like most of us, engi­neer Des­tin San­dlin, cre­ator of the edu­ca­tion­al sci­ence web­site Smarter Every Day, learned how to ride a bike as a child. Archival footage from 1987 shows a con­fi­dent, mul­let-haired San­dlin pilot­ing a two-wheel­er like a boss.

Flash for­ward to the present day, when a welder friend threw a major wrench in Sandlin’s cycling game by tweak­ing a bike’s handlebar/front wheel cor­re­spon­dence. Turn the han­dle­bars of the “back­wards bike” to the left, and the wheel goes to the right. Steer right, and the front wheel points left.

San­dlin thought he’d con­quer this beast in a mat­ter of min­utes, but in truth it took him eight months of dai­ly prac­tice to con­quer his brain’s cog­ni­tive bias as to the expect­ed oper­a­tion. This led him to the con­clu­sion that knowl­edge is not the same thing as under­stand­ing.

He knew how to ride a nor­mal bike, but had no real grasp of the com­plex algo­rithm that kept him upright, a simul­ta­ne­ous bal­let of bal­ance, down­ward force, gyro­scop­ic pro­ces­sion, and nav­i­ga­tion.

As he assures fans of his Youtube chan­nel, it’s not a case of the stereo­typ­i­cal unco­or­di­nat­ed sci­ence geek—not only can he jug­gle, when he took the back­wards bike on tour, a glob­al ros­ter of audi­ence vol­un­teers’ brains gave them the exact same trou­ble his had.

Inter­est­ing­ly, his 6‑year-old son, who’d been rid­ing a bike for half his young life, got the hang of the back­wards bike in just two weeks. Children’s brain’s pos­sess much more neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty than those of adults, whose senior­i­ty means habits and bias­es are that much more ingrained.

It couldn’t have hurt that San­dlin bribed the kid with a trip to Aus­tralia to meet an astro­naut.

Did the ardu­ous­ness of mas­ter­ing the back­wards bike ruin San­dlin for nor­mal­ly con­fig­ured bicy­cles? Watch the video above all the way to the end for an incred­i­ble spon­ta­neous moment of mind over mat­ter.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Physics of the Bike

The Mys­te­ri­ous Physics Behind How Bikes Ride by Them­selves

Sci­ence Behind the Bike: Four Videos from the Open Uni­ver­si­ty on the Eve of the Tour de France

The Neu­ro­science of Drum­ming: Researchers Dis­cov­er the Secrets of Drum­ming & The Human Brain

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

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Adorn Your Garden with Howard the Zinn Monk

in History, Random | August 5th, 2015

ZinnMonk

In Jan­u­ary, in the dead of win­ter, we got you think­ing about warmer times by high­light­ing the Noam Chom­sky Gar­den Gnome, a real prod­uct described as fol­lows:

Stand­ing at just under 17 inch­es, Gnome Chom­sky the Gar­den Noam clutch­es his clas­sic books, ‘The Man­u­fac­ture of Com­post’ and ‘Hedgerows not Hege­mo­ny’ – with his open right hand ready to hold the polit­i­cal slo­gan of your choos­ing. His clothes rep­re­sent a relaxed but classy ver­sion of reg­u­lar gnome attire, includ­ing: a nice suit jack­et-tunic, jeans, boots, tra­di­tion­al gnome cap, and glass­es. Addi­tion­al­ly, Noam Gnome stands on a base com­plete with a carved title – for any­one who may not imme­di­ate­ly real­ize the iden­ti­ty of this hand­some and schol­ar­ly gnome.

Now that it’s sum­mer, imag­ine Gnome Chom­sky hang­ing in your gar­den with Howard the Zinn Monk. Zinn Monk, get it?

First pub­lished in 1980, Zin­n’s famous book A People’s His­to­ry of the Unit­ed States tells “America’s sto­ry from the point of view of—and in the words of—America’s women, fac­to­ry work­ers, African-Amer­i­cans, Native Amer­i­cans, the work­ing poor, and immi­grant labor­ers.” It has sold more than two mil­lion copies over the past 35 years. And, as I write this post, it’s the #1 best­selling book in US his­to­ry on Ama­zon.

Howard the Zinn Monk isn’t quite sell­ing at the same brisk clip. But the web site justsaygnome.net might make you a Zinn gnome if you ask nice­ly.

In the mean­time, you can watch and enjoy this illus­trat­ed video: Howard Zinn’s “What the Class­room Didn’t Teach Me About the Amer­i­can Empire.”

Fol­low us on Face­book, Twit­ter, Google Plus and LinkedIn and share intel­li­gent media with your friends. And if you want to make sure that our posts def­i­nite­ly appear in your Face­book news­feed, just fol­low these sim­ple steps.

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Meta Star Wars: All Six Films in One

in Film, Random | June 19th, 2015

We’ve shown our fair share of Star Wars mashups and fan films over the years. I cite for exam­ple:

The lat­est and maybe not great­est fan rework­ing of Star Wars (now avail­able on YouTube) lets you watch all six Star Wars films online. At once. With one film lay­ered upon the oth­er.

Is there some cul­tur­al val­ue to this lay­er­ing of films? Maybe only inso­far as it gives the keen observ­er the chance to find some meta trends run­ning through the films. One YouTu­ber com­ment­ed, “The real­ly inter­est­ing part is that they’re sim­i­lar­ly paced. If you skip around you’ll almost always find all talk­ing scenes lined up and all action scenes lined up. Just shows how for­mu­la­ic movies are (or at least how for­mu­la­ic George Lucas is).”

Feel free to drop your own obser­va­tions in the com­ments sec­tion below. And, by the way, the per­son who cre­at­ed this mashup has also made avail­able a full gallery of HD still frames on imgur here.

via Twit­ter

Fol­low us on Face­book, Twit­ter, Google Plus and LinkedIn and  share intel­li­gent media with your friends. Or bet­ter yet, sign up for our dai­ly email and get a dai­ly dose of Open Cul­ture in your inbox.

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