Exploring the Greatest of Italy’s 6,000 Ghost Towns: Take a Tour of Craco, Italy

in History, Travel | March 31st, 2022

When Amer­i­cans think of ghost towns, we think tum­ble­weeds and crum­bling Old West saloons. These aban­doned set­tle­ments are mere babies com­pared to Italy’s ancient necrop­olis­es. We know, of course, the famous dead cities and towns of antiq­ui­ty – Pom­peii, the ruins of Rome, etcetera. Such famous sites are only the most obvi­ous haunt­ed ruins on any itin­er­ary through the ven­er­a­ble boot-shaped coun­try. Can they be con­sid­ered ghost towns? The first fell prey to a nat­ur­al dis­as­ter that encased its res­i­dents in ash before they had the time to leave; the sec­ond thrives as the eighth-most pop­u­lous city in Europe. It may be full of ghosts, but it’s hard to catch them in the throngs, traf­fic, and noise.

That said, there are no short­age of towns that fit the bill. Italy con­tains “more than 6,000 aban­doned vil­lages,” the video above explains, and “accord­ing to con­ser­v­a­tive esti­mates, anoth­er 15,000 have lost more than 95 per­cent of their res­i­dents.” That’s an awful lot of aban­don­ment. In the video tour above, we get to explore the “Cap­i­tal of all Ghost Towns,” Cra­co, a tow­er­ing vil­lage on the high cliffs of a region known as Basil­i­ca­ta in South­ern Italy, nes­tled in the instep of the boot. Found­ed in the 8th cen­tu­ry AD by Greek set­tlers, the vil­lage sur­vived Black Plague, “bands of maraud­ing thieves,” writes Atlas Obscu­ra, and the usu­al polit­i­cal insta­bil­i­ty and internecine con­flict of Ital­ian towns, duchies, city states, etc. before the coun­try’s 19th cen­tu­ry uni­fi­ca­tion. In the end, “a land­slide final­ly forced res­i­dents from Cra­co in 1991.”

The very loca­tion that kept the town safe for cen­turies from those who would sack it also exposed it to the ele­ments. “Once a monas­tic cen­ter, a feu­dal town and cen­ter of edu­ca­tion with a uni­ver­si­ty, cas­tle, church, and plazas,” Ancient Ori­gins writes, Cra­co has now become a des­ti­na­tion for adven­tur­ers and a set for sev­er­al films, “includ­ing Sav­ing Grace, James Bond’s Quan­tum of Solace and the hang­ing of Judas scene in Mel Gib­son’s The Pas­sion of the Christ.” Charm­ing, no? While such towns are hard­ly found in the usu­al his­to­ry text or guide­book, ancient Ital­ian ghost towns and aban­doned cas­tles have inspired actu­al ghost sto­ries for hun­dreds of years and are the very ori­gin of the goth­ic as a lit­er­ary genre, via Horace Walpole’s haunt­ed cas­tle nov­el, The Cas­tle of Otran­to.

Wal­pole might just as well have writ­ten about the cas­tle of Cra­co, which you can explore above with Mar­co, Till, Tobi, and Sam, hosts and pro­duc­ers of Aban­doned Italy, a web series devot­ed to exact­ly that. In sev­er­al sea­sons online, they trav­el to oth­er ghost­ly towns, vil­lages, and islands, ask­ing ques­tions like, “what if humans go extinct?” Answer­ing that one is a bit like pon­der­ing the tree-falling-in-the-for­est ques­tion. If no one’s there to see it.… ?

Relat­ed Con­tent:

A Data Visu­al­iza­tion of Every Ital­ian City & Town Found­ed in the BC Era

High-Res­o­lu­tion Walk­ing Tours of Italy’s Most His­toric Places: The Colos­se­um, Pom­peii, St. Peter’s Basil­i­ca & More

The Chang­ing Land­scape of Ancient Rome: A Free Online Course from Sapien­za Uni­ver­si­ty of Rome 

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

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Great Art Cities: Visit the Fascinating, Lesser-Known Museums of London & Paris

in Art, History, Travel | January 28th, 2022

Gal­lerists James Payne and Joanne Shurvell under­stand that insti­tu­tion­al big goril­las like the Lou­vre, the Musee d’Or­say, Tate Britain, and London’s Nation­al Gallery require no intro­duc­tion. Their new art and trav­el series, Great Art Cities Explained, con­cen­trates instead on the won­der­ful, small­er muse­ums the big­gies often over­shad­ow.

First time vis­i­tors to Lon­don and Paris may be left scram­bling to rearrange their itin­er­aries.

The first two episodes have us per­suad­ed that Sir John Soane’s Muse­um, Ken­wood House, the Wal­lace Col­lec­tion, Le Musée Nation­al Eugène Delacroix, Le Musée de Mont­martre à Paris, and Ate­lier Bran­cusi are the true “don’t miss” attrac­tions if time is tight.

Cred­it Payne, whose flair for dishy, far rang­ing, high­ly acces­si­ble nar­ra­tion made his oth­er web series, Great Art Explained in Fif­teen Min­utes, an instant hit.

The three British insti­tu­tions fea­tured above were once grand pri­vate homes, whose own­ers decid­ed to donate them and the mag­nif­i­cent art col­lec­tions they con­tained to the pub­lic good.

What­ev­er moti­vat­ed these wealthy men’s gen­eros­i­ty — van­i­ty, the quest for immor­tal­i­ty, or, in one case, the desire to cut off a churl­ish and moral­ly lax son whom Payne com­pares to the cen­tral fig­ure in William Hogarth’s A Rake’s Progress, a Sir John Soane’s Muse­um favorite — Payne holds them in high­er regard than today’s invest­ment-obsessed art col­lec­tors:

The world needs more men like (William) Mur­ray, (Sir John) Soane, and (Sir Richard) Wal­lace, men who saw that art can tran­scend social class. They under­stood that art should enrich the soul, not the bank bal­ance.

His peeks into their cir­cum­stances are every bit as fas­ci­nat­ing as the tid­bits he drops about the artists whose work he includes.

Rather than giv­ing a sweep­ing overview of each col­lec­tion, he focus­es on a few key works, shar­ing his cura­to­r­i­al per­spec­tive on their his­to­ry, acqui­si­tion, sub­ject mat­ter, cre­ation, and recep­tion:

Rembrandt’s Self Por­trait with Two Cir­cles (1669)

Vermeer’s The Gui­tar Play­er (1672)

Hogarth’s A Rake’s Progress (1732)

Canalet­to’s Venice: the Baci­no di San Mar­co from San Gior­gio Mag­giore and Venice: the Baci­no di San Mar­co from the Canale del­la Giudec­ca (c. 1735 — 1744)

Fragonard’s The Swing (1767)

Frans Hal’s Laugh­ing Cav­a­lier (1624)

Payne’s rol­lick­ing approach means each episode is crammed with plen­ty of art­work resid­ing out­side of the fea­tured muse­ums, too, as he com­pares, con­trasts, and con­tex­tu­al­izes.

One of his most inter­est­ing tales in the Lon­don episode con­cerns an 18th-cen­tu­ry por­trait of William Murray’s great-nieces, Dido Belle and Eliz­a­beth Mur­ray, raised by their abo­li­tion­ist great-uncle at Ken­wood House:

Dido Belle was the ille­git­i­mate daugh­ter of a Black slave and William Murray’s nephew and was raised by Mur­ray as part of the aris­toc­ra­cy. By all accounts, Dido and her cousin were raised as equals and this por­trait of the two was seen as an image of sis­ter­hood, reflect­ing their equal sta­tus. But look­ing at it with mod­ern eyes, we can see it more in the vein of tra­di­tion­al ser­vant and mas­ter por­traits of the time. Belle’s exot­ic cloth­ing is designed to dif­fer­en­ti­ate her from her cousin and the paint­ing reflects the con­ser­v­a­tive views of the time.

Artist David Mar­tin places the cousins on a bench out­side the Hamp­stead Heath man­sion, with St. Paul’s Cathe­dral in the back­ground. For years, it was the only known por­trait of Belle.

It hangs, not in Ken­wood House, but in Scone Palace’s Ambas­sador’s Room.

Mean­while, one of Ken­wood House­’s lat­est acqui­si­tions is a 2021 por­trait of Belle by young Jamaican artist Mikéla Hen­ry-Lowe, on dis­play in the library.

Next up on Great Art Cities Explained: New York. Look for it on this playlist on Great Art Explained’s YouTube chan­nel.

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Great Art Explained: Watch 15 Minute Intro­duc­tions to Great Works by Warhol, Rothko, Kahlo, Picas­so & More

What Makes Basquiat’s Unti­tled Great Art: One Paint­ing Says Every­thing Basquiat Want­ed to Say About Amer­i­ca, Art & Being Black in Both Worlds

Mark Rothko’s Sea­gram Murals: What Makes Them Great Art

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is the Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine and author, most recent­ly, of Cre­ative, Not Famous: The Small Pota­to Man­i­festo.  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

How to Be a Samurai: A 17th Century Code for Life & War

in History, Life, Travel | December 2nd, 2021

Many today draw inspi­ra­tion from Bushidō, the Way of the War­rior, a com­pre­hen­sive code of con­duct for pre­mod­ern Japan’s samu­rai (or bushi).

The above install­ment of His­to­ry Broth­ers David and Pete Kel­ly’s pri­ma­ry source web series Voic­es of the Past sug­gests that some aspects of the samu­rai code are more applic­a­ble to 21st cen­tu­ry life than oth­ers.

For instance, when was the last time you slaugh­tered some­one for ren­der­ing offense to your Lord?

Not that the best prac­tices sur­round­ing such an assign­ment aren’t fas­ci­nat­ing. Still, you’ll prob­a­bly ben­e­fit more from incor­po­rat­ing the samu­rai approach to deal­ing with gos­sips or clue­less col­leagues.

If you want to adapt Mas­ter Nin­ja Natori Masazu­mi’s Edo peri­od instruc­tions for clean­ing blood from long swords, with­out dam­ag­ing the blade, to pol­ish­ing your stain­less steel fridge, have at it:

Place horse drop­pings inside some paper and wipe it over a blade that has been used to cut some­one. This will leave traces of the wip­ing and the blood will no longer be seen. If there are no horse drop­pings avail­able to wipe the blade with, use the back of your straw san­dals or soil inside paper.

The video draws on his­to­ri­an Antony Cum­mins and trans­la­tor Yoshie Minami’s The Book of Samu­rai: The Fun­da­men­tal Teach­ings, a repro­duc­tion of two scrolls con­tain­ing Natori Masazumi’s direc­tives for samu­rai con­duct in times of war and peace.

The sec­ond scroll, “Ippei Yoko,” con­tains some explic­it march­ing orders for the for­mer.

If you’re squea­mish — or eat­ing — you may want to duck out of the video before Natori Masazu­mi’s gran­u­lar instruc­tions on the sev­er­ing of ene­my heads. (15:30 onward.)

Alter­na­tive­ly, you could make like an inex­pe­ri­enced young samu­rai and hard­en your­self to the graph­ic real­i­ties of blood­shed by attend­ing exe­cu­tions and vio­lent pun­ish­ments in your down­time.

Again, the more every­day wis­dom of “Hei­ka Jodan,” the first scroll, will like­ly prove more per­ti­nent. A few chest­nuts to get you start­ed:

Don’t say some­thing about some­one behind their back that you are not pre­pared to repeat to their face.

Keep your dis­tance from “stu­pid” asso­ciates, but also resist the urge to make fun of them.

Nev­er shy away from an act of virtue.

In an emer­gency, exit in a swift, but order­ly man­ner.

Com­pli­ment the food when you’re a guest in someone’s home, even if you don’t like it.

If you’re the host, and two guests begin fight­ing, try to help set­tle the mat­ter dis­creet­ly, to avoid last­ing injuries or grudges.

Don’t pass the buck to excuse your own mis­deeds.

Don’t pan­ic in an unex­pect­ed sit­u­a­tion — the first thing you should do is take a breath and set­tle your mind.

Whether trav­el­ing or just out and about, be pre­pared with nec­es­sary items, includ­ing, pen­cil, paper, mon­ey, med­ica­tions…

When tempt­ed to regale oth­ers with any super­nat­ur­al encoun­ters you may have had, remem­ber that less is more.

Watch more Voic­es of the Past on their YouTube chan­nel.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

A Hyp­not­ic Look at How Japan­ese Samu­rai Swords Are Made

An Origa­mi Samu­rai Made from a Sin­gle Sheet of Rice Paper, With­out Any Cut­ting

A Demon­stra­tion of Per­fect Samu­rai Swords­man­ship

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is the Chief Pri­maol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine and author, most recent­ly, of Cre­ative, Not Famous: The Small Pota­to Man­i­festo.  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Scenes of New York City in 1945 Colorized & Revived with Artificial Intelligence

in Film, History, Travel | October 28th, 2021

Are you irked when a movie or video you’re attempt­ing to enjoy is con­stant­ly inter­rupt­ed by the com­men­tary of a chat­ty fel­low audi­ence mem­ber?

If so, don’t watch archivist Rick Prelinger’s 2017 assem­blage, Lost Land­scapes of New York, in the com­pa­ny of a New York­er.

Unlike Open Cul­ture favorite NASS’s five minute sam­ple of Lost Land­scapes of New York, above, which adds col­or and ambi­ent audio to the unvar­nished found footage,  Prelinger — described by the New York Times’ Manohla Dar­gis as a “col­lec­tor extraordinaire…one of the great, under­sung his­to­ri­ans of 20th cen­tu­ry cin­e­ma” — rel­ish­es such mouthi­ness from the audi­ence. His black and white com­pi­la­tions are most­ly silent.

If you are a New York­er, view that as an invi­ta­tion here.

For every­one else, on behalf of New York­ers every­where, we con­cede that our con­fi­dent utter­ances may indeed dri­ve you out of your gourd…

Tourists with just one vis­it to their name can be for­giv­en for flaunt­ing their per­son­al brush­es with such hall of famers as the Brook­lyn Bridge and the Wash­ing­ton Square Arch, but there’s no com­pet­ing with long time res­i­dents’ inti­mate knowl­edge of the city’s geog­ra­phy.

It’s snob­bery of a type, but have pity on us long time res­i­dents, who know we will be viewed as sub­or­di­nates by those who were born with­in the five Bor­oughs.

(We sub­mit that there are lay­ers to this…a native of, say, the Hoosier State, who can remem­ber the orig­i­nal Penn Sta­tion should be con­sid­ered to have at least as much street cred as a mil­len­ni­al whose  birth in Brook­lyn, Harlem or the West Vil­lage con­fers native New York­er sta­tus.)

How­ev­er you slice it, con­sid­er this fair warn­ing that some of us, view­ing Lost Land­scapes of New York in your com­pa­ny, will not be able to stop our­selves from tri­umphant­ly crow­ing, “That’s 8th between 43rd and 44th!”

Again, it’s some­thing Prelinger courts in local live screen­ings of his Lost Land­scapes series. 

The phe­nom­e­non is not lim­it­ed to New York.

Be the set­ting San Fran­cis­co, Los Ange­les, or Detroit, he views audi­ence out­bursts as the sound­tracks to his most­ly silent, non-nar­ra­tive pas­tich­es drawn from his vast archive of vin­tage home movies, gov­ern­ment-pro­duced films, and back­ground footage shot with an eye toward com­posit­ing into a fea­ture film.

In a con­ver­sa­tion with The Essay Review’s Lucy Schiller, he remarked:

I’ve dis­cov­ered that home movies become some­thing else when blown up to the­ater-screen size. The change of scale pro­vokes a role change in the audi­ence, who with­out nec­es­sar­i­ly expect­ing it become more than sim­ple com­men­ta­tors. They turn into ethno­g­ra­phers, notic­ing and often remark­ing on every vis­i­ble detail of kin­ship, word and ges­ture and every inter­per­son­al exchange. They also respond as cul­tur­al geo­g­ra­phers, call­ing out streets and neigh­bor­hoods and build­ings, read­ing signs aloud, repeat­ing trade­names and brands and mark­ing extinct details in the cityscape. If I could cap­ture them (and I gen­er­al­ly can­not, because it is hard to intel­li­gi­bly record the voic­es of hun­dreds of peo­ple in one room), it would play back like an urban research project dis­trib­uted through a crowd of inves­ti­ga­tors. Each suc­cess­ful iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, each nam­ing achieved, is an endor­phin trig­ger.

Prelinger is hap­py to play fast and loose with chrono­log­i­cal order, scram­bling peri­od fash­ions, and col­or and black-and-white stock. This crazy quilt approach is in step with his resis­tance to con­struct­ing nar­ra­tives (“the curse of con­tem­po­rary doc­u­men­tary”) and admi­ra­tion for the way enthu­si­as­tic ama­teurs’ footage ren­ders “caste dis­tinc­tions between ani­mals and humans, between places and their inhab­i­tants” moot:

I am much less inter­est­ed in the minu­ti­ae of local his­to­ry than I am in the process of day­light­ing it, in the rela­tion­ship of his­to­ry and con­tem­po­rary life.

His approach allows those of us who live or have lived here to rev­el in New York City’s long stand­ing capac­i­ty for rein­ven­tion.

Like the anony­mous tide of human­i­ty bustling along our side­walks (and dart­ing into traf­fic, mid-block), the mar­quees, restau­rant names and words on the deliv­ery trucks aren’t fixed. We claim to hate it, but philoso­phers might sug­gest it’s what keeps us engaged.

You won’t find many street ven­dors hawk­ing frumpy cot­ton undies these days, but there are plen­ty of cor­ners where you can buy fruit and veg… and iPhone cas­es, ear­buds, and COVID-19 era face masks.

As excit­ing as it is to suc­cess­ful­ly peg the quin­tes­sen­tial­ly New York things that remain, there’s an equal thrill to rec­og­niz­ing and shout­ing out the things that don’t, espe­cial­ly if there’s a sig­nif­i­cant per­son­al con­nec­tion.

It makes us feel like we’re notable, con­tribut­ing in some way.

You con­tribute, too, by watch­ing Lost Land­scapes of New York (2017) here, while simul­tanous­ly keep­ing your eyes peeled for grat­i­fy­ing­ly well attend­ed, high­ly par­tic­i­pat­ed live screen­ings.

If vin­tage ama­teur footage you’re in pos­ses­sion of is gath­er­ing dust, con­sid­er donat­ing it to expand Prelinger’s archive, already some 60,000 films strong.

Watch Prelinger’s Lost Land­scapes com­pi­la­tions of oth­er cities here and here (see episode 7 of his San Fran­cis­co series above).

Explore his mas­sive archive on the Inter­net Archive.

And if you want to prac­tice sound­ing like a “real New York­er,” head back up to the top of the page, skip to the end, and inform every­one with­in earshot that that build­ing is the old James A. Far­ley Post Office at 32nd and 8th:

“Now it’s Moyni­han Train Hall! It opened on Jan­u­ary 1! It’s part of Penn Sta­tion! Don’t for­get to look up inside the 33rd street entrance, or you’ll miss Kehinde Wiley’s incred­i­ble stained-glass ceil­ing! And if you want a snack for the ride, you should hit H‑Mart on 32nd just east of Gree­ley Square!”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

See New York City in the 1930s and Now: A Side-by-Side Com­par­i­son of the Same Streets & Land­marks

Immac­u­late­ly Restored Film Lets You Revis­it Life in New York City in 1911

An Online Gallery of Over 900,000 Breath­tak­ing Pho­tos of His­toric New York City

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

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

William Shatner in Tears After Becoming the Oldest Person in Space: ‘I’m So Filled with Emotion … I Hope I Never Recover from This”

in Travel | October 14th, 2021

Yes­ter­day Star Trek’s William Shat­ner, now 90 years old, final­ly became a Rock­et Man, tak­ing a trip to space. And upon his return he said: “I hope I nev­er recov­er from this.” “I’m so filled with emo­tion about what just hap­pened. It’s extra­or­di­nary, extra­or­di­nary. It’s so much larg­er than me and life. It hasn’t got any­thing to do with the lit­tle green men and the blue orb. It has to do with the enor­mi­ty and the quick­ness and the sud­den­ness of life and death.” “To see the blue col­or whip by you, and now you’re star­ing into black­ness … every­body in the world needs to do this. Every­body in the world needs to see this.” What. A. Trip.

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

A Cult Clas­sic: William Shat­ner Sings Elton John’s “Rock­et Man” at 1978 Sci­Fi Awards Show

Watch City Out of Time, A Short Trib­ute to Venice, Nar­rat­ed by William Shat­ner in 1959

William Shat­ner Nar­rates Space Shut­tle Doc­u­men­tary

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

Behold the Photographs of John Thomson, the First Western Photographer to Travel Widely Through China (1870s)

in History, Photography, Travel | October 13th, 2021

In the ear­ly 1860s, a few West­ern­ers had seen Chi­na — but near­ly all of them had seen it for them­selves. The still-new medi­um of pho­tog­ra­phy had yet to make images of every­where avail­able to view­ers every­where else, which meant an oppor­tu­ni­ty for trav­el­ing prac­ti­tion­ers like John Thom­son. “The son of a tobac­co spin­ner and shop­keep­er,” says BBC.com, ” he was appren­ticed to an Edin­burgh opti­cal and sci­en­tif­ic instru­ment man­u­fac­tur­er where he learned the basics of pho­tog­ra­phy.”

In 1862 Thom­son sailed from Lei­th “with a cam­era and a portable dark room. He set up in Sin­ga­pore before explor­ing the ancient civ­i­liza­tions of Chi­na, Thai­land — then known as Siam — and Cam­bo­dia.” It is for his exten­sive pho­tog­ra­phy of Chi­na in the late 1860s and ear­ly 1870s that he’s best known today.

First lav­ish­ly pub­lished in a series of books titled Illus­tra­tions of Chi­na and Its Peo­ple (now avail­able to read free online at the Yale Uni­ver­si­ty Library: vol­ume one, vol­ume two, vol­ume three, vol­ume four), they now con­sti­tute some of the ear­li­est and rich­est direct visu­al records of Chi­nese land­scapes, cityscapes, and soci­ety as they were in the late 19th cen­tu­ry.

“The first West­ern pho­tog­ra­ph­er to trav­el wide­ly through the length and breadth of Chi­na,” Thom­son brought his cam­era on jour­neys “far more exten­sive than those under­tak­en by most West­ern­ers of his gen­er­a­tion,” extend­ing “beyond the rel­a­tive com­fort and safe­ty of the coastal treaty ports.” Those words come from schol­ar of the 19th-cen­tu­ry Allen Hock­ley, whose five-part visu­al essay “John Thom­son’s Chi­na” at MIT Visu­al­iz­ing Cul­tures pro­vides a detailed overview and his­tor­i­cal con­tex­tu­al­iza­tion of Thom­son’s work in Asia.

Thom­son’s pho­tographs, writes Hock­ley, “fall into two broad cat­e­gories: scenic views and types. Views encom­passed both nat­ur­al land­scapes and built envi­ron­ments. They could be panoram­ic, tak­ing in large swaths of scenery, or they might high­light spe­cif­ic nat­ur­al phe­nom­e­na or indi­vid­ual struc­tures.”

Types “focused on the man­ners and cus­toms of Chi­nese peo­ple and tend­ed to high­light the defin­ing fea­tures of gen­der, age, class, eth­nic­i­ty, and occu­pa­tion.” A cen­tu­ry and a half lat­er, both Thom­son’s views and types have giv­en schol­ars in a vari­ety of dis­ci­plines much to dis­cuss.

“It is clear from his com­men­tary to Illus­tra­tions of Chi­na that, how­ev­er sym­pa­thet­ic he was towards Chi­nese peo­ple, he could often be supe­ri­or and high-hand­ed,” writes Andrew Hiller at Visu­al­iz­ing Chi­na. “If Thom­son nev­er sought to ques­tion the valid­i­ty of Britain’s pres­ence, his atti­tude towards Chi­na was ambiva­lent. Whilst crit­i­cal of what he saw as the cor­rup­tion and obfus­ca­tion of Qing offi­cials, he nev­er­the­less could see the country’s poten­tial.”

Thom­son also helped oth­ers to see that poten­tial — or at least those who could afford to buy his books, whose prices matched the qual­i­ty of their pro­duc­tion. But today, thanks to online archives like His­tor­i­cal Pho­tographs of Chi­na and Well­come Col­lec­tion, they’re free for every­one to behold. Chi­na itself has become much more acces­si­ble since Thom­son’s day, of course, but it’s famous­ly a much dif­fer­ent place than it was 25 years ago, let alone 150 years ago. The land through which he trav­eled — and of which he took so many of the very ear­li­est pho­tographs — is now infi­nite­ly less acces­si­ble to us than it ever was to his fel­low West­ern­ers of the 19th cen­tu­ry.

Hear a lec­ture on Thom­son’s pho­tog­ra­phy in Chi­na from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Lon­don here.

via Flash­bak

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Col­or­ful Wood Block Prints from the Chi­nese Rev­o­lu­tion of 1911: A Gallery of Artis­tic Pro­pa­gan­da Posters

The World’s Old­est Mul­ti­col­or Book, a 1633 Chi­nese Cal­lig­ra­phy & Paint­ing Man­u­al, Now Dig­i­tized and Put Online

Hand-Col­ored Pho­tographs from 19th Cen­tu­ry Japan: 110 Images Cap­ture the Wan­ing Days of Tra­di­tion­al Japan­ese Soci­ety

How Vivid­ly Col­orized Pho­tos Helped Intro­duce Japan to the World in the 19th Cen­tu­ry

1850s Japan Comes to Life in 3D, Col­or Pho­tos: See the Stereo­scop­ic Pho­tog­ra­phy of T. Ena­mi

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities, the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 2 ) |

Japanese Guided Tours of the Louvre, Versailles, the Marais & Other Famous French Places (English Subtitles Included)

in Art, Travel | October 1st, 2021

“As tourist sea­son here in Paris winds to a close and the air once again becomes crisp, fresh, and new,” writes The Atlantic’s Chelsea Fagan, “we must unfor­tu­nate­ly acknowl­edge that it does not end with­out a few casu­al­ties.” That piece was pub­lished at this time of year, albeit a decade ago, when “tourist sea­son” any­where had a bit more bus­tle. But the world­wide down­turn in trav­el has­n’t done away with the object of her con­cern: Paris Syn­drome, “a col­lec­tion of phys­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal symp­toms expe­ri­enced by first-time vis­i­tors real­iz­ing that Paris isn’t, in fact, what they thought it would be.” This dis­or­der, one often hears, is espe­cial­ly preva­lent among the Japan­ese.

Japan, writes Fagan, is rich with por­tray­als of the French cap­i­tal as a city “filled with thin, gor­geous, unbe­liev­ably rich cit­i­zens. The three stops of a Parisian’s day, accord­ing to the Japan­ese media, are a cafe, the Eif­fel Tow­er, and Louis Vuit­ton.” To some­one who knows it only through such images, a con­fronta­tion with the real Paris — with its ser­vice-indus­try work­ers who treat tourists “like some­thing they recent­ly scraped from the bot­tom of their shoes” to its sub­way cars “filled with grop­ing cou­ples, scream­ing chil­dren, and unimag­in­ably loud accor­dion music” — can trig­ger “acute delu­sions, hal­lu­ci­na­tions, dizzi­ness, sweat­ing, and feel­ings of per­se­cu­tion.”

Not all Japan­ese vis­i­tors to Paris, of course, come down with Paris Syn­drome. Some plunge into an even more over­whelm­ing con­di­tion of love for the City of Light, as might well have been the case with the Youtu­ber France Guide Naka­mu­ra. “I stud­ied art his­to­ry at a uni­ver­si­ty in France and was amazed at how inter­est­ing it was,” he writes on his about page. “When you study art, there is a moment of rev­e­la­tion! Some­thing that was not vis­i­ble until now sud­den­ly appears. It is the ‘plea­sure’ of ‘know­ing’ and ‘under­stand­ing.’ I think this is the ‘core’ of tourism.” It is on that basis that he cre­ates videos like the hour-long Lou­vre tour above, a smooth first-per­son walk through the world’s most famous muse­um that he nar­rates with a high degree of artic­u­la­cy, knowl­edge, and enthu­si­asm.

Expe­ri­enced in lead­ing tours for his coun­try­men, he describes all his videos in his native Japan­ese. But in the case of his Lou­vre tour, you can turn on Eng­lish sub­ti­tles by click­ing the CC but­ton in the tool­bar at the bot­tom of the video. His oth­er pop­u­lar Eng­lish-sub­ti­tled videos include walks through Mont­martre, Marais, and the Latin Quar­ter, as well as cer­tain excur­sions out­side of Paris, such as this vis­it to Ver­sailles. If you do speak Japan­ese, you’ll also be able to enjoy Naka­mu­ra’s many pre­vi­ous videos dig­ging into the nature, his­to­ry, and cul­tur­al con­text of oth­er things French, from neigh­bor­hoods to works of art to con­ve­nience stores, but not, as yet, the Eif­fel Tow­er — or for that mat­ter, Louis Vuit­ton.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Take a Long Vir­tu­al Tour of the Lou­vre in Three High-Def­i­n­i­tion Videos

The Louvre’s Entire Col­lec­tion Goes Online: View and Down­load 480,00 Works of Art

Take Immer­sive Vir­tu­al Tours of the World’s Great Muse­ums: The Lou­vre, Her­mitage, Van Gogh Muse­um & Much More

Hear the First Japan­ese Vis­i­tor to the Unit­ed States & Europe Describe Life in the West (1860–1862)

Down­load Vin­cent van Gogh’s Col­lec­tion of 500 Japan­ese Prints, Which Inspired Him to Cre­ate “the Art of the Future”

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities, the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

Watch Anthony Bourdain’s First Food-and-Travel Series A Cook’s Tour Free Online (2002–03)

in Food & Drink, Television, Travel | August 24th, 2021

At the time of his death in 2018, Antho­ny Bour­dain was quite pos­si­bly the most famous cook in the world. With­out ques­tion he held the title of the most famous cook-trav­el­er, a sta­tus rest­ing pri­mar­i­ly on No Reser­va­tions and Parts Unknown, the tele­vi­sion shows he host­ed on the Trav­el Chanel and CNN, respec­tive­ly. But it all began with A Cook’s Tour, which the Food Net­work orig­i­nal­ly broad­cast in 2002 and 2003. That series, Bour­dain’s very first, took him from Japan to Moroc­co to Mex­i­co to Aus­tralia to Thai­land — and through many points in between — in search of the world’s most stim­u­lat­ing eat­ing expe­ri­ences.

Now A Cook’s Tour has come avail­able free to watch on Youtube, thanks to the stream­ing chan­nel GoTrav­el­er (who also offer the show through their own ser­vice).

A Por­tuguese slaugh­ter­ing-and-roast­ing par­ty; vod­ka-fueled ice fish­ing in St. Peters­burg; an explo­ration of the Amer­i­can “Bar­be­cue Tri­an­gle” con­sti­tut­ed by Kansas City, Hous­ton, and North Car­oli­na; and a best-faith effort to lose him­self in Chi­ang Mai: if you caught these or oth­er of Bour­dain’s ear­ly inter­na­tion­al culi­nary adven­tures those near­ly twen­ty years ago, you can relive them, and if you missed out, you can enjoy them for the first time.

Dur­ing the launch phase of his rise to fame (after decades of restau­rant work and years of writ­ing, an effort that first pro­duced a cou­ple of food-themed mur­der-mys­tery nov­els), Bour­dain man­aged to tap into a new wave of gas­tro­nom­ic inter­est then ris­ing in Amer­i­ca. He did so with a street-smart sense of humor that appealed even to view­ers with no par­tic­u­lar invest­ment in the world of cook­ing and din­ing, as long as they had an inter­est in the world itself. With A Cook’s Tour, he took food tele­vi­sion out of the kitchen — way out of the kitchen — and over the eigh­teen years since its con­clu­sion, the series’ influ­ence has become so per­va­sive as almost to be invis­i­ble. Antho­ny Bour­dain may be gone, but parts of his per­son­al­i­ty live on in every high-pro­file trav­el­er out there cook­ing, eat­ing, and get­ting lost today.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch Antho­ny Bourdain’s Free Show Raw Craft, Where He Vis­its Crafts­men Mak­ing Gui­tars, Tat­toos, Motor­cy­cles & More (RIP)

Antho­ny Bour­dain Talks About the Big Break That Changed His Life — at Age 44

Life Lessons from Antho­ny Bour­dain: How He Devel­oped His Iron Pro­fes­sion­al­ism, Achieved Cre­ative Free­dom & Learned from Fail­ure

Al Jazeera Trav­el Show Explores World Cities Through Their Street Food

Watch 26 Free Episodes of Jacques Pépin’s TV Show, More Fast Food My Way

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities, the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

« Go Back — More in this category... »
Quantcast