The Pale King: How the Book Came Together (and How to Download the Novel in Audio)

in Books, Literature, Video - Arts & Culture | April 18th, 2011

When David Fos­ter Wal­lace com­mit­ted sui­cide in Sep­tem­ber 2008, he left behind the man­u­script for The Pale King, an unfin­ished nov­el he start­ed research­ing back in 1997, not long after the pub­li­ca­tion of Infi­nite Jest. The Pale King was final­ly pub­lished this past Fri­day (April 15), a date that was hard­ly arbi­trary. Offer­ing a lengthy med­i­ta­tion on bore­dom, The Pale King is set in a Mid­west­ern I.R.S. office. And what was April 15th? The day when Amer­i­cans tra­di­tion­al­ly file their tax­es (although they have until the 18th this year).

The posthu­mous nov­el came togeth­er with the help of Wal­lace’s long­time edi­tor, Michael Pietsch, who spent two years work­ing through heaps of pages left in bins, draw­ers and wire bas­kets, hop­ing to turn this mass of mate­r­i­al into the most com­plete nov­el pos­si­ble. The inter­view with Pietsch above, along with this short piece in The New York Times, brings you inside the editing/making of The Pale King, which has already received some favor­able reviews.

If you’re look­ing to get your hands on the book, give this some thought: If you reg­is­ter for a 14-day free tri­al with Audible.com, you can down­load pret­ty much any audio book in Audi­ble’s cat­a­logue for free. And that cat­a­logue now includes The Pale King. Once the tri­al is over, you can con­tin­ue your Audi­ble sub­scrip­tion (as I did), or can­cel it, and still keep the free book. The choice is yours…

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Historic Spain in Time Lapse Film

in History, Video - Arts & Culture | April 13th, 2011

Cen­tral Spain – The Goths, Romans, and Moors left their mark on the region. Don Qui­jote fought against the wind­mills here, and El Gre­co, Velasquez and Fran­cis­co de Goya made their homes in this his­tor­i­cal­ly and cul­tur­al­ly rich region. Now, a tourist, armed with a Nikon D90, brings that his­to­ry to life with two quick min­utes of time lapse film…

via Holykaw

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Poems as Short Films: Langston Hughes, Pablo Neruda and More

in Film, Poetry, Video - Arts & Culture | April 13th, 2011

A few years ago, the genius­es over at Four Sea­sons Pro­duc­tions began shoot­ing evoca­tive short films set to clas­sic poet­ry. 21 fin­ished pieces, a long list of fes­ti­val prizes and a full DVD lat­er, many of their best “poem videos” are now avail­able to watch for free on their YouTube chan­nel.

These short pieces cap­ture the mood, rhythms and mean­ing of a wide range of poet­ic voic­es and styles in imag­i­na­tive ways. Our favorite is the above inter­pre­ta­tion of Langston Hugh­es’ “The Weary Blues,” but there are sev­er­al oth­er excep­tion­al shorts, includ­ing “Only Breath” by the great 13th cen­tu­ry sufi poet Jalal ad-Din Rumi and “100 Love Son­nets IX” by Pablo Neru­da. Note: The Neru­da poems are read in the orig­i­nal Span­ish.

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

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Farewell Sidney Lumet, 1924–2011

in Film, Video - Arts & Culture | April 9th, 2011

The clip above fea­tures Peter Finch’s explo­sive “mad as hell” speech from Sid­ney Lumet’s Net­work (1976). It is as rel­e­vant today as it was 35 years ago, if not more so — just like its direc­tor.

In this this recent inter­view, Mr. Lumet, who also brought us such clas­sics as 12 Angry Men, Ser­pi­co, The Ver­dict, and Dog Day After­noon, speaks about his lega­cy, his career, and the city that was the set­ting for so many of his great films. He died yes­ter­day of lym­phoma at his home in Man­hat­tan.

via NYT

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

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Everything Is Rhythm

in Film, Life, Music, Video - Arts & Culture | April 6th, 2011

“Foli” is the word used for rhythm by the Malinke tribe in West Africa. But Foli is not only found in Malinke music, but in all parts of their dai­ly lives. Direct­ed by Thomas Roe­bers, this short film por­trays the peo­ple of Baro, a small town in east­ern-cen­tral Guinea, and gives you a glimpse inside their cul­ture of rhythm. As the Malinke man says, “Tous les choses, c’est du rythme.” (“Every­thing is rhythm.”) What makes this film even more beau­ti­ful is the fact that it was edit­ed so as to reflect Malinke rhythms.

By pro­fes­sion, Matthias Rasch­er teach­es Eng­lish and His­to­ry at a High School in north­ern Bavaria, Ger­many. In his free time he scours the web for good links and posts the best finds on Twit­ter.

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The Ramones Live in 1978: 26 Songs in 54 Minutes

in Music, Video - Arts & Culture | April 4th, 2011

Princes of New York punk, kings of CBG­B’s (take vir­tu­al tour here), and the only Amer­i­cans, then or now, who could pull off skin­ny jeans with impuni­ty, The Ramones were mas­ters of the short and sweet.  Here’s a record­ing of  a live 1978 set at the Pal­la­di­um in New York City: 26 songs, 54 min­utes, all set to clips from old sci-fi movies.

via NPR

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

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More than 20 Years Before “Lost” — “The New People”

in Television, Video - Arts & Culture | April 1st, 2011

There was a good deal of time-trav­el in the ABC hit series Lost, one of the more ambi­tious and pop­u­lar shows of the past decade. But nei­ther Jack, Sawyer, Hur­ley, nor any of our oth­er beloved 21st cen­tu­ry cast­aways ever went back to the year 1969. If they had, and if they’d had access to a TV, they might have found them­selves watch­ing a show about — them­selves.

Well, sort of. The New Peo­ple ran on Fri­day nights on ABC from Sep­tem­ber 1969 through Jan­u­ary 1970 (It last­ed only 17 episodes). We’ll take a shot at sum­ma­riz­ing the gen­er­al premise, which might ring a cou­ple of bells:

A plane crash­es on a remote island in the Pacif­ic, leav­ing its mot­ley group of sur­vivors strand­ed and fight­ing about what to do next.… As they explore their new home, they find an entire town, ful­ly stocked with pro­vi­sions and weapons, but creep­i­ly emp­ty. Soon the sur­vivors dis­cov­er that this island was once set up .…to be an Atom­ic Ener­gy Com­mis­sion test­ing site!

No Lost fan can live with­out a con­spir­a­cy the­o­ry, but we’re pret­ty sure there was noth­ing fishy in the com­mon­al­i­ties, and in the end, are we not all chil­dren of Gilli­gan? Fur­ther­more, there’s a good deal more to the plot, which includes racial con­flict, ado­les­cent angst (the sur­vivors are all col­lege stu­dents), and a healthy dose of Lord of the Flies-style chaos. Full episodes are not online, but at TVob­scu­ri­ties you can find a wealth of relat­ed con­tent, clips, links to reviews, and even the theme song, with lyrics.

Also, be sure to check out the episode guide, which real­ly does intrigue. Num­ber 12, for exam­ple:

The Pied Piper of Pot. Step­pen­wolf  thinks his fel­low islanders are too uptight, so he grows potent mar­i­jua­na that threat­ens to send the stu­dents into a har­row­ing, one-way trip.

The New Peo­ple was pro­duced by Aaron Spelling, who went on to bring us Char­lie’s Angels, The Love Boat, Hart to Hart, and Bev­er­ly Hills 90210, among many, many oth­ers. But we’re not sure if he ever did come up with anoth­er char­ac­ter as com­pelling as Step­pen­wolf.

(Thanks to Bryan Thomas)

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.


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Father and Daughter: An Oscar-Winning Animated Short Film

in Film, Video - Arts & Culture | March 31st, 2011

Dear Daniel B.,

Thank you for bring­ing the 2000 Michaël Dudok De Wit short, Father and Daugh­ter, to our atten­tion. We always appre­ci­ate read­er sug­ges­tions.

We must take issue, how­ev­er, with your warn­ing: “Be advised, it will indeed break your heart.” At Open Cul­ture we  approach the arts with a dis­cern­ing, engaged and unsen­ti­men­tal eye — our heart does not break, it blogs.

It will there­fore take much more than an 8‑minute car­toon, no mat­ter how art­ful­ly ren­dered, under­stat­ed, crit­i­cal­ly laud­ed, or Dutch, to move us. Please keep this in mind for the future.

All best,

Open Cul­ture.

P.S. OK, fine you win. This post was typed from the floor, drown­ing in the pud­dle we’d been reduced to by the 6 minute mark. And yes, bawl­ing like babies.

P.P.S. Per your sug­ges­tion, we’ve added it to our col­lec­tion, 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More. Thanks again.

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

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Open Culture was founded by Dan Colman.