Superstar Violinist Nigel Kennedy Reinvents Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple Haze”: Watch Two Dynamic Performances

in Music | September 21st, 2021

Vio­lin­ists don’t often make the news these days, but when one does, you can be rea­son­ably assured either that a musi­cal con­tro­ver­sy is afoot, or that the vio­lin­ist in ques­tion is Nigel Kennedy. This time, both of those are the case: Kennedy, as The Guardian’s Dalya Alberge reports, “has pulled out of a con­cert at the Roy­al Albert Hall with only days to go after accus­ing the radio sta­tion Clas­sic FM of pre­vent­ing him from per­form­ing a Jimi Hen­drix trib­ute.” At issue is his intent to per­form a ver­sion of Hen­drix’s “Lit­tle Wing,” but even with its “Celtic-sound­ing melody,” that com­po­si­tion was ulti­mate­ly deemed “not suit­able” for the audi­ence.

It seems that Clas­sic FM’s man­age­ment would have pre­ferred Vivaldi’s Four Sea­sons, of which Kennedy record­ed the world’s best-sell­ing ver­sion in 1989. That a clas­si­cal radio sta­tion famous for con­cen­trat­ing its pro­gram­ming on the “hits” and a clas­si­cal per­former famous for delib­er­ate­ly unortho­dox musi­cal turns would fail to see eye-to-eye should not, per­haps, come as a sur­prise.

But then, Kennedy has long dis­played a keen instinct for pub­lic­i­ty and a ten­den­cy to — well, one would say épa­ter les bour­geois, were Hen­drix not now regard­ed as so thor­ough­ly respectable in his own right. As Kennedy sees it, he was “one of the fore­most com­posers of the 20th cen­tu­ry, along with Stravin­sky and Duke Elling­ton.”

The gui­tarist’s exalt­ed sta­tus rests, Kennedy argues, on his hav­ing “brought all types of music togeth­er.” Even in a song like “Pur­ple Haze” — which you can see Kennedy rein­ter­pret with the Pol­ish Cham­ber Orches­tra in 2005, and again at the 2015 Thanks Jim Fes­ti­val in Wro­claw — musi­col­o­gists hear traces of both the Amer­i­can blues and the Mixoly­di­an mode, along with such uncon­ven­tion­al-for-1967 touch­es as the dimin­ished-fifth melod­ic inter­val, long known as the “dia­bo­lus in musi­ca” and the E7♯9 chord, now known as the “Hen­drix chord.” Much of the song only uses two oth­er chords, mak­ing “Pur­ple Haze” the rare three-chord, under-three-minute rock hit that con­tains more than enough sub­stance to inspire an uncon­ven­tion­al­ly mind­ed clas­si­cal musi­cian. But then, try telling that to a pro­gram direc­tor.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hear Lost Record­ing of Pink Floyd Play­ing with Jazz Vio­lin­ist Stéphane Grap­pel­li on “Wish You Were Here”

Japan­ese Vio­lin­ist Cov­ers Eddie Van Halen’s “Erup­tion”: Met­al Meets Clas­si­cal Again

Watch Jimi Hendrix’s “Voodoo Chile” Per­formed on a Gayageum, a Tra­di­tion­al Kore­an Instru­ment

Jimi Hendrix’s “Voodoo Child” Shred­ded on the Ukulele

How Sci­ence Fic­tion Formed Jimi Hen­drix

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.

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Explore Thousands of Free Vintage Cocktail Recipes Online (1705–1951)

in Food & Drink, History, Museums | September 21st, 2021

Where do the hip­ster mixol­o­gists of Tokyo, Mex­i­co City and Brook­lyn take their inspi­ra­tion?

If not from the Expo­si­tion Uni­verselle des Vins et Spir­itueux’ free col­lec­tion of dig­i­tized vin­tage cock­tail recipe books, per­haps they should start.

An ini­tia­tive of the Muse­um of Wine and Spir­its on the Ile de Ben­dor in South­east­ern France, the col­lec­tion is a boon to any­one with an inter­est in cock­tail cul­ture …dit­to design, illus­tra­tion, evolv­ing social mores…

1928’s Chee­rio, a Book of Punch­es and Cock­tails was writ­ten by Charles, for­mer­ly of Delmonico’s, tout­ed in the intro­duc­to­ry note as “one who has served drinks to Princes, Mag­nates and Sen­a­tors of many nations”. No doubt dis­cre­tion pre­vent­ed him from pub­lish­ing his sur­name.

Charles appar­ent­ly abid­ed by the the­o­ry that it’s five o’clock some­where, with drinks geared to var­i­ous times of day, from the moment you “stag­ger out of bed, grog­gy, grouchy and cross-tem­pered” (try a Charleston Brac­er or a Brandy Port Nog) to the mid­night hour when “insom­nia, bad dreams, dis­il­lu­sion­ment and despair” call for such reme­dies as a Cholera Cock­tail or an Egg Whiskey Fizz.

As not­ed on the cov­er, there’s a sec­tion devot­ed to favorite recipes of celebri­ties. These big­wigs’ names will like­ly mean noth­ing to you near­ly one hun­dred years lat­er, but their first per­son rem­i­nis­cences bring them roar­ing back to the­atri­cal, boozy life.

Here’s cel­e­brat­ed vaude­vil­lian Trix­ie Frig­an­za:

In that nau­ti­cal city of Venice, I first made the acquain­tance of a remark­ably deli­cious drink known as ‘Port and Star­board’. Pour one half part Grena­dine or rasp­ber­ry syrup in a cor­dial glass. Then on top of this pour one half por­tion of Creme de Men­the slow­ly so that the ingre­di­ents will not mix. Dear old Venice. 

Indeed.

Pre­sum­ably any cock­tail recipe in the EUVS’s vast col­lec­tion could be adapt­ed as a mock­tail, but Charles gives a delib­er­ate nod to Pro­hi­bi­tion with a sec­tion on alco­hol-free (and extreme­ly easy to pre­pare) Tem­per­ance Drinks.

Don’t expect a Shirley Tem­ple — the triple threat child star was but an infant when Chee­rio was pub­lished. Expand your options with a Sarato­ga Cool­er or an Oggle Nog­gle instead.

Before attempt­ing to recite the poem that opens 1949’s Bot­toms Up: A Guide to Pleas­ant Drink­ing, you may want to slam a cou­ple of Depth Bombs Cock­tails or a Mer­ry Wid­ow Cock­tail No. 1.

In an abstemious con­di­tion, there’s no way this dit­ty can be made to scan…or rhyme:

The Advent of the Cock­tail

A lone­ly, aban­doned jig­ger of gin
Sat on a table top. “Alas”, cried he,
“Who will join me?” And he tried a friend­ly grin.
Came a pret­ty youth, Mam’selle Ver­mouth,
Who was bored with just being winey.
Said she to Sir Gin: “You’d be ever so nice
With Olive and Ice. And so they were Mar­ti­ni.

The cock­tail recipes are sol­id, through­out, how­ev­er, as one might expect from a book that dou­bled as an ad for spon­sor First Avenue Wine and Liquor Cor­po­ra­tion — “for Liquor…Quicker.”

We’ve yet to try any­thing from the “wines in cook­ery” sec­tion — but sus­pect that stur­dy fare like Pota­to Soup and Baked Beans could help sop up some of the alco­hol, even if con­tains some hair of the dog…

Shak­ing in the 60’s author Eddie Clark’s pre­vi­ous titles include Shak­ing with Eddie, Shake Again with Eddie and 1954’s Prac­ti­cal Bar Man­age­ment. 

Clark, who served as head bar­tender at London’s Savoy Hotel, Berke­ley Hotel and Albany Club, gets in the swing­ing 60s spir­it, by ded­i­cat­ing this work to “all imbib­ing lovers.”

William S. McCall’s decid­ed­ly boozy illus­tra­tions of ele­phants, anthro­po­mor­phized cock­tail glass­es and scant­i­ly clad ladies con­tribute to the fes­tive atmos­phere, though you prob­a­bly won’t be sur­prise to learn that some of them have not aged well.

Shak­ing in the 60’s boasts dozens of straight for­ward cock­tail recipes (the Beat­nik the Bun­ny Hug and the Mon­key Hugall fea­ture Pern­od), a sur­pris­ing­ly seri­ous-mind­ed sec­tion on wine, and a cou­ple of pages devot­ed to non-alco­holic drinks.

If your child turns up their nose at Clark’s Remain Sober, serve ‘em an Alber­mar­le Pussy­cat.

Clark also draws on his pro­fes­sion­al exper­tise to help home bar­tenders get a grip on mea­sure­ment con­ver­sions, sup­ply lists, and toasts.

So con­fi­dent is he in his abil­i­ty to help read­ers throw a tru­ly mem­o­rable par­ty, he includes a dishy par­ty log, that prob­a­bly should be kept under lock and key after it’s been filled out. We imag­ine it would pair well with the Morn­ing Mashie, anoth­er Pern­od-based con­coc­tion ded­i­cat­ed to “all those enter­ing the hang­over class.”

Delve into the Expo­si­tion Uni­verselle des Vins et Spir­itueux’ free col­lec­tion of dig­i­tized vin­tage cock­tail recipe books from the 1820s through the 1960s here.

via Messy Nessy

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

A Dig­i­tal Library for Bar­tenders: Vin­tage Cock­tail Books with Recipes Dat­ing Back to 1753

A New Dig­i­tized Menu Col­lec­tion Lets You Revis­it the Cui­sine from the “Gold­en Age of Rail­road Din­ing”

An Archive of 3,000 Vin­tage Cook­books Lets You Trav­el Back Through Culi­nary Time

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

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Why Do People Hate Modern Architecture?: A Video Essay

in Architecture | September 21st, 2021

This month brought the 20th anniver­sary of Sep­tem­ber 11, 2001, which prompt­ed peo­ple around the world to remem­ber all that was lost on that day. The fall­en Twin Tow­ers of Minoru Yamasak­i’s World Trade Cen­ter have only gained sym­bol­ic res­o­nance over the past two decades, despite hav­ing been unloved when they still stood. “They often appeared to New York­ers like a pair of mid­dle fin­gers — to good devel­op­ment, to good eco­nom­ics, to good taste,” writes Gothamist’s Hen­ry Stew­art. “They brought all, high and low, rich and poor, togeth­er to hate.” Some crit­ics of the World Trade Cen­ter made com­plaints root­ed in pol­i­tics, finance, and urban design; most just did­n’t like how the thing looked.

For 28 years, what the World Trade Cen­ter in gen­er­al and its Twin Tow­ers in par­tic­u­lar sym­bol­ized was all that the Amer­i­can pub­lic detest­ed about what it thought of as the out­landish scale, aes­thet­ic drea­ri­ness, and sheer inhu­man­i­ty of “mod­ern archi­tec­ture.” But as Bet­ty Chen of ARTic­u­la­tions points out in the video above, there’s mod­ern archi­tec­ture, and then there’s Mod­ern Archi­tec­ture.

“A tru­ly Mod­ernist design,” she says, “adheres to a strict set of for­mal rules that upholds Mod­ernism’s fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ple: form fol­lows func­tion.” Such Mod­ernists as Wal­ter Gropius, Lud­wig Mies van der Rohe, and Le Cor­busier sub­scribed to the notion that “archi­tec­tur­al design should be dis­as­so­ci­at­ed from his­toric ref­er­ence, be free of unnec­es­sary orna­men­ta­tion, and be sim­pli­fied to the essen­tials of func­tion.”

As ver­sions of these prin­ci­ples for rebuild­ing a new post­war civ­i­liza­tion — vul­gar­ized ver­sions, some might say — caught on in the mid­dle of the 20th cen­tu­ry, cities around the world set enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly about putting up “emp­ty box­es of noth­ing­ness.” Or so argued Mod­ern Archi­tec­ture’s detrac­tors, who gained the cul­tur­al upper hand short­ly there­after. “If the first half of the 20th cen­tu­ry is con­sid­ered to be the age of Mod­ern Archi­tec­ture,” says Chen, “then the lat­ter half of the cen­tu­ry can be defined by a con­tin­u­al, unre­lent­ing assault on Mod­ern Archi­tec­ture.” That assault includ­ed the demo­li­tion of anoth­er of Yamasak­i’s mid-cen­tu­ry projects, the Pruitt-Igoe hous­ing com­plex, which began on March 16, 1972. Though car­ried out with­out mur­der­ous intent, it did involve a notable death: the death, as archi­tect Charles Jencks famous­ly declared, of archi­tec­tur­al Mod­ernism itself.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Every­thing You Ever Want­ed to Know About the Beau­ty of Bru­tal­ist Archi­tec­ture: An Intro­duc­tion in Six Videos

The World Accord­ing to Le Cor­busier: An Ani­mat­ed Intro­duc­tion to the Most Mod­ern of All Archi­tects

How the Rad­i­cal Build­ings of the Bauhaus Rev­o­lu­tion­ized Archi­tec­ture: A Short Intro­duc­tion

A Quick Ani­mat­ed Tour of Icon­ic Mod­ernist Hous­es

Watch 50+ Doc­u­men­taries on Famous Archi­tects & Build­ings: Bauhaus, Le Cor­busier, Hadid & Many More

1,300 Pho­tos of Famous Mod­ern Amer­i­can Homes Now Online, Cour­tesy of USC

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.

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Cartoonist Lynda Barry Teaches You How to Make a Visual Daily Diary

in Comics/Cartoons, Creativity, How to Learn for Free | September 20th, 2021

Car­toon­ist and edu­ca­tor Lyn­da Barry is a favorite here at Open Cul­ture.

We’re always excit­ed to share exer­cis­es from her books and intel on her class­es at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wis­con­sin, but noth­ing beats the warmth and humor of her live instruc­tion… even when it’s deliv­ered vir­tu­al­ly.

Last week, she took to Insta­gram to inform the four­teen lucky U of W stu­dents enrolled in her fall Mak­ing Comics class to pre­pare for a new way of keep­ing their required dai­ly diaries, using a tech­nique she calls “sis­ter images.”

Those of us at home can play along, above.

Grab a com­po­si­tion book, or two blank sheets of paper, and a black felt tip pen. (Even­tu­al­ly you’ll need a timer, but not today.)

Rather than describe the ten-minute writ­ing and draw­ing exer­cise in advance, we encour­age you to jump right in, con­fi­dent that teacher Bar­ry would approve.

There are plen­ty of resources out there for those who want to learn how to out­line, script, and sto­ry­board comics.

Bar­ry aims to tap a deep­er vein of cre­ativ­i­ty with exer­cis­es that help stu­dents embrace the unknown.

The sis­ter diary’s pur­pose, she says, is to “let our hands lead the way in terms of fig­ur­ing out our sto­ries.”

Whether or not you seek to make comics, it’s an engag­ing way to doc­u­ment your life. You can also imple­ment the sis­ter diary tech­nique for dis­cov­er­ing more about char­ac­ters in your fic­tion­al work.

You’ll also pick up some bonus tips on draw­ing back­grounds, using all caps, allot­ting enough space with­in a pan­el for full body ren­der­ings, and stay­ing in the moment should you find your­self at a tem­po­rary loss.


Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Watch Car­toon­ist Lyn­da Barry’s Two-Hour Draw­ing Work­shop

Car­toon­ist Lyn­da Bar­ry Teach­es You How to Draw

Take a Road Trip Across Amer­i­ca with Car­toon­ist Lyn­da Bar­ry in the 90s Doc­u­men­tary, Grandma’s Way Out Par­ty

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

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The Recording Secrets of Nirvana’s Nevermind Revealed by Producer Butch Vig

in Music | September 20th, 2021

Peo­ple fig­ured out that I’d tapped into some­thing in mak­ing that record; a lot of labels came call­ing because they want­ed to see if I could bring that mag­ic to what­ev­er artists they had. But I found it sor­ta annoy­ing in some ways, because peo­ple thought I had a for­mu­la, that I could take a folk artist or a blues gui­tarist and make them sound like Nir­vana.

The pop cul­tur­al phe­nom­e­non of Nirvana’s Nev­er­mind caught every­one involved by sur­prise — from the band, to the label, to Butch Vig, just then mak­ing a name for him­self as a 90s alt-rock super­pro­duc­er by releas­ing Nev­er­mind and Smash­ing Pumpkin’s Gish the same year and help­ing define the sound of gui­tar rock for the 90s. “It was per­fect tim­ing com­ing out when there was a shift in music and it felt like a rev­o­lu­tion,” Vig tells Spin. “Despite being a great record, it would not have the same cul­tur­al impact” if it were released today.

Vig offers a few rea­sons why it’s dif­fi­cult for an album to have the same influ­ence. “Every­thing is so instant that it’s hard to build up some mys­tique. When you real­ly want some­thing but can’t quite get your hands on it, that makes it all the more pow­er­ful.”

Fans could even­tu­al­ly get their hands on the album with­out much trou­ble in 1991. (Gef­fen orig­i­nal­ly shipped only 46,521 copies in the U.S. in antic­i­pa­tion of low sales); but they couldn’t get enough of Kurt Cobain, who became a com­mod­i­ty before social media turned every­one into an aspir­ing com­mod­i­ty, a role con­tem­po­rary stars like Bil­lie Eil­ish now talk about open­ly in terms of the toll it takes on men­tal health.

Revis­it­ing Nev­er­mind on its 30th anniver­sary offers an occa­sion to dis­cuss what made the album, the band, and Cobain so major­ly appeal­ing at the time. It also gives us a chance to talk about what hap­pens when media com­pa­nies and record labels seize on a unique event and dri­ve it right into the ground. These are worth­while dis­cus­sions, but if we’re talk­ing to Butch Vig — super­pro­duc­er and founder and drum­mer of 90s jug­ger­naut Garbage — our time is bet­ter spent ask­ing the ques­tion he’s best poised to answer: what, exact­ly, made Nev­er­mind such a great album? What did Vig hear behind the mix­ing desk that has so cap­ti­vat­ed lis­ten­ers for 30 years?

In the videos here, you can see Vig — with com­men­tary from sur­viv­ing Nir­vana mem­bers Krist Novosel­ic and Dave Grohl — demon­strate how sev­er­al tracks came togeth­er, and how he enhanced and expand­ed the sound of the trio with­out need­ing to do much to make them sound absolute­ly huge. As he tells Ker­rang in a recent inter­view, when the band first hired him:

A cou­ple days lat­er, a cas­sette showed up in the mail, with a hand­writ­ten let­ter, and I put it on and heard Kurt going, ​‘Hey Butch, it’s Kurt, we’re excit­ed to come and rock out with you. We’re going to play a cou­ple of new songs, and we’ve got Dave Grohl, and he’s the great­est drum­mer in the world.’ And then I hear the gui­tar intro to …Teen Spir­it, and when Dave hit the drums, it just com­plete­ly destroyed every­thing.… I thought, “Wow these songs are great,” even though the record­ing qual­i­ty on that cas­sette was hor­ri­ble.

The mag­ic was always in the songs, whether cap­tured on a boom box or the stu­dio gear of Gef­fen records after the band left their indie label Sub Pop. (It’s worth lis­ten­ing to the Sub Pop founders tell their sto­ry on the How I Built This pod­cast.) Hear Vig talk about how he bot­tled it above, and see more of his Nev­er­mind mak­ing-of pro­duc­tion videos here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

How Nirvana’s Icon­ic “Smells Like Teen Spir­it” Came to Be: An Ani­mat­ed Video Nar­rat­ed by T‑Bone Bur­nett Tells the True Sto­ry

Watch Nir­vana Go Through Rehearsals for Their Famous MTV Unplugged Ses­sions: “Pol­ly,” “The Man Who Sold the World” & More (1993)

Nir­vana Refus­es to Fake It on Top of the Pops, Gives a Big “Mid­dle Fin­ger” to the Tra­di­tion of Bands Mim­ing on TV (1991)

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

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How England First Became England: An Animated History

in History | September 20th, 2021

Once you pay the Danegeld, you nev­er get rid of the Dane. So dis­cov­ered the rulers of the kings of the Anglo-Sax­on era, dur­ing which Eng­land became sub­ject to the threat of Viking inva­sions. It was­n’t, of course, the Eng­land we know today, but it was­n’t exact­ly not the Eng­land we know today either. The fact of the mat­ter, accord­ing to the ani­mat­ed Knowl­ed­gia video above, is that Eng­land did­n’t take its full form until 927 A.D.. In ten min­utes, it goes on to encap­su­late what hap­pened in the fore­go­ing cen­tu­ry and a half to make Eng­land as we know it a viable geo­graph­i­cal and polit­i­cal enti­ty — a process that was­n’t with­out its com­pli­ca­tions.

“As the Roman Empire began to fade from the British isles,” explains the video’s nar­ra­tor, “the area of mod­ern-day Eng­land start­ed to see a wave of migra­tion from Anglo-Sax­on Ger­man­ic tribes.” Then came attacks from the oth­er direc­tion, mount­ed by the Picts and Scots, whom the Ger­man­ic peo­ples even­tu­al­ly expelled — before tak­ing pow­er from the native Britons them­selves. After a few cen­turies of divi­sion into var­i­ous Anglo-Sax­on king­doms, along came the Vikings. By the year 875, only the king­dom of Wes­sex had­n’t been over­tak­en by the Danes. Its king, Alfred, start­ed the cus­tom of pay­ing them off before engag­ing and final­ly defeat­ing them in the Bat­tle of Eding­ton.

The fol­low­ing gen­er­a­tions of rulers of Wes­sex and the retak­en king­dom of Mer­cia pushed north, tak­ing back ter­ri­to­ry from the Danes a piece at at time. It was Æthel­stan, who ruled from 925 to 939, who final­ly made it all the way up through Northum­bria. “This is gen­er­al­ly the time that most his­to­ri­ans view the King­dom of Eng­land as hav­ing been cre­at­ed,” but Æthel­stan’s domain “was still not quite what we know as Eng­land today.” The king’s 937 inva­sion of Scot­land, cul­mi­nat­ing in his vic­to­ry in the Bat­tle of Brunan­burh, “may have tru­ly solid­i­fied the uni­ty of Eng­land, and stirred up a new sense of nation­al­ism and pride amongst the Eng­lish peo­ple.”

Not that the trou­bles end­ed there. After Æthel­stan’s death, the Vikings returned to do a bit of recon­quer­ing, sub­se­quent­ly un-recon­quered by the Eng­lish under Edmund. Lat­er came Eric Blood­axe of Nor­way, who made inroads into Eng­land as fear­some­ly as his name would sug­gest, only to lose his con­quered ter­ri­to­ries to the locals. The bloody con­flicts involved in all this did­n’t come to a pause until the reign of the apt­ly named Edgar the Peace­ful, which began in late 959. Under Edgar “the true foun­da­tions of the Eng­lish king­doms could final­ly be estab­lished,” and he passed many reforms — but made sure to uphold the Dan­ish law where it had been estab­lished. If recent his­to­ry had offered any les­son, it was that one should nev­er upset the Danes.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Entire His­to­ry of the British Isles Ani­mat­ed: 42,000 BCE to Today

Watch the Rise and Fall of the British Empire in an Ani­mat­ed Time-Lapse Map (519 A.D. to 2014 A.D.)

The Roman Roads of Britain Visu­al­ized as a Sub­way Map

The Evo­lu­tion of Lon­don: 2,000 Years of Change Ani­mat­ed in 7 Min­utes

The Dif­fer­ence Between the Unit­ed King­dom, Great Britain and Eng­land: A (Pre-Brex­it) Video Explains

The His­to­ry of the Eng­lish Lan­guage in Ten Ani­mat­ed Min­utes

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.

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How Technology Is Reshaping Democracy & Our Lives: A Stanford Course with Sal Khan, Thomas Friedman, Kara Swisher, Sasha Baron Cohen, Reid Hoffman & More

in Stanford, Technology | September 19th, 2021

This fall, Stan­ford Con­tin­u­ing Stud­ies presents 150+ cours­es in the Lib­er­al Arts & Sci­ences, Cre­ative Writ­ing, and Pro­fes­sion­al Devel­op­ment, includ­ing the new and time­ly course “Which Side of His­to­ry? How Tech­nol­o­gy Is Reshap­ing Democ­ra­cy and Our Lives.” Led by James Stey­er (CEO, Com­mon Sense Media), the course includes an exten­sive line-up of guest speak­ers and thought lead­ers. Hear from Hillary Clin­ton, Kara Swish­er, Sal Khan, Sasha Baron Cohen, Lau­rie San­tos, Reid Hoff­man, Ellen Pao, Thomas Fried­man, Jonathan Zit­train, Cory Book­er, Nicholas Kristof and more. Togeth­er they will explore key ques­tions: How do we pro­tect the pri­va­cy of con­sumers and stop data abus­es? How will we ensure the men­tal health and well-being of our soci­ety as we emerge from the pan­dem­ic? How can we hold tech plat­forms account­able for safe­guard­ing basic demo­c­ra­t­ic norms?

This live online course is open to any adult who wants to enroll. Although the Con­tin­u­ing Stud­ies cours­es aren’t free, they’re time­ly and bound to engage. Which Side of His­to­ry? How Tech­nol­o­gy Is Reshap­ing Democ­ra­cy and Our Lives starts Sep­tem­ber 27. Many oth­er online cours­es start the week of Sep­tem­ber 20. Explore the entire Stan­ford Con­tin­u­ing Stud­ies cat­a­logue here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties.

A Free Stan­ford Course on How to Teach Online: Watch the Lec­tures Online

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DIY Air Purifiers for Teachers: Free Designs & Step-by-Step Instructions Online

in Uncategorized | September 17th, 2021

If you’re a teacher return­ing to the class­room, you may want some extra COVID pro­tec­tion. Thank­ful­ly, some researchers and prac­ti­tion­ers have cre­at­ed “a design for an in-room air puri­fi­er which can remove a sig­nif­i­cant amount of COVID-19 virus from the air.”

“The design involves mak­ing a ‘box’ out of four 20” MERV-13 fil­ters (the ‘sides’ of the box), a 20″ box fan (the ‘top’ of the box), and a card­board (the ‘bot­tom’ of the box’). Air flows in through the fil­ter sides, remov­ing par­tic­u­lates of the sizes that can trans­port COVID-19 par­ti­cles, and then flows out through the fan at the top.” These devices can be built from parts avail­able at Home Depot, Wal­mart and oth­er big box stores, and assem­bled in about 30–60 min­utes. Total cost runs $70-$200. Find designs and a step-by-step instruc­tions here. And read more about the puri­fi­er at NPR.

Relat­ed Con­tent 

DEVO Is Now Sell­ing COVID-19 Per­son­al Pro­tec­tive Equip­ment: Ener­gy Dome Face Shields

Bill Nye Shows How Face Masks Actu­al­ly Pro­tect You–and Why You Should Wear Them

MIT Presents a Free Course on the COVID-19 Pan­dem­ic, Fea­tur­ing Antho­ny Fau­ci & Oth­er Experts

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What It’s Like to Actually Fight in Medieval Armor

in History, Sports | September 17th, 2021

Ever won­der what it was like to real­ly fight while wear­ing a full suit of armor? We’ve fea­tured a few his­tor­i­cal recon­struc­tions here on Open Cul­ture, includ­ing a demon­stra­tion of the var­i­ous ways com­bat­ants would van­quish their foe—includ­ing a sword right between the eyes. We’ve also shown you how long it took to cre­ate a suit of armor and the clever flex­i­bil­i­ty built into them. But real­ly, don’t we want to see what it would be like in a full melee? In the above Vice doc­u­men­tary, you can final­ly sate your blood­lust.

Not that any­one dies in the MMA-like sword-and-chain­mail brawls. In these pub­lic com­pe­ti­tions, the weapons are blunt­ed and con­tes­tants fight “not to the death, just until they fall over,” as the nar­ra­tor some­what sad­ly explains. It is just a legit sport as any oth­er fight­ing chal­lenge, and the injuries are real. There’s no fool­ing around with these peo­ple. They are seri­ous, and a nation’s hon­or is still at stake.

This mini-doc fol­lows the Amer­i­can team to the Inter­na­tion­al Medieval Com­bat Fed­er­a­tion World Cham­pi­onships in Mon­te­mor-o-Vel­ho in Por­tu­gal. What looks like a reg­u­lar Renais­sance faire is only the dec­o­ra­tions around the main, incred­i­bly vio­lent event. We see bat­tles with longswords, short axes, shields used offen­sive­ly and defen­sive­ly, and a lot of push­ing and shov­ing. Con­tes­tants go head-to-head, or five against five, or twelve against twelve.

Twen­ty-six coun­tries take part, and I have to say for all the jin­go­is­tic hoo-hah I try to ignore, the Amer­i­can team’s very nice­ly designed stars and stripes bat­tle gear looked pret­ty damn cool. The Vice team also dis­cov­er an inter­est­ing cast of char­ac­ters, like the Tex­an who wears his cow­boy hat when he’s not wear­ing his com­bat hel­met; the man who describes his fight­ing style as “nerd rage”; and the cou­ple on their hon­ey­moon who met while bru­tal­ly beat­ing each oth­er in an ear­li­er com­pe­ti­tion. (No, the knights here are not all men.).

There are injuries, sprains, bro­ken bones. There’s also the mad­ness of inhal­ing too much of your own CO2 inside the hel­met; and smelling the ozone when a spark of met­al-upon-met­al flies into the hel­met.

Thank­ful­ly nobody is fight­ing to the death or for King/Queen and Coun­try. Just for the fun of adren­a­lin-based com­pe­ti­tion and brag­ging rights.

via Boing­Bo­ing

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch Accu­rate Recre­ations of Medieval Ital­ian Longsword Fight­ing Tech­niques, All Based on a Man­u­script from 1404

A Hyp­not­ic Look at How Japan­ese Samu­rai Swords Are Made

Renais­sance Knives Had Music Engraved on the Blades; Now Hear the Songs Per­formed by Mod­ern Singers

Ted Mills is a free­lance writer on the arts who cur­rent­ly hosts the Notes from the Shed pod­cast and is the pro­duc­er of KCR­W’s Curi­ous Coast. You can also fol­low him on Twit­ter at @tedmills, and/or watch his films here.

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How Italian Physicist Laura Bassi Became the First Woman to Have an Academic Career in the 18th Century

in Gender, History, Physics, Science | September 16th, 2021

The prac­tice and priv­i­lege of aca­d­e­m­ic sci­ence has been slow in trick­ling down from its ori­gins as a pur­suit of leisured gen­tle­man. While many a leisured lady may have tak­en an inter­est in sci­ence, math, or phi­los­o­phy, most women were denied par­tic­i­pa­tion in aca­d­e­m­ic insti­tu­tions and schol­ar­ly soci­eties dur­ing the sci­en­tif­ic rev­o­lu­tion of the 1700s. Only a hand­ful of women — sev­en known in total — were grant­ed doc­tor­al degrees before the year 1800. It wasn’t until 1678 that a female schol­ar was giv­en the dis­tinc­tion, some four cen­turies or so after the doc­tor­ate came into being. While sev­er­al intel­lec­tu­als and even cler­ics of the time held pro­gres­sive atti­tudes about gen­der and edu­ca­tion, they were a decid­ed minor­i­ty.

Curi­ous­ly, four of the first sev­en women to earn doc­tor­al degrees were from Italy, begin­ning with Ele­na Cornaro Pis­copia at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Pad­ua. Next came Lau­ra Bassi, who earned her degree from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Bologna in 1732. There she dis­tin­guished her­self in physics, math­e­mat­ics, and nat­ur­al phi­los­o­phy and became the first salaried woman to teach at a uni­ver­si­ty (she was at one time the university’s high­est paid employ­ee). Bassi was the chief pop­u­lar­iz­er of New­ton­ian physics in Italy in the 18th cen­tu­ry and enjoyed sig­nif­i­cant sup­port from the Arch­bish­op of Bologna, Pros­pero Lam­ber­ti­ni, who — when he became Pope Bene­dict XIV — elect­ed her as the 24th mem­ber of an elite sci­en­tif­ic soci­ety called the Benedet­ti­ni.

“Bassi was wide­ly admired as an excel­lent exper­i­menter and one of the best teach­ers of New­ton­ian physics of her gen­er­a­tion,” says Paula Find­len, Stan­ford pro­fes­sor of his­to­ry. “She inspired some of the most impor­tant male sci­en­tists of the next gen­er­a­tion while also serv­ing as a pub­lic exam­ple of a woman shap­ing the nature of knowl­edge in an era in which few women could imag­ine play­ing such a role.” She also played the role avail­able to most women of the time as a moth­er of eight and wife of Giuseppe Ver­at­ti, also a sci­en­tist.

Bassi was not allowed to teach class­es of men at the uni­ver­si­ty — only spe­cial lec­tures open to the pub­lic. But in 1740, she was grant­ed per­mis­sion to lec­ture at her home, and her fame spread, as Find­len writes at Physics World:

 Bassi was wide­ly known through­out Europe, and as far away as Amer­i­ca, as the woman who under­stood New­ton. The insti­tu­tion­al recog­ni­tion that she received, how­ev­er, made her the emblem­at­ic female sci­en­tist of her gen­er­a­tion. A uni­ver­si­ty grad­u­ate, salaried pro­fes­sor and aca­d­e­mi­cian (a mem­ber of a pres­ti­gious acad­e­my), Bassi may well have been the first woman to have embarked upon a full-fledged sci­en­tif­ic career.

Poems were writ­ten about Bassi’s suc­cess­es in demon­strat­ing New­ton­ian optics; “news of her accom­plish­ments trav­eled far and wide,” reach­ing the ear of Ben­jamin Franklin, whose work with elec­tric­i­ty Bassi fol­lowed keen­ly. In Bologna, sur­prise at Bassi’s achieve­ments was tem­pered by a cul­ture known for “cel­e­brat­ing female suc­cess.” Indeed, the city was “jok­ing­ly known as a ‘par­adise for women,’” writes Find­len. Bassi’s father was deter­mined that she have an edu­ca­tion equal to any of her class, and her fam­i­ly inher­it­ed mon­ey that had been equal­ly divid­ed between daugh­ters and sons for gen­er­a­tions; her sons “found them­selves heirs to the prop­er­ty that came to the fam­i­ly through Laura’s mater­nal line,” notes the Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty col­lec­tion of Bassi’s per­son­al papers.

Bassi’s aca­d­e­m­ic work is held at the Acad­e­my of Sci­ences in Bologna. Of the papers that sur­vive, “thir­teen are on physics, eleven are on hydraulics, two are on math­e­mat­ics, one is on mechan­ics, one is on tech­nol­o­gy, and one is on chem­istry,” writes a Uni­ver­si­ty of St. Andrew’s biog­ra­phy. In 1776, a year usu­al­ly remem­bered for the for­ma­tion of a gov­ern­ment of leisured men across the Atlantic, Bassi was appoint­ed to the Chair of Exper­i­men­tal Physics at Bologna, an appoint­ment that not only meant her hus­band became her assis­tant, but also that she became the “first woman appoint­ed to a chair of physics at any uni­ver­si­ty in the world.”

Bologna was proud of its dis­tin­guished daugh­ter, but per­haps still thought of her as an odd­i­ty and a token. As Dr. Eleono­ra Ada­mi notes in a charm­ing biog­ra­phy at sci-fi illus­trat­ed sto­ries, the city once struck a medal in her hon­or, “com­mem­o­rat­ing her first lec­ture series with the phrase ‘Soli cui fas vidisse Min­er­vam,’” which trans­lates rough­ly to “the only one allowed to see Min­er­va.” But her exam­ple inspired oth­er women, like Cristi­na Roc­cati, who earned a doc­tor­ate from Bologna in 1750, and Dorothea Erxleben, who became the first woman to earn a Doc­tor­ate in Med­i­cine four years lat­er at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Halle. Such sin­gu­lar suc­cess­es did not change the patri­ar­chal cul­ture of acad­e­mia, but they start­ed the trick­le that would in time become sev­er­al branch­ing streams of women suc­ceed­ing in the sci­ences.

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Marie Curie Became the First Woman to Win a Nobel Prize, the First Per­son to Win Twice, and the Only Per­son in His­to­ry to Win in Two Dif­fer­ent Sci­ences

Joce­lyn Bell Bur­nell Changed Astron­o­my For­ev­er; Her Ph.D. Advi­sor Won the Nobel Prize for It

Women Sci­en­tists Launch a Data­base Fea­tur­ing the Work of 9,000 Women Work­ing in the Sci­ences

“The Matil­da Effect”: How Pio­neer­ing Women Sci­en­tists Have Been Denied Recog­ni­tion and Writ­ten Out of Sci­ence His­to­ry

The Lit­tle-Known Female Sci­en­tists Who Mapped 400,000 Stars Over a Cen­tu­ry Ago: An Intro­duc­tion to the “Har­vard Com­put­ers”

Real Women Talk About Their Careers in Sci­ence

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

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Alice in Wonderland Syndrome: The Real Perceptual Disorder That May Have Shaped Lewis Carroll’s Creative World

in Literature, Neuroscience, Psychology | September 16th, 2021

Alice’s Adven­tures in Won­der­land isn’t just a beloved chil­dren’s sto­ry: it’s also a neu­ropsy­cho­log­i­cal  syn­drome. Or rather the words “Alice in Won­der­land,” as Lewis Car­rol­l’s book is com­mon­ly known, have also become attached to a con­di­tion that, though not harm­ful in itself, caus­es dis­tor­tions in the suf­fer­er’s per­cep­tion of real­i­ty. Oth­er names include dys­metrop­sia or Tod­d’s syn­drome, the lat­ter of which pays trib­ute to the con­sul­tant psy­chi­a­trist John Todd, who defined the dis­or­der in 1955. He described his patients as see­ing some objects as much larg­er than they real­ly were and oth­er objects as much small­er, result­ing in chal­lenges not entire­ly unlike those faced by Alice when put by Car­roll through her grow­ing-and-shrink­ing paces.

Todd also sug­gest­ed that Car­roll had writ­ten from expe­ri­ence, draw­ing inspi­ra­tion from the hal­lu­ci­na­tions he expe­ri­enced when afflict­ed with what he called “bil­ious headache.”  The trans­for­ma­tions Alice feels her­self under­go­ing after she drinks from the “DRINK ME” bot­tle and eats the “EAT ME” cake are now known, in the neu­ropsy­cho­log­i­cal lit­er­a­ture, as macrop­sia and microp­sia.

“I was in the kitchen talk­ing to my wife,” writes nov­el­ist Craig Rus­sell of one of his own bouts of the lat­ter. “I was huge­ly ani­mat­ed and full of ener­gy, hav­ing just put three days’ worth of writ­ing on the page in one morn­ing and was burst­ing with ideas for new books. Then, quite calm­ly, I explained to my wife that half her face had dis­ap­peared. As I looked around me, bits of the world were miss­ing too.”

Though “many have spec­u­lat­ed that Lewis Car­roll took some kind of mind-alter­ing drug and based the Alice books on his hal­lu­ci­na­to­ry expe­ri­ences,” writes Rus­sell, “the truth is that he too suf­fered from the con­di­tion, but in a more severe and pro­tract­ed way,” com­bined with ocu­lar migraine. Rus­sell also notes that the sci-fi vision­ary Philip K. Dick, though “nev­er diag­nosed as suf­fer­ing from migrain­ous aura or tem­po­ral lobe epilep­sy,” left behind a body of work that has has giv­en rise to “a grow­ing belief that the expe­ri­ences he described were attrib­ut­able to the lat­ter, par­tic­u­lar­ly.” Suit­ably, clas­sic Alice in Won­der­land syn­drome “tends to be much more com­mon in child­hood” and dis­ap­pear in matu­ri­ty. One suf­fer­er doc­u­ment­ed in the sci­en­tif­ic lit­er­a­ture is just six years old, younger even than Car­rol­l’s eter­nal lit­tle girl — pre­sum­ably, an eter­nal seer of real­i­ty in her own way.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

A Beau­ti­ful 1870 Visu­al­iza­tion of the Hal­lu­ci­na­tions That Come Before a Migraine

Behold Lewis Carroll’s Orig­i­nal Hand­writ­ten & Illus­trat­ed Man­u­script for Alice’s Adven­tures in Won­der­land (1864)

Lewis Carroll’s Pho­tographs of Alice Lid­dell, the Inspi­ra­tion for Alice in Won­der­land

Ralph Steadman’s Warped Illus­tra­tions of Alice’s Adven­tures in Won­der­land on the Story’s 150th Anniver­sary

Alice’s Adven­tures in Won­der­land, Illus­trat­ed by Sal­vador Dalí in 1969, Final­ly Gets Reis­sued

Curi­ous Alice — The 1971 Anti-Drug Movie Based on Alice in Won­der­land That Made Drugs Look Like Fun

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.

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