Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast #40 on #MeToo Depictions in TV and Film

in Podcasts, Politics, Pretty Much Pop, Television | April 22nd, 2020


These sto­ries are all heav­i­ly watched, which means they’re enter­tain­ing: The 2019 film Bomb­shell (about the pre­da­tions of Roger Ailes), Apple TV’s The Morn­ing Show (about a dis­graced anchor), and Net­flix’s Unbe­liev­able (about report­ing rape) and 13 Rea­sons Why (about teen sui­cide result­ing from sex­u­al assault). But what’s “enter­tain­ing” about sex­u­al assault and harass­ment? What makes for a sen­si­tive as opposed to a sen­sa­tion­al­ized por­tray­al?

Eri­ca, Mark, and Bri­an con­sid­er which sto­ries work and why. How much diver­gence from true events is allow­able in Bomb­shell or Con­fir­ma­tion (about Ani­ta Hill)? By hav­ing char­ac­ters inter­pret their sit­u­a­tions (Eri­ca gives an exam­ple from the show Sex Edu­ca­tion), are writ­ers essen­tial­ly telling audi­ences how to feel about their own expe­ri­ences? Should cer­tain depic­tions be ruled out as poten­tial­ly trig­ger­ing, or is it good to “bring to light” what­ev­er ter­ri­ble things actu­al­ly hap­pen in the world? Should shows delve into the psy­chol­o­gy of the per­pe­tra­tor (maybe even treat­ing him as a pro­tag­o­nist), or must the mes­sage be whol­ly and unam­bigu­ous­ly about the vic­tim? 

Art is about risk-tak­ing and cap­tur­ing dif­fi­cult ambi­gu­i­ties; this does­n’t sound much like a pub­lic ser­vice mes­sage. So what respon­si­bil­i­ty to do show cre­ators have to con­sult pro­fes­sion­als about how to present dif­fi­cult top­ics like this?

We drew on some arti­cles to help us look at these ques­tions:

Here’s that weird scene where Jen­nifer Anis­ton and Bil­ly Crudup sing on The Morn­ing Show.

If this top­ic is too depress­ing, check out our episode #39 from last week about what to watch on TV dur­ing quar­an­tine:

Learn more at prettymuchpop.com. This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion that you can only hear by sup­port­ing the pod­cast at patreon.com/prettymuchpop. This pod­cast is part of the Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life pod­cast net­work.

Pret­ty Much Pop: A Cul­ture Pod­cast is the first pod­cast curat­ed by Open Cul­ture. Browse all Pret­ty Much Pop posts or start with the first episode.

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Take a Virtual Tour of the Andy Warhol Exhibition at the Tate Modern

in Art | April 21st, 2020

Not only did Andy Warhol miss out on the inter­net, but the inter­net missed out on Andy Warhol. Sure­ly, these days he would be pro­lif­i­cal­ly post­ing to his Insta­gram and YouTube from home, indulging mul­ti­ple celebri­ty and pop cul­ture obses­sions. Warhol’s Polaroid aes­thet­ic and pio­neer­ing of the self-as-brand helped cre­ate 21st cen­tu­ry online cul­ture. Maybe he was the orig­i­nal “influ­encer,” though Warhol was more of an insti­ga­tor. But he’s become too famil­iar for us to appre­ci­ate his unique­ness, sug­gest Gre­gor Muir and Fion­tán Moran, cura­tors of an exten­sive Tate Mod­ern Warhol exhib­it fea­tur­ing 100 works, which is now only acces­si­ble via the 7‑minute video tour above.

“Every­one owns Warhol” (though few own a Warhol), argue Muir and Moran. “He is one of those rare artists who tran­scends the art world, hav­ing become wide­ly known as one of America’s most famous artists, if not one of America’s most famous Amer­i­cans.

Over time, Warhol became—and still is—a big brand, which is just how he want­ed it.” Warhol showed how indi­vid­ual artists could cir­cum­vent the star-mak­ing sys­tem, cre­ate their own brand­ing, and com­man­deer the cul­ture with man­u­fac­tured fame. He “helped shape a century’s worth of pop cul­ture,” writes Luke Abra­hams at Harper’s Bazaar, “and helped launch the cult of celebri­ty.”

Whether that lega­cy deserves more praise or blame I leave to you to decide. In either case, our posthu­mous judg­ments can­not dimin­ish Warhol’s sin­gu­lar achieve­ments in graph­ic art or his rad­i­cal approach­es to film, pho­tog­ra­phy, and—through his pro­mo­tion of the Vel­vet Under­ground—music. Behind the aloof, eccen­tric per­sona is a per­son­al sto­ry the Tate exhib­it explores as well, through Warhol’s immi­grant and queer iden­ti­ty and his con­cerns with death and reli­gion. Archi­tec­tur­al Digest reports on the addi­tion­al resources the online exhib­it offers:

For vis­i­tors look­ing to dive deep­er into the exhi­bi­tion and the artist dur­ing the lock­down, there’s also the room-by-room exhi­bi­tion guide; arti­cles about Warhol, from an inves­ti­ga­tion into his rela­tion­ship with his moth­er to a per­son­al tale writ­ten by his friend Bob Colachel­lo; a pod­cast about per­sonas; and even how-to videos demon­strat­ing Warhol’s print­mak­ing process. 

Tate dig­i­tal direc­tor Hilary Knight knows there’s no sub­sti­tute for the orig­i­nal, which is maybe an iron­ic idea when it comes to Warhol. “We are not try­ing to repli­cate a muse­um vis­it,” Knight says, but “we can still offer a rich, deep, and inspir­ing expe­ri­ence of Tate online.” Though abbre­vi­at­ed and vir­tu­al, this deep­er dive into Warhol’s life and work does that indeed. Find more detailed on the exhi­bi­tion, and each room, here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Andy Warhol Explains Why He Decid­ed to Give Up Paint­ing & Man­age the Vel­vet Under­ground Instead (1966)

Andy Warhol Demys­ti­fied: Four Videos Explain His Ground­break­ing Art and Its Cul­tur­al Impact

130,000 Pho­tographs by Andy Warhol Are Now Avail­able Online, Cour­tesy of Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty

Lou Reed’s Mix­tape for Andy Warhol Dis­cov­ered by Cor­nell Uni­ver­si­ty Pro­fes­sor: Fea­tures 12 Pre­vi­ous­ly Unre­leased Songs

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

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Watch 270+ Short Documentaries of Artists at Work, and Let Them Inspire Your Creative Process

in Art, Creativity | April 21st, 2020

Imag­ine if come­di­an Amy Sedaris were self-iso­lat­ing with artists Mar­cel Dza­ma and Ray­mond Pet­ti­bon.

Per­haps they’d bar­ri­cade them­selves into sep­a­rate rooms, hunched over their indi­vid­ual screens, curs­ing their room­mates for slow­ing down their livestreams, but we pre­fer to think they’d busy them­selves with projects such as Dzama’s short film, “Dance Floor Drac­u­la, Pre­lude in C‑Sharp Minor.”

Enjoy a glimpse into the friends’ col­lab­o­ra­tive cre­ative process, above, com­pli­ments of Art21’s Extend­ed Play, a short doc­u­men­tary series offer­ing back­stage access to liv­ing, work­ing artists, from estab­lished to emerg­ing.

Much of the con­tent seems ger­mane to the world we find our­selves in now, when the cre­ative play­ing field feels remark­ably open to our par­tic­i­pa­tion, thanks to crowd­sourced projects like the ongo­ing pho­to chal­lenge where­in ordi­nary cit­i­zens are using their phones and house­hold objects to recre­ate famous art­works at home.

Painter Tala Madani takes view­ers through her sketch­book and talks about its val­ue as a method of cap­tur­ing ideas and as the “most imme­di­ate record of the think­ing process.” The car­toon­ish qual­i­ty of her sketch­es may help those who’d let a lack of con­fi­dence in their artis­tic abil­i­ty stop them from attempt­ing to doc­u­ment their obser­va­tions of our changed real­i­ty visu­al­ly. A sketch­book is also a great place for the seeds of future projects to ger­mi­nate.

The prepa­ra­tions for Oakland’s Cre­ative Growth Art Center’s annu­al fash­ion show, Beyond Trend, could send you scut­tling to your clos­et or recy­cling bin, inspired by William Scott’s papi­er-mâché Franken­stein mask—a five day effort—or the patch­es Chris­tine Sze­to embroi­ders with titles of favorite Tay­lor Swift songs, then sews to her jeans in order­ly columns.

This sort of wear­able art does­n’t require advanced nee­dle skills or knowl­edge of how gar­ments are put togeth­er, mak­ing it per­fect­ly tai­lored to those open to explor­ing new sides of them­selves in iso­la­tion.

That said, we are sure the fea­tured design­ers are anx­ious­ly await­ing the reopen­ing of Cre­ative Growth, which serves artists with devel­op­men­tal, men­tal, and phys­i­cal dis­abil­i­ties.

Com­mu­ni­ty and cre­ativ­i­ty are show­ing them­selves to be equal­ly essen­tial to our well­be­ing.

Watch all 270+ episodes of Art21’s Extend­ed Play here, or right below:

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

The Sev­en Road-Test­ed Habits of Effec­tive Artists

Moe­bius Gives 18 Wis­dom-Filled Tips to Aspir­ing Artists

Love the Art, Hate the Artist: How to Approach the Art of Dis­graced Artists

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

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Museum Curators Create a Contest to See Who Has the Creepiest Object: Ancient Body Parts, Cursed Toys, and More

in History, Museums, Twitter | April 21st, 2020

Muse­ums around the world have tem­porar­i­ly closed due to the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic, and each of these insti­tu­tions has used its down­time dif­fer­ent­ly. Some have pro­vid­ed online ver­sions of the expe­ri­ences pre­vi­ous­ly offered in their phys­i­cal gal­leries; oth­ers have start­ed pro­longed bat­tles on Twit­ter. No, not the kind of pro­longed bat­tle one nor­mal­ly asso­ciates with Twit­ter, but a friend­lier, more pro­duc­tive com­pe­ti­tion between pro­fes­sion­als. At times, how­ev­er, the #cura­tor­bat­tle, as it’s been hash­tagged, has looked just as repul­sive to the view­er as any Twit­ter con­flict: espe­cial­ly last week, when the York­shire Muse­um threw down the chal­lenge to pull the “creepi­est object” out of the archives and post it.

“Muse­um cura­tors are up to their ears in weird crap, some of which isn’t fit for dis­play,” writes Ruin My Week’s Ali­son Sul­li­van. “There are lots of niche muse­ums out there, too, who don’t get the kind of atten­tion the Smith­son­ian receives. They’re about local his­to­ry or spe­cif­ic inter­ests, and their col­lec­tions are the strangest of all.”

The York­shire Muse­um, which bills itself as offer­ing “Britain’s finest archae­o­log­i­cal trea­sures, and a walk through the Juras­sic land­scapes of York­shire,” is no dif­fer­ent: they start­ed off the chal­lenge of the week by post­ing a “3rd/4th cen­tu­ry hair bun from the bur­ial of a #Roman lady, still with the jet pins in place” — albeit ful­ly detached from the head it was buried on.

Oth­er par­tic­i­pat­ing insti­tu­tions saw the York­shire Muse­um’s hair bun and raised it a “sheep’s heart stuck with pins and nails, to be worn like a neck­lace for break­ing evil spells,” a P.T. Bar­num-style “mer­maid” con­struct­ed through taxi­dermy, a “CURSED CHILDREN’S TOY that we found inside the walls of a 155-year-old man­sion,” and small dio­ra­mas pop­u­lat­ed by gold-min­ers and card-play­ers made of crab’s legs and claws.

In the tweet post­ing that last, the York Cas­tle Muse­um describes the pieces’ cre­ators as typ­i­cal of Vic­to­ri­ans, who “loved weird/creepy stuff.” If your own such love isn’t sat­is­fied by the high­lights at Ruin My Week and The Guardian, have a look at the replies below the  York­shire Muse­um’s orig­i­nal tweet. You may not have asked to see a beaked 17th- or 18th-cen­tu­ry plague mask at this par­tic­u­lar moment, but try to take it in the spir­it of cul­tur­al exchange. View more creepy objects on Twit­ter here.

via Art­net

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The “Weird Objects” in the New York Pub­lic Library’s Col­lec­tions: Vir­ginia Woolf’s Cane, Charles Dick­ens’ Let­ter Open­er, Walt Whitman’s Hair & More

Inside the Creepy, “Aban­doned” Wiz­ard of Oz Theme Park: Scenes of Beau­ti­ful Decay

Hear Thomas Edison’s Creepy Talk­ing Dolls: An Inven­tion That Scared Kids & Flopped on the Mar­ket

The Creepy 13th-Cen­tu­ry Melody That Shows Up in Movies Again & Again: An Intro­duc­tion to “Dies Irae”

Charles Dick­ens Gave His Cat “Bob” a Sec­ond Life as a Let­ter Open­er

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include 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, on Face­book, or on Insta­gram.

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Mark Knopfler Plays a Poignant, Overdriven Version of “The Last Post,” Remembering the Many Lives Lost in World War I

in Music | April 21st, 2020

World War I sym­bol­ism gets lost on Amer­i­cans. Our his­tor­i­cal mem­o­ries are short and selec­tive, and the War has “large­ly van­ished from view,” as his­to­ri­an Geof­frey Wawro writes at Time mag­a­zine. But in Europe, of course, where some armies suf­fered ten times the casu­al­ties as U.S. troops, and where mil­lions of civil­ian died and towns were bombed into obliv­ion, the mem­o­ry of the Great War is very much alive.

In Ypres, Bel­gium, the War has been memo­ri­al­ized every day since 1928 (with the excep­tion of four years of Ger­man occu­pa­tion dur­ing WWII) by the Last Post Asso­ci­a­tion, a devot­ed com­pa­ny of buglers who play the mil­i­tary song at the Menin Gate memo­r­i­al every evening to com­mem­o­rate the British dead at the Bat­tle of Ypres. As of this writ­ing, they’ve held their 31,748th cer­e­mo­ny.

In Britain itself, and around the world, the tune has a long his­to­ry as a sym­bol, like the pop­py, of Remem­brance Day. Just like Taps in the U.S., the Last Post is “a bugle call,” writes the Last Post Asso­ci­a­tion, “played in the British Army (and in the armies of many oth­er lands) to mark the end of the day’s labours and the onset of the night’s rest…. It has come to rep­re­sent a final farewell to the fall­en at the end of their earth­ly labours and at the onset of their eter­nal rest.”

Robert Graves summed up the song’s asso­ci­a­tion with death in his 1918 poem, “The Last Post”:

The bugler sent a call of high romance—
“Lights out! Lights out!” to the desert­ed square.
On the thin brazen notes he threw a prayer,
“God, if it’s this for me next time in France…
O spare the phan­tom bugle as I lie
Dead in the gas and smoke and roar of guns,
Dead in a row with the oth­er bro­ken ones
Lying so stiff and still under the sky,
Jol­ly young Fusiliers too good to die.”

I imag­ine Mark Knopfler, a lover of poet­ry, might be famil­iar with Graves’ verse. In his own ren­di­tion of the Last Post, above, Knopfler com­mem­o­rates 17,000 Northum­ber­land Fusiliers killed in the War, who came from his home region and suf­fered more casu­al­ties than any oth­er reg­i­ment. Record­ed on Remem­brance Day, Novem­ber 8, 2018, the 100th anniver­sary of the War’s end, Knopfler’s ver­sion is both restrained and fierce­ly over­driv­en, recall­ing Hendrix’s “Star-Span­gled Ban­ner” in some of its flashier moments of vibra­to. Rather than one of his usu­al icon­ic gui­tars, he plays a cus­tom instru­ment that howls like a keen­ing bugle.

The record­ing was part of a project in which musi­cians around the world played the cer­e­mo­ni­al call on a vari­ety of instru­ments. For com­par­i­son with Knopfler’s cre­ative inter­pre­ta­tion, see a straight­for­ward ren­di­tion played above by a mem­ber of the Aus­tralian Roy­al Mil­i­tary Col­lege Band. The bugle call reminds us of the war dead we may have for­got­ten, and the mil­lions killed by star­va­tion and influen­za after the armistice. And per­haps it also reminds us of the impor­tance of col­lec­tive mourn­ing for the dead in our own extra­or­di­nary his­tor­i­cal moment.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Gui­tar Sto­ries: Mark Knopfler on the Six Gui­tars That Shaped His Career

Mark Knopfler Gives a Short Mas­ter­class on His Favorite Gui­tars & Gui­tar Sounds

The Great War: Video Series Will Doc­u­ment How WWI Unfold­ed, Week-by-Week, for the Next 4 Years

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

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Pink Floyd Streaming Free Classic Concert Films, Starting with 1994’s Pulse, the First Live Performance of Dark Side of the Moon in Full

in Music | April 20th, 2020

If you’re feel­ing a lit­tle stressed today—maybe a lot stressed today, maybe severe­ly-rationing-your-social-media stressed—it might do you some good to get com­fort­ably numb. And unless the laws of your local­i­ty pre­vent it, you can reach a safe state of bliss at home with his­toric live con­cert films from Pink Floyd. “Fol­low­ing the lead of Radio­head and Metal­li­ca and launch­ing a YouTube con­cert series,” notes Con­se­quence of Sound, “the band will release unseen, rare, or archived mate­r­i­al from their vault and stream it for free” over the next few weeks.

It may or may not be nec­es­sary to qual­i­fy that Pink Floyd these days con­sists of only two peo­ple, David Gilmour and drum­mer Nick Mason, key­boardist Richard Wright hav­ing passed away in 2008 and bassist/rock opera impre­sario Roger Waters hav­ing stormed off to make his own records in 1985, nev­er to return. Per­haps only coin­ci­den­tal­ly, the first film the band has released is 1994’s Pulse, a 22-song set from the Divi­sion Bell tour, the sec­ond stu­dio album made with­out Waters. But it’s got quite a lot to rec­om­mend it despite his absence.

“Filmed at London’s now-defunct Earls Court dur­ing the band’s record-break­ing 14-night res­i­den­cy,” this show is notable par­tic­u­lar­ly for “the inclu­sion of the first-ever film record­ing of Pink Floyd play­ing The Dark Side of the Moon in full.” The 1972 album’s sar­don­ic rumi­na­tions on the banal­i­ty of mod­ern life in an econ­o­my that can­not stop its con­stant grind might strike us as par­tic­u­lar­ly grim while we’re fac­ing such huge col­lec­tive loss­es of life and liveli­hood. But as always, the band knows how to make its med­i­cine go down with some sweet eye and ear can­dy.

Mixed in 5.1 sur­round sound and dig­i­tal­ly re-mas­tered by James Guthrie, Pulse also includes some of orig­i­nal screen films used for the 1970s con­cert per­for­mances of The Dark Side of the Moon (which were nev­er filmed) as well as the visu­al com­po­nents for the piece which were remade for the 1994 tour.

On their Face­book page, the band promis­es more “inter­est­ing and divert­ing images, music and video to help us all get through this”—as best as we can, in any case. And if you run out of Pink Floyd to help you get through a tough time of day, head over to see anoth­er band bring­ing blues-based psych-rock, Amer­i­can style, to the shut-in mass­es this spring. The Grate­ful Dead have their own week­ly stream­ing series of full con­cert films. Of the first con­cert post­ed, they write, “Its excel­lence is indis­putable and is some­thing that we think pret­ty much every­one will enjoy in the absence of actu­al­ly being able to see live con­certs.”

Take an hour or two to relax with some clas­sic live shows from clas­sic bands of yore, and maybe make a list of all the cur­rent bands you want to go out and sup­port as soon as you get out of quar­an­tine. Some­thing tells me after all this livestream­ing, there’ll be waves of renewed appre­ci­a­tion for live music. Good­ness knows, musi­cians every­where will need it.

Vis­it the Pink Floyd Youtube chan­nel for more lives streams in the future.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Pink Floyd Films a Con­cert in an Emp­ty Audi­to­ri­um, Still Try­ing to Break Into the U.S. Charts (1970)

The Dark Side of the Moon Project: Watch the First of an 8‑Part Video Essay on Pink Floyd’s Clas­sic Album

An Hour-Long Col­lec­tion of Live Footage Doc­u­ments the Ear­ly Days of Pink Floyd (1967–1972)

Dead & Com­pa­ny Announces Couch Tour, Let­ting You Stream Free Con­certs at Home

Radio­head Will Stream Con­certs Free Online Until the Pan­dem­ic Comes to an End

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

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Netflix Makes Documentaries Free to Stream: Design, Politics, Sports, Sir David Attenborough & More

in Education, Film | April 20th, 2020

Many of us kept indoors by the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic for days — or rather weeks, or per­haps months — have been imbued with a new sense of won­der about our world. Specif­i­cal­ly, we’re won­der­ing what’s going on in it. At the same time as the glob­al sci­en­tif­ic com­mu­ni­ty strug­gles to deter­mine the nature of the new and still poor­ly under­stood virus tak­ing lives and immo­bi­liz­ing economies, we hear dig­i­tal word of con­se­quent phe­nom­e­na also pre­vi­ous­ly unknown in our life­times: wild ani­mals, for instance, mak­ing their way into the streets of major cities. We live, it turns out, in a stranger, more mys­te­ri­ous real­i­ty than we’d imag­ined. For­tu­nate­ly, the inter­net makes it pos­si­ble for us to start get­ting a grip on that real­i­ty here in our homes, not least through free stream­ing Net­flix doc­u­men­taries.

“In the Before Times, Net­flix let teach­ers stream their pro­gram­ming in the class­room,” writes Jason Kot­tke. With schools out of ses­sion, “Net­flix has decid­ed to put some of their edu­ca­tion­al pro­gram­ming on YouTube for free (full playlist here). For instance, they’ve put all 8 episodes of David Attenborough’s nature series Our Plan­et online in their entire­ty.”

Released just last year, that Net­flix debut of the high­ly respect­ed nat­ur­al his­to­ri­an and broad­cast­er cov­ers in great visu­al detail — and, need­less to say, with high­ly evoca­tive nar­ra­tion — every­where from forests and deserts to jun­gles and high seas. If as a start­ing point that all seems a bit epic, as they say, Net­flix has also made free sin­gle-serv­ing doc­u­men­tary shorts on sub­jects like the stock mar­ket, the excla­ma­tion point, and crick­et (the British Empire sport, not the insect).

Those come from the series Explained, a col­lab­o­ra­tion between Net­flix and Vox, a site known for its brief “explain­er” videos on cul­ture, sci­ence, and cur­rent events — one of which, on the coro­n­avirus itself, we fea­tured last month here on Open Cul­ture. Net­flix has also made free to stream on Youtube oth­er series like Abstract, which looks at the art of design (and whose debut we fea­tured here a few years ago), and Babies, a five-part jour­ney into the life of the human infant. If you pre­fer a fea­ture-length doc­u­men­tary expe­ri­ence to a dai­ly view or a binge-watch, you’ll also find on the playlist Ava DuVer­nay’s 13th, Rachel Lears’ Knock Down the House, and Jeff Orlowski’s Chas­ing Coral. When the orders of “stay home” and “social-dis­tance” come to an end, many of us will feel a stronger desire to explore and learn about the world than ever before — in part because of how much of the time indoors we’ve spent stok­ing our curios­i­ty with doc­u­men­taries like these. Access the playlist of doc­u­men­taries here.

via Kot­tke

Relat­ed Con­tent:

265 Free Doc­u­men­taries Online

200 Free Doc­u­men­taries: A Super Rich List of Fine­ly-Craft­ed Doc­u­men­taries on the Web

Cours­era Makes Cours­es & Cer­tifi­cates Free Dur­ing Coro­n­avirus Quar­an­tine: Take Cours­es in Psy­chol­o­gy, Music, Well­ness, Pro­fes­sion­al Devel­op­ment & More Online

Björk and Sir David Atten­bor­ough Team Up in a New Doc­u­men­tary About Music and Tech­nol­o­gy

David Atten­bor­ough Reads “What a Won­der­ful World” in a Mov­ing Video

Use Your Time in Iso­la­tion to Learn Every­thing You’ve Always Want­ed To: Free Online Cours­es, Audio Books, eBooks, Movies, Col­or­ing Books & More

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include 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, on Face­book, or on Insta­gram.

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Quarantine Cooking: 13 Professional Chefs Cook Pasta at Home with the Most Basic Ingredients Available

in Food & Drink | April 20th, 2020

Bon Appétit takes you to the homes of 13 pro­fes­sion­al chefs, each cook­ing pas­ta with what­ev­er they hap­pen to have on hand. In the next half hour, you may pick up a few handy tips.

Chefs fea­tured include: Claire Saf­fitz, Brad Leone, Chris Moroc­co, Gaby Melian, Andy Baraghani, Sohla El-Wayl­ly, Amiel Stanek, Alex Delany, Car­la Lal­li Music, Priya Krish­na, Rick Mar­tinez, Christi­na Chaey and Mol­ly Baz.

via Mefi

Relat­ed Con­tent:

How to Bake Ancient Roman Bread Dat­ing Back to 79 AD: A Video Primer

The New York Times Makes 17,000 Tasty Recipes Avail­able Online: Japan­ese, Ital­ian, Thai & Much More

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

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Banksy Debuts His COVID-19 Art Project: Good to See That He Has TP at Home

in Art | April 20th, 2020

“Who is Banksy?” asked an Art­net roundup of pos­si­ble sus­pects in 2016. One might well respond, “who cares?”—a rhetor­i­cal ques­tion Artnet’s Hen­ri Neuen­dorf answers. At least a few years ago, before some oth­er things got seri­ous­ly out of hand, the iden­ti­ty of the noto­ri­ous gueril­la street artist turned inter­na­tion­al man of mys­tery was “an obses­sion that seems to have gripped the world.”

One answer, assessed by cura­tor and street art expert Car­lo McCormick, was arrived at through the use of geo­graph­ic pro­fil­ing, a “sophis­ti­cat­ed sta­tis­ti­cal analy­sis tech­nique used in crim­i­nol­o­gy to locate repeat offend­ers.” McCormick rates its con­clu­sion as prob­a­ble, but also finds it “scary” to bend such meth­ods to such ends, an anx­i­ety res­o­nant with con­cerns over sur­veil­lance tech used to track COVID-19 vec­tors.

Anoth­er ques­tion is whether it mat­ters who Banksy is. “The improb­a­bly ornate fic­tion is always going to be more com­pelling than the sim­ple mun­dane truth.” Do we real­ly need to ruin the illu­sion? If those who want to remain anony­mous can be tracked with algorithms—while the rest of us vol­un­teer our per­son­al data dai­ly in a cul­ture of com­pet­i­tive oversharing—is there any room left for pri­va­cy? Now that we’re trapped inside for days on end with fam­i­lies, room­mates, part­ners, pets, maybe our only per­son­al space is in the loo (where we’re still inclined to bring our phones).

 

View this post on Insta­gram

 

. . My wife hates it when I work from home.

A post shared by Banksy (@banksy) on

Banksy’s lat­est work, post­ed on Insta­gram, plays with all of these themes and shows he doesn’t have a prob­lem defac­ing his own prop­er­ty, and shar­ing an inti­mate por­trait with his mil­lions of fol­low­ers. Hell, it’s almost a self­ie, minus the preen­ing, duck-faced self.

As Daria Harp­er writes at Art­sy:

The noto­ri­ous­ly elu­sive street artist Banksy debuted his lat­est work in a rather pecu­liar place: his bath­room. With much of the world on lock­down due to the COVID-19 cri­sis, artists like Banksy have been forced to get inno­v­a­tive with their artis­tic prac­tices. The artist post­ed pho­tos of the new art­work on his Insta­gram page yes­ter­day with the cap­tion: “My wife hates it when I work from home.”

Is this real­ly Banksy work­ing from home? (“One par­tic­u­lar­ly baf­fled com­menter,” notes Hyper­al­ler­gic, “wrote: ‘You are one of the world’s most famous artists… and THAT’S YOUR shit­ty lit­tle BATHROOM????’”)

Is there real­ly a Mrs. Banksy? Lit­tle Banksies run­ning around the yard, wear­ing coro­n­avirus face­masks and hood­ies? Is he on the verge of out­ing him­self? At least we know he’s still got toi­let paper.

Maybe you find this tan­ta­liz­ing win­dow on the artist’s inner sanc­tum cred­i­ble evi­dence of his mun­dane real life. Maybe the sig­na­ture rats destroy­ing his crap­per are his cab­in-fever dream. Or maybe, as usu­al, he’s just tak­ing the piss with this cre­ative instal­la­tion. We await com­ment from Mrs. Banksy.

via Boing Boing

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Banksy Strikes Again in Venice

Banksy Paints a Grim Hol­i­day Mur­al: Season’s Greet­ings to All

Behind the Banksy Stunt: An In-Depth Break­down of the Artist’s Self-Shred­ding Paint­ing

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

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Watch the Rolling Stones Play “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” While Social Distancing in Quarantine

in Music | April 18th, 2020

Ladies and gen­tle­man, the great­est rock n roll band in the world, the Rolling Stones. Live, in quar­an­tine, at home, per­form­ing “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” Any the­o­ries on what’s the sto­ry with Char­lie’s drum kit? And why they have red in their homes? Enjoy.

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.

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch the Rolling Stones Write “Sym­pa­thy for the Dev­il”: From Jean-Luc Godard’s ’68 Film One Plus One

Mick Jag­ger Tells the Sto­ry Behind ‘Gimme Shel­ter’ and Mer­ry Clayton’s Haunt­ing Back­ground Vocals

Jef­fer­son Air­plane Wakes Up New York; Jean-Luc Godard Cap­tures It (1968)

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Neil Finn Sings a Lovely Version of David Bowie’s “Heroes,” Live from Home

in Music | April 18th, 2020

I need­ed a lift today. This did the trick. Neil Finn–you know him from Crowd­ed House and Split Enz–plays a beau­ti­ful acoustic ver­sion of David Bowie’s “Heroes.” Enjoy.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch David Byrne Lead a Mas­sive Choir in Singing David Bowie’s “Heroes”

David Bowie’s “Heroes” Delight­ful­ly Per­formed by the Ukulele Orches­tra of Great Britain

Pro­duc­er Tony Vis­con­ti Breaks Down the Mak­ing of David Bowie’s Clas­sic “Heroes,” Track by Track

David Bowie Per­forms a Live Acoustic Ver­sion of “Heroes,” with a Bot­tle Cap Strapped to His Shoe, Keep­ing the Beat

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