Lennon or McCartney? 550 Artists Answer the Essential, Timeless Question

in Music | December 17th, 2014

Lennon & McCart­ney — the two musi­cians came togeth­er and com­posed the most impor­tant song­book of the last 50 years. Ear­ly on, John and Paul wrote many of their songs togeth­er — songs like “She Loves You” and “Eight Days a Week.” Lat­er, as they describe it here, the dynam­ic changed: one would write the bulk of a song; the oth­er would give it a lis­ten and work out the kinks, adding the right melody, or remov­ing a par­tic­u­lar­ly corny verse. Although the two shared writ­ing cred­its for all Bea­t­les songs, Lennon prin­ci­pal­ly wrote “Straw­ber­ry Fields For­ev­er,” “Nor­we­gian Wood (This Bird Has Flown),” and “Come Togeth­er.” McCart­ney gave us “Eleanor Rig­by,” “Hey Jude,” “Let It Be,” and “Pen­ny Lane.” Depend­ing on which you like, you might put your­self in the Lennon or the McCart­ney camp.

Along the way, we’ve all been asked to take a side, and that applies to musi­cians too. Above, you can find a 34 minute com­pi­la­tion where musi­cians and artists — from Lady GaGa to David Byrne — make their pick. And below, in the com­ments, you’re invit­ed to tell us where you fall — with John or Paul, and why?

Or who is going to offer up George, who, for my mon­ey, released the best of the Bea­t­les’ solo albums?

via Metafil­ter

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Bea­t­les: Unplugged Col­lects Acoustic Demos of White Album Songs (1968)

The Last Time Lennon & McCart­ney Played Togeth­er Cap­tured in the Boot­leg A Toot And a Snore in ’74

The 10-Minute, Nev­er-Released, Exper­i­men­tal Demo of The Bea­t­les’ “Rev­o­lu­tion” (1968)

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 19 ) |

Patti Smith’s Musical Tributes to the Russian Greats: Tarkovsky, Gogol & Bulgakov

in Literature, Music, Poetry | December 17th, 2014

In 2010, Pat­ti Smith won a Nation­al Book Award for her mem­oir Just Kids, mak­ing her, by my count, the only Rock and Roll Hall of Fame mem­ber to land that prize. Of course, she’s also the only per­son I can think of who has appeared in both a movie by Jean-Luc Godard (Film Social­isme) and an episode of Law and Order. And she’s def­i­nite­ly the only rock­er out there who has a per­son­al invite from the Pope to play at the Vat­i­can.

Back in the mid-‘70s, Smith fused the noise and urgency of punk rock with spo­ken word poet­ry and cre­at­ed some­thing unlike any­thing before or since. She per­formed with such inten­si­ty on stage that she looked like a mod­ern day shaman in the midst of an ecsta­t­ic rev­el­ry. Yet she had a lit­er­ary sen­si­bil­i­ty that made her stand apart from most of her fel­low pro­to-punks at CBG­Bs. (The Ramones are awe­some but no one is going to parse the lyrics of “Beat on the Brat with a Base­ball Bat.”) The B‑side track of Smith’s first sin­gle, “Piss Fac­to­ry,” describes the unre­lent­ing tedi­um she expe­ri­enced work­ing at a fac­to­ry before she swiped a copy of Illu­mi­na­tions by French poet Arthur Rim­baud.

While mak­ing Film Social­isme with Godard, she con­ceived of her lat­est album, Ban­ga, released in 2012. When she start­ed writ­ing songs, she was, as she said in an inter­view, very inter­est­ed in Russ­ian cul­ture.

I like my trav­els to be akin with my stud­ies, and so when I start­ed being smit­ten with Bul­gakov and start­ed read­ing a lot of Russ­ian lit­er­a­ture and then watch­ing a lot of Tarkovsky, being very immersed in Russ­ian cul­ture, I got some jobs in Rus­sia. … But I’ve always done that. We have very idio­syn­crat­ic tours – I always make sure that the band does well finan­cial­ly, but a lot of our tours are based on things that I’m study­ing, and I’ll make choic­es as to where we go so that I can see some­thing spe­cial.

The title track of the work, Ban­ga, is tak­en from a minor char­ac­ter in Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Mas­ter and Mar­gari­ta – Pon­tus Pilate’s extreme­ly loy­al dog who wait­ed cen­turies for his mas­ter to come to heav­en. Fun fact: John­ny Depp played drums on this track.

Accord­ing to the lin­er notes, the album’s first sin­gle, “April Fool” was inspired by nov­el­ist Niko­lai Gogol. As John Free­man notes in the Moscow Times, a num­ber of lines from the song evoke the writer.

We’ll race through alley­ways in tat­tered coats” is a fair­ly clear ref­er­ence to Gogol’s short sto­ry “The Over­coat,” while “we’ll burn all of our poems” begs to be con­sid­ered a nod to the fact that Gogol famous­ly burned the sec­ond vol­ume of his great nov­el “Dead Souls.” That work, one of Rus­si­a’s fun­ni­est and dark­est, is con­jured in the lines, “We’ll tramp through the mire when our souls feel dead. With laugh­ter we’ll inspire them back to life again.

And the track “Tarkovsky (The Sec­ond Stop Is Jupiter)”, not sur­pris­ing­ly, evokes images from the films of cin­e­mat­ic auteur Andrei Tarkovsky – specif­i­cal­ly, his meta­phys­i­cal sci-fi epic Solaris along with Ivan’s Child­hood. Hear the track at the top of this post, and watch Tarkovsky’s films online here.

In case you thought that the album was just about Rus­sians, her song “This is the Girl” is about the life and death of Amy Wine­house, “Fuji-San” is a trib­ute to the mas­sive 2011 Tohoku earth­quake, and “Nine” is a birth­day present to John­ny Depp.

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Watch Pat­ti Smith Read from Vir­ginia Woolf, and Hear the Only Sur­viv­ing Record­ing of Woolf’s Voice

See Pat­ti Smith Give Two Dra­mat­ic Read­ings of Allen Ginsberg’s “Foot­note to Howl”

Pat­ti Smith Plays Songs by The Ramones, Rolling Stones, Lou Reed & More on CBGB’s Clos­ing Night (2006)

Pat­ti Smith Doc­u­men­tary Dream of Life Beau­ti­ful­ly Cap­tures the Author’s Life and Long Career (2008)

Jonathan Crow is a Los Ange­les-based writer and film­mak­er whose work has appeared in Yahoo!, The Hol­ly­wood Reporter, and oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low him at @jonccrow. And check out his blog Veep­to­pus, fea­tur­ing lots of pic­tures of bad­gers and even more pic­tures of vice pres­i­dents with octo­pus­es on their heads.  The Veep­to­pus store is here.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Johnny Cash’s Christmas Specials, Featuring June Carter, Steve Martin, Andy Kaufman & More (1976–79)

in Music, Television | December 17th, 2014

John­ny Cash, out­law coun­try singer and defi­ant man in black, comes care­ful­ly pack­aged for many peo­ple through the mer­chan­dis­ing of his life and image. From t‑shirts to posters, doc­u­men­taries to award-win­ning biopics, we know about his ornery prison con­certs, drug use and arrests, noble cham­pi­oning of the dis­en­fran­chised, and dra­mat­ic sto­ry of pain and redemp­tion. We mar­veled at the mys­tique around the aged Cash in his late-life revival. But many of us know lit­tle about anoth­er side of the man—Johnny Cash, genial TV per­son­al­i­ty.

If you hap­pened to have been glued to the tube dur­ing the sev­en­ties and eight­ies, how­ev­er, you would know this John­ny Cash well from his cameo appear­ances on Colum­bo and Lit­tle House on the Prairie. You’d have seen him shilling for Amo­co dur­ing the gas cri­sis of the ear­ly 70s—a gig he took on dur­ing a seri­ous career slump. You’d have maybe caught his recur­ring role on Dr. Quinn Med­i­cine Woman, his turn on 1985 mini-series North and South (as John Brown, nat­u­ral­ly), as well as a num­ber of film appear­ances. And that’s not to men­tion Cash’s own, short-lived vari­ety show, which ran from 1969–71.

If this rather com­mer­cial, main­stream Cash seems at odds with the leg­end, wait till you see The John­ny Cash & Fam­i­ly Christ­mas Show, which ran each year from 1976–79. Here, writes Dan­ger­ous Minds, “Cash game­ly refash­ioned him­self as a fam­i­ly-friend­ly coun­try music TV host” in the vein of Porter Wag­oner. It is decid­ed­ly “far from the mid­dle-fin­ger John­ny Cash or Fol­som Prison Blues”—closer instead to Hee Haw’s Buck Owens and Roy Clark (who appears in the first spe­cial at the top). After his mar­riage to June Carter in 1968, many of his ven­tures fea­tured the two as a singing duo. Here, they aren’t just man and wife, but “fam­i­ly,” mean­ing “many of June and Johnny’s wide-rang­ing clan of rel­a­tives are fea­tured.

We’re also treat­ed to appear­ances from Tony Orlan­do and Cash’s spir­i­tu­al men­tor Bil­ly Gra­ham (’76), Jer­ry Lee Lewis (’77), Kris Kristofer­son and Steve Mar­tin (’78), and even Andy Kauf­man, in char­ac­ter as Taxi’s Lat­ka Gravas (’79). Yes, these may be coun­try corny as all get-out, but they’re also real­ly fun. We get charm­ing, infor­mal goof-offs with June and John­ny, lots of Vegas style com­e­dy bits and lounge rou­tines, and, of course, some stel­lar musi­cal per­for­mances. After his dra­mat­ic late-six­ties con­ver­sion, Cash remained staunch­ly evan­gel­i­cal to the end of his days. (Hear him read The New Tes­ta­ment here.) But rather than rail at sec­u­lar­ists in his Christ­mas spe­cials, he treats the hol­i­day as a laid-back occa­sion for food (“snake ‘n’ pota­toes”), laughs, friends and fam­i­ly, and all-star sing alongs by the fire. Hop on over to Dan­ger­ous Minds to see all four spe­cials.

via Dan­ger­ous Minds

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The First Episode of The John­ny Cash Show, Fea­tur­ing Bob Dylan & Joni Mitchell (1969)

John­ny Cash: Singer, Out­law, and, Briefly, Tele­vi­sion Host

The First Episode of The John­ny Cash Show, Fea­tur­ing Bob Dylan & Joni Mitchell (1969)

John­ny Cash Reads the Entire New Tes­ta­ment

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

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

David Lynch’s Music Videos: Nine Inch Nails, Moby, Chris Isaak & More

in Film, Music | December 16th, 2014

David Lynch gets sound like few oth­er direc­tors. There’s an unfor­get­table scene in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me where Lau­ra Palmer leads her best friend Don­na Hay­ward into what looks like a den of iniq­ui­ty for lum­ber­jacks. It’s filled with burly men and cheap women grind­ing to music blar­ing from the speak­ers. Lynch lets the music roll right over top the dia­logue. It was a shock­ing choice back in 1992 but it was the right one. The ban­ter was inten­tion­al­ly banal and obscure. The grotesque faces, the omi­nous crim­son light­ing and, most of all, that utter­ly hyp­not­ic music are all you need to tell the sto­ry, cre­at­ing a mood of dread and deca­dence. The scene is a stun­ning fusion of image, sound and edit­ing in an oth­er­wise flawed work.

Since that movie, Lynch became more and more inter­est­ed in the pos­si­bil­i­ties of sound design. He even­tu­al­ly ditched film alto­geth­er for a career in music. So per­haps it shouldn’t come as a sur­prise that, along with cre­at­ing at least three cin­e­mat­ic mas­ter­pieces, one of the most influ­en­tial TV series ever made, and a string of tele­vi­sion com­mer­cials, Lynch has also made a hand­ful of music videos. You can watch them above and below.

Lynch’s first music video was for “I Pre­dict” by the band The Sparks. It was made back in 1982 when MTV was still in its infan­cy and Lynch’s career was just tak­ing off. Per­haps for that rea­son, the video has lit­tle of the styl­is­tic obses­sions that mark his lat­er work. No weird flash­ing lights. No smoke or fire. No hol­low-eyed mod­els. Instead Lynch goes for a more direct, if sil­ly, form of sur­re­al­ism – a guy (band mem­ber Ron Mael) with a Hitler mus­tache in drag doing a striptease. Does it feel Lynchi­an? No, not real­ly. But it’s still kind of dis­tress­ing.

There are two videos for Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Games.” One, which was on heavy rota­tion on MTV, was shot by Herb Ritts and fea­tured Isaak and super­mod­el Hele­na Chris­tensen rolling around half-naked in the Hawai­ian surf. And then there is Lynch’s video made as a tie-in to his strange, Wiz­ard of Oz obsessed noir Wild at Heart, which has much less nudi­ty – which is odd con­sid­er­ing the movie is pret­ty much non-stop boink­ing. Instead, the video is pret­ty straight­for­ward – just Isaaks and the band play­ing the tune inter­cut with shots from the flick.

After Mul­hol­land Dri­ve, Lynch turned his back on cel­lu­loid film, pre­fer­ring the end­less pos­si­bil­i­ties of dig­i­tal. His enthu­si­asm for this new tech­nol­o­gy result­ed in a flur­ry of projects includ­ing Dum­b­land, a crude­ly ani­mat­ed series pre­sent­ed in stark black and white. The video of Moby’s “Shot in the Back of the Head” is a mood­i­er ani­mat­ed work but it is def­i­nite­ly in the same vein. Check it out above.

Lynch’s video for Nine Inch Nail’s “Came Back Haunt­ed” can quite lit­er­al­ly mess with your head. The piece is packed with flash­ing red and white lights and as a result comes with the fol­low­ing warn­ing: “This video has been iden­ti­fied by Epilep­sy Action to poten­tial­ly trig­ger seizures for peo­ple with pho­to­sen­si­tive epilep­sy. View­er dis­cre­tion is advised.” You have been warned.

And final­ly here’s a music video for Lynch’s own song called appro­pri­ate­ly “Crazy Clown Time.” Not only is the video a cat­a­logue Lynch’s obses­sions – Amer­i­cana, naked women, fire – but it also fea­tures Lynch singing, who, after a bunch of effects, sounds like a cas­trat­ed Kee­bler Elf.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

David Lynch’s Unlike­ly Com­mer­cial for a Home Preg­nan­cy Test (1997)

David Lynch Teach­es You to Cook His Quinoa Recipe in a Weird, Sur­re­al­ist Video

What David Lynch Can Do With a 100-Year-Old Cam­era and 52 Sec­onds of Film

Jonathan Crow is a Los Ange­les-based writer and film­mak­er whose work has appeared in Yahoo!, The Hol­ly­wood Reporter, and oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low him at @jonccrow. And check out his blog Veep­to­pus, fea­tur­ing lots of pic­tures of bad­gers and even more pic­tures of vice pres­i­dents with octo­pus­es on their heads.  The Veep­to­pus store is here.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 2 ) |

Moviedrome: Filmmaker Alex Cox Provides Video Introductions to 100+ Classic Cult Films

in Film | December 16th, 2014

If you hap­pened to pass the 1990s in Britain as a cer­tain sort of alter­na­tive and/or obscu­ran­tist cinephile, you know BBC2’s Moviedrome, which, albeit belong­ing to the proud old tra­di­tion of the tele­vi­sion movie show, showed pri­mar­i­ly cult films. But what makes for a cult film, any­way? A cult film “has a pas­sion­ate fol­low­ing, but does not appeal to every­one.” Yet cult film sta­tus “does not auto­mat­i­cal­ly guar­an­tee qual­i­ty,” nor does the box office mon­ey a pic­ture either made or failed to make. But we can cat­e­go­rize all cult films under cer­tain gen­res, and often more than one, giv­en their “ten­den­cy to slosh over from one genre into anoth­er, so that a sci­ence fic­tion film might also be a detec­tive movie, or vice ver­sa,” all shar­ing the com­mon themes of “love, mur­der and greed.”

Those words come straight from Repo Man, Walk­er, and Sid & Nan­cy direc­tor Alex Cox, a cult film­mak­er of no small renown. He also host­ed Moviedrome, pro­vid­ing much more than the stan­dard movie-show fram­ing of and intro­duc­tion to the night’s fea­ture. At the top of the post, we have his open­ing seg­ment for Edward G. Ulmer’s cheap but aston­ish­ing­ly endur­ing 1945 film noir Detour, which you can chase with the film itself just above. You may also remem­ber Car­ni­val of Souls, which we fea­tured in full as one of Time Out Lon­don’s 1oo best hor­ror films — well, Cox ably gave a Moviedrome primer on that one as well, describ­ing it as one of the most influ­en­tial cult movies of its kind ever made.

But Cox talked about a lot more than film­mak­ers some might describe as schlocky and exploita­tive; he also talked about the likes of Alfred Hitch­cock, who took schlock and exploita­tion to its high­est point of cin­e­mat­ic artistry. Last year, we fea­tured an exam­i­na­tion of Hitch­cock­’s sleight-of-hand in the mak­ing of Rope, the sus­pense mas­ter’s sup­pos­ed­ly cut-free tale of killing and decep­tion. Just above, in Cox’s intro for the film, you can hear more about why this film made the cut, as it were, into Moviedrome’s league of “cult and weirdo type movies.” You can learn about many more such dis­rep­utable-yet-rep­utable pic­tures through Cox’s many seg­ments post­ed to Youtube, as well as in the full text of his Moviedrome Guide avail­able on his “free stuff” page. The Moviedrome faith­ful might also con­sid­er hav­ing a look at this gallery of films from the show’s Alex Cox years, and the exegetic Tum­blr blog Moviedromer.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More

Detour: The Cheap, Rushed Piece of 1940s Film Noir Nobody Ever For­gets

Time Out Lon­don Presents The 100 Best Hor­ror Films: Start by Watch­ing Four Hor­ror Clas­sics Free Online

The 10 Hid­den Cuts in Rope (1948), Alfred Hitchcock’s Famous “One-Shot” Fea­ture Film

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on cities, lan­guage, Asia, and men’s style. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Susan Sontag’s List of 10 Parenting Rules

in Life, Literature | December 16th, 2014

Image by Juan Fer­nan­do Bas­tos, via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

Par­ent­ing is dif­fi­cult. I don’t need to tell you this—those of you who face the chal­lenge dai­ly and hourly. Those of you who don’t have heard your friends—and your own parents—do enough com­plain­ing that you know, in the­o­ry at least, how rais­ing humans is rough busi­ness all around. Para­dox­i­cal­ly, there is no rule­book for par­ent­ing and there are hun­dreds of rule­books for par­ent­ing, seem­ing­ly a new one pub­lished every day. In my admit­ted­ly lim­it­ed expe­ri­ence as the par­ent of a young child, most such guides have dimin­ish­ing returns next to the direct lessons learned in the fray, so to speak, through tri­al after tri­al and no small amount of error.

But we do ben­e­fit from the wis­dom of oth­ers, espe­cial­ly those who record their exper­i­ments in child-rear­ing with the pre­ci­sion and thought­ful­ness of Susan Son­tag. In the list below, made by a 26-year-old Son­tag in 1959, we see how the young moth­er of a then 7‑year-old David Rieff approached the job.

The son of Son­tag and soci­ol­o­gist Philip Rieff (“pop,” below), whom Son­tag mar­ried at 17 then divorced in 1958, David has writ­ten a mem­oir of Sontag’s painful final days. He also edit­ed her jour­nals and note­books, which con­tained the fol­low­ing rules.

  1. Be con­sis­tent.
  2. Don’t speak about him to oth­ers (e.g. tell fun­ny things) in his pres­ence. (Don’t make him self-con­scious.)
  3. Don’t praise him for some­thing I wouldn’t always accept as good.
  4. Don’t rep­ri­mand him harsh­ly for some­thing he’s been allowed to do.
  5. Dai­ly rou­tine: eat­ing, home­work, bath, teeth, room, sto­ry, bed.
  6. Don’t allow him to monop­o­lize me when I am with oth­er peo­ple.
  7. Always speak well of his pop. (No faces, sighs, impa­tience, etc.)
  8. Do not dis­cour­age child­ish fan­tasies.
  9. Make him aware that there is a grown-up world that’s none of his busi­ness.
  10. Don’t assume that what I don’t like to do (bath, hair­wash) he won’t like either.

While Rieff has described his rela­tion­ship with Son­tag as “strained and at times very dif­fi­cult,” it seems to me that a par­ent who adhered to these rules would cre­ate the kind of sup­port­ive struc­ture chil­dren need to thrive. The remain­der of Sontag’s jour­nal entries show us a deeply intro­spec­tive, self-con­scious writer, and yet, writes Emi­ly Green­house at The New York­er, her work as a whole offers “sur­pris­ing­ly lit­tle of her own direct expe­ri­ence” and she nev­er under­took an auto­bi­og­ra­phy. Yet, this short list of par­ent­ing rules gives us a great deal of insight into the per­spi­cac­i­ty and com­pas­sion she brought to her role as a moth­er, qual­i­ties most of us could use a bit more of in our dai­ly par­ent­ing strug­gles.

The list above appears in the new book Lists of Note, the fol­low up to Shaun Usher’s Let­ters of Note, both com­pi­la­tions of his exten­sive online archives of per­son­al notes and cor­re­spon­dence from famous and inter­est­ing peo­ple. Down­load a pre­view of the book and pur­chase a hard­cov­er copy, just in time for Christ­mas, at Waterstones.com (if you live in the UK).

Relat­ed Con­tent:

See Films Made by Susan Son­tag and a List of Her 50 Favorite Films (1977)

F. Scott Fitzger­ald Tells His 11-Year-Old Daugh­ter What to Wor­ry About (and Not Wor­ry About) in Life, 1933

“Noth­ing Good Gets Away”: John Stein­beck Offers Love Advice in a Let­ter to His Son (1958)

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

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Alfred Hitchcock Conducts a Politically Incorrect Sound Test on the Set of Blackmail (1929)

in Film | December 16th, 2014

Above we have a young Alfred Hitch­cock on the set of Black­mail (1929), con­duct­ing a rather naughty sound test with actress Anny Ondra (1929).

In case you don’t know the back­sto­ry, Black­mail was orig­i­nal­ly meant to be a silent film. How­ev­er, with talkies becom­ing the rage, Hitch­cock decid­ed mid-stream to make the film a talkie. That deci­sion did­n’t come with­out its own prob­lems. Anny Ondra, a Czech actress, spoke Eng­lish with a heavy accent and could­n’t pass as a Lon­don­er in the film. So Hitch­cock per­formed some cin­e­ma mag­ic and had Eng­lish actress Joan Bar­ry dub Ondra’s lines. In those days, dub­bing could­n’t take place in post-pro­duc­tion. It all had to hap­pen in real-time. Thus, as the cam­era rolled, Bar­ry stood out­side the frame and spoke the dia­logue into a micro­phone, while Ondra pan­tomimed the words. Through­out, Hitch­cock direct­ed Ondra while lis­ten­ing to Bar­ry through a pair of head­phones.

hitch with hair

You can watch Black­mail (Britain’s first talkie fea­ture film) online here or find it in our col­lec­tion of 23 Free Hitch­cock Films Online.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

37 Hitch­cock Cameo Appear­ances Over 50 Years: All in One Video

Lis­ten to François Truffaut’s Big, 12-Hour Inter­view with Alfred Hitch­cock (1962)

The Plea­sure Gar­den, Alfred Hitchcock’s Very First Fea­ture Film (1925)

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Animated Louis CK Shows Demonstrates How “Animation Lets You Do Anything”

in Animation, Comedy, Life, Television | December 15th, 2014

Father­hood is a fer­tile sub­ject for come­di­an Louis C.K.

Kids do say the darnedest things, but Louis’ obser­va­tions reveal the depth of his invest­ment.

He lit out after stan­dard­ized test­ing and the Com­mon Core on Twit­ter.

He made a pas­sion­ate case against giv­ing kids smart­phones to Conan O’Brien.

Is it any won­der that the “dumb­er, fun­nier” ver­sion of him­self he cre­at­ed for his TV show is pre­oc­cu­pied and often thwart­ed by his respon­si­bil­i­ties as the sin­gle dad of two young daugh­ters?

(Real life may pro­vide inspi­ra­tion, but the writer and star dis­plays appro­pri­ate bound­aries when he says that his actu­al daugh­ters are marked­ly dif­fer­ent char­ac­ters than their TV coun­ter­parts.)

But the knife of father­hood cuts both ways. Louis’ trou­bled rela­tion­ship with his own dad gets less atten­tion than the father-daugh­ter bond, but it’s there in his work. The prospect of spend­ing time with his estranged father caus­es the fic­tion­al Louis to vom­it at the din­ner table in sea­son three.

The ani­mat­ed approach seen above, gives Louis more con­trol over the sit­u­a­tion. Ani­ma­tion, like read­ing, makes pos­si­ble flights of fan­cy where­in children—including grown ones like Louis—can do “absolute­ly any­thing.” Fly­ing and using a rain­bow as a slide are among the fan­tas­ti­cal activ­i­ties the 2‑D Louis sam­ples. Mean­while, the qual­i­ty of his nar­ra­tion con­veys an under­ly­ing dis­taste for the sort of canned “imag­i­na­tive” sug­ges­tions foist­ed on chil­dren by well-mean­ing edu­ca­tion­al pro­gram­mers.

Left to their own devices, most kids will come up with sce­nar­ios and pow­ers far weird­er than any­thing ped­dled to them by an adult. Why “swim through the ocean like a fish” when you can anthro­po­mor­phize your elder­ly father as a malev­o­lent spi­der, lodged in your chest, poop­ing out reg­u­lar lit­tle “infes­ta­tions of hate”?

Ani­ma­tion lets you go all the way, and C.K. cer­tain­ly does, lop­ping off heads, and (SPOILER!) inad­ver­tent­ly Bon­nie and Clyd­ing him­self from with­in.

Someone’s made a lot of progress since the 90’s, when he used his time on Dr. Katz’s ani­mat­ed couch to dis­cuss K‑Mart and Chips Ahoy.

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

The Sur­re­al Short Films of Louis C.K., 1993–1999

Sein­feld, Louis C.K., Chris Rock, and Ricky Ger­vais Dis­sect the Craft of Com­e­dy (NSFW)

20-Year-Old Louis CK Per­forms Stand Up (1987)

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

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Watch Carl Sagan & Richard Dawkins Present the Royal Institution’s Famous Christmas Lectures

in Science | December 15th, 2014

If only some­one could have invent­ed the inter­net by 1825. Not only would we have reached unimag­ined realms of com­mu­ni­ca­tion by now, but we would have a full 189 years of Christ­mas lec­tures to stream online at our leisure. A pro­duc­tion of the Roy­al Insti­tu­tion in the Unit­ed King­dom, the Christ­mas lec­tures began with the edu­ca­tion­al endeav­ors of elec­tro­mag­net­ism and elec­tro­chem­istry pio­neer Michael Fara­day. Between 1827 and 1860, Fara­day gave the first Christ­mas lec­tures on the Lon­don grounds of the Roy­al Insti­tu­tion, hold­ing forth on sub­jects like chem­istry, elec­tric­i­ty, and mat­ter in an effort to get the gen­er­al pub­lic excit­ed about sci­ence. Accord­ing to one of his sound­est prin­ci­ples of lec­tur­ing, “a flame should be light­ed at the com­mence­ment and kept alive with unremit­ting splen­dour to the end.” Gen­er­a­tions of sci­en­tif­ic lec­tur­ers have stepped for­ward to light and keep that splen­did flame to this day.

At the top of the post, we have the first of Carl Sagan’s six Christ­mas lec­tures on Earth, Mars, and our solar sys­tem from 1977. Just above, you can watch the first of Richard Dawkins’ 1991 Christ­mas lec­ture series enti­tled Grow­ing Up in the Uni­verse. Though Sagan and Dawkins osten­si­bly geared their lec­tures toward kids — just as Fara­day intend­ed his sci­en­tif­ic spec­ta­cles for a “juve­nile audi­ence” — don’t let that turn you off if you’ve already reached adult­hood. In fact, grown-ups may stand to gain more than kids, giv­en our ten­den­cy to binge-watch. Why not give your­self an edu­ca­tion­al hol­i­day treat by plow­ing through the past sev­er­al years of Christ­mas lec­tures archived at the Roy­al Insti­tu­tion’s web site? This Christ­mas, they’ve got pro­fes­sor Danielle George on “how the spark of your imag­i­na­tion and some twen­ty first cen­tu­ry tin­ker­ing can change the world” — so get ready to gath­er ’round with all the future world-chang­ers you know, young or old.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Carl Sagan Presents Six Lec­tures on Earth, Mars & Our Solar Sys­tem … For Kids (1977)

Grow­ing Up in the Uni­verse: Richard Dawkins Presents Cap­ti­vat­ing Sci­ence Lec­tures for Kids (1991)

Carl Sagan Explains Evo­lu­tion in an Eight-Minute Ani­ma­tion

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on cities, lan­guage, Asia, and men’s style. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

O Frabjous Day! Neil Gaiman Recites Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky” from Memory

in Books, K-12, Literature, Poetry | December 15th, 2014

When the young Neil Gaiman was learn­ing Lewis Carroll’s “Jab­ber­wocky” by heart, he sure­ly had no inkling that years lat­er he’d be called upon to recite it for legions of ador­ing fans…particularly on the Inter­net, a phe­nom­e­non the bud­ding author may well have imag­ined, if not tech­ni­cal­ly imple­ment­ed.

World­builders, a fundrais­ing por­tal that rewards donors not with tote bags or umbrel­las, but rather with celebri­ty chal­lenges of a non-ice buck­et vari­ety, scored big when Gaiman agreed to par­tic­i­pate.

Ear­li­er this year, a rum­pled look­ing Gaiman read Dr. Seuss’s “rather won­der­ful” Green Eggs and Ham into his web­cam.

This month, with dona­tions to Heifer Inter­na­tion­al exceed­ing $600,000, he found him­self on the hook to read anoth­er piece of the donors’ choos­ing. Carroll’s non­sen­si­cal poem won out over Good­night Moon, Fox in Socks, and Where the Wild Things Are. 

Like fel­low author, Lyn­da Bar­ry, Gaiman is not one to under­es­ti­mate the val­ue of mem­o­riza­tion.

The videog­ra­phy may be casu­al, but his off-book per­for­mance in an undis­closed tul­gey wood is the stuff of high dra­ma.

Cal­looh!

Callay!

Is that a mem­o­ry lapse at the one minute mark? Anoth­er inter­preter might have called for a retake, but Gaiman rides out a four sec­ond pause cooly, his eyes the only indi­ca­tor that some­thing may be amiss. Per­haps he’s just tak­ing pre­cau­tions, lis­ten­ing for tell­tale whif­fling and bur­bling.

If you’re on the prowl to make some year end char­i­ta­ble dona­tions, recre­ation­al math­e­mu­si­cian Vi Hart and author John Green are among those World­builders has in the pipeline to per­form stunts for suc­cess­ful­ly fund­ed cam­paigns.

Jab­ber­wocky is a poem that appears in Car­rol­l’s Through the Look­ing-Glass, the 1871 sequel to Alice’s Adven­tures in Won­der­land (1865). You can find both in our col­lec­tion, 800 Free eBooks for iPad, Kin­dle & Oth­er Devices.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Neil Gaiman Reads The Grave­yard Book, His Award-Win­ning Kids Fan­ta­sy Nov­el, Chap­ter by Chap­ter

Neil Gaiman Gives Grad­u­ates 10 Essen­tial Tips for Work­ing in the Arts

Where Do Great Ideas Come From? Neil Gaiman Explains

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

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Watch Bob Dylan Play a Private Concert for One Lucky Fan

in Music | December 14th, 2014

On Novem­ber 23rd, Bob Dylan played a live con­cert for one awed fan. As Rolling Stone described it, “Fredrik Wik­ings­son walked into Philadel­phi­a’s Acad­e­my of Music, took a seat in the [sixth] row and pre­pared to watch his hero play a con­cert just for him.” “At this point,” Wik­ings­son said, “I still thought I was about to get Punk’d.” “I thought some ass­hole would walk onstage and just laugh at me. I just could­n’t fath­om that Dylan would actu­al­ly do this.”

But it was­n’t a joke. Dylan treat­ed the super­fan to a per­son­al con­cert, play­ing cov­ers of songs from the ear­ly days of Amer­i­can rock n roll. And it was all filmed for a Swedish TV series called Exper­i­ment Ensam (Exper­i­ment Alone), where indi­vid­u­als take part, alone, in activ­i­ties usu­al­ly meant for groups. The video of the exper­i­men­tal con­cert went online yes­ter­day. You can watch it above.

For more news bring­ing togeth­er Bob Dylan and Swe­den, see our recent post: Swedish Sci­en­tists Sneak Bob Dylan Lyrics Into Their Aca­d­e­m­ic Pub­li­ca­tions For Last 17 Years.

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

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Bob Dylan Reads From T.S. Eliot’s Great Mod­ernist Poem The Waste Land

Bob Dylan and The Grate­ful Dead Rehearse Togeth­er in Sum­mer 1987. Lis­ten to 74 Tracks.

Bob Dylan and George Har­ri­son Play Ten­nis, 1969

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 5 ) |


« Newer Entries | Older Entries »

  • Great Lectures

  • Sign up for Newsletter

  • About Us

    Open Culture scours the web for the best educational media. We find the free courses and audio books you need, the language lessons & educational videos you want, and plenty of enlightenment in between.


    Advertise With Us

  • Great Recordings

  • Book Lists By

  • Syllabi

  • Favorite Movies

  • Archives

  • Search

    • Quantcast
    Open Culture was founded by Dan Colman.