Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen Take Phone Calls on New York Cable TV (1978)

in Music, Television | December 28th, 2012

I don’t know about you, but when I think of Sid Vicious, I pic­ture a young Gary Old­man. The Sex Pis­tols bassist cer­tain­ly made an out­sized cul­tur­al mark in his 21 short years, and Old­man’s per­for­mance in the Alex Cox-direct­ed Sid and Nan­cy has become, for those too young or dis­tant to catch the band at the time, the author­i­ta­tive­ly vivid depic­tion of him. Though argu­ments rou­tine­ly erupt about the license Cox may have tak­en with the facts of Vicious’ life and death, you need only watch a clip of the gen­uine arti­cle to under­stand how expert­ly Old­man cap­tured his dis­tinc­tive kind of surly vital­i­ty. I rec­om­mend the above late-sev­en­ties broad­cast from The Efrom Allen Show on New York cable tele­vi­sion (part one, part two, part three), which finds the shirt­less Vicious sit­ting on a pan­el with his girl­friend Nan­cy Spun­gen (the tit­u­lar Nan­cy of the film), Stiv Bators of the Dead Boys, and Cyn­thia Ross of the B Girls. “THAT’S SID VICIOUS ON YOUR SCREENS, FOLKS,” scrolling text tells the view­ers. “IS SID VICIOUS? WHO CARES? CALL 473‑5386 TO SPEAK TO THE PUNK OF YOUR CHOICE.”

And call they do. Vicious responds with the same oscil­la­tion between artic­u­la­cy and inar­tic­u­la­cy you may recall from Old­man’s por­tray­al, and Spun­gen seems to pos­sess the same behav­ioral­ly con­cealed core of intel­li­gence that Chloe Webb gave her in the movie. She takes up the role of his defend­er when, lit cig­a­rette in hand, she unhesi­tat­ing­ly shoots down a caller who asks the faint­ly zoned-out punk icon why he’s “so deriv­a­tive”: “He’s as orig­i­nal as you get! He’s not deriv­a­tive of any­thing!” As the show goes on, this proves not to be the only accu­sa­tion of its kind. Oth­er calls include inquiries about post-Pis­tols projects, a sug­ges­tion to col­lab­o­rate with Ron Wood (of all peo­ple), and prompts for pre­dic­tions about the direc­tion of punk rock. “How should I know?” Vicious blurts. “I live my life day by day. I don’t plan years ahead.” Indeed, he did­n’t need to. The pro­gram aired on Sep­tem­ber 18, 1978, eight months after the Sex Pis­tols dis­solved. Less than a month lat­er, Spun­gen would be gone, and less than five months lat­er, so too would he.

Relat­ed con­tent:

An Acoustic His­to­ry of Punk Rock Sheds Light on NYC’s Low­er East Side (NSFW)

Take a Vir­tu­al Tour of CBGB, the Ear­ly Home of Punk and New Wave

The Talk­ing Heads Play CBGB, the New York Club that Shaped Their Sound (1975)

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on lit­er­a­ture, film, cities, Asia, and aes­thet­ics. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

Lenny Bruce Riffs and Rants on Injustice and Hypocrisy in One of His Final Performances (NSFW)

in Comedy | December 27th, 2012

We can remem­ber Lenny Bruce as a mas­ter­ful social crit­ic or as one of the edgi­est, most orig­i­nal come­di­ans of the late-50s/ear­ly 60s. Or both, since both sides of him were always present in the live per­for­mances pre­served on film and tape. Born Leonard Alfred Schnei­der in Long Island, Bruce came from a show­biz fam­i­ly, in a way; his moth­er was a per­former and a sup­port­er of his stage ambi­tions. But, after his dis­charge from the Navy (for a per­for­mance in drag, among oth­er things), his New York act evolved quick­ly from celebri­ty impres­sions and bur­lesque to a more per­son­al­ized and bit­ing satire that cut through the gen­teel silences around racism, reli­gious intol­er­ance, drugs, pol­i­tics, sex­u­al­i­ty, and Jew­ish­ness in Amer­i­ca. Sprin­kled lib­er­al­ly with Yid­dishisms, hip beat expres­sions, and top­i­cal riffs, Bruce’s jazz-inflect­ed act could swing wild­ly from gid­dy falset­to exu­ber­ance to heart­break­ing down­beat lament in a mat­ter of min­utes. Per­haps nowhere is this high­wire act bet­ter doc­u­ment­ed than in the record­ing of his 1961 per­for­mance at New York’s Carnegie Hall, which he gave at mid­night in a bliz­zard to a devot­ed audi­ence of near­ly 3,000.

The Carnegie Hall con­cert marked the height of his career, after which his sad decline began. Lat­er that year, he was arrest­ed in San Fran­cis­co for obscen­i­ty. He was acquit­ted, but this began the years-long bat­tle in courts, includ­ing two Supreme Court appeals, on sim­i­lar charges (dra­ma­tized in the excel­lent biopic Lenny, with Dustin Hoff­man as Bruce). The legal bat­tles bank­rupt­ed Bruce, and exhaust­ed and demor­al­ized him; he stood as a defend­er of the right to free expres­sion and the need for peo­ple like him, whether just “enter­tain­ers” or seri­ous satirists, to hold pow­er to account and mock its thread­bare con­tra­dic­tions, but he so pro­found­ly rubbed the legal sys­tem the wrong way that he didn’t stand a chance.

By 1966, Bruce could not gig out­side San Fran­cis­co. One of his final per­for­mances (above) before his death from over­dose sees him rehears­ing his legal bat­tles. He is embit­tered, angry, some might say obsessed, some might say right­eous, but he’s still in top form, even if there may be more of Bruce the crit­ic than Bruce the enter­tain­er here. Lenny Bruce has been mourned and cel­e­brat­ed by comedic giants like George Car­lin, Richard Pry­or, and Bill Hicks and musi­cians like Nico, Dylan, and R.E.M. But it some­times seems that his name gets more press than his work. So, get to know Lenny Bruce. Watch the per­for­mance above, but also lis­ten to the bril­liant Carnegie Hall con­cert (avail­able in 7 parts on YouTube). And thank him every time a com­ic gets away with cross­ing social bound­aries with impuni­ty. He wore the sys­tem down so that the Car­lins and Pry­ors could break it wide open.

Josh Jones is a writer and schol­ar cur­rent­ly com­plet­ing a dis­ser­ta­tion on land­scape, lit­er­a­ture, and labor.

10 Great Performances From 10 Legendary Jazz Artists: Django, Miles, Monk, Coltrane & More

in Music | December 18th, 2012

Bil­lie Hol­i­day Sings ‘Strange Fruit,’ 1959:

Last week we brought you a post titled “Miles Davis and His ‘Sec­ond Great Quin­tet,’ Filmed Live in Europe, 1967,” fea­tur­ing Her­bie Han­cock and Wayne Short­er. The response was enthu­si­as­tic, and it remind­ed us that a great many of you share our love of jazz. It got us think­ing: Why not gath­er the mate­r­i­al from our favorite jazz posts into one place? So today we’re hap­py to bring you ten great per­for­mances from ten leg­endary artists.

We begin with Bil­lie Hol­i­day (above) singing her painful sig­na­ture song of racism and mur­der, “Strange Fruit.” The song was writ­ten by teacher and union­ist Abel Meeropol, who was hor­ri­fied when he saw a 1930 pho­to­graph of two black men hang­ing from a tree in Indi­ana, vic­tims of a lynch mob. Hol­i­day first record­ed “Strange Fruit” in 1939 and con­tin­ued to sing it, despite some resis­tance, for the rest of her life. The per­for­mance above was taped in Lon­don for the Grana­da TV pro­gram Chelsea at Nine in Feb­ru­ary of 1959, just five months before Hol­i­day’s untime­ly death at the age of 44.

Dave Brubeck Per­forms ‘Take Five,’ 1961:

The leg­endary pianist Dave Brubeck died ear­li­er this month, just one day short of his 92nd birth­day. To remem­ber him on that day we post­ed the clip above from a 1961 episode of the Amer­i­can pub­lic tele­vi­sion pro­gram Jazz Casu­al, with Brubeck and his quar­tet per­form­ing the clas­sic song “Take Five” from their influ­en­tial 1959 album, Time Out. The musi­cians are: Brubeck on piano, Eugene Wright on bass, Joe Morel­lo on drums, and Paul Desmond (who wrote “Take Five”) on alto sax­o­phone. For more on Brubeck, includ­ing a delight­ful clip of the elder­ly mas­ter impro­vis­ing with a young Russ­ian vio­lin­ist at the Moscow Con­ser­va­to­ry, see our Dec. 5 post, “Remem­ber­ing Jazz Leg­end Dave Brubeck with a Very Touch­ing Musi­cal Moment.”

Chet Bak­er Per­forms ‘Time After Time,’ 1964:

Last Decem­ber we fea­tured the clip above of Chet Bak­er play­ing the Sam­my Cahn and Jule Styne stan­dard, “Time After Time,” on Bel­gian tele­vi­sion in 1964. Bak­er is joined by the Bel­gian flautist Jacques Pelz­er, French pianist Rene Urtreger and an Ital­ian rhythm sec­tion of Lui­gi Trussar­di on bass and Fran­co Manzec­chi on drums. Bak­er sings and plays the flugel­horn. For more of Bak­er’s music and a poignant look at his trou­bled life, be sure to see our 2011 post, Let’s Get Lost: Bruce Weber’s Sad Film of Jazz Leg­end Chet Bak­er.

Duke Elling­ton on the Côte d’Azur, 1966:

On a beau­ti­ful sum­mer day in 1966, two of the 20th cen­tu­ry’s great artists–Duke Elling­ton and Joan Miró–met at a muse­um in the medieval French vil­lage of St. Paul de Vence, high in the hills over­look­ing the Côte d’Azur. Nei­ther one under­stood a word the oth­er said, but Miró showed Elling­ton his sculp­ture and Elling­ton played music for Miró. In the scene above, nar­rat­ed by the great jazz impres­sario Nor­man Granz, Elling­ton and his trio play a new song that would even­tu­al­ly be named “The Shep­herd (Who Watch­es Over His Flock).” The trio is made up of Elling­ton on Piano, John Lamb on Bass and Sam Wood­yard on drums. To learn more about that day, includ­ing rec­ol­lec­tions from the only sur­viv­ing mem­ber of Elling­ton’s trio, see our May 10 post, “Duke Elling­ton Plays for Joan Miró in the South of France, 1966: Bassist John Lamb Looks Back on the Day.”

Djan­go Rein­hardt Per­forms ‘J’at­tendrai,’ 1938:

With only two good fret­ting fin­gers on his left hand, gyp­sy gui­tarist Djan­go Rein­hardt cre­at­ed one of the most dis­tinc­tive instru­men­tal styles in 20th cen­tu­ry music. The clip above is from the 1938 short film Jazz “Hot”, which fea­tures Rein­hardt, along with vio­lin­ist Stéphane Grap­pel­li and the Quin­tette du Hot Club de France, per­fom­ing a swing ver­sion of the pop­u­lar song “J’at­tendrai.” (“J’at­tendrai” means “I will wait.”) To learn about Rein­hardt and the fire that cost him the use of most of his left hand, be sure to see our Aug. 10 post, “Djan­go Rein­hardt and the Inspir­ing Sto­ry Behind His Gui­tar Tech­nique.”

John Coltrane Plays Mate­r­i­al From A Love Supreme, 1965:

In Decem­ber of 1964 the John Coltrane Quar­tet record­ed its mas­ter­piece, A Love Supreme, in one ses­sion. A high­ly orig­i­nal blend­ing of hard bop and free jazz with spir­i­tu­al over­tones, the album is rec­og­nized as a land­mark in jazz his­to­ry. The Smith­son­ian Insti­tu­tion declared it a nation­al trea­sure. But Coltrane report­ed­ly played the mate­r­i­al only once in pub­lic, at a 1965 con­cert in Antibes, France. You can see a por­tion of that per­for­mance above, as Coltrane and his quar­tet play  “Part 1: Acknowl­edge­ment” from the four-part com­po­si­tion. The quar­tet is com­posed of Coltrane on tenor sax­o­phone, McCoy Tyn­er on Piano, Jim­my Gar­ri­son on bass and Elvin Jones on drums. To watch and lis­ten as the band plays “Part 2: Res­o­lu­tion,” see our 2011 post, John Coltrane Plays Only Live Per­for­mance of A Love Supreme.

Miles Davis on The Robert Her­ridge The­ater, 1959:

Most of the great per­for­mances on this page were pre­served by gov­ern­ment-fund­ed broad­cast­ing com­pa­nies, par­tic­u­lar­ly in Europe. Left to its own devices, the “invis­i­ble hand” of the tele­vi­sion mar­ket­place was fair­ly con­tent to ignore jazz and allow its great artists to pass unno­ticed and unrecord­ed. A notable excep­tion to this trend was made by the CBS pro­duc­er Robert Her­ridge, who had the vision and fore­sight to orga­nize an episode of The Robert Her­ridge The­ater–a pro­gram nor­mal­ly devot­ed to the sto­ry­telling arts–around the music of Miles Davis. In an extra­or­di­nary 26-minute broad­cast, shown above in its entire­ty, Davis per­forms with mem­bers of his “first great quin­tet” (John Coltrane on tenor and alto sax­o­phone, Wyn­ton Kel­ly on piano, Paul Cham­bers on bass and Jim­my Cobb on drums) and with the Gil Evans Orches­tra.  A sixth mem­ber of the small­er com­bo (by that time it had grown to a sex­tet), alto sax­o­phon­ist Julian “Can­non­ball” Adder­ly, can be seen briefly but does­n’t play due to a split­ting migraine headache. The broad­cast took place between record­ing ses­sions for Davis’s land­mark album, Kind of Blue.  The set list is: “So What,” “The Duke,” “Blues for Pablo,” “New Rhum­ba” and a reprise of “So What.”

Thelo­nious Monk in Copen­hagen, 1966:

Here’s a great half-hour set by Thelo­nious Monk and his quar­tet, record­ed by Dan­ish tele­vi­sion on April 17, 1966. The line­up includes Monk on piano, Char­lie Rouse on tenor sax­o­phone, Lar­ry Gales on Bass and Ben Riley on Drums. They play three songs–“Lulu’s Back in Town,” “Don’t Blame Me” and “Epistrophy”–with Monk giv­ing the oth­ers plen­ty of room to solo as he gets up from the piano to do his stiff, idio­syn­crat­ic dance. For more on Monk, see our 2011 post on the extra­or­di­nary doc­u­men­tary film, Thelo­nious Monk: Straight No Chas­er.

Bill Evans on the Jazz 625 show, 1965:

In March of 1965 the Bill Evans Trio vis­it­ed the BBC stu­dios in Lon­don to play a pair of sets on Jazz 625, host­ed by British trum­peter Humphrey Lyt­tel­ton. The two 35-minute pro­grams are shown above, back-to-back. The trio fea­tures Evans on piano, Chuck Israels on bass and Lar­ry Bunker on drums. To read the set list for both shows, see our May 31 post, “The Bill Evans Trio in Lon­don, 1965: Two Sets by the Leg­endary Com­bo.” And for a fas­ci­nat­ing intro­duc­tion to the great jazz pianist’s phi­los­o­phy of music, don’t miss our April 5 post, “The Uni­ver­sal Mind of Bill Evans: Advice on Learn­ing to Play Jazz and the Cre­ative Process.”

Charles Min­gus in Bel­gium, 1964:

In April of 1964 the great bassist and com­pos­er Charles Min­gus and his exper­i­men­tal com­bo, The Jazz Work­shop, embarked on a three-week tour of Europe that is remem­bered as one of the high-water marks in Min­gus’s career. The per­for­mance above was record­ed by Bel­gian tele­vi­sion on Sun­day, April 19, 1964 at the Palais des Con­grés in Liège, Bel­gium. Min­gus and the band play three songs: “So Long Eric,” “Peg­gy’s Blue Sky­light” and “Med­i­ta­tions on Inte­gra­tion.”  The group fea­tures Min­gus on bass, Dan­nie Rich­mond on drums, Jaki Byard on piano, Clif­ford Jor­dan on tenor sax­o­phone and Eric Dol­phy on alto sax­o­phone, flute and bass clar­inet. A sixth mem­ber, trum­peter John­ny Coles, was forced to drop out of the band after he col­lapsed onstage two nights ear­li­er. For more of Min­gus’s music and a look at his trou­bled life, see our Aug. 2 post, “Charles Min­gus and His Evic­tion From His New York City Loft, Cap­tured in Mov­ing 1968 Film.”

Donald Duck’s Bad Nazi Dream and Four Other Disney Propaganda Cartoons from World War II

in Animation, Film, History | December 18th, 2012

Dur­ing World War II, all hands were on deck, even in Hol­ly­wood. Many of Amer­i­ca and Britain’s finest film­mak­ers, from Hitch­cock to Frank Capra, were recruit­ed to cre­ate pro­pa­gan­da films to sup­port the war effort. And the same went for Walt Dis­ney, who turned his lov­able car­toon char­ac­ters into good patri­ots.

In 1942, Dis­ney released “Der Fuehrer’s Face,” an anti-Nazi pro­pa­gan­da movie that bol­stered sup­port for the war, and even­tu­al­ly won the Acad­e­my Award for Best Ani­mat­ed Short Film. Then, a year lat­er, came The Spir­it of ’43, which fea­tures Don­ald Duck help­ing Amer­i­cans to under­stand why they need to pay their tax­es. Oth­er wartime Dis­ney shorts include Don­ald Gets Draft­ed (1942), The Old Army Game (1943), and Com­man­do Duck (1944). They all appear below.

The Spir­it of ’43

Don­ald Gets Draft­ed

The Old Army Game

Com­man­do Duck

Note: Der Fuehrer’s Face and The Spir­it of ’43 appear in the Ani­ma­tion sec­tion of our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Sto­ry Of Men­stru­a­tion: Walt Disney’s Sex Ed Film from 1946

How Dis­ney Car­toons Are Made

Disney’s Oscar-Win­ning Adven­tures in Music

James Brown Brings Down the House at the Paris Olympia, 1971

in Music | December 17th, 2012

Here’s an amaz­ing film that cap­tures the excite­ment and raw ener­gy of James Brown in his prime.

The footage was tak­en on March 8, 1971, dur­ing a series of con­certs Brown and his band gave at the Olympia the­ater in Paris. It offers a rare glimpse of the orig­i­nal line­up of the J.B.‘s, the group Brown formed in 1970, about two years after the breakup of the Famous Flames.

The line­up includes William “Boot­sy” Collins on bass and his old­er broth­er Phelps “Cat­fish” Collins on lead gui­tar, both of whom would leave the band a few months lat­er. Famous Flames founder Bob­by Byrd, who essen­tial­ly dis­cov­ered Brown in 1952, serves as organ­ist, back­up singer and mas­ter of cer­e­monies. The rest of the band are: Hear­lon “Cheese” Mar­tin on gui­tar, St. Clair Pinck­ney on tenor sax­o­phone, Dar­ryl “Hasaan” Jami­son and Clay­ton “Chick­en” Gun­nells on trum­pet, Fred Wes­ley on trom­bone, and John “Jabo” Starks and Don Juan “Tiger” Mar­tin on drums.

The film was appar­ent­ly shot dur­ing one per­for­mance, even though Brown is intro­duced twice and wears dif­fer­ent cloth­ing. Accord­ing to reports, Brown took a break between “Sun­ny” and “It’s a New Day” while Byrd’s wife, Vic­ki Ander­son, sang two songs that were cut from the film. Audio from the con­cert was released in 1992 as Love Pow­er Peace: Live at the Olympia, Paris 1971. Here’s the set list from the film ver­sion, which dif­fers slight­ly from the LP:

1. Intro­duc­tion
2. Broth­er Rapp
3. Ain’t It Funky Now
4. Geor­gia On My Mind
5. Sun­ny
6. It’s a New Day
7. Bewil­dered
8. Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) Sex Machine
9. Try Me
10. Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag/I Got You (I Feel Good)/I Got the Feel­in’ (med­ley)
11. Give It Up or Turn It a Loose
12. It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World
13. Please, Please, Please
14. Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) Sex Machine (reprise)
15. Super Bad
16. Get Up, Get Into It, Get Involved
17. Soul Pow­er
18. Get Up, Get Into It, Get Involved (finale)

h/t Ryan Jet­ten

Relat­ed con­tent:

Clas­sic Ray Charles Per­for­mance: ‘What’d I Say’ Live in Paris, 1968

The Queen of Soul Con­quers Europe: Aretha Franklin in Ams­ter­dam, 1968

A Crash Course in English Literature: A New Video Series by Best-Selling Author John Green

in English Language, K-12, Literature | December 10th, 2012

There’s no doubt that a sin­gle inspir­ing teacher can have a pro­found impact on a stu­den­t’s life, but what about the duds? The apoplec­tic nun, the tapped out fos­sil, the bit­ter young man? If there’s dead­wood in your edu­ca­tion­al his­to­ry, you owe it to your­self to spend some time with John Green. The charis­mat­ic author and nerd­fight­er is fol­low­ing up his online video series Crash Course World His­to­ry, with the new mini series, Crash Course Eng­lish Lit­er­a­ture.

Think Shake­speare is bor­ing? It’s a posi­tion you’ll be hard pressed to main­tain after hear­ing Green’s take on Romeo and Juli­et, a ver­i­ta­ble luge of facts, triv­ia, cute graph­ics, frank-ish sex talk, corny jokes and iambic low­down. Extra cred­it for ref­er­enc­ing Harley Granville-Bark­er, the turn of the cen­tu­ry quin­tu­ple-threat who sum­ma­rized the play as “a tragedy of youth as youth sees it”.

Hav­ing laid down a few ground rules in episode one, Green is prepar­ing to take on Fitzger­ald, Salinger, and Emi­ly Dick­in­son. If any of these names dredge up unpleas­ant mem­o­ries, relax. Green is not going to make you parse sym­bols and autho­r­i­al intent. His schtick is proud­ly pop­ulist, a Pee­Wee’s Play­house open to those who seek knowl­edge, as well as those whom expe­ri­ence has taught to resist.

Crash Course Eng­lish Lit­er­a­ture will be added to our new col­lec­tion, 200 Free Kids Edu­ca­tion­al Resources: Video Lessons, Apps, Books, Web­sites & More.

More advanced cours­es can be found in the Lit­er­a­ture sec­tion of our col­lec­tion of 575 Free Cours­es Online.

- Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author whose lat­est con­tri­bu­tion to the canon of Eng­lish Lit­er­a­ture is spec­tac­u­lar­ly sched­uled for a day after Christ­mas release.

Ira Glass Makes Balloon Animals and Gives NSFW Advice to Teens — At the Same Time!!

in Art, Life | November 30th, 2012

Pri­or to pub­lic radio super­star­dom, Ira Glass enjoyed mod­est suc­cess as an ama­teur teenage magi­cian with a side in bal­loon ani­mals. At the behest of Rook­ie, an online mag­a­zine by and for teen girls, Glass shared some trade secrets gleaned from the 1974 pam­phlet, Roger’s Rub­ber Ark, Vol­ume II. Ignore the dia­bol­i­cal squeak­ing, and you’ll come out of this video know­ing every step that goes into a seat­ed Snoopy and a sur­pris­ing­ly ele­gant French poo­dle.

Even bet­ter than the bal­loon how-tos are Glass’ straight­for­ward respons­es to Rook­ie read­ers’ ques­tions, a chal­lenge pre­vi­ous­ly faced by Jon Hamm and Paul Rudd.

He applauds the courage of “Anony­mous,” who revealed her true feel­ings to a crush via text mes­sage. But, when pre­sent­ed with the facts, Glass con­cludes unequiv­o­cal­ly that her sen­ti­ment is not shared. (It’s not.)

The entire­ty of wom­ankind will embrace him for what he has to say to nerdy girls and those with short hair­dos.

And when the top­ic turns to con­dom eti­quette and fel­la­tio, well, let’s just say that the teenagers of the world could use more sex edu­ca­tors like Ira Glass.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Ira Glass on the Art of Sto­ry­telling

Louis CK Plays Abraham Lincoln, America’s 16th President and (Yes) Stand-Up Comedian Too

in Comedy, History, Television | November 16th, 2012

Abra­ham Lin­coln fret­ted over the tim­ing of eman­ci­pa­tion, Gen­er­al George McClel­lan’s reluc­tance to take deci­sive action, North-South reuni­fi­ca­tion, and his wife’s men­tal insta­bil­i­ty.

Louis CK wor­ries about sex, his kids, and the decline of his flab­by, mid­dle-aged body.

The ten­den­cy to dwell on weighty mat­ters makes CK a fit­ting choice to embody our 16th pres­i­dent  on the small screen. (A dis­tinc­tion shared by such lumi­nar­ies as Lance Hen­rik­sen and Sam Water­ston, though not at the behest of Sat­ur­day Night Live). Movie star Daniel Day-Lewis’ cur­rent­ly run­ning por­tray­al may net him a Best Actor Triple Crown come awards sea­son, but CK’s the one who takes Abe to anoth­er dimen­sion, tai­lor­ing the Great Empan­ci­pa­tor to fit the estab­lished tem­plate of his own crit­i­cal­ly acclaimed sit­com.

His­to­ry comes alive in a whole new way as the stovepipe-hat­ted, pudgi­er-than-nor­mal Lin­coln trudges up from the sub­way, chok­ing down an anony­mous West Vil­lage slice to get him through a set at the Com­e­dy Cel­lar. Abe’s rou­tine on slave own­er­ship has def­i­nite echoes of Louis’ Sea­son One mus­ings on bes­tial­i­ty, a there-but-for-the-grace-of-god-go‑I flir­ta­tion res­cued by pro­fan­i­ty-laced moral out­rage.

No dis­re­spect to Day-Lewis’ First Lady Sal­ly Field, but there’s sim­i­lar fresh­ness to be found in Sat­ur­day Night Live reg­u­lar Aidy Bryant’s inter­pre­ta­tion of Mary Todd Lin­coln. Par­tic­u­lar­ly  when one fac­tors in a Direc­tor’s Cut that restores the pet­ti­coat peel­ing mate­r­i­al cut from the late night broad­cast.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

David Lynch Teach­es Louis C.K. How to Host The David Let­ter­man Show

How the Great George Car­lin Showed Louis CK the Way to Suc­cess (NSFW)

Watch Suddenly: Frank Sinatra Stars in a 1954 Noir Film

in Film | November 14th, 2012

For Frank Sina­tra’s 100 birth­day today, we’re bring­ing back to the top a post from our archive that high­lights the 1954 noir film, “Sud­den­ly.” In this pub­lic domain flick, Sina­tra played the role of a psy­chopath. And he played the role con­vinc­ing­ly, get­ting some very fine reviews from The New York Times. Enjoy the film and our orig­i­nal post from 2012 below:

Tricky busi­ness, cast­ing a world-famous musi­cian in a movie’s star­ring role: it seems you must either craft the part to per­fect­ly match their per­sona, or to run per­fect­ly against it. Nico­las Roeg, that inim­itable employ­er of singers to his own semi-fath­omable cin­e­mat­ic ends, has rig­or­ous­ly explored this range of pos­si­bil­i­ties. David Bowie seemed the only pos­si­ble choice for the ter­mi­nal­ly lone­ly alien of The Man Who Fell to Earth, just as Art Gar­funkel seemed the last pos­si­ble choice for the psy­cho­sex­u­al tor­men­tor of Bad Tim­ing.

I per­son­al­ly regret that Roeg nev­er got to work with Frank Sina­tra, used to such strik­ing effect by John Franken­heimer in The Manchuri­an Can­di­date and Otto Pre­minger in The Man with the Gold­en Arm. To hold those pic­tures up against, say, the Rat Pack free-for-all of Ocean’s Eleven is to under­stand that cast­ing against per­sona, though on aver­age the riski­er option, pro­duces more fas­ci­nat­ing­ly con­tra­dic­to­ry per­for­mances. In the 1954 noir Sud­den­ly, avail­able free on Archive.org, you can watch an ear­ly exam­ple of this in Sina­tra’s career, when direc­tor Lewis Allen turns him into a psy­chopath bent on assas­si­nat­ing none oth­er than the Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States.

Giv­en the pro­jec­t’s unques­tioned B‑movie con­text, crit­ics regard­ed Sina­tra as hav­ing made a rea­son­ably rich meal of this vil­lain­ous part. “Mr. Sina­tra deserves a spe­cial chunk of praise,” wrote the New York Times’ Bosley Crowther. “In Sud­den­ly he proves a melo­dra­mat­ic tour de force.” Vari­ety also looked favor­ably upon him: “Thesp inserts plen­ty of men­ace into a psy­cho char­ac­ter, nev­er too heav­i­ly done, and gets good back­ing from his costar, Ster­ling Hay­den, as sher­iff, in a less showy role but just as author­i­ta­tive­ly han­dled.” Yes, you read that right: this movie pits Frank Sina­tra against Ster­ling Hay­den. Sina­tra and his crew of killers take over a small-town hill­top fam­i­ly home, the ide­al van­tage point from which to shoot the pass­ing Pres­i­dent. Then Hay­den, the town’s sher­iff, turns up to check things out. How will this clash of titan­ic per­son­al­i­ties resolve? Hit play and find out whether “the num­ber-one man in the nation,” as Sud­den­ly’s sen­sa­tion­al­is­tic poster puts it, falls vic­tim to this “kill-hun­gry hood­lum.”

You will find Sud­den­ly list­ed in our col­lec­tion of Free Noir Films and also our larg­er list 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More.

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

Great Big Ideas: Free Course Features Top Thinkers Tackling the World’s Most Important Ideas in 12 Lectures

in Online Courses | November 14th, 2012

Begun in 2011 by Big Think and the Jack Park­er Cor­po­ra­tion, The Float­ing Uni­ver­si­ty is an online edu­ca­tion­al ini­tia­tive that debuted at Har­vard, Yale, and Bard Col­lege. The pur­pose of The Float­ing Uni­ver­si­ty, accord­ing to its site, is to “democ­ra­tize access to the world’s best thinkers” by pro­vid­ing free, approx­i­mate­ly one hour-long cours­es on a wide range of top­ics, taught at a uni­ver­si­ty lev­el by experts and pro­fes­sors in the var­i­ous fields. The inau­gur­al course, the most favored at the three uni­ver­si­ties, is Great Big Ideas, and it more or less does what it says: tack­les some of the largest, most per­plex­ing ques­tions in digestible intro­duc­tions that also man­age to be rig­or­ous, infor­ma­tive, and thought-pro­vok­ing.

In the lec­ture above, for exam­ple, Har­vard cog­ni­tive psy­chol­o­gist and lin­guist Steven Pinker presents an “eSem­i­nar” in lin­guis­tics, address­ing dogged ques­tions in the field over whether or not humans have an innate, uni­ver­sal gram­mar (as Noam Chom­sky has famous­ly argued); why lan­guage is so fun­da­men­tal to our social rela­tion­ships; and how lan­guage evolved.

Pinker, who describes human lan­guage in broad terms as a “mir­a­cle” and a “win­dow into the human mind,” also gets into the spe­cif­ic sub­fields of lin­guis­tics, dis­cussing them in terms that any layper­son can under­stand with­out much dilut­ing the fas­ci­nat­ing philo­soph­i­cal and sci­en­tif­ic debates around what Dar­win called our “instinc­tive ten­den­cy to speak” to one anoth­er, from infan­cy onward, all over the world, in some 6000 dif­fer­ent lan­guages.

The Great Big Ideas (now added to our list of 1200 Free Online Cours­es) lec­ture series con­sists of twelve lec­tures total, includ­ing Pinker’s. The oth­er eleven are:

• Malthus Miffed: Are Peo­ple the Prob­lem, the Solu­tion, or Both? An Intro­duc­tion to Demog­ra­phy and Pop­u­la­tions Study Through an Exam­i­na­tion of the World’s Pop­u­la­tion. by Joel Cohen (Colum­bia).

• The Uni­verse in a Nut­shell: The Physics of Every­thing. by Michio Kaku (CUNY).

• Of the Peo­ple, by the Peo­ple, for the Peo­ple? The Rawls-Noz­ick Debates as an Intro­duc­tion to the Phi­los­o­phy of Pol­i­tics and Eco­nom­ics. by Tamar Gendler (Yale)

• Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Col­lect $200: Monop­o­lies as an Intro­duc­tion to Eco­nom­ics. by Saul Lev­more (U Chica­go)

• The Psy­chol­o­gy of Every­thing: What Com­pas­sion, Racism, and Sex tell us about Human Nature. by Paul Bloom (Yale)

• If You’re So Free, Why Do You Fol­low Oth­ers? The Soci­o­log­i­cal Sci­ence Behind Social Net­works and Social Influ­ence. by Nicholas Chris­takis (Har­vard)

• Who Wants to Be a Bil­lion­aire? Every­thing You Need to Know About Finance and Invest­ing in Under an Hour. by William Ack­man

• What’s Up, Doc? Is Bio­med­ical Research Real­ly Close to Cur­ing Any­thing? by Dou­glas Melton (Har­vard)

• Art Now: Aes­thet­ics Across Music, Paint­ing, Archi­tec­ture, Movies, and More. by Leon Bost­stein (Har­vard)

• Stand­ing on the Shoul­ders of Giants: The Essen­tial Val­ue of a Clas­sic Edu­ca­tion. by Jef­frey Bren­zel (Yale)

• The Author­i­ty of Ideas: Decod­ing the DNA of Edu­ca­tion in Search of Actu­al Knowl­edge. by Lawrence Sum­mers (Har­vard)

Josh Jones is a doc­tor­al can­di­date in Eng­lish at Ford­ham Uni­ver­si­ty and a co-founder and for­mer man­ag­ing edi­tor of Guer­ni­ca / A Mag­a­zine of Arts and Pol­i­tics.