“Notebook on Cities and Culture,” a Worldwide In-Depth Interview Podcast, Kickstarting Now

in Podcasts | June 23rd, 2013

https://vimeo.com/68246840

Ever since I’ve writ­ten posts here on Open Cul­ture, I’ve host­ed and pro­duced Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture, a pod­cast ded­i­cat­ed to in-depth, long-form inter­views with cul­tur­al cre­ators, inter­na­tion­al­ists, and observers of the urban scene. In its three sea­sons so far, I’ve roamed cities like Los Ange­les, San Fran­cis­co, Port­land, Van­cou­ver, Mex­i­co City, Kyoto, Nara, and Osa­ka record­ing all of these con­ver­sa­tions face to face with guests like writer of place Pico Iyer, Book­worm host Michael Sil­verblatt, MetaFil­ter founder Matt Haugh­ey, film crit­ic Kari­na Long­worth, Los Ange­les Review of Books edi­tor Tom Lutz, graph­ic design­er Clive Pier­cy, park­ing the­o­rist Don­ald Shoup, con­cep­tu­al artist Jonathon Keats, Slate pod­cast pro­duc­er Andy Bow­ers, Japan spe­cial­ist Roland Kelts, nov­el­ist Tim­o­thy Tay­lor, and monolo­gist Josh Korn­bluth.

ncclogoFor the next sea­son, the show’s fourth and most ambi­tious, I’ll record full-length con­ver­sa­tions with six­ty more lumi­nar­ies not just in Los Ange­les, but in the Lon­don, Toron­to, and Copen­hagen as well. As with pre­vi­ous sea­sons, I launched a Kick­starter dri­ve last week to fund it. As of this writ­ing, it’s raised $5,138 of its $8,000 bud­get, but it only has six­teen hours. If we don’t raise the full amount by Mon­day, June 24th at noon Pacif­ic time, the sea­son won’t hap­pen at all. If Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture’s fourth sea­son strikes you as some­thing you’d like to help make a real­i­ty, please do vis­it the show’s Kick­starter page. Thanks very much indeed!

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

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James Gandolfini Shows Kinder, Softer, Gentler Side on Sesame Street (2002)

in Life, Television | June 23rd, 2013

When James Gan­dolfi­ni first broke into film, he played Vir­gil, a bru­tal woman-beat­ing mafioso (view­er beware), in the 1993 thriller, True Romance, writ­ten by Quentin Taran­ti­no. In Ter­mi­nal Veloc­i­ty, he was back at it again, play­ing a Russ­ian mob­ster. By the 1999, when The Sopra­nos first aired on HBO, Gan­dolfi­ni had per­fect­ed the mob­ster role. The explo­sive anger, the raw vio­lence, the col­or­ful lan­guage — he had it all down. Of course, this con­tributed to a good gag when Gan­dolfi­ni appeared on Sesame Street in 2002. Now the world had the chance to see the actor as it had­n’t seen him before. Meek, timid, and death­ly afraid of giant talk­ing veg­eta­bles. It’s an endear­ing lit­tle scene.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

See Ste­vie Won­der Play “Super­sti­tion” and Ban­ter with Grover on Sesame Street in 1973

Philip Glass Com­pos­es for Sesame Street (1979)

Mor­gan Free­man Teach­es Kids to Read in Vin­tage Elec­tric Com­pa­ny Footage from 1971

 

 

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A Lover’s Spat Set to the Lyrics of 17 Beatles Songs

in Comedy, Music | June 22nd, 2013

Those of us who spent hours sit­ting in front of the record play­er with our dads’ Radio Shack recorders, striv­ing to dupli­cate the hilar­i­ty of Dick­ie Good­man’s nov­el­ty hit 1975 “Mr. Jaws,” will find much to appre­ci­ate in the staged spat above.

Musi­cal pranksters Col­lec­tive Caden­za raid­ed the Bea­t­les’ cat­a­logue for sev­en­teen songs to dri­ve the nar­ra­tive of a sus­pi­cious wife con­fronting her phi­lan­der­ing hus­band. Which hussy sent him that pas­sion­ate text? Lady Madon­na? Julia? Michelle? Eleanor Rig­by seems to have more com­ic poten­tial than a tired ageist dig, and giv­en their high pro­duc­tion val­ues, I’m mys­ti­fied that the cre­ators shied away from hir­ing a real­is­ti­cal­ly hot plumber.

Per­haps I’m over-think­ing things. It’s a lark, that’s all. Don’t expect Shake­speare, and you won’t lose sleep won­der­ing why they failed to include “I Am the Wal­rus.”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Peter Sell­ers Reads The Bea­t­les’ “She Loves You” in Four Dif­fer­ent Accents

Hold Me Clos­er, Tony Dan­za and Oth­er Mis­heard Lyrics for Your Lis­ten­ing Plea­sure

Ayun Hal­l­i­day had a girl­ish crush on Paul, then switched to George, before wis­ing up and going with John. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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Iggy Pop Conducts a Tour of New York’s Lower East Side, Circa 1993

in Film, Life, Music | June 21st, 2013

I moved to New York City in 2000, and to the Low­er East Side in 2002. To my dis­may, the grit­ty down­town New York I’d loved from afar since childhood—represented by films like The War­riors, bands like Son­ic Youth, and graf­fi­ti artists like Zephyr—was near­ly at an end. CBGB’s was stag­ger­ing toward its final years; local venue Brown­ies, right across the street, closed dur­ing my tenure, then re-opened as anoth­er bar, the live bands replaced by a juke­box; the few remain­ing artists from the old days holed up in their apart­ments, surly and for­got­ten; and rumors of Whole Foods and glass & steel con­dos proved true in the com­ing years. It was sad.

But oh, to be there in the 80s and ear­ly 90s, when flow­ers of dirty punk art grew from the nee­dle-strewn Tomp­kins Square Park and the decay­ing squat­ters par­adis­es along Avenue A. Of course I’m roman­ti­ciz­ing a time of high crime, pover­ty, and low expec­ta­tions, a time many native New York­ers do not remem­ber fond­ly (then again, it seems, just as many do). There are many, many doc­u­ments of the old East Vil­lage mean streets—too many to prop­er­ly list in this short post. But I can imag­ine no bet­ter tour guide to pre-mil­len­ni­al NYC than Iggy Pop.

In the short film above, watch him show Dutch film­mak­er Bram van Splun­teren around Alpha­bet City. Grant­ed this is 1993. Things weren’t near­ly as hairy as they were a few years pri­or (a fact Iggy points out right away), but it’s still a world away from the Low­er East Side of today. Pop traipses through the neigh­bor­hood, point­ing out favorite land­marks and pieces of graf­fi­ti. No stranger to urban decay, the Detroit native seems right at home. This being New York, Pop can stroll around with­out being molest­ed (or most­ly even rec­og­nized). All in all it’s a pret­ty leisure­ly tour of the 90s Low­er East Side on a bright and sun­ny day with the guy who more-or-less invent­ed punk. What more could you want?

via Coudal.com

Relat­ed Con­tent:

From The Stooges to Iggy Pop: 1986 Doc­u­men­tary Charts the Rise of Punk’s God­fa­ther

Jim Pow­er, aka “the Mosa­ic Man,” Adorns the Lamp­posts of New York City’s East Vil­lage

Nico Sings “Chelsea Girls” in the Famous Chelsea Hotel

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

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How to Make a Mummy — Demonstrated by The Getty Museum

in History | June 21st, 2013

From the day we first learn of them, ancient Egypt­ian mum­mies fas­ci­nate us. Grant­ed, that day usu­al­ly comes in ele­men­tary school, and soon after it we become aware of the mum­my as a promi­nent pres­ence in var­i­ous hor­ror movies. But the elab­o­rate, rit­u­al­is­tic process of mum­mi­fi­ca­tion, and what it says about ancient Egypt­ian soci­ety, con­tin­ues to intrigue, even though we might no longer want a mum­my of our own to prop up in our room like we did at age sev­en. As it hap­pens, though, the Get­ty Vil­la in Mal­ibu has a mum­my of their own: a fel­low by the name of Her­ak­lei­des, mum­mi­fied around 150 A.D., who “com­bines the mil­len­nia-old Egypt­ian tra­di­tion of mum­mi­fi­ca­tion of the dead with the Roman tra­di­tion of indi­vid­u­al­ized por­trai­ture.”

In the three-minute Get­ty-pro­duced video at the top of the post, you can see a recon­struc­tion of Her­ak­lei­des’ mum­mi­fi­ca­tion process, from inter­nal organ removal (a par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est­ing phase back in first grade, as I recall) to de-mois­tur­iz­ing with salt, to the appli­ca­tion of oils and resins, to the char­ac­ter­is­tic wrap­ping with lay­er upon lay­er of linen strips. Though this gives you an accu­rate overview of how the ancient Egyp­tians pre­served their dead, much more remains to be said about mum­mies in gen­er­al and this mum­my in par­tic­u­lar. If you now feel that same desire for fur­ther detail that you felt in the class­room those decades ago, see also the lec­ture just above, “Get­ting to Know Her­ak­lei­des: Explor­ing a Red-Shroud Mum­my from Roman Egypt,” from the Get­ty Muse­um’s asso­ciate con­ser­va­tor of antiq­ui­ties Marie Svo­bo­da.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

How the Egypt­ian Pyra­mids Were Built: A New The­o­ry in 3D Ani­ma­tion

How a Bal­ti­more Hair­dress­er Became a World-Renowned “Hair Archae­ol­o­gist” of Ancient Rome

Rome Reborn – An Amaz­ing Dig­i­tal Mod­el of Ancient Rome

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

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Watch His Girl Friday, Howard Hawks’ Classic Screwball Comedy Starring Cary Grant, Free Online

in Film | June 21st, 2013

The movies and jour­nal­ism have had a long rela­tion­ship in Amer­i­ca, not least because, in Hol­ly­wood’s hey­day, so many screen­writ­ers began their careers in news­rooms. The pro­lif­ic Ben Hecht, now known as “the Shake­speare of Hol­ly­wood,” start­ed off as a reporter at the Chica­go Jour­nal. His col­lab­o­ra­tor Charles MacArthur first worked over at the Chica­go Tri­bune. They, along with son of the film indus­try Charles Led­er­er, co-wrote His Girl Fri­day, the clas­sic 1940 screw­ball com­e­dy of steely sto­ry-chas­ing and elab­o­rate roman­tic intrigue at The Morn­ing Post. Since the film fell into the pub­lic domain in 1968 — and this being Fri­day, after all — why not get a shot of Cary Grant, Ros­alind Rus­sell, and Howard Hawks free online today?

His Girl Fri­day stands out for many rea­sons, espe­cial­ly by refus­ing, unlike many Hol­ly­wood pic­tures writ­ten by for­mer news­pa­per­men, to instinc­tive­ly glo­ri­fy jour­nal­ism, a mis­take more recent films about the news still make. As the New York­er’s Antho­ny Lane wrote about Shat­tered Glass, Bil­ly Ray’s drama­ti­za­tion of the fall of infa­mous New Repub­lic fab­ri­ca­tor Stephen Glass, “Glass may be a rot­ten apple in the bar­rel, but the con­tention of Ray’s film is that the bar­rel itself, the noble call­ing of the reporter, is as stur­dy and as pol­ished as ever. Give me a break. On sec­ond thought, give me His Girl Fri­day. Five min­utes of Howard Hawks’s speedy and cyn­i­cal view of hacks in sharp suits, as they them­selves bend the world to fit the shape of their own cyn­i­cism, is a more brac­ing sight than nine­ty-four min­utes of Stephen Glass and his trag­ic slide from grace.”

His Girl Fri­day appears in our col­lec­tion of 535 Free Movies Online.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Cha­rade, the Best Hitch­cock Film Hitch­cock Nev­er Made, Free Online. Stars Cary Grant & Audrey Hep­burn

26 Free Char­lie Chap­lin Films Online

Watch The Hitch-Hik­er by Ida Lupino (the Sole Female Direc­tor of a 1950s Noir Film)

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

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A Beer Bottle Gets Turned Into a 19th Century Edison Cylinder and Plays Fine Music

in Design, Music | June 20th, 2013

The long and cozy rela­tion­ship between alco­hol and music is well-documented—in song. Did George Jones ever sing about any­thing else?

But until now there’s nev­er been so lit­er­al a part­ner­ship as the one between Beck’s beer and the New Zealand pop band Ghost Wave.

This spring, the band won a con­test at the heart of Beck’s adver­tis­ing cam­paign, “Music Inspires Art.” The prize: a Ghost Wave label on beer bot­tles through­out New Zealand. Last month came a sec­ond prize. In the spir­it of Thomas Edison’s famous record­ing cylin­ders, Beck’s pro­duced an old-school record­ing of a Ghost Wave track direct­ly onto a green glass bot­tle.

The audio qual­i­ty is sur­pris­ing­ly good. You’ve prob­a­bly heard the crack­ly record­ings of Tchaikovsky’s voice record­ed on an ear­ly Edi­son cylin­der. You may have even heard the (much more recent) sin­gle that Suzanne Vega pro­duced in cylin­der for­mat.

For the beer-bot­tle record­ing, Beck’s enlist­ed the help of Auck­land-based spe­cial effects firm Gyros Con­struc­tivists to build an indus­tri­al strength record-cut­ting lathe. The tech­nol­o­gy used for ear­li­er cylin­ders didn’t work because the Ghost Wave track, like most mod­ern music, fea­tures so much bass that the cut­ting tool kept hop­ping out of the groove. The Gyros lathe used a hard dri­ve record­ing head to cut into the glass.

The bot­tle track ulti­mate­ly played on a reverse-engi­neered cylin­der play­er, made with mod­ern mate­ri­als and fine-tuned with soft­ware to remove motor hum.

Edi­son invent­ed the phono­graph cylin­der in 1877. In an ear­ly record­ing, he cap­tured his own voice recit­ing a children’s nurs­ery rhyme. Edison’s ini­tial pro­to­type used tin­foil wrapped around a hand-cranked cylin­der, but that proved to be too del­i­cate for every­day use. He changed the mate­r­i­al to wax, which also wore out after repeat­ed use, and even­tu­al­ly replaced that with plas­tic cel­lu­loid.

Now what would George Jones have said about that?

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Thomas Edi­son Recites “Mary Had a Lit­tle Lamb” in Ear­ly Voice Record­ing

Thomas Edison’s 1889 Record­ing of Otto von Bis­mar­ck‎ Dis­cov­ered

Tchaikovsky’s Voice Cap­tured on an Edi­son Cylin­der (1890)

Kate Rix writes about dig­i­tal media and edu­ca­tion. Vis­it her web­site, , and fol­low her on Twit­ter, @mskaterix.

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James Gandolfini Reads from Maurice Sendak’s Children’s Story “In The Night Kitchen”

in Audio Books, K-12 | June 20th, 2013

Two weeks ago, we gave a brief, pass­ing men­tion to a gem of a clip — James Gan­dolfi­ni read­ing from Mau­rice Sendak’s con­tro­ver­sial chil­dren’s book In The Night Kitchen (1970). Giv­en the unfor­tu­nate and untime­ly demise of the actor, it seems worth putting this video direct­ly into the spot­light for a moment. Gan­dolfini’s read­ing took place on Sep­tem­ber 15, 2008 at the 92nd St Y in New York City, at a cel­e­bra­tion held on the occa­sion of Mau­rice Sendak’s 80th birth­day. A fan of Sendak’s great chil­dren’s tales, Gan­dolfi­ni also per­formed the voice of Car­ol in the 2009 film adap­ta­tion of Where The Wild Things Are. Lis­ten below.

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