Philip Glass Composes Music for a Sesame Street Animation (1979)

in Art, Music | February 1st, 2012

Last night, Philip Glass cel­e­brat­ed his 75th birth­day at Carnegie Hall, attend­ing the US pre­miere of his Ninth Sym­pho­ny. His long and illus­tri­ous career con­tin­ues. But today we’re bring­ing you back to 1979, when Glass wrote a com­po­si­tion to accom­pa­ny “Geom­e­try of Cir­cles,” a four-part series of ani­ma­tions that aired on the beloved chil­dren’s show Sesame Street. A strange detour for an influ­en­tial com­pos­er? Not real­ly. Not when you con­sid­er that Glass came out of a 1960s tra­di­tion that made mod­ern music more play­ful and approach­able.

And speak­ing of approach­able, don’t miss Philip Glass get­ting inter­viewed by his friend­ly cousin Ira Glass. You know Ira as the host of This Amer­i­can Life. The inter­view took place in 1999, and NPR final­ly brought it back yes­ter­day, at least for a lim­it­ed time. You can lis­ten here.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Ira Glass on the Art of Sto­ry­telling

A Min­i­mal Glimpse of Philip Glass

Philip Glass & Lou Reed at Occu­py Lin­coln Cen­ter: An Art­ful View

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A Tour Inside Salvador Dalí’s Labyrinthine Spanish Home

in Art | January 26th, 2012

Along the Cos­ta Bra­va in north­ern Spain, in the lit­tle sea­side vil­lage of Portl­li­gat, sits the house that became Sal­vador Dalí’s main res­i­dence in 1930. It start­ed off as a small fisherman’s hut. Then Dalí went to work on the struc­ture, ren­o­vat­ing it lit­tle by lit­tle over the next 40 years, cre­at­ing a liv­ing, breath­ing, labyrinthine home that reflects the artist’s one-of-a-kind aes­thet­ic. Writ­ing about the house, the author Joseph Pla once said:

The dec­o­ra­tion of the house is sur­pris­ing, extra­or­di­nary. Per­haps the most exact adjec­tive would be: nev­er-before-seen. I do not believe that there is any­thing like it, in this coun­try or in any oth­er.… Dalí’s house is com­plete­ly unex­pect­ed.… It con­tains noth­ing more than mem­o­ries, obses­sions. The fixed ideas of its own­ers. There is noth­ing tra­di­tion­al, nor inher­it­ed, nor repeat­ed, nor copied here. All is inde­ci­pher­able per­son­al mythol­o­gy.… There are art works (by the painter), Russ­ian things (of Mrs. Gala), stuffed ani­mals, stair­cas­es of geo­log­i­cal walls going up and down, books (strange for such peo­ple), the com­mon­place and the refined, etc.

For many, it’s a long trip to Portl­li­gat, and only eight peo­ple can vis­it the house at a time. So today we’re fea­tur­ing a video tour of Dalí’s Span­ish home. The inte­ri­or shots begin around the 1:30 mark. If you love taxi­dermy, you won’t be wast­ing your time.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Des­ti­no: The Sal­vador Dalí – Dis­ney Col­lab­o­ra­tion 57 Years in the Mak­ing

Sal­vador Dalí Appears on “What’s My Line? in 1952

Alfred Hitch­cock Recalls Work­ing with Sal­vador Dalí on Spell­bound

Un Chien Andalou: Revis­it­ing Buñuel and Dalí’s Sur­re­al­ist Film

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The Monk and the Fish, the Classic Animation by Michael Dudok de Wit

in Art, Film | January 18th, 2012

Edi­tor’s note: The text below dis­cuss­es the end­ing of the film. We rec­om­mend that you watch “The Monk and the Fish” before read­ing.

In this charm­ing and visu­al­ly ele­gant film from 1994, the Dutch-born ani­ma­tor Michael Dudok de Wit tells the sto­ry of a sin­gle-mind­ed monk and a very elu­sive fish. While the set­ting and sym­bols are Chris­t­ian, the sto­ry pro­gres­sion is essen­tial­ly Bud­dhist.

“The Monk and the Fish is not a sto­ry about the solu­tion of a con­flict,” Dudok de Wit explained to Sarah Moli­noff in a 2009 inter­view for the Oxon­ian Review. “It’s more about the rise above the con­flict, the rise above dual­i­ty.” The monk does­n’t catch the fish; he and the fish are unit­ed. Dudok de Wit took his inspi­ra­tion from the Ten Ox Herd­ing Pic­tures, a series of Zen poems and images from 12th Cen­tu­ry Chi­na, which illus­trate the jour­ney to enlight­en­ment through the sto­ry of an oxherd’s strug­gle with a way­ward bull. He said:

The gen­e­sis of the film was the end­ing. It was that sequence I want­ed to cre­ate, where there is a serene union between the monk and the fish. The end­ing by itself would be flat, too abstract, to pull the audi­ence in, so I clear­ly need­ed to have a build-up, to estab­lish and feel empa­thy with the char­ac­ter. In con­trast to the end­ing, in the begin­ning the monk is obsessed, obsessed, obsessed, but in the end­ing he arrives at a res­o­lu­tion. In a qui­et way, not with a big act.

The Lon­don-based artist hand-paint­ed each frame in ink and water­col­or. Like the sto­ry, the visu­al style was inspired by the Far East. “The Japan­ese in par­tic­u­lar, and also the Chi­nese and Kore­ans,” said Dudok de Wit, “have a way of using neg­a­tive space, of not fill­ing the pic­ture, which is very typ­i­cal of the Far East and very untyp­i­cal of the West. We can be inspired by it, but it’s pro­found­ly in their culture–in their genes maybe, and not so much in ours. It’s not just about the brush line, it’s also the space around the line that is inspir­ing.”

For the music, Dudok de Wit chose a clas­sic from the West­ern canon, La Folia, a tra­di­tion­al theme that was often adapt­ed or quot­ed by com­posers like Bach, Vival­di, Corel­li, Han­del and Liszt. The film­mak­er select­ed a few of his favorite variations–mainly from Corel­li and Vivaldi–and asked com­pos­er Serge Bes­set to lis­ten to them and cre­ate a new ver­sion to fit the film.

The Monk and the Fish took six months to cre­ate, and was nom­i­nat­ed for Best Short Ani­mat­ed Film at both the Acad­e­my Awards and the British Acad­e­my Film Awards. You will find it list­ed in our col­lec­tion of 450 Free Movies Online, along with anoth­er mov­ing short by Dudock de Wit, Father and Daugh­ter. They appear in the Ani­ma­tion Sec­tion.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Shel Sil­ver­stein’s The Giv­ing Tree: The Ani­mat­ed Movie

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Madeline 365: A Year in the Life

in Art, Life | January 17th, 2012

Remem­ber Jeff Har­ris? He’s the pho­tog­ra­ph­er who has doc­u­ment­ed every day of his life with a self-por­trait since 1999. Now meet Made­line Schich­tel, a young pro­duc­tion assis­tant liv­ing in LA. She record­ed her dai­ly life in 2011 with a Canon Pow­er­shot, then edit­ed each day down to a mean­ing­ful one-sec­ond shot, cre­at­ing the video mon­tage “This is What Made­line Did.” Wired writer Steve Sil­ber­man (aka @SteveSilberman) found the video unex­pect­ed­ly charm­ing, and we have to agree. “All My Friends,” by LCD Soundsys­tem, serves as the sound­track for this endear­ing lit­tle film.

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The Page Turner: A Fabulous Rube Goldberg Machine for Readers

in Art | January 12th, 2012

Last week, The New York Times pro­filed Joseph Her­sch­er, a 26-year-old kinet­ic artist who hails from New Zealand and now devel­ops inten­tion­al­ly “absurd” and “use­less” Rube Gold­berg machines in his Brook­lyn apart­ment. His lat­est con­trap­tion, called “The Page Turn­er,” just gets bet­ter as it rolls along. Per­haps the best part comes towards the end when Her­scher’s pet ham­ster, Chester, makes a cameo appear­ance. Enjoy…

Fol­low us on Face­book, Twit­ter, Google Plus and LinkedIn 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.

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Underground Cartoonist R. Crumb Introduces Us to His Rollicking Album Cover Designs

in Art, Books, Comics/Cartoons, Music | January 11th, 2012

Music and com­ic book art are the two pas­sions of Robert Crumb’s cre­ative life. In this video from W.W. Nor­ton, Crumb talks about his obses­sive inter­est in the old-time blues, folk and coun­try music of the 1920s and 1930s. “I think it’s neu­ro­log­i­cal,” he says. “Some quirky types of ner­vous sys­tems are just attract­ed to that old music.”

As one of the pio­neers of the under­ground comix move­ment in the late 1960s, Crum­b’s work often relat­ed in some way to his love of music. His famous “Keep on Truckin’ ” com­ic of 1968 was inspired by the lyrics of Blind Boy Fuller’s song, “Truckin’ My Blues Away.” That same year Janis Joplin, who was singing with Big Broth­er & the Hold­ing Com­pa­ny, asked Crumb to design the cov­er of the band’s album Cheap Thrills.

Since then, Crumb has designed hun­dreds of album cov­ers and music posters. His new book, R. Crumb: The Com­plete Record Cov­er Col­lec­tion, brings togeth­er all the cov­ers and many relat­ed works. The book con­tains por­traits of famous artists like Robert John­son and Woody Guthrie, along with works fea­tur­ing obscure artists with names like “Ukelele Ike” and “Big John Wrencher and his Maxwell Street Blues Boys.” There are also cov­ers and posters made for Crum­b’s own band, the Cheap Suit Ser­e­naders.

Crumb is a ban­jo and man­dolin play­er. One group he has sat in with in recent years is Eden & John’s East Riv­er String Band. This video was direct­ed by the group’s co-leader, John Heneghan, and includes appear­ances by him­self and his part­ner Eden Brow­er. The video fea­tures the fol­low­ing songs:

  1. “Sing Song Girl” by Leroy Sheild (1930)
  2. “Some of these Days” by Cab Cal­loway (1930)
  3. “Lind­berg Hop” by the Mem­phis Jug Band (1928)
  4. “Down On Me” by Eddie Head and His Fam­i­ly (1930)
  5. “Chasin’ Rain­bows” by R. Crumb and his Cheap Suit Ser­e­naders (1976)
  6. “Singing in the Bath­tub” by R. Crumb and his Cheap Suit Ser­e­naders (1978)
  7. “So Sor­ry Dear” by Eden & John’s East Riv­er String Band, fea­tur­ing R. Crumb

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Con­fes­sions of Robert Crumb: A Por­trait Script­ed by the Under­ground Comics Leg­end Him­self (1987)

Robert Crumb Illus­trates Philip K. Dick’s Infa­mous, Hal­lu­ci­na­to­ry Meet­ing with God (1974)

R. Crumb’s Heroes of Blues, Jazz & Coun­try Fea­tures 114 Illus­tra­tions of the Artist’s Favorite Musi­cians

A Short His­to­ry of Amer­i­ca, Accord­ing to the Irrev­er­ent Com­ic Satirist Robert Crumb

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Tim Burton’s The World of Stainboy: Watch the Complete Animated Series

in Animation, Art, Film | January 9th, 2012

In his 1997 book of draw­ings and verse, The Melan­choly Death of Oys­ter Boy & Oth­er Sto­ries, Tim Bur­ton imag­ines a bizarre menagerie of mis­fits with names like Tox­ic Boy, Junk Girl, the Pin Cush­ion Queen and the Boy with Nails in his Eyes.

“Inspired by such child­hood heroes as Dr. Seuss and Roald Dahl,” writes James Ryan in the New York Times, “Mr. Bur­ton’s slim vol­ume exquis­ite­ly con­veys the pain of an ado­les­cent out­sider. Like his movies, the work man­ages to be both child­like and sophis­ti­cat­ed, blend­ing the inno­cent with the macabre.”

One of those ado­les­cent out­siders is Stain Boy, a strange kind of super­hero:

He can’t fly around tall build­ings,
or out­run a speed­ing train,
the only tal­ent he seems to have
is to leave a nasty stain.

Some­times I know it both­ers him,
that he can’t run or swim or fly,
and because of this one abil­i­ty,
his dry clean­ing bill is sky-high.

In 2000, Bur­ton extend­ed Stain Boy’s adven­tures (and com­pressed his name into one word) with The World of Stain­boy, a series of short ani­ma­tions com­mis­sioned for the Inter­net by Shockwave.com. “For some sto­ries you have to wait for the right medi­um,” Bur­ton said at the time. “I think (the Inter­net’s) the per­fect forum to tell a sad lit­tle sto­ry like this one. Stain­boy is a char­ac­ter that does­n’t do much. He’s just per­fect for four-minute ani­ma­tions.”

Bur­ton cre­at­ed a series of sketch­es, water­col­ors and pas­tel-accent­ed gray-on-gray wash­es and brought them, along with a script and sto­ry­boards, to Flinch Stu­dio for trans­la­tion into Macro­me­dia Flash ani­ma­tion. Twen­ty-six episodes were planned, but only six were com­plet­ed. “Stain­boy was an exper­i­ment in devel­op­ing rev­enue streams for the Web,” writes Ali­son McMa­han in The Films of Tim Bur­ton: Ani­mat­ing Live Action in Con­tem­po­rary Hol­ly­wood, “but it did not suc­ceed, at least not finan­cial­ly.”

The Stain­boy char­ac­ter was res­ur­rect­ed briefly in late 2010, when Bur­ton invit­ed fans to com­pose a new Stain­boy adven­ture in brief install­ments via Twit­ter. Bur­ton pieced togeth­er a sto­ry using the best tweets. (You can read the final result here.) Mean­while, the orig­i­nal Web ani­ma­tions have con­tin­ued to attract a fol­low­ing. You can watch the com­plete six-part series below in HD. As you will see, some episodes intro­duce new char­ac­ters — Stare Girl, Tox­ic Boy, Bowl­ing Ball Head and the rest:

Episode 1: Stare Girl

Episode 2: Tox­ic Boy

Episode 3: Bowl­ing Ball Head

Episode 4: Robot Boy

Episode 5: Match­stick Girl

Episode 6: The Ori­gin of Stain­boy

You can find the Stain­boy videos on our list of Free Online Ani­ma­tions, a sub­set of our meta col­lec­tion, 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Vin­cent: Tim Burton’s Ear­ly Ani­mat­ed Film

Tim Bur­ton: A Look Inside His Visu­al Imag­i­na­tion

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Remembering Eve Arnold, Pioneering Photojournalist

in Art, Media | January 6th, 2012

Eve Arnold, one of the pio­neer­ing women of pho­to­jour­nal­ism, died Wednes­day at the age of 99.

Wide­ly known for her pho­tographs of Mar­i­lyn Mon­roe and oth­er celebri­ties, Arnold just as often pho­tographed the poor and the unknown. “I don’t see any­body as either ordi­nary or extra­or­di­nary,” she told the BBC in 1990. “I see them sim­ply as peo­ple in front of my lens.”

Born Eve Cohen in Philadel­phia on April 21, 1912, she was one of nine chil­dren of Ukrain­ian immi­grant par­ents. When she was 28 years old she gave up plans to become a doc­tor after a boyfriend gave her a cam­era. She stud­ied pho­tog­ra­phy for a brief time under Alex­ey Brodovitch at the New School for Social Research before going out on her own and find­ing her style.

“I did­n’t work in a stu­dio, I did­n’t light any­thing,” Arnold would lat­er say. “I found a way of work­ing which pleased me because I did­n’t have to fright­en peo­ple with heavy equip­ment. It was that lit­tle black box and me.”

A series of pho­tographs Arnold took of fash­ion shows in Harlem attract­ed the atten­tion of Hen­ri Carti­er-Bres­son, one of the founders of Mag­num Pho­tos, and she was invit­ed to con­tribute to the agency. In 1957 Arnold became the first woman pho­tog­ra­ph­er to join Mag­num as a full mem­ber. She worked often for Life and lat­er, after mov­ing to Eng­land in 1961, for The Sun­day Times Mag­a­zine, trav­el­ing to places like Afghanistan, South Africa, Mon­go­lia and Cuba while always main­tain­ing a per­son­al point of view. In her 1976 book, The Unre­touched Woman, Arnold wrote:

Themes recur again and again in my work. I have been poor and I want­ed to doc­u­ment pover­ty; I had lost a child and I was obsessed with birth; I was inter­est­ed in pol­i­tics and I want­ed to know how it affect­ed our lives; I am a woman and I want­ed to know about women.

Arnold pub­lished 15 books in her life­time, includ­ing the Nation­al Book Award-win­ning In Chi­na. In 2003 she was award­ed the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elis­a­beth II, whom she had once pho­tographed. In the 2007 book Mag­num Mag­num, pho­tog­ra­ph­er Elliott Erwitt summed things up:

Eve Arnold’s lega­cy is as var­ied as it is fas­ci­nat­ing. It is hard to fath­om how one per­son­’s work can be so diverse. I cov­ers the hum­blest to the most exalt­ed, the mean­est to the kind­est, and every­thing in between. The sub­jects are all there in Eve Arnold’s pho­tographs and they are treat­ed with intel­li­gence, con­sid­er­a­tion and sym­pa­thy. Most impor­tant is Eve’s abil­i­ty to visu­al­ly com­mu­ni­cate her con­cerns direct­ly, with­out fan­fare or pre­tense, in the best human­is­tic tra­di­tion.

Eve Arnold on the set of Beck­ett, 1963, by Robert Penn.                                       (© Copy­right Eve Arnold/Magnum Pho­tos)

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