A Long, Guided Tour of New York City Captured in Original Color Film (1937)

in Current Affairs, Film, History, Travel | September 18th, 2020

So much clas­sic black and white footage has been dig­i­tal­ly col­orized recent­ly, it’s hard to remem­ber that the East­man Kodak Com­pa­ny’s Kodachrome film debuted way back in 1935.

The above footage of New York City was shot by an unknown enthu­si­ast in and around 1937.

Dick Hoef­s­loot, the Nether­lands-based video­g­ra­ph­er who post­ed it to YouTube after tweak­ing it a bit for motion sta­bi­liza­tion and speed-cor­rec­tion, is not averse to arti­fi­cial­ly col­or­ing his­toric footage using mod­ern soft­ware, but in this case, there was no need.

It was shot in col­or.

If things have a green­ish cast, that’s owing to the film on which it was shot. Three-col­or film, which added blue to the red-green mix, was more expen­sive and more com­mon­ly used lat­er on.

Hoefsloot’s best guess is that this film was shot by a mem­ber of a wealthy fam­i­ly. It’s con­fi­dent­ly made, but also seems to be a home movie of sorts, giv­en the pres­ence of an old­er woman who appears a half dozen times on this self-guid­ed tour of New York sites.

There’s plen­ty here that remains famil­iar: the Wool­worth Build­ing and the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Muse­um of Art, trussed up Christ­mas trees propped against makeshift side­walk stands, the New York Pub­lic Library’s lions, Patience and For­ti­tude.

Oth­er aspects are more a mat­ter of nos­tal­gia.

Over in Times Square, Bull­dog Drum­mond Comes Back star­ring John Bar­ry­more was play­ing at the Cri­te­ri­on (now the site of a Gap store), while the Para­mount The­ater, now a Hard Rock Cafe, played host to True Con­fes­sion with Bar­ry­more and Car­ol Lom­bard.

Oys­ters were still food for the mass­es, though records show that local­ly har­vest­ed ones had been deemed too pol­lut­ed for human con­sump­tion for at least a decade.

A bag of peanuts cost 15¢. A new Oldsmo­bile went for about $914 plus city tax.

Laun­dry could be seen strung between build­ings (still can be on occa­sion), but peo­ple dressed up care­ful­ly for shop­ping trips and oth­er excur­sions around town. Heav­en for­bid they step out­side with­out a hat.

Though the Stat­ue of Lib­er­ty makes an appear­ance, the film doesn’t depict the neigh­bor­hoods where new and estab­lished immi­grants were known to con­gre­gate. Had the cam­era trav­eled uptown to the Apol­lo—by 1937, the largest employ­er of black the­atri­cal work­ers in the coun­try and the sole venue in the city in which they were hired for back­stage positions—the over­all com­po­si­tion would have proved less white.

The film, which was uploaded a lit­tle over a year ago, has recent­ly attract­ed a fresh vol­ley of atten­tion, lead­ing Hoef­s­loot to reis­sue his request for view­ers to “refrain from (post­ing) polit­i­cal, reli­gious or racist-relat­ed com­ments.”

In this fraught elec­tion year, we hope you will par­don a New York­er for point­ing out the legion of com­menters flout­ing this polite request, so eager are they to fan the fires of intol­er­ance by express­ing a pref­er­ence for the “way things used to be.”

With all due respect, there aren’t many peo­ple left who were present at the time, who can accu­rate­ly recall and describe New York City in 1937. Our hunch is that those who can are not spend­ing such time as remains rab­ble-rous­ing on YouTube.

So enjoy this his­toric win­dow on the past, then take a deep breath and con­front the present that’s reveal­ing itself in the YouTube com­ments.

A chrono­log­i­cal list of New York City sites and cit­i­zens appear­ing in this film cir­ca 1937:

00:00 Low­er Man­hat­tan sky­line seen from Brook­lyn Heights Prom­e­nade

00:45 Stat­en Island steam fer­ry

01:05 RMS Carinthia

01:10 Old three-stack pass.ship, maybe USS Leviathan

01:28 One-stack pass.ship, name?

01:50 HAL SS Volen­dam or SS Veen­dam II

02:18 West­field II steam fer­ry to Stat­en Island, built 1862?

02:30 Floyd Ben­nett Air­field, North Beach Air Ser­vice inc. hangar

02:43 Hoey Air Ser­vices hangar at  F.B. Air­field

02:55 Ladies board mono­plane, Stin­son S Junior, NC10883, built 1931

03:15 Fly­ing over New York: Cen­tral Park & Rock­e­feller Cen­ter

03:19 Empire State Build­ing (ESB)

03:22 Chrysler build­ing in the dis­tance

03:26 Stat­ue of Lib­er­ty island

03:30 Air­craft, Waco ZQC‑6, built 1936

03:47 Reg.no. NC16234 becomes read­able

04:00 Arrival of the “Fly Eddie Lyons” air­craft

04:18 Dutch made Fokker 1, packed

04:23 Dou­glas DC3 “Dako­ta”, also packed, new

04:28 Green mono- or tri-engine air­craft, type?

04:40 DC3 again. DC3’s flew first on 17 Dec.1935

04:44 Back side of Wool­worth Build­ing

05:42 Broad­way at Bowl­ing Green

05:12 Brook­lyn across East Riv­er, view from Pier 11

05:13 Water plane, Grum­man G‑21A Goose

05:38 Street with bus, Stan­dard Oil Build­ing ®

05:40 Truck, mod­el?

05:42 Broad­way at Bowl­ing Green

05:46 Old truck, “Engels”, mod­el?

05:48 Flag USA with 48 stars!

05:50 Broad­way at Bowl­ing Green, DeSto­to Sun­shine cab 1936

05:52 Truck, “Bier Mard Bros”, mod­el?

05:56 Ford Mod­el AA truck 1930

05:58 Open truck, mod­el?

06:05 Stan­dard Oil Build­ing

06:25 Bus 366 & Ford Mod­el A 1930

06:33 South Street & Coen­ties Slip

06:35 See 07:19, Black car?

06:45 Cities Ser­vice Build­ing at 70 Pine St. right. Left: see 07:12

06:48 Small ves­sels in the East Riv­er

06:50 Owned by Har­ry F. Rear­don

07:05 Shack on Coen­ties Slip, Pier 5

07:12 City Bank-Farm­ers Trust Build­ing, 20 Exchange Place

07:15 Oys­ter bar, near Coen­ties Slip

07:19 South Street, look­ing North towards the old Seaman’s Church Insti­tute

07:31 Hol­land Amer­i­ca Line, Volendam‑I, built 1922

07:32 Chrysler Ply­mouth P2 De Luxe

07:34 Oys­ter ven­dor

08:05 Ven­dor shows oys­ter in pot

08:16 Wall st.; Many cars, mod­els?

08:30 Look­ing down Wall st.

08:52 More cars, mod­els?

09:00 Near the Erie Fer­ry, 1934/35 Ford s.48 De Luxe

09:02 Rows of Christ­mas tree sales, loca­tion?

09:15 Erie Rail­road build­ing, loca­tion? Quay 21? Taxi, mod­el?

09:23 1934 Dodge DS

09:25 See 09:48

09:27 Bal­ti­more and Ohio (B&O) Rail­road

09:29 Clyde Mal­lo­ry Lines

09:48  South end of West Side High­way

09:49, 10:08, 10:11, 10:45 Loca­tion?

10:25 Hen­ry Hud­son Park­way

11:30 George Wash­ing­ton Bridge with­out the Low­er Lev­el

12:07 Pres­by­ter­ian Hos­pi­tal, Wash­ing­ton Heights

12:15 Rock­e­feller Insti­tute of Med­ical Research

12:49 New York Hos­pi­tal at 68th St. & East Riv­er

13:14 dit­to

13:35 dit­to

13:42 Met­ro­pol­i­tan Muse­um of Art

14:51 Rock­e­fel­la Plaza & RCA build­ing

16:33 Saint Patrick­’s Cathe­dral

16:50 Pub­lic Library

17:24 Panoram­ic view, from ESB

17:45 RCA Build­ing, 30 Rock­e­feller Plaza

18:16 Orig­i­nal Penn Sta­tion

19:27 Movie True Con­fes­sion, rel. 24 Dec.1937

19:30 Slop­py Joes

20:12 Neon lights & Xmas

26:34 Her­ald Square

29:48 Police Emer­gency Ser­vice (B&W)

31:00 SS Nor­mandie, French Line, Pier 88

32:06 RMS Queen Mary, White Star Line, Pier 92

32:43 Depar­ture Queen Mary

33:45 Ital­ian Line, Pier 84, Ter­mi­nal, dd.1935

34:00 SS Con­te Di Savoia, Ital­ian Line, Pier 84

34:25 Peanut sell­er, near the piers

34:35 Feed­ing the pid­geons

34:52 SS Nor­mandie, exte­ri­or & on deck

35:30 View from Pier 88

35:59 Inte­ri­or

37:06 From Pier 88

37:23 North­ern, East­ern, South­ern or West­ern Prince, built 1929

37:32 Tug, William C. Gaynor

38:20 Depar­ture

38:38 Blue Riband!

39:15 Tugs push Nor­mandie into fair­way

39:50 Under own steam.

40:00 Stat­ue of Lib­er­ty

40:15 SS Nor­mandie leaves NYC

View more of Dick Hoefsloot’s his­toric uploads on his YouTube chan­nel.

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

A Trip Through New York City in 1911: Vin­tage Video of NYC Gets Col­orized & Revived with Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence

A New Inter­ac­tive Map Shows All Four Mil­lion Build­ings That Exist­ed in New York City from 1939 to 1941

The Lost Neigh­bor­hood Buried Under New York City’s Cen­tral Park

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

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David Lynch Tries to Make a List of the Good Things Happening in the World … and Comes Up Blank

in Current Affairs, Random | September 14th, 2020

David Lynch’s weath­er report for Sun­day Sep­tem­ber 13th: “Here in LA, grey. Again, smoke-filled sky. Very still right now. 61 degrees fahren­heit. Today I’m mak­ing a list of all the good things that are hap­pen­ing in the world. [Pause.] I’m still think­ing… No blue skies, no gold­en sun­shine today.”

Maybe David Byrne, cre­ator of the “Rea­sons to Be Cheer­ful” web site, would have a bet­ter shot at fill­ing out the page. Have your own list of good things hap­pen­ing in the world? Add them to the com­ments below…

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:

David Byrne Launch­es the “Rea­sons to Be Cheer­ful” Web Site: A Com­pendi­um of News Meant to Remind Us That the World Isn’t Actu­al­ly Falling Apart

David Lynch Cre­ates Dai­ly Weath­er Reports for Los Ange­les: How the Film­mak­er Pass­es Time in Quar­an­tine

Dis­cov­er David Lynch’s Bizarre & Min­i­mal­ist Com­ic Strip, The Angri­est Dog in the World (1983–1992)

David Lynch Made a Dis­turb­ing Web Sit­com Called Rab­bits: It’s Now Used by Psy­chol­o­gists to Induce a Sense of Exis­ten­tial Cri­sis in Research Sub­jects

How David Lynch Got Cre­ative Inspi­ra­tion? By Drink­ing a Milk­shake at Bob’s Big Boy, Every Sin­gle Day, for Sev­en Straight Years

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Central Park Bird Watcher Christian Cooper Writes DC Comics Graphic Novel: It’s Now Free Online

in Comics/Cartoons, Current Affairs, K-12 | September 11th, 2020

Write what you know.

It’s oft-cit­ed advice for writ­ers both begin­ning and estab­lished.

Thus, Jules, the teenage boy at the cen­ter of Chris­t­ian Cooper’s It’s a Bird, the first entry in DC Comics’ dig­i­tal-first anthol­o­gy series Rep­re­sent!, is a bird­watch­er, like the author.

And the binoc­u­lars that were a 50th birth­day gift from Cooper’s father, a Kore­an War vet and Civ­il Rights activist, serve as mod­els for the ones Jules is none too thrilled to receive, despite his grandpa’s belief that they pos­sess spe­cial pow­ers.

Coop­er, who was was Mar­vel’s first open­ly gay writer and edi­tor, intro­duc­ing a num­ber of queer char­ac­ters before devot­ing him­self to sci­ence writ­ing, also draws on recent per­son­al his­to­ry that is more fraught.

Although the loca­tion has shift­ed from New York City’s Cen­tral Park to a sub­ur­ban green space bor­dered with large, well-kept homes, includ­ing Jules’, the young man’s encounter with an indig­nant white woman and her off-leash dog should ring any num­ber of bells.

In late May, Coop­er became the sub­ject of nation­al news, when he con­front­ed Amy Coop­er (no rela­tion) over her vio­la­tion of park rules, tired of the hav­oc uncon­trolled dogs wreak on birds who call the park home. Ms. Coop­er esca­lat­ed things quick­ly by call­ing 911, claim­ing she was being threat­ened by an African-Amer­i­can man. Coop­er record­ed the inci­dent as a mat­ter of pro­to­col, and his sis­ter shared the video on social media lat­er that day.

The same day that George Floyd was killed by police in Min­neapo­lis, Min­neso­ta.

What Jules sees through the lens­es of his grand­fa­ther’s binoc­u­lars con­tains an ele­ment of fan­ta­sy, but is also deeply root­ed in reality—the faces of Ami­dou Dial­lo, Bre­on­na Tay­lor, Floyd, and oth­er Black peo­ple who have died as a result of exces­sive, unwar­rant­ed police force.

When DC first approached him about tap­ping his expe­ri­ence for his first com­ic in over two decades, Coop­er was reluc­tant:

I thought, “I don’t know, DC Comics? Super­heroes? Not sure how that’s going to work.” We kicked around a cou­ple of ideas. They said they had got­ten the title, I’m not sure exact­ly from who, but some­body pret­ty high up in the DC food chain: “It’s a Bird.” It took me half a beat. “Oh…I get what you did there.” Once I had the title, the sto­ry wrote itself.

It’s a Bird artist Aletha E. Mar­tinez, a pio­neer whose 20-year career has includ­ed ink­ing such super­hero heavy hit­ters as the Black Pan­ther, Iron Man, Bat­girl, and X‑Men, also pulled from per­son­al expe­ri­ence when ren­der­ing Jules’ expres­sion after the binoc­u­lars reveal the cir­cum­stances of George Floyd’s death:

I saw that look on my son’s face three years ago after we left North Car­oli­na, and we were com­ing home to New York. We were stopped going into the air­port. We trav­el so often—cons, in and out of the coun­try. These two secu­ri­ty guards start­ed to harass us. They want­ed to take my purse. “Where are you from?” You hear my voice, there’s no accent in my voice. It end­ed up with them say­ing, “You should trav­el with your pass­port.” This is after back­ing us up in the cor­ner, and why? I’m an Amer­i­can cit­i­zen born on this soil, so is my son. I don’t need a pass­port to trav­el with­in my coun­try. This is our day and age.

I watched my son’s face change, and he nev­er quite walked up again look­ing hap­py going to the air­port. Now he has on armor. That face you see? That’s my kid.

It’s a Bird can be read for free on par­tic­i­pat­ing dig­i­tal plat­forms (see links below), and Coop­er is hope­ful that it will inspire young peo­ple to find out more about some of the real life char­ac­ters Jules spies through his binoc­u­lars. To that end, an appen­dix touch­es on some bio­graph­i­cal details:

We not only give the bare bones details of how they died, but also a lit­tle bit about them, because they were peo­ple. They weren’t just want hap­pened to them. I hope young peo­ple (are) inspired to keep the focus where it needs to be, which is on those we have lost and how we keep from los­ing more. There are peo­ple who are invest­ed in dis­tract­ing us right now, and there are peo­ple who want to dis­tract us from their fail­ures on so many oth­er things. That’s not what this moment is about. This moment is about the ones we’ve lost, and how we’re going to keep from los­ing any more. And if you’re not talk­ing about that, I don’t want to hear it.

Read Rep­re­sent!: It’s a Bird for free on readdc.com, Comixol­o­gy, Ama­zon Kin­dle, Apple Books, and oth­er par­tic­i­pat­ing dig­i­tal plat­forms.

Read an inter­view with Coop­er and Mar­tinez, from which the quotes in this post are drawn, on DC’s blog.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

A New Dig­i­tal Archive Pre­serves Black Lives Mat­ter & COVID-19 Street Art

Read Mar­tin Luther King and The Mont­gomery Sto­ry: The Influ­en­tial 1957 Civ­il Rights Com­ic Book

Bat­man Stars in an Unusu­al Car­toon Adap­ta­tion of Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Pun­ish­ment

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

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MIT Presents a Free Course on the COVID-19 Pandemic, Featuring Anthony Fauci & Other Experts

in Biology, Current Affairs, Health, MIT, Online Courses | September 8th, 2020

Most of us use the terms “coro­n­avirus” and “COVID-19” to refer to the pan­dem­ic that has gone around the world this year. We do know, or can fig­ure out, that the for­mer term refers to a virus and the lat­ter to the dis­ease caused by that virus. But do we know the full name “severe acute res­pi­ra­to­ry syn­drome coro­n­avirus 2,” or “SARS-CoV­‑2” for short? We will if we take the online course “COVID-19, SARS-CoV­‑2 and the Pan­dem­ic,” which MIT is mak­ing avail­able to the gen­er­al pub­lic free online. We’ll also learn what makes both the virus and the dis­ease dif­fer­ent from oth­er virus­es and dis­eases, what we can do to avoid infec­tion, and how close we are to an effec­tive treat­ment.

All this is laid out in the course’s first lec­ture by Bruce Walk­er, direc­tor of the Ragon Insti­tute of Mass­a­chu­setts Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, MIT and Har­vard. Walk­er intro­duces him­self by telling us how he grad­u­at­ed from med­ical school when HIV was at its height in Amer­i­ca, tim­ing that placed him well for a career focused on dead­ly viral dis­eases.

The course’s com­plete line­up of guest lec­tur­ers, all of them list­ed on its syl­labus, includes many oth­er high-pro­file fig­ures in the field of epi­demi­ol­o­gy, immunol­o­gy, vac­cine devel­op­ment, and relat­ed fields: Har­vard’s Michael Mina, Yale’s Akiko Iwasa­ki, the Broad Insti­tute’s Eric Lan­der, and — per­haps you’ve heard of him — the Nation­al Insti­tute of Aller­gy and Infec­tious Dis­eases’ Antho­ny Fau­ci (find his ses­sion below).

“COVID-19, SARS-CoV­‑2 and the Pan­dem­ic” began last Tues­day, and its lec­tures, which you’ll find uploaded to this Youtube playlist, will con­tin­ue week­ly until Decem­ber 8th. Even if you have no back­ground in med­i­cine, biol­o­gy, or sci­ence of any kind, don’t be intim­i­dat­ed: as lead­ing pro­fes­sors Richard Young and Facun­do Batista empha­size, this course is meant as an intro­duc­to­ry overview.

And as Bruce Walk­er’s first lec­ture demon­strates, it’s not just open to the gen­er­al pub­lic but geared toward the under­stand­ing and con­cerns of the gen­er­al pub­lic as well. Tak­ing it may not reas­sure you that an end to the pan­dem­ic lies just around the cor­ner, but it will give you clear­er and more coher­ent ways to think about what’s going on. The virus and dis­ease involved are still incom­plete­ly under­stood, after all — but thanks to these and oth­er researchers around the world, get­ting bet­ter under­stood every day.

“COVID-19, SARS-CoV­‑2 and the Pan­dem­ic” will be added to our list, 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties.

via Kot­tke

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Free Cours­es on the Coro­n­avirus: What You Need to Know About the Emerg­ing Pan­dem­ic

Watch “Coro­n­avirus Out­break: What You Need to Know,” and the 24-Lec­ture Course “An Intro­duc­tion to Infec­tious Dis­eases,” Both Free from The Great Cours­es

Inter­ac­tive Web Site Tracks the Glob­al Spread of the Coro­n­avirus: Cre­at­ed and Sup­port­ed by Johns Hop­kins

Why Fight­ing the Coro­n­avirus Depends on You

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

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall, on Face­book, or on Insta­gram.

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Banksy Funds a Boat to Rescue Refugees at Sea–and Soon It Finds Itself in Distress in the Mediterranean

in Art, Current Affairs | August 31st, 2020

“Like most peo­ple who make it in the art world, I bought a yacht to cruise the Med,” Banksy wrote on Insta­gram when intro­duc­ing the Louise Michel, a ves­sel tasked with a some­what dif­fer­ent mis­sion than an arriv­iste par­ty boat: pick­ing up refugees from coun­tries like Libya and Turkey lost at sea. Any­one who’s fol­lowed Banksy’s art career knows he pos­sess­es a well-devel­oped instinct for catch­ing and keep­ing pub­lic atten­tion, and it has hard­ly desert­ed him in this ven­ture. Why spon­sor a refugee res­cue boat, after all, when you can spon­sor a bright pink fem­i­nist refugee res­cue boat, embla­zoned with a piece of orig­i­nal art?

Despite hav­ing been named for the 19th-cen­tu­ry fem­i­nist anar­chist Louise Michel, the motor yacht’s oper­a­tions encom­pass an even wider vari­ety of caus­es: The Guardian’s Loren­zo Ton­do and Mau­rice Stierl quote “Lea Reis­ner, a nurse and head of mis­sion for the first res­cue oper­a­tion,” say­ing that the project is also “meant to bring togeth­er a vari­ety of strug­gles for social jus­tice, includ­ing for women’s and LGBTIQ rights, racial equal­i­ty, migrants’ rights, envi­ron­men­tal­ism and ani­mal rights.” This mul­ti­di­rec­tion­al activism would seem to suit the artis­tic sen­si­bil­i­ty of Banksy, whose work strikes out in as many crit­i­cal direc­tions as both his admir­ers and detrac­tors can inter­pret.

The Louise Michel, as Ton­do and Stierl report­ed last Thurs­day, “set off in secre­cy on 18 August from the Span­ish sea­port of Bur­ri­ana, near Valen­cia, and is now in the cen­tral Mediter­ranean where on Thurs­day it res­cued 89 peo­ple in dis­tress, includ­ing 14 women and four chil­dren.” After pick­ing up the first group of refugees, reports the Wash­ing­ton Post’s Miri­am Berg­er, “it then encoun­tered a ship trav­el­ing from North Africa to Europe with 130 peo­ple aboard and some bod­ies of peo­ple who had died dur­ing the jour­ney,” and as a result “quick­ly became over­crowd­ed and could not prop­er­ly steer, its Twit­ter posts said.” All this hap­pened “at sea around 55 miles south­east of Lampe­dusa, an Ital­ian island off the North African coast that has become a migra­tion tran­sit point.”

Hours lat­er two oth­er ves­sels, one oper­at­ed by the Ital­ian coast guard and one by a Ger­man non­govern­men­tal orga­ni­za­tion, came to take on pas­sen­gers. Though hard­ly smooth sail­ing, the Louise Michel’s first res­cue mis­sion pro­ceed­ed more favor­ably than some: “A ves­sel named the Talia, which res­cued 52 peo­ple almost two months ago, was­n’t allowed into the port for 5 days,” says Dazed. “Now, a boat named the Eti­enne is in the longest record stand-off between author­i­ties and res­cuers ever, hav­ing spent three weeks at sea being denied dis­em­barka­tion in Mal­ta.” Banksy pub­li­cized the Louise Michel, which he spon­sors with­out involve­ment in its oper­a­tions, only after it had set sail. But for any­one with an inter­est in show­ing the world the dire cir­cum­stances of refugees today, the high­ly vis­i­ble boat’s high­ly vis­i­ble dif­fi­cul­ties cer­tain­ly aren’t bad pub­lic­i­ty.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Banksy Strikes Again in Venice

Banksy Strikes Again in Lon­don & Urges Every­one to Wear Masks

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

Watch Dis­ma­land — The Offi­cial Unof­fi­cial Film, A Cin­e­mat­ic Jour­ney Through Banksy’s Apoc­a­lyp­tic Theme Park

Banksy Shreds His $1.4 Mil­lion Paint­ing at Auc­tion, Tak­ing a Tra­di­tion of Artists Destroy­ing Art to New Heights

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall, on Face­book, or on Insta­gram.

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2020: An Isolation Odyssey–A Short Film Reenacts the Finale of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, with a COVID-19 Twist

in Current Affairs, Film | August 17th, 2020

From New York City design­er Lydia Cam­bron comes 2020: An Iso­la­tion Odyssey, a short film that reen­acts the finale of Stan­ley Kubrick­’s icon­ic film, 2001: A Space Odyssey. But with a COVID-19 twist. “Restaged in the con­text of home quar­an­tine,” Cam­bron writes, “the jour­ney through time adapts to the mun­dane dra­mas of self-isolation–poking fun at the navel-gaz­ing saga of life alone and indoors.” If you’ve been a good cit­i­zen since March, you will sure­ly get the joke.

via Colos­sal/Laugh­ing Squid

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch the Open­ing of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey with the Orig­i­nal, Unused Score

James Cameron Revis­its the Mak­ing of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey

Rare 1960s Audio: Stan­ley Kubrick’s Big Inter­view with The New York­er

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What Is a “Blerd?” Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast #56 Discusses Nerd Culture and Race with The Second City’s Anthony LeBlanc

in Comics/Cartoons, Current Affairs, Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop, Sci Fi | August 12th, 2020

The Inter­im Exec­u­tive Pro­duc­er of The Sec­ond City joins your hosts Mark Lin­sen­may­er, Eri­ca Spyres, and Bri­an Hirt to dis­cuss the scope of black nerd-dom: what nerdy prop­er­ties pro­vide to those who feel “oth­ered,” using sci-fi to talk about race, Black Pan­ther and oth­er heroes, afro­fu­tur­ism, black ani­me fans, Star Trek, Key & Peele, Get Out vs. Us, and more.

A few arti­cles you might enjoy:

Some rel­e­vant videos and pod­casts:

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

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

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Professor Who Picked Every Election Winner Since Ronald Reagan Reveals His Prediction for the 2020 Election

in Current Affairs | August 6th, 2020

The New York Times writes: “Right now, polls say Joe Biden has a healthy lead over Pres­i­dent Trump. But we’ve been here before (cue 2016), and the polls were, frankly, wrong. One man, how­ev­er, was not. The his­to­ri­an Allan Licht­man was the lone­ly fore­cast­er who pre­dict­ed Mr. Trump’s vic­to­ry in 2016 — and also proph­e­sied the pres­i­dent would be impeached. That’s two for two. But Pro­fes­sor Lichtman’s record goes much deep­er. In 1980, he devel­oped a pres­i­den­tial pre­dic­tion mod­el that ret­ro­spec­tive­ly account­ed for 120 years of U.S. elec­tion his­to­ry. Over the past four decades, his sys­tem has accu­rate­ly called pres­i­den­tial vic­tors, from Ronald Rea­gan in ’84 to, well, Mr. Trump in 2016.

In the video Op-Ed above, Pro­fes­sor Licht­man walks us through his sys­tem, which iden­ti­fies 13 “keys” to win­ning the White House. Each key is a bina­ry state­ment: true or false. And if six or more keys are false, the par­ty in the White House is on its way out”

No spoil­ers from us. You have to watch until the end.

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!

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