Watch “Bottle,” an Award-Winning Stop Motion Animated Tale of Transoceanic Correspondence

in Animation, K-12, Life | April 29th, 2014

When I was in high school, my boyfriend showed me a film he had shot with his dad’s Super 8. It fea­tured a pair of golf clubs escap­ing from the garage and hus­tling down the dri­ve­way. I was bedaz­zled by his tech­nique, and amazed that that’s how he spent his week­ends before he met me.

I thought of those films the oth­er day on a tour of Cal Arts with a prospec­tive stu­dent. As part of ori­en­ta­tion, our group was shown “Bot­tle,” an award-win­ning stop motion short cre­at­ed when writer-direc­tor Kirsten Lep­ore was a grad stu­dent in the exper­i­men­tal ani­ma­tion pro­gram. 

In the minute or so it took our guide to remem­ber how to turn the sound on, I was actu­al­ly dread­ing it. I like nar­ra­tive. Fun­ny. Made­line Sharafi­an’s flat ani­ma­tion “Omelette,” which we were shown before “Bot­tle” as rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the sort of work going on in the famed Char­ac­ter Ani­ma­tion depart­ment, deliv­ered on both counts.

Exper­i­men­tal, though? I pic­tured a Dali-esque com­put­er gen­er­at­ed land­scaped star­ring an anony­mous ball, and longed for Scot­t’s dad’s golf clubs. They had so much per­son­al­i­ty.

I am delight­ed to report that those clubs could­n’t hold a can­dle to the cast you will meet above. I don’t want to spoil any sur­pris­es. Suf­fice it to say that the fin­ished prod­uct involves sand, snow, the ocean, flot­sam, jet­sam, a bot­tle, many miles, and many, many hours of labor. If that, com­bined with an utter­ly charm­ing sto­ry­line, adds up to exper­i­men­tal, then I am all for exper­i­men­ta­tion. My kid was ready to change her major after see­ing it, but maybe I am the one who needs to attend.

Watch the mak­ing of video below to get a feel for the sort of wringer Lep­ore put her­self and her crew through. Obvi­ous­ly not a week­end project.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hard­er Than It Looks: How to Make a Great Stop Motion Ani­ma­tion

Big Bang Big Boom: Graf­fi­ti Stop-Motion Ani­ma­tion Cre­ative­ly Depicts the Evo­lu­tion of Life

Watch The New Amer­i­ca, a Stop Motion Ani­ma­tion Star­ring 800+ Laser Engraved Wood Blocks

Ayun Hal­l­i­day’s golf clubs nev­er stopped run­ning. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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Meet Carol Kaye, the Unsung Bassist Behind Your Favorite 60s Hits

in K-12, Music | April 28th, 2014

Car­ol Kaye: you may not rec­og­nize her name but chances are you’re famil­iar with her work.

Now 81, the lady has laid down some deeply icon­ic bass tracks in a career span­ning 55 years and some­thing in the neigh­bor­hood of 10,000 record­ing ses­sions.

Joe Cock­er’s “Feel­in’ Alright”?

The Beach Boys hits “Help Me, Rhon­da,” “Sloop John B,” and “Cal­i­for­nia Girls.” 

The theme song to The Brady Bunch?

Nan­cy Sina­tra’s “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’ ”?!?

Holy cow, talk about some­thing to tell the grand­kids.

Her inter­view for a nev­er com­plet­ed doc­u­men­tary above left me with none of the melan­choly I felt on behalf of the under-rec­og­nized back up singers pop­u­lat­ing the recent film Twen­ty Feet from Star­dom. This may be due to some rock and roll gen­der inequal­i­ty. The girls far out­num­ber the boys in the ranks of back­ing vocals, where looks play an unde­ni­able part, at least when the band’s out on the road. Kaye’s con­tri­bu­tions occurred in the record­ing stu­dio. She appears plen­ty con­tent to have num­bered among an elite team of hard work­ing, clean liv­ing Los Ange­les ses­sion musi­cians.

Unsur­pris­ing­ly, she was one of a very few women in the field, though girls, take note: her web­site has 115 play­ing tips for fledg­ling bass play­ers. Boys are free to take note too…

Now that you’ve “dis­cov­ered” this leg­end, may we sug­gest set­ting an hour aside to get to know her bet­ter in the longer inter­view below? Also make sure you see our relat­ed post: 7 Female Bass Play­ers Who Helped Shape Mod­ern Music: Kim Gor­don, Tina Wey­mouth, Kim Deal & More

Relat­ed Con­tent:

7 Female Bass Play­ers Who Helped Shape Mod­ern Music: Kim Gor­don, Tina Wey­mouth, Kim Deal & More

The Neu­ro­science of Bass: New Study Explains Why Bass Instru­ments Are Fun­da­men­tal to Music

The Sto­ry of the Bass: New Video Gives Us 500 Years of Music His­to­ry in 8 Min­utes

Paul McCart­ney Offers a Short Tuto­r­i­al on How to Play the Bass Gui­tar

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is the author of sev­en books, and cre­ator of the award win­ning East Vil­lage Inky zine. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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Kurt Vonnegut Urges Young People to Make Art and “Make Your Soul Grow”

in Creativity, K-12, Letters, Literature | April 19th, 2014

Art not only saves lives, it casts rip­ples, as Kurt Von­negut sure­ly knew when he replied—at length—to five New York City high school stu­dents who’d con­tact­ed him as part of a 2006 Eng­lish assign­ment.  (The iden­ti­ties of the oth­er authors select­ed for this hon­or are lost to time, but not one had the cour­tesy to respond except Von­negut.)

Dear Xavier High School, and Ms. Lock­wood, and Messrs Perin, McFeely, Bat­ten, Mau­r­er and Con­gius­ta:

I thank you for your friend­ly let­ters. You sure know how to cheer up a real­ly old geezer (84) in his sun­set years. I don’t make pub­lic appear­ances any more because I now resem­ble noth­ing so much as an igua­na.

What I had to say to you, more­over, would not take long, to wit: Prac­tice any art, music, singing, danc­ing, act­ing, draw­ing, paint­ing, sculpt­ing, poet­ry, fic­tion, essays, reportage, no mat­ter how well or bad­ly, not to get mon­ey and fame, but to expe­ri­ence becom­ing, to find out what’s inside you, to make your soul grow.

Seri­ous­ly! I mean start­ing right now, do art and do it for the rest of your lives. Draw a fun­ny or nice pic­ture of Ms. Lock­wood, and give it to her. Dance home after school, and sing in the show­er and on and on. Make a face in your mashed pota­toes. Pre­tend you’re Count Drac­u­la.

Here’s an assign­ment for tonight, and I hope Ms. Lock­wood will flunk you if you don’t do it: Write a six line poem, about any­thing, but rhymed. No fair ten­nis with­out a net. Make it as good as you pos­si­bly can. But don’t tell any­body what you’re doing. Don’t show it or recite it to any­body, not even your girl­friend or par­ents or what­ev­er, or Ms. Lock­wood. OK?

Tear it up into tee­ny-wee­ny pieces, and dis­card them into wide­ly sep­a­rat­ed trash recep­ti­cals [sic]. You will find that you have already been glo­ri­ous­ly reward­ed for your poem. You have expe­ri­enced becom­ing, learned a lot more about what’s inside you, and you have made your soul grow.

God bless you all!

Kurt Von­negut

Von­negut’s kind wish­es and Yoko Ono-esque prompt have been wide­ly dis­sem­i­nat­ed on the Inter­net, which is no doubt where stu­dents at Hove Park School in Brighton, East Sus­sex caught the scent. Work­ing with a pro­fes­sion­al pro­duc­tion com­pa­ny that spe­cial­izes in nar­ra­tive-dri­ven work, they lit­er­al­ized  the assign­ment in the video above, and while I might have pre­ferred a sneak peek at the poems and draw­ings such a task might yield, pre-shred­ding, I loved how they acknowl­edged that not every­one heeds the call. (The cast­ing of that one could have gone either way…wouldn’t be sur­prised if you told me that that boy has a punk band that would’ve ripped Von­negut’s ears off.)

via Kate Rix

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Kurt Von­negut Dia­grams the Shape of All Sto­ries in a Master’s The­sis Reject­ed by U. Chica­go

“Wear Sun­screen”: The Sto­ry Behind the Com­mence­ment Speech That Kurt Von­negut Nev­er Gave

Kurt Vonnegut’s Eight Tips on How to Write a Good Short Sto­ry

Kurt Von­negut: Where Do I Get My Ideas From? My Dis­gust with Civ­i­liza­tion

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is spend­ing tonight’s Night of Von­negut in Los Ange­les rather than her home­town of Indi­anapo­lis. So it goes. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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Your Body During Adolescence: A Nakedly Unashamed Sex Ed Film from 1955

in Biology, Education, Film, K-12, Life | April 11th, 2014

A straight shoot­ing sex ed film from 1955? That’s hard to imag­ine. In my expe­ri­ence, the films of that peri­od tend to beat around the bush. The ret­i­cence of those shar­ing its play­ing field makes Your Body Dur­ing Ado­les­cence (watch it online here) all the more remark­able. It does­n’t seem so at first. The first minute is devot­ed to observ­ing a group of coed, clean cut, and unsur­pris­ing­ly Cau­casian teens, pos­ing for a year­book pho­to.

The nar­ra­tor seems des­tined to soft ped­dle things, mild­ly tak­ing note of dif­fer­ences in height and weight. I freely admit that I under­es­ti­mat­ed him. The teens in whose class­rooms this work was screened may have audi­bly squirmed at the men­tion of cer­tain words, but our nar­ra­tor is undaunt­ed by penis­es, scro­ta and labia… Shout out to the edu­ca­tion­al con­sul­tants, Dr. Harold S. Diehl, Dean of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Min­neso­ta’s Med­ical School and Ani­ta Laton, an author and pro­fes­sor of Health and Hygiene at San Jose State. Alfred Kin­sey would’ve approved. The dia­grams are less straight­for­ward, but I kind of liked that. They look like Mid Cen­tu­ry Din­ner­ware pat­terns, which is to say, a lot sex­i­er than most of the sex organs one can find on the Inter­net. For fun and com­par­i­son, have a look at Fuzzy Bun­ny’s Guide to You Know What, the Simp­sons’ infa­mous “sex educ­ta­tion” film.

I’d say they both get it right.

via The Atlantic

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch Fam­i­ly Plan­ning, Walt Disney’s 1967 Sex Ed Pro­duc­tion, Star­ring Don­ald Duck

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

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is the author of sev­en books, and cre­ator of the award win­ning East Vil­lage Inky zine. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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10 Wonderful Illustrations from the Original Manuscript of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince

in Art, K-12 | April 3rd, 2014

little prince manuscripts

From Jan­u­ary 24 through April 27, 2014, The Mor­gan Library and Muse­um is stag­ing an exhi­bi­tion on Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Lit­tle Prince, a sto­ry that speaks to the hearts and minds of chil­dren and adults alike. Though Saint-Exupéry was French, he wrote and pub­lished his great tale while liv­ing in New York City in 1943. Twen­ty five years lat­er, in 1968, the Mor­gan acquired the orig­i­nal man­u­script, which is now on dis­play.

petit prince cigarette

If you can’t trav­el to New York, you can vir­tu­al­ly pore over ten orig­i­nal illus­tra­tions from Le Petit Prince online. We’d rec­om­mend click­ing here, and then click­ing on the Full Screen icon in the bot­tom right-hand side of the first illus­tra­tion you see. Then start flip­ping through the pages and enjoy. As the Mor­gan notes, the pages are “replete with crossed-out words, cig­a­rette burns, and cof­fee stains.” You’ll find one such burn on the illus­tra­tion imme­di­ate­ly above.

via Metafil­ter/Brain Pick­ings

Relat­ed Con­tent:

200 Free Kids Edu­ca­tion­al Resources: Video Lessons, Apps, Books, Web­sites & More

Watch Ani­ma­tions of Oscar Wilde’s Children’s Sto­ries “The Hap­py Prince” and “The Self­ish Giant”

The Inter­na­tion­al Children’s Dig­i­tal Library Offers Free eBooks for Kids in Over 40 Lan­guages

Mark Twain Cre­ates a List of His Favorite Books For Adults & Kids (1887)

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The Chorus Project Features Teenagers Performing Hits by the Kinks, David Byrne, the Jackson 5 & More

in K-12, Music | March 24th, 2014

The Cho­rus Project is the sort of oppor­tu­ni­ty par­ents dream about—talent-based, high pro­file, and helmed by vision­ary adults in tune with teenagers’ emo­tion­al and pre-pro­fes­sion­al needs. The select few—there are 39, lead­ing one to won­der what hap­pened to num­ber 40—range in age from 14–18. They hail from a vari­ety of back­grounds, com­ing togeth­er after school and over the sum­mer to sing, and ulti­mate­ly record, choral arrange­ments of rock and pop hits, orches­trat­ed by well known musi­cians. The 1970s Lan­g­ley Schools Music Project is a big influ­ence, as is the tele­vi­sion show Glee.

Their fresh-faced, ortho­don­tia-enhanced take on the David Byrne / St.Vincent col­lab­o­ra­tion “Who,” above, embod­ies the Cho­rus Project approach, gar­ner­ing St. Vin­cen­t’s stamp, or rather, Tweet, of approval.

Byrne recent­ly advised young musi­cans to expect that retain­ing free­dom and cre­ative con­trol means tak­ing a finan­cial hit. How com­fort­ing to find Cho­rus Project founder Lau­ren Brom­ley Hodge ennu­mer­at­ing that path’s alter­nate rewards:

 Music is a uni­ver­sal lan­guage, cross­ing cul­tur­al and income bar­ri­ers. Singing in a cho­rus cre­ates com­mu­ni­ty, friend­ship and trust. In a soci­ety where arts based edu­ca­tion­al oppor­tu­ni­ties are dras­ti­cal­ly reduced and threat­ened, this music project gives young singers the chance to learn about singing, per­form­ing and record­ing from musi­cians and teach­ers.

Cul­tur­al and income bar­ri­ers aren’t the only bound­aries music tran­scends. As one Metafil­ter user remarked after view­ing the Cho­rus Pro­jec­t’s spin on The Kinks’ “Water­loo Sun­set,” arranged by the dBs’ Chris Stamey:

Can some­one let that ado­les­cent boy singing lead on “Water­loo Sun­set” know that my six­teen year-old self called and his heart is bro­ken from the crush he’ll nev­er be able to say hel­lo to?

Because sob.

See, kids? You don’t need leather pants or facial hair to be cool!

My favorite Cho­rus Project per­for­mance thus­far is their cov­er of the Jack­son 5’s  “I Want You Back.” The puri­ty of those open­ing bars remind­ed me of high school and “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” in equal parts. I dug the cin­der blocks in the back­ground. I appre­ci­at­ed the deep look of con­cen­tra­tion upon soloist Presyce Baez’s face, as well as the cat­like, canary-stuffed expres­sion of his part­ner, Ally Copen­haver, bid­ing her time until the one-and-a-half minute mark when… leapin’ lizards! That kid’s got an impres­sive set of pipes, mak­ing it all the more grat­i­fy­ing to see her show­ing up in a sup­port­ing capac­i­ty else­where in her cho­rus’s oeu­vre.

You can enjoy more of the Cho­rus Pro­jec­t’s videos here, after which you can move to Raleigh-Durham, where project Sea­mus Ken­ney, leads a week­ly, drop-in Pop­up Cho­rus for adults.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Teens Pon­der Mean­ing of Con­tem­po­rary Art

Ele­men­tary School Kids Sing David Bowie’s “Space Odd­i­ty” & Oth­er Rock Hits: A Cult Clas­sic Record­ed in 1976

Ayun Hal­l­i­day can’t sing, but she can crank out the zines like nobody’s busi­ness. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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Free Audio: Alice In Wonderland Read by Cory Doctorow

in Audio Books, K-12, Literature | March 19th, 2014

alice in wonderland doctorowMany of us came across our favorite book serendip­i­tous­ly. No sur­prise: it’s eas­i­est to be com­plete­ly blown away by a work of art or lit­er­a­ture when you approach it with­out any pre-exist­ing expec­ta­tions. For Boing­Bo­ing’s Cory Doc­torow, that book was Lewis Carroll’s Alice In Won­der­land. Doc­torow, now a promi­nent author, jour­nal­ist, and tech­nol­o­gy activist, first came across Carroll’s tale of a young girl who falls down a rab­bit hole in 1978:

“In 1978, I walked into my Crestview Pub­lic School grade two class­room in Wil­low­dale, a sub­urb of Toron­to, and, on the spur of the moment, took Alice in Won­der­land off the shelf. My teacher was Bev Pan­nikkar, who had the amaz­ing empa­thy and good sense to let me be after I hun­kered down behind the low book­shelf and start­ed read­ing. I spent the entire day back there, read­ing. I nev­er stopped.

Today, I am mar­ried to a woman named Alice.”

Below, we’ve includ­ed Doctorow’s lov­ing ren­di­tion of one of his most beloved books, which he ded­i­cates to “his Alice.” Being a staunch oppo­nent of copy­right laws that so often sti­fle inno­va­tion, Doc­torow has made the record­ing, which took place in his office, avail­able for free. You can stream it below, or down­load it at Archive.org.

If you’re look­ing for a ver­sion with a few more bells and whis­tles with regards to pro­duc­tion val­ue, we’ve includ­ed a 1996 audio ver­sion of the book, below. This one is nar­rat­ed by Susan Jame­son and James Sax­on, two actors and vet­er­an audio­book read­ers, who do a won­der­ful job of inject­ing the story’s tongue-in-cheek humor into the record­ing.

Ver­sions of Alice in Won­der­land can be found in our Free Audio Books and Free eBooks col­lec­tions.

Ilia Blin­d­er­man is a Mon­tre­al-based cul­ture and sci­ence writer. Fol­low him at @iliablinderman, or read more of his writ­ing at the Huff­in­g­ton Post.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

See Sal­vador Dali’s Illus­tra­tions for the 1969 Edi­tion of Alice’s Adven­tures in Won­der­land

See The Orig­i­nal Alice In Won­der­land Man­u­script, Hand­writ­ten & Illus­trat­ed By Lewis Car­roll (1864)

Alice in Won­der­land: The Orig­i­nal 1903 Film Adap­ta­tion

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Neil Gaiman Reads Dr. Seuss’ Green Eggs and Ham

in K-12, Literature | February 3rd, 2014

This morn­ing, we’re serv­ing up some green eggs and ham. Or rather Neil Gaiman is. When­ev­er I think about some­one read­ing Dr. Seuss’ clas­sic chil­dren’s book, I can’t help but think back to Jesse Jack­son’s clas­sic read­ing on SNL in 1991. But who knows, maybe 20 years from now, anoth­er gen­er­a­tion might call to mind this ver­sion by the unshaven Gaiman. If the read­ing whets your appetite a bit, don’t miss our col­lec­tion of Neil Gaiman’s Free Short Sto­ries, which includes, among oth­er things, audio & video record­ings of @neilhimself read­ing his own sto­ries. We’ve got some more good Dr. Seuss mate­r­i­al below.

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!

Look­ing for free, pro­fes­­sion­al­­ly-read audio books from Audible.com? Here’s a great, no-strings-attached deal. If you start a 30 day free tri­al with Audible.com, you can down­load two free audio books of your choice. Get more details on the offer here.

via Metafil­ter

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Fake Bob Dylan Sings Real Dr. Seuss

The Epis­te­mol­o­gy of Dr. Seuss & More Phi­los­o­phy Lessons from Great Children’s Sto­ries

New Archive Show­cas­es Dr. Seuss’s Ear­ly Work as an Adver­tis­ing Illus­tra­tor and Polit­i­cal Car­toon­ist

550 Free Audio Books: Down­load Great Books for Free

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