Bono Tells Graduates “Pick a Fight, Get in It” (2004)

in Life, Music | June 7th, 2011


Back in 2004, Bono, the co-founder of ONE (an NGO that rais­es aware­ness of AIDS and pover­ty in Africa), received an hon­orary Doc­tor of Laws degree from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia. Of course, Bono is also the lead singer of U2, and he can com­mand the atten­tion of any large audi­ence. Speak­ing to Pen­n’s grad­u­at­ing class of 2004, Bono did­n’t give the usu­al advice — go forth and fol­low your pas­sion. No, the mes­sage was a lit­tle dif­fer­ent. He urged the grad­u­ates to serve their age by betray­ing it, by “expos­ing its con­ceits, it’s foibles, it’s pho­ny moral cer­ti­tudes … and mas­sive moral blindspots,” Africa being per­haps the most glar­ing exam­ple. Then, his speech wraps up with this, the best lines saved for last.

Whether it’s this or some­thing else, I hope you’ll pick a fight and get in it. Get your boots dirty, get rough, steel your courage…, make one last pri­mal scream, and go. Sing the melody line you hear in your own head. Remem­ber, you don’t owe any­body any expla­na­tions. You don’t owe your par­ents any expla­na­tions. You don’t owe your pro­fes­sors any expla­na­tions.

You know I used to think the future was sol­id or fixed, some­thing you inher­it­ed like an old build­ing that you move into when the pre­vi­ous gen­er­a­tion moves out or gets chased out. But it’s not. The future is not fixed, it’s flu­id. You can build your own build­ing, or hut or con­do.

My point is that the world is more mal­leable than you think, and it’s wait­ing for you to ham­mer it into shape.… That’s what this degree of yours is, a blunt instru­ment. So go forth and build some­thing with it. Remem­ber what John Adams said about Ben Franklin, “He does not hes­i­tate at our bold­est mea­sures but rather seems to think us too irres­olute.” Well this is the time for bold mea­sures and this is the coun­try and you are the gen­er­a­tion.

Amen Bono, catch you tonight…

You can find a full tran­script of Bono’s speech here.

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City of Eight Million Soundtracks

in Life, Music | May 30th, 2011

“Soli­tude,” wrote Hen­ry David Thore­au in Walden, “is not mea­sured by the miles of space that inter­vene between a man and his fel­lows. The real­ly dili­gent stu­dent in one of the crowd­ed hives of Cam­bridge Col­lege is as soli­tary as a dervish in the desert.” If you’re search­ing for soli­tude these days, even in Times Square, you won’t need much diligence–just an iPod and a pair of ear­buds. But watch out! Your soli­tude might be shat­tered by Tyler Cullen, a stu­dent film­mak­er at the School of Visu­al Arts, who recent­ly had the audac­i­ty to say to his fel­low New York­ers: Hey You! What Song Are You Lis­ten­ing To?

Via Kottke.org

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Tom Hanks Addresses the Yale Class of 2011

in Life, Yale | May 27th, 2011

For Class Day 2011, Har­vard had come­di­an Amy Poehler, and Yale had Tom Han­ks — two fig­ures who have a whole lot more enter­tain­ment val­ue than the speak­er at my grad­u­a­tion — the Assis­tant Coun­ty Coro­ner. Dead seri­ous! Pun only halfway intend­ed. Any­way, I digress. Today, we’re fea­tur­ing Tom Han­ks, the two-time win­ner of the Acad­e­my Award for Best Actor, who starts fun­ny, but then turns a lit­tle seri­ous, remind­ing grad­u­ates, à la F.D.R., that essen­tial­ly “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Not a bad talk over­all, but we’re still most par­tial to Steve Job’s Stan­ford talk from 2005. Our hands-down favorite…

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Yale Rolls Out 10 New Cours­es — All Free

Ali G at Har­vard; or How Sacha Baron Cohen Got Blessed by America’s Cul­tur­al Estab­lish­ment

Har­vard Presents Free Cours­es with the Open Learn­ing Ini­tia­tive

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Paulo Coelho on How to Handle the Fear of Failure

in Life | May 26th, 2011

The road to suc­cess runs right through fail­ure. It’s an idea that’s get­ting a lot of atten­tion late­ly. Ear­li­er this month, the Berghs School of Com­mu­ni­ca­tion in Stock­holm orga­nized an exhi­bi­tion around the whole premise that “suc­cess nev­er hap­pens with­out tak­ing risks. And risks are what you’re capa­ble of tak­ing when you over­come the fear of fail­ing.” But how to do that? How to take that leap? The exhi­bi­tion put that ques­tion to artists and thinkers who know suc­cess in a very inti­mate way. (See full list on Brain­Pick­ings here.) That includes Paulo Coel­ho, the author of The Alchemist, a book that has sold 65 mil­lion copies across 150 coun­tries, and he had this to say:

I’m nev­er par­a­lyzed by my fear of fail­ure… I say “Ok, I’m doing my best… ” And, from the moment that I can say that I’m doing my best … I sit down, I breathe, and I say “I put all of my love into it, I did it with all my heart.” … And whether they like [the book] or not is irrel­e­vant, because I like it. I’m com­mit­ted to the thing that I did. And so far nobody has crit­i­cized or refused it. When you put love and enthu­si­asm into your work, even if peo­ple don’t see it, they know it’s there, that you did this with all of your body and soul, so that is what I encour­age you to do.

It’s a good thought, which gets pur­sued on a par­al­lel track by Tim Har­ford. In 2005, Har­ford wrote the best­selling book, The Under­cov­er Econ­o­mist, and now he returns with Adapt: Why Suc­cess Always Starts with Fail­ure. Speak­ing yes­ter­day on KQED in San Fran­cis­co, the writer, some­times likened to Mal­colm Glad­well, talked about the impor­tance of exper­i­men­ta­tion, tak­ing cal­cu­lat­ed risks, and cre­at­ing room for fail­ure, some­thing that mat­ters as much to indi­vid­u­als as it does to cor­po­ra­tions or nations try­ing to solve dif­fi­cult prob­lems. You can lis­ten to the full inter­view 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.

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A Paul Simon Feelin’-Very-Groovy Moment

in Life, Music | May 15th, 2011

Play­ing in Toron­to last week, Paul Simon did some­thing, well, awe­some. A fan asks him to play “Dun­can,” his 1972 clas­sic, and lets him know that she learned to play gui­tar to that song. So Simon agrees. And, even bet­ter, he invites her on stage to take over gui­tar and vocals. Ner­vous, almost hyper­ven­ti­lat­ing, she hes­i­tant­ly gets going, as does the crowd. From there, a big feel­in’ groovy moment unfolds, and it just gets bet­ter as it goes along. Kudos to NPR’s All Songs Con­sid­ered for mak­ing this great find …

Relat­ed Con­tent:

13,500 Sing “Hey Jude” in Trafal­gar Square

Paul Simon’s Christ­mas Gets Ani­mat­ed in April

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Way of Life: Rare Footage of the Hiroshima Aftermath, 1946

in Film, History, Life, Video - Politics/Society | May 3rd, 2011

The recent 9.0‑magnitude Tōhoku earth­quake and tsuna­mi, and sub­se­quent Fukushi­ma nuclear acci­dents were among the most dev­as­tat­ing envi­ron­men­tal dis­as­ters in record­ed his­to­ry. The imme­di­ate con­se­quences are fright­en­ing, but their full, long-term impact remains an unset­tling mys­tery.

This, of course, isn’t the first time Japan has faced a nuclear emer­gency. After the World War II atom­ic bomb­ings of Hiroshi­ma and Nagasa­ki, the U.S. gov­ern­ment record­ed the raw after­math of Hiroshi­ma in can­did, grim detail (while Hol­ly­wood was busy lam­poon­ing Amer­i­ca’s nuclear obses­sion). Filmed in the spring of 1946 by the Depart­ment of Defense, Way of Life doc­u­ments how the peo­ple of Hiroshi­ma adapt­ed to life after the atom­ic bomb. Though the archival footage lacks sound, its imagery — mov­ing, heart­break­ing, deeply human — speaks vol­umes about the del­i­cate dual­i­ty of despair and resilience.

Maria Popo­va is the founder and edi­tor in chief of Brain Pick­ings, a curat­ed inven­to­ry of cross-dis­ci­pli­nary inter­est­ing­ness. She writes for Wired UK, The Atlantic and Desig­nOb­serv­er, and spends a great deal of time on Twit­ter.

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Diary: The Last Short Film by Tim Hetherington

in Current Affairs, Film, Life | April 20th, 2011

Ear­li­er today, Tim Het­her­ing­ton, the pho­tog­ra­ph­er who pro­duced and direct­ed the award-win­ning film Restre­po, was killed in the Libyan city of Mis­ura­ta. Although inter­est­ed in diverse art forms, Het­her­ing­ton spent more than a decade work­ing in war zones. He was a cam­era­man on Liberia: An Unciv­il War (2004) and The Dev­il Came on Horse­back (2007), then direct­ed Restre­po, a film about a pla­toon of sol­diers in Afghanistan. It won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2010 Sun­dance Film Fes­ti­val. And, that same year, Het­her­ing­ton also shot a short film, Diary, which he sum­ma­rized in this fash­ion:

‘Diary’ is a high­ly per­son­al and exper­i­men­tal film that express­es the sub­jec­tive expe­ri­ence of my work, and was made as an attempt to locate myself after ten years of report­ing. It’s a kalei­do­scope of images that link our west­ern real­i­ty to the seem­ing­ly dis­tant worlds we see in the media.”

You can watch Diary above and also vis­it a slideshow of Het­her­ing­ton’s pho­to­graph­ic work here.

via Boing­Bo­ing

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Photos of Famous Writers (and Rockers) with their Dogs

in Life, Literature, Music | April 12th, 2011

Cour­tesy of New York Social Diary, here is a love­ly series of pho­tographs fea­tur­ing famous authors and their dogs. If you’ve ever won­dered which breeds have served as muse to William Sty­ron, Stephen King, William F. Buck­ley, Kurt Von­negut, then this col­lec­tion is for you. But be warned: We’re still recov­er­ing from the sight of that Lhasa Apso flopped on Von­negut’s lap–we were hop­ing for a wolfhound.

For more artist-canine com­bi­na­tions, Fla­vor­wire has round­ed up a col­lec­tion of musi­cians and their dogs. Unlike the authors, these own­ers real­ly do look like their pets. (See Robert Plant.)

via @brainpicker and The Mil­lions

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

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