1797 Temperance Thermometer Measures the Moral & Physical Impact of Your Drinking Habits

in Food & Drink, History, Life, Science | September 30th, 2014

temperance2

Ques­tion for the drinkers out there:

Does strong beer tak­en in mod­er­ate quan­ti­ties at meal­times make you cheer­ful?

Yeah, me too!

That gives us a tem­per­a­ture of 10 accord­ing to 18th-cen­tu­ry physi­cian John Coak­ley Lett­som’s “moral and phys­i­cal ther­mome­ter,” one of his Hints Designed to Pro­mote Benef­i­cence, Tem­per­ance, and Med­ical Sci­ence (1797).

It’s noth­ing to be ashamed of—anything above zero con­sti­tutes a pass­ing score. The founder of the Med­ical Soci­ety of Lon­don, Lett­som was a pro­po­nent of true tem­per­ance, not total absti­nence. Accord­ing to his rubric, a “small beer” has all the virtues of milk and water.

Dip below a zero, though, and you’re in for a bumpy night.

Punch is appar­ent­ly the gate­way to such demon influ­ences as flip, shrub, whiskey and rum. Gosh. You may as well just skip the punch and go straight for the hard stuff, if, as in Lettsom’s view, they all end in the same vices and dis­eases.

Puk­ing and Tremors of the Hands in the Morn­ing?

Yes, on occa­sion.

Peev­ish­ness, Idle­ness, and Obscen­i­ty?

Yep, that too.

Mur­der, Mad­ness, and Death?

Mer­ci­ful­ly, no. At least not yet.

While not entire­ly free of stig­ma, alco­holism is now some­thing many view through the lens of AA, a prob­lem best reme­died through a sys­tem of per­son­al account­abil­i­ty shored up by a net­work of non­judg­men­tal, sym­pa­thet­ic sup­port.

Back in Lettsom’s day, when an alco­holic hit rock bot­tom, it was assumed he or she would stay there, a task made eas­i­er when the wages of this par­tic­u­lar sin includ­ed the poor house, a one way tick­et to the Botany Bay penal colony, and the gal­lows.

Such loom­ing con­se­quences are eas­i­ly laughed off when you’ve had a snoot, which may be why Lett­som also pub­lished the illus­trat­ed ver­sion of his ther­mome­ter below. A pic­ture is worth a thou­sand words, par­tic­u­lar­ly when depict­ing the pre-Dick­en­sian mis­ery that awaits the drunk­ard and his fam­i­ly.

Termometro morall

via Rebec­ca Onion and Slate

Relat­ed Con­tent:

George Washington’s 110 Rules for Civil­i­ty and Decent Behav­ior

Thomas Jefferson’s Hand­writ­ten Vanil­la Ice Cream Recipe

“The Vertue of the COFFEE Drink”: An Ad for London’s First Cafe Print­ed Cir­ca 1652

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

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Allen Ginsberg Talks About Coming Out to His Family & Fellow Poets on 1978 Radio Show (NSFW)

in Life, Poetry, Politics | September 18th, 2014

Allen_ginsberg_erads howl

Image by Michiel Hendryckx, via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

Recent MacArthur Fel­low and poet Ter­rence Hayes appeared on NPR yes­ter­day to read and dis­cuss his work; he was asked if he found “being defined as an African-Amer­i­can poet” to be lim­it­ing in some way. Hayes replied,

I think it’s a bonus. It’s a thing that makes me addi­tion­al­ly inter­est­ing, is what I would say. So, black poet, South­ern poet, male poet — many of those iden­ti­ties I try to fold into the poems and hope that they enrich them.

It seemed to me an odd ques­tion to ask a MacArthur-win­ning Amer­i­can poet. Issues of both per­son­al and nation­al iden­ti­ty have been cen­tral to Amer­i­can poet­ry at least since Walt Whit­man or Langston Hugh­es, but espe­cial­ly since the 1950s with the emer­gence of con­fes­sion­al and beat poets like Allen Gins­berg. With­out the cel­e­bra­tion of per­son­al iden­ti­ty, one might say that it’s hard to imag­ine Amer­i­can poet­ry.

Like Hayes, Gins­berg enfold­ed his var­i­ous identities—Jew, Bud­dhist, gay man—into his poet­ry in enrich­ing ways. Thir­ty-six years ago, he gave a radio inter­view to “Stonewall Nation,” one of a hand­ful of specif­i­cal­ly gay radio pro­grams broad­cast in 1970s West­ern New York. In an occa­sion­al­ly NSFW con­ver­sa­tion, he dis­cussed the expe­ri­ence of com­ing out to his fel­low Beats and to his fam­i­ly.

  1. Intro­duc­tion (5:21): MP3
  2. On being clos­et­ed (2:09): MP3
  3. Excerpts from “Don’t Grow Old” (2:32): MP3
  4. On com­ing out to his fam­i­ly (3:01): MP3
  5. On desire and com­pas­sion (1:41): MP3
  6. On the Brig­gs amend­ment (8:54): MP3
  7. On the Beats and nature (3:24): MP3
  8. On Rocky Flats (2:19): MP3
  9. Gins­berg sings “Every­body Sing” (2:37): MP3

Dur­ing the inter­view Gins­berg talks about being clos­et­ed and hav­ing a crush on Jack Ker­ouac, who was “very tol­er­ant, friend­ly,” after Gins­berg con­fessed it. Above he tells a fun­ny sto­ry about com­ing out to his father, then reads a mov­ing unti­tled poem about his father’s even­tu­al accep­tance after their mutu­al “timid­i­ty and fear.” He also recalls how the rest of his fam­i­ly, par­tic­u­lar­ly his broth­er, react­ed.

The inter­view moves to broad­er top­ics. Gins­berg dis­cuss­es his views on desire and com­pas­sion, defin­ing the lat­ter as “benev­o­lent and indif­fer­ent atten­tive­ness,” rather than “heart-love.” Bud­dhism per­vades Gins­berg’s con­ver­sa­tion as does a rogu­ish vaude­vil­lian sen­si­bil­i­ty mixed with sober reflec­tion. He opens with a long, boozy sing-along whose first four lines con­cise­ly sum up core Bud­dhist doc­trines; he ends with a fun­ny, bawdy song that then becomes a dark explo­ration of homo­pho­bic and misog­y­nis­tic vio­lence.

Gins­berg and host also dis­cuss the Brig­gs Ini­tia­tive (above) a piece of leg­is­la­tion that would have been an effec­tive purge in the Cal­i­for­nia school sys­tem of gay teach­ers, their sup­port­ers, even those who might “take a neu­tral atti­tude which could be inter­pret­ed as approval.” This would pre­clude even the teach­ing of Whitman’s “Song of Myself” (or one par­tic­u­lar sec­tion of it), which, Gins­berg says, “would make the teacher liable for encour­ag­ing homo­sex­u­al activ­i­ty.” The amendment—one that, appar­ent­ly, for­mer gov­er­nor Ronald Rea­gan strong­ly opposed—failed to pass. These days such pro­pos­als tar­get Ginsberg’s poet­ry as well, and we still have con­ver­sa­tions about the val­ue of things like “benev­o­lent and indif­fer­ent atten­tive­ness” in the class­room, or whether poets should feel lim­it­ed by being who they are.

In the pho­to above, tak­en by Her­bert Rusche in 1978, you can see Gins­berg (left) with his long-time part­ner, the poet Peter Orlovsky (right).

via PennSound

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The First Record­ing of Allen Gins­berg Read­ing “Howl” (1956)

Jack Ker­ouac, Allen Gins­berg & Mar­garet Mead Explain the Mean­ing of “Beat” in Rare 1950s Audio Clips

“Expan­sive Poet­ics” by Allen Gins­berg: A Free Course from 1981

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

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

81-Year-Old Professor Charlie Warner Goes to Burning Man: A Short Documentary (NSFW)

in Film, Life | September 14th, 2014

Char­lie Warn­er. He’s an 81-year-old media pro­fes­sor and for­mer media exec­u­tive from New York. He’s had bone mar­row can­cer. (It’s now in remis­sion.) He had open-heart surgery. He still has dia­betes. And yet he made the jour­ney to the Burn­ing Man fes­ti­val, in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert, to expe­ri­ence some­thing tran­scen­dent. And the fes­ti­val did­n’t dis­ap­point. Film­mak­er Jan Bed­degenoodts doc­u­ment­ed Warn­er’s expe­ri­ence in a short film called Char­lie Goes to Burn­ing Man. You can watch the touch­ing short in an embed­ded for­mat above. But it’s even bet­ter to go to the film’s web­site, where you can view it in a visu­al­ly-appeal­ing, full-screen for­mat. Be warned: It’s Burn­ing Man, so there are some Not Safe for Work (NSFW) moments in the film.

Don’t for­get to sign up for our dai­ly email. Once a day, we bun­dle all of our dai­ly posts and drop them in your inbox, in an easy-to-read for­mat.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Charles Schulz Draws Charlie Brown in 45 Seconds and Exorcises His Demons

in Art, Comics/Cartoons, Life | August 22nd, 2014

Would that we had a dime for every car­toon­ist whose course was chart­ed hap­pi­ly copy­ing Charles Schulz’s sem­i­nal strip, Peanuts, while oth­er, more ath­let­ic chil­dren played togeth­er in the fresh air and sun­shine.

Such admis­sions pro­lif­er­ate in inter­views and blog posts. They’re near­ly as numer­ous as the online tuto­ri­als on draw­ing such beloved Peanuts char­ac­ters as Wood­stock, Linus Van Pelt, and Schulz’ sad sack stand-in Char­lie Brown.

The short video above melds the edu­ca­tion­al ease of a YouTube how-to with the self-direct­ed, per­haps more artis­ti­cal­ly pure aspects of the pre-dig­i­tal expe­ri­ence, as Charles Schulz him­self pen­cils Char­lie Brown seat­ed at Schroeder’s toy piano in well under a minute.

You’ll have to watch close­ly if you want to pick up Sparky’s step-by-step tech­nique. There are no geo­met­ric point­ers, only a spir­i­tu­al dis­clo­sure that “poor old Char­lie Brown” was a scape­goat whose suf­fer­ing was com­men­su­rate with that of his cre­ator.

His voiceover down­grades the psy­chic pain to the lev­el of lost golf and bridge games, but as car­toon­ist and for­mer Peanuts copy­ist Bill Wat­ter­son, cre­ator of Calvin and Hobbes, point­ed out in a 2007 review of David Michaelis’ Schulz biog­ra­phy, Schulz’s unhap­pi­ness was deep seat­ed:

Schulz always held his par­ents in high regard, but they were emo­tion­al­ly remote and strange­ly inat­ten­tive to their only child. Schulz was shy and alien­at­ed dur­ing his school years, retreat­ing from near­ly every oppor­tu­ni­ty to reveal him­self or his gifts. Teach­ers and stu­dents con­se­quent­ly ignored him, and Schulz nursed a life­long grudge that so few attempt­ed to draw him out or rec­og­nized his tal­ent…

Once he final­ly achieved his child­hood dream of draw­ing a com­ic strip, how­ev­er, he was able to expose and con­front his inner tor­ments through his cre­ative work, mak­ing inse­cu­ri­ty, fail­ure and rejec­tion the cen­tral themes of his humor. Know­ing that his mis­eries fueled his work, he resist­ed help or change, appar­ent­ly pre­fer­ring pro­fes­sion­al suc­cess over per­son­al hap­pi­ness. Des­per­ate­ly lone­ly and sad through­out his life, he saw him­self as “a noth­ing,” yet he was also con­vinced that his artis­tic abil­i­ty made him spe­cial.

Good grief. I have a hunch none of this found its way into the life­long workaholic’s own guide to draw­ing Peanuts char­ac­ters. It’s not a secret, how­ev­er, that a dark side often comes with the ter­ri­to­ry as a slew of recent auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal graph­ic nov­els from those drawn to the pro­fes­sion will attest.

Via Kot­tke

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch the First Ani­ma­tions of Peanuts: Com­mer­cials for the Ford Motor Com­pa­ny (1959–1961)

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

New York­er Car­toon Edi­tor Bob Mankoff Reveals the Secret of a Suc­cess­ful New York­er Car­toon

23 Car­toon­ists Unite to Demand Action to Reduce Gun Vio­lence: Watch the Result

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

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 2 ) |

Dave Grohl Raises the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge to an Art Form

in Film, Life, Music | August 19th, 2014

Foo Fight­ers front­man Dave Grohl raised an inter­net meme to an art form when he took the ALS Ice Buck­et Chal­lenge while par­o­dy­ing the epic prom scene from Car­rie. John Tra­vol­ta appeared in the 1976 hor­ror film, and Stephen King wrote the book behind it. So Grohl name checks them both. Where Jack Black fits into the pic­ture, I’m not exact­ly sure.

Dona­tions to help find a cure for the hor­rif­ic dis­ease can be made over at the ALS Asso­ci­a­tion. For a tru­ly sober­ing account of what it’s like to live with ALS, read Tony Judt’s essay, “Night,”  in The New York Review of Books. It was pub­lished in Feb­ru­ary 2010, short­ly before the dis­ease took his life.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

Don Pardo (1918–2014), Voice of Saturday Night Live, Suggests Using Short Words

in Comedy, Life, Television | August 19th, 2014

Don Par­do voiced the intro­duc­tions of Sat­ur­day Night Live for 38 sea­sons. He began call­ing out the names of the S.N.L. cast mem­bers dur­ing the first episode in Octo­ber, 1975, and (except for the 1981–82 sea­son) he kept call­ing out those names straight through last May. Chevy Chase, Gil­da Rad­ner, John Belushi, Bill Mur­ray, Eddie Mur­phy, Tina Fey — he called them all. Thanks to an imper­son­ator, you can hear a com­pi­la­tion of Par­do’s call for every cast mem­ber.

Don Par­do died yes­ter­day at 96 years of age. Ear­li­er in his career, he was the announc­er for a num­ber of Amer­i­can TV shows, includ­ing The Price Is Right, Jack­pot, and Jeop­ardy!. But his voice became part of the fab­ric of Amer­i­ca’s great­est com­e­dy show, Sat­ur­day Night Live. And he con­tin­ued voic­ing the intro long after his for­mal retire­ment from NBC in 2004. Not lack­ing ener­gy (watch him blow out his can­dles on his 90th birth­day), Par­do flew from Tuc­son to New York week­ly to get S.N.L. start­ed. Above, we have a short video that fea­tures Par­do, then 88, show­ing off, his sheer lin­guis­tic awe­some­ness.

Some­how, I’m now hop­ing that when­ev­er my day comes, Don Par­do’s voice will intro­duce me on the oth­er side.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Stunt That Got Elvis Costel­lo Banned From Sat­ur­day Night Live

William S. Bur­roughs on Sat­ur­day Night Live, 1981

Lorne Michaels Intro­duces Sat­ur­day Night Live and Its Bril­liant First Cast for the Very First Time (1975)

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Stanford’s Robert Sapolsky Demystifies Depression, Which, Like Diabetes, Is Rooted in Biology

in Biology, Life | August 13th, 2014

We know that depres­sion affects peo­ple from all walks of life. Rich. Poor. Celebs. Ordi­nary Joes. Young. Old. But, some­how after the death of Robin Williams, there’s a renewed focus on depres­sion, and my mind turned imme­di­ate­ly to a lec­ture we fea­tured on the site way back in 2009. The lec­ture is by Robert Sapol­sky, a Stan­ford biol­o­gist, who has a tal­ent for mak­ing sci­en­tif­ic sub­jects pub­licly acces­si­ble. A recip­i­ent of the MacArthur genius grant, Sapol­sky notes that depres­sion — cur­rent­ly the 4th great­est cause of dis­abil­i­ty world­wide, and soon the 2nd — is deeply bio­log­i­cal. Depres­sion is root­ed in biol­o­gy, much as is, say, dia­betes. As the lec­ture unfolds, you will see how depres­sion changes the body. When depressed, our brains func­tion dif­fer­ent­ly while sleep­ing, our stress response goes way up 24/7, our bio­chem­istry lev­els change, etc. You will see that biol­o­gy is at work.

Sapol­sky is one com­pelling teacher. So you might not want to miss his Stan­ford course, Intro­duc­tion to Human Biol­o­gy. It’s equal­ly worth your time. You can always find it housed in our col­lec­tion 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties.

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!

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 26 ) |

Lauren Bacall (1924–2014) and Humphrey Bogart Pal Around During a 1956 Screen Test

in Film, Life | August 12th, 2014

“With deep sor­row, yet with great grat­i­tude for her amaz­ing life, we con­firm the pass­ing of Lau­ren Bacall.” So tweet­ed The Humphrey Bog­a­rt Estate today, let­ting cinephiles every­where know that Hol­ly­wood lost yet anoth­er great one this week. She was 89.

Bacall, of course, met Humphrey Bog­a­rt on the set of To Have and Have Not in 1943. And they became one of Hol­ly­wood’s leg­endary cou­ples, star­ring togeth­er in The Big Sleep (1946), Dark Pas­sage (1947), and Key Largo (1948). Above you can watch Bogie and Bacall share some light moments togeth­er dur­ing a cos­tume test for Melville Good­win, USA, a film the cou­ple nev­er ulti­mate­ly made. The footage was shot on Feb­ru­ary 20, 1956, just after Bog­a­rt learned that he had esophageal can­cer. He passed away less than a year lat­er, on Jan­u­ary 14, 1957. May Bogie & Bacall rest in peace.

Note: The cos­tume test, like many from the peri­od, does­n’t have sound. As you’ll see, you hard­ly need sound to appre­ci­ate the scene that unfolds. Don’t miss the part where the cam­era zooms in.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

« Go Back — More in this category... »
Quantcast