We’ve got some sad news to report. Last night Pete Seeger, one of America’s national treasures, died at the age of 94. For nearly 70 years, Seeger embodied folk music and its ideals (“communication, entertainment, social comment, historical continuity, inclusiveness”) and became a tireless advocate for social justice and protecting the environment. In recent years, Seeger made his voice heard at Occupy Wall Street and even paid a visit to the 2013 edition of Farm Aid, where he sang “This Land is Your Land”. Above you can watch a film that brings you back to Seeger’s early days. Released in 1946, To Hear Your Banjo Play is an engaging 16-minute introduction to American folk music, written and narrated by Alan Lomax and featuring rare performances by Woody Guthrie, Baldwin Hawes, Sonny Terry, Brownee McGhee, Texas Gladden and Margot Mayo’s American Square Dance Group. In the film, Seeger is only 27 years old. We’ll miss you dearly Pete.
To Hear Your Banjo Play resides in our collection of 625 Free Online Movies.
Allen Ginsberg died on April 5, 1997. Less than a week before, after the long terminally ill poet had made parting phone calls to nearly everyone in his address book, he wrote the poem above, “Things I’ll Not Do (Nostalgias).” He once called all his work extended biography, and we might call this particular work a piece of biography extended into speculation, comprising all the places (Tibet, Morocco, Los Angeles), people (composer Philip Glass, noted Tangier expat Paul Bowles, his own relatives), and things (attending concerts, teaching students, smoking various substances) he knew he would never experience again, or indeed for the first time — items left over, in short, from what we might now call Ginsberg’s bucket list. The transcript runs as follows:
Never go to Bulgaria, had a booklet & invitation
Same Albania, invited last year, privately by Lottery scammers or
recovering alcoholics,
Or enlightened poets of the antique land of Hades Gates
Nor visit Lhasa live in Hilton or Ngawang Gelek’s household & weary
ascend Potala
Nor ever return to Kashi “oldest continuously habited city in the world”
bathe in Ganges & sit again at Manikarnika ghat with Peter,
visit Lord Jagganath again in Puri, never back to Bibhum take
notes tales of Khaki B Baba
Or hear music festivals in Madras with Philip
Or enter to have Chai with older Sunil & Young coffeeshop poets,
Tie my head on a block in the Chinatown opium den, pass by Moslem
Hotel, its rooftop Tinsmith Street Choudui Chowh Nimtallah
Burning ground nor smoke ganja on the Hooghly
Nor the alleyways of Achmed’s Fez, nevermore drink mint tea at Soco
Chico, visit Paul B. in Tangiers
Or see the Sphinx in Desert at Sunrise or sunset, morn & dusk in the
desert
Ancient sollapsed Beirut, sad bombed Babylon & Ur of old, Syria’s
grim mysteries all Araby & Saudi Deserts, Yemen’s sprightly
folk,
Old opium tribal Afghanistan, Tibet — Templed Beluchistan
See Shangha again, nor cares of Dunhuang
Nor climb E. 12th Street’s stairway 3 flights again,
Nor go to literary Argentina, accompany Glass to Sao Paolo & live a
month in a flat Rio’s beaches and favella boys, Bahia’s great
Carnival
Nor more daydream of Bali, too far Adelaide’s festival to get new scent
sticks
Not see the new slums of Jakarta, mysterious Borneo forests & painted
men and women
Nor mor Sunset Boulevard, Melrose Avenue, Oz on Ocean Way
Old cousin Danny Leegant, memories of Aunt Edith in Santa Monica
No mor sweet summers with lovers, teaching Blake at naropa,
Mind Writing Slogans, new modern American Poetics, Williams
Kerouac Reznikoff Rakosi Corso Creely Orlovsky
Any visits to B’nai Israel graves of Buda, Aunt Rose, Harry Meltzer and
Aunt Clara, Father Louis
Not myself except in an urn of ashes
March 30, 1997, A.M.
Allen Ginsberg
As much of a final statement as it sounds like, “Things I’ll Not Do (Nostalgias)” remains, in a way, a work in progress, given the manuscript’s semi-decipherable hand. “Although many of his poems’ first drafts looked like this,” say the caretakers of AllenGinsberg.org, “if anything was unclear, we could just ask. That, obviously, wasn’t an option after April 5 that year.” Ten of Ginsberg’s associates passed the paper around, Google- and Wikipedialessly trying to piece together all of his characteristically far-flung references. The Caves of Dunhuang “went incorrectly transcribed for the first edition as ‘cares of Dunhuang’, since none of us were aware these were caves,” and “when we got to the ‘antique lands of Hades Necromanteion,” we couldn’t find a single reference to it anywhere, and in the end simply stated ‘Hades Gates.’ That’s how it’s published today — still. Till the next edition that is.”
Good thing Austin-based designer Michael Yates studied abroad. Three months spent in the vicinity of Kyoto as a Texas A&M electrical engineering student ultimately inspired him to abandon the profession for which he had trained, in order to pursue woodworking. “…the sacredness of the process and attention to detail resonated with me in a way that nothing had before,” he recalls in an Apartment Therapy profile. “I’ve since learned in practice what I saw evidence of in the temples—that completely focusing on where you are will get you the best product at the end. Every step of the process is precious.”
Had he not changed horses in midstream, his grandmother would have likely stuck to the plan too, departing for the afterlife in a standard-issue coffin or urn, rather than asking Yates to build her something special. In his mind, it was a collaboration, a process documented above, at the behest of Whole Foods’ online magazine,Dark Rye.(Indicating, perhaps, that artisanal, upcycled coffins will soon be available for purchase beside bamboo cutting boards and locally sourced, grass-fed, beef jerky?)
Yate’s grandma placed her request pre-need, in the industry lingo, a move that afforded him plenty of time to study—and reject—the overly ornate vessels that have become a cultural norm. Luxurious details have no place, he feels, when the user can derive no enjoyment from them. (Guess he and Grandma weren’t considering going with the off-the-wall Ghana approach.)
The coffin is the most meaningful piece he’s ever created, even before it could be beta tested. It caused him to think deeply about our relationship with death and each other. The soundtrack hints that something very sad is about to happen, as do the photos of his grandmother as a vibrant, younger woman. (Such shots have become de rigeur for anyone mourning an older relative on Facebook.) Yates mentions that his grandmother, healthy when she hatched this scheme, has been diagnosed with cancer. I think we can assume where this is going, right?
At the risk of a spoiler, I’d like to commend the filmmakers for allowing some key scenes to occur off-camera. Yates remarks that after all that went into making the coffin, it would be “a terrible miss” if his grandmother did not get a chance to see it. He’s filmed loading it into his truck, but viewers are not privy to its delivery. Some things, it would seem, are still personal.
At the stroke of midnight, millions of New Year’s resolutions went into effect, with the most common ones being lose weight, get fit, quit drinking and smoking, save money, and learn something new. Unfortunately, 33% of these resolutions will be abandoned by January’s end. And upwards of 80% will eventually fall by the wayside. Making resolutions stick is tricky business. But it’s possible, and Stanford psychologist Kelly McGonigal has a few scientifically-proven suggestions for you.
For years, McGonigal has taught a very popular course called The Science of Willpower in Stanford’s Continuing Studies program, where she introduces students to the idea that willpower is not an innate trait. Rather it’s a “complex mind-body response that can be compromised by stress, sleep deprivation and nutrition and that can be strengthened through certain practices.” For those of you who don’t live in the San Francisco Bay Area, you can also find McGonigal’s ideas presented in a recent book, The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It, which just came out in paperback yesterday. Below, we have highlighted 15 of Dr. McGonigal’s strategies for increasing your willpower reserves and making your New Year’s resolution endure.
Will power is like a muscle. The more you work on developing it, the more you can incorporate it into your life. It helps, McGonigal says in this podcast, to start with small feats of willpower before trying to tackle more difficult feats. Ideally, find the smallest change that’s consistent with your larger goal, and start there.
Choose a goal or resolution that you really want, not a goal that someone else desires for you, or a goal that you think you should want. Choose a positive goal that truly comes from within and that contributes to something important in life.
Willpower is contagious. Find a willpower role model — someone who has accomplished what you want to do. Also try to surround yourself with family members, friends or groups who can support you. Change is often not made alone.
Know that people have more willpower when they wake up, and then willpower steadily declines throughout the day as people fatigue. So try to accomplish what you need to — for example, exercise — earlier in the day. Then watch out for the evenings, when bad habits can return.
Understand that stress and willpower are incompatible. Any time we’re under stress it’s harder to find our willpower. According to McGonigal, “the fight-or-flight response floods the body with energy to act instinctively and steals it from the areas of the brain needed for wise decision-making. Stress also encourages you to focus on immediate, short-term goals and outcomes, but self-control requires keeping the big picture in mind.” The upshot? “Learning how to better manage your stress is one of the most important things you can do to improve your willpower.” When you get stressed out, go for a walk. Even a five minute walk outside can reduce your stress levels, boost your mood, and help you replenish your willpower reserves.
Sleep deprivation (less than six hours a night) makes it so that the prefrontal cortex loses control over the regions of the brain that create cravings. Science shows that getting just one more hour of sleep each night (eight hours is ideal) helps recovering drug addicts avoid a relapse. So it can certainly help you resist a doughnut or a cigarette.
Also remember that nutrition plays a key role. “Eating a more plant-based, less-processed diet makes energy more available to the brain and can improve every aspect of willpower from overcoming procrastination to sticking to a New Year’s resolution,” McGonigal says.
Don’t think it will be different tomorrow. McGonigal notes that we have a tendency to think that we will have more willpower, energy, time, and motivation tomorrow. The problem is that “if we think we have the opportunity to make a different choice tomorrow, we almost always ‘give in’ to temptation or habit today.”
Acknowledge and understand your cravings rather than denying them. That will take you further in the end. The video above has more on that.
Imagine the things that could get in the way of achieving your goal. Understand the tendencies you have that could lead you to break your resolution. Don’t be overly optimistic and assume the road will be easy.
Know your limits, and plan for them. Says McGonigal, “People who think they have the most self-control are the most likely to fail at their resolutions; they put themselves in tempting situations, don’t get help, give up at setbacks. You need to know how you fail; how you are tempted; how you procrastinate.”
Pay attention to small choices that add up. “One study found that the average person thinks they make 14 food choices a day; they actually make over 200. When you aren’t aware that you’re making a choice, you’ll almost always default to habit/temptation.” It’s important to figure out when you have opportunities to make a choice consistent with your goals.
Be specific but flexible. It’s good to know your goal and how you’ll get there. But, she cautions, “you should leave room to revise these steps if they turn out to be unsustainable or don’t lead to the benefits you expected.”
Give yourself small, healthy rewards along the way. Research shows that the mind responds well to it. (If you’re trying to quite smoking, the reward shouldn’t be a cigarette, by the way.)
Finally, if you experience a setback, don’t be hard on yourself. Although it seems counter-intuitive, studies show that people who experience shame/guilt are much more likely to break their resolutions than ones who cut themselves some slack. In a nutshell, you should “Give up guilt.”
If you live in the SF Bay Area, you can take Kelly’s The Science of Willpowercourse that begins on January 13. (Anyone can enroll, and yes, I know that because I help run the Continuing Studies program at Stanford.)
The Strong National Museum of Play, located in Rochester, NY, is a fun children’s museum. But the institution also has serious research archives, stuffed with toys, games, and records of the toy industry. Its online collections, which currently boast 55,068 objects, take a holiday browser on a trip into a figurative grandma’s attic, chock-full of the playthings people loved in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
The online archives are divided into four categories: “Toys”, “Dolls”, “Games”, and “More.” Each of these four sections is further subdivided into topically-specific groups, chosen by the archivists.
The collection’s strength is also its weakness: there are so many toys that it can be easy to get overwhelmed. The subject divisions are helpful here. As somebody with an interest in gender and childhood, I found myself fascinated by the housekeeping toys—kids used to use ovens that were heated with real coals!—and that was an easy way to narrow down my browse. Subject groupings for toy soldiers, celebrity dolls, and board games also piqued my interest.
It’s fun to look around for toys from your own childhood (I found a few), but if you’re interested in history, you might find the echoes of historical events to be even more intriguing. Late-nineteenth-century kids played with a paper doll inspired by the circus celebrity Tom Thumb; children of the 1930s had licensed dolls of the media-sensation Dionne Quintuplets; a playset from 1940 featured grim, suited-up “Paratroops in Action.”
Mousing over the thumbnails will allow you to see the item’s name. If you see a blue “Learn More” tag, be sure to click through; that means that the item’s image will be accompanied by an interpretive historical note written by the Strong’s archivists. These vary in length, and contain intriguing tidbits. Did you know, for example, that Holly Hobbie was a real person: the artist Holly Ulinkas Hobbie? Or that the famous artist Charles Dana Gibsonhad a now-forgotten follower, Nell Brinkley, who illustrated the flapper era?
Rebecca Onion is a writer and academic living in Philadelphia. She runs Slate.com’s history blog, The Vault. Follow her on Twitter: @rebeccaonion.
A few years ago, I stumbled upon a never-sent letter written to a friend when we were both in college. The contents weren’t heavy. Disorganization is the most likely explanation for why it never went in the mail. I cracked the envelope and had a look.
It was a time capsule, for sure, a cringe-inducing one. It wasn’t so much the life I was reporting on as how I framed it, self-aggrandizement straining to pass as nonchalance. Fortunately, an artist acquaintance happened to be running a project— send her your shreddable documents, and eventually, she’d send you a few sheets of handmade paper in which your mulched data mingled with that of others. Truly a beautiful way to dispose of the evidence.
But what happens when neither the writer, nor the intended recipient, is the finder of the lost letter? In February 2013, some mail posted by Lt. Joseph O. Matthews, a soldier stationed at a military training facility in Jacksonville, North Carolina, found its way to Abbi Jacobson, an actress (and coloring book author!) renting an apartment on MacDougal Street in New York City. Addressed to Matthew’s wife, the cancellation mark was dated December 2, 1944.
Jacobson opened the letter, the condition of the envelope having suggested that she would not be the first to breach its contents during the 69 years it had spent wandering in the wilderness. The words inside were romantic, a young officer informing the bride he’d left back home that he’d soon be shipping out to Okinawa. Eager to pull an Amélie by reuniting the letter with those to whom it would mean the most, Jacobson enlisted the help of her friend, documentary filmmaker Todd Bieber. Together they searched records at City Hall, looking for clues. When that approach proved fruitless, they created the Lost Letter Project, a web portal that invited the public to join in the search.
An avalanche of tweets, Facebook updates, and human interest pieces ensued. In no time at all, they had their man, or rather his descendants, Lt. Matthews having passed away in 1999, crushing Jacobson’s dreams of hand delivering the letter to “a little old man and a little old lady.” (I’m willing to bet Jacobson will one day wish there was a giant blender capable of turning digital statements like how cute would that be, my god, right? I love old people into handmade paper.)
Bieber’s video reveals what became of Lt. Matthews and his wife. Even more interesting is how the letter resonates with his grown children, particularly a certain theological reference at odds with the man they thought they knew.
Musharaf Asghar, a student at Thornhill Academy in northeast England, overcame an acute stammer when his teacher, Matthew Burton, borrowed an idea from The King’s Speech. The teacher asked his student to put on some headphones playing the music of Ben Howard, and to start reciting a poem called ‘The Moment.’ Suddenly, for the first time, the words began to flow. All of this was captured in a documentary series, Educating Yorkshire, that aired on the BBC. The segment above concludes with Mushy, as he’s known, giving a short talk in front of his class, at what looks like a graduation ceremony. It didn’t take long for his fellow students to break down in tears.
Writing recently in The Guardian, the student recalls. “My nerves over speaking in assembly were TERRIBLE though. I didn’t realise how big 200 people looks like. I was sweating and I had a little wobble but eventually, I managed to get through it. I was excited, if nervous, about the whole thing going out. But I’m really happy and proud to be on telly as I hope it gives other people with a stammer the confidence to have a go at public speaking. My speech is getting better every week. Everyone at college gives me time, but I’m getting quicker anyway so they don’t miss their bus while they are listening to me. I still won’t be applying for any call-centre jobs yet though.” Find more information on how music therapy can help people overcome stuttering here.
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Let’s now head 600 miles south, to the Riviera city of Nice, where some café owners opted for another way to keep bad behavior in check. At the Petite Syrah, they’ve implemented a simple pricing scheme that works like this:
If you ask for “a coffee” (it’s most likely an espresso), it will run you 7 euros, or $9.50.
If you ask for a “coffee please,” the charge drops to €4.25/$5.80.
But if you start your order by saying “Hello, may I have a coffee, please,” the bill becomes a manageable €1.40.
Now, truth be told, the pricing scheme is more carrot than stick. The café’s manager readily admits that he has never actually charged any of the punitive higher prices. But that’s not to say that the scheme doesn’t work. According to manager/owner Fabrice Pepino, regular customers quickly took note of the sign and began to “say, ‘Hello, your highness, will you serve me one of your beautiful coffees.” Eh voilà, no more coffee jerks.
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