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

in Comedy, Comics/Cartoons, Life | July 1st, 2013

A friend of mine rails against the New York­er’s week­ly car­toon cap­tion con­test, insist­ing that while the read­er-sub­mit­ted entries are uni­ver­sal­ly bad, the win­ner is always the weak­est of the lot.

I dis­agree, agog at peo­ple’s clev­er­ness. Any line I come up with feels too obvi­ous or too obscure. Unlike my friend, I nev­er feel I could do bet­ter.

Car­toon edi­tor Bob Mankof­f’s recent TED Talk offers some key insights into what the mag­a­zine is look­ing for (incon­gruity, dis­po­si­tion­al humor, cog­ni­tive mash ups), as well as what it’s not inter­est­ed in (gross-out jokes, mild child-cen­tered can­ni­bal­ism) He also cites for­mer con­trib­u­tor and author of my father’s favorite New York­er car­toon, E.B. White on the futil­i­ty of ana­lyz­ing humor.

Fre­quent con­trib­u­tor Matthew Dif­fee’s short  satir­i­cal film Being Bob sug­gests Mankoff edi­to­r­i­al selec­tions owe much to gut response (and a jerk­ing knee). Such intu­ition is hard won. Mankoff glee­ful­ly alludes to the 2000 rejec­tion let­ters he him­self received between 1974 and 1977, fol­low­ing an uncer­e­mo­ni­ous dis­missal from psy­chol­o­gy school. Then, final­ly, he got his first accep­tance.

That accep­tance let­ter is some­thing to see.

Ayun Hal­l­i­day used Charles Bar­sotti’s New York­er car­toon of a danc­ing bird as her high­school year­book’s senior say­ing. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The New Yorker’s Fic­tion Pod­cast: Where Great Writ­ers Read Sto­ries by Great Writ­ers

Improv with New York­er Car­toon­ists

Einstein’s Rel­a­tiv­i­ty: An Ani­mat­ed New York­er Car­toon

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In “The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows,” Artist John Koenig Names Feelings that Leave Us Speechless

in Creativity, English Language, Life | June 30th, 2013

It may be a mis­con­cep­tion, it may be a cliché: I’m not a Ger­man speaker—but read­ing translator’s intro­duc­tions to, say, Kant, Hegel or Goethe has con­vinced me that their lan­guage does a much bet­ter job than Eng­lish at cap­tur­ing those odd­ly spe­cif­ic twi­light moods and com­pound feel­ings that so often escape def­i­n­i­tion. Then again, Eng­lish absorbs, can­ni­bal­izes, appro­pri­ates, steals, and bas­tardizes words wher­ev­er it can find them, dri­ving lex­i­cog­ra­phers and gram­mar purists mad.

Graph­ic design­er and film­mak­er John Koenig does all of these things in his “Dic­tio­nary of Obscure Sor­rows,” a blog project in which he names emo­tions that oth­er­wise leave us speech­less. In his short video above, he illus­trates one of his words, “Son­der,” or “the real­iza­tion that each ran­dom passer­by is liv­ing a life as vivid and com­plex as your own…”—something like the shock of sud­den empa­thy that shakes us out of navel-gaz­ing. It’s an emo­tion I’ve expe­ri­enced, with­out know­ing what to call it.

This being an “obscure sor­row,” there’s more to it than empathy—in Koenig’s poet­ic video, “son­der” relates to the infi­nite num­ber of over­lap­ping sto­ries, in which each of us feels we are the hero, oth­ers sup­port­ing cast or extras. In a state of “son­der,” we sud­den­ly occu­py all of those roles at once, our screen time dimin­ish­ing as oth­ers take the lead. After watch­ing Koenig’s film, I’m think­ing “son­der” is a port­man­teau of “sub­lime” and “won­der.” It’s a mys­ti­cal phi­los­o­phy con­tained with­in a sin­gle made-up word.

Some oth­er Koenig coinages: “Ruck­kehrun­ruhe,” “nodus tol­lens,” “adroni­tis,” “rig­or sam­sa”.…. I leave it to you to vis­it Koenig’s Dic­tio­nary and learn what these words mean. It’s an expe­ri­ence well worth your time.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

 

The Atlas of True Names Restores Mod­ern Cities to Their Mid­dle Earth-ish Roots

The His­to­ry of the Eng­lish Lan­guage in Ten Ani­mat­ed Min­utes

Oxford Schol­ars Name Top Ten Irri­tat­ing Phras­es

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

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The Atlas of True Names Restores Modern Cities to Their Middle Earth-ish Roots

in Life, Random, Travel | June 26th, 2013

atlas 2

I was born in the City of the Flow­land Peo­ple, made my way to Stink Onion upon reach­ing matu­ri­ty, then onward to New Yew Tree Vil­lage where I have lived for the last 217 moons.

Look up some of your key co-ordi­nates in The Atlas of True Names and you too can have a per­son­al his­to­ry as myth­ic-sound­ing as mine. The maps—for the UK, USA, Cana­da, and World—replace mod­ern geo­graph­i­cal names with the orig­i­nal ety­mo­log­i­cal roots of cities, coun­tries, and bod­ies of water, trans­lat­ed into Eng­lish. Their web­site picks the “Sahara desert” to illus­trate the true name selec­tion process. Their cho­sen label “The Tawny One” has its basis in es-sahra, trans­lat­ed from the Ara­bic as “the fawn col­ored desert”. It would be inter­est­ing to learn how many pro­fes­sion­al trans­la­tors lent a hand with the ety­mo­log­i­cal pars­ing. There are a lot of lan­guages in this world and we all know the hav­oc Google Trans­late can wreak.

Mar­ried car­tog­ra­phers (and Lord of the Rings fans) Stephan Hormes and Silke Peust acknowl­edge that there could be alter­nates to their trans­la­tions. This should come as a relief to the civic boost­ers of Philadel­phia. Quib­blers will no doubt enjoy tak­ing issue with Hormes and Peust’s choic­es. Hope­ful­ly, any result­ing inter­net brawls will take place on a higher—and dustier—plateau than those where vul­tures pick hap­less celebri­ties to shreds.

Order one of these maps and pack it along on your sum­mer road trip. Even if younger fam­i­ly mem­bers can’t be both­ered to learn how to nav­i­gate with­out a phone, the nar­ra­tive­ly rich names are sure to leav­en those long hours in the car. (How bad­ly do you have to go, Jason? Can you hold out until Table or should Dad­dy pull over in the Val­ley of the Dark­land Dweller?) 

It’s liv­ing his­to­ry in trav­el ver­sion.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Dis­cov­er J.R.R. Tolkien’s Per­son­al Book Cov­er Designs for The Lord of the Rings Tril­o­gy

Down­load Eight Free Lec­tures on The Hob­bit by “The Tolkien Pro­fes­sor,” Corey Olsen

Willie Nel­son Audi­tions for The Hob­bit Film Sequel, Turns 80 Today

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is the author of sev­en books includ­ing the increas­ing­ly obso­lete Zinester’s Guide to NYC and No Touch Mon­key! and Oth­er Trav­el Lessons Learned Too Late. Fol­low her @AyunHallliday

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James Gandolfini Shows Kinder, Softer, Gentler Side on Sesame Street (2002)

in Life, Television | June 23rd, 2013

When James Gan­dolfi­ni first broke into film, he played Vir­gil, a bru­tal woman-beat­ing mafioso (view­er beware), in the 1993 thriller, True Romance, writ­ten by Quentin Taran­ti­no. In Ter­mi­nal Veloc­i­ty, he was back at it again, play­ing a Russ­ian mob­ster. By the 1999, when The Sopra­nos first aired on HBO, Gan­dolfi­ni had per­fect­ed the mob­ster role. The explo­sive anger, the raw vio­lence, the col­or­ful lan­guage — he had it all down. Of course, this con­tributed to a good gag when Gan­dolfi­ni appeared on Sesame Street in 2002. Now the world had the chance to see the actor as it had­n’t seen him before. Meek, timid, and death­ly afraid of giant talk­ing veg­eta­bles. It’s an endear­ing lit­tle scene.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

See Ste­vie Won­der Play “Super­sti­tion” and Ban­ter with Grover on Sesame Street in 1973

Philip Glass Com­pos­es for Sesame Street (1979)

Mor­gan Free­man Teach­es Kids to Read in Vin­tage Elec­tric Com­pa­ny Footage from 1971

 

 

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Iggy Pop Conducts a Tour of New York’s Lower East Side, Circa 1993

in Film, Life, Music | June 21st, 2013

I moved to New York City in 2000, and to the Low­er East Side in 2002. To my dis­may, the grit­ty down­town New York I’d loved from afar since childhood—represented by films like The War­riors, bands like Son­ic Youth, and graf­fi­ti artists like Zephyr—was near­ly at an end. CBGB’s was stag­ger­ing toward its final years; local venue Brown­ies, right across the street, closed dur­ing my tenure, then re-opened as anoth­er bar, the live bands replaced by a juke­box; the few remain­ing artists from the old days holed up in their apart­ments, surly and for­got­ten; and rumors of Whole Foods and glass & steel con­dos proved true in the com­ing years. It was sad.

But oh, to be there in the 80s and ear­ly 90s, when flow­ers of dirty punk art grew from the nee­dle-strewn Tomp­kins Square Park and the decay­ing squat­ters par­adis­es along Avenue A. Of course I’m roman­ti­ciz­ing a time of high crime, pover­ty, and low expec­ta­tions, a time many native New York­ers do not remem­ber fond­ly (then again, it seems, just as many do). There are many, many doc­u­ments of the old East Vil­lage mean streets—too many to prop­er­ly list in this short post. But I can imag­ine no bet­ter tour guide to pre-mil­len­ni­al NYC than Iggy Pop.

In the short film above, watch him show Dutch film­mak­er Bram van Splun­teren around Alpha­bet City. Grant­ed this is 1993. Things weren’t near­ly as hairy as they were a few years pri­or (a fact Iggy points out right away), but it’s still a world away from the Low­er East Side of today. Pop traipses through the neigh­bor­hood, point­ing out favorite land­marks and pieces of graf­fi­ti. No stranger to urban decay, the Detroit native seems right at home. This being New York, Pop can stroll around with­out being molest­ed (or most­ly even rec­og­nized). All in all it’s a pret­ty leisure­ly tour of the 90s Low­er East Side on a bright and sun­ny day with the guy who more-or-less invent­ed punk. What more could you want?

via Coudal.com

Relat­ed Con­tent:

From The Stooges to Iggy Pop: 1986 Doc­u­men­tary Charts the Rise of Punk’s God­fa­ther

Jim Pow­er, aka “the Mosa­ic Man,” Adorns the Lamp­posts of New York City’s East Vil­lage

Nico Sings “Chelsea Girls” in the Famous Chelsea Hotel

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

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The Late James Gandolfini, Star of The Sopranos, Appears on Inside the Actors Studio (2004)

in Life, Television | June 19th, 2013

We often write about the cur­rent “gold­en age” of high­ly craft­ed, the­mat­i­cal­ly lay­ered, tonal­ly var­ied tele­vi­sion dra­ma, espe­cial­ly its well-known recent high water marks in series like The Wire, Mad Men, and Break­ing Bad. But if you believe many tele­vi­sion crit­ics, this long and cap­ti­vat­ing wave first rose back in 1999 with David Chase’s ultra­mod­ern mob show The Sopra­nos. Noth­ing onscreen drove its six sea­sons quite so dynam­i­cal­ly as the star­ring per­for­mance from James Gan­dolfi­ni as put-upon mafia boss Tony Sopra­no. The actor’s sud­den pass­ing yes­ter­day will sure­ly prompt count­less Sopra­nos fans to watch the entire series again, and as many soon-to-be Sopra­nos fans to final­ly catch up with the tele­vi­sion mas­ter­piece they’d missed. Before you launch into either of those extend­ed view­ing ses­sions, though (or their nine-minute com­pres­sion), con­sid­er watch­ing Gan­dolfini’s 2004 appear­ance on Inside the Actors Stu­dio at the top of the post (with Span­ish sub­ti­tles).

Gan­dolfini’s con­ver­sa­tion with host James Lip­ton cov­ers his Ital­ian fam­i­ly, his ear­ly work on the stage, his first turn as a mob­ster in True Romance (which includ­ed an appear­ance in what Lip­ton calls the most vio­lent scene Quentin Taran­ti­no ever wrote), which oth­er big star’s father his own father bought tires from, the praise Roger Ebert gave him, how he sees point of view as cen­tral to the craft of act­ing, and how Tony Sopra­no first entered his life. Lip­ton asks Gan­dolfi­ni what he saw in the char­ac­ter that he felt he could play. “It’s a man in strug­gle,” the actor replies. “He does­n’t have a reli­gion. He does­n’t believe in the gov­ern­ment. He does­n’t believe in any­thing except his code of hon­or, and his code of hon­or’s all going to shit. He has noth­ing left, so he’s look­ing around — that search­ing I think a lot of Amer­i­ca does half the time.” Just above, you can watch one of many intense moments in the life of Tony Sopra­no, this one a domes­tic one-on-one with his wife Carmela, played by the also-acclaimed Edie Fal­co.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

James Gan­dolfi­ni Reads from Mau­rice Sendak’s Sto­ry Book “In The Night Kitchen”

The Nine Minute Sopra­nos

David Chase Speaks

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on lit­er­a­ture, film, cities, Asia, and aes­thet­ics. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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Zen Master Alan Watts Discovers the Secrets of Aldous Huxley and His Art of Dying

in Life, Literature, Religion | June 11th, 2013

Few fig­ures were as influ­en­tial as Alan Watts and Aldous Hux­ley in pop­u­lar­iz­ing exper­i­ments with psy­che­del­ic drugs and East­ern reli­gion in the 20th cen­tu­ry. Watts did more to intro­duce West­ern­ers to Zen Bud­dhism than almost any­one before or since; Huxley’s exper­i­ments with mesca­line and LSD—as well as his lit­er­ary cri­tiques of West­ern tech­no­crat­ic rationalism—are well-known. But in a coun­ter­cul­tur­al move­ment large­ly dom­i­nat­ed by men—Watts and Hux­ley, Ken Kesey, Tim­o­thy Leary, Allen Gins­berg, etc—Huxley’s wid­ow Lau­ra came to play a sig­nif­i­cant role after her husband’s death.

In fact, as we’ve dis­cussed before, she played a sig­nif­i­cant role dur­ing his death, inject­ing him with LSD and read­ing to him from The Tibetan Book of the Dead as he passed away. In the inter­view above, Lau­ra speaks with Watts about that expe­ri­ence, one she learned from Aldous, who per­formed a sim­i­lar ser­vice for his first wife as she died in 1955. The occa­sion of the interview—conducted at Watts’ Sausal­i­to home in 1968—is the pub­li­ca­tion of Lau­ra Huxley’s mem­oir of life with her hus­band, This Time­less Moment. But talk of the book soon prompts dis­cus­sion of Huxley’s grace­ful exit, which Watts calls “a high­ly intel­li­gent form of dying.”

Watts relates an anec­dote about Goethe’s last hours, dur­ing which a vis­i­tor was told that he was “busy dying.” “Dying is an art,” says Watts, “and it’s also an adven­ture,” Lau­ra adds. Their dis­cus­sion then turns to Huxley’s final nov­el, Island (which you can read in PDF here). Island has rarely been favor­ably reviewed as a lit­er­ary endeav­or. And yet, as Watts points out, it wasn’t intend­ed as lit­er­a­ture, but as a “soci­o­log­i­cal blue­print in the form of a nov­el.” Lau­ra Hux­ley, upset at the book’s chilly recep­tion, wish­es her hus­band had “writ­ten it straight.” Nonethe­less, she points out that Island was much more than a Utopi­an fan­ta­sy or philo­soph­i­cal thought exper­i­ment. It was a doc­u­ment in which “every method, every recipe… is some­thing he exper­i­ment­ed with him­self in his own life.” As Lau­ra wrote in This Time­less Moment:

Every sin­gle thing that is writ­ten in Island has hap­pened and it’s pos­si­ble and actu­al … Island is real­ly vision­ary com­mon sense. Things that Aldous and many oth­er peo­ple said, that were seen as so auda­cious — they are com­mon sense, but they were vision­ary because they had not yet hap­pened.

Those things includ­ed not only rad­i­cal forms of liv­ing, but also, as Hux­ley him­self demon­strat­ed, rad­i­cal ways of dying.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Aldous Huxley’s Most Beau­ti­ful, LSD-Assist­ed Death: A Let­ter from His Wid­ow

Aldous Hux­ley Reads Dra­ma­tized Ver­sion of Brave New World

Leonard Cohen Nar­rates Film on The Tibetan Book of the Dead, Fea­tur­ing the Dalai Lama (1994)

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

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Philadelphia Orchestra Quartet Gets Stuck on a Plane in China, Plays Dvořák for Grateful Passengers

in Life, Music | June 8th, 2013

When a quar­tet from The Philadel­phia Orches­tra (my home town) recent­ly found itself ground­ed on a plane at the Bei­jing air­port, they decid­ed after three long hours (in coach!) that enough was enough. It was time to pro­vide musi­cal relief to pas­sen­gers shar­ing in their fatigue and frus­tra­tion. Above you’ll find Juli­ette Kan and Daniel Han on vio­lin; Che-Hung Chen on vio­la; and Yumi Kendall on cel­lo, treat­ing every­one to an impromp­tu ver­sion of Dvořák’s String Quar­tet No. 12 in F Major, Op. 96 “Amer­i­can” Finale.

Thanks to Burl for send­ing this our way!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Pak­istani Orches­tra Plays Amaz­ing Ver­sion of Dave Brubeck’s Jazz Clas­sic, “Take Five”

Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” Mov­ing­ly Flash­mobbed in Spain

The Recy­cled Orches­tra: Paraguayan Youth Play Mozart with Instru­ments Clev­er­ly Made Out of Trash

85,000 Clas­si­cal Music Scores (and Free MP3s) on the Web

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