The Zen Wisdom of Alan Watts Animated by the Creators of South Park, Trey Parker and Matt Stone

in Animation, Life, Religion | March 17th, 2013

Alan Watts began pop­u­lar­iz­ing the teach­ings of Zen Bud­dhism, Hin­duism, and Tao­ism in Amer­i­ca dur­ing the 1950s. He taught at the Acad­e­my of Asian Stud­ies in San Fran­cis­co, wrote Way of Zen and oth­er best­selling books, gave talks on the radio (lis­ten here), and devel­oped TV pro­grams intro­duc­ing Amer­i­cans to the seem­ing­ly exot­ic prac­tice of med­i­ta­tion. Don’t miss his 1960 TV pro­gram called “The Silent Mind.”

Watts died almost 40 years ago, but his lega­cy remains alive, part­ly thanks to his son, part­ly thanks to vin­tage videos cap­tured on YouTube, and part­ly thanks to peo­ple like Trey Park­er and Matt Stone — that’s right, the cre­ators of South Park. There’s not much infor­ma­tion known about them, but some­where back in 2007, Park­er and Stone pro­duced videos that ani­mat­ed (audio) lec­tures giv­en by Watts many moons ago. The top­ics deal with music, life, and philo­soph­i­cal per­son­al­i­ty types. Mean­while, the aes­thet­ic is dis­tinct­ly South Parkean, minus the out­ra­geous pot­ty humor, of course. The project is an old favorite of ours and today we decid­ed to bring it back.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Alan Watts Intro­duces Amer­i­ca to Med­i­ta­tion & East­ern Phi­los­o­phy (1960)

Alan Watts On Why Our Minds And Tech­nol­o­gy Can’t Grasp Real­i­ty

“The Cen­tral Phi­los­o­phy of Tibet” by Robert Thur­man, Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty. Added to the Phi­los­o­phy Sec­tion of our list of Free Online Cours­es

What If Mon­ey Was No Object?: Thoughts on the Art of Liv­ing from East­ern Philoso­pher Alan Watts

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 9 ) |

Artist Robbie Cooper’s Video Project Immersion Stares Back at Gamers and YouTubers

in Art, Life, Technology, Web/Tech | March 8th, 2013

What if that screen you’re peer­ing at was some­thing akin to a one-way mir­ror? There’s a def­i­nite aspect of dress­ing room hor­ror, view­ing artist Rob­bie Coop­er’s Immer­sion project, a video col­lec­tion of the alter­nate­ly grotesque and dull expres­sions appear­ing on peo­ple’s faces as they play video games and watch YouTube. (The view­er is nev­er privy to what’s show­ing on the sub­jects’ screens, but one sus­pects it’s like­ly less rar­i­fied than a short ani­ma­tion inspired by physi­cist Richard Feyn­man’s remarks on a flower or film­mak­er Miran­da July’s lyri­cal advice to the pro­cras­ti­na­tion-prone). But before we denounce the most­ly under­aged par­tic­i­pants’ dead eyes and slack jaws—an effect made more dis­turb­ing by the sound­track­’s high inci­dence of gunfire—perhaps we should turn the web cam on our­selves.

That’s exact­ly what Coop­er is hop­ing will hap­pen, as he pre­pares to expand the pro­jec­t’s scope to include peo­ple of all ages and nation­al­i­ties. “Babies being born right now arrive in a land­scape where com­put­ers, smart­phones, the inter­net, and social media already exist,” he explains, “While the old­est gen­er­a­tion alive today can remem­ber a time before TV was a fix­ture of our liv­ing room.”

To widen the net, Coop­er is turn­ing to crowd sourc­ing. Whether some­one who know­ing­ly trains the cam­era on him or her­self can achieve the pre­vi­ous par­tic­i­pants zoo-like lack of inhi­bi­tion remains to be seen, but the Kick­starter cam­paign to fund this next phase lays things out on a grand scale. The plan is for the pub­lic to con­tribute via uploads and a social media aggre­ga­tor. More excit­ing­ly, they’re encour­aged to seize the reins by cre­at­ing a series of instruc­tions and prompts for those com­ing lat­er to fol­low.

Let us hope this will lead to a more heart­en­ing vari­ety of expres­sions, as well as the book, doc­u­men­tary, and  inter­ac­tive exhibits Coop­er envi­sions.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

This is Your Kid on Tele­vi­sion

Art in the Era of the Inter­net (and Why Open Edu­ca­tion Mat­ters)

The Cre­ators Project Presents the Future of Art and Design, Brought to You by Intel and Vice Mag­a­zine

Ayun Hal­l­i­day’s lap­top is direct­ly respon­si­ble for two ver­ti­cal creas­es between her brows.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

Visit the Museum of Endangered Sounds, and Experience a Blast from Technology’s Past

in Design, Life | February 28th, 2013

As gear­heads go, Bren­dan Chil­cut­t’s a pret­ty sen­ti­men­tal guy, and not just because he signs his cor­re­spon­dence with “love.” In Jan­u­ary, 2012, he found­ed the Muse­um of Endan­gered Sounds to keep out­mod­ed tech­nol­o­gy’s most icon­ic nois­es from van­ish­ing from the col­lec­tive mem­o­ry. Click on any image in the muse­um’s online col­lec­tion to be trans­port­ed in the Prous­t­ian sense.

Some of the exhibits—a man­u­al type­writer, a rotary phone—were already amply pre­served, thanks to a pro­lif­er­a­tion of cin­e­mat­ic appear­ances in their hey­day.

Oth­ers might well have slipped away unno­ticed, if not for Chil­cut­t’s cura­to­r­i­al efforts. Remem­ber that num­ber you could call to have a record­ed voice inform you of the cor­rect time? How about the sta­t­ic of an ana­log TV tuned to an emp­ty sta­tion? The hum of a mal­func­tion­ing Dis­c­man, the chirp of a Tamagotchi…wait, what’s that I hear? The dis­con­cert­ing whoosh of time speed­ing up?

Drown it out by acti­vat­ing all thir­ty exhibits at once. Let them sound their bar­bar­ic yaw­ps simul­ta­ne­ous­ly as the kids try to fig­ure out what that rack­et is.

h/t goes to @sheerly

Relat­ed Con­tent:

“Glitch” Artists Com­pose with Soft­ware Crash­es and Cor­rupt­ed Files

40 Great Film­mak­ers Go Old School, Shoot Short Films with 100 Year Old Cam­era

How Film Was Made: A Kodak Nos­tal­gia Moment

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is still try­ing to text on a cell phone from 2003

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 3 ) |

Physical Attraction: Marriage Proposal Comes in the Form of a Physics Paper

in Life, Physics | February 26th, 2013

physics marriage proposal

On red­dit, a user wrote yes­ter­day, “My boyfriend of 7 years and I are both physi­cists. Here’s how he pro­posed to me.” Yes, the mar­riage pro­pos­al is a physics paper of sorts, called “Two Body Inter­ac­tions: A Lon­gi­tu­di­nal Study,” that con­cludes:

The sum­ma­ry of the find­ings of the study are pre­sent­ed in Fig­ure 1 and that that the project hap­pi­ness is upward with high con­fi­dence. Tak­ing these results into account, the author pro­pos­es to Christie the indef­i­nite con­tin­u­a­tion of the study. The sub­jects response to their pro­pos­al should be indi­cat­ed below [by check­ing the “Yes” or “No” box].

Bren­dan McMoni­gal and Christie Nelan (pic­tured here) met at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Syd­ney sev­en years ago. They will tie the knot this com­ing May, and we hope you’ll wish them the best.…

via Boing­Bo­ing and @stevesilberman

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 2 ) |

“Nothing Good Gets Away”: John Steinbeck Offers Love Advice in a Letter to His Son (1958)

in Letters, Life, Literature | February 19th, 2013

steinbeck

Cer­tain read­ers may turn, for gen­er­al solace, to the nov­els of John Stein­beck. But how many, in par­tic­u­lar need of roman­tic advice, open up Of Mice and Men, East of Eden, or The Grapes of Wrath? Yet on mat­ters of the heart, Stein­beck knew of what he spoke, as his son Thom found out after men­tion­ing a new school sweet­heart in a note home. In what must sure­ly count as the most elo­quent, rel­e­vant piece of unso­licit­ed parental love advice ever given—not, admit­ted­ly, a high bar to cross—the for­mi­da­ble man of Amer­i­can let­ters explained how best to nav­i­gate this rich­est of all expe­ri­ences:

First—if you are in love—that’s a good thing—that’s about the best thing that can hap­pen to any­one. Don’t let any­one make it small or light to you.

Second—There are sev­er­al kinds of love. One is a self­ish, mean, grasp­ing, ego­tis­ti­cal thing which uses love for self-impor­tance. This is the ugly and crip­pling kind. The oth­er is an out­pour­ing of every­thing good in you—of kind­ness and con­sid­er­a­tion and respect—not only the social respect of man­ners but the greater respect which is recog­ni­tion of anoth­er per­son as unique and valu­able. The first kind can make you sick and small and weak but the sec­ond can release in you strength, and courage and good­ness and even wis­dom you didn’t know you had.

This excerpt comes from a full text avail­able at a favorite site of ours, Let­ters of Note. One of the inter­net’s finest repos­i­to­ries of man’s wis­dom and fol­ly, Let­ters of Note has offered William Faulkn­er’s take-this-job-and-shove-it, a young Kurt Von­negut’s wartime report home after his release from a Dres­den work camp, the first Amer­i­can fan let­ter sent to David Bowie, and Aldous Hux­ley’s death as described by his wid­ow. My per­son­al favorite remains the simul­ta­ne­ous­ly astute and unhinged lament Ted Turn­er received from his father after chang­ing his col­lege major to clas­sics. Turn­er père wrote, in his askew fash­ion, in the same spir­it of father­ly sup­port as Stein­beck. But Ted did­n’t get to read any lines half as reas­sur­ing as those Thom Stein­beck did: “Don’t wor­ry about los­ing,” his father advised. “If it is right, it happens—The main thing is not to hur­ry. Noth­ing good gets away.”

Relat­ed con­tent:

John Steinbeck’s Six Tips for the Aspir­ing Writer and His Nobel Prize Speech

This is Your Brain in Love: Scenes from the Stan­ford Love Com­pe­ti­tion

Face to Face with Bertrand Rus­sell: ‘Love is Wise, Hatred is Fool­ish’

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.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 3 ) |

John Cleese’s Eulogy for Graham Chapman: ‘Good Riddance, the Free-Loading Bastard, I Hope He Fries’

in Comedy, Life | February 18th, 2013

The British come­di­an Gra­ham Chap­man delight­ed in offend­ing peo­ple. As a writer and actor with the leg­endary Mon­ty Python troupe, he pushed against the bound­aries of pro­pri­ety and good taste. When his writ­ing part­ner John Cleese pro­posed doing a sketch on a dis­grun­tled man return­ing a defec­tive toast­er to a shop, Chap­man thought: Bro­ken toast­er? Why not a dead par­rot? And in one par­tic­u­lar­ly out­ra­geous sketch writ­ten by Chap­man and Cleese in 1970,  Chap­man plays an under­tak­er and Cleese plays a cus­tomer who has just rung a bell at the front desk:

“What can I do for you, squire?” says Chap­man.

“Um, well, I won­der if you can help me,” says Cleese. “You see, my moth­er has just died.”

“Ah, well, we can ‘elp you. We deal with stiffs,” says Chap­man. “There are three things we can do with your moth­er. We can burn her, bury her, or dump her.”

“Dump her?”

“Dump her in the Thames.”

“What?”

“Oh, did you like her?”

“Yes!”

“Oh well, we won’t dump her, then,” says Chap­man. “Well, what do you think? We can bury her or burn her.”

“Which would you rec­om­mend?”

“Well, they’re both nasty.”

From there, Chap­man goes on to explain in the most graph­ic detail the unpleas­ant aspects of either choice before offer­ing anoth­er option: can­ni­bal­ism. At that point (in keep­ing with the script) out­raged mem­bers of the stu­dio audi­ence rush onto the stage and put a stop to the sketch.

Chap­man and Cleese had been close friends since their stu­dent days at Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty, and when Chap­man died of can­cer at the age of 48 on Octo­ber 4, 1989, Cleese was at his bed­side. Out of respect for Chap­man’s fam­i­ly, the mem­bers of Mon­ty Python decid­ed to stay away from his pri­vate funer­al and avoid a media cir­cus. Instead, they gath­ered for a memo­r­i­al ser­vice on Octo­ber 6, 1989 in the Great Hall at St. Bartholomew’s Hos­pi­tal in Lon­don. When Cleese deliv­ered his eulo­gy for Chap­man, he recalled his friend’s irrev­er­ence: “Any­thing for him, but mind­less good taste.” So Cleese did his best to make his old friend proud. His off-col­or but heart­felt eulo­gy that evening has become a part of Mon­ty Python lore, and you can watch it above. To see a longer clip, with mov­ing words from Michael Palin and a sing-along of “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” led by Eric Idle, watch below:

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Mon­ty Python’s Best Phi­los­o­phy Sketch­es

Mon­ty Python’s Life of Bri­an: Reli­gious Satire, Polit­i­cal Satire, or Blas­phe­my?

John Cleese, Mon­ty Python Icon, on How to Be Cre­ative

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 6 ) |

Finding Vivian Maier: New Documentary Reveals the Vision of Obscure Chicago Street Photographer

in Art, Life, Photography | February 18th, 2013

The posthu­mous dis­cov­ery of Vivian Maier’s pho­tographs is an art world stun­ner on the order of Hen­ry Darg­er’s mas­sive In the Realms of the Unre­al.

The syn­chronic­i­ty makes one won­der.

He was a Chica­go-based cus­to­di­an.

She was a Chica­go-based nan­ny.

They shared a com­pul­sion to create—some might say document—but were so intense­ly pri­vate, the rev­e­la­tions of their respec­tive lives’ work threw every­one for a loop.

Employ­ers and neigh­bors found it hard to believe they’d had it in them. (View an online gallery of her work here.)

Cura­tors, mar­veling at the quan­ti­ty of their out­put and qual­i­ty of the vision, piled on superla­tives.

Some­thing tells me the prick­ly Ms. Maier would not have appre­ci­at­ed any com­par­isons to a man whose work fea­tured so many rep­re­sen­ta­tions of naked, her­maph­ro­dit­ic girl-war­riors being bay­o­net­ted, but death makes it dif­fi­cult to keep hold of the reins gripped so tight­ly in life.

For the fore­see­able future, Maier’s lega­cy rests in the hands of John Mal­oof, the young Chicagoan who bought her neg­a­tives from an unpaid stor­age unit for less than $400, hop­ing he might find some­thing of rel­e­vance for a neigh­bor­hood his­to­ry project. He got more than he bar­gained for, obvi­ous­ly, but the years spent scan­ning the unknown artist’s work is begin­ning to pay off in exhi­bi­tions, gallery rep­re­sen­ta­tion, and a book. Now he is near­ing com­ple­tion of Find­ing Vivian Maier, a doc­u­men­tary film that promis­es to shed more light on this fas­ci­nat­ing tale.

Would the sub­ject have want­ed this?

Per­haps that’s a ques­tion for the Hen­ry Darg­er Study Cen­ter at the Amer­i­can Folk Art Muse­um…

Relat­ed Con­tent:

David Lynch Talks About His 99 Favorite Pho­tographs at Paris Pho­to 2012

1972 Diane Arbus Doc­u­men­tary Inter­views Those Who Knew the Amer­i­can Pho­tog­ra­ph­er Best

Pho­tog­ra­phy of Lud­wig Wittgen­stein Released by Archives at Cam­bridge

Ayun Hal­l­i­day, a point and shoot hack, is relat­ed by mar­riage to anoth­er female street pho­tog­ra­ph­er with an inter­est­ing lens on his­to­ry. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

How a Baltimore Hairdresser Became a World-Renowned “Hair Archaeologist” of Ancient Rome

in History, Life | February 13th, 2013

Julia_Domna

In 2001, Janet Stephens, a Bal­ti­more hair­dress­er, caught sight of a bust of Roman empress Julia Dom­na at the Wal­ters Art Muse­um (the image above is of a bust in the Lou­vre). Cap­ti­vat­ed by the philoso­pher empress’s hair­do, she thought “holy cow, that is so cool… like a loaf of bread sit­ting on her head.” Thus began Stephens’ quest to recre­ate the coif­fures of ladies of antiq­ui­ty.

Stephens first set about try­ing the empress’s hair­style on a man­nequin, with no suc­cess. She under­took some research and found that schol­ars gen­er­al­ly assumed that the elab­o­rate, sculpt­ed hair­styles of Roman ladies could only be wigs. This set off Stephens’ skep­tic detec­tor, and—armed with no more than her free time, some dogged research meth­ods, and a few vol­un­teer models—she ven­tured to dis­prove the schol­ar­ly con­sen­sus. As The Wall Street Jour­nal tells it:

In 2005, she had a break­through. Study­ing trans­la­tions of Roman lit­er­a­ture, Ms. Stephens says, she real­ized the Latin term “acus” was prob­a­bly being mis­un­der­stood in the con­text of hair­dress­ing. Acus has sev­er­al mean­ings includ­ing a “sin­gle-prong hair­pin” or “nee­dle and thread,” she says. Trans­la­tors gen­er­al­ly went with “hair­pin.”

The sin­gle-prong pins could­n’t have held the intri­cate styles in place. But a nee­dle and thread could. It backed up her hair hypoth­e­sis.

Her per­sis­tence paid off. In 2008, she pub­lished an arti­cle in the Jour­nal of Roman Archae­ol­o­gy detail­ing her find­ings on Roman hair. Stephens is now a rec­og­nized author­i­ty on ancient hair­styles and a “hair archae­ol­o­gist.”

See Stephens at work and hear WSJ reporter Abi­gail Pes­ta tell the sto­ry in the video below.

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

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 4 ) |

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