Alain de Botton Presents Ten Virtues for the Modern Day

in Life, Philosophy | February 12th, 2013

At the end of my college years, I found I needed to take one final political science course to complete my major. I chose a small summer session on the subject of virtue. Having enrolled with no idea what to expect, I finished the quarter less changed by the assigned readings and classroom discussions than by the very — and very unusual — task of having to think about virtue at all. Jokes about the distance of virtue from modern college students’ minds write themselves, but Alain de Botton, a man given to much thought and writing about such lost topics, suspects that the same condition afflicts all of us. Hence his introducing, under the banner of his institution The School of Life, the Virtues Project. It emerges into an unreceptive environment. As de Botton puts it in this introductory post, “In the modern world, the idea of trying to be a ‘good person’ conjures up all sorts of negative associations: of piety, solemnity, bloodlessness and sexual renunciation, as if goodness were something one would try to embrace only when other more difficult but more fulfilling avenues had been exhausted.”

“Throughout history,” he continues, “societies have been interested in fostering virtues, in training us to be more virtuous, but we’re one of the first generations to have zero public interest in this.” In order to bring that number up, de Botton and The School of Life have enumerated ten simple but universal virtues — resilience, empathy, patience, sacrifice, politeness, humor, self-awareness, forgiveness, hope, and confidence — and embedded them in a manifesto, of which you can download a handsome PDF version. This provides the foundational text of the Virtues Project, a component of de Botton’s larger mission, laid out in his recent book Religion for Atheists, to repurpose for modern society the elements of faith that have demonstrated practical value throughout history. Since my adult life, which effectively began as that last poli-sci course ended, has chiefly presented the challenge of winning and maintaining my own self-respect, I’ll be committing these ten virtues to memory, and no doubt watching for the Virtues Project’s lectures and public events to come.

via Andrew Sullivan

Socrates on TV, Courtesy of Alain de Botton (2000)

Alain de Botton Proposes a Kinder, Gentler Philosophy of Success

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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The Scared Is Scared: A Child’s Wisdom for Starting New Chapters (Creative or Otherwise) in Life

in Film, Life | February 11th, 2013

The future’s uncertainty has paralyzed many an artist. How to begin?

Were you to take the advice of 6‑year-old Asa Baker-Rouse, you might show the word “start” in a box, add an equals sign, frame it with a box, make the word orange, then green, then white in a green box….

Asa is both narrator and muse of The Scared is Scared, the final project of recent Middlebury College grad, Bianca Giaever’s independently designed Narrative Studies major. Rather than hand the boy a script, she allowed him to determine the course of her film, literally visualizing his spontaneous monologue with the help of several game friends, a trick implemented earlier in Holy Cow Lisa, which built on an interview with her college advisor.

The result should appeal to anyone who had a soft spot for PeeWee’s Playhouse’s Penny cartoons. It’s cute all right, but The Scared is Scared also boasts an effortless-seeming profundity. Asa may be of the age where piano-shaped cookies and secret sleepovers represent the pinnacle of anarchy, but he’s got an ancient master’s take on things coming to their inevitable end. By committing to roll with whatever unknowns this child might supply, Giaver taps into a rich vein of creativity. Along the way, she makes peace with a very familiar-feeling unknown, the fate of the young artist leaving college’s cozy embrace.

It turns out to be a perfect place to start.

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by Ayun Halliday | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

The Acoustic Guitar Project Gives Songwriters Worldwide a Guitar and One Week to Write a Song

in Life, Music | February 8th, 2013

The White Stripes’ song “Little Room” is all about re-connecting with the space of creativity within you—the “little room” where emotions become ideas—when you’re feeling overwhelmed (by success? Or maybe just kids, bills and the IRS). Their garage-rock ditty is a nice marriage of form and content, the lyrical simplicity enacts the mental paring down Jack White recommends. No telling how often White goes to his “little room,” but he’s such a wellspring of songwriting ideas, solo and in a constellation of side projects, that I’d guess it’s pretty often. As a songwriter myself, I have found White’s advice utterly unimpeachable (which must be why I dutifully ignore it so often).

But the little room isn’t just a comforting place in the head, like Happy Gilmore’s happy place. It’s also a physical space—differently arranged for artists of different media. For the singer/songwriter, it’s generally a familiar, secluded place where you can put all of your focus on a guitar, a notepad, and a recording device (the simpler the better). That’s the space conjured up by The Acoustic Guitar Project, “created to help musicians reconnect to the original moment that inspired them to be singer-songwriters.” Conceived in April, 2012, the project’s stated mission is threefold:

Inspire artists to take action.
Tell stories from a truthful, meaningful point of view.
Strive to give people something to believe in.

If these goals sound a little too vague and pollyannaish to communicate much, listen to the wonderful simplicity of The Acoustic Guitar Project’s premise: 1) the project selects a musician, and provides him or her with an acoustic guitar and a handheld recorder. 2) the musician must produce an original song within one week, using only the equipment provided. 3) the musician, once finished, chooses the next musician for the project, and, I suppose, “pays it forward.”

It’s a really neat idea, and you can see the results on the site, which features over forty singer/songwriters so far who have been passed the guitar. Each musician has their own page with a profile, photo, and the audio and lyrics of their song. The first three stages of the project took place in New York City, Helsinki, Finland, and Bogota, Columbia, respectively, and the fourth stage moves to Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Joel Waldman of Bogota is one of these brave troubadours. You can see him perform his song, “Como Una Llama” (Like a Flame) live above. (See Joel’s page for the lyrics to his song, in both Spanish and English.) In the video below, Joel very thoughtfully discusses the feeling of writing a song—a process, he says, of combining information and inspiration.

The Best Music to Write By: Give Us Your Recommendations

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

by Josh Jones | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 2 ) |

Alain de Botton Proposes a Kinder, Gentler Philosophy of Success

in Life, Philosophy, TED Talks | February 7th, 2013

For better or worse, Alain de Botton is the face of pop philosophy. He has advocated “religion for atheists” in a book of the same name (to the deep consternation of some atheists and the eloquent interest of others); he has distilled selected philosophical nuggets into self-help in his The Consolations of Philosophy; and most recently, he’s tackled a subject close to everybody’s heart (to put it charitably) in How to Think More About Sex. As a corollary to his intellectual interests in human betterment, de Botton also oversees The School of Life, a “cultural enterprise offering good ideas for everyday life” with a base in Central London and a colorful online presence. Many critics disdain de Botton’s shotgun approach to philosophy, but it gets people reading (not just his own books), and gets them talking, rather than just shouting at each other.

In addition to his publishing, de Botton is an accomplished and engaging speaker. Although himself a committed secularist, in his TED talks, he has posed some formidable challenges to the smug certainties of liberal secularism and the often brutal certainties of libertarian meritocracy. Apropos of the latter, in the talk above, de Botton takes on what he calls “job snobbery,” the dominant form of snobbery today, he says, and a global phenomenon. Certainly, we can all remember any number of times when the question “What do you do?” has either made us exhale with pride or feel like we might shrivel up and blow away. De Botton takes this common experience and draws from it some interesting inferences: for example, against the idea that we (one assumes he means Westerners) live in a materialistic society, de Botton posits that we primarily use material goods and career status not as ends in themselves but as the means to receive emotional rewards from those who choose how much love or respect to “spend” on us based on where we land in any social hierarchy.

Accordingly, de Botton asks us to see someone in a Ferrari not as greedy but as “incredibly vulnerable and in need of love” (he does not address other possible compensations of middle-aged men in overly-expensive cars). For de Botton, modern society turns the whole world into a school, where equals compete with each other relentlessly. But the problem with the analogy is that in the wider world, the admirable spirit of equality runs up against the realities of increasingly entrenched inequities. Our inability to see this is nurturned, de Botton points out, by an industry that sells us all the fiction that, with just enough know-how and gumption, anyone can become the next Mark Zuckerberg or Steve Jobs. But if this were true, of course, there would be hundreds of thousands of Zuckerbergs and Jobs.

For de Botton, when we believe that those who make it to the top do so only on merit, we also, in a callous way, believe those at the bottom deserve their place and should stay there—a belief that takes no account of the accidents of birth and the enormity of factors outside anyone’s control. This shift in thinking, he says—especially in the United States—gets reflected in a shift in language. Where in former times someone in tough circumstances might be called “unfortunate” or “down on their luck,” they are now more likely to be called “a loser,” a social condition that exacerbates feelings of personal failure and increases the numbers of suicides. The rest of de Botton’s richly observed talk lays out his philosophical and psychological alternatives to the irrational reasoning that makes everyone responsible for everything that happens to them. As a consequence of softening the harsh binary logic of success/failure, de Botton concludes, we can find greater meaning and happiness in the work we choose to do—because we love it, not because it buys us love.

Alain de Botton’s Quest for The Perfect Home and Architectural Happiness

Socrates on TV, Courtesy of Alain de Botton (2000)

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

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Meet “Dashan,” the Canadian Comedian Who Achieved Accidental Stardom in China

in Comedy, Life | January 25th, 2013

Western students of the Chinese language tend to know Dashan. Sometimes they don’t like him very much. The variety of possible explanations obviously includes simple jealousy, since Dashan (given name Mark Rowswell) enjoys fame across China for his mastery of Mandarin. But just as this anti-Dashan resentment actually springs from more complicated causes, so the fervently pro-Dashan feelings of millions of Chinese fans spring from more than his unusual fluency. Ambassador to China’s Funny Bone, the fifty-minute documentary above, traces Dashan’s seemingly uncalculated rise from his undergraduate days in Chinese studies at the University of Toronto, to his breakthrough appearance on China Central Television’s 1988 New Year’s Gala, to his inescapable presence on the Chinese stage and screen — including but by no means limited to endorsing a “Canadian fast food restaurant.” This sort of celebrity makes one instinctively want to paraphrase Samuel Johnson’s line about the dog walking on its hind legs: even if a westerner speaking Chinese on television is not done well, audiences are surprised to find it done at all.

But Dashan does do it well, and he does it in a context even more challenging than a four-legged animal walking upright: the traditional form of language comedy known as xiangsheng. The documentary shows Dashan performing as part of a duo, and just above you can see him going solo. Outside of this specialized setting, observers have compared his mild, easygoing, friendly — dare I say Canadian? — persona to Dick Clark’s; one interviewee in Ambassador even describes him as harmlessly symbolizing Canada just as a panda symbolizes China. Yet his detractors have grown vocal enough to prompt someone to publicly ask, on question-and-answer site Quora, “Why do so many Chinese learners seem to hate Dashan?” The top answer comes from Dashan himself, who provides a thorough, clearheaded, and self-aware analysis of the perception of his character. He even cites, approvingly, the answer from China watcher and rocker Kaiser Kuo: “Dashan seems like a nice enough guy, but for some reason every once in a while I have the urge to punch him in the face.”

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 Colin Marshall | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

An Animated Interpretation of Billy Collins’ Poem, “Forgetfulness”

in Animation, Life, Poetry | January 21st, 2013

Some twenty-five years ago, my acting class spent an entire semester on the plays of Anton Chekhov. At the time, it felt very vital, but like so much else I studied in college, what I wound up retaining is sadly piecemeal. One thing I do remember is the youngest of the Three Sisters breakdown upon realizing that they’ll never make it to Moscow. At the heart of this freak-out is her despair that she, and everyone who matters to her, is aging, a condition she defines as diminishment. It seemed a bit over-the-top to me at the time. For god’s sake, she’s only 24. So what if she can’t remember a few words of schoolgirl Italian? Two and a half decades out, I was misremembering her name as Anya, a momentary confusion easily righted on my third Google search.

(IRINA. (Sobbing.) Where? Where has it all gone? Where is it? Oh my God, my God! I have forgotten everything, forgotten everything… Everything is confused in my head… I can’t remember what is the word for window in Italian, or for ceiling… I am forgetting everything, I forget more every day, and life flies past and never returns, never, and we will never go to Moscow… I see now that we will never go…)

I flashed on this long ago meltdown while watching “Forgetfulness,” the lovely animation of the Billy Collins poem, above. As Collins lists the seemingly inconsequential things lost, it occurred to me that the central “you” could stand for anybody: you, me, an elderly relative, Chekhov’s Irina. (Not Anya. If we’re to make it to Moscow, we better get cracking.)

We’re lucky to have artists like Chekhov, Collins, and by extension, animator Julian Grey, all possessed of the ability to imbue one of mankind’s most depressing and timely realities with tenderness and lyricism. Perhaps you’ll remember someone with whom to share “Forgetfulness”.

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Ayun Halliday describes some of the places she has been (not Moscow) in No Touch Monkey! And Other Travel Lessons Learned Too Late.

by Ayun Halliday | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

Harder Than It Looks: How to Make a Great Stop Motion Animation

in Animation, Life | January 19th, 2013

Ever find yourself watching a great little stop motion animation and thinking, “Hey, I could do that?” What’s that? You made one with some friends in middle school? Great! Maybe you should bang one out tomorrow morning, slap it up on YouTube, and brace yourself for the onslaught of public adoration that’s so damnably difficult to avoid when one’s creation becomes a viral sensation overnight.

Hold your horses, Gumby. Filmmaking has grown increasingly democratic in the digital age, but a really elaborate stop motion animation is still a ton of work. Care to consider all that goes into one?

Try 382 Moleskine notebooks; days of painstaking, no doubt boring, labor; a camera dolly, a green screen, and a live, albeit less-than-professional, cat and mouse team. These are the primary elements of Dutch “graphic motion designer” Rogier Wieland’s “A Year in Full Colour,” a cunning salute to old-school daily planners. Unsurprisingly, this flight of fancy was commissioned by Moleskine, a brand whose inroads into the iPad cover market would likely not be enough to keep things in the black should jotting things on paper go the way of the dodo. Perhaps instead of making a stop motion of your own, you could pour your creative efforts into recording your upcoming appointments in a Moleskine classic.

As to which you should view first—the finished product (above) or the equally brief, but highly illuminating Making Of (below)–we leave that in your capable hands.

Going West: A Stop Motion Novel

Ayun Halliday’s planner of choice is the Slingshot Organizer Follow her @AyunHalliday

by Ayun Halliday | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 5 ) |

MAKERS Tells the Story of 50 Years of Progress for Women in the U.S.

in History, Life | January 18th, 2013

Among the many thousands of items in my newsfeed yesterday, three popped out and stuck with me: First, a conservative panel called Independent Women’s Forum convened to discuss their sense that “conservative leaders and funders… don’t take women’s issues seriously.” Panel moderator Christina Hoff Sommers joked, “I’m not sure what’s worse: conservatives ignoring women’s issues or conservatives addressing them.” The tone was light, but the sense of frustration these women feel with their male colleagues was very clear.

Secondly, a UK comedian, Michael J. Dolan published a soul-searching piece much discussed stateside in which he admits he was “a misogynist comedian.” Dolan claims that, like racist comedians of old, “Those peddling misogyny, homophobia or other varieties of hate to drunks who don’t know better are going to find themselves out of favour.” And finally, former president Jimmy Carter wrote an editorial to announce that he is severing his six-decade-long ties with the Southern Baptist Convention because of their view that women should be “subservient” to men. “It is simply self-defeating,” wrote Carter, “for any community to discriminate against half its population.”

I mention these examples because they seem to be part of a general trend of cultural reassessment, after several dismally low points in the discussion of gender equality this past year, about the continued institutionalization—in politics, religion, the workplace, and entertainment—of damaging attitudes toward half of the human species. While it sometimes seems that social change takes place at a glacial pace, with several steps back for every step forward, there are always strong undercurrents of progress that aren’t readily apparent until someone takes the time to organize them into narratives.

This is precisely what the filmmakers of MAKERS aim to do. A “multi-platform video experience” from AOL and PBS, the project showcases “hundreds of compelling stories from women of today and tomorrow… both known and unknown.” Unlike worldwide, policy-based efforts like the just-ended 2013 Global Maternal Health Conference, MAKERS restricts its focus to women in the U.S. and, it seems, relies primarily on individual women with prominent public roles—journalists, activists, writers, and celebrities, or at least that’s the sense one gets from their introductory video (above), which might open them up to charges of elitism. But there is more to the project than celebrity profiles. In their own words, the producers of MAKERS describe the project thus:

MAKERS originated from a very clear premise: over the last half century, the work of millions of women has altered virtually every aspect of American culture. MAKERS features groundbreaking women who have sparked change, been first in their fields and paved the way for those that followed. This initiative also extends to profile hundreds of stories of women who are driving social change today.

Delve into the wealth of short documentary videos on the MAKERS YouTube channel and you’ll see that there are dozens of women profiled who aren’t celebrities in the conventional sense. Sure, we’ve got stars of the screen and the power centers of government and the corporate world, e.g. Ellen DeGeneres, Hilary Clinton, and Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, but there are also lesser known “makers,” like 15-year-old Tavi Gevinson, founder and editor-in-chief of webzine Rookie. Gevinson is a prodigy who has built her own online media empire, beginning at the age of 11, when her fashion blog Style Rookie became one of the most popular of its kind. Watch her (below) discuss her own approach to typical teenage insecurities in an excerpt from her longer profile.

Another maker with a deeply inspiring story that you won’t hear in the daily news cycle is Katherine Switzer, the first woman to enter the Boston Marathon in 1967. She did so by signing the form with her initials, making marathon officials think she was a man. Below, Switzer recounts the curiosity, bile, and disturbingly violent harassment she faced during the race. It wasn’t until five years later that the race was officially opened to women. By that time, Switzer was an activist for female runners.

The MAKERS project profiles dozens of other women—like civil rights lawyer and founder of Children’s Defense Fund Marian Wright Edelman—who normally fly under the mass-media radar, but whose presence in the culture has an enormous impact. Keep your eye on PBS listings—on February 26th, they will air a three-hour documentary called MAKERS: Women Who Make America, which promises to tell the “remarkable story for the first time” of the sweeping progress American women have made over the last half-century.

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

by Josh Jones | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

Alain de Botton Presents Ten Virtues for the Modern Day

The Scared Is Scared: A Child’s Wisdom for Starting New Chapters (Creative or Otherwise) in Life

The Acoustic Guitar Project Gives Songwriters Worldwide a Guitar and One Week to Write a Song

Alain de Botton Proposes a Kinder, Gentler Philosophy of Success

Meet “Dashan,” the Canadian Comedian Who Achieved Accidental Stardom in China

An Animated Interpretation of Billy Collins’ Poem, “Forgetfulness”

Harder Than It Looks: How to Make a Great Stop Motion Animation

MAKERS Tells the Story of 50 Years of Progress for Women in the U.S.

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