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“Teach your children well” sang Crosby, Stills and Nash once upon a long ago, and that adage could be paraphrased as “make sure your students don’t grow up learning substandard pop songs. Give them a real education.” An enterprising elementary school teacher in Mombach, a district of the Rhineland city of Mainz, did so in 2015, dressing up his students from Lemmchen Elementary in their own handmade robot outfits and teaching them to sing the classic 1978 Kraftwerk hit “The Robots” (or “Roboter” if you own the German version, which you can hear below).
While the original prog-rockers turned electronic demigods tried to strip away as much of their humanity when playing live, you just can’t do it with kids. They’re just too cute, and their wobbly, shuffling attempts to be machines only warms the heart more. (Could their parents tell who was who, I wonder?) Their version of the music is similarly charming and pretty faithful, though it’s possibly played by instructor Lars Reimer. (An older class shows their faces and plays instruments in a more recent video, a cover of “Tanz” by Stoppok.) So yes, Mr. Reimer, you’re passing on some good musical taste.
Though Kraftwerk was often thought of as cold and artificial when they first arrived on the international music scene, the intervening years have only emphasized the romantic beauty of their (mostly major key) melodies. (See for example the Balanescu Quartet’s rendition of the same song below.)
Note: An earlier version of this post appeared on our site in 2016.
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Ted Mills is a freelance writer on the arts who currently hosts the FunkZone Podcast. You can also follow him on Twitter at @tedmills, read his other arts writing at tedmills.com and/or watch his films here.
Above, you can watch the Galactic Menagerie, “a whimsical and visually stunning fan-made fake trailer that reimagines the classic Star Wars universe through the eccentric lens of Wes Anderson. This enchanting mashup brings together iconic Star Wars characters with Anderson’s trademark symmetrical compositions, pastel color palettes, and quirky humor.” There are also, of course, “peculiar locations reminiscent of Anderson’s beloved films such as Moonrise Kingdom and The Grand Budapest Hotel.” Enjoy!
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In April 2018, author Andrew Forrester wrote an open letter to “People Who Don’t Make Every Conceivable Effort to Ensure that the Bathroom Door is Locked.” And now Benedict Cumberbatch has read it, and read it well. This reading took place at Letters Live, an event celebrating the power of literary correspondence, held at London’s Royal Albert Hall. You can find other Cumberbatch readings in the Relateds below.
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Images via JustSayGnome
The Noam Chomsky Garden Gnome. That’s right, I said it, the Noam Chomsky Garden Gnome.
Over at justsaygnome.net, you can buy “Gnome Chomsky the Garden Noam.” Here’s is how it’s generally described:
Just over one foot in height, the fully painted Gnome Chomsky the Garden Noam (Version II) stands relaxed and confident in his classy gnome clothes, hat and glasses. Equipped with a couple books on an authoritative pillar, he’s ready to give your garden or home a big infusion of insightful gnome political perspective. A solid foundation base complete with a carved title assures that Garden Noam will be well-balanced and helps inform anyone who may not immediately recognize him of the identity of this handsome and scholarly gnome.
The gnome costs $228.00 painted and $124 unpainted (plus shipping). And if you’re interested, you can also get Howard the Zinn Monk and BerGnome Sanders.
In putting this post together, I spotted an old comic bit that took the idea of a Noam Garden Gnome as its premise. You can watch it below.
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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!
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World-changing figures can have their lighter moments too. Just witness Winston Churchill above, taking a trip to the French Riviera in 1934 and sliding backward down a water slide, only to lose his swim trunks at the end. The previously unseen clip comes from the Churchill family archives and founds its way into a Smithsonian documentary in 2021.
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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!
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Neat to watch. Learn more about how plants move over on this Penn State web site.
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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!
Want to see North Korea’s Military Chorus perform Rage Against the Machine’s “Killing In The Name”? You really do? This may be the closest you’ll ever get. Watch it, and thank YouTuber Lars von Retriever for the clever edit…
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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!
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