John Cage Performs Water Walk on US Game Show I’ve Got a Secret (1960)

in Art, Music, Television | December 18th, 2014


Back in 2011, we fea­tured John Cage’s 1960 tele­vi­sion per­for­mance of his piece Water Walk. Its video qual­i­ty may have left some­thing to be desired, but now, thanks to the YouTube chan­nel of Bard Col­lege’s Richard B. Fish­er Cen­ter for the Per­form­ing Arts, you can watch the entire ten-minute seg­ment in much crisper qual­i­ty than most sur­viv­ing pro­grams from that era. This unlike­ly hap­pen­ing occurred on I’ve Got a Secret, the long-run­ning occu­pa­tion-guess­ing game show whose guest ros­ter also includ­ed chess prodi­gy Bob­by Fis­ch­er, “fifth Bea­t­le” Pete Best, and fried-chick­en icon Colonel Har­land Sanders. For this par­tic­u­lar episode, we wrote in our ear­li­er post, “the TV show offered Cage some­thing of a teach­able moment, a chance to intro­duce the broad­er pub­lic to his brand of avant-garde music.”

For Water Walk, Cage round­ed up a vari­ety of “instru­ments” all to do with that liq­uid — a bath­tub, a pitch­er, ice cubes in a mix­er — and the uncon­ven­tion­al sym­pho­ny they pro­duce cul­mi­nates in the Rube Gold­ber­gian mix­ing of a drink, the sip­ping of which the com­po­si­tion dic­tates about two and a half min­utes in. Nat­u­ral­ly, Cage being Cage, the piece incor­po­rates audi­ence reac­tion nois­es; when host Gary Moore warns him that cer­tain mem­bers of the stu­dio audi­ence will laugh, Cage responds, “I con­sid­er laugh­ter bet­ter than tears.”

You can learn more about this inter­sec­tion of far for­ward-think­ing artistry and the mid­cen­tu­ry tele­vi­su­al main­stream in Lau­ra Paolin­i’s piece “John Cage’s Secret,” avail­able at johncage.org. “At that moment in 1960, a rup­ture was being deep­ened,” Paoli­ni writes. “High art and low were becom­ing more and more com­fort­able with one anoth­er over the air­waves. At this moment, as the screens glow their blue auras into the homes of North Amer­i­ca, every­one sees some­thing they haven’t seen before. And every­one has an opin­ion about it.” And those opin­ions, I like to think Cage would have said, only extend the art fur­ther.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

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!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

John Cage Per­forms Water Walk on “I’ve Got a Secret” (1960)

10 Rules for Stu­dents and Teach­ers Pop­u­lar­ized by John Cage

Lis­ten to John Cage’s 5 Hour Art Piece: Diary: How To Improve The World (You Will Only Make Mat­ters Worse)

Hear Joey Ramone Sing a Piece by John Cage Adapt­ed from James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake

Watch a Sur­pris­ing­ly Mov­ing Per­for­mance of John Cage’s 1948 “Suite for Toy Piano”

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

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 2 ) |

Johnny Cash’s Christmas Specials, Featuring June Carter, Steve Martin, Andy Kaufman & More (1976–79)

in Music, Television | December 17th, 2014

John­ny Cash, out­law coun­try singer and defi­ant man in black, comes care­ful­ly pack­aged for many peo­ple through the mer­chan­dis­ing of his life and image. From t‑shirts to posters, doc­u­men­taries to award-win­ning biopics, we know about his ornery prison con­certs, drug use and arrests, noble cham­pi­oning of the dis­en­fran­chised, and dra­mat­ic sto­ry of pain and redemp­tion. We mar­veled at the mys­tique around the aged Cash in his late-life revival. But many of us know lit­tle about anoth­er side of the man—Johnny Cash, genial TV per­son­al­i­ty.

If you hap­pened to have been glued to the tube dur­ing the sev­en­ties and eight­ies, how­ev­er, you would know this John­ny Cash well from his cameo appear­ances on Colum­bo and Lit­tle House on the Prairie. You’d have seen him shilling for Amo­co dur­ing the gas cri­sis of the ear­ly 70s—a gig he took on dur­ing a seri­ous career slump. You’d have maybe caught his recur­ring role on Dr. Quinn Med­i­cine Woman, his turn on 1985 mini-series North and South (as John Brown, nat­u­ral­ly), as well as a num­ber of film appear­ances. And that’s not to men­tion Cash’s own, short-lived vari­ety show, which ran from 1969–71.

If this rather com­mer­cial, main­stream Cash seems at odds with the leg­end, wait till you see The John­ny Cash & Fam­i­ly Christ­mas Show, which ran each year from 1976–79. Here, writes Dan­ger­ous Minds, “Cash game­ly refash­ioned him­self as a fam­i­ly-friend­ly coun­try music TV host” in the vein of Porter Wag­oner. It is decid­ed­ly “far from the mid­dle-fin­ger John­ny Cash or Fol­som Prison Blues”—closer instead to Hee Haw’s Buck Owens and Roy Clark (who appears in the first spe­cial at the top). After his mar­riage to June Carter in 1968, many of his ven­tures fea­tured the two as a singing duo. Here, they aren’t just man and wife, but “fam­i­ly,” mean­ing “many of June and Johnny’s wide-rang­ing clan of rel­a­tives are fea­tured.

We’re also treat­ed to appear­ances from Tony Orlan­do and Cash’s spir­i­tu­al men­tor Bil­ly Gra­ham (’76), Jer­ry Lee Lewis (’77), Kris Kristofer­son and Steve Mar­tin (’78), and even Andy Kauf­man, in char­ac­ter as Taxi’s Lat­ka Gravas (’79). Yes, these may be coun­try corny as all get-out, but they’re also real­ly fun. We get charm­ing, infor­mal goof-offs with June and John­ny, lots of Vegas style com­e­dy bits and lounge rou­tines, and, of course, some stel­lar musi­cal per­for­mances. After his dra­mat­ic late-six­ties con­ver­sion, Cash remained staunch­ly evan­gel­i­cal to the end of his days. (Hear him read The New Tes­ta­ment here.) But rather than rail at sec­u­lar­ists in his Christ­mas spe­cials, he treats the hol­i­day as a laid-back occa­sion for food (“snake ‘n’ pota­toes”), laughs, friends and fam­i­ly, and all-star sing alongs by the fire. Hop on over to Dan­ger­ous Minds to see all four spe­cials.

via Dan­ger­ous Minds

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The First Episode of The John­ny Cash Show, Fea­tur­ing Bob Dylan & Joni Mitchell (1969)

John­ny Cash: Singer, Out­law, and, Briefly, Tele­vi­sion Host

The First Episode of The John­ny Cash Show, Fea­tur­ing Bob Dylan & Joni Mitchell (1969)

John­ny Cash Reads the Entire New Tes­ta­ment

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

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Animated Louis CK Shows Demonstrates How “Animation Lets You Do Anything”

in Animation, Comedy, Life, Television | December 15th, 2014

Father­hood is a fer­tile sub­ject for come­di­an Louis C.K.

Kids do say the darnedest things, but Louis’ obser­va­tions reveal the depth of his invest­ment.

He lit out after stan­dard­ized test­ing and the Com­mon Core on Twit­ter.

He made a pas­sion­ate case against giv­ing kids smart­phones to Conan O’Brien.

Is it any won­der that the “dumb­er, fun­nier” ver­sion of him­self he cre­at­ed for his TV show is pre­oc­cu­pied and often thwart­ed by his respon­si­bil­i­ties as the sin­gle dad of two young daugh­ters?

(Real life may pro­vide inspi­ra­tion, but the writer and star dis­plays appro­pri­ate bound­aries when he says that his actu­al daugh­ters are marked­ly dif­fer­ent char­ac­ters than their TV coun­ter­parts.)

But the knife of father­hood cuts both ways. Louis’ trou­bled rela­tion­ship with his own dad gets less atten­tion than the father-daugh­ter bond, but it’s there in his work. The prospect of spend­ing time with his estranged father caus­es the fic­tion­al Louis to vom­it at the din­ner table in sea­son three.

The ani­mat­ed approach seen above, gives Louis more con­trol over the sit­u­a­tion. Ani­ma­tion, like read­ing, makes pos­si­ble flights of fan­cy where­in children—including grown ones like Louis—can do “absolute­ly any­thing.” Fly­ing and using a rain­bow as a slide are among the fan­tas­ti­cal activ­i­ties the 2‑D Louis sam­ples. Mean­while, the qual­i­ty of his nar­ra­tion con­veys an under­ly­ing dis­taste for the sort of canned “imag­i­na­tive” sug­ges­tions foist­ed on chil­dren by well-mean­ing edu­ca­tion­al pro­gram­mers.

Left to their own devices, most kids will come up with sce­nar­ios and pow­ers far weird­er than any­thing ped­dled to them by an adult. Why “swim through the ocean like a fish” when you can anthro­po­mor­phize your elder­ly father as a malev­o­lent spi­der, lodged in your chest, poop­ing out reg­u­lar lit­tle “infes­ta­tions of hate”?

Ani­ma­tion lets you go all the way, and C.K. cer­tain­ly does, lop­ping off heads, and (SPOILER!) inad­ver­tent­ly Bon­nie and Clyd­ing him­self from with­in.

Someone’s made a lot of progress since the 90’s, when he used his time on Dr. Katz’s ani­mat­ed couch to dis­cuss K‑Mart and Chips Ahoy.

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

The Sur­re­al Short Films of Louis C.K., 1993–1999

Sein­feld, Louis C.K., Chris Rock, and Ricky Ger­vais Dis­sect the Craft of Com­e­dy (NSFW)

20-Year-Old Louis CK Per­forms Stand Up (1987)

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, home­school­er, and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Blade Runner Spoofed in Three Japanese Commercials (and Generally Loved in Japan)

in Animation, Sci Fi, Television, Video Games | December 12th, 2014

Blade Run­ner’s vision of a thor­ough­ly Japan­i­fied Los Ange­les in the year 2019 reflects the west­ern eco­nom­ic anx­i­eties of the ear­ly 1980s. And while that once far-flung year may not have come quite yet, Japan — giv­en the burst­ing of its post­war finan­cial bub­ble and the “lost decade” of the 1990s that fol­lowed — looks unlike­ly to own a frac­tion as much of the Unit­ed States as Rid­ley Scot­t’s Philip K. Dick adap­ta­tion (and many oth­er futur­is­tic sto­ries besides) assumed it even­tu­al­ly would. Still, the film’s cul­tur­al proph­esy came true: even dur­ing its eco­nom­ic stag­na­tion, Japan exer­cised more “soft pow­er” than ever before, turn­ing the world to the unique claims of its cul­ture, from the refine­ment of its cui­sine to the hyper­ac­tive exu­ber­ance of its music and ani­ma­tion to the match­less ele­gance of its tra­di­tion­al aes­thet­ics.

Even as Blade Run­ner showed us how much Japan­ese style would one day influ­ence, the style of the film had, for its part, an imme­di­ate influ­ence on Japan. Though famous­ly unap­pre­ci­at­ed by west­ern­ers on its ini­tial release (“a waste of time,” said Siskel and Ebert), its pro­to-cyber­punk sen­si­bil­i­ty won the hearts of Japan­ese view­ers, and Japan­ese cre­ators, right away. The video at the top of the post col­lects three Japan­ese tele­vi­sion com­mer­cials that both spoof and pay homage to Blade Run­ner: the first for the Hon­da Beat, a Japan-only road­ster; the sec­ond (an astute par­o­dy of a par­tic­u­lar­ly mem­o­rable scene) for Meni­con con­tact lens­es; and the third for mobile ser­vice provider J‑Phone.

But the movie’s effect on Japan did­n’t stop at the adver­tis­ing indus­try. The 1987 ani­mat­ed series Bub­blegum Cri­sis, which fol­lows the adven­tures of a cyborg-bat­tling team in the “Mega Tokyo” of 2032, plays so much like a home­grown Blade Run­ner that a fan could cre­ate the sec­ond video above: an ani­mat­ed recre­ation of Blade Run­ner’s trail­er, using all its orig­i­nal sound, with Bub­blegum Cri­sis’ footage. The 1988 video game Snatch­er stars the decid­ed­ly Har­ri­son-For­dian Gillian Seed, a detec­tive in pur­suit of the tit­u­lar killer androids in the “Neo Kobe” of 2044. You can still see much of what the film inspired, and what inspired in the film, in major Japan­ese cities today. Even Los Ange­les has made strides here and there toward the Blade Run­ner future, though I regret to admit that we still await our tow­er-side geisha.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Art of Mak­ing Blade Run­ner: See the Orig­i­nal Sketch­book, Sto­ry­boards, On-Set Polaroids & More

The Blade Run­ner Pro­mo­tion­al Film

Blade Run­ner: The Pil­lar of Sci-Fi Cin­e­ma that Siskel, Ebert, and Stu­dio Execs Orig­i­nal­ly Hat­ed

Philip K. Dick Pre­views Blade Run­ner: “The Impact of the Film is Going to be Over­whelm­ing” (1981)

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

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Muhammad Ali Gives a Dramatic Reading of His Poem on the Attica Prison Uprising

in History, Life, Poetry, Sports, Television | December 10th, 2014

In July of 1972, box­er Muham­mad Ali trav­eled to Dublin to fight Alvin ‘Blue’ Lewis, an ex-con from Detroit. In the days lead­ing up to the bout, he amused him­self by bust­ing on Fight of the Cen­tu­ry vic­tor Smokin’ Joe Fra­zier from afar, refer­ring to him on live tele­vi­sion as a “tramp” and a “slave” who lived on a “chick­en plan­ta­tion.”

It was a career defin­ing encounter for inter­view­er Cathal O’Shan­non, who praised Ali’s deft­ness in that area and not­ed that the champ said things “he would not have been able to say in Amer­i­ca.”

It’s doubt­ful that O’Shannon was refer­ring to the name call­ing, part of Ali’s cam­paign to draw Fra­zier back into the ring. (The champ got his wish less than two years lat­er, when he defeat­ed Fra­zier at Madi­son Square Gar­den in the sec­ond of their three fights.)

What’s more like­ly is that O’Shannon was allud­ing to the orig­i­nal poem Ali recites from mem­o­ry, one minute into clip above, after ori­ent­ing Irish view­ers to the pre­vi­ous fall’s Atti­ca Prison upris­ing, still the dead­liest in U.S. his­to­ry.

Ali imag­ines him­self in the shoes of a black pris­on­er, respond­ing to the white war­den issu­ing a final ulti­ma­tum. His reply, which could be tak­en as a call to arms , but which Ali touch­ing­ly calls a “poet­ic poem,” takes the form of a dozen ter­cets:

Bet­ter far from all I see

To die fight­ing to be free

What more fit­ting end could be?

Bet­ter sure­ly than in some bed

Where in bro­ken health I’m led

Lin­ger­ing until I’m dead

Bet­ter than with prayers and pleas

Or in the clutch of some dis­ease

Wast­ing slow­ly  by degrees

Bet­ter than of heart attack 

Or some dose of drug I lack 

Let me die by being Black 

Bet­ter far that I should go 

Stand­ing here against the foe 

Is the sweet­er death to know 

Bet­ter than the bloody stain 

On some high­way where I’m lain 

Torn by fly­ing glass and pane 

Bet­ter call­ing death to come

Than to die anoth­er dumb

Mut­ed vic­tim in the slum

Bet­ter than of this prison rot

If there’s any choice I’ve got

Kill me here on the spot

Bet­ter far my fight to wage

Now while my blood boils with rage

Lest it cool with ancient age

Bet­ter vow­ing for us to die

Than to Uncle Tom and try

Mak­ing peace just to live a lie

Bet­ter now that I say my sooth

I’m gonna die demand­ing truth

While I’m still akin to youth

Bet­ter now than lat­er on

Now that fear of death is gone

Nev­er mind anoth­er dawn.

The poem draws to a close with an inex­pert but heart­felt sound effect.

The poet — whose mater­nal great-grand­fa­ther was born in Coun­ty Clare — went on to knock out his oppo­nent in the 11th round.

The trail­er for the doc­u­men­tary, When Ali Came to Ire­land, fea­tur­ing Cathal O’Shan­non, is below.

More poet­ry read­ings can be found in our col­lec­tion of Free Audio Books.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Muham­mad Ali Plans to Fight on Mars in Lost 1966 Inter­view

Mal­colm X, Debat­ing at Oxford, Quotes Shakespeare’s Ham­let (1964)

Mail­er on the Ali-Fore­man Clas­sic

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, home­school­er, and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 13 ) |

What We Heard on the Night John Lennon Was Shot: Radio & TV Broadcasts (December 8, 1980)

in Music, Radio, Television | December 8th, 2014

On Decem­ber 8, 1980, the New Eng­land Patri­ots-Mia­mi Dol­phins game was wind­ing down, the end of anoth­er Mon­day Night Foot­ball game. Then, Howard Cosell, America’s leg­endary sports­cast­er, broke the news to unsus­pect­ing view­ers: “An unspeak­able tragedy con­firmed to us by ABC News in New York City: John Lennon, out­side of his apart­ment build­ing on the West Side of New York City, the most famous, per­haps, of all of The Bea­t­les, shot twice in the back, rushed to Roo­sevelt Hos­pi­tal, dead on arrival.” Soon enough, more for­mal news reports fol­lowed on the BBC and ABC’s Night­line, and you can still hear what New York­ers heard on the radio that night (below). The sound file was orig­i­nal­ly post­ed by WFMU’s Beware of the Blog, and like Howard says, it puts a lot of things in per­spec­tive for us.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

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!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

John Lennon’s Raw, Soul-Bar­ing Vocals From the Bea­t­les’ ‘Don’t Let Me Down’ (1969)

Hear John Lennon Sing Home Demo Ver­sions of “She Said, She Said,” “Straw­ber­ry Fields For­ev­er,” and “Don’t Let Me Down”

John Lennon & Yoko Ono’s Two Appear­ances on The Dick Cavett Show in 1971 and 72

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 5 ) |

George Plimpton, Paris Review Founder, Pitches 1980s Video Games for the Mattel Intellivision

in Television, Video Games | December 7th, 2014

plimpton mattel

Space, choose Atari; sports, choose Intel­livi­sion. So went the con­ven­tion­al wis­dom of ear­ly-1980s home video gam­ing, where the Atari 2600 enjoyed an insur­mount­able advan­tage when it came to blast­ing alien invaders, but where the Mat­tel Intel­livi­sion — putting aside the sheer dis­com­fort of those wonky con­trollers — could sat­is­fy the elec­tron­ic sports­man like no oth­er con­sole.

For Mat­tel, win­ning over the jocks and the nerds at once would require a del­i­cate mar­ket­ing bal­ance, one attempt­ed by the hir­ing of George Plimp­ton, the man who per­son­al­ly pitched against the Nation­al League, sparred with Sug­ar Ray Robin­son, trained with the Detroit Lions, tend­ed goal amid the Boston Bru­ins, hit the PGA Tour in the hey­day of Arnold Palmer and Jack Nick­laus, and helped found the Paris Review. (The name did stand for “intel­li­gent tele­vi­sion,” after all.)

“Who bet­ter to vouch for the real­ism of a sports video game than some­one who had actu­al­ly suit­ed up and played for real?” asks Intellivisionlives.com. “His per­sona became the per­sona of Intel­livi­sion: a mix of smug supe­ri­or­i­ty with a healthy touch of self-dep­re­ca­tion.” He starred, as “Mr. Intel­livi­sion,” in quite a few mem­o­rable tele­vi­sion com­mer­cials such as the one at the top of the post, where we see him sit down at his trusty type­writer to announce the small­er, cheap­er Intel­livi­sion II; the one just above, where he pre­sides over a direct com­par­i­son with Atari to reveal the Intel­livi­sion’s sport­ing advan­tage (Mat­tel had pro­vid­ed him both con­soles to play so he could hon­est­ly sign an affi­davit con­firm­ing his pref­er­ence); and spots like the one below, where he even trum­pets the supe­ri­or­i­ty of Intel­livi­sion space shoot­ers. Plimp­ton’s influ­ence on clas­sic gam­ing sur­vives him, most recent­ly in the online “retro” game George Plimp­ton’s Video Fal­con­ry. Some­one even cut togeth­er a fake 80s com­mer­cial for it, though they inex­plic­a­bly made it a game for the Cole­co­V­i­sion. Come on — nobody bought a Cole­co­V­i­sion for the sports games.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Run Vin­tage Video Games (From Pac-Man to E.T.) and Soft­ware in Your Web Brows­er, Thanks to Archive.org

The Great Gats­by and Wait­ing for Godot: The Video Game Edi­tions

Fellini’s Fan­tas­tic TV Com­mer­cials

David Lynch’s Sur­re­al Com­mer­cials

Jean-Luc Godard’s After-Shave Com­mer­cial for Schick

Ing­mar Bergman’s Soap Com­mer­cials Wash Away the Exis­ten­tial Despair

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

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Watch The Art of Travel, Alain de Botton’s Philosophical Look at Our Wanderlust Tendencies (2005)

in Philosophy, Television, Travel | December 5th, 2014

The tra­di­tion of the uncom­fort­able intel­lec­tu­al aboard a cruise ship, while not a par­tic­u­lar­ly long or wide one, has pro­duced a few intrigu­ing works. You may well know — and, if you’re any­thing like me, know very well indeed from count­less reread­ings — David Fos­ter Wal­lace’s essay about his sev­en-night Caribbean cruise, known as it first ran in Harper’s as “Ship­ping Out,” and lat­er in full form as the title piece of the col­lec­tion A Sup­pos­ed­ly Fun Thing I’ll Nev­er Do Again. In this envi­ron­ment of con­stant­ly replen­ished ameni­ties and unceas­ing “pam­per­ing” (a word that gen­er­ates an essay’s worth of exe­ge­sis by itself), Wal­lace comes up against the inevitable ques­tion: can a cruise line, or any oth­er form of human effort, real­ly guar­an­tee our hap­pi­ness?

This ques­tion has also proven cen­tral to the career of anoth­er writer and thinker, Alain de Bot­ton. No mat­ter the sub­ject on which his focus may come to rest — archi­tec­ture, Proust, ancient phi­los­o­phy, work — his mind nev­er strays far from the issue of what makes us hap­py, and whether any­thing can keep us that way. The 2005 doc­u­men­tary The Art of Trav­el, a com­pan­ion to his book of the same name, finds de Bot­ton aboard a cruise lin­er, ful­ly equipped with fine wines and line-danc­ing class­es, bound for Spain. Will he dis­em­bark in the Barcelona of which he has dreamed, or will an obscure French nov­el­ist con­vince him of the fool­ish­ness of actu­al­ly expe­ri­enc­ing the very places you’ve long want­ed to? (The answer may not come as a sur­prise to those famil­iar with de Bot­ton’s pro­fes­sion­al tem­pera­ment.)

But our intre­pid host does­n’t stop at cruis­ing: he takes a week­end “city break” in Ams­ter­dam, fol­lows around a World War II bunker enthu­si­ast, goes for a road trip through east Ger­many, pon­ders the dis­tinc­tive lone­li­ness found only in Edward Hop­per paint­ings; gets the grand tour of a “swingers’ hotel,” boards an all-Japan­ese Cotswolds tour bus (and teach­es his fel­low pas­sen­gers about John Ruskin); and won­ders, final­ly, whether the def­i­n­i­tion of a trav­el­er comes not from the dis­tance and fre­quen­cy of the move­ment, but from the “atti­tude of curios­i­ty and recep­tiv­i­ty” to what­ev­er cap­tures the imag­i­na­tion. Hav­ing found myself in a career that involves more and more trav­el each year, I can’t ask myself these ques­tions too often. Whether you care about get­ting to far-off places or rich­ly expe­ri­enc­ing the ones near­by, per­haps de Bot­ton will get you ask­ing them too. At the very least, he’ll save you a cruise.

More films by de Bot­ton can be found in our col­lec­tion, 285 Free Doc­u­men­taries Online.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Alain de Bot­ton Shows How Art Can Answer Life’s Big Ques­tions in Art as Ther­a­py

A Guide to Hap­pi­ness: Alain de Bot­ton Shows How Six Great Philoso­phers Can Change Your Life

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

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

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

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