Ten Buildings That Changed America: Watch the Debut Episode from the New PBS Series

in Architecture, History, Television | May 15th, 2013

Every­one on the inter­net knows the bit­ter dis­ap­point­ment of click­ing on lists that sound more inter­est­ing than they turn out to be, just as enthu­si­asts of Amer­i­can his­to­ry have grown weary of hear­ing claims about what has or has­n’t “changed Amer­i­ca.” (Last year, com­e­dy writer Ali­son Agosti ele­gant­ly smacked down both trends in one tweet.) But I have a feel­ing that PBS and sta­tion WTTW’s new series Ten Build­ings that Changed Amer­i­ca can pull the com­bi­na­tion off with snap­pi­ness and insight. Host­ed by Geof­frey Baer, tele­vi­sion per­son­al­i­ty and not­ed enthu­si­ast of Chica­go (an Amer­i­can built envi­ron­ment if ever there was one), the show promis­es a look at, among oth­er archi­tec­tur­al win­dows onto the Amer­i­can spir­it, “a state capi­tol that Thomas Jef­fer­son designed to resem­ble a Roman tem­ple, the home of Hen­ry Ford’s first assem­bly line, the first indoor region­al shop­ping mall,” and “an air­port with a swoop­ing con­crete roof that seems to float on air.”

You can watch the debut episode of Ten Build­ings that Changed Amer­i­ca online. It begins the cross-coun­try archi­tec­tur­al road trip in Rich­mond, Vir­ginia, where Baer vis­its future Pres­i­dent Thomas Jef­fer­son­’s state capi­tol build­ing. “As a found­ing father of the Unit­ed States, Thomas Jef­fer­son was pas­sion­ate about America’s inde­pen­dence from Britain,” says the show’s page on the build­ing. “He was no fan of the king of Eng­land and, by exten­sion, no fan of the Geor­gian archi­tec­ture that bore the kings’ name,” an incli­na­tion which got him look­ing toward France for inspi­ra­tion. Sub­se­quent episodes will exam­ine oth­er strik­ing, inno­v­a­tive, influ­en­tial, and oft-imi­tat­ed Amer­i­can build­ings: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House in Baer’s beloved Chica­go, Mies van der Rohe’s Sea­gram Build­ing in New York City, and even Frank Gehry’s Dis­ney Con­cert Hall, the still-con­tro­ver­sial new icon of the down­town Los Ange­les where I type this very post.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The His­to­ry of West­ern Archi­tec­ture: From Ancient Greece to Roco­co (A Free Online Course)

David Byrne: How Archi­tec­ture Helped Music Evolve

An Ani­mat­ed Tour of Falling­wa­ter, One of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Finest Cre­ations

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 Poetry of Bruce Lee: Discover the Artistic Life of the Martial Arts Icon

in Film, Poetry, Sports, Television | May 14th, 2013

In the final months of his short life, Bruce Lee wrote a per­son­al essay, “In My Own Process” where he said, “Basi­cal­ly, I have always been a mar­tial artist by choice and actor by pro­fes­sion. But, above all, I am hop­ing to actu­al­ize myself to be an artist of life along the way.” If you’re famil­iar with Bruce Lee, you know that he stud­ied phi­los­o­phy at The Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton, and even when he audi­tioned for The Green Hor­net in 1964 (and showed off his amaz­ing kung fu moves), he took pains to explain the phi­los­o­phy under­ly­ing the mar­tial arts.

Lee was­n’t just a philoso­pher. He was also a poet and a trans­la­tor of poet­ry. In the book, Bruce Lee: Artist of Life, John Lit­tle has pub­lished 21 orig­i­nal poems found with­in Lee’s per­son­al archive. The poems, Lit­tle writes, “are, by Amer­i­can stan­dards, rather dark — reflect­ing the deep­er, less exposed recess­es of the human psy­che… Many seem to express a return­ing sen­ti­ment of the fleet­ing nature of life, love and the pas­sion of human long­ing.” Above, you can see Shan­non Lee, the daugh­ter of Bruce Lee, read a poem pub­lished in Lit­tle’s col­lec­tion. It’s called “Boat­ing on Lake Wash­ing­ton.” Imme­di­ate­ly below, she reads “IF” by Rud­yard Kipling, a poem her father loved so much that he had it engraved on a plaque and mount­ed on the wall in his home.

Final­ly, we leave you with Lee’s trans­la­tion of anoth­er favorite poem, “The Frost” by Tzu Yeh. The video fea­tures pieces of his hand­writ­ten trans­la­tion.

http://youtu.be/PAektkXMxeg

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Bruce Lee: The Lost TV Inter­view

Watch 10-Year-Old Bruce Lee in His First Star­ring Role (1950)

Bruce Lee Plays Ping Pong with Nunchucks

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Glenn Gould Offers a Strikingly Unconventional Interpretation of 1806 Beethoven Composition

in Music, Television | May 7th, 2013

Here’s a strik­ing­ly uncon­ven­tion­al inter­pre­ta­tion of Lud­wig van Beethoven’s 1806 com­po­si­tion, 32 Vari­a­tions on an Orig­i­nal Theme in C minor, by the Cana­di­an vir­tu­oso pianist Glenn Gould. It was record­ed in Toron­to in March of 1966 for a spe­cial pro­gram, “Con­ver­sa­tions with Glenn Gould,” which fea­tured an in-depth dis­cus­sion between Gould and the BBC arts reporter Humphrey Bur­ton. You can find the com­plete pro­gram bro­ken up into pieces at the CBC Web site. And for an espe­cial­ly inter­est­ing 35-minute seg­ment, in which Gould explains and demon­strates his idio­syn­crat­ic approach to inter­pret­ing Beethoven, see below:

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Video: Glenn Gould Plays the Gold­berg Vari­a­tions by J.S. Bach

Glenn Gould Explains the Genius of Johann Sebas­t­ian Bach (1962)

Glenn Gould Pre­dicts Mash-up Cul­ture in 1969 Doc­u­men­tary

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Joan Baez Live in 1965: Full Concert

in Music, Television | April 30th, 2013

On June 5, 1965, Joan Baez played a spe­cial con­cert at the BBC Tele­vi­sion The­atre in Shep­herd’s Bush, Lon­don. Although her fame at the time was new­ly eclipsed by that of her recent­ly estranged lover Bob Dylan, Baez was very much in her prime.

The con­cert was record­ed less than a month after Dylan’s 1965 tour of Eng­land, chron­i­cled in D.A. Pen­nebak­er’s film Don’t Look Back, in which Dylan failed to invite Baez onstage despite the fact that she had intro­duced him to nation­al audi­ences in Amer­i­ca.

Baez plays sev­er­al Dylan songs in the BBC con­cert, along with oth­er folk and pop songs from her reper­toire. Includ­ed is Baez’s first hit sin­gle, her ver­sion of the Phil Ochs song “There but for For­tune,” which was released the same month in Amer­i­ca but would not come out in the UK until the fol­low­ing month. The con­cert was orig­i­nal­ly broad­cast by the BBC as two sep­a­rate half-hour spe­cials, both end­ing with the clas­sic French love song “Plaisir d’amour.” Baez’s moth­er Joan Senior, or “Big Joan” as she was called (and who died this month at the age of 100), can be seen in the back­ground at the 33:30 and 104:43 marks applaud­ing and smil­ing proud­ly. The set list for the two back-to-back pro­grams is:

  1. “I’m a Ram­bler, I’m a Gam­bler”
  2. “There but for For­tune”
  3. “Cop­per Ket­tle”
  4. “Mary Hamil­ton”
  5. “Don’t Think Twice, it’s Alright”
  6. “I’m Trou­bled and I Don’t Know Why”
  7. “We Shall Over­come”
  8. “With God on Our Side”
  9. “Plaisir d’amour”
  10. “Sil­ver Dag­ger”
  11. “Oh Free­dom”
  12. “She’s a Trou­ble­mak­er”
  13. “The Unqui­et Grave”
  14. “It Ain’t Me Babe”
  15. “Isn’t it Grand”
  16. “500 Miles”
  17. “Te Ador/Ate Aman­ha”
  18. “Plaisir d’amour”

Relat­ed con­tent:

Joan Baez Per­forms at Age 17

Two Leg­ends Togeth­er: A Young Bob Dylan Talks and Plays on The Studs Terkel Pro­gram, 1963

Bob Dylan Shares a Drug-Hazed Taxi Ride with John Lennon (1966)

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Woody Allen Amuses Himself by Giving Untruthful Answers in Unaired 1971 TV Interview

in Comedy, Film, Television | April 26th, 2013

Celebri­ties tire of giv­ing inter­views. I’ve learned this by spend­ing most of my career con­duct­ing inter­views myself, and thus des­per­ate­ly try­ing to mas­ter ask­ing the ques­tions that wake up a weary inter­vie­wee, get­ting them engaged enough to cast aside the boil­er­plate and speak like a con­vers­ing human being. But what about the celebri­ties them­selves? What can they do to spice up their expe­ri­ence? In 1971, the oft-inter­viewed Woody Allen sat down with Grana­da Tele­vi­sion and took a bold move to keep things inter­est­ing, appar­ent­ly chal­leng­ing him­self to reply to each ques­tion as untruth­ful­ly as pos­si­ble. Though the con­ver­sa­tion nev­er aired, Allen did man­age to keep up the rou­tine for quite some time, and you can watch near­ly forty min­utes of it in the clip above.

The inter­view­er asks Allen for a syn­op­sis of his new pic­ture. “It’s a dra­ma about human emo­tion in the Unit­ed States,” the direc­tor flat­ly replies. “It deals with the tragedy of divorce as it relates to the chil­dren and those who have to suf­fer con­tin­u­al­ly from the effects of an unhap­py home.” So it con­tains no com­e­dy what­so­ev­er, then? “No, I try and keep as much com­e­dy out of my films as pos­si­ble.” The film osten­si­bly under dis­cus­sion: Bananas. Asked ques­tion after broad, brief ques­tion, Allen lobs back ever dri­er and more implau­si­ble fab­ri­ca­tions. His ded­i­cat­ed fans, though, will notice that he does slip in a fac­tu­al state­ment. Asked if he watch­es his own films, he says no; and indeed, he famous­ly nev­er looks back at past work. The increas­ing­ly ner­vous-sound­ing inter­view­er (who may be in on the joke?) asks why. “Because I don’t have the patience to sit through them.”

h/t @lit_hum

Relat­ed con­tent:

Woody Allen Answers 12 Uncon­ven­tion­al Ques­tions He Has Nev­er Been Asked Before

Meetin’ WA: Jean-Luc Godard Meets Woody Allen in 26 Minute Film

Woody Allen Lives the “Deli­cious Life” in Ear­ly-80s Japan­ese Com­mer­cials

Woody Allen Box­es a Kan­ga­roo, 1966

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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John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd Get Brian Wilson Out of Bed and Force Him to Go Surfing, 1976

in Comedy, Music, Television | April 25th, 2013

There are cer­tain leg­ends sur­round­ing Bri­an Wil­son, the trou­bled genius behind the Beach Boys. One is that he hates going to the beach. He nev­er went surf­ing, even though he wrote clas­sic songs like “Surfer Girl,” “Surfin’ Safari,” and “Surfin’ USA.” Anoth­er is that he basi­cal­ly stayed in bed for two or three years in the ear­ly 1970s, weight­ed down by drugs and depres­sion.

In this clas­sic com­e­dy sketch from the sum­mer of 1976, John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd play a pair of Cal­i­for­nia High­way Patrol offi­cers who burst into the bed­room of Wilson’s Bel Air home and force the reclu­sive musi­cian to get up and go surf­ing. “Bri­an,” says Aykroyd, “we have a cita­tion here for you sir under Sec­tion 936A of the Cal­i­for­nia Catch a Wave Statute. Bri­an, you’re in vio­la­tion of Para­graph 12: fail­ing to surf, neglect­ing to use a state beach for surf­ing pur­pos­es, and oth­er­wise avoid­ing surf­boards, surf­ing and surf.”

The scene is from the NBC tele­vi­sion spe­cial It’s OK, which was pro­duced by Sat­ur­day Night Live cre­ator Lorne Michaels dur­ing the break between SNL’s first and sec­ond sea­sons. It was direct­ed by the show’s res­i­dent flm­mak­er Gary Weis. The one-hour spe­cial was orga­nized to cel­e­brate the Beach Boys’ 15th anniver­sary and to pro­mote their album, 15 Big Ones. Wil­son had just rejoined the group, and the spe­cial was part of the “Bri­an’s Back” pub­lic­i­ty cam­paign. The pro­gram, which is cur­rent­ly avail­able on Euro­pean-for­mat­ted DVD as The Beach Boys: Good Vibra­tions Tour,  includes an inter­view of Wil­son in bed, comedic scenes of band mem­bers doing off­beat things, and live footage from a July 3, 1976 Beach Boys con­cert at Ana­heim Sta­di­um. In the two inter­cut scenes above, Mike Love leads the Beach Boys onstage in a per­for­mance of “Surfin’ USA” as Wil­son is forced into the ocean in his bath robe. “Okay, Mr. Wil­son,” says Aykroyd. “Here’s your wave.”

via Dan­ger­ous Minds

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Mak­ing of The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds: A Video Break­down

Leonard Bern­stein Demys­ti­fies the Rock Rev­o­lu­tion for Curi­ous (if Square) Grown-Ups in 1967

John Belushi’s Impro­vised Screen Test for Sat­ur­day Night Live (1975)

The Mak­ing of The Blues Broth­ers: When Belushi and Aykroyd Went on a Mis­sion for Com­e­dy & Music

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Led Zeppelin Plays One of Its Earliest Concerts (Danish TV, 1969)

in Music, Television | April 24th, 2013

Here’s a great record of what Led Zep­pelin looked and sound­ed like in the first year of the band’s exis­tence. The date was March 17, 1969. The group’s debut album, Led Zep­pelin, had been out in Amer­i­ca for almost three months but would not be released in the UK for a cou­ple more weeks. Led Zep­pelin was on a tour of the UK and Scan­di­navia when they stopped by the TV-Byen stu­dios in Glad­saxe, Den­mark, a sub­urb of Copen­hagen, to play four songs from the new album:

  1. “Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Break­down”
  2. “Dazed and Con­fused”
  3. “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You”
  4. “How Many More Times”

Zep­pelin had only been togeth­er a lit­tle more than half a year when the TV show was record­ed (the band’s first gig, on Sep­tem­ber 7, 1968, also hap­pened to have been in Glad­saxe) but they sound tight. Some of the band’s trade­mark the­atrics are already in place, includ­ing Jim­my Page’s ethe­re­al vio­lin-bow gui­tar solo. Page is play­ing his clas­sic 1959 Fend­er Tele­cast­er, a gift from Jeff Beck that Page had paint­ed a drag­on on and used as his main gui­tar dur­ing his days with the Yard­birds. Only a month before this broad­cast, dur­ing Zep­pelin’s kick­off tour of Amer­i­ca, Joe Walsh had giv­en Page a Gib­son Les Paul. By the time Led Zep­pelin II was fin­ished, Page had switched to the Les Paul and basi­cal­ly retired the Tele­cast­er, though he played it on his famous 1971 solo in “Stair­way to Heav­en.”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Jim­my Page, 13, Plays Gui­tar on BBC Tal­ent Show (1957)

‘Stair­way to Heav­en’: Watch a Mov­ing Trib­ute to Led Zep­pelin at The Kennedy Cen­ter

John Bonham’s Iso­lat­ed Drum Track For Led Zeppelin’s ‘Fool in the Rain’

Jim­my Page Tells the Sto­ry of Kash­mir

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Inside Breaking Bad: Watch Conan O’Brien’s Extended Interview with the Show’s Cast and Creator

in Television | April 24th, 2013

“The Mad Men col­lec­tion at Banana Repub­lic is okay,” joked a com­e­dy-writer friend of mine, “but the Break­ing Bad col­lec­tion at TJ Maxx is to die for.” A fan­tas­tic line, for sure — though I would argue that Banana Repub­lic’s Mad Men col­lec­tion is not, in fact, okay — and one that high­lights just how wide a spec­trum of sen­si­bil­i­ty and set­ting this new wave of crit­i­cal­ly acclaimed cable tele­vi­sion offers us. Over the past half-decade, these two dra­mas, Mad Men set in the ear­ly six­ties’ high-fly­ing adver­tis­ing indus­try and Break­ing Bad set on the con­tem­po­rary New Mex­i­can meth-cook­ing scene, have togeth­er drawn the lion’s share of this acclaim. What’s more, they’ve both done it on AMC, the chan­nel whose pre­vi­ous ser­vice con­sist­ed pri­mar­i­ly of Audrey Hep­burn movies, served to your great aunt. Sure, maybe you’d expect from them a peri­od series some­thing like Mad Men. But the grit­ti­er, more trou­bling Break­ing Bad? How did all involved pull it off?

In the hour-long video above, the astute inves­ti­ga­tor known as Conan O’Brien leads a pan­el dis­cus­sion about the show fea­tur­ing, among sev­er­al oth­ers, cre­ator Vince Gilli­gan and star Bryan Cranston. From his web series Seri­ous Jib­ber-Jab­ber, on which he’s held in-depth con­ver­sa­tions with the likes of his­to­ri­an Edmund Mor­ris and sta­tis­ti­cian Nate Sil­ver, we’ve learned that Conan can do long-form inter­views and get answers to the impor­tant ques­tions. Here we have the impor­tant ques­tion — not least, nat­u­ral­ly, to AMC itself — of how Break­ing Bad became, in the words of var­i­ous crit­ics, a “taut exer­cise in with­held dis­as­ter,” a “feel-good show about feel­ing real­ly bad,” a “superla­tive­ly fresh metaphor for a mid­dle-age cri­sis” and a “com­bi­na­tion of stag­ger­ing and trans­fix­ing weird­ness” that “ele­vates the artis­tic achieve­ments of the medi­um,” ulti­mate­ly becom­ing “one of tele­vi­sion’s finest dra­mat­ic accom­plish­ments.” If these words strike you as hyper­bol­ic, watch the com­pi­la­tion just above that pro­files the long-term trans­for­ma­tion of Bryan Cranston’s pro­tag­o­nist Wal­ter White. Then you’ll want to watch the series, which ends this sum­mer, and add some words of your own.

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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