Steel yourselves, moviegoers over thirty: the cinematic phenomenon known as Pulp Fiction happened nineteen years ago. Which means that the making of Pulp Fiction happened twenty years ago. Vanity Fair’s Mark Seal has seized this occasion to write “Cinema Tarantino: The Making of Pulp Fiction,” an oral history of the conception of the one movie that, more than any other, stoked the American indie-film boom of the nineties to its full cultural blaze. Seal quotes Harvey Weinstein, a force of this movement at the helm of Miramax Films and Tarantino’s longtime business collaborator, as describing Pulp Fiction as “the first independent movie that broke all the rules,” which “set a new dial on the movie clock.” Though possessed of a legendary way with hyperbole, Weinstein may have this time put it too mildly.
As a moviegoer slightly under thirty, I grew up regarding Pulp Fiction as the movie cool grown-ups loved (I remember my dad buying the poster almost immediately after seeing the film), only knowing that it had something to do with McDonald’s Quarter- Pounders in France. Seal’s article sheds special light on the picture’s genesis for those too young to have engaged with the considerable industry buzz at the time, using not just the recollections of John Travolta, Bruce Willis, Samuel Jackson, Uma Thurman, Harvey Keitel, and Tarantino himself, but also of instrumental behind-the-scenes figures like co-writer Roger Avary, agent Mike Simpson, and typist Linda Chen. Before you petition your local revival cinemas to hold tribute screenings, have another shot of Pulp Fiction backstory by watching the on-set footage above. It opens on not just any set, but Jackrabbit Slim’s, the very same fictional theme restaurant Pulp Fiction’s creators remember so vividly in the article.
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.
Most professional musicians have a very special relationship with their instruments. Male guitarists treat their favorite guitars like girlfriends—maybe better in some cases. Traveling cellists buy airline tickets for instruments. It’s just too risky to put your livelihood in cargo.
Not so for Terje Insungset, a Norwegian musician who, among other things, carves instruments out of ice. His background is in jazz and traditional Scandinavian music, but he’s built a reputation as an artist who makes music on unconventional materials. Considering where he is from, it’s not surprising that he has turned his attention to ice and its musical potential.
Turns out the sound of an ice xylophone is lovely—soft, deep, tinkly. The ice horn sounds like a lonely beast calling out across the tundra. Insungset collaborates with vocalist Mari Kvien Brunvoll. Together they perform around the world, sometimes indoors and sometimes in the snow, with elaborate microphone cords draped around and beautiful lighting.
Insungset has also built instruments out of arctic birch, slate, cow bells and granite. His interest in ice as a material developed when he was commissioned to play music in a frozen waterfall at the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway.
Unlike most musicians, he has to build his instruments in situ, as he did for recent concerts in Canada where the temperature was 36 below zero with a light wind. Perfect weather for ice music.
Édith Piaf’s life was anything but rosy. Born in a Parisian slum, she was abandoned by her mother and lived for awhile in a brothel run by her grandmother. As a teenager she sang on the streets for money. She was addicted to alcohol and drugs for much of her life, and her later years were marred by chronic pain. Through it all, Piaf managed to hold onto a basically optimistic view of life. She sang with a lyrical abandon that seemed to transcend the pain and sorrow of living.
On April 3, 1954 Piaf was the guest of honor on the French TV show La Joie de Vivre. She was 38 years old but looked much older. She had recently undergone a grueling series of “aversion therapy” treatments for alcoholism, and was by that time in the habit of taking morphine before going onstage. Cortisone treatments for arthritis made the usually wire-thin singer look puffy. But when Piaf launches into her signature song, “La Vie en Rose” (see above), all of that is left behind.
Nine years after this performance, when Piaf died, her friend Jean Cocteau said of her: “Like all those who live on courage, she didn’t think about death–she defied it. Only her voice remains, that splendid voice like black velvet.”
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In 1994, Charles Bukowski was buried in a Los Angeles cemetery, beneath a simple gravestone. The stone memorializes the poet’s name. It recites his dates of birth and death, but adds the symbol of a boxer between the two, suggesting his life was a struggle. And it adds the very succinct epitaph, “Don’t Try.”
There you have it, Bukowski’s philosophy on art and life boiled down to two words. But what do they mean? Let’s look back at the epistolary record and find out.
In October 1963, Bukowski recounted in a letter to John William Corrington how someone once asked him, “What do you do? How do you write, create?” To which, he replied: “You don’t try. That’s very important: ‘not’ to try, either for Cadillacs, creation or immortality. You wait, and if nothing happens, you wait some more. It’s like a bug high on the wall. You wait for it to come to you. When it gets close enough you reach out, slap out and kill it. Or if you like its looks you make a pet out of it.”
So, the key to life and art, it’s all about persistence? Patience? Timing? Waiting for your moment? Yes, but not just that.
Jumping forward to 1990, Bukowski sent a letter to his friend William Packard and reminded him: “We work too hard. We try too hard. Don’t try. Don’t work. It’s there. It’s been looking right at us, aching to kick out of the closed womb. There’s been too much direction. It’s all free, we needn’t be told. Classes? Classes are for asses. Writing a poem is as easy as beating your meat or drinking a bottle of beer.”
The key to living a good life, to creating great art — it’s also about not over-thinking things, or muscling our way through. It’s about letting our talents appear, almost jedi-style. Or is it?
In 2005, Mike Watt (bass player for the Minutemen, fIREHOSE, and the Stooges) interviewed Linda Bukowski, the poet’s wife, and asked her to set the record straight. Here’s their exchange.
Watt: What’s the story: “Don’t Try”? Is it from that piece he wrote?
Linda: See those big volumes of books? They’re called Who’s Who In America. It’s everybody, artists, scientists, whatever. So he was in there and they asked him to do a little thing about the books he’s written and duh, duh, duh, duh, duh. At the very end they say, is there anything you wanna say, you know, what is your philosophy of life, and some people would write a huge long thing. A dissertation, and some people would just go on and on. And Hank just put, “Don’t Try.” Now, for you, what do you think that means?
Watt: Well for me it always meant like be natural.
Linda: Yeah, yeah.
Watt: Not like…being lazy!
Linda: Yeah, I get so many different ideas from people that don’t understand what that means. Well, “Don’t Try? Just be a slacker? lay back?” And I’m no! Don’t try, do. Because if you’re spending your time trying something, you’re not doing it…“DON’T TRY.”
It’s Monday. Get out there. Just do it. But patiently. And don’t break a sweat.
“Movie star, conceptual artist, fiction writer, grad student, cipher.” These roles, and others, New York magazine attributed to the subject of their profile, “The James Franco Project.” If you regularly read Open Culture, you’ve surely had your own areas of interest touched by the literarily inclined young Hollywood maverick. Maybe you’ve seen him appear in a book trailer, read the Paris Review in bed, narrate an animation of Allen Ginsberg’s Howl, or direct and star in a docudrama about poet Hart Crane. Above you can hear him give a ten minute reading from a work of literature that, whether or not it made a permanent dent in your own consciousness, we’ve all encountered: Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. When Lapham’s Quarterly excerpted the novel for a travel issue, Franco turned up to perform.
“It was drizzling and mysterious at the beginning of our journey,” Kerouac wrote and Franco reads. “I could see that it was all going to be one big saga of the mist. ‘Whooee!’ yelled Dean. ‘Here we go!’ And he hunched over the wheel and gunned her; he was back in his element, everybody could see that.” Hearing this particular voice interpret this particular novel reminds you of both Franco and Kerouac’s images as thoroughly American creators, though each expresses that American-ness in very much their own way: Kerouac, of course, actually comes from a French-Canadian family, and Franco leads the kind of cultural renaissance-man career the modern United States tends to frown upon. But given the places they’ve both secured for themselves in the American zeitgeist — and the best sort of places: unlikely ones — wasn’t it inevitable that their crafts would intersect?
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.
As anyone who’s ever done it knows, the art of syllabussing is a fine one. (Yes, it’s a word; don’t look it up, take my word for it—Syllabussing: creating the perfect syllabus for a college-level course). It requires precision planning, stellar formatting and copy-editing skills, and near-perfect knowledge of the college-student psyche. For one, the syllabus must explain in clear terms what students can expect from the class and what the class expects from them. And it must do this without sounding so dry and pedantic that half the class drops in the first week. For another, the perfect syllabus (there’s no such thing, but one must strive) should function as both an FAQ and a contract: need to know how to format your papers? See the syllabus. Forgot when the paper was due? Too bad—see the syllabus. And so on. Most teachers learn over time that a class can stand or fall on the strength of this document.
Which brings us to the syllabussing skills of one David Foster Wallace, encyclopedic literary obsessive, modern-day moralist, English professor. Love his work or hate it, it may be safe to say that Wallace was perhaps one of the most careful (or care-full) writers of his generation. And given the criteria above, you might just have to admire the fine art of his syllabi. Well, so you can, thanks to the University of Texas at Austin’s Harry Ransom Center, which has scans available online of the syllabus for Wallace’s intro course “English 102-Literary Analysis: Prose Fiction” (first page above), along with other course documents. These documents—From the Fall ’94 semester at Illinois State University, where Wallace taught from 1993 to 2002—reveal the professionally pedagogical side of the literary wunderkind, a side every teacher will connect with right away.
The text in the image above is admittedly tiny (you can request higher resolution scans on the UT Austin site), but if you squint hard, you’ll see under “Aims of Course” that Wallace quotes the official ISU description of his class, then translates it into his own words:
In less narcotizing words, English 102 aims to show you some ways to read fiction more deeply, to come up with more interesting insights on how pieces of fiction work, to have informed intelligent reasons for liking or disliking a piece of fiction, and to write—clearly, persuasively, and above all interestingly—about stuff you’ve read.
Having taught my own versions of such a class, I’m a little jealous of his (uncharacteristically?) informal concision.
Wallace’s choice of texts is of interest as well—surprising for a writer most detractors call “pretentious.” For his class, Wallace prescribed airport-bookstore standards—what he calls “popular or commercial fiction”—such as Jackie Collins’ Rock Star, Stephen King’s Carrie, Thomas Harris’s The Silence of the Lambs, and James Elroy’s The Big Nowhere. The UT Austin site also has scans of some well-worn paperback teacher’s copies, with the red-ink marginal notes, discussion questions, and underlines one finds behind every podium. In the image above, Wallace has underlined a line of dialogue in Carrie, annotating it with the word “victim” in all-caps. Of the books Wallace requires, he writes in a section of the syllabus above called “Warning”:
Don’t let any potential lightweightish-looking qualities of the texts delude you into thinking that this will be a blow-off-type class. These “popular” texts will end up being harder than more conventionally “literary” works to unpack and read critically. You’ll end up doing more work in here than in other sections of 102, probably.
Something about that “probably” at the end grabs me (again: the precision… the college-student psyche). I admire this brave approach. Having taught conventionally “literary” stuff for years, I can say that some so-called literary fiction is formulaic in the extreme, all but containing checkboxes for the standard lit-crit categories. The commercial stuff isn’t always so careful (which is why it’s so often more fun).
Personally, I’d rather watch a good movie than an awards show about good movies. If you’re like me, then consider spending tonight watching a long list of Oscar-winning films on the web. 33 films, to be precise. The list includes many great short films, animated films, documentaries, and a few feature-length movies. We start you off above with Why Man Creates, the classic animated film by Saul Bass and his wife/collaborator Elaine, which won the 1968 Academy Award for Documentary Short Subject. You can get the full list of Academy Award winners on the web here. And don’t forget to peruse our ever-growing list of 500 Free Movies Online. It’ll keep you busy for weeks, if not months.
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Once upon a time, the larvae of the Caddis Fly were considered pretty unassuming creatures, freshwater dwellers whose appeal was limited to trout and trout fishermen. That is until French artist Hubert Duprat came along with an aesthetic offer they couldn’t refuse.
Left to their own devices, Caddis larvae construct protective cases from natural materials found in their habitat, patching small pieces together with silken thread. A chance encounter with some prospectors at a river in southwestern France led Duprat to wonder how the Caddis larvae might adapt if gold figured more prominently among their building supplies. Thus began The Wonderful Caddis Worm: Sculptural Work in Collaboration with Trichopteras, an ongoing artistic experiment in a carefully controlled, scientific setting.
Basically these birds are spinning their own gilded cages with whatever luxury materials Duprat introduces into their artificial environment. The resulting jewel encrusted creations would not be out of place in a Madison Avenue window, though it’s possible a nearsighted dowager might mistake the tiny jeweler for a cockroach.
Whether or not one would opt to wear one of these blinged-out insect casings were money no object, one has to admit their engineering is a most unusual feat. It would make for one humdinger of a Science Fair project if only Duprat hadn’t patented the technique in 1983.
Eric Clapton recently allowed a camera crew into his London home for an intimate talk. The purpose was to demonstrate a new series of high-priced, limited-edition reproductions of some of his most famous guitars, which will soon go on sale to benefit his Crossroads Centre in Antigua. But as Rolling Stone noted in a recent online piece, the conversation went much deeper.
In the video above, Clapton tries out a replica of an early sunburst Fender Stratocaster, nicknamed “Brownie,” that he purchased in 1967 and played with Derek and the Dominoes. The original guitar, which had a heavily worn maple neck that Clapton attached to a Fender Telecaster body during his days with Blind Faith, was sold at auction in 1999 for $497,500. The replicas were made by the Fender Custom Shop and will sell for $15,000. In the video, Clapton plugs the guitar into a 1950s-era Fender “Tweed Twin” amplifier and tries it out, playing a few blues lines and reminiscing about his early Stratocaster-playing influences: Buddy Holly, Buddy Guy and Jimi Hendrix.
Martin 000–28 and 000–45:
Above, Clapton tries out a pair of acoustic guitars made in his honor by Martin & Co. He talks about his early infatuation with Martin guitars, which he developed after hearing other musicians talk about them and after seeing footage of Big Bill Broonzy playing the 000–28 model. Unlike the other “Crossroads Collection” guitars, the Martins were apparently not modeled after individual guitars Clapton once played, but were instead handmade to his specifications. The Crossroads model 000–28 will sell for $6,000 and the 000–48 will be offered in two editions made with different materials, one for $13,000 and the other for $50,000.
“Lucy” Gibson Les Paul:
Perhaps the most interesting of the three videos involves a guitar Clapton is not usually associated with: a Gibson Les Paul. The guitar is a reproduction of a heavily worn 1957 cherry-red guitar Clapton bought in about 1967, when he was touring America with Cream. He gave the guitar to George Harrison of the Beatles, who nicknamed it “Lucy” and played it on the White Album and Let it Be. When Clapton accepted Harrison’s request to play lead guitar on the recording of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” he played it on Lucy. In the video, Clapton reminisces about the Beatles session and talks about the amplifier he used during his days with John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers and the ones he used afterwards. Harrison briefly loaned the original Lucy Les Paul back to Clapton, who played it during his famous Rainbow Concert in 1973, but the guitar still belongs to the Harrison estate. The Gibson-made replicas will sell for $15,000 each.
Said a spokesman for the postal system: “When you think of great British authors, Jane Austen inevitably comes to mind. Her novels have contributed immeasurably to British culture over the last two centuries.”
Americans venerate the work of Ansel Adams but tend to get overexposed to the usual Adams prints in dentists’ waiting rooms, corporate offices, and other anesthetic spaces. At least that’s been my experience. It’s easy to forget how much Adams’ work vitally defined the 20th century perception of the American West, as much as Frederic Remington’s defined that of the 19th.
Wednesday, in honor of what would have been Adams 111th birthday, we posted a fascinating 1958 documentary to reintroduce you to the Adams you may have thought you knew—“musician, mountaineer, writer, teacher, photographer.” In the midst of rediscovering Adams ourselves, we stumbled upon an incredible trove of images at the National Archives—226, to be exact—taken at the behest of the National Park Service in 1941.
The purpose was to create a photo mural for the Department of the Interior Building in Washington, DC with the theme “nature as exemplified and protected in the U.S. National Parks.” While WWII put a stop to the project, the photo archive Adams left behind still makes an excellent case for the federal preservation of these landscapes (or what’s left of them today). This is the kind of propaganda I can get behind.
The image above is 79-AAB‑1 in the archive, or more prosaically, “Boulder Dam, 1941.” Adams photographed grand land- and desertscapes all over the West and Southwest, including the Grand Canyon, Mesa Verde, Death Valley, Yellowstone, Yosemite, Carlsbad Caverns, and land belonging to Navajo and Pueblo Indians—such as image #79-AAA‑6 (below), or “Church, Acoma Pueblo,” taken in Acoma Pueblo, New Mexico.
Like most of Adams’ work, these images are monumentally breathtaking in all their high-contrast vastness. Most of them are signed or captioned by Adams. You can browse the archives, view all of the photos, and order prints through the National Archives website.
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