In Search of Haruki Murakami: A Documentary Introduction to Japan’s Great Postmodernist Novelist

in Books, Literature | February 15th, 2012

Haru­ki Muraka­mi holds the titles of both the most pop­u­lar nov­el­ist in Japan and the most pop­u­lar Japan­ese nov­el­ist in the wider world. After pub­lish­ing Nor­we­gian Wood in 1987, a book often called “the Japan­ese Catch­er in the Rye,” Murakami’s noto­ri­ety explod­ed to such an extent that he felt forced out of his home­land, a coun­try whose tra­di­tion­al ways and — to his mind — con­formist mind­set nev­er sat right with him in the first place. Though he returned to Japan in the after­math of the Kobe earth­quake and the Tokyo under­ground gas attacks, he remained an author shaped by his favorite for­eign cul­tures — espe­cial­ly Amer­i­ca’s. This, com­bined with his yearn­ing to break from estab­lished Japan­ese lit­er­ary norms, has gen­er­at­ed enough inter­na­tion­al demand for his work to sell briskly in almost every lan­guage in which peo­ple read nov­els.

I myself once spent a month doing noth­ing but read­ing Murakami’s work, and this BBC doc­u­men­tary Haru­ki Muraka­mi: In Search of this Elu­sive Writer makes a valiant attempt to cap­ture what about it could raise such a com­pul­sion. Rupert Edwards’ cam­era fol­lows vet­er­an pre­sen­ter Alan Yen­tob through Japan, from the mid­night Tokyo of After Hours to the snowed-in Hokkai­do of A Wild Sheep Chase, in a quest to find arti­facts of the supreme­ly famous yet media-shy novelist’s imag­i­nary world. Built around inter­views with fans and trans­la­tors but thick with such Murakami­ana as laid-back jazz stan­dards, grim school hall­ways, six­ties pop hits, women’s ears, vinyl records, marathon run­ners, and talk­ing cats, the broad­cast strives less to explain Murakami’s sub­stance than to sim­ply reflect it. If you find your curios­i­ty piqued by all the fuss over 1Q84, Murakami’s lat­est, you might watch it as some­thing of an aes­thet­ic primer.

Relat­ed con­tent:

An Intro­duc­tion to the World of Haru­ki Muraka­mi Through Doc­u­men­taries, Sto­ries, Ani­ma­tion, Music Playlists & More

A 96-Song Playlist of Music in Haru­ki Murakami’s Nov­els: Miles Davis, Glenn Gould, the Beach Boys & More

Read 5 Sto­ries By Haru­ki Muraka­mi Free Online (For a Lim­it­ed Time)

A Pho­to­graph­ic Tour of Haru­ki Murakami’s Tokyo, Where Dream, Mem­o­ry, and Real­i­ty Meet

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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The Weird World of Vintage Sports

in Film, History | February 15th, 2012

British Pathé has released an inter­est­ing col­lec­tion of vin­tage news­reel clips high­light­ing ear­ly exper­i­ments in hybrid sports. Some of the feats are dar­ing, oth­ers mere­ly sil­ly. All are fun to watch.

News­reels of this type were an impor­tant part of the movie-going expe­ri­ence in the first half of the 20th cen­tu­ry, often fea­tur­ing cov­er­age of news, enter­tain­ment, cul­ture and sports. Some reels were pack­aged into reg­u­lar­ly appear­ing “cin­emagazines” like Pathé Pic­to­r­i­al, a mov­ing-pic­ture ana­logue of the illus­trat­ed mag­a­zines of the day.

The reel above, shot in Bavaria in 1955, expos­es the “Most Dan­ger­ous Sport in the World.” Motor ski­ing, also known as “motor­ized ski­jor­ing,” involves ski­iers being pulled at high speeds over ice and snow by cars or motor­cy­cles. You can scroll down to watch a few more of our favorites, or access the whole col­lec­tion on YouTube, at the British Pathé Sport­ing His­to­ry chan­nel.

Cycle Skat­ing, Paris, 1923:

Ten­nis on Ice, Amer­i­ca, 1931:

Sum­mer Ski­ing on the Boule­vards, Paris, 1930:

Blimp Water Ski­ing, 1932:

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Enroll in MIT’s First Free Certificate Course Today

in Education, MIT | February 14th, 2012

Note: You can now find through the fol­low­ing link a com­plete list of Mas­sive Open Online Cours­es (MOOCs), many offer­ing cer­tifi­cates.

In the wan­ing days of 2011, MIT announced MITx, a new e‑learning ini­tia­tive that will offer cer­tifi­cates (find a list of Free Online Cer­tifi­cate Cours­es here) to stu­dents demon­strat­ing mas­tery of free MIT cours­es. The uni­ver­si­ty set a spring launch date for MITx, and they have now opened for enroll­ment the very first course. Taught by Anant Agar­w­al, Cir­cuits and Elec­tron­ics is an online adap­tion of MIT’s first under­grad­u­ate ana­log design course. Accord­ing the MITx web site, this pro­to­type course will run — free of charge — for stu­dents world­wide from March 5, 2012 through June 8, 2012. And stu­dents will have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to demon­strate their mas­tery of the mate­r­i­al and earn a cer­tifi­cate from MITx. You can get more infor­ma­tion on the course, or sim­ply enroll in Cir­cuits and Elec­tron­ics, today. Just click here.

Many oth­er engi­neer­ing and com­put­er sci­ence cours­es can be found in our col­lec­tion of 400 Free Cours­es Online.

UPDATE:  MIT pro­fes­sor David Pritchard and his edu­ca­tion research group, RELATE are offer­ing an online MIT-lev­el course in Intro­duc­to­ry New­ton­ian Mechan­ics. The course is free and does not require a text­book.  Enroll­ment has just opened (it starts with an option­al pre­req­ui­sites test), and the course runs from March 1 — May 14, 2012.  Indi­vid­u­als who com­plete the course will receive a let­ter of com­ple­tion. This MIT course is unre­lat­ed to the MITx project men­tioned right above.

via Wired Cam­pus

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Mr. Happy Man

in Film, Life | February 14th, 2012


Matt Mor­ris, an award-win­ning film­mak­er liv­ing in Win­ter Park, Flori­da, came across John­ny Barnes in the same way he has dis­cov­ered all of his film sub­jects — by com­plete acci­dent. One day, while flip­ping through images on Flickr, Mor­ris stum­bled upon a tourist’s pho­to of the 88-year-old Bermu­di­an. He then read the cap­tion attached to the pho­to and knew he had to make a film about Barnes. “Aside from the fact that I tend to make films about elder­ly folks,” Mor­ris told us, “I’m fas­ci­nat­ed with peo­ple who have cho­sen unique ways of liv­ing their lives and as a result are irre­press­ibly hap­py.” “I want to make films about them in part so that I can learn from them.” And so, Matt head­ed to Bermu­da to cap­ture “Mr. Hap­py Man” work­ing his mag­ic on Crow Lane each day.

In Decem­ber, we fea­tured a 2008 film by Mr. Mor­ris — Pickin’ & Trim­min’, an ele­gant doc­u­men­tary that show­cas­es the blue­grass music made in a down-home North Car­oli­na bar­ber­shop. It’s not to be missed. Mor­ris’ next film, Mark & Lor­na, will take as its sub­ject a lounge singing duo based out of Orlan­do, Flori­da.

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David Lynch Falls in Love: A Classic Scene From Twin Peaks

in Comedy, Television | February 14th, 2012

They say a man falls in love through his eyes, a woman through her ears. In this scene from Twin Peaks, David Lynch pours on the ear-shat­ter­ing charm. The scene is from episode 25 of the sec­ond and final sea­son (1991). Lynch makes a cameo appear­ance as Gor­don Cole, the hard-of-hear­ing region­al bureau chief of the FBI, who has arrived in town to help agent Dale Coop­er (Kyle MacLach­lan) with an inves­ti­ga­tion. When the two men stop by at the Dou­ble R Din­er for a bite to eat, Cole is instant­ly smit­ten by the pret­ty wait­ress, Shelly John­son (Mäd­chen Amick). “Excuse me, Coop,” he says suave­ly, “while I try my hand in a lit­tle counter Esperan­to.” What hap­pens next is a miracle–or maybe just a phe­nom­e­non.

Relat­ed con­tent:

David Lynch’s Sur­re­al Com­mer­cials

David Lynch’s Eraser­head Remade in Clay

David Lynch Talks Med­i­ta­tion with Paul McCart­ney

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William S. Burroughs on Saturday Night Live, 1981

in Literature, Television | February 14th, 2012

Let’s rewind the video­tape to Novem­ber 7, 1981. That’s when Beat writer William S. Bur­roughs made his first appear­ance on Amer­i­can nation­al tele­vi­sion. Appro­pri­ate­ly, it was on the irrev­er­ent, late-night com­e­dy show, Sat­ur­day Night Live. Actress Lau­ren Hut­ton makes the intro­duc­tion, set­ting up Bur­roughs to read from Naked Lunch (1959) and Nova Express (1964). You can watch the action above, which hap­pens to be the open­ing scene of Bur­roughs, a 1983 doc­u­men­tary by Howard Brookn­er. The com­plete film is list­ed in our col­lec­tion of 450 Free Movies Online (look under Doc­u­men­taries), along with a 1997 BBC doc­u­men­tary on the author. For more good video ded­i­cat­ed to Bur­roughs, don’t miss the fol­low­ing:

William S. Bur­roughs Reads His First Nov­el, Junky (find it also in our col­lec­tion of Free Audio Books)

“The Thanks­giv­ing Prayer,” Read by William S. Bur­roughs and Shot by Gus Van Sant

Gus Van Sant Adapts William S. Bur­roughs’ The Dis­ci­pline of D.E.: An Ear­ly 16mm Short

William S. Bur­roughs on the Art of Cut-up Writ­ing

via @BrainPicker

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Peter Sellers Reads The Beatles’ “She Loves You” in 4 Different Accents: Dr. Strangelove, Cockney, Irish & Upper Crust

in Film, Music | February 13th, 2012

Back in the late 1950s, George Mar­tin record­ed two albums with the late, great Peter Sell­ers. When Mar­tin start­ed work­ing with the Bea­t­les a few years lat­er, he put the actor in touch with the musi­cians, and they became fast friends. This rela­tion­ship paved the way for some good com­e­dy. As you might recall, Sell­ers made a cameo appear­ance on “The Music of Lennon and McCart­ney” in 1964, and read A Hard Day’s Night in a way that com­i­cal­ly recalls Lau­rence Olivier’s 1955 per­for­mance in Richard III. (Watch the spoof here.) And then, also dur­ing the mid 60s, Sell­ers record­ed a com­ic read­ing of She Loves You — once in the voice of Dr. Strangelove (above), again with cock­ney and upper-crusty accents (both right below), and final­ly with an Irish twist (the last item). The record­ings were all released posthu­mous­ly between 1981 and 1983 on albums no longer in cir­cu­la­tion.

Cock­ney

Upper Crust

Irish

 

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Here Comes The Sun: The Lost Gui­tar Solo by George Har­ri­son

Gui­tarist Randy Bach­man Demys­ti­fies the Open­ing Chord of ‘A Hard Day’s Night’

The Bea­t­les’ Rooftop Con­cert: The Last Gig

 

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The Story Behind Rodin’s ‘The Kiss’

in Art | February 13th, 2012

NOTE: If you are hav­ing prob­lems view­ing the video on our site, you can also watch it here.

With Valen­tine’s Day almost here, we thought it would be an oppor­tune time to bring you the sto­ry of Auguste Rod­in’s erot­i­cal­ly charged mas­ter­piece, The Kiss.

In this video from the Tate muse­ums, Jane Bur­ton explains how The Kiss was orig­i­nal­ly con­ceived as a detail in an ear­ly ver­sion of Rod­in’s The Gates of Hell, a mon­u­men­tal work that pre­oc­cu­pied the artist for the last 37 years of his life. The Kiss depicts the fate­ful embrace of Francesca and Pao­lo, adul­ter­ous lovers from Dan­te’s Infer­no.

Rodin devel­oped the theme of The Kiss in plas­ter and ter­ra­cot­ta before cre­at­ing a mar­ble ver­sion for the French gov­ern­ment in 1888. That piece is now on dis­play at the Musée Rodin in Paris. The ver­sion fea­tured in the video was com­mis­sioned in 1900 by an Amer­i­can art col­lec­tor liv­ing in Eng­land, and is now part of the per­ma­nent col­lec­tion of the Tate Mod­ern in Lon­don. It’s cur­rent­ly on loan (through Sep­tem­ber 2) to the Turn­er Con­tem­po­rary in Mar­gate, Kent.

The nudi­ty and frank sen­su­al­i­ty of The Kiss drew scorn from many crit­ics when the sculp­ture was first unveiled in 1889. The poet Paul Claudel, a reli­gious con­ser­v­a­tive, wrote:

the man is so to speak attablé [sit­ting down to dine] at the woman. He is sit­ting down in order to make the most of his oppor­tu­ni­ty. He uses both his hands, and she does her best, as the Amer­i­cans say, to “deliv­er the goods.”

Claudel’s con­tempt prob­a­bly had some­thing to do with the fact that his sis­ter, the sculp­tor Camille Claudel, was Rod­in’s lover at the time the work was com­plet­ed. For a more in-depth explo­ration of the fas­ci­nat­ing sto­ry behind The Kiss, be sure to watch the BBC series, Pri­vate Life of a Mas­ter­piece. The episode fea­tur­ing The Kiss can be seen online in four 12-minute seg­ments here.

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Frankenstein: The First Adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Novel to Film (1910)

in Film | February 12th, 2012

102 years ago, J. Sear­le Daw­ley wrote and direct­ed Franken­stein. It took him three days to shoot the short, 12-minute film (when most films were actu­al­ly shot in just one day). It marked the first time that Mary Shel­ley’s lit­er­ary cre­ation was adapt­ed to film. And, some­what notably, Thomas Edi­son had a hand (albeit it an indi­rect one) in mak­ing the film. The first Franken­stein was shot at Edi­son Stu­dios, the pro­duc­tion com­pa­ny owned by the famous inven­tor.

You can down­load the movie at the Inter­net Archive, or find it per­ma­nent­ly list­ed in our col­lec­tion of 725 Free Movies Online. (Also, you can find Mary Shel­ley’s clas­sic nov­el  in our col­lec­tion of Free Audio Books and Free eBooks.) To get more infor­ma­tion on Daw­ley’s short film, please vis­it The Franken­stein blog.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Birth of Film: 11 Firsts in Cin­e­ma

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The Internet Imagined in 1969

in Life, Technology | February 11th, 2012

The gen­der stereo­types might be back­ward-look­ing (we’ll make up for it lat­er in the day), but the tech­no­log­i­cal vision is on the mark, right down to email, e‑commerce and online bank­ing. Of course, these weren’t the only peo­ple imag­in­ing an elec­tron­ic, con­nect­ed world dur­ing the 1960s.

In 1964, the futur­ist Arthur C. Clarke peered into the future and saw our con­nect­ed­ness com­ing. By 2000, he pre­dict­ed, “We could be in instant con­tact with each oth­er, wher­ev­er we may be,” and “it will be pos­si­ble in that age … for a man to con­duct his busi­ness from Tahi­ti or Bali just as well as he could from Lon­don.”

And then Mar­shall McLuhan under­stood the trend too. He saw elec­tron­ic media turn­ing our world into a social one, a world where ser­vices like Face­book and Twit­ter would make com­plete sense. You can watch the pre­scient Mar­shall McLuhan right here.

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:

Arthur C. Clarke Pre­dicts the Future in 1964 … And Kind of Nails It

The Inter­net Imag­ined in 1969

Mar­shall McLuhan: The World is a Glob­al Vil­lage

1930s Fash­ion Design­ers Imag­ine How Peo­ple Would Dress in the Year 2000

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Famous Literary Characters Visualized with Police Composite Sketch Software

in Art, Books, Literature | February 10th, 2012

In his 1955 clas­sic, Loli­ta, Vladimir Nabokov described the facial fea­tures of his scan­dalous pro­tag­o­nist, Hum­bert Hum­bert, in small bits. When tak­en togeth­er, here’s what you get:

Gloomy good looks… Clean-cut jaw, mus­cu­lar hand, deep sonorous voice… broad shoul­ders … I was, and still am, despite mes mal­heurs, an excep­tion­al­ly hand­some male; slow-mov­ing, tall, with soft dark hair and a gloomy but all the more seduc­tive cast of demeanor. Excep­tion­al viril­i­ty often reflects in the subject’s dis­playable fea­tures a sullen and con­gest­ed some­thing that per­tains to what he has to con­ceal. And this was my case… But instead I am lanky, big-boned, wooly-chest­ed Hum­bert Hum­bert, with thick black eye­brows… A cesspool­ful of rot­ting mon­sters behind his slow boy­ish smile… aging ape eyes… Humbert’s face might twitch with neu­ral­gia.

In a rather bril­liant move, Bri­an Joseph Davis has run these descrip­tions through law enforce­ment com­pos­ite sketch soft­ware and brought Hum­bert Hum­bert almost to life. (See above.) And he has done the same for a cast of oth­er lit­er­ary char­ac­ters on his Tum­blr, called The Com­pos­ites. Oth­er char­ac­ters get­ting the perp treat­ment include Emma Bovary (Gus­tave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary), Edward Rochester (Char­lotte Bron­të’s Jane Eyre), and Kei­th Tal­ent (Mar­tin Amis’ Lon­don Fields), among oth­ers. Find them all here. h/t Metafil­ter

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Vladimir Nabokov on Loli­ta: Just Anoth­er Great Love Sto­ry?

Vladimir Nabokov Mar­vels Over Dif­fer­ent “Loli­ta” Book Cov­ers

Nabokov Reads Loli­ta, Names the Great Books of the 20th Cen­tu­ry

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