How TV Ruined Your Life

in Television | May 18th, 2011

The world is in sham­bles. Civ­i­liza­tion is in free fall. And it’s all because of that ubiq­ui­tous elec­tron­ic box spew­ing Snoo­ki and Ozzy and The Don­ald into the homes of inno­cent peo­ple, pol­lut­ing their minds and cor­rupt­ing their souls. Or any­way, that’s what British come­di­an Char­lie Brook­er thinks.

Brook­er is in a posi­tion to know. He makes his liv­ing off the offend­ing medi­um, writ­ing and appear­ing on such caus­tic pro­grams as Char­lie Brooker’s Screen­wipe, his hilar­i­ous and mer­ci­less bit­ing of the hand that feeds. Ear­li­er this year BBC Two pre­sent­ed its fol­low-up to Screen­wipe, a six-part series titled How TV Ruined Your Life. The result is one part social satire, two parts rav­ing luna­cy, as the mis­an­throp­ic Brooker—remote con­trol clenched furi­ous­ly in hand—takes us on a man­ic chan­nel-surf­ing tour of the deprav­i­ty.

In the win­dow above we fea­ture Episode 3: “Aspi­ra­tion.” The oth­er five install­ments can be accessed through the links below. Warn­ing: How TV Ruined Your Life con­tains harsh lan­guage that would not be safe for work. (But then, if you’re watch­ing half-hour com­e­dy shows at the office you’re prob­a­bly skat­ing on thin ice any­way.)

Episode 1: “Fear”
Episode 2: “The Life­cy­cle”
Episode 4: “Love”
Episode 5: “Progress”
Episode 6: “Knowl­edge”

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Richard Dawkins to Publish Children’s Book This Fall

in Books, Science | May 17th, 2011

Richard Dawkins, the Oxford evo­lu­tion­ary biol­o­gist, has a new book com­ing out this fall. This time, it’s a chil­dren’s book called The Mag­ic of Real­i­ty: How We Know What’s Real­ly True. Inter­viewed in Der Spiegel in March, Dawkins talked a lit­tle about what he hoped to accom­plish here, say­ing:

Each chap­ter is a ques­tion like: What is an earth­quake? What is a rain­bow? What is the sun? Each chap­ter begins with a series of myths seem­ing­ly answer­ing those ques­tions, and then I counter that with expla­na­tions about the true nature of things. There is some­thing very cheap about mag­ic in the super­nat­ur­al sense, like turn­ing a frog into a prince with a mag­ic wand. Real­i­ty has a grander, poet­ic mag­ic of its own, which I hope I can get across.

Already you can see some pre­lim­i­nary art­work for the book. We have one cov­er design above, and anoth­er one here. We’ll have more on the book when it comes out…

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Jacques Demy’s Lyrical Masterpiece, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg

in Film | May 17th, 2011

Romance and real­ism are mixed togeth­er in sur­pris­ing and unfor­get­table ways in Jacques Demy’s 1964 mas­ter­piece, The Umbrel­las of Cher­bourg. At first glance the film appears to be anoth­er piece of escapist fluff—a bright­ly col­ored musi­cal about a beau­ti­ful girl who falls in love with a hand­some young man. But as the sto­ry unfolds, those fairy tale trappings—the col­ors, the melodies, the impos­si­bly beau­ti­ful faces—carry a gath­er­ing weight of irony.

As film crit­ic A.O. Scott of the New York Times says in the video above, the film is one of the most roman­tic ever made, yet at the same time the sto­ry is “pure kitchen sink real­ism, suit­able maybe for a Ray­mond Carv­er sto­ry or a Bruce Spring­steen song.” It fea­tures Cather­ine Deneuve as a 17-year-old girl who works in her mother’s umbrel­la shop and falls in love with a 20-year-old garage mechan­ic, played by Nino Castel­n­uo­vo. “All of the char­ac­ters face very dif­fi­cult, very real prob­lems,” says Scott, “and all of them try to do the right thing, which turns out to be pret­ty defin­i­tive­ly unro­man­tic.”

Unlike Hol­ly­wood musi­cals, in which the char­ac­ters speak dia­logue and peri­od­i­cal­ly break into song, every word in The Umbrel­las of Cher­bourg is sung. The film received the Palme d’Or at the 1964 Cannes Film Fes­ti­val, and was an inter­na­tion­al hit. Despite all the suc­cess, the film has been wide­ly mis­un­der­stood, as Pauline Kael lament­ed dur­ing a 2000 inter­view. “One of the sad things about our time, I think,” Kael said, “is that so many peo­ple find a movie like that friv­o­lous and neg­li­gi­ble. They don’t see the beau­ty in it, but it’s a love­ly film—original and fine.”

The Umbrel­las of Cher­bourg has recent­ly become avail­able for free view­ing on the Inter­net, and we have added it to our archive of free movies. You can watch it here.

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Free Vintage Cartoons: Bugs Bunny, Betty Boop and More

in Art, Film, Television | May 17th, 2011

Don’t vis­it Vin­tage Toon­Cast (or its iTunes chan­nel) at the begin­ning of a busy work­day. You’ll start by promis­ing your­self to watch just one, like, say, “The Wab­bit Who Came to Sup­per,” which we post­ed above. But then, of course, you’ll want to check out the famous Bet­ty Boop episode, “Min­nie the Moocher,” fea­tur­ing Cab Cal­loway, which will lead you to “Cas­par the Friend­ly Ghost,” “Pop­eye,” and final­ly 16 glo­ri­ous episodes of “Super­man.”

The site hosts more than 80 videos, most of them stel­lar, which means you could end up killing the whole day. Don’t say we did­n’t w‑w-w-arn you (sor­ry).

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Orig­i­nal Super­man Car­toon Series Now Online

Disney’s Oscar-Win­ning Adven­tures in Music

Fan­tas­magorie: The First Ani­mat­ed Film

 

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

 

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Jon Stewart & Bill O’Reilly Debate Rapper’s Visit to the White House

in Current Affairs, Video - Arts & Culture, Video - Politics/Society | May 17th, 2011

The cul­ture wars wage on. Almost twen­ty years after the great Mur­phy Brown debate, we’re still going at it. But now, instead of debat­ing the pros and cons of sin­gle moth­er­hood, the focus has turned to whether Michelle Oba­ma erred in invit­ing the rap­per Com­mon to the White House Poet­ry Night last week. (See his actu­al per­for­mance here.) Crit­ics point to this 2007 YouTube video, A Let­ter to the Law, though they don’t nec­es­sar­i­ly lis­ten until the very end. And they also flag his sym­pa­thet­ic words direct­ed toward Joanne Ches­i­mard (aka Assa­ta Shakur), an ex-Black Pan­ther, con­vict­ed of killing a New Jer­sey police offi­cer in 1973. This all built up to the lat­est Jon Stew­art — Bill O’Reil­ly face­off, which drilled down to the ques­tion: Did the First Lady make a major gaffe? Or is this anoth­er case of selec­tive out­rage? Part 1 is above; Part II is here…

via @Frauenfelder

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Milky Way Panorama (with a Backstory)

in Astronomy, Science | May 16th, 2011


Nick Risinger, an ama­teur astronomer from Seat­tle, quit his day job last year, packed his bags and cam­eras, and began a 60,000 mile jour­ney, mov­ing across the Amer­i­can West and down to the west­ern Cape of South Africa (twice). His voy­age would end with a 5000-megapix­el pho­to­graph of the entire night sky, pro­duced from 37,440 sep­a­rate expo­sures, and it yields a stag­ger­ing 360-degree view of the Milky Way. Even bet­ter, the image now lives online in an inter­ac­tive for­mat, giv­ing you the abil­i­ty to wan­der through the cos­mos.

For more on this, be sure to vis­it Pho­topic Sky Sur­vey. Here Risinger gives you the per­son­al and tech­ni­cal back­sto­ry on his project, and also gives you the chance to pur­chase pho­tos, or even lend finan­cial sup­port to the sky sur­vey.

via The Mail Online

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The Book Trailer as Self-Parody: Stars Gary Shteyngart with James Franco Cameo

in Books, Comedy, Literature | May 16th, 2011

What can we say about Gary Shteyn­gart? The nov­el­ist appeared last year in The New Yorker’s 20 Under 40 Fic­tion Issue (which list­ed authors “who cap­ture the inven­tive­ness and the vital­i­ty of con­tem­po­rary Amer­i­can fic­tion.”) He teach­es writ­ing at Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty and counts James Fran­co as one of his stu­dents. And he’s will­ing to hus­tle a lit­tle to sell a book. When his nov­el Super Sad True Love Sto­ry came out last sum­mer (find NYTimes review here), the quirky Leningrad-born author (key to under­stand­ing what comes next) released a satir­i­cal, self-dep­re­cat­ing trail­er to pro­mote his book. Jef­frey Eugenides, Jay McIn­er­ney, Edmund White, Mary Gait­skill and Fran­co him­self all get in on the joke … which gets bet­ter as it goes along.

Shteyn­gart’s book just came out in paper­back last week. To mark the occa­sion, Fresh Air re-aired an inter­view with him (sans accent) last week. His book is also avail­able as an audio down­load via Audible.com, and here’s how you can snag a free copy…

Relat­ed:

Review­ing Jonathan Franzen’s “Free­dom” with Wit

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Free Short Films by Osamu Tezuka aka “The Japanese Walt Disney”

in Art, Film | May 16th, 2011

Over at Metafil­ter, Kári Tulin­ius has a post­ed a nice selec­tion of exper­i­men­tal short films by the great Japan­ese ani­ma­tor and man­ga artist Osamu Tezu­ka. Tezu­ka died in 1989, and although he’s most famous in the US for chil­dren’s car­toons like Astro-Boy and Kim­bo the White Lion (bet­ter known to every­one but the Walt Dis­ney Com­pa­ny’s lawyers as The Lion King), his achieve­ments extend­ed well beyond those two US hits. In his home coun­try, The God of Man­ga is right­ly con­sid­ered a nation­al trea­sure, and his mas­sive body of work includes a man­ga adap­ta­tion of Crime and Pun­ish­ment, a 12-vol­ume fan­ta­sy saga about immor­tal­i­ty, and the world’s first fea­ture-length ani­mat­ed porn movie.

These shorts pro­vide an excel­lent intro­duc­tion to Tezuka’s many moods and styles, from the inno­cent whim­sy of Mer­maid (1964), about a boy who falls in love with a mer­maid at sea.…


… to the caus­tic humor of Mem­o­ry (1964), a bit­ing med­i­ta­tion on our rose-tint­ed view of the past:


…to the light exu­ber­ance of Jump­ing (1984):


… and final­ly the full-blown apoc­a­lyp­tic dark­ness of Push (1987), as rel­e­vant now as it was 25 years go — if not more so:

See also: Male (1962), Bro­ken Down Film (1985), The Drop (1965), Sto­ry of a Street Cor­ner (1962), Gen­e­sis (1968), Mura­masa (1987), and this inter­view, in which the Tezu­ka dis­cuss­es his short exper­i­men­tal films…

via @brainpicker

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly

Relat­ed Con­tent 

The Ori­gins of Ani­me: Watch Ear­ly Japan­ese Ani­ma­tions (1917 to 1931)

The Art of Hand-Drawn Japan­ese Ani­me: A Deep Study of How Kat­suhi­ro Otomo’s Aki­ra Uses Light

Watch the Old­est Japan­ese Ani­me Film, Jun’ichi Kōuchi’s The Dull Sword (1917)

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A Paul Simon Feelin’-Very-Groovy Moment

in Life, Music | May 15th, 2011

Play­ing in Toron­to last week, Paul Simon did some­thing, well, awe­some. A fan asks him to play “Dun­can,” his 1972 clas­sic, and lets him know that she learned to play gui­tar to that song. So Simon agrees. And, even bet­ter, he invites her on stage to take over gui­tar and vocals. Ner­vous, almost hyper­ven­ti­lat­ing, she hes­i­tant­ly gets going, as does the crowd. From there, a big feel­in’ groovy moment unfolds, and it just gets bet­ter as it goes along. Kudos to NPR’s All Songs Con­sid­ered for mak­ing this great find …

Relat­ed Con­tent:

13,500 Sing “Hey Jude” in Trafal­gar Square

Paul Simon’s Christ­mas Gets Ani­mat­ed in April

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Bob Dylan Answers China Charges

in Current Affairs, Music | May 14th, 2011

Just last month, Bob Dylan played his first con­cert in Chi­na at the Worker’s Gym­na­si­um in Bei­jing. It was­n’t exact­ly a big show. Rough­ly 2,000 peo­ple attend­ed, but it became a big affair at home when NYTimes colum­nist Mau­reen Dowd wrote a caus­tic op-ed, accus­ing Dylan of play­ing a cen­sored set stripped of his rev­o­lu­tion­ary anthems. In short, she declared, Dylan went to Chi­na and sold out his 60s soul:

Icon­ic songs of rev­o­lu­tion like “The Times They Are a‑Changin,’ ” and “Blowin’ in the Wind” wouldn’t have been an appro­pri­ate sound­track for the 2,000 Chi­nese appa­ratchiks in the audi­ence tak­ing a relax­ing break from repres­sion.

Spooked by the surge of democ­ra­cy sweep­ing the Mid­dle East, Chi­na is con­duct­ing the harsh­est crack­down on artists, lawyers, writ­ers and dis­si­dents in a decade. It is cen­sor­ing (or “har­mo­niz­ing,” as it euphem­izes) the Inter­net and dis­patch­ing the secret police to arrest willy-nil­ly, includ­ing Ai Wei­wei, the famous artist and archi­tect of the Bird’s Nest, Beijing’s Olympic sta­di­um.

Dylan said noth­ing about Weiwei’s deten­tion, didn’t offer a reprise of “Hur­ri­cane,” his song about “the man the author­i­ties came to blame for some­thing that he nev­er done.” He sang his cen­sored set, took his pile of Com­mu­nist cash and left.

Now, in a note to fans, Dylan took the rare step of respond­ing to these (and oth­er) accu­sa­tions in a short let­ter pub­lished yes­ter­day. He writes:

As far as cen­sor­ship goes, the Chi­nese gov­ern­ment had asked for the names of the songs that I would be play­ing. There’s no log­i­cal answer to that, so we sent them the set lists from the pre­vi­ous 3 months. If there were any songs, vers­es or lines cen­sored, nobody ever told me about it and we played all the songs that we intend­ed to play.

I’m guess­ing this response will only part­ly sat­is­fy Dowd. Per­haps Dylan did­n’t change his set to please the appa­ratchiks. But did he miss an oppor­tu­ni­ty to make the right state­ment? Just maybe. But no mat­ter, we’re putting this behind us and get­ting ready for Dylan’s 70th birth­day on May 24. We still love him, warts and all…

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1956 Home Movie: Laurel & Hardy Together for the Last Time

in Comedy, Film | May 13th, 2011

There is no exact date for this silent home movie shot at the Rese­da, CA home of Stan Lau­rel’s daugh­ter, Lois. But the year must have been 1956, because, dur­ing that year, Oliv­er Hardy, the oth­er mem­ber of the great com­ic duo, lost more than 150 pounds, result­ing in a com­plete change of his out­ward appear­ance. Hardy had a mild heart attack in 1954 and start­ed look­ing after his health. But let­ters by Stan Lau­rel indi­cate that Oliv­er was also suf­fer­ing from can­cer. In Sep­tem­ber 1956 — prob­a­bly not long after this movie was made — Oliv­er suf­fered a major stroke, which left him unable to speak and con­fined to bed for sev­er­al months. Then, at the begin­ning of August 1957, he had two more strokes and slipped into a coma from which he nev­er recov­ered. He died on August 7 that year.

Exact­ly one week after Oliv­er’s death, Stan gave a rare radio inter­view and recount­ed the moment when he and Oliv­er met for the first time. The full, one-hour inter­view can be enjoyed here. Stan died on 23 Feb­ru­ary 1965 after suf­fer­ing a heart attack of his own. He was buried at For­est Park Memo­r­i­al Park in Bur­bank. Footage from the funer­al shows celebri­ties such as Dick Van Dyke, Buster Keaton and George Chan­dler in atten­dance. Stan’s friend Dick Van Dyke deliv­ered this mov­ing eulo­gy.

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