Charles Mingus’ “Top Secret” Eggnog Recipe Contains “Enough Alcohol to Put Down an Elephant”

in Food & Drink | December 24th, 2013

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Image by Tom Mar­cel­lo Web­ster, via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

Just in time for a hard-drink­ing Christ­mas, the Vil­lage Voice brings us the “top secret” eggnog recipe from “Angry Man of Jazz” Charles Min­gus. Despite his gen­er­al­ly iras­ci­ble tem­pera­ment, Min­gus had a leg­endary “zeal for par­ties and drink” and “felt the yule­tide spirit—or spir­its, if you will—according to biog­ra­ph­er Janet Cole­man.” Min­gus passed his recipe to Cole­man over the phone, and she pub­lished it in Mingus/Mingus: Two Mem­oirs. The ‘nog, the Voice tells us, “calls for enough alco­hol to put down an ele­phant,” so if you hap­pen to be host­ing one, this might just come in handy. Humans seem to dig it too. Cole­man called it “a con­coc­tion so deli­cious and mind-blow­ing, you would do any­thing to make sure you saw him at Christ­mas.”

Charles Min­gus’ “Top Secret” Eggnog

* Sep­a­rate one egg for one per­son. Each per­son gets an egg.
* Two sug­ars for each egg, each per­son.
* One shot of rum, one shot of brandy per per­son.
* Put all the yolks into one big pan, with some milk.
* That’s where the 151 proof rum goes. Put it in grad­u­al­ly or it’ll burn the eggs,
* OK. The whites are sep­a­rate and the cream is sep­a­rate.
* In anoth­er pot- depend­ing on how many peo­ple- put in one shot of each, rum and brandy. (This is after you whip your whites and your cream.)
* Pour it over the top of the milk and yolks.
* One tea­spoon of sug­ar. Brandy and rum.
* Actu­al­ly you mix it all togeth­er.
* Yes, a lot of nut­meg. Fresh nut­meg. And stir it up.
* You don’t need ice cream unless you’ve got peo­ple com­ing and you need to keep it cold. Vanil­la ice cream. You can use eggnog. I use vanil­la ice cream.
* Right, taste for fla­vor. Bour­bon? I use Jamaica Rum in there. Jamaican Rums. Or I’ll put rye in it. Scotch. It depends.
See, it depends on how drunk I get while I’m tast­ing it.

If you’re drink­ing tonight, make sure you drink respon­si­bly!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Try George Orwell’s Recipe for Christ­mas Pud­ding, from His Essay “British Cook­ery” (1945)

Pre­pare Mar­i­lyn Monroe’s Per­son­al, Hand­writ­ten Turkey-and-Stuff­ing Recipe on Thanks­giv­ing

Charles Min­gus Explains in His Gram­my-Win­ning Essay “What is a Jazz Com­pos­er?”

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

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Hear Kevin Smith’s Three Tips For Aspiring Filmmakers (NSFW)

in Film | December 24th, 2013

If you’re seek­ing advice about mak­ing your first film, Kevin Smith is a good place to start. The comedic direc­tor of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and Chas­ing Amy fame was a Hol­ly­wood out­sider when he made his debut with the crit­i­cal­ly acclaimed Clerks in 1994. The black and white fea­ture went on to gross $3.1 mil­lion — not bad for a Van­cou­ver Film School dropout who shot the movie in the con­ve­nience store where he once worked, on a total bud­get of $27,575.

In the clip above, Smith dis­pens­es a dose of ram­bling advice to Cana­di­an film­mak­er and video pro­duc­er Gavin Michael Booth. We’ve summed it up in three main points. Our sum­ma­ry lacks the exple­tives that makes Smith’s talk rather col­or­ful.

1 – “You have to have a rea­son­able amount of unrea­son­abil­i­ty” – Smith sug­gests that film­mak­ers must pos­sess an appro­pri­ate degree of self-belief and dri­ve, regard­less of the obsta­cles before them. If young film­mak­ers were rea­son­able about their chances of suc­cess, the only peo­ple mak­ing movies would be Los Ange­les natives already entrenched in the film indus­try.

2 – “You have to know… what hills you’re will­ing to die on.” The rea­son­able amount of unrea­son­abil­i­ty also refers to know­ing which bat­tles are worth fight­ing for. A direc­to­r­i­al vision is impor­tant, but at the end of the day it is sub­or­di­nate to bud­get con­straints.

3 – “You have to learn how to kill your babies.” Smith is an ardent believ­er in movies need­ing to be only as long as they must, and no longer. Includ­ing scenes because you like them unless they’re unequiv­o­cal­ly essen­tial is self-indul­gent and does a dis­ser­vice to the audi­ence.

If you’re after fur­ther tips, we’ve also writ­ten about Quentin Taran­ti­no joint­ly giv­ing film­mak­ing advice with Sam Rai­mi, and leg­endary Sovi­et direc­tor Andrei Tarkovsky’s coun­sel to begin­ner film­mak­ers. Plus we have 10 Tips From the Great Bil­ly Wilder on How to Write a Good Screen­play.

Ilia Blin­d­er­man is a Mon­tre­al-based cul­ture and sci­ence writer. Fol­low him at @iliablinderman

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Andy Warhol’s Christmas Art

in Art | December 24th, 2013

WarholChristmas1

You may have read our post on the cre­ative ways in which John Waters express­es his love for Christ­mas. We’d all like to receive one of the Christ­mas cards the Hair­spray film­mak­er has designed him­self every year since 1964, but did you know that anoth­er famous cre­ator, one also per­ceived as eccen­tric and pos­sessed of his very own con­cepts of taste, embraced the sea­son with equal artis­tic vig­or?  “Andy Warhol’s fond­ness for Campbell’s Soup cans is well doc­u­ment­ed,” writes Jen­nifer M. Wood at Men­tal Floss. “Less well known but equal­ly ardent was his love of the hol­i­day sea­son. Yes, from poin­set­tias to San­ta hats, the enig­mat­ic artist who promised we’d all have our 15 min­utes of fame spent much of the 1950s work­ing as a com­mer­cial illus­tra­tor spe­cial­iz­ing in blot­ted line draw­ings, cre­at­ing every­thing from shoe adver­tise­ments to greet­ing cards.”

WarholChristmas2

The arti­cle goes on to dis­play the fruits of Warhol’s pro­fes­sion­al and per­son­al inter­est in Christ­mas, which ran his per­son­al gamut of both tech­nique and visu­al sen­si­bil­i­ty. At the top, we have his sim­ple 1954 ink-and-paper draw­ing of a “Christ­mas Fairy,” bear­ing the greet­ing “Mer­ry Christ­mas to you.” Just above, you can see his col­or ren­der­ing, from three years lat­er, of a Christ­mas orna­ment. Wood reports that such works went up for sale at two events this year from fine-art auc­tion house Christie’s: “ ‘Warhol­i­day,’ a pop-up event at the San Fran­cis­co Mul­ber­ry Store [which] fea­tured 36 works by the late, great artist, some of them nev­er-before-seen and all of them for sale,” and “ ‘A Christ­mas Thing,’ an online-only auc­tion that fea­tured 100 orig­i­nal pho­tos, prints, and draw­ings from the mas­ter of Pop Art” ben­e­fit­ing The Andy Warhol Foun­da­tion for the Visu­al Arts.” And as we can call no pre­sen­ta­tion of Warhol’s work com­plete, even on Christ­mas Eve, with­out the inclu­sion of some­thing that will get a view­er or two ask­ing whether it counts as art at all, behold his 1981 Polaroid of San­ta Claus:

WarholChristmas3

Find more Andy Warhol Christ­mas-themed art at Men­tal Floss.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Andy Warhol Cre­ates Album Cov­ers for Jazz Leg­ends Thelo­nious Monk, Count Basie & Ken­ny Bur­rell

Roy Licht­en­stein and Andy Warhol Demys­ti­fy Their Pop Art in Vin­tage 1966 Film

John Waters Makes Hand­made Christ­mas Cards, Says the “Whole Pur­pose of Life is Christ­mas”

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on cities, Asia, film, lit­er­a­ture, and aes­thet­ics. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on his brand new Face­book page.

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Try George Orwell’s Recipe for Christmas Pudding, from His Essay “British Cookery” (1945)

in Food & Drink, Literature | December 24th, 2013

OrwellsPudding1

British cook­ing has been the butt of many jokes, and seri­ous thought-pieces have been devot­ed to “why British food was so bad for so long.” While that arti­cle blames WWI for the decline of Eng­lish Cui­sine, the stig­ma long pre­cedes the 20th cen­tu­ry. In his unpub­lished essay “British Cook­ery,” for exam­ple, George Orwell opens with a quote from Voltaire, who wrote that Britain has “a hun­dred reli­gions and only one sauce.” This, Orwell writes, “was untrue” and “is equal­ly untrue today.” His “today” was 1945, before the best British cui­sine was Indi­an. And though he does defend his country’s cook­ing, and did so in anoth­er essay pub­lished that year in the Evening Stan­dard, Orwell also makes some crit­i­cal com­ments that con­firm some of the stereo­types, call­ing the British diet “a sim­ple, rather heavy, per­haps slight­ly bar­barous diet” and writ­ing: “Cheap restau­rants in Britain are almost invari­ably bad, while in expen­sive restau­rants the cook­ery is almost always French, or imi­ta­tion French.”

OrwellsPudding2

The essay is an exhaus­tive sur­vey of the British palate of the time, and it con­cludes with some of Orwell’s own recipes for sweets, includ­ing trea­cle tart, orange mar­malade, plum cake, and, last­ly, Christ­mas pud­ding. You can see the stained type­script of the last two recipes above, and read the full tran­script of Orwell’s “British Cook­ery” here (the recipes are at the end). Hav­ing no expe­ri­ence with the strange world of British sweets and pies, I’ll have to take The Guardian’s Alex Renton’s word when he tells us that “the Orwell Christ­mas pud­ding is noth­ing rad­i­cal.” Nonethe­less, I’m tempt­ed to try this recipe more than any of the oth­ers Ren­ton men­tions, even if I may not get my hands on real suet or sul­tanas. Read a tran­script of Orwell’s Christ­mas pud­ding recipe below.

CHRISTMAS PUDDING.

Ingre­di­ents:

1 lb each of cur­rants, sul­tanas & raisins


2 ounces sweet almonds


1 ounces sweet almonds


1 ounces bit­ter almonds


4 ounces mixed peel


½ lb brown sug­ar


½ lb flour


¼ lb bread­crumbs


½ tea­spoon­ful salt


½ tea­spoon­ful grat­ed nut­meg


¼ tea­spoon­ful pow­dered cin­na­mon


6 ounces suet


The rind and juice of 1 lemon


5 eggs


A lit­tle milk


1/8 of a pint of brandy, or a lit­tle beer

 Method. Wash the fruit. Chop the suet, shred and chop the peel, stone and chop the raisins, blanch and chop the almonds. Pre­pare the bread­crumbs. Sift the spices and salt into the flour. Mix all the dry ingre­di­ents into a basin. Heat the eggs, mix them with the lemon juice and the oth­er liq­uids. Add to the dry ingre­di­ents and stir well. If the mix­ture is too stiff, add a lit­tle more milk. Allow the mix­ture to stand for a few hours in a cov­ered basin. Then mix well again and place in well-greased basins of about 8 inch­es diam­e­ter. Cov­er with rounds of greased paper. Then tie the tops of the basins over the floured cloths if the pud­dings are to be boiled, or with thick greased paper if they are to be steamed. Boil or steam for 5 or 6 hours. On the day when the pud­ding is to be eat­en, re-heat it by steam­ing it for 3 hours. When serv­ing, pour a large spoon­ful of warm brandy over it and set fire to it.

In Britain it is unusu­al to mix into each pud­ding one or two small coins, tiny chi­na dolls or sil­ver charms which are sup­posed to bring luck.

via Bib­liok­lept

Relat­ed Con­tent:

George Orwell and Dou­glas Adams Explain How to Make a Prop­er Cup of Tea

The Recipes of Icon­ic Authors: Jane Austen, Sylvia Plath, Roald Dahl, the Mar­quis de Sade & More

Pre­pare Mar­i­lyn Monroe’s Per­son­al, Hand­writ­ten Turkey-and-Stuff­ing Recipe on Thanks­giv­ing

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

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Charles Dickens’ Hand-Edited Copy of His Classic Holiday Tale, A Christmas Carol

in Literature | December 23rd, 2013

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Click for larg­er image

No hol­i­day sea­son can seem to pro­voke as much anx­i­ety, or even out­right dis­cord, as Christ­mas. But there are at least a few things most every­one can agree on. I would like to think one of them is A Char­lie Brown Christ­mas (and its sound­track). Anoth­er, I’m sure, is Charles Dick­ens’ A Christ­mas Car­ol (1843). Some read­ers might object to the tale’s maudlin sen­ti­men­tal­i­ty. But few would say it isn’t a great sto­ry, and well told. And in Dick­ens’ day, you might be lucky enough to catch the author him­self read­ing it aloud. Accord­ing to cura­tor Issac Gewirtz, Dick­ens gave some­where around 150 read­ings of A Christ­mas Car­ol. This, at a time, Gewirtz tells us, when “pub­lic read­ings of fic­tion or poet­ry [were] not done; it was con­sid­ered a des­e­cra­tion of one’s art and a low­er­ing of one’s dig­ni­ty.” Nev­er­the­less, while Dick­ens may have let his own chil­dren down, he would not dis­ap­point his loy­al read­ers.

CCarolEdited2

As is gen­er­al­ly the case when a work of prose goes to the stage, the text need­ed prun­ing. NPR’s All Things Con­sid­ered brings us these images of Dick­ens’ “prompt­book” for his per­for­mances, a copy of the text great­ly abridged by Dick­ens’ own hand and now resid­ing at the New York Pub­lic Library. While Dick­ens’ first per­for­mance ran three hours, lat­er ver­sions took about half that time. In-between, he slashed out whole para­graphs, sim­pli­fied words and phras­es, and removed entire pages. “What’s inter­est­ing to see,” says Gewirtz, “is how much of the atmos­pher­ics have been delet­ed.” Instead, Dick­ens con­veys the mood with mar­gin­al stage cues like “soft­en very much” and “tone to mys­tery.” It is intrigu­ing to imag­ine Dick­ens tak­ing on the roles of Scrooge, Mar­ley, and Cratch­et père and fils, but alas we’ll nev­er get to hear him. We can, how­ev­er, hear the voice of Dick­ens’ great-grandaugh­ter, nov­el­ist Mon­i­ca Dick­ens (below), who in 1950 record­ed her ver­sion of the fam­i­ly Christ­mas fable.

Monica’s daugh­ter Mary Dan­by, also a nov­el­ist, tells the BBC that her mother’s ren­di­tion is faith­ful to the Dick­ens’ fam­i­ly tra­di­tion of read­ings, begun by Charles him­self. There­fore, Monica’s phras­ing is as much like Charles Dick­ens’ as we’re like­ly to hear. Dick­en­sian­ism is still some­thing of a fam­i­ly busi­ness, as is writ­ing. “In my fam­i­ly,” says Dick­ens’ great-great-grandaugh­ter Mary, “they think you are a bit odd if you haven’t writ­ten a book.” Still, I doubt their Christ­mases are any bet­ter, or any worse, than the rest of ours.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

A Christ­mas Car­ol Pre­sent­ed in a Thomas Edi­son Film (1910)

A Christ­mas Car­ol, A Vin­tage Radio Broad­cast by Orson Welles and Lionel Bar­ry­more (1939)

Cel­e­brate the 200th Birth­day of Charles Dick­ens with Free Movies, eBooks and Audio Books

The His­toric Meet­ing Between Dick­ens and Dos­to­evsky Revealed as a Great Lit­er­ary Hoax

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

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Horror Legend Christopher Lee Presents a Heavy Metal Version of The Little Drummer Boy

in Comedy, Music | December 23rd, 2013

Every year, around this time, I give thanks that I no longer work retail. Sore feet and rude cus­tomers go with the ter­ri­to­ry, but Decem­ber (nay, Novem­ber) brings with it a ter­ri­fy­ing onslaught of Lit­tle Drum­mer Boys. I know folks who can’t abide Grand­ma Got Run Over By a Rein­deer, or the Singing Dogs’ Jin­gle Bells, but as far as I’m con­cerned, noth­ing has­tens a psy­chot­ic break faster than a few dozen pa rum pa pum pum pum rum pa pum pum pum rum pa pum pum pums.

It seems hor­ror leg­end Christo­pher Lee, famil­iar to younger fans as Star Wars’ Count Dooku, feels my pain..and rel­ish­es it. It’s a cliche for an aging actor to release an album of sea­son­al chest­nuts, but the 91-year-old Lee’s A Heavy Met­al Christ­mas is a thing apart. His take on The Lit­tle Drum­mer Boy is the son­ic equiv­a­lent of Rose­mary’s Baby.

I can’t say that I pre­fer Lee’s to any oth­er ver­sion — they’re all tor­tu­ous in my book- but I’m at peace with admir­ing it in the abstract. A stunt? Maybe, but he seems whol­ly sin­cere in his video greet­ing below, wish­ing us all a very hap­py Christ­mas and “for the sake of the world and those peo­ple in it” a safe New Year.

Ayun Hal­l­i­day reveals the true mean­ing of of Xmas here. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Christo­pher Lee Nar­rates a Beau­ti­ful Ani­ma­tion of Tim Burton’s Poem, Night­mare Before Christ­mas

Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven,” Read by Christo­pher Walken, Vin­cent Price, and Christo­pher Lee

Orson Welles Records Two Songs with the 1980s Heavy-Met­al Band Manowar

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Listen to the Beatles’ Christmas Records: Seven Vintage Recordings for Their Fans (1963 — 1969)

in Music | December 23rd, 2013

1963:

Every year from 1963 to 1969, the Bea­t­les record­ed a spe­cial Christ­mas greet­ing to their fans. It start­ed when “Beat­le­ma­nia” took off and the band found itself unable to answer all the fan mail.  “I’d love to reply per­son­al­ly to every­one,” says Lennon in the 1963 mes­sage, “but I just haven’t enough pens.” The first mes­sage was intend­ed to make their most loy­al fans feel appre­ci­at­ed. Like those that fol­lowed, the 1963 mes­sage was mailed as a paper-thin vinyl “flexi disc” to mem­bers of the Bea­t­les fan club. The record­ing fea­tures the Bea­t­les’ trade­mark wit and whim­sy, with a cho­rus of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Ringo” and a ver­sion of “Good King Wences­las” that refers to Bet­ty Grable. It was made on Octo­ber 17, 1963 at Abbey Road Stu­dios, just after the band record­ed “I Want to Hold Your Hand.”

1964:

The band record­ed their next hol­i­day greet­ing, Anoth­er Bea­t­les Christ­mas Record, on Octo­ber 26, 1964, the same day they record­ed the song “Hon­ey Don’t.” Lennon’s rebel­lious nature begins to show, as he pokes fun at the pre­pared script: “It’s some­body’s bad hand wrot­er.”

1965:

Record­ed on Novem­ber 8, 1965 dur­ing the Rub­ber Soul ses­sions at Abbey Road, the 1965 mes­sage fea­tures a re-work­ing of “Yes­ter­day,” with the refrain “Oh I believe on Christ­mas Day.” The band’s gift for free-asso­ci­a­tion­al role play­ing is becom­ing more appar­ent. One piece of dia­logue near the end was even­tu­al­ly re-used by pro­duc­er George Mar­tin and his son Giles at the end of the re-mixed ver­sion of “All You Need is Love” on the 2006 album Love: “All right put the lights off. This is John­ny Rhythm say­ing good night to you all and God Bless­es.”

1966:

You can sense the band’s cre­ative pow­ers grow­ing in the 1966 mes­sage, Pan­tomime: Every­where It’s Christ­mas. The record­ing was made at Abbey Road on Novem­ber 25, 1966, dur­ing a break from work­ing on “Straw­ber­ry Fields For­ev­er.” The Bea­t­les were just begin­ning work on Sgt. Pep­per’s Lone­ly Heart’s Club Band. Instead of sim­ply thank­ing their fans and recount­ing the events of the year, the Bea­t­les use sound effects and dia­logue to cre­ate a vaude­ville play based around a song that goes, “Every­where it’s Christ­mas, at the end of every year.” Paul McCart­ney designed the cov­er.

1967:


This was the last Christ­mas mes­sage record­ed by the Bea­t­les all togeth­er in one place. Titled Christ­mas Time (Is Here Again), it reveals the group’s con­tin­u­ing exper­i­men­ta­tion with sound effects and sto­ry­telling. The sce­nario, writ­ten by the band ear­li­er on the day it was record­ed (Novem­ber 28, 1967), is about a group of peo­ple audi­tion­ing for a BBC radio play. Lennon and Ringo Starr designed the cov­er.

1968:

By the Christ­mas sea­son of 1968, rela­tions with­in the Bea­t­les were becom­ing strained. The hol­i­day mes­sage was pro­duced around the time the “White Album” was released, in Novem­ber of 1968. The four mem­bers’ voic­es were record­ed sep­a­rate­ly, in var­i­ous loca­tions. There’s plen­ty of self-mock­ery. Per­haps the most strik­ing moment comes when the Amer­i­can singer Tiny Tim (invit­ed by George Har­ri­son) strums a ukulele and sings “Nowhere Man” in a high falset­to.

1969:

The Bea­t­les were in the process of break­ing up when they record­ed (sep­a­rate­ly) their final Christ­mas mes­sage in Novem­ber and Decem­ber of 1969. A cou­ple of months ear­li­er, just before the release of Abbey Road, Lennon had announced to the oth­ers that he was leav­ing the group. Yoko Ono appears promi­nent­ly on the record­ing, singing and talk­ing with Lennon about peace. Fit­ting­ly, the 1969 mes­sage incor­po­rates a snip­pet from the Abbey Road record­ing of “The End.”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Bea­t­les: Unplugged Col­lects Acoustic Demos of White Album Songs (1968)

Peter Sell­ers Reads The Bea­t­les’ “She Loves You” in Four Dif­fer­ent Accents

The 10-Minute, Nev­er-Released, Exper­i­men­tal Demo of The Bea­t­les’ “Rev­o­lu­tion” (1968)

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The Rolling Stones “Shattered” Covered by Eddie Vedder & Julie Andrews (Ok, It’s Really Jeanne Tripplehorn)

in Music | December 23rd, 2013

Pearl Jam front­man Eddie Ved­der and actress Jeanne Trip­ple­horn (Basic Instinct, The Firm, Big Love) per­formed this delight­ful cov­er of The Rolling Stones’ 1978 hit “Shat­tered” at a recent fundrais­er for a non-prof­it called Heal EB. EB stands for Epi­der­mol­y­sis Bul­losa, a dis­ease that caus­es blis­ters (some­times poten­tial­ly fatal ones) to erupt on the skin after the mildest trau­ma. You can lis­ten to The Rolling Stones’ orig­i­nal record­ing here, and fol­low along with the lyrics here. Or, bet­ter yet, you can close your eyes and sim­ply imag­ine Julie Andrews singing these risqué‎ lines. Yeah, on sec­ond thought, do that. H/T Marc

Don’t miss any­thing from Open Cul­ture. Sign up for our Dai­ly Email or RSS Feed. And we’ll send cul­tur­al curiosi­ties your way, every day.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch the Rolling Stones Write “Sym­pa­thy for the Dev­il”: A High­light in Godard’s ’68 Film One Plus One

The Rolling Stones Jam With Their Idol, Mud­dy Waters

The Rolling Stones Sing Jin­gle for Rice Krispies Com­mer­cial (1964)

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How to Get Great Deals on Great Books Through Audible.com

in Audio Books | December 22nd, 2013

Open Cul­ture has had a rela­tion­ship with Audible.com for close to six years, and, here and there, we’ve told you about their 30-day free tri­al, which gives you the oppor­tu­ni­ty to down­load a free audio book, lis­ten to it, and then decide whether you want to become an Audi­ble sub­scriber or not. (You can keep the audio book regard­less of the deci­sion you make.) I per­son­al­ly became an Audi­ble sub­scriber a long time ago, and while I’ve always enjoyed lis­ten­ing to audio books, I’ve recent­ly real­ized that an Audi­ble sub­scrip­tion can be a real deal if you’re a fan of big audio books and great lec­tures. Let me break it down for you.

If you sign up for Audi­ble’s Gold plan, you pay $158 for 12 books over a year. (You get one book credit/download per month … and you’re billed in install­ments month­ly.) That trans­lates to $13.20 per book on aver­age. That’s not a bad price (giv­en that main­stream audio books often sell for $30). But here’s where the Audi­ble plan becomes a great deal. Ear­li­er this fall, I re-read Joyce’s Ulysses and want­ed to lis­ten to a pro­fes­sion­al­ly-read unabridged nar­ra­tion of the nov­el that runs 27 hours. For the cost of one book cred­it — $13.20 — I down­loaded the entire audio book. Nax­os, the pub­lish­er, sells it for  £85.00, or $134.00. Audi­ble sells it to non-mem­bers for $104.00.

Here’s anoth­er exam­ple. For the hol­i­days, I’m lis­ten­ing to Mark Lewisohn’s new Bea­t­les biog­ra­phy Tune In: The Bea­t­les: All These Years. The well-reviewed book runs 944 pages in print and 42 hours on audio. The audio usu­al­ly retails for some­where between $53 and $63 — much more than the $13.20 you can snag it for on the Audi­ble plan.

If this sounds like a good plan for you, you can sign up for Audi­ble’s Gold plan via this link. You could also try out their 30-day free tri­al. And, of course, there’s always our col­lec­tion: 1,000 Free Audio Books: Down­load Great Books for Free. What­ev­er way you go, we wish you hap­py lis­ten­ing.

NB: Audi­ble is an Amazon.com sub­sidiary, and we’re a mem­ber of their affil­i­ate pro­gram.

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Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin & Michael Collins Go Through Customs and Sign Immigration Form After the First Moon Landing (1969)

in Science | December 22nd, 2013

Apollo-11-Immigration-02

Click for larg­er image

I’m not say­ing Man of Steel depressed me, but I found myself pin­ing for Richard Donner’s sense of humor recent­ly as I watched Zack Snyder’s take on Super­man for the first time. I thought of a scene—Superman has to go through immi­gra­tion once he’s dis­cov­ered. They won’t let him in. He’s too high-mind­ed to resist, so he sleeps in an air­port wait­ing room for six months. Plen­ty of dra­mat­ic poten­tial there.

Less pre­pos­ter­ous but still absurd is the sto­ry around the doc­u­ment above, signed by Neil Arm­strong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins after they land­ed from the first manned trip to the moon. The three astro­nauts came down in the Pacif­ic Ocean and were tak­en to Hon­olu­lu on July 24, 1969, where they sup­pos­ed­ly signed the immi­gra­tion form, declar­ing a car­go of moon rocks and dust.

The form, NASA spokesper­son John Yem­brick told Space.com, is authen­tic. And, he says, it was a joke. He does not, how­ev­er, say exact­ly when the form was signed, either on the day the crew splashed down or some­time after­ward. They did not actu­al­ly arrive in Hon­olu­lu until the 26th. After their return,

The astro­nauts were trapped inside a NASA trail­er as part of a quar­an­tine effort just in case they brought back any germs or dis­ease from the moon. They even wore spe­cial bio­log­i­cal con­tain­ment suits when they walked out on the deck of the USS Hor­net after being retrieved. 

NASA trans­port­ed them to Hous­ton, quar­an­tine trail­er and all, and they emerged from iso­la­tion three weeks lat­er.

Astro­nauts these days most­ly just need a show­er when they touch down, although inter­net savvy Inter­na­tion­al Space Sta­tion astro­naut Chris Had­field did recent­ly tell some cus­toms relat­ed sto­ries on a Red­dit AMA—maybe noth­ing so weird as the cur­rent space snor­kel­ing up there, but still a pret­ty great read.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

“Moon Hoax Not”: Short Film Explains Why It Was Impos­si­ble to Fake the Moon Land­ing

Michio Kaku Schools Takes on Moon Land­ing-Con­spir­a­cy Believ­er on His Sci­ence Fan­tas­tic Pod­cast

Dark Side of the Moon: A Mock­u­men­tary on Stan­ley Kubrick and the Moon Land­ing Hoax

Find Astron­o­my Cours­es in our Col­lec­tion of 800 Free Cours­es Online

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

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Toni Morrisson: Forget Writing About What You Know; Write About What You Don’t Know

in Literature, Writing | December 22nd, 2013

On Decem­ber 12th, the New York Pub­lic Library host­ed a live pro­gram fea­tur­ing Pulitzer Prize-win­ning author Junot Díaz in con­ver­sa­tion with the writer who most deeply influ­enced his career, Toni Mor­ri­son, win­ner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Lit­er­a­ture. The talk was orig­i­nal­ly streamed live on the web (includ­ing our site), and now you can watch a record­ed ver­sion below, plus some high­lights above. Intro­duc­tions by Paul Hold­en­gräber and friends begin at the 40:09 mark, and every­thing gets real­ly going at the 49:35 time­stamp in the video below. Despite some nerves, Díaz engages his now 82 year-old lit­er­ary idol in a con­ver­sa­tion that’s engag­ing, col­or­ful, some­times even amus­ing­ly off-col­or — like when he tells Mor­ri­son “you can out­write every motherf#cker on the plan­et sen­tence for sen­tence.” The inter­view touch­es on her for­ma­tive years as a writer and edi­tor, and then her years writ­ing her mas­ter­ful nov­els — Song of Solomon, Beloved and the rest. Com­men­tary on the craft of writ­ing is sprin­kled through­out. If you’d like to get Mor­rison’s writ­ing advice in a neat­ly-pack­aged for­mat, please see our pre­vi­ous posts: Toni Mor­ri­son Dis­pens­es Writ­ing Wis­dom in 1993 Paris Review Inter­view and Toni Mor­ri­son, Nora Ephron, and Dozens More Offer Advice in Free Cre­ative Writ­ing “Mas­ter Class”.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Writ­ing Tips by Hen­ry Miller, Elmore Leonard, Mar­garet Atwood, Neil Gaiman & George Orwell

Ray Brad­bury Gives 12 Pieces of Writ­ing Advice to Young Authors (2001)

Sev­en Tips From F. Scott Fitzger­ald on How to Write Fic­tion

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