Noam Chomsky on ChatGPT: It’s “Basically High-Tech Plagiarism” and “a Way of Avoiding Learning”

in Education, Technology | February 10th, 2023

Chat­G­PT, the sys­tem that under­stands nat­ur­al lan­guage and responds in kind, has caused a sen­sa­tion since its launch less than three months ago. If you’ve tried it out, you’ll sure­ly have won­dered what it will soon rev­o­lu­tion­ize — or, as the case may be, what it will destroy. Among Chat­G­P­T’s first vic­tims, holds one now-com­mon view, will be a form of writ­ing that gen­er­a­tions have grown up prac­tic­ing through­out their edu­ca­tion. “The essay, in par­tic­u­lar the under­grad­u­ate essay, has been the cen­ter of human­is­tic ped­a­gogy for gen­er­a­tions,” writes Stephen Marche in The Atlantic. “It is the way we teach chil­dren how to research, think, and write. That entire tra­di­tion is about to be dis­rupt­ed from the ground up.”

If Chat­G­PT becomes able instan­ta­neous­ly to whip up a plau­si­ble-sound­ing aca­d­e­m­ic essay on any giv­en top­ic, what future could there be for the aca­d­e­m­ic essay itself? The host of YouTube chan­nel EduK­itchen puts more or less that very ques­tion to Noam Chom­sky — a thinker who can be relied upon for views on edu­ca­tion — in the new inter­view above. “For years there have been pro­grams that have helped pro­fes­sors detect pla­gia­rized essays,” Chom­sky says. “Now it’s going to be more dif­fi­cult, because it’s eas­i­er to pla­gia­rize. But that’s about the only con­tri­bu­tion to edu­ca­tion that I can think of.” He does admit that Chat­G­PT-style sys­tems “may have some val­ue for some­thing,” but “it’s not obvi­ous what.”

As the rel­e­vant tech­nol­o­gy now stands, Chom­sky sees the use of Chat­G­PT as “basi­cal­ly high-tech pla­gia­rism” and “a way of avoid­ing learn­ing.” He likens its rise to that of the smart­phone: many stu­dents “sit there hav­ing a chat with some­body on their iPhone. One way to deal with that is to ban iPhones; anoth­er way to do it is to make the class inter­est­ing.” That stu­dents instinc­tive­ly employ high tech­nol­o­gy to avoid learn­ing is “a sign that the edu­ca­tion­al sys­tem is fail­ing.” If it “has no appeal to stu­dents, does­n’t inter­est them, does­n’t chal­lenge them, does­n’t make them want to learn, they’ll find ways out,” just as he him­self did when he bor­rowed a friend’s notes to pass a dull col­lege chem­istry class with­out attend­ing it back in 1945.

After spend­ing most of his career teach­ing at MIT, Chom­sky retired in 2002 to become a full-time pub­lic intel­lec­tu­al. The Uni­ver­si­ty of Hous­ton’s Robert Zaret­sky, who still teach­es, recent­ly offered his own, grim­mer take on Chat­G­PT and edu­ca­tion. “The col­lege essay died years ago,” he argues. “It’s a mug’s game in which a stu­dent sends me an elec­tron­ic file that, when open, spills out a jum­ble of words that the sender pro­pounds to be a fin­ished paper” — to which, pre­sum­ably, the out­put of a machine-learn­ing sys­tem would actu­al­ly be far prefer­able. Most tech­no­log­i­cal “dis­rup­tions” leave both pos­i­tive and neg­a­tive effects in their wake. If the col­lege essay is indeed unsal­vage­able, per­haps Chat­G­PT will final­ly bring about its replace­ment with some­thing more inter­est­ing.

Update: Chom­sky has co-authored an op-ed in The New York Times called “The False Promise of Chat­G­PT”. Find it here.

Relat­ed con­tent:

Noam Chom­sky Explains Where Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence Went Wrong

Chat­G­PT Writes a Song in the Style of Nick Cave–and Nick Cave Calls it “a Grotesque Mock­ery of What It Is to Be Human”

Noam Chom­sky Defines What It Means to Be a Tru­ly Edu­cat­ed Per­son

Thanks to Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence, You Can Now Chat with His­tor­i­cal Fig­ures: Shake­speare, Ein­stein, Austen, Socrates & More

Noam Chom­sky Spells Out the Pur­pose of Edu­ca­tion

Based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities, the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

Contribute a Song to WNYC’s Public Song Project & Use Your Creativity to Explore the Public Domain

in Books, Film, Literature, Music | January 20th, 2023

We rec­og­nize that Open Cul­ture read­ers are a cre­ative bunch.

As proof, we point to your Get­ty Muse­um Chal­lenge entries and the fact that one of your num­ber won Yale Uni­ver­si­ty Press’s Kaf­ka Cap­tion Con­test.

We’ve iden­ti­fied anoth­er oppor­tu­ni­ty to show off your cre­ative streak, com­pli­ments of All Of It with Ali­son Stew­art, a dai­ly live cul­ture pro­gram on WNYC, New York City’s pub­lic radio sta­tion.

You have until Feb­ru­ary 13 to write and record an orig­i­nal song inspired by a work in the pub­lic domain, and sub­mit it to The All Of It Pub­lic Song Project.

Ama­teurs are wel­come to take a crack at it and any genre is crick­et, includ­ing rap, spo­ken word, and instru­men­tals.

Even if you lim­it your­self to the works that entered the pub­lic domain on Jan­u­ary 1 of this year, the pos­si­bil­i­ties are almost end­less.

Should you be inclined toward a faith­ful cov­er, we encour­age you to con­sid­er one of 1927’s deep cuts, like Fats Waller’s “Sooth­in’ Syrup Stomp” or Jel­ly Roll Mor­ton’s “Hye­na Stomp,” though we under­stand the attrac­tion of Irv­ing Berlin’s endur­ing­ly pop­u­lar “Puttin’ on the Ritz”.

Apolo­gies to Emi­ly Joy, the accom­plished young clas­si­cal pianist, above — par­tic­i­pa­tion is lim­it­ed to entrants aged 18 or old­er.

The rest of us are free to invent new lyrics for an exist­ing com­po­si­tion, or a brand new tune for exist­ing lyrics.

You might musi­cal­ize a poem or speech, some dia­logue from a film, or a page from a book.

A blue­grass spin on Fritz Lang’s Metrop­o­lis, per­haps?

A death met­al re-envi­sion­ing of But­ter­cup Days from A.A. Milne’s Now We Are Six?

How about a sis­sy bounce take on these lines from “The Adven­ture of the Mazarin Stone,” the first short sto­ry in Arthur Conan Doyle’s col­lec­tion, The Case-Book of Sher­lock Holmes:

“Bil­ly, you will see a large and ugly gen­tle­man out­side the front door. Ask him to come up.”

“If he won’t come, sir?”

“No vio­lence, Bil­ly. Don’t be rough with him. If you tell him that Count Sylvius wants him he will cer­tain­ly come.”

“What are you going to do now?” asked the Count as Bil­ly dis­ap­peared.

“My friend Wat­son was with me just now. I told him that I had a shark and a gud­geon in my net; now I am draw­ing the net and up they come togeth­er.”

The Count had risen from his chair, and his hand was behind his back. Holmes held some­thing half pro­trud­ing from the pock­et of his dress­ing-gown.

“You won’t die in your bed, Holmes.”

Okay, we’re being sil­ly, but only because we don’t want to put ideas in your head!

You could even con­coct some­thing entire­ly new — per­haps a bal­lad from the POV of To the Light­house’s young James Ram­say, or a dit­ty apol­o­giz­ing to Vir­ginia Woolf for read­ing the Cliffs Notes instead of the actu­al nov­el when it was assigned in your col­lege Women’s Lit­er­a­ture class.

…we’re doing it again, aren’t we?

All right, we’ll leave you to it, with a reminder that any­thing out­side of your pub­lic domain source mate­r­i­al must be whol­ly orig­i­nal — no bor­row­ing a catchy tune from Lennon and McCart­ney, capis­ci?

Win­ners will get a chance to dis­cuss their works on WNYC and all qual­i­fy­ing entries will be post­ed at contest’s end for the public’s lis­ten­ing plea­sure.

Con­test rules and infor­ma­tion on how to sub­mit to The All Of It Pub­lic Song Project can be found here.

Good luck! We can’t wait to hear what you come up with.

Relat­ed Con­tent

What’s Enter­ing the Pub­lic Domain in 2023: Fritz Lang’s Metrop­o­lis, Vir­ginia Woolf’s To the Light­house, Franz Kafka’s Ameri­ka & More

A Search Engine for Find­ing Free, Pub­lic Domain Images from World-Class Muse­ums

400,000+ Sound Record­ings Made Before 1923 Have Entered the Pub­lic Domain

- Ayun Hal­l­i­day is the Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine and author, most recent­ly, of Cre­ative, Not Famous: The Small Pota­to Man­i­festo and Cre­ative, Not Famous Activ­i­ty Book. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

“Weird Al” Yankovic Breaks Down His Most Iconic Tracks: “Eat It,” “Amish Paradise,” “White and Nerdy,” and His Other Hilarious Songs

in Comedy, Music | January 3rd, 2023

Few things could have been more amus­ing to a twelve-year-old in 1996 than an Amish-themed par­o­dy of the late Coo­lio’s por­ten­tous­ly grim life-in-the-hood anthem “Gangsta’s Par­adise.” As luck would have it, “Weird Al” Yankovic released just such a song in 1996, when I hap­pened to be twelve years old myself. Like every­one who’s been a kid at some point in the past 40 years, I grew up hear­ing and appre­ci­at­ing Yankovic’s pro­lif­ic out­put of par­o­dies, pas­tich­es, and even orig­i­nal songs. From “Eat It” to “Smells like Nir­vana” to “White and Nerdy,” there was hard­ly a pop-music phase of my child­hood, ado­les­cence, and ear­ly adult­hood that he did­n’t make fun­ny.

That’s to make fun­ny, as dis­tinct from to make fun of: unlike that of a pre­de­ces­sor in com­e­dy song­writ­ing like Tom Lehrer, Yankovic’s body of work evi­dences not the least ten­den­cy toward harsh­ness or ridicule.

Hence his appeal from his very first record­ing “My Bol­og­o­na,” an accor­dion-based par­o­dy of “My Sharona” record­ed in the bath­room of his col­lege radio sta­tion, to no less an advo­cate of silli­ness than Dr. Demen­to, whose air­play launched the young Weird Al’s career — a career that, as Yankovic acknowl­edges while telling the sto­ries behind his icon­ic songs in the GQ video above, has not gone with­out its strokes of luck.

Yet few liv­ing per­form­ers more clear­ly per­son­i­fy the old apho­rism describ­ing luck as the meet­ing of prepa­ra­tion and oppor­tu­ni­ty. “Weird Al approach­es the com­po­si­tion of his music with some­thing like the holy pas­sion of Michelan­ge­lo paint­ing the ceil­ing of the Sis­tine Chapel,” writes Sam Ander­son in a 2020 New York Times Mag­a­zine pro­file. See­ing Yankovic’s notes for “White & Nerdy” “file felt like watch­ing a super­com­put­er crunch through pos­si­ble chess moves. Every sin­gle vari­able had to be con­sid­ered, in every sin­gle line.” To work in musi­cal form, even the sil­li­est humor demands his total ded­i­ca­tion.

Yankovic has long showed a will­ing­ness straight­for­ward­ly to dis­cuss what it’s like to be Weird Al, as well as what it takes to be Weird Al. For a con­sid­er­ably less straight­for­ward ver­sion, we can watch The Roku Chan­nel’s new Weird: The Al Yankovic Sto­ry. Most biopics take artis­tic lib­er­ties with the lives of their sub­jects, but Weird goes all the way, par­o­dy­ing the very form of the biopic itself while per­form­ing colos­sal (and sure­ly fan-delight­ing) exag­ger­a­tions of the facts of Yankovic’s life. In the GQ video, for exam­ple, he men­tions get­ting the idea for “Like a Sur­geon” by hear­ing Madon­na throw it out in an inter­view; in the trail­er above, Madon­na turns at the door at his opu­lent man­sion, a ver­i­ta­ble suc­cubus ready to drag him into the musi­cal under­world. And it seems a safe bet that things only get Weird­er there­after.

Relat­ed con­tent:

“Weird Al” Yankovic Releas­es “Word Crimes,” a Gram­mar Nerd Par­o­dy of “Blurred Lines”

Two Leg­ends: Weird Al Yankovic “Inter­views” James Brown (1986)

Dr. Demento’s New Punk Album Fea­tures William Shat­ner Singing The Cramps, Weird Al Yankovic Singing The Ramones & Much More

Mon­ty Python’s Eric Idle Breaks Down His Most Icon­ic Char­ac­ters

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities, the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

Albert Camus’ Lessons Learned from Playing Goalie: “What I Know Most Surely about Morality and Obligations, I Owe to Football”

in Philosophy, Sports | December 7th, 2022

Here’s a vin­tage foot­ball [aka soc­cer] post in cel­e­bra­tion of the World Cup…

Albert Camus once said, “After many years in which the world has afford­ed me many expe­ri­ences, what I know most sure­ly in the long run about moral­i­ty and oblig­a­tions, I owe to foot­ball.”

He was refer­ring to his col­lege days when he played goalie for the Rac­ing Uni­ver­si­taire d’Al­ger (RUA) junior team. Camus was a decent play­er, though not the great play­er that leg­end lat­er made him out to be.

For Jim White, author of A Mat­ter of Life and Death: A His­to­ry of Foot­ball in 100 Quo­ta­tions, soc­cer per­haps taught Camus a few things about self­less­ness, coop­er­a­tion, brav­ery and resilience. That’s a sun­ny way of look­ing at things. But per­haps The Tele­graph gets at the deep­er, dark­er life lessons Camus took away from soc­cer:

[T]here is some­thing appro­pri­ate about a philoso­pher like Camus sta­tion­ing him­self between the sticks [that is, in goal]. It is a lone­ly call­ing, an indi­vid­ual iso­lat­ed with­in a team eth­ic, one who plays to dif­fer­ent con­straints. If his team scores, the keep­er knows it is noth­ing to do with him. If the oppo­si­tion score, how­ev­er, it is all his fault. Stand­ing sen­tinel in goal, Camus had plen­ty of time to reflect on the absur­dist nature of his posi­tion.

And per­haps the absur­dist nature of life itself…

Camus — who appears in the pic­ture up top, wear­ing the dark col­or jer­sey in the front row — con­tract­ed tuber­cu­lo­sis when he was only 18 years old. His lungs too dam­aged to con­tin­ue play­ing sports, the young man turned to phi­los­o­phy. When Camus moved from Alge­ria to France, he learned that phi­los­o­phy was a rough and tum­ble game too — some­thing his soc­cer days pre­pared him for. He once quipped, “I learned … that a ball nev­er arrives from the direc­tion you expect­ed it. That helped me in lat­er life, espe­cial­ly in main­land France, where nobody plays straight.”

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:

Why Jorge Luis Borges Hat­ed Soc­cer: “Soc­cer is Pop­u­lar Because Stu­pid­i­ty is Pop­u­lar”

What is Albert Camus’ The Plague About? An Intro­duc­tion

Video: The Day Bob Mar­ley Played a Big Soc­cer Match in Brazil, 1980

Bene­dict Cum­ber­batch Reads Albert Camus’ Touch­ing Thank You Let­ter to His Ele­men­tary School Teacher

Ancient Roman Coins Reveal the Existence of a Forgotten Roman Emperor

in History | November 28th, 2022

Image by Paul Pear­son, Uni­ver­si­ty Col­lege Lon­don

You may think you know your Roman emper­ors, but do you rec­og­nize the face on the coin above? His name was Spon­sian, or Spon­sianus, and he lived in the mid­dle of the third cen­tu­ry. Or at least he did accord­ing to cer­tain the­o­ries: van­ish­ing­ly lit­tle is known about him, and in fact, this very gold piece (above) is the only evi­dence we have that he ever exist­ed. Giv­en that numis­ma­tists have long writ­ten the coin off as an eigh­teenth-cen­tu­ry fake, it’s pos­si­ble that emper­or Spon­sian could be a whol­ly apoc­ryphal fig­ure — but it’s become a bit less like­ly since the coin went under the elec­tron micro­scope ear­li­er this year.

“Using mod­ern imag­ing tech­nol­o­gy, the researchers said they found ‘deep micro-abra­sion pat­terns’ that were ‘typ­i­cal­ly asso­ci­at­ed with coins that were in cir­cu­la­tion for an exten­sive peri­od of time,’ ” writes the New York Times’ April Rubin.

“In addi­tion, the researchers ana­lyzed earth­en deposits, find­ing what they called evi­dence that the coin had been buried for a long time before being exhumed.” In the details of their design, they’re also “unchar­ac­ter­is­tic” of forg­eries cre­at­ed in the eigh­teenth cen­tu­ry. If this Spon­sian-head­ed mon­ey is fraud­u­lent, then, it’s at least authen­ti­cal­ly old, or at least much old­er than had long been assumed.

You can find the pub­lished research paper here, at the site of its jour­nal PLOS ONE. Sum­ma­riz­ing find­ings in the paper, a Uni­ver­si­ty Col­lege Lon­don site notes: “The coin … was among a hand­ful of coins of the same design unearthed in Tran­syl­va­nia, in present-day Roma­nia, in 1713. They have been regard­ed as fakes since the mid-19th-cen­tu­ry, due to their crude, strange design fea­tures and jum­bled inscrip­tions.” Accord­ing to Pro­fes­sor Paul N. Pear­son, the lead author of the research paper: “Sci­en­tif­ic analy­sis of these ultra-rare coins res­cues the emper­or Spon­sian from obscu­ri­ty. Our evi­dence sug­gests he ruled Roman Dacia, an iso­lat­ed gold min­ing out­post, at a time when the empire was beset by civ­il wars and the bor­der­lands were over­run by plun­der­ing invaders.” Jes­per Eric­s­son, a cura­tor at The Hunter­ian at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Glas­gow, adds: “we hope that this [research] encour­ages fur­ther debate about Spon­sian as a his­tor­i­cal fig­ure” and sparks more research into “coins relat­ing to [Spon­sian] held in oth­er muse­ums across Europe.”

Keep tabs on the Spon­sianus Wikipedia page to learn more about this long-lost Roman emper­or.

Relat­ed con­tent:

Every Roman Emper­or: A Video Time­line Mov­ing from Augus­tus to the Byzan­tine Empire’s Last Ruler, Con­stan­tine XI

Mod­ern Artists Show How the Ancient Greeks & Romans Made Coins, Vas­es & Arti­sanal Glass

What Did the Roman Emper­ors Look Like?: See Pho­to­re­al­is­tic Por­traits Cre­at­ed with Machine Learn­ing

The Ups & Downs of Ancient Rome’s Econ­o­my — All 1,900 Years of It — Get Doc­u­ment­ed by Pol­lu­tion Traces Found in Greenland’s Ice

How the Ancient Mayans Used Choco­late as Mon­ey

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities, the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

Joni Mitchell Tells Elton John the Stories Behind Her Iconic Songs: “Both Sides Now,” “Carey” & More

in Apple, Life, Music | November 14th, 2022

When Joni Mitchell heard the great cabaret artist Mabel Mer­cer in con­cert, she was so struck by the old­er woman’s ren­di­tion of “Both Sides Now,” the endur­ing bal­lad Mitchell wrote at the ten­der age of 23, that she went back­stage to show her appre­ci­a­tion:

… but I didn’t tell her that I was the author. So, I said, y’know, I’ve heard var­i­ous record­ings of that song, but you bring some­thing to it, y’know, that oth­er peo­ple haven’t been able to do. You know, it’s not a song for an ingenue. You have to bring some age to it. 

Well, she took offense. I insult­ed her. I called her an old lady, as far as she was con­cerned. So I got out of there in a hell of a hur­ry! 

But I think I final­ly became an old lady myself and could sing the song right.

This is just one of many can­did treats to be found in Mitchell’s inter­view with Elton John, for his Apple Music 1 show Rock­et Hour.

For the most part, Mitchell’s rem­i­nis­cences coa­lesce around var­i­ous icon­ic tracks from her near­ly six­ty years in the music indus­try.

“Carey,” off Mitchell’s 1971 album Blue, sparks mem­o­ries of an explod­ing stove dur­ing a hip­pie-era sojourn in Mata­la on Crete’s south coast, with an Odyssey ref­er­ence thrown in for good mea­sure.

“Amelia” was hatched, as were most of the tunes on 1976’s Heji­ra, while Mitchell was on a solo road trip in a sec­ond­hand Mer­cedes, an expe­ri­ence that caused her to dwell on the first female avi­a­tor to cross the Atlantic solo. (She scrib­bled down lyrics that had come to her at the wheel when­ev­er she pulled over for lunch.)

Regard­ing “Sex Kills” from 1994’s Tur­bu­lent Indi­go, John quotes a Rolling Stone arti­cle in which Mitchell dis­cussed the “ugli­ness” she was detect­ing in pop­u­lar music:

I think it’s on the increase. Espe­cial­ly towards women. I’ve nev­er been a fem­i­nist, but we haven’t had pop songs up until recent­ly that were so aggres­sive­ly dan­ger­ous to women.

“What did you mean by that?” John asks. “ Peo­ple say­ing rap music with ‘my hos’ and stuff like that?”

“Oh, well, y’know, yeah,” Mitchell says, “Hos and booty, y’know, haha­hah.”

She may not seem over­ly fussed about it now, but don’t get her start­ed on what young women wear to the Gram­mys!

John also invit­ed Mitchell to dis­cuss three songs that have influ­enced her.

Her picks:

Lam­bert, Hen­dricks & Ross’s “Charleston Alley” (a musi­cal epiphany as a high school­er at a col­lege par­ty)

Edith Piaf’s “Les Trois Cloches” (a musi­cal epiphany as an 8‑year-old at a birth­day  par­ty)

And Chuck Berry’s “John­ny B. Goode” (danc­ing ‘round the juke­box at Saska­toon swim­ming pool)

Cir­cling back to “Both Sides Now,” Mitchell prefers the orches­tral arrange­ment she record­ed as an alto in 2002 to the orig­i­nal’s girl­ish sopra­no, with its pos­si­bly unearned per­spec­tive. (“It’s not a song for an ingenue…”)

When I per­formed it, the orches­tra gath­ered around me and I’ve played with clas­si­cal musi­cians before and they were always read­ing the Wall Street Jour­nal behind their sheet music and they always treat you like it’s a con­de­scen­sion to be play­ing with you, but every­body, the men — Eng­lish­men! — were weep­ing!

Per­haps you too will be moved to tears, as singer-song­writer Bran­di Carlile was dur­ing a per­for­mance of “Both Sides Now” as part of the 2022 New­port Folk Festival’s Joni Jam, Mitchell’s first show in 22 years, owing to a peri­od of major dis­il­lu­sion­ment with the music busi­ness as well as a 2015 brain aneurysm.

Tune into more episodes of Elton John’s Rock­et Hour here.

Relat­ed Con­tent 

Watch the Full Set of Joni Mitchell’s Amaz­ing Come­back Per­for­mance at the New­port Folk Fes­ti­val

Songs by Joni Mitchell Re-Imag­ined as Pulp Fic­tion Book Cov­ers & Vin­tage Movie Posters

Hear Demos & Out­takes of Joni Mitchell’s Blue on the 50th Anniver­sary of the Clas­sic Album

How Joni Mitchell Learned to Play Gui­tar Again After a 2015 Brain Aneurysm–and Made It Back to the New­port Folk Fes­ti­val

How Joni Mitchell Wrote “Wood­stock,” the Song that Defined the Leg­endary Music Fes­ti­val, Even Though She Wasn’t There (1969)

- Ayun Hal­l­i­day is the Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine and author of Cre­ative, Not Famous: The Small Pota­to Man­i­festo and the soon to be released Cre­ative, Not Famous Activ­i­ty Book.  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

The Comiclopedia: An Online Archive of 14,000 Comic Artists, From Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, to Mœbius and Hergé

in Comics/Cartoons | November 4th, 2022

Nobody inter­est­ed in comics can pass through Ams­ter­dam with­out vis­it­ing Lam­biek. Hav­ing opened in 1968 as the third com­ic-book shop in human his­to­ry, it now sur­vives as the old­est one still in exis­tence. But even those with­out a trip to the Nether­lands lined up can eas­i­ly mar­vel at one of Lam­biek’s major claims to fame: the Comi­clo­pe­dia, “an illus­trat­ed com­pendi­um of over 14,000 com­ic artists from around the world.” Dis­play­ing the same kind of pre­science that inspired him to open his store ahead of the com­ic-indus­try boom, Lam­biek’s founder Kees Kouse­mak­er launched this online ency­clo­pe­dia in 1999, more than a year before Wikipedia first went live.

The video above offers a brief illus­trat­ed his­to­ry of the Comi­clo­pe­dia, but the pro­jec­t’s ambi­tion comes across just as clear­ly in alpha­bet­i­cal­ly orga­nized index pages. Amer­i­can com­ic-book icons like Stan Lee and Jack Kir­by get exten­sive entries, of course, but so do news­pa­per com­ic-strip cre­ators from George Her­ri­man and Win­sor McCay (fea­tured on this page) to Charles Schulz and Bill Wat­ter­son (whose entry fea­tures not just Calvin and Hobbes but such ear­ly work as a pan­el pub­lished in his col­lege news­pa­per). There are even fig­ures not known pri­mar­i­ly as com­ic artists: the late Char­lie Watts, for instance, whose art­work includ­ed the back cov­er of Between the But­tons, or David Lynch, who for nine years “drew” The Angri­est Dog in the World.

For 23 years now, the Comi­clo­pe­dia has main­tained its com­mit­ment to both includ­ing deep cuts of that kind as well as con­stant­ly widen­ing its inter­na­tion­al per­spec­tive. You’d expect its robust entries on Jean Giraud, bet­ter known as Mœbius, and Georges Remi, bet­ter known as Hergé, but you’ll also find intro­duc­tions to the likes of Ser­afín Rojo Caa­maño, cre­ator of a host of char­ac­ters beloved in twen­ti­eth-cen­tu­ry Spain (includ­ing the per­pet­u­al­ly drunk­en mar­chioness­es), and Kim Seong-hwan, whose unflap­pable old man Gob­au bore wit­ness to half a cen­tu­ry of tumul­tuous South Kore­an his­to­ry.

Nor have Lam­biek or the Comi­clo­pe­dia ignored the comics of its home­land. “Kouse­mak­er and his entourage wrote var­i­ous essays, arti­cles and books about comics,” says the page on the store’s own sto­ry, and with­out their work “much of the Nether­lands’ comics his­to­ry might oth­er­wise have remained unex­plored.” Batavo­phones can enjoy a thor­ough overview of the his­to­ry of Dutch comics here; oth­ers can read a more con­densed Eng­lish ver­sion here, or set the Comi­clo­pe­di­a’s coun­try fil­ter to the Nether­lands and sam­ple the work of the 1,045-and-counting artists cur­rent­ly in the data­base. If you do make it out to Ams­ter­dam, after all, you’re going to want to know Tom Poes from Eric de Noor­man from Kapitein Rob before­hand.

via Metafil­ter

Relat­ed con­tent:

Explore a Big Archive of Vin­tage Ear­ly Comics: 1700–1929

Read The Very First Com­ic Book: The Adven­tures of Oba­di­ah Old­buck (1837)

How to Make Comics: A Four-Part Series from the Muse­um of Mod­ern Art

Free: Down­load 15,000+ Free Gold­en Age Comics from the Dig­i­tal Com­ic Muse­um

The Ency­clo­pe­dia of Sci­ence Fic­tion: 17,500 Entries on All Things Sci-Fi Are Now Free Online

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities, the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

Watch World War II Unfold Day by Day: An Animated Map

in History | November 1st, 2022

In the sto­ry of World War II we all know, a hand­ful of mur­der­ous vil­lains and flawed yet capa­ble defend­ers of democ­ra­cy dri­ve the nar­ra­tive. The authors of a Kings Col­lege Lon­don project argue that this con­ven­tion­al his­to­ry shows “a pre­oc­cu­pa­tion with the cul­pa­bil­i­ty of states­men.…. Above all else, the debate about war in 1939 revolves around per­son­al­i­ties.” But there is anoth­er way to see the caus­es of war: through the esca­lat­ing arms race of the 1930s, despite the glob­al push for dis­ar­ma­ment fol­low­ing World War I’s dev­as­ta­tion.

The lead­ers of Ger­many, Italy and Japan want­ed war, yet their abil­i­ty to wage it, and the ways in which that war played out, came down to logis­ti­cal con­tests between war machines. “First in Berlin, then in Rome and final­ly in Tokyo,” writes his­to­ri­an Joseph Maio­lo, “the ebb and flow of arms com­pe­ti­tion com­pelled lead­ers to make now-or-nev­er deci­sions about war.” Such deci­sions pro­duced a wealth of unin­tend­ed con­se­quences, and led to cat­a­stroph­ic loss­es of life. Air, sea, and land pow­er cre­at­ed at an unheard-of indus­tri­al scale turned war into an assem­bly line-like process that “would see humans as no more than pieces of a larg­er mil­i­tary-indus­tri­al machine,” as the­o­rist of war Manuel De Lan­da writes.

Thus, we see the enor­mi­ty of the casu­al­ties of WWII. Mil­lions of sol­diers were fed to the front lines in “the need to pre­pare for future total wars that would demand sweep­ing mobi­liza­tion,” writes Maio­lo. Wars for glob­al suprema­cy demand­ed all of the state’s cap­i­tal, espe­cial­ly its human resources. The ani­mat­ed map above tells that sto­ry in raw num­bers: “WWII Every Day with Army Sizes.” Begin­ning with Ger­many’s dec­la­ra­tion of war on Poland on Sep­tem­ber 1st, 1939, the map cov­ers the entire­ty of the war, show­ing num­bers — some­times in the tens of mil­lions — fluc­tu­at­ing wild­ly along the front lines of every the­ater.

1939 may be the only log­i­cal start­ing point for this pre­sen­ta­tion. Yet when it comes to under­stand­ing why World War II claimed more lives than any oth­er war in his­to­ry, the expla­na­tion must begin sev­er­al years ear­li­er with arms deal­ers and gen­er­als seek­ing big­ger and big­ger bud­gets for more sophis­ti­cat­ed weapon­ry. As tech­ni­cal prob­lems increased so too did the human costs, until the strug­gle for glob­al suprema­cy dur­ing WWII became a pro­lif­er­at­ing race toward mutu­al­ly assured destruc­tion after the war’s end.

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Watch World War II Rage Across Europe in a 7 Minute Time-Lapse Film: Every Day From 1939 to 1945

The Stag­ger­ing Human Cost of World War II Visu­al­ized in a Cre­ative, New Ani­mat­ed Doc­u­men­tary

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

Futurist Makes Weirdly Accurate Predictions in 1922 About What the World Will Look Like in 2022: Wireless Telephones, 8‑Hour Flights to Europe & More

in History, Technology | October 20th, 2022

Ear­li­er this year, we revis­it­ed a set of pre­dic­tions made in 1922 about what life would look like 100 years hence, in 2022. In the pages of the New York Her­ald, Eng­lish nov­el­ist W.L. George imag­ined a world in which “com­mer­cial fly­ing will have become entire­ly com­mon­place,” and “wire­less teleg­ra­phy and wire­less tele­phones will have crushed the cable sys­tem,” result­ing in gen­er­a­tions who’ll nev­er have seen “a wire out­lined against the sky.” As for the cin­e­ma, “the fig­ures on the screen will not only move, but they will have their nat­ur­al col­ors and speak with ordi­nary voic­es. Thus, the stage as we know it to-day may entire­ly dis­ap­pear, which does not mean the doom of art, since the movie actress of 2022 will not only need to know how to smile but also how to talk.” Above, you can hear a read­ing of W.L. George’s uncan­ny fore­casts. The read­ing comes cour­tesy of the YouTube Chan­nel Voic­es of the Past.  You can read the orig­i­nal text of the arti­cle here.

Relat­ed Con­tent

In 1922, a Nov­el­ist Pre­dicts What the World Will Look Like in 2022: Wire­less Tele­phones, 8‑Hour Flights to Europe & More

In 1953, a Tele­phone-Com­pa­ny Exec­u­tive Pre­dicts the Rise of Mod­ern Smart­phones and Video Calls

Jules Verne Accu­rate­ly Pre­dicts What the 20th Cen­tu­ry Will Look Like in His Lost Nov­el, Paris in the Twen­ti­eth Cen­tu­ry (1863)

In 1900, Ladies’ Home Jour­nal Pub­lish­es 28 Pre­dic­tions for the Year 2000

Futur­ist from 1901 Describes the World of 2001: Opera by Tele­phone, Free Col­lege & Pneu­mat­ic Tubes Aplen­ty

In 1911, Thomas Edi­son Pre­dicts What the World Will Look Like in 2011: Smart Phones, No Pover­ty, Libraries That Fit in One Book

In 1926, Niko­la Tes­la Pre­dicts the World of 2026

9 Sci­ence-Fic­tion Authors Pre­dict the Future: How Jules Verne, Isaac Asi­mov, William Gib­son, Philip K. Dick & More Imag­ined the World Ahead

Unpopular Music Fandom — Musicians and Philosophers Discuss on Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast #134

in Music, Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop | October 19th, 2022

With the dis­so­lu­tion of pop­u­lar music cul­ture by the Inter­net, what is it now to be into music gen­res that aren’t cur­rent­ly pop­u­lar? Is it still an act of rebel­lion, or is even that passé?

Your Pret­ty Much Pop host Mark Lin­sen­may­er is joined by com­poser/­mul­ti-instru­men­tal­ist Jonathan Segel from Camper van Beethoven, philoso­pher Matt Teich­man of the Elu­ci­da­tions pod­cast, and musi­cian and Inter­net DJ Steve Petrinko to talk about our rela­tion to the main­stream, the dif­fer­ent types of unpop­u­lar music (pop­u­lar 30 years ago vs. nev­er pop­u­lar avant garde), post-irony, and more.

Lis­ten to Jonathan and Steve talk­ing about their own music on Mark’s Naked­ly Exam­ined Music pod­cast. Lis­ten to one of Matt’s elec­tron­ic com­po­si­tions from col­lege. Lis­ten to Mark and Matt on Matt’s pod­cast.

Watch Richard Thomp­son sing “Oops I Did It Again.” Here’s that attempt to give a 2022 remix to the 80s hit “Come On Eileen.”

As rec­om­men­da­tions, Jonathan men­tioned Venet­ian Snares, Steve rec­om­mend­ed ear­ly Weath­er Report. Read Jonathan’s blog about var­i­ous ver­sions of The Grate­ful Dead’s “Dark Star.” Read Pat Methe­ny pick­ing on Ken­ny G.

Hear more Pret­ty Much Pop. Sup­port the show and hear bonus talk­ing for this and near­ly every oth­er episode at patreon.com/prettymuchpop or by choos­ing a paid sub­scrip­tion through Apple Pod­casts. This pod­cast is part of the Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life pod­cast net­work.

Pret­ty Much Pop: A Cul­ture Pod­cast is the first pod­cast curat­ed by Open Cul­ture. Browse all Pret­ty Much Pop posts.