Prisencolinensinainciusol, the Catchy Italian Pop Song That Sounded Like It Had English Lyrics, But Was Actually Gibberish (1972)

in English Language, Language, Music | November 17th, 2023

Yes­ter­day a friend and I were stand­ing on a New York City side­walk, wait­ing for the light, when Stayin’ Alive began issu­ing at top vol­ume from a near­by car.

Pavlov­ian con­di­tion­ing kicked in imme­di­ate­ly.  We’d been singing along with the Bee Gees for near­ly a minute before real­iz­ing that nei­ther of us knew the lyrics. Like, at all.

Ital­ian actor and musi­cian Adri­ano Celen­tano’s cult clas­sic, Prisen­co­l­i­nensi­nain­ciu­sol, inspires a sim­i­lar response.

The dif­fer­ence being that should I ever need to prep for karaoke, Stayin’ Alive’s lyrics are wide­ly avail­able online, where­as Prisen­co­l­i­nensi­nain­ciu­sol’s lyrics are kind of anyone’s guess…nonsense in any lan­guage.

Celen­tano impro­vised this gib­ber­ish in 1972 in an attempt to recre­ate how Amer­i­can rock and roll lyrics sound like to non-Eng­lish-speak­ing Ital­ian fans like him­self.

As he told NPR’s All Things Con­sid­ered through a trans­la­tor dur­ing a 2012 inter­view:

Ever since I start­ed singing, I was very influ­enced by Amer­i­can music and every­thing Amer­i­cans did. So at a cer­tain point, because I like Amer­i­can slang — which, for a singer, is much eas­i­er to sing than Ital­ian — I thought that I would write a song which would only have as its theme the inabil­i­ty to communicate…I sang it with an angry tone because the theme was impor­tant. It was an anger born out of res­ig­na­tion. I brought to light the fact that peo­ple don’t com­mu­ni­cate.

And yet, his 1974 appear­ance in the above sketch on the Ital­ian vari­ety series For­mu­la Due spurs strangers to make stabs at com­mu­ni­ca­tion by shar­ing their best guess tran­scrip­tions of Prisen­co­l­i­nensi­nain­ciu­sol’s lyrics in YouTube com­ments, 51 years after the song’s orig­i­nal release.

A sam­pling, anchored by the cho­rus’ icon­ic and unmis­take­able “all right:”

@glassjester:

My eyes lie, sense­less.
I guess I’m throw­ing piz­za.
Eyes.

And the cold wind sailor,
freez­ing cold and icy in Tuc­son
Alright.

@emanueletardino8545:

My eyes are way so sen­si­tive
And it gets so cold, it’s freez­ing
Ice

You’re the cold, main, the same one
Please let’s call ’em ‘n’ dance with my shoes off
All right

@sexydudeuk2172

My eyes smile sense­less but it doesn’t go with diesel all right.

@leviathan3187:

I don’t know why but I want a maid to say I want pair of ice blue shoes with eyes…awight.

Prisen­co­l­i­nensi­nain­ciu­sol’s loop­ing, throb­bing beat is wild­ly catchy and immi­nent­ly dance­able, as evi­denced by Celentano’s per­for­mance on For­mu­la Due and that of the black clad dancers back­ing him up dur­ing an appear­ance on Mil­lelu­ci, anoth­er mid-70s Ital­ian vari­ety show, below.

The atten­tion gen­er­at­ed by these vari­ety show seg­ments — both lip synched — sent Prisen­co­l­i­nensi­nain­ciu­sol up the charts in Italy, Bel­gium, Ger­many, France, the Nether­lands, the UK,  and even the Unit­ed States.

Its mix of dis­co, hip hop and funk has proved sur­pris­ing­ly durable, inspir­ing remix­es and cov­ers, includ­ing the one that served as philoso­pher Slavoj Žižek’s Euro­vi­sion Song Con­test entry.

Prisen­co­l­i­nensi­nain­ciu­sol has net­ted a whole new gen­er­a­tion of fans by crop­ping up on Ted Las­so, Far­go, a com­mer­cial for spiced rum, and seem­ing­ly innu­mer­able Tik­Toks.

We’ll prob­a­bly nev­er get a firm grasp on the lyrics, despite Ital­ian tele­vi­sion host Pao­lo Bono­lis’ puck­ish 2005 attempt to goad befud­dled native Eng­lish speak­er Will Smith into deci­pher­ing them.

No mat­ter.

Celentano’s supreme­ly con­fi­dent deliv­ery of those indeli­ble non­sense syl­la­bles is what counts, accord­ing to a YouTube view­er from Slove­nia with fond mem­o­ries of play­ing in a rock band as a teen in the 1960’s:

This is exact­ly how we non-Eng­lish-speak­ers sung the then hit songs. You learned some begin­ning parts of lyrics so that the audi­ence rec­og­nized the song. They heard it at Radio Lux­em­bourg. From here on it was exact­ly the same style — out­side the cho­rus of course. Adri­ano Celen­tano was always been a leg­end for us back in Slove­nia.

h/t Erik B.

Relat­ed Con­tent 

The Sto­ry of Lorem Ipsum: How Scram­bled Text by Cicero Became the Stan­dard For Type­set­ters Every­where

Hear All of Finnegans Wake Read Aloud: A 35 Hour Read­ing

Watch La Lin­ea, the Pop­u­lar 1970s Ital­ian Ani­ma­tions Drawn with a Sin­gle Line

– 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.

The Evolution of Bugs Bunny’s Appearance Over His Eight Decade Career

in Animation, Comedy, Comics/Cartoons | November 17th, 2023

Bugs Bun­ny is a quick-think­ing, fast-talk­ing, was­cal­ly force of nature, and a preter­nat­u­ral­ly gift­ed phys­i­cal come­di­an, too.

But unlike such last­ing greats as Char­lie Chapin and Buster Keaton, it took him a while to find his icon­ic look.

His first appear­ance, as “Hap­py Rab­bit” in the 1938 black and white the­atri­cal short, Porky’s Hare Hunt, might remind you of those year­book pho­tos of celebri­ties before they were famous.

In a video essay con­sid­er­ing how Bugs Bunny’s look has evolved over his eight-decade career, ani­ma­tion fan Dave Lee of the pop­u­lar YouTube series Dave Lee Down Under breaks down some ear­ly char­ac­ter­is­tics, from an unde­fined, small body and oval-shaped head to white fur and a fluffy cot­ton ball of a tail.

His voice was also a work in progress, more Woody Wood­peck­er than the hybrid Brook­lyn-Bronx patois that would make him, and voice actor Mel Blanc, famous.

The fol­low­ing year, the rab­bit who would become Bugs Bun­ny returned in Prest‑o Change‑o, a Mer­ry Melodies Tech­ni­col­or short direct­ed by Chuck Jones.

A few months lat­er char­ac­ter design­er (and for­mer Dis­ney ani­ma­tor) Char­lie Thor­son sub­ject­ed him to a pret­ty notice­able makeover for Hare-um Scare-um, anoth­er rab­bit hunt­ing-themed romp.

The two-toned grey and white coat, oval muz­zle, and mis­chie­vous buck-toothed grin are much more aligned with the Bugs most of us grew up watch­ing.  

His pear-shaped bod’, long neck, high-rumped stance, and pon­toon feet allowed for a much greater range of motion.

A nota­tion on the mod­el sheet allud­ing to direc­tor Ben Hard­away’s nick­name — “Bugs” — gives some hint as to how the world’s most pop­u­lar car­toon char­ac­ter came by his stage name.

For 1940’s Elmer’s Can­did Cam­era, the pink-muz­zled Bugs dropped the yel­low gloves Thors­en had giv­en him and affect­ed some black ear tips.

Tex Avery, who was in line to direct the pair in the Acad­e­my Award-nom­i­nat­ed short A Wild Hare, found this look objec­tion­ably cute.

He tasked ani­ma­tor Bob Givens with giv­ing the rab­bit, now offi­cial­ly known as Bugs Bun­ny, an edgi­er appear­ance.

Ani­ma­tion his­to­ri­an Michael Bar­ri­er writes:

In the Givens design, Bugs was no longer defined by Thor­son­’s tan­gle of curves. His head was now oval, rather than round. In that respect, Bugs recalled the white rab­bit in Porky’s Hare Hunt, but Given­s’s design pre­served so many of Thor­son­’s refinements—whiskers, a more nat­u­ral­is­tic nose—and intro­duced so many others—cheek ruffs, less promi­nent teeth—that there was very lit­tle sim­i­lar­i­ty between the new ver­sion of Bugs and the Hare Hunt rab­bit. 

Bar­ri­er also details a num­ber of sim­i­lar­i­ties between the tit­u­lar rab­bit char­ac­ter from Disney’s 1935 Sil­ly Sym­phonies short, The Tor­toise and the Hare, and for­mer Dis­ney employ­ee Givens’ design.  

While Avery boast­ed to car­toon his­to­ri­an Milt Gray in 1977 that “the con­struc­tion was almost iden­ti­cal”, adding, “It’s a won­der I was­n’t sued,” Givens insist­ed in an inter­view with the Ani­ma­tion Guild’s oral his­to­ry project that Bugs wasn’t a Max Hare rip off. ( “I was there. I ought to know.”)

What­ev­er par­al­lels may exist between Givens’ Bugs and Disney’s Hare, YouTu­ber Lee sees A Wild Hare as the moment when Bugs Bunny’s char­ac­ter coa­lesced as “more of a lov­able prankster than a mali­cious deviant,” non­cha­lant­ly chomp­ing a car­rot like Clark Gable in It Hap­pened One Night, and turn­ing a bit of region­al Texas teen slang — “What’s up, Doc?”- into one of the most immor­tal catch phras­es in enter­tain­ment his­to­ry.

A star was born, so much so that four direc­tors — Jones, Avery, Friz Fre­leng and Bob Clam­pett — were enlist­ed to keep up with the demand for Bugs Bun­ny vehi­cles. 

This mul­ti-pronged approach led to some visu­al incon­sis­ten­cies, that were even­tu­al­ly checked by the cre­ation of defin­i­tive mod­el sheets, drawn by Bob McKim­son, who ani­mat­ed the Clam­pett-direct­ed shorts. 

His­to­ri­an Bar­ri­er takes stock:

Bugs’s cheeks were broad­er, his chin stronger, his teeth a lit­tle more promi­nent, his eyes larg­er and slant­ed a lit­tle out­ward instead of in. The most expres­sive ele­ments of the rab­bit’s face had all been strength­ened …but because the tri­an­gu­lar shape of Bugs’s head had been sub­tly accen­tu­at­ed, Bugs was, if any­thing, futher removed from cute­ness than ever before. McKim­son’s mod­el sheet must be giv­en some of the cred­it for the marked improve­ment in Bugs’s looks in all the direc­tors’ car­toons start­ing in 1943. Not that every­one drew Bugs to match the mod­el sheet, but the awk­ward­ness and uncer­tain­ty of the ear­ly for­ties were gone; it was if every­one had sud­den­ly fig­ured out what Bugs real­ly looked like.

Now one of the most rec­og­niz­able stars on earth, Bugs remained unmis­tak­ably him­self while spoof­ing Charles Dick­ens, Alfred Hitch­cock and Wag­n­er; held his own in live action appear­ances with such heavy hit­ters as Doris Day and Michael Jor­dan; and had a mem­o­rable cameo in the 1988 fea­ture Who Framed Roger Rab­bit, after pro­duc­ers agreed to a deal that guar­an­teed him the same amount of screen time as his far squar­er rival, Mick­ey Mouse. 

This mil­len­ni­um got off to a rock­i­er start, owing to an over-reliance on low bud­get, sim­pli­fied flash ani­ma­tion, and the tru­ly exe­crable trend of shows that reimag­ine clas­sic char­ac­ters as cloy­ing tod­dlers. 

In 2011, on the strength of her 2‑minute ani­mat­ed short I Like Pan­das, an ini­tial­ly reluc­tant 24-year-old Jes­si­ca Borut­s­ki was asked to “fresh­en up” Bugs’ look for The Looney Tunes Show, a series of longer for­mat car­toons which required its cast to per­form such 21st-cen­tu­ry activ­i­ties as tex­ting:

I made their heads a bit big­ger because I did­n’t like [how] in the ’60s, ’70s Bugs Bun­ny’s head start­ed to get real­ly small and his body real­ly long. He start­ed to look like a weird guy in a bun­ny suit.

Lee’s Evo­lu­tion of Bugs Bun­ny- 80 Years Explained was released in 2019. 

He has­n’t stopped evolv­ing. Giz­mod­o’s Sabi­na Graves “sat down with the cre­ative teams shep­herd­ing Warn­er Bros.’ clas­sic Looney Tunes char­ac­ters into new and reimag­ined car­toons” at San Diego Com­ic-Con 2022: 

In a push led by Looney Tunes Car­toons’ Alex Kirwan—who spear­heads the franchise’s cur­rent slate of shorts on HBO Max—the beloved ani­ma­tion icons will soon expand into even more con­tent. There’s the upcom­ing Tiny Toons Loooniver­si­ty revival, a Hal­loween spe­cial, Cartoonito’s Bugs Bun­ny Builders for kids, and two fea­ture-length ani­mat­ed movies on the way—and we have a feel­ing that’s not all, folks!

…to quote Bugs, “I knew I shoul­da tak­en that left turn at Albu­querque!”

Relat­ed Con­tent

How to Draw Bugs Bun­ny: A Primer by Leg­endary Ani­ma­tor Chuck Jones

The Strange Day When Bugs Bun­ny Saved the Life of Mel Blanc

The Proof That Mel Blanc–the Voice Behind Bugs Bun­ny, Daffy Duck & Porky Pig–Was a Genius

Kill the Wab­bit!: How the 1957 Bugs Bun­ny Car­toon, “What’s Opera, Doc?,” Inspired Today’s Opera Singers to First Get Into Opera

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

Astronomers Create a Digital Atlas of Over 380,000 Galaxies

in Astronomy | November 16th, 2023

In the observ­able uni­verse, there are esti­mat­ed to be between 200 bil­lion to two tril­lion galax­ies. By com­par­i­son to these super-Sagan­ian num­bers, the 383,620 galax­ies cap­tured by the Siena Galaxy Atlas may seem like small pota­toes. But the SGA actu­al­ly rep­re­sents a land­mark achieve­ment among dig­i­tal astron­o­my cat­a­logs: as Saman­tha Hill writes in Astron­o­my, it draws its data from three Dark Ener­gy Spec­tro­scop­ic Instru­ment Lega­cy Sur­veys, which togeth­er con­sti­tute “one of the largest sur­veys ever con­duct­ed.” Com­ing to 7,637 down­load­able pages, it “presents a new pos­si­ble nam­ing con­ven­tion for the galax­ies, and cap­tures images of the objects in opti­cal and infrared wave­lengths. Each of the target’s data set includes a whole slew of oth­er infor­ma­tion includ­ing its size and mor­phol­o­gy.”

Though pub­licly acces­si­ble online, the for­mi­da­bly tech­ni­cal SGA may present the non-astronomer with a some­what steep learn­ing curve. One way to approach the archive through some of the espe­cial­ly impres­sive galax­ies it cap­tures is to orga­nize the list below its search fil­ters accord­ing to size. The images that result are not, of course, pho­tographs of the kind any of us could take by point­ing a cam­era up at the night sky, no mat­ter how pricey the cam­era. Rather, they’re the results, processed into visu­al leg­i­bil­i­ty, of enor­mous amounts of data col­lect­ed by advanced tele­scope and satel­lite.

To get more tech­ni­cal, the SGA is also “the first cos­mic atlas to fea­ture the light pro­files of galax­ies  —  a curve that describes how the bright­ness of the galaxy changes from its bright­est point, usu­al­ly at the cen­ter, to its dimmest, com­mon­ly at its edge.”

So writes Space.com’s Robert Lea, who also explains more about the SGA’s use­ful­ness to sci­en­tif­ic pro­fes­sion­als. It “rep­re­sents peak accu­ra­cy, promis­ing to be a gold mine of galac­tic infor­ma­tion for sci­en­tists aim­ing to inves­ti­gate every­thing from the births and evo­lu­tions of galax­ies to the dis­tri­b­u­tion of dark mat­ter and prop­a­ga­tion of grav­i­ta­tion­al waves through space.” Its data could also help astronomers “find the sources of grav­i­ta­tion­al wave sig­nals detect­ed on Earth, because these faint rip­ples in the very fab­ric of space and time wash over our plan­et after trav­el­ing for mil­lions of light years.” Even if you’re under­tak­ing no such search­es of your own, a trip through the SGA can still enhance your appre­ci­a­tion of how much human­i­ty has come to learn about these “near­by” galax­ies — and how much remains to be learned about all those that lie beyond. Enter the archive here.

Relat­ed con­tent:

The Atlas of Space: Behold Bril­liant Maps of Con­stel­la­tions, Aster­oids, Plan­ets & “Every­thing in the Solar Sys­tem Big­ger Than 10km”

When Galax­ies Col­lide

What Would It Be Like to Fly Through the Uni­verse?

10,000 Galax­ies in 3D

Lux Aeter­na: A Jour­ney of Light, From Dis­tant Galax­ies to Small Drops of Water

NASA Releas­es a Mas­sive Online Archive: 140,000 Pho­tos, Videos & Audio Files Free to Search and Down­load

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.

Explore the Florentine Codex: A Brilliant 16th Century Manuscript Documenting Aztec Culture Is Now Digitized & Available Online

in Books, History | November 14th, 2023

The Span­ish con­quista of the Amer­i­c­as hap­pened long enough ago — and left behind a spot­ty enough body of his­tor­i­cal records — that we tend to per­ceive it as much through sim­pli­fi­ca­tions, exag­ger­a­tions, and dis­tor­tions as we do through facts. What we now call Mex­i­co under­went “essen­tial­ly an inter­nal con­flict between dif­fer­ent indige­nous groups who saw the arrival of strangers as an oppor­tu­ni­ty to resist hav­ing to pay trib­ute to the Aztec Empire,” says Uni­ver­si­dad Nacional Autóno­ma de Mex­i­co his­to­ry pro­fes­sor Berenice Alcán­tara Rojas. “When the Spaniards ini­tial­ly attacked the Mex­i­ca cap­i­tal, they were swift­ly dri­ven out.”

“Only when aid­ed by var­i­ous groups of Indige­nous allies, as well as by the spread of a ter­ri­ble small­pox epi­dem­ic, did they man­age to force the ruler Cuauhte­moc and oth­er Mex­i­ca lead­ers to capit­u­late,” Rojas con­tin­ues, draw­ing upon details pro­vid­ed in the ver­sion of the events laid out in the Flo­ren­tine Codex.

That ency­clo­pe­dic series of twelve 16th-cen­tu­ry illus­trat­ed man­u­scripts lav­ish­ly doc­u­ments the known soci­ety and nature of that land at the time — and has now, near­ly 450 years lat­er, been acknowl­edged as “the most reli­able source of infor­ma­tion about Mex­i­ca cul­ture, the Aztec Empire, and the con­quest of Mex­i­co.”

“In 1547, Bernardi­no de Sahagún, a Span­ish Fran­cis­can fri­ar who com­mit­ted most of his life to work­ing close­ly with the Indige­nous peo­ples of Mex­i­co, began col­lect­ing infor­ma­tion about cen­tral Mex­i­can Nahua cul­ture, life, peo­ple, his­to­ry, astron­o­my, flo­ra, fau­na, and the Nahu­atl lan­guage, among oth­er top­ics,” says the Get­ty Research Insti­tute. “Nahua elders, gram­mar­i­ans, scribes, and artists worked with Sahagún to com­pile a three-vol­ume, 12-book, 2500-page illus­trat­ed man­u­script, mod­el­ing its con­tent on Euro­pean ency­clo­pe­dias, espe­cial­ly Pliny the Elder’s Nat­ur­al His­to­ry,” all of which has been dig­i­tized, trans­lat­ed, and made avail­able at the Get­ty’s web site.

A thor­ough­ly mul­ti­cul­tur­al project avant la let­tre, the Flo­ren­tine Codex (named for the Medici fam­i­ly library in Flo­rence, where it was sent upon its com­ple­tion) has only just become acces­si­ble to a wide online read­er­ship. Though it’s “been dig­i­tal­ly avail­able via the World Dig­i­tal Library since 2012, for most users it remained impen­e­tra­ble because read­ing it requires knowl­edge of six­teenth-cen­tu­ry Nahu­atl and Span­ish, and of pre-His­pan­ic and ear­ly mod­ern Euro­pean art tra­di­tions.” By offer­ing search­able text in mod­ern ver­sions of both those lan­guages as well as Eng­lish — to say noth­ing of its brows­able sec­tions orga­nized by peo­ple, ani­mals, deities, and even by Nahu­atl terms like coy­ote and tor­tilla — the Dig­i­tal Flo­ren­tine Codex re-illu­mi­nates an entire civ­i­liza­tion.

via Hyper­al­ler­gic

Relat­ed con­tent:

The Codex Quet­za­le­catzin, an Extreme­ly Rare Col­ored Mesoamer­i­can Man­u­script, Now Dig­i­tized and Put Online

Native Lands: An Inter­ac­tive Map Reveals the Indige­nous Lands on Which Mod­ern Nations Were Built

Explore the Codex Zouche-Nut­tall: A Rare, Accor­dion-Fold­ed Pre-Columbian Man­u­script

How the Ancient Mayans Used Choco­late as Mon­ey

Peru­vian Schol­ar Writes & Defends the First The­sis Writ­ten in Quechua, the Main Lan­guage of the Incan Empire

How the Inca Used Intri­cate­ly-Knot­ted Cords, Called Khipu, to Write Their His­to­ries, Send Mes­sages & Keep Records

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.

Open Planet Lets You Download & Use 4,500 Free Videos That Document Nature & Climate Change

in Environment, Film, Nature | November 13th, 2023

Plas­tic pol­lu­tion in the Red Sea…

A melt­ing glac­i­er in Ice­land…

Trees scorched by a wild­fire in Aus­tralia…

As the effects of cli­mate change become increas­ing­ly dire, we’ve grown accus­tomed to such grim­ly sober­ing visions.

Some look away.

Oth­ers work to height­en aware­ness of these clear and present envi­ron­men­tal dan­gers.

And some strive to imple­ment inno­v­a­tive solu­tions before it’s too late:

Solar pan­els in Cos­ta Rica

Bub­ble bar­ri­ers fil­ter­ing plas­tic refuse from Amsterdam’s canals…

Sus­tain­able agro­forestry in the Ama­zon.

A class­room full of desks con­struct­ed from recy­cled one-time use plas­tics in India…

The cre­ators of Open Plan­et, a soon-to-launch free footage library, hope to sup­port change-mak­ing orga­ni­za­tions and indi­vid­u­als by sup­ply­ing video that can be edit­ed togeth­er into nar­ra­tives to “inspire opti­mism and action in this deci­sive decade for our plan­et.”

Car­o­line Petit, who pri­or­i­tizes edu­ca­tion and aware­ness in her posi­tion as Deputy Direc­tor for the Unit­ed Nations Region­al Infor­ma­tion Cen­tre for Europe, hails Open Plan­et for sup­ply­ing world­wide free access to high-qual­i­ty, accu­rate footage:

At this halfway point of the Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Goals, it is cru­cial to pro­vide all pos­si­ble tools to super­charge the break­throughs need­ed to achieve them. Cap­tur­ing hearts and minds to moti­vate action is one pow­er­ful way to do so.

Enlist­ing some non-humans play­ers to help achieve that end is a sound idea.

Behold a Nepal Gray Lan­gur moth­er and baby hang­ing out in the tree­tops…

Chee­tah cubs play­ful­ly spar­ring with each oth­er in Kenya’s Masai Mara Nation­al Reserve…

A group of Pash­mi­na goats peace­ful­ly graz­ing on wild sea buck­thorn berries on the high plateaus of Ladakh.

Open Plan­et’s 4,500 clip strong col­lec­tion also teems with pho­to­genic birds, insects, and marine life, with more being added all the time.

Stu­dio Sil­ver­back, which is col­lab­o­rat­ing with Carnegie Mel­lon University’s CREATE Lab on this project, cre­at­ed some of the footage specif­i­cal­ly for the plat­form.

The remain­der has been donat­ed by out­side film­mak­ers, broad­cast­ers, and pro­duc­tion com­pa­nies who are cred­it­ed in their clips’ con­tent details.

In advance of its 2024 glob­al launch, Open Plan­et has released a most­ly uplift­ing 74-clip spot­light col­lec­tion drawn from over 2000 pieces of footage filmed in India

A look at the plat­for­m’s search­able fil­ter themes reminds us that the pic­ture is not so over­whelm­ing­ly rosy, but also makes a strong case that change is pos­si­ble:

Bio­di­ver­si­ty

Cli­mate

Con­sump­tion

Defor­esta­tion

Ener­gy

Extreme Weath­er

Food

Human Health

Land Man­age­ment

Nat­ur­al Dis­as­ters

Nature-only

Pol­lu­tion

Waste

Water

Sus­tain­able Future

Tech­nol­o­gy

Explore Open Planet’s footage library and cre­ate a free account to down­load the clips of your choice here. The videos are free to use for edu­ca­tion­al, envi­ron­men­tal and impact sto­ry­telling.

via Colos­sal

Relat­ed Con­tent 

Watch 50 Hours of Nature Sound­scapes from the BBC: Sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly Proven to Ease Stress and Pro­mote Hap­pi­ness & Awe

Carl Sagan Warns Con­gress about Cli­mate Change (1985)

Frank Capra’s Sci­ence Film The Unchained God­dess Warns of Cli­mate Change in 1958

– 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.

Political Scientist Ian Bremmer Breaks Down the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

in Current Affairs | November 9th, 2023

Ian Brem­mer, a polit­i­cal sci­en­tist and pres­i­dent of Eura­sia Group, has an intel­li­gent, fair, and humane way of explain­ing crises around the world. That includes the cur­rent cri­sis in the Mid­dle East. Above, he spends an hour dis­cussing the Israeli-Pales­tin­ian con­flict and its geo-polit­i­cal and his­tor­i­cal con­text. Speak­ing with Big­Think’s edi­tor-in-chief, Robert Chap­man-Smith, Brem­mer delves “into inter­nal pol­i­tics in Israel — includ­ing grow­ing dis­sent against the gov­ern­ment, how the con­flict in Gaza is being han­dled, the influ­ence of hard-right polit­i­cal par­ties, and the impact of these fac­tors on the rela­tion­ship between Israel and the Pales­tini­ans.” Below you can find time­stamps for the dif­fer­ent sub­jects cov­ered.

0:00 Pales­tini­ans for­got­ten
6:30 Israel’s domes­tic insta­bil­i­ty
13:17 Israel and Gulf states
19:28 Hamas’ strat­e­gy
27:06 Social media dis­in­for­ma­tion
37:20 Israel’s strat­e­gy and peace
44:40 U.S. sup­port for Israel
49:32 World War 3?
54:07 Two-state solu­tion

Relat­ed Con­tent 

The Israeli-Pales­tin­ian Con­flict: His­tor­i­cal Primers That Help Explain the Cen­tu­ry-Long Con­flict

How Rocky Horror Became a Cult Phenomenon

in Film, Gender, Theatre | November 8th, 2023

Call us old fash­ioned but invok­ing pump­kin spice and The Rocky Hor­ror Pic­ture Show in the same breath feels trans­gres­sive to the point of sac­ri­lege.

The cre­ator of the Poly­phon­ic video, above, is on much firmer foot­ing tying the film to queer lib­er­a­tion.

Pri­or to its now famous cin­e­mat­ic adap­ta­tion, The Rocky Hor­ror Show was a low bud­get the­atri­cal suc­cess, with near­ly 3,000 per­for­mances and the 1973 Evening Stan­dard The­atre Award for Best Musi­cal to its name.

Review­er Michael Billing­ton laud­ed Tim Cur­ry’s “gar­ish­ly Bowiesque per­for­mance” as Dr. Frank-N-Furter, the self-pro­claimed Sweet Trans­ves­tite from Trans­sex­u­al, Tran­syl­va­nia, but also acknowl­edged some drab­ber pea­cocks defy­ing gen­der expec­ta­tions in that pro­duc­tion:

…for me the actor of the evening was Jonathan Adams as the Nar­ra­tor: a bulky, heavy-jowled Kissinger-like fig­ure who enters into the rock num­bers with the state­ly aplomb of a dowa­ger duchess doing a strip.

Play­wright Richard O’Brien, who dou­bled as Frank-N-Furter’s sepul­chral but­ler, Riff Raff, con­ceived of the show as a spoof on campy sci fi and goth­ic hor­ror films in the Ham­mer Pro­duc­tions vein. He also owed a debt to glam rock, which “allowed me to be myself more.”

(Hats off, here, to Poly­phon­ic for one of the best nut­shell descrip­tions of glam rock we’ve ever encoun­tered:

Glam rock was a queer led move­ment that was built on the back of gen­der non-con­for­mi­ty. Visu­al­ly it was a hodge­podge of style from ear­ly Hol­ly­wood glam­our to 50s pin­ups and cabaret the­ater aug­ment­ed by touch­es of ancient civ­i­liza­tions sci-fi and and the occult.)

“The ele­ment of trans­vestism was­n’t intend­ed as a major theme,” O’Brien told inter­view­er Patri­cia Mor­ris­roe, “although it turned out to be one:”

I’ve always thought of Frank as a cross between Ivan the Ter­ri­ble and Cruel­la de Ville of Walt Dis­ney’s 101 Dal­ma­tions. It’s that sort of evil beau­ty that’s attrac­tive. I found Brad and Janet very appeal­ing too, espe­cial­ly the whole fifties image of boy-girl rela­tion­ships. In the end, you see that Janet is not the weak lit­tle thing that soci­ety demands her to be and Brad is not the pil­lar of strength.

Audi­ences and crit­ics may have loved the orig­i­nal show, but the film ver­sion did not find imme­di­ate favor. Review­er Roger Ebert reflect­ed that “it would be more fun, I sus­pect, if it weren’t a pic­ture show:

It belongs on a stage, with the per­form­ers and audi­ence join­ing in a col­lec­tive send-up…The chore­og­ra­phy, the com­po­si­tions and even the atti­tudes of the cast imply a stage ambiance. And it invites the kind of laugh­ter and audi­ence par­tic­i­pa­tion that makes sense only if the per­form­ers are there on the stage, cre­at­ing mutu­al kar­ma.

A prophet­ic state­ment, as it turns out…

Once the pro­duc­ers began mar­ket­ing the film as a mid­night movie, repeat cus­tomers start­ed com­ing up with the snarky call­backs that have become a de rigueur part of the expe­ri­ence.

“All the char­ac­ters appear to be sophis­ti­cat­ed, knowl­edge­able peo­ple but they’re real­ly not,” O’Brien observed:

That allows peo­ple of a sim­i­lar ado­les­cent nature to feel they could be part of the whole thing. And now, in fact, they are.

Shad­ow casts posi­tioned them­selves in front of the screen, mim­ic­k­ing the action in cob­bled togeth­er ver­sions of design­er Sue Blane’s cos­tumes.

Audi­ences also afford­ed them­selves the oppor­tu­ni­ty to dress out­side the norm, cre­at­ing a safe space where atten­dees could mess around with their gen­der expres­sions. The film may not end hap­pi­ly but that final scene is a great excuse for any­one who wants to take a lap in a corset and fish­nets.

Rocky Horror’s flam­boy­ance, humor, and defi­ance of the main­stream made it a nat­ur­al fit with the queer com­mu­ni­ty, with folks cos­tumed as Frank-N-Furter, Riff Raff, Magen­ta and Colum­bia reg­u­lar­ly turn­ing up at fundrais­ers and pride events.

The film also deserves some activist street cred for sav­ing a num­ber of small indie movie the­aters by fat­ten­ing mid­night box office receipts, a trend that con­tin­ues near­ly 50 years after the orig­i­nal release.

Admit­ted­ly, cer­tain aspects of the script haven’t aged well.

“Vir­gins” attend­ing their first live screen­ing may be more shocked at the dearth of con­sent than the spec­ta­cle of Frank-n-Furter mur­der­ing Columbia’s rock­er boyfriend Eddy with a pick­axe, then serv­ing his remains for din­ner.

Will they also recoil from Frank as an embod­i­ment of tox­ic mas­culi­ty in the queer space?

Quoth Colum­bia:

My God! I can’t stand any more of this! First you spurn me for Eddie, and then you throw him like an old over­coat for Rocky! You chew peo­ple up and then you spit them out again… I loved you… do you hear me? I loved you! And what did it get me? Yeah, I’ll tell you: a big noth­ing. You’re like a sponge. You take, take, take, and drain oth­ers of their love and emo­tion.

We’re hop­ing Frank, prob­lem­at­ic though he may now seem, won’t ulti­mate­ly be con­signed to the dust bin of his­to­ry.

For con­text, O’Brien recent­ly told The Hol­ly­wood Reporter that the char­ac­ter was informed by his own expe­ri­ences of cross-dress­ing as he tried to get a grip on his gen­der iden­ti­ty in the ear­ly 70s:

I used to beat myself up about the hand I was dealt. I don’t know how it works. I have no idea. I’ve read many tomes about the sub­ject of the trans­ves­tic nature. It’s the cards you’re dealt. In a bina­ry world it’s a bit of curse, real­ly. Espe­cial­ly in those days when homo­sex­u­al­i­ty was a crime. It’s just one of those things that west­ern soci­ety wasn’t very keen on.

Real Con­tent

1978 News Report on the Rocky Hor­ror Craze Cap­tures a Teenage Michael Stipe in Drag

Rare Inter­view: Tim Cur­ry Dis­cuss­es The Rocky Hor­ror Pic­ture Show, Dur­ing the Week of Its Release (1975)

– 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.

The Beatles Release Their Final Song, “Now and Then”: Hear the Song & Watch the Music Video Directed by Peter Jackson

in Music | November 3rd, 2023

The aver­age music fan of the nine­teen-six­ties would sure­ly have found it hard to believe that the Rolling Stones would put out a new album in 2023, let alone an album includ­ing a per­for­mance by Paul McCart­ney. Here in the twen­ty-twen­ties, of course, we’ve long since known that the “rival­ry” between the young Stones and Bea­t­les was ginned up by music media. Still, not to be out­done more than half a cen­tu­ry after their breakup, the lat­ter have put out the new­ly com­plet­ed “Now and Then,” the last song fea­tur­ing all the Fab Four that will ever be released.

“Now and Then,” or at least its title, will ring a bell in the minds of seri­ous Bea­t­les enthu­si­asts. For decades, it has been known as one of sev­er­al promis­ing songs John Lennon record­ed with­out fin­ish­ing. Oth­ers include “Free as a Bird” and “Real Love,” which McCart­ney, George Har­ri­son, and Ringo Starr built upon in the stu­dio and released in the mid-nineties to accom­pa­ny the doc­u­men­tary The Bea­t­les Anthol­o­gy. At that time, Lennon’s home demo of “Now and Then” proved trick­i­er to work with: “the piano was a lit­tle hard to hear,” says McCart­ney in its short mak­ing-of film, “and in those days, of course, we did­n’t have the tech­nol­o­gy to do the sep­a­ra­tion” of one instru­ment or voice from the oth­ers.

Enter Peter Jack­son, a Beat­le­ma­ni­ac pos­sessed of uncom­mon resources and tech­no­log­i­cal know-how. It turns out that the arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence-based sys­tem devel­oped to sep­a­rate out the audio tracks for the Get Back doc­u­men­tary project, which he direct­ed, could also be used to sal­vage the mud­dy “Now and Then.” At last, McCart­ney says, “we could mix it and make a prop­er record of it,” a task that also includ­ed his lay­ing down a new bass part and Starr doing the same for the drums. Each ele­ment led to anoth­er: “I’d been vague­ly think­ing, ‘Strings might be a good thing.’ The Bea­t­les did lots of strings, you know?” This was a job for none oth­er than Giles Mar­tin, son of George. (See the mak­ing-of video below.)

As luck would have it, Har­ri­son, who died in 2001, also record­ed a gui­tar part back in 1995, which inspired McCart­ney to add a slide gui­tar solo in the same style. The New York Times Jon Par­e­les also notes “back­ing vocals from ‘Here, There and Every­where,’ ‘Eleanor Rig­by’ and ‘Because’: ‘oohs’ and ‘ahs’ in har­mo­ny.” The result is a gen­uine Bea­t­les song as well as a gen­uine Bea­t­les record­ing, not just in per­son­nel but also in spir­it. No soon­er did the band get famous, remem­ber, than they began incor­po­rat­ing into their work every advanced stu­dio device and tech­nique at their com­mand. If high tech­nol­o­gy was a vital fac­tor in their music then, it’s even more of one now.

Note: The offi­cial music video above was direct­ed by Peter Jack­son.

Relat­ed con­tent:

The Mak­ing of the Last Bea­t­les Song, “Now and Then”: A Short Film

How Peter Jack­son Used Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence to Restore the Video & Audio Fea­tured in The Bea­t­les: Get Back

Watch Paul McCart­ney Com­pose The Bea­t­les Clas­sic “Get Back” Out of Thin Air (1969)

A Sneak Peek of Peter Jackson’s New Bea­t­les Doc­u­men­tary Get Back: Watch the New Trail­er

Watch HD Ver­sions of The Bea­t­les’ Pio­neer­ing Music Videos: “Hey Jude,” “Pen­ny Lane,” “Rev­o­lu­tion” & More

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.

Hear Classic Readings of Poe’s “The Raven” by Vincent Price, James Earl Jones, Christopher Walken, Neil Gaiman & More

in Audio Books, Literature | October 31st, 2023

It can seem that the writ­ing of lit­er­a­ture and the the­o­ry of lit­er­a­ture occu­py sep­a­rate great hous­es, Game of Thrones-style, or even sep­a­rate coun­tries held apart by a great sea. Per­haps they war with each oth­er, per­haps they stu­dious­ly ignore each oth­er or oblique­ly inter­act at tour­na­ments with acronymic names like MLA and AWP. Like Thomas Pynchon’s char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of the polit­i­cal right and left, schol­ars and writ­ers rep­re­sent oppos­ing poles, the hot­house and the street. That rare beast, the aca­d­e­m­ic poet, can seem like some­thing of a uni­corn, or drag­on.

…Or like the omi­nous talk­ing raven in Edgar Allan Poe’s most famous of poems.

The divide between the­o­ry and prac­tice is a recent devel­op­ment, a prod­uct of state bud­get­ing, polit­i­cal brinks­man­ship, the relent­less pub­lish­ing mills of acad­e­mia that force schol­ars to find a pigeon­hole and stay there.… In days past, poets and scholar/theorists fre­quent­ly occu­pied the same place at the same time—Wallace Stevens, T.S. Eliot, Samuel Tay­lor Coleridge, Per­cy Shel­ley, and, of course, Poe, whose peren­ni­al­ly pop­u­lar “The Raven” serves as a point-by-point illus­tra­tion for his the­o­ry of com­po­si­tion just as thor­ough­ly as Eliot’s great works bear out his notion of the “objec­tive cor­rel­a­tive.”

Poe’s object, the tit­u­lar crea­ture, is an “arche­typ­al sym­bol,” writes Dana Gioia, in a poem that aims for what its author calls a “uni­ty of effect.” In his 1846 essay “The Phi­los­o­phy of Com­po­si­tion,” Poe the poet/theorist tells us in great detail how “The Raven” sat­is­fies all of his oth­er cri­te­ria for lit­er­a­ture as well, such as achiev­ing its intent in a sin­gle sit­ting, using a repeat­ed refrain, and so on.

Should we have any doubt about how much Poe want­ed us to see the poem as the delib­er­ate out­come of a con­cep­tu­al scheme, we find him three years lat­er, in 1849, the year of his death, deliv­er­ing a lec­ture on the “Poet­ic Prin­ci­ple,” and con­clud­ing with a read­ing of “The Raven.”

John Mon­cure Daniel of the Rich­mond Semi-Week­ly Exam­in­er remarked after attend­ing one of these talks that “the atten­tion of many in this city is now direct­ed to this sin­gu­lar per­for­mance.” At that point, Poe, who hard­ly made a dime from “The Raven,” had to suf­fer the indig­ni­ty of hav­ing all of his work go out of print dur­ing his brief, unhap­py life­time. Mon­cure and the Exam­in­er there­by fur­nished read­ers “with the only cor­rect copy ever pub­lished,” pre­vi­ous appear­ances, it seems, hav­ing con­tained punc­tu­a­tion errors.

Nonethe­less, for all of Poe’s pedantry and penury, “The Raven“ ‘s first appear­ances made him semi-famous. His read­ings were a sen­sa­tion, and it’s a sure bet that his audi­ences came to hear him read the poem, not deliv­er a lec­ture on its prin­ci­ples. Oh, for some pro­to-Edi­son in the room with an ear­ly record­ing device. What would it be like to hear the mourn­ful, grief-strick­en, alco­holic genius—master of the macabre and inven­tor of the detec­tive story—intone the raven’s enig­mat­ic “Nev­er­more”?

While Poe’s speak­ing voice has reced­ed irre­triev­ably into his­to­ry, his poet­ic voice may live close to for­ev­er. So mes­mer­iz­ing are his meter and dic­tion that many great actors known espe­cial­ly for their voic­es have become pos­sessed by “The Raven.”

Like­ly when we think of the poem, what first comes to the mind’s ear is the voice of Vin­cent Price, or James Earl Jones, Christo­pher Lee, or Christo­pher Walken, all of whom have giv­en “The Raven” its due.

And so have many oth­er nota­bles, such as the great Stan Lee, Poe suc­ces­sor Neil Gaiman, orig­i­nal Gomez Addams actor John Astin, and ven­er­a­ble Beat poet/scholar Anne Wald­man (lis­ten here). You will find those recita­tions here at this round-up of notable “Raven” read­ings, and if this some­how doesn’t sati­ate you, then check out Lou Reed’s take on the poem, the Grate­ful Dead’s musi­cal trib­ute, “Raven Space,” or a read­ing in 100 dif­fer­ent celebri­ty impres­sions.

Final­ly, we would be remiss not to men­tion The Simp­sons’ James Earl Jones-nar­rat­ed par­o­dy, a wor­thy teach­ing tool for dis­tract­ed young visu­al learn­ers. Is it a shame that we now think of “The Raven” as a Hal­loween yarn fit for the Tree­house of Hor­ror or any num­ber of enjoy­able exer­cis­es in spooky oratory—rather than the the­o­ret­i­cal thought exper­i­ment its author seemed to intend? Does Poe rotis­serie in his grave as Homer snores in a wing­back chair? Prob­a­bly. But as the author told us him­self at length, the poem works! It still nev­er fails to excite our mor­bid curios­i­ty, enchant our goth­ic sen­si­bil­i­ty, and maybe send a chill or two down the spine. Maybe we nev­er real­ly need­ed Poe to explain it to us.

Note: An ear­li­er ver­sion of this post appeared on our site in 2017. We’re bring­ing it back for Hal­loween.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Gus­tave Doré’s Splen­did Illus­tra­tions of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” (1884)

The Raven: a Pop-up Book Brings Edgar Allan Poe’s Clas­sic Super­nat­ur­al Poem to 3D Paper Life

A Read­ing of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” in 100 Celebri­ty Voic­es

Edgar Allan Poe’s the Raven: Watch an Award-Win­ning Short Film That Mod­ern­izes Poe’s Clas­sic Tale

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

Jerry Garcia Explains How Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein Changed His Life (1995)

in Film, Music | October 31st, 2023

If you’re look­ing for a clas­sic mon­ster movie to watch this Hal­loween, and one that will also give you a few non-iron­ic laughs along the way, you’d do well to put on Abbott and Costel­lo Meet Franken­stein. But don’t take this rec­om­men­da­tion from me: take it from the Grate­ful Dead­’s own Jer­ry Gar­cia, who recalls his own for­ma­tive view­ing expe­ri­ence in the clip above from a 1995 broad­cast of AMC’s The Movie that Changed My Life. When Abbott and Costel­lo Meet Franken­stein came out, in 1948, he was just six years old: too ten­der an age, it seems, to appre­ci­ate the mon­strous spec­ta­cle to which his moth­er had tak­en him. “I most­ly hid behind the seats,” he remem­bers. “It was just pure pan­ic.”

Unaware even of who Abbott and Costel­lo were, the young Gar­cia could hard­ly have per­ceived the out­ward­ly hor­rif­ic pic­ture’s light­heart­ed com­ic inten­tions. Yet it com­pelled him nev­er­the­less, and even res­onat­ed with him on oth­er emo­tion­al lev­els not hav­ing to do with fear.

“My father had died the pre­vi­ous year, in ’47, so that also made it kind of a heavy time in my life, emo­tion­al­ly,” he says, and one that per­haps gave him a cer­tain recep­tive­ness to the notion of “a dead thing brought to life.” Abbott and Costel­lo Meet Franken­stein fea­tures not just the tit­u­lar doc­tor’s mon­ster, played by Glenn Strange, but also Lon Chaney Jr. as the Wolf Man and Bela Lugosi as Drac­u­la. “This was a juicy cast, and it was the last time these char­ac­ters had dig­ni­ty.”

For Gar­cia, these Hol­ly­wood mon­sters “became fig­ures of tremen­dous fas­ci­na­tion,” which led him to dis­cov­er cul­tur­al move­ments like Ger­man expres­sion­ist the­ater and film. While they cast a spell of pri­mal fear — “I think there was some desire on my part to embrace that, to not let that con­trol me” — Abbott and Costel­lo, for their part, sug­gest­ed to him the great promise of com­e­dy: “It’s a smart strat­e­gy to get by in life. If you’re not pow­er­ful, if you’re not huge, if you’re not mus­cu­lar, if intim­i­da­tion is too much work for you, it works good at dis­arm­ing pow­er­ful adver­saries.” Gar­ci­a’s “gen­er­al fas­ci­na­tion with the bizarre” also orig­i­nat­ed with Abbott and Costel­lo Meet Franken­stein, which showed him that “there are things in this world that are real­ly weird” — a fact of which we could all stand to remind our­selves each and every Hal­loween.

Relat­ed con­tent:

The Very First Film Adap­ta­tion of Mary Shelley’s Franken­stein, a Thomas Edi­son Pro­duc­tion (1910)

New Jer­ry Gar­cia Web Site Fea­tures 5,000 Hours of Free Music, Plus Some Fan­tas­tic Archival Mate­r­i­al

Read­ing Mary Shelley’s Franken­stein on Its 200th Anniver­sary: An Ani­mat­ed Primer to the Great Mon­ster Sto­ry & Tech­nol­o­gy Cau­tion­ary Tale

Jer­ry Gar­cia Talks About the Birth of the Grate­ful Dead & Play­ing Kesey’s Acid Tests in New Ani­mat­ed Video

Bela Lugosi Dis­cuss­es His Drug Habit as He Leaves the Hos­pi­tal in 1955

Stream a Mas­sive Archive of Grate­ful Dead Con­certs from 1965–1995

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.