The 17th Century Japanese Samurai Who Sailed to Europe, Met the Pope & Became a Roman Citizen

in History | November 29th, 2021

Image via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

We learn about intre­pid Euro­peans who sought, and some­times even found, trade and mis­sion­ary routes to Chi­na and Japan dur­ing the cen­turies of explo­ration and empire. Rarely, if ever, do we hear about vis­i­tors from the East to the West, espe­cial­ly those as well-trav­eled as 17th-cen­tu­ry samu­rai Haseku­ra Tsune­na­ga. Sent on a mis­sion to Europe and Amer­i­ca by his feu­dal lord, Date Masumune, Haseku­ra “set off on a quest to earn rich­es and spir­i­tu­al guid­ance,” Andrew Milne writes at All that’s Inter­est­ing. “He cir­cum­nav­i­gat­ed the globe, became part of the first Japan­ese group in Cuba, met the Pope, helped begin a branch of Japan­ese set­tlers in Spain (still thriv­ing today), and even became a Roman cit­i­zen.”

Haseku­ra was a bat­tle-test­ed samu­rai who had act­ed on the daimyo’s behalf on many occa­sions. His mis­sion to the West, how­ev­er, was first and fore­most a chance to redeem his hon­or and save his life. In 1612, Haseku­ra’s father was made to com­mit sep­puku after an indict­ment for cor­rup­tion. Stripped of lands and title, Haseku­ra could only avoid the same fate by going West, and so he did, just a few years before the peri­od of sakoku, or nation­al iso­la­tion, began in Japan. Trav­el­ing with Span­ish mis­sion­ary Luis Sote­lo, Haseku­ra embarked from the small Japan­ese port of Tsuki­noura in 1613 and first reached Cape Men­do­ci­no in Cal­i­for­nia, then part of New Spain.

“Sev­en years before the Mayflower head­ed to the New World,” Mar­cel Ther­oux writes at The Guardian, Haseku­ra “crossed the Pacif­ic, trav­eled over­land through Mex­i­co, then sailed all the way to Europe. He was accom­pa­nied by about 20 fel­low coun­try­men — in all like­li­hood, the first Japan­ese to cross The Atlantic.” They set sail on a Japan­ese-built galleon — called Date Maru, then lat­er San Juan Bautista by the Span­ish. “The expe­di­tion spent sev­en years trav­el­ing one-third of the globe,” notes PBS in a descrip­tion of  “A Samu­rai in the Vat­i­can,” an episode of Secrets of the Dead.

Sote­lo and Haseku­ra made for­mal requests for more mis­sion­ar­ies in Japan, deliv­er­ing let­ters from from Haseku­ra’s lord, the daimyo of Sendai, to the King of Spain and Pope Paul V. But the samu­rai’s most press­ing pur­pose was the estab­lish­ment of trade links between Japan, New Spain (Mex­i­co), and Europe. In his 1982 nov­el, The Samu­rai, Shusaku Endo dra­ma­tized the exchange the Span­ish mis­sion­ar­ies made for such intro­duc­tions, hav­ing a priest say: “In order to spread God’s teach­ing in Japan… there is only one pos­si­ble method. We must cajole them into it. Espana must offer to share its prof­its from trade on the Pacif­ic with the Japan­ese in return for sweep­ing pros­e­ly­tiz­ing priv­i­leges. The Japan­ese will sac­ri­fice any­thing else for the sake of prof­its.” This was not to be, of course.

The Span­ish gam­bled on trade open­ing up Japan for the kind of mis­sion­ary col­o­niza­tion they had achieved else­where, using Haseku­ra’s mis­sion as a proxy. Haseku­ra gam­bled on a Chris­t­ian mis­sion to save his life. Though his own accounts are lost, it seems he came to gen­uine­ly embrace the faith, becom­ing a con­firmed Catholic under the name Philip Fran­cis Fax­e­cu­ra. Dur­ing his mis­sion, how­ev­er, the Shogun, Toku­gawa Ieya­su, banned Chris­tian­i­ty in Japan on penal­ty of death, in advance of the expul­sion of the Span­ish and Por­tuguese by his grand­son, Toku­gawa Iemit­su, in 1623. What became of the explor­er samu­rai when he returned to Japan in 1620 is unknown, but his dece­dents were exe­cut­ed for prac­tic­ing his new­found faith. He would be the last vis­i­tor to the West from Japan until the Toku­gawa Shogu­nate sent the so-called “First Japan­ese Embassy to Europe” in 1862, over 200 years lat­er.

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Hear the First Japan­ese Vis­i­tor to the Unit­ed States & Europe Describe Life in the West (1860–1862)

Meet Yasuke, Japan’s First Black Samu­rai War­rior

Dis­cov­er Japan’s Old­est Sur­viv­ing Cook­book Ryori Mono­gatari (1643)

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

Watch John Cage’s 4′33″ Played by Musicians Around the World

in Music | November 29th, 2021

Make sure to watch the video above with the sound on. In it musi­cians from around the world all play a well-known com­po­si­tion: 4′33″ by John Cage. “I spent weeks ask­ing strangers on the inter­net to send me their rad­i­cal­ly dif­fer­ent inter­pre­ta­tions, and boy did they deliv­er,” writes the video’s cre­ator Sam Vladimirsky. “My inbox filled with adap­ta­tions by an Aus­tri­an death met­al band, a marim­ba play­er, a bun­ny rab­bit, the Muse­um of Musi­cal Instru­ments in Phoenix, a mid­dle school music teacher, a ver­sion played on Gui­tar Hero and over Zoom.” Though orig­i­nal­ly com­posed for piano, 4′33″ is eas­i­ly trans­posed to all these instru­ments and oth­ers, call­ing as it does for their play­ers to do the very same thing: noth­ing.

“Inspired by Zen Bud­dhism, the Dada move­ment and Cage’s strong dis­taste for the ubiq­ui­tous muzak of the time,” says Aeon, “its score instructs per­form­ers not to play their instru­ments for the piece’s four-minute, thir­ty-three-sec­ond dura­tion.” The result is not silence but “the unique ambi­ent sound­scape of the envi­ron­ment in which it’s per­formed, reflect­ing Cage’s belief that music is ever-present.”

Here the sub­mit­ted per­for­mances take place in such envi­ron­ments as a class­room, a bed­room, a court­yard, a dri­ve­way, a bus, and a sub­way sta­tion. Vladimirsky pairs the videos, allow­ing us to enjoy not just par­al­lel view­ing expe­ri­ences but a lay­ered lis­ten­ing expe­ri­ence of these ambi­ent sound­scapes.

“Stuck inside,” writes Vladimirsky, “pro­fes­sion­al musi­cians, ded­i­cat­ed ama­teurs, awk­ward teens and col­lege stu­dents found 4′33″ to be the music of our moment.” If the Rolling Stones could play “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” in lock­down, each from his sep­a­rate home, then who’s to say this isn’t the next log­i­cal step? Each per­for­mance of 4′33″ reflects not just its imme­di­ate set­ting but its cul­tur­al peri­od: com­pare the clip just above, in which Cage him­self plays it in Har­vard Square in 1973. Most of us haven’t seen the inside of a con­cert hall in quite some time, let alone heard the ambi­ent sounds pro­duced with­in it in the absence of prop­er music. But each of us can, at least, per­form 4′33″ for our­selves when­ev­er and wher­ev­er we like — one way of doing it being sim­ply to play the video at the top of the post with the sound off.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch John Cage Play His “Silent” 4’33” in Har­vard Square, Pre­sent­ed by Nam June Paik (1973)

The Curi­ous Score for John Cage’s “Silent” Zen Com­po­si­tion 4’33”

John Cage’s Silent, Avant-Garde Piece 4’33” Gets Cov­ered by a Death Met­al Band

The 4’33” App Lets You Cre­ate Your Own Ver­sion of John Cage’s Clas­sic Work

The Grate­ful Dead’s “Rip­ple” Played By Musi­cians Around the World (with Cameos by David Cros­by, Jim­my Buf­fett & Bill Kreutz­mann)

The Vir­tu­al Choir: Watch a Choir Con­duc­tor Dig­i­tal­ly Unite 3500 Singers from Around the World

How to Find Silence in a Noisy World

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities and cul­ture. His projects include 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 Hilarious Spoofs of Classic Film Genres: Film Noir, Spaghetti Westerns, Scandinavian Crime Dramas, Time Travel Films & More

in Comedy, Film, Podcasts, Television | November 29th, 2021

Come­di­an Alas­dair Beck­ett-King has a keen ear for enter­tain­ment tropes and sub­scribes to the belief that “putting too much effort into things makes them fun­nier.”

The result is a series of one-minute videos in which he spoofs the con­ven­tions of a par­tic­u­lar genre or long run­ning series, with per­fect visu­als, meta dia­logue, and faith­ful­ly ren­dered per­for­mance styles.

Beck­ett-King put his Lon­don Film School train­ing to use with this project dur­ing lock­down, spend­ing “absolute­ly ages putting togeth­er some­thing very tiny.”

Wit­ness his take on every episode of Star Trek: The Next Gen­er­a­tion, in which the cap­tain of the ship, a Patrick Stew­art dop­pel­gänger and “veg­e­tar­i­an space social­ist who is always right” nego­ti­ates with a “rep­re­sen­ta­tive of a kind of iffy alien race not nec­es­sar­i­ly based on a spe­cif­ic human eth­nic­i­ty.” As Beck­ett-King told Eric John­son, host of Fol­low Fri­day pod­cast:

That one was very, very hard work because I had to do a CGI bald cap for myself because I have long, long flow­ing hair. I had to try and do an impres­sion of Cap­tain Picard of the Star­ship Enter­prise… it’s not that good. There’s so much work that went into it.

Before I post­ed it, I was con­vinced I’d wast­ed my time. Then luck­i­ly it did quite well and peo­ple real­ly liked it. Peo­ple kept say­ing, “When are you doing Cap­tain Picard again?” I’m like, “I’m not! because it took ages to do the bald head, and you’ve seen it now.” I think what’s nice about it though, is you get to try some­thing, com­mit to it and then see if it’s fun­ny after­wards. It’s quite like doing live standup.

(Beckett-King’s part­ner Rachel Anne Smith gets cred­its for the non-CGI cos­tumes.)

Some oth­er favorites:

Every Sin­gle Scan­di­na­vian Crime Dra­ma: The killer could be any­one in Hel­ga­sund. That’s over sev­en peo­ple.

Every Sin­gle Spooky Pod­cast: The frozen soil was lit­tered with what appeared to be dis­card­ed Casper mat­tress­es and Bom­bas socks.

Every Sin­gle Spaghet­ti West­ern: Yeah, well your lips don’t synch…

Every Haunt­ed House Movie: It’s the per­fect place for me to quit drink­ing, fin­ish my nov­el, and real­ly come to terms with that deer we hit on the way over.

Every Episode of Pop­u­lar Time Trav­el Show: Help us, Doc­tor. The intran­si­gent Implaca­blons are poised to destroy us.

How Every Film Noir Ends: Talk your way out of a snub nosed pis­tol held at waist height.

Should you find your­self at loose ends, wait­ing for the next Beck­ett-King “every sin­gle…” episode to drop, try  bid­ing your time with his Art House Movie Spoil­ers and North East of Eng­land spin on Jaws.

Buy a Cof­fee for Alas­dair Beck­ett-King here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hard­ware Wars: The Moth­er of All Star Wars Fan Films (and the Most Prof­itable Short Film Ever Made)

Down­load a Com­plete, Cov­er-to-Cov­er Par­o­dy of The New York­er: 80 Pages of Fine Satire

The Time When Nation­al Lam­poon Par­o­died Mad Mag­a­zine: A Satire of Satire (1971)

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

Dueling as a Film Trope: Pretty Much Pop #109 Considers The Last Duel and Its Genre

in Film, Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop | November 26th, 2021

In light of the release of The Last Duel (which you need­n’t have watched), we talk about the trope of the hon­or-resolv­ing duel in movies and TV. Mark and guest co-host Dylan Casey of The Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life are joined by Clif Mark, host of the Good in The­o­ry pod­cast who wrote his polit­i­cal the­sis and a 2018 Aeon arti­cle on the his­to­ry and log­ic of duel­ing.

Since we’re all phi­los­o­phy pod­cast­ers on this one (our enter­tain­ment pod­cast­er guest dropped out at the last minute), we bring in philoso­phers like Hegel and Niet­zsche in as need­ed, the cir­cle of eth­i­cal con­cern (who gets moral sta­tus and so is wor­thy to duel?), and of course the rel­e­vant class and gen­der cri­tiques.

We also touch on The Duelists (inci­den­tal­ly, Rid­ley Scot­t’s direct­ing debut, where The Last Duel is his lat­est), The Duelist and The Duel (two 2016 films), A Knight’s Tale, The Princess Bride, Dune, Hamil­ton, Bridger­ton, The Karate Kid, and more.

For more infor­ma­tion on the specter of duel­ing in pol­i­tics, read about Justin Trudeau and Trump/Biden.

Some arti­cles that fed our dis­cus­sion (in addi­tion to Clif’s “What Is Offen­sive”) include:

• “The Last Duel: Cin­e­ma’s 11 Best Show­downs” by Nicholas Bar­ber
• “‘The Last Duel’ Is More Than Just Unsuc­cess­ful Oscar Bait” by Adam Nay­man
• “The True His­to­ry Behind ‘The Last Duel’” by Meilan Sol­ly
• “Duelling Films” by Howard G. Brown

Fol­low Clif @Clifton_Mark.

This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion you can access by sup­port­ing the pod­cast 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.

Elvis Costello’s Musician Father (and Doppelgänger) Performing in 1963

in Music | November 22nd, 2021

If you were an Eng­lish boy grow­ing up in the 1960s, and your dad met the Queen mum, you’d come away with some pret­ty heavy duty brag­ging rights.

What if your dad didn’t just meet her, but com­mand­ed her atten­tion for a full three min­utes… an event you wit­nessed on the tel­ly, along with 21.2 mil­lion oth­ers?

That’s what hap­pened to young Declan Patrick McManus, or Elvis Costel­lo as he’s more com­mon­ly known these days.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, his musi­cian father Ross’s calyp­so-inflect­ed, Tri­ni Lopez-inspired ren­di­tion of Pete Seeger’s “If I Had a Ham­mer” at the Queen’s annu­al Roy­al Vari­ety Per­for­mance was over­shad­owed by anoth­er act in the evening’s line up: The Bea­t­les.

This was the per­for­mance where John Lennon famous­ly solicit­ed the audience’s par­tic­i­pa­tion on “Twist and Shout”:

For our last num­ber, I’d like to ask your help. The peo­ple in the cheap­er seats, clap your hands. And the rest of you, if you’d just rat­tle your jew­el­ry.

https://vimeo.com/151903948?embedded=true&source=video_title&owner=47853706

So, Ross McManus played for the Queen Mum (and Princess Mar­garet) and all lit­tle Declan got was a great anec­dote for his 2016 mem­oir Unfaith­ful Music & Dis­ap­pear­ing Ink and a thought­ful sou­venir:

Even­tu­al­ly I couldn’t pre­tend that I real­ly cared whether he’d… shak­en hands with the Queen Mum. I blurt­ed out:

“Did you actu­al­ly meet The Bea­t­les?”

It had obvi­ous­ly been a long night or an ear­ly morn­ing, as my Dad wasn’t that talk­a­tive. He mum­bled some­thing about them being very nice lads. Then he reached into a jack­et slung over the back of his chair and pulled out a sheet of thin air­mail paper and hand­ed it to me.

I unfold­ed it, and there were the sig­na­tures of all four of The Bea­t­les on one page. I’d seen repro­duc­tions of their sig­na­tures in enough mag­a­zines and fan club lit­er­a­ture to know that these appeared to be the real thing.

The ink seemed bare­ly dry.

What I did next will bring tears to the eyes of those who make a fetish of such objects, but I had only a small auto­graph book and the paper was too large to be mount­ed in it. 

I care­ful­ly, if not so very care­ful­ly, cut around each of the sig­na­tures, lop­ping off the e of the “The” in “The Bea­t­les” and past­ing the four irreg­u­lar scraps of paper into my album.

McManus the Elder took anoth­er crack at “If I Had a Ham­mer” when he and oth­er mem­bers of the Joe Loss Orches­tra were invit­ed to reprise their roy­al per­for­mance in the 1965 short The Mood Man, excerpt­ed at the top of this page.

Clear­ly, the acorn didn’t fall far from this tree!

Father and son seem more like twins here:

the horn-rimmed specs…

The vibra­to…

That vin­tage style!

(Speak­ing of which, Costel­lo con­fides that his father was oblig­ed to wear long johns under his off-white suit “after the tele­vi­sion direc­tor claimed that his flesh could be detect­ed through the thin mate­r­i­al … under the tele­vi­sion lights, which would be bound to scan­dal­ize the roy­al par­ty.”)

The two also shared a will­ing­ness to exper­i­ment with assumed names. Ross McManus found suc­cess in Aus­tralia with a cov­er of The Bea­t­les’ “The Long and Wind­ing Road” as “Day Costel­lo” — sur­name com­pli­ments of his grandmother’s maid­en name. (Oth­er han­dles include “Hal Prince” and “Frank Bacon and the Baconeers.”)

Elvis Costel­lo spent enough time in his old man’s orbit to rec­og­nize the dis­em­bod­ied hands play­ing the con­ga drums in the open­ing shot shot of McManus’s “If I Had a Ham­mer“ — Bill Brown’s, tak­ing a bit of a busman’s hol­i­day from the bari­tone sax­o­phone.

And he acknowl­edges his own per­son­a’s debt to his dad, cit­ing the sec­tion where  he “lip-synchs the hell out of the num­ber, mim­ing ‘ham­mer of jus­tice’ for all it’s worth”:

The close-ups that come on the repeat­ed line, “It’s a song about love between my broth­ers and my sis­ters” are eerie to behold for the sim­i­lar­i­ty of our facial expres­sion at about this age, and espe­cial­ly when singing par­tic­u­lar words.

Where my Dad holds the advan­tage over me is in his dance moves. 

Those are steps that I am yet to mas­ter.

Costel­lo also notes that his father gave him a bit of a pro­fes­sion­al leg up in 1973, when he got him hired for back­ing vocals on a musi­cal ad for R. Whites Lemon­ade:

For some rea­son, the pro­duc­er asked my Dad to deliv­er the song in a mock Elvis Pres­ley voice, while for the back­ground part, they want­ed “R. Whites” punched out so that it sound­ed like the “All right” on a Swing­ing Blue Jeans record. I sup­pose the adver­tis­ing peo­ple thought the kids would dig it… giv­en that my Dad and I could eas­i­ly approx­i­mate a suit­ably nasal Mersey sound, we cut the parts in a cou­ple of takes. It wasn’t exact­ly the big time, but there was still a thrill to hear­ing your voice come back off the tape, even if you were singing some­thing far­ci­cal. 

The ad made a last­ing impres­sion. If there’s a club for British peo­ple who watched TV in the 70’s “secret lemon­ade drinker” may well be the pass­word. (Costel­lo, under­stand­ably, was not pleased when a tabloid’s brass decid­ed it made a fit­ting head­line for his tal­ent­ed, well-known father’s obit­u­ary: “Secret Lemon­ade Drinker Dies.”)

The first Secret Lemon­ade Drinker ad’s pop­u­lar­i­ty jus­ti­fied var­i­ous sequels over the years, par­tic­u­lar­ly when fans got hip to the 19-year-old Costello’s involve­ment.

He was, in fact, more involved than many would real­ize.

As he recalls in his mem­oir, the orig­i­nal record­ing ses­sion turned into an impromp­tu cast­ing ses­sion for an alter­nate, albeit far hard­er to find online, take:

The ad men took a look around the stu­dio and decid­ed to cast this sec­ond ver­sion of the com­mer­cial from the musi­cians on the ses­sion. The drum­mer and hip­pie gui­tar play­er cer­tain­ly looked the part, but the pianist and bass play­er were old­er more con­ser­v­a­tive­ly dressed and didn’t real­ly fit the bill. Giv­en our then more fash­ion­able hair­styles, my Dad and I were recruit­ed to mime the key­board and bass parts, and we spent the day tak­ing and retak­ing the thir­ty sec­ond clip, lip-synch­ing the “R. Whites / All right” back­ground part with as much ani­ma­tion as we could man­age by take forty six.

Behold!

Costello’s rela­tion­ship with his father — also the only son of a musi­cian — is a prime top­ic of his 688-page mem­oir.

It’s not only easy, but worth­while, to truf­fle up online evi­dence of Ross’s record­ing career. There’s even a rare, ear­ly 80s duet between father and son…

For some intel on Costel­lo’s moth­er Lilian’s influ­ence, read his mov­ing trib­ute from ear­li­er this year, writ­ten short­ly after her death.

h/t to read­er Greg Kotis.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

See the First Ever Video of Elvis Costel­lo Per­form­ing, Sum­mer 1974

The Stunt That Got Elvis Costel­lo Banned From Sat­ur­day Night Live (1977)

Elvis Costello’s List of 500 Albums That Will Improve Your Life

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

The Gift: The Journey of Johnny Cash

in Film, Music | November 21st, 2021

YouTube Orig­i­nals presents The Gift: The Jour­ney of John­ny Cash:

John­ny Cash stands among the giants of 20th cen­tu­ry Amer­i­can life. But his sto­ry remains tan­gled in mys­tery and myth. This doc­u­men­tary, cre­at­ed with the full coop­er­a­tion of the Cash estate and rich in recent­ly dis­cov­ered archival mate­ri­als, brings Cash the man out from behind the leg­end. Tak­ing the remark­able Fol­som Prison record­ing as a cen­tral motif and fea­tur­ing inter­views with fam­i­ly and cel­e­brat­ed col­lab­o­ra­tors, the film explores the artis­tic vic­to­ries, the per­son­al tragedies, the strug­gles with addic­tion, and the spir­i­tu­al pur­suits that col­ored John­ny Cash’s life.

The Gift: The Jour­ney of John­ny Cash will be added to our list of Free Doc­u­men­taries, a sub­set of our col­lec­tion, 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More. Enjoy!

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

John­ny Cash’s Short and Per­son­al To-Do List

Tom Pet­ty, Some­where You Feel Free – The Mak­ing of Wild­flow­ers Is Stream­ing Free on YouTube

Watch John­ny Cash’s Poignant Final Inter­view & His Last Per­for­mance: “Death, Where Is Thy Sting?” (2003)

John­ny Cash Stars as a Men­ac­ing, Musi­cal Gang­ster in 1961 Film Five Min­utes to Live

8 Hours of David Bowie’s Historic 1980 Floor Show: Complete & Uncut Footage

in Music, Television | November 19th, 2021

Bowie com­pletists rejoice. Eight hours of footage from his 1973 tele­vi­sion pro­gram “The 1980 Floor Show,” have found their way to YouTube, includ­ing, Boing Boing notes, “uncut footage… mul­ti­ple takes, back­stage moments, and all of the dance rehearsals.” The show — actu­al­ly an episode of the NBC series The Mid­night Spe­cial curat­ed by Bowie — lived up to its title (itself a pun on “1984,” the open­ing song of the broad­cast), with elab­o­rate dance num­bers, major cos­tume changes, and sev­er­al guest per­form­ers: The Trog­gs, Aman­da Lear, Car­men, and — most impor­tant­ly — Mar­i­anne Faith­full, in career free-fall at the time but also in top form for this cabaret-style vari­ety show.

When Mid­night Spe­cial pro­duc­er Burt Sug­ar­man approached Bowie about doing the hour-long show, the singer agreed on the con­di­tion that he could have com­plete cre­ative con­trol. He chose to hold rehearsals and per­for­mances at London’s Mar­quee Club. The audi­ence con­sist­ed of 200 young fans drawn from the Bowie fan club. Faith­full was “actu­al­ly invit­ed as one of the reserve acts,” notes Jack What­ley at Far Out, “ready to be called upon should some­one else drop out.”

“The show was heav­i­ly adver­tised in the US press in the run up to the broad­cast,” not­ed Bowie 75 in 2018, “but has nev­er been shown out­side the US or offi­cial­ly released,” though bootlegs cir­cu­lat­ed for years. Shoot­ing took place over three days in late Octo­ber, just a few months after Bowie played his final show as Zig­gy Star­dust at the Ham­mer­smith Odeon The­atre, cryp­ti­cal­ly announc­ing at the end, “not only is it the last show of the tour, it’s the last show we’ll ever do.” Bowie then went on to release Aladdin Sane and his cov­ers record Pin-Ups the fol­low­ing year, drop­ping the Zig­gy char­ac­ter entire­ly.

But Bowie brought Zig­gy back, at least in cos­tume, for one last gig in “The 1980 Floor Show,” wear­ing some of the out­fits Kan­sai Yamamo­to designed for the Zig­gy Star­dust tours and still sport­ing the sig­na­ture spiked red mul­let he would con­tin­ue to wear as his dystopi­an Hal­loween Jack per­sona on 1974’s Dia­mond Dogs. “The 1980 Floor Show” pro­mot­ed songs from Aladdin Sane and Pin-Ups while visu­al­ly rep­re­sent­ing the tran­si­tion from Bowie’s space alien vis­i­tor per­sona to a dif­fer­ent kind of out­sider — an alien in exile, just like the char­ac­ter he played a few years lat­er in Nicholas Roeg’s The Man Who Fell to Earth. As Maria Math­eos writes at Has­ta:

Zig­gy no longer played gui­tar: Bowie had meta­mor­phosed into Aladdin Sane. Parad­ing across the stage in red plat­form boots and a patent-leather black and white bal­loon leg jump­suit, referred to by design­er Yamamo­to as the ‘Tokyo pop’ jump­suit, Bowie sought to assault the sens­es of his audi­ence. Com­plete­ly over the top? Yes. Verg­ing on a par­o­dy of excess? Pos­si­bly. Would he have want­ed us to take him seri­ous­ly? He cer­tain­ly did not (take him­self seri­ous­ly).

With Aladdin Sane, Bowie gave us a hyper­bol­ic exten­sion of his pri­or alien dop­pel­ganger; adding that his char­ac­ter, a pun on ‘A Lad Insane’, rep­re­sent­ed “Zig­gy under the influ­ence of Amer­i­ca.”

See how Bowie con­struct­ed that new, and short-lived, per­sona from the mate­ri­als of his for­mer glam super­star char­ac­ter, and see the rev­e­la­tion that was Mar­i­anne Faith­full. The singer per­formed her 1964 hit, writ­ten by The Rolling Stones, “As Tears Go By,” solo. But the high­light of the show, and of her mid-sev­en­ties peri­od, was the duet of Son­ny & Cher’s “I Got You Babe” with which she and Bowie closed the show. “The cos­tumes of the pair are mag­i­cal.” What­ley writes,” with Bowie “in full Zig­gy attire… aka his ‘Angel of Death’ costume—while Faith­full has on a nun’s habit that was open at the back.”

Bowie report­ed­ly intro­duced the song with the tossed-off line, “This isn’t any­thing seri­ous, it’s just a bit of fun. We’ve hard­ly even rehearsed it.” You can scroll through the 8 hours of footage at the top to see those rehearsals, and so many more pre­vi­ous­ly unavail­able Bowie moments caught on film.

via Boing Boing

Relat­ed Con­tent:

David Bowie Sings ‘I Got You Babe’ with Mar­i­anne Faith­full in His Last Per­for­mance As Zig­gy Star­dust

Bowie’s Book­shelf: A New Essay Col­lec­tion on The 100 Books That Changed David Bowie’s Life

David Bowie Became Zig­gy Star­dust 48 Years Ago This Week: Watch Orig­i­nal Footage

David Bowie’s Final Gig as Zig­gy Star­dust Doc­u­ment­ed in 1973 Con­cert Film

David Bowie on Why It’s Crazy to Make Art–and We Do It Any­way (1998)

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

The Mystery of Who Played Bass on The White Album’s “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”

in Music | November 15th, 2021

George Har­ri­son, the qui­et Bea­t­le, was the first to break out on his own in 1970 with his glo­ri­ous triple album All Things Must Pass. “Gar­bo talks! — Har­ri­son is free!” wrote Melody Mak­er’s Richard Williams in a review, a ref­er­ence to the reclu­sive silent film star who, like the Bea­t­les’ gui­tarist, kept her mys­tique and star pow­er even after fans first heard her voice. Har­rison’s rev­e­la­tion could­n’t have been as dra­mat­ic as all that.

Sure­ly, no fan of “Tax­man,” “With­in You With­out You,” “Here Comes the Sun,” “Some­thing” — and espe­cial­ly The White Album’s stun­ning “While My Gui­tar Gen­tly Sleeps” — doubt­ed that George had it in him all along. But the oth­er Bea­t­les would only humor him dur­ing The White Album ses­sions. That is, until he brought Eric Clap­ton into the stu­dio. “That then made every­one act bet­ter,” Har­ri­son remem­bers in Anthol­o­gy. “Paul got on the piano and played a nice intro and they all took it more seri­ous­ly.”

The ques­tion in the You Can’t Unhear This video above is whether Paul played bass on the final stu­dio record­ing and, if not, who did?  It’s an inte­gral part of the song’s feel — the grit­ty, restrained growl, slow­ly grow­ing in inten­si­ty until it sounds like it might give Har­rison’s gui­tar some­thing else to weep about. The mys­tery of the aggres­sive-yet-mut­ed part “has per­plexed schol­ars and Bea­t­les fans for decades.” If you’ve remained unper­plexed, you might find your­self ques­tion­ing assump­tions about this most beloved of Bea­t­les’ tunes.

Ses­sions for the song began in late July of 1968, then picked up again in August, but Har­ri­son decid­ed to scrap every­thing and start over in Sep­tem­ber once Ringo returned from a “self-imposed exile” in the Mediter­ranean. The band seemed refreshed: “the qual­i­ty of the per­for­mances on the new Sep­tem­ber ver­sion seemed to reflect that renewed spir­it.” Ses­sions for the track wrapped on Sep­tem­ber 24. “For many years it was believed that this was the record­ing ses­sion in which Eric Clap­ton over­dubbed his lead gui­tar solo,” writes the Bea­t­les Bible. Not so — Clap­ton sat in on all of the live takes record­ed with the band. Ah, but who played bass? See the mys­tery take shape above and post your the­o­ries below.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Bea­t­les’ 8 Pio­neer­ing Inno­va­tions: A Video Essay Explor­ing How the Fab Four Changed Pop Music

Is “Rain” the Per­fect Bea­t­les Song?: A New Video Explores the Rad­i­cal Inno­va­tions of the 1966 B‑Side

Hear the Beau­ti­ful Iso­lat­ed Vocal Har­monies from the Bea­t­les’ “Some­thing”

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

What Is Sun Tzu’s The Art of War About?: A Short Introduction

in History, Literature, Philosophy | November 11th, 2021

After wars in Japan and Viet­nam, the U.S. mil­i­tary became quite keen on a slim vol­ume of ancient Chi­nese lit­er­a­ture known as The Art of War by a sup­pos­ed­ly his­tor­i­cal gen­er­al named Sun Tzu. This book became required read­ing at mil­i­tary acad­e­mies and a favorite of law enforce­ment, and has formed a basis for strat­e­gy in mod­ern wartime — as in the so-called “Shock and Awe” cam­paigns in Iraq. But some have argued that the West­ern adop­tion of this text — wide­ly read across East Asia for cen­turies — neglects the cru­cial con­text of the cul­ture that pro­duced it.

Despite his­tor­i­cal claims that Sun Tzu served as a gen­er­al dur­ing the Spring and Autumn peri­od, schol­ars have most­ly doubt­ed this his­to­ry and date the com­po­si­tion of the book to the War­ring States peri­od (cir­ca 475–221 B.C.E.) that pre­ced­ed the first empire, a time in which a few rapa­cious states gob­bled up their small­er neigh­bors and con­stant­ly fought each oth­er.

“Occa­sion­al­ly the rulers man­aged to arrange recess­es from the endem­ic wars,” trans­la­tor Samuel B. Grif­fith notes. Nonethe­less, “it is extreme­ly unlike­ly that many gen­er­als died in bed dur­ing the hun­dred and fifty years between 450 and 300 B.C.”

The author of The Art of War was pos­si­bly a gen­er­al, or one of the many mil­i­tary strate­gists for hire at the time, or as some schol­ars believe, a com­pil­er of an old­er oral tra­di­tion. In any case, con­stant war­fare was the norm at the time of the book’s com­po­si­tion. This tac­ti­cal guide dif­fers from oth­er such guides, and from those that came before it. Rather than coun­sel­ing div­ina­tion or the study of ancient author­i­ties, Sun Tzu’s advice is pure­ly prac­ti­cal and of-the-moment, requir­ing a thor­ough knowl­edge of the sit­u­a­tion, the ene­my, and one­self. Such knowl­edge is not eas­i­ly acquired. With­out it, defeat or dis­as­ter are near­ly cer­tain:

If you know the ene­my and know your­self, you need not fear the result of a hun­dred bat­tles. If you know your­self but not the ene­my, for every vic­to­ry gained you will also suf­fer a defeat. If you know nei­ther the ene­my nor your­self, you will suc­cumb in every bat­tle.

The kind of knowl­edge Sun Tzu rec­om­mends is prac­ti­cal intel­li­gence about troop deploy­ments, food sup­plies, etcetera. It is also knowl­edge of the Tao — in this case, the gen­er­al moral prin­ci­ple and its real­iza­tion through the sov­er­eign. In a time of War­ring States, Sun Tzu rec­og­nized that knowl­edge of war­fare was “a mat­ter of vital impor­tance”; and that states should under­take it as lit­tle as pos­si­ble.

“To sub­due the ene­my with­out fight­ing is the acme of skill,” The Art of War famous­ly advis­es. Diplo­ma­cy, decep­tion, and indi­rec­tion are all prefer­able to the mate­r­i­al waste and loss of life in war, not to men­tion the high odds of defeat if one goes into bat­tle unpre­pared. “The ide­al strat­e­gy of restraint, of win­ning with­out fight­ing… is char­ac­ter­is­tic of Tao­ism,” writes Rochelle Kaplan. “Both The Art of War and the Tao Te Ching were designed to help rulers and their assis­tants achieve vic­to­ry and clar­i­ty,” and “each of them may be viewed as anti-war tracts.”

Read a full trans­la­tion of The Art of War by Lionel Giles, in sev­er­al for­mats online here, and just above, hear the same trans­la­tion read aloud.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Life-Chang­ing Books: Your Picks

“The Phi­los­o­phy of “Flow”: A Brief Intro­duc­tion to Tao­ism

When Sci-Fi Leg­end Ursu­la K. Le Guin Trans­lat­ed the Chi­nese Clas­sic, the Tao Te Ching

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

Life Magazine Predicts in 1914 How People Would Dress in the 1950s

in History, Life, Magazines | November 11th, 2021

Though still just with­in liv­ing mem­o­ry, 1950 now seems as if it belongs not just to the past but to a whol­ly bygone real­i­ty. Yet that year once stood for the future: that is to say, a time both dis­tant enough to fire up the imag­i­na­tion and near enough to instill a sense of trep­i­da­tion. It must have felt that way, at least, to the sub­scribers of Life mag­a­zine in Decem­ber of 1914, when they opened an issue of that mag­a­zine ded­i­cat­ed in part to pre­dict­ing the state of human­i­ty 36 years hence. Its bold cov­er depicts a man and woman of the 1950s amus­ed­ly regard­ing pic­tures of a man and woman in 1914: the lat­ter wear but­toned-up Euro­pean street cloth­ing, while the for­mer have on almost noth­ing at all.

As ren­dered by illus­tra­tor Otho Cush­ing, the thor­ough­ly mod­ern 1950s female wears a kind of slip, some­thing like a gar­ment from ancient Greece updat­ed by abbre­vi­a­tion. Her male coun­ter­part takes his inspi­ra­tion from an even ear­li­er stage of civ­i­liza­tion, his loin­cloth cov­er­ing as few as pos­si­ble of the abstract pat­terns paint­ed or tat­tooed all over his body. (About his choice to top it all off with a plumed hel­met, an entire PhD the­sis could sure­ly be writ­ten.)

Any cred­i­ble vision of the future must draw inspi­ra­tion from the past, and Cush­ing’s inter­ests equipped him well for the task: 28 years lat­er, his New York Times obit­u­ary would refer to his ear­ly spe­cial­iza­tion in depict­ing “hand­some young men and women in Greek or mod­ern cos­tumes.”

Even though fash­ions have yet to make a return to antiq­ui­ty, how many out­fits on the street of any major city today would scan­dal­ize the aver­age Life read­er of 1914? Of course, the cov­er is essen­tial­ly a gag, as is much of the osten­si­ble prog­nos­ti­ca­tion inside. As cir­cu­lat­ed again not long ago in a tweet thread by Andy Machals, it fore­sees mon­archs in the unem­ploy­ment line, boys’ jobs tak­en by girls, women acquir­ing harems of men, and the near-extinc­tion of mar­riage. But some pre­dic­tions, like 30 miles per hour becom­ing a slow enough dri­ving speed to be tick­etable, have come true. Anoth­er piece imag­ines peo­ple of the 1950s hir­ing musi­cians to accom­pa­ny them through­out each phase of the day. Few of us do that even in the 2020s, but liv­ing our dig­i­tal­ly sound­tracked lives, we may still won­der how our ear­ly 20th-cen­tu­ry ances­tors man­aged: “Between meals they lis­tened to almost absolute­ly noth­ing.”

via Messy Nessy

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Author Imag­ines in 1893 the Fash­ions That Would Appear Over the Next 100 Years

Fash­ion Design­ers in 1939 Pre­dict How Peo­ple Would Dress in the Year 2000

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

How French Artists in 1899 Envi­sioned Life in the Year 2000: Draw­ing the Future

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.