Charles Bukowski: Depression and Three Days in Bed Can Restore Your Creative Juices (NSFW)

in Life, Poetry, Psychology | May 22nd, 2012

Pico Iyer once called Charles Bukows­ki the “lau­re­ate of Amer­i­can lowlife,” and that’s because he wrote poems for and about ordi­nary Amer­i­cans — peo­ple who expe­ri­enced pover­ty, the tedi­um and grind of work, and some­times frayed rela­tion­ships, bouts of alco­holism, drug addic­tion and the rest. Bukows­ki could write so elo­quent­ly about this because he came from this world. He grew up in a poor immi­grant house­hold with an abu­sive father, took to the bot­tle at an ear­ly age, worked at a Los Ange­les post office for a decade plus, and had a long and tumul­tuous rela­tion­ship with Jane Cooney Bak­er, a wid­ow eleven years his senior, who drank to excess and died at 51, leav­ing Bukows­ki bro­ken.

And then there’s the depres­sion. Bukows­ki expe­ri­enced that too. But he knew how to chan­nel it, how to turn days of dark­ness into sources of per­son­al and cre­ative renew­al. He explains it in some char­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly NSFW detail above.

To gain a more in-depth under­stand­ing of depres­sion and its bio­log­i­cal basis, we’d rec­om­mend watch­ing this lec­ture by Stan­ford’s Robert Sapolksy.

Here’s a tran­script of what Bukows­ki has to say:

I have peri­ods where, you know, when I feel a lit­tle weak or depressed. Fuck it! The Wheaties aren’t going down right. I just go to bed for three days and four nights, pull down all the shades and just go to bed. Get up. Shit. Piss. Drink a beer down and go back to bed. I come out of that com­plete­ly re-enlight­ened for 2 or 3 months. I get pow­er from that.

I think someday…they’ll say this psy­chot­ic guy knew some­thing that…you know in days ahead and med­i­cine, and how they fig­ure these things out. Every­body should go to bed now and then, when they’re down low and give it up for three or four days. Then they’ll come back good for a while.

But we’re so obsessed with, we have to get up and do it and go back to sleep. In fact there’s a woman I’m liv­ing with now, get’s around 12:30, 1pm, I say: “I’m sleepy. I want to go to sleep.” She says: “What? You want to go to sleep, it’s only 1pm!” We’re not even drink­ing, you know. Hell, there’s noth­ing else to do but sleep.

Peo­ple are nailed to the process­es. Up. Down. Do some­thing. Get up, do some­thing, go to sleep. Get up. They can’t get out of that cir­cle. You’ll see, some­day they’ll say: “Bukows­ki knew.” Lay down for 3 or 4 days till you get your juices back, then get up, look around and do it. But who the hell can do it cause you need a dol­lar. That’s all. That’s a long speech, isn’t it? But it means some­thing.

via Bib­liok­lept

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 Bukows­ki:

Tom Waits Reads Charles Bukows­ki

The Last Faxed Poem of Charles Bukows­ki

Charles Bukows­ki Reads His Poem “The Secret of My Endurance”

Manuel Lima Visualizes Knowledge in Our Interconnected World in a Brand New RSA Animated Video

in Animation, Technology | May 22nd, 2012

Through­out 2010 and 2011, the Roy­al Soci­ety of the Arts (RSA) devel­oped a series of catchy videos that fea­ture the words of thought lead­ers accom­pa­nied by the fast-mov­ing ani­ma­tion of Andrew Park. Along the way, we have high­light­ed RSA talks by Stephen Pinker, Slavoj Zizek, Bar­bara Ehren­re­ich, Daniel Pink, Sir Ken Robin­son, and Rena­ta Sale­cl. Now, after a fair­ly long hia­tus, the series returns — this time with Manuel Lima (senior UX design lead at Microsoft Bing) explain­ing how net­works helps us map and cre­ate knowl­edge in our mod­ern world. You can watch the full  unan­i­mat­ed) lec­ture here.

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A Most Unfortunate Commencement Typo at UT Austin

in Comedy | May 21st, 2012

We’ll let you spot the typo to end all typos. Need­less to say, the school has issued its mea cul­pa on Twit­ter and start­ed print­ing new com­mence­ment brochures. Now they’ll wait with bat­ed breath to see if their goof becomes fod­der for The Dai­ly Show. We all make mis­takes and then we move on. via Jim Romanesko

Give us a fol­low on Face­book and Twit­ter, and you can share intel­li­gent media (and the occa­sion­al joke) with fam­i­ly and friends.

Neil Gaiman Gives Graduates 10 Essential Tips for Working in the Arts

in Books, Graduation Speech, Life, Literature | May 21st, 2012

Neil Gaiman, con­sid­ered one of the top ten liv­ing post-mod­ern writ­ers, nev­er went to col­lege. He nei­ther start­ed nor fin­ished his advanced stud­ies, but rather put him­self into the world and start­ed writ­ing. And write he did. He’s now the New York Times best­selling author of the nov­els Nev­er­where, Star­dust, and Amer­i­can Gods, among oth­ers, and he’s also the win­ner of the 2009 New­bery Medal and 2010 Carnegie Medal in Lit­er­a­ture. (We have gath­ered free ver­sions of Gaiman’s writ­ing in audio & text here.) This week­end, Gaiman spoke at The Uni­ver­si­ty of the Arts in Philadel­phia and told the grad­u­at­ing class all the things he wish he knew at their age. The talk runs 19 min­utes. The dis­tilled ver­sion appears below.

1. Embrace the fact that you’re young. Accept that you don’t know what you’re doing. And don’t lis­ten to any­one who says there are rules and lim­its.
2. If you know your call­ing, go there. Stay on track. Keep mov­ing towards it, even if the process takes time and requires sac­ri­fice.
3. Learn to accept fail­ure. Know that things will go wrong. Then, when things go right, you’ll prob­a­bly feel like a fraud. It’s nor­mal.
4. Make mis­takes, glo­ri­ous and fan­tas­tic ones. It means that you’re out there doing and try­ing things.
5. When life gets hard, as it inevitably will, make good art. Just make good art.
6. Make your own art, mean­ing the art that reflects your indi­vid­u­al­i­ty and per­son­al vision.
7. Now a prac­ti­cal tip. You get free­lance work if your work is good, if you’re easy to get along with, and if you’re on dead­line. Actu­al­ly you don’t need all three. Just two.
8. Enjoy the ride, don’t fret the whole way. Stephen King gave that piece of advice to Neil years ago.
9. Be wise and accom­plish things in your career. If you have prob­lems get­ting start­ed, pre­tend you’re some­one who is wise, who can get things done. It will help you along.
10. Leave the world more inter­est­ing than it was before.

via Metafil­ter

Last Night’s Solar Eclipse in a 60-Second, 700-Picture Timelapse Video

in Video - Science | May 21st, 2012

If you missed the big solar eclipse and its strange shad­ows last night, not to wor­ry. Cory Poole, a sci­ence teacher in Red­ding, Cal­i­for­nia, has you cov­ered. Above, you’ll find his video that brings togeth­er 700 images (view them indi­vid­u­al­ly in high res here) into a 60 sec­ond time-lapse film. The images were viewed/taken through a Coro­n­a­do Solar Max 60 Dou­ble Stacked Hydro­gen Alpha Solar Tele­scope. The music was com­posed in Abel­ton Live. Find cours­es on Astron­o­my in our col­lec­tion of Free Online Cours­es. via Giz­mo­do

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Mussolini Sends to America a Happy Message, Full of Friendly Feelings, in English (1927)

in Film, History | May 21st, 2012

Strange as it sounds, Ben­i­to Mus­soli­ni played a his­toric role in the intro­duc­tion of talk­ing motion pic­tures.

Through­out the ear­ly 1920s, var­i­ous sound tech­nolo­gies for cin­e­ma were test­ed and exhib­it­ed pub­licly. By 1927 two rival com­pa­nies were on the home stretch in the race to intro­duce a viable syn­chro­nized sound sys­tem for wide­spread com­mer­cial use in the­aters. Warn­er Bros. had invest­ed heav­i­ly in a record­ing-on-disc method trade-named “Vita­phone,” and would unveil the first fea­ture film with record­ed dia­logue sequences, The Jazz Singer, on Octo­ber  6, 1927. Mean­while the Fox Film Cor­po­ra­tion was devel­op­ing a sound-on-film tech­nol­o­gy, called “Movi­etone,” that would lat­er become the indus­try stan­dard.  With Movi­etone the audio was record­ed as a vari­able-den­si­ty opti­cal track on the film, along­side the visu­al image, instead of on a sep­a­rate gramo­phone record.

To beat Warn­er Bros. to the punch, Fox pre­miered its Movi­etone fea­ture Sun­rise, by the Ger­man expres­sion­ist film­mak­er F.W. Mur­nau, at Times Square in New York on Sep­tem­ber 23, 1927, two weeks ahead of The Jazz Singer. Mur­nau’s film had syn­chro­nized music and sound effects, but no dia­logue. The heav­i­ly pub­li­cized event includ­ed the screen­ing of a pair of Movi­etone news­reels: one of the Vat­i­can choir, the oth­er of Mus­soli­ni. “See and Hear ‘The Man of the Hour’ His Excel­len­cy Ben­i­to Mus­soli­ni, Pre­mier of Italy,” said a Fox adver­tise­ment. “He speaks to you and lives before your eyes on the Movi­etone!” The ground-break­ing news­reel was a pub­lic­i­ty coup for both the movie com­pa­ny and the dic­ta­tor. Film his­to­ri­an Don­ald Crafton pro­vides some back­ground in his book The Talkies: Amer­i­can Cin­e­ma’s Tran­si­tion to Sound, 1926–1931:

On 20 April 1927, Charles Pet­ti­john, gen­er­al coun­sel for the Hays Office and head of the Film Boards of Trade, was meet­ing with Ben­i­to Mus­soli­ni. He sug­gest­ed that the dic­ta­tor sit for a film­ing, and Mus­soli­ni, a long­time film buff, read­i­ly agreed. Il Duce liked the result so much that he ‘is hav­ing a talk­ing film pre­pared that will show his dai­ly activ­i­ties.’ Mus­soli­ni report­ed­ly said, ‘Let me speak through [the news­reel] in twen­ty cities in Italy once a week and I need no oth­er pow­er.’ This film would enable him to appear in pub­lic with no threat of assas­si­na­tion.

The orig­i­nal ver­sion of the “Mus­soli­ni Movi­etone” includ­ed footage of Fas­cist reg­i­ments drilling, and a grand intro­duc­tion of the dic­ta­tor by the Amer­i­can ambas­sador to Italy, Hen­ry P. Fletch­er. “I am very glad,” Mus­soli­ni says in the news­reel, “to be able to express my friend­ly feel­ings towards the Amer­i­can nation, friend­ship with which Italy looks at the mil­lions of cit­i­zens, who from Alas­ka to Flori­da, from the Pacif­ic to the Atlantic, live in the Unit­ed States, which lay deeply root­ed in our hearts.” Four­teen years lat­er Italy and the Unit­ed States were at war, and less than four years after that, on April 28, 1945, Mus­soli­ni was killed by his own peo­ple. They made a news­reel about that, too.

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!

Sketches of Artists by the Late New Media Designer Hillman Curtis

in Art, Film | May 21st, 2012

Hill­man Cur­tis began his career in the San Fran­cis­co new wave group Mrs. Green, served as Macro­me­di­a’s design direc­tor, found­ed the design firm hill­man­cur­tis, Inc., wrote man­u­als on new media, and shot short doc­u­men­taries. He accom­plished much of note across the design pro­fes­sions before his untime­ly pass­ing last month, and these projects reveal his great affin­i­ty for like-mind­ed­ly mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary and aes­thet­i­cal­ly inclined cre­ators. He won a great deal of his inter­net fame exam­in­ing just such peo­ple in the Artist Series, a cycle of five-to-ten minute pro­files of, broad­ly speak­ing, his col­leagues. These include Mil­ton Glaser, the man behind the look of the immor­tal I Love New York cam­paign; David Car­son, art direc­tor of the nineties’ cultish­ly cov­et­ed rock mag­a­zine Ray Gun; and Mark Romanek, direc­tor of strik­ing com­mer­cials and fea­ture films like One Hour Pho­to.

At the top of this post, you’ll find Cur­tis’ Artist Series short on Daniel Libe­skind, the archi­tect over­see­ing the rebuild­ing of the World Trade Cen­ter. It exam­ines the archi­tec­t’s build­ings, his sketch­es, his meet­ings, and his ideas about the built envi­ron­ment as a tool for lib­er­a­tion rather than a “neu­tral world that con­firms all our ideas.” Ulti­mate­ly, Libe­skind asks this of his craft, his pro­fes­sion, and his world­view: “How will it car­ry peo­ple into a world that is good?” Direct­ly above is Cur­tis’ pro­file of graph­ic design­er Paula Sch­er, who talks about the speed with which she sketched the Citibank logo. The client seems to have balked at this, assum­ing that any­thing so quick­ly cre­at­ed could­n’t pos­si­bly war­rant the cost. Sch­er argues that, while it appeared to take her only a sec­ond, it real­ly took her “a sec­ond and 34 years,” “a sec­ond and every expe­ri­ence and every movie and every thing of my life that’s in my head.” Nei­ther she nor any­one else in the Artist Series sees divi­sions between their work, their life, and the rest of human­i­ty. Hill­man Cur­tis, by all accounts, lived the same way.

Relat­ed con­tent:

Pow­ers of Ten: The 1968 Doc­u­men­tary by Leg­endary Design­ers Ray and Charles Eames

Pao­la Antonel­li on Design as the Inter­face Between Progress and Human­i­ty

Clas­sic Jazz Album Cov­ers Ani­mat­ed, or the Re-Birth of Cool

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

Adam Savage (Host of Mythbusters) Tells Sarah Lawrence Grads to Think Broadly … and Don’t Work for Fools

in Education, Life | May 20th, 2012

Adam Sav­age was born in New York City, not far from Sarah Lawrence Col­lege, the lib­er­al arts school where he deliv­ered the com­mence­ment speech this past week­end. Sav­age nev­er went to Sarah Lawrence. Nor did he fin­ish his own degree at NYU. But he had plen­ty to tell the grad­u­at­ing class. On his own web site, Sav­age calls him­self “a mak­er of things.” As a kid, he made his own toys. As a young adult, he began exper­i­ment­ing with spe­cial effects for films, then served stints as an “ani­ma­tor, graph­ic design­er, rig­ger, stage and inte­ri­or design­er, car­pen­ter, scenic painter, welder, actor, writer, and tele­vi­sion host.” (Per­haps you have seen his pop­u­lar Dis­cov­ery Chan­nel show, Myth­busters.) In short, Sav­age is a “col­lec­tor of skills, a poly­math. How did he get this way? By cast­ing his intel­lec­tu­al net wide­ly and by con­tin­u­ing to learn through­out life — which is pret­ty much what we’re all about here. There’s a lot of good advice in this short, feel-good speech. Some of my favorite bits include:

“Don’t work for fools. It’s not worth it. Get­ting paid less to work for peo­ple you like and believe in is much bet­ter for you (and your career) in the long run.”

“Stay obsessed. That thing you can’t stop think­ing about? Keep indulging it. Obses­sion is the bet­ter part of suc­cess. You will be great at the things that you can’t not do.”

“F. Scott Fitzger­ald wrote The Great Gats­by and is one of our nation­al trea­sures. A true giant of writing.The sil­li­est thing he ever wrote is the quote, “There are no sec­ond acts in Amer­i­can lives.” This is insane. If there’s one thing that typ­i­fies the Amer­i­can expe­ri­ence it is that rein­ven­tion and rebirth are intrin­sic to it. Ray­mond Chan­dler did­n’t write a sin­gle word of any con­se­quence until his 40s. Julia Child learned to cook at 40! Clint East­wood direct­ed his first film at 41. Don’t be afraid to be a late bloomer. Repeat­ed­ly.”

Good thoughts, all of them. You can find the full tran­script here. H/T @opedr

More Com­mence­ment Speech­es: 

‘This Is Water’: Com­plete Audio of David Fos­ter Wallace’s Keny­on Grad­u­a­tion Speech (2005)

Conan O’Brien Kills It at Dart­mouth Grad­u­a­tion

J.K. Rowl­ing Tells Har­vard Grads Why Suc­cess Begins with Fail­ure

Moons, Moons, They’re Everywhere. The Unexpected Shadows of the Solar Eclipse

in Random | May 20th, 2012

The eerie (and, for me, the unex­pect­ed) part of the solar eclipse now in full bloom in North­ern Cal­i­for­nia is that you can see the moon in the shad­ows. They’re every­where. Here they appear on the door of a parked car.

Says Wired:

Those not direct­ly in the path of the eclipse will still see some strange effects by step­ping out­side. Shad­ows cast from trees and bush­es will con­tain thou­sands of tiny odd cres­cents, as the spaces between leaves become pin­hole cam­eras.

Any­one remem­ber those pin­hole cam­eras from ele­men­tary school? You can watch a live stream of the eclipse below:

Einstein Explains His Famous Formula, E=mc², in Original Audio

in Physics | May 18th, 2012

Last week we played for you the only known record­ing of Sig­mund Freud’s voice (1938). Now it’s time to revive the voice of anoth­er intel­lec­tu­al giant, Albert Ein­stein. In this record­ing, the physi­cist offers the briefest expla­na­tion of the world’s most famous equa­tion, E=mc2. When was this record­ed? We’re unfor­tu­nate­ly not sure. Let’s just say some­where between 1932 (a date Ein­stein men­tions in the clip) and his death in 1955. Some­where in those 20+ years, give or take a few. Don’t miss the recent­ly-opened Ein­stein archive and many free Physics cours­es in our col­lec­tion of Free Online Cours­es from top uni­ver­si­ties.

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!