Culture Writer Wanted!
Open Culture is looking for a freelance writer to cover all things cultural and help bring more intelligent media to our global audience. Here is an overview of what we have in mind.
- The writer will contribute 3–5 posts per week on a very reliable schedule and will receive compensation for each post. Days will be mutually agreed upon in advance.
- The posts should be written in a clear, concise and engaging way. And the copy must be clean, and the facts, checked.
- The candidate should have a lot of cultural depth/range, strong writing skills, ideally a track record writing online, and a good understanding of what our mission is all about. Hopefully you’re already a fan of the site.
- Picking topics that mesh with our site is really important. Please read the tips on this page.
In terms of next steps, it would be great if you could please submit the following (and put “Culture Writer” in the header) by Friday May 18th:
1) A short paragraph about your background and interests and how they align with Open Culture’s mission.
2) A writing sample and preferably links to sample pieces online.
3) A list of three sample ideas/topics that you would cover in your posts, with a brief description explaining why. Before you get started you might want to refer to the tips on this page.
This will help us get oriented, and we will follow up with a phone call if things feel on target.
Thanks for your interest, and please let me know if you have any questions.
Regards,
Dan
Read More...Duke Ellington Plays for Joan Miró in the South of France, 1966: Bassist John Lamb Looks Back on the Day
On a sunny July morning in 1966, two of the 20th century’s greatest artists–Duke Ellington and Joan Miró–met in the medieval village of St. Paul de Vence in the south of France.
The meeting was arranged by the legendary jazz impresario Norman Granz, who was producing a music festival at Juan-le-Pins while at the same time continuing work on a documentary film project he had started in 1950, called Improvisation. Granz had the idea of bringing Ellington and his trio to play in the garden at the Fondation Maeght, where, as he explains in this excerpt from the film, by sheer luck Miró happened to be working. The two men couldn’t understand a word each other said, but showed each other their work. Miro took Ellington on a tour of his sculptures; Ellington and his trio played a couple of numbers for Miró.
We spoke this week with a member of Ellington’s trio, bassist John Lamb. Now 78, Lamb said he doesn’t remember much about that day, except that the trip to St. Paul de Vence was at 10 or 11 in the morning–early for the musicians, who had been up late the night before. After performing at the festival with musicians like Ella Fitzgerald, Jean-Luc Ponty, Charles Lloyd and Keith Jarrett, meeting Miró was no big deal for Lamb. “It didn’t mean too much,” he said, “because we were in the limelight all the time. It was just another thing.”
The song in the video is an E‑minor blues with a call-and-response form that Ellington would later name “The Shepherd (Who Watches Over His Flock)” in honor of Lutheran clergyman John Garcia Gensel, who ministered to the jazz community in New York City. Although it’s true, as Granz says in the film, that Ellington first charted the song for his full orchestra at the festival, “The Shepherd” was not improvised on the spot. “The actual piece evolved over a period of time on the road,” said Lamb.
In the film clip, drummer Sam Woodyard keeps the beat with his back turned to the others while Lamb leans in to watch every move of Ellington’s hands. “There was a complete marriage between the piano and the bass,” said Lamb. “He didn’t do anything to surprise me too much because I had worked with him awhile and I knew what he would do. I sort of anticipated. That’s what bass players have to do–anticipate what the piano player is going to do. So I watched him in case he decided to do something different.”
Lamb toured with Ellington for three years. At the time, he didn’t fully appreciate the elder musician’s style. He was more into players like Miles Davis and Red Garland. “I was very young and very cocky. I thought I knew more than Duke at that time,” Lamb said, laughing at the memory. “The music to me is much more important now than it was then. I needed a job then, I needed to work. I was hungry. I have more time today to reflect on the things that were accomplished back then, and the places we traveled to and all the wonderful people that we met. So one has to be careful what one does in his young years, because if they’re fortunate to live long, it all comes back.”
Note: You can learn more about bassist John Lamb’s adventures with the Duke Ellington Trio at Jazz Backstory. And for more of the performance at the Fondation Maeght, along with scenes from the 1966 jazz festival at Juan-le-Pins, watch Duke Ellington at the Côte d’Azur with Ella Fitzgerald and Joan Miró, which comes on a two-disc DVD with the later performance Duke: The Last Jam Session.
Read More...Leo Tolstoy Reads From His Last Major Work in 4 Languages, 1909
Earlier this week we brought you rare recordings of Sigmund Freud and Jorge Luis Borges speaking in English. Today we present a remarkable series of recordings of the great Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy reading a passage from his book, Wise Thoughts for Every Day, in four languages: English, German, French and Russian.
Wise Thoughts For Every Day (find a copy in our collection of Free eBooks) was Tolstoy’s last major work. It first appeared in 1903 as The Thoughts of Wise Men, and was revised and renamed several times before the author’s death in 1910. It was banned by the Soviet regime, only to reappear in 1995 as a bestseller in Russia. In 1997 it was translated into English by Peter Sekirin and published as A Calendar of Wisdom. The book is a collection of passages from a diverse group of thinkers, ranging from Lao-Tzu to Ralph Waldo Emerson. “I felt that I have been elevated to great spiritual and moral heights by communication with the best and wisest people whose books I read and whose thoughts I selected for my Circle of Reading,” wrote Tolstoy in his diary.
As an old man (watch video of him shortly before he died) Tolstoy rejected his great works of fiction, believing that it was more important to give moral and spiritual guidance to the common people. “To create a book for the masses, for millions of people,” wrote Tolstoy, “is incomparably more important and fruitful than to compose a novel of the kind which diverts some members of the wealthy classes for a short time, and then is forever forgotten.”
Tolstoy arranged his book for the masses as a calendar, with a series of readings for each day of the year. For example under today’s date, May 9, Tolstoy selects brief passages from Immanuel Kant, Solon, and the Koran. Underneath he writes, “We cannot stop on the way to self-perfection. As soon as you notice that you have a bigger interest in the outer world than in yourself, then you should know that the world moves behind you.”
The audio recordings above were made at the writer’s home in Yasnaya Polyana on October 31, 1909, when he was 81 years old. He died just over a year later. Tolstoy apparently translated the passage himself. The English version sounds a bit like the King James Bible. The words are hard to make out in the recording, but he says:
That the object of life is self-perfection, the perfection of all immortal souls, that this is the only object of my life, is seen to be correct by the fact alone that every other object is essentially a new object. Therefore, the question whether thou hast done what thou shoudst have done is of immense importance, for the only meaning of thy life is in doing in this short term allowed thee, that which is desired of thee by He or That which has sent thee into life. Art thou doing the right thing?
Tolstoy is known to have made several voice recordings in his life, dating back to 1895 when he made two wax cylinder recordings for Julius Block. Russian literary scholar Andrew D. Kaufman has collected three more vintage recordings (all in Russian) including Tolstoy’s lesson to peasant children on his estate, a reading of his fairy tale “The Wolf,” and an excerpt from his essay “I Cannot be Silent.”
Related Content:
The Last Days of Leo Tolstoy Captured on Video
Leo Tolstoy Creates a List of the 50+ Books That Influenced Him Most (1891)
Leo Tolstoy’s Family Recipe for Macaroni and Cheese
700 Free Audio Books and 700 Free eBooks (lists include works by Tolstoy and other Russian Classics)
Read More...Watch the Animation of Maurice Sendak’s Surreal and Controversial Story, In the Night Kitchen
By now you’ve heard the sad news. The beloved children’s author Maurice Sendak died yesterday at the age of 83. Of course, he’s best remembered for his classic tale, Where the Wild Things Are (1963). But some readers may hold a special place in their hearts for his 1970 picture book, In the Night Kitchen. It’s a surreal story that was named one of the Outstanding Children’s Books of 1970 by The New York Times. It’s also a story that stirred up some controversy. At points in the illustrated book, the three year old protagonist appears naked, shocking some critics and readers. These days, you’ll find the book ranking 25th on the American Library Association’s list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–2000.
In 1980, illustrator Gene Deitch got beyond the controversy and produced a five minute, faithful adaptation of In the Night Kitchen. It appears above, and it’s now rightfully added to the Animation section of our big collection of 475 Free Movies Online.
Bonus Material:
- Maurice Sendak’s Fresh Air interview recorded last September was extremely poignant and worth a listen.
- Art Spiegelman (Maus) visited Sendak in 1993 and created a great illustration of their meeting in The New Yorker.
- The Mind & Art of Maurice Sendak: An insightful video sketch recorded last year by the Tate Museums.
- Sendak on Death (And Life). From documentary by Spike Jonze and Lance Bangs.
Flash Mob Fun Part II: Copenhagen Philharmonic Plays Grieg’s Peer Gynt in the Subway
Ah, the Copenhagen Philharmonic strikes again. Last year, they broke out some Ravel’s Bolero at Copenhagen’s Central Station. This year, it’s Peer Gynt in the subway itself. The Copenhagen Phil dates back to 1843, making it one of the oldest professional symphony orchestras in Europe. But stodgy and bound by tradition they’re not. Hope the clip helps start your day. H/T Mefi
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Read More...Crowdsourcing Free Educational Resources for Kids: We Want Your Help
Note: Since this post was written, we have created a big list of resources called 200 Free K‑12 Educational Resources: Video Lessons, Mobile Apps, Web Sites, Free Books & More. Please check it out.
Calling all teachers, parents, home schoolers, and beyond. We’re going to enter some new territory today and start creating a big meta collection of free educational resources for younger students — for anyone in the K‑12 range. Of course, we all know about the Khan Academy, and they’ll be included on the list. But what other great resources would you like to see mentioned here? For example, we recently pointed you to Lit2Go’s collection of audiobooks for youngsters. In times past, we’ve told you about CK-12 and their free textbooks for high school students; the Royal Institution’s Christmas Lectures for Children; and these great animated versions of Shakespeare’s plays. If it’s an open educational resource geared toward children, we want to know about it. And we’ll pull them all together in a nicely organized list and share them with you and others. You can tell us your favorites in the comments section below. Or simply email us your faves here. We thank you in advance for your contributions!
Image provided courtesy of BigStockPhoto
Read More...Jacques Tati Film Festival: Four Rare Films, 1935–1967
Jacques Tati was the gentle poet of French cinema. His comedies, including the classics Mon Oncle and Mr. Hulot’s Holiday, are less about hilarity than what Roger Ebert calls “an amused affection for human nature.”
Tati’s six feature films coincide with the period of French history known as the trente glorieuses, the thirty “glorious” years of rapidly rising prosperity after World War II. As modern France grows up all around, Tati’s protagonists bumble along at an agrarian pace. Tati’s “out-of-synchness” is evident not only in the content, but in the form of his films. They are essentially silent films in an age of talking pictures. Sound and dialogue are secondary. Tati’s protagonists tend to mumble while communicating through mime.
Today we offer four rarely seen short films featuring Tati as a performer. Gai Dimanche (“Lively Sunday”), above, is the second of Tati’s surviving film performances. Directed by Jacques Berr in 1935, it features Tati and his friend Enrico Sprocani, a circus clown who went by the name of “Rhum,” as a pair of city tramps who hatch a scheme to spend an all-expenses-paid day in the country. The story was written by Tati and Sprocani, and was inspired by their own straightened economic circumstances. It’s a rough film, with just a hint of what was to come. “Gai Dimanche,” writes David Bellos in Jacques Tati: His Life and Art, “seems to have less to do with Tati’s métier as a mime, and more to do with the early development of the themes that he would later elaborate into films of real imaginative quality.”
Soigne ton Gauche (“Watch Your Left”), 1936:
Directed by René Clément, Soigne ton Gauche is a more polished film than Gai Dimanche. Drawing on Tati’s early music-hall work as a “sporting impressionist,” it tells the story of a dull-witted dreamer thrust into the role of a boxing champion’s sparring partner. “Though the mimed boxing match is the centrepiece of the movie’s plot,” writes Bellos, “all the interest of the work is in what is added to the comic fight–the pictorial and narrative surround, its fictionalized context, and especially the make-believe of the children and of the character of the unintentional sparring partner.”
L’École des Facteurs (“School for Postmen”), 1947:
Tati’s first film after World War II, L’École des Facteurs is also his first as director. Although the film is often dated 1947, the exact year of production is uncertain. According to Bellos, filming may have begun as early as 1945. Filmed near the southern village of Aix-en-Provence, L’École des Facteurs is in many ways a trial run for Tati’s first full-length feature, Jour de Fête (“Festival Day”). It tells the story of a rural postman’s clumsy efforts to join into the modern spirit of ever-increasing efficiency. “The vision we share through L’École des Facteurs is a satirical one,” writes Bellos: “through exaggeration and ridicule, it prompts a negative view of those things that Tati disliked–work, efficiency, hurry, organisation–and no less surely suggests that men in peaked caps are arrant fools.” The film is Tati’s first mature work. As Bellos writes:
There is not a visually dull moment in L’École des Facteurs, and its quality derives in large part from its extreme economy of means. But without the peculiar effect of Tati’s size, of his antiquated half-military uniform, and of his comic clumsinss so well-honed that it acquires a kind of grace, the film would not be anything very much. It was intended as a launch-vehicle for Tati as a new comic cinema personality. It is not a masterpiece; but it is a very promising start, far ahead of anything Tati had done before the war.
Cours du Soir (“Evening Classes”), 1967:
Where the other three short films we’ve presented make up a kind of prelude to Tati’s career, Cours du Soir seems more like a coda. The film was shot in 1966 by one of Tati’s assistants, Nicolas Ribowski, at “Tativille” the sprawling set of Playtime. Although Bellos calls it one of Tati’s “least exciting performances ever,” the film offers a rare glimpse of the master explaining the art of mime to a group of students. As always, Tati appears as a man out of step with his time.
The films mentioned above will be added to our meta collection of Free Movies Online.
Read More...
David Byrne Plays Seven Characters & Interviews Himself in Funny Promo for Stop Making Sense
We’ve shown you the heady David Byrne lecturing sometimes on how architecture helped music evolve, and sometimes on the connections between music and cognition. We’ve also given you the breezier David Byrne extolling the virtues of urban bicycling. Now comes the lighthearted David Byrne interviewing himself in a promotional video for the Talking Heads 1984 concert movie, Stop Making Sense. In a matter of minutes, Byrne, playing the role of interviewer and interviewee, changes character, moving from white woman to African American male, from used car salesman to old geyser, all while explaining the genesis and philosophy of the film. And somehow it all makes sense.…
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Related Content:
Live in Rome, 1980: The Talking Heads Concert Film You Haven’t Seen
The Talking Heads Play CBGB, the New York Club that Shaped Their Sound (1975)
Read More...
Jorge Luis Borges’ 1967–8 Norton Lectures On Poetry (And Everything Else Literary)
Like most literary geeks, I’ve read a lot of Jorge Luis Borges. If you haven’t, look into the influences of your favorite writers, and you may find the Argentine short-story craftsman appearing with Beatles-like frequency. Indeed, Borges’ body of work radiates inspiration far beyond the realm of the short story, and even beyond literature as commonly practiced. Creators from David Foster Wallace to Alex Cox to W.G. Sebald to the Firesign Theater have all, from their various places on the cultural landscape, freely admitted their Borgesian leanings. That Borges’ stories — or, in the more-encompassing term adherents prefer to use, his “fictions” — continue to provide so much fuel to so many imaginations outside his time and tradition speaks to their simultaneous intellectual richness and basic, precognitive impact. Perhaps “The Garden of Forking Paths” or “The Aleph” haven’t had that impact on you, but they’ve surely had it on an artist you enjoy.
Now, thanks to YouTube (see video above), you can not only read Borges, but hear him as well. They offer MP3s of Borges’ complete Norton Lectures, which the writer gave at Harvard University in the fall of 1967 and the spring of 1968. A transcript of the lectures can be bought in book format. The names of the six lectures are listed below.
1. The Riddle of Poetry
2. The Metaphor
3. The Telling of the Tale
4. Word-Music, and Translation
5. Thought and Poetry
6. A Poet’s Creed
Nearing both 70 years of age and total blindness, Borges nonetheless gives a virtuosically wide-ranging series of talks, freely reaching across forms, countries, eras, and languages without the aid of notes. Entitled “This Craft of Verse,” these lectures ostensibly deal with poetry. Alas, like many literary geeks, I know too little of poetry, but if Borges can’t motivate you to learn more, who can? And if you’ve read any of his fictions, you’ll know that he treats all subjects as nexuses of subjects. To hear Borges speak on poetry is, in this case, to hear him speak on storytelling, cliché, the epic, human communication, the shortcomings of the novel, translation, and the falseness of happy endings — and, because nobody could digest it all the first time, to want to hear it again.
Related content:
Las Calles de Borges: A Tribute to Argentina’s Favorite Son
Jorge Luis Borges: The Mirror Man
Colin Marshall hosts and produces Notebook on Cities and Culture. Follow him on Twitter at @colinmarshall.
Read More...Coldplay Covers Fight For Your Right to Party at the Hollywood Bowl: A Tribute to MCA
What’s more to say than Coldplay performed this tribute to Adam Yauch, the dearly departed Beastie Boy, Friday night at the Hollywood Bowl. Last fall, they also performed a three song set at Steve Jobs’ memorial service, which means they’re unfortunately getting a little too practiced at this. This video comes our way via Devour.
Related Content:
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Open Culture editor Dan Colman scours the web for the best educational media. He finds the free courses and audio books you need, the language lessons & movies you want, and plenty of enlightenment in between.
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