City of Scars: The Impressive Batman Fan Film Made for $27,000 in 21 Days

in Comics/Cartoons, Creativity, Film | February 26th, 2016

The sys­tem is bro­ken… 

A com­mon enough sen­ti­ment in an elec­tion year, but in this case, the speak­er is Bat­man, and the proof is the 30-minute labor of love above.

Five years ago, father and son Bat­man fans Sean and Aaron Schoenke spent $27,000 to make City of Scars, this thrilling­ly grim entry into the canon.

The Jok­er may have escaped, but the Schoenkes part ways with a cer­tain Hol­ly­wood fran­chise by con­fin­ing the cyn­i­cism to the sto­ry. The prospect of measly box office returns did­n’t stop them! They knew from the get go that their take would be zero. DC Comics allows ordi­nary mor­tals to use its char­ac­ters in their own inde­pen­dent projects, pro­vid­ed they don’t attempt to real­ize a prof­it.

Pre­dictably dis­mal box office fig­ures aside, the Schoenkes’ efforts have paid off splen­did­ly in oth­er ways. City of Scars, and its 2011 sequel, Seeds of Arkham, below, have gar­nered a gen­er­ous help­ing of atten­tion and awards (The Wall Street Jour­nal called City of Scars “impres­sive”), and the tal­ent­ed vol­un­teer cast and crew have ben­e­fit­ed from increased vis­i­bil­i­ty. Rather than reward­ing him­self with a new car or a man­sion in Bel Air, Schoenke the Younger broke with tra­di­tion, and cast him­self as Nightwing.

These days, the Shoenkes’ pro­duc­tion com­pa­ny, Bat in the Sun, has legions of fans, just like Bat­man! Super­hero devo­tees are a noto­ri­ous­ly tough crowd, but Bat in the Sun’s dark psy­cho­log­i­cal vision pass­es muster with them, as does its taste in vil­lains.

Box office totals notwith­stand­ing, the same can­not be said for the stuff the stu­dio churns out. (The sys­tem is bro­ken, remem­ber?)

The Schoenkes have chan­neled their indie suc­cess into a fran­chise of their own, Super Pow­er Beat Down, a month­ly web series where­in view­ers get to decide which super­hero won the staged bat­tle. Watch it below, in prepa­ra­tion for choos­ing the next vic­tor.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Evo­lu­tion of Bat­man in Cin­e­ma: From 1939 to Present

Bat­man & Oth­er Super Friends Sit for 17th Cen­tu­ry Flem­ish Style Por­traits

Russ­ian Super­heroes: Artist Draws Tra­di­tion­al Russ­ian Folk Heroes in a Mod­ern Fan­ta­sy Style

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine. You don’t need to cos-play to hang with her at the New York Fem­i­nist Zine­fest this Sun­day. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

David Foster Wallace Reads Franz Kafka’s Short Story “A Little Fable” (and Explains Why Comedy Is Key to Kafka)

in Comedy, Literature | February 16th, 2016

Just last night I was out with a nov­el­ist friend, one of whose books a review­er described as “the fun­ny ver­sion of Kaf­ka.” While he sure­ly appre­ci­at­ed the praise, my friend had an objec­tion: “But Kaf­ka is already com­e­dy!” Casu­al read­ers, many of whom haven’t set eyes on Franz Kaf­ka since col­lege, might car­ry with them a men­tal image of the ear­ly 20th-cen­tu­ry Aus­tria-Hun­gary-born writer as a crafts­man of pure bleak­ness: of frus­trat­ing­ly inac­ces­si­ble cas­tles, of per­se­cu­tion for unex­plained crimes, of hope­less bat­tles with bureau­cra­cy, of sales­men trans­formed into giant bugs. But Kaf­ka enthu­si­asts know well the humor from which all that springs, and their ranks have always con­tained quite a few oth­er nov­el­ists will­ing to point it out.

None of them have done it quite so elo­quent­ly as David Fos­ter Wal­lace, who deliv­ered a ten-minute speech on the sub­ject at the 1998 sym­po­sium “Meta­mor­pho­sis: A New Kaf­ka,” which lat­er appeared in print in Harp­er’s Mag­a­zine, where he act­ed as con­tribut­ing edi­tor. He begins, by way of illus­trat­ing Kafka’s com­e­dy, with the short­er-than-short 1920 sto­ry “A Lit­tle Fable”:

“Alas,” said the mouse, “the whole world is grow­ing small­er every day. At the begin­ning it was so big that I was afraid, I kept run­ning and run­ning, and I was glad when I saw walls far away to the right and left, but these long walls have nar­rowed so quick­ly that I am in the last cham­ber already, and there in the cor­ner stands the trap that I must run into.”

“You only need to change your direc­tion,” said the cat, and ate it up.

He also men­tions that he’d already giv­en up teach­ing the sto­ry in lit­er­a­ture class­es (one of whose syl­labi we’ve pre­vi­ous­ly fea­tured), which leads him to explain the “sig­nal frus­tra­tion in try­ing to read Kaf­ka with col­lege stu­dents,” that “it is next to impos­si­ble to get them to see that Kaf­ka is fun­ny… nor to appre­ci­ate the way fun­ni­ness is bound up with the extra­or­di­nary pow­er of his sto­ries.” Part of the prob­lem aris­es from the fact that “Kafka’s humor has almost none of the par­tic­u­lar forms and codes of con­tem­po­rary U.S. amuse­ment,” espe­cial­ly to “chil­dren whom our cul­ture has trained to see jokes as enter­tain­ment and enter­tain­ment as reas­sur­ance.” So what kind of jokes can we find in Kafka’s sto­ries, if we know how to get them?

There­in, Wal­lace argues, lies anoth­er part of the prob­lem: “It’s not that stu­dents don’t ‘get’ Kafka’s humor but that we’ve taught them that humor is some­thing you get — the same way we’ve taught them that a self is some­thing you just have,” all of which gets in the way of per­ceiv­ing “the real­ly cen­tral Kaf­ka joke — that the hor­rif­ic strug­gle to estab­lish a human self results in a self whose human­i­ty is insep­a­ra­ble from that hor­rif­ic strug­gle.” Of course, as Wal­lace adds in one of his sig­na­ture foot­notes, since “most of us Amer­i­cans come to art essen­tial­ly to for­get our­selves — to pre­tend for a while that we’re not mice and all walls are par­al­lel and the cat can be out­run — it’s no acci­dent that we’re going to see ‘A Lit­tle Fable’ as not all that fun­ny.” But read enough Kaf­ka, prefer­ably out­side the walls of a class­room, and you’ll get a much more expan­sive sense of humor itself.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

David Fos­ter Wallace’s 1994 Syl­labus

Four Franz Kaf­ka Ani­ma­tions: Enjoy Cre­ative Ani­mat­ed Shorts from Poland, Japan, Rus­sia & Cana­da

Franz Kafka’s Kafkaesque Love Let­ters

Vladimir Nabokov Makes Edi­to­r­i­al Tweaks to Franz Kafka’s Novel­la The Meta­mor­pho­sis

Franz Kaf­ka Says the Insect in The Meta­mor­pho­sis Should Nev­er Be Drawn; Vladimir Nabokov Draws It Any­way

Franz Kafka’s It’s a Won­der­ful Life: The Oscar-Win­ning Film About Kaf­ka Writ­ing The Meta­mor­pho­sis

The Art of Franz Kaf­ka: Draw­ings from 1907–1917

The Ani­mat­ed Franz Kaf­ka Rock Opera

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and style. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer, the video series The City in Cin­e­ma, the crowd­fund­ed jour­nal­ism project Where Is the City of the Future?, and the Los Ange­les Review of Books’ Korea Blog. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

The Princeton Bitcoin Textbook Is Now Free Online

in Computer Science, e-books | February 10th, 2016

Image by Jason Ben­jamin, via Flickr Com­mons

On the Free­dom to Tin­ker blog, Arvind Narayanan, a com­put­er sci­ence pro­fes­sor at Prince­ton, announced yes­ter­day:

The first com­plete draft of the Prince­ton Bit­coin text­book is now freely avail­able. We’re very hap­py with how the book turned out: it’s com­pre­hen­sive, at over 300 pages, but has a con­ver­sa­tion­al style that keeps it read­able.

If you’re look­ing to tru­ly under­stand how Bit­coin works at a tech­ni­cal lev­el and have a basic famil­iar­i­ty with com­put­er sci­ence and pro­gram­ming, this book is for you. Researchers and advanced stu­dents will find the book use­ful as well — start­ing around Chap­ter 5, most chap­ters have nov­el intel­lec­tu­al con­tri­bu­tions.

Prince­ton Uni­ver­si­ty Press is pub­lish­ing the offi­cial, peer-reviewed, pol­ished, and pro­fes­sion­al­ly done ver­sion of this book. It will be out this sum­mer. If you’d like to be noti­fied when it comes out, you should sign up here.

The Prince­ton Bit­coin text­book is already being used in Amer­i­can uni­ver­si­ty class­rooms (includ­ing at Stan­ford) and it’s also the text that sup­ports a Prince­ton Bit­coin course being taught on Cours­era.

You can now find it added to our col­lec­tion of Free Text­books.

via Boing­Bo­ing

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:

Bit­coin, the New Decen­tral­ized Dig­i­tal Cur­ren­cy, Demys­ti­fied in a Three Minute Video

Harvard’s Free Com­put­er Sci­ence Course Teach­es You to Code in 12 Weeks

Cal­cu­lus Life­saver: A Free Online Course from Prince­ton

Iggy Pop Reads Walt Whitman in Collaborations With Electronic Artists Alva Noto and Tarwater

in Music | February 9th, 2016

Image of Iggy Pop by Patrick McAlpine, via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

I don’t know why no one thought of this ages ago: an album of Walt Whitman’s poet­ry, set to moody, atmos­pher­ic elec­tron­ic music and read by for­mer Stooge and cur­rent Amer­i­can badass Iggy Pop. It makes per­fect sense. Though Pop may lack Whitman’s ver­bal excess­es, pre­fer­ring more Spar­tan punk rock state­ments, he per­fect­ly embodies—in a very lit­er­al way—Whitman’s fear­less, sex­u­al­ly-charged “bar­bar­ic yawp.” And both artists are very much Amer­i­can orig­i­nals: large­ly self-taught Whit­man cast aside 19th-cen­tu­ry deco­rum and for­mal con­straints to write wild­ly expres­sive verse that cel­e­brat­ed the body, the indi­vid­ual, and Amer­i­can indus­tri­al noise; self-taught Pop cast aside 20th cen­tu­ry rock for­mal­ism to cre­ate dan­ger­ous­ly expres­sive music that cel­e­brat­ed… well, you get the idea.

I don’t know if he would have writ­ten “Now I wan­na be your dog,” but in con­trast to “the pop­u­lar, well-edu­cat­ed poets of the time, those sen­si­tive noble­men,” Whit­man wrote—says Pop in his own dis­tinc­tive paraphrase—“Fuc% as$.” 

You know, I think he had some­thing like Elvis. Like Elvis ahead of his time, one of the first man­ic Amer­i­can pop­ulists. You know you’re look­ing at pic­tures of him, and he was obvi­ous­ly some­one who was very much involved with his own phys­i­cal appear­ance. His poet­ry is always about motion and rush­ing ahead, and crazy love and blood push­ing through the body. He would have been the per­fect gang­ster rap­per. Whit­man says, even the most beau­ti­ful face is not as beau­ti­ful as the body. And to say that in the mid­dle of the 19th cen­tu­ry is out­ra­geous. It’s a slap in the face. 

Of the many rock and roll inter­preters of lit­er­ary greats we’ve fea­tured on this site, I’d say Iggy Pop’s read­ing of, and com­men­tary on, Whit­man may be my favorite.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, we can only bring you a short excerpt, above, from Pop’s col­lab­o­ra­tion with instru­men­tal duo Tar­wa­ter and Ger­man elec­tron­ic artist Alva Noto (who recent­ly scored Ale­jan­dro Iñárritu’s The Revenant with Yel­low Mag­ic Orchestra’s Ryuichi Sakamo­to). This two-minute sam­ple comes from a 2014 album these artists made togeth­er called Kinder Adams—Children of Adam, which fea­tures sev­er­al abridged ren­di­tions in Ger­man of Whitman’s most famous book, Leaves of Grass by var­i­ous voice actors, then a com­plete read­ing by Pop, set to a throb­bing, haunt­ing score.

Now, Pop, Alva Noto, and Tar­wa­ter have come togeth­er again to revis­it Whit­man with a sev­en-track EP sim­ply titled Leaves of Grass. Like the ear­ly, self-pub­lished first edi­tion of Whitman’s book, this work will only reach a few hands. “Released on Morr Music with no dig­i­tal ver­sion planned,” reports Fact Mag, “Leaves of Grass is only avail­able in a lim­it­ed vinyl edi­tion of just 500 copies, com­plete with embossed art­work.” You can pur­chase a copy of this arti­fact here (act fast), or—if you pre­fer your more tra­di­tion­al Iggy Pop with­out the lit­er­a­ture, moody, post-rock sound­scapes, and rar­efied formats—wait for his new album in March with Queens of the Stone Age’s Josh Homme, sure to hit dig­i­tal out­lets near you. Whether or not he’s read­ing Whit­man, he’s always chan­nel­ing the poet­’s ener­gy.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Iggy Pop Reads Edgar Allan Poe’s Clas­sic Hor­ror Sto­ry, “The Tell-Tale Heart”

Tom Waits Reads Two Charles Bukows­ki Poems, “The Laugh­ing Heart” and “Nir­vana”

Walt Whitman’s Poem “A Noise­less Patient Spi­der” Brought to Life in Three Ani­ma­tions

Orson Welles Reads From America’s Great­est Poem, Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself” (1953)

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

Alan Rickman Recites “If Death Is Not the End,” a Moving Poem by Robyn Hitchcock

in Film, Life, Music, Poetry, Theatre | February 1st, 2016

Odd­ball singer-song­writer Robyn Hitch­cock is a man who knows how to mark mile­stones. Back in 2003, he staged a con­cert at London’s Queen Eliz­a­beth Hall in hon­or of his own 50th birth­day, and in so doing, cre­at­ed a time release mile­stone of sorts for his friend, actor Alan Rick­man.

Mark­ing a half-cen­tu­ry with pas­sive aggres­sive-gag gifts and cards may suf­fice for the rab­ble, but a lyri­cist as gift­ed as Hitch­cock deserves bet­ter. No one can deny Rick­man of fail­ing to deliv­er, when he regaled the crowd in Queen Eliz­a­beth Hall with a recita­tion of Hitchcock’s own poem, “If Death Is Not the End,” above.

It’s an inim­itable per­for­mance that becomes all the more poignant when one lis­tens to it again, fol­low­ing Rickman’s recent death at the age of 69:

Life is what hap­pened to the dead.

For­ev­er we do not exist

Except for now.

Birth­day Boy Hitch­cock cap­tured Rickman’s appeal in a trib­ute post­ed to his Face­book page:

His morose erot­ic drawl and glo­ri­ous­ly dis­dain­ful demeanor shel­tered a pas­sion­ate artist and made for a charis­mat­ic per­former whom I was proud to have as a friend. I just can’t believe I’ll nev­er see him again.

As the poem says, he was made of life.

If Death Is Not the End

If death is not the end, I’d like to know what is.

For all eter­ni­ty we don’t exist,

except for now.

In my gumshoe mac, I shuf­fled to the clifftop,

Stood well back,

and struck a match to light my life;

And as it flared it fell in dark­ness

Light­ing noth­ing but itself.

I saw my life fall and thought:

Well, kiss my physics!

Time is over, or it’s not,

But this I know:

Life pass­es through us like the blade

Of bam­boo grow­ing through the pris­on­er pegged down in the glade

It pierces your blood, your scream­ing head -

Life is what hap­pened to the dead.

For­ev­er we do not exist

Except for now.

Life pass­es through us like a beam

Of char­coal green — a gold­en gleam,

The oppo­site of how it seems:

It’s not you that goes through life

- life is the knife that cuts your dream

Around the seam

And leaves you turned on in the stream, laugh­ing with your mouth

open,

Until the stream is gone,

Leav­ing you cracked mud,

Not even there to be absent,

From the heart­beat of a dying fish.

In bed, upstairs, I feel your pulse run with the clock

And reach your hand

And lock us with our fin­gers

As if we were bump­ing above the Pole.

Yet I know by dawn

Your hand will be dry bone

I’ll have slept through your good­bye, no mat­ter how long I wake.

Life winds on,

Through Cheri and Karl who can no longer smell choco­late,

Or see with won­der wind inflate the sail,

Or answer mail

Life flies on

Through Katy who was Cather­ine but is bound for Kate

Who looks over her shoul­der at the demon Azmodeus,

And sees the Dai­ly Mail

(I clutch my purse. I had it just now.)

Life slices through

The frozen but­ter in the Alpine wreck.

(I found your pho­to upside down

I nev­er kissed a girl so long,

So long, so love­ly or so wrong)

Life is what kills you in the end

And I can cry

But you won’t be there to be sor­ry

You were made of life

For ever we did not exist

We woke and for a sec­ond kissed.

via Audi­boom

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Late, Great Alan Rick­man Reads Shake­speare, Proust & Thomas Hardy

Samuel Beck­ett Play Brought to Life in an Eerie Short Film Star­ring Alan Rick­man & Kristin Scott Thomas

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine. Her play, Fawn­book, opens in New York City lat­er this fall. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

Hear The Alan Parson Project’s Prog-Rock Interpretation of Isaac Asimov’s, I Robot (1977)

in Music, Sci Fi | February 1st, 2016

Pro­gres­sive rock, at its best, meant bring­ing in tech­niques and influ­ences not, up to that point, com­mon in rock music. Part of this meant employ­ing a kind of tech­ni­cal vir­tu­os­i­ty more often heard in more estab­lished musi­cal tra­di­tions, and anoth­er part meant draw­ing from a wider and deep­er pool of musi­cal and cul­tur­al influ­ences than did oth­er rock com­po­si­tions. The Alan Par­sons Project estab­lished their prog-rock cre­den­tials right out of the gate with their intri­cate­ly craft­ed debut album Tales of Mys­tery and Imag­i­na­tion, not just based on the work of Edgar Allan Poe but includ­ing a read­ing from that work by none oth­er than Orson Welles.

How to fol­low up a record like that? For an answer, Par­sons and his col­lab­o­ra­tor in the Project Eric Woolf­son turned from the past toward the future — or rather, toward Isaac Asi­mov’s vision of the future.

I Robot appeared in 1977, hav­ing tak­en its inspi­ra­tion in the stu­dio from Asi­mov’s Robot series, a uni­verse of sto­ries and nov­els which posit­ed the inven­tion of machines with some­thing resem­bling human con­scious­ness.

Asi­mov very much liked the idea of the album, but couldn’t—a pro­duc­tion com­pa­ny hav­ing bought the rights to his 1950 book I, Robot—grant per­mis­sion for a legal­ly straight adap­ta­tion. And so Par­sons and Woolf­son stayed out of trou­ble by remov­ing the com­ma from their title, and work­ing for­ward from Asi­mov’s con­cepts rather than ref­er­enc­ing them direct­ly. The result stands up to the test of time bet­ter than most sci­ence fic­tion, and cer­tain­ly bet­ter than most prog rock. You can lis­ten and judge for your­self on Spo­ti­fy, where the album recent­ly appeared free to lis­ten. (Don’t have Spo­ti­fy’s soft­ware yet? You can down­load it here.)

You can also watch the rough but still haunt­ing ear­ly music video for its hit “I Would­n’t Want to Be Like You” at the top of the post. The album on the whole proved quite suc­cess­ful, due in large part, of course, to its musi­cal crafts­man­ship and endur­ing sto­ry, described by the lin­er notes as that of “the rise of the machine and the decline of man, which para­dox­i­cal­ly coin­cid­ed with his dis­cov­ery of the wheel.” But the tim­ing could­n’t have hurt: I Robot came out just a few weeks after Star Wars, which stoked again human­i­ty’s inter­est in far-flung real­i­ties, out­er space jour­neys, near-mys­ti­cal high tech­nolo­gies, and machines com­ing to life. In the words of Par­sons him­self, “there was a whole new gen­er­a­tion of sci-fi lovers,” and his music had an impor­tant place in that gen­er­a­tion’s sound­track.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hear Orson Welles Read Edgar Allan Poe on a Cult Clas­sic Album by The Alan Par­sons Project

Isaac Asi­mov Pre­dicts in 1964 What the World Will Look Like Today — in 2014

Isaac Asimov’s Favorite Sto­ry “The Last Ques­tion” Read by Isaac Asi­mov— and by Leonard Nimoy

Free: Isaac Asimov’s Epic Foun­da­tion Tril­o­gy Dra­ma­tized in Clas­sic Audio

Isaac Asi­mov Explains the Ori­gins of Good Ideas & Cre­ativ­i­ty in Nev­er-Before-Pub­lished Essay

Isaac Asi­mov Explains His Three Laws of Robots

Leonard Nimoy Reads Ray Brad­bury Sto­ries From The Mar­t­ian Chron­i­cles & The Illus­trat­ed Man (1975–76)

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities and cul­ture. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer, the video series The City in Cin­e­ma, the crowd­fund­ed jour­nal­ism project Where Is the City of the Future?, and the Los Ange­les Review of Books’ Korea Blog. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

Professional Pickpocket Apollo Robbins Explains the Art of Misdirection

in Life, Psychology, TED Talks, Theatre | January 25th, 2016

You’ve got to pick-a-pock­et or two, boys 

You’ve got to pick-a-pock­et or two. 

Unlike the Art­ful Dodger and oth­er light-fin­gered urchins brought to life by Charles Dick­ens and, more recent­ly, com­pos­er Lionel Bart, pro­fes­sion­al pick­pock­et Apol­lo Rob­bins con­fines his prac­tice to the stage.

Past exploits include reliev­ing actress Jen­nifer Gar­ner of her engage­ment ring and bas­ket­ball Hall-of-Famer Charles Barkley of a thick bankroll. In 2001, he vir­tu­al­ly picked for­mer U.S. pres­i­dent Jim­my Carter’s Secret Ser­vice detail clean, net­ting badges, a watch, Carter’s itin­er­ary, and the keys to his motor­cade. (Rob­bins wise­ly steered clear of their guns.)

How does he does he do it? Prac­tice, prac­tice, prac­tice… and remain­ing hyper vig­i­lant as to the things com­mand­ing each indi­vid­ual vic­tim­s’s atten­tion, in order to momen­tar­i­ly redi­rect it at the most con­ve­nient moment.

Clear­ly, he’s a put lot of thought into the emo­tion­al and cog­ni­tive com­po­nents. In a TED talk on the art of mis­di­rec­tion, above, he cites psy­chol­o­gist Michael Posner’s “Trin­i­ty Mod­el” of atten­tion­al net­works. He has deep­ened his under­stand­ing through the study of aiki­do, crim­i­nal his­to­ry, and the psy­chol­o­gy of per­sua­sion. He under­stands that get­ting his vic­tims to tap into their mem­o­ries is the best way to tem­porar­i­ly dis­arm their exter­nal alarm bells. His easy­go­ing, seem­ing­ly spon­ta­neous ban­ter is but one of the ways he gains marks’ trust, even as he pen­e­trates their spheres with a preda­to­ry grace.

Watch his hands, and you won’t see much, even after he explains sev­er­al tricks of his trade, such as secur­ing an already depock­et­ed wal­let with his index fin­ger to reas­sure a jack­et-pat­ting vic­tim that it’s right where it belongs. (Half a sec­ond lat­er, it’s drop­ping below the hem of that jack­et into Rob­bins’ wait­ing hand.) Those paws are fast!

I do won­der how he would fare on the street. His act depends on a fair amount of chum­my touch­ing, a phys­i­cal inti­ma­cy that could quick­ly cause your aver­age straphang­er to cry foul. I guess in such an instance, he’d lim­it the take to one pre­cious item, a cell phone, say, and leave the wal­let and watch to a non-the­o­ret­i­cal “whiz mob” or street pick­pock­et team.

Though he him­self has always been scrupu­lous about return­ing the items he lib­er­ates, Rob­bins does not with­hold pro­fes­sion­al respect for his crim­i­nal broth­ers’ moves. One real-life whiz mob­ber so impressed him dur­ing a tele­vi­sion inter­view that he drove over four hours to pick the perp’s brains in a min­i­mum secu­ri­ty prison, a con­fab New York­er reporter Adam Green described in col­or­ful detail as part of a lengthy pro­file on Rob­bins and his craft.

One small detail does seem to have escaped Rob­bins’ atten­tion in the sec­ond demon­stra­tion video below, in which reporter Green will­ing­ly steps into the role of vic’. Per­haps Rob­bins doesn’t care, though his mark cer­tain­ly should. The sit­u­a­tion is less QED than XYZPDQ.

While you’re tak­ing notice, don’t for­get to remain alert to what a poten­tial pick­pock­et is wear­ing. Such atten­tion to detail may serve you down at the sta­tion, if not onstage.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch Björk’s 6 Favorite TED Talks, From the Mush­room Death Suit to the Vir­tu­al Choir

The Sci­ence of Willpow­er: 15 Tips for Mak­ing Your New Year’s Res­o­lu­tions Last from Dr. Kel­ly McGo­ni­gal

The Kit­ty Gen­ovese Myth and the Pop­u­lar Imag­i­na­tion

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine. The sleep­ing bag-like insu­lat­ing prop­er­ties of her ankle-length faux leop­ard coat make her very pop­u­lar with the pick­pock­ets of New York. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

Tiny Tim Performs a Bizarre Cover of Rod Stewart’s “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy” on The Tonight Show (1979)

in Music, Random, Television | January 22nd, 2016

In 1979, cult musi­cian Tiny Tim ditched his ukulele and tip­toed out of the tulips to cov­er Rod Stew­art’s “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy” on The Tonight Show, above.

The Gong Show-wor­thy per­for­mance left host John­ny Car­son—and pre­sum­ably the major­i­ty of home viewers—speechless.

Was it com­e­dy or a fad­ing, men­tal­ly unbal­anced nov­el­ty act’s attempt to rekin­dle the pas­sion of a fick­le spot­light?

Maybe just a par­tic­u­lar­ly unbri­dled for­ay into new artis­tic ter­ri­to­ry… Like his elab­o­rate­ly for­mal man­ners, Tiny Tim’s usu­al reper­toire harkened to an ear­li­er peri­od. (“No one knew more about old music than Tiny Tim,” Bob Dylan once remarked.)

His odd­ly demure com­port­ment is in short sup­ply here as he veers from his cus­tom­ary falset­to to a more man­ly low­er reg­is­ter, strip­ping off jack­et and braces to show­case a port­ly, mid­dle aged mid-sec­tion. Musi­cian­ship also seems a bit want­i­ng, though to be fair, that’s rarely the cri­te­ria by which we mea­sure the suc­cess of an act that ends with writhing on the floor.

What­ev­er his inten­tions, Tiny Tim’s place in the annals of WTF per­for­mance his­to­ry would be secured on this turn alone.

A few years lat­er, he record­ed a 20s-tinged “Do Ya Think I”m Sexy” with Gary Lawrence & His Siz­zling Syn­co­pa­tors, released inside a greet­ing card as a 6” flexi disc. The video,  below, hon­ors his vin­tage sen­si­bil­i­ties while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly scream­ing 1982.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The 15 Worst Cov­ers of Bea­t­les Songs: William Shat­ner, Bill Cos­by, Tiny Tim, Sean Con­nery & Your Excel­lent Picks

George Har­ri­son Explains Why Every­one Should Play the Ukulele, With Words and Music

David Bowie Lists His 25 Favorite LPs in His Record Collection: Stream Most of Them Free Online

in Music | January 21st, 2016

Image by Adam Bielaws­ki, via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

This is the kind of thing we usu­al­ly just men­tion on our Twit­ter stream. But per­haps you’re not fol­low­ing us there, and we did­n’t want you to miss this.…

In 2003, David Bowie rum­maged through his col­lec­tion of 2500 vinyl LPs and cre­at­ed a list of his 25 favorite albums for Van­i­ty Fair. The list came pref­aced by these (and oth­er) words:

If you can pos­si­bly get your hands on any of these, I guar­an­tee you evenings of lis­ten­ing plea­sure, and you will encour­age a new high-mind­ed cir­cle of friends, although one or two choic­es will lead some of your old pals to think you com­plete­ly barmy. So, with­out chronol­o­gy, genre, or rea­son, here­with, in no par­tic­u­lar order, 25 albums that could change your rep­u­ta­tion.

Just as eclec­tic as you might expect, the list rec­om­mends every­thing from blues tunes by John Lee Hook­er, min­i­mal­ist com­po­si­tions by Steve Reich, avant garde rock by The Vel­vet Under­ground, elec­tron­ic music by The Elec­trosoniks, psy­che­del­ic folk music by The Incred­i­ble String Band, and the last works of Richard Strauss. You can view a copy of Bowie’s list here (and per­haps cou­ple it with his list of 100 Favorite Books).

And despite his con­cerns about find­ing these albums in sup­ply, you can stream most of his favorite albums for free on Spo­ti­fy using the playlist above. (Yes, we got a lit­tle inspired and pulled it togeth­er.) If you need the soft­ware, down­load it here.

via @stevesilberman

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:

David Bowie’s Top 100 Books

Bri­an Eno Lists 20 Books for Rebuild­ing Civ­i­liza­tion & 59 Books For Build­ing Your Intel­lec­tu­al World

Kurt Cobain Lists His 50 Favorite Albums: Fea­tures LPs by David Bowie, Pub­lic Ene­my & More

How to Make a Book From Scratch

in Books | January 20th, 2016

In a new video series from “How To Make Every­thing” — a Youtube chan­nel ded­i­cat­ed to find­ing out how to break down com­plex pro­duc­tion process­es and make things from scratch — you can watch Andy George cre­ate a book using very tra­di­tion­al tech­niques. And when I say tra­di­tion­al, I mean tra­di­tion­al. He cre­ates papyrus, parch­ment, ink and leather book cov­ers by hand. And be warned, some parts may make you a bit squea­mish. “The How to Make a Book” series is divid­ed into eight sep­a­rate videos. If you click play above, you can watch them all from start to fin­ish.

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!

via Devour

Relat­ed Con­tent

1,000 Free Audio Books: Down­load Great Books for Free

Watch a Japan­ese Crafts­man Lov­ing­ly Bring a Tat­tered Old Book Back to Near Mint Con­di­tion

The Birth and Decline of a Book: Two Videos for Bib­lio­philes

800 Free eBooks for iPad, Kin­dle & Oth­er Devices