Hayao Miyazaki’s Masterpieces Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke Imagined as 8‑Bit Video Games

in Animation, Film, Video Games | September 3rd, 2015

As an unapolo­getic mem­ber of the “Mil­len­ni­al” gen­er­a­tion, allow me to tell you how to win over a great many of us at a stroke: just appeal to our long-instilled affin­i­ty for Japan­ese ani­ma­tion and clas­sic video games. Raised, like many of my peers born in the late 1970s and ear­ly 1980s, on a steady diet of those art forms — not that every­one knew to acknowl­edge them as art forms back then — I respond instinc­tive­ly to either of them, and as for their inter­sec­tion, well, how could I resist?

I cer­tain­ly can’t resist the ster­ling exam­ple of ani­me-meets-ret­rogam­ing in action just above: an 8‑Bit Cin­e­ma dou­ble-fea­ture, offer­ing David and Hen­ry Dut­ton’s pix­e­lat­ed ren­di­tions of huge­ly respect­ed Japan­ese ani­ma­tion mas­ter Hayao Miyaza­k­i’s films Spir­it­ed Away and Princess Mononoke. In just under eight min­utes, the video tells both sto­ries — the for­mer of a young girl trans­port­ed into not just the spir­it realm but into employ­ment at one of its bath­hous­es; the lat­ter of the unend­ing strug­gle between humans and for­est gods in 15th-cen­tu­ry Japan — as tra­di­tion­al side-scrolling, plat­form-jump­ing video games.

Clear­ly labors of love by true clas­sic gamers, these trans­for­ma­tions get not just the graph­ics (which actu­al­ly look bet­ter than real games of the era, in keep­ing with Miyaza­k­i’s artistry) but the sound, music, and even game­play con­ven­tions just right. I’d love to play real ver­sions of these games, espe­cial­ly since, apart from an unloved adap­ta­tion of Nau­si­caä of the Val­ley of the Wind, Miyaza­k­i’s movies haven’t plunged into the video-game realm.

And if you respond bet­ter to the aes­thet­ic of clas­sic gam­ing than to that of Japan­ese ani­ma­tion, do have a look at 8‑Bit Cin­e­ma’s oth­er work, much of which you can sam­ple in their show reel with clips from their ver­sions of pic­tures like The Shin­ing, Kill Bill, and The Life Aquat­ic with Steve Zis­sou. I remem­ber many child­hood con­ver­sa­tions about how video games would even­tu­al­ly look just like our favorite movies, ani­mat­ed or oth­er­wise; lit­tle did we know that, one day, our favorite movies would also look just like video games.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hayao Miyazaki’s Uni­verse Recre­at­ed in a Won­der­ful CGI Trib­ute

French Stu­dent Sets Inter­net on Fire with Ani­ma­tion Inspired by Moe­bius, Syd Mead & Hayao Miyaza­ki

The Simp­sons Pay Won­der­ful Trib­ute to the Ani­me of Hayao Miyaza­ki

The Delight­ful TV Ads Direct­ed by Hayao Miyaza­ki & Oth­er Stu­dio Ghi­b­li Ani­ma­tors (1992–2015)

The Phi­los­o­phy of Friedrich Niet­zsche Explained with 8‑Bit Video Games

8‑Bit Phi­los­o­phy: Pla­to, Sartre, Der­ri­da & Oth­er Thinkers Explained With Vin­tage Video Games

The Big Lebows­ki Reimag­ined as a Clas­sic 8‑Bit Video Game

The Great Gats­by and Wait­ing for Godot: The Video Game Edi­tions

Col­in Mar­shall writes on cities, lan­guage, Asia, and men’s style. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer, and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

Watch Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Clever Promo for Ridley Scott’s New Sci-Fi Film, The Martian

in Astronomy, Film | August 31st, 2015

“Ever since our species first looked up at the sky, we dreamed of reach­ing Mars. Back in 2029, that dream became real, when the first humans stepped foot on the Red plan­et. And, in a few months, a new group of astro­nauts will make the jour­ney.…”

It all seems like many oth­er Neil deGrasse Tyson videos you’ve seen before. Until he says, “Back in 2029.” Wait, what?

Behold Neil deGrasse Tyson appear­ing in a clever pro­mo for Rid­ley Scot­t’s upcom­ing film The Mar­t­ian. 

Based on Andy Weir’s best­selling 2011 nov­el The Mar­t­ian, the movie will star Matt Damon as Mark Wat­ney, an astro­naut who goes on a big mis­sion to Mars — the one so stir­ring­ly described by Tyson above. But the jour­ney to Mars is not where the real action hap­pens, and we’ll just leave it at that. No spoil­ers here.

The film will hit the­aters in Octo­ber. You can watch an offi­cial trail­er here. And, in the mean­time, you can always lis­ten to Neil’s Star Talk Radio Show (ref­er­enced in the clip) any­time.

via Slate

Relat­ed Con­tent:

William Shat­ner Nar­rates Space Shut­tle Doc­u­men­tary

Astro­naut Reads The Divine Com­e­dy on the Inter­na­tion­al Space Sta­tion on Dante’s 750th Birth­day

Neil deGrasse Tyson Lists 8 (Free) Books Every Intel­li­gent Per­son Should Read

Oliver Sacks’ Last Tweet Shows Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” Movingly Flashmobbed in Spain

in Music | August 30th, 2015

“A beau­ti­ful way to per­form one of the world’s great musi­cal trea­sures.” The video above, and the accom­pa­ny­ing 58-char­ac­ter sen­tence, make up the last tweet from Oliv­er Sacks, the influ­en­tial neu­rol­o­gist who passed away ear­li­er today. The clip (orig­i­nal­ly high­light­ed on our site back in 2012) fea­tures 100 musi­cians and singers from the Orches­tra Sim­fon­i­ca del Valles, Amics de l’Opera de Sabadell, Coral Belles Arts, and Cor Lieder Cam­era per­form­ing what’s now the anthem of the Euro­pean Union — Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” from his Sym­pho­ny No. 9. It’s a pret­ty stir­ring per­for­mance, and cer­tain­ly a worth­while way to punc­tu­ate a Twit­ter stream. (Side note: Dr. Sacks start­ed fol­low­ing our Twit­ter stream sev­er­al years ago, and we still con­sid­er it a great hon­or, a high point in OC his­to­ry.)

You can read Mr. Sacks’ obit­u­ary here, and an appraisal of his intel­lec­tu­al con­tri­bu­tions here.

h/t @miafarrow

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:

This is What Oliv­er Sacks Learned on LSD and Amphet­a­mines

Oliv­er Sacks Con­tem­plates Mor­tal­i­ty (and His Ter­mi­nal Can­cer Diag­no­sis) in a Thought­ful, Poignant Let­ter

30 Renowned Writ­ers Speak­ing About God: From Isaac Asi­mov to Oliv­er Sac­sks & Mar­garet Atwood

Hear Demos of Keith Richards Singing Lead Vocals on Rolling Stones Classics: “Gimme Shelter,” “Wild Horses” & More

in Music | August 25th, 2015

In the ear­ly sev­en­ties, at the height of their pow­ers, unfor­get­table hits seemed to tum­ble out one after anoth­er from The Rolling Stones, solid­i­fy­ing Jag­ger and Richards’ rep­u­ta­tion for ele­men­tal, imme­di­ate song­writ­ing that seemed to cut through more baroque stu­dio pro­duc­tions of the late six­ties and sev­en­ties and deliv­er the goods raw. As Bri­an Jones’ influ­ence waned, Richards’ dark, raunchy riffs took over the band’s sound, and even when Jag­ger’s vocals are near incom­pre­hen­si­ble, as in much of Exile on Main Street, his pecu­liar intonation—part fake Delta blues­man, part sneer­ing delin­quent schoolboy—gets across every­thing you need to know about the Rolling Stones’ ethos.

The imme­di­a­cy of the Stones’ record­ings is large­ly an arti­fact of their tri­al-and-error method in the stu­dio. Unafraid of last-minute inspi­ra­tion and unortho­dox tech­ni­cal exper­i­ments, they built songs like “Gimme Shel­ter” from inspired demos to pow­er­ful anthems over the course of many ver­sions and mix­es. We’ve told the sto­ry of that song’s last-minute inclu­sion of Mer­ry Clayton’s stir­ring vocal per­for­mance. Now, at the top, hear an ear­ly demo of the song lack­ing not only her voice, but Jagger’s as well—at least in the lead spot. Every­thing else is there: the tremo­lo-soaked open­ing riff, the haunt­ing, reverb-drenched “Oooo”’s. But instead of Jagger’s faux-South­ern drawl sud­den­ly break­ing the ten­sion, we get the much more sub­dued voice of Richards, pushed rather far back in the mix and sound­ing pret­ty under­whelm­ing next to the final album ver­sion.

It’s not that Richards is a bad singer—here he almost cap­tures the cadences of Jag­ger, if not the pro­jec­tion (we do hear Jagger’s voice back­ing his). It’s just that we’ve come to asso­ciate the song so close­ly with Jagger’s quirks that hear­ing any­one else deliv­er the lyrics is a lit­tle jar­ring. On the oth­er hand, Richard’s unadorned acoustic demo of “Wild Hors­es,” above, gets right to the heart of the song, sound­ing more like his friend Gram Par­sons’ mourn­ful ear­ly ver­sion than the lat­er 1971 release on Sticky Fin­gers. (Hear anoth­er acoustic demo here, with Jag­ger on vocals.)

These two tracks rep­re­sent rare oppor­tu­ni­ties to hear Richards take the vocal lead on Stones tracks, though he would begin releas­ing solo work in 1978 and front­ed his own band, the X‑pensive Winos, in 1987, assem­bled in trib­ute to his hero Chuck Berry. Just the year pre­vi­ous, the Stones released Dirty Work, a high point in an oth­er­wise cre­ative slump for the band. The album’s first track, “One Hit (to the Body),” became its sec­ond big hit, and you can hear a scratchy, lo-fi demo ver­sion, with Kei­th on lead vocals, above. A thread at the Steve Hoff­man Music Forums points us toward many more demos of Stones songs with Keith’s vocals, from out­takes and demos of Voodoo Lounge, Talk is Cheap and oth­er albums. Many of these record­ings show how much Richards was respon­si­ble for the band’s vocal melodies as well their sig­na­ture gui­tar tones and rhythms. Amidst all these demos—of vary­ing degrees of sound qual­i­ty and states of inebriation—one song in par­tic­u­lar stands out, and it’s not a Stones song.

Above, Richards’ deliv­ers a Bour­bon Street take on “Some­where Over the Rain­bow.” His qui­et voice haunts the song, again pushed so far back in the mix you have to strain to hear him at all as he trails in and out. The record­ing, from 1977, leaked in 2008, along with Richards cov­ers of oth­er stan­dards by Hoagy Carmichael and Per­ry Como. “The songs,” writes The Guardian, “fea­ture melan­choly piano, an even more melan­choly Keef and sound like he’s doing an impres­sion of ear­ly Tom Waits.” Fit­ting, then, that Richards would col­lab­o­rate with Waits in 2006, on a record­ing that sounds like he’d been prac­tic­ing for it his entire career.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Tom Waits and Kei­th Richards Sing Sea Song “Shenan­doah” for New Pirate-Themed CD: Lis­ten Online

The Rolling Stones Release a Soul­ful, Nev­er-Heard Acoustic Ver­sion of “Wild Hors­es”

Mick Jag­ger Tells the Sto­ry Behind ‘Gimme Shel­ter’ and Mer­ry Clayton’s Haunt­ing Back­ground Vocals

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

A‑ha’s “Take On Me” Performed by North Korean Kids with Accordions

in Music | August 21st, 2015

This week, 1,000 North Kore­ans wit­nessed the first live per­for­mance by a West­ern pop act on its soil. And it was per­haps a bit anti-cli­mat­ic.

The East Ger­mans got their first taste of West­ern rock in 1988 when Bruce Spring­steen played a mas­sive gig in East Berlin. (See video here.) The North Kore­ans had to set­tle for the Sloven­ian indus­tri­al rock band, Laibach. Accord­ing to The New York Times, their set includ­ed a “ ‘Sound of Music’ med­ley. A cov­er of the Bea­t­les’ ‘Across the Uni­verse.’ [And a] mar­tial-sound­ing ver­sion of the are­na rock anthem ‘The Final Count­down.’ ” You can watch short clips of the con­cert just below.

Laibach’s his­toric North Kore­an gig was appar­ent­ly arranged by Morten Traavik, a Nor­we­gian artist who pre­vi­ous­ly made the Inter­net gyrate when he released a clip of young North Kore­an accor­dion play­ers per­form­ing A‑ha’s 1984 hit, “Take On Me.” In 2012, Traavik met the musi­cians from the Kum Song Music School while trav­el­ing in North Korea. He told the BBC, “I lent them a CD of Take on Me on a Mon­day morn­ing. By the fol­low­ing Wednes­day morn­ing they had mas­tered the song, with no anno­ta­tion and no out­side help. It showed incred­i­ble skill.” And, says Traavik, it all just goes to show, “you can have fun in North Korea.”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch 98 Kore­an Fea­ture Films Free Online, Thanks to the Kore­an Film Archive

Watch Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Voodoo Chile’ Per­formed on a Gayageum, a Tra­di­tion­al Kore­an Instru­ment

Pak­istani Musi­cians Play Amaz­ing Ver­sion of Dave Brubeck’s Jazz Clas­sic, “Take Five”

18 Stories & Novels by Neil Gaiman Online: Free Texts & Readings by Neil Himself

in Audio Books, e-books, Literature | August 19th, 2015

Neil Gaiman might just be the most beloved fan­ta­sy author out there. He writes weird, twist­ed, exhil­a­rat­ing tales about hid­den real­i­ties and the bizarre, fan­ci­ful crea­tures that live in them. His works, like Sand­man, Frag­ile Things and Amer­i­can Gods, are pure escapism and a blast to read. No doubt, that’s the major rea­son why the author has devel­oped such a rabid fan base.

But per­haps anoth­er rea­son is that he is sim­ply more avail­able than most writ­ers. Sure, oth­er authors, like J. K. Rowl­ing for instance, might have inspired an entire gen­er­a­tion with her Har­ry Pot­ter series but she prefers to keep a cer­tain remove from her read­er­ship. Though she has a Twit­ter account, she uses it spar­ing­ly.

Gaiman, on the oth­er hand, is seem­ing­ly always on Twit­ter — he has, as of this writ­ing, tweet­ed at least nine times in the past 24 hours, inter­act­ing with fans, pub­lish­ers and the press. This is the guy who once report­ed­ly signed 75,000 copies of his book The Ocean at the End of the Lane, after all.

He has also post­ed a lot of his work for free up on the inter­net. Below is a list of Gaiman’s work that you can read, see or hear online. Many are read by Neil him­self. If you know of any miss­ing texts, please let us know and we’ll get them added to our list ASAP.

Above you can find videos of Gaiman read­ing the first chap­ter of his book Cora­line, and also the sto­ry “The Man Who For­got Ray Brad­bury.”

Audio & Video

• Click-Clack the Rat­tle Bag — Free Video
• Cora­line — Free Video
• “Har­le­quin Valen­tine” — Free Audio at Last.FM
• “How to Talk to Girls at Par­ties” – Free MP3
• “Orange” (read live) – Free Video
• “Oth­er Peo­ple” (read live) – Free Video
• “The Day the Saucers Came” — Free Video
• “The Man Who For­got Ray Brad­bury” — Free Audio
• The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Moun­tains — Free Audio
• The Grave­yard Book (a nov­el read live with illus­tra­tions) – Free Video
• “A Study in Emer­ald” – Free iTunes

Text

• “A Cal­en­dar of Tales” — Read Online
• “A Study in Emer­ald” — Read Online
  
• “Bit­ter Grounds” — Read Online
• “Cin­na­mon” – Read Online
• ‘Click-clack the Rat­tle­bag’ — Read Online
• “Down to a Sun­less Sea” — Read Online
• “How To Talk To Girls At Par­ties” — Read Online
• “I Cthul­hu” – Read Online
• “The Case of the Four and Twen­ty Black­birds” – Read Online
• “The Day the Saucers Came” – Read Online
• The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Moun­tains — Read Online

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Neil Gaiman Reads “The Man Who For­got Ray Brad­bury”

Where Do Great Ideas Come From? Neil Gaiman Explains

Aman­da Palmer Ani­mates & Nar­rates Hus­band Neil Gaiman’s Uncon­scious Mus­ings

Jonathan Crow is a Los Ange­les-based writer and film­mak­er whose work has appeared in Yahoo!, The Hol­ly­wood Reporter, and oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low him at @jonccrow. And check out his blog Veep­to­pus, fea­tur­ing lots of pic­tures of vice pres­i­dents with octo­pus­es on their heads.  The Veep­to­pus store is here.

Michael Stipe Recommends 10 Books for Anyone Marooned on a Desert Island

in Books | August 19th, 2015

Image by David Shankbone

Michael Stipe’s tenure as front­man and lyri­cist for R.E.M. cer­tain­ly revealed a lit­er­ate mind. A for­mer art major at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Geor­gia and cur­rent art teacher at NYU, his best lyrics scan well as poet­ry.  One can imag­ine being invit­ed over for a din­ner par­ty to Mr. Stipe’s place, and, glass of wine in hand, absolute­ly hav­ing to nose through his book­shelf. What does the writer of “Nightswim­ming” read? With the his­tor­i­cal ref­er­ences that course through those ear­ly albums, would he have socio-polit­i­cal books about Amer­i­ca? Would he pull a book off the shelf and say, here, “You have to read this. It will change your life”?

Won­der no more, because Stipe was recent­ly asked to write down his Top Ten list of books to take to a desert island. The list was pub­lished in The New York Times. Find a skele­tal ver­sion here:

• Com­plete Works — Arthur Rim­baud
• On the Road — Jack Ker­ouac
• Dhal­gren — Samuel R. Delaney
• Break­fast of Cham­pi­ons — Kurt Von­negut
• All Fam­i­lies Are Psy­chot­ic — Dou­glas Cou­p­land
• Loli­ta — Vladimir Nabokov
• Play It as It Lays — Joan Did­ion
• Four Plays by Aristo­phanes (trans­lat­ed by William Arrow­smith)
• Bon­jour Tristesse — François Sagan
• Just Kids — Pat­ti Smith

Some of these are classics—for exam­ple Ker­ouac’s On the Road, which Stipe calls “my band’s template”—and the one poet on the list, Rim­baud, is very much an ear­ly influ­ence on his writ­ing. Dhal­gren was also a favorite of David Bowie’s, who based a lot of Dia­mond Dogs on the nov­el. The Copeland and Did­ion choic­es stand out, most­ly by being less obvi­ous selec­tions from their bib­li­ogra­phies. And as he says that he’s cur­rent­ly read­ing the Pat­ti Smith book (now being turned into a series on Show­time), we can’t take the selec­tion too seri­ous­ly. Maybe he just wants to take it to the desert island to fin­ish it.

Stipe has includ­ed a few sen­tences on each book to explain his choic­es. Find them here.

Relat­ed con­tent:

Pat­ti Smith’s List of Favorite Books: From Rim­baud to Susan Son­tag

David Bowie’s Top 100 Books

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

Ted Mills is a free­lance writer on the arts who cur­rent­ly hosts the FunkZone Pod­cast. You can also fol­low him on Twit­ter at @tedmills, read his oth­er arts writ­ing at tedmills.com and/or watch his films here.

How to Bake Ancient Roman Bread Dating Back to 79 AD: A Video Primer

in Food & Drink, History, Life, Museums | August 17th, 2015

Ecce panis—try your hand at the kind of loaf that Mel Brooks’ 2000-year-old man might have sunk his teeth into. Lit­er­al­ly.

In 1930 a loaf of bread dat­ing to AD 79 (the year Vesu­vius claimed two pros­per­ous Roman towns) was exca­vat­ed from the site of a bak­ery in Her­cu­la­neum.

Eighty-three years lat­er, the British Muse­um invit­ed Lon­don chef Gior­gio Locatel­li, above, to take a stab at cre­at­ing an edi­ble fac­sim­i­le for its Pom­peii Live exhi­bi­tion.

The assign­ment wasn’t as easy as he’d antic­i­pat­ed, the telegenic chef con­fess­es before whip­ping up a love­ly brown miche that appears far more mouth water­ing than the car­bonized round found in the Her­cu­la­neum oven.

His recipe could be mis­tak­en for mod­ern sour­dough, but he also has a go at sev­er­al details that speak to bread’s role in ancient Roman life:

Its perime­ter has a cord baked in to pro­vide for easy trans­port home. Most Roman homes were with­out ovens. Those who didn’t buy direct from a bak­ery took their dough to com­mu­ni­ty ovens, where it was baked for them overnight.

The loaf was scored into eight wedges. This is true of the 80 loaves found in the ovens of the unfor­tu­nate bak­er, Mod­es­tus. Locatel­li spec­u­lates that the wedges could be used as mon­e­tary units, but I sus­pect it’s more a busi­ness prac­tice on par with piz­za-by-the-slice.

(Nowa­days, Roman piz­za is sold by weight, but I digress.)

The crust bears a tell­tale stamp. Locatel­li takes the oppor­tu­ni­ty to brand his with the logo of his Miche­lin-starred restau­rant, Locan­da Locatel­li. His inspi­ra­tion is stamped ‘Prop­er­ty of Cel­er, Slave of Q. Gra­nius Verus.’ To me, this sug­gests the pos­si­bil­i­ty that the bread was found in a com­mu­nal oven.

Locatel­li also intro­duces a Flintston­ian vision when he alludes to spe­cial­ly-devised labor sav­ing machines to which Roman bak­ers yoked “ani­mals,” pre­sum­ably donkeys…or know­ing the Romans and their class sys­tem, slaves.

His pub­lished recipe is below.  Here is a con­ver­sion chart for those unfa­mil­iar with met­ric mea­sure­ments.

INGREDIENTS

400g biga aci­da (sour­dough)

12g yeast

18g gluten

24g salt

532g water

405g spelt flour

405g whole­meal flour

Melt the yeast into the water and add it into the biga. Mix and sieve the flours togeth­er with the gluten and add to the water mix. Mix for two min­utes, add the salt and keep mix­ing for anoth­er three min­utes. Make a round shape with it and leave to rest for one hour. Put some string around it to keep its shape dur­ing cook­ing. Make some cuts on top before cook­ing to help the bread rise in the oven and cook for 30–45 min­utes at 200 degrees.

For an even more arti­sanal attempt (and extreme­ly detailed instruc­tions) check out the Arti­san Pom­peii Miche recipe on the Fresh Loaf bread enthu­si­ast com­mu­ni­ty.

True Roman bread for true Romans!

via Metafil­ter/Make

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Cook Real Recipes from Ancient Rome: Ostrich Ragoût, Roast Wild Boar, Nut Tarts & More

Ani­ma­tion Gives You a Glimpse of What Life Was Like for Teenagers in Ancient Rome

Build­ing The Colos­se­um: The Icon of Rome

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

See Berlin Before and After World War II in Startling Color Video

in History | August 17th, 2015

Beau­ti­ful city, shame about all those Nazis.

Yes, this col­or news­reel above shows Berlin in 1936 as it gets ready to wel­come the world for the Olympic Games. It’s a PR film meant to show the upside of the Reich, as Ger­mans looked for­ward to a “bet­ter future”, and indeed the city looks just as gor­geous and excit­ing as oth­er bustling Euro­pean metrop­o­lis­es. There’s new con­struc­tion along­side the clas­si­cal archi­tec­ture. There’s cou­ples danc­ing to the lat­est hit tunes—Malneck and Mercer’s “Goody Goody” (which Ben­ny Good­man had just released in Feb­ru­ary). There’s young men frol­ick­ing in the Wannsee while ladies sun­bathe.

But then there’s those Nazis, ruin­ing everybody’s trav­el plans. The streets are “fes­tive­ly dec­o­rat­ed with flags with the cur­rent pat­tern” (ie. the swasti­ka); we see a group of Hitler youth on a parade for the Führer; and while the “chang­ing of the guard” may put some in mind of Buck­ing­ham Palace, here they’ve got the full goose-step­ping going on. And the film ends very odd­ly: a shot of the guards out­side the Min­istry of Avi­a­tion, home to mor­phine addict and con­cen­tra­tion camp co-cre­ator Her­mann Göer­ing.

Flash for­ward to July 1945, and what a dif­fer­ence sur­ren­der to the Allies makes: Berlin in ruins, large posters of Stal­in, and the signs of the divi­sions that even­tu­al­ly end in the 1961 build­ing of the Berlin Wall. The news­reel con­cludes with a dra­mat­ic aer­i­al shot of the entire city, tak­ing in the amount of destruc­tion.

We’ve fea­tured this 1945 film before, but this before-and-after com­par­i­son speaks to the dev­as­ta­tion of war and the deter­mi­na­tion to rebuild.

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

Berlin Street Scenes Beau­ti­ful­ly Caught on Film (1900–1914)

1,000,000 Min­utes of News­reel Footage by AP & British Movi­etone Released on YouTube

Watch World War II Rage Across Europe in a 7 Minute Time-Lapse Film: Every Day From 1939 to 1945

Ted Mills is a free­lance writer on the arts who cur­rent­ly hosts the FunkZone Pod­cast. You can also fol­low him on Twit­ter at @tedmills, read his oth­er arts writ­ing at tedmills.com and/or watch his films here.

The First Scientific Map of the Moon (1679)

in Art, Astronomy, Maps, Science | August 14th, 2015

Mil­lions watched as astro­naut Neil Arm­strong put boots to the moon in 1969.

It was, as he famous­ly remarked, one “giant leap for mankind,” but from a sci­en­tif­ic stand­point the ter­ri­to­ry was far from vir­gin.

Near­ly 300 years ear­li­er, engi­neer Gio­van­ni Domeni­co Cassi­ni, astronomer to Sun King Louis XIV, made lunar his­to­ry in 1679, when he pub­lished the first sci­en­tif­ic map of the moon, above.

Need­less to say, the event was not tele­vised and Cassi­ni nev­er had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to walk on the sur­face he stud­ied. Instead he observed it through the eye­piece of a tele­scope, a rel­a­tive­ly new inven­tion.

His pre­de­ces­sors, includ­ing Galileo, used the then-rev­o­lu­tion­ary tool to delve deep­er into their own lunar obses­sions, mak­ing sketch­es and per­form­ing exper­i­ments designed to repli­cate the craters they noticed in the moon’s crust.

Cassi­ni, then eight years into his forty year career as Direc­tor of the Paris Obser­va­to­ry, pro­duced a map so exhaus­tive, it pro­vid­ed his peers with far more details of the moon’s sur­face than they had with regard to their own plan­et.

He also used his pow­ers of obser­va­tion to expand human under­stand­ing of Mars, Sat­urn, and France itself (which turned out to be much small­er than pre­vi­ous­ly believed).

A man of sci­ence, he may not have been entire­ly immune to the sort of moon-based whim­sy that has long infect­ed poets, song­writ­ers, and 19th-cen­tu­ry roman­tic hero­ines. Hid­ing in the low­er right quad­rant, near Cape Her­a­clides on the Sinus Iridum (aka Bay of Rain­bows), is a tiny, bare-shoul­dered moon maid. See right above.

Or per­haps this appeal­ing­ly play­ful vision can be attrib­uted to Cassini’s engraver Claude Mel­lan.

Either way, she seems exact­ly the sort of female life form a 17th-cen­tu­ry human male might hope to encounter on a trip to the moon.

via Pick­over Real­i­ty Car­ni­val

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Free Online Astron­o­my Cours­es

Galileo’s Moon Draw­ings, the First Real­is­tic Depic­tions of the Moon in His­to­ry (1609–1610)

The Birth of the Moon: How Did It Get There in the First Place?

Michio Kaku Schools Takes on Moon Land­ing-Con­spir­a­cy Believ­er on His Sci­ence Fan­tas­tic Pod­cast

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday