Watch a New, “Original” Episode of Seinfeld Performed Live on Stage

in Television, Theatre | May 25th, 2015

The last episode of Sein­feld aired in 1998. So maybe you’re ready for a brand new episode of the show fea­tur­ing “uncan­ny por­tray­als of the cen­tral char­ac­ters, 90s com­mer­cial par­o­dies, and orig­i­nal Sein­feld standup”?

You won’t get it from Jer­ry Sein­feld and Lar­ry David.

You will get it from the com­e­dy team Belle­vue, which has cre­at­ed a “sketch show about noth­ing.”

Belle­vue wrote and per­formed their own 30-minute episode of Sein­feld called “The Lean­ing Susan.” Pre­sent­ed at the Upright Cit­i­zens Brigade in NYC, the “show” fea­tures Cathryn Mudon as Elaine, Noah For­man as Jer­ry, Dru John­ston as George, Michael Antonuc­ci as Kramer, and Joan­na Bradley as Susan. (Remem­ber Susan?) And, as one Youtu­ber put it, “if you squint…, you could swear you’re watch­ing an episode of Sein­feld. The actors here are phe­nom­e­nal.”

Enjoy…

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch Clas­sic Sein­feld Scenes Dubbed in …. Yid­dish

What’s the Deal with Pop Tarts? Jer­ry Sein­feld Explains How to Write a Joke

Sein­feld & Noth­ing­ness: A Super­cut of the Show’s Emp­ti­est Moments

The Art of Making Intelligent Comedy Movies: 8 Take-Aways from the Films of Edgar Wright

in Film | May 19th, 2015

We’ve post­ed a lot of stuff on this site by Tony Zhou, the cre­ator of the bril­liant video essay series Every Frame a Paint­ing. He deliv­ered an insight­ful essay on David Fincher’s visu­al econ­o­my and he did a tru­ly mas­ter­ful take on move­ment in the films of Aki­ra Kuro­sawa. And, in the piece above, he delves into the work of British direc­tor Edgar Wright, who direct­ed such cult mas­ter­pieces as Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and Scott Pil­grim vs. the World.

As Zhou notes, come­dies are bor­ing these days. In movies like Brides­maids and The Hang­over, the cam­era often­times just records the actors riff­ing. The humor is almost entire­ly depen­dent on the dia­logue. And while that might yield some yuks, in terms of moviemak­ing, these movies are woe­ful­ly lim­it­ed. Film is a visu­al medi­um after all.

Wright, on the oth­er hand, is a ter­rif­i­cal­ly inven­tive film­mak­er who knows how to tell jokes visu­al­ly. One of the rea­sons Shaun of the Dead and his oth­er films are so damned fun­ny is because he is able to cram jokes into moments where oth­er movies would be con­tent with just push­ing the plot for­ward. “This is what sep­a­rates mediocre direc­tors from great ones,” says Zhou. “The abil­i­ty to take the most sim­ple, mun­dane scenes and find new ways to do them.”

Like Eisen­stein and Ozu and just about every oth­er cin­e­mat­ic mas­ter out there, Wright is keen­ly aware of not just what is in the frame but what is not in the frame. Unlike Eisen­stein — who, let’s face it, is not fun­ny – Wright knows how to mine the com­ic poten­tial of the frame.

Zhou ends his spiel with a chal­lenge to Hol­ly­wood direc­tors out there. He rat­tles off eight things that Wright does with pic­ture and sound that he would like oth­er film­mak­ers to work into their movies.

1. Things enter­ing the frame in fun­ny ways
2. Peo­ple leav­ing the frame in fun­ny ways.
3. There and back again.
4. Match­ing scene tran­si­tions.
5. The per­fect­ly timed sound effect.
6. Action syn­chro­nized to the music.
7. Super-dra­mat­ic light­ing cues.
8. Fence gags

And the bonus point

9. Imag­i­nary gun fights.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Every Frame a Paint­ing Explains the Film­mak­ing Tech­niques of Mar­tin Scors­ese, Jack­ie Chan, and Even Michael Bay

Learn the Ele­ments of Cin­e­ma: Spielberg’s Long Takes, Scorsese’s Silence & Michael Bay’s Shots

How Aki­ra Kuro­sawa Used Move­ment to Tell His Sto­ries: A Video Essay

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 bad­gers and even more pic­tures of vice pres­i­dents with octo­pus­es on their heads.  The Veep­to­pus store is here.

The Thrill is Gone: See B.B. King Play in Two Electric Live Performances

in Music | May 15th, 2015

One of the last great Mis­sis­sip­pi blues­men, Riley B. King, is gone, passed away last night at the age of 89. King made per­haps the most suc­cess­ful crossover of any blues artist into main­stream rock and roll, record­ing with Clap­ton and play­ing for rock audi­ences for decades. But his sound remained root­ed firm­ly in the very blues he cut his teeth on in the fields of the Mis­sis­sip­pi Delta and in Mem­phis, where he hitch­hiked at 22, with $3 in his pock­et, and quick­ly became a hit as a song­writer and D.J. called the Beale Street Blues Boy—B.B. for short. He “was paid four cents,” writes Buz­zfeed, “for every album he made.”

“By his 80th birth­day,” writes The New York Times, “he was a mil­lion­aire many times over. He owned a man­sion in Las Vegas, a clos­et full of embroi­dered tuxe­does and smok­ing jack­ets, a chain of nightclubs…and the per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al sat­is­fac­tion of hav­ing endured.” King’s sig­na­ture gui­tars, cus­tomized Gib­son 355s he named Lucille, are as ele­gant and styl­ish as the man him­self. I once stood in front of one of them in a glass case at the Stax muse­um in Mem­phis, star­ing in awe, exam­in­ing the places where his hands had worn into the wood, try­ing to absorb a lit­tle of the mag­ic. King’s sto­ry is one of suc­cess far beyond what most of his peers could imag­ine. But it is also one of pro­found ded­i­ca­tion to the blues, and of over­com­ing racism, pover­ty, and pain—suffering he chan­neled into his music and nev­er lost sight of through the wealth and fame.

Well-deserved trib­utes from fans and fel­low musi­cians are every­where today—to King’s per­son­al warmth and charm, to his impas­sioned singing, and, of course, his incred­i­bly expres­sive vibra­to gui­tar play­ing. “The tone he got out of that gui­tar, the way he shook his left wrist, the way he squeezed the strings,” says gui­tarist Bud­dy Guy, “… man, he came out with that and it was all new to the whole gui­tar playin’ world. The way BB did it is the way we all do it now. He was my friend and father to us all.” See and hear B.B. do it above in live per­for­mances of “The Thrill is Gone” and “Blues Boys Tune.” And just above, see him play and tell his sto­ry in a short 1972 doc­u­men­tary called “Sound­ing Out.” It may be too late now to see the great man per­form live, but it’s nev­er to late to learn about his lega­cy as the undis­put­ed “king of the blues.”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

B.B. King Explains in an Ani­mat­ed Video Whether You Need to Endure Hard­ship to Play the Blues

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

Salvador Dalí Takes His Anteater for a Stroll in Paris, 1969

in Art | May 14th, 2015

Sal­vador Dalí had a thing for anteaters. They made for good schtick, espe­cial­ly in Europe, and Dalí nev­er saw schtick that he did­n’t like.

And yet maybe there’s some­thing a lit­tle more to this pic­ture tak­en in Paris, in 1969. Maybe there’s some kind of sym­bol­ism, or even a play­ful trib­ute, tak­ing place in the pho­to above.

Sur­re­al­ism offi­cial­ly came into being in 1924, when André Bre­ton wrote Le Man­i­feste du Sur­réal­isme (read an Eng­lish trans­la­tion here). First a lit­er­ary move­ment, Sur­re­al­ism lat­er embraced painters, includ­ing fig­ures like Dalí.

In 1930, Dalí cre­at­ed a book­plate for Bre­ton called, “André Bre­ton le tamanoir.” That trans­lates to “André Bre­ton the Anteater,” the nick­name giv­en to Bre­ton by his fel­low sur­re­al­ists. Now con­sid­er the fact that the 1969 pho­to was tak­en three short years after Bre­ton’s death, and per­haps we can read an homage into it.

What nick­name did Bre­ton give to Dalí, you might ask? “Avi­da Dol­lars.” An ana­gram for “Sal­vador Dalí,” “Avi­da Dol­lars” trans­lates to “eager for dol­lars.” Pret­ty apt.

Fol­low us on Face­book, Twit­ter, Google Plus and LinkedIn and  share intel­li­gent media with your friends. Or bet­ter yet, sign up for our dai­ly email and get a dai­ly dose of Open Cul­ture in your inbox.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Sal­vador Dalí Illus­trates Don Quixote: Two Spaniards with Unique World Views

Sal­vador Dalí Sketch­es Five Span­ish Immor­tals: Cer­vantes, Don Quixote, El Cid, El Gre­co & Velázquez

Sal­vador Dalí’s Haunt­ing 1975 Illus­tra­tions for Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juli­et

Sal­vador Dalí Illus­trates Shakespeare’s Mac­beth

10 Writing Tips from Legendary Writing Teacher William Zinsser

in Writing | May 13th, 2015

Image used with per­mis­sion by Mark Ostow/Yale Alum­ni Mag­a­zine

Author William Zinss­er died at his Man­hat­tan home on Tues­day, May 12, 2015. The 92-year-old left behind one of the clas­sics of writ­ing instruc­tion man­u­als as his lega­cy, On Writ­ing Well. Since its first print­ing in 1976, the book has sold 1.5 mil­lion copies, and Zinss­er made sure to update the book often. He loved the rev­o­lu­tion in writ­ing that com­put­ers brought, call­ing it a mir­a­cle.

Nev­er have so many Amer­i­cans writ­ten so pro­fuse­ly and with so few inhi­bi­tions. Which means that it wasn’t a cog­ni­tive prob­lem after all. It was a cul­tur­al prob­lem, root­ed in that old buga­boo of Amer­i­can edu­ca­tion: fear.

Zinss­er stressed sim­plic­i­ty and effi­cien­cy, but also style and enthu­si­asm. Here are 10 of his many tips for improv­ing your writ­ing.

1. Don’t make lazy word choic­es: “You’ll nev­er make your mark as a writer unless you devel­op a respect for words and a curios­i­ty about their shades of mean­ing that is almost obses­sive. The Eng­lish lan­guage is rich in strong and sup­ple words. Take the time to root around and find the ones you want.”

2. On the oth­er hand, avoid jar­gon and big words: “Clear think­ing becomes clear writ­ing; one can’t exist with­out the oth­er. It’s impos­si­ble for a mud­dy thinker to write good Eng­lish.”

3. Writ­ing is hard work: “A clear sen­tence is no acci­dent. Very few sen­tences come out right the first time, or even the third time. Remem­ber this in moments of despair. If you find that writ­ing is hard, it’s because it is hard.”

4. Write in the first per­son: “Writ­ing is an inti­mate trans­ac­tion between two peo­ple, con­duct­ed on paper, and it will go well to the extent that it retains its human­i­ty.”

5. And the more you keep in first per­son and true to your­self, the soon­er you will find your style: “Sell your­self, and your sub­ject will exert its own appeal. Believe in your own iden­ti­ty and your own opin­ions. Writ­ing is an act of ego, and you might as well admit it.

6. Don’t ask who your audi­ence is…you are the audi­ence: “You are writ­ing pri­mar­i­ly to please your­self, and if you go about it with enjoy­ment you will also enter­tain the read­ers who are worth writ­ing for.”

7. Study the mas­ters but also your con­tem­po­raries: “Writ­ing is learned by imi­ta­tion. If any­one asked me how I learned to write, I’d say I learned by read­ing the men and women who were doing the kind of writ­ing I want­ed to do and try­ing to fig­ure out how they did it.”

8. Yes, the the­saurus is your friend: “The The­saurus is to the writer what a rhyming dic­tio­nary is to the songwriter–a reminder of all the choices–and you should use it with grat­i­tude. If, hav­ing found the scalawag and the scape­grace, you want to know how they dif­fer, then go to the dic­tio­nary.”

9. Read every­thing you write out loud for rhythm and sound: “Good writ­ers of prose must be part poet, always lis­ten­ing to what they write.”

10. And don’t ever believe you are going to write any­thing defin­i­tive: “Decide what cor­ner of your sub­ject you’re going to bite off, and be con­tent to cov­er it well and stop.”

Zinss­er fol­lows his own advice, in that this book (pick up a copy here) is a joy to read, with a rol­lick­ing humor and an infec­tious enthu­si­asm. May he rest in peace!

Final­ly, as some­one who can’t stand to hear the word ‘unique’ mod­i­fied, Zinss­er has this to say: “…being ‘rather unique’ is no more pos­si­ble than being rather preg­nant.’”

Relat­ed Con­tent

David Ogilvy’s 1982 Memo “How to Write” Offers 10 Pieces of Time­less Advice

Ray Brad­bury Offers 12 Essen­tial Writ­ing Tips and Explains Why Lit­er­a­ture Saves Civ­i­liza­tion

Writ­ing Tips by Hen­ry Miller, Elmore Leonard, Mar­garet Atwood, Neil Gaiman & George Orwell

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.

Nietzsche, Wittgenstein & Sartre Explained with Monty Python-Style Animations by The School of Life

in Philosophy | May 12th, 2015

Angst. Nau­sea. Selb­stüber­win­dung. All, sure­ly, words we’ve used before, but have we paid atten­tion to their prop­er philo­soph­i­cal con­texts? The well-known and wide­ly-read philoso­phers Lud­wig Wittgen­stein, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Friedrich Niet­zsche used those words and oth­ers in very spe­cif­ic ways to express con­cepts essen­tial to their cer­tain­ly eccen­tric but even more cer­tain­ly impor­tant philo­soph­i­cal writ­ings. These brief, Alain de Bot­ton-nar­rat­ed video primers from The School of Life’s series on phi­los­o­phy will get you start­ed on com­ing to grips with just what these 19th- and 20th-cen­tu­ry thinkers had to tell us about our own lives.

The new video on Wittgen­stein con­cen­trates on its sub­jec­t’s life­long grap­pling with the prob­lems of lin­guis­tic com­mu­ni­ca­tion, from his first con­clu­sion that “lan­guage works by trig­ger­ing with­in us pic­tures of how things are in the world” to his sec­ond that “lan­guage is like a kind of tool that we use to play dif­fer­ent ‘games.’ ” The video on Sartre deals with the exis­ten­tial­ist’s con­tentions that “things are weird­er than we think,” that “we are free,” that “we should­n’t live in bad faith,” and that “we are free to dis­man­tle cap­i­tal­ism.” The video on Niet­zsche explains just what it means to become an Über­men­sch — a goal achiev­able, for exam­ple, by using your capac­i­ty for selb­stüber­win­dung to over­come your sklaven­moral.

Though watch­ing these philo­soph­ic primers might well make you ever so slight­ly con­ver­sant in Wittgen­stein, Sartre, and Niet­zsche, The School of Life has clear­ly craft­ed them (using goofy cut-up visu­als and a healthy rate of quips per minute) pri­mar­i­ly as an enter­tain­ing means of whet­ting your intel­lec­tu­al appetite. If you’d like to know more about these mod­ern philoso­phers, have a look at our links to oth­er relat­ed posts below. And if you’d like to go broad­er before you go deep­er, do watch the rest of the series, which will get you start­ed on every­one from Aris­to­tle and the Sto­ics to La Rochefou­cauld and Hei­deg­ger.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

140 Free Online Phi­los­o­phy Cours­es 

135 Free Phi­los­o­phy eBooks

Human, All Too Human: 3‑Part Doc­u­men­tary Pro­files Niet­zsche, Hei­deg­ger & Sartre

A Guide to Hap­pi­ness: Alain de Bot­ton Shows How Six Great Philoso­phers Can Change Your Life

Down­load Wal­ter Kaufmann’s Lec­tures on Niet­zsche, Kierkegaard, Sartre & Mod­ern Thought (1960)

Bertrand Rus­sell on His Stu­dent Lud­wig Wittgen­stein: Man of Genius or Mere­ly an Eccen­tric?

Lud­wig Wittgenstein’s Trac­ta­tus Gets Adapt­ed Into an Avant-Garde Com­ic Opera

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.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail Re-Imagined as an Epic, Mainstream Hollywood Film

in Comedy, Film | May 12th, 2015

The orig­i­nal 1975 trail­er for Mon­ty Python and the Holy Grail (below) start­ed to make some big claims for itself. It opens, with the nar­ra­tor declar­ing:

Once in a life­time there comes a motion pic­ture which changes the whole his­to­ry of motion pic­tures. A pic­ture so stun­ning in its effect, so vast in its impact that it pro­found­ly affects the lives of all who see it.

But then comes the self-effac­ing punch­line deliv­ered by anoth­er nar­ra­tor in Japan­ese:

One such film is Kuro­sawa’s “The Sev­en Samu­rai.” Anoth­er was “Ivan the Ter­ri­ble.” Then there are more run-of-the mill films like “Her­bie Rides Again,” “La Notte” and “Mon­ty Python and the Holy Grail.”

… So, if you’re an intel­lec­tu­al midget and you feel like gig­gling, you could do worse than see Mon­ty Python and the Holy Grail.

Clas­sic Python!

Now, if want a Python trail­er that takes itself seri­ous­ly, look no fur­ther than the clip above. Cre­at­ed last year, this trail­er re-imag­ines Mon­ty Python and the Holy Grail as a main­stream Hol­ly­wood film. No wit. All cheese. If you dig the con­cept, you can see sim­i­lar rework­ings of Stan­ley Kubrick films here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Mon­ty Python’s Best Phi­los­o­phy Sketch­es

Mon­ty Python and the Holy Grail­Cen­sor­ship Let­ter: We Want to Retain “Fart in Your Gen­er­al Direc­tion”

Ter­ry Gilliam Reveals the Secrets of Mon­ty Python Ani­ma­tions: A 1974 How-To Guide

Watch Twin Beaks, Sesame Street’s Parody of David Lynch’s Iconic TV Show (1990)

in Comedy, K-12, Television | May 11th, 2015

Who killed Lau­ra Palmer?

If the answer comes unbid­den to your lips, you’re no doubt old enough to have spent much of 1990 glued to Twin Peaks, cult direc­tor David Lynch’s supreme­ly creepy series. (Note: US-based view­ers can watch the show for free on Hulu.)

The name prob­a­bly won’t mean much to those who entered the noughties with a wob­bly tod­dle, and why would it?  Mur­der vic­tim Palmer may have dri­ven the orig­i­nal series, but she did­n’t rank so much as a men­tion in Sesame Street’s 1991 par­o­dy, Twin Beaks, above.

The Mup­pets also steered clear of Sher­i­lyn Fenn’s teen vix­en cher­ry stem trick…

No Lynchi­an dream sequences…

No one armed men…

No scary owls…

What teth­ers this G‑rated kid­die ver­sion to the orig­i­nal, you may ask?

Hint: it car­ries a log.

Of course! The log lady is a sta­ple of Twin Peaks par­o­dies, show­ing up every­where from a Sat­ur­day Night Live skit star­ring Twin Peaks’ Spe­cial Agent Dale Coop­er (Kyle MacLach­lan) to a 2.5 minute Lego homage that man­ages to pre­serve the sex, the vio­lence, and seem­ing­ly all of the char­ac­ters.

The Cook­ie Monster’s Spe­cial Agent Cook­ie does eat some “darn” fine pie, but ulti­mate­ly, his fix­a­tion on why the town was named “Twin Beaks” is far less com­pelling than his take on Mon­ster­piece Theatre’s host Alis­tair Cooke.

Mas­ter­piece Theatre’s icon­ic pre­sen­ter has proved even more irre­sistible to par­o­dists than the Log Lady.

(In Sesame Street’s case, it worked. There are 35 more Mon­ster­pieces, includ­ing num­ber-cen­tric spoofs of The 400 Blows and (gulp) The Post­man Always Rings Twice.)

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Mon­ster­piece The­ater Presents Wait­ing for Elmo, Calls BS on Samuel Beck­ett

Watch Jazzy Spies: 1969 Psy­che­del­ic Sesame Street Ani­ma­tion, Fea­tur­ing Grace Slick, Teach­es Kids to Count

Watch The Sur­re­al 1960s Films and Com­mer­cials of Jim Hen­son

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

world of random

in | May 10th, 2015

this is about ran­dom­ness

Prince’s New Protest Song “Baltimore” Now Streaming Online

in Current Affairs, Music | May 9th, 2015

As the protests in Bal­ti­more unfold­ed, Prince sat at his key­board at Pais­ley Park’s sound­stage in Min­neso­ta and start­ed pen­ning a peace­ful protest song, which just hit the web this morn­ing. Click play and pon­der the lyrics below. Then get the back­sto­ry on the writ­ing of “Bal­ti­more” at MyFox­TwinCi­ties.

BALTIMORE
lyrics by Prince
NPG RECORDS, copy­right 2015

NOBODY GOT IN NOBODY’S WAY
SO EYE GUESS U COULD SAY
IT WAS A GOOD DAY
AT LEAST A LITTLE BETTER THAN THE DAY IN BALTIMORE

DOES ANYBODY HEAR US PRAY?
4 MICHAEL BROWN OR FREDDIE GRAY PEACE IS MORE THAN THE ABSENCE OF WAR
ABSENCE OF WAR

R WE GONNA C ANOTHER BLOODY DAY?
WE’RE TIRED OF CRYIN’ & PEOPLE DYIN’
LET’S TAKE ALL THE GUNS AWAY

ABSENCE OF WAR- U AND ME
MAYBE WE CAN FINALLY SAY
ENUFF IS ENUFF IT’S TIME 4 LOVE

IT’S TIME 2 HEAR,
IT’S TIME 2 HEAR

THE GUITAR PLAY! (gui­tar solo)

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