Yoga in an X‑Ray Machine

in Animation | October 27th, 2014

Cour­tesy of Hybrid Med­ical Ani­ma­tions comes a high-tech “visu­al study/exploration of the body in motion.” The goal of the ani­ma­tion was to cre­ate a real­is­tic rep­re­sen­ta­tion of x‑rays, while also cap­tur­ing the beau­ty of var­i­ous yoga pos­es. Looks like they hit the mark on both accounts.

In cre­at­ing this 3D ani­ma­tion, no x‑rays were actu­al­ly used. No one was exposed to radi­a­tion in any way, shape or form. It’s all just ani­ma­tion — sophis­ti­cat­ed ani­ma­tion that some­how man­ages to show “prop­er bone den­si­ties and rep­re­sent actu­al bone mar­row inside each indi­vid­ual bone.” If you prac­tice yoga, you’ll cer­tain­ly rec­og­nize some of the pos­es in the clip.

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:

Son­ny Rollins Describes How 50 Years of Prac­tic­ing Yoga Made Him a Bet­ter Musi­cian

Watch a New Music Video Shot Entire­ly With­in an MRI Machine

What Hap­pens When Your Brain is on Alfred Hitch­cock: The Neu­ro­science of Film

This is Your Brain on Sex and Reli­gion: Exper­i­ments in Neu­ro­science

Free Guid­ed Med­i­ta­tions From UCLA: Boost Your Aware­ness & Ease Your Stress

Different From the Others (1919): The First Gay Rights Movie Ever … Later Destroyed by the Nazis

in Film | October 21st, 2014

From Albert Kin­sey, to Sig­mund Freud, to Mag­nus Hirschfeld, promi­nent social sci­en­tists have offered dis­sent­ing opin­ions to pre­vail­ing main­stream ideas about homo­sex­u­al­i­ty as a con­se­quence of parental or soci­etal influ­ences. This doesn’t mean those researchers have agreed with each oth­er, or with cur­rent ideas, but their con­clu­sions were con­tro­ver­sial and star­tling to a con­sen­sus often com­plic­it in the crim­i­nal­iza­tion and polit­i­cal repres­sion of gays and les­bians. If you haven’t heard the last name on that list above, there’s prob­a­bly a good rea­son: Hirschfeld—a gay, Jew­ish physi­cian, sex­ol­o­gist, and advo­cate in Weimar Germany—had much of his work burned by the Nazis in their 1933 rise to pow­er.

One of Hirschfeld’s works destroyed in Nazi fires was a film he co-wrote and co-starred in called Dif­fer­ent From the Oth­ers, the first gay rights movie in his­to­ry. Released in 1919, and banned in 1920, the film explored a doomed rela­tion­ship between a vio­lin­ist, played by silent star Con­rad Vei­dt, and his stu­dent. Exten­sive flash­back scenes show both char­ac­ters’ ear­ly sex­u­al expe­ri­ences, their failed attempts to change their sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion (includ­ing treat­ment with bogus “ex-gay” ther­a­pies), and their even­tu­al self-accep­tance. In their present day, the cou­ple is open­ly affec­tion­ate, until the vio­lin­ist is black­mailed and dragged into court by an extor­tion­ist, then aban­doned by his friends and fam­i­ly. He com­mits sui­cide, and his lover vows to fight the law that crim­i­nal­ized homo­sex­u­al­i­ty in Ger­many, known as Para­graph 175.

Dif­fer­ent From the Oth­ers would be lost to his­to­ry were it not for Hirschfeld’s preser­va­tion of 40 min­utes of footage in a sep­a­rate doc­u­men­tary. You can view the sur­viv­ing film above, with Eng­lish title cards. The film was part of a didac­tic series on themes of sex­u­al­i­ty that Hirschfeld made with direc­tor Richard Oswald. In each one, Hirschfeld appears as a doc­tor who inter­venes on behalf of per­se­cut­ed indi­vid­u­als. In Dif­fer­ent from the Oth­ers, he does so with the violinist’s par­ents, telling them, “You must not con­demn your son because he is a homo­sex­u­al, he is not to blame for his ori­en­ta­tion. It is not wrong, nor should it be a crime. Indeed, it is not even an ill­ness, mere­ly a vari­a­tion, and one that is com­mon to all of nature.”

In many oth­er such scenes, most of them now lost, Hirschfeld explic­it­ly states his argu­ment that, as The New York Times writes, “homo­pho­bia, not homo­sex­u­al­i­ty, was a scourge of soci­ety.” The then-rad­i­cal point of view found lit­tle con­tem­po­rary support—screenings were restrict­ed sole­ly to med­ical prac­ti­tion­ers and lawyers until the film’s destruction—but it makes this arti­fact of tremen­dous inter­est to film his­to­ri­ans and activists today. In addi­tion to Hirschfeld’s pio­neer­ing activism, the film is notable for star­ring Viedt, who went on to fame for his role in The Cab­i­net of Dr. Cali­gari.

Despite its many lacu­nae and entire miss­ing scenes, and char­ac­ters, Dif­fer­ent From the Oth­ers is cur­rent­ly being restored and turned into an expand­ed, “watch­able fea­ture,” using the sur­viv­ing rem­nants, along with found pho­tos and film stills, by the Out­fest-UCLA Lega­cy Project (see their ful­ly-fund­ed Kick­starter here). Many scenes—such as a lengthy the­o­ret­i­cal lec­ture by Hirschfeld—will be recon­struct­ed from a syn­op­sis, “a few reviews, and lit­tle else.” “You’re not see­ing the orig­i­nal,” admits UCLA Film & Tele­vi­sion Archive direc­tor Jan-Christo­pher Horek of the com­ing recon­struc­tion, “because we don’t know what the orig­i­nal looks like.” Nev­er­the­less, in what­ev­er form, Dif­fer­ent From the Oth­ers rep­re­sents a per­spec­tive at least “50 years ahead of its time,” says Horak, with an “enlight­ened the­o­ry that you wouldn’t see in this coun­try prob­a­bly until the ‘70s or ‘80s.”

Dif­fer­ent from the Oth­ers will be added to our list of Great Silent Films, part of our larg­er col­lec­tion, 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Rudolf Braz­da, Last Man to Wear the Pink Tri­an­gle Dur­ing the Holo­caust, Tells His Sto­ry

Sig­mund Freud Writes to Con­cerned Moth­er: “Homo­sex­u­al­i­ty is Noth­ing to Be Ashamed Of” (1935)

The Cab­i­net of Dr. Cali­gari: See the Restored Ver­sion of the 1920 Hor­ror Clas­sic with Its Orig­i­nal Col­or Tint­ing

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

Pablo Picasso’s Two Favorite Recipes: Eel Stew & Omelette Tortilla Niçoise

in Art, Food & Drink | October 21st, 2014

Back in 1964, Pablo Picas­so shared with Vogue’s food colum­nist Ninette Lyon two of his favorite recipes — one for Eel Stew, the oth­er for Omelette Tor­tilla Niçoise. If you live in the South of France, as Picas­so did, the recipes prob­a­bly won’t be entire­ly for­eign to you. But if you aren’t so lucky, you might want to add these recipes, now reprint­ed by Vogue, to your culi­nary buck­et list.

Below, we’ve high­light­ed the ingre­di­ents for the recipes. But, for step-by-step direc­tions on how to pre­pare the dish­es, head over to Vogue itself.

For more recipes from cul­tur­al icons — Hem­ing­way, Tol­stoy, Alice B. Tok­las, Jane Austen, David Lynch, Miles Davis, etc. — head to the bot­tom of this page.

Eel Stew for Four Peo­ple

6 table­spoons olive oil
6 table­spoons but­ter
12 small white onions
1 tea­spoon sug­ar
2 yel­low onions, chopped
12 mush­rooms
⅓ pound salt pork, cubed
2 shal­lots, minced
2 cloves gar­lic, minced
2 eels of about 1 pound each, cut into four- to five-inch sec­tions
1 bot­tle of good red wine
1 table­spoon flour
Salt, pep­per, cayenne pep­per
Bou­quet gar­ni: thyme, bay leaf, pars­ley, fen­nel, and a small branch of cel­ery

Omelette Tor­tilla Niçoise for Four Peo­ple
6 table­spoons olive oil
1 large onion
4 pep­pers, red and green
3 toma­toes
2 table­spoons wine vine­gar
8 eggs
Salt and pep­per

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Ernest Hemingway’s Favorite Ham­burg­er Recipe

Leo Tolstoy’s Fam­i­ly Recipe for Mac­a­roni and Cheese

David Lynch Teach­es You to Cook His Quinoa Recipe in a Weird, Sur­re­al­ist Video

Thomas Jefferson’s Hand­writ­ten Vanil­la Ice Cream Recipe

Alice B. Tok­las Reads Her Famous Recipe for Hashish Fudge (1963)

Mar­i­lyn Monroe’s Hand­writ­ten Turkey-and-Stuff­ing Recipe

Read Film­mak­er Luis Buñuel’s Recipe for the Per­fect Dry Mar­ti­ni, and Then See Him Make One

Miles Davis’ “South Side Chica­go Chili Mack” Recipe Revealed

The Recipes of Icon­ic Authors: Jane Austen, Sylvia Plath, Roald Dahl, the Mar­quis de Sade & More

Hear The Flaming Lips Cover All of The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s: Streaming Free for a Limited Time

in Music | October 20th, 2014

In 2012, Rolling Stone issued a revised list of the 500 Great­est Albums of All Time, at the very top of which sits The Bea­t­les’ 1967 record, Sgt. Pep­per’s Lone­ly Hearts Club Band. Jus­ti­fy­ing mak­ing the album its num­ber one pick, Rolling Stone wrote:

Sgt. Pep­per’s Lone­ly Hearts Club Band is the most impor­tant rock & roll album ever made, an unsur­passed adven­ture in con­cept, sound, song­writ­ing, cov­er art and stu­dio tech­nol­o­gy by the great­est rock & roll group of all time. From the title song’s regal blasts of brass and fuzz gui­tar to the orches­tral seizure and long, dying piano chord at the end of “A Day in the Life,” the 13 tracks on Sgt. Pep­per’s Lone­ly Hearts Club Band are the pin­na­cle of the Bea­t­les’ eight years as record­ing artists. John Lennon, Paul McCart­ney, George Har­ri­son and Ringo Starr were nev­er more fear­less and uni­fied in their pur­suit of mag­ic and tran­scen­dence.…

Sgt. Pep­per for­mal­ly ush­ered in an unfor­get­table sea­son of hope, upheaval and achieve­ment: the late 1960s and, in par­tic­u­lar, 1967’s Sum­mer of Love. In its iri­des­cent instru­men­ta­tion, lyric fan­tasias and eye-pop­ping pack­ag­ing, Sgt. Pep­per defined the opu­lent rev­o­lu­tion­ary opti­mism of psy­che­delia and instant­ly spread the gospel of love, acid, East­ern spir­i­tu­al­i­ty and elec­tric gui­tars around the globe. No oth­er pop record of that era, or since, has had such an imme­di­ate, titan­ic impact. This music doc­u­ments the world’s biggest rock band at the very height of its influ­ence and ambi­tion.

Giv­en Sgt. Pep­per’s icon­ic sta­tus, it’s hard to imag­ine a con­tem­po­rary band decid­ing to cov­er the entire album. (Can you real­ly improve upon it?) But that’s just what The Flam­ing Lips have done with With a Lit­tle Help From My Fwends. Sched­uled to be released next week, the album fea­tures con­tri­bu­tions by fwends like Moby, My Morn­ing Jack­et, Miley Cyrus, and oth­ers. Pro­ceeds from the album — which is now stream­ing free for a lim­it­ed time at NPR — will go to the Bel­la Foun­da­tion, a non-prof­it that assists low-income, elder­ly or ter­mi­nal­ly ill pet own­ers with the cost of vet­eri­nary care when it can­not be afford­ed. You can pre-order the Flam­ing Lips album on Ama­zon and iTunes.

In oth­er news, Paul McCart­ney announced today that he has unearthed a Wings’ song he played (back in the day) with John Bon­ham on drums. An intrigu­ing idea. Catch it here.

Stephen Colbert Explains How The Colbert Report Is Made in a New Podcast

in Comedy, Creativity, Podcasts, Television | October 20th, 2014

“I do the show in char­ac­ter, he’s an idiot, he’s will­ful­ly igno­rant of what you know and care about, please hon­est­ly dis­abuse me of my igno­rance and we’ll have a great time.” 

This secret speaks to the heart of come­di­an and fake-pun­dit Stephen Colbert’s wild­ly pop­u­lar Col­bert Report. But how exact­ly does he man­age to pull this rab­bit from his hat, night after night gru­el­ing night?

The nuts and bolts of Colbert’s work­ing day make for a fas­ci­nat­ing inau­gur­al episode of Work­ing, a new Slate pod­cast host­ed by David Plotz. It shares a title with radio per­son­al­i­ty Studs Terkel’s famous non-fic­tion­al exam­i­na­tion, but Plotz’s project is more process ori­ent­ed. Soup-to-nuts-and-bolts, if you will.

Col­bert is hap­py to oblige with a Lit­tle Red Hen-like corn metaphor in which alco­hol, not bread, is the ulti­mate goal.

His morn­ing begins with a deep rum­mage through the headlines—Google News, Red­dit, Slate, The Drudge Report, Fox News, Buz­zfeed, The Huff­in­g­ton Post… imag­ine if this stack was made of paper. When does he have the time to google ex-girl­friends?

When­ev­er pat­terns and trends emerge, Col­bert and his hard work­ing team fer­ret out ways to impose his char­ac­ter onto them. Occa­sion­al­ly some lucky non-sto­ry will find itself ele­vat­ed to Queen for a Day, if it speaks to some­thing Col­bert-the-char­ac­ter would care about pas­sion­ate­ly. The pro­posed ban on horse car­riages in Cen­tral Park, the Col­orado VA’s mar­i­jua­na stance, and the self-declared les­bian trou­ple are three that have borne fruit of late.

From pitch meet­ing through read-aloud and rewrites, the school hours por­tion of Colbert’s day resem­bles that of oth­er dead­line-dri­ven shows. He’s quick to acknowl­edge the con­tri­bu­tions of a ded­i­cat­ed and like-mind­ed staff, includ­ing exec­u­tive pro­duc­er Tom Pur­cell and head writer Opus—as in Bloom Coun­ty—Moreschi.

As show­time approach­es, Col­bert swaps his jeans for a Brooks Broth­ers suit, and leaves the homey, dog-friend­ly town­house where the bulk of the writ­ing takes place for the stu­dio next door.

There are last minute rewrites, a guest to greet, a Bic pen to be nib­bled…

Ide­al­ly, he’ll get at least 10 min­utes of head­space to become the mon­ster of his own mak­ing, lib­er­al America’s favorite will­ful­ly igno­rant idiot. (Most of lib­er­al Amer­i­ca, any­way. My late-moth­er-in-law refused to believe it was an act, but it is.)

A bit of schtick with the make­up artist serves as a lit­mus test for audi­ence respon­sive­ness.

When the cam­eras roll, Col­bert sticks close to his prompter, fur­ther proof that the char­ac­ter is a con­struct. Any impro­vi­sa­tion­al impuls­es are unleashed dur­ing one-on-one inter­ac­tions with the guest. With some 10,000 hours of com­e­dy under his belt, his instincts tend toward the unerr­ing.

At days end, he thanks the audi­ence, the guest and every­one back­stage except for one guy who gets a mere wave. The show is then edit­ed at a zip squeal pace, and will hope­ful­ly fall into the “yay!” cat­e­go­ry. (The oth­er choic­es are “sol­id” or “wrench to the head.”)

Col­bert will only watch the show if there was a prob­lem.

And then? The day begins again.

After peer­ing through this win­dow onto Colbert’s world, we’re stoked for future episodes of Work­ing, when guests as var­ied as a rock musi­cian, a hos­pice nurse, and porn star Jes­si­ca Drake walk Plotz through a typ­i­cal day.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Stephen Col­bert & Louis CK Recite The Get­tys­burg Address, With Some Help from Jer­ry Sein­feld

Stephen Col­bert Tries to Make Sense of MOOCs with the Head of edX

A Seri­ous Stephen Col­bert Gives Advice on Love & Life to Teenage Girls

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is the cre­ator of The Mermaid’s Legs, a trau­ma-filled Hans Chris­t­ian Ander­sen reboot pre­mier­ing this week in NYC. See it! And fol­low her @AyunHalliday

How Wolves Change Rivers

in Environment, Science | October 19th, 2014

In nature, every­thing is con­nect­ed — con­nect­ed in ways you might not expect. The short video above is nar­rat­ed by George Mon­biot, an Eng­lish writer and envi­ron­men­tal­ist, who now con­sid­ers him­self a “rewil­d­ing cam­paign­er.” The con­cept of rewil­d­ing and how it can save ecosys­tems in gen­er­al, and how wolves changed Yel­low­stone Nation­al Park in par­tic­u­lar, is some­thing Mon­biot explains in greater detail in his 2013 TED Talk below, and in his new book — Fer­al: Search­ing for Enchant­ment on the Fron­tiers of Rewil­d­ing.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Envi­ron­ment & Nat­ur­al Resources: Free Online Cours­es

E.O. Wilson’s Life on Earth Released as a Free eBook and Free Course on iTunes

How Cli­mate Change Is Threat­en­ing Your Dai­ly Cup of Cof­fee

New Google-Pow­ered Site Tracks Glob­al Defor­esta­tion in ‘Near-Real-Time’

The Paintings of Miles Davis

in Art, Music | October 9th, 2014

Ask enough peo­ple to name their favorite artist of any kind, and soon­er rather than lat­er, some­one will name Miles Davis. The trum­peter and jazz auteur behind — or, strict­ly speak­ing, up in front of — such unchal­lenged mas­ter­pieces as Birth of the Cool, Kind of Blue, Sketch­es of Spain, and Bitch­es Brew has long since ascend­ed to the pan­theon of Amer­i­can music, but that doesn’t mean we should over­look his oth­er artis­tic achieve­ments. Achieve­ments as a painter, for instance: true fans know that Davis’ visu­al art appears on a few of his album cov­ers, such as that of 1989’s Amand­la right below.  “Paint­ing, long a Davis avo­ca­tion, is becom­ing a prof­itable side­line,” says a con­tem­po­rary Los Ange­les Times arti­cle. “In col­lab­o­ra­tion with his girl­friend, Jo Gel­bard, he did the art­work for his new album; the cov­er is an impres­sive self-por­trait using the reds and greens he seems to favor.”

You can see more of Davis’ visu­al art over at Dan­ger­ous Minds and The Dai­ly Beast. The so-called Prince of Dark­ness “didn’t begin to draw and paint in earnest until he was in his mid-fifties, dur­ing the ear­ly 1980s and a peri­od of musi­cal inac­tiv­i­ty,” writes Tara McGin­ley. ”

Miles being Miles, he didn’t mere­ly dab­ble, but made cre­at­ing art as much a part of his life as mak­ing music in his final decade,” result­ing in “a sharp, bold and mas­cu­line mix­ture of Kandin­sky, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Picas­so and African trib­al art.” Just last year, Insight Edi­tions pub­lished Miles Davis: The Col­lect­ed Art­work, final­ly bring­ing togeth­er the fruits of the cre­ativ­i­ty the trum­peter could com­mand even with­out his horn. Count­less young jazz play­ers claim Davis as an influ­ence to this day, and they’ll con­tin­ue to do so as long as jazz itself per­sists, but I do won­der how soon young painters will as well.

via Dan­ger­ous Minds

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Miles Davis Plays Music from Kind of Blue Live in 1959, Intro­duc­ing a Com­plete­ly New Style of Jazz

Watch Ani­mat­ed Sheet Music for Miles Davis’ “So What,” Char­lie Parker’s “Con­fir­ma­tion” & Coltrane’s “Giant Steps”

The Night When Miles Davis Opened for the Grate­ful Dead in 1970: Hear the Com­plete Record­ings

Miles Davis’ “South Side Chica­go Chili Mack” Recipe Revealed

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on cities, lan­guage, Asia, and men’s style. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

“Heidegger in the Kitchen”: Alain de Botton’s Video Essay Explains the Philosopher’s Concept of Being

in Philosophy | October 9th, 2014

Are you feel­ing doomed and insignif­i­cant, like a shrimp des­tined for the fry­ing pan? Well, then, we have just the thing for you. Last week we fea­tured three intro­duc­to­ry phi­los­o­phy videos from Alain de Botton’s School of Life, on Mar­tin Hei­deg­ger, the Sto­ics, and Epi­cu­rus. Each of these shorts is designed to show how phi­los­o­phy, ancient and mod­ern, can enhance our dai­ly life by address­ing ques­tions of free­dom, suf­fer­ing, and hap­pi­ness. Above—in what Maria Popo­va at Brain Pick­ings calls an “imag­i­na­tive video essay”—de Bot­ton again engages with Heidegger’s thought, this time dis­till­ing the dif­fi­cult Ger­man philosopher’s con­cept of “Being” (das sein) to its essence.

Heidegger’s desire, de Bot­ton tells us, was to “wake us up to the idea that we are sur­round­ed by death.” (Hei­deg­ger used the “grander term,” das nichts,” the noth­ing, or “inex­is­tence, the oppo­site of life.”) Instead of sim­ply awak­en­ing exis­ten­tial ter­ror by remind­ing us of how frag­ile and pre­car­i­ous our lives are, Hei­deg­ger sought to encour­age moments of insight into the mys­te­ri­ous uni­ty and beau­ty of life. In these moments, he thought, we might learn “to rec­og­nize our kin­ship with all liv­ing things and with the Earth itself.”

What keeps us from hav­ing these insights all of the time? For Hei­deg­ger, our social denial of Being takes the form of “end­less chat­ter,” what he called das gerede. We are all famil­iar with its many man­i­fes­ta­tions; from the per­pet­u­al triv­ia of celebri­ty gos­sip to the numb­ing scare­mon­ger­ing of the 24-hour news cycle, thou­sands of voic­es sur­round us hourly, clam­or­ing for our atten­tion and seek­ing to drown out our indi­vid­ual aware­ness of death and of Being. In the visu­al kitchen metaphor above, das gerede is rep­re­sent­ed by a “pan­cake-like dough lay­er” that “smoth­ers our con­nec­tion with Being.” “The task of phi­los­o­phy,” Hei­deg­ger believed, “is to remove us from the doughy com­fort of chat­ter and intro­duce us, sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly, to the brac­ing con­cept of Noth­ing­ness.”

It’s cer­tain­ly not for noth­ing that Hei­deg­ger has been iden­ti­fied as an exis­ten­tial­ist, though he repu­di­at­ed the term. For Hei­deg­ger, the ques­tion of human exis­tence was pri­ma­ry and above all oth­er kinds of inquiry. Hei­deg­ger did not believe that the meth­ods and tech­nolo­gies of the nat­ur­al sci­ences could ever offer sat­is­fac­to­ry answers to our fun­da­men­tal ques­tions about our exis­tence. So what was Heidegger’s cheer­ful advice to those of us seek­ing a more authen­tic con­nec­tion to Being? Like Mor­ris­sey and var­i­ous Roman­tic poets, Hei­deg­ger rec­om­mend­ed that we “spend more time in grave­yards.” To get in touch with life, he sug­gests, we must first learn to get in touch with death.

via Brain Pick­ings

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Alain de Botton’s School of Life Presents Ani­mat­ed Intro­duc­tions to Hei­deg­ger, The Sto­ics & Epi­cu­rus

Mar­tin Hei­deg­ger Talks About Lan­guage, Being, Marx & Reli­gion in Vin­tage 1960s Inter­views

Mar­tin Hei­deg­ger Talks Phi­los­o­phy with a Bud­dhist Monk on Ger­man Tele­vi­sion (1963)

Find sev­er­al cours­es on Hei­deg­ger, includ­ing his mag­num opus Being and Time, in our col­lec­tion of Free Online Phi­los­o­phy Cours­es

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

Wes Anderson’s Animated Books

in Film | October 8th, 2014

It was 2012, and Focus Fea­tures flew me and about three dozen oth­er jour­nal­ists to inter­view Wes Ander­son for his lat­est movie Moon­rise King­dom right on the beach at Cannes. Though the day was hot enough to pro­duce more than a few leath­ery top­less sun­bathers, Ander­son wore the exact ‘80s-style beige cor­duroy suit you might expect him to wear. Just like his eccen­tric, iron­ic — and giv­en the set­ting, uncom­fort­able — sar­to­r­i­al choic­es, Anderson’s movies are dis­tinc­tive from frame one. He is Hollywood’s cur­rent reign­ing for­mal­ist.

Moon­rise King­dom is prob­a­bly his most suc­cess­ful recent movie. Though the film is filled with his trade­mark sym­met­ri­cal fram­ing, dead­pan set design and off-kil­ter jux­ta­po­si­tions, the film nev­er feels like self-par­o­dy, unlike some of his pre­vi­ous movies — think Dar­jeel­ing Lim­it­ed. Set on the remote New Pen­zance Island in 1965, Moon­rise is about a star-crossed pre-teen love affair between Sam, a pre­co­cious bespec­ta­cled boy scout in a coon­skin cap, and Suzy, a trou­bled teen who favors sad­dle shoes, rac­coon-like eye make­up and above all books. Before she steals away into the woods with Sam, she stuffs her suit­case with six of her favorite (fic­ti­tious) books, all swiped from the local library.

Ander­son fea­tures the books promi­nent­ly in the movie, giv­ing them titles like The Girl from Jupiter or Dis­ap­pear­ance of the 6th Grade. Each book was designed by artists that Ander­son per­son­al­ly com­mis­sioned. Though Suzy reads parts from three of the books in the film, Ander­son orig­i­nal­ly had a much grander vision: “At one point in the process, when she’s read­ing these pas­sages from these books,” he told Enter­tain­ment Week­ly. “I’d thought about going into ani­ma­tion.” The film­mak­er had just com­plet­ed his stop­mo­tion movie The Fan­tas­tic Mr. Fox; clear­ly, ani­ma­tion was on Anderson’s mind.

Ulti­mate­ly, Ander­son decid­ed against this approach, but the idea still appar­ent­ly intrigued him. So here it is as a pro­mo­tion­al piece for Moon­rise. In the span of six weeks, blind­ing­ly fast for ani­ma­tion, Ander­son and his pro­duc­er Jere­my Daw­son man­aged to ani­mate pas­sages from all six books – writ­ten by the film­mak­er – in the style of the book cov­ers. The video is host­ed by Bob Bal­a­ban who played the Moon­rise King­dom’s tuque-sport­ing nar­ra­tor.

“I think we all just pitched in and we pulled a lot of favors because it was not like we spent a ton of mon­ey doing it,” said Daw­son to EW. “Peo­ple got excit­ed about it because it was a cre­ative thing rather than if they were mak­ing a Snick­ers ad or some­thing.”

You can see the results above.

Via Enter­tain­ment Week­ly

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Watch 7 New Video Essays on Wes Anderson’s Films: Rush­more, The Roy­al Tenen­baums & More

Wes Anderson’s Favorite Films: Moon­struck, Rosemary’s Baby, and Luis Buñuel’s The Exter­mi­nat­ing Angel

Watch Wes Anderson’s Charm­ing New Short Film, Castel­lo Cav­al­can­ti, Star­ring Jason Schwartz­man

Wes Anderson’s First Short Film: The Black-and-White, Jazz-Scored Bot­tle Rock­et (1992)

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.

9 New Episodes of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks to Air in 2016

in Television | October 6th, 2014

David Lynch just announced on Twit­ter this morn­ing, “Dear Twit­ter Friends… it is hap­pen­ing again. http://s.sho.com/TwinPeaks  #damn­good­cof­fee”

He’s refer­ring to the revival of his ear­ly 1990s cult clas­sic show, Twin Peaks, on Show­time in 2016.

Show­time’s Youtube Chan­nel adds this detail:

The ground­break­ing tele­vi­sion phe­nom­e­non, Gold­en Globe® and Peabody Award-win­ner TWIN PEAKS will return as a new lim­it­ed series on SHOWTIME in 2016. Series cre­ators and exec­u­tive pro­duc­ers David Lynch and Mark Frost will write and pro­duce all nine episodes of the lim­it­ed series, and Lynch will direct every episode. Set in the present day, TWIN PEAKS will con­tin­ue the lore of the orig­i­nal series, pro­vid­ing long-await­ed answers and a sat­is­fy­ing con­clu­sion for the series’ pas­sion­ate fan base.

Accord­ing to the fan site Wel­come­toTwin­Peaks, David Lynch and Mark Frost are “try­ing to bring back as much of the orig­i­nal cast as pos­si­ble, with Kyle MacLach­lan def­i­nite­ly on board repris­ing his role as Spe­cial Agent Dale Coop­er. Com­pos­er Ange­lo Badala­men­ti and Emmy Award-win­ning edi­tor Duwayne Dun­ham will like­ly be involved as well.” You can rest assured that Wel­come­toTwin­Peaks will keep you post­ed on new details as they come to light.

In the mean­time, the orig­i­nal Twin Peaks series was re-issued on blu-ray this sum­mer. And US-based view­ers can watch the orig­i­nal series for free on Hulu.

via Bib­liok­lept

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

David Lynch Presents the His­to­ry of Sur­re­al­ist Film (1987)

David Lynch Explains How Med­i­ta­tion Enhances Our Cre­ativ­i­ty

David Lynch Teach­es You to Cook His Quinoa Recipe in a Weird, Sur­re­al­ist Video

Dum­b­land, David Lynch’s Twist­ed Ani­mat­ed Series (NSFW)