René Magritte’s Early Art Deco Advertising Posters, 1924–1927

in Art | September 12th, 2013

The Bel­gian painter René Magritte cre­at­ed some of the most enig­mat­ic and icon­ic works in Sur­re­al­ist art. But before he moved to Paris in 1927 and began forg­ing rela­tion­ships with André Bre­ton and the Sur­re­al­ists, Magritte strug­gled in Brus­sels as a free­lance com­mer­cial artist, cre­at­ing adver­tise­ments in the Art Deco style.

In 1924 Magritte began design­ing posters and adver­tise­ments for the cou­turi­er Hon­orine “Norine” Deschri­jver and her hus­band Paul-Gus­tave Van Hecke, own­ers of the Bel­gian fash­ion com­pa­ny Norine. Van Hecke also owned art gal­leries, and was an ear­ly cham­pi­on of sur­re­al­ism. Van Hecke would even­tu­al­ly pay Magritte a stipend in exchange for the right to mar­ket his sur­re­al­ist works. In the 1924 adver­tis­ing poster above, Magritte por­trays a woman in high heels pre­tend­ing to be Lord Lis­ter, the gen­tle­man thief from Ger­man pulp fic­tion, wear­ing “an after­noon coat cre­at­ed by Norine.”

Magritte designed some 40 sheet music cov­ers, most of them in the Art Deco style, accord­ing to Hrag Var­tan­ian at Hyper­al­ler­gic. The one above, “Arli­ta,” is from about 1925. The French and Dutch sub­ti­tles read “The Song of Light.”

The har­le­quin-themed image above is anoth­er adver­tise­ment for Norine, cir­ca 1925. Magritte paint­ed it in water­col­or and gouache. The pen­ciled inscrip­tion at the bot­tom reads “une robe du soir par Norine” — “an evening gown by Norine.”

In 1926 Magritte was com­mis­sioned to cre­ate the poster above for the pop­u­lar singer Marie-Louise Van Eme­len, bet­ter known as Primevère. An orig­i­nal print is cur­rent­ly up for sale at Christie’s and is expect­ed to bring some­where between $18,000 and $25,000.

For more of Magrit­te’s Art Deco sheet music cov­ers, vis­it Hyper­al­ler­gic.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Philoso­pher Por­traits: Famous Philoso­phers Paint­ed in the Style of Influ­en­tial Artists

The Art of William Faulkn­er: Draw­ings from 1916–1925

Bauhaus, Mod­ernism & Oth­er Design Move­ments Explained by New Ani­mat­ed Video Series

Bob Dylan and George Harrison Play Tennis, 1969

in Music | September 10th, 2013

Click images for larg­er ver­sions

Bob Dylan’s mys­te­ri­ous motor­cy­cle acci­dent in 1966—an event that has pro­voked all sorts of wild spec­u­la­tion—gave the over­worked mer­cu­r­ial star an oppor­tu­ni­ty to become a full-fledged recluse, which he seemed to need, whether it was war­rant­ed by his injuries or not. He skipped out on Wood­stock, turned his back on the flower pow­er rock scene, and in 1967, record­ed what I con­sid­er his absolute best album, John Wes­ley Hard­ing (go ahead and yell about my tastes in the com­ments). By 1969, he had recov­ered enough musi­cal­ly to expand his palate and record my sec­ond favorite of his albums, the full-on coun­try Nashville Sky­line. He had also recov­ered enough phys­i­cal­ly to play ten­nis with George Har­ri­son, as you can see above.

Har­ri­son, mean­while, had quit The Bea­t­les in Jan­u­ary, then was coaxed back into the band, which more or less broke up lat­er that year. But he had been busy—recording two most­ly-instru­men­tal solo albums and writ­ing his Hin­du gospel hit “My Sweet Lord” and the rest of his incred­i­ble 1970 triple album All Things Must Pass. Some­how amidst all the tur­moil and tran­si­tion, as Har­ri­son began his most pro­duc­tive solo peri­od and Dylan pre­pared to release what near­ly every­one con­sid­ers his worst record, Self Por­trait, the two found time to hit some balls before Dylan’s per­for­mance at the Isle of Wight fes­ti­val. Dylan was appar­ent­ly a long­time ten­nis fan. His 1964 “I Shall be Free No. 10” con­tains ref­er­ences to the sport. The pho­tos were released by the Har­ri­son fam­i­ly for the 2011 Mar­tin Scors­ese-direct­ed doc George Har­ri­son: Liv­ing in the Mate­r­i­al World (trail­er below).

via Retronaut/Dan­ger­ous Minds

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hear the Nev­er-Before-Released Bob Dylan Song “Pret­ty Saro” (1970)

The 1969 Bob Dylan-John­ny Cash Ses­sions: Twelve Rare Record­ings

George Har­ri­son in the Spot­light: The Dick Cavett Show (1971)

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

96-Year-Old Writes Song for Dearly Departed Wife, Becomes Oldest Artist on Billboard’s Top 100

in Life, Music | September 7th, 2013

When a  96-year-old man becomes a social media sen­sa­tion, it’s usu­al­ly not too hard to see why.

Fred Sto­baugh, the gent fea­tured above, ran across a call for entries for Green Shoe Stu­dio’s Singer Song­writer Con­test and used it as an excuse to write a love song for his wife, Lor­raine. That’s plen­ty sweet, espe­cial­ly when one does the math—Fred and Lor­raine were togeth­er for 75 years, and mar­ried for all but three. When one learns that Fred buried his bride just six weeks before hear­ing about the con­test, the sto­ry takes on a sort of roman­tic urgency. We need him to win this con­test.

Rather than upload­ing a video of his “Oh Sweet Lor­raine” to YouTube as instruct­ed, Sto­baugh slipped the lyrics into a mani­la enve­lope and mailed them off along with an explana­to­ry note. Green Shoe’s Jake Col­gan was open to the trans­gres­sion, as befits a record pro­duc­er who made the con­scious deci­sion to set up shop in Peo­ria, Illi­nois.

It’s safe to assume most of the entrants approached the con­test with their eyes on the prize, a pro­fes­sion­al­ly record­ed demo CD and pho­to shoot, and lau­rels with which to adorn their devel­op­ing careers. No dis­re­spect to them—they were fol­low­ing the rules in good faith—but the puri­ty of Strobaugh­’s motives no doubt set him apart as much, if not more than his longevi­ty.

Speak­ing of which, it was just announced that Sto­baugh has top­pled the-then-85-year-old Tony Ben­nett to become the old­est artist ever appear­ing in Bill­board­’s Hot 100.

With all the atten­tion being paid to the endear­ing­ly mod­est Mr. Strobaugh, let’s do take a moment to acknowl­edge this year’s actu­al con­test win­ner Gra­ham Cowger, as well as the run­ners up. A class act can be a dif­fi­cult act to fol­low. To quote Lou Reed entire­ly out of con­text, “always back to Lor­raine.”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Acoustic Gui­tar Project Gives Song­writ­ers World­wide a Gui­tar and One Week to Write a Song

Last Min­utes with ODEN: A Touch­ing Short Film

9‑Year-Old Philoso­pher Pon­ders the Mean­ing of Life and the Uni­verse

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is remind­ed of the won­der­ful Joe Put­ter­lik in Miran­da July’s film, The Future. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

The 10 Greatest Films of All Time According to 846 Film Critics

in Film | September 7th, 2013

We’ve recent­ly fea­tured the all-time-great­est-film-selec­tions from such cel­e­brat­ed direc­tors as Stan­ley Kubrick, Mar­tin Scors­ese, Woody Allen, and Quentin Taran­ti­no. Some of these lists came from the grand poll put on last year by Sight & Sound, the British Film Insti­tute’s well-respect­ed cin­e­ma jour­nal. While scru­ti­niz­ing the vot­ing records in the direc­tors’ divi­sion yields no small plea­sure for the cinephile, to focus too close­ly on that would ignore the big pic­ture. By that, I mean the over­all stand­ings in this most painstak­ing crit­i­cal effort to deter­mine “the Great­est Films of All Time”:

1. Ver­ti­go (Alfred Hitch­cock, 1958)
2. Cit­i­zen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941)
3. Tokyo Sto­ry (Yasu­jirô Ozu, 1953)
4. La Règle du jeu (Jean Renoir, 1939)
5. Sun­rise (F.W. Mur­nau, 1927)
6. 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stan­ley Kubrick, 1968)
7. The Searchers (John Ford, 1956)
8. Man with a Movie Cam­era (Dzi­ga Ver­tov, 1929)
9. The Pas­sion of Joan of Arc (Carl Theodor Drey­er, 1928)
10. 8½ (Fed­eri­co Felli­ni, 1963)

These results came out with a bang — the sound, of course, of Ver­ti­go dis­plac­ing Cit­i­zen Kane. How many who watched the young Orson Welles’ debut dur­ing its finan­cial­ly inaus­pi­cious orig­i­nal run could have guessed it would one day stand as a byword for the height of cin­e­mat­ic crafts­man­ship?

But Cit­i­zen Kane just flopped, draw­ing a good deal of crit­i­cal acclaim even as it did so, where­as, sev­en­teen years lat­er, Hitch­cock­’s Ver­ti­go not only flopped, but did so into a fog of mixed reviews, tum­bling uncer­e­mo­ni­ous­ly from there into obscu­ri­ty. Prints became scarce, and the ones Hitch­cock afi­ciona­dos could lat­er track down had seen bet­ter days. It would take a kind of obses­sion — not to men­tion a thor­ough restora­tion — to return Ver­ti­go to the zeit­geist.

We ignored Ver­ti­go at our per­il, and if we now ignore Cit­i­zen Kane because of its new sec­ond-chair sta­tus, we do that at our per­il as well. The 90-minute doc­u­men­tary, The Com­plete Cit­i­zen Kane, orig­i­nal­ly aired in 1991 as an episode of the BBC’s Are­na. It looks at Welles’ mas­ter­piece from every pos­si­ble angle, even bring­ing in New York­er crit­ic Pauline Kael, whose essay “Rais­ing Kane” took a con­tro­ver­sial anti-auteurist posi­tion about this most seem­ing­ly auteur-dri­ven of all Amer­i­can films.

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

Quentin Taran­ti­no Lists the 12 Great­est Films of All Time: From Taxi Dri­ver to The Bad News Bears

Woody Allen Lists the Great­est Films of All Time: Includes Clas­sics by Bergman, Truf­faut & Felli­ni

Mar­tin Scors­ese Reveals His 12 Favorite Movies (and Writes a New Essay on Film Preser­va­tion)

Stan­ley Kubrick’s List of Top 10 Films (The First and Only List He Ever Cre­at­ed)

Philoso­pher Slavoj Zizek Inter­prets Hitchcock’s Ver­ti­go in The Pervert’s Guide to Cin­e­ma (2006)

Orson Welles Explains Why Igno­rance Was the Genius Behind Cit­i­zen Kane

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

Don’t miss any­thing from Open Cul­ture in 2014. Sign up for our Dai­ly Email or RSS Feed. And we’ll send cul­tur­al curiosi­ties your way, every day.

Psychedelic Scenes of Pink Floyd’s Early Days with Syd Barrett, 1967

in Music | September 6th, 2013

Roger Waters of Pink Floyd turns 70 years old today. Waters was the prin­ci­pal song­writer and dom­i­nant cre­ative force dur­ing the band’s famous 1970s peri­od, when it released a string of pop­u­lar and influ­en­tial con­cept albums such as Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here and The Wall. But today we thought it would be inter­est­ing to take you all the way back to 1967, when Waters was 23 years old and the band was led by his child­hood friend Syd Bar­rett.

The video above is from a May 14, 1967 broad­cast of the BBC pro­gram The Look of the Week. Pink Floyd had­n’t released an album yet. Only two nights ear­li­er the band had staged its atten­tion-get­ting “Games for May” con­cert at the Queen Eliz­a­beth Hall. In the TV broad­cast, Pink Floyd plays its ear­ly favorite “Astron­o­my Domine” before Waters and Bar­rett sit down for a rather tense inter­view with the clas­si­cal­ly trained musi­cian and crit­ic Hans Keller. It’s amus­ing to watch Keller’s face as he express­es his extreme irri­ta­tion at the band’s loud, strange music. “My ver­dict is that its a lit­tle bit of a regres­sion to child­hood,” he says with a gri­mace. “But after all, why not?”

Waters and Bar­rett man­age to hold their own dur­ing the inter­view. Bar­rett comes across as lucid and well-spo­ken, despite the fact that his heavy LSD use and men­tal insta­bil­i­ty would soon make him unable to func­tion with­in the band. By Decem­ber of 1967, Pink Floyd would add gui­tarist David Gilmour to the line­up to com­pen­sate for Bar­ret­t’s errat­ic behav­ior. By March of 1968 — only 10 months after the BBC broad­cast — Bar­rett would quit the group.

We’ll close with an even ear­li­er video of Pink Floyd onstage. Filmed on Jan­u­ary 27, 1967 at the leg­endary UFO club in Lon­don, the clip is from the Feb­ru­ary 7, 1967 Grana­da TV doc­u­men­tary So Far Out It’s Straight Down. It shows the band play­ing anoth­er major song from its psy­che­del­ic era, “Inter­stel­lar Over­drive.”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour Sings Shakespeare’s Son­net 18

Watch Pink Floyd Plays Live in the Ruins of Pom­peii (1972)

Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters Per­forms The Wall at the Berlin Wall (1990)

On the 10th Anniversary of His Death, Watch Warren Zevon’s First & Last Appearances on Letterman

in Music | September 6th, 2013

Singer/songwriter War­ren Zevon died of lung can­cer ten years ago tomor­row. I remem­ber the day of his pass­ing well, but at the time I was a lit­tle baf­fled by the enor­mous num­ber of trib­utes to the musi­cian, who I vague­ly thought of (stu­pid­ly) as a nov­el­ty song­writer vague­ly asso­ci­at­ed with the L.A. soft rock scene. How wrong I was. I arrived at the Zevon par­ty late, but I final­ly showed up, and came to under­stand why almost every musi­cian from the sev­en­ties and eight­ies that I admire deeply admires War­ren Zevon and his hard­bit­ten, wit­ty, and unsen­ti­men­tal nar­ra­tive style. There’s so much Zevon in so many trou­ba­dours I love: Joe Jack­son, Tom Waits, Spring­steen. Always on the cusp of star­dom but nev­er quite a star like peers and for­mer room­mates Lind­sey Buck­ing­ham, Ste­vie Nicks, and Jack­son Browne, Zevon was nev­er­the­less one of the most well-regard­ed writ­ers of the L.A. rock scene. Whether it was his mis­an­throp­ic com­mit­ment to his cynicism—as All­mu­sic describes his per­son­al­i­ty—that side­lined him or his strug­gles with acute alco­holism isn’t entire­ly clear, but he always had his cham­pi­ons among crit­ics and peers alike.

In addi­tion to the afore­men­tioned lumi­nar­ies, Zevon’s career was boost­ed by mem­bers of R.E.M., with whom he record­ed under the name Hin­du Love Gods, and—most vis­i­bly and consistently—by David Let­ter­man, who had a twen­ty year rela­tion­ship with Zevon as his guest and some­time sub­sti­tute band leader. At the top of the post, you can see Zevon’s final appear­ance on Letterman’s show. The two attempt light ban­ter but lapse occa­sion­al­ly into awk­ward paus­es as they dis­cuss Zevon’s diag­no­sis. The talk is frank and filled with mor­dant wit, as was Zevon’s way, and Let­ter­man con­fess­es he’s astound­ed at his long­time friend’s abil­i­ty to keep his sense of humor. When Let­ter­man asks Zevon if he’s learned some­thing Dave doesn’t know about life and death, Zevon responds with the end­less­ly quotable line, “not unless I know how much you’re sup­posed to enjoy every sand­wich.” In the clip above, watch one of Zevon’s final per­for­mances on the same show. He plays the pow­er­ful bal­lad “Muti­neer,” a song with a fit­ting epi­taph for Zevon’s life: “ain’t no room on board for the insin­cere.”

And in the clip above, see Zevon’s first appear­ance on Let­ter­man in 1982, play­ing “Excitable Boy” and “The Over­draft.” Watch­ing these ear­ly and late per­for­mances, I’m baf­fled again—this time by why War­ren Zevon wasn’t a major star. But it doesn’t mat­ter. Those who know his work, includ­ing near­ly every major singer/songwriter of the last forty years, know how amaz­ing he was. For more of Zevon’s amaz­ing­ness, check out this full 1982 con­cert film from an appear­ance in Pas­sa­ic, New Jer­sey. And please, remem­ber to enjoy every sand­wich.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Tom Waits and David Let­ter­man: An Amer­i­can Tele­vi­sion Tra­di­tion

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

Synchronized, Timelapse Video Shows Train Traveling from London to Brighton in 1953, 1983 & 2013

in History, Travel | September 3rd, 2013

In 1953, the BBC filmed a train jour­ney from Lon­don to Brighton, “squeezed into just four min­utes.”  30 years lat­er, in 1983, they record­ed the same jour­ney again. And then for a third time in 2013. Above, you can watch all three jour­neys side by side. The videos are per­fect­ly in sync, which makes it par­tic­u­lar­ly easy to see what has changed — and what hasn’t — over the course of 60 years. You will see sim­i­lar­i­ties and dif­fer­ences in the land­marks along the routes. But the biggest con­trast? It’s the peo­ple who get off of the train at the end. Enjoy the ride.
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Disco Saves Lives: Give CPR to the The Beat of Bee Gees “Stayin’ Alive”

in Life, Music | September 2nd, 2013

What to do if some­one one around you goes into car­diac arrest? The Amer­i­can Heart Asso­ci­a­tion has two sim­ple tips. Over at their web site, they write: “If you see a teen or adult sud­den­ly col­lapse, call 9–1‑1 and push hard and fast in the cen­ter of the chest to the beat of the clas­sic dis­co song ‘Stayin’ Alive.’ CPR can more than dou­ble a per­son­’s chances of sur­vival, and ‘Stayin’ Alive’ has the right beat for Hands-Only CPR.” The song also has the right title for the job at hand.

To help spread the word, the AHA pro­duced a series of videos avail­able on YouTube, includ­ing this one star­ring Ken Jeong, an actor and come­di­an who is also a licensed physi­cian in Cal­i­for­nia. You may well rec­og­nize him from Judd Apa­tow’s film Knocked Up, where, like here, he exhorts peo­ple to “focus, pay atten­tion.”

Behind this schtick, there’s some real sci­ence. Accord­ing to NPR:

A study by the Uni­ver­si­ty of Illi­nois Col­lege of Med­i­cine has found that the Bee Gees’ “Stayin’ Alive” has the utter­ly per­fect beat for per­form­ing car­diopul­monary resus­ci­ta­tion. The 1977 dis­co hit con­tains 103 beats per minute. That’s close to the rec­om­mend­ed chest com­pres­sion rate of 100 beats every 60 sec­onds.

Below, you can find a very dif­fer­ent ver­sion of the same cam­paign that aired in the UK. And thanks to this ad cam­paign, at least one life was actu­al­ly saved.

Note: Anoth­er song to keep in mind in these life or death sit­u­a­tions is Queen’s “Anoth­er One Bites the Dust.” It has the right beat. But not so much the right title.

Demos for Hands-Only CPR can be found at the AHA web site.

via Metafil­ter

Iconic Photographs Re-Created in Play Doh: Man Ray to Nan Goldin

in Photography, Random | August 29th, 2013

Points for cre­ativ­i­ty go to Eleanor Mac­nair, who recent­ly launched the “Pho­tographs ren­dered in Play-Doh” Tum­blr. Giv­en the name of the Tum­blr, I prob­a­bly don’t have to explain the con­cept. I think you get it. Above we have “Pho­tog­ra­ph­er Den­nis Stock holds a cam­era in front of his face, 1955” — the orig­i­nal by Andreas Feininger (right), and the recre­ation by Ms. Mac­nair (left). Also on the Tum­blr you’ll find, among oth­ers:

• “Nan and Bri­an in Bed, New York City, 1983” by Nan Goldin (orig­i­nal — play doh)
• “Dovi­ma with ele­phants, evening dress by Dior, Cirque d’Hiver, August 1955” by Richard Ave­don (orig­i­nal — play doh)
• “Helen Tamiris, 1929” by Man Ray (orig­i­nal — play doh)

Stay tuned, there’s hope­ful­ly more to come.

H/T goes to James Estrin, co-edi­tor of The New York Times Lens Blog

Pho­to above via DVAfo­to

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Two Scenes from Stan­ley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove, Recre­at­ed in Lego

Hen­ri Carti­er-Bres­son and the Deci­sive Moment

Pho­tog­ra­phy of Lud­wig Wittgen­stein Released by Archives at Cam­bridge

David Lynch Talks About His 99 Favorite Pho­tographs at Paris Pho­to 2012

Albert Einstein Called Racism “A Disease of White People” in His Little-Known Fight for Civil Rights

in History, Politics | August 28th, 2013

Albert Einstein’s activ­i­ties as a pas­sion­ate advo­cate for peace were well-doc­u­ment­ed dur­ing his life­time. His celebri­ty as a famous physi­cist and one of the world’s most rec­og­niz­able faces lent a great deal of weight to his paci­fism, a view oth­er­wise not giv­en much con­sid­er­a­tion in the pop­u­lar press at almost any time in his­to­ry. How­ev­er, accord­ing to a 2006 book titled Ein­stein on Race and Racism by Fred Jerome and Roger Tay­lor, the sci­en­tist was also as pas­sion­ate about com­bat­ing racism and seg­re­ga­tion as he was about com­bat­ing war. This facet of Einstein’s life was vir­tu­al­ly ignored by the media, as was a vis­it he made in 1946 to Lin­coln Uni­ver­si­ty in Penn­syl­va­nia, the first degree-grant­i­ng col­lege for African-Amer­i­cans and the alma mater of Langston Hugh­es and Thur­good Mar­shall.

Invit­ed to Lin­coln to receive an hon­orary degree, Ein­stein gave a lec­ture on physics but also blunt­ly addressed the racial ani­mus that held the coun­try in its grip, report­ed­ly call­ing racism, “a dis­ease of white peo­ple” and say­ing he “did not intend to be qui­et” about his oppo­si­tion to seg­re­ga­tion and racist pub­lic pol­i­cy. Lest any­one think the Nobel-prize-win­ning physi­cist was pan­der­ing to his audi­ence, the Har­vard Gazette offers a com­pre­hen­sive sum­ma­ry of Einstein’s sup­port of pro­gres­sive anti-racist caus­es, includ­ing his per­son­al sup­port of mem­bers of Princeton’s black com­mu­ni­ty (he paid one man’s col­lege tuition), a town Prince­ton native Paul Robe­son once called “the north­ern­most town in the south.”

Ein­stein formed rela­tion­ships with sev­er­al promi­nent black leaders—inviting opera singer Mar­i­an Ander­son to stay in his home after she was refused a room at the Nas­sau Inn and appear­ing as a char­ac­ter wit­ness for W.E.B. Dubois when the lat­ter stood accused of “fail­ing to reg­is­ter as a for­eign agent.” But it was his 20-year friend­ship with Robe­son that seems cen­tral to his involve­ment in civ­il rights caus­es. The Har­vard Gazette writes:

Ein­stein met Paul Robe­son when the famous singer and actor came to per­form at Princeton’s McCarter The­atre in 1935. The two found they had much in com­mon. Both were con­cerned about the rise of fas­cism, and both gave their sup­port to efforts to defend the demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly elect­ed gov­ern­ment of Spain against the fas­cist forces of Fran­cis­co Fran­co. Ein­stein and Robe­son also worked togeth­er on the Amer­i­can Cru­sade to End Lynch­ing, in response to an upsurge in racial mur­ders as black sol­diers returned home in the after­math of World War II.

At the time of the Gazette arti­cle, 2007, a movie about Ein­stein and Robeson’s friend­ship was appar­ent­ly in the works, with Dan­ny Glover as Robe­son and Ben Kings­ley as Ein­stein. The project is appar­ent­ly stalled, but with the upsurge in pop­u­lar inter­est in the his­to­ry of civ­il rights—with the over­turn­ing of the Vot­ing Rights Act and the wide­spread cov­er­age of the 50th anniver­sary of the March on Washington—perhaps the project will see new life soon. I cer­tain­ly hope so.

via PourMe­Cof­fee

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Albert Ein­stein Express­es His Admi­ra­tion for Mahat­ma Gand­hi, in Let­ter and Audio

Lis­ten as Albert Ein­stein Calls for Peace and Social Jus­tice in 1945

MLK’s Last Days and Final Speech

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