Artists Paint Paris, Berlin and London with High-Tech Video Graffiti

in Art | September 12th, 2012

Ear­li­er this year, Blake Shaw and Bruno Levy, two artists who form the mul­ti­me­dia per­for­mance col­lab­o­ra­tion Sweat­shoppe, head­ed to Euro­pean cities (Berlin, Bris­tol, Bel­grade, Lon­don and Paris) and past­ed videos on build­ings, some famous, some not. They call their art “Video Paint­ing,” and it’s all done with cus­tom soft­ware that “tracks the posi­tion of paint rollers and projects video wher­ev­er [the artists] choose to paint.” Every­thing that you see above was shot live, using no actu­al paint or post pro­duc­tion. You can check out more of Sweat­shoppe’s mul­ti­me­dia work here.

via The Atlantic

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Prague Mon­u­ment Dou­bles as Artist’s Can­vas

3D Light Show from Ukraine to Your Liv­ing Room

Goodnight Keith Moon: “The Most Inappropriate Bedtime Story Ever”

in Books, Music | September 11th, 2012

Lit­tle known fact. My first adven­ture in pub­lish­ing began as a 16 year old, when I teamed up with my best friend, anoth­er ardent fan of The Who, and togeth­er we pub­lished a fanzine ded­i­cat­ed to the British rock band. We called it Tales from The Who, a name tak­en from a boot­leg con­cert album record­ed in our native Philadel­phia dur­ing the ’70s. To get the zine going, we bor­rowed an elec­tric type­writer, cut out pic­tures, col­laged it all togeth­er, made copies on a pho­to­copy machine, then start­ed mar­ket­ing the pub­li­ca­tion in Rolling Stone mag­a­zine. When actu­al sub­scrip­tions rolled into our P.O. Box, we could­n’t believe it.

Alas, Tales from the Who did­n’t enjoy a long run. We maybe pub­lished three edi­tions, if that. But it did teach me the val­ue of Ray Brad­bury’s say­ing — “The things that you love should be things that you do.” And, years lat­er, I still get pangs of nos­tal­gia when­ev­er I encounter Who mem­o­ra­bil­ia on the web, whether it’s footage of Kei­th Moon pass­ing out at a 1973 con­cert and a fan tak­ing over, or videos that iso­late the great drum, bass, gui­tar, and vocal tracks of The Who’s anthem, “Won’t Get Fooled Again.” And you should­n’t begrudge me when I give you this: Good­night Kei­th Moon: A Par­o­dy.

If you liked Adam Mans­bach’s Go the F**k to Sleep, you’ll like­ly enjoy Clare Cross and Bruce Wor­den’s par­o­dy of the chil­dren’s clas­sic Good­night Moon. This twist­ed lit­tle rock tale can be pur­chased on Ama­zon. But it also lives freely on the web, just as it ought to. It begins:

In the great green room / There was a tele­phone / And a dead Kei­th Moon.

And Tow­shend jump­ing over the moon.

And there were four lit­tle gents piss­ing on cement.

And two bro­ken sticks and a pile of sick.

Find the rest here, and, don’t be the “cool” par­ent who actu­al­ly reads this to your kids. It is, after all, “the most inap­pro­pri­ate bed­time sto­ry ever,” accord­ing to The New York­er.

via Coudal

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Wern­er Her­zog Reads “Go the F**k to Sleep” in NYC (NSFW)

Listen to J.R.R. Tolkien Read Poems from The Fellowship of the Ring, in Elvish and English (1952)

in Literature, Poetry | September 10th, 2012

In my book Cate Blanchett can do no wrong, but her per­for­mance in the Lord of the Rings movies was par­tic­u­lar­ly spell­bind­ing, espe­cial­ly when she spoke the Elvish lan­guage of J.R.R. Tolkien’s fan­ta­sy uni­verse. Of course, the spell was cast long before when Tolkien used his back­ground as a lin­guist, his­to­ri­an, and lit­er­ary schol­ar to cre­ate the elab­o­rate tongue that he called Quenya. In the short clip above, Tolkien him­self recites the Elvish poem Namarie, or Galadriel’s lament, from The Fel­low­ship of the Ring nov­el (it does­n’t appear in the film). Namarie trans­lates as “Farewell,” and the poem in Eng­lish reads thus:

Ah! like gold fall the leaves in the wind, long years
num­ber­less as the wings of trees! The long years
have passed like swift draughts of the sweet mead
in lofty halls beyond the West, beneath the blue
vaults of Var­da where­in the stars trem­ble in the
song of her voice, holy and queen­ly.

Who now shall refill the cup for me?

For now the Kindler, Var­da, the Queen of Stars,
from Mount Ever­white has uplift­ed her hands like
clouds, and all paths are drowned deep in shad­ow;
and out of a grey coun­try dark­ness lies on the
foam­ing waves between us, and mist cov­ers the
jew­els of Calacirya for ever. Now lost, lost for
those from the East is Val­i­mar!

Farewell! Maybe thou shalt find Val­i­mar. Maybe
even thou shalt find it. Farewell!

The Tolkien record­ing pre­dates by two years the 1954 pub­li­ca­tion of the novel—the first of the Ring tril­o­gy. As sci-fi blog i09 notes, Namarie has been set to music, some­times against Tolkien’s wish­es, by sev­er­al com­posers. Tolkien did autho­rize one com­po­si­tion from Don­ald Swann, includ­ed on the album Poems and Songs of Mid­dle Earth (1967), a song cycle from The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien gave Swann the melody, and singer William Elvin’s tenor accen­tu­at­ed the medieval, Celtic qual­i­ty of the poem. A fan put togeth­er the video below.

The oth­er thir­teen com­po­si­tions on Poems and Songs are in Eng­lish (Tolkien’s poet­ic skill in his own tongue is per­haps under­ap­pre­ci­at­ed). In the short clip below, hear him read “The Song of Durin,” from Fel­low­ship of the Ring, a song sung by Gim­li the dwarf as the fel­low­ship jour­neys deep into the mines of Moria.

As Peter Jack­son brings Mid­dle Earth back to life in the the­ater this Decem­ber, it’s a good time to brush up on your Tolkien lore. Don’t have time to reread The Hob­bit? Lis­ten to Youtube user “Ephemer­al Rift” read the entire nov­el in a whis­per. He’s up to Chap­ter 2 and promis­es to fin­ish in time for the first film’s release.

h/t red­dit & i09

Josh Jones is a doc­tor­al can­di­date in Eng­lish at Ford­ham Uni­ver­si­ty and a co-founder and for­mer man­ag­ing edi­tor of Guer­ni­ca / A Mag­a­zine of Arts and Pol­i­tics.

The Wire Re-Imagined as a Classic Video Role-Playing Game

in Television | September 10th, 2012

If some­one has insis­tent­ly rec­om­mend­ed that you watch the whole of The Wire, David Simon’s tele­vi­sion series of Bal­ti­more­an insti­tu­tion­al dys­func­tion, that per­son has — let’s face it — prob­a­bly been a thir­ty­ish white guy. But we thir­ty­ish white guys do have our iso­lat­ed moments of cul­tur­al astute­ness, of which, accord­ing to all the legit­i­mate crit­ics, enthus­ing over The Wire counts as one. But we also go into volup­tuous Prous­t­ian rap­tures at the sight of our favorite old video games, so you’d do well to take us with a grain of salt. The above video from Col­lege­Hu­mor, a site that knows its audi­ence, trans­pos­es the social­ly crit­i­cal, bor­der­line-nihilis­tic action of The Wire into the pix­el-inten­sive, usu­al­ly moral­ly sim­plis­tic form of a con­sole role-play­ing game from the late eight­ies or ear­ly nineties. This will make a cer­tain over­lap in the cul­tur­al Venn dia­gram quite excit­ed indeed, and no doubt pro­vide a source of strange fas­ci­na­tion to the rest.

The play­er takes the role, for the most part, of trou­bled Bal­ti­more Police Depart­ment Detec­tive Jim­my McNul­ty, whose equip­pable items include “gun,” “badge,” “whiskey,” and “hair gel.” When he elects to “fight the sys­tem,” a turn-based bat­tle launch­es, pit­ting McNul­ty against the sys­tem’s lit­er­al embod­i­ment, a pha­lanx of invin­ci­ble bureau­crats. The game ren­ders a drug deal as the kind of store you’d vis­it in The Leg­end of Zel­da. Items avail­able: “crack,” “hero­in,” and “mana potion.” One stage even turns into some­thing of a graph­ic adven­ture, where the play­er, in search of evi­dence, clicks com­mands like “inspect,” “take,” and “hit,” although every pos­si­ble action seems to result in noth­ing more than curs­ing from either McNul­ty or his part­ner Bunk More­land. Clear­ly, this video con­tains a wealth of laughs for the Wire (or vin­tage role-play­ing game) diehard. If you’ve put off get­ting into the show, per­haps the prospect of get­ting these inside jokes will con­vince you to take the plunge. And putting in a few hours with the ear­ly Final Fan­ta­sy titles won’t hurt.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Wire Breaks Down The Great Gats­by, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Clas­sic Crit­i­cism of Amer­i­ca (NSFW)

The Wire as Great Vic­to­ri­an Nov­el

Bill Moy­ers with The Wire’s David Simon

The Wire: Four Sea­sons in Four Min­utes

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

Ailing Christopher Hitchens Creates a List of Essential Books for an 8‑Year-Old Girl to Read

in Books | September 7th, 2012

In the last months of his life, a phys­i­cal­ly weak­ened Christo­pher Hitchens trav­eled to the Texas Freethought Con­ven­tion to accept the Richard Dawkins Award. While there, an eight-year-old girl, Mason Crumpack­er of Dal­las, asked Hitchens what books she should con­sid­er read­ing. Intrigued, Hitchens spent 15 min­utes chat­ting with the young­ster and sketch­ing out a read­ing list. And, accord­ing to the Hous­ton Chron­i­cle, it looks some­thing like this:

• Robert Graves’ The Greek Myths (even though it turns out the girl was already a big fan of I, Claudius).
• Richard Dawkins’ illus­trat­ed sci­ence book, The Mag­ic of Real­i­ty.
• Any satir­i­cal works by Shake­speare and Chaucer. Find some in our col­lec­tion of Free eBooks.
• Ayaan Hir­si Ali’s Nomad: From Islam to Amer­i­ca: A Per­son­al Jour­ney Through the Clash of Civ­i­liza­tions (to explain what it could be like for young women to grow up in this world.)
• A Tale of Two Cities in par­tic­u­lar, and any Dick­ens in gen­er­al, since Dick­ens teach­es chil­dren to love read­ing.
• Some­thing by P.G. Wode­house. How about Sun­set at Bland­ings?
• And, when it comes to phi­los­o­phy, a lit­tle Hume. David Hume, that is.

A detailed account of the con­ver­sa­tion by Mason Crumpack­er’s moth­er can be found here.

Mean­while, if you’re look­ing for anoth­er set of rec­om­men­da­tions, don’t miss this: Neil deGrasse Tyson Lists 8 (Free) Books Every Intel­li­gent Per­son Should Read.

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!

The Second Known Photo of Emily Dickinson Emerges

in Photography, Poetry | September 5th, 2012

Until now, we’ve only had one authen­ti­cat­ed pho­to of the nine­teenth cen­tu­ry poet, Emi­ly Dick­in­son (1830–1886). The pho­to (above), tak­en when she was only 16 years old, shows Dick­in­son as a young­ster in high school cir­ca 1847, well before her lit­er­ary career came into full bloom. That has been the only visu­al trace of her to date.

But now, as The Guardian reports, Amherst Col­lege thinks it has dis­cov­ered an 1859 daguerreo­type show­ing the poet with her friend Kate Scott Turn­er. When this new­ly-dis­cov­ered image was tak­en, Emi­ly (on the left below) was 28 years old and like­ly writ­ing her mys­te­ri­ous mas­ter let­ters, as one Metafil­ter read­er points out.

Poems by Emi­ly Dick­in­son can be found in our col­lec­tion of Free eBooks and Free Audio Books, along with lots of oth­er great works.

Franklin D. Roosevelt Says to Moneyed Interests (EG Bankers) in 1936: “I Welcome Their Hatred!”

in History, Politics | September 5th, 2012

In 1936 Franklin D. Roo­sevelt was seek­ing a sec­ond term as pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States. Hav­ing assum­ing the office in the depths of the Great Depres­sion, Roo­sevelt had sta­bi­lized and reformed the bank­ing sys­tem, put mil­lions of unem­ployed peo­ple to work build­ing pub­lic infra­struc­ture, and cre­at­ed Social Secu­ri­ty to bring mil­lions of elder­ly cit­i­zens out of pover­ty.

The reforms, known col­lec­tive­ly as the New Deal, were pop­u­lar with the major­i­ty of cit­i­zens. But by the next pres­i­den­tial elec­tion year the bankers and busi­ness­men were push­ing back hard. Although Roo­sevelt came from a priv­i­leged back­ground, he was despised by many in his social class. Unfazed, Roo­sevelt bold­ly pro­claimed in his famous cam­paign speech of Octo­ber 31, 1936: “I wel­come their hatred!”

With Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma prepar­ing to address the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Con­ven­tion tomor­row night it might be an inter­est­ing time to lis­ten to a lit­tle of Roo­sevelt’s speech, which he deliv­ered at Madi­son Square Gar­den in New York City three days before the elec­tion. In the audio clip above he talks about how things were in Amer­i­ca before he took office, and about the forces seek­ing to drag the coun­try back:

For twelve years this nation was afflict­ed with hear-noth­ing, see-noth­ing, do-noth­ing gov­ern­ment. The nation looked to gov­ern­ment but the gov­ern­ment looked away. Nine mock­ing years with the gold­en calf and three long years of the scourge! Nine crazy years at the tick­er and three long years in the bread­lines! Nine mad years of mirage and three long years of despair! And, my friends, pow­er­ful influ­ences strive today to restore that kind of gov­ern­ment with its doc­trine that that gov­ern­ment is best which is most indif­fer­ent to mankind.

Roo­sevelt defeat­ed his oppo­nent Alf Lan­don, the Repub­li­can gov­er­nor of Kansas, by a his­toric land­slide, tak­ing more than 60 per­cent of the pop­u­lar vote and all but eight of the 531 elec­toral votes. To read the full text of Roo­sevelt’s speech, click here.

Relat­ed con­tent:

‘The Right of the Peo­ple to Rule’: Hear Theodore Roo­sevelt Speak

Danny MacAskill, Biker Extraordinaire, Takes on the Streets of San Francisco

in Random | September 5th, 2012

Dan­ny MacAskill spent sev­er­al months rid­ing the streets of Edin­burgh, Scot­land in 2009, demon­strat­ing his unique set of tal­ents on the moun­tain bike. It was all cap­tured in a video called Inspired Bicy­cles. Did you catch it? If so, you’re not alone. The video has clocked more than 31 mil­lion views. Now, Dan­ny is back, this time tak­ing on the mean streets of San Fran­cis­co. It’s all about, as Rem­ing­ton likes to say, pre­ci­sion, pow­er and con­trol. You can find more of Dan­ny’s videos on his web site.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Sci­ence Behind the Bike: Four Videos from the Open Uni­ver­si­ty on the Eve of the Tour de France

Brus­sels Express: The Per­ils of Cycling in Europe’s Most Con­gest­ed City

David Byrne: From Talk­ing Heads Front­man to Lead­ing Urban Cyclist

The Physics of the Bike

The BBC Symphony Orchestra Performs 4′33,″ the Controversial Composition by John Cage, Born 100 Years Ago Today

in Music | September 5th, 2012

100 years ago today John Cage start­ed leav­ing his mark on our cul­tur­al land­scape. And, by the time he was all done, says The New York­er’s res­i­dent music crit­ic Alex Ross, “he may have sur­passed Stravin­sky as the most wide­ly cit­ed, the most famous and/or noto­ri­ous, of twen­ti­eth-cen­tu­ry com­posers,” with his influ­ence extend­ing “far out­side clas­si­cal music, into con­tem­po­rary art and pop cul­ture.”

We could­n’t let the cen­te­nary cel­e­bra­tion of Cage’s birth pass by with­out revis­it­ing 4′33,″ his most famous and con­tro­ver­sial com­po­si­tion from 1952. Depend­ing on how you inter­pret it, the exper­i­men­tal com­po­si­tion offers a reflec­tion on the sound of silence, or per­haps the sounds you hear when the music goes silent and the atten­tion shifts to the audi­ence in the con­cert hall. This per­for­mance comes to us cour­tesy of the BBC Sym­pho­ny Orches­tra. And now we leave you with some bonus mate­r­i­al.

John Cage Per­forms Water Walk on “I’ve Got a Secret” (1960)

Cage’s Nor­ton Lec­tures Pre­sent­ed at Har­vard (1988–89)

John Cage Unbound: A New Dig­i­tal Archive Pre­sent­ed by The New York Pub­lic Library

Steven Pinker Presents His Big Gallery of Cape Cod Photography

in Photography, Psychology | September 4th, 2012

Har­vard pro­fes­sor of psy­chol­o­gy Steven Pinker gar­nered a sig­nif­i­cant amount of atten­tion in the past year for his mas­sive, 800-page book Bet­ter Angels of Our Nature, which argues the con­tro­ver­sial the­sis that, despite the atroc­i­ties of the 20th and 21st cen­turies, vio­lence has declined world­wide and we live in the most peace­ful era in human his­to­ry. (A much short­er ver­sion of his the­sis is an essay enti­tled A His­to­ry of Vio­lence). You might expect some­one steeped in research on bru­tal inhu­man­i­ty and war to be a lit­tle on edge, but Pinker has a side­line as a pho­tog­ra­ph­er of the tran­quil and serene.

His most recent series of pic­tures builds on a fif­teen-year his­to­ry of pho­tograph­ing scenes of Cape Cod. In a tweet announc­ing the most recent col­lec­tion, Pinker claims his inspi­ra­tion for this series is the pho­tog­ra­ph­er Joel Meyerowitz, whose book Cape Light ren­ders the Mass­a­chu­setts Cape in the soft sub­tle tones of Renoir’s land­scapes. Pinker’s lens takes in a deep­er, rich­er light, and col­or pops from his images in unex­pect­ed ways—more Manet than Mon­et. His pho­tog­ra­phy, I would imag­ine, pro­vides a much-need­ed diver­sion from the heady inten­si­ty of his aca­d­e­m­ic work, and the images are strik­ing and beau­ti­ful. Look through Pinker’s lat­est Cape Cod series here.

For more of Pinker’s pho­tog­ra­phy see the full archive at his web­site.

And vis­it this link for an exten­sive archive of video and audio inter­views and talks from Pinker.

Josh Jones is a doc­tor­al can­di­date in Eng­lish at Ford­ham Uni­ver­si­ty and a co-founder and for­mer man­ag­ing edi­tor of Guer­ni­ca / A Mag­a­zine of Arts and Pol­i­tics.