Hayao Miyazaki, The Mind of a Master: A Thoughtful Video Essay Reveals the Driving Forces Behind the Animator’s Incredible Body of Work

in Animation, Film | May 9th, 2022

“If the cin­e­ma, by some twist of fate, were to be deprived overnight of the sound track and to become once again the art of silent cin­e­matog­ra­phy that it was between 1895 and 1930, I tru­ly believe most of the direc­tors in the field would be com­pelled to take up some new line of work.” So wrote François Truf­faut in the nine­teen-six­ties, argu­ing that, of film­mak­ers then liv­ing, only Howard Hawks, John Ford, and Alfred Hitch­cock could sur­vive such a return to silence. Alas, Truf­faut died in 1984, the very same year that saw the release of Nau­si­caä of the Val­ley of the Wind, the first ani­mat­ed fea­ture by what would become Stu­dio Ghi­b­li. Had he lived longer, he would cer­tain­ly have had to grant its mas­ter­mind Hayao Miyaza­ki pride of place in his small cat­a­log of mas­ter visu­al sto­ry­tellers.

“He does­n’t actu­al­ly write a script,” says Any-Mation Youtu­ber Cole Delaney in “Hayao Miyaza­ki: The Mind of a Mas­ter,” the video essay above. “He might write an out­line with his plan for a fea­ture, but gen­er­al­ly he draws an image and works from there.”

My Neigh­bor Totoro, for instance, began with only the image of a young girl and the tit­u­lar for­est crea­ture stand­ing at a bus stop; from that artis­tic seed every­thing else grew, like the enor­mous tree that Totoro and the chil­dren make grow in the film itself. Delaney also explores oth­er essen­tial aspects of Miyaza­k­i’s process, includ­ing the cre­ation of full worlds with dis­tinc­tive funi­ki, or ambi­ence; the incor­po­ra­tion of Ozu-style “pil­low shots” to shape a film’s space and rhythm; and the cre­ation of pro­tag­o­nists whose strong will trans­lates direct­ly into phys­i­cal motion.

“What dri­ves the ani­ma­tion is the will of the char­ac­ters,” says Miyaza­ki him­self, in a clip Delaney bor­rows from the NHK doc­u­men­tary 10 Years with Hayao Miyaza­ki. “You don’t depict fate, you depict will.” The mas­ter makes oth­er obser­va­tions on his work and life itself, which one sens­es he regards as one and the same. “I want to make a film that won’t shame me,” he says by way of explain­ing his noto­ri­ous per­fec­tion­ism. “I want to stay grumpy,” he says by way of explain­ing his equal­ly noto­ri­ous demeanor in the Ghi­b­li office. As for “the notion that one’s goal in life is to be hap­py, that your own hap­pi­ness is the goal… I just don’t buy it.” Rather, peo­ple must  “live their lives ful­ly, with all their might, with­in their giv­en bound­aries, in their own era.” The sur­pass­ing vital­i­ty of his films reflects his own: “Like it or not,” he says, “a film is a reflec­tion of its direc­tor,” and in these words Truf­faut would sure­ly rec­og­nize a fel­low auteurist-auteur.

Relat­ed con­tent:

The Phi­los­o­phy of Hayao Miyaza­ki: A Video Essay on How the Tra­di­tion­al Japan­ese Reli­gion Shin­to Suf­fus­es Miyazaki’s Films

Watch Hayao Miyaza­ki Ani­mate the Final Shot of His Final Fea­ture Film, The Wind Ris­es

What Made Stu­dio Ghi­b­li Ani­ma­tor Isao Taka­ha­ta (RIP) a Mas­ter: Two Video Essays

How Mas­ter Japan­ese Ani­ma­tor Satoshi Kon Pushed the Bound­aries of Mak­ing Ani­me: A Video Essay

The Aes­thet­ic of Ani­me: A New Video Essay Explores a Rich Tra­di­tion of Japan­ese Ani­ma­tion

Japan­ese Ani­ma­tion Direc­tor Hayao Miyaza­ki Shows Us How to Make Instant Ramen

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities, the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

Finding Purpose & Meaning In Life: Living for What Matters Most–A Free Online Course from the University of Michigan

in Life, Online Courses | May 8th, 2022

From the Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan comes a course for our dis­ori­ent­ing times–Find­ing Pur­pose and Mean­ing In Life: Liv­ing for What Mat­ters Most. Taught by Vic Strech­er, a pro­fes­sor in the Schools of Pub­lic Health and Med­i­cine, the course promis­es stu­dents this:

In this course, you’ll learn how sci­ence, phi­los­o­phy and prac­tice all play a role in both find­ing your pur­pose and liv­ing a pur­pose­ful life. You will hear from his­tor­i­cal fig­ures and indi­vid­u­als about their jour­neys to find­ing and liv­ing a pur­pose­ful life, and will walk through dif­fer­ent exer­cis­es to help you find out what mat­ters most to you so you can live a pur­pose­ful life.

By the end of the course, stu­dents will:

1. Under­stand that hav­ing a strong pur­pose in life is an essen­tial ele­ment of human well-being.
2. Know how self-tran­scend­ing pur­pose pos­i­tive­ly affects well-being.
3. Be able to cre­ate a pur­pose for your life (don’t be intim­i­dat­ed, this is dif­fer­ent from cre­at­ing “the pur­pose” for your life).
4. Apply per­son­al approach­es and skills to self-change and become and stay con­nect­ed to your pur­pose every day.

To take the course for free, selec­tion the Audit Only option avail­able upon reg­is­tra­tion.

Find­ing Pur­pose and Mean­ing In Life: Liv­ing for What Mat­ters Most will be added to our list: 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties.

Any­one inter­est­ed can watch Vic Strecher’s TED Talk here.

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

The Sci­ence of Well-Being: Take a Free Online Ver­sion of Yale University’s Most Pop­u­lar Course

Exis­ten­tial­ist Psy­chol­o­gist, Auschwitz Sur­vivor Vik­tor Fran­kl Explains How to Find Mean­ing in Life, No Mat­ter What Chal­lenges You Face

What is the Secret to Liv­ing a Long, Hap­py & Cre­ative­ly Ful­fill­ing Life?: Dis­cov­er the Japan­ese Con­cept of Iki­gai

97-Year-Old Philoso­pher Pon­ders the Mean­ing of Life: “What Is the Point of It All?”

U2’s Bono & the Edge Give Surprise Concert in Kyiv Metro/Bomb Shelter: “Stand by Me,” “Angel of Harlem,” and “With or Without You”

in Life, Music | May 8th, 2022

Volodymyr Zelen­skyy invit­ed U2 to per­form in Kyiv as a show of sol­i­dar­i­ty with the Ukrain­ian peo­ple. And they showed up, play­ing an impro­vised acoustic set in a Kyiv Metro sta­tion, which now dou­bles as a bomb shel­ter. Above you can watch Bono and the Edge per­form “Stand by Me,” “Angel of Harlem,” and “With or With­out You.” At points, they’re joined by mem­bers of the Ukrain­ian band Antyti­la.

#Stand­withUkraine

Relat­ed Con­tent

Pink Floyd Releas­es Its First New Song in 28 Years to Help Sup­port Ukraine

Sav­ing Ukrain­ian Cul­tur­al Her­itage Online: 1,000+ Librar­i­ans Dig­i­tal­ly Pre­serve Arti­facts of Ukrain­ian Civ­i­liza­tion Before Rus­sia Can Destroy Them

Dis­cov­er 18 Under­ground Bands From Ukraine

Grandma Moses Started Painting Seriously at Age 77, and Soon Became a Famous American Artist

in Art, Gender, Video - Arts & Culture | May 6th, 2022

As an artis­tic child grow­ing up on a farm in the 1860s and ear­ly 1870s, Anna Mary Robert­son (1860–1961) used ground ochre, grass, and berry juice in place of tra­di­tion­al art sup­plies. She was so lit­tle, she referred to her efforts as “lamb­scapes.” Her father, for whom paint­ing was also a hob­by, kept her and her broth­ers sup­plied with paper:

He liked to see us draw pic­tures, it was a pen­ny a sheet and last­ed longer than can­dy.

She left home and school at 12, serv­ing as a full-time, live-in house­keep­er for the next 15 years. She so admired the Cur­ri­er & Ives prints hang­ing in one of the homes where she worked that her employ­ers set her up with wax crayons and chalk, but her duties left lit­tle time for leisure activ­i­ties.

Free time was in even short­er sup­ply after she mar­ried and gave birth to ten chil­dren — five of whom sur­vived past infan­cy. Her cre­ative impulse was con­fined to dec­o­rat­ing house­hold items, quilt­ing, and embroi­der­ing gifts for fam­i­ly and friends.

At the age of 77 (cir­ca 1937), wid­owed, retired, and suf­fer­ing from arthri­tis that kept her from her accus­tomed house­hold tasks, she again turned to paint­ing.

Set­ting up in her bed­room, she worked in oils on masonite prepped with three coats of white paint, draw­ing on such youth­ful mem­o­ries as quilt­ing bees, hay­ing, and the annu­al maple sug­ar har­vest for sub­ject mat­ter, again and again.

Thomas’ Phar­ma­cy in Hoosick Falls, New York exhib­it­ed some of her out­put, along­side oth­er local wom­en’s hand­i­crafts. It failed to attract much atten­tion, until art col­lec­tor Louis J. Cal­dor wan­dered in dur­ing a brief sojourn from Man­hat­tan and acquired them all for an aver­age price tag of $4.

The next year (1939), Mrs. Moses, as she was then known, was one of sev­er­al “house­wives” whose work was includ­ed in the Muse­um of Mod­ern Art’s exhib­it “Con­tem­po­rary Unknown Amer­i­can Painters”.  The empha­sis was def­i­nite­ly on the untaught out­sider. In addi­tion to occu­pa­tion, the cat­a­logue list­ed the non-Cau­casian artists’ race…

In short order, Anna Mary Robert­son Moses had a solo exhi­bi­tion in the same gallery that would give Gus­tav Klimt and Egon Schiele their first Amer­i­can one-per­son shows, Otto Kallir’s Galerie St. Eti­enne.

In review­ing the 1940 show, the New York Her­ald Tri­bune’s crit­ic cit­ed the folksy nick­name (“Grand­ma Moses”) favored by some of the artist’s neigh­bors. Her whole­some rur­al bonafides cre­at­ed an unex­pect­ed sen­sa­tion. The pub­lic flocked to see a table set with her home­made cakes, rolls, bread and prize-win­ning pre­serves as part of a Thanks­giv­ing-themed meet-and-greet with the artist at Gim­bels Depart­ment Store the fol­low­ing month.

As crit­ic and inde­pen­dent cura­tor Judith Stein observes in her essay “The White Haired Girl: A Fem­i­nist Read­ing”:

In gen­er­al, the New York press dis­tanced the artist from her cre­ative iden­ti­ty. They com­man­deered her from the art world, fash­ion­ing a rich pub­lic image that brimmed with human interest…Although the artist’s fam­i­ly and friends addressed her as “Moth­er Moses” and “Grand­ma Moses” inter­change­ably, the press pre­ferred the more famil­iar and endear­ing form of address. And “Grand­ma” she became, in near­ly all sub­se­quent pub­lished ref­er­ences. Only a few pub­li­ca­tions by-passed the new locu­tion: a New York Times Mag­a­zine fea­ture of April 6, 1941; a Harper’s Bazaar arti­cle; and the land­mark They Taught Them­selves: Amer­i­can Prim­i­tive Painters of the 20th Cen­tu­ry, by the respect­ed deal­er and cura­tor Sid­ney Janis, referred to the artist as “Moth­er Moses,” a title that con­veyed more dig­ni­ty than the col­lo­qui­al diminu­tive “Grand­ma.”

But “Grand­ma Moses” had tak­en hold. The avalanche of press cov­er­age that fol­lowed had lit­tle to do with the pro­bity of art com­men­tary. Jour­nal­ists found that the artist’s life made bet­ter copy than her art. For exam­ple, in a dis­cus­sion of her debut, an Art Digest reporter gave a charm­ing, if sim­pli­fied, account of the gen­e­sis of Moses’ turn to paint­ing, recount­ing her desire to give the post­man “a nice lit­tle Christ­mas gift.” Not only would the dear fel­low appre­ci­ate a paint­ing, con­clud­ed Grand­ma, but “it was eas­i­er to make than to bake a cake over a hot stove.” After quot­ing from Genauer and oth­er favor­able reviews in the New York papers, the report con­clud­ed with a folksy sup­po­si­tion: “To all of which Grand­ma Moses per­haps shakes a bewil­dered head and repeats, ‘Land’s Sakes’.” Flip­pant­ly deem­ing the artist’s achieve­ments a mark­er of social change, he not­ed: “When Grand­ma takes it up then we can be sure that art, like the bobbed head, is here to stay.”

Urban sophis­ti­cates were besot­ted with the plain­spo­ken, octo­ge­nar­i­an farm wid­ow who was scan­dal­ized by the “extor­tion prices” they paid for her work in the Galerie St. Eti­enne. As Tom Arthur writes in a blog devot­ed to New York State his­tor­i­cal mark­ers:

New York­ers found that, once wartime gaso­line rationing end­ed, Eagle Bridge made a nice excur­sion des­ti­na­tion for a week­end trip. Local res­i­dents were usu­al­ly will­ing to talk to out­siders about their local celebri­ty and give direc­tions to her farm. There they would meet the artist, who was a delight to talk to, and either buy or order paint­ings from her. Songwriter/impresario Cole Porter became a reg­u­lar cus­tomer, order­ing sev­er­al paint­ings every year to give to friends around Christ­mas. 

In the two-and‑a half decades between pick­ing her paint­brush back up and her death at the age of 101, she pro­duced over 1600 images, always start­ing with the sky and mov­ing down­ward to depict tidy fields, well kept hous­es, and tiny, hard work­ing fig­ures com­ing togeth­er as a com­mu­ni­ty. In the above doc­u­men­tary she alludes to oth­er artists known to depict­ing “trou­ble”… such as live­stock bust­ing out of their enclo­sures.

She pre­ferred to doc­u­ment scenes in which every­one was seen to be behav­ing.

Remark­ably, MoMA exhib­it­ed Grand­ma Moses’ work at the same time as Picasso’s Guer­ni­ca.

In a land and in a life where a woman can grow old with fear­less­ness and beau­ty, it is not strange that she should become an artist at the end. — poet Archibald MacLeish

Hmm.

Read Judith Stein’s fas­ci­nat­ing essay in its entire­ty here.

See more of Grand­ma Moses’ work here, and her por­trait on TIME mag­a­zine in 1953.

Relat­ed Con­tent

How Leo Tol­stoy Learned to Ride a Bike at 67, and Oth­er Tales of Life­long Learn­ing

The Long Game of Cre­ativ­i­ty: If You Haven’t Cre­at­ed a Mas­ter­piece at 30, You’re Not a Fail­ure

What Does It Take to Be a Great Artist?: An Aging Painter Reflects on His Cre­ative Process & Why He Will Nev­er Be a Picas­so

Free Art & Art His­to­ry Cours­es

- Ayun Hal­l­i­day is the Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine and author, most recent­ly, of Cre­ative, Not Famous: The Small Pota­to Man­i­festo.  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

Self-Encounter: The 10-Episode TV Show That Introduced Existentialism to Americans in 1961

in Philosophy, Television | May 6th, 2022

“Exis­ten­tial­ism is both a phi­los­o­phy and a mood,” says Hazel Barnes by way of open­ing the tele­vi­sion series Self-Encounter: A Study in Exis­ten­tial­ism. “As a mood, I think we could say that it is the mood of the twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry — or, at least, of those peo­ple in the twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry who are dis­con­tent with things as they are. It express­es the feel­ing that, some­how or oth­er, all of those sys­tems — whether they be social, psy­cho­log­i­cal, or sci­en­tif­ic — which have attempt­ed to define and explain and deter­mine man, have some­how missed the liv­ing indi­vid­ual per­son.”

Exis­ten­tial­ism was on the rise in 1961, when Barnes spoke those words, and the sub­se­quent six decades have arguably done lit­tle to assuage its dis­con­tent. By the time of Self-Encounter’s broad­cast in ’61, Barnes was already well-known in philo­soph­i­cal cir­cles for her Eng­lish trans­la­tion of Jean-Paul Sartre’s Being and Noth­ing­ness. When she took on that job, with what she lat­er described as “three years of bad­ly taught high school French and one year­long course in col­lege, and a bare min­i­mum of back­ground in phi­los­o­phy,” she could­n’t have known that it would set her on the road to becom­ing the most famous pop­u­lar­iz­er of exis­ten­tial­ism in Amer­i­ca.

Five years after the pub­li­ca­tion of Barnes’ Sartre trans­la­tion, along came the oppor­tu­ni­ty to host a ten-part series on Nation­al Pub­lic Edu­ca­tion­al Tele­vi­sion (a pre­de­ces­sor of PBS) explain­ing Sartre’s thought as well as that of oth­er writ­ers like Simone de Beau­voir, Albert Camus, and Richard Wright, between drama­ti­za­tions of scenes drawn from exis­ten­tial­ist lit­er­a­ture. Self-Encounter was once “thought to be entire­ly lost, the orig­i­nal tapes hav­ing been report­ed record­ed over,” writes Nick Nielsen. But after the series’ unex­pect­ed redis­cov­ery in 2017, all of its episodes grad­u­al­ly made their way to the web. You can watch all ten of them straight through in the near­ly five-hour video at the top of the post, or view them one-by-one at the Amer­i­can Archive of Pub­lic Broad­cast­ing.

“Self Encounter was pro­duced in 1961 and first broad­cast in 1962,” Nielsen writes. “I can­not help but note that Route 66 aired from 1960 to 1964, The Out­er Lim­its aired from 1963 to 1965, Rawhide aired from 1959 to 1965, and Per­ry Mason aired from 1957 to 1966” — not to men­tion The Twi­light Zone, from 1959 to 1964. “It would be dif­fi­cult to name anoth­er tele­vi­sion milieu of com­pa­ra­ble depth. Our men­tal image of this peri­od of Amer­i­can his­to­ry as being one of sti­fling con­for­mi­ty is belied by these dark per­spec­tives on human nature.” And as for the social, psy­cho­log­i­cal, sci­en­tif­ic, and of course tech­no­log­i­cal sys­tems in effect today, the exis­ten­tial­ists would sure­ly take a dim view of their poten­tial to lib­er­ate us from con­for­mi­ty — or any oth­er aspect of the human con­di­tion.

Relat­ed con­tent:

A Crash Course in Exis­ten­tial­ism: A Short Intro­duc­tion to Jean-Paul Sartre & Find­ing Mean­ing in a Mean­ing­less World

Exis­ten­tial­ism with Hubert Drey­fus: Five Free Phi­los­o­phy Cours­es

An Ani­mat­ed Intro­duc­tion to Albert Camus’ Exis­ten­tial­ism, a Phi­los­o­phy Mak­ing a Come­back in Our Dys­func­tion­al Times

The Phi­los­o­phy of Kierkegaard, the First Exis­ten­tial­ist Philoso­pher, Revis­it­ed in 1984 Doc­u­men­tary

An Ani­mat­ed Intro­duc­tion to the Exis­ten­tial­ist Phi­los­o­phy of Jean-Paul Sartre… and How It Can Open Our Eyes to Life’s Pos­si­bil­i­ties

Exis­ten­tial Phi­los­o­phy of Kierkegaard, Sartre, Camus Explained with 8‑Bit Video Games

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities, the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall, on Face­book, or on Insta­gram.

MasterClass Is Offering Up to 35% Off an Annual Subscription for Mother’s Day (Through May 8)

in Deals | May 6th, 2022

FYI: Mas­ter­Class is offer­ing up to 35% off an annu­al sub­scrip­tion for Mother’s Day. Through Sun­day, May 8th you can become a mem­ber and gain access to 150 cours­es, fea­tur­ing some of our lead­ing cre­ative minds–from Annie Lei­bovitz, David Sedaris and Neil Gaiman, to Mar­garet Atwood, David Lynch and Helen Mir­ren. You can sign up by click­ing here.

Note: If you get a Mas­ter­Class sub­scrip­tion, Open Cul­ture will receive a small fee that helps sup­port our oper­a­tion.

On Art Speigelman’s Maus: Should Comics Expose Kids to the World’s Horrors? Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast #122

in Comics/Cartoons, Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop | May 6th, 2022

In light of its being recent­ly banned in some set­tings, we dis­cuss Art Spiegel­man’s Maus (1980–91), which con­veys his father’s account of liv­ing through the Holo­caust. We also con­sid­er oth­er war-relat­ed graph­ic nov­els like Mar­jane Satrapi’s Perse­po­lis (2000) and George Takei’s They Called Us Ene­my (2019).

Your host Mark Lin­sen­may­er is joined by comics schol­ar Vi Burlew, comics blerd/act­ing coach Antho­ny LeBlanc, and come­di­an/graph­ic nov­el­ist Daniel Lobell.

Are comics par­tic­u­lar­ly effec­tive in chang­ing hearts and minds when they dis­play peo­ple’s hard­ships? Should kids be exposed to the hor­rors of the world in this way? What about the com­plex­i­ties of social jus­tice and gen­der iden­ti­ty? We also touch on Gilbert Got­tfried and the rela­tion­ship between humor and tragedy, learn­ing his­to­ry vs. read­ing one per­son­’s expe­ri­ence, the ages at which became polit­i­cal, and how comics may have aid­ed that.

Read Vi’s Wash­ing­ton Post edi­to­r­i­al about cen­sor­ship that inspired this episode.

Oth­er rel­e­vant sources include:

• “Nine Poignant Graph­ic Nov­els on War and Vio­lence” from The Curi­ous Read­er
• “Why Maus Opened the Door to Comics as Lit­er­a­ture in Schools” by Jason Batt
• Video: “Are­na: Art Spiegelman’s Maus” (1987)
• “ ‘Meta­Maus’: The Sto­ry Behind Spiegel­man’s Clas­sic” from NPR’s Talk of the Nation

If you enjoyed this dis­cus­sion, try our episodes fea­tur­ing Vi talk­ing about the trope of the hero­ine’s jour­ney in film, Antho­ny talk­ing about blerds, i.e. black nerds, and Daniel talk­ing about the com­ic Peanuts.

Fol­low us @ViolaBurlew, @anthonyleblanc, @DanielLobel, and @MarkLinsenmayer.

Hear more Pret­ty Much Pop. Sup­port the show at patreon.com/prettymuchpop or by choos­ing a paid sub­scrip­tion through Apple Pod­casts. This pod­cast is part of the Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life pod­cast net­work.

Pret­ty Much Pop: A Cul­ture Pod­cast is the first pod­cast curat­ed by Open Cul­ture. Browse all Pret­ty Much Pop posts.

The Ghosts and Monsters of Hokusai: See the Famed Woodblock Artist’s Fearsome & Amusing Visions of Strange Apparitions

in Art, History | May 5th, 2022

When Hal­loween comes around this year, con­sid­er play­ing a round of hyaku­mono­gatari. You’ll need to assem­ble a hun­dred can­dles before­hand, but that’s the easy part; you and your friends will also need to know just as many ghost sto­ries. In ear­ly nine­teenth-cen­tu­ry Japan, “par­tic­i­pants would sit in a can­dlelit room and take turns telling fright­en­ing tales. After each one was shared, a can­dle would be extin­guished until there was no light left, in the room. It was then that the yōkai [“strange appari­tions”) would appear.” So says Youtu­ber Hochela­ga (who’s pre­vi­ous­ly cov­ered the Bib­li­cal apoc­a­lypse and long-ago pre­dic­tions of the future) in the video above, “The Ghosts of Hoku­sai.”

We all know the name of Kat­sushi­ka Hoku­sai, the most wide­ly renowned mas­ter of the tra­di­tion­al Japan­ese wood­block-print art called ukiyo‑e. In a life­time span­ning the mid-eigh­teenth to the mid-nine­teenth cen­tu­ry, Hochela­ga notes, Hoku­sai cre­at­ed around 30,000 unique pieces of art, includ­ing The Great Wave off Kana­gawa, part of Thir­ty-Six Views of Mount Fuji.

But before exe­cut­ing that tri­umphant late series, Hoku­sai made his own Hyaku­mono­gatari (lit­er­al­ly, “hun­dred tales”) — or rather, he ren­dered in his dis­tinc­tive style five of those tra­di­tion­al ghost sto­ries’ trag­ic, grotesque, and often humor­ous pro­tag­o­nists.

These char­ac­ters are yōkai, those “weird and mys­te­ri­ous beings” that “inhab­it super­nat­ur­al Japan.” They “come in all shapes and sizes, from friend­ly house­hold spir­its to fierce demons,” includ­ing the Oya­jirome, who lit­er­al­ly has an eye in the back of his head, and the Ushi-oni, “one part bull, one part crab, and the rest night­mare fuel.”  Hoku­sai’s inter­est tend­ed toward yōkai who had once been nor­mal humans: the neglect­ed wife of a samu­rai whose spir­it became trapped in a lantern, the mur­dered kabu­ki actor whose skele­tal remains emerged from a swamp to hunt down his killers.

You can read more about these yōkai, and take a look at Hoku­sai’s depic­tions of them, at the Pub­lic Domain Review and Thoughts on Papyrus. Soon after Hoku­sai’s death Japan opened to the world, begin­ning its trans­for­ma­tion into a state of hyper­moder­ni­ty. But tales of yōkai still have a cer­tain influ­ence on the Japan­ese cul­tur­al imag­i­na­tion, as evi­denced by the Miyoshi Mononoke Muse­um in Hiroshi­ma. Japan has been more or less closed once again these past cou­ple of years, but once it re-opens, why not make a trip to col­lect a few scary mono­gatari for your­self?

Relat­ed con­tent:

The First Muse­um Ded­i­cat­ed to Japan­ese Folk­lore Mon­sters Is Now Open

The Great Wave Off Kana­gawa by Hoku­sai: An Intro­duc­tion to the Icon­ic Japan­ese Wood­block Print in 17 Min­utes

Thir­ty-Six Views of Mount Fuji: A Deluxe New Art Book Presents Hokusai’s Mas­ter­piece, Includ­ing The Great Wave Off Kana­gawa

The Evo­lu­tion of The Great Wave off Kana­gawa: See Four Ver­sions That Hoku­sai Paint­ed Over Near­ly 40 Years

View 103 Dis­cov­ered Draw­ings by Famed Japan­ese Wood­cut Artist Kat­sushi­ka Hoku­sai

Down­load 215,000 Japan­ese Wood­block Prints by Mas­ters Span­ning the Tradition’s 350-Year His­to­ry

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities, the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall, on Face­book, or on Insta­gram.

Ray Dalio Is Giving Away Free Copies of His New Book Principles for Dealing with the Changing World to High School & College Teachers and Their Students

in Books, Current Affairs, History | May 5th, 2022

As we not­ed back in March, investor Ray Dalio has pub­lished his lat­est best­seller, Prin­ci­ples for Deal­ing with the Chang­ing World: Why Nations Suc­ceed and Fail. A his­to­ry of the rise and fall of empires over the last 500 years, the book uses the past to con­tem­plate the future, par­tic­u­lar­ly the fate of the Unit­ed States and Chi­na. Today, for Teacher Appre­ci­a­tion Week, Dalio has announced that he’s will­ing to give a copy of the book “to any high school or col­lege edu­ca­tor who wants it—and to all of their stu­dents if they intend to have them read it.” He writes:

Since releas­ing my book and ani­mat­ed video [above], Prin­ci­ples for Deal­ing with the Chang­ing World Order, many peo­ple have told me that both would be help­ful for teach­ing his­to­ry in schools and asked me if I would help make that hap­pen. So, dur­ing this Teacher Appre­ci­a­tion Week I will give a copy of the book to any high school or col­lege edu­ca­tor who wants it—and to all of their stu­dents if they intend to have them read it. And if there’s a lot of inter­est, I’d be hap­py to extend the offer past this week. Of course, the Youtube video is already free and eas­i­ly avail­able and I encour­age you to check that out if you want an overview of what’s in the book.

When you sign up, let me know if you’re inter­est­ed in me host­ing a live online ses­sion for class­rooms, which I’ll do if peo­ple would like it. If you are not an edu­ca­tor but know some who might be inter­est­ed in this offer, please share this link with them.

To access the offer, click here.

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 

Prin­ci­ples for Deal­ing with the Chang­ing World Order: An Ani­mat­ed Video Explain­ing Key Ideas in Ray Dalio’s New Best­selling Book

The Prin­ci­ples for Suc­cess by Entre­pre­neur & Investor Ray Dalio: A 30-Minute Ani­mat­ed Primer

Eco­nom­ics 101: Hedge Fund Investor Ray Dalio Explains How the Econ­o­my Works in a 30-Minute Ani­mat­ed Video

Ray Dalio & Adam Grant Launch Free Online Per­son­al­i­ty Assess­ment to Help You Under­stand Your­self (and Oth­ers Under­stand You)

The Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Flea Presents a Bass Lesson, and Essential Advice That Every Bass Player Should Know

in Music | May 5th, 2022

“What do you call some­one who hangs out with musi­cians?” goes the hoary old musi­cians’ joke. Answer: “a bass play­er.” Haha­ha. Very fun­ny. And just plain untrue. Maybe the bass has few­er strings to mas­ter than the gui­tar, but it requires bet­ter tim­ing, and — most impor­tant­ly — more lis­ten­ing than any oth­er instru­ment in a band set­ting. Or so says Flea of the Red Hot Chili Pep­pers, a band I some­times think of as a bunch of guys who hang out with a bass play­er.

All musi­cians need to lis­ten care­ful­ly to oth­er play­ers on stage, but the bass play­er’s role is spe­cial, Flea says in the video above, excerpt­ed from the hour-long bass les­son you can watch in full below. Bassists need to lis­ten to melody play­ers and soloists, sup­port­ing their parts with sub­tle­ty and nuance, with­out (says Flea of all peo­ple) doing the kind of show­boat­ing that pulls focus from the leads. Bass play­ers also need to lock in with the drum­mer, lis­ten­ing so intent­ly they can fit their notes right in the cen­ter of each drum hit.

This hard­ly sounds like unskilled musi­cal labor, even if most bassists can’t — and don’t need to — play with the speed and feroc­i­ty as our instruc­tor above. But Flea as teacher isn’t try­ing to teach oth­ers how to play the way he does, a style inspired by leg­ends like slap bass pio­neer Lar­ry Gra­ham and Motown stal­wart James Jamer­son. He’s giv­ing stu­dents his take on the basics — first learn to walk, then learn to walk real­ly, real­ly well, with lots of prac­tice. These basics include going over the parts of a bass gui­tar, talk­ing about tun­ing, and learn­ing dif­fer­ent ways of hit­ting the strings, from pluck­ing to pick­ing to, yes, slap­ping, with­in rea­son.

Com­ing from a play­er who so com­mands the spot­light with his bass the­atrics, Flea’s advice to aspir­ing play­ers might seem odd­ly con­ser­v­a­tive. But it’s the bass play­er’s job, he says, to make every­one else in the band sound good. And the bet­ter a bassist is at help­ing oth­er play­ers shine, the more they stand out as a great musi­cian in their own right.

See time­stamps for the dif­fer­ent top­ics in Flea’s les­son just below:

0:01 Flea Bass
7:27 Restring and Tun­ing
12:51 Pluck­ing
16:36 Slap­ping
22:53 Pick­ing
23:53 Fin­ger Prac­tice
30:24 Major Scale
44:34 Final Thoughts

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Flea Rocks “The Star Span­gled Ban­ner” on the Bass

What Makes Flea Such an Amaz­ing Bass Play­er? A Video Essay Breaks Down His Style

Watch Some of the Most Pow­er­ful Bass Gui­tar Solos Ever: Ged­dy Lee, Flea, Boot­sy Collins, John Dea­con & More

Visu­al­iz­ing the Bass Play­ing Style of Motown’s Icon­ic Bassist James Jamer­son: “Ain’t No Moun­tain High Enough,” “For Once in My Life” & More

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