Discover an Archive of Taped New York City-Area Punk & Indie Concerts from the 80s and 90s: The Pixies, Sonic Youth, The Replacements & Many More

in Archives, Music | June 27th, 2018

“For decades now,” John Coulthart writes at Dan­ger­ous Minds, “Hobo­ken has been on an implaca­ble course of gen­tri­fi­ca­tion… to the point that scruffy and leg­endary music venues can’t hack it there any­more.” One could replace “Hobo­ken” with the name of vir­tu­al­ly any US city that once host­ed a sem­i­nal live venue. You live long enough, you see the world com­plete­ly change, and all the punk and indie clubs shut down or moved to Brook­lyn. The 21st cen­tu­ry has giv­en us cities few indie artists or their fans can afford, even as it also gives us high-speed inter­net, huge servers, cheap web host­ing, and hard dri­ves that can hold ter­abytes of dig­i­tal music.

But at least the club shows of the past can live on in incred­i­bly awe­some archives like The McKen­zie Tapes, “a col­lec­tion of live audio record­ings from some of the New York City-area’s most promi­nent music venues of the 1980s and 1990s.”

Record­ed by David McKen­zie, a for­mer employ­ee of leg­endary Hobo­ken venue Maxwell’s and con­sum­mate con­cert-goer, the taped gigs come from such venues as The Ritz, Tramps, Irv­ing Plaza, The Roxy, the Cat Club, Bow­ery Ball­room, CBGB’s, the Knit­ting Fac­to­ry, and, of course, Maxwell’s.

Too many leg­endary bands to list in full show up here: some major high­lights include The Replace­ments at the Ritz in 1986, right after the release of Tim. (See them at the top in a sound­check at Maxwell’s that same year); the Pix­ies at Maxwell’s in 1988, play­ing songs from their just-released water­shed Surfer Rosa; Son­ic Youth on back-to-back nights at CBGB’s in 88, play­ing Day­dream Nation the month before record­ing the album. Hüsker Dü, Wire, John Spencer Blues Explo­sion, The Fall, The Feel­ies, Afghan Whigs, Mud­honey, Vio­lent Femmes, Mojo Nixon—the shows are a who’s who of punk and indie from the last two decades of the cen­tu­ry, with appear­ances from 70s leg­ends like Pat­ti Smith and Tom Ver­laine.

Sprin­kled through­out are sur­pris­es like a 1989 per­for­mance from Sun Ra and his Inter­galac­tic Arkestra at Maxwell’s and gigs by blues stal­warts T Mod­el Ford and R.L. Burn­side, as well as the occa­sion­al out­lier show abroad. The project is the work of Jer­sey City record col­lec­tor, archivist, event pro­duc­er, and pod­cast­er Tom Gal­lo, friend of David McKen­zie, and he has done an excel­lent job of pre­serv­ing not only the music from McKenzie’s tapes, but images of the tapes themselves—with hand-writ­ten band names and song titles and black-and-white Xerox­ed covers—as well as Vil­lage Voice list­ings of the gigs and occa­sion­al tick­et stubs, setlists, and live pho­tos.

Don’t expect much in the way of sound quality—that’s part of the charm of a taped show. These are raw doc­u­ments of the cas­sette age, a time come and gone, nev­er to come again. We might not mourn its pass­ing, but something—a spir­it of exper­i­men­tal, noisy, tune­ful, angry, rau­cous, lo-fi, ana­log indie fun—seems to have dis­ap­peared along with it. All of these dig­i­tized tapes are down­load­able. Put ’em on your phone and relive the glo­ry days, or dis­cov­er these trea­sures from the recent past for the first time at The McKen­zie Tapes here.

via Dan­ger­ous Minds

Relat­ed Con­tent:

A His­to­ry of Alter­na­tive Music Bril­liant­ly Mapped Out on a Tran­sis­tor Radio Cir­cuit Dia­gram: 300 Punk, Alt & Indie Artists

A Mas­sive 800-Track Playlist of 90s Indie & Alter­na­tive Music, in Chrono­log­i­cal Order

Stream a Mas­sive Col­lec­tion of Indie, Noise Indus­tri­al Mix­tapes from the 80s and 90s

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

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Dancing in Movies: A Montage of Dance Moments from Almost 300 Feature Films

in Dance, Film | June 27th, 2018

Some­one went through a great deal of effort to stitch togeth­er a mon­tage of dance scenes from some 300 fea­ture films. Below find a list of films in order of their appear­ance, and with the appro­pri­ate time­stamp.

00:00:06 — Trop­ic Thun­der (2008)

00:09:17 — 10 Clover­field Lane (2016)

00:10:10 — Frank (2014)

00:11:02 — Dead­pool (2016)

00:12:02 — Girl­hood (2015)

00:13:10 — West Side Sto­ry (1961)

00:16:18 — Scott Pil­grim vs. the World (2010)

00:18:00 — Big (1988)

00:18:14 — Risky Busi­ness (1983)

00:19:05 — For­rest Gump (1994)

00:19:21 — 20th Cen­tu­ry Women (2016)

00:21:02 — God Help the Girl (2014)

00:22:07 — Begin Again (2013)

00:23:16 — The Rock­e­teer (1991)

00:25:13 — Dead Poets Soci­ety (1989)

00:27:21 — Brave­heart (1995)

00:28:22 — Snow White and the Sev­en Dwarfs (1937)

00:29:23 — Robin Hood (1973)

00:31:00 — Austin Pow­ers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999)

00:32:14 — Titan­ic (1997)

00:33:14 — Big Fish (2003)

00:35:07 — Go (1999)

00:36:14 — Fid­dler on the Roof (1971)

00:37:12 — Cit­i­zen Kane (1941)

00:38:12 — Life is Beau­ti­ful (1997)

00:40:01 — White Nights (1985)

00:42:08 — Swing Time (1936)

00:44:13 — Pee-wee’s Big Adven­ture (1985)

00:45:21 — Mer­maids (1990)

00:48:14 — Home Alone (1990)

00:49:18 — Mul­hol­land Dri­ve (2001)

00:50:22 — Boy (2010)

00:51:20 — Girl Asleep (2015)

00:52:08 — Despi­ca­ble Me (2010)

00:55:05 — Air­plane (1980)

00:57:08 — Car­rie (1976)

00:58:21 — Love, Rosie (2014)

00:59:21 — The Mask (1994)

01:00:14 — Dope (2015)

01:01:13 — Rock of Ages (2012)

01:02:21 — Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993)

01:04:14 — Mon­thy Python and the Holy Grail (1975)

01:04:19 — Kung Fu Hus­tle (2004)

01:05:12 — Bill & Ted’s Excel­lent Adven­ture (1989)

01:06:07 — (500) Days of Sum­mer (2009)

01:08:23 — Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope (1977)

01:10:03 — The Mup­pets (2011)

01:11:00 — Revenge of the Nerds (1984)

01:10:03 — The Mup­pets (2011)

01:14:00 — Love Actu­al­ly (2003)

01:16:05 — Mean Girls (2004)

01:19:01 — Austin Pow­ers in Gold­mem­ber (2002)

01:20:15 — Scar­face (1983)

01:22:05 — Grease (1978)

01:24:22 — It’s a Won­der­ful Life (1946)

01:26:13 — The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (2003)

01:28:13 — Young Franken­stein (1974)

01:29:16 — Get Smart (2008)

01:31:07 — My Fair Lady (1964)

01:32:12 — An Edu­ca­tion (2009)

01:33:21- The Deer Hunter (1978)

01:35:06 — The Sit­ter (2011)

01:35:22 — Up in the Air (2009)

01:36:20 — Sil­ver Lin­ings Play­book (2012)

01:38:10 — This Is the End (2013)

01:39:13 — Hair­spray (2007)

01:40:07 — Dumb and Dumb­er (1994)

01:41:03 — The Way Way Back (2013)

01:42:01 — Moon­rise King­dom (2012)

01:43:05 — Blaz­ing Sad­dles (1974)

01:44:05 — Adven­tures in Babysit­ting (1987)

01:45:18 — Shrek 2 (2004)

01:47:18 — Flash­dance (1983)

01:48:14 — The Gold Rush (1925)

01:49:10 — Mag­ic Mike (2012)

01:50:20 — Viva Las Vegas (1964)

01:52:00 — Clerks II (2006)

01:53:10 — The Great Gats­by (2013)

01:54:08 — Eagle vs Shark (2007)

01:57:06 — What We Do in the Shad­ows (2014)

01:58:15 — The Cab­in in the Woods (2012)

01:59:17 — Rush Hour (1998)

02:01:17 — Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

02:02:17 — The Last Pic­ture Show (1971)

02:03:18 — Band of Out­siders (1964)

02:05:23 — Weird Sci­ence (1985)

02:07:15 — Reser­voir Dogs (1992)

02:09:10 — Bat­man (1989)

02:12:20 — Mom­my (2014)

02:14:00 — Des­per­ate­ly Seek­ing Susan (1985)

02:15:20 — Hot Shots! (1991)

02:16:14 — Borat (2006)

02:17:14 — Amer­i­can Beau­ty (1999)

02:18:18 — Moon­light (2016)

02:19:14 — Super­bad (2007)

02:20:15 — Gar­den State (2004)

02:21:15 — Roy­al Wed­ding (1951)

02:22:17 — The Big Lebows­ki (1998)

02:24:07 — My Week with Mar­i­lyn (2011)

02:25:13 — Mary Pop­pins (1964)

02:27:20 — Kick­box­er (1989)

02:29:07 — The Blues Broth­ers (1980)

02:30:21 — Bring it On (2000)

02:32:07 — Fer­ris Bueller’s Day Off (1986)

02:33:17 — Trainspot­ting (1996)

02:34:10 — Amer­i­can Gang­ster (2007)

02:34:21 — Don Jon (2013)

02:35:14 — Mor­ris from Amer­i­ca (2016)

02:36:08 — Hunt for the Wilder­peo­ple (2016)

02:36:08 — A.I. Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence (2001)

02:39:06 — Striptease (1996)

02:40:10 — Don­nie Darko (2001)

02:41:04 — The Pink Pan­ther (1963)

02:41:20 — Mon­sters Uni­ver­si­ty (2013)

02:43:09 — Every­body Wants Some (2016)

02:44:18 — Clue­less (1995)

02:46:13 — The Imag­i­nar­i­um of Doc­tor Par­nas­sus (2009)

02:47:04 — All That Jazz (1979)

02:48:04 — The Princess Diaries (2001)

02:50:16 — Sing Street (2016)

02:52:12 — While We’re Young (2014)

02:54:06 — Once Bit­ten (1985)

02:55:15 — Lost Riv­er (2014)

02:56:10 — Ruby Sparks (2012)

02:58:03 — Sat­ur­day Night Fever (1977)

02:59:05 — Boo­gie Nights (1997)

03:00:15 — The Reunion 2: The Funer­al (2014)

03:01:11 — Amer­i­can Hus­tle (2013)

03:02:20 — Ex Machi­na (2015)

03:04:10 — The Losers (2010)

03:06:00 — Lit­tle Miss Sun­shine (2006)

03:06:20 — The Best Man Hol­i­day (2013)

03:07:10 — Step Up Rev­o­lu­tion (2012)

03:08:19 — Shaun of the Dead (2004)

03:10:07 — Bil­ly Elliot (2000)

03:11:22 — Fun­ny Face (1957)

03:14:09 — King of New York (1990)

03:15:10 — Mis­tress Amer­i­ca (2015)

03:16:13 — The Perks of Being a Wall­flower (2012)

03:17:15 — Save the Last Dance (2001)

03:18:14 — Elf (2003)

03:19:03 — The Edge of Sev­en­teen (2016)

03:19:16 — Lit­tle Sis­ter (2016)

03:21:00 — The Rocky Hor­ror Pic­ture Show (1975)

03:22:04 — Moon (2009)

03:23:12 — The Boon­dock Saints (1999)

03:26:03 — Mon­sters Uni­ver­si­ty (2013)

03:27:08 — Let’s Be Cops (2014)

03:29:09 — The World’s End (2013)

03:31:04 — Fun Size (2012)

03:32:10 — Spi­der-Man 3 (2007)

03:34:14 — To Die For (1995)

03:35:16 — The Break­fast Club (1985)

03:37:11 — The Goonies (1985)

03:38:11 — The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

03:39:15 — Blue Valen­tine (2010)

03:41:01 — Napoleon Dyna­mite (2004)

03:42:22 — Pop­star: Nev­er Stop Nev­er Stop­ping (2016)

03:43:16 — 13 Going On 30 (2004)

03:44:04 — Wed­ding Crash­ers (2005)

03:44:15 — Pitch Per­fect (2012)

03:45:07 — Wayne’s World (1992)

03:45:21 — Milk (2008)

03:46:11 — Some­thing Bor­rowed (2011)

03:47:17 — School of Rock (2003)

03:48:16 — Hitch (2005)

03:49:19 — The Kings of Sum­mer (2013)

03:50:17 — Bling Ring (2013)

03:52:10 — Neigh­bors (2014)

03:53:04 — Ani­mal House (1978)

03:54:07 — A League of Their Own (1992)

03:55:19 — Hot Rod (2007)

03:57:11 — Zoolan­der (2001)

03:58:17 — Gen­tle­men Pre­fer Blondes (1953)

03:59:17 — The Great Dic­ta­tor (1940)

04:01:23 — Charlie’s Angels (2000)

04:03:03 — Romeo + Juli­et (1996)

04:04:05 — Kill Your Dar­lings (2013)

04:05:02 — Amadeus (1984)

04:06:00 — Days of Heav­en (1978)

04:10:07 — Lars and the Real Girl (2007)

04:12:15 — The Lob­ster (2015)

04:14:01 — House of Fly­ing Dag­gers (2004)

04:15:13 — Big Night (1996)

04:17:23 — Band of Rob­bers (2015)

04:19:06 — Almost Famous (2000)

04:21:03 — Rain Man (1988)

04:22:15 — Brook­lyn (2015)

04:23:10 — The Imi­ta­tion Game (2014)

04:24:09 — Moulin Rouge! (2001)

04:27:13 — Slum­dog Mil­lion­aire (2008)

04:29:12 — The God­fa­ther (1972)

04:30:11 — The Sound of Music (1965)

04:32:01 — Dirty Danc­ing (1987)

04:34:08 — Focus (2015)

04:35:10 — The Dark Knight Ris­es (2012)

04:36:08 — Zom­bieland (2009)

04:37:07 — Beau­ty and the Beast (1991)

04:40:23 — The Addams Fam­i­ly (1991)

04:44:06 — Beetle­juice (1988)

04:47:02 — Eter­nal Sun­shine of the Spot­less Mind (2004)

04:49:12 — Like Crazy (2011)

04:50:09 — End of Watch (2012)

04:51:14 — Pret­ty in Pink (1986)

04:53:03 — House Par­ty (1990)

04:54:05 — Along Came Pol­ly (2004)

04:55:23 — Some Like it Hot (1959)

04:56:23 — Real­i­ty Bites (1994)

04:59:01 — Wet Hot Amer­i­can Sum­mer (2001)

05:01:10 — Obvi­ous Child (2014)

05:02:14 — The Man from U.N.C.L.E (2015)

05:04:14 — Lost in Trans­la­tion (2003)

05:06:03 — Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

05:06:18 — A Clock­work Orange (1974)

05:08:14 — Har­ry Pot­ter and the Gob­let of Fire (2005)

05:09:16 — Star Wars: Episode VI — Return of the Jedi (1983)

05:10:18 — Pen­guins of Mada­gas­car (2014)

05:11:19 — Euro­pean Vaca­tion (1985)

05:13:02 — The Wiz­ard of Oz (1939)

05:15:04 — The Inbe­tween­ers Movie (2011)

05:16:12 — Three Ami­gos (1986)

05:18:00 — The 40 Year Old Vir­gin (2005)

05:18:23 — A Night At The Rox­bury (1998)

05:20:01 — Com­ing To Amer­i­ca (1988)

05:20:21 — Cin­derel­la (2015)

05:21:17 — About Time (2013)

05:23:16 — Ground­hog Day (1993)

05:25:03 — Chef (2014)

05:26:07 — Some­where (2010)

05:28:08 — Office Space (1999)

05:30:03 — Shall We Dance (2004)

05:31:04 — The Artist (2011)

05:31:18 — The Red Shoes (1948)

05:33:21 — Strict­ly Ball­room (1992)

05:36:07 — The Turn­ing Point (1977)

05:37:05 — Do the Right Thing (1989)

05:38:03 — Sin­gin’ In The Rain (1952)

05:39:09 — Chica­go (2002)

05:41:09 — Foot­loose (1984)

05:43:17 — When Har­ry Met Sal­ly… (1989)

05:45:02 — The Pro­duc­ers (1967)

05:46:05 — The Full Mon­ty (1997)

05:47:20 — Back to the Future Part III (1990)

05:49:00 — Dances with Wolves (1990)

05:50:07 — Hook (1991)

05:50:22 — Short Cir­cuit (1986)

05:51:13 — Pulp Fic­tion (1994)

05:53:08 — Only Lovers Left Alive (2013)

05:53:22 — Dazed and Con­fused (1993)

05:54:20 — From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)

05:55:16 — My Gold­en Days (2015)

05:56:12 — Mid­night in Paris (2013)

05:58:21 — The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear (1991)

05:59:12 — The Intouch­ables (2011)

06:00:10 — Les Mis­érables (2012)

06:01:08 — A Roy­al Affair (2012)

06:02:11 — King Kong (2005)

06:03:17 — Hap­py Feet (2006)

06:04:20 — Tan­gled (2010)

06:06:01 — Tarzan (1999)

06:07:01 — Top Hat (1935)

06:08:01 — Hail, Cae­sar (2016)

06:09:05 — Cen­ter Stage (2000)

06:10:03 — Amer­i­can Pie (1999)

06:11:10 — A Hard Days Night (1964)

06:12:01 — 45 Years (2015)

06:12:15 — La Dolce Vita (1960)

06:13:10 — O Broth­er, Where Art Thou? (2000)

06:14:00 — West Side Sto­ry (1961)

06:14:20 — Straight Out­ta Comp­ton (2015)

06:15:12 — La La Land (2016)

06:16:12 — Her (2013)

06:17:08 — Being John Malkovich (1999)

06:18:03 — Flash­dance (1983)

06:19:01 — Bar­ton Fink (1991)

06:19:22 — The Artist (2011)

06:24:09 — Casablan­ca (1942)

06:26:13 — Sun­set Boule­vard (1950)

06:27:15 — Black Book (2006)

06:28:08 — Edward Scis­sorhands (1990)

06:29:17 — Labyrinth (1986)

06:31:18 — Short Term 12 (2013)

06:33:18 — When Marnie Was There (2014)

06:36:18 — Before Sun­rise (1995)

06:37:15 — Scent of a Woman (1992)

06:39:14 — Sab­ri­na (1954)

06:40:20 — Loli­ta (1962)

06:41:23 — Schindler’s List (1993)

06:42:14 — Gangs of New York (2002)

06:43:16 — Black Swan (2010)

06:44:23 — Pride and Prej­u­dice (2005)

06:46:15 — Sweeney Todd: The Demon Bar­ber of Fleet Street (2007)

06:48:06 — Up (2009)

06:49:23 — One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)

06:51:05 — Out of Africa (1985)

06:52:22 — Jack­ie (2016)

06:54:15 — Rush­more (1998)

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How Innovative Jazz Pianist Vince Guaraldi Became the Composer of Beloved Charlie Brown Music

in Music, Television | June 27th, 2018

Nos­tal­gia gets a bad rap these days, and for good rea­son. Too many peo­ple who pine for the past seem to want the very worst parts of it back. Sad­ly, even fun retreads—8‑bit video games, 90s car­toon kitsch—became dark har­bin­gers, as the memes of “Remem­ber when?” lis­ti­cles turned into car­ri­ers of viral evil. What a bum­mer. Is there any pop cul­ture from the past that sur­vives untaint­ed by cyn­i­cism, sap­pi­ness, or troll­dom? Unequiv­o­cal­ly yes—that purest of arti­facts is A Char­lie Brown Christ­mas, and its per­fec­tion of a sound­track by the Vince Guaral­di trio. Noth­ing can touch its sub­lime mix of joy, inno­cence, melan­choly, and bossa nova-dri­ven cool.

The 1965 movie, an earnest explo­ration of the hol­i­day through the world­ly-wise eyes of Charles Schulz’s Peanuts gang, has affect­ed sev­er­al gen­er­a­tions since it first aired. But at first, the “unabashed­ly anti-con­sumerist sto­ry” met with dis­ap­proval from its spon­sors, Coca-Cola and CBS, who “had no choice but to air it,” writes Liz Pel­ly at Rolling Stone, “they had already adver­tised it in TV Guide.”

Guaral­di trio drum­mer Jer­ry Granel­li remem­bers that the cor­po­rate execs “real­ly didn’t like that a lit­tle kid was going to come out and say what Christ­mas was all about, which wasn’t about shop­ping. And then the jazz music, which was impro­vised.”

Although each hol­i­day sea­son we’re sup­posed to believe there’s a war on Christ­mas, every­one, from every faith or none, loves A Char­lie Brown Christ­mas. Its plain­spo­ken piety is a big part of its appeal, but equal­ly so is the music: the unal­loyed delight of “Linus and Lucy” and its dance scene (top), the down­beat charm of “Christ­mas­time is Here” and its children’s choir…. The sto­ry of how the spe­cial came to be is a fas­ci­nat­ing one, a series of serendip­i­tous encoun­ters that begins in 1963 with pro­duc­er Lee Mendel­son at work on a doc­u­men­tary about Schulz.

While dri­ving over the Gold­en Gate Bridge, he just hap­pened to catch Guaraldi’s hit “Cast Your Fate to the Wind” (above). “It was melod­ic and open,” he thought, “and came in like a breeze off the bay. And it struck me that this might be the kind of music I was look­ing for.” He tracked the pianist and com­pos­er down to score his Schulz doc­u­men­tary. While that project fiz­zled, Coca-Cola liked it enough to enlist Mendel­son for the Christ­mas spe­cial, and some of Guaraldi’s orig­i­nal music—including “Linus and Lucy”—migrated over, writ­ten, notes Der­rick Bang, to “reflect Char­lie Brown’s gen­tle, kid-ori­ent­ed uni­verse.” The whole sound­track was laid down in three hours in the stu­dio. “That’s just the way jazz records were record­ed,” recalls Granel­li.

“Christ­mas­time is Here” was orig­i­nal­ly an instru­men­tal (above), but at the last moment, Mendel­son had the idea to “put some words to this.” Unable to find a lyri­cist in time, he penned those words him­self. “We rushed it to the choir that Vince Guaral­di had been work­ing with in San Fran­cis­co. And he record­ed it, and we got it into the show about a week before it went on the air.” Guaral­di “prob­a­bly would have loved to recy­cle much of the music from the nev­er-aired doc­u­men­tary,” writes Bang, but the Christ­mas spe­cial called for a slight­ly dif­fer­ent tone, so he wrote two addi­tion­al com­po­si­tions, includ­ing the boun­cy “Skat­ing,” below, “a lyri­cal jazz waltz high­light­ed by sparkling key­board runs that sound­ed pre­cise­ly like chil­dren ice-skat­ing joy­ous­ly on a frozen pond.”

The com­bined tal­ents of Mendel­son, Schulz, Guaral­di, and ani­ma­tor Bill Melen­dez have made A Char­lie Brown Christ­mas an endur­ing­ly beloved clas­sic, so crit­i­cal­ly suc­cess­ful at the time that the four col­lab­o­rat­ed on sev­er­al oth­er Peanuts films. In fact, Guaral­di com­posed music for a total of six­teen Peanuts movies, includ­ing the 1969 fea­ture film A Boy Named Char­lie Brown. Guaraldi’s com­po­si­tion­al and instru­men­tal skills will be for­ev­er linked to Charles Schulz’s icon­ic char­ac­ters, per­haps no more so than dur­ing the win­ter hol­i­days.

But he should by no means be sole­ly remem­bered as the Peanuts composer—any more than the sim­i­lar­ly bossa-nova inspired Burt Bacharach should be for­ev­er tied to his film themes. Guaraldi’s work stands on its own, or as jazz writer Ted Gioia recent­ly tweet­ed, “I’ll say it straight: Vince Guaral­di was a bril­liant, under­rat­ed jazz musi­cian. No one need feel any embar­rass­ment about enjoy­ing (or prais­ing) his music.” If, for some rea­son, you hap­pened to feel you need­ed per­mis­sion to love Guaral­di, there you have it.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Umber­to Eco Explains the Poet­ic Pow­er of Charles Schulz’s Peanuts

The Vel­vet Under­ground as Peanuts Char­ac­ters: Snoopy Morphs Into Lou Reed, Char­lie Brown Into Andy Warhol

How Franklin Became Peanuts‘ First Black Char­ac­ter, Thanks to a Car­ing School­teacher (1968)

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

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You Don’t “Find” Your Passion in Life, You Actively Develop It, Explains Psychologist Carol Dweck, Theorist of the “Growth Mindset”

in Psychology | June 26th, 2018

You might spend your whole life try­ing to find your life’s pas­sion, or pas­sive­ly hop­ing it comes to you. Many have done so and, trag­i­cal­ly, have nev­er dis­cov­ered it. Were they look­ing for pur­pose in all the wrong places? Maybe. Or maybe the idea that our life’s call­ing waits out there for us to find—like the fairy tale notion of a one true per­fect love—is kind of crap. That’s not how Stan­ford psy­chol­o­gists Car­ol Dweck and Gre­go­ry Wal­ton put it, exact­ly, but their research sug­gests that “the adage so com­mon­ly advised by grad­u­a­tion speak­ers,” as Stan­ford News reports, “might under­mine how inter­ests actu­al­ly devel­op.”

In oth­er words, when peo­ple think of inter­ests or tal­ents as “fixed qual­i­ties that are inher­ent­ly there,” they are more like­ly to give up on pur­suits when they encounter dif­fi­cul­ty, believ­ing they aren’t des­tined for suc­cess. Work­ing with data acquired by Stan­ford post­doc­tor­al fel­low Paul O’Keefe (now at Yale), Dweck and Wal­ton explained some recent research find­ings in a paper titled “Implic­it The­o­ries of Inter­est: Find­ing Your Pas­sion or Devel­op­ing it?” The arti­cle is forth­com­ing in Psy­cho­log­i­cal Sci­ence, and you can read a PDF ver­sion online.

The paper describes five stud­ies on “implic­it the­o­ries of inter­est” and con­trasts a fixed the­o­ry with a “growth the­o­ry” of inter­est, an idea that comes out of Dweck’s pri­or research on what she calls a “growth mind­set.” She has pub­lished a best­selling book on the sub­ject and giv­en very pop­u­lar talks on what she calls in her TED appear­ance in Swe­den above “the pow­er of yet”—a phrase she derives from a high school in Chica­go that gave stu­dents the grade of “not yet” when they hadn’t suc­cess­ful­ly passed a course. This hope­ful assess­ment encour­aged them to keep try­ing rather than to think of them­selves as fail­ures.

Dweck tells her TED audi­ence about giv­ing a group of ten-year-olds’ prob­lems she knew would be too hard for them to solve. Those with a “growth mind­set” respond­ed with excite­ment, eager for a chal­lenge and the oppor­tu­ni­ty to expand their capa­bil­i­ties. The kids who had a “fixed mind­set” crum­pled, feel­ing like they had been judged and come up want­i­ng. “Instead of lux­u­ri­at­ing in the pow­er of yet,” says Dweck, “they were gripped in the tyran­ny of now.” Chil­dren thus “tyr­an­nized” by feel­ings of fail­ure might be more like­ly to cheat rather than study, make down­ward com­par­isons to boost feel­ings of self-worth, or become avoidant and “run from dif­fi­cul­ty.”

These strate­gies are even vis­i­ble in images of brain activ­i­ty. None of them, of course, will lead to progress. But Dweck claims that the prob­lem is endem­ic to a gen­er­a­tion of peo­ple who need con­stant val­i­da­tion and who fold when they meet chal­lenges. So how can par­ents and teach­ers help kids become more growth-ori­ent­ed or, in Dweck’s lin­go, build “the bridge to yet”? Her rec­om­men­da­tions may not sound that rev­o­lu­tion­ary to those who have fol­lowed the back­lash against the well-mean­ing but mis­guid­ed “self-esteem move­ment” of the past few decades.

For one thing, prais­ing effort, rather than intel­li­gence or tal­ent, will help kids devel­op more resilience and val­ue ongo­ing process over instant results. Judi­cious appli­ca­tions of “good try!” go much far­ther than rep­e­ti­tions of “you’re bril­liant and amaz­ing!” Dweck’s oth­er strate­gies involve a sim­i­lar focus on process and progress. Unsur­pris­ing­ly, when we believe we can change and improve, we are far more like­ly to work at devel­op­ing tal­ent, instead of assum­ing we’ve either got it or we don’t, an unsci­en­tif­ic and self-defeat­ing way of think­ing that has done a lot of peo­ple need­less harm. Dweck and her col­leagues show that our life’s pas­sion isn’t a ful­ly-formed thing out there wait­ing for us, or an inborn, immutable qual­i­ty, but rather it comes as the result of patient and per­sis­tent efforts.

via Stan­ford News

Relat­ed Con­tent:

What Is Pro­cras­ti­na­tion & How Can We Solve It? An Intro­duc­tion by One of the World’s Lead­ing Pro­cras­ti­na­tion Experts

What Are the Keys to Hap­pi­ness?: Take “The Sci­ence of Well-Being,” a Free Online Ver­sion of Yale’s Most Pop­u­lar Course

Why Incom­pe­tent Peo­ple Think They’re Amaz­ing: An Ani­mat­ed Les­son from David Dun­ning (of the Famous “Dun­ning-Kruger Effect”)

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

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How the Uptight Today Show Introduced the Sex Pistols & British Punk to American TV Viewers (1978)

in Music, Television | June 26th, 2018

It’s depress­ing­ly easy to rile up mil­lions of peo­ple these days with the click of a mouse. Bil­lion-dol­lar indus­tries and polit­i­cal cam­paigns are built on such tech­nol­o­gy. But before the empires of social media, there was tele­vi­sion, a one-way medi­um and, pri­or to cable, an extreme­ly lim­it­ed one. In those bygone days, you real­ly had to put your back into it if you want­ed wide­spread atten­tion. The Sex Pistols—including their man­ag­er and pro­mot­er, vision­ary huck­ster Mal­colm McLaren—worked hard to cul­ti­vate infamy, using tele­vi­sion as a pri­ma­ry means of gen­er­at­ing shock val­ue.

Although the band mem­bers, at least, nev­er made any mon­ey, they were high­ly paid in noto­ri­ety on both sides of the Atlantic. Their image as vio­lent junkies who couldn’t play their instru­ments owed main­ly to Sid Vicious, who replaced com­pe­tent bassist and song­writer Glen Mat­lock in 1977, a move that boost­ed the band’s abil­i­ty to freak peo­ple out while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly set­ting them on a course for cer­tain demise with­in the year.

The spec­tac­u­lar self-destruc­tion occurred, as every fan knows well, on a tour of the US South that McLaren booked with the wickedest of inten­tions, spring­ing the band on cow­boy bars in Texas, for exam­ple, for the sake of sheer provo­ca­tion. Their final show at San Francisco’s Win­ter­land Ball­room was caught on film, com­plete with the last song they ever played togeth­er, a cov­er of the Stooges “No Fun.” After the one-song encore, John­ny Rot­ten sneered “ever get the feel­ing you’ve been cheat­ed?” and dropped the mic, dis­gust­ed with the whole “ridicu­lous farce,” he lat­er wrote.

Before embark­ing on their com­i­cal­ly dis­as­trous US tour, the Pis­tols got a heavy dose of free pub­lic­i­ty from an Amer­i­can news media as eager then as ever to chase after a sen­sa­tion. In the vin­tage Today Show clip above, see how US view­ers were intro­duced to British punk. “Whether nat­u­ral­ly or cal­cu­lat­ed­ly so,” says NBC’s Jack Perkins after report­ing on Vicious and drum­mer Paul Cook’s refusal to grant an inter­view unless they were each paid $10, “the four young men are out­ra­geous. They’re also vile and pro­fane.”

Perkins then walks view­ers through the hard­ly shock­ing details of rude­ness to hotel staff and bit of a mess left in their room, shak­ing his head sad­ly. No band could hope to top Led Zep­pelin when it came to this most cliched of rock and roll stunts. But Perkins pre­tends it’s the first time any­thing like it had ever hap­pened. McLaren could not have script­ed bet­ter fin­ger-wag­ging out­rage to inspire Amer­i­can gawk­ers (some of whom give brief post-con­cert inter­views) to come out and see the Pis­tols flame out on their final tour.

Then there are the record execs Perkins gets on cam­era, includ­ing A&M’s Kip Cohen, who sized up the sit­u­a­tion astute­ly: “There’s a case of an act and man­age­ment and intel­li­gence behind an act, bril­liant­ly uti­liz­ing the media, cash­ing in and cre­at­ing a whole hype for itself.” Cohen, a sea­soned indus­try man who had pre­vi­ous­ly man­aged the Fill­more East, pre­dicts great things for the Sex Pis­tols. But he express­es some skep­ti­cism about whether their savvy media manip­u­la­tion was a new phe­nom­e­non, cit­ing the Bea­t­les and the Stones as hav­ing already bro­ken such ground.

One could go back even fur­ther to Chuck Berry and Elvis, who pushed many of the same out­rage but­tons for what con­sti­tut­ed “clicks” in old­en times. But as Perkins points out—shaking his head in dis­ap­proval, before cut­ting back to a snick­er­ing Jane Pauley and very seri­ous Tom Brokaw—the Pis­tols pulled it off by look­ing like they could­n’t pos­si­bly have cared any less about being good at what they did, which took an entire­ly dif­fer­ent kind of tal­ent.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Sex Pis­tols Make a Scan­dalous Appear­ance on the Bill Grundy Show & Intro­duce Punk Rock to the Star­tled Mass­es (1976)

Watch the Sex Pis­tols’ Very Last Con­cert (San Fran­cis­co, 1978)

The Sex Pis­tols Play in Dal­las’ Long­horn Ball­room; Next Show Is Mer­le Hag­gard (1978)

John­ny Rotten’s Cor­dial Let­ter to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: Next to the Sex Pis­tols, You’re ‘a Piss Stain’

Mal­colm McLaren: The Quest for Authen­tic Cre­ativ­i­ty

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

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12-Year-Old Piano Prodigy Takes Four Notes Randomly Picked from a Hat and Instantly Uses Them to Improvise a Sonata

in Music | June 26th, 2018

Last fall, 60 Min­utes spent some time with Alma Deutsch­er, a prodi­gy on the piano and the vio­lin. As her Wikipedia page tells us, “At age six she com­posed her first piano sonata. At age sev­en, she com­plet­ed her first major com­po­si­tion, the opera The Sweep­er of Dreams. Aged nine, she wrote a con­cer­to for vio­lin and orches­tra, which she pre­miered in a 2015 per­for­mance.” And at “the age of ten she com­plet­ed her first full-length opera, Cin­derel­la, which had its Euro­pean pre­miere in Vien­na on 29 Decem­ber 2016 under the patron­age of con­duc­tor Zubin Mehta.” Fast for­ward to age twelve, you can watch Alma pull off some­thing that, at this point, should­n’t come as a sur­prise. Above, 6o Min­utes cor­re­spon­dent Bob Pel­ley pulls four ran­dom notes out of a hat. Then, soon enough, Deutsch­er uses the notes to start improv­ing a sonata. Watch more of her per­for­mances on her YouTube chan­nel. And find more prodi­gy per­for­mances in the Relat­eds right below.

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:

Leonard Bern­stein Intro­duces 7‑Year-Old Yo-Yo Ma: Watch the Young­ster Per­form for John F. Kennedy (1962)

Great Vio­lin­ists Play­ing as Kids: Itzhak Perl­man, Anne-Sophie Mut­ter, & More

Maria Anna Mozart Was a Musi­cal Prodi­gy Like Her Broth­er Wolf­gang, So Why Did She Get Erased from His­to­ry?

Eight-Year-Old Drum Prodi­gy Plays Led Zeppelin’s “Good Times Bad Times;” Robert Plant Watch­es in Won­der

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James Joyce’s Crayon Covered Manuscript Pages for Ulysses and Finnegans Wake

in History, Literature | June 26th, 2018

Even the most avid James Joyce fans sure­ly have times when they open Finnegans Wake and won­der how on Earth Joyce wrote the thing. Painstak­ing­ly, it turns out, and not just because of the infa­mous dif­fi­cul­ty of the text itself: he “wrote lying on his stom­ach in bed, with a large blue pen­cil, clad in a white coat, and com­posed most of Finnegans Wake with cray­on pieces on card­board,” writes Brain­pick­ings’ Maria Popo­va. By the time Joyce fin­ished his final nov­el, the eye prob­lems that had plagued him for most of his life had ren­dered him near­ly blind. “The large crayons thus helped him see what he was writ­ing, and the white coat helped reflect more light onto the page at night.”

Crayons also had a place in his intri­cate revi­sion process. “Joyce used a dif­fer­ent col­ored cray­on each time he went through a note­book incor­po­rat­ing notes into his draft,” writes Derek Attridge in a review of The Finnegans Wake Note­books at Buf­fa­lo, a com­pi­la­tion of all the extant work­ing mate­ri­als for Joyce’s final nov­el. He also calls Joyce’s col­ored cray­on method part of “a scrupu­lous­ness which has nev­er been sat­is­fac­to­ri­ly explained” — but then, much about Joyce has­n’t, and may nev­er be. “I’ve put in so many enig­mas and puz­zles that it will keep the pro­fes­sors busy for cen­turies argu­ing over what I meant,” he once wrote, “and that’s the only way of insur­ing one’s immor­tal­i­ty.”

But he wrote that about Ulysses, a breeze of a read com­pared to Finnegans Wake, but a work that has sure­ly inspired even more schol­ars to devote their careers to its author. Some become full-blown “Joycea­holics,” as Gabrielle Carey recent­ly put it in the Syd­ney Review of Books, and must even­tu­al­ly find a way to “break up” with the object of their unhealthy lit­er­ary fix­a­tion. She got hooked when a piano teacher intro­duced her to Mol­ly Bloom’s solil­o­quy at the end of Ulysses. “The last page of Ulysses con­firmed my youth­ful idea that there was such a thing as star-crossed lovers,” Carey writes. “Mol­ly and Leopold were clear­ly meant for each oth­er.” The con­vic­tion with which that idea res­onat­ed, she writes, “was to lead me down so many ill-fat­ed paths.”

Carey stepped onto the long path that would lead her away from Joyce when she looked upon his man­u­scripts: “It was only then, almost thir­ty years after read­ing Joyce for the first time, that I noticed a tiny revi­sion to the final para­graph.” Joyce’s inser­tion added a crit­i­cal, deflat­ing phrase to the pas­sage that had brought her Joyce in the first place: “and I thought well as well him as anoth­er.” What­ev­er your own expe­ri­ence with Ulysses, Finnegans Wake, or any of Joyce’s oth­er endur­ing works of lit­er­a­ture, the actu­al pages on which he craft­ed them (the col­or ones seen here from Ulysss­es and the black and white from Finnegans wake) can offer all kinds of illu­mi­na­tion. They also remind us that the books must have required near­ly as much men­tal for­ti­tude to write as they do to prop­er­ly read.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

James Joyce: An Ani­mat­ed Intro­duc­tion to His Life and Lit­er­ary Works

Why Should You Read James Joyce’s Ulysses?: A New TED-ED Ani­ma­tion Makes the Case

James Joyce Reads From Ulysses and Finnegans Wake In His Only Two Record­ings (1924/1929)

James Joyce, With His Eye­sight Fail­ing, Draws a Sketch of Leopold Bloom (1926)

Sci­en­tists Dis­cov­er That James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake Has an Amaz­ing­ly Math­e­mat­i­cal “Mul­ti­frac­tal” Struc­ture

See What Hap­pens When You Run Finnegans Wake Through a Spell Check­er

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities and cul­ture. His projects include 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.

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Watch a 4000-Year Old Babylonian Recipe for Stew, Found on a Cuneiform Tablet, Get Cooked by Researchers from Yale & Harvard

in Food & Drink, History, Yale | June 25th, 2018

Walk like an Egypt­ian, but eat like an ancient Baby­lon­ian.

While cook­books con­tain­ing Mesopotami­an fare do exist, to be real­ly authen­tic, take your recipes from a clay tablet, dense­ly inscribed in cuneiform.

Sad­ly, there are only four of them, and they reside in a dis­play case at Yale. (Under­stand­able giv­en that they’re over 4000 years old.)

When Agnete Lassen, asso­ciate cura­tor of Yale’s Baby­lon­ian Col­lec­tion, and col­league Chelsea Alene Gra­ham, a dig­i­tal imag­ing spe­cial­ist, were invit­ed to par­tic­i­pate in a culi­nary event host­ed by New York University’s Insti­tute for the Study of the Ancient World, they wise­ly chose to trav­el with a 3D-print­ed fac­sim­i­le of one of the pre­cious tablets.

T’would have been a shame to knock the orig­i­nal off the counter while reach­ing for a bunch of leeks.

While oth­er pre­sen­ters pre­pared such del­i­ca­cies as Fish Sauces at the Roman Table, Bud­dhist veg­e­tar­i­an dish­es from the Song Dynasty, and a post-mod­ern squid-ink spin on Medieval Blanc­mange, the Yale team joined chef Naw­al Nas­ral­lah and a crew from Har­vard to recre­ate three one-pot dish­es detailed on one of the ancient arti­facts.

Judg­ing by the above video, the clear win­ner was Tuh’i, a beet and lamb stew which Lassen describes as a “pro­to-borscht.”

The veg­e­tar­i­an Unwind­ing Stew’s name proved unnec­es­sar­i­ly vex­ing, while the milk-based Broth of Lamb was unap­pe­tiz­ing to the eye (as well as the palate, accord­ing to Gra­ham). Per­haps they should have sub­sti­tut­ed ani­mal blood—another favorite Baby­lon­ian thick­en­er.

As one of Lassen’s pre­de­ces­sors, Pro­fes­sor William W. Hal­lo, told The New York Times in 1988, it’s unlike­ly the aver­age Mesopotami­an would have had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to tuck into any of these dish­es. The vast quan­ti­ties of spe­cial­i­ty ingre­di­ents and the elab­o­rate instruc­tions sug­gest a fes­tive meal for the elite.

In addi­tion to the dish­es served at NYU’s Appetite for the Past con­fer­ence, the tablets include recipes for stag, gazelle, kid, mut­ton, squab, and a bird that’s referred to as “tar­ru.”

Next time, per­haps.

And not to quib­ble with the Bull­dogs, but the BBC reports that researchers from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wales Insti­tute are claim­ing a pud­ding made from net­tles, ground bar­ley, and water is actu­al­ly the world’s old­est recipe, clock­ing in at 6000 BC. (Serve it with roast hedge­hog and fish gut sauce…)

While the Yale team has yet to share its recipes in a lan­guage oth­er than cuneiform, The Silk Road Gourmet has a good guide to var­i­ous Mesopotami­an spices and sta­ples.

via Kot­tke/Yale

Relat­ed Con­tent:

How to Write in Cuneiform, the Old­est Writ­ing Sys­tem in the World: A Short, Charm­ing Intro­duc­tion

Dis­cov­er the Old­est Beer Recipe in His­to­ry From Ancient Sume­ria, 1800 B.C.

Cook Real Recipes from Ancient Rome: Ostrich Ragoût, Roast Wild Boar, Nut Tarts & More

How to Bake Ancient Roman Bread Dat­ing Back to 79 AD: A Video Primer

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Join her in NYC on Thurs­day June 28 for anoth­er month­ly install­ment of her book-based vari­ety show, Necro­mancers of the Pub­lic Domain. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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The Simpsons Take on Ayn Rand: See the Show’s Satire of The Fountainhead and Objectivist Philosophy

in Comedy, Economics, Philosophy, Politics, Television | June 25th, 2018

Say what you will about the tenets of Objectivism—to take a fan favorite line from a lit­tle film about bowl­ing and white Rus­sians. At least it’s an ethos. As for Ayn Rand’s attempts to real­ize her “absurd phi­los­o­phy” in fic­tion, we can say that she was rather less suc­cess­ful, in aes­thet­ic terms, than lit­er­ary philoso­phers like Albert Camus or Simone de Beau­voir. But that’s a high bar. When it comes to sales fig­ures, her nov­els are, we might say, com­pet­i­tive.

Atlas Shrugged is some­times said to be the sec­ond best-sell­ing book next to the Bible (with a sig­nif­i­cant degree of over­lap between their read­er­ships). The claim is gross­ly hyper­bol­ic. With some­where around 7 mil­lion copies sold, Rand’s most pop­u­lar nov­el falls behind oth­er cap­i­tal­ist clas­sics like Think and Grow Rich. Still, along with The Foun­tain­head and her oth­er osten­si­bly non-fic­tion­al works, Rand sold enough books to make her com­fort­able in life, even if she spent her last years on the dole.

Since her death, Rand’s books have grown in pop­u­lar­i­ty each decade, with a big spike imme­di­ate­ly after the 2008 finan­cial cri­sis. That pop­u­lar­i­ty isn’t par­tic­u­lar­ly hard to explain as an appeal to ado­les­cent self­ish­ness and grandios­i­ty, and it has made her works ripe tar­gets for satire—especially since they almost read like self-par­o­dy already. And who bet­ter to take on Rand than The Simp­sons, reli­able pop satirists of great Amer­i­can delu­sions since 1989?

The show’s take on The Foun­tain­head, above, has baby Mag­gie in the role of archi­tect Howard Roark, the book’s genius indi­vid­u­al­ist whose extra­or­di­nary tal­ent is sti­fled by a crit­ic named Ellsworth Toohey (a card­board car­i­ca­ture of British the­o­rist and politi­cian Harold Las­ki). In this ver­sion, Toohey is a vicious preschool teacher in tweed, who insists on edu­cat­ing his charges in banal­i­ty (“medi­oc­rity rules!”) and knocks down Maggie’s block cathe­dral with a snide “wel­come to the real world.”

In response to Toohey’s abuse, Mag­gie deliv­ers a pompous solil­o­quy about her own great­ness, as Rand’s heroes are wont to do. She is again sub­ject­ed to preschool repres­sion in the clip just above—this time not at the hands of a social­ist crit­ic but from the head­mistress of the Ayn Rand School for Tots. The dom­i­neer­ing dis­ci­pli­nar­i­an tells Marge her aim is to “devel­op the bot­tle with­in” and dis­suade her stu­dents from becom­ing “leech­es,” a dig at Rand’s tendency—one sad­ly par­rot­ed by her acolytes—to dehu­man­ize recip­i­ents of social ben­e­fits as par­a­sites.

Read­ers of Roald Dahl will be remind­ed of Matil­da’s Miss Trunch­bull, and the bar­racks-like day­care, its walls lined with Objec­tivist slo­gans, becomes a site for some Great Escape capers. These sly ref­er­ences hint at a deep­er critique—suggesting that the lib­er­tar­i­an phi­los­o­phy of hyper-indi­vid­u­al­ism con­tains the poten­tial for tyran­ny and ter­ror as bru­tal as that of the most dog­mat­i­cal­ly col­lec­tivist of utopi­an schemes.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Christo­pher Hitchens Dis­miss­es the Cult of Ayn Rand: There’s No “Need to Have Essays Advo­cat­ing Self­ish­ness Among Human Beings; It Requires No Rein­force­ment”

Flan­nery O’Connor: Friends Don’t Let Friends Read Ayn Rand (1960)

When Ayn Rand Col­lect­ed Social Secu­ri­ty & Medicare, After Years of Oppos­ing Ben­e­fit Pro­grams

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

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Get a First Glimpse of Terry Gilliam’s The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, the “Cursed” Film 29 Years in the Making

in Film | June 25th, 2018

One pos­si­ble response to the tan­ta­liz­ing notion of a Ter­ry Gilliam film about Don Quixote: How has­n’t he made one already? Anoth­er pos­si­ble response: Wait, has­n’t he made one already? The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, which pre­miered at Cannes last month, arrives 29 years after Gilliam first start­ed work­ing on it — and 16 years after Lost in La Man­cha, a well-received doc­u­men­tary about one of his failed attempts to shoot it. Long the per­fect sym­bol of a “cursed” pro­duc­tion doomed to an eter­ni­ty in “devel­op­ment hell,” it has some­how come back from the dead, res­ur­rect­ed by the sheer dogged­ness of Gilliam and his col­lab­o­ra­tors, time and time again.

The movie even sur­vives John Hurt and Jean Rochefort, two of the stars pre­vi­ous­ly signed on to play Quixote him­self. (The list also includes Robert Duvall and Gilliam’s fel­low Python Michael Palin.) Jonathan Pryce, best known at the moment as Game of Thrones’ High Spar­row, has ulti­mate­ly tak­en on the role, hav­ing been attached to play oth­ers in the project over the pre­vi­ous decades. But just as Gilliam’s film does­n’t straight­for­ward­ly adapt Cer­vantes’ clas­sic of Span­ish lit­er­a­ture, Pryce does­n’t straight­for­ward­ly por­tray Cer­vantes’ icon­ic char­ac­ter. He does it, rather, through a Span­ish shoe­mak­er who tru­ly believes he is Cer­vantes’ icon­ic char­ac­ter, hav­ing played him in a stu­dent film years before.

The stu­dent film­mak­er has grown up to become a cyn­i­cal adman, one meant to be played in pre­vi­ous ver­sions of The Man Who Killed Don Quixote by Robin Williams, John­ny Depp, Ewan McGre­gor, and Jack O’Con­nell. In the trail­er above you’ll see the char­ac­ter played by Adam Dri­ver, who in recent years has fast ascend­ed into the realm of indie-film roy­al­ty. Where­as ear­li­er scripts flung him back through time from mod­ern day into 17th-cen­tu­ry Spain, this one stays in the present and forces him to con­front the out­sized impact of his small film on the even small­er vil­lage in which he shot it. And so the sto­ry of the film, not just the sto­ry behind it, takes on themes of the unpre­dictable com­pli­ca­tions, con­se­quences, and even dan­gers of film­mak­ing.

Those com­pli­ca­tions have ground on for The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. The lat­est man­i­fes­ta­tion of the film’s sup­posed curse takes the form of a law­suit by a for­mer pro­duc­er, Paulo Bran­co, who insists he still owns the rights to it. Gilliam’s cur­rent pro­duc­er says oth­er­wise, but their recent loss in the Paris Court of Appeals has giv­en the noto­ri­ous­ly force­ful Bran­co rea­son — valid or not, nobody seems quite able to say — to pub­licly declare vic­to­ry. Whichev­er par­ty will final­ly have to cough up how­ev­er much mon­ey to set­tle all of this, the epic jour­ney of Gilliam’s Don Quixote project looks as if it has entered its home stretch. How­ev­er the world receives the film itself, Gilliam’s fans can almost cer­tain­ly look for­ward to anoth­er acclaimed doc­u­men­tary about it as well. 

Relat­ed Con­tent:

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

Watch “The Secret Tour­na­ment” & “The Rematch,” Ter­ry Gilliam’s Star-Stud­ded Soc­cer Ads for Nike

Yale Presents a Free Online Course on Miguel de Cer­vantes’ Mas­ter­piece Don Quixote

Gus­tave Doré’s Exquis­ite Engrav­ings of Cer­vantes’ Don Quixote

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities and cul­ture. His projects include 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.

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