Batman Goes Surfing: Remembering Adam West (RIP) with Perhaps the Campiest Batman Episode Ever

in Television | June 12th, 2017

In the var­i­ous obits I read this week­end for Adam West, one word repeat­ed­ly came up–“campy.”

Reuters start­ed its obit: “Adam West, who earned a place in Amer­i­can pop cul­ture his­to­ry with his campy por­tray­al of the title char­ac­ter in the clas­sic 1960s TV series “Bat­man,” has died at age 88, his fam­i­ly said on Sat­ur­day.”

The New York Times added: “His straight-faced por­tray­al of Bat­man in the campy 1960s TV series lift­ed the tight-clad Caped Cru­sad­er into the nation­al con­scious­ness, and inspired future wear­ers of the super­hero’s cape and cowl. The TV show was among the most pop­u­lar in 1966, the year of its debut, and some of the era’s top actors signed on to play vil­lains.”

And The Hol­ly­wood Reporter capped things with off:  Yes, the Bat­man series was campy. But it was also iron­ic — in that, all winks aside, there was some­thing tru­ly right­eous and excit­ing about this pur­ple-clad goof­ball.” Indeed!

If you want Exhib­it 1 of the won­der­ful campi­ness, check out the clip above, an out­take from the Novem­ber 1967 episode, “Surf’s Up, Joker’s Under,” which turns on this plot:

The Jok­er plans to become the king of surf­ing, hop­ing the fame will give him con­trol over the hearts and minds of Gotham City. He cap­tures top surfer Skip Park­er, then uses his “Surf­ing Expe­ri­ence & Abil­i­ty Trans­fer­om­e­ter” to trans­fer the need­ed skills and sta­mi­na from Skip to him­self. When all the oth­er con­tes­tants drop out of the upcom­ing surf­ing match, Bat­man steps up to chal­lenge the Jok­er’s suprema­cy.

Just so you know. The Jok­er fin­ish­es first, but Bat­man wins on points.

The full episode (along with 119 oth­er ones) can be viewed on Bat­man: The Com­plete Series, a remas­tered box set released just a few years ago. I loved watch­ing the series in syn­di­ca­tion as a kid. Do they play as well decades lat­er? We’ll find out.

Note: If you want to see where Adam West fig­ured into the long line of Bat­man actors, see this video from our archive: The Evo­lu­tion of Bat­man in Cin­e­ma: From 1939 to Present

Relat­ed Con­tent:

1950s Bat­man Car­toon Tells Kids: “Don’t Believe Those Crack­pot Lies About Peo­ple Who Wor­ship Dif­fer­ent­ly”

1950 Super­man Poster Urged Kids to Defend All Amer­i­cans, Regard­less of Their Race, Reli­gion or Nation­al Ori­gin

Bat­man Stars in an Unusu­al Car­toon Adap­ta­tion of Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Pun­ish­ment

The Evo­lu­tion of Bat­man in Cin­e­ma: From 1939 to Present

Radiohead’s “Creep” Played on the Gayageum, a Korean Instrument Dating Back to the 6th Century

in Music | June 10th, 2017

Every now and then, we check in on the fas­ci­nat­ing musi­cal world of Luna Lee–a musi­cian who per­forms West­ern music on the Gayageum, a tra­di­tion­al Kore­an stringed instru­ment which dates back to the 6th cen­tu­ry. Over the years, we’ve shown you her adap­ta­tions of Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Voodoo Chile;’ David Bowie’s “The Man Who Sold The World;” Leonard Cohen’s “Hal­lelu­jah;” blues clas­sics by John Lee Hook­er, B.B. King & Mud­dy Waters; and Pink Floy­d’s “Com­fort­ably Numb,” “Anoth­er Brick in the Wall” & “Great Gig in the Sky.” To keep the tra­di­tion going, today we bring you Luna’s beau­ti­ful take on Radio­head­’s debut sin­gle, “Creep” (1992). For any­one who some­how missed the 90s, we’ve includ­ed the orig­i­nal Radio­head music video below. Enjoy both.

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:

Pak­istani Musi­cians Play an Enchant­i­ng Ver­sion of Dave Brubeck’s Jazz Clas­sic, “Take Five”

Talk­ing Heads’ “This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)” Per­formed on Tra­di­tion­al Chi­nese Instru­ments

Ultra Ortho­dox Rab­bis Sing Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here” on the Streets of Jerusalem

What Is German Expressionism? A Crash Course on the Cinematic Tradition That Gave Us Metropolis, Nosferatu & More

in Art, Film | June 9th, 2017

Ger­man Expres­sion­ism: we’ve all heard of it, and though only some would even try to define it, we all, like old Pot­ter Stew­art, know it when we see it. Or do we? The move­ments under the umbrel­la of Ger­man Expres­sion­ism bore vivid and influ­en­tial fruits in archi­tec­ture, paint­ing, sculp­ture and espe­cial­ly film — The Cab­i­net of Dr. Cali­gari, Nos­fer­atu, and Metrop­o­lis, to say noth­ing of their count­less descen­dants, will come right to the minds of most movie-lovers — but the cir­cum­stance from which it first arose remain not par­tic­u­lar­ly well-under­stood by the pub­lic, or at least those of the pub­lic who haven’t seen the brief Crash Course video on Ger­man Expres­sion­ism above (and the even short­er No Film School explain­er below).

Though it also stands per­fect­ly well alone, this primer comes as the sev­enth chap­ter of the six­teen-part Crash Course Film His­to­ry, which we first fea­tured back in April. Here host Craig Ben­zine address­es the ques­tion of just what makes The Cab­i­net of Dr. Cali­gari, Nos­fer­atu, and Metrop­o­lis in par­tic­u­lar so mem­o­rable by exam­in­ing each film and its auteur direc­tor — Robert Wiene, F.W. Mur­nau, and Fritz Lang, respec­tive­ly  — in turn.

The cre­ativ­i­ty of Ger­man Expres­sion­ist film, like so much cre­ativ­i­ty, arose from lim­i­ta­tions: Ger­many had just lost World War I, most of its film indus­try had under­gone state-spon­sored con­sol­i­da­tion, and inde­pen­dent film­mak­ers who did­n’t want to make large-scale cos­tume dra­mas (the genre of choice to dis­tract the pub­lic from the coun­try’s pover­ty and dis­or­der) had to find a new way not just to get their movies made, but to give audi­ences a rea­son to watch them. With 1920’s The Cab­i­net of Dr. Cali­gari (which you can watch below along with Nos­fer­atu), a small stu­dio named Decla led the way.

“Writ­ten by Hans Janowitz and Carl May­er,” says Ben­zine, “this film was the­mat­i­cal­ly based on their expe­ri­ences as sol­diers in World War I and their dis­trust of author­i­tar­i­an lead­er­ship.” It inno­vat­ed by pre­sent­ing its sto­ry “expres­sion­is­ti­cal­ly, rather than real­is­ti­cal­ly. That is, instead of mak­ing things like the sets, cos­tumes, and props as real­is­tic as pos­si­ble,” the film­mak­ers “delib­er­ate­ly dis­tort­ed every­thing with­in the frame,” all “designed to look delib­er­ate­ly arti­fi­cial and throw you off bal­ance.” This “high­ly sub­jec­tive” cin­e­mat­ic sen­si­bil­i­ty, devel­oped in Ger­many and then else­where (espe­cial­ly the coun­tries to which Ger­man artists moved in flight from fas­cism) through­out the 1920s, still appears in mod­ern film, well beyond the work of avowed fan Tim Bur­ton: Ben­zine finds that, “from Silence of the Lambs to Don’t Breathe to any­thing M. Night Shya­malan has ever put on film, the tech­niques of Ger­man Expres­sion­ism are creep­ing us out to this very day.”

You can see 10 clas­sic films from this tra­di­tion in our post: Watch 10 Clas­sic Ger­man Expres­sion­ist Films: From Nos­fer­atu to The Cab­i­net of Dr. Cali­gari

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Take a 16-Week Crash Course on the His­to­ry of Movies: From the First Mov­ing Pic­tures to the Rise of Mul­ti­plex­es & Net­flix

From Cali­gari to Hitler: A Look at How Cin­e­ma Laid the Foun­da­tion for Tyran­ny in Weimar Ger­many

How Ger­man Expres­sion­ism Influ­enced Tim Bur­ton: A Video Essay

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities and cul­ture. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer, the video series The City in Cin­e­ma, the crowd­fund­ed jour­nal­ism project Where Is the City of the Future?, and the Los Ange­les Review of Books’ Korea Blog. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

150 Songs from 100+ Rappers Get Artfully Woven into One Great Mashup: Watch the “40 Years of Hip Hop”

in Music | June 9th, 2017

On what he deemed the 30th anniver­sary of hip hop, in 2004, Vil­lage Voice crit­ic Greg Tate wrote that the music’s “ubiq­ui­ty has cre­at­ed a com­mon ground and a com­mon ver­nac­u­lar for Black folk from 18 to 50 world­wide.” Its glob­al reach, how­ev­er, has made it a rich site for “cor­po­rate exploita­tion.” The com­pli­cat­ed rela­tion­ship of hip hop and cap­i­tal­ism is some­thing of a “bit­ter trick.” The music “rep­re­sents Black cul­ture and Black cre­ative license in unique ways to the glob­al mar­ket­place, no mat­ter how com­mod­i­fied it becomes.” And yet it “has now become a seller’s mar­ket, in which what does or does not get sold as hiphop to the mass­es is what­ev­er the board­room approves.”

Tate’s argu­ment that the music and cul­ture of hip hop are insep­a­ra­ble from glob­al­ized cap­i­tal­ism may part­ly explain why it roared into life in the eight­ies as a “con­ver­gence of ex-slaves and ch-hing,” just as the glob­al con­sumer mar­ket­place began to take its mod­ern shape. Young, artis­tic entre­pre­neurs begged, bor­rowed, and stole records and equip­ment, sens­ing the oppor­tu­ni­ty for fame and rich­es in the cre­ative recu­per­a­tion of old sounds with new tech­nol­o­gy. Theirs was a lan­guage of ambi­tion and desire, a cel­e­bra­tion of sex and power—the lan­guage of moder­ni­ty writ­ten in com­plex rhyme and call-and-response. A lan­guage spo­ken over gen­er­a­tions and nations, and—now over ten years after Tate’s essay—spo­ken for over forty years of ever-increas­ing mar­ket share.

The ori­gins of hip hop have pro­vid­ed ample mate­r­i­al for enter­tain­ing fic­tion­al­iza­tions like Baz Luhrmann’s The Get Down and pop­u­lar his­to­ries like the doc­u­men­tary Hip-Hip Evo­lu­tion. These lin­ear accounts present the genre to us in for­mats we find eas­i­ly digestible. Even as Luhrmann’s series attempts to mim­ic the hyper­ki­net­ic pace of rap, it tells a sto­ry as con­ven­tion­al as they come. To expe­ri­ence the past 40 years of hip hop on the genre’s own terms—its per­pet­u­al call­backs to its ances­tors, its seam­less inter­weav­ing of past and present—it’s almost as though you’d need to expe­ri­ence it all at once. And so you can, in the incred­i­ble mash-up video above from The Hood Inter­net.

Tak­ing over 150 songs from over 100 artists, the video puts them all in con­ver­sa­tion with each oth­er “40 Years of Hip Hop” mash­es up “rap­pers from dif­fer­ent eras fin­ish­ing each other’s rhymes over inter­sect­ing beats, all woven togeth­er to make one song.” It’s an impres­sive tech­ni­cal achieve­ment, and one that throws into relief not only hip hop’s smooth, shiny hyper-cap­i­tal­ist embrace of tech­nol­o­gy but also, as the­o­rist and Black Atlantic author Paul Gilroy wrote, its counter-cul­tur­al core as a “means towards both indi­vid­ual self-fash­ion­ing and com­mu­nal lib­er­a­tion.”

See all of the artists rep­re­sent­ed here at the video’s YouTube page and stream or down­load the audio here.

via Boing­Bo­ing

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Found­ing Fathers, A Doc­u­men­tary Nar­rat­ed By Pub­lic Enemy’s Chuck D, Presents the True His­to­ry of Hip Hop

Hip Hop Hits Sung Won­der­ful­ly in Sign Lan­guage: Eminem’s “Lose Your­self,” Wiz Khalifa’s “Black and Yel­low” & More

The His­to­ry of Elec­tron­ic Music Visu­al­ized on a Cir­cuit Dia­gram of a 1950s Theremin: 200 Inven­tors, Com­posers & Musi­cians

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

Dire Straits’ “Walk of Life” Is the Perfect Song to End Any Movie: The Graduate, Psycho, Easy Rider & 50+ Other Films

in Comedy, Film, Music, Video - Arts & Culture | June 9th, 2017

It’s hard to con­ceive of direc­tor Stan­ley Kubrick choos­ing a more per­fect song for Dr. Strangelove’s final mush­room cloud mon­tage than Vera Lynn’s “We’ll Meet Again.”

Dit­to Mike Nichols’ The Grad­u­ate. Can you imag­ine Ben and Elaine mak­ing their exis­ten­tial get­away to the tune of any­thing oth­er than “The Sound of Silence”?

Free­lance video edi­tor Peter Salomone can (see above). If he had his druthers, all films would end with Dire Straits’ 1985 hit, ”Walk of Life” a tune Rolling Stone described upon its release as a “boun­cy Fifties rock & roll song about cool Fifties rock & roll songs,” not­ing its “cheesy organ sound.”

More recent­ly, the New Zealand-based music blog Off the Tracks pro­claimed it “god-awful,” sug­gest­ing that the CIA could sur­gi­cal­ly implant its “obnox­ious” key­board riff to trig­ger assas­sins, and assert­ing that it (“and those fuck­ing sweat­bands”) were the demise of Dire Straits.

Such crit­i­cal eval­u­a­tions are imma­te­r­i­al where Salomone’s The Walk of Life Project is con­cerned. Over the course of a cou­ple months, he has glee­ful­ly applied it to the final min­utes of over five dozen films, leav­ing the visu­als unmo­lest­ed.

There are no sacred cows in this realm. Casablan­ca and The God­fa­ther are sub­ject­ed to this aur­al exper­i­ment, as, some­what mys­ti­fy­ing­ly, are Nanook of the North and Chaplin’s City Lights. Hor­ror, Dis­ney, musicals…Salomone dab­bles in a wide vari­ety of gen­res.

For my mon­ey, the most suc­cess­ful out­comes are the ones that impose a com­mer­cial send-em-up-the-aisles-smil­ing sen­si­bil­i­ty on delib­er­ate­ly bleak end­ings.

Direc­tor Dan­ny Boyle may have allowed audi­ences to decom­press a bit with heart­warm­ing footage of the real life Aron Ral­ston, whose auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal account of a life-chang­ing acci­dent inspired the film 127 Hours, but Salomone’s choice to move the play­head to the moment shocked hik­ers encounter a dazed and dehy­drat­ed James Fran­co clutch­ing his muti­lat­ed arm is sub­lime. That heli­copter could not be more per­fect­ly timed:

Some oth­er dark gems:

Easy Rid­er:

Plan­et of the Apes

Psy­cho

Salomone told Giz­mo­do that he’s tak­ing a break from the project, so if there’s a film you think would ben­e­fit from the Walk of Life treat­ment, you’ll have to do it your­self, with his bless­ing. Fan stabs at Scar­face, The Silence of the Lambs and Gone with the Wind sug­gest that the trick is not quite as easy to pull off as one might think.

You can view the com­plete col­lec­tion on The Walk of Life Project’s web­site or YouTube chan­nel.

via Giz­mo­do

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Art of Film and TV Title Design

Watch Steven Soderbergh’s Cre­ative Mashup of Hitch­cock and Gus Van Sant’s Psy­cho Films

Hear 4+ Hours of Jazz Noir: A Sound­track for Strolling Under Street Lights on Fog­gy Nights

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  She’ll is cur­rent­ly appear­ing as one of the clowns in Paul David Young’s Faust 3, open­ing this week­end in New York City. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

7‑Foot Tall Clown with a Golden Voice Sings Chris Cornell’s “When I’m Down:” A Tribute Filled with Raw Emotion

in Life, Music | June 9th, 2017

Back in April, Ayun Hal­l­i­day gave you a glimpse into the world of “Pud­dles Pity Par­ty,” the 6’8” ‘Sad Clown with the Gold­en Voice,’ who makes his home in Atlanta, Geor­gia. And does all kinds of won­der­ful things–like sing “Pin­ball Wiz­ard” in the style of John­ny Cash. Don’t miss that one. It’s pret­ty spec­tac­u­lar.

In his lat­est video, Pud­dles joins up with Matthew Kamin­s­ki, organ­ist for the Atlanta Braves, and deliv­ers a trib­ute to Soundgar­den’s Chris Cor­nell, cov­er­ing his 1999 song “When I’m Down,” with a lit­tle bit of “What’ll I Do” by Irv­ing Berlin mixed in. You won’t find anoth­er trib­ute like it. That we can assure you.

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:

Sad 7‑Foot Tall Clown Sings “Pin­ball Wiz­ard” in the Style of John­ny Cash, and Oth­er Hits by Roy Orbi­son, Cheap Trick & More

Large Choir Sings “Black Hole Sun”: A Mov­ing Trib­ute to Chris Cor­nell

Soundgarden’s Chris Cor­nell Sings Haunt­ing Acoustic Cov­ers of Prince’s “Noth­ing Com­pares 2 U,” Michael Jackson’s “Bil­lie Jean” & Bob Marley’s “Redemp­tion Song”

10-Story High Mural of Muddy Waters Goes Up in Chicago

in Art, Music | June 9th, 2017

Image by Ter­ence Fair­cloth, via Flickr Com­mons

If you find your­self near State and Wash­ing­ton streets in Chica­go, look up and you’ll see a mur­al of blues­man Mud­dy Waters ris­ing 10 sto­ries high. It was paint­ed, the Chica­go Tri­bune tells us, by Brazil­ian street artist Eduar­do Kobra and fel­low painters. And it was offi­cial­ly ded­i­cat­ed yes­ter­day, at the begin­ning of the Chica­go Blues Fes­ti­val. Respect.

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!

via Ted Gioia

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Mud­dy Waters and Friends on the Blues and Gospel Train, 1964

Clas­sic Blues Songs By John Lee Hook­er, B.B. King & Mud­dy Waters Played on the Gayageum, a Tra­di­tion­al Kore­an Instru­ment

The His­to­ry of the Blues in 50 Riffs: From Blind Lemon Jef­fer­son (1928) to Joe Bona­mas­sa (2009)

Ancient Rome’s System of Roads Visualized in the Style of Modern Subway Maps

in History, Maps | June 8th, 2017

Sasha Tru­bet­skoy, an under­grad at U. Chica­go, has cre­at­ed a “sub­way-style dia­gram of the major Roman roads, based on the Empire of ca. 125 AD.” Draw­ing on Stanford’s ORBIS mod­el, The Pela­gios Project, and the Anto­nine Itin­er­ary, Tru­bet­skoy’s map com­bines well-known his­toric roads, like the Via Appia, with less­er-known ones (in somes cas­es giv­en imag­ined names). If you want to get a sense of scale, it would take, Tru­bet­skoy tells us, “two months to walk on foot from Rome to Byzan­tium. If you had a horse, it would only take you a month.”

You can view the map in a larg­er for­mat here. And if you fol­low this link and send Tru­bet­skoy a few bucks, he promis­es to email you a crisp PDF for print­ing. Enjoy.

via coudal

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 Won­der­ground Map of Lon­don Town,” the Icon­ic 1914 Map That Saved the World’s First Sub­way Sys­tem

Design­er Mas­si­mo Vignel­li Revis­its and Defends His Icon­ic 1972 New York City Sub­way Map

Ancient Maps that Changed the World: See World Maps from Ancient Greece, Baby­lon, Rome, and the Islam­ic World

Watch the Destruc­tion of Pom­peii by Mount Vesu­vius, Re-Cre­at­ed with Com­put­er Ani­ma­tion (79 AD)

Fash­ion­able 2,000-Year-Old Roman Shoe Found in a Well

The Rise & Fall of the Romans: Every Year Shown in a Time­lapse Map Ani­ma­tion (753 BC ‑1479 AD)

The History of Classical Music in 1200 Tracks: From Gregorian Chant to Górecki (100 Hours of Audio)

in Music | June 8th, 2017

What is clas­si­cal music? It may seem like a reme­di­al ques­tion, but it is a seri­ous one. Leonard Bern­stein took it seri­ous­ly enough to design an entire pro­gram around it. His “Young People’s Con­certs” with the New York Philharmonic—broadcast on TV from Carnegie Hall in 1959—began with an admis­sion of how unclear the ter­m’s usage had become in pop­u­lar cul­ture. “You see,” he told his young audi­ence, “every­body thinks he knows what clas­si­cal music is… Peo­ple use this word to describe music that isn’t jazz or pop­u­lar songs or folk music, just because there isn’t any oth­er word that seems to describe it bet­ter.”

Clas­si­cal music is often thought of in even more neb­u­lous, and per­haps elit­ist, terms as “art music,” over and above these oth­er forms. Yet Bern­stein goes on to define clas­si­cal music in more pre­cise ways: A clas­si­cal com­pos­er “puts down the exact notes that he wants, the exact instru­ments or voic­es that he wants to play or sing those notes—even the exact num­ber of instru­ments or voic­es; and he also writes down as many direc­tions as he can think of” about tem­po, dynam­ics, etc. What might sound like a straight­jack­et for musi­cians instead offers an inter­pre­tive chal­lenge: “No per­for­mance can be per­fect­ly exact.… But that’s what makes the per­former’s job so exciting–to try and find out from what the com­pos­er did write down as exact­ly as pos­si­ble what he meant.”

This work­ing def­i­n­i­tion, while devoid of tech­ni­cal jar­gon for the sake of Bern­stein’s untrained audi­ence, still man­ages to give us a good sense of the para­me­ters he set for the “clas­si­cal.” They do not stretch wide­ly enough to include impro­visato­ry mod­ernism (though he had a high regard for jazz as a sep­a­rate cat­e­go­ry). But they do include much instru­men­tal and choral Euro­pean music from the start of the medieval peri­od into the 20th cen­tu­ry. The def­i­n­i­tion could be a much nar­row­er one. “One of the first things you learn when you’re intro­duced to clas­si­cal music,” Jay Gabler writes at online radio sta­tion Clas­si­cal MPR, “is that the term ‘clas­si­cal’ most prop­er­ly describes music com­posed from about 1750 to 1820.”

This means Mozart and Haydn, most of Beethoven, but not Bach, Wag­n­er, Debussy, or Cop­land. And cer­tain­ly not aleato­ry exper­i­men­tal­ists like John Cage, min­i­mal­ists like Steve Reich, or aton­al odd­balls like Arnold Schoen­berg. While Bern­stein seems to set­tle the issue with rel­a­tive ease, “musi­col­o­gists,” Gabler notes, “can stay up all night talk­ing about the shape and tra­jec­to­ry of clas­si­cal music, debat­ing ques­tions like the impor­tance of the score, the role of impro­vi­sa­tion, and the nature of musi­cal form.” These are the kinds of dis­cus­sions one might have over the 1200-track Spo­ti­fy playlist above, “The His­to­ry of Clas­si­cal Music–From Gre­go­ri­an Chant to Górec­ki.” (If you need Spo­ti­fy’s soft­ware, down­load it here.)

We begin with the 11th cen­tu­ry church music of Leonin and Per­otin, two com­posers asso­ci­at­ed with Notre Dame who are cred­it­ed with “the begin­ning of mod­ern music” for their use of polypho­ny and var­i­ous rhyth­mic modes. (Hear the espe­cial­ly haunt­ing “Viderunt Omnes” by Leonin at the top of the post.) The playlist, cre­at­ed by a cura­tor who goes by Ulysses Clas­si­cal, then takes us through the late Medieval and Renais­sance peri­ods and into the Baroque, exem­pli­fied by Han­del, Bach, Vival­di, Pachel­bel, Scar­lat­ti, and oth­ers. Beethoven and Mozart get their due, but not more so than Dvořák and Tchaikovsky.

By the time we reach the 20th cen­tu­ry, we begin to move quite far from the for­mal­ism of Bern­stein’s def­i­n­i­tion and into the strange realms of Schoen­berg, Mes­si­aen, Ligeti, Reich, and Philip Glass, with whom this his­to­ry ends. Obvi­ous­ly the strict peri­odiza­tion Gabler men­tions can­not con­tain all of what we mean by clas­si­cal music, but just how much can the des­ig­na­tion encom­pass aton­al exper­i­men­tal mod­ernism and still be a coher­ent con­cept? Let the musi­col­o­gists debate. For those of us who approach this music as a form of pure plea­sure, it’s enough just to sit back and lis­ten.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Leonard Bernstein’s Mas­ter­ful Lec­tures on Music (11+ Hours of Video Record­ed at Har­vard in 1973)

Stream 58 Hours of Free Clas­si­cal Music Select­ed to Help You Study, Work, or Sim­ply Relax

The World Con­cert Hall: Lis­ten To The Best Live Clas­si­cal Music Con­certs for Free

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

Download 2,500 Beautiful Woodblock Prints and Drawings by Japanese Masters (1600–1915)

in Art | June 8th, 2017

No one art form has done more to shape the world’s sense of tra­di­tion­al Japan­ese aes­thet­ics than the wood­block print. But not so very long ago, in his­tor­i­cal terms, no such works had ever left Japan. That changed when, accord­ing to the Library of Con­gress, “Amer­i­can naval offi­cer Matthew Cal­braith Per­ry (1794–1858) led an expe­di­tion to Japan between 1852 and 1854 that was instru­men­tal in open­ing Japan to the West­ern world after more than 200 years of nation­al seclu­sion.” As trav­el­ers, mate­ri­als, and prod­ucts began flow­ing between Japan and the West, so did art.

This flow hap­pened, of course, by sea, and so Japan­ese artists work­ing in wood­block and oth­er forms soon found that the port city of Yoko­hama had become “an incu­ba­tor for a new cat­e­go­ry of images that strad­dled con­ven­tion and nov­el­ty.”

In their depic­tions of mod­ern Yoko­hama, “bewhiskered men and crino­line-clad women were shown strid­ing through the city, clam­ber­ing on and off ships, rid­ing hors­es, enjoy­ing local enter­tain­ments, and inter­act­ing with an end­less array of objects from gob­lets to loco­mo­tives.” This new genre in an estab­lished tra­di­tion took on the name “Yokohama‑e,” or “pic­tures of Yoko­hama.”

Hun­dreds of years ear­li­er, dur­ing the Toku­gawa Peri­od that began in the year 1600, that tra­di­tion had already pro­duced the now well-known genre of “Ukiyo‑e,” or “pic­tures of the float­ing world,” wood­block depic­tions of the plea­sure dis­tricts of Edo, now called Tokyo. “Var­i­ous forms of enter­tain­ment, par­tic­u­lar­ly kabu­ki the­ater and the plea­sure quar­ters, lured monied patrons who were eager in turn to acquire the vivid images of cel­e­brat­ed actors and beau­ti­ful cour­te­sans.” Lat­er, “trav­el became a pop­u­lar form of leisure and the plea­sures of the nat­ur­al envi­ron­ment, inter­est­ing land­marks, and the adven­tures encoun­tered en route also became favorite Ukiyo‑e themes.” Ukiyo‑e also looked to “Japan­ese myth, leg­end, lit­er­a­ture, his­to­ry, and dai­ly life” for sub­jects, and so its pro­lif­ic artists cap­tured the cul­ture near­ly whole.

You can come as close as pos­si­ble to expe­ri­enc­ing that cul­ture by view­ing, and down­load­ing, more than 2,500 Japan­ese wood­block prints and draw­ings at the Library of Con­gress’ online col­lec­tion “Fine Prints: Japan­ese, pre-1915.” It includes work from such pro­lif­ic Ukiyo‑e artists as Hoku­sai Kat­sushi­ka (whose Tea­house at Koishikawa the Morn­ing After a Snow­fall appears at the top of the post), Andō Hiroshige (Minakuchi below that), Iso­da Koryū­sai (Kisara­gi, third from the top), and Uta­gawa Yoshi­fu­ji (whose Amerika­jin Yūgyō, one of his depic­tions of Amer­i­cans, appears just above). As much as Japan has changed since the hey­day of the Yokohama‑e, much less the Ukiyo‑e, any vis­i­tor to the coun­try in the 21st cen­tu­ry will first notice not how much the sur­faces of Japan’s real urban and nat­ur­al land­scapes, domes­tic inte­ri­ors, and pub­lic scenes dif­fer from those in clas­si­cal wood­block prints, but how deeply they’ve remained the same.

Enter the col­lec­tion here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Down­load Hun­dreds of 19th-Cen­tu­ry Japan­ese Wood­block Prints by Mas­ters of the Tra­di­tion

What Hap­pens When a Japan­ese Wood­block Artist Depicts Life in Lon­don in 1866, Despite Nev­er Hav­ing Set Foot There

Splen­did Hand-Scroll Illus­tra­tions of The Tale of Gen­jii, The First Nov­el Ever Writ­ten (Cir­ca 1120)

Behold the Mas­ter­piece by Japan’s Last Great Wood­block Artist: View Online Tsukio­ka Yoshitoshi’s One Hun­dred Aspects of the Moon (1885)

The (F)Art of War: Bawdy Japan­ese Art Scroll Depicts Wrench­ing Changes in 19th Cen­tu­ry Japan

Hayao Miyazaki’s Beloved Char­ac­ters Reimag­ined in the Style of 19th-Cen­tu­ry Wood­block Prints

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities and cul­ture. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer, the video series The City in Cin­e­ma, the crowd­fund­ed jour­nal­ism project Where Is the City of the Future?, and the Los Ange­les Review of Books’ Korea Blog. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.