Acclaimed Japanese Jazz Pianist Yōsuke Yamashita Plays a Burning Piano on the Beach

in Jazz, Music | December 19th, 2016

Unlike­ly as it might seem, the Japan­ese jazz scene has for decades and decades pro­duced some of the finest play­ers in the world, from tra­di­tion­al­ists to exper­i­men­tal­ists and every­thing in-between. One might say the same about oth­er jazz-inclined coun­tries (those of north­ern Europe, for instance, hav­ing devel­oped par­tic­u­lar­ly robust scenes), but those coun­tries have to do with­out enliven­ment by “only in Japan” moments like the one we have above: jazz pianist Yōsuke Yamashita, acclaimed on both sides of the Pacif­ic, play­ing piano on the beach — a piano on fire on the beach, to be pre­cise.

This was­n’t even the first time he’d done it. In 1973, famed graph­ic design­er Kiyoshi Awazu asked Yamashita to appear in his short film burn­ing piano, play­ing the tit­u­lar instru­ment. Watch­ing it again 35 years lat­er, Yamashita wrote, “See­ing myself engaged in that extra­or­di­nary per­for­mance, I felt this wave of emo­tion that was like, ‘What was that?’

In one sense, I had per­formed as an ‘object’ in a Kiyoshi Awazu art­work. In anoth­er, how­ev­er, I had per­haps expe­ri­enced a form of artis­tic expres­sion that no one before me had ever expe­ri­enced before, as the result of a sit­u­a­tion that could only have hap­pened at that time. ‘What was that?’ There was only one way I could recon­firm this for myself—by doing it one more time.”

The oppor­tu­ni­ty arose at the behest of Kanaza­wa’s 21st Cen­tu­ry Muse­um of Con­tem­po­rary Art, who staged Burn­ing Piano 2008. You can read the even­t’s pro­gram as a PDF, which con­tains Yamashita’s reflec­tions lead­ing up to the event. It also con­tains remarks from an Awazu Design Room rep­re­sen­ta­tive who wit­nessed the orig­i­nal burn­ing piano shoot, a local piano deal­er (who assures us that long after the piano “began to appear in Japan­ese homes in the era of high-lev­el eco­nom­ic growth,” some “must be destroyed amid reluc­tant feel­ings”), and the may­or of Shi­ka Town, on whose Masuhogau­ra Beach Yamashita donned his sil­ver pro­tec­tive suit and played a funer­al requiem on the flam­ing instru­ment until it could pro­duce not a sound more.

“I did not think I was risk­ing my life,” Yamashita lat­er said, “but I was almost suf­fo­cat­ing from the smoke that was con­tin­u­ous­ly get­ting into my eyes and nose. I had decid­ed to keep on play­ing until the piano stopped mak­ing sounds, so though I did not mean it, but it end­ed up hav­ing a life-or-death bat­tle between the piano and myself.” Ded­i­cat­ed jazz play­ers know what it means to suf­fer for their art, as do all the par­tic­i­pants in the age-old inten­sive Japan­ese con­cep­tion of mas­tery, but who would have guessed that those cul­tures would inter­sect so… com­bustibly?

via Dan­ger­ous Minds

Relat­ed Con­tent:

CERN’s Cos­mic Piano and Jazz Pianist Jam Togeth­er at The Mon­treux Jazz Fes­ti­val

Hear the Exper­i­men­tal Piano Jazz Album by Come­di­an H. Jon Ben­jamin — Who Can’t Play Piano

Park­ing Garage Door Does Impres­sion of Miles Davis’ Jazz Album, Bitch­es Brew

Hunter S. Thomp­son Sets His Christ­mas Tree on Fire, Near­ly Burns His House Down (1990)

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.

New York City: A Social History (A Free Online Course from N.Y.U.)

in | December 19th, 2016

Taught by Daniel Walkowitz, this N.Y.U. course, enti­tled New York City: A Social His­to­ry, cov­ers the fol­low­ing ground:

New York City, grow­ing from the small Dutch com­mer­cial set­tle­ment of New Ams­ter­dam ear­ly in the sev­en­teenth cen­tu­ry into a bustling mul­ti-cul­tur­al city of more than 7 mil­lion and metrop­o­lis of more than 15 mil­lion by the twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry, is a place with many sto­ries. A semes­ter of 14 weeks can only touch on some of them. This course will focus on the social his­to­ry of the city – the peo­ples who have built the city and com­pet­ing efforts by dif­fer­ent num­bers to autho­rize their dreams for the city. As arguably the cap­i­tal for glob­al cap­i­tal­ism today, one focus of this course will seek to plot its devel­op­ment and lega­cy for the shap­ing of the city. A more par­tic­u­lar and relat­ed local sto­ry will be stud­ied as well, how­ev­er: the polit­i­cal and cul­tur­al inter­ests, ide­olo­gies and play­ers who shape and reshape the city as Man­hat­tan, as New York and as the Metrop­o­lis.

You can watch the 26 lec­tures above, or find them on YouTube. New York City: A Social His­to­ry will be added to our col­lec­tion of Free Online His­to­ry cours­es, a sub­set of our col­lec­tion, 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties.

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!

Giant Dinosaurs Travel Down the Hudson River: See What Awestruck New Yorkers Witnessed in 1963

in Biology, History, Science, Travel | December 19th, 2016

Amaz­ing things hap­pen every day in New York City—some spon­ta­neous, some whose exe­cu­tion is care­ful­ly planned over weeks and months.

Equal­ly amaz­ing is the total igno­rance with which one can go about one’s busi­ness at just a few blocks remove … be it the Coney Island Mer­maid Parade, Egg Rolls and Egg Creams, or the Three Kings Day Parade, some folks only have eyes for brunch.

But it would have been dif­fi­cult for any­one to over­look sev­en ani­ma­tron­ic dinosaurs, trav­el­ing by barge on Octo­ber 15, 1963, bound for the Sin­clair Oil Cor­po­ra­tion’s “Dinoland” exhib­it at the 1964 World’s Fair.

In a stunt wor­thy of Bar­num, the syn­thet­ic beasts trekked 150 miles from the exhibit’s design­er, Jonas Stu­dios, to the World’s Fair site in Flush­ing, Queens, hailed by fire­boats and an enthu­si­as­tic throng. The spon­sor­ing cor­po­ra­tion, whose high­ly rec­og­niz­able logo was a bron­tosaurus, had fur­nished the pub­lic with a timetable of esti­mat­ed arrivals along the route.

For good mea­sure, every fam­i­ly to vis­it the exhib­it with­in the first year was offered a coupon for a free gal­lon of gaso­line.

Installed in what the mar­velous­ly evoca­tive Jam Handy short below termed a “prime loca­tion sur­round­ed by titans of Amer­i­can indus­try,” the dinosaurs attract­ed over 10 mil­lion “car-own­ing, trav­el­ing” fans. (That’s a lot of fos­sil fuel.)

On the way out, vis­i­tors were encour­aged to avail them­selves of the Mold-A-Rama machine, which pumped out minia­ture plas­tic dinosaur sou­venirs at 25¢ a pop.

After the fair closed, the dinosaurs went on tour, put in an appear­ance in the Macy’s Thanks­giv­ing Day Parade, and even­tu­al­ly set­tled into zoos and nat­ur­al his­to­ry muse­ums around the coun­try.

Read the Dinoland guide­book here. A sam­ple:

Sin­clair uses the Dinosaur “Bron­tosaurus” as a sym­bol to dra­ma­tize the age and qual­i­ty of the crude oils from which Sin­clair Petro­le­um Prod­ucts are made — crudes which were mel­low­ing in the earth mil­lions of years ago when Dinosaurs lived.

via @Pickover

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Ger­tie the Dinosaur: The Moth­er of all Car­toon Char­ac­ters (1914)

Watch Lost World (1925), the Grand­dad­dy of Giant Mon­ster Movies Like The Lost World: Juras­sic Park

Watch a Time­lapse Video Show­ing the Cre­ation of New York City’s Sky­line: 1500 to Present

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Her play Zam­boni Godot is open­ing in New York City in March 2017. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

Concepts of the Hero in Greek Civilization (A Free Harvard Course)

in | December 19th, 2016

By click­ing here you can access “all the resources asso­ci­at­ed with a dis­tance learn­ing course taught by Cen­ter Direc­tor Gre­go­ry Nagy–including mul­ti­me­dia lec­tures and dis­cus­sions, audio record­ings, lec­ture notes, and the com­plete col­lec­tion of read­ings. Con­cepts of the Hero in Greek Civ­i­liza­tion pro­vides an engag­ing intro­duc­tion to the major themes of ancient Greek myth, cult, and poet­ics.”

Gre­go­ry Nagy is Pro­fes­sor of Clas­si­cal Greek Lit­er­a­ture at Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty. Con­cepts of the Hero in Greek Civ­i­liza­tion has been added to our col­lec­tion, 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties.

China: Traditions and Transformations (A Free Harvard Course)

in | December 18th, 2016

Orig­i­nal­ly pre­sent­ed at Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty’s Exten­sion School by pro­fes­sor Peter K. Bol, this course–entitled “Chi­na: Tra­di­tions and Transformations”–covers the fol­low­ing mate­r­i­al:

Mod­ern Chi­na presents a dual image: a soci­ety trans­form­ing itself through eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment and social rev­o­lu­tion; and the world’s largest and old­est bureau­crat­ic state, cop­ing with long­stand­ing prob­lems of eco­nom­ic and polit­i­cal man­age­ment. Both images bear the indeli­ble imprint of China’s his­tor­i­cal expe­ri­ence, of its pat­terns of phi­los­o­phy and reli­gion, and of its social and polit­i­cal thought. These themes are dis­cussed in order to under­stand Chi­na in the mod­ern world and as a great world civ­i­liza­tion that devel­oped along lines dif­fer­ent from those of the Mediter­ranean.

You can find the lec­tures in var­i­ous media for­mats on this archived page.

Chi­na: Tra­di­tions and Trans­for­ma­tions will be added to our col­lec­tion of Free Online His­to­ry cours­es, a sub­set of our col­lec­tion, 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties.

Shakespeare After All: The Later Plays (A Free Course from Harvard)

in | December 18th, 2016

Taught by Har­vard Eng­lish pro­fes­sor Mar­jorie Gar­ber, this course–entitled Shake­speare After All: The Lat­er Plays–“focus­es on Shakespeare’s lat­er plays begin­ning with Mea­sure for Mea­sure and end­ing with The Tem­pest.” The course descrip­tion con­tin­ues as fol­lows:

Build­ing on the dis­cus­sions of indi­vid­ual plays in Mar­jorie Garber’s book Shake­speare After All, this course takes note of key themes, issues, and inter­pre­ta­tions of the plays, focus­ing on ques­tions of genre, gen­der, pol­i­tics, fam­i­ly rela­tions, silence and speech, and cul­tur­al pow­er from both above and below (roy­al­ty, nobil­i­ty, and the court; clowns and fools). Designed as part lec­ture-pre­sen­ta­tion and part dis­cus­sion, this is a course that is meant to be inter­ac­tive, tak­ing up top­ics gen­er­at­ed by stu­dents as well as by the instruc­tor. We dis­cuss a play each week, along with the rel­e­vant crit­i­cal read­ing.

The thir­teen lec­tures are avail­able on Youtube (watch them above), and you can also find them in oth­er for­mats (Quick­time, Flash video, MP3 audio only) on this archived page. Each lec­ture runs about 2 hours.

Shake­speare After All: The Lat­er Plays has been added to our col­lec­tion of Free Online Lit­er­a­ture Cours­es, a sub­set of our col­lec­tion, 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties.

Introduction to Psychology: A Free Course from Yale University

in Online Courses, Psychology | December 18th, 2016

Taught by Yale pro­fes­sor Paul Bloom, this course presents an Intro­duc­tion to Psy­chol­o­gy and tries to explain what makes us tick:

What do your dreams mean? Do men and women dif­fer in the nature and inten­si­ty of their sex­u­al desires? Can apes learn sign lan­guage? Why can’t we tick­le our­selves? This course tries to answer these ques­tions and many oth­ers, pro­vid­ing a com­pre­hen­sive overview of the sci­en­tif­ic study of thought and behav­ior. It explores top­ics such as per­cep­tion, com­mu­ni­ca­tion, learn­ing, mem­o­ry, deci­sion-mak­ing, reli­gion, per­sua­sion, love, lust, hunger, art, fic­tion, and dreams. We will look at how these aspects of the mind devel­op in chil­dren, how they dif­fer across peo­ple, how they are wired-up in the brain, and how they break down due to ill­ness and injury.

You can watch the 20 lec­tures from the course above, or find them on YouTube and iTunes. To get more infor­ma­tion on the course, includ­ing the syl­labus, vis­it this Yale web­site.

The main texts used in this course include:

• Gray, Peter. Psy­chol­o­gy. New York: Worth Pub­lish­ers, 2007.
• Mar­cus, Gary, ed. The Nor­ton Psy­chol­o­gy Read­er. New York: W. W. Nor­ton & Com­pa­ny, 2006.

Intro­duc­tion to Psy­chol­o­gy will be added to our col­lec­tion, 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties. There you can find a spe­cial­ized list of Free Online Psy­chol­o­gy and Neu­ro­science Cours­es.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

A Crash Course on Psy­chol­o­gy: A 30-Part Video Series from Hank Green

The Neu­ro­science & Psy­chol­o­gy of Pro­cras­ti­na­tion, and How to Over­come It

How To Think Like a Psy­chol­o­gist: A Free Online Course from Stan­ford

African-American History: Modern Freedom Struggle (A Free Course from Stanford)

in | December 18th, 2016

Taught by his­to­ri­an Clay­borne Car­son, the edi­tor of the papers of Mar­tin Luther King, Jr., this Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty course–entitled African-Amer­i­can His­to­ry: Mod­ern Free­dom Strug­gle–pro­vides an intro­duc­tion to African-Amer­i­can his­to­ry, “with a par­tic­u­lar empha­sis on the polit­i­cal thought and protest move­ments of the peri­od after 1930.” It focus­es “on select­ed indi­vid­u­als who have shaped and been shaped by mod­ern African-Amer­i­can strug­gles for free­dom and jus­tice.”

All 18 video lec­tures can be viewed above. Or they can be oth­er­wise found on YouTube and iTunes.

African-Amer­i­can His­to­ry: Mod­ern Free­dom Strug­gle has been added to our list of Free Online His­to­ry Cours­es, a sub­set of our col­lec­tion, 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties.

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:

African Amer­i­can His­to­ry-Eman­ci­pa­tion to the Present: A Free Course from Yale Uni­ver­si­ty

Watch Cor­nel West’s Free Online Course on W.E.B. Du Bois, the Great 20th Cen­tu­ry Pub­lic Intel­lec­tu­al

Free Online His­to­ry Cours­es

Introduction to the Old Testament: A Free Yale Course

in | December 18th, 2016

Taught by Chris­tine Hayes, this Yale course offers an Intro­duc­tion to the Old Tes­ta­ment, and cov­ers the fol­low­ing ground:

This course exam­ines the Old Tes­ta­ment (Hebrew Bible) as an expres­sion of the reli­gious life and thought of ancient Israel, and a foun­da­tion­al doc­u­ment of West­ern civ­i­liza­tion. A wide range of method­olo­gies, includ­ing source crit­i­cism and the his­tor­i­cal-crit­i­cal school, tra­di­tion crit­i­cism, redac­tion crit­i­cism, and lit­er­ary and canon­i­cal approach­es are applied to the study and inter­pre­ta­tion of the Bible. Spe­cial empha­sis is placed on the Bible against the back­drop of its his­tor­i­cal and cul­tur­al set­ting in the Ancient Near East.

You can watch the 24 lec­tures from the course above, or find them on YouTube. To get more infor­ma­tion on the course, includ­ing the syl­labus, vis­it this Yale web­site.

Texts used in this course include:

Berlin, Adele, and Marc Zvi Bret­tler, eds., Michael Fish­bane, senior con­sult­ing edi­tor. 2004. The Jew­ish Study Bible: Fea­tur­ing the Jew­ish Pub­li­ca­tion Soci­ety Tanakh Trans­la­tion. Oxford: Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty Press.

Pritchard, James B, ed. 1958. The Ancient Near East, Vol­ume 1: An Anthol­o­gy of Texts and Pic­tures. Prince­ton, N.J.: Prince­ton Uni­ver­si­ty Press.

Intro­duc­tion to the Old Tes­ta­ment will be added to our col­lec­tion, 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties. There you can find a spe­cial­ized list of Free Online Reli­gion Cours­es.

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!

Introduction to Political Philosophy: A Free Online Course from Yale University

in | December 18th, 2016

Taught by pro­fes­sor Steven B. Smith, this course from Yale Uni­ver­si­ty offers an Intro­duc­tion to Polit­i­cal Phi­los­o­phy, and cov­ers the fol­low­ing ground:

This course is intend­ed as an intro­duc­tion to polit­i­cal phi­los­o­phy as seen through an exam­i­na­tion of some of the major texts and thinkers of the West­ern polit­i­cal tra­di­tion. Three broad themes that are cen­tral to under­stand­ing polit­i­cal life are focused upon: the polis expe­ri­ence (Pla­to, Aris­to­tle), the sov­er­eign state (Machi­avel­li, Hobbes), con­sti­tu­tion­al gov­ern­ment (Locke), and democ­ra­cy (Rousseau, Toc­queville). The way in which dif­fer­ent polit­i­cal philoso­phies have giv­en expres­sion to var­i­ous forms of polit­i­cal insti­tu­tions and our ways of life are exam­ined through­out the course.

You can watch the 24 lec­tures from the course above, or find them on YouTube. To get more infor­ma­tion on the course, includ­ing the syl­labus, vis­it this Yale web­site.

The main texts used in this course include the fol­low­ing. You can find them in our col­lec­tion of Free eBooks.

• Pla­to, Tri­al and Death of Socrates
• Pla­to, Repub­lic
• Aris­to­tle, Pol­i­tics
• Machi­avel­li, The Prince
• Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan
• John Locke, Sec­ond Trea­tise of Gov­ern­ment
• Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Polit­i­cal Writ­ings
• Alex­is de Toc­queville, Democ­ra­cy in Amer­i­ca

Intro­duc­tion to Polit­i­cal Phi­los­o­phy will be added to our col­lec­tion, 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties. There you can find a spe­cial­ized list of Free Online Phi­los­o­phy Cours­es.

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:

Oxford’s Free Course Crit­i­cal Rea­son­ing For Begin­ners Teach­es You to Think Like a Philoso­pher

Free Online Phi­los­o­phy Cours­es

Michael Sandel’s Free Course on Jus­tice, the Most Pop­u­lar Course at Har­vard, Is Now Online