Stephen Hawking’s Uplifting Message: You Can Get Yourself Out of Any Hole, No Matter What Their Size

in Animation, Physics | February 22nd, 2016

Sev­er­al weeks back, you might recall, Stephen Hawk­ing deliv­ered two Rei­th lec­tures over the radio air­waves of the BBC –one called “Do Black Holes Have No Hair?,” the oth­er “Black Holes Ain’t as Black as They Are Paint­ed.” Both were fea­tured here, accom­pa­nied by some live­ly chalk­board ani­ma­tions.

Above you can watch an out­take from the sec­ond lec­ture, this time ani­mat­ed in a dif­fer­ent aes­thet­ic. It’s trip­py, hyp­not­ic, and unless you’re ground­ed in the mate­r­i­al, the talk will leave you a lit­tle baffled–at least until the end, when Hawk­ing leaves us with a life-affirm­ing mes­sage any­one can relate to. “If you feel like you’re in a black hole, don’t give up. There’s a way out.” At once, he’s talk­ing lit­er­al­ly about black holes that are no longer thought to con­sume every­thing they encounter, and the metaphor­i­cal ones we all run into, some­where along the way, in life.

On that uplift­ing note, anoth­er week begins…

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

Stephen Hawking’s Lec­tures on Black Holes Now Ful­ly Ani­mat­ed with Chalk­board Illus­tra­tions

Free Online Physics Cours­es

Psy­che­del­ic Ani­ma­tion Takes You Inside the Mind of Stephen Hawk­ing

The Big Ideas of Stephen Hawk­ing Explained with Sim­ple Ani­ma­tion

Watch A Brief His­to­ry of Time, Errol Mor­ris’ Film About the Life & Work of Stephen Hawk­ing

Umberto Eco Dies at 84; Leaves Behind Advice to Aspiring Writers

in Life, Writing | February 19th, 2016

Umber­to Eco, the Ital­ian semi­oti­cian, philoso­pher, lit­er­ary crit­ic, and nov­el­ist — and, of course, author of Fou­cault’s Pen­du­lum — has died at his home in Milan. He was 84.

Eco’s pass­ing adds some poignan­cy to a video he record­ed just last year, on behalf of The Louisiana Chan­nel, a media out­let based, of all places, in Den­mark. In the clip above, Eco gives some coun­sel to aspir­ing writ­ers: Keep your ego in check, and your ambi­tions, real­is­tic. Put in the time and the hard work, and don’t shoot for the Nobel Prize in Lit­er­a­ture straight out of the gate. That, Eco says, kills every lit­er­ary career. And remem­ber that writ­ing is “10% inspi­ra­tion and 90% per­spi­ra­tion.” They’re truisms–you dis­cov­er after spend­ing decades as a writer–that turn out to be true. That con­fir­ma­tion is one of the gifts he leaves behind.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Umber­to Eco’s How To Write a The­sis: A Wit­ty, Irrev­er­ent & High­ly Prac­ti­cal Guide Now Out in Eng­lish

Download 14 Free Posters from NASA That Depict the Future of Space Travel in a Captivatingly Retro Style

in Science, Travel | February 19th, 2016

If I could send a mes­sage back in time, I might send it to the wide-eyed and sky­ward-look­ing chil­dren of 1960s Amer­i­ca, apol­o­giz­ing that we nev­er did build those jet­packs, fly­ing cars, and moon colonies, but also let­ting them know that at least we, the cit­i­zens of the 21st cen­tu­ry, have devel­oped such tech­nolo­gies as smart­phones and a myr­i­ad of ways for snack foods to taste both sweet and salty at once.

I prob­a­bly would­n’t tell them how many of us long for the spir­it of their own time, which Amer­i­can his­to­ry has labeled “the Space Age” for good rea­son. It had its share of awful­ness, start­ing with the apoc­a­lyp­tic ten­sions of the Cold War, but that com­pe­ti­tion between soci­eties did spur mankind to voy­age bold­ly and unhesi­tat­ing­ly out into the great beyond, at least for a while there.

“Back in the 1930s and ’40s, dur­ing the height of the Great Depres­sion,” writes Hyper­al­ler­gic’s Alli­son Meier, “artists designed posters for the Works Projects Admin­is­tra­tion (WPA) to encour­age trav­el to nation­al parks and oth­er tourist sites in the Unit­ed States. NASA’s Jet Propul­sion Lab­o­ra­to­ry (JPL) design stu­dio is tak­ing a sim­i­lar approach to pro­mote a future of trav­el to oth­er plan­ets at a time when its fund­ing is up against bud­get con­straints and even a jour­ney to our galac­tic neigh­bor Mars may seem almost impos­si­ble.” And so we have this brand new series of four­teen Visions of the Future, free to down­load, print, and hang above your desk to fuel your own out­er-space day­dream­ing.

You’ll notice that all the artists com­mis­sioned have designed their space-trav­el posters—whether they pro­mote the high grav­i­ty of the “super Earth” exo­plan­et HD 40307g, the one-day “His­toric Sites of Mars,” or the “Grand Tour” of the Solar System—in a rich­ly retro style rem­i­nis­cent of 1930s air trav­el adver­tise­ments. This makes them artis­ti­cal­ly cap­ti­vat­ing, but also empha­sizes the con­ti­nu­ity between our present, the cen­tu­ry behind us, and the cen­turies ahead. “As you look through these images of imag­i­na­tive trav­el des­ti­na­tions,” says NASA/JPL’s site, “remem­ber that you can be an archi­tect of the future” — and every future wor­thy of the name comes built solid­ly upon a past.

You can down­load the full col­lec­tion of posters right here.

via Hyper­al­ler­gic

Relat­ed con­tent:

How the Icon­ic 1968 “Earth­rise” Pho­to Was Made: An Engross­ing Visu­al­iza­tion by NASA

NASA Archive Col­lects Great Time-Lapse Videos of our Plan­et

Ray Brad­bury Reads Mov­ing Poem on the Eve of NASA’s 1971 Mars Mis­sion

NASA Presents “The Earth as Art” in a Free eBook and Free iPad App

NASA Sends Image of the Mona Lisa to the Moon and Back

Free Inter­ac­tive e‑Books from NASA Reveal His­to­ry, Dis­cov­er­ies of the Hub­ble & Webb Tele­scopes

Leonard Nimoy Nar­rates Short Film About NASA’s Dawn: A Voy­age to the Ori­gins of the Solar Sys­tem

The Best of NASA Space Shut­tle Videos (1981–2010)

Won­der­ful­ly Kitschy Pro­pa­gan­da Posters Cham­pi­on the Chi­nese Space Pro­gram (1962–2003)

“Glo­ry to the Con­querors of the Uni­verse!”: Pro­pa­gan­da Posters from the Sovi­et Space Race (1958–1963)

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and style. 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.

Paul Giamatti Plays Honoré de Balzac, Hopped Up on 50 Coffees Per Day

in Food & Drink, Literature | February 19th, 2016

It’s the stuff of leg­end. Hon­oré de Balzac cranked out 50+ nov­els in 20 years and died at 51. The cause? Too much work and caf­feine. How much cof­fee? Up to 50 cups per day, they say.

Whether true or not, it’s fun to imag­ine what that scene might have looked like. Enter Paul Gia­mat­ti, known for his roles in Side­ways, Amer­i­can Splen­dor and John Adams, who gives us his com­ic take. This new short film comes from The New York­er, which has just released the first sea­son of The New York­er Presents on Ama­zon.

For more on Balza­c’s cof­fee habit, see the first two items in the Relat­eds below.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hon­oré de Balzac Writes About “The Plea­sures and Pains of Cof­fee,” and His Epic Cof­fee Addic­tion

The Cof­fee Pot That Fueled Hon­oré de Balzac’s Cof­fee Addic­tion

Philoso­phers Drink­ing Cof­fee: The Exces­sive Habits of Kant, Voltaire & Kierkegaard

J.S. Bach’s Com­ic Opera, “The Cof­fee Can­ta­ta,” Sings the Prais­es of the Great Stim­u­lat­ing Drink (1735)

Summertime: Willie Nelson Sings Gershwin Is Now Streaming Free for a Limited Time

in Music | February 19th, 2016

A quick fyi: You now stream for a lim­it­ed time Sum­mer­time: Willie Nel­son Sings Gersh­win. The new album fea­tures Nel­son cov­er­ing 11 clas­sic songs writ­ten by George and Ira Gersh­win. And it includes duets with Cyn­di Lau­per and Sheryl Crow. You can stream the album (due to be offi­cial­ly released on Feb­ru­ary 26th) right below, or hear it over on NPR’s First Lis­ten site. Enjoy.

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!

Willie Nel­son Shows You a Delight­ful Card Trick

Ella Fitzger­ald Sings ‘Sum­mer­time’ by George Gersh­win, Berlin 1968

Bob Dylan & The Grate­ful Dead Rehearse Togeth­er in Sum­mer 1987: Hear 74 Tracks

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

in Philosophy, Psychology | February 19th, 2016

Free will often seems like noth­ing more than a cru­el illu­sion. We don’t get to choose the times, places, and cir­cum­stances of our birth, nor do we have much con­trol over the state of our states, regions, or nations. Even the few who can design con­di­tions such that they are always secure and com­fort­able find them­selves unavoid­ably sub­ject to what Bud­dhists call the “divine mes­sen­gers” of sick­ness, aging, and death. Biol­o­gy may not be des­tiny, but it is a force more pow­er­ful than many of our best inten­tions. And though most of us in the West have the priv­i­lege of liv­ing far away from war zones, mil­lions across the world face extrem­i­ties we can only imag­ine, and to which we are not immune by any stretch.

Among all of the psy­chi­a­trists, philoso­phers, and reli­gious fig­ures who have wres­tled with these uni­ver­sal truths about the human con­di­tion, per­haps none has been put to the test quite like neu­rol­o­gist and psy­chother­a­pist Vik­tor Fran­kl, who sur­vived Auschwitz, but lost his moth­er, father, broth­er, and first wife to the camps.

While impris­oned, he faced what he described as “an unre­lent­ing strug­gle for dai­ly bread and for life itself.” After his camp was lib­er­at­ed in 1945, Fran­kl pub­lished an extra­or­di­nary book about his expe­ri­ences: Man’s Search for Mean­ing, “a strange­ly hope­ful book,” writes Matthew Scul­ly at First Things, “still a sta­ple on the self-help shelves” though it is “inescapably a book about death.” The book has seen dozens of edi­tions in dozens of lan­guages and ranks 9th on a list of most influ­en­tial books.

Fran­kl’s the­sis echoes those of many sages, from Bud­dhists to Sto­ics to his 20th cen­tu­ry Exis­ten­tial­ist con­tem­po­raries: “Every­thing can be tak­en from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s atti­tude in any giv­en set of cir­cum­stances, to choose one’s own way.” Not only did he find hope and mean­ing in the midst of ter­ri­ble suf­fer­ing, but after his unimag­in­able loss, he “remar­ried, wrote anoth­er twen­ty-five books, found­ed a school of psy­chother­a­py, built an insti­tute bear­ing his name in Vien­na,” and gen­er­al­ly lived a long, hap­py life. How? The inter­view above will give you some idea. Fran­kl main­tains that we always have some free­dom of choice, “in spite of the worst con­di­tions,” and there­fore always have the abil­i­ty to seek for mean­ing. “Peo­ple are free,” says Fran­kl, no mat­ter their lev­el of oppres­sion, and are respon­si­ble “for mak­ing some­one or some­thing out of them­selves.”

Fran­kl’s pri­ma­ry achieve­ment as a psy­chother­a­pist was to found the school of “logother­a­py,” a suc­ces­sor to Freudi­an psy­cho­analy­sis and Adler­ian indi­vid­ual psy­chol­o­gy. Draw­ing on Exis­ten­tial­ist phi­los­o­phy (Fran­kl’s book was pub­lished in Ger­many with the alter­nate title From Con­cen­tra­tion Camp to Exis­ten­tial­ism)—but turn­ing away from an obses­sion with the Absurd—his approach, writes his insti­tute, “is based on three philo­soph­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal con­cepts… Free­dom of Will, Will to Mean­ing, and Mean­ing in Life.”

You can hear how Fran­kl works these prin­ci­ples into his phi­los­o­phy in the fas­ci­nat­ing inter­view, as well as in the short clip above from an ear­li­er lec­ture, in which he rails against a crude and ulti­mate­ly unful­fill­ing form of mean­ing-mak­ing: the pur­suit of wealth. Even us mate­ri­al­is­tic Amer­i­cans, renowned for our greed, Fran­kl notes with good humor, respond to sur­veys in over­whelm­ing num­bers say­ing our great­est desire is to find mean­ing and pur­pose in life. Like no oth­er sec­u­lar voice, Fran­kl was con­fi­dent that we could do so, in spite of life’s seem­ing chaos, through—as he explains above—a kind of ide­al­ism that brings us clos­er to real­i­ty.

Note: You can down­load Fran­kl’s major book, “Man’s Search for Mean­ing,” as a free audio book if you join Audi­ble’s 30-Day Free Tri­al pro­gram. Find details on that here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Cre­ativ­i­ty, Not Mon­ey, is the Key to Hap­pi­ness: Dis­cov­er Psy­chol­o­gist Mihaly Csikszentmihaly’s The­o­ry of “Flow”

Albert Ein­stein Tells His Son The Key to Learn­ing & Hap­pi­ness is Los­ing Your­self in Cre­ativ­i­ty (or “Find­ing Flow”)

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

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

27 Movies References in The Simpsons Put Side-by-Side with the Movie Scenes They Paid Tribute To

in Animation, Comedy, Film, Television | February 19th, 2016

If an entire gen­er­a­tion of Amer­i­can adults suf­fers from Cin­e­mat­ic Chick­en Vs. Egg Syn­drome, it’s The Simp­sons’ fault.

Edi­tor Celia Gómez’ side-by-side shot com­par­i­son above makes plain how a 30-year-old Cit­i­zen Kane vir­gin could expe­ri­ence a sense of deja vu on his or her inau­gur­al view­ing. The Simp­sons pulled from it for “Two Cars in Every Garage and Three Eyes on Every Fish” when said view­er was but a lit­tle tot. Three years lat­er, they did it again wit 1993’s “Rose­bud.”

Par­ents who would nev­er have allowed their sen­si­tive lit­tle dar­lings in the room while screen­ing Full Met­al Jack­et or Requiem for a Dream relaxed their vig­i­lance where the fam­i­ly from Spring­field was con­cerned.

When The Simp­sons’ kilt­ed Groundskeep­er Willie chaste­ly recross­es his legs in an inter­ro­ga­tion room, no kid is going to fix­ate on what lies beneath. (FYI, it’s a noto­ri­ous­ly com­man­do Sharon Stone in 1992’s NSFW thriller, Basic Instinct.)

What makes these homages so great is the atten­tion to detail. Be it Itchy and Scratchy or Michael Mad­sen and Kirk Baltz as his cop vic­tim in Reser­voir Dogs, count on the cam­era to drift to an emp­ty door­way when the action gets too intense.

Spoil­ers abound. Those who’ve not yet seen Thel­ma and Louise, Psy­cho, or One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest can con­sid­er them­selves fore­warned.

Want a crash course in The God­fa­ther? Watch the Simp­sons.

No offense to the human actors who orig­i­nat­ed the roles, but it’s incred­i­ble how the ani­ma­tors can imbue their char­ac­ters with all the rel­e­vant emo­tions. Their eyes are lit­tle more than dots on ping­pong balls! (Check out Homer’s dead expres­sion on 1994’s Ter­mi­na­tor 2  par­o­dy, “Homer Loves Flan­ders.”)

The com­plete list of films fea­tured above:

Bram Stok­er’s Drac­u­la (1992)

A Clock­work Orange (1971)

Pulp Fic­tion (1994)

Requiem for a dream (2000)

The Gold Rush (1925)

Full Met­al Jack­et (1987)

The Fugi­tive (1993)

Ter­mi­na­tor 2 (1991)

Reser­voir Dogs (1992)

The Birds (1963)

Risky Busi­ness (1983)

Cit­i­zen Kane (1941)

Psy­cho (1960)

The silence of the lambs (1991)

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

Basic Instinct (1992)

Offi­cial and Gen­tle­man (1982)

One flew over the cuck­oo’s nest (1975)

2001: A space Odis­sey (1968)

Trainspot­ting (1996)

Thel­ma and Louise (1991)

The God­fa­ther (1972)

Taxi Dri­ver (1976)

The Shin­ing (1980)

Spi­der­man (2002)

ET the Extra-Ter­res­tri­al (1982)

Dr. Strange Love (1964)

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Simp­sons Present Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven,” and Teach­ers Now Use It to Teach Kids the Joys of Lit­er­a­ture

The Simp­sons Pay Won­der­ful Trib­ute to the Ani­me of Hayao Miyaza­ki

Thomas Pyn­chon Edits His Lines on The Simp­sons: “Homer is my role mod­el and I can’t speak ill of him.”

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

Crash Course Philosophy: Hank Green’s Fast-Paced Introduction to Philosophy Gets Underway on YouTube

in Education, Philosophy | February 19th, 2016

Vlog­broth­ers and “Nerd­fight­er” online per­son­al­i­ties Hank and John Green set about con­quer­ing the world of edu­ca­tion­al media a few years ago—while also writ­ing best­selling nov­els, record­ing pop­u­lar albums, and cre­at­ing star­tups and char­i­ta­ble orga­ni­za­tions on the side. They’ve almost suc­ceed­ed, with their “Crash Course” video series steam­rolling its way through U.S. His­to­ry, World His­to­ry, and the His­to­ry of Every­thing Else, as well as Psy­chol­o­gy, Lit­er­a­ture, the Sci­ences, and, now, Phi­los­o­phy, just above, with Hank tak­ing on the pro­fes­so­r­i­al duties. “It’s gonna be hard,” he says in the intro video above, “and enlight­en­ing, and frus­trat­ing, and if I do my job prop­er­ly it’s going to stick with you long after you and I have part­ed ways.”

Hank begins where we gen­er­al­ly do, in ancient Greece, and intro­duces the three main branch­es of phi­los­o­phy: meta­physics, epis­te­mol­o­gy, and ethics. Next up, in episode two above, he dives into log­ic and argu­men­ta­tion, sub­jects dear to the heart of an inter­net-based edu­ca­tor, whose audi­ence is quite famil­iar with the con­tentious online com­men­tari­at. Han­k’s style, like his broth­er’s, is hip, fast-paced, and full of wit­ty edi­to­r­i­al asides, enhanced by clever edit­ing, pop-cul­ture ref­er­ences, and ani­mat­ed visu­al aids. In short, he’s exact­ly what you wish your col­lege pro­fes­sors were like in the class­room.

Is tak­ing one of the Green’s “crash cours­es” the equiv­a­lent of a col­lege intro course? I guess it would depend on the col­lege, the class, and the instruc­tor. Your mileage may vary with any edu­ca­tion­al expe­ri­ence, and every­one has their own way of learn­ing. If you’re com­fort­able hav­ing infor­ma­tion deliv­ered at the speed of advertising—which I do not mean as an insult, but as an accu­rate descrip­tion of their pacing—then you may find that the Green’s meth­ods work per­fect­ly well. If you need to mull things over, take care­ful notes, hear in-depth expla­na­tions, etc., you may con­sid­er these videos as fun ways to get your feet wet. Then when you’re ready to dive in, con­sid­er tak­ing one of the many free online phi­los­o­phy cours­es we fea­ture on the site, and sup­ple­ment­ing with pod­casts, free eBooks, and oth­er resources.

If you fol­low this playlist, you can find more Crash Course Phi­los­o­phy videos as they become avail­able.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Phi­los­o­phy for Begin­ners

135 Free Phi­los­o­phy eBooks

Down­load 100 Free Online Phi­los­o­phy Cours­es & Start Liv­ing the Exam­ined Life

Learn The His­to­ry of Phi­los­o­phy in 197 Pod­casts (With More to Come)

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

New Digital Archive, “Richard Pryor’s Peoria,” Takes You Inside the Dark, Lively World That Shaped the Pioneering Comedian

in Comedy, History | February 18th, 2016

By Scott Saul:

Richard Pry­or is a leg­endary com­ic, and for good rea­son. He had extra­or­di­nary gifts as a mim­ic, sto­ry­teller, phys­i­cal come­di­an, satirist, and impro­vis­ing actor — gifts he brought togeth­er in an act that had the dan­ger­ous elec­tric­i­ty of an unin­su­lat­ed wire. Mean­while he estab­lished a feed­back loop between his act and his per­son­al life, mak­ing use of all those stage chops to draw com­e­dy out of a life that was painful­ly full of self-sab­o­tage, may­hem, and var­i­ous forms of abuse.

It was my task, as Pryor’s biog­ra­ph­er, to probe the leg­ends of his life, start­ing with the vivid sto­ries he told of his for­ma­tive years in the red-light dis­trict of Peo­ria, Illi­nois. In his stage act and rem­i­nis­cences, Pry­or relat­ed how he’d been raised in a broth­el by a grand­moth­er and father who worked, respec­tive­ly, as madam and pimp, and how he had both suf­fered at their hands and learned from them. He told, too, how he’d made his way in a larg­er world that, while bru­tal, was also touched with grace — that grace he felt when he ven­tured onstage, at school or in a club, and start­ed to find him­self as a per­former. 

Ear­li­er biog­ra­phers had won­dered how much Pry­or had embell­ished his past in build­ing his act around his life sto­ry. In my research I dis­cov­ered a moth­er­lode of mate­r­i­al — fam­i­ly pho­tos, court records, news­pa­per arti­cles, and more — that not only cor­rob­o­rat­ed the out­lines of Pryor’s sto­ry but also filled in the pic­ture and gave it a his­tor­i­cal depth. I could see, for instance, how Pryor’s taboo-bust­ing com­e­dy was root­ed in his child­hood envi­ron­ment, a black work­ing-class under­ground where taboos were bust­ed on a reg­u­lar basis, and hypocrisies called to account. You can watch a short, four-minute film above that sets the sto­ry of the young Richard and his fam­i­ly against the back­drop of “Roarin’ Peo­ria.”

Ulti­mate­ly, I dis­cov­ered so much in my research into Pryor’s for­ma­tive years that I felt it couldn’t be con­tained in the book I was writ­ing (in which Pryor’s first two decades in Peo­ria make up only one of five sec­tions). So I built a dig­i­tal com­pan­ion where you can explore over 200 doc­u­ments from “Richard Pryor’s Peo­ria”. Here you can see, through the young Richard’s report card, how he strug­gled in the con­fines of Peo­ria schools. You can see, through the divorce case of his par­ents, how his moth­er (con­trary to reports that she aban­doned him) tried, unsuc­cess­ful­ly, to steal Richard away from his grand­moth­er and father, and from the red-light dis­trict itself. You can see, through the paper trail of Richard’s for­mi­da­ble grand­moth­er Marie, how she fought — with wil­i­ness and blunt force — against her abu­sive hus­band and against the sys­tem of Jim Crow. And you can vis­it the var­i­ous scenes of Richard’s youth, from his family’s tav­ern and the com­mu­ni­ty cen­ter where he first took the stage to the some­times rau­cous, some­times styl­ish clubs where he got his start as an enter­tain­er. 

Richard Pry­or was an excep­tion­al human being — a genius who changed the rules of com­e­dy in Amer­i­ca — and the web­site aims to show how the seeds of that genius were plant­ed. At the same time, it sug­gests how Pryor’s life sto­ry makes rich­er sense when set against larg­er his­tor­i­cal back­drops: the sto­ry of how the Midwest’s pre­mier “Sin City” became, dur­ing the Cold War, a lead­ing “All-Amer­i­can City”; the sto­ry of how black neigh­bor­hoods were demol­ished in “urban renew­al” efforts (Pryor’s child­hood home was itself tar­get­ed by a wreck­ing ball so that Peo­ria might be linked to an inter­state high­way); and, most of all, the sto­ry of how black Amer­i­cans, while locked into seg­re­ga­tion in the Mid­west, defied that sys­tem in inven­tive and force­ful ways.

This post is by Scott Saul, the author of Becom­ing Richard Pry­or (Harper­Collins), now out in paper­back.  He teach­es Amer­i­can his­to­ry and lit­er­a­ture at UC-Berke­ley, and also is the host of the Chap­ter & Verse pod­cast. Fol­low him on Twit­ter @scottsaul4.

In Japanese Schools, Lunch Is As Much About Learning As It’s About Eating

in Food & Drink | February 18th, 2016

I grew up in the Unit­ed States, and we Amer­i­cans don’t, in the main, look back on our school days with par­tic­u­lar­ly fond mem­o­ries of lunch. Some schools do a superb job of serv­ing up deli­cious and nutri­tious meals. Oth­ers can bare­ly get their act togeth­er to reheat yes­ter­day’s chick­en fin­gers, and, as with much else in Amer­i­ca, it all aver­ages out to a frus­trat­ing medi­oc­rity. These days, the culi­nary stan­dards of Amer­i­can school lunch­es often come in for pun­ish­ing com­par­isons in the media to those of oth­er soci­eties, espe­cial­ly France, which has long held up eat­ing well as one of its high­est pri­or­i­ties, and Japan, known for its atten­tion to detail as well as the health of its peo­ple.

Just have a look at the nine-minute doc­u­men­tary above on one lunch peri­od at an ele­men­tary school in Saita­ma (about fif­teen miles out­side Tokyo) and you’ll have a vivid sense of the dif­fer­ence — a dif­fer­ence that goes well beyond what gets eat­en. At 12:25 in the after­noon, the kids all bow and thank their teacher for the first half of the day’s instruc­tion. Then they put on their caps and smocks and lay their place­mats and chop­sticks on their desks. A rotat­ing team of stu­dents goes to col­lect every­one’s meals from the kitchen (thank­ing the lunch­ladies before wheel­ing their carts away) while the rest arrange the fur­ni­ture into the stan­dard lunch for­ma­tion. Back in the class­room, the stu­dents serve each oth­er the day’s fried fish with pear sauce, five-veg­etable soup, and mashed pota­toes grown on the school’s own farm by stu­dents.

But wait, there’s more: the kids all brush their teeth after lunch, then break down their milk car­tons, wash them, and set them aside to dry before plac­ing them in the next day’s recy­cling. The video then shows how, after lunch, they all clean their class­room togeth­er. Lunch becomes an oppor­tu­ni­ty not just to eat healthy food, but to teach stu­dents a num­ber of valu­able life lessons–good man­ners, ethics, team­work and more.

I could­n’t have imag­ined any of this hap­pen­ing in my own fifth-grade class­room, and if you could­n’t have either, you can read more about how the phe­nom­e­non of the Japan­ese school lunch came to be at Japan­ese School Lunch, the site of Japan schol­ar Alex­is Agliano San­born. She delves into the his­to­ry, the goals, the mechan­ics (right down to sea­son­al menu plan­ning), and the suc­cess­es of Japan’s school lunch sys­tem. “Per­haps no oth­er coun­try in the world can offer school lunch cook­books, school lunch-themed restau­rants or even school lunch-themed para­pher­na­lia,” she writes. Cer­tain­ly not the one I came from!

(via Twist­ed Sifter)

Relat­ed Com­ment:

A Wealth of Free Doc­u­men­taries on All Things Japan­ese: From Ben­to Box­es to Tea Gar­dens, Ramen & Bul­let Trains

Dis­cov­er Japan’s Earth­quake Proof Under­ground Bike Stor­age Sys­tem: The Future is Now

Cook­pad, the Largest Recipe Site in Japan, Launch­es New Site in Eng­lish

What Pris­on­ers Ate at Alca­traz in 1946: A Vin­tage Prison Menu

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and style. 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.