Hear Gandhi’s Famous Speech on the Existence of God (1931)

in History | January 28th, 2015

A per­fect sym­bol of the mech­a­nisms of British rule over India, the Salt Acts pro­hib­it­ed Indi­ans from access and trade of their own resources, forc­ing them to buy salt from British monop­o­lies, who taxed the min­er­al heav­i­ly. In 1930, in one of the defin­ing acts of his Satya­gra­ha move­ment, Mohan­das Gand­hi decid­ed to defy the Salt Act with a very grand gesture—a march, with thou­sands of his sup­port­ers, over a dis­tance of over 200 miles, to the Ara­bi­an Sea. Once there, fol­low­ing Gandhi’s lead, the crowd pro­ceed­ed to col­lect sea salt, prompt­ing British colo­nial police to arrest over 60,000 peo­ple, includ­ing Gand­hi him­self.

The 1930 action, the first orga­nized act of civ­il dis­obe­di­ence after the Indi­an Nation­al Con­gress’ dec­la­ra­tion of inde­pen­dence, got the atten­tion of the Viceroy, Lord Irwin, who had been direct­ing harsh repres­sive mea­sures against the grow­ing inde­pen­dence move­ment, and in Jan­u­ary of 1931, after his release, Gand­hi and Irwin signed a pact. Gand­hi agreed to end the move­ment; Irwin agreed to allow the Indi­ans to make their own salt, and the Indi­ans would have an equal role in nego­ti­at­ing India’s future. British offi­cials were out­raged and dis­gust­ed. Win­ston Churchill, for exam­ple, staunch­ly opposed to inde­pen­dence, called the meet­ing of the two lead­ers a “nau­se­at­ing and humil­i­at­ing spec­ta­cle,” say­ing “Gand­hi-ism and every­thing it stands for will have to be grap­pled with and crushed.” (Churchill favored let­ting Gand­hi die if he went on hunger strike.)

The terms of the pact, of course, did not hold, and the move­ment would con­tin­ue until even­tu­al inde­pen­dence in 1947. But Gand­hi had not only suc­ceed­ed in incur­ring the wrath of the British colo­nial­ists; he had also won many sup­port­ers in Eng­land. One of them, Muriel Lester, invit­ed the Indi­an leader to stay with her in Lon­don at a com­mu­ni­ty cen­ter she had found­ed called Kings­ley Hall. “He enjoyed his stay here,” says the cur­rent Kings­ley Hall man­ag­er David Bak­er, “and it was wise because if he had stayed in the West End the press would have lam­pooned him. He wouldn’t have had a life, but here he was left alone and walked around in the streets. He want­ed to stay with the peo­ple that he lived with in India, i.e. the poor.” How­ev­er, Gand­hi wasn’t total­ly ignored by the press. While at Kings­ley, he deliv­ered a short speech, which you can hear above, and the BBC was there to record it.

In the speech, Gand­hi says absolute­ly noth­ing about Indi­an inde­pen­dence, British oppres­sion, or the aims and tac­tics of the move­ment. He says noth­ing at all about pol­i­tics or any world­ly affairs what­so­ev­er. Instead, he lec­tures on the exis­tence of God, “an inde­fin­able mys­te­ri­ous pow­er that per­vades every­thing,” and which “defies all proof.” Gand­hi tes­ti­fies to “an unal­ter­able law gov­ern­ing every­thing and every being that exists or lives,” though he also con­fess­es “that I have no argu­ment to con­vince through rea­son.” Instead relies on analo­gies, on things he “dim­ly per­ceives,” on the “mar­velous research­es of [Indi­an engi­neer and sci­en­tist] Sir J.C. Bose,” and on “the expe­ri­ences of an unbro­ken line of prophets and sages in all coun­tries and climes.” It’s not a speech like­ly to per­suade any­one who isn’t already some sort of a believ­er, I think, but it’s of much inter­est to any­one inter­est­ed in the his­to­ry of Indi­an inde­pen­dence and in Gandhi’s life and mes­sage.

You can read the full text of the speech here, and see footage of Kings­ley Hall and a filmed inter­view with Muriel Lester, dis­cussing Gandhi’s stay, here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Mahat­ma Gandhi’s List of the 7 Social Sins; or Tips on How to Avoid Liv­ing the Bad Life

Mahat­ma Gand­hi Talks (in First Record­ed Video)

Albert Ein­stein Express­es His Admi­ra­tion for Mahat­ma Gand­hi, in Let­ter and Audio

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

Confusion Through Sand: A Short, Hand-Drawn Animation on the Terror & Confusion of War

in Animation | January 27th, 2015

Back in Octo­ber 2012, Ornana Films raised $30,000 through a Kick­starter cam­paign to pro­duce Con­fu­sion Through Sand, an ani­ma­tion that “explores the spec­trum of haze expe­ri­enced by today’s sol­diers in the desert.” It’s an inter­pre­ta­tion, Ornana tells us, “of what hap­pens when top train­ing encoun­ters cir­cum­stances beyond the realm of human con­trol, in both inte­ri­or and exte­ri­or con­flicts.” The action takes place “on the ground, under the hel­met of a 19 year-old infantry­man.” Once com­plet­ed, the film pre­miered at the 2013 SXSW film fes­ti­val and took home the Jury Award. Now, a year lat­er, it’s free online. And even bet­ter, it comes accom­pa­nied by a behind-the-scenes film that takes you inside the film­mak­ers’ artis­tic process, show­ing how they hand-ani­mat­ed the film with mark­ers on recy­cled paper. 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!

The Cahiers du Cinéma Names the 10 Best Films of the Year, from 1951 to 2014

in Film | January 27th, 2015

It’s hard to over­state the impact of Cahiers du ciné­ma on film his­to­ry.

In the ear­ly ‘50s, the great crit­ic André Bazin led a small coterie of film fanat­ics – guys with names like Jean-Luc Godard, François Truf­faut, Eric Rohmer and Jacques Riv­ette — who hung out at the Ciné­math­èque française. The­aters were flood­ed with Hol­ly­wood movies, real­ly for the first time since the begin­ning of World War II, and this group took the oppor­tu­ni­ty to watch any­thing they could get their hands on, from high brow art films to cut rate West­erns. They would watch any­thing.

In 1951, Bazin found­ed Cahiers and this band of cin­e­mat­ic out­siders became famous­ly bru­tal and uncom­pro­mis­ing icon­o­clasts. They praised low­ly genre films – film noir espe­cial­ly – as mas­ter­pieces while slam­ming the mid­dle­brow flicks the French film indus­try was crank­ing out at the time. Truf­faut was famous for being par­tic­u­lar­ly harsh, earn­ing the moniker “The Gravedig­ger of French Cin­e­ma.” His reviews were so acer­bic that he was the only French film crit­ic not invit­ed to cov­er the 1958 Cannes Film Fes­ti­val. (The fact that he then turned around and won the fest’s top prize the next year for his mas­ter­piece 400 Blows might be one of the great­est feats of badassery in cin­e­ma his­to­ry.)

Per­haps the Cahiers’ great­est con­tri­bu­tion was an arti­cle, writ­ten by Truf­faut in 1954, called “A Cer­tain Ten­den­cy of the French Cin­e­ma,” which was a man­i­festo for what would lat­er be called auteur the­o­ry – an idea that cer­tain direc­tors have such a com­mand of the medi­um that they impress their indi­vid­ual vision on a film, in the same way an author does to a book. This idea has been so com­plete­ly absorbed into pop­u­lar con­scious­ness that it’s hard to see just how rev­o­lu­tion­ary it was at the time. Before Cahiers, peo­ple gen­er­al­ly thought about movies in terms of the stars, not the direc­tor. Most would refer to Rear Win­dow, say, as a Jim­my Stew­art movie, not an Alfred Hitch­cock film. The con­cept result­ed in a basic reorder­ing in the way film­mak­ers thought about their art.

Truf­faut and com­pa­ny obsessed with film­mak­ers they con­sid­ered auteurs. Their top 10 list for 1955, the year after “A Cer­tain Ten­den­cy” was pub­lished, shows who in par­tic­u­lar they con­sid­ered auteurs – art house icons (Carl Drey­er and Rober­to Rosselli­ni), Hol­ly­wood rene­gades (Robert Aldrich and Nicholas Ray) and, of course, Hitch­cock.

1955
1. Voy­age To Italy (Rober­to Rosselli­ni)
2. Ordet (Carl Drey­er)
3. The Big Knife (Robert Aldrich)
4. Lola Montes (Max Ophuls)
5. Rear Win­dow (Alfred Hitch­cock)
6. Les Mau­vais Recon­tres (Alexan­dre Astruc)
7. La Stra­da (Fed­eri­co Felli­ni)
8. The Bare­foot Con­tes­sa (Joseph L. Mankiewicz)
9. John­ny Gui­tar (Nicholas Ray)
10. Kiss Me Dead­ly (Robert Aldrich)

1960 was the year that seem­ing­ly the entire edi­to­r­i­al staff at Cahiers du ciné­ma took cam­era in hand and became film­mak­ers, launch­ing the French New Wave. Truffaut’s 400 Blows in 1959 was fol­lowed up by Chabrol’s Les Bonnes Femmes and Godard’s ground­break­ing assault on cin­e­mat­ic form, Breath­less. Yet for their top 10 list, Cahiers put Japan­ese mas­ter Ken­ji Mizoguchi’s San­sho the Bailiff at the top. Hitch­cock also makes the list, num­ber 9, with a lit­tle film called Psy­cho.

1960
1. San­sho The Bailiff (Ken­ji Mizoguchi)
2. L’avven­tu­ra (Michae­lan­ge­lo Anto­nioni)
3. Breath­less (Jean-Luc Godard)
4. Shoot The Piano Play­er (François Truf­faut)
5. Poem Of The Sea (Alexan­der Dovzhenko/Julia Sol­ntes­va)
6. Les Bonnes Femmes (Claude Chabrol)
7. Nazarin (Luis Buñuel)
8. Moon­fleet (Fritz Lang)
9. Psy­cho (Alfred Hitch­cock)
10. Le Trou (Jacques Beck­er)

Start­ing from 1968 until the late-70s, the jour­nal became a Maoist col­lec­tive and renounced bour­geois con­cepts like “best of” lists, nar­ra­tive cin­e­ma and, y’know, fun. But in the ear­ly ‘80s, Cahiers shift­ed its edi­to­r­i­al focus back to the world of com­mer­cial film. They laud­ed movies by Nou­velle Vague vet­er­ans like Godard and Rohmer, film fes­ti­val dar­lings like Hou Hsiao Hsien and, to a per­verse degree, Clint East­wood. You can see all of Cahiers du ciné­ma’s top 10 lists here, includ­ing the most recent list for 2014 here.

Relat­ed con­tent:

Alfred Hitch­cock on the Filmmaker’s Essen­tial Tool: ‘The Kuleshov Effect’

Jean-Luc Godard Gives a Dra­mat­ic Read­ing of Han­nah Arendt’s “On the Nature of Total­i­tar­i­an­ism”

Jef­fer­son Air­plane Wakes Up New York; Jean-Luc Godard Cap­tures It (1968)

Jonathan Crow is a Los Ange­les-based writer and film­mak­er whose work has appeared in Yahoo!, The Hol­ly­wood Reporter, and oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low him at @jonccrow. And check out his blog Veep­to­pus, fea­tur­ing lots of pic­tures of bad­gers and even more pic­tures of vice pres­i­dents with octo­pus­es on their heads.  The Veep­to­pus store is here.

Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey Gets Turned Into “The Weirdest Sci-Fi Comic Ever Made” by Jack Kirby

in Comics/Cartoons, Sci Fi | January 27th, 2015

Sure, we all enjoyed the adap­ta­tion of 2001: A Space Odyssey pre­sent­ed on the Howard John­son’s chil­dren’s menu from 1968 that we fea­tured last May. But would you believe that, when you swap out the name Howard John­son for that of Jack Kir­by, you get a work of high­er artis­tic mer­it? In his long career, the wide­ly respect­ed com­ic book artist, writer, and edi­tor put in time on both the DC and Mar­vel sides of the fence. 1976’s 2001: A Space Odyssey com­ic book, a meet­ing of Kir­by’s mind with those of Stan­ley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, marked his return to Mar­vel after spend­ing the ear­ly 70s at DC.

Kubrick­o­nia, which calls the com­mis­sion “a match made in bizarro world heav­en,” describes the prod­uct: “The adap­ta­tion was writ­ten & pen­ciled by Kir­by with ink­ing duties car­ried out by Frank Gia­coia. The almost 2 times larg­er than the reg­u­lar com­ic-book for­mat suit­ed Kir­by’s out­landish pop style, but this was a great tal­ent mere­ly going through the motions.” The Sequart Orga­ni­za­tion’s Julian Dar­ius calls it “sure­ly one of the strangest sci-fi fran­chise comics ever pub­lished,” a stuffy mar­riage between Kir­by’s “bom­bas­tic,” “action-ori­ent­ed,” “in-your-face” art and the style of Kubrick­’s film, one “all about the sub­tle. No one ever accused Kir­by of being sub­tle. Indeed, his almost com­plete lack of sub­tle­ty is part of his charm, but it’s not a charm one could pos­si­bly imag­ine fit­ting 2001.”

At The Dis­solve, Noel Mur­ray includes an exam­i­na­tion of Kir­by’s 2001 in the site’s “Adven­tures in Licens­ing” col­umn. Kir­by’s descrip­tion of Kubrick­’s immor­tal mil­len­nia-span­ning match cut, which the arti­cle quotes as an open­er, tells you every­thing you need to know:

As the surge of ela­tion sweeps through him, Moon­watch­er shouts in vic­to­ry and throws his weapon at the sky!! High­er and high­er, it sails — aimed at the infi­nite where the count­less stars wait for the com­ing of man… And, man comes to space!! Across the ago­niz­ing ages he fol­lows the des­tiny bequeathed to him by the mono­lith.

2001: A Space Odyssey in comics, which com­pris­es not just the over­sized book but ten month­ly issues that expand­ed upon the film — tak­ing it in, shall we say, a dif­fer­ent direc­tion than either Kubrick or Clarke might have envi­sioned — has, as you can see, inspired no small amount of dis­cus­sion among sci­ence fic­tion and com­ic book enthu­si­asts. Dar­ius wrote a whole book called The Weird­est Sci-Fi Com­ic Ever Made. At Sci­FiDi­men­sons, Robert L. Bryant Jr. and Robert B. Cooke offer two more analy­ses of this unusu­al chap­ter in the his­to­ry of Amer­i­can sequen­tial art. What­ev­er its mer­its as read­ing mate­r­i­al, it shows us that genius plus genius does­n’t always pro­duce genius — but it nev­er fails to pro­duce some­thing fas­ci­nat­ing.

You can check out scans of the first issue of 2001: A Space Odyssey over on this web site.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Howard Johnson’s Presents a Children’s Menu Fea­tur­ing Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

1966 Doc­u­men­tary Explores the Mak­ing of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (and Our High-Tech Future)

In 1968, Stan­ley Kubrick Makes Pre­dic­tions for 2001: Human­i­ty Will Con­quer Old Age, Watch 3D TV & Learn Ger­man in 20 Min­utes

Isaac Asi­mov Pre­dicts in 1964 What the World Will Look Like Today — in 2014

Arthur C. Clarke Pre­dicts the Future in 1964 … And Kind of Nails It

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture as well as the video series The City in Cin­e­ma and writes essays on cities, lan­guage, Asia, and men’s style. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

NASA Puts Online a Big Collection of Space Sounds, and They’re Free to Download and Use

in Archives, Science | January 26th, 2015

When we envi­sion the fruits of the research of the Unit­ed States’ Nation­al Aero­nau­tics and Space Admin­is­tra­tion (aka NASA), we tend to think of images. I think I exag­ger­ate not at all when I say that the nev­er-before-seen view of the Earth from space gave human­i­ty a whole new per­spec­tive, no pun intend­ed, on our very exis­tence. But you don’t have to strain too hard to think of his­tor­i­cal­ly momen­tous NASA sounds, either: “Hous­ton we’ve had a prob­lem,” “One giant leap for mankind.”

If you can’t think of more than those two, why not spend some lis­ten­ing time with NASA’s new Sound­cloud account, or alter­na­tive­ly perus­ing the NASA Sounds web site, which fea­tures a larg­er num­ber of down­load­able mp3s. “There are rock­et sounds, the chirps of satel­lites and equip­ment, light­ning on Jupiter, inter­stel­lar plas­ma and radio emis­sions,” writes Cre­ate Dig­i­tal Music’s Peter Kirn. “And in one nod to human­i­ty, and not just Amer­i­can human­i­ty, there’s the Sovi­et satel­lite Sput­nik (among many projects that are inter­na­tion­al in nature).” Bet­ter still, “you’re free to use all of these sounds as you wish, because NASA’s own audio isn’t copy­right­ed.”

We’ve includ­ed here three of NASA’s Sound­cloud playlists: space shut­tle mis­sion sounds, solar sys­tem and beyond sounds, and Pres­i­dent Kennedy sounds. When you’ve lis­tened through all NASA them­selves have uploaded, you can find more sound clips of out­er-space inter­est in NASA’s liked sounds, a col­lec­tion of the ambi­ent sounds of space explo­ration that include those of a space suit­’s inter­nal pump, a Japan­ese exper­i­ment mod­ule, and, of course, a space toi­let — a con­stant son­ic com­pan­ion on any trip to the final fron­tier.

Please note that you can down­load the Sound­cloud files by fol­low­ing these instruc­tions. From the NASA Sounds web page, you can down­load files by right click­ing on them and then sav­ing them to your hard dri­ve.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Free NASA eBook The­o­rizes How We Will Com­mu­ni­cate with Aliens

NASA Archive Col­lects Great Time-Lapse Videos of our Plan­et

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

Great Cities at Night: Views from the Inter­na­tion­al Space Sta­tion

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

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture as well as the video series The City in Cin­e­ma and writes essays on cities, lan­guage, Asia, and men’s style. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

Hear the Only Recording of Raymond Carver Reading “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love”

in Audio Books, Literature | January 26th, 2015

This is sure­ly worth a quick men­tion: Today we have a record­ing of Ray­mond Carv­er read­ing his most famous sto­ry, “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.” Taped in a Palo Alto hotel room in 1983 for a new radio series called Tell Me a Sto­ry, it’s the only known record­ing of Carv­er read­ing his sig­na­ture sto­ry. The read­ing itself starts at the 6:00 mark. Start lis­ten­ing here (or stream it above).

In 2009, Stephen King called Ray­mond Carv­er “sure­ly the most influ­en­tial writer of Amer­i­can short sto­ries in the sec­ond half of the 20th cen­tu­ry.” If you’d like to get deep­er into his lit­er­ary world — a lit­er­ary world that explores “the dim ache in the non­de­script lives of aspir­ing stu­dents, down-and-out­ers, din­er wait­ress­es, sales­men, and unhap­pi­ly hitched blue-col­lar cou­ples,” as Josh Jones once put it — you can refer back to a pre­vi­ous post where we fea­tured Richard Ford, Anne Enright, and David Means read­ing sev­er­al oth­er Carv­er sto­ries.

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!

115 Books on Lena Dunham & Miranda July’s Bookshelves at Home (Plus a Bonus Short Play)

in Film, Life, Literature, Poetry, Television | January 26th, 2015

“Miran­da-july-read­ing” by Alex­is Bar­rera / Licensed under CC BY 2.5 via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons.

Ah, the joys of din­ing at a new friend’s home, know­ing soon­er or lat­er, one’s host­ess’ blad­der or some bit of last minute meal prepa­ra­tion will dic­tate that one will be left alone to rifle the titles on her book­shelf with aban­don. No med­i­cine cab­i­net can com­pete with this peek into the psy­che.

Pity that some of the peo­ple whose book­shelves I’d be most curi­ous to see are the least like­ly to open their homes to me. That’s why I’d like to thank The Strand book­store for pro­vid­ing a vir­tu­al peek at the shelves of film­mak­ers-cum-authors Miran­da July and Lena Dun­ham.  (Pre­vi­ous par­tic­i­pants in the Authors Book­shelf series include just-plain-reg­u­lar authors George Saun­ders, Edwidge Dan­ti­cat and the late David Fos­ter Wal­lace whose con­tri­bu­tions were select­ed by biog­ra­ph­er D.T. Max.)

“Lena Dun­ham” by David Shankbone — Licensed under CC BY 3.0 via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons.

I wish Dun­ham and July had offered up some per­son­al com­men­tary to explain their hand-picked titles. (Sure­ly their homes are lined with books. Sure­ly each list is but a rep­re­sen­ta­tive sam­pling, one shelf from hun­dreds. Hmm. Inter­est­ing. Did they run back and forth between var­i­ous rooms, curat­ing with a vengeance, or is this a case of what­ev­er hap­pened to be in the case clos­est at hand when dead­line loomed?)

Which book’s a long­time favorite?

Which the lit­er­ary equiv­a­lent of com­fort food?

Are there things that only made the cut because the author is a friend?

Both women are cel­e­brat­ed sto­ry­tellers. Sure­ly, there are sto­ries here beyond the ones con­tained between two cov­ers.

But no mat­ter. The lack of accom­pa­ny­ing anec­dotes means we now have the fun of invent­ing imag­i­nary din­ner par­ties:

 

ME: (stand­ing in the liv­ing room, call­ing through the kitchen door, a glass of wine in hand) Whoa, Lena, I can’t believe you’ve got Impor­tant Arti­facts and Per­son­al Prop­er­ty from the Col­lec­tion of Lenore Doolan and Harold Mor­ris, Includ­ing Books, Street Fash­ion, and Jew­el­ry!

LENA DUNHAM: (polite, but dis­tract­ed by a pot of red sauce) I know, isn’t that one great?

ME: So great! Where’d you buy it?

LENA DUNHAM: Uh, The Strand, I think.

ME: Me too! Such a great con­ceit, that book. Wish I’d come up with it!

LENA DUNHAM: I know what you mean.

ME: Ooh, you’ve got Was She Pret­ty? 

LENA DUNHAM: Hmm? Oh, yeah, my friend Miran­da gave me that.

ME: (glanc­ing between the two books.) Wait! Leanne Sharp­ton. Leanne Sharp­ton. I didn’t real­ize it’s the same author.

LENA DUNHAM: As what?

ME: The per­son who wrote Was She Pret­ty? also wrote Impor­tant Arti­facts and Per­son­al Prop­er­ty-

ME & LENA DUNHAM IN UNISON: — from the Col­lec­tion of Lenore Doolan and Harold Mor­ris, Includ­ing Books, Street Fash­ion, and Jew­el­ry!

LENA DUNHAM: Got­ta love that title.

ME: Why do you have all these kids’ books?

LENA DUNHAM: Those are from my child­hood.

ME: (slid­ing an unnamed title off the shelf, eyes widen­ing as I read the shock­ing­ly graph­ic per­son­al inscrip­tion on the fly­leaf) Oh?

LENA DUNHAM: I real­ly relate to Eloise.

ME: (hasti­ly slid­ing the vol­ume back onto the shelf before Lena can catch me snoop­ing) Oh yeah…ha ha.

LENA DUNHAM: Are you the one who likes graph­ic nov­els?

ME: Me? Yes!!!

LENA DUNHAM: Yeah. My friend Miran­da does too.

ME:  That’s fun­ny - Sex and the Sin­gle Girl right next to Of Human Bondage.

LENA DUNHAM: (curs­ing under her breath)

ME: Need help?

LENA DUNHAM: No, it’s just this damn …arrrggh. I hate this cook­book!

ME: (bright­ly) Smells good!

LENA DUNHAM: … crap.

ME: So, is Adam Dri­ver com­ing? Or Ray or any­body?

LENA DUNHAM: (testi­ly)  You mean Alex Kar­povsky?

ME: (flus­tered) Oh, ha ha, yes! Alex! … I sent him a Face­book request and he accept­ed.

LENA DUNHAM: (mut­ters under her breath)

ME: Design Sponge? Real­ly? What’s some­one in your shoes doing with a bunch of DIY dec­o­rat­ing books?

LENA DUNHAM: (cold­ly) Research.

Actu­al­ly, maybe it is bet­ter to admire one’s idols’ book­shelves from afar.

I’m cha­grined that I don’t rec­og­nize more of their mod­ern fic­tion picks. That wasn’t such a prob­lem when I was mea­sur­ing myself against the 430 books on Mar­i­lyn Monroe’s read­ing list.

Thank heav­en for old stand­bys like Madame Bovary.

In all sin­cer­i­ty, I was glad that Dun­ham didn’t try to mask her love of home decor blog books.

And that July includ­ed her husband’s mono­graph, Our Bod­ies, Our­selves and a hand­book to rais­ing self-con­fi­dent babies.

One’s shelves, after all, are a mat­ter of taste. So, cel­e­brate the sim­i­lar­i­ties, take their rec­om­men­da­tions under advise­ment, see below and read what you like!

MIRANDA JULY’S SHELF

A Time for Every­thing  — Karl Ove Knaus­gaard

A Very Young Dancer — Jill Kre­mentz

Alice James: A Biog­ra­phy  — Jean Strouse

Ani­ma­cies: Biopol­i­tics, Racial Mat­ter­ing, and Queer Affect  — Mel Y. Chen

Arthur Tress: The Dream Col­lec­tor — John Mina­han

Build­ing Sto­ries  — Chris Ware

Crud­dy: An Illus­trat­ed Nov­el  — Lyn­da Bar­ry

Diaries, 1910–1923  — Franz Kaf­ka

Do the Win­dows Open?  — Julie Hecht

Dorothy Ian­none: Seek The Extremes! (v.1) — Bar­bara Vinken, Sabine Folie

Edge­wise: A Pic­ture of Cook­ie Mueller  — Chloe Grif­fin

Embryo­ge­n­e­sis — Richard Grossinger

Friedl Kubel­ka Vom Groller  — Melanie Ohne­mus

Amer­i­can War  — Har­rell Fletch­er

Han­nah Höch: Album (Eng­lish and Ger­man Edi­tion) — Han­nah Höch

How to Build a Girl  — Caitlin Moran

Humil­i­a­tion  — Wayne Koesten­baum

It’s OK Not to Share and Oth­er Rene­gade Rules for Rais­ing Com­pe­tent and Com­pas­sion­ate Kids  — Heather Shu­mak­er

King Kong The­o­ry  — Vir­ginie Despentes

Leav­ing the Atocha Sta­tion  — Ben Lern­er

Light­ning Rods  — Helen DeWitt

Lost at Sea: The Jon Ron­son Mys­ter­ies  — Jon Ron­son

Maid­en­head  — Tama­ra Faith Berg­er

Man V. Nature: Sto­ries  — Diane Cook

Mike Mills: Graph­ics Films  — Mike Mills

Napa Val­ley His­tor­i­cal Ecol­o­gy Atlas: Explor­ing a Hid­den Land­scape of Trans­for­ma­tion and Resilience  — Robin Grossinger

Need More Love  — Aline Komin­sky Crumb

Our Bod­ies, Our­selves (Com­plete­ly Revised and Updat­ed Ver­sion)  — Boston Wom­en’s Health Book Col­lec­tive

Jim Gold­berg: Rich and Poor  — Jim Gold­berg

San­ja Ivekovic: Sweet Vio­lence  — Rox­ana Mar­co­ci

Sophie Calle: The Address Book  — Sophie Calle

Star­ing Back  — Chris Mark­er

Taryn Simon: A Liv­ing Man Declared Dead and Oth­er Chap­ters, I‑XVIII — Homi Bhab­ha, Geof­frey Batchen

Tete-a-Tete: The Tumul­tuous Lives & Loves of Simone De Beau­voir and Jean-Paul Sartre  — Hazel Row­ley

The Hour of the Star  — Clarice Lispec­tor

The Illus­trat­ed I Ching — R.L. Wing

Two Kinds of Decay: A Mem­oir  — Sarah Man­gu­so

Traf­fic  — Ken­neth Gold­smith

Two Seri­ous Ladies  — Jane Bowles

Was She Pret­ty?  — Leanne Shap­ton

What is the What: The Auto­bi­og­ra­phy of Valenti­no Achak Deng: A Nov­el  — Dave Eggers

Why Did I Ever  — Mary Robi­son

Women in Clothes  — Sheila Heti

Work­ing: Peo­ple Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do  — Studs Terkel

Your Self-Con­fi­dent Baby: How to Encour­age Your Child’s Nat­ur­al Abil­i­ties — From the Very Start  — Mag­da Ger­ber

Far from the Tree  — Andrew Solomon

How Should a Per­son Be?  — Sheila Heti

LENA DUNHAM’S LIST

The Girls’ Guide to Hunt­ing and Fish­ing  — Melis­sa Bank

A Lit­tle His­to­ry of the World  — E. H. Gom­brich

Anne of Green Gables  — L.M. Mont­gomery

Apart­ment Ther­a­py Presents: Real Homes, Real Peo­ple, Hun­dreds of Real Design Solu­tions  — Maxwell Gilling­ham-Ryan

Ariel: The Restored Edi­tion  — Sylvia Plath

Bad Fem­i­nist: Essays  — Rox­ane Gay

Bas­tard Out of Car­oli­na (20th Anniver­sary Edi­tion)  — Dorothy Alli­son

Blue is the Warmest Col­or  — Julie Maroh

Brighton Rock  — Gra­ham Greene

Caved­weller  - Dorothy Alli­son

Coun­try Girl: A Mem­oir  — Edna O’Brien

Crazy Sal­ad and Scrib­ble Scrib­ble: Some Things About Women and Notes on Media  — Nora Ephron

Design Sponge at Home  — Grace Bon­ney

Din­ner: A Love Sto­ry: It All Begins at the Fam­i­ly Table  — Jen­ny Rosen­stra­ch

Eleanor & Park  — Rain­bow Row­ell

Eloise  — Kay Thomp­son

Eloise In Moscow  — Kay Thomp­son

Eloise In Paris  — Kay Thomp­son

Fan­ny At Chez Panisse  — Alice Waters

Good­bye, Colum­bus and Five Short Sto­ries  — Philip Roth

Hol­i­days on Ice  — David Sedaris

Impor­tant Arti­facts and Per­son­al Prop­er­ty from the Col­lec­tion of Lenore Doolan and Harold Mor­ris, Includ­ing Books, Street Fash­ion, and Jew­el­ry  — Leanne Shap­ton

Lentil  — Robert McCloskey

Love Poems  — Nik­ki Gio­van­ni

Love, an Index (McSweeney’s Poet­ry Series)  — Rebec­ca Lin­den­berg

Love, Nina: A Nan­ny Writes Home  - Nina Stibbe

Madame Bovary: Provin­cial Ways  — Gus­tave Flaubert

NW: A Nov­el  — Zadie Smith

Of Human Bondage  — W. Som­er­set Maugh­am

Ran­dom Fam­i­ly: Love, Drugs, Trou­ble, and Com­ing of Age in the Bronx  — Adri­an Nicole LeBlanc

Rebec­ca  — Daphne Du Mau­ri­er

Remod­elista  — Julie Carl­son

Select­ed Sto­ries, 1968–1994  - Alice Munro

Sex and the Sin­gle Girl  — Helen Gur­ley Brown

She’s Come Undone  — Wal­ly Lamb

Some­where Towards the End: A Mem­oir  — Diana Athill

Stet: An Edi­tor’s Life  - Diana Athill

Sula  — Toni Mor­ri­son

Sum­mer Blonde  — Adri­an Tomine

Super Nat­ur­al Every Day: Well-Loved Recipes from My Nat­ur­al Foods Kitchen  — Hei­di Swan­son

Tenth of Decem­ber  - George Saun­ders

Tess of the D’Urbervilles  — Thomas Hardy

The Boys of My Youth  - Jo Ann Beard

The Col­lect­ed Sto­ries of Lydia Davis  — Lydia Davis

The Dud Avo­ca­do  — Elaine Dundy

The Impor­tant Book  — Mar­garet Wise Brown

The Jour­nal­ist and the Mur­der­er  — Janet Mal­colm

The Liars’ Club: A Mem­oir  — Mary Karr

The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P.: A Nov­el  — Adelle Wald­man

The Mar­riage Plot  — Jef­frey Eugenides

The Phi­los­o­phy of Andy Warhol (From A to B and Back Again)  - Andy Warhol

The Sto­ry of Fer­di­nand  — Munro Leaf

The Woman in White  - Wilkie Collins

The Writ­ing Class  — Jin­cy Wil­lett

This Is My Life  - Meg Wolitzer

Tiny Beau­ti­ful Things: Advice on Love and Life from ‘Dear Sug­ar’  - Cheryl Strayed

Wall­flower At the Orgy  — Nora Ephron

Was She Pret­ty?  — Leanne Shap­ton

We Have Always Lived In the Cas­tle  — Shirley Jack­son

What Lips My Lips Have Kissed: The Loves and Love Poems of Edna St. Vin­cent Mil­lay  — Daniel Mark Epstein

What She Saw…  — Lucin­da Rosen­feld

What the Liv­ing Do: Poems  — Marie Howe

While I Was Gone  - Sue Miller

With or With­out You: A Mem­oir  — Domeni­ca Rut

Women in Clothes  — Sheila Heti

via Scrib­n­er Books

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Miran­da July’s Quirky Film Presents Some­body, the New App That Con­nects Strangers in the Real World

David Fos­ter Wallace’s Love of Lan­guage Revealed by the Books in His Per­son­al Library

The 430 Books in Mar­i­lyn Monroe’s Library: How Many Have You Read?

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

Dostoevsky Draws a Picture of Shakespeare: A New Discovery in an Old Manuscript

in Literature | January 26th, 2015

Dos­to­evsky, a doo­dler? Sure­ly not! Great Russ­ian brow fur­rowed over the mean­ing of love and hate and faith and crime, div­ing into squalid hells, ascend­ing to the heights of spir­i­tu­al ecsta­sy, tak­ing a gasp of heav­en­ly air, then back down to the depths again to churn out the pages and hun­dreds of char­ac­ter arcs—that’s Dostoevsky’s style. Doo­dles? No. And yet, even Dos­to­evsky, the acme of lit­er­ary seri­ous­ness, made time for the odd pen and ink car­i­ca­ture amidst his bouts of exis­ten­tial angst, pover­ty, and ill health. We’ve shown you some of them before—indeed, some very well ren­dered por­traits and archi­tec­tur­al draw­ings in the pages of his man­u­scripts. Now, just above, see yet anoth­er, a recent­ly dis­cov­ered tiny por­trait of Shake­speare in pro­file, etched in the mar­gins of a page from one of his angsti­est nov­els, The Pos­sessed, avail­able in our col­lec­tion, 800 Free eBooks for iPad, Kin­dle & Oth­er Devices.

Annie Mar­tirosyan in The Huff­in­g­ton Post points out some fam­i­ly resem­blance between the Shake­speare doo­dle and the famous brood­ing oil por­trait of Dos­to­evsky him­self, by Vasi­ly Per­ov. She also notes the ring stain and sundry drips over the “hard­ly leg­i­ble… scrib­bles” and “mar­gin­a­lia… scat­tered naugh­ti­ly across the page” is from the author’s tea. “Feodor Mikhailovich was an avid tea drinker,” and he would con­sume his favorite bev­er­age while walk­ing “to and fro in the room and mak[ing] up his char­ac­ters’ speech­es out loud….” Can’t you just see it? Under the draw­ing (see it clos­er in the inset)—in one of the many exam­ples of the author’s painstak­ing hand­writ­ing practice—is the name “Atkin­son.”

Mar­tirosyan sums up a some­what com­pli­cat­ed aca­d­e­m­ic dis­cus­sion between Dos­to­evsky experts Vladimir Zakharov and Boris Tikhomirov about the source of this name. This may be of inter­est to lit­er­ary spe­cial­ists. But per­haps it suf­fices to say that both schol­ars “have now con­firmed the authen­tic­i­ty of the image as Dostoevsky’s draw­ing of Shake­speare,” and that the name and draw­ing may have no con­cep­tu­al con­nec­tion. It’s also fur­ther proof that Dos­to­evsky, like many of us, turned to mak­ing pic­tures when, says schol­ar Kon­stan­tin Barsht—whom Col­in Mar­shall quot­ed in our pre­vi­ous post—“the words came slow­est.” In fact, some of the author’s char­ac­ter descrip­tions, Barsht claims, “are actu­al­ly the descrip­tions of doo­dled por­traits he kept rework­ing until they were right.”

So why Shake­speare? Per­haps it’s sim­ply that the great psy­cho­log­i­cal nov­el­ist felt a kin­ship with the “inven­tor of the human.” After all, Dos­to­evsky has been called, in those mem­o­rable words from Count Mel­choir de Vogue, “the Shake­speare of the lunatic asy­lum.”

via The Huff­in­g­ton Post

h/t OC read­er Nick

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Fyo­dor Dos­to­evsky Draws Elab­o­rate Doo­dles In His Man­u­scripts

The Dig­i­tal Dos­to­evsky: Down­load Free eBooks & Audio Books of the Russ­ian Novelist’s Major Works

Watch a Hand-Paint­ed Ani­ma­tion of Dostoevsky’s “The Dream of a Ridicu­lous Man”

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

Flannery O’Connor to Lit Professor: “My Tone Is Not Meant to Be Obnoxious. I’m in a State of Shock”

in Literature | January 23rd, 2015

When Flan­nery O’Connor start­ed writ­ing in the mid­dle of the 20th cen­tu­ry, short sto­ries — or at least fash­ion­able short sto­ries that were pub­lished in The New York­er –unfold­ed del­i­cate­ly reveal­ing gos­samer-like lay­ers of expe­ri­ence. O’Connor’s sto­ries, in con­trast, were pun­gent, grotesque, often vio­lent moral tales deal­ing with unabashed­ly Chris­t­ian themes. They def­i­nite­ly weren’t fash­ion­able at the time. Yet since her untime­ly death at age 39 in 1964, O’Connor’s rep­u­ta­tion has only increased. Even for read­ers who aren’t immersed in Catholic the­ol­o­gy, her sto­ries — which pair out­landish, often com­ic char­ac­ters with har­row­ing, exis­ten­tial sit­u­a­tions — have a way of bur­row­ing into your con­scious­ness and stay­ing there. For O’Con­nor, the goth­ic tales were a means to an end: “To the hard of hear­ing you shout, and for the almost-blind you draw large and star­tling fig­ures.”

In 1961, an Eng­lish pro­fes­sor wrote to O’Connor hop­ing to help his stu­dents under­stand “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” The sto­ry, per­haps the author’s most famous, is a slip­pery, trou­bling work about a fam­i­ly of six casu­al­ly mur­dered by an escaped con­vict called the Mis­fit in the back­woods of Geor­gia. The story’s main char­ac­ter is clear­ly the Grand­moth­er. The sto­ry is seen through her eyes, and she is the one who ulti­mate­ly dooms the fam­i­ly. Yet the pro­fes­sor didn’t quite see it that way:

We have debat­ed at length sev­er­al pos­si­ble inter­pre­ta­tions, none of which ful­ly sat­is­fies us. In gen­er­al we believe that the appear­ance of the Mis­fit is not ‘real’ in the same sense that the inci­dents of the first half of the sto­ry are real. Bai­ley, we believe, imag­ines the appear­ance of the Mis­fit, whose activ­i­ties have been called to his atten­tion on the night before the trip and again dur­ing the stopover at the road­side restau­rant. Bai­ley, we fur­ther believe, iden­ti­fies him­self with the Mis­fit and so plays two roles in the imag­i­nary last half of the sto­ry. But we can­not, after great effort, deter­mine the point at which real­i­ty fades into illu­sion or rever­ie. Does the acci­dent lit­er­al­ly occur, or is it part of Bai­ley’s dream? Please believe me when I say we are not seek­ing an easy way out of our dif­fi­cul­ty. We admire your sto­ry and have exam­ined it with great care, but we are not con­vinced that we are miss­ing some­thing impor­tant which you intend­ed us to grasp. We will all be very grate­ful if you com­ment on the inter­pre­ta­tion which I have out­lined above and if you will give us fur­ther com­ments about your inten­tion in writ­ing ‘A Good Man is Hard to Find.’

O’Connor was under­stand­ably baf­fled by this read­ing. Her response:

28 March 1961

The inter­pre­ta­tion of your nine­ty stu­dents and three teach­ers is fan­tas­tic and about as far from my inten­tions as it could get to be. If it were a legit­i­mate inter­pre­ta­tion, the sto­ry would be lit­tle more than a trick and its inter­est would be sim­ply for abnor­mal psy­chol­o­gy. I am not inter­est­ed in abnor­mal psy­chol­o­gy.

There is a change of ten­sion from the first part of the sto­ry to the sec­ond where the Mis­fit enters, but this is no less­en­ing of real­i­ty. This sto­ry is, of course, not meant to be real­is­tic in the sense that it por­trays the every­day doings of peo­ple in Geor­gia. It is styl­ized and its con­ven­tions are com­ic even though its mean­ing is seri­ous.

Bailey’s only impor­tance is as the Grandmother’s boy and the dri­ver of the car. It is the Grand­moth­er who first rec­og­nized the Mis­fit and who is most con­cerned with him through­out. The sto­ry is a duel of sorts between the Grand­moth­er and her super­fi­cial beliefs and the Misfit’s more pro­found­ly felt involve­ment with Christ’s action which set the world off bal­ance for him.

The mean­ing of a sto­ry should go on expand­ing for the read­er the more he thinks about it, but mean­ing can­not be cap­tured in an inter­pre­ta­tion. If teach­ers are in the habit of approach­ing a sto­ry as if it were a research prob­lem for which any answer is believ­able so long as it is not obvi­ous, then I think stu­dents will nev­er learn to enjoy fic­tion. Too much inter­pre­ta­tion is cer­tain­ly worse than too lit­tle, and where feel­ing for a sto­ry is absent, the­o­ry will not sup­ply it.

My tone is not meant to be obnox­ious. I am in a state of shock.

Flan­nery O’Con­nor

You can hear O’Connor read “A Good Man is Hard to Find” below. We have more infor­ma­tion on the 1959 read­ing here:

Via Let­ters of Note

Relat­ed Con­tent:

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

Flan­nery O’Connor Reads ‘Some Aspects of the Grotesque in South­ern Fic­tion’ (c. 1960)

Flan­nery O’Connor’s Satir­i­cal Car­toons: 1942–1945

Jonathan Crow is a Los Ange­les-based writer and film­mak­er whose work has appeared in Yahoo!, The Hol­ly­wood Reporter, and oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low him at @jonccrow. And check out his blog Veep­to­pus, fea­tur­ing lots of pic­tures of bad­gers and even more pic­tures of vice pres­i­dents with octo­pus­es on their heads.  The Veep­to­pus store is here.

Read The Very First Comic Book: The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck (1837)

in Comics/Cartoons | January 23rd, 2015

Com­ic books, as any enthu­si­ast of comics books won’t hes­i­tate to tell you, have a long and robust his­to­ry, one that extends far wider and deep­er than the 20th-cen­tu­ry caped mus­cle­men, carous­ing teenagers, and wise­crack­ing ani­mals so many asso­ciate with the medi­um. The schol­ar­ship on com­ic-book his­to­ry — still a rel­a­tive­ly young field, you under­stand — has more than once revised its con­clu­sions on exact­ly how far back its roots go, but as of now, the ear­li­est acknowl­edged com­ic book dates to 1837.

The Adven­tures of Oba­di­ah Old­buck, accord­ing to thecomicbooks.com’s page on ear­ly com­ic-book his­to­ry, “was done by Switzer­land’s Rudolphe Töpf­fer, who has been con­sid­ered in Europe (and start­ing to become here in Amer­i­ca) as the cre­ator of the pic­ture sto­ry. He cre­at­ed the com­ic strip in 1827,” going on to cre­ate com­ic books “that were extreme­ly suc­cess­ful and reprint­ed in many dif­fer­ent lan­guages; sev­er­al of them had Eng­lish ver­sions in Amer­i­ca in 1846. The books remained in print in Amer­i­ca until 1877.”

Also known as His­toire de M. Vieux Bois, Les amours de Mr. Vieux Bois, or sim­ply Mon­sieur Vieuxbois, the orig­i­nal 1837 Adven­tures of Oba­di­ah Old­buck earned Töpf­fer the des­ig­na­tion of “the father of the mod­ern com­ic” from no less an author­i­ty on the mat­ter than Under­stand­ing Comics author Scott McCloud, who cites the series’ pio­neer­ing use of bor­dered pan­els and “the inter­de­pen­dent com­bi­na­tion of words and pic­tures.” You can see for your­self at the web site of Dart­mouth Col­lege’s Library.

Alas, con­tem­po­rary crit­ics — and to an extent Töpf­fer him­self, who con­sid­ered it a work tar­get­ed at chil­dren and “the low­er class­es” — could­n’t see the inno­va­tion in all this. They wrote off Oba­di­ah Old­buck’s har­row­ing yet strange­ly light­heart­ed pic­to­r­i­al sto­ries of failed courtship, duel­ing, attempt­ed sui­cide, rob­bery, drag, elope­ment, ghosts, stray bul­lets, attack dogs, dou­ble-cross­ing, and the threat of exe­cu­tion as mere tri­fles by an oth­er­wise capa­ble artist. So the next time any­one gets on your case about read­ing com­ic books, just tell ’em they said the same thing about Oba­di­ah Old­buck. Then send them this way so they can fig­ure out what you mean. You can read The Adven­tures of Oba­di­ah Old­buck in its total­i­ty here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Down­load Over 22,000 Gold­en & Sil­ver Age Com­ic Books from the Com­ic Book Plus Archive

Down­load 15,000+ Free Gold­en Age Comics from the Dig­i­tal Com­ic Muse­um

The Reli­gious Affil­i­a­tion of Com­ic Book Heroes

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture as well as the video series The City in Cin­e­ma and writes essays on cities, lan­guage, Asia, and men’s style. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.