7 Free Stephen King Stories: Presented in Text, Audio, Web Comic & a Graphic Novel Video

in Audio Books, Comics/Cartoons, Literature | October 10th, 2014

In Stephen King’s first tele­vised inter­view from way back in 1982, the hor­ror writer revealed that he sleeps with the lights on. He may have grown out of the habit by now, but it’s no won­der if he hasn’t. A macabre imag­i­na­tion like his prob­a­bly sees all sorts of creepy things lurk­ing in the dark. In any case, King has cer­tain­ly learned a thing or two since then about mak­ing his fears more mar­ketable. In the past sev­er­al years he’s been pro­mot­ing his work on the Inter­net to reach new audi­ences.

In 2000, his novel­la Rid­ing the Bul­let debuted exclu­sive­ly online, and in 2008 he part­nered with Mar­vel Comics to pro­mote his first col­lec­tion of short sto­ries in six years, releas­ing one short graph­ic video episode at a time adapt­ed from the 56-page novel­la “N.” See all 25 episodes above. It’s a sto­ry, writes Time, “about a psy­chol­o­gist whose obses­sive-com­pul­sive patient is entranced by a mys­te­ri­ous plot of land.” King calls the adap­ta­tion “kind of a video com­ic book,” and while the “point of the exer­cise,” says his edi­tor Susan Moldow,” is to stim­u­late book sales,” I think you’ll agree it’s a pret­ty nifty bit of sto­ry­telling on its own.

On King’s web­site, you’ll find links to all sorts of mul­ti­me­dia prod­ucts, includ­ing a Life­time orig­i­nal movie, Big Dri­ver, a film titled A Good Mar­riage, now out on video-on-demand, and the lat­est from graph­ic nov­el series Dark Tow­er. You’ll also find a com­ic adap­ta­tion of the short sto­ry “Lit­tle Green God of Agony.” See the first pan­el above, and read the full sto­ry here.

?si=KsluCU7w9DOop4Pv
Long before Youtube and online comics, there was the audio­book. King has nar­rat­ed his own work for years, and it’s also been read by such big names as Kathy Bates, Sis­sy Spacek, Willem Defoe, Anne Heche, Eli Wal­lach, and many more. Just above, hear char­ac­ter actor John Glover—a name you may not know, but a face you’d recognize—read “One for the Road,” a sto­ry from King’s first, 1978, col­lec­tion Night Shift. It’s a vam­pire sto­ry, but a par­tic­u­lar­ly deft one, writes Noah Char­ney at New Haven Review, one that “deals in arche­types that are the heart of good hor­ror fic­tion.” King’s sto­ries, Char­ney asserts, are “beau­ti­ful­ly-writ­ten, high­ly intel­li­gent. They hap­pen to fea­ture mon­sters of all sorts, from nat­ur­al to preter­nat­ur­al, but that is sec­ondary to their core as great sto­ries, well-told.”

King has long defend­ed pop­u­lar fic­tion to the literati—in his accep­tance speech for the Nation­al Book Award, for example—and lashed out at “the keep­ers of the idea of seri­ous lit­er­a­ture,” whom he says “have a short list of authors who are going to be allowed inside.” It may have tak­en a few years, but King got in, even­tu­al­ly pub­lish­ing in such august out­lets as The Atlantic and The New York­er. Read four sto­ries from those pub­li­ca­tions at the links below. And if you’re still in need of a good scare in the days lead­ing up to Hal­loween, make sure to check out “The Man in the Black Suit,” a short film adap­ta­tion of anoth­er sto­ry pub­lished in The New York­er in 1994.

“A Death” (The New York­er, March 2015)

“Her­man Wouk Is Still Alive” (The Atlantic, May 2011)

“Pre­mi­um Har­mo­ny” (The New York­er, Novem­ber, 2009)

“Harvey’s Dream” (The New York­er, June 2003)

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Stephen King Reveals in His First TV Inter­view Whether He Sleeps With the Lights On (1982)

Stephen King’s Top 20 Rules for Writ­ers

Stephen King Cre­ates a List of 96 Books for Aspir­ing Writ­ers to Read

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

Read More...

The Adventures of Famed Illustrator Gustave Doré Presented in a Fantasic(al) Cutout Animation

in Animation, Art | October 10th, 2014

When we fea­tured his illu­mi­na­tion of Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Raven,” we called Gus­tave Doré “one of the busiest, most in-demand artists of the 19th cen­tu­ry,” who “made his name illus­trat­ing works by such authors as Rabelais, Balzac, Mil­ton, and Dante.” His hand may have giv­en a visu­al dimen­sion to a num­ber of revered texts, but what of the man him­self? For the deep­est insight into an artist, we should look to the works of art he inspires. In the case of the cutout ani­mat­ed film above, Doré not only pro­vides the inspi­ra­tion but plays, in a sense, the star­ring role. L’imaginaire au pou­voir offers us a por­trait of the artist as a two-dimen­sion­al man, stum­bling into haunt­ing drawn-and-cut-out realms straight from his own imag­i­na­tion.

“The film was cre­at­ed by Vin­cent Piani­na and Loren­zo Papace of Le Petit Écho Malade and fea­tures music by Ödland,” writes EDW Lynch at Laugh­ing Squid (a site that pre­vi­ous­ly fea­tured Le Petit Écho Malade’s music video for Ödland’s “Øster­søen”) “It is a pro­mo, Lynch adds, for ‘Gus­tave Doré (1832–1883): Mas­ter of Imag­i­na­tion,’ an ongo­ing exhi­bi­tion of Doré’s work at Musée d’Orsay in Paris through May 11, 2014.” Though Doré, by all accounts, lived a fair­ly event­ful life, he had to have spent a great deal of it slav­ing painstak­ing­ly away with his wood engrav­ing tools. The same goes for any pro­duc­er of such vivid artis­tic visions—but I sus­pect that all of them have to go on this kind of har­row­ing jour­ney to the cen­ter of their soul now and again. Here, Piani­na and Papace have, with Doré’s very mate­ri­als, cre­at­ed a jour­ney into the inner realm that still gives them life today. And they’ve added a healthy dose of 21st-cen­tu­ry humor for good mea­sure.

via Laugh­ing Squid

Relat­ed Con­tent:

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

Gus­tave Doré’s Splen­did Illus­tra­tions of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” (1884)

Vin­tage Film: Watch Hen­ri Matisse Sketch and Make His Famous Cut-Outs (1946)

Gus­tave Doré’s Dra­mat­ic Illus­tra­tions of Dante’s Divine Com­e­dy

Gus­tave Doré’s Exquis­ite Engrav­ings of Cer­vantes’ Don Quixote

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture 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.

Read More...

Woman Takes LSD in 1956: “I’ve Never Seen Such Infinite Beauty in All My Life,” “I Wish I Could Talk in Technicolor”

in History, Life, Science | October 10th, 2014

A decade before tens of thou­sands turned on, tuned in, and dropped out at the Human Be-In in Gold­en Gate Park, psy­chi­a­trist Sid­ney Cohen was inves­ti­gat­ing the effects of LSD on human con­scious­ness. If his vol­un­tary sub­jects at LA’s Vet­er­an’s Admin­is­tra­tion Hos­pi­tal found them­selves sud­den­ly able to “see the music” a la Lizard Queen Lisa Simp­son, they did so in a very respectable-seem­ing, mid-1950s set­ting.

Wit­ness this ses­sion with the polite young wife of a hos­pi­tal employ­ee, above. She’s a bit ner­vous, but not because of any media-fueled pre­con­cep­tions regard­ing the trip she’s about to take. It was 1956, and anoth­er of Dr. Cohen’s guinea pigs, pub­lish­er Hen­ry Luce, had yet to regale the pub­lic with some of acid’s more col­or­ful prop­er­ties via mul­ti­ple arti­cles in both Time and Life mag­a­zines.

As such, our uniden­ti­fied par­tic­i­pant is as pure as the glass of water she’s served at the one minute mark. Pur­er, actu­al­ly, giv­en that the drink has been dosed with 1/10th of a mil­ligram Lyser­gic acid diethy­lamide.

Three hours fur­ther along, she’s trip­ping her brains out, still seat­ed demure­ly in the same chair in which her intake inter­view was con­duct­ed. Had it been filmed 20 years lat­er, her rev­e­la­tions would seem trite, but the con­text ren­ders them endear­ing. If she’s bummed out about any­thing, it’s that the nice doc­tor ques­tion­ing her about her mind blow­ing jour­ney isn’t able to see the mol­e­cules too.

I’d love to know what became of her.

Cohen con­tin­ued observ­ing LSD, with sub­jects as cel­e­brat­ed as writer Aldous Hux­ley, philoso­pher Ger­ald Heard and Bill Wil­son, co-founder of Alco­holics Anony­mous. He pub­lished his find­ings in The Beyond With­in: the LSD Sto­ry. His ulti­mate take­away was that ”beat­nik micro­cul­ture”  destroyed LSD’s chances for achiev­ing its poten­tial as a psy­chother­a­py tool.

This may be why we nev­er hear him urg­ing his sub­ject to check out the drapes, which is sure­ly what sev­er­al young men of my acquain­tance would have resort­ed to, back in the day.

David Lynch-style aus­ter­i­ty of the set­ting aside, per­haps such coach­ing was unnec­es­sary. What­ev­er this woman’s brain had her see­ing, it made her want to “talk in tech­ni­col­or.”

May I sug­gest that we’re just as delu­sion­al if we assume that some­one who could be described as a 1950s “house­wife” must have inhab­it­ed  a world we can only per­ceive in black-and-white?

via Reason.com

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Artist Draws Nine Por­traits on LSD Dur­ing 1950s Research Exper­i­ment

Watch The Bicy­cle Trip: An Ani­ma­tion of The World’s First LSD Trip in 1943

Ken Kesey’s First LSD Trip Ani­mat­ed

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

Read More...

50% Off Criterion Films Until 2pm ET Today (October 10)

in Uncategorized | October 9th, 2014

A quick heads up for film buffs. For the next 12 hours — or until 2pm ET on Fri­day Octo­ber 10 — you can get 50% off Blu-rays and DVDs in the Cri­te­ri­on Col­lec­tion if you use the pro­mo code SPIKE.

Cri­te­ri­on spe­cial­izes in sell­ing “impor­tant clas­sic and con­tem­po­rary films” to film afi­ciona­dos. If you like mas­ter­pieces by David Lynch, Andrei Tarkovsky, John Cas­savetes, Truf­faut, Felli­ni and the rest, you won’t want to miss this rare sale.

If you pre­fer “Free” to “50% off,” I’m sure you can find some­thing that piques your inter­est in our col­lec­tion, 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More.

Sign up for our dai­ly email and, once a day, we’ll bun­dle all of our dai­ly posts and drop them in your inbox, in an easy-to-read for­mat. You don’t have to come to us; we’ll come to you!

Read More...

The Making (and Remaking) of the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds, Arguably the Greatest Rock Album of All Time

in Music | October 9th, 2014

Rock ‘n’ roll has a sad tra­di­tion of genius­es who’ve suc­cumbed to men­tal ill­ness and addic­tion. Some of them have, para­dox­i­cal­ly, pro­duced some of the best music of their careers dur­ing peri­ods of decline. We’d have to men­tion Pink Floyd’s Syd Bar­rett, Moby Grape’s Skip Spence, Big Star’s Chris Bell… all of whom record­ed strange, inti­mate, and heart­felt solo albums after leav­ing their respec­tive bands. Then, of course, there’s Bri­an Wil­son, whose 1966 Pet Sounds re-invent­ed pop, and laid the ground­work for Sgt. Pepper’s Lone­ly Hearts Club Band. (Wil­son is said to have been inspired by Rub­ber Soul). We may know Pet Sounds as a Beach Boys release, but it was real­ly Wilson’s record. In the video series here, “Behind the Sounds,” we get a unique lis­ten in to the cre­ation of the album by way of ear­ly takes, lots of stu­dio chat­ter, and pop-up video style fac­toids in the Pet Sounds cover’s Coop­er Black font over behind-the-scenes pho­tos.

At the top, hear behind the sounds of “Wouldn’t It Be Nice.” Just above, hear the mak­ing of “I Know There’s An Answer,” and below, hear Parts 1 and 2 of the cre­ation of “God Only Knows,” the lush, self-effac­ing bal­lad whose harp­si­chord and French horn intro clear­ly inspired the orches­tra­tion in songs like “Pen­ny Lane” and “Straw­ber­ry Fields For­ev­er.” See videos for the rest of Pet Sounds’ songs at the “Behind the Sounds” Youtube chan­nel.

Pet Sounds has been named the great­est album of all time by NME and Mojo mag­a­zines and ranks at num­ber two in Rolling Stone’s 500 Great­est Albums of All Time, right behind Sgt. Pepper’s. Wil­son wrote the songs with lyri­cist Tony Ash­er dur­ing a time when he was pulling away from his sun­ny surf-pop group and expand­ing his reper­toire of stu­dio tech­niques in unprece­dent­ed ways. The songs can sound super­fi­cial­ly like breezy Beach Boys pop, but reveal them­selves as com­plex, baroque orches­tra­tions that hold enough instru­men­tal sur­pris­es and lyri­cal sub­tleties for a life­time of lis­ten­ing. It’s a record both thor­ough­ly of its time and thor­ough­ly time­less.

Unlike many a trag­ic rock com­pos­er, Wil­son has sur­vived and recov­ered (many times over) into old age, record­ing and tour­ing on and off with the Beach Boys and open­ing up about his dark­er times. And unless you’re spend­ing this week under a rock some­where, you’ll catch the BBC’s star-stud­ded video re-make of “God Only Knows,” just below, cir­cu­lat­ing all over the ‘net. Both a pro­mo for the more than two dozen musi­cians involved and a ben­e­fit sin­gle for char­i­ta­ble orga­ni­za­tion BBC Chil­dren in Need, the glam­orous pro­duc­tion fea­tures Wil­son behind his piano, look­ing state­ly and healthy. For more on the mak­ing of Pet Sounds, see this 2002 BBC doc­u­men­tary, Art That Shook The World: The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds. And please, amidst this flur­ry of Pet Sounds good­ies, don’t for­get to lis­ten to the album itself, best appre­ci­at­ed, says Wil­son, with “ear­phones, in the dark.”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd Get Bri­an Wil­son Out of Bed and Force Him to Go Surf­ing, 1976

The Straw­ber­ry Fields For­ev­er Demos: The Mak­ing of a Bea­t­les Clas­sic (1966)

Watch Doc­u­men­taries on the Mak­ing of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here

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

Read More...

1000 Frames of Hitchcock: See Each of Alfred Hitchcock’s 52 Films Reduced to 1,000 Artistic Frames

in Film | October 9th, 2014

Some direc­tors like John Cas­savetes and Wong Kar-wai like to dis­cov­er the movie as they are mak­ing it. Oth­ers film­mak­ers have a very clear con­cep­tion of the movie right from the begin­ning. Alfred Hitch­cock was very much in that lat­ter cat­e­go­ry. “Once the screen­play is fin­ished, I’d just as soon not make the film at all,” he once told Roger Ebert. “I have a strong­ly visu­al mind. I visu­alise a pic­ture right down to the final cuts.” And that is very much evi­dent in the final prod­uct. From the famous Psy­cho show­er scene to a wild-eyed Jim­my Stew­art dan­gling from a ledge in Ver­ti­go to Cary Grant being men­aced by a crop duster in North By North­west, Hitch­cock has pro­duced some of the most mem­o­rable, arrest­ing images of the 20th Cen­tu­ry.

British artist Dave Pat­tern set out to high­light Hitch’s visu­al genius with his 1000 Frames of Hitch­cock series, which com­press­es each of Hitchcock’s 52 major movies down to a mere 1000 frames. That’s about six sec­onds of run­ning time.

“It all start­ed when in 2003 I made a web­site that tries to gath­er infor­ma­tion about Hitch­cock DVD releas­es over the world,” Pat­tern told Dan­ish movie mag­a­zine Echo. “The qual­i­ty of the pub­li­ca­tions are very dif­fer­ent from coun­try to coun­try. It sort of snow­balled from there.”

What’s amaz­ing about this project is just how much of the movie comes through in this great­ly abbre­vi­at­ed, sound­less ver­sion. You com­plete­ly under­stand that Tip­pi Hedren is get­ting ter­ror­ized by an implaca­ble ene­my in The Birds. You don’t even need to see that malev­o­lent mur­der of crows. You can see it just in her face. At the begin­ning of the movie, she’s ele­gant, aloof and per­fect­ly com­posed. At the end of the film, she’s unkempt, bloody and bro­ken. Hitchcock’s creepy sex­u­al pol­i­tics and his famous­ly unwhole­some obses­sion with blondes shines through here.

What is utter­ly appar­ent in this project – and some­thing you might miss while watch­ing the movie — is Hitchcock’s com­plete con­trol of col­or. The palette of The Birds (mid­dle image) is dom­i­nat­ed by the col­or green, from Hedren’s out­fit to the col­or of a pick­up truck to the hue of the hills. North By North­west (bot­tom), by con­trast, is com­posed most­ly of beige and slate blue. Click on the images to view them in a larg­er for­mat.

Below, you can check out all the movies, each dis­tilled down to 1,000 frames. And, if you’re inspired to dive deep into the works of the Mas­ter of Sus­pense, you can watch 23 of Alfred Hitch­cock­’s movies for free here.

• The Plea­sure Gar­den (1925)
• The Lodger (1927)
• Down­hill (1927)
• The Ring (1927)
• Cham­pagne (1928)
• Easy Virtue (1928)
• The Farmer’s Wife (1928)
• The Manx­man (1929)
• Black­mail (1929)
• Juno and the Pay­cock (1930)
• Mur­der! (1930)
• The Skin Game (1931)
• Rich and Strange (1931)
• Num­ber Sev­en­teen (1932)
• Waltzes from Vien­na (1934)
• The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)
• The 39 Steps (1935)
• Secret Agent (1936)
• Sab­o­tage (1936)
• Young and Inno­cent (1937)
• The Lady Van­ish­es (1938)
• Jamaica Inn (1939)
• Rebec­ca (1940)
• For­eign Cor­re­spon­dent (1940)
• Mr and Mrs Smith (1941)
• Sus­pi­cion (1941)
• Sabo­teur (1942)
• Shad­ow of a Doubt (1943)
• Lifeboat (1944)
• Spell­bound (1945)
• Noto­ri­ous (1946)
• The Para­dine Case (1947)
• Rope (1948)
• Under Capri­corn (1949)
• Stage Fright (1950)
• Strangers on a Train (1951)
• I Con­fess (1953)
• Dial M for Mur­der (1954)
• Rear Win­dow (1954)
• To Catch a Thief (1955)
• The Trou­ble with Har­ry (1955)
• The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)
• The Wrong Man (1956)
• Ver­ti­go (1958)
• North by North­west (1959)
• Psy­cho (1960)
• The Birds (1963)
• Marnie (1964)
• Torn Cur­tain (1966)
• Topaz (1969)
• Fren­zy (1972)
• Fam­i­ly Plot (1976)

 

Read More...

Hear ‘Louder Than Words,’ Pink Floyd’s New Song on What’s Likely Their Last Album

in Music | October 9th, 2014

(If you have any prob­lems play­ing this clip, please refresh the page.)

On Novem­ber 10, Pink Floyd will unveil The End­less Riv­er. And, above, you can hear ‘Loud­er Than Words,’ the first track released from the album. It’s the only vocal track on an oth­er­wise instru­men­tal LP.

The End­less Riv­er is the band’s first album since 1994’s The Divi­sion Bell. And it’s appar­ent­ly going to be their last. In the sec­ond clip record­ed by the BBC, David Gilmour talks about the con­cept behind The End­less Riv­er, how they wrote “Loud­er Than Words,” and how, espe­cial­ly with the death of key­boardist Richard Wright, it’s going to be their last cre­ative effort. “I think we have suc­cess­ful­ly com­man­deered the best of what there is. I sus­pect this is it.”

The End­less Riv­er can be pre-ordered on Ama­zon or iTunes.

via Ulti­mate Clas­sic Rock/Rolling Stone

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hear Lost Record­ing of Pink Floyd Play­ing with Jazz Vio­lin­ist Stéphane Grap­pel­li on “Wish You Were Here”

Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour Sings Shakespeare’s Son­net 18

Watch Doc­u­men­taries on the Mak­ing of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here

Watch Pink Floyd Play Live in the Ruins of Pom­peii (1972)

Read More...

Free Stanford Course: 18 Experts Assess What’s Ailing America in 2014

in Current Affairs, Online Courses | October 8th, 2014

In my day job, I have the priv­i­lege of over­see­ing Stan­ford’s Con­tin­u­ing Stud­ies pro­gram where we bring Stan­ford cours­es to the San Fran­cis­co Bay Area com­mu­ni­ty, and increas­ing­ly the larg­er world. This fall, we’re pre­sent­ing a pret­ty spe­cial course called The State of the Union 2014. Taught by Rob Reich (Polit­i­cal Sci­ence, Stan­ford), David Kennedy (His­to­ry, Stan­ford), and James Stey­er (CEO, Com­mon Sense Media), the course exam­ines “the abun­dant chal­lenges and oppor­tu­ni­ties of major themes con­tribut­ing to the health, or dis­ease, of the Unit­ed States body politic: inequal­i­ty, ener­gy and the envi­ron­ment, media and tech­nol­o­gy, the econ­o­my, and the 2014 midterm elec­tions.” And to help sort through these com­plex ques­tions, the pro­fes­sors will be joined by 18 dis­tin­guished guests, includ­ing Steven Chu (for­mer Sec­re­tary of Ener­gy), Reed Hast­ings (CEO of Net­flix), Janet Napoli­tano (for­mer Sec­re­tary of Home­land Secu­ri­ty), Ruth Mar­cus (colum­nist for the Wash­ing­ton Post), Karl Eiken­ber­ry (for­mer US Ambas­sador to Afghanistan) and Joel Benen­son (chief poll­ster for Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma).

We’re film­ing the class ses­sions of this sev­en-week course and mak­ing them avail­able on YouTube and iTunes. The first two ses­sions (each last­ing about 90 min­utes) can be viewed in the playlist above. The first ses­sion focus­es on the Midterm elec­tions; the sec­ond on the state of Cal­i­for­nia. New ses­sions will be added each week, gen­er­al­ly on Thurs­day or Fri­day.

Edu­ca­tion

Tech­nol­o­gy and Social Change

If you live in the San Fran­cis­co Bay Area, make sure you check out the Con­tin­u­ing Stud­ies pro­gram. It’s a tremen­dous resource for life­long learn­ers.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties

Start Your Start­up with Free Stan­ford Cours­es and Lec­tures

The Art of Liv­ing: A Free Stan­ford Course Explores Time­less Ques­tions

Stanford’s Robert Sapol­sky Demys­ti­fies Depres­sion

Peter Thiel’s Stan­ford Course on Star­tups: Read the Lec­ture Notes Free Online

Read More...

John Lennon’s Solo Albums Now Streaming for Free on Spotify

in Music | October 8th, 2014

I heard the news today oh boy…

As of today, eight John Lennon solo albums (and three Lennon com­pi­la­tions) are stream­ing for free on Spo­ti­fy. Here are the links to the albums: John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band (1970); Imag­ine (1971); Some­time in New York City (1972); Mind Games (1973);  Walls and Bridges (1974) Rock N Roll (1975); Dou­ble Fan­ta­sy Stripped Down (1980) ; Milk and Hon­ey (1984). Com­pi­la­tions include Gimme Some Truth, Sig­na­ture Box (find below), and Pow­er to the Peo­ple.  If you haven’t already, you’ll will need to down­load and reg­is­ter with Spo­ti­fy to play the music.

 

Image above by Jack Mitchell.

Sign up for our dai­ly email and, once a day, we’ll bun­dle all of our dai­ly posts and drop them in your inbox, in an easy-to-read for­mat. You don’t have to come to us; we’ll come to you!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

John Lennon’s Raw, Soul-Bar­ing Vocals From the Bea­t­les’ ‘Don’t Let Me Down’ (1969)

Hear John Lennon Sing Home Demo Ver­sions of “She Said, She Said,” “Straw­ber­ry Fields For­ev­er,” and “Don’t Let Me Down”

The Last Time Lennon & McCart­ney Played Togeth­er Cap­tured in the Boot­leg A Toot And a Snore in ’74

Read More...

Ben Franklin’s List of 200 Synonyms for “Drunk”: “Moon-Ey’d,” “Hammerish,” “Stew’d” & More (1737)

in Food & Drink, History | October 8th, 2014

How many Amer­i­cans could, off the top of their heads, tell you exact­ly why his­to­ry remem­bers Ben­jamin Franklin? Not many, I sus­pect, though we all know that he did a great deal worth remem­ber­ing, even by the stan­dards of a Found­ing Father. (Some­thing got him on the $100 bill, after all.) Of course, only his biog­ra­phers could remem­ber the every accom­plish­ment of this “First Amer­i­can,” from help­ing unite the colonies, to pub­lish­ing news­pa­pers, to serv­ing as Ambas­sador to France, to putting US nation­al secu­ri­ty at risk, to co-found­ing the Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia, to invent­ing bifo­cals and every­thing in between. Most Amer­i­cans can, I sus­pect, sum­mon to mind the image of Franklin fly­ing a kite with a key on it as well.

It also turns out that Franklin could indulge in a vice as hearti­ly as he could a virtue; the man who wrote Poor Richard’s Almanack knew how to have a good time. In 18th-cen­tu­ry Amer­i­ca, this seems often as not to have meant to know how to drink — and, in Franklin’s case, also to know how to iden­ti­fy the drunk. His rep­u­ta­tion as a bon vivant and a man of let­ters con­verged in a Jan­u­ary 13, 1737 edi­tion of the Penn­syl­va­nia Gazette, where­in he pub­lished this “Drinkers Dic­tio­nary” con­sist­ing of 200 syn­onyms for wast­ed, blot­to, half in the bag, three sheets to the wind, and oth­ers that would emerge over the fol­low­ing cen­turies. See them all below.

A
He is Addled,
He’s cast­ing up his Accounts,
He’s Afflict­ed,
He’s in his Airs.

B
He’s Big­gy,
Bewitch’d,
Block and Block,
Boozy,
Bowz’d,
Been at Bar­ba­does,
Pis­s’d in the Brook,
Drunk as a Wheel-Bar­row,
Bur­dock­’d,
Buskey,
Buzzey,
Has Stole a Manchet out of the Brew­er’s Bas­ket,
His Head is full of Bees,
Has been in the Bib­bing Plot,
Has drank more than he has bled,
He’s Bungey,
As Drunk as a Beg­gar,
He sees the Bears,
He’s kiss’d black Bet­ty,
He’s had a Thump over the Head with Samp­son’s Jaw­bone,
He’s Bridgey.

C
He’s Cat,
Cagrin’d,
Capa­ble,
Cram­p’d,
Cheru­bim­i­cal,
Cher­ry Mer­ry,
Wamble Crop’d,
Crack­’d,
Con­cern’d,
Half Way to Con­cord,
Has tak­en a Chirrip­ing-Glass,
Got Corns in his Head,
A Cup to much,
Coguy,
Copey,
He’s heat his Cop­per,
He’s Cro­cus,
Catch’d,
He cuts his Capers,
He’s been in the Cel­lar,
He’s in his Cups,
Non Com­pos,
Cock­’d,
Curv’d,
Cut,
Chip­per,
Chick­ery,
Loaded his Cart,
He’s been too free with the Crea­ture,
Sir Richard has tak­en off his Con­sid­er­ing Cap,
He’s Chap-fall­en,

D
He’s Dis­guiz’d,
He’s got a Dish,
Kil­l’d his Dog,
Took his Drops,
It is a Dark Day with him,
He’s a Dead Man,
Has Dip­p’d his Bill,
He’s Dag­g’d,
He’s seen the Dev­il,

E
He’s Prince Eugene,
Enter’d,
Wet both Eyes,
Cock Ey’d,
Got the Pole Evil,
Got a brass Eye,
Made an Exam­ple,
He’s Eat a Toad & half for Break­fast.
In his Ele­ment,

F
He’s Fishey,
Fox’d,
Fud­dled,
Sore Foot­ed,
Frozen,
Well in for’t,
Owes no Man a Far­thing,
Fears no Man,
Crump Foot­ed,
Been to France,
Flush’d,
Froze his Mouth,
Fet­ter’d,
Been to a Funer­al,
His Flag is out,
Fuzl’d,
Spoke with his Friend,
Been at an Indi­an Feast.

G
He’s Glad,
Groat­able,
Gold-head­ed,
Glaiz’d,
Gen­er­ous,
Booz’d the Gage,
As Dizzy as a Goose,
Been before George,
Got the Gout,
Had a Kick in the Guts,
Been with Sir John Goa,
Been at Gene­va,
Glob­u­lar,
Got the Glan­ders.

H
Half and Half,
Hardy,
Top Heavy,
Got by the Head,
Hid­dey,
Got on his lit­tle Hat,
Ham­mer­ish,
Loose in the Hilts,
Knows not the way Home,
Got the Horn­son,
Haunt­ed with Evil Spir­its,
Has Tak­en Hip­pocrates grand Elixir,

I
He’s Intox­i­cat­ed,
Jol­ly,
Jag­g’d,
Jam­bled,
Going to Jerusalem,
Joc­u­lar,
Been to Jeri­co,
Juicy.

K
He’s a King,
Clips the King’s Eng­lish,
Seen the French King,
The King is his Cousin,
Got Kib’d Heels,
Knapt,
Het his Ket­tle.

L
He’s in Liquor,
Lord­ly,
He makes Inden­tures with his Leg­gs,
Well to Live,
Light,
Lap­py,
Lim­ber,

M
He sees two Moons,
Mer­ry,
Mid­dling,
Moon-Ey’d,
Mud­dled,
Seen a Flock of Moons,
Maudlin,
Moun­tous,
Mud­dy,
Rais’d his Mon­u­ments,
Mel­low,

N
He’s eat the Cocoa Nut,
Nimp­top­si­cal,
Got the Night Mare,

O
He’s Oil’d,
Eat Opi­um,
Smelt of an Onion,
Oxy­cro­ci­um,
Over­set,

P
He drank till he gave up his Half-Pen­ny,
Pid­geon Ey’d,
Pungey,
Prid­dy,
As good con­di­tioned as a Pup­py,
Has scalt his Head Pan,
Been among the Philistines,
In his Pros­per­i­ty,
He’s been among the Philip­pi­ans,
He’s con­tend­ing with Pharaoh,
Wast­ed his Paunch,
He’s Polite,
Eat a Pud­ding Bagg,

Q
He’s Quar­rel­some,

R
He’s Rocky,
Rad­dled,
Rich,
Reli­gious,
Lost his Rud­der,
Ragged,
Rais’d,
Been too free with Sir Richard,
Like a Rat in Trou­ble.

S
He’s Stitch’d,
Sea­far­ing,
In the Sud­ds,
Strong,
Been in the Sun,
As Drunk as David’s Sow,
Swampt,
His Skin is full,
He’s Steady,
He’s Stiff,
He’s burnt his Shoul­der,
He’s got his Top Gal­lant Sails out,
Seen the yel­low Star,
As Stiff as a Ring-bolt,
Half Seas over,
His Shoe pinch­es him,
Stag­ger­ish,
It is Star-light with him,
He car­ries too much Sail,
Stew’d
Stub­b’d,
Soak’d,
Soft,
Been too free with Sir John Straw­ber­ry,
He’s right before the Wind with all his Stud­ding Sails out,
Has Sold his Sens­es.

T
He’s Top’d,
Tongue-ty’d,
Tan­n’d,
Tip­i­um Grove,
Dou­ble Tongu’d,
Top­sy Tur­vey,
Tipsey,
Has Swal­low’d a Tav­ern Token,
He’s Thaw’d,
He’s in a Trance,
He’s Tram­mel’d,

V
He makes Vir­ginia Fence,
Valiant,
Got the Indi­an Vapours,

W
The Malt is above the Water,
He’s Wise,
He’s Wet,
He’s been to the Salt Water,
He’s Water-soak­en,
He’s very Weary,
Out of the Way.

Franklin’s glos­sary also appears in Lists of Note, the brand new, high­ly rec­om­mend­ed book from Let­ters of Note’s Shaun Ush­er. Wher­ev­er you con­sult it, bear in mind Franklin’s intro­duc­to­ry note that all these terms come “gath­er’d whol­ly from the mod­ern Tav­ern-Con­ver­sa­tion of Tiplers. [ … ] I was tempt­ed to add a new one my self under the Let­ter B, to wit, Bru­ti­fy’d: But upon Con­sid­er­a­tion, I fear’d being guilty of Injus­tice to the Brute Cre­ation, if I rep­re­sent­ed Drunk­en­ness as a beast­ly Vice, since, ’tis well-known, that the Brutes are in gen­er­al a very sober sort of Peo­ple.” Which brings to mind a few bet­ter-known words attrib­uted to the man: “Beer is proof that god loves us and wants us to be hap­py.” He actu­al­ly said it about wine, but either way, let’s give Franklin cred­it: he was Wise — in mod­er­a­tion, of course.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Declas­si­fied CIA Doc­u­ment Reveals That Ben Franklin (and His Big Ego) Put U.S. Nation­al Secu­ri­ty at Risk

Drunk His­to­ry: An Intox­i­cat­ed Look at the Famous Alexan­der Hamil­ton – Aaron Burr Duel

Drunk Shake­speare: The Trendy Way to Stage the Bard’s Plays in the US & the UK

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture 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.

Read More...