Lyndon Johnson Orders New Pants on the Phone and Requests More Room for His … Johnson (1964)

in Animation, History, Random | November 26th, 2013

“Lyn­don John­son was indeed .… a being of Shake­speare­an dimensions—a hulk­ing, bush-coun­try colos­sus, gar­gan­tu­an of ego and ener­gy, of self-delu­sions and glooms and para­noias, crass cru­el­ties and ram­pant vul­gar­i­ties, but gar­gan­tu­an also in his benev­o­lent ambi­tions.” So begins Mar­shall Frady’s review of Robert Caro’s 2002 polit­i­cal biog­ra­phy, Mas­ter Of The Sen­ate: The Years of Lyn­don John­son. The review then pro­ceeds to describe John­son’s uncouth behav­ior, which some­how always seemed to involve his John­son:

He ear­ly became fabled for a Rabelaisian earth­i­ness, uri­nat­ing in the park­ing lot of the House Office Build­ing as the urge took him; if a col­league came into a Capi­tol bath­room as he was fin­ish­ing at the uri­nal there, he would some­times swing around still hold­ing his mem­ber, which he liked to call “Jum­bo,” hoot­ing once, “Have you ever seen any­thing as big as this?,” and shak­ing it in almost a bran­dish­ing man­ner as he began dis­cours­ing about some pend­ing leg­is­la­tion. At the same time, he would oblige aides to take dic­ta­tion stand­ing in the door of his office bath­room while he went about emp­ty­ing his bow­els, as if in some alpha-male rit­u­al asser­tion of his pri­ma­cy. Even on the floors of the House and Sen­ate, he would extrav­a­gant­ly rum­mage away at his groin, some­times reach­ing his hand through a pock­et and lean­ing with half-lift­ed leg for more thor­ough access.

Above, we have a record­ing of anoth­er col­or­ful episode from the John­son era. On August 9, 1964, the pres­i­dent called the Hag­gar cloth­ing com­pa­ny to order some cus­tom-made pants. It was seem­ing­ly an innocu­ous call, a call you could­n’t imag­ine a pres­i­dent mak­ing today. But it sud­den­ly took a bizarre turn when LBJ asked for more room in the crotch, in the area “where the nuts hang.” That, before let­ting out a short, unapolo­getic belch. It’s clas­sic John­son.

Lis­ten to the famous call play out above, and find a tran­script of the exchange here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Dizzy Gille­spie Runs for US Pres­i­dent, 1964. Promis­es to Make Miles Davis Head of the CIA

The Exis­ten­tial­ism Files: How the FBI Tar­get­ed Camus, and Then Sartre After the JFK Assas­si­na­tion

Actress Grace Kel­ly Reflects on the Life & Lega­cy of JFK in an Art­ful­ly Ani­mat­ed Video

Watch Soviet Animations of Winnie the Pooh, Created by the Innovative Animator Fyodor Khitruk

in Animation, Film, K-12 | November 25th, 2013

In 1962, the ani­ma­tor Fyo­dor Khitruk made his direc­to­r­i­al debut with Sto­ry of One Crime, a film that broke with a Sovi­et ten­den­cy to make imi­ta­tions of Dis­ney-style ani­ma­tions. The film, as The Guardian explained in its 2012 obit­u­ary for the ani­ma­tor, came as a shock. It was styl­is­ti­cal­ly sim­ple and dealt with themes that Dis­ney films would nev­er touch — like, why would a polite clerk mur­der two house­wives with a fry­ing pan?

Khitruk made oth­er films that were packed with social com­men­tary, often tak­ing aim at abus­es in the Sovi­et sys­tem. But, he also made straight­for­ward ani­ma­tions for chil­dren, none more famous than his series of films based on AA Mil­ne’s beloved Win­nie the Pooh books.

Cre­at­ed between 1969 and 1972, Khitruk’s three films star a bear named “Vin­ni-Pukh” who looks noth­ing like the Win­nie the Pooh that West­ern­ers grew up with. (You can see the orig­i­nal illus­tra­tions of Pooh by E.H. Shep­ard here.) But view­ers will cer­tain­ly rec­og­nize the sto­ry­line and spir­it of the orig­i­nal Pooh in the Sovi­et adap­ta­tions. For decades, these films have enchant­ed East Euro­pean view­ers, both young and old. And they still occa­sion­al­ly appear on Russ­ian TV.

Above, you can watch the three ani­ma­tions online. They appear in the order in which they were released: 1) Win­nie-the-Pooh (Винни-Пух, 1969), 2) Win­nie-the-Pooh Goes on a Vis­it (Винни-Пух идет в гости, 1971); and 3) Win­nie-the-Pooh and the Day of Con­cern (Винни-Пух и день забот, 1972).

As not­ed up top, you might need to click the “CC” icon at the bot­tom of the YouTube videos in order to acti­vate the sub­ti­tles. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, we can’t vouch for the accu­ra­cy of the trans­la­tions.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hear the Clas­sic Win­nie-the-Pooh Read by Author A.A. Milne in 1929

Two Beau­ti­ful­ly-Craft­ed Russ­ian Ani­ma­tions of Chekhov’s Clas­sic Children’s Sto­ry “Kash­tan­ka”

Watch The Amaz­ing 1912 Ani­ma­tion of Stop-Motion Pio­neer Ladis­las Stare­vich, Star­ring Dead Bugs

The Com­plete Wiz­ard of Oz Series, Avail­able as Free eBooks and Free Audio Books

Legendary Japanese Author Yukio Mishima Muses About the Samurai Code (Which Inspired His Hapless 1970 Coup Attempt)

in History, Literature, Politics | November 25th, 2013

One day in Novem­ber of 1970, Nobel prize-nom­i­nat­ed author Yukio Mishi­ma bar­ri­cad­ed him­self in the East­ern Com­mand office of Japan’s Self-Defense Forces and tied the com­man­dant to a chair. Accom­pa­nied by a hand­ful of young men from the Tatenokai, a stu­dent soci­ety-cum-mili­tia, Mishi­ma had launched a coup against the gov­ern­ment. He fol­lowed in the tra­di­tion of lit­er­ary rad­i­cals, whose ranks held writ­ers as diverse as Alexan­der Pushkin and Pablo Neru­da, with one key dis­tinc­tion: while Russ­ian and Chilean authors sought left­ward polit­i­cal shifts, Mishi­ma espoused a jack­boot brand of ascetic nation­al­ism. If Mishima’s cap­ti­va­tion with author­i­tar­i­an pol­i­tics seems out of char­ac­ter for a writer of such emo­tion­al depth, it is worth not­ing that his val­ues were root­ed in the hon­our code of the samu­rai, known as bushi­do. A rare clip of Mishima’s Eng­lish inter­views, above, makes the author’s beliefs about both art and hon­or pal­pa­bly clear:

I think that bru­tal­i­ty might come from our fem­i­nine aspect, and ele­gance comes from our ner­vous side. Some­times we are too sen­si­tive about defile­ment, or ele­gance, or a sense of beau­ty, or the aes­thet­ic side. Some­times we get tired of it. Some­times we need a sud­den explo­sion to make us free from it. For instance, after the war, our bru­tal side was com­plete­ly hid­den… I don’t like that the Japan­ese cul­ture is rep­re­sent­ed only by flower arrangement—a peace-lov­ing cul­ture. We still have a very strong war­rior mind.

The samu­rai ethos was a crit­i­cal com­po­nent of Mishi­ma’s most mov­ing works, includ­ing The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea and Patri­o­tism. In the film adap­ta­tion of Patri­o­tism, below, Mishi­ma shows that to him, even love is sub­or­di­nate to—or per­haps great­est when it works alongside—honour. While the film’s the­atri­cal pro­duc­tion and graph­ic nature may not be for everyone’s tastes (we also note that the clip below has been re-scored, with the orig­i­nal film avail­able here), the rit­u­al sui­cide it depicts offers some insight into the author’s psyche—after his failed coup, Mishi­ma plunged a blade into his stom­ach, and had one of the Tatenokai mem­bers behead him. He was 45 years old.

Ilia Blin­d­er­man is a Mon­tre­al-based cul­ture and sci­ence writer. Fol­low him at @iliablinderman.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

In Search of Haru­ki Muraka­mi, Japan’s Great Post­mod­ernist Nov­el­ist

Watch Kurosawa’s Rashomon Free Online, the Film That Intro­duced Japan­ese Cin­e­ma to the West

Amer­i­can Film­mak­ers in Japan­ese Ads: Quentin Taran­ti­no Sells Cell Phones, Orson Welles Hawks Whisky

The Story of the Bass: New Video Gives Us 500 Years of Music History in 8 Minutes

in History, Music | November 25th, 2013

Out­side of mod­ern jazz, bass play­ers have a hard time. Peo­ple either for­get they exist—“John Bon­ham, Jim­my Page, Robert Plant, and … oh yeah, that oth­er guy…”—or they get car­i­ca­tured as the goofi­est mem­bers of the band, due per­haps to the instrument’s unwield­i­ness and the rock­ing-at-the waist motions its awk­ward dimen­sions inspire. The phys­i­cal pos­tures of bassists have lent far too many per­fect pho­to­graph­ic moments to the viral Bass Dogs tum­blr, which imag­ines bass play­ers tick­ling giant, often embar­rassed-look­ing dogs.

But meme-ing aside, the bass occu­pies a cru­cial space, cov­er­ing a fre­quen­cy range and rhyth­mic dimen­sion with­out which we could not be tru­ly moved by mod­ern pop or clas­si­cal music, either in spir­it or body. And while the low end doesn’t clam­or for our attention—like the upper ranges of a chanteuse’s voice, a wail­ing lead gui­tar, or crash­ing cymbals—and can get lost in the tin­ny sounds of ear­buds and cheap radios, we sim­ply can­not do with­out the sound of the bass. To demon­strate what a propul­sive force the bass has been in the evo­lu­tion of music over the cen­turies, col­lec­tive CDZA—who have pre­vi­ous­ly enter­tained and enlight­ened us about the gui­tar solo—fea­ture bassist Michael Thurber in a greatest-hits-who’s‑who his­to­ry les­son, “The Sto­ry of the Bass.”

We begin with that baroque pre­cur­sor to the con­tra bass (or dou­ble bass), the vio­la da gam­ba, which Bach wrote for in his cel­lo suites and in da gam­ba and harp­si­chord pieces. When we come to the 18th cen­tu­ry, we are in the dou­ble bass world of bril­liant vir­tu­oso play­er and com­pos­er Domeni­co Drag­onet­ti, beloved of Haydn and Beethoven (hear a mes­mer­iz­ing Drag­onet­ti con­cer­to above). We then move through the 19th cen­tu­ry with names like Serge Kous­se­vitzky, pop­u­lar­iz­er of the 4‑string dou­ble bass we know today.

With jazz in the ‘20s , the fin­ger pluck­ing style comes to stand in for the tuba of pro­to-jazz Sousa bands. Then the 4‑note walk­ing bassline comes to the fore, brought most famous­ly by Duke Elling­ton bass­man Well­man Braud. In the 40s and 50s, bass took a spot­light with, among many oth­ers, three more some­time Elling­ton bassists: Jim­my Blan­ton, Oscar Pet­ti­ford, and, espe­cial­ly, Charles Min­gus.

The video zooms through country/bluegrass/rockabilly dou­ble bass inno­va­tions with a too-brief men­tion of slap bass tech­nique before Thurber straps on a clas­sic elec­tric to intro­duce but one of Leo Fender’s con­tri­bu­tions to mod­ern music. The first elec­tric bass debuted in 1951, and at the time, only one per­son played it, Monk (erro­neous­ly called “Mark” by CDZA) Mont­gomery, one of a trio of musi­cal broth­ers, who played for Lionel Hampton’s band.

As we get into the post-war peri­od, the bass evolves as rapid­ly as the tech­nolo­gies of ampli­fi­ca­tion, broad­cast, and record­ing. With the dom­i­nance of Motown in the six­ties, the bass takes a lead role in R&B, with the immor­tal James Jamer­son lead­ing the way (above with Jack­son 5). And with British rock and roll, the bass is again pushed to the fore­front by, of course, Paul McCart­ney. New tech­niques abound—John Entwistle of The Who’s fin­ger pluck­ing style, Lar­ry Graham’s slap­ping, the funk/rock/soul sig­na­tures of Nathan Watts, John Paul Jones, and Chris Squire. Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters stands alone as a sin­gu­lar voice on the bass.

Once Thurber reach­es off-the-wall instru­men­tal­ists like Jaco Pas­to­ri­ous (above) and Flea (one is sad­dened Les Clay­pool doesn’t get a name check), we’re off to the races, any­thing goes, and oth­er clichés. Or how about a pun? It’s a bass race to rede­fine the instru­ment until the oughties, when it set­tles back in for folk and six­ties rock revival­ism and explodes in the synth lines of the hard dance revival­ism of dub­step. It’s a rol­lick­ing ride, and as any 8‑and-a-half minute his­to­ry les­son is bound to be, a sur­vey in broad strokes that sure­ly leaves out a cou­ple or dozen of your favorites (Boot­sie Collins? Ged­dy Lee? Peter Hook? Kim Deal? Rob­bie Shake­speare?). But on the whole, it’s an instruc­tive tour of a neglect­ed or maligned instru­ment that deserves much more respect than it gets.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Evo­lu­tion of the Rock Gui­tar Solo: 28 Solos, Span­ning 50 Years, Played in 6 Fun Min­utes

The Fun­da­men­tals of Jazz & Rock Drum­ming Explained in Five Cre­ative Min­utes

An Abridged His­to­ry of West­ern Music: “What a Won­der­ful World” Sung in 16 Dif­fer­ent Styles

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

U2 Releases a Nelson Mandela-Inspired Song, “Ordinary Love”

in Music | November 24th, 2013

Worth a quick men­tion: U2 has released “Ordi­nary Love,” a song writ­ten for the new film Man­dela: Long Walk To Free­dom. “The band saw var­i­ous cuts of the film over the sum­mer and worked dili­gent­ly to write a song that tru­ly reflects Nel­son Man­dela,” The Hol­ly­wood Reporter quotes film pro­duc­er Har­vey Wein­stein as say­ing. And now, accom­pa­ny­ing the song, U2 has put out a “lyric video” direct­ed by Irish illus­tra­tor Oliv­er Jef­fers and Amer­i­can artist Mac Pre­mo. The song itself does­n’t raise my hopes that the band is break­ing out of what feels like a decade-long cre­ative rut. But it’s their first stu­dio track in four years since 2009’s No Line on the Hori­zon. So, if you’re a diehard U2 fan, it will per­haps sate you until next spring, when the band is sched­uled to release its next stu­dio album,

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Nel­son Mandela’s First-Ever TV Inter­view (1961)

Nel­son Man­dela Archive Goes Online (With Help From Google)

Leonard Cohen and U2 Per­form ‘Tow­er of Song,’ a Med­i­ta­tion on Aging, Loss & Sur­vival

Noam Chomsky on Commemorating the JFK Assassination: It “Would Impress Kim Il-Sung”

in Current Affairs, History | November 24th, 2013

In recent decades, his­to­ri­ans have tried to offer a bal­anced assess­ment of JFK’s life and lega­cy, offer­ing clear-eyed accounts of his han­dling of for­eign and domes­tic pol­i­cy, and rais­ing ques­tions about his infi­deli­ties and health prob­lems, all the while chip­ping away at the Camelot myth. On Fri­day, the 50th anniver­sary of the Kennedy assas­si­na­tion, the hagiog­ra­phy returned, and even peren­ni­al cads like Rush Lim­baugh had lit­tle bad to say about Amer­i­ca’s 35th pres­i­dent. He sim­ply insist­ed that JFK would be a con­ser­v­a­tive, if still alive today.

Per­haps the only notable excep­tion was Noam Chom­sky. Nev­er a fan of Kennedy (or prob­a­bly any oth­er Amer­i­can pres­i­dent for that mat­ter), Chom­sky was asked by Truthout, “Do you find it odd that the coun­try is focus­ing on a 50th anniver­sary remem­brance of the Kennedy assas­si­na­tion?” A lead­ing ques­tion, no doubt, to which Chomksy replied, “Wor­ship of lead­ers is a tech­nique of indoc­tri­na­tion that goes back to the crazed George Wash­ing­ton cult of the 18th cen­tu­ry and on to the tru­ly lunatic Rea­gan cult of today, both of which would impress Kim Il-sung. The JFK cult is sim­i­lar.” It’s what you get when you live in “a deeply indoc­tri­nat­ed soci­ety.” If you’re ready to have Chom­sky throw more cold water (or is it com­bustible gaso­line?) on the JFK lega­cy, head over to Truthout for more.

P.S. Don’t shoot the mes­sen­ger on this…

via Leit­er Reports

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Noam Chom­sky Slams Žižek and Lacan: Emp­ty ‘Pos­tur­ing’

Clash of the Titans: Noam Chom­sky and Michel Fou­cault Debate Human Nature and Pow­er on Dutch TV, 1971

Noam Chom­sky vs. William F. Buck­ley, 1969

Rocks Stars Who Died Before They Got Old: What They Would Look Like Today

in Life, Music, Photography | November 24th, 2013

Live fast.

Die young.

Spare your­self the grim real­i­ties of the state fair reunion tour cir­cuit.

On the oth­er hand, it’s death­ly hard to con­trol one’s image from beyond the grave. Espe­cial­ly when you’ve got an award-win­ning PR Agency and a pho­to manip­u­la­tion com­pa­ny team­ing up to imag­ine how you might look had you sur­vived!

The twelve unlucky recip­i­ents of these posthu­mous makeovers remain house­hold names (see the gallery here), even though it’s near­ly twen­ty years since the last of their num­ber drew breath. Like Jim Mor­ri­son, Janis Joplin and Jimi Hen­drix, Kurt Cobain was but 27 when he passed, though at the time of his birth, the oth­er three were all old enough to be his mom­my or dad­dy. Fit­ting, then, that he appears to be the baby of the gold­en group.

Music writer Eli­jah Wald and pop­u­lar music schol­ar Reebee Garo­fa­lo offer insights below each por­trait in the gallery about where the sub­jects might now find them­selves in their careers. It’s all con­jec­ture, but their expe­ri­ence ensures that their opin­ions can be tak­en as edu­cat­ed guess­es, at least.

Less con­vinc­ing are the sar­to­r­i­al choic­es on dis­play. Den­nis Wil­son in a Hawai­ian shirt, okay, but were he alive, might not Kei­th Moon fol­low suit with for­mer-band­mates Pete Town­shend and Roger Dal­trey, both of whom have adopt­ed the sleek, mono­chro­mat­ic wardrobe favored by aging rock gods?

And who here thinks the 78-year-old Elvis would traipse around in the sort of short-sleeved poly-blend shirt my late grand­fa­ther wore to his week­ly men’s prayer break­fast?

For pity’s sake, age does not auto­mat­i­cal­ly imply drab­ness!

(Who’s that I see over there? Could it be Yoko Ono, look­ing great at 80, in a top hat and tap pants? Even if she were look­ing less-than-fit, it would still be a bold choice! I doubt she wears that get-up to the gro­cery store, but the pro­gres­sion of time has not robbed her of the abil­i­ty to make a delib­er­ate visu­al impres­sion.)

What is refreshing—though not nec­es­sar­i­ly believable—is how none of the res­ur­rect­ed icons in these por­traits seem to have gone in for plas­tic surgery.

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Jimi Hendrix’s Final Inter­view on Sep­tem­ber 11, 1970: Lis­ten to the Com­plete Audio

Watch Janis Joplin’s Final Inter­view Reborn as an Ani­mat­ed Car­toon

Ani­mat­ed Video: Kurt Cobain on Teenage Angst, Sex­u­al­i­ty & Find­ing Sal­va­tion in Punk Music

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is the author of sev­en books, most recent­ly Peanut. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

The Existentialism Files: How the FBI Targeted Camus, and Then Sartre After the JFK Assassination

in Philosophy, Politics | November 22nd, 2013

Today, as you must sure­ly know, marks the 50th anniver­sary of John F. Kennedy’s assas­si­na­tion and also sure­ly marks a revival of inter­est in the myr­i­ad con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries that abound in the absence of a sat­is­fac­to­ry expla­na­tion for the events at Dealey Plaza on Novem­ber 22nd, 1963. One the­o­ry I’ve nev­er heard float­ed before comes to us via Andy Mar­tin, lec­tur­er in French at Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty and author of The Box­er and the Goal­keep­er: Sartre vs Camus. In an arti­cle for Prospect mag­a­zine, Mar­tin writes:

To the massed ranks of the CIA, the Mafia, the KGB, Cas­tro, Hoover, and LBJ, we can now add: Jean-Paul Sartre. FBI and State Depart­ment reports of the 1960s had drawn atten­tion to Sartre’s mem­ber­ship of the Fair Play for Cuba Com­mit­tee, of which Lee Har­vey Oswald was also a mem­ber. And—prophetically?—Sartre had “dis­missed the US as a head­less nation.” […] Could he, after all, have been the Sec­ond Shoot­er?

It’s prob­a­bly fair to say that Martin’s tongue is wedged firm­ly in his cheek through­out this open­ing of his fas­ci­nat­ing chron­i­cle of the FBI’s sur­veil­lance of Sartre and his one­time friend and edi­tor Albert Camus. But Martin’s inter­est in the mis­al­liance of Sartre and the Feds is very seri­ous. What he finds dur­ing his inves­ti­ga­tion of the FBI files on exis­ten­tial­ism is that “the G‑men, ini­tial­ly so anti-philo­soph­i­cal, find them­selves reluc­tant­ly phi­los­o­phiz­ing. They become (in GK Chesterton’s phrase) philo­soph­i­cal police­men.”

While we have become accus­tomed, since the days of Joe McCarthy, to ide­o­log­i­cal witch hunts, it seems that Sartre and Camus served as test cas­es for the sort of thing that fre­quent­ly plays out in over­heat­ed Con­gres­sion­al hear­ings and media denunciations—agents with fur­rowed brows and lit­tle philo­soph­i­cal train­ing des­per­ate­ly try­ing to work out whether such and such abstruse aca­d­e­m­ic is part of a grand con­spir­a­cy to under­mine truth, jus­tice, the Amer­i­can Way, etc.. Sartre appeared ear­ly on the anti-Com­mu­nist radar, though, iron­i­cal­ly, he did so as a plant of sorts, brought over in 1945 by the Office of War Infor­ma­tion as part of a group of jour­nal­ists the Unit­ed States’ gov­ern­ment hoped would put out good pro­pa­gan­da.

“Hoover won­dered,” how­ev­er, writes Mar­tin, “what kind of good pro­pa­gan­da you can hope to get out of the author of Nau­sea and Being and Noth­ing­ness.” It turned out, not much, but a year lat­er Hoover latched on to Sartre’s friend and edi­tor Albert Camus, whose name he and his agents spelled, var­i­ous­ly, as “Canus” or “Corus.” Where Sartre had breezed into the country—smitten by its lit­er­a­ture and music—Camus was held at immi­gra­tion on Hoover’s orders. He would spend a brief, depress­ing time and nev­er return.

How we get from post-war sur­veil­lance of French exis­ten­tial­ist philoso­phers to Sartre and the grassy knoll is a long and com­pli­cat­ed tale, befit­ting the para­noid imag­in­ings of J. Edgar Hoover. He was, after all, the con­spir­a­cy the­o­rist par excel­lence and “he need­ed to know,” writes Mar­tin, “if Exis­ten­tial­ism and Absur­dism were some kind of front for Com­mu­nism. To him, every­thing was poten­tial­ly a cod­ed re-write of the Com­mu­nist Man­i­festo.” What Hoover feared from Sartre, how­ev­er, was that the lat­ter was him­self an influ­en­tial believ­er in a con­spir­a­cy, one that cast doubt on the FBI’s strong­ly-held belief that Oswald was the lone gun­man.

Despite gath­er­ing years of NSA-wor­thy sur­veil­lance on the philoso­phers, Hoover’s agents were nev­er able to dis­cern the ide­o­log­i­cal pro­gram of the French. “I can’t work out,” wrote one in a note in Sartre’s file, “if he’s pro-Com­mu­nist or anti-Com­mu­nist.” The black-and-white, spy-vs-spy world of the FBI left lit­tle room for philo­soph­i­cal nuance and lit­er­ary ambi­gu­i­ty, after all. But they nev­er stopped watch­ing Sartre, con­vinced that “there must be some kind of con­spir­a­cy between com­mu­nists, blacks, poets and French philoso­phers.” As it turns out, there were several—political and aes­thet­ic con­spir­a­cies involv­ing such ter­ri­fy­ing fig­ures as Frantz Fanon and Aimé Césaire. These poets and close rela­tions of Sartre did, indeed, help foment rev­o­lu­tion in the Caribbean and elsewhere—but theirs are sto­ries for anoth­er day.

Read Martin’s Prospect arti­cle here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

FBI’s “Vault” Web Site Reveals Declas­si­fied Files on Hem­ing­way, Ein­stein, Mar­i­lyn & Oth­er Icons

Albert Camus Writes a Friend­ly Let­ter to Jean-Paul Sartre Before Their Per­son­al and Philo­soph­i­cal Rift

How the CIA Secret­ly Fund­ed Abstract Expres­sion­ism Dur­ing the Cold War

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

Dutchman Masters the Art of Singing Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” Backwards

in Music, Random | November 22nd, 2013

This has “viral video” writ­ten all over it. The only prob­lem is that it was filmed and released back in 2003, just two years before YouTube changed our world. But who knows, maybe with your help, the video could enjoy some posthu­mous viral­ness. Or is it viral­i­ty or viralos­i­ty?

The clip above fea­tures Jeroen Offer­man, a Dutch visu­al artist who, a decade ago, spent three months learn­ing to sing Led Zep­pelin’s “Stair­way to Heav­en” entire­ly back­wards. He filmed him­self singing the song in reverse, while stand­ing in front of Saint Paul’s Cathe­dral in Lon­don, then flipped the direc­tion of the video (hence the pedes­tri­ans walk back­wards), all in order to show how well he mas­tered the art of singing Zep­pelin in reverse.

On his web­site he explains the project in greater detail, writ­ing:

“The Stair­way at St.Paul’s” is based on the hys­te­ria that sur­round­ed cer­tain music-record­ings of the 60’s and the 70’s. Some rock bands, like the Bea­t­les, Judas Priest and Led Zep­pelin were sup­posed to have put hid­den mes­sages in their records that could only be heard when played back­wards. These mes­sages though, would sub­con­scious­ly be picked up by the lis­ten­er who would then react in response to them.

In this way the band Judas Priest end­ed up in a court case because their records had ‘induced’ chil­dren to com­mit sui­cide. Also, the Bea­t­les were sup­posed to sug­gest through their records that Paul McCart­ney, one of their main band mem­bers, had died in a car crash and was replaced by a look-a-like.

The most famous exam­ple though, is Led Zeppelin’s ‘Stair­way to Heav­en’, a song about a woman buy­ing her­self a way in to heav­en. The mys­tic lyrics seem to urge us to fol­low the right path in life. But, as one line in the song already says, “some­times words have two mean­ings”, and so, when played back­wards, this song is sup­posed to urge us to wor­ship evil.

It’s time to dive in to your record-col­lec­tion and find out if it was all true. But first let us watch this video. So turn up the vol­ume and remem­ber the first time you smoked a cig­a­rette…

Things get pret­ty great around the 6:07 mark.

I’m pray­ing that this isn’t all a goof.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Pak­istani Immi­grant Goes to a Led Zep­pelin Con­cert, Gets Inspired to Become a Musi­cian & Then Sells 30 Mil­lion Albums

Hear Led Zeppelin’s First Record­ed Con­cert Ever (1968)

Led Zep­pelin Plays One of Its Ear­li­est Con­certs (Dan­ish TV, 1969)

November 22, 1963: Watch Errol Morris’ Short Documentary About the Kennedy Assassination

in History, Photography | November 22nd, 2013

We live in a fine time for con­spir­a­cy the­o­rists, in at least a cou­ple of sens­es. First and more broad­ly, giv­en the pow­er of the inter­net, they’ve nev­er had clos­er at hand the semi-incrim­i­nat­ing, half-hid­den pieces of infor­ma­tion on which they build and with which they bol­ster their sus­pi­cions. Nor have they ever had a more effec­tive means of gath­er­ing and dis­cussing their find­ings. Sec­ond and more specif­i­cal­ly, the 50th anniver­sary of the assas­si­na­tion of Pres­i­dent John F. Kennedy has come upon us. This has set all those fas­ci­nat­ed by that grim his­tor­i­cal event, from the sober­est of skep­tics to the sheer­est para­noiacs, eval­u­at­ing and re-eval­u­at­ing it even more thor­ough­ly than usu­al. Above you’ll find the short Novem­ber 22, 1963 by Errol Mor­ris, a clear-eyed doc­u­men­tar­i­an and inter­view­er fas­ci­nat­ed not only with those who con­spire and those who the­o­rize about such con­spir­a­cies, but also with the grander implic­it ques­tions about what we know and what we don’t, what we can know and what we can’t, and whether we even know what we can and can’t know in the first place. (The title of his new fea­ture-length doc­u­men­tary about Don­ald Rums­feld: The Unknown Known.)

“The more you inves­ti­gate a crime, the more it becomes crys­tal-clear what hap­pened,” says Josi­ah “Tink” Thomp­son, schol­ar of Søren Kierkegaard, pri­vate detec­tive, and author of Six Sec­onds in Dal­las: A Micro-Study of the Kennedy Assas­si­na­tion (a book with which any­one who has seen Richard Lin­klater’s Slack­er will already feel some famil­iar­i­ty). “I don’t think any oth­er crime I know of in his­to­ry has been inves­ti­gat­ed with the kind of inten­si­ty that this has. And yet I don’t think we get any clos­er to know­ing what hap­pened now than we were 40, 45 years ago.” This opens a dis­cus­sion of how all the pho­to­graph­ic evi­dence of 11/22/63, up to and includ­ing the awe­some­ly scru­ti­nized Zaprud­er film, bears on the mat­ter. “Is there a les­son to be learned?” Mor­ris asks. “Yes, to nev­er give up try­ing to uncov­er the truth. Despite all the dif­fi­cul­ties, what hap­pened in Dal­las hap­pened in one way rather than anoth­er. It may have been hope­less­ly obscured, but it was not oblit­er­at­ed.” And just as Novem­ber 22, 1963 fol­lows up The Umbrel­la Man, Mor­ris’ pre­vi­ous piece with Thomp­son, Thomp­son has a sequel of his own in the works: a book called Last Sec­onds in Dal­las. JFK assas­si­na­tion nuts — and I mean that in the nicest way — have their read­ing ahead of them.

Novem­ber 22, 1963 will be added to the Doc­u­men­tary sec­tion of our col­lec­tion of 600 Free Movies Online.

Relat­ed con­tent:

Revis­it­ing JFK on YouTube

Who Killed JFK? Two New Stud­ies

Film­mak­er Errol Mor­ris Gives Us “11 Excel­lent Rea­sons Not to Vote?”

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on lit­er­a­ture, film, cities, Asia, and aes­thet­ics. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.