The Kinks’ Ray Davies Reviews the Beatles’ 1966 Album Revolver; Calls It “A Load of Rubbish”

in Music | November 12th, 2013

The Bea­t­les’ Revolver has gar­nered some of the high­est prais­es rock crit­ics can offer. But not every­one loved the record when it came out. In a 1966 issue of Disc and Music Echo mag­a­zine, the Kinks’ Ray Davies wrote a snarky, unspar­ing review of the album, tack­ling each song in a few sen­tences. In high con­trast to the cur­rent sen­ti­ments of Rolling Stone or All­mu­sic, Davies only seems to have liked a few tracks, and those the most tra­di­tion­al­ly upbeat: He called “I’m Only Sleep­ing,” “a most beau­ti­ful song” and “the best track on the album.” He also quite liked “Good Day Sun­shine,” writ­ing “this is back to the real old Bea­t­les. I just don’t like the elec­tron­ic stuff. The Bea­t­les were sup­posed to be like the boy next door only bet­ter.” And “Here There and Every­where” Davies calls the “third best track on the album.”

That’s most­ly the end of Davies’ felic­i­ty. His review sav­ages some of the most pop­u­lar songs on the record. Of “Eleanor Rig­by” he writes. “it sounds like they’re out to please music teach­ers in pri­ma­ry schools.” The best he can bring him­self to say of the track is that “it’s very com­mer­cial.” “Yel­low Sub­ma­rine,” Davies writes, “is a load of rub­bish, real­ly.” And his take on the trip­py “Tomor­row Nev­er Knows” cuts the song’s ambi­tions down to size: “Lis­ten to all those crazy sounds! It’ll be pop­u­lar in dis­cothe­ques. I can imag­ine they had George Mar­tin tied to a totem pole when they did this.” Maybe the cranky Davies was moti­vat­ed by pro­fes­sion­al jeal­ousy; maybe he’s one of the most hon­est review­ers of the record—his take uncol­ored by starstruck­ness. Who knows? He does admit that it’s “the first Bea­t­les LP I’ve real­ly lis­tened to in its entire­ty.” Read Davies’ full review here.

via Dan­ger­ous Minds

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hear the Iso­lat­ed Vocal Tracks for The Bea­t­les’ Cli­mac­tic 16-Minute Med­ley on Abbey Road

The 10-Minute, Nev­er-Released, Exper­i­men­tal Demo of The Bea­t­les’ “Rev­o­lu­tion” (1968)

The Bea­t­les: Unplugged Col­lects Acoustic Demos of White Album Songs (1968)

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

George Orwell’s Five Greatest Essays (as Selected by Pulitzer-Prize Winning Columnist Michael Hiltzik)

in English Language, Literature, Politics | November 12th, 2013

Image via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

Every time I’ve taught George Orwell’s famous 1946 essay on mis­lead­ing, smudgy writ­ing, “Pol­i­tics and the Eng­lish Lan­guage,” to a group of under­grad­u­ates, we’ve delight­ed in point­ing out the num­ber of times Orwell vio­lates his own rules—indulges some form of vague, “pre­ten­tious” dic­tion, slips into unnec­es­sary pas­sive voice, etc.  It’s a pet­ty exer­cise, and Orwell him­self pro­vides an escape clause for his list of rules for writ­ing clear Eng­lish: “Break any of these rules soon­er than say any­thing out­right bar­barous.” But it has made us all feel slight­ly bet­ter for hav­ing our writ­ing crutch­es pushed out from under us.

Orwell’s essay, writes the L.A. Times’ Pulitzer-Prize win­ning colum­nist Michael Hiltzik, “stands as the finest decon­struc­tion of sloven­ly writ­ing since Mark Twain’s “Fen­i­more Cooper’s Lit­er­ary Offens­es.” Where Twain’s essay takes on a pre­ten­tious aca­d­e­m­ic estab­lish­ment that unthink­ing­ly ele­vates bad writ­ing, “Orwell makes the con­nec­tion between degrad­ed lan­guage and polit­i­cal deceit (at both ends of the polit­i­cal spec­trum).” With this con­cise descrip­tion, Hiltzik begins his list of Orwell’s five great­est essays, each one a bul­wark against some form of emp­ty polit­i­cal lan­guage, and the often bru­tal effects of its “pure wind.”

One spe­cif­ic exam­ple of the lat­ter comes next on Hiltzak’s list (actu­al­ly a series he has pub­lished over the month) in Orwell’s 1949 essay on Gand­hi. The piece clear­ly names the abus­es of the impe­r­i­al British occu­piers of India, even as it strug­gles against the can­on­iza­tion of Gand­hi the man, con­clud­ing equiv­o­cal­ly that “his char­ac­ter was extra­or­di­nar­i­ly a mixed one, but there was almost noth­ing in it that you can put your fin­ger on and call bad.” Orwell is less ambiva­lent in Hiltzak’s third choice, the spiky 1946 defense of Eng­lish com­ic writer P.G. Wode­house, whose behav­ior after his cap­ture dur­ing the Sec­ond World War under­stand­ably baf­fled and incensed the British pub­lic. The last two essays on the list, “You and the Atom­ic Bomb” from 1945 and the ear­ly “A Hang­ing,” pub­lished in 1931, round out Orwell’s pre- and post-war writ­ing as a polemi­cist and clear-sight­ed polit­i­cal writer of con­vic­tion. Find all five essays free online at the links below. And find some of Orwell’s great­est works in our col­lec­tion of Free eBooks.

1. “Pol­i­tics and the Eng­lish Lan­guage”

2. “Reflec­tions on Gand­hi”

3. “In Defense of P.G. Wode­house”

4. “You and the Atom­ic Bomb”

5. “A Hang­ing”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

George Orwell’s Rules for Mak­ing the Per­fect Cup of Tea: A Short Ani­ma­tion

The Only Known Footage of George Orwell (Cir­ca 1921)

George Orwell and Dou­glas Adams Explain How to Make a Prop­er Cup of Tea

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

Charles Bukowski Takes You on a Very Strange Tour of Hollywood

in Poetry | November 12th, 2013

The world tends to think rather loose­ly about the con­cepts of Los Ange­les, Hol­ly­wood, and the motion pic­ture indus­try, throw­ing them around, run­ning them togeth­er, nam­ing one when they mean anoth­er — still, noth­ing a brac­ing splash of Charles Bukows­ki can’t sort out. Above, the famous Los Ange­les-res­i­dent poet, a fig­ure as sham­bol­i­cal­ly glo­ri­ous and stealth­ily inspir­ing as much of the city itself, gives a brief back-seat tour of Hol­ly­wood. No, he does­n’t take us past the movie stu­dios, nor the Walk of Fame, nor the site of Schwab’s Phar­ma­cy. He stays clos­er to home — his home, the sto­ried bun­ga­low at 5124 De Long­pre Avenue. We see his neigh­bor­hood, his neck of Hol­ly­wood, the north­west­ern dis­trict of vast Los Ange­les that con­tains much less of the capital‑I Indus­try than you’d think, but more of gen­uine (if often grotesque) inter­est.

“That’s a lady for­tune teller there,” Bukows­ki says, ges­tur­ing toward one of the mod­est hous­es around him. “I went in there one time. She read my palm. She said, ‘You’re an alco­holic.’ ‘Real­ly? Do I gam­ble, too?’ ‘Yes, you gam­ble. That’ll be five dol­lars.’ ” The dri­ver con­tin­ues down Hol­ly­wood’s epony­mous boule­vard, pass­ing West­ern Avenue, which gets the poet remem­ber­ing more: “There used to be cement bench­es out front, and all the insane peo­ple would sit there. The street peo­ple. They’d talk to each oth­er all day long.” We pass impor­tant land­marks as well: “There’s the old Sex Shop. Keeps chang­ing hands.” He even points out the wheel­ers and deal­ers liv­ing amid this stretch of bars, broth­els, and burg­er stands: “There’s a woman who’s not a hook­er. There’s a dope deal­er.” Give me Bukowski’s Hol­ly­wood tour over those dou­ble-deck­er bus­es you see around town, their con­duc­tors bark­ing about minor celebri­ty sight­ings, any day. “I’ve been to this liquor store many a time,” Bukows­ki notes. “Many a time.”

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:

Charles Bukows­ki Tells the Sto­ry of His Worst Hang­over Ever

“Don’t Try”: Charles Bukowski’s Con­cise Phi­los­o­phy of Art and Life

Five Cul­tur­al Tours of Los Ange­les

The Last (Faxed) Poem of Charles Bukows­ki

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.

“Wear Sunscreen”: The Story Behind the Commencement Speech That Kurt Vonnegut Never Gave

in Graduation Speech, Literature, MIT | November 11th, 2013

On June 1, 1997, Mary Schmich, Chica­go Tri­bune colum­nist and Bren­da Starr car­toon­ist, wrote a col­umn enti­tled “Advice, like youth, prob­a­bly just wast­ed on the young.” In her intro­duc­tion to the col­umn she described it as the com­mence­ment speech she would give to the class of ’97 if she were asked to give one.

The first line of the speech: “Ladies and gen­tle­men of the class of ’97: Wear sun­screen.”

If you grew up in the 90s, these words may sound famil­iar, and you would be absolute­ly right. Aus­tralian film direc­tor Baz Luhrmann used the essay in its entire­ty on his 1998 album Some­thing for Every­body, turn­ing it into his hit sin­gle “Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sun­screen).” With spo­ken-word lyrics over a mel­low back­ing track by Zam­bian dance music per­former Roza­l­la, the song was an unex­pect­ed world­wide hit, reach­ing num­ber 45 on the Bill­board Hot 100 in the Unit­ed States and num­ber one in the Unit­ed King­dom.

The thing is, Luhrmann and his team did not real­ize that Schmich was the actu­al author of the speech until they sought out per­mis­sion to use the lyrics. They believed it was writ­ten by author Kurt Von­negut.

For Schmich, the “Sun­screen Con­tro­ver­sy” was “just one of those sto­ries that reminds you of the law­less­ness of cyber­space.” While no one knows the orig­i­na­tor of the urban leg­end, the sto­ry goes that Vonnegut’s wife, the pho­tog­ra­ph­er Jill Kre­mentz, had received an e‑mail in ear­ly August 1997 that pur­port­ed to reprint a com­mence­ment speech Von­negut had giv­en at MIT that year. (The actu­al com­mence­ment speak­er was the Unit­ed Nations Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Kofi Annan.) “She was so pleased,” Mr. Von­negut lat­er told the New York Times. “She sent it on to a whole of peo­ple, includ­ing my kids – how clever I am.”

The pur­port­ed speech became a viral sen­sa­tion, bounc­ing around the world through e‑mail. This is how Luhrmann dis­cov­ered the text. He, along with Anton Mon­st­ed and Josh Abra­hams, decid­ed to use it for a remix he was work­ing on but was doubt­ful he could get Von­negut’s  per­mis­sion. While search­ing for the writer’s con­tact infor­ma­tion, Luhrmann dis­cov­ered that Schmich was the actu­al author. He reached out to her and, with her per­mis­sion, record­ed the song the next day.

What hap­pened between June 1 and ear­ly August, no one knows. For Von­negut, the con­tro­ver­sy cement­ed his belief that the Inter­net was not worth trust­ing. “I don’t know what the point is except how gullible peo­ple are on the Inter­net.” For Schmich, she acknowl­edged that her col­umn would prob­a­bly not had spread the way it did with­out the names of Von­negut and MIT attached to it.

In the end, Schmich and Von­negut did con­nect after she reached out to him to inform him of the con­fu­sion. Accord­ing to Von­negut, “What I said to Mary Schmich on the tele­phone was that what she wrote was fun­ny and wise and charm­ing, so I would have been proud had the words been mine.” Not a bad end­ing for a col­umn that was writ­ten, accord­ing to Schmich, “while high on cof­fee and M&Ms.”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Shape of A Sto­ry: Writ­ing Tips from Kurt Von­negut

22-Year-Old P.O.W. Kurt Von­negut Writes Home from World War II: “I’ll Be Damned If It Was Worth It”

Kurt Von­negut Reads from Slaugh­ter­house-Five

George Saunders’ Lectures on the Russian Greats Brought to Life in Student Sketches

in Art, Literature, Writing | November 11th, 2013

Click for larg­er image

We’ve seen plen­ty of post-mod­ern decay in writ­ers before George Saun­ders—in Don DeLil­lo, J.G. Ballard—but nev­er has it been filled with such puck­ish warmth, such whim­si­cal detail, and such empa­thy, to use a word Saun­ders prizes. As a writer, Saun­ders draws read­ers in close to a very human world, albeit a frag­ment­ed, burned out, and frayed one, and it seems that he does so as a teacher as well. Since 1997, Saun­ders has taught cre­ative writ­ing at Syra­cuse Uni­ver­si­ty, where he received his M.A. in 1988, and where he remains, despite being award­ed a MacArthur “Genius” Fel­low­ship in 2006 and pub­lish­ing steadi­ly through­out the last decade and a half. To sit in a class with Saun­ders, accord­ing to his one­time stu­dent Rebec­ca Fishow, is to vis­it with a dar­ing prac­ti­tion­er of the short form, one whose “words seem a lot like the trans­fer of secrets through a chain-link of writ­ers.”

While attend­ing one of Saun­ders’ semes­ter-length writ­ing sem­i­nars, writer and artist Fishow com­piled the notes and sketch­es you see here (and sev­er­al more at The Believ­er’s Log­ger site). In each sketch, Saun­ders teach­es from one of his favorite clas­sic Russ­ian short sto­ry writ­ers. At the top, see him expound on Turgenev’s method, prof­fer­ing epipha­nies, keen obser­va­tions on craft, and writer­ly advice in word bubbles—“You are allowed to manip­u­late,” “Tec­ni­cian vs. Artist” [sic], “Instan­ta­neous micro-re-eval­u­a­tion (@end of story)”—while sur­round­ed by a fringy aura. Above, Fishow recon­structs Saun­ders’ take on Chekhov’s “Lady with the Pet Dog” around a por­trait of a pen­sive Saun­ders (look­ing a bit like Chekhov).

Fishow’s recon­struc­tions are obvi­ous­ly very par­tial, and it’s not clear if she took them down on the spot or scrib­bled from mem­o­ry (the mis­spellings make me think the for­mer). In the sketch above, Saun­ders’ expli­cates Gogol, with phras­es like “VERBAL JOY!” and an Ein­stein quote: “No wor­thy prob­lem is ever solved on the plane of its orig­i­nal con­cep­tion.” The lat­ter is an inter­est­ing moment of Saun­ders’ sci­en­tif­ic back­ground slip­ping into his ped­a­gogy. Before he was a MacAu­rthur win­ner and an enthu­si­as­tic teacher, Saun­ders worked as an envi­ron­men­tal engi­neer. Of his sci­ence back­ground, he has said:

…any claim I might make to orig­i­nal­i­ty in my fic­tion is real­ly just the result of this odd back­ground: basi­cal­ly, just me work­ing inef­fi­cient­ly, with flawed tools, in a mode I don’t have suf­fi­cient back­ground to real­ly under­stand. Like if you put a welder to design­ing dress­es.

As a teacher, at least in Fishow’s notes, Saun­ders cel­e­brates “work­ing inef­fi­cient­ly.” As she puts it: “His wis­dom con­firms that flaw and uncer­tain­ty and vari­ety and empa­thy (espe­cial­ly empa­thy) are pos­i­tive aspects of the writ­ing process.” Fishow’s por­traits go a long way toward con­vey­ing those qual­i­ties in Saun­ders as a pres­ence in the class­room.

Find more sketch­es at The Believ­er’s Log­ger site.

Also Read 10 Free Sto­ries by George Saun­ders Online.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

George Saun­ders Extols the Virtues of Kind­ness in 2013 Speech to Syra­cuse Uni­ver­si­ty Grads

Vladimir Nabokov (Chan­nelled by Christo­pher Plum­mer) Teach­es Kaf­ka at Cor­nell

James Joyce, With His Eye­sight Fail­ing, Draws a Sketch of Leopold Bloom (1926)

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

Developing iOS 7 Apps for iPhone and iPad: A Free Online Course by Stanford

in Apple, Online Courses, Stanford, Technology | November 10th, 2013

FYI: Apple offi­cial­ly released iOS7,  the lat­est oper­at­ing sys­tem for the iPhone and iPad, on Sep­tem­ber 18. Almost simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, Stan­ford began offer­ing a course teach­ing stu­dents how to design apps in the new envi­ron­ment. Although the course is still in progress, the ini­tial video lec­tures are now avail­able online, you guessed it, on iTune­sU.

This course, along with oth­er top-flight cod­ing cours­es, appears in the Com­put­er Sci­ence sec­tion of our big col­lec­tion of 775 Free Online Cours­es, where you’ll also find cours­es on Phi­los­o­phy, His­to­ry, Physics and oth­er top­ics.

Look­ing for tuto­ri­als on build­ing apps in Android? Find them here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Learn to Code with Harvard’s Intro to Com­put­er Sci­ence Course And Oth­er Free Tech Class­es

Codecademy’s Free Cours­es Democ­ra­tize Com­put­er Pro­gram­ming

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

Biol­o­gy That Makes Us Tick: Free Stan­ford Course by Robert Sapol­sky

Watch Jimi Hendrix: Hear My Train A Comin’, the New PBS Documentary (Free for a Limited Time)

in Film, Music | November 9th, 2013

Def­i­nite­ly worth a quick men­tion. For a lim­it­ed time, PBS is mak­ing avail­able its lat­est film from its great Amer­i­can Mas­ters doc­u­men­tary series. My Train A Comin’ traces Jimi Hen­drix’s “remark­able jour­ney from his hard­scrab­ble begin­nings in Seat­tle, through his stint as a US Army para­troop­er and as an unknown side­man, to R&B stars until his dis­cov­ery and ulti­mate inter­na­tion­al star­dom.” It fea­tures “pre­vi­ous­ly unseen footage of the 1968 Mia­mi Pop Fes­ti­val, home movies, and inter­views with those clos­est to Jimi Hen­drix.” From what we can tell, PBS will keep this film online for only a mat­ter of days. So watch it while you can.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

In 1969 Telegram, Jimi Hen­drix Invites Paul McCart­ney to Join a Super Group with Miles Davis

Jimi Hen­drix Wreaks Hav­oc on the Lulu Show, Gets Banned From BBC

‘Elec­tric Church’: The Jimi Hen­drix Expe­ri­ence Live in Stock­holm, 1969

See Jimi Hendrix’s First TV Appear­ance, and His Last as a Back­ing Musi­cian (1965)

575 Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, Doc­u­men­taries & West­erns, etc.

James Joyce’s Dublin Captured in Vintage Photos from 1897 to 1904

in History, Literature, Photography | November 9th, 2013

The Google Cul­tur­al Insti­tute has drawn our atten­tion before, with its vir­tu­al exhi­bi­tions on the rise of the Eif­fel Tow­er, the fall of the Iron Cur­tain, and many oth­er notable chap­ters of human his­to­ry. Today, take a look at a Google Cul­tur­al Insti­tute gallery that has a foot in lit­er­a­ture as well as in his­to­ry, Dublin­ers: the Pho­tographs of J.J. Clarke from the Nation­al Library of Ire­land. Sub­ti­tled “a glimpse of James Joyce’s Dublin,” the online show presents pic­tures tak­en by this fel­low Clarke at the turn of the 20th cen­tu­ry, when he came to the Irish cap­i­tal to study med­i­cine. His “pho­to­jour­nal­is­tic approach to his sub­jects allowed him to cap­ture vivid scenes from the dai­ly lives of Dublin’s men, women and chil­dren.”

This made Clarke a con­tem­po­rary of Joyce, and so his “images also show us how the city looked” to the writer “whose best known works — the short sto­ry col­lec­tion Dublin­ers, and the nov­els A Por­trait of the Artist as a Young Man and Ulysses — are all set around that time, when Joyce too was a young stu­dent fas­ci­nat­ed by the world around him.”

Both the pho­tog­ra­ph­er and the nov­el­ist, in their sep­a­rate forms, set about cap­tur­ing the city, the era, and the cul­ture around them, and the pic­tures of Clarke’s fea­tured at the Google Cul­tur­al Insti­tute could eas­i­ly illus­trate any of Joyce’s books.

I’ve long enjoyed repeat­ing the obser­va­tion that, had the real Dublin crum­bled, we could rebuild it from the details giv­en in Ulysses — or at least we could rebuild the Dublin of 1904. But I now accept that hav­ing on hand Clarke’s pho­tographs, about which you can learn much more at the Nation­al Library of Ire­land’s site, they would great­ly speed the recon­struc­tion process as well. All of the Joycean texts men­tioned above can be found in our col­lec­tion of Free Audio Books and Free eBooks.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Vladimir Nabokov Cre­ates a Hand-Drawn Map of James Joyce’s Ulysses

James Joyce, With His Eye­sight Fail­ing, Draws a Sketch of Leopold Bloom (1926)

James Joyce Reads ‘Anna Livia Plura­belle’ from Finnegans Wake

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.

Jerry Garcia Talks About the Birth of the Grateful Dead & Playing Kesey’s Acid Tests in New Animated Video

in Music | November 9th, 2013

Before the Grate­ful Dead record­ed their clas­sic epony­mous coun­try psych album, before they were the Grate­ful Dead, they were the War­locks, “play­ing the divorcees bars up and down the penin­su­la,” Jer­ry Gar­cia tells us above. Their book­ing agent “used to book strip­pers and dog acts and magi­cians and every­body else.” Their first few gigs “sound­ed like hell,” says Gar­cia, “very awful.” In this Blank-on-Blank-ani­mat­ed 1988 inter­view with for­mer Cap­i­tal-EMI record exec­u­tive Joe Smith, Gar­cia gets into the ori­gin of their name (a sto­ry involv­ing the East Coast War­locks, who might have sued. What he doesn’t men­tion is that the Vel­vet Underground—inventors of East Coast psych—also played at that time as the War­locks.)

Smith was with Warn­er Bros. when the Dead were signed in 1967. His rela­tion­ship with the band then was frus­trat­ed, and he went so far as to call the record­ing of their sec­ond album “the most unrea­son­able project with which we have ever involved our­selves.” But this con­ver­sa­tion is a fun­ny, cor­dial exchange between two very affa­ble peo­ple with sur­pris­ing­ly good mem­o­ries of the time (Smith also once said the Dead “could have put me in the hos­pi­tal for the rest of my life”). Jer­ry tells the sto­ry of their invi­ta­tion to Mer­ry Prankster and psy­che­del­ic genius Ken Kesey’s acid test par­ties in La Hon­da, Cal­i­for­nia. It’s more or less the his­to­ry of the West Coast acid rock scene and its apoth­e­o­sis at Haight-Ash­bury, so kind of essen­tial watch­ing, I’d say, but at less than six min­utes, you can afford to be the judge.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Ken Kesey Talks About the Mean­ing of the Acid Tests in a Clas­sic Inter­view

UC San­ta Cruz Opens a Deadhead’s Delight: The Grate­ful Dead Archive is Now Online

The Grate­ful Dead Rock the Nation­al Anthem at Can­dle­stick Park: Open­ing Day, 1993

Library of Con­gress Releas­es Audio Archive of Inter­views with Rock ‘n’ Roll Icons

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

T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” Gets Adapted As a Comic Book

in Comics/Cartoons, Poetry | November 8th, 2013

Poet­ry is as close as writ­ten lan­guage comes to the visu­al arts but, aside from nar­ra­tive poems, it is not a medi­um eas­i­ly adapt­ed to visu­al forms. Per­haps some of the least adapt­able, I would think, are the high mod­ernists, whose obses­sive focus on tech­nique ren­ders much of their work opaque to all but the most care­ful read­ers. The major poems of T.S. Eliot per­haps best rep­re­sent this ten­den­cy. And yet com­ic artist Julian Peters is up to the chal­lenge. Peters, who has pre­vi­ous­ly adapt­ed Poe, Keats, and Rim­baud, now takes on Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” and you can see the first nine pages at his site.

Writ­ten in 1910 and pub­lished five years lat­er, “Prufrock” has become a stan­dard ref­er­ence for Eliot’s doc­trine of the “objec­tive cor­rel­a­tive,” a con­cept he defines in his crit­i­cal essay, “Ham­let and His Prob­lems,” as “a set of objects, a sit­u­a­tion, a chain of events which shall be the for­mu­la of that par­tic­u­lar emo­tion.” It’s a the­o­ry he elab­o­rates in “Tra­di­tion and the Indi­vid­ual Tal­ent” in his dis­cus­sion of Dante. And Dante is where “Prufrock” begins, with an epi­graph from the Infer­no. Peters’ first page illus­trates the ago­nized speak­er of Dante’s lines, Gui­do da Mon­te­fel­tro, a soul con­fined to the eighth cir­cle, whom you can see at the top of the title page shown above. Peters’ visu­al choic­es place us firm­ly in the hell­ish emo­tion­al realm of “Prufrock,” a seem­ing cat­a­logue of the mun­dane that har­bors a dark­er import. Peters gives us no hint of when we might expect new pages, but I for one am eager to see more.

via The Rum­pus

Relat­ed Con­tent:

T.S. Eliot’s Rad­i­cal Poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” Read by Antho­ny Hop­kins and Eliot Him­self

T.S. Eliot Reads His Mod­ernist Mas­ter­pieces “The Waste Land” and “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”

Hear Gertrude Stein Read Works Inspired by Matisse, Picas­so, and T.S. Eliot (1934)

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