Hear the Little-Known Version of the Talking Heads’ “Psycho Killer,” With Experimental Cellist Arthur Russell

in Music | May 27th, 2013

Giv­en his ever-grow­ing posthu­mous pop­u­lar­i­ty, fueled by mate­r­i­al new­ly dis­cov­ered, released, and re-released, we might call Arthur Rus­sell the 2Pac of exper­i­men­tal dis­co cel­lo.  Dur­ing his short life, he man­aged to col­lab­o­rate with the likes of Philip Glass, Nicky Siano, Wal­ter Gib­bons, and even David Byrne. A lit­tle-heard ver­sion of the Talk­ing Heads’ “Psy­cho Killer” fea­tur­ing Rus­sel­l’s cel­lo has recent­ly resur­faced (above), to the delight of both Heads fans intrigued to hear one more slant on a favorite song and lis­ten­ers new­ly intrigued by Rus­sell look­ing to hear how his sound inter­faced with the inno­v­a­tive pop music of his day.

In the clip just above, you can hear Byrne dis­cuss the col­lab­o­ra­tive devel­op­ment of “Psy­cho Killer” (albeit well before the record­ing of this B‑side with Rus­sell) at a Q&A ses­sion on his How Music Works book tour. Unbe­liev­ably, the song first emerged as a bal­lad. “I can see the song as being soft­er,” he says. “I’m mak­ing it aggres­sive-sound­ing and thought, ‘That’s like say­ing the same thing twice.’ Which the singer of the song says you should­n’t do. I thought it would be creepi­er, actu­al­ly scari­er, if you down­play it. But, you know, we had a rock band at the time; we got togeth­er, start­ed play­ing it, and that’s not how it came out. Audi­ences liked the big cho­rus every­one could sing along with.” I imag­ine they also would’ve liked the big string instru­ment Rus­sell would have brought up on stage, had he ever had the chance to join the Heads for a live per­for­mance.

via Twen­ty­Four­Bit

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Talk­ing Heads Play CBGB, the New York Club that Shaped Their Sound (1975)

How David Byrne and Bri­an Eno Make Music Togeth­er: A Short Doc­u­men­tary

David Byrne Gives Us the Low­down on How Music Works (with Neu­ro­sci­en­tist Daniel Lev­itin)

David Byrne: How Archi­tec­ture Helped Music Evolve

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.

Piotr Dumala’s Artful Animations of Literary Works by Kafka & Dostoevsky

in Animation, Film, Literature | May 27th, 2013

There’s a cer­tain irony to Pol­ish ani­ma­tor Piotr Dumala’s inno­v­a­tive style, a stop-motion tech­nique in which he scratch­es an image into paint­ed plas­ter, then paints it over again imme­di­ate­ly and scratch­es the next. Called “destruc­tive ani­ma­tion,” Dumala devised the method while study­ing art con­ser­va­tion at the War­saw Acad­e­my of Fine Arts.

Trained as a sculp­tor as well as an ani­ma­tor, Dumala’s award-win­ning films present strik­ing­ly expres­sion­is­tic tex­tures emerg­ing from pitch black and reced­ing again. The 1991 film Kaf­ka (top) begins with the reclu­sive writer shroud­ed in dark­ness and iso­la­tion. He coughs once, and we are trans­port­ed to Prague, 1883. Each frame of Kaf­ka resem­bles a wood­cut, and the sound design is as spare as the extreme­ly high-con­trast ani­ma­tion.

In Sciany (Walls), an ear­li­er short film from 1988, Dumala uses light and shad­ow, and even more min­i­mal music and sound effects to cre­ate a haunt­ing, sur­re­al­is­tic piece that con­jures the atmos­phere of an inter­ro­ga­tion room or soli­tary con­fine­ment cell. Like the strange, emp­ty cityscapes of Gior­gio de Chiri­co, Dumala’s art unset­tles, with its skewed per­spec­tives, shad­owy, mys­te­ri­ous fig­ures, and unex­pect­ed shifts in tone and scale.

Crime and Pun­ish­ment, Dumala’s idio­syn­crat­ic half-hour Dos­to­evsky adap­ta­tion (which we’ve fea­tured pre­vi­ous­ly), uses “destruc­tive ani­ma­tion” to sim­i­lar effect as in Kaf­ka and Walls, cre­at­ing shad­owy, min­i­mal­ist set pieces that emerge slow­ly from dark­ness and return to it. But this time, Dumala incor­po­rates color—greens, reds, and browns—and the images are much more detailed, almost painter­ly.

Strip­ping the Russ­ian mas­ter­work down to just two scenes—the mur­der and Raskolnikov’s meet­ing of Sonia—Dumala inter­prets the nov­el­’s themes with the light-and-shad­ow inten­si­ty with which he ren­ders all of his artis­tic visions, say­ing, “This is about love and how obses­sion can destroy love. In our life we are under two oppo­site influ­ences to be good or bad and to love or hate.” In Dumala’s almost claus­troph­ic worlds, the lines between light and dark­ness are stark, even if they’re also ever shift­ing and ephemer­al.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Kafka’s Night­mare Tale, ‘A Coun­try Doc­tor,’ Told in Award-Win­ning Japan­ese Ani­ma­tion

John Tur­tur­ro Reads Ita­lo Calvino’s Ani­mat­ed Fairy Tale

Orson Welles Nar­rates Ani­ma­tion of Plato’s Cave Alle­go­ry

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

Pakistani Orchestra Plays Eastern-Flavored Version of REM’s “Everybody Hurts”

in Music | May 26th, 2013

A lit­tle while back, we gave you  The Sachal Stu­dios Orches­tra, based in Lahore, Pak­istan, play­ing an inno­v­a­tive cov­er of “Take Five,” the jazz stan­dard writ­ten by Paul Desmond and per­formed by The Dave Brubeck Quar­tet in 1959. While he was still alive, Brubeck called it the “most inter­est­ing” ver­sion of “Take Five” he had ever heard. Now, the Pak­istani Orches­tra is back with an inter­pre­ta­tion of “Every­body Hurts,” the melan­cholic song from the 1992 REM album Auto­mat­ic for the Peo­ple. It will appear on the forth­com­ing album Jazz and All That, sched­uled for release this sum­mer.

For more great moments in musi­cal fusion, don’t miss these per­for­mances:

Watch Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Voodoo Chile’ Per­formed on a Gayageum, a Tra­di­tion­al Kore­an Instru­ment

Talk­ing Heads’ “This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)” Per­formed on Tra­di­tion­al Chi­nese Instru­ments

Pak­istani Musi­cians Play Amaz­ing Ver­sion of Dave Brubeck’s Jazz Clas­sic, “Take Five”

If you’re an REM fan, catch these:

R.E.M.’s Final Encore (and an Ear­ly Con­cert from Ger­many)

R.E.M.’s “Los­ing My Reli­gion” Reworked from Minor to Major Scale

Take a 3D Virtual Tour of the Sistine Chapel, St. Peter’s Basilica and Other Art-Adorned Vatican Spaces

in Architecture, Art, Religion | May 24th, 2013

For­get the air­ports, the tick­et lines, and the crowds. Now you can step right into the Vat­i­can’s most sacred spaces and inspect the won­ders of Renais­sance art and archi­tec­ture with just a click of a mouse. The Vat­i­can has post­ed a series of vir­tu­al tours cre­at­ed by stu­dents and fac­ul­ty in the com­mu­ni­ca­tion and com­put­ing sci­ence depart­ments at Penn­syl­va­ni­a’s Vil­lano­va Uni­ver­si­ty. The four Papal Basil­i­cas are includ­ed, along with the small­er Sis­tine and Pauline chapels. Here are six links to six amaz­ing vir­tu­al tours:

Basil­i­ca of St. Peter: Designed by Michelan­ge­lo and oth­ers, St. Peter’s is the focal point of the Vat­i­can, and per­haps the most famous exam­ple of Renais­sance archi­tec­ture. You can scroll up and down to inspect the walls and ceilings–including the famous dome–and zoom in for a close look at Michelan­gelo’s mas­ter­piece the Pietà or Bernini’s ornate canopy, or bal­dachin, over the Papal Altar.

The Sis­tine Chapel: The most famous build­ing in the Vat­i­can, after St. Peter’s, is the Sis­tine Chapel, a part of the Pope’s offi­cial res­i­dence, the Apos­tolic Palace. Fres­coes by Raphael, Berni­ni, Bot­ti­cel­li and oth­ers adorn the walls–and on the ceil­ing, one of the great mas­ter­pieces in the his­to­ry of art: Michelan­gelo’s ear­ly 16th cen­tu­ry depic­tion of scenes from the Book of Gen­e­sis, cov­er­ing some 12,000 square feet. On a walk­ing tour you would bare­ly have enough time to rec­og­nize some of the major scenes. With this vir­tu­al tour you can spend all the time you want scan­ning around and zoom­ing in to study the details.

Arch­basil­i­ca of St. John Lat­er­an: The Pope’s offi­cial eccle­si­as­ti­cal seat, St. John Lat­er­an is the old­est Papal Basil­i­ca. But many of its most famous fea­tures are rel­a­tive­ly recent.  The basil­i­ca is per­haps best known for its neo­clas­si­cal façade by Alessan­dro Galilei, com­plet­ed in 1735.

Basil­i­ca of Paul Out­side-the-Walls: Built out­side the old city walls, this basil­i­ca con­tains the tomb of St. Paul. You can see the tomb and oth­er fea­tures of the grace­ful church (which was rebuilt in the 19th cen­tu­ry after a dev­as­tat­ing fire) on the tour.

Basil­i­ca of St. Mary Major: This basil­i­ca is actu­al­ly locat­ed out­side the Vat­i­can City com­pound, in Rome, but has extrater­ri­to­r­i­al sta­tus sim­i­lar to that of a for­eign embassy. Built in the fifth cen­tu­ry, with some lat­er addi­tions, the basil­i­ca is a beau­ti­ful exam­ple of clas­si­cal Roman archi­tec­ture.

The Pauline Chapel: Anoth­er chapel in the Apos­tolic Palace, the Pauline Chapel is sep­a­rat­ed from the Sis­tine Chapel by the Sala Regia, or “Regal Room.” Although less well-known than the Sis­tine Chapel, the Pauline Chapel hous­es two great fres­coes by Michelan­ge­lo: “The Con­ver­sion of Saul” and “The Cru­ci­fix­ion of St. Peter.”

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!

Blackie Pagano Shows Off Vintage Guitar Amps, Including One That Belonged to Django Reinhardt

in Music | May 24th, 2013

A long time ago, in a New York that seems a galaxy away, I found myself stum­bling out into Times Square in the rain-drenched, pre-dawn hours from a friend’s record­ing stu­dio, and stum­bling into a dis­card­ed Ampeg Jet J12, a vin­tage gui­tar amp pow­ered by tubes (or as the Brits say, valves). Some­one had aban­doned this beau­ti­ful rel­ic on the curb. I dragged the filthy thing into a cab home to Brook­lyn, cleaned it up as best I could, and went to sleep. The next day, I pow­ered it up (it worked!), plugged in my gui­tar, and entered the world of vin­tage tube amps. I would nev­er be the same again.

The gui­tar amplifier—perfected, some would say in the 1950s by Leo Fend­er—ini­tial­ly pro­vid­ed jazz gui­tarists a way to project over horn sec­tions in the big-band era. They even­tu­al­ly became instru­ments in their own right with the rise of Dick Dale’s surf rock sound and the advent of elec­tric blues and rock and roll. But, in the ’80s, vac­u­um tubes gave way to sol­id-state tran­sis­tors, then dig­i­tal, and tubes fell by the way­side. How­ev­er, since grunge and the garage rock revival, tube amp tones have once again become the stan­dard for most rock gui­tarists, even if they’re now often dig­i­tal copies.

But some die-hards nev­er gave up on tubes, and one of those, fea­tured above, is Black­ie Pagano, who has spent his days repair­ing and main­tain­ing vin­tage vac­u­um tube gui­tar amps and “all man­ner of audio mad­ness.” In the short doc above—part of a series of pro­files of New York­ers—Black­ie shows us Djan­go Reinhardt’s orig­i­nal amp and quotes Lux Inte­ri­or, singer of psy­chobil­ly punk band The Cramps, who once said that tube amps “turn music into fire and then back into music.” In just under three min­utes, the soli­tary, tat­tooed Pagano may con­vince you that vin­tage tube gui­tar amps are tru­ly mag­i­cal things, whether you find one on eBay, at Gui­tar Cen­ter, or on an NYC street­corner at four in the morn­ing.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Jazz ‘Hot’: The Rare 1938 Short Film With Jazz Leg­end Djan­go Rein­hardt

The Sto­ry of the Gui­tar: The Com­plete Three-Part Doc­u­men­tary

A Young Eric Clap­ton Demon­strates the Ele­ments of His Gui­tar Sound

Adri­an Belew Presents the Fine Art of Mak­ing Gui­tar Noise — Past, Present, and Future

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

Amanda Palmer’s Tips for Being an Artist in the Rough-and-Tumble Digital Age

in Current Affairs, Life, Music | May 24th, 2013

Aman­da Palmer is an artist who total­ly gets the pow­er of the Inter­net. Encour­ag­ing fans to freely share pay-what-you-wish down­loads of her music has endeared her to a cer­tain per­cent­age of the 99%, while anoth­er per­cent­age (there may be some over­lap here, folks) drubs her for lever­ag­ing her fame to crowd­source back­ing musi­cians will­ing to work for hugs, merch, and beer.

Her appetite for dig­i­tal dia­logue with admir­ers and accusers alike calls to mind fel­low shrink­ing vio­let Court­ney Love. Her refusal to let any­one but Aman­da Palmer speak for Aman­da Fuck­ing Palmer has giv­en rise to an army of trolls, who glee­ful­ly find proof of mon­strous ego in her most innocu­ous of moves. It’s the price of allow­ing the pub­lic com­plete access to “Do It With a Rock­star,” if you will.

As not­ed in her keynote speech (above) at the recent Muse and the Mar­ket­place lit­er­ary con­fer­ence, “with the inter­net you do not get to choose.” This applies whether one is gen­er­at­ing con­tent or leav­ing nasty com­ments. Her remarks touch upon her most recent firestorm, a direct trail lead­ing back to “A Poem for Dzhokar,” a hasti­ly com­posed and post­ed attempt to put her­self in the shoes of the sus­pect­ed Boston Marathon bomber as he lay in a boat, await­ing cap­ture.

Clear­ly, some­one with her expe­ri­ence does not slap such a hot pota­to online inno­cent of the con­se­quences. She got plen­ty of lumps, and whether or not the major­i­ty of them were deserved is a mat­ter of per­son­al opin­ion. More than 2300 peo­ple quick­ly logged on to voice these afore­men­tioned opin­ions, some sup­port­ive, some tak­ing the form of mock­ing haikus, which Palmer appre­ci­at­ed, espe­cial­ly since it was, at the time, Nation­al Poet­ry Month.

It seems to me that any time her ass is hang­ing out her giant heart’s not far behind. Lis­ten to her speech, and see if you don’t find her atti­tude ulti­mate­ly inspir­ing, espe­cial­ly for those artists inter­est­ed in con­nect­ing with a larg­er audi­ence. (The pre­sen­ta­tion’s so restrained, you can turn your back on the screen, turn your atten­tion to some pedes­tri­an task, and enjoy her thoughts pod­cast-style. )

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Neil Gaiman Launch­es New Crowd­sourced Sto­ry­telling Project (Spon­sored by the New Black­Ber­ry)

The Black Cab Ses­sions: One Song, One Take, One Cab

Ayun Hal­l­i­day will glad­ly wrap her­self in Aman­da Palmer’s “Ukelele Anthem”

Helen Keller Speaks About Her Greatest Regret — Never Mastering Speech

in History | May 23rd, 2013

Every Amer­i­can school­child — so it went in my gen­er­a­tion, any­way, and in sev­er­al before it — learns about Helen Keller, though gen­er­al­ly we only learn that, despite hav­ing lost both her sight and her hear­ing to scar­let fever, she man­aged to become a respect­ed pub­lic fig­ure. This sort of nota­bil­i­ty-in-the-face-of-adver­si­ty sto­ry so cap­tures the imag­i­na­tion, and I dare­say the Amer­i­can imag­i­na­tion espe­cial­ly, that Keller wound up the sub­ject of quite a few movies: not just doc­u­men­taries, but fea­ture films too, from 1919’s silent Deliv­er­ance to 1962’s The Mir­a­cle Work­er to 1984’s The Mir­a­cle Con­tin­ues. Yet it still takes see­ing the actu­al Keller, whose name has over the past 45 years become a byword for deaf­blind­ness, to believe her.

For­tu­nate­ly, clips like the one above allow us to do just that. Here, we see Keller com­mu­ni­cat­ing with Pol­ly Thomp­son, her assis­tant and com­pan­ion. Thomp­son could trans­late the touch-based lan­guage sys­tem she used with Keller, but in this film, we hear not just Thomp­son’s voice but Keller’s own. Her incom­plete mas­tery of speech, alas, remained Keller’s life­long regret. “It is not blind­ness or deaf­ness that bring me my dark­est hours,” she says, and Thomp­son repeats in her own the­atri­cal­ly clear, Scots-tinged elo­cu­tion. “It is the acute dis­ap­point­ment in not being able to speak nor­mal­ly. Long­ing­ly I feel how much more good I could have done if I had acquired nor­mal speech. But out of this sor­row­ful expe­ri­ence, I under­stand more ful­ly all human tragedies, thwart­ed ambi­tions, and the infi­nite capac­i­ty of hope.”

Relat­ed con­tent:

Helen Keller Cap­tured on Video

Helen Keller Pays a Vis­it to Martha Graham’s Dance Stu­dio Cir­ca 1954

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.

Carl Sagan on the Virtues of Marijuana (1969)

in Astronomy | May 23rd, 2013

Carl Sagan — he was an astronomer, astro­physi­cist, cos­mol­o­gist and great pop­u­lar­iz­er of sci­ence. He was also, it turns out, a life­long smok­er of cannabis. In 1999, and just three years after Sagan’s death, Keay David­son pub­lished Carl Sagan: A Life, a biog­ra­phy that made head­lines for reveal­ing how Sagan wrote an essay in 1969, using the pseu­do­nym “Mr.  X,” where he out­lined the per­son­al ben­e­fits of smok­ing mar­i­jua­na. The essay even­tu­al­ly appeared in the 1971 book Recon­sid­er­ing Mar­i­jua­na. 35 years old at the time, Sagan explained how the drug height­ened his sen­so­ry expe­ri­ence, gave him an appre­ci­a­tion for the spir­i­tu­al realm (“a feel­ing of com­mu­nion with my sur­round­ings, both ani­mate and inan­i­mate”), enhanced his enjoy­ment of sex, and allowed him to achieve some “dev­as­tat­ing” insights into sci­en­tif­ic, cre­ative and par­tic­u­lar­ly social ques­tions. The drug also gave him a new­found respect for art and music. He wrote:

The cannabis expe­ri­ence has great­ly improved my appre­ci­a­tion for art, a sub­ject which I had nev­er much appre­ci­at­ed before. The under­stand­ing of the intent of the artist which I can achieve when high some­times car­ries over to when I’m down. This is one of many human fron­tiers which cannabis has helped me tra­verse.…  A very sim­i­lar improve­ment in my appre­ci­a­tion of music has occurred with cannabis. For the first time I have been able to hear the sep­a­rate parts of a three-part har­mo­ny and the rich­ness of the coun­ter­point. I have since dis­cov­ered that pro­fes­sion­al musi­cians can quite eas­i­ly keep many sep­a­rate parts going simul­ta­ne­ous­ly in their heads, but this was the first time for me.

You can read the com­plete essay here.

A quick foot­note: lat­er in life, Sagan advo­cat­ed legal­iz­ing med­ical mar­i­jua­na, as you can hear below. And his wife, Ann Druyan, who made sub­stan­tial con­tri­bu­tions to the PBS doc­u­men­tary series Cos­mos, has since pushed for the out­right legal­iza­tion of cannabis. She served on the Board of Direc­tors of the Nation­al Orga­ni­za­tion for the Reform of Mar­i­jua­na Laws for a decade.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Carl Sagan’s Under­grad Read­ing List: 40 Essen­tial Texts for a Well-Round­ed Thinker

Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawk­ing & Arthur C. Clarke Dis­cuss God, the Uni­verse, and Every­thing Else

Hunter S. Thomp­son Runs for Aspen, Col­orado Sher­iff on the “Freak Pow­er” Plat­form (1970)

Dave Grohl, Tom Waits, Bonnie Raitt & Other Friends Make Surprise Appearances on Rolling Stones Tour

in Music | May 22nd, 2013

It’s good to be Dave Grohl these days. One day you get to ser­e­nade Paul McCart­ney; the next, Sir Paul jams with you and the sur­viv­ing mem­bers of Nir­vana; and then it’s off to play with the Rolling Stones. The 50 & Count­ing Tour passed through Ana­heim last week, and Grohl shared the stage with Mick, Kei­th, Ron­nie and Char­lie, throw­ing him­self into a rous­ing ver­sion of “Bitch,” the clas­sic song record­ed back in 1971. By the 2:48 mark, as one YouTu­ber noticed, Kei­th Richards prac­ti­cal­ly stops play­ing and just stares in won­der.

Oth­er guest per­for­mances on the tour have includ­ed Tom Waits singing “Lit­tle Red Roost­er” in Oak­land (below); Bon­nie Raitt join­ing in on “Let it Bleed” in San Jose (I got to catch that live); John Foger­ty singing parts of “It’s All Over Now” also in San Jose; and then, in a nod to the younger crowd, we have per­for­mances by Katy Per­ry (“Beast of Bur­den”) and Gwen Ste­fani (“Wild Hors­es”). Old timers will enjoy watch­ing Mick Tay­lor join his for­mer band­mates for ver­sions of “Mid­night Ram­bler” and “Sat­is­fac­tion”.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Rolling Stones Live in Hyde Park, 1969: The Com­plete Film

Jean-Luc Godard Films The Rolling Stones Record­ing “Sym­pa­thy for the Dev­il” (1968)

The Rolling Stones Sing Jin­gle for Rice Krispies Com­mer­cial (1964)

Watch Tom Waits, Bill Murray, and Other Modern Bards Read Some of Your Favorite Classic Poems

in Poetry | May 22nd, 2013

Long before the print­ing press, before parch­ment and papyrus, poet­ry was a strict­ly oral form. Many of the fea­tures we asso­ciate with verse—rhyme, meter, rep­e­ti­tion, and extend­ed sim­i­les—orig­i­nat­ed as mnemon­ic devices for poets and their audi­ences in times when bards com­posed extem­po­ra­ne­ous­ly from pre­de­ter­mined for­mu­las. And while the image of the Home­r­ic poet, strum­ming a lyre and nar­rat­ing the deeds of gods and heroes seems quaint, poet­ry is still very much an oral art, in cul­tures tra­di­tion­al and mod­ern. Right this very moment, in cities across the world, poets and audi­ences gath­er in bars, cafes, book­stores, tem­ples, and libraries to hear poems spo­ken, rapped, sung, chant­ed, etc.

But we no longer assign to the poet god-like pow­er and fame. Those acco­lades are now reserved for actors and musi­cians. And while poets are often per­fect­ly good read­ers of their own work, some­times there’s noth­ing so excit­ing as hear­ing the utter­ly dis­tinc­tive voice of, say, James Earl Jones or Antho­ny Hop­kins, turn­ing over the words of a favorite poem, mak­ing them rum­ble and rus­tle in ways they nev­er did flat on the page. So today we bring you some mod­ern gods read­ing the ancient form, begin­ning with the great, grav­el-voiced Tom Waits, who reads the great, grav­el-voiced Charles Bukowski’s “The Laugh­ing Heart” (top, full text here). A more per­fect union of read­er and poet you may nev­er find.

Also above, watch my favorite com­ic actor, and prob­a­bly yours, Bill Mur­ray, read my favorite arcane mod­ernist poet, Wal­lace Stevens. Mur­ray reads Steven’s “The Plan­et on the Table” and “The Rab­bit as the King of Ghosts” (Orig­i­nal text here and here). His unaf­fect­ed Mid­west­ern voice sounds noth­ing like Steven’s posh East­ern bari­tone, but he brings to the poems a gen­uine ten­der­ness that Stevens’ read­ings lack.

Final­ly, the unmis­tak­able voice of Sean Con­nery (backed by the music of Van­ge­lis) beau­ti­ful­ly con­veys the epic jour­ney of C.P. Cavafy’s “Itha­ca” (above, full text here). These are but three exam­ples of the art of actors read­ing poets. Below, you’ll find sev­er­al oth­ers, along with a cou­ple of writers—Tennessee Williams and Harold Bloom—thrown in for good mea­sure. Hear­ing poet­ry read, and read well, cre­ates space in a widen­ing sea of dis­trac­tions for that most ancient of human crafts.

• Orson Welles and Richard Bur­ton read Samuel Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (Orig­i­nal text here.)
• Antho­ny Hop­kins reads “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” (Orig­i­nal text here.)
• Lee Remick reads two of Emi­ly Dick­in­son’s poems, “This is my let­ter to the world” and “Dying.”
• Ten­nessee Williams reads Hart Crane’s “The Bro­ken Tow­er” and “The Hur­ri­cane” (Orig­i­nal text here and here)
• Michael Caine reads Rud­yard Kipling’s “If” (Orig­i­nal text here.)
• Sir Antho­ny Hop­kins reads “Do Not Go Gen­tle Into That Good Night” by Dylan Thomas (Orig­i­nal text here.)
• Bill Mur­ray reads poems by Emi­ly Dick­in­son, Bil­ly Collins and Lorine Niedeck­er at a con­struc­tion site.
• British actors read World War I poet­ry by Wil­fred Owen and Rupert Brooke.
• Harold Bloom recites ‘Tea at the Palaz of Hoon” by Wal­lace Stevens (Orig­i­nal text here.)

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