The Confessions of Robert Crumb: A Portrait Scripted by the Underground Comics Legend Himself (1987)

in Art, Comics/Cartoons, Film | March 4th, 2013

Any­one who’s seen Crumb, Ter­ry Zwigoff’s 1994 doc­u­men­tary about under­ground comics leg­end, R. Crumb, may con­sid­er them­selves fair­ly con­ver­sant in both the art and the off­beat exis­tence of the vin­tage-record-rever­ing sex­u­al adven­tur­er and self-pro­claimed wimp.

But does a trav­el­er pass up the oppor­tu­ni­ty to vis­it Paris sim­ply because he’s been there once before?

Unless you’re a vir­gin to the sub­ject, The Con­fes­sions of Robert Crumb, a BBC doc whose release pre­dat­ed that of Zwigof­f’s defin­i­tive por­trait by sev­en years, will con­tain no major rev­e­la­tions. It’s still a lot of fun though, per­haps more so for hav­ing been script­ed by its main attrac­tion.

Crumb and his wife, fel­low car­toon­ist, Aline Komin­sky Crumb, were uneasy with Zwigof­f’s por­tray­al, a reac­tion they doc­u­ment­ed in Head for the Hills!, a joint­ly authored, two-page com­ic in the New York­er. Their objec­tions ulti­mate­ly lay with the noto­ri­ety the film would con­fer on them. Fame for Crumb is a mon­ster-mak­ing drain on cre­ativ­i­ty. (“And I guar­an­tee we won’t earn an extra dol­lar as a result of this won­der­ful expo­sure,” Aline adds in a word bub­ble, an obser­va­tion the Crumb blog gives the lie to, near­ly twen­ty years out.)

But in terms of what he was will­ing to own up to on cam­era, Crumb the screen­writer is far from a shrink­ing vio­let. The talk­ing heads are min­i­mized and the extend­ed fam­i­ly kept to the shad­ows, but he’s frank about the erot­ic pre­oc­cu­pa­tions that fig­ure promi­nent­ly in his work and have raised more than a few fem­i­nist hack­les over the years. One might even say he plays it up in goofy staged bits, such as the one where he dons a lab coat to exam­ine the pow­er­ful rear and kid­ney bean-shaped pelvic tilt of an impas­sive mod­el clad in 80s-style Jane Fon­da Work­out wear. As social mal­adroits go, he’s not afraid to wear a lamp­shade on his head.

He also reveals him­self as a life­long learn­er, avid­ly research­ing his non-flesh-relat­ed pas­sions. His inter­ests are infec­tious. One hour with Crumb and you may find your­self spend­ing the next two or three on eso­teric top­ics rang­ing from James Gill­ray to Har­ry Roy and his Bat Club Boys.

You can find The Con­fes­sions of Robert Crumb list­ed in our col­lec­tion of 55o Free Online Movies.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Record Cov­er Art by Under­ground Car­toon­ist Robert Crumb

The Inscrutable Imag­i­na­tion of the Late Com­ic Artist Mœbius

Vis­it the World of Lit­tle Nemo Artist Win­sor McCay: Three Clas­sic Ani­ma­tions and a Google Doo­dle

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is a fem­i­nist and a long term Robert Crumb fan.

So You Want to Be a Writer?: Charles Bukowski Explains the Dos & Don’ts

in Poetry, Writing | March 4th, 2013

Here’s a quick video that serves as an adden­dum to last week’s post, “Don’t Try”: Charles Bukowski’s Con­cise Phi­los­o­phy of Art and Life. As you’ll recall, Bukowski’s head­stone is engraved with the sim­ple say­ing, “Don’t Try,” and, if you look back at his let­ters, the cryp­tic expres­sion could be inter­pret­ed in any num­ber of ways. (See our sum­ma­ry.) But, thanks to Andrew Sul­li­van, we can take anoth­er good whack at mak­ing sense of Bukowski’s immor­tal words. Released in a posthu­mous­ly pub­lished col­lec­tion in 2003, the Bukows­ki poem  “So You Want to be a Writer?” (above) warns the read­er:

if you have to sit for hours
star­ing at your com­put­er screen
or hunched over your
type­writer
search­ing for words,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it for mon­ey or
fame,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don’t do it.

Lat­er, the poem con­tin­ues:

when it is tru­ly time,
and if you have been cho­sen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die
or it dies in you.

So here’s anoth­er way to inter­pret, “Don’t try.” Either you’ve got it, or you don’t. And you’ll know it if you do.

The video above comes from the Spo­ken Vers­es YouTube col­lec­tion. Tom O’Bed­lam always does a nice job with the read­ings. In this case, I’m not so sure about the visu­al selec­tions in the clip. But it’s not a per­fect world.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

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

Charles Bukows­ki: Depres­sion and Three Days in Bed Can Restore Your Cre­ative Juices (NSFW)

Tom Waits Reads Charles Bukows­ki

The Last Faxed Poem of Charles Bukows­ki

“The Me Bird” by Pablo Neruda: An Animated Interpretation

in Animation, Poetry | March 3rd, 2013

From 18bis, a Brazil­ian design & motion graph­ics stu­dio, comes this: a free inter­pre­ta­tion of “The Me Bird,” a poem by the Nobel Prize-win­ning poet Pablo Neru­da. Writes 18bis, “The inspi­ra­tion in the stra­ta sten­cil tech­nique helps con­cep­tu­al­ize the rep­e­ti­tion of lay­ers as the past of our move­ments and actions. The frames depict­ed as jail and the past as a bur­den serve as the back­ground for the sto­ry of a bal­le­ri­na on a jour­ney towards free­dom. A diver­si­fied artis­tic exper­i­men­ta­tion recre­ates the tem­pest that con­nects bird and dancer.” It’s all pret­ty won­der­ful.

Bonus mate­r­i­al: You can watch The Mak­ing of The Me Bird here. And find the orig­i­nal text of the Neru­da poem here. We have more poet­ry put to ani­ma­tion below.

via Andrew Sul­li­van

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Poems as Short Films: Langston Hugh­es, Pablo Neru­da and More

James Fran­co Reads a Dream­i­ly Ani­mat­ed Ver­sion of Allen Ginsberg’s Epic Poem ‘Howl’

Watch an Ani­mat­ed Film of Emi­ly Dickinson’s Poem ‘I Start­ed Early–Took My Dog’

The Ani­ma­tion of Bil­ly Collins’ Poet­ry: Every­day Moments in Motion

Street Artist Plays Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” With Crystal Glasses

in Music | March 2nd, 2013

When Leonard Cohen wrote “Hal­lelu­jah” back in 1984, the world did­n’t take imme­di­ate notice. And the song only began its jour­ney toward becom­ing a clas­sic when it was lat­er record­ed by John Cale and Jeff Buck­ley. Now, it’s one of the more wide­ly cov­ered songs out there. Rufus Wain­wright, k.d. lang, Bono, Willie Nel­son, Alexan­dra Burke — they’ve all paid homage to the song. So have less­er-known musi­cians too, like this street musi­cian, Petr Spati­na, who record­ed a ver­sion with crys­tal glass. Be sure to watch it all the way through.

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!

via @Pogue

Relat­ed Leonard Cohen Mate­r­i­al:

Leonard Cohen Recounts “How I Got My Song,” or When His Love Affair with Music Began

Ladies and Gen­tle­men… Mr. Leonard Cohen, a 1965 Doc­u­men­tary

Leonard Cohen Reads “The Future” (Not Safe for Work)

Watch Lian Lunson’s 2005 doc­u­men­tary, Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man

Sleight of Hand: Stanford Student Solves Rubik’s Cube While Juggling!

in Random, Stanford | March 1st, 2013

If you’re apply­ing to Stan­ford, this is what you’re up against. Under­grads like Ravi Fer­nan­do (Class of 2014) who can solve a Rubik’s Cube … while jug­gling. You might want to have a safe­ty school! 

via @palafo

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Robot Sets Rubik’s Cube World Record: 5.35 Sec­onds

This is Your Brain in Love: Scenes from the Stan­ford Love Com­pe­ti­tion

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

Arthur Conan Doyle Fills Out the Questionnaire Made Famous By Marcel Proust (1899)

in Literature | March 1st, 2013

Note: click on the image for a larg­er ver­sion

Ah, the Proust Ques­tion­naire: does it reveal every­thing about one’s per­son­al­i­ty, or noth­ing at all? Pre­sum­ably Mar­cel Proust, who gave the ques­tion­naire its name by fill­ing it out so whole­heart­ed­ly, would­n’t have cared either way. French inter­view­er Bernard Piv­ot must have seen some use­ful­ness in it, since he applied its ques­tions so reg­u­lar­ly to guests on his lit­er­ary tele­vi­sion pro­gram Apos­tro­phes that it gained the sec­ond name of “Piv­ot Ques­tion­naire.” Open Cul­ture read­ers know James Lip­ton also adapt­ed a ver­sion on Inside the Actors Stu­dio. (See our pre­vi­ous post here.) And now, thanks to archivists at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas at Austin’s Har­ry Ran­som Cen­ter, we have Proust Ques­tion­naire answers from one more lumi­nary: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, cre­ator of Sher­lock Holmes.

Not that Conan Doyle responds with quite so much style as does Proust. His favorite qual­i­ties in a man? Man­li­ness. In a woman? Why, wom­an­li­ness. His favorite food and drink? Any­thing when hun­gry or thirsty — noth­ing when not. Favorite activ­i­ty? Work. This all has a cer­tain util­i­tar­i­an charm, but if you read the ques­tion­naire itself, you also find the par­tic­u­lar fla­vor of half-hid­den wit that Conan Doyle’s read­ers would expect. But we care about his respons­es, as we care about Proust’s, because of all the oth­er words they wrote. And lest we get caught up in ques­tion­naires, let us not for­get that Swan­n’s Way, the first vol­ume of Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, turns one hun­dred this year.

via Slate

Relat­ed con­tent:

Famous Actors & Actress­es Answer Reveal­ing Ques­tions on Inside the Actors Stu­dio: A Com­pi­la­tion

Arthur Conan Doyle Dis­cuss­es Sher­lock Holmes and Psy­chics in a Rare Filmed Inter­view (1927)

Arthur Conan Doyle & The Cot­tin­g­ley Fairies: How Two Young Girls Fooled Sher­lock Holmes’ Cre­ator

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.

The Making of John Mayer’s ‘Born & Raised’ Album Artwork, Captured in 18 Minute Short Film

in Art, Design, Music | March 1st, 2013

This eigh­teen minute doc­u­men­tary takes you inside the work of David A. Smith, an Eng­lish artist who spe­cial­izes in “high-qual­i­ty orna­men­tal hand-craft­ed reverse glass signs and dec­o­ra­tive sil­vered and gild­ed mir­rors.” (Got that? You may want to read that last part again.) In some­thing of a depar­ture from ear­li­er projects, Smith designed an ornate “turn-of-the-cen­tu­ry, trade-card styled album cov­er” for John May­er’s album Born & Raised. His work is metic­u­lous and exact­ing. And this “Behind The Scenes” film, com­plete with com­men­tary from May­er and Smith, cap­tures the artist’s process in lov­ing detail. Now please sit back and enjoy.

Find us on Face­book, Twit­ter and Google Plus and we’ll make it easy to share intel­li­gent media with your friends!  

Visit the Museum of Endangered Sounds, and Experience a Blast from Technology’s Past

in Design, Life | February 28th, 2013

As gear­heads go, Bren­dan Chil­cut­t’s a pret­ty sen­ti­men­tal guy, and not just because he signs his cor­re­spon­dence with “love.” In Jan­u­ary, 2012, he found­ed the Muse­um of Endan­gered Sounds to keep out­mod­ed tech­nol­o­gy’s most icon­ic nois­es from van­ish­ing from the col­lec­tive mem­o­ry. Click on any image in the muse­um’s online col­lec­tion to be trans­port­ed in the Prous­t­ian sense.

Some of the exhibits—a man­u­al type­writer, a rotary phone—were already amply pre­served, thanks to a pro­lif­er­a­tion of cin­e­mat­ic appear­ances in their hey­day.

Oth­ers might well have slipped away unno­ticed, if not for Chil­cut­t’s cura­to­r­i­al efforts. Remem­ber that num­ber you could call to have a record­ed voice inform you of the cor­rect time? How about the sta­t­ic of an ana­log TV tuned to an emp­ty sta­tion? The hum of a mal­func­tion­ing Dis­c­man, the chirp of a Tamagotchi…wait, what’s that I hear? The dis­con­cert­ing whoosh of time speed­ing up?

Drown it out by acti­vat­ing all thir­ty exhibits at once. Let them sound their bar­bar­ic yaw­ps simul­ta­ne­ous­ly as the kids try to fig­ure out what that rack­et is.

h/t goes to @sheerly

Relat­ed Con­tent:

“Glitch” Artists Com­pose with Soft­ware Crash­es and Cor­rupt­ed Files

40 Great Film­mak­ers Go Old School, Shoot Short Films with 100 Year Old Cam­era

How Film Was Made: A Kodak Nos­tal­gia Moment

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is still try­ing to text on a cell phone from 2003

Drift: Passenger Shoots Striking Short Film Out of Airplane Window

in Photography | February 28th, 2013

Film­mak­er Tim Sessler got a lit­tle bored on his flight from San Fran­cis­co to Salt Lake City, to Philadel­phia. He says: “After read­ing through the in-flight mag­a­zine, the Sky Mall and the air­plane secu­ri­ty details from front to back, upside down and back­wards, I felt it was the right moment to pull out my cam­era” and start tak­ing aer­i­al footage of the cross-coun­try voy­age. The cam­era? It’s a Canon 5d mk3 with a 24–105mm and Nikon 50mm 1.2 lens (Tim tells us).  The chal­lenge? To keep the cam­era sta­ble, using his knee, the seat, the win­dow, etc., “while avoid­ing any vibra­tion that would cre­ate some nasty rolling-shut­ter-wob­ble.” A good deal more sta­bi­liza­tion took place in post-pro­duc­tion. When you’re done watch­ing Drift, you can check out Sessler’s pri­or attempt at shoot­ing aer­i­al art here.

via Mefi

Watch David Bowie’s New Video for ‘The Stars (Are Out Tonight)’ With Tilda Swinton

in Music | February 28th, 2013

This week David Bowie released the sec­ond sin­gle from his upcom­ing album, The Next Day. It’s called “The Stars (Are Out Tonight),” and the accom­pa­ny­ing video (shown above) builds on Bowie’s life­long explo­ration of androg­y­ny.

Bowie is joined in the minia­ture film by actress Til­da Swin­ton, who plays his wife, and the mod­els Andrej Pejic and Sask­ia De Brauw, who play a pair of young celebri­ties who mock and tor­ment the aging cou­ple. Swin­ton looks like Bowie, and Pejic and DeBrauw look like Bowie and Swin­ton.

The sto­ry “cap­tures a twen­ty first cen­tu­ry moment in its con­ver­gence of age, gen­der and the normal/celebrity divide,” accord­ing to a state­ment post­ed ear­li­er this week on Bowie’s Face­book page. It was direct­ed by the Ital­ian-born film­mak­er Flo­ria Sigis­mon­di, a pro­lif­ic music video mak­er best known for her 2010 fea­ture film, The Run­aways.

The Next Day will be released on March 12. To learn more about it and to watch the first video from the album, see our post from last month, “David Bowie Cel­e­brates 66th Birth­day with First New Song in a Decade, Plus Vin­tage Videos.”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Sto­ry of Zig­gy Star­dust: How David Bowie Cre­at­ed the Char­ac­ter that Made Him Famous

How “Space Odd­i­ty” Launched David Bowie to Star­dom: Watch the Orig­i­nal Music Video From 1969

Backed by 157 Musi­cians, Beck Reimag­ines David Bowie’s 1977 Clas­sic, “Sound and Vision”