Leonard Nimoy Narrates Short Film About NASA’s Dawn: A Voyage to the Origins of the Solar System

in Astronomy | January 7th, 2013

In 1996, sci­ence writer John Hor­gan pub­lished a book called The End of Sci­ence in which he claimed that we had learned all we could know about the nat­ur­al world. And in 2008, Wired mag­a­zine devot­ed an issue to, you guessed it, “The End of Sci­ence.” Snap­py, grandiose titles may sell copy, but it’s also the case that each time some­one or oth­er declares the end of some­thing massive—science, his­to­ry, war, and peri­od­i­cal­ly, the world–we can look back and be aston­ished at the hubris. It now seems that there are fron­tiers we are just begin­ning to explore, and they are the fron­tiers of our evo­lu­tion­ary begin­nings. While bio­physi­cists like Peter Hoff­mann chart the bound­aries between life and non­life at the mol­e­c­u­lar lev­el, NASA sci­en­tists explore the out­er reach­es to dis­cov­er what Leonard Nimoy, nar­ra­tor of the video above, calls “the very begin­ning of us.”

It’s a lit­tle wonky at times, but the short film above is nonethe­less a fas­ci­nat­ing overview of NASA’s Dawn mis­sion, a space­craft designed to col­lect data from the aster­oid belt. The ship itself is a mar­vel. Out­fit­ted with mas­sive solar pan­el wings that can pow­er it for years, Dawn con­verts xenon gas into plas­ma, which it pro­pels from its engine at speeds up to 78,000 miles per hour (or 21 miles per sec­ond) for max­i­mum accel­er­a­tion.

In fact, Dawn is the fastest ship NASA has ever launched. Even at top speeds, Dawn required four years to reach its first stop, the aster­oid Ves­ta, the bright­est aster­oid in the solar sys­tem and the only one vis­i­ble to the naked eye. Depart­ing Earth in 2007, the ship reached Ves­ta in July of 2011 and depart­ed last Sep­tem­ber for the aster­oid Ceres, which it will reach in Feb­ru­ary of 2015.

These two aster­oids are part of what is called the “pro­to­plan­e­tary disk,” a once-chaot­ic ring of dust and gas that began to coa­lesce into our solar sys­tem some 4.6 bil­lion years ago. One NASA sci­en­tist above describes the aster­oid belt as the “bone­yard” of deep space—remains from the ear­li­est epochs of time. Dawn’s mis­sion isn’t just a for­ay to unchart­ed space; it’s also a jour­ney bil­lions years into the past, into the ori­gins of our solar sys­tem.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

William Shat­ner Nar­rates Space Shut­tle Doc­u­men­tary

Star Trek Celebri­ties, William Shat­ner and Wil Wheaton, Nar­rate Mars Land­ing Videos for NASA

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian. He recent­ly com­plet­ed a dis­ser­ta­tion on land­scape, lit­er­a­ture, and labor.

An Anti, Anti-Smoking Announcement from John Waters

in Comedy, Film | January 7th, 2013

The idea of smok­ing in a movie the­ater, or any­where one might go to have a good time, seems out­landish in 21st-cen­tu­ry Amer­i­ca, far more fan­tas­ti­cal than most of what you’d actu­al­ly see pro­ject­ed onscreen. I don’t smoke, but it cer­tain­ly would­n’t occur to me to start while moviego­ing, a pur­suit that, here in Los Ange­les, takes up a con­sid­er­able chunk of my free time. Though I attend screen­ings at the Nuart The­atre on San­ta Mon­i­ca Boule­vard with some fre­quen­cy, I’ve sad­ly missed the hey­day of the pub­lic ser­vice announce­ment above. Bad-taste-is-good-taste film­mak­er John Waters shot the PSA for the Nuart The­atre decades ago in appre­ci­a­tion for their long-run­ning show­ings of his break­through fea­ture Pink Flamin­gos. “I’m sup­posed to announce that there’s no smok­ing in this the­ater,” Waters says to the cam­era, after tak­ing a drag on his cig­a­rette, “which is just one of the most ridicu­lous things I’ve heard of in my life.”

“How can any­one sit through the length of a film,” he con­tin­ues, “espe­cial­ly a Euro­pean film, and not have a cig­a­rette?” Indeed, the Nuart today remains a reli­able source for inter­est­ing pic­tures, often of Euro­pean ori­gin. So, I’ve heard, was Berke­ley’s UC The­ater, anoth­er fre­quent screen­er of Waters’ “no-smok­ing” PSA, before it closed its doors in 2001. When Land­mark The­atres own­er Gary Mey­er pur­chased both the Nuart and the UC in 1974, they became the first in that now-for­mi­da­ble chain of pop­u­lar-art house crossover venues. Revival cin­e­ma has seen some­thing of a resur­gence in recent years, giv­ing Land­mark more com­pe­ti­tion than it once faced, and though some the­aters have brought gourmet food and alco­hol into the expe­ri­ence, cig­a­rettes seem unlike­ly to make a return. What the moviego­ing world needs now is a clip from Waters denounc­ing cell­phone usage — but he’s got to do it seri­ous­ly. Or as seri­ous­ly as he can.

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on lit­er­a­ture, film, cities, Asia, and aes­thet­ics. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues: A Film Tribute to America’s Great Musical Tradition

in Music | January 4th, 2013

“I can’t imag­ine my life, or any­one else’s, with­out music,” says film­mak­er Mar­tin Scors­ese. “It’s like a light in the dark­ness that nev­er goes out.” So begins Feel Like Going Home, Scors­ese’s fas­ci­nat­ing and at times lyri­cal doc­u­men­tary on the ori­gin and evo­lu­tion of the blues.

Feel Like Going Home (shown above in its entire­ty) is the first of sev­en install­ments, by sev­en direc­tors, in the PBS series The Blues. It fol­lows musi­cian Corey Har­ris as he traces the roots of the Blues from the Mis­sis­sip­pi Delta back to West Africa. The doc­u­men­tary includes inter­views and per­for­mances from con­tem­po­rary artists like Taj Mahal and Willie King, as well as archival footage of leg­ends like Son House, Mud­dy Waters and Lead Bel­ly.

“I’ve always felt an affin­i­ty for blues music,” Scors­ese told PBS. “The cul­ture of sto­ry­telling through music is incred­i­bly fas­ci­nat­ing and appeal­ing to me. The blues have great emo­tion­al res­o­nance and are the foun­da­tion for Amer­i­can pop­u­lar music.” Scors­ese served as exec­u­tive pro­duc­er of the series, which includes episodes direct­ed by Clint East­wood (Piano Blues) and Wim Wen­ders (The Soul of a Man). The com­plete sev­en-part series is avail­able on DVD as Mar­tin Scors­ese Presents The Blues–A Musi­cal Jour­ney.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Alan Lomax Sound Archive Now Online: Fea­tures 17,000 Record­ings

Ani­mat­ed: Robert Johnson’s Clas­sic Blues Tune Me and the Dev­il Blues

Watch the Only Known Footage of the Leg­endary Blues­man Lead Bel­ly (1935 and 1945)

Ken Kesey Talks About the Meaning of the Acid Tests

in Life, Literature | January 4th, 2013

For me, there have always been at least three Ken Keseys. First, there was the anti­au­thor­i­tar­i­an author of the mad­cap 1962 clas­sic One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Inspired by Kesey’s own work as an order­ly at a Men­lo Park men­tal hos­pi­tal, the author’s voice dis­ap­pears into that of the nar­ra­tor, Chief Brom­den, and the dia­logue of the most mem­o­rable ensem­ble of trou­bled per­son­al­i­ties in twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry lit­er­a­ture. Then there’s the Kesey of the 1964 Some­times a Great Notion, a Pacif­ic North­west epic and the work of a seri­ous nov­el­ist pulling Amer­i­can arche­types from rough-hewn Ore­gon log­ging coun­try. Final­ly, there’s Kesey the Mer­ry Prankster, the mad sci­en­tist who almost sin­gle-hand­ed­ly invent­ed six­ties drug cul­ture with his ‘64 psy­che­del­ic bus tour and acid test par­ties. It’s a lit­tle hard to put them all togeth­er some­times. Ken Kesey con­tained mul­ti­tudes.

The acid test par­ties began after Kesey’s expe­ri­ence with mind-alter­ing drugs as a vol­un­teer test sub­ject for Army exper­i­ments in 1960 (lat­er revealed to be part of the CIA’s mind con­trol exper­i­ment, Project MKUl­tra). Kesey stole LSD and invit­ed friends to try it with him. In 1965, after Hunter S. Thomp­son intro­duced Kesey to the Hell’s Angels, he expand­ed his test par­ties to real hap­pen­ings at larg­er venues, begin­ning at his home in La Hon­da, Cal­i­for­nia. Always present was the music of The Grate­ful Dead, who debuted under that name at one of Kesey’s par­ties after los­ing their orig­i­nal name, The War­locks. The cast of char­ac­ters also includ­ed Jack Kerouac’s trav­el­ing bud­dy Neal Cas­sady, Allen Gins­berg, and Dr. Tim­o­thy Leary. Out of what Hunter Thomp­son called “the world cap­i­tal of mad­ness,” the psy­che­del­ic counter-cul­ture of Haight-Ash­bury was born.

In the inter­view above, Kesey talks about the acid tests as much more than an excuse to trip for hours and hear The Dead play for a buck. No, he says, “there were peo­ple who passed and peo­ple who didn’t pass” the test. What it all meant per­haps only Kesey knew for sure. (He is quot­ed as say­ing that he and his band of com­pa­tri­ots, the Mer­ry Pranksters, were try­ing to “stop the com­ing end of the world”). In any case, it’s a strange story—stranger than any of Ken Kesey’s works of fic­tion: covert gov­ern­ment mind con­trol pro­gram turns on one of the generation’s most sub­ver­sive nov­el­ists, who then mas­ter­minds the hip­py move­ment.

Relat­ed Con­tent 

Ken Kesey’s First LSD Trip Ani­mat­ed

The Acid Test Reels: Ken Kesey & The Grate­ful Dead’s Sound­track for the 1960s Famous LSD Par­ties

Take a Trip to the LSD Muse­um, the Largest Col­lec­tion of “Blot­ter Art” in the World

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian. He recent­ly com­plet­ed a dis­ser­ta­tion on land­scape, lit­er­a­ture, and labor.

James Brown Gives You Dancing Lessons: From The Funky Chicken to The Boogaloo

in Life, Music | January 4th, 2013

Don’t go into this expect­ing Arthur Mur­ray-lev­el clar­i­ty of instruc­tion. This is Soul Train-era James Brown, shak­ing way more than any sim­ple foot­print pat­tern could con­vey. That’s not to say there isn’t con­crete infor­ma­tion to be gleaned here, espe­cial­ly if you nev­er real­ly knew which moves con­sti­tute The Funky Chick­en.  Dit­to The Booga­loo, The Camel Walk, and some­thing I swear sounds like The Mac Davis.

James proud­ly demon­strates them all, as uncon­cerned as a pea­cock would be when it comes to break­ing things down for the folks at home. (Trust me, your kneecaps will be grate­ful he’s not more explic­it.) Enjoy this lit­tle dance break any time you need a boost. Or what the hell, see how your Robot stacks up against James’. (Be fore­warned, he blows Shields and Yarnell out of the water.) If — as the song goes — You Don’t Give A Dog­gone About It, you’ll have a lot of fun. Leave the shades open, and your neigh­bors will too.

- Ayun Hal­l­i­day has nev­er shied away from embar­rass­ing her­self off or on the dance floor. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

Saul Bass’ Advice for Designers: Make Something Beautiful and Don’t Worry About the Money

in Design | January 3rd, 2013

It comes as no sur­prise that the man who cre­at­ed the title sequences for The Man with the Gold­en Arm, North by North­west, Psy­cho, and Ver­ti­go can tell you a thing or two about graph­ic design. He can even tell his estab­lished col­leagues a thing or two about graph­ic design, as seen in the clip above. The man, of course, is Saul Bass, and this footage of him comes from a long-form inter­view con­duct­ed by design­er and edu­ca­tor Archie Boston.

In 1986, Boston paid a vis­it to Bass’ stu­dio for a project called 20 Out­stand­ing Los Ange­les Design­ers, shoot­ing a con­ver­sa­tion that touched on many sub­jects, includ­ing the emi­nence’s main piece of advice for graph­ic design stu­dents. “Learn to draw,” Bass pro­nounces.

“If you don’t, you’re going to live your life get­ting around that and try­ing to com­pen­sate for that.” Design, as observers of the dis­ci­pline say, ulti­mate­ly comes down to com­mu­ni­ca­tion. Accord­ing to Bass, aspir­ing design­ers fail to mas­ter draw­ing, one of com­mu­ni­ca­tion’s most basic but rich­est forms, at their per­il.

The clip just above goes deep­er than giv­ing prac­ti­cal advice, get­ting down to the very rai­son d’être of the graph­ic design­er. Bass puts it unam­bigu­ous­ly: “Aes­thet­ics are your prob­lem and mine. Nobody else’s. The fact of the mat­ter is, I want every­thing we do — that I do per­son­al­ly, that our office does — to be beau­ti­ful. I don’t give a damn whether the client under­stands that that’s worth any­thing, or that the client thinks that it’s worth any­thing, or whether it is worth any­thing. It’s worth it to me. It’s the way I want to live my life. I want to make beau­ti­ful things, even if nobody cares.” Explore our relat­ed con­tent sec­tion below to get an exten­sive idea of the fruits of Bass’ unbend­ing desire to cre­ate beau­ty. You may or may not find, say, his reimag­ined Amer­i­can Bell office lady uni­forms beau­ti­ful, but you can’t deny that they come from a mind whol­ly ded­i­cat­ed to aes­thet­ics — and one that cared not just about the how of cre­ation, but the why as well.

Relat­ed con­tent:

Saul Bass Gives Ma Bell a Com­plete Makeover, 1969

Saul Bass’ Oscar-Win­ning Ani­mat­ed Short Pon­ders Why Man Cre­ates

A Brief Visu­al Intro­duc­tion to Saul Bass’ Cel­e­brat­ed Title Designs

Chuck Berry Takes Keith Richards to School, Shows Him How to Rock (1987)

in Music | January 3rd, 2013

Update: The great Chuck Berry has passed away at 90, join­ing many oth­er leg­ends in rock n roll heav­en. There’s so many great things to say about Mr. Berry. And we’ll have more on the site in the com­ing week. For now, enjoy one of our favorite Berry items from the archive.

The pur­pose of Tay­lor Hackford’s 1987 film Hail! Hail! Rock ‘n’ Roll was to doc­u­ment two con­certs held at the Fox The­atre in St. Louis to cel­e­brate Chuck Berry’s 60th birth­day, and that it does, giv­ing audi­ences loads of con­cert footage. Berry plays the hits, backed by an all-star band of leg­endary blues­men, R&B singers, and rock gui­tarists, assem­bled and direct­ed by pres­i­dent of the Chuck Berry fan club, Kei­th Richards: There’s Bob­by Keys and Chuck Leavell, Robert Cray and Eric Clap­ton, Etta James and Lin­da Ron­stadt.

And that’s not to men­tion the talk­ing head appear­ances from peo­ple like Bo Did­dley, Jer­ry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbi­son, Lit­tle Richard, and Bruce Spring­steen. In the pan­theon of rock-docs, it’s right up there with Last Waltz. The live takes are electrifying—the band’s pis­tons pound as they strug­gle to keep up with Berry. If the man had slowed down any in his sixth decade, it’s lit­tle won­der he had trou­ble hold­ing onto back­ing bands in his youth. Watch him go in the 1958 clip below.

But there’s anoth­er rea­son Berry burned through musi­cians. He is not an easy man to work with (nor, I would think, for). Bril­liant live per­for­mances abound in Hackford’s film, but one of its prin­ci­ple charms is the rehearsal footage, where Berry berates and bewil­ders his musicians–and some­times, like he does above to Richards, takes them to rock ’n’ roll school. In the clip above, Richards, Berry, and band rehearse “Car­ol,” but it takes them a good while to get going. Richards tries to play band­leader and, think­ing he’s doing Chuck a favor—or not want­i­ng to lose the spotlight—suggests that Berry play rhythm while he plays the lead.

Berry agrees at first. They bick­er and look dag­gers at each oth­er as Richards spoils a bend that only Chuck can play to his own sat­is­fac­tion. Final­ly he dives in and takes over. Why not? It is his song. Richards falls in line, takes the rhythm part, but looks a lit­tle sullen as Berry out­shines him. It’s almost an oedi­pal strug­gle. But the rock fore­fa­ther isn’t about to roll over and let Richards take over.

Else­where in the film, Berry gives voice to the under­ly­ing anger he har­bored for Richards. The Stones and oth­er British bands took Berry’s riffs (he claimed) and made mil­lions, and Chuck nev­er for­gave them. He still doesn’t get enough cred­it. The Rolling Stones still tour and record, but Berry, almost twen­ty years old­er than Richards, is still out on the road too, still show­ing ‘em how it’s done. See sec­ond video below.

1958

2012

Bonus:

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

Akira Kurosawa & Francis Ford Coppola Star in Japanese Whisky Commercials (1980)

in Film, Television | January 3rd, 2013

In 1980, the revered Japan­ese direc­tor Aki­ra Kuro­sawa shot Kage­musha, oth­er­wise known as The Shad­ow War­rior. Fran­cis Ford Cop­po­la was the pro­duc­er. Some­where dur­ing the pro­duc­tion, the two film­mak­ers lent their star pow­er to a series of com­mer­cials for Sun­to­ry Whisky. If you’re a reg­u­lar read­er, you know that many cul­tur­al icons have pitched Japan­ese prod­ucts in times past — take for exam­ple Woody Allen, James Brown, Nico­las Cage, Paul New­man and good ole Den­nis Hop­per. And, if you’re even a casu­al movie­go­er, you know that  Sofia Cop­po­la (daugh­ter of Fran­cis) put an Amer­i­can movie star drink­ing whisky at the cen­ter of her Oscar-nom­i­nat­ed film, Lost in Trans­la­tion (2003). And it was­n’t just any whisky that Bill Mur­ray was sip­ping. It was Sun­to­ry Whisky.

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:

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

Fellini’s Fan­tas­tic TV Com­mer­cials

Ing­mar Bergman’s Soap Com­mer­cials Wash Away the Exis­ten­tial Despair

Jean-Luc Godard’s After-Shave Com­mer­cial for Schick

Andrei Tarkovsky’s Advice to Young Filmmakers: Sacrifice Yourself for Cinema

in Film | January 2nd, 2013

Few film­mak­ers have been so often, or so unam­bigu­ous­ly, called mas­ters of the medi­um as Andrei Tarkovsky. In acclaimed pic­tures like The Mir­ror, Stalk­er, and Nos­tal­ghia (find free online ver­sions of his films here), he real­ized his visions with­out com­pro­mise. If you can engage with these visions, watch­ing a Tarkovsky film makes for a cin­e­mat­ic expe­ri­ence with­out com­pare. Geoff Dyer, for exam­ple, one of the direc­tor’s par­tic­u­lar­ly high-pro­file fans, recent­ly pub­lished Zona: A Book About a Film About a Jour­ney to a Room, a vol­ume on noth­ing but watch­ing Stalk­er. If you can’t engage with these visions, you may find watch­ing a Tarkovsky film rough going indeed. (Admit­ted­ly, Nos­tal­ghia’s nine min­utes of can­dle-car­ry­ing requires a cer­tain frame of mind.) But if you make films, you’d do well to con­sid­er Tarkovsky’s meth­ods either way. The clip above from the doc­u­men­tary Voy­age in Time offers some insight into how the man thought about his work.

First and fore­most, he did­n’t think about it as “work,” sep­a­rate from oth­er pur­suits. “It’s not hard to learn how to glue the film, how to work a cam­era,” Tarkovsky says. “But the advice I can give to begin­ners is not to sep­a­rate their work, their movie, their film, from the life they live. Not to make a dif­fer­ence between the movie and their own life.” These words don’t come as a sur­prise from a direc­tor well known for craft­ing deeply per­son­al films, but one sus­pects that cre­ators of any kind all too rarely find it in them­selves to heed them. But Tarkovsky, always described as a thor­ough­ly rig­or­ous man, could have lived no oth­er way. “Cin­e­ma is a very dif­fi­cult and seri­ous art,” he con­tin­ues. “It requires sac­ri­fic­ing of your­self. You should belong to it, it should­n’t belong to you. Cin­e­ma uses your life, not vice ver­sa.” A great demand indeed, but we’d sure­ly have a more inter­est­ing cin­e­ma if young direc­tors accept­ed it. The artis­tic world could use more Tarkovskys.

via Bib­liok­lept

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Tarkovsky Films Now Free Online

Tarkovsky’s Solaris Revis­it­ed

Andrei Tarkovsky’s Very First Films: Three Stu­dent Films, 1956–1960

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on lit­er­a­ture, film, cities, Asia, and aes­thet­ics. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

Maurice Sendak’s Emotional Last Interview with NPR’s Terry Gross, Animated by Christoph Niemann

in Animation, Radio | January 2nd, 2013

In late Sep­tem­ber of 2011, Mau­rice Sendak spoke one last time with Ter­ry Gross for the NPR pro­gram Fresh Air. Osten­si­bly the inter­view was to pro­mote Sendak’s final book, Bum­ble-Ardy, but as the con­ver­sa­tion pro­gressed it was clear they just want­ed to talk.

The beloved chil­dren’s writer and illus­tra­tor was 83 years old and in declin­ing health. He was feel­ing the loss of peo­ple close to him who had died in recent years. Inevitably, the dis­cus­sion turned to issues of mor­tal­i­ty. As the con­ver­sa­tion built to an emo­tion­al crescen­do, Sendak laid bare the qual­i­ties that made him such a great author: sin­cer­i­ty, depth of feel­ing, and an insu­per­a­ble need to con­nect with peo­ple in some ele­men­tal way.

By the time it was over there were teary-eyed peo­ple in cars all across North Amer­i­ca. One lis­ten­er, Brent Eades, left a mes­sage on the NPR Web site: “I hap­pened to be lis­ten­ing to this extra­or­di­nary inter­view while on the ear­ly-morn­ing com­mute from my small Ontario town to Ottawa. I was entire­ly absorbed in it; and the final cou­ple of min­utes left me with tears stream­ing down my face, which I’m sure non­plussed my fel­low com­muters.”

The Ger­man-born illus­tra­tor Christoph Nie­mann had a sim­i­lar expe­ri­ence. On Sun­day The New York Times Mag­a­zine post­ed this touch­ing ani­ma­tion by Nie­mann, which tells the sto­ry of how the inter­view affect­ed him. In the film, var­i­ous crea­tures from Sendak’s fer­tile imag­i­na­tion revis­it Nie­mann as he lis­tens in his car, trans­port­ing him again to some­place spe­cial.

Sendak died on May 8, 2012, less than eight months after his con­ver­sa­tion with Gross. Nie­man­n’s film encom­pass­es the last five min­utes of the talk. You can lis­ten to the entire con­ver­sa­tion at the NPR Web site.

Relat­ed con­tent:

The Mind and Art of Mau­rice Sendak: A Video Sketch

An Ani­mat­ed Christ­mas Fable by Mau­rice Sendak (1977)

Mau­rice Sendak’s Sur­re­al and Con­tro­ver­sial Sto­ry, In the Night Kitchen