Hunter S. Thompson Gets Confronted by The Hell’s Angels (1967)

in Books, Literature | July 22nd, 2011

In 1965, the edi­tor of The Nation asked Hunter S. Thomp­son to write a sto­ry about the Hel­l’s Angels Motor­cy­cle Club, as they’re offi­cial­ly known. The arti­cle quick­ly led to a book deal, and, the next year, the Gonzo jour­nal­ist pub­lished Hel­l’s Angels: The Strange and Ter­ri­ble Saga of the Out­law Motor­cy­cle Gangs. Review­ing the book for The New York Times, Leo Lit­wak wrote:

Hunter Thomp­son entered this ter­ra incog­ni­ta [the world of the Hel­l’s Angels] to become its car­tog­ra­ph­er. For almost a year, he accom­pa­nied the Hel­l’s Angels on their ral­lies. He drank at their bars, exchanged home vis­its, record­ed their bru­tal­i­ties, viewed their sex­u­al caprices, became con­vert­ed to their motor­cy­cle mys­tique, and was so intrigued, as he puts it, that “I was no longer sure whether I was doing research on the Hel­l’s Angels or being slow­ly absorbed by them.” At the con­clu­sion of his year’s tenure the ambi­gu­i­ty of his posi­tion was end­ed when a group of Angels knocked him to the ground and stomped him…

Hunter Thomp­son has pre­sent­ed us with a close view of a world most of us would nev­er dare encounter, yet one with which we should be famil­iar. He has brought on stage men who have lost all options and are not rec­on­ciled to the loss. They have great resources for vio­lence which does­n’t as yet have any effec­tive focus. Thomp­son sug­gests that these few Angels are but the van­guard of a grow­ing army of dis­ap­pro­pri­at­ed, dis­af­fil­i­at­ed and des­per­ate men. There’s always the risk that some­how they may force the wrong options into being.

This clip, which aired on Cana­di­an tele­vi­sion in 1967, describes the cir­cum­stances that led up to the Angels giv­ing HST a beat down. The misog­y­ny that’s on dis­play will make you shud­der.

 

Relat­ed Con­tent

Hunter S. Thomp­son Inter­views Kei­th Richards

John­ny Depp Reads Let­ters from Hunter S. Thomp­son

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Lucian Freud (1922 — 2011)

in Art, Video - Arts & Culture | July 22nd, 2011

Lucian Freud, dis­tin­guished artist and grand­son of Sig­mund Freud, died yes­ter­day at the age of 88. The painter was best known for his con­tri­bu­tions to fig­u­ra­tive art and his uncom­pro­mis­ing por­traits, which The New York Times has col­lect­ed in an impres­sive online gallery.

Freud was also known for his rig­or­ous (some would say cru­el) demands on his sub­jects. From his New York Times obit­u­ary:

To the artist and Freud biog­ra­ph­er Lawrence Gow­ing [Lucian Freud] said, “For me the paint is the per­son.” Mr. Freud’s dingy stu­dio became his artis­tic uni­verse, a grim the­ater in which his con­tort­ed sub­jects, stripped bare and there­fore uniden­ti­fi­able by class, sub­mit­ted to the artist’s unblink­ing, mer­ci­less inspec­tion.

You can learn more about Lucian Freud’s work and lega­cy through a dis­cus­sion of his paint­ing Stand­ing by the Rags at SmART His­to­ry (video post­ed above or click here).

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

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“You Just Don’t Get It, Do You?” — A Montage of Cinema’s Worst Cliché

in Film, Random | July 22nd, 2011

Jeff Smith, an inde­pen­dent film­mak­er from Indi­anapo­lis, must have spent quite a bit of time going through hun­dreds of movies to come up with his final mon­tage of 120 movies con­tain­ing the line “You just don’t get it, do you?”. If you want to invest some time as well, try to guess the movies first and then com­pare your results with the list of actu­al movies here.

If you enjoy guess­ing movies, you can take a look at Jef­f’s blog post “Name That Film,” in which he shows you tricky movie stills (don’t wor­ry, he also pro­vides the solu­tions).

By pro­fes­sion, Matthias Rasch­er teach­es Eng­lish and His­to­ry at a High School in north­ern Bavaria, Ger­many. In his free time he scours the web for good links and posts the best finds on Twit­ter.

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The Year According to The New York Times, in 12,000 Screenshots

in Random | July 21st, 2011

As if your Twit­ter, Google +, and RSS feeds weren’t over­whelm­ing enough, you can now watch a time lapse video of a year’s worth of The New York Times — in 12,000 screen­shots. Enjoy, and try not get dizzy.

via Giz­mo­do

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Gay Talese: Drink­ing at New York Times Put Mad Men to Shame

Hard Words in The New York Times

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

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Hiroshima Atomic Bombing Remembered with Google Earth

in Google, History | July 21st, 2011

Dur­ing the final days of World War II, the Unit­ed States dropped dev­as­tat­ing atom­ic bombs on Hiroshi­ma and Nagasa­ki. More than 65 years lat­er, Hide­nori Watanave, an asso­ciate pro­fes­sor of Tokyo Met­ro­pol­i­tan Uni­ver­si­ty, has cre­at­ed a dig­i­tal archive to pre­serve the mem­o­ry of the Hiroshi­ma bomb­ing. A com­ple­ment to the Nagasa­ki archive launched in 2010, the Hiroshi­ma Archive lay­ers his­tor­i­cal resources into Google Earth, giv­ing users the chance to explore a panoram­ic view of Hiroshi­ma, sur­vivor accounts, aer­i­al pho­tos, 3D topo­graph­i­cal data, and build­ing mod­els.

The doc­u­ments are all writ­ten in Japan­ese, which cre­ates some­thing of a lan­guage bar­ri­er for many read­ers. But a tour through the archive will tell you some­thing impor­tant — some­thing impor­tant about the Hiroshi­ma bomb­ing and how we’re memo­ri­al­iz­ing the past in our new dig­i­tal age.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Google Lit Trips

Ancient Rome in 3D on Google Earth

Vis­it the Pra­do Art Col­lec­tion with Google Earth

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Spike Jonze and Beastie Boys, Together Again

in Film, Music, Video - Arts & Culture | July 21st, 2011

Being John Malkovich direc­tor and long­time Beast­ie Boys col­lab­o­ra­tor Spike Jonze has direct­ed yet anoth­er music video for the band: A high-con­cept sci-fi extrav­a­gan­za that fea­tures zom­bies, GI Joe action fig­ures, and, as usu­al, a sound­track with a pret­ty decent hook.

The song is called “Don’t Play No Game That I Can’t Win,” and the ver­sion we’ve post­ed above is the 11-minute direc­tor’s cut.  You can watch a short­er ver­sion here, but why would you ever want to?

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Col­lab­o­ra­tions: Spike Jonze, Yo-Yo Ma, and Lil Buck

Ful­ly Flared, the 2007 skate­board­ing film direct­ed by Spike Jonze

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

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Impressionist Does Shakespeare in 25 Celebrity Voices

in Comedy | July 20th, 2011

Actor Jim Meski­men has appeared in his fair share of films — There Will Be Blood, Frost/Nixon and Mag­no­lia, to name a few. But he’s per­haps best known for his work as an impres­sion­ist come­di­an. He does the voice of George W. Bush, and Mor­gan Free­man too. But that’s just the tip of the ice­berg. In his lat­est video, Meski­men imper­son­ates 25 famous fig­ures — from Woody Allen to Jack Nichol­son to Droopy Dog — and quite nat­u­ral­ly he has them recit­ing Clarence’s mono­logue from Richard III. Enjoy.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Nine Imper­son­ations by Kevin Spacey in Six Min­utes

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The Machine: Top Prize Winner at the Robot Film Festival

in Film, Science | July 20th, 2011

 

[vimeo]https://vimeo.com/6974132[/vimeo]

Rob Shaw’s dark ani­mat­ed short The Machine was vot­ed Best Film at last week’s Robot Film Fes­ti­val in New York City.  The movie starts on what looks like a stan­dard boy-makes-machine, machine-runs-amok, boy-kills-machine tra­jec­to­ry, but veers nice­ly off-course and ends on a note much more Sartre than Ter­mi­na­tor. (Bat­tlestar Galac­ti­ca fans will see the twist com­ing from a mile away).

The Machine seems like a good fit for the new fes­ti­val, which founder and Carnegie Mel­lon roboti­cist Heather Knight hopes will fuel inno­va­tion and help improve robots’ image in a post-Cylon world. For more back­sto­ry, check out edi­tor and RFF judge Celeste Biev­er’s fas­ci­nat­ing wrap-up at the New Sci­en­tist.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Blinky™: A Touch­ing Short Film About A Killer Robot

Robot Con­ducts The Detroit Sym­pho­ny Orches­tra

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

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Metropolis II: Chris Burden’s Amazing, Frenetic Mini-City

in Animation, Science, Technology | July 20th, 2011

In his 2007 New York­er essay on per­for­mance artist Chris Bur­den, the crit­ic Peter Schjel­dahl wrote that most of Bur­den’s oeu­vre con­sist­ed of “pow­er­ful works that deal inge­nious­ly with aes­thet­ics and ethics of pow­er.”

Schjeld­hal added that “you needn’t like them to be impressed,” and then described some of Bur­den’s more infa­mous pieces:

He spent five days in a small lock­er, with a bot­tle of water above and a bot­tle for urine below; slith­ered, near­ly naked and with his hands held behind him, across fifty feet of bro­ken glass in a park­ing lot; had his hands nailed to the roof of a Volk­swa­gen; was kicked down a flight of stairs; and, on dif­fer­ent occa­sions, incurred appar­ent risks of burn­ing, drown­ing, and elec­tro­cu­tion.

Bur­den’s more recent â€śMetrop­o­lis II,” which might seem tame by com­par­i­son, fea­tures over 1,100 mini­cars careen­ing through a maze of inter­con­nect­ed free­ways. It’s still pret­ty chal­leng­ing, even in dilut­ed video form:  The noise and con­stant motion seem cal­cu­lat­ed to wreck your nerves, and accord­ing to this brief seg­ment on the piece, at least one car spins off the tracks every hour. The city may be sur­re­al, but the stress feels as famil­iar as your last bad rush hour.

You can find a fas­ci­nat­ing on-stage inter­view with the artist in LAC­MA’s Direc­tor’s Series, as well as a wealth of infor­ma­tion about Bur­den’s life and work on the muse­um’s web­site.

H/T Fast­CoDe­sign

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

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Kurt Russell Auditions for Star Wars

in Film | July 19th, 2011

Talk about dodg­ing cin­e­mat­ic bul­lets. Imag­ine The God­fa­ther with­out Mar­lon Bran­do. It almost hap­pened. And then Star Wars with Kurt Rus­sell (play­ing Han Solo). It was a real enough pos­si­bil­i­ty, and here’s the audi­tion tape as proof…

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Star Wars as Silent Film

Star Wars the Musi­cal: The Force is Strong in this One

Darth Vader’s Theme in the Style of Beethoven

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Kutiman Mashes Led Zep’s Black Dog: 80 Clips Stitched into One

in Music | July 19th, 2011

The Israeli mashup artist known as Kuti­man gave us Thru Jer­susalem last month, a con­tem­pla­tive jour­ney through Jerusalem’s eclec­tic, local music scene. Now he returns to his Moth­er of All Funk Chords roots and goes uptem­po again, stitch­ing togeth­er 80 cov­ers of Led Zep­pelin’s 1974 clas­sic, “Black Dog” (orig­i­nal here). Per­haps more than any oth­er I’ve seen, this video gives mean­ing to the expres­sion “the total is greater than the sum of the parts.” The indi­vid­ual cov­ers hard­ly stand out, but the mashup deliv­ers the goods.

via Wired

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