92nd Street Y Launches a New Online Archive with 1,000 Recordings of Literary Readings, Musical Performances & More

in Archives, Literature, Poetry | November 26th, 2013

Kurt Von­negut once com­ment­ed, in an inter­view with Joseph Heller, that the best audi­ence he had ever encoun­tered was at the 92nd Street Y in New York. “Those peo­ple know every­thing. They are wide awake and respon­sive.”

Locat­ed at the cor­ner of 92nd Street and Lex­ing­ton Avenue, the 92Y has a ven­er­a­ble his­to­ry of pub­lic per­for­mance, con­ver­sa­tion, poet­ry and beyond. Von­negut him­self appeared at the 92Y sev­en times to read aloud from his own work. (Includ­ing this read­ing from Break­fast of Cham­pi­ons three years before the book was pub­lished.)

Cul­tur­al pro­gram­ming has been a focus at the 92Y since it opened in 1874. Orig­i­nal­ly, it served most­ly Ger­man-Jew­ish men (note, it isn’t a YMCA, but a YM-YWHA—Young Men’s and Women’s Hebrew Asso­ci­a­tion). But the Kauf­mann Con­cert Hall opened in 1930, and that’s where a ver­i­ta­ble Who’s Who of not­ed enter­tain­ment, pol­i­tics, sports, and sci­ence fig­ures have appeared over the years, speak­ing to that “wide awake and respon­sive” audi­ence.

Lucky for the rest of us, the 92Y record­ed the vast major­i­ty of those per­for­mances. And now 1,000 record­ings appear on a new site, 92Y On Demand. It’s a fan­tas­tic archive of audio and video files, search­able by top­ic, year or per­former name.

It’s all there: Yogi Berra look­ing back on his life and career. A 1961 read­ing by a young Nadine Gordimer. Harold Pin­ter read­ing his own short sto­ries and weigh­ing in on the Bea­t­les vs. the Rolling Stones. Andrés Segovia play­ing a clas­si­cal gui­tar recital. Lou Reed speak­ing on the eve of his live per­for­mance of Berlin (top). Bil­ly Crys­tal (below) on roast­ing Muham­mad Ali.

92Y is home to the Unter­berg Poet­ry Cen­ter, so the new archive abounds with poet­ry read­ings. Dylan Thomas read there in 1953. Two years ear­li­er play­wright Thorn­ton Wilder appeared and read from Emi­ly Dickinson’s work. And clos­er to our own time, Paul McCart­ney recent­ly read from his own poet­ry.

See many more cel­e­brat­ed fig­ures such as Maria Bam­ford, Mau­rice Sendak, Dan Sav­age, Junot Díaz and Jamaica Kin­caid read and dis­cuss their work at 92Y On Demand.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hear Kurt Vonnegut’s Very First Pub­lic Read­ing from Break­fast of Cham­pi­ons (1970)

Lou Reed Rewrites Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven.” See Read­ings by Reed and Willem Dafoe

Allen Gins­berg Gets Heck­led by Beat Poet Gre­go­ry Cor­so at a 1973 Poet­ry Read­ing

Kate Rix writes about dig­i­tal media and edu­ca­tion. Fol­low her on Twit­ter.

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Slavoj Žižek Examines the Perverse Ideology of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy

in Film, Music, Philosophy | November 26th, 2013

Beethoven’s icon­ic Ninth Sym­pho­ny pre­miered in Vien­na in 1824, at “a time of great repres­sion, of ultra-con­ser­v­a­tive nation­al­ism” as the old orders fought back against the rev­o­lu­tions of the pre­vi­ous cen­tu­ry. But it’s dif­fi­cult to imag­ine the com­pos­er hav­ing any nation­al­ist intent, what with his well-known hatred of author­i­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly impe­ri­al­ist author­i­ty (and par­tic­u­lar­ly of Napoleon). Even less obvi­ous is the impu­ta­tion of nation­al­ist ten­den­cies to Friedrich Schiller, whose poem, “Ode to Joy” Beethoven adapts to a glo­ri­ous cho­rus in the fourth move­ment. Schiller’s poem, writes Scott Hor­ton in Harper’s, “envi­sions a world with­out mon­archs” in which uni­ver­sal friend­ship “is essen­tial if humankind is to over­come its dark­er moments.” And in his take on the ubiq­ui­tous piece of music, con­trar­i­an the­o­rist Slavoj Žižek acknowl­edges in the clip above from his lat­est film, A Pervert’s Guide to Ide­ol­o­gy, that the Ninth is gen­er­al­ly tak­en for grant­ed “as a kind of an ode to human­i­ty as such, to the broth­er­hood and free­dom of all peo­ple.”

And yet Žižek , being Žižek, draws our atten­tion to the Ninth Sym­pho­ny as a per­fect ide­o­log­i­cal con­tain­er, by ref­er­ence to its unfor­get­table use in Stan­ley Kubrick’s A Clock­work Orange, as unspar­ing a look at humanity’s “dark­er moments” as one might find on film (excerpt above). Kubrick (and com­pos­er Wendy Car­los) drew on a long, dark his­to­ry of asso­ci­a­tions with the Ninth. As evi­dence of its “uni­ver­sal adapt­abil­i­ty,” Žižek points to its well-known use by the Nazis as a nation­al­ist anthem, as well as by the Sovi­et Union as a com­mu­nist song; in Chi­na dur­ing the Cul­tur­al Rev­o­lu­tion, when almost all oth­er West­ern music was pro­hib­it­ed; and at the extreme Apartheid right in South Rhode­sia. “At the oppo­site end,” Žižek says, the Ninth Sym­pho­ny was the favorite of ultra-left­ist Shin­ing Path leader Abi­mael Guz­man, and in 1972, it became the unof­fi­cial “Anthem of Europe” (now of the Euro­pean Union). The tow­er­ing piece of music, Žižek claims, enables us to imag­ine a “per­verse scene of uni­ver­sal fra­ter­ni­ty” in which the world’s dic­ta­tors, arch-ter­ror­ists, and war crim­i­nals all embrace each oth­er. It’s a deeply dis­turb­ing image, to say the least. Watch the full excerpt for more of Žižek’s exam­i­na­tion of the ide­o­log­i­cal weight Beethoven car­ries.

via Bib­liokept

Relat­ed Con­tent:

In His Lat­est Film, Slavoj Žižek Claims “The Only Way to Be an Athe­ist is Through Chris­tian­i­ty”

Slavoj Žižek’s Pervert’s Guide to Ide­ol­o­gy Decodes The Dark Knight and They Live

The Mak­ing of Stan­ley Kubrick’s A Clock­work Orange

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

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The “Pursuit of Ignorance” Drives All Science: Watch Neuroscientist Stuart Firestein’s Engaging New TED Talk

in Education, Philosophy, Science, TED Talks | November 26th, 2013

Neu­ro­sci­en­tist Stu­art Firestein, the chair of Colum­bia University’s Bio­log­i­cal Sci­ences depart­ment, rejects  any metaphor that likens the goal of sci­ence to com­plet­ing a puz­zle, peel­ing an onion, or peek­ing beneath the sur­face to view an ice­berg in its entire­ty.

Such com­par­isons sug­gest a future in which all of our ques­tions will be answered. In Dr. Firestein’s view, every answer can and should cre­ate a whole new set of ques­tions, an opin­ion pre­vi­ous­ly voiced by play­wright George Bernard Shaw and philoso­pher Immanuel Kant.

A more apt metaphor might be an end­less cycle of chick­ens and eggs. Or, as Dr. Firestein posits in his high­ly enter­tain­ing, 18-minute TED talk above, a chal­lenge on par with find­ing a black cat in a dark room that may con­tain no cats what­so­ev­er.

Accord­ing to Firestein, by the time we reach adult­hood, 90% of us will have lost our inter­est in sci­ence. Young chil­dren are like­ly to expe­ri­ence the sub­ject as some­thing jol­ly, hands-on, and adven­tur­ous. As we grow old­er, a del­uge of facts often ends up trump­ing the fun. Prin­ci­ples of Neur­al Sci­ence, a required text for Firestein’s under­grad­u­ate Cel­lu­lar and Mol­e­c­u­lar Neu­ro­science course weighs twice as much as the aver­age human brain.

The major­i­ty of the gen­er­al pub­lic may feel sci­ence is best left to the experts, but Firestein is quick to point out that when he and his col­leagues are relax­ing with post-work beers, the con­ver­sa­tion is fueled by the stuff that they don’t know.

Hence the “pur­suit of igno­rance,” the title of his talk.

Giv­en the edu­ca­tion­al con­text, his choice of word­ing could cause a knee-jerk response. He takes it to mean nei­ther stu­pid­i­ty, nor “cal­low indif­fer­ence,” but rather the “thor­ough­ly con­scious” igno­rance that James Clerk Maxwell, the father of mod­ern physics, dubbed the pre­lude to all sci­en­tif­ic advance­ment.

I bet the 19th-cen­tu­ry physi­cist would have shared Firestein’s dis­may at the test-based approach so preva­lent in today’s schools.

The igno­rance-embrac­ing reboot he pro­pos­es at the end of his talk is as rad­i­cal as it is fun­ny.

For more of Stu­art Firestein’s thoughts on igno­rance check out the descrip­tion for his Colum­bia course on Igno­rance and his book, Igno­rance: How It Dri­ves Sci­ence.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

 

Orson Welles Explains Why Igno­rance Was His Major “Gift” to Cit­i­zen Kane

Noam Chom­sky Explains Where Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence Went Wrong

Steven Pinker Explains the Neu­ro­science of Swear­ing (NSFW)

Ayun Hal­l­i­day recent­ly direct­ed 16 home­school­ers in Yeast Nation, the world’s first bio-his­tor­i­cal musi­cal.  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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Watch Charlie Chaplin Demand 342 Takes of One Scene from City Lights

in Film | November 26th, 2013

The Cri­te­ri­on Col­lec­tion has put out a new edi­tion of Char­lie Chap­lin’s City Lights, and on the disc they’ve includ­ed the rare footage above of Chap­lin direct­ing that most famous of his pic­tures. We see him giv­ing instruc­tions to young Vir­ginia Cher­rill, who appeared in the film as a blind flower girl for whom Chap­lin’s Tramp falls head over heels. Chap­lin’s char­ac­ter approved of Cher­rill much more hearti­ly than Chap­lin him­self did. The direc­tor con­sid­ered the actress an “ama­teur” and remem­bered her often “doing some­thing which wasn’t right. Lines. A line. A con­tour hurts me if it’s not right.” That remark, orig­i­nal­ly made in an inter­view con­duct­ed in 1968, 37 years after City Lights, comes quot­ed in David Robinson’s new book, Chap­lin: His Life and His Art. The New York­er’s Richard Brody also uses it in his post on City Lights and Chap­lin’s direc­tion of Cher­rill, of whom he, for one sequence, demand­ed as many as 342 takes.

Does that send Chap­lin straight to the canon of per­fec­tion­ist film­mak­ers? You may say yes, but Brody, whose pow­ers of cin­e­mat­ic obser­va­tion at times make me want to scrap every­thing and ded­i­cate my life to film crit­i­cism, has a more inter­est­ing response. “It’s tempt­ing to ascribe Chaplin’s obses­sion­al direc­tion,” he argues, “but I think that the episode reveals an even more pow­er­ful strain of Chaplin’s art, a sort of imper­fec­tion­ism.

Chap­lin didn’t have a men­tal tem­plate that he want­ed Cher­rill to match; he approach­es the scene not quite know­ing what he want­ed.” Chap­lin, so it seems, sim­ply worked this way, seek­ing per­fec­tion, but an unusu­al “per­fec­tion of results, not of con­for­mi­ty to a pre­con­ceived schema. He sought what pro­voked, in him, the per­fect emo­tion, the per­fect aes­thet­ic response—but he wouldn’t know it until he saw it. He start­ed to shoot in the con­fi­dence that the thing—whatever it was—would hap­pen.” And now you can watch 65 of the fruits of Chap­lin’s quest for this imper­fec­tion­is­tic per­fec­tion for free on our very own col­lec­tion of Chap­lin films on the web.

via The New York­er

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Three Great Films Star­ring Char­lie Chap­lin, the True Icon of Silent Com­e­dy

The Pow­er of Silent Movies, with The Artist Direc­tor Michel Haz­anavi­cius

Hol­ly­wood, Epic Doc­u­men­tary Chron­i­cles the Ear­ly His­to­ry of Cin­e­ma

535 Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, etc.

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on cities, Asia, film, lit­er­a­ture, and aes­thet­ics. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on his brand new Face­book page.

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Lyndon Johnson Orders New Pants on the Phone and Requests More Room for His … Johnson (1964)

in Animation, History, Random | November 26th, 2013

“Lyn­don John­son was indeed .… a being of Shake­speare­an dimensions—a hulk­ing, bush-coun­try colos­sus, gar­gan­tu­an of ego and ener­gy, of self-delu­sions and glooms and para­noias, crass cru­el­ties and ram­pant vul­gar­i­ties, but gar­gan­tu­an also in his benev­o­lent ambi­tions.” So begins Mar­shall Frady’s review of Robert Caro’s 2002 polit­i­cal biog­ra­phy, Mas­ter Of The Sen­ate: The Years of Lyn­don John­son. The review then pro­ceeds to describe John­son’s uncouth behav­ior, which some­how always seemed to involve his John­son:

He ear­ly became fabled for a Rabelaisian earth­i­ness, uri­nat­ing in the park­ing lot of the House Office Build­ing as the urge took him; if a col­league came into a Capi­tol bath­room as he was fin­ish­ing at the uri­nal there, he would some­times swing around still hold­ing his mem­ber, which he liked to call “Jum­bo,” hoot­ing once, “Have you ever seen any­thing as big as this?,” and shak­ing it in almost a bran­dish­ing man­ner as he began dis­cours­ing about some pend­ing leg­is­la­tion. At the same time, he would oblige aides to take dic­ta­tion stand­ing in the door of his office bath­room while he went about emp­ty­ing his bow­els, as if in some alpha-male rit­u­al asser­tion of his pri­ma­cy. Even on the floors of the House and Sen­ate, he would extrav­a­gant­ly rum­mage away at his groin, some­times reach­ing his hand through a pock­et and lean­ing with half-lift­ed leg for more thor­ough access.

Above, we have a record­ing of anoth­er col­or­ful episode from the John­son era. On August 9, 1964, the pres­i­dent called the Hag­gar cloth­ing com­pa­ny to order some cus­tom-made pants. It was seem­ing­ly an innocu­ous call, a call you could­n’t imag­ine a pres­i­dent mak­ing today. But it sud­den­ly took a bizarre turn when LBJ asked for more room in the crotch, in the area “where the nuts hang.” That, before let­ting out a short, unapolo­getic belch. It’s clas­sic John­son.

Lis­ten to the famous call play out above, and find a tran­script of the exchange here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Dizzy Gille­spie Runs for US Pres­i­dent, 1964. Promis­es to Make Miles Davis Head of the CIA

The Exis­ten­tial­ism Files: How the FBI Tar­get­ed Camus, and Then Sartre After the JFK Assas­si­na­tion

Actress Grace Kel­ly Reflects on the Life & Lega­cy of JFK in an Art­ful­ly Ani­mat­ed Video

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Watch Soviet Animations of Winnie the Pooh, Created by the Innovative Animator Fyodor Khitruk

in Animation, Film, K-12 | November 25th, 2013

Note: To acti­vate sub­ti­tles, click the CC icon at the bot­tom of the video.

In 1962, the ani­ma­tor Fyo­dor Khitruk made his direc­to­r­i­al debut with Sto­ry of One Crime, a film that broke with a Sovi­et ten­den­cy to make imi­ta­tions of Dis­ney-style ani­ma­tions. The film, as The Guardian explained in its 2012 obit­u­ary for the ani­ma­tor, came as a shock. It was styl­is­ti­cal­ly sim­ple and dealt with themes that Dis­ney films would nev­er touch — like, why would a polite clerk mur­der two house­wives with a fry­ing pan?

Khitruk made oth­er films that were packed with social com­men­tary, often tak­ing aim at abus­es in the Sovi­et sys­tem. But, he also made straight­for­ward ani­ma­tions for chil­dren, none more famous than his series of films based on AA Mil­ne’s beloved Win­nie the Pooh books.

Cre­at­ed between 1969 and 1972, Khitruk’s three films star a bear named “Vin­ni-Pukh” who looks noth­ing like the Win­nie the Pooh that West­ern­ers grew up with. (You can see the orig­i­nal illus­tra­tions of Pooh by E.H. Shep­ard here.) But view­ers will cer­tain­ly rec­og­nize the sto­ry­line and spir­it of the orig­i­nal Pooh in the Sovi­et adap­ta­tions. For decades, these films have enchant­ed East Euro­pean view­ers, both young and old. And they still occa­sion­al­ly appear on Russ­ian TV.

Part 1

Part 2

Above, you can watch the three ani­ma­tions online. They appear in the order in which they were released: 1) Win­nie-the-Pooh (Винни-Пух, 1969), 2) Win­nie-the-Pooh Goes on a Vis­it (Винни-Пух идет в гости, 1971); and 3) Win­nie-the-Pooh and the Day of Con­cern (Винни-Пух и день забот, 1972).

As not­ed up top, you might need to click the “CC” icon at the bot­tom of the YouTube videos in order to acti­vate the sub­ti­tles. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, we can’t vouch for the accu­ra­cy of the trans­la­tions.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hear the Clas­sic Win­nie-the-Pooh Read by Author A.A. Milne in 1929

Two Beau­ti­ful­ly-Craft­ed Russ­ian Ani­ma­tions of Chekhov’s Clas­sic Children’s Sto­ry “Kash­tan­ka”

Watch The Amaz­ing 1912 Ani­ma­tion of Stop-Motion Pio­neer Ladis­las Stare­vich, Star­ring Dead Bugs

The Com­plete Wiz­ard of Oz Series, Avail­able as Free eBooks and Free Audio Books

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Legendary Japanese Author Yukio Mishima Muses About the Samurai Code (Which Inspired His Hapless 1970 Coup Attempt)

in History, Literature, Politics | November 25th, 2013

One day in Novem­ber of 1970, Nobel prize-nom­i­nat­ed author Yukio Mishi­ma bar­ri­cad­ed him­self in the East­ern Com­mand office of Japan’s Self-Defense Forces and tied the com­man­dant to a chair. Accom­pa­nied by a hand­ful of young men from the Tatenokai, a stu­dent soci­ety-cum-mili­tia, Mishi­ma had launched a coup against the gov­ern­ment. He fol­lowed in the tra­di­tion of lit­er­ary rad­i­cals, whose ranks held writ­ers as diverse as Alexan­der Pushkin and Pablo Neru­da, with one key dis­tinc­tion: while Russ­ian and Chilean authors sought left­ward polit­i­cal shifts, Mishi­ma espoused a jack­boot brand of ascetic nation­al­ism. If Mishima’s cap­ti­va­tion with author­i­tar­i­an pol­i­tics seems out of char­ac­ter for a writer of such emo­tion­al depth, it is worth not­ing that his val­ues were root­ed in the hon­our code of the samu­rai, known as bushi­do. A rare clip of Mishima’s Eng­lish inter­views, above, makes the author’s beliefs about both art and hon­or pal­pa­bly clear:

I think that bru­tal­i­ty might come from our fem­i­nine aspect, and ele­gance comes from our ner­vous side. Some­times we are too sen­si­tive about defile­ment, or ele­gance, or a sense of beau­ty, or the aes­thet­ic side. Some­times we get tired of it. Some­times we need a sud­den explo­sion to make us free from it. For instance, after the war, our bru­tal side was com­plete­ly hid­den… I don’t like that the Japan­ese cul­ture is rep­re­sent­ed only by flower arrangement—a peace-lov­ing cul­ture. We still have a very strong war­rior mind.

The samu­rai ethos was a crit­i­cal com­po­nent of Mishi­ma’s most mov­ing works, includ­ing The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea and Patri­o­tism. In the film adap­ta­tion of Patri­o­tism, below, Mishi­ma shows that to him, even love is sub­or­di­nate to—or per­haps great­est when it works alongside—honour. While the film’s the­atri­cal pro­duc­tion and graph­ic nature may not be for everyone’s tastes (we also note that the clip below has been re-scored, with the orig­i­nal film avail­able here), the rit­u­al sui­cide it depicts offers some insight into the author’s psyche—after his failed coup, Mishi­ma plunged a blade into his stom­ach, and had one of the Tatenokai mem­bers behead him. He was 45 years old.

Ilia Blin­d­er­man is a Mon­tre­al-based cul­ture and sci­ence writer. Fol­low him at @iliablinderman.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

In Search of Haru­ki Muraka­mi, Japan’s Great Post­mod­ernist Nov­el­ist

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

Amer­i­can Film­mak­ers in Japan­ese Ads: Quentin Taran­ti­no Sells Cell Phones, Orson Welles Hawks Whisky

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The Story of the Bass: New Video Gives Us 500 Years of Music History in 8 Minutes

in History, Music | November 25th, 2013

Out­side of mod­ern jazz, bass play­ers have a hard time. Peo­ple either for­get they exist—“John Bon­ham, Jim­my Page, Robert Plant, and … oh yeah, that oth­er guy…”—or they get car­i­ca­tured as the goofi­est mem­bers of the band, due per­haps to the instrument’s unwield­i­ness and the rock­ing-at-the waist motions its awk­ward dimen­sions inspire. The phys­i­cal pos­tures of bassists have lent far too many per­fect pho­to­graph­ic moments to the viral Bass Dogs tum­blr, which imag­ines bass play­ers tick­ling giant, often embar­rassed-look­ing dogs.

But meme-ing aside, the bass occu­pies a cru­cial space, cov­er­ing a fre­quen­cy range and rhyth­mic dimen­sion with­out which we could not be tru­ly moved by mod­ern pop or clas­si­cal music, either in spir­it or body. And while the low end doesn’t clam­or for our attention—like the upper ranges of a chanteuse’s voice, a wail­ing lead gui­tar, or crash­ing cymbals—and can get lost in the tin­ny sounds of ear­buds and cheap radios, we sim­ply can­not do with­out the sound of the bass. To demon­strate what a propul­sive force the bass has been in the evo­lu­tion of music over the cen­turies, col­lec­tive CDZA—who have pre­vi­ous­ly enter­tained and enlight­ened us about the gui­tar solo—fea­ture bassist Michael Thurber in a greatest-hits-who’s‑who his­to­ry les­son, “The Sto­ry of the Bass.”

We begin with that baroque pre­cur­sor to the con­tra bass (or dou­ble bass), the vio­la da gam­ba, which Bach wrote for in his cel­lo suites and in da gam­ba and harp­si­chord pieces. When we come to the 18th cen­tu­ry, we are in the dou­ble bass world of bril­liant vir­tu­oso play­er and com­pos­er Domeni­co Drag­onet­ti, beloved of Haydn and Beethoven (hear a mes­mer­iz­ing Drag­onet­ti con­cer­to above). We then move through the 19th cen­tu­ry with names like Serge Kous­se­vitzky, pop­u­lar­iz­er of the 4‑string dou­ble bass we know today.

With jazz in the ‘20s , the fin­ger pluck­ing style comes to stand in for the tuba of pro­to-jazz Sousa bands. Then the 4‑note walk­ing bassline comes to the fore, brought most famous­ly by Duke Elling­ton bass­man Well­man Braud. In the 40s and 50s, bass took a spot­light with, among many oth­ers, three more some­time Elling­ton bassists: Jim­my Blan­ton, Oscar Pet­ti­ford, and, espe­cial­ly, Charles Min­gus.

The video zooms through country/bluegrass/rockabilly dou­ble bass inno­va­tions with a too-brief men­tion of slap bass tech­nique before Thurber straps on a clas­sic elec­tric to intro­duce but one of Leo Fender’s con­tri­bu­tions to mod­ern music. The first elec­tric bass debuted in 1951, and at the time, only one per­son played it, Monk (erro­neous­ly called “Mark” by CDZA) Mont­gomery, one of a trio of musi­cal broth­ers, who played for Lionel Hampton’s band.

As we get into the post-war peri­od, the bass evolves as rapid­ly as the tech­nolo­gies of ampli­fi­ca­tion, broad­cast, and record­ing. With the dom­i­nance of Motown in the six­ties, the bass takes a lead role in R&B, with the immor­tal James Jamer­son lead­ing the way (above with Jack­son 5). And with British rock and roll, the bass is again pushed to the fore­front by, of course, Paul McCart­ney. New tech­niques abound—John Entwistle of The Who’s fin­ger pluck­ing style, Lar­ry Graham’s slap­ping, the funk/rock/soul sig­na­tures of Nathan Watts, John Paul Jones, and Chris Squire. Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters stands alone as a sin­gu­lar voice on the bass.

Once Thurber reach­es off-the-wall instru­men­tal­ists like Jaco Pas­to­ri­ous (above) and Flea (one is sad­dened Les Clay­pool doesn’t get a name check), we’re off to the races, any­thing goes, and oth­er clichés. Or how about a pun? It’s a bass race to rede­fine the instru­ment until the oughties, when it set­tles back in for folk and six­ties rock revival­ism and explodes in the synth lines of the hard dance revival­ism of dub­step. It’s a rol­lick­ing ride, and as any 8‑and-a-half minute his­to­ry les­son is bound to be, a sur­vey in broad strokes that sure­ly leaves out a cou­ple or dozen of your favorites (Boot­sie Collins? Ged­dy Lee? Peter Hook? Kim Deal? Rob­bie Shake­speare?). But on the whole, it’s an instruc­tive tour of a neglect­ed or maligned instru­ment that deserves much more respect than it gets.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Evo­lu­tion of the Rock Gui­tar Solo: 28 Solos, Span­ning 50 Years, Played in 6 Fun Min­utes

The Fun­da­men­tals of Jazz & Rock Drum­ming Explained in Five Cre­ative Min­utes

An Abridged His­to­ry of West­ern Music: “What a Won­der­ful World” Sung in 16 Dif­fer­ent Styles

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

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Filmmaker Michel Gondry Presents an Animated Conversation with Noam Chomsky

in Animation, Film, Philosophy | November 25th, 2013

Even if you reg­u­lar­ly read Open Cul­ture, where we make a point of high­light­ing unusu­al inter­sec­tions of cul­tur­al cur­rents, you prob­a­bly nev­er expect­ed a col­lab­o­ra­tion between the likes of Michel Gondry and Noam Chom­sky. Gondry we’ve known as an imag­i­na­tive film­mak­er behind fea­tures like Eter­nal Sun­shine of the Spot­less Mind and Be Kind Rewind (as well as music videos for artists like Beck, Kanye West, and the White Stripes), one dri­ven to pur­sue a Con­ti­nen­tal whim­sy tem­pered by a ded­i­ca­tion to elab­o­rate, dif­fi­cult-look­ing hand craft and an appar­ent inter­est in Amer­i­can cul­ture.

Chom­sky we’ve known, depend­ing on our inter­ests, as either a not­ed lin­guist or a con­tro­ver­sial writer and speak­er on pol­i­tics, soci­ety, and the media. Gondry’s new doc­u­men­tary Is the Man Who Is Tall Hap­py?, the project that brings them togeth­er at least, show­cas­es both the less-seen pure­ly philo­soph­i­cal side of Chom­sky, and the also rarely acknowl­edged inquis­i­tive, con­ver­sa­tion­al side of Gondry. In the New York Times “Anato­my of a Scene” clip at the top, the direc­tor explains his process.

Nat­u­ral­ly, Gondry went through a fair­ly unusu­al process to make the film, giv­en that he based the whole thing on noth­ing more elab­o­rate than a long-form in-office con­ver­sa­tion with the MIT-based pro­fes­sor and activist. To get the footage he need­ed of Chom­sky talk­ing, he brought in — nat­u­ral­ly — his vin­tage wind-up Bolex 16-mil­lime­ter film cam­era. He then wove those shots in with his also high­ly ana­log hand-drawn ani­ma­tion, which illus­trates Chom­sky’s ideas as he describes them — and as Gondry prods him for more. “The cam­era is very loud,” Gondry explains over a delib­er­ate­ly shaky frame, “and that’s why I have to draw it each time you hear it.” Just above, you can watch the film’s trail­er, which offers Chom­sky’s voice as well as Gondry’s. “Why should we take it to be obvi­ous that if I let go of a ball,” we hear the inter­vie­wee ask, “it goes down and not up?” We also hear the inter­view­er admit that he “felt a bit stu­pid here,” but these two men’s con­sid­er­able dif­fer­ences — in gen­er­a­tion, in nation­al­i­ty, in sen­si­bil­i­ty, in their con­cerns, in the forms of their work — pro­vide all the more rea­son to lis­ten when they talk. And if you find the intel­lec­tu­al trip not to your taste, just behold the visu­al one.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Noam Chom­sky & Michel Fou­cault Debate Human Nature & Pow­er (1971)

Noam Chom­sky vs. William F. Buck­ley, 1969

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.

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U2 Releases a Nelson Mandela-Inspired Song, “Ordinary Love”

in Music | November 24th, 2013

Worth a quick men­tion: U2 has released “Ordi­nary Love,” a song writ­ten for the new film Man­dela: Long Walk To Free­dom. “The band saw var­i­ous cuts of the film over the sum­mer and worked dili­gent­ly to write a song that tru­ly reflects Nel­son Man­dela,” The Hol­ly­wood Reporter quotes film pro­duc­er Har­vey Wein­stein as say­ing. And now, accom­pa­ny­ing the song, U2 has put out a “lyric video” direct­ed by Irish illus­tra­tor Oliv­er Jef­fers and Amer­i­can artist Mac Pre­mo. The song itself does­n’t raise my hopes that the band is break­ing out of what feels like a decade-long cre­ative rut. But it’s their first stu­dio track in four years since 2009’s No Line on the Hori­zon. So, if you’re a diehard U2 fan, it will per­haps sate you until next spring, when the band is sched­uled to release its next stu­dio album,

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Nel­son Mandela’s First-Ever TV Inter­view (1961)

Nel­son Man­dela Archive Goes Online (With Help From Google)

Leonard Cohen and U2 Per­form ‘Tow­er of Song,’ a Med­i­ta­tion on Aging, Loss & Sur­vival

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Noam Chomsky on Commemorating the JFK Assassination: It “Would Impress Kim Il-Sung”

in Current Affairs, History | November 24th, 2013

jfk chomskyIn recent decades, his­to­ri­ans have tried to offer a bal­anced assess­ment of JFK’s life and lega­cy, offer­ing clear-eyed accounts of his han­dling of for­eign and domes­tic pol­i­cy, and rais­ing ques­tions about his infi­deli­ties and health prob­lems, all the while chip­ping away at the Camelot myth. On Fri­day, the 50th anniver­sary of the Kennedy assas­si­na­tion, the hagiog­ra­phy returned, and even peren­ni­al cads like Rush Lim­baugh had lit­tle bad to say about Amer­i­ca’s 35th pres­i­dent. He sim­ply insist­ed that JFK would be a con­ser­v­a­tive, if still alive today.

Per­haps the only notable excep­tion was Noam Chom­sky. Nev­er a fan of Kennedy (or prob­a­bly any oth­er Amer­i­can pres­i­dent for that mat­ter), Chom­sky was asked by Truthout, “Do you find it odd that the coun­try is focus­ing on a 50th anniver­sary remem­brance of the Kennedy assas­si­na­tion?” A lead­ing ques­tion, no doubt, to which Chomksy replied, “Wor­ship of lead­ers is a tech­nique of indoc­tri­na­tion that goes back to the crazed George Wash­ing­ton cult of the 18th cen­tu­ry and on to the tru­ly lunatic Rea­gan cult of today, both of which would impress Kim Il-sung. The JFK cult is sim­i­lar.” It’s what you get when you live in “a deeply indoc­tri­nat­ed soci­ety.” If you’re ready to have Chom­sky throw more cold water (or is it com­bustible gaso­line?) on the JFK lega­cy, head over to Truthout for more.

P.S. Don’t shoot the mes­sen­ger on this…

via Leit­er Reports

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Noam Chom­sky Slams Žižek and Lacan: Emp­ty ‘Pos­tur­ing’

Clash of the Titans: Noam Chom­sky and Michel Fou­cault Debate Human Nature and Pow­er on Dutch TV, 1971

Noam Chom­sky vs. William F. Buck­ley, 1969

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