David Byrne: How Architecture Helped Music Evolve

in Architecture, Music, TED Talks | May 3rd, 2011

Since the break-up of Talk­ing Heads in 1991, David Byrne has made a good career for him­self as a solo artist, work­ing in film and music, and also becom­ing an active sup­port­er of cycling. Overt­ly intel­lec­tu­al, Byrne has giv­en lec­tures on a great vari­ety of top­ics – from Carl Jung to the ways in which venue and con­text shape artis­tic cre­ation.

The TED talk above was giv­en in Feb­ru­ary 2010 in Long Beach, Cal­i­for­nia, and here David Byrne presents his ideas on the inter­re­la­tion­ship between music and archi­tec­ture. A tran­script of this talk can be found on the TED Talks page.

Byrne was not the first to explain the link between music and archi­tec­ture. In 2002, renowned archi­tect Daniel Libe­skind deliv­ered a Proms Lec­ture on that very top­ic (find the audio stream here) and, in 2007, Jonathan Cole pre­sent­ed his own lec­ture, “Music and Archi­tec­ture: Con­fronting the Bound­aries between Space and Sound,” at Gre­sham Col­lege, Lon­don. But it is Byrne’s talk that approach­es the sub­ject from the prac­ti­cal point of view of a musi­cian.

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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Phoenix Still Rising: Egypt After The Revolution

in Current Affairs, Film, Politics, Video - Politics/Society | May 3rd, 2011

Much has been said, tweet­ed and writ­ten about the 2011 Egypt­ian Rev­o­lu­tion, glo­ri­fy­ing it as one of the most land­mark tri­umphs of free­dom in recent his­to­ry. Yet the West­ern media has deliv­ered sur­pris­ing­ly lit­tle on its after­math, leav­ing the lived post-rev­o­lu­tion real­i­ty of the Egypt­ian peo­ple a near-mys­tery.

This beau­ti­ful short film by British film stu­dio Scat­tered Images offers a rare glimpse of a phoenix still strug­gling to rise from the ash­es of oppres­sion. With incred­i­ble visu­al elo­quence, the film peels away at the now-worn media iconog­ra­phy of the rev­o­lu­tion itself, reveal­ing how life after it has actu­al­ly changed — or has­n’t — as Egypt remains a nation in tran­si­tion, with a future yet to be decid­ed.

Polit­i­cal­ly, there is a vac­u­um. The rev­o­lu­tion demand­ed a gov­ern­ment account­able to the peo­ple and ruled by trans­par­ent insti­tu­tions. But now, the only ruler is uncer­tain­ty.

Maria Popo­va is the founder and edi­tor in chief of Brain Pick­ings, a curat­ed inven­to­ry of cross-dis­ci­pli­nary inter­est­ing­ness. She writes for Wired UK, The Atlantic and Desig­nOb­serv­er, and spends a great deal of time on Twit­ter.

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The World’s First (and Slightly Scandalous) Hand-Tinted Motion Picture

in Film, History | May 2nd, 2011

The world’s first hand-tint­ed motion pic­ture was pro­duced by Thomas Edis­on’s com­pa­ny, Edi­son Stu­dios, in 1895, more than 115 years ago. The dancer, Annabelle Moore (1878–1961), was just a teenag­er when this film was released, and her dance caused both a sen­sa­tion and a scan­dal. (Note the flash­es of under­gar­ment, all the way up to above the knee, about 29 sec­onds in.) It may have been a sign of things to come: Moore would go on to star as the Gib­son bathing suit girl in the first Ziegfeld fol­lies, where she remained until her mar­riage and retire­ment brought her back to respectabil­i­ty in 1912.

The film is also worth com­par­ing with a sim­i­lar but much more del­i­cate­ly paint­ed ver­sion done just five years lat­er by the Lumiere broth­ers.

(Spe­cial thanks to the recent­ly-launched Weyume)

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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Oil’d, by Chris Harmon

in Current Affairs, Video - Politics/Society | May 2nd, 2011

We’re often obsessed with oil. A year ago, the issue was off­shore drilling. The Deep­wa­ter Hori­zon rig had explod­ed, and crude oil was spilling into the Gulf of Mex­i­co at a rate of 53,000 bar­rels a day. We all watched help­less­ly as BP threw every­thing but the kitchen sink at the prob­lem. (Remem­ber the golf balls?) Three months passed and 4.9 mil­lion bar­rels ripped into the ecosys­tem before the well was final­ly capped. Time to talk about it? Hard­ly. Now the dis­cus­sion has moved on to sky­rock­et­ing oil prices and the issues sur­round­ing them, like the caus­es (con­flict in the Mid­dle East, ris­ing con­sump­tion in Chi­na and India, com­mod­i­ty spec­u­la­tion at home…) and the polit­i­cal impli­ca­tions for the 2012 U.S. pres­i­den­tial elec­tion if gas prices stay high. Weighty issues, to be sure. But before we allow the Deep­wa­ter Hori­zon oil spill of 2010 to fade into our col­lec­tive amne­sia, Chris Har­mon, a Brook­lyn-based design­er, ani­ma­tor and writer, has cre­at­ed a work of ani­mat­ed typog­ra­phy to put some of the stag­ger­ing facts into per­spec­tive.

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Vladimir Nabokov Marvels Over Different “Lolita” Book Covers

in Books, Literature | May 2nd, 2011

In this short excerpt from a TV pro­gram called “USA: The Nov­el,” Vladimir Nabokov com­ments on dif­fer­ent for­eign edi­tions of his nov­el Loli­ta. The indi­vid­ual cov­ers he dis­cuss­es are list­ed here; the full pro­gram is avail­able here, and it con­tains some mem­o­rable quotes by the author (from chap­ter 1: “Mr Nabokov, would you tell us why it is that you detest Dr. Freud?” — “I think he’s crude, I think he’s medieval, and I don’t want an elder­ly gen­tle­man from Vien­na with an umbrel­la inflict­ing his dreams upon me. I don’t have the dreams that he dis­cuss­es in his books, I don’t see umbrel­las in my dreams or bal­loons.”).

Find­ing a pub­lish­er for Loli­ta proved to be rather dif­fi­cult for Nabokov. A Decem­ber 1953 review of the man­u­script said: “It is over­whelm­ing­ly nau­se­at­ing, even to an enlight­ened Freudi­an. To the pub­lic, it will be revolt­ing. It will not sell, and will do immea­sur­able harm to a grow­ing rep­u­ta­tion. […] I rec­om­mend that it be buried under a stone for a thou­sand years.” (Get more infor­ma­tion at Stan­ford’s “The Book Haven”) Loli­ta was first pub­lished in 1955 (orig­i­nal cov­er here) and has since been trans­lat­ed into many lan­guages with a wide vari­ety of cov­er designs (find a good col­lec­tion at this site).

Short­ly after Loli­ta’s pub­li­ca­tion, Nabokov dis­cussed his nov­el on the CBC pro­gram “Close Up”: see part one and part two.

Bonus: Lit­tle known detail — Nabokov held the post of cura­tor of lep­i­doptera at Har­vard’s Muse­um of Com­par­a­tive Zool­o­gy. He col­lect­ed many but­ter­flies and devel­oped a the­o­ry of but­ter­fly migra­tion which dis­put­ed all pre­vi­ous the­o­ries and was­n’t tak­en seri­ous­ly by biol­o­gists then. Only recent­ly did genet­ic stud­ies vin­di­cate his once bold the­o­ry. Some of Nabokov’s beau­ti­ful draw­ings of the but­ter­flies he stud­ied can be enjoyed cour­tesy of Fla­vor­wire.

You can find this video housed in our col­lec­tion of 235 Cul­tur­al Icons.

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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Obama Announces Death of Osama bin Laden (Video)

in Current Affairs, History | May 1st, 2011

It’s news and it’s instant his­tor­i­cal footage. Tonight, Pres­i­dent Oba­ma announced that Osama bin Laden, the mas­ter­mind behind the 9/11 attacks, was killed Sun­day by US forces in Pak­istan, right out­side of Islam­abad (and, in a for­ti­fied man­sion, no less). The US began search­ing for bin Laden back in 1998, fol­low­ing the bomb­ing of the US embassies in Kenya and Tan­za­nia. 13 years lat­er, the pur­suit of Al Qaeda’s leader is over…

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Warhol’s Screen Tests of Lou Reed, Dennis Hopper, Nico & More

in Film, Music | April 29th, 2011

Between 1964 and 1966, Andy Warhol shot close to 500 short movies of friends, celebri­ties, mod­els, and any of the oth­er love­ly young things who passed through his stu­dio known as The Fac­to­ry. The indie-rock duet Dean and Brit­ta recent­ly com­posed songs for 13 of the videos, which they’ve been per­form­ing live as part of a mul­ti­me­dia con­cert for sev­er­al years. “13 Most Beau­ti­ful… Songs for Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests” is avail­able on DVD, CD, and of course, YouTube.

We espe­cial­ly loved “I’m Not A Young Man Any­more,” fea­tur­ing an icy cool Lou Reed, so hip and desir­able that even his Coke bot­tle looks as if it’s wear­ing sun­glass­es. There are oth­er gems as well, start­ing with the doomed Edie Sedgewick, one of The Fac­to­ry’s ear­li­est stars, who died of an over­dose in 1971.

The 5′10″ Ger­man mod­el Nico, before she began record­ing with the Vel­vet Under­ground.

The preter­nat­u­ral­ly beau­ti­ful Paul Amer­i­ca, star of Warhol’s film “My Hus­tler,” who even­tu­al­ly hired lawyers to seek pay­ment for his role in the movie that made him a reluc­tant gay icon. He died after being hit by a car in 1981.


And final­ly, the late Den­nis Hop­per, extra­or­di­nary on screen even by Fac­to­ry stan­dards. Accord­ing to Dean and Brit­ta, he was the first to buy one of Warhol’s soup can paint­ings.

On a some­what unre­lat­ed note, the Dean is of course Dean Ware­ham of Galax­ie 500 and Luna. If you’re a fan of his music, or even just nos­tal­gic for 90’s era pre-Nap­ster indie rock, you might want to check out his dry, thought­ful mem­oir, Black Post­cards: A Rock & Roll Romance.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

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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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Orion: The Beauty of South Dakota Nights in Time Lapse

in Art | April 29th, 2011

This past Feb­ru­ary, Randy Halver­son ven­tured forth into the frigid South Dako­ta night to cre­ate a painful­ly pret­ty time-lapse film. He called it “Sub Zero,” an apt title giv­en that tem­per­a­tures fell to ‑25 degrees Fahren­heit.

With the approach of spring, Halver­son returned to the great out­doors to shoot “Ori­on,” which fea­tures con­stel­la­tions track­ing across his fam­i­ly farm. The film starts in an old grain dis­tillery, then moves out­side, and gets down­right mes­mer­iz­ing around the 1:45 mark.

In case you’re won­der­ing, the film does­n’t take its name from the Ori­on con­stel­la­tion. Rather it comes from the Ori­on tele­scope head used to shoot the film. That gear appears at the 2:09 mark.

You can read more about “Ori­on” in Wired as well as on Vimeo. And stay tuned for more: Halver­son hopes to shoot South Dakota’s bad­lands and the Rocky Moun­tains this com­ing sum­mer…

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Flux: Short Animation Inspired by İlhan Koman

in Art | April 28th, 2011

Sit back and enjoy Can­daş Şişman’s video ded­i­cat­ed to the influ­en­tial Turk­ish sculp­tor, İlh­an Koman (1923–1986). Rodin, Gia­comet­ti, Bran­cusi – they all informed Koman’s work, and now fil­ter back into Şişman’s video instal­la­tion, which went on dis­play at last year’s Hul­da Fes­ti­val.

The fes­ti­val, fea­tur­ing Koman’s sci­en­tif­ic sculp­tures, ran from March 2009 until Novem­ber 2010, and trav­eled to Stock­holm, Ams­ter­dam, Antwerp, Bor­deaux, Lis­bon, Barcelona, Naples, Mal­ta, Thes­sa­loni­ca and final­ly Istan­bul. You can find more of Şişman’s work on Vimeo here.

via @kirstinbutler

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Spy Magazine (1986–1998) Now Online

in Comedy, Media | April 28th, 2011

You want to know why Rupert Mur­doch runs the world and you don’t? Here’s a hint: In 1990, Spy Mag­a­zine (now archived at Google Books) sent Mur­doch and a slew of oth­er wealthy celebri­ties checks for $1.11 as a prank. Mur­doch cashed his right away — because even when he was just a low­ly bil­lion­aire, the guy under­stood mon­ey.

And the edi­tors at Spy (1986–98) under­stood celebri­ty cul­ture, which is why they became arguably the most influ­en­tial mag­a­zine of the late 20th cen­tu­ry, or, in Dave Eggers’ words “cru­el, bril­liant, beau­ti­ful­ly writ­ten and per­fect­ly designed, and feared by all.” Com­bin­ing an ele­gant house style, barbed satire, and a healthy dose of class-rage, Spy inspired a rad­i­cal tonal shift in Amer­i­can jour­nal­ism just in time for the arrival of a per­fect­ly suit­ed new plat­form: The Inter­net.

You can read more about the mag­a­zine’s lega­cy in Will Hines’ excel­lent arti­cle Div­ing into the Archives of Spy, The Fun­ni­est Mag­a­zine Ever, at the com­e­dy blog Split­sider. Before accus­ing Hines of hyper­bole, take a look at some of his finds:

Joe Queenan sends up the The Cult of Bob Dylan

The edi­tors list Clin­ton’s First 100 Lies

Newt Gin­grich, top­less, on the cov­er

And that’s with­out even start­ing on the true clas­sics from the 80’s. It’s all at Google Books. Enjoy.

via Split­sider

Relat­ed:  The Onion: Fake News Site Launch­es Real Archive

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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A Very Brief History of Royal Weddings

in Current Affairs, History | April 28th, 2011

I can’t say that we’ll be watch­ing the roy­al wed­ding. But we should at least put a thin veneer of intel­li­gence on top of the shal­low spec­ta­cle. That’s our job. In two very quick min­utes, Emory his­to­ri­an Patrick Allitt sketch­es out the his­to­ry of roy­al wed­dings, and tells you why this “Roy­al Willd­ing” stands out…

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