Hear Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol Read by His Great-Granddaughter, Monica

in Books, K-12, Literature, Radio | December 14th, 2015

In Eng­lish-speak­ing coun­tries where Christ­mas is cel­e­brat­ed, A Christ­mas Car­ol, Charles Dick­ens’ sec­u­lar Vic­to­ri­an tale of a Grinch restored to hol­i­day cheer, usu­al­ly plays some part.

How many chil­dren have been trau­ma­tized by Marley’s Ghost in the annu­al rebroad­cast of the half hour, 1971 ani­mat­ed ver­sion, fea­tur­ing the voic­es of Alis­tair Sim and Michael Red­grave as Scrooge and Bob Cratchit?

Per­son­al­ly, I lived in mor­tal fear of the cowled Ghost of Christ­mas Yet to Come from Scrooge, a movie musi­cal ver­sion star­ring Albert Finney.

Adap­ta­tions have been built around every­one from the Mup­pets to Bill Mur­ray.

And in some lucky fam­i­lies, an old­er rel­a­tive with a flair for the the­atri­cal reads the sto­ry aloud, prefer­ably on the actu­al day.

It’s a tra­di­tion that Charles Dick­ens him­self observed. It must’ve been a very pic­turesque scene, with his wife and all ten of their chil­dren gath­ered around. (Pre­sum­ably his mis­tress was not includ­ed in the fes­tiv­i­ties).

Even­tu­al­ly, the torch was passed to the next gen­er­a­tion, who mim­ic­ked and pre­served the cadences favored by the mas­ter.

Dick­ens great-grand­daugh­ter, nov­el­ist Mon­i­ca Dick­ens, who nar­rat­ed a con­densed ver­sion of the clas­sic tale in 1984, above, was schooled in the fam­i­ly inter­pre­ta­tion by her grand­fa­ther, Hen­ry Field­ing Dick­ens, who said of his famous father:

I remem­ber him as being at his best either at Christ­mas time or at oth­er times when Gad’s Hill was full of guests, for he loved social inter­course and was a per­fect host. At such times he rose to the very height of the occa­sion, and it is quite impos­si­ble to express in words his genial­i­ty and bril­lian­cy amid a bril­liant cir­cle.

Before the read­ing, Ms. Dick­ens shares some charm­ing anec­dotes about the orig­i­nal pub­li­ca­tion, but those with lim­it­ed time and/or a Scrooge-like aver­sion to jol­ly intros can skip ahead to 7:59, when Big Ben chimes to sig­nal the start of the sto­ry prop­er.

Her read­ing orig­i­nal­ly aired on Cape Cod’s radio sta­tion, 99.9 the Q. The read­ing will be added to our col­lec­tion, 1,000 Free Audio Books: Down­load Great Books for Free.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Charles Dick­ens’ Hand-Edit­ed Copy of His Clas­sic Hol­i­day Tale, A Christ­mas Car­ol

A Christ­mas Car­ol, A Vin­tage Radio Broad­cast by Orson Welles and Lionel Bar­ry­more (1939)

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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George Saunders Demystifies the Art of Storytelling in a Short Animated Documentary

in Literature, Writing | December 11th, 2015

An inter­est­ing thing hap­pens when you read cer­tain of George Saun­ders’ sto­ries. At first, you see the satirist at work, skew­er­ing Amer­i­can mean­ness and banal­i­ty with the same unspar­ing knife’s edge as ear­li­er post­mod­ernists like John Barth or Don­ald Barthelme. Then you begin to notice some­thing else tak­ing shape… some­thing per­haps unex­pect­ed: com­pas­sion. Rather than serv­ing as paper tar­gets of Saun­ders’ dark humor, his mis­guid­ed char­ac­ters come to seem like real peo­ple, peo­ple he cares about; and the real tar­get of his satire becomes a cul­ture that alien­ates and deval­ues those peo­ple.

Take the oft-anthol­o­gized “Sea Oak,” a far­ci­cal melo­dra­ma about a dead aunt who returns rean­i­mat­ed to annoy and depress her down­ward­ly mobile fam­i­ly mem­bers. The stage is set for a series of buf­foon­ish episodes that, in the hands of a less mature writer, might play out to empha­size just how ridicu­lous these char­ac­ters’ lives are, and how jus­ti­fi­ably we—author and reader—might mock them from our perch­es. Saun­ders does not do this at all. Rather than dis­tanc­ing, he draws us clos­er, so that the char­ac­ters in the sto­ry become more sym­pa­thet­ic and three-dimen­sion­al even as events become increas­ing­ly out­landish.

All of this human­iz­ing is by design, or rather, we might say that empa­thy is baked into Saun­ders’ ethos—one he has artic­u­lat­ed many times in essays, inter­views, and a mov­ing 2013 Syra­cuse Uni­ver­si­ty com­mence­ment speech. Now we can see him in a can­did filmed appear­ance above, in a doc­u­men­tary titled “George Saun­ders: On Sto­ry” by Red­g­lass Pic­tures (exec­u­tive pro­duced by Ken Burns). Cre­at­ed from a two-hour inter­view with Saun­ders, the short video at the top offers “a direct look at the process by which he is able to take a sin­gle mun­dane sen­tence and infuse it with the dis­tinct blend of depth, com­pas­sion, and out­right mag­ic that are the trade­marks of his most pow­er­ful work.”

In Saun­ders’ own words, “a good sto­ry is one that says, at many dif­fer­ent lev­els, ‘we’re both human beings, we’re in this crazy sit­u­a­tion called life, that we don’t real­ly under­stand. Can we put our heads togeth­er and con­fer about it a lit­tle bit at a very high, non-bull­shit­ty lev­el?’ Then, all kinds of mag­ic can hap­pen.” The rest of Saun­ders’ fas­ci­nat­ing mono­logue on sto­ry gets an ani­mat­ed treat­ment that illus­trates the mag­ic he describes. If you haven’t read Saun­ders, this is almost as good an intro­duc­tion to him as, say, “Sea Oak.” His thoughts on the role fic­tion plays in our lives and the ways good sto­ries work are always lucid, his exam­ples vivid­ly inven­tive. The effect of lis­ten­ing to him mir­rors that of sit­ting in a sem­i­nar with one of the best teach­ers of cre­ative writ­ing, which Saun­ders hap­pens to be as well.

I would love to take a class with him, but bar­ring that, I’m very hap­py for the chance to hear him dis­cuss writ­ing tech­niques and phi­los­o­phy in the short film at the top and in the inter­view extras below it: “On the rela­tion­ship between read­er and writer,” “On the tricks of the writ­ing process,” and “In defense of dark­ness.” Praised by no less a post­mod­ernist lumi­nary than Thomas Pyn­chon, Saun­ders’ sto­ry col­lec­tions like Civil­WAr­Land in Bad Decline, Pas­toralia, and In Per­sua­sion Nation get at much of what ails us in these Unit­ed States, but they do so always with an under­ly­ing hope­ful­ness and a “non-bull­shit­ty” con­vic­tion of shared human­i­ty.

You can read 10 of Saun­ders’ sto­ries free—including “Sea Oak” and the excel­lent “The Red Bow”—here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Impor­tance of Kind­ness: An Ani­ma­tion of George Saun­ders’ Touch­ing Grad­u­a­tion Speech

10 Free Sto­ries by George Saun­ders, Author of Tenth of Decem­ber, “The Best Book You’ll Read This Year”

Kurt Vonnegut’s 8 Tips on How to Write a Good Short Sto­ry

Ray Brad­bury Gives 12 Pieces of Writ­ing Advice to Young Authors (2001)

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

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Hear Sun Ra, the Avant-Garde Jazz Legend, Play on a 1966 Batman and Robin Album for Kids

in Comics/Cartoons, Music, Television | December 11th, 2015

In the mid 1960s, when the Bat­man TV show was in full swing, a New Jer­sey toy com­pa­ny released a chil­dren’s record of Bat­man & Robin songs. Called The Sen­sa­tion­al Gui­tars Of Dan & Dale, Bat­man & Robin, the album fea­tured, as WFMU’s Beware of the Blog notes, “one of the great­est uncred­it­ed ses­sion com­bos of all time, includ­ing the core of Sun Ra’s Arkestra and Al Koop­er’s Blues Project.” Anony­mous­ly, Sun Ra played on organ, Jim­my Owens on trum­pet, Tom McIn­tosh on trom­bone & Dan­ny Kalb on gui­tar.

Oth­er than the well-known Bat­man and Robin themes (above), the kid’s album was cre­at­ed around music that had fall­en into the pub­lic domain–e.g. Chopin’s Polon­aise Op. 53, Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Sym­pho­ny and the love theme from Romeo and Juli­et. Over at WFMU, you can hear var­i­ous tracks, includ­ing Bat­man’s Bat­marang, Bat­man and Robin Over The Roofs, Flight of the Bat­man, The Rid­dler’s Retreat, Jok­er is Wild, Pen­guin’s Umbrel­la, and more. Enjoy.

Fol­low Open Cul­ture on Face­book and Twit­ter and share intel­li­gent media with your friends. Or bet­ter yet, sign up for our dai­ly email and get a dai­ly dose of Open Cul­ture in your inbox. And if you want to make sure that our posts def­i­nite­ly appear in your Face­book news­feed, just fol­low these sim­ple steps.

via WFMU

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Sun Ra’s Full Lec­ture & Read­ing List From His 1971 UC Berke­ley Course, “The Black Man in the Cos­mos”

Sun Ra Plays a Music Ther­a­py Gig at a Men­tal Hos­pi­tal; Inspires Patient to Talk for the First Time in Years

Hear Sun Ra’s 1971 UC Berke­ley Lec­ture “The Pow­er of Words”

A Sun Ra Christ­mas: Hear His 1976 Radio Broad­cast of Poet­ry and Music

The Evo­lu­tion of Bat­man in Cin­e­ma: From 1939 to Present

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How to Make Sushi: Free Video Lessons from a Master Sushi Chef

in Food & Drink | December 11th, 2015

I think we’ve all had moments when, bel­ly­ing up to our favorite sushi bar, we’ve watched the chef in action behind the counter and thought, “I won­der if I could do that?” Then we see a doc­u­men­tary like Jiro Dreams of Sushi and think, “Well, no, I prob­a­bly could­n’t do that.” Still, you don’t have to live, breathe, and dream sushi your­self to get some­thing out of prac­tic­ing the craft, and if you want to get a han­dle on its basics right now, you could do much worse than watch­ing the video series Diaries of a Mas­ter Sushi Chef.

Hiroyu­ki Ter­a­da, the mas­ter sushi chef in ques­tion, first learned the basics him­self at home from his father, then con­tin­ued his stud­ies in Kōchi, on the Japan­ese island of Shikoku, then made a name for him­self in Amer­i­ca, at NoVe Kitchen and Bar in Mia­mi.

More recent­ly, his fame has come from his Youtube chan­nel, which, in line with his rep­u­ta­tion for com­ing up with uncon­ven­tion­al dish­es, fea­tures videos like this con­ver­sion of a Big Mac into a sushi roll — kids, don’t try this at home. But do watch some of his instruc­tion­al videos, which cov­er such tra­di­tion­al top­ics as how to pre­pare sushi rice, knife skills, and how to fil­let a whole salmon.

If you real­ly want to start from square one, Ter­a­da has also put togeth­er a four-part minis­eries on mak­ing sushi at home from gro­cery store ingre­di­ents. When you get those teach­ings down, you have only to prac­tice — and prac­tice, and prac­tice, and prac­tice some more. From there, you can also move on to Ter­ada’s roll-spe­cif­ic videos, which teach how to make some of his more elab­o­rate cre­ations: the crazy salmon roll, the uni tem­pu­ra mon­ster roll, even some­thing called the meat lover’s roll. Would Jiro approve? Maybe not, but the Mia­mi nightlife crowd cer­tain­ly seems to.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Right and Wrong Way to Eat Sushi: A Primer

How to Make Instant Ramen Com­pli­ments of Japan­ese Ani­ma­tion Direc­tor Hayao Miyaza­ki

Cook­pad, the Largest Recipe Site in Japan, Launch­es New Site in Eng­lish

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities and cul­ture. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer, the video series The City in Cin­e­ma, and the crowd­fund­ed jour­nal­ism project Where Is the City of the Future? Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

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Casablanca’s Hilarious Alternative Final Scene Featuring Saturday Night Live’s Kate McKinnon: Pragmatism Carries the Day!

in Comedy, Film, Television | December 11th, 2015

The clas­sic film Casablan­ca is peren­ni­al­ly ripe for par­o­dy, but for some rea­son, its spoofs usu­al­ly con­fine them­selves to Rick­’s Café Améri­cain. It’s rare that any­one gets fun­ny with the famous final scene, where (spoil­er!) Humphrey Bog­a­rt’s Rick sac­ri­fices his per­son­al hap­pi­ness, insist­ing that his beloved board a plane that will safe­ly car­ry her and her hus­band, a leader of the Czech Resis­tance, away from Vichy-con­tolled Casablan­ca.

There are excep­tions of course.

Bugs Bun­ny…

The Simp­sons…

Woody Allen…

Sat­ur­day Night Live’s Kate McK­in­non bests them all with a dewy-eyed Ingrid Bergman impres­sion nail­ing the Swedish-born actress’ glo­ri­ous­ly cin­e­mat­ic mid­dle Atlantic accent, described by writer Trey Tay­lor in The Atlantic as a learned “hybrid of Britain’s Received Pro­nun­ci­a­tion and stan­dard Amer­i­can Eng­lish as it exists today.”

It’s a refresh­ing change to see the Ilsa char­ac­ter dri­ving the laughs.

McKinnon’s scene part­ner, J.K. Sim­mons, gives an equal­ly cred­i­ble per­for­mance as Bogart’s Rick. The award-win­ning actor has demon­stra­ble com­ic chops, but for this sketch, the writ­ers wise­ly had him play it dead seri­ous.

The play­ers are fur­ther abet­ted by the design team’s faith­ful exe­cu­tion of the orig­i­nal, includ­ing cos­tumes by Tom Broeck­er and Eric Jus­t­ian. Who wouldn’t want to wear that hat?

Much of Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein, and Howard Koch’s orig­i­nal dia­logue was left intact. It’s repro­duced below for your scruti­ny, along with Bog­a­rt and Bergman’s per­for­mance.

You’ll notice one sig­nif­i­cant line reas­sign­ment, neces­si­tat­ed by this Ilsa’s prag­mat­ic response to the pos­si­bil­i­ty of wind­ing up in a con­cen­tra­tion camp.

As in the orig­i­nal, love does not tri­umph, but they’ll always have Paris.

INT./EXT. AIRPORT HANGAR — NIGHT

Rick takes the let­ters of tran­sit out of his pock­et and

hands them to Renault, who turns and walks toward the hangar.

RICK

If you don’t mind, you fill in the names. That will make it even more offi­cial.

RENAULT

You think of every­thing, don’t you?

RICK

(qui­et­ly And the names are Mr. and Mrs. Vic­tor Las­z­lo.

Renault stops dead in his tracks, and turns around.  Both Ilsa and Renault look at Rick with aston­ish­ment.

ILSA

But why my name, Richard?

RICK

Because you’re get­ting on that plane.

ILSA

(con­fused)  I don’t under­stand. What about you?

RICK

I’m stay­ing here with him ’til the plane gets safe­ly away.

Rick­’s inten­tion sud­den­ly dawns on Ilsa.

ILSA

No, Richard, no. What has hap­pened to you? Last night we said —

RICK

Last night we said a great many things. You said I was to do the  think­ing for both of us. Well, I’ve done a lot of it since then and it all adds up to one thing. You’re get­ting on that plane with Vic­tor where you belong.

ILSA

 (protest­ing) But Richard, no, I, I —

RICK

You’ve got to lis­ten to me. Do you have any idea what you’d have to look for­ward to if you stayed here? Nine chances out of ten we’d both wind up in a con­cen­tra­tion camp. Isn’t that true, Louis?

 Renault coun­ter­signs the papers.

RENAULT

I’m afraid Major Strass­er would insist.

ILSA

You’re say­ing this only to make me go.

RICK

I’m say­ing it because it’s true. Inside of us we both know you belong with Vic­tor. You’re part

of his work, the thing that keeps him going. If that plane leaves the ground and you’re not with

him, you’ll regret it.

ILSA

No.

RICK

Maybe not today, maybe not tomor­row, but soon, and for the rest of your life.

ILSA

But what about us?

RICK

We’ll always have Paris. We did­n’t have, we’d lost it, until you came to Casablan­ca. We got it back last night.

ILSA

And I said I would nev­er leave you.

RICK

And you nev­er will. But I’ve got a job to do, too. Where I’m going you can’t fol­low. What I’ve got to do you can’t be any part of. Ilsa, I’m no good at being noble, but it does­n’t take much to see that the prob­lems of three lit­tle peo­ple don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Some­day you’ll under­stand that.  Now, now…

Ilsa’s eyes well up with tears.  Rick puts his hand to her chin and rais­es her face to meet his own.

RICK

Here’s look­ing at you, kid.

If McKinnon’s take on Ingrid Bergman leaves you scream­ing for more, here are Hillary Rod­ham Clin­ton, Justin Bieber and Ellen DeGeneres.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch Twin Beaks, Sesame Street’s Par­o­dy of David Lynch’s Icon­ic TV Show (1990)

A Fun Par­o­dy of Down­ton Abbey Fea­tures George Clooney & the Cast of the Show

The Bea­t­les Per­form in a Spoof of Shakespeare’s A Mid­sum­mer Night’s Dream, 1964

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.Follow her @AyunHalliday

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The Daily Habits of Famous Writers: Franz Kafka, Haruki Murakami, Stephen King & More

in Creativity, Life, Literature, Writing | December 10th, 2015

stephenking

Image by The USO, via Flickr Com­mons

Though few of us like to hear it, the fact remains that suc­cess in any endeav­or requires patient, reg­u­lar train­ing and a dai­ly rou­tine. To take a mun­dane, well-worn exam­ple, it’s not for noth­ing that Stephen R. Covey’s best-sell­ing clas­sic of the busi­ness and self-help worlds offers us “7 Habits of High­ly Effec­tive Peo­ple,” rather than “7 Sud­den Break­throughs that Will Change Your Life Forever”—though if we cred­it the spam emails, ads, and spon­sored links that clut­ter our online lives, we may end up believ­ing in quick fix­es and easy roads to fame and for­tune. But no, a well-devel­oped skill comes only from a set of prac­ticed rou­tines.

That said, the type of rou­tine one adheres to depends on very per­son­al cir­cum­stances such that no sin­gle cre­ative person’s habits need exact­ly resem­ble any other’s. When it comes to the lives of writ­ers, we expect some com­mon­al­i­ty: a writ­ing space free of dis­trac­tions, some pre­ferred method of tran­scrip­tion from brain to page, some set time of day or night at which the words flow best. Out­side of these basic para­me­ters, the dai­ly lives of writ­ers can look as dif­fer­ent as the images in their heads.

But it seems that once a writer set­tles on a set of habits—whatever they may be—they stick to them with par­tic­u­lar rig­or. The writ­ing rou­tine, says hyper-pro­lif­ic Stephen King, is “not any dif­fer­ent than a bed­time rou­tine. Do you go to bed a dif­fer­ent way every night?” Like­ly not. As for why we all have our very spe­cif­ic, per­son­al quirks at bed­time, or at writ­ing time, King answers hon­est­ly, “I don’t know.”

So what does King’s rou­tine look like? “There are cer­tain things I do if I sit down to write,” he’s quot­ed as say­ing in Lisa Rogak’s Haunt­ed Heart: The Life and Times of Stephen King:

“I have a glass of water or a cup of tea. There’s a cer­tain time I sit down, from 8:00 to 8:30, some­where with­in that half hour every morn­ing,” he explained. “I have my vit­a­min pill and my music, sit in the same seat, and the papers are all arranged in the same places. The cumu­la­tive pur­pose of doing these things the same way every day seems to be a way of say­ing to the mind, you’re going to be dream­ing soon.”

The King quotes come to us via the site (and now book) Dai­ly Rou­tines, which fea­tures brief sum­maries of “how writ­ers, artists, and oth­er inter­est­ing peo­ple orga­nize their days.” We’ve pre­vi­ous­ly fea­tured a few snap­shots of the dai­ly lives of famous philoso­phers. The writ­ers sec­tion of the site sim­i­lar­ly offers win­dows into the dai­ly prac­tices of a wide range of authors, from the liv­ing to the long dead.

HarukiMurakami3

Image via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

A con­tem­po­rary of King, though a slow­er, more self-con­scious­ly painstak­ing writer, Haru­ki Muraka­mi incor­po­rates into his work­day his pas­sion for run­ning, an avo­ca­tion he has made cen­tral to his writ­ing phi­los­o­phy. Expect­ed­ly, Muraka­mi keeps a very ath­let­ic writ­ing sched­ule and rou­tine.

When I’m in writ­ing mode for a nov­el, I get up at 4:00 am and work for five to six hours. In the after­noon, I run for 10km or swim for 1500m (or do both), then I read a bit and lis­ten to some music. I go to bed at 9:00 pm. I keep to this rou­tine every day with­out vari­a­tion. The rep­e­ti­tion itself becomes the impor­tant thing; it’s a form of mes­merism. I mes­mer­ize myself to reach a deep­er state of mind. But to hold to such rep­e­ti­tion for so long — six months to a year — requires a good amount of men­tal and phys­i­cal strength. In that sense, writ­ing a long nov­el is like sur­vival train­ing. Phys­i­cal strength is as nec­es­sary as artis­tic sen­si­tiv­i­ty.

Not all writ­ers can adhere to such a dis­ci­plined way of liv­ing and work­ing, par­tic­u­lar­ly those whose wak­ing hours are giv­en over to oth­er, usu­al­ly painful­ly unful­fill­ing, day jobs.

Franz-Kafka

Image of Franz Kaf­ka, via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

An almost arche­typ­al case of the writer trapped in such a sit­u­a­tion, Franz Kaf­ka kept a rou­tine that would crip­ple most peo­ple and that did not bring about phys­i­cal strength, to say the least. As Zadie Smith writes of the author’s por­tray­al in Louis Begley’s biog­ra­phy, Kaf­ka “despaired of his twelve hour shifts that left no time for writ­ing.”

[T]wo years lat­er, pro­mot­ed to the posi­tion of chief clerk at the Work­ers’ Acci­dent Insur­ance Insti­tute, he was now on the one-shift sys­tem, 8:30 AM until 2:30 PM. And then what? Lunch until 3:30, then sleep until 7:30, then exer­cis­es, then a fam­i­ly din­ner. After which he start­ed work around 11 PM (as Beg­ley points out, the let­ter- and diary-writ­ing took up at least an hour a day, and more usu­al­ly two), and then “depend­ing on my strength, incli­na­tion, and luck, until one, two, or three o’clock, once even till six in the morn­ing.” Then “every imag­in­able effort to go to sleep,” as he fit­ful­ly rest­ed before leav­ing to go to the office once more. This rou­tine left him per­ma­nent­ly on the verge of col­lapse.

Might he have cho­sen a health­i­er way? When his fiancée Felice Bauer sug­gest­ed as much, Kaf­ka replied, “The present way is the only pos­si­ble one; if I can’t bear it, so much the worse; but I will bear it some­how.” And so he did, until his ear­ly death from tuber­cu­lo­sis.

While writ­ers require rou­tine, nowhere is it writ­ten that their habits must be salu­bri­ous or mea­sured. Accord­ing to Simone De Beau­voir, out­ré French writer Jean Genet “puts in about twelve hours a day for six months when he’s work­ing on some­thing and when he has fin­ished he can let six months go by with­out doing any­thing.” Then there are those writ­ers who have relied on point­ed­ly unhealthy, even dan­ger­ous habits to pro­pel them through their work­day. Not only did William S. Bur­roughs and Hunter S. Thomp­son write under the influ­ence, but so also did such a seem­ing­ly con­ser­v­a­tive per­son as W.H. Auden, who “swal­lowed Ben­zedrine every morn­ing for twen­ty years… bal­anc­ing its effect with the bar­bi­tu­rate Sec­onal when he want­ed to sleep.” Auden called the amphet­a­mine habit a “labor sav­ing device” in the “men­tal kitchen,” though he added that “these mech­a­nisms are very crude, liable to injure the cook, and con­stant­ly break­ing down.”

So, there you have it, a very diverse sam­pling of rou­tines and habits in sev­er­al suc­cess­ful writ­ers’ lives. Though you may try to emu­late these if you har­bor lit­er­ary ambi­tions, you’re prob­a­bly bet­ter off com­ing up with your own, suit­ed to the odd­i­ties of your per­son­al make­up and your tolerance—or not—for seri­ous phys­i­cal exer­cise or mind-alter­ing sub­stances. Vis­it Dai­ly Rou­tines to learn about many more famous writ­ers’ habits.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Dai­ly Rou­tines of Famous Cre­ative Peo­ple, Pre­sent­ed in an Inter­ac­tive Info­graph­ic

Haru­ki Muraka­mi Lists the Three Essen­tial Qual­i­ties For All Seri­ous Nov­el­ists (And Run­ners)

Stephen King’s Top 20 Rules for Writ­ers

Hon­oré de Balzac Writes About “The Plea­sures and Pains of Cof­fee,” and His Epic Cof­fee Addic­tion

The Dai­ly Habits of High­ly Pro­duc­tive Philoso­phers: Niet­zsche, Marx & Immanuel Kant

Philoso­phers Drink­ing Cof­fee: The Exces­sive Habits of Kant, Voltaire & Kierkegaard

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

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The Life & Discoveries of Mary Leakey Celebrated in an Endearing Cutout Animation

in Animation, Science | December 10th, 2015

“Over half a cen­tu­ry, Mary Leakey labored under the hot African sun, scratch­ing in the dirt for clues to ear­ly human phys­i­cal and cul­tur­al evo­lu­tion. Sci­en­tists in her field said she set the stan­dards for doc­u­men­ta­tion and exca­va­tion in pale­olith­ic arche­ol­o­gy. They spoke of hers as a life of envi­able achieve­ment.” That’s how The New York Times start­ed its 1996 obit­u­ary for Mary Leakey, “matri­arch of the famous fos­sil-hunt­ing fam­i­ly in Africa whose own rep­u­ta­tion in pale­oan­thro­pol­o­gy soared with dis­cov­er­ies of bones, stone tools and the foot­prints of ear­ly human ances­tors.”

Above, you can watch the Times’ new­ly-released cutout ani­ma­tion, cel­e­brat­ing her life and pale­oan­thro­pol­o­gy work in east­ern Africa. The endear­ing sev­en-minute film cov­ers her dis­cov­ery of Pro­con­sul africanus in 1948, Zin­jan­thro­pus boi­sei in 1959, Homo habilis in 1960, and the trail of ear­ly human foot­prints found at Lae­toli in the mid-1970s. The film also fea­tures some­thing you’ll like­ly nev­er see else­where — peo­ple throw­ing ele­phant dung fris­bees! Enjoy.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

A Creepy Cut Out Ani­ma­tion of Samuel Beckett’s 1953 Nov­el, The Unnam­able

Ter­ry Gilliam Reveals the Secrets of Mon­ty Python Ani­ma­tions: A 1974 How-To Guide

The Adven­tures of Famed Illus­tra­tor Gus­tave Doré Pre­sent­ed in a Fantasic(al) Cutout Ani­ma­tion

Spike Jonze Presents a Stop Motion Film for Book Lovers

 

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The First Episode of Serial: Season 2 Is Now Online: Go Inside the World of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl

in Podcasts | December 10th, 2015

serial season 2
If you’ve been won­der­ing how the Ser­i­al pod­cast would fol­low up on its remark­able first sea­son, the sus­pense is over. This morn­ing, Sea­son 2 is get­ting under­way. Episode 1 is now online, ready for down­load.

A year ago, we got inti­mate­ly famil­iar with the 1999 mur­der of Hae Min Lee and the tri­al of Adnan Syed. Now, host Sarah Koenig will take us deep­er into the world of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the sol­dier held cap­tive by the Tal­iban for five years, who is now fac­ing deser­tion charges by the US Army.

You can sub­scribe to Ser­i­al via Rss feed or iTunes, or lis­ten to the episodes via the web.

Fol­low Open Cul­ture on Face­book and Twit­ter and share intel­li­gent media with your friends. Or bet­ter yet, sign up for our dai­ly email and get a dai­ly dose of Open Cul­ture in your inbox. And if you want to make sure that our posts def­i­nite­ly appear in your Face­book news­feed, just fol­low these sim­ple steps.

 

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Time Travel Back to Tokyo After World War II, and See the City in Remarkably High-Quality 1940s Video

in History | December 10th, 2015

In May we fea­tured col­or footage of a bombed-out Berlin a month after Ger­many’s defeat in the Sec­ond World War. Today we have footage of Tokyo, the oth­er Axis pow­er’s cap­i­tal city, shot in that after­math era, albeit in black-and-white — but at such a high lev­el of clar­i­ty and with such smooth­ness that it feels as if it could have come from a his­tor­i­cal movie made today. These clips, assem­bled into a sort of music video by the record pro­duc­er and DJ Boo­gie Bel­gique, take us for a ride down a shop­ping street in the Shin­bashi dis­trict, past mar­ket stalls in Shibuya, along­side the riv­er, and even into areas meant exclu­sive­ly for the occu­py­ing Amer­i­can forces.

Giv­en that, and giv­en the obvi­ous­ly high tech­nol­o­gy used to cap­ture the footage itself, the occu­py­ing Amer­i­can forces more than like­ly shot this film them­selves. But when did they do it? Clear­ly, Tokyo has had time to build itself back up after the immense destruc­tion of the war, but how much time exact­ly? The Japan-watch­ers at Rock­et News 24 have put their heads togeth­er to answer that ques­tion. “Japan was occu­pied from 1945 to 1952, so it was most like­ly around that time,” writes that site’s Scott Wil­son.

He goes on to enu­mer­ate the visu­al clues that help pin down the year, includ­ing one poster for “Hat­su Imai, the first woman elect­ed to the Japan­ese House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives in 1946” and anoth­er for Mir­a­cle on 34th Street, orig­i­nal­ly released in Novem­ber 1948. The con­sen­sus, in any case, seems to call this the Tokyo of the late 1940s, the city that Yasu­jirō Ozu, one of Japan’s most beloved auteurs, used as a set­ting in films like The Record of a Ten­e­ment Gen­tle­man, A Hen in the Wind, and Late Spring.

But Ozu nev­er includ­ed any vis­i­ble traces of the Amer­i­can occu­pa­tion, much less the clear pres­ence we see in this doc­u­men­tary clip, in large part due to the demands of the Amer­i­can cen­sors. They frowned on any direct ref­er­ence to the Unit­ed States, to the point that they almost cut out of Late Spring the admir­ing ref­er­ence to Gary Coop­er, to whom the main char­ac­ter’s match­mak­ing aunt com­pares the suit­or she’s cho­sen for her. That main char­ac­ter, named Noriko, went on to appear in Ozu’s Ear­ly Sum­mer in 1951 and Tokyo Sto­ry in 1953 — not as the exact same per­son each time, but always played by Set­suko Hara, rest her sweet soul, as the arche­typ­al young-ish woman in post­war Tokyo. How many real-life Norikos of Shin­bashi or Shibuya, I won­der, turned their heads to watch the Amer­i­can cam­era crew pass by?

via Rock­et News 24

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Haunt­ing Unedit­ed Footage of the Bomb­ing of Nagasa­ki (1945)

Dra­mat­ic Col­or Footage Shows a Bombed-Out Berlin a Month After Germany’s WWII Defeat (1945)

Berlin Street Scenes Beau­ti­ful­ly Caught on Film (1900–1914)

Watch 1920s “City Sym­phonies” Star­ring the Great Cities of the World: From New York to Berlin to São Paulo

1927 Lon­don Shown in Mov­ing Col­or

Lon­don Mashed Up: Footage of the City from 1924 Lay­ered Onto Footage from 2013

Three Films Cap­ture 1940s New York, Chica­go & Los Ange­les in Vivid Col­or

An Intro­duc­tion to Yasu­jiro Ozu, “the Most Japan­ese of All Film Direc­tors”

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities and cul­ture. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer, the video series The City in Cin­e­ma, and the crowd­fund­ed jour­nal­ism project Where Is the City of the Future? Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

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Jorge Luis Borges Picks 33 of His Favorite Books to Start His Famous Library of Babel

in Literature | December 9th, 2015

“Jorge Luis Borges 1951, by Grete Stern.” Licensed under Pub­lic Domain via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons.

Over the years the rec­om­men­da­tion robots of Ama­zon and oth­er online ser­vices seem to be usurp­ing the role of the librar­i­an. I do not know if this is ulti­mate­ly good or bad—we may see in the future arti­fi­cial­ly intel­li­gent librar­i­ans emerge from the web, per­son­al lit­er­ary assis­tants with impec­ca­ble taste and sen­si­tiv­i­ty. But at present, I find some­thing lack­ing in online cura­tion cul­ti­vat­ed by algo­rithms. (I have a sim­i­lar nos­tal­gia for the bygone video store clerk.) Yes, cus­tomers who bought this book also bought oth­ers I might like, but what, tell me, would a gen­uine read­er rec­om­mend?

A read­er, say, like that arch read­er Jorge Luis Borges, “one of the most well read men in his­to­ry,” writes Grant Munroe at The Rum­pus. Part of the thrill of dis­cov­er­ing Borges resides in dis­cov­er­ing all of the books he loved, both real and imag­i­nary. The author always points to his sources. Borges, after all, “pre­sent­ed the genius of Pierre Menard, author of the Quixote [a sto­ry about writ­ing as scrupu­lous­ly faith­ful rewrit­ing] by first care­ful­ly enu­mer­at­ing each book found in Menard’s per­son­al library.” Borges him­self, some read­ers may know, wrote the bulk of the short sto­ries for which he’s known while work­ing at a library in Buenos Aires, a job he described in his 1970 essay “Auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal Notes” as “nine sol­id years of unhap­pi­ness.”

Although he dis­liked the bureau­crat­ic bore­dom of library work, Borges was bet­ter suit­ed than per­haps any­one for a cura­to­r­i­al role. Giv­en this rep­u­ta­tion, Borges was asked more than once to select his favorite nov­els and sto­ries for pub­lished antholo­gies. One such mul­ti-vol­ume project, titled Per­son­al Library, saw Borges select­ing 74 titles for an Argen­tine pub­lish­er between 1985 and his death in 1988. In anoth­er, Borges chose “a list of authors,” Mon­roe writes, “whose works were select­ed to fill 33 vol­umes in The Library of Babel, a 1979 Span­ish lan­guage anthol­o­gy of fan­tas­tic lit­er­a­ture edit­ed by Borges, named after his ear­li­er sto­ry by the same name.”

Mon­roe tracked down all of the titles Borges chose for the eclec­tic anthol­o­gy, “a fun, bril­liant, poly­glot col­lec­tion” that includes a great many of the author’s peren­ni­al favorites, many of which you’ll rec­og­nize from their men­tions in his fic­tion and essays. Below, we repro­duce Mon­roe’s recon­struc­tion of the 33 Library of Babel vol­umes, with links to those works avail­able free online. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, many of these sto­ries are not avail­able in trans­la­tion. Oth­ers, such as those of Leon Bloy, have just become avail­able in Eng­lish since Mon­roe’s 2009 arti­cle. Thanks to his dili­gence, we can enjoy hav­ing Jorge Luis Borges as our per­son­al librar­i­an.

The Library of Babel

(Note: The titles of all sto­ries cur­rent­ly with­out a prop­er trans­la­tion into Eng­lish have been left in their orig­i­nal lan­guage.)

(Also note:  All sto­ries marked with [c] are still pro­tect­ed by US copy­right law.  Only res­i­dents of the UK and Aus­tralia can legal­ly click on the hyper­link pro­vid­ed.)

  1. Jack Lon­don, The Con­cen­tric Deaths

“The Min­ions of Midas”
“The Shad­ow and the Flash”
“Lost Face”
“The House of Mapuhi”
“The Law of Life”

  1. Jorge Luis Borges, August 26, 1983

(All but the last three arti­cles are avail­able in Penguin’s Borges: The Col­lect­ed Fic­tions.)

“August 26, 1983″
“The Rose of Per­acel­sus”
“Blue Tigers”
“Shakespeare’s Mem­o­ry”
An Inter­view with Borges, with Maria Esther Vasquez
A Chronol­o­gy of J.L. Borges’ Life, from Siru­ela Mag­a­zine
The Ruler and Labyrinth: An Approx­i­ma­tion of J.L Borges’ Bib­li­og­ra­phy, by Fer­nan­dez Fer­rer

  1. Gus­tav Meyrink, Car­di­nal Napel­lus[ii]

“Der Kar­di­nal Napel­lus”
“J.H. Obere­its Besuch bei den Zeit­egeln”
“Der Vier Mond­brüder”

  1. Léon Bloy, Dis­agree­able Tales 

[All avail­able in a trans­la­tion pub­lished just this year]

“La Taie d’Argent”
“Les Cap­tifs de Longjumeau”
“Une Idée Médiocre”
“Une Mar­tyre”
“La Plus Belle Trou­vaille de Caïn”
“On n’est pas Par­fait”
“La Reli­gion de M. Pleur”
“Ter­ri­ble Châ­ti­ment d’un Den­tiste”
“La Tisane”
“Tout Ce Que Tu Voudras!”
“La Dernière Cuite”
“Le Vieux de la Mai­son”

  1. Gio­van­ni Pap­i­ni, The Mir­ror That Fled

“Il Giorno Non Resti­tu­ito”
“Due Immag­i­ni in una Vas­ca”
“Lo Spec­chio che Fugge”
“Sto­ria Com­ple­ta­mente Assur­da”
“Il Men­di­cante di Ani­me”
“Una Morte Men­tale”
“Non Voglio Più Essere Ciò che Sono”
“Chi Sei?”
“Il Sui­ci­da Sos­ti­tu­to”
“L’ultima Visi­ta del Gen­tilu­o­mo Mala­to”

  1. Oscar Wilde, Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime

“Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime”
“The Can­ter­ville Ghost”
“The Self­ish Giant”
“The Hap­py Prince”
“The Nightin­gale and the Rose”

  1. Vil­liers de L’Isle-Adam, El Con­vi­da­do de las Últi­mas Fes­ti­vas

(Used copies of the 1985 Oxford U. Press trans­la­tion of Cru­el Tales (the col­lec­tion in which these sto­ries are pub­lished) are avail­able online.)

“L’Aventure de Tsé-i-la”
“Le Con­vive des Dernières Fêtes”
“A Tor­ture By Hope” [trans. 1891]
“La Reine Ysabeau”
“Som­bre Réc­it Con­teur Plus Som­bre”
“L’Enjeu”
“Véra”

  1. Pedro Anto­nio de Alar­cón, El Ami­go de la Muerte

“El Ami­go de la Muerte” [or “The Strange Friend of Tito Gil”]
“The Tall Woman”

  1. Her­man Melville, Bartle­by the Scriven­er

“Bartle­by, the Scriven­er: A Sto­ry of Wall-Street”

  1. William Beck­ford, Vathek

Vathek, a novel­la.

  1. H.G. Wells, The Door in the Wall

“The Plat­tner Sto­ry”
“The Sto­ry of Late Mr. Elve­sham”
“The Crys­tal Egg”
“The Coun­try of the Blind”
“The Door in the Wall”

  1. Pu Songling, The Tiger Guest [iii]

“The Bud­dhist Priest of Ch’ang-Ch’ing”
“In the Infer­nal Regions”
“The Mag­ic Mir­ror”
“A Super­nat­ur­al Wife”
“Exam­i­na­tion for the Post of Guardian Angel”
“The Man Who Was Changed into a Crow”
“The Tiger Guest”
“Judge Lu”
“The Paint­ed Skin”
“The Stream of Cash”
“The Invis­i­ble Priest”
“The Mag­ic Path”
“The Wolf Dream”
“Dream­ing Hon­ors”
“The Tiger of Chao-Ch’ëng”
“Tak­ing Revenge”

  1. Arthur Machen, The Shin­ing Pyra­mid

“The Nov­el of the Black Seal”
“The Nov­el of the White Pow­der”
“The Shin­ing Pyra­mid”

  1. Robert Louis Steven­son, The Isle of Voic­es [iv]

“The Bot­tle Imp”
“The Isle of Voic­es”
“Thrawn Janet”
“Markheim”

  1. G.K. Chester­ton, The Eye of Apol­lo

“The Duel of Dr Hirsch”
“The Queer Feet”
“The Hon­or of Israel Gow”
“The Eye of Apol­lo”
“The Three Horse­men of the Apoc­a­lypse” [c]

  1. Jacques Cazotte, The Dev­il in Love

(A new trans­la­tion is avail­able from Dedalus Press of the UK.)

The Dev­il in Love, a novel­la.
“Jacquez Cazotte,” an essay by Ger­ard de Ner­val

  1. Franz Kaf­ka, The Vul­ture

(While I’ve pro­vid­ed links to online trans­la­tions, they’re some­what sus­pect; prob­a­bly bet­ter to check the Com­plete Short Sto­ries.)

“The Hunger Artist”
“First Sor­row” [or “The Trapeze Artist”]
“The Vul­ture”
“A Com­mon Con­fu­sion”
“Jack­als and Arabs”
“The Great Wall of Chi­na”
“The City Coat of Arms”
“A Report to the Acad­e­my”
“Eleven Sons”
“Prometheus”

  1. Edgar Allan Poe, The Pur­loined Let­ter

“The Pur­loined Let­ter”
“Ms. Found in a Bot­tle”
“The Facts in the Case of M. Valde­mar”
“The Man in the Crowd”
“The Pit and the Pen­du­lum”

  1. Leopol­do Lugones, The Pil­lar of Salt

(A new trans­la­tion of Lugones’ sto­ries, pub­lished by The Library of Latin Amer­i­ca, is avail­able at Powell’s.)

“The Pil­lar of Salt”
“Grand­moth­er Juli­eta”
“The Hors­es of Abdera”
“An Inex­plic­a­ble Phe­nom­e­non”
“Francesca”
“Rain of Fire: An Account of the Immo­la­tion of Gomor­ra”

  1. Rud­yard Kipling, The Wish House

(All the copy­right­ed sto­ries are from Kipling’s Deb­its and Cred­its.  They should be avail­able in any thor­ough col­lec­tion of his short fic­tion.)

“The Wish House” [c]
“A Sahib’s War”
“The Gar­den­er” [c]
“The Madon­na of the Trench­es” [c]
“The Eye of Allah” [c]

  1. The Thou­sand and One Nights, Accord­ing to Gal­land

“Abdu­la, the Blind Beg­gar” [trans. 1811]
“Alladin’s Lamp” [ibid]

  1. The Thou­sand and One Nights, Accord­ing to Bur­ton

“King Sin­bad and His Fal­con”
“The Adven­tures of Bul­ulkia”
“The City of Brass”
“Tale of the Queen and the Ser­pent”
“Tale of the Hus­band and the Par­rot”
“Tale of the Jew­ish Doc­tor”
“Tale of the Ensor­celled Prince”
“Tale of the Prince and the Ogres”
“Tale of the Wiz­ir and the Wise Duban”
“The Fish­er­man and the Genii”

  1. Hen­ry James, The Friends of the Friends

“The Friends of the Friends”
“The Abase­ment of the North­mores”
“Owen Wingrave”
“The Pri­vate Life”

  1. Voltaire, Micromegas

(A con­tem­po­rary trans­la­tion of these sto­ries is avail­able at Powell’s.)

“The Black and the White”
“The Two Con­forters”
“The His­to­ry of the Trav­els of Scara­men­ta­do”
“Mem­non the Philoso­pher”
“Micromegas”
“The Princess of Baby­lon”

  1. Charles Hin­ton, Sci­en­tif­ic Romances

“A Plane World”
“What is the Fourth Dimen­sion?”
“The Per­sian King”

  1. Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Great Stone Face

“Mr. Higginbotham’s Cat­a­stro­phe”
“The Great Stone Face”
“Earth’s Holo­caust”
“The Minister’s Black Veil”
“Wake­field”

  1. Lord Dun­sany, The Coun­try of Yann

“Where the Tides Ebb and Flow”
“The Sword and the Idol”
“Car­cas­sonne”
“Idle Days on the Yann”
“The Field”
“The Beg­gars”
“The Bureau d’Echange de Maux”
“A Night at an Inn”

  1. Saki, The Ret­i­cence of Lady Anne

“The Sto­ry-Teller”
“The Lum­ber Room”
“Gabriel-Ernest”
“Tober­mory”
“The Back­ground” [trans­lat­ed as “El Mar­co” (or “The Frame”)]
“The Unrest Cure”
“The Inter­lop­ers”
“Quail Seed”
“The Peace of Mowsle Bar­ton”
“The Open Win­dow”
“The Ret­i­cence of Lady Anne”
“Sred­ni Vashtar”

  1. Russ­ian Tales

“Lazarus,” Leonid Andreyev
“The Croc­o­dile,” Fydor Doesto­evsky
“The Death of Ivan Illitch,” Leo Tol­stoy

  1. Argen­tinean Tales

“El Cala­mar Opta por su Tin­ta,” Adol­fo Bioy Casares
“Yzur,” Leopol­do Leones [See above.]
“A House Tak­en Over,” Julio Cor­tazar
“La Galera,” Manuel Muji­ca Láinez
“Los Objec­tos,” Sylv­ina Decam­po
“El Pro­fe­sor de Aje­drez,” Fed­eri­co Peltzer
“Pudo Haberme Ocur­ri­do,” Manuel Pey­rou
“El Elegi­do,” Maria Esther Vasquez

  1. J.L. Borges and Adol­fo Bioy Casares, New Sto­ries of H. Bus­tos Domecq

(Avail­able at Amazon.com.)

  1. The Book of Dreams (A Col­lec­tion of Recount­ed Dreams)

List of Authors: Fran­cis­co de Queve­do y Vil­le­gas, Alexan­dra David-Néel, Alfon­so X, Alfred de Vigny, Aloy­sius Bertrand, Anto­nio Macha­do, Bern­abé Cobo, F. Sarmien­to, Eliseo Díaz, Fran­cis­co Aceve­do, François Rabelais, Franz Kaf­ka, Friedrich Niet­zsche, Gastón Padil­la, Giuseppe Ungaret­ti, Got­tfried Keller, H. Desvi­gnes Doolit­tle, Her­bert Allen Giles, Herodotus, H. Gar­ro, Horace, Ibrahim Zahim [Ibrahim Bin Adham], James G. Fraz­er, Jorge Alber­to Fer­ran­do, Jorge Luis Borges, José Fer­rater Mora, José María Eça de Queiroz, Joseph Addi­son, Juan José Arreo­la, Lewis Car­roll, Lao Tzu, Louis Aragon, Lui­gi Piran­del­lo, Luis de Gón­go­ra, Mircea Eli­ade, Moham­mad Mossadegh, Nemer ibn el Barud [no Wiki entry; see Ama­zon com­ment field], O. Hen­ry, Otto von Bis­mar­ck, Paul Grous­sac, Pla­to, Plutarch, Rab­bi Nis­sim ben Reuven, Ray­mond de Beck­er,  Roder­i­cus Bar­tius, Roy Bartholomew, Samuel Tay­lor Coleridge, Sebastián de Covar­ru­bias Oroz­co, Thorn­ton Wilder, Lucretius, Tsao Hsue Kin [Cao Xue­qin], Ward Hill Lam­on, William But­ler Yeats, Wu Cheng’en, Gio­van­ni Pap­i­ni, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Charles Baude­laire

  1. Borges A to Z (A Com­pi­la­tion)

via The Rum­pus

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Jorge Luis Borges Selects 74 Books for Your Per­son­al Library

Jorge Luis Borges’ 1967–8 Nor­ton Lec­tures On Poet­ry (And Every­thing Else Lit­er­ary)

Vis­it The Online Library of Babel: New Web Site Turns Borges’ “Library of Babel” Into a Vir­tu­al Real­i­ty

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

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A Superconductor Levitating on a Möbius Strip

in Science | December 9th, 2015

We’ve seen some pret­ty cre­ative things done on a Möbius strip – like watch­ing a Bach canon get played for­wards, then back. But how about this? Above, watch Andy Marmery show a super­con­duc­tor lev­i­tat­ing on a Möbius strip made with over 2,000 mag­nets. The mag­ic is in the super­con­duct­ing mate­r­i­al, Yttri­um bar­i­um cop­per oxide, which lets the super­con­duc­tor whiz along, seem­ing­ly float­ing both above and below the track. This video comes from a video series called “Tales from the Prep Room,” cre­at­ed by The Roy­al Insti­tu­tion, “a 200 year old char­i­ty based in Lon­don ded­i­cat­ed to con­nect­ing peo­ple with the world of sci­ence through events, edu­ca­tion, and [its] Christ­mas Lec­tures.”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Genius of J.S. Bach’s “Crab Canon” Visu­al­ized on a Möbius Strip

Math­e­mu­si­cian Vi Hart Explains the Space-Time Con­tin­u­um With a Music Box, Bach, and a Möbius Strip

Free Online Physics Cours­es

Fol­low Open Cul­ture on Face­book and Twit­ter and share intel­li­gent media with your friends. Or bet­ter yet, sign up for our dai­ly email and get a dai­ly dose of Open Cul­ture in your inbox. And if you want to make sure that our posts def­i­nite­ly appear in your Face­book news­feed, just fol­low these sim­ple steps.

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