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Thursday, May 9th, 2019
| Time | Event |
| 8:00a | What is Camp? When the “Good Taste of Bad Taste” Becomes an Aesthetic
Even if you don't care about high fashion or high society — to the extent that those two things have a place in the current culture — you probably glimpsed some of the coverage of what attendees wore to the Met Gala earlier this month. Or perhaps coverage isn't strong enough a word: what most of the many observers of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute annual fundraising gala did certainly qualified as analysis, and in not a few cases tipped over into exegesis. That enthusiasm was matched by the flamboyance of the clothing worn to the event — an event whose co-chairs included Lady Gaga, a suitable figurehead indeed for a party that this year took on the theme of camp. But what exactly is camp? You can get an in-depth look at how the world of fashion has interpreted that elaborate and entertaining but nevertheless elusive cultural concept in the Met's show Camp: Notes on Fashion, which runs at the Met Fifth Avenue until early September. "Susan Sontag's 1964 essay Notes on 'Camp' provides the framework for the exhibition," says the Met's web site, "which examines how the elements of irony, humor, parody, pastiche, artifice, theatricality, and exaggeration are expressed in fashion." But for a broader understanding of camp, you'll want to go back to Sontag's and read all of the 58 theses it nailed to the door of the mid-1960s zeitgeist. According to Sontag, camp is "not a natural mode of sensibility" but a "love of the unnatural: of artifice and exaggeration." It offers a "way of seeing the world as an aesthetic phenomenon." Most anything manmade can be camp, and Sontag's list of examples include Tiffany lamps, "the Brown Derby restaurant on Sunset Boulevard in L.A.," Aubrey Beardsley drawings, and old Flash Gordon comics. Elevating style "at the expense of content," camp is suffused with "the love of the exaggerated, the 'off,' of things-being-what-they-are-not." Camp is not irony, but it "sees everything in quotation marks." The essential element of camp is "seriousness, a seriousness that fails." Camp "asserts that good taste is not simply good taste; that there exists, indeed, a good taste of bad taste."
"When Sontag published ‘Notes on Camp,’ she was fascinated by people who could look at cultural products as fun and ironic," says Sontag biographer Benjamin Moser in a recent Interview magazine survey of the subject. And though Sontag's essay remains the definitive statement on camp, not everyone has agreed on exactly what counts and does not count as camp in the 55 years since its publication in the Partisan Review. "Camp to me means over-the-top humor, usually coupled with big doses of glamour," says fashion designer Jeremy Scott in the same Interview article. "To be interesting, camp has to have some kind of political consciousness and self-awareness about what it’s doing," says filmmaker Bruce Labruce, challenging Sontag's description of camp as apolitical. And what will become of camp in the all-digitizing 21st century, when many eras increasingly coexist on the same culture plane? Our time “has cannibalized camp," says cultural history professor Fabio Cleto, "but to say that it’s no longer camp because its aesthetics have gone mainstream is an overly simplistic reading. Camp has always been mourning its own death.” Even so, some of camp's most high-profile champions have cast doubt on its viability. The phrase "good taste of bad taste" brings no figure to mind more quickly than Pink Flamingos and Hairspray director John Waters (who speaks on the origin of his good taste in bad taste in the Big Think video above). But even he speaks pessimistically to Interview about camp's future: "Camp? Nothing is so bad it’s good now that we have Trump as president. He even ruined that." Related Content: Why So Many People Adore The Room, the Worst Movie Ever Made? A Video Explainer David Foster Wallace on What’s Wrong with Postmodernism: A Video Essay The Star Wars Holiday Special (1978): It’s Oh So Kitsch Susan Sontag’s 50 Favorite Films (and Her Own Cinematic Creations) John Waters Talks About His Books and Role Models in a Whimsical Animated Video Based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities, language, and culture. His projects include the book The Stateless City: a Walk through 21st-Century Los Angeles and the video series The City in Cinema. Follow him on Twitter at @colinmarshall or on Facebook. What is Camp? When the “Good Taste of Bad Taste” Becomes an Aesthetic is a post from: Open Culture. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus, or get our Daily Email. And don't miss our big collections of Free Online Courses, Free Online Movies, Free eBooks, Free Audio Books, Free Foreign Language Lessons, and MOOCs.  |
| 11:00a | Discover Friedrich Nietzsche’s Curious Typewriter, the “Malling-Hansen Writing Ball” (Circa 1881)  During his final decade, Friedrich Nietzsche’s worsening constitution continued to plague the philosopher. In addition to having suffered from incapacitating indigestion, insomnia, and migraines for much of his life, the 1880s brought about a dramatic deterioration in Nietzsche’s eyesight, with a doctor noting that his “right eye could only perceive mistaken and distorted images.” Nietzsche himself declared that writing and reading for more than twenty minutes had grown excessively painful. With his intellectual output reaching its peak during this period, the philosopher required a device that would let him write while making minimal demands on his vision. So he sought to buy a typewriter in 1881. Although he was aware of Remington typewriters, the ailing philosopher looked for a model that would be fairly portable, allowing him to travel, when necessary, to more salubrious climates. The Malling-Hansen Writing Ball seemed to fit the bill:
In Dieter Eberwein’s free Nietzches Screibkugel e-book, the vice president of the Malling-Hansen Society explains that the writing ball was the closest thing to a 19th century laptop. The first commercially-produced typewriter, the writing ball was the 1865 creation of Danish inventor Rasmus Malling-Hansen, and was shown at the 1878 Paris Universal Exhibition to journalistic acclaim: "In the year 1875, a quick writing apparatus, designed by Mr. L. Sholes in America, and manufactured by Mr. Remington, was introduced in London. This machine was superior to the Malling-Hansen writing apparatus; but the writing ball in its present form far excels the Remington machine. It secures greater rapidity, and its writing is clearer and more precise than that of the American instrument. The Danish apparatus has more keys, is much less complicated, built with greater precision, more solid, and much smaller and lighter than the Remington, and moreover, is cheaper." Despite his initial excitement, Nietzsche quickly grew tired of the intricate contraption. According to Eberwein, the philosopher struggled with the device after it was damaged during a trip to Genoa; an inept mechanic trying to make the necessary repairs may have broken the writing ball even further. Still, Nietzsche typed some 60 manuscripts on his writing ball, including what may be the most poignant poetic treatment of typewriters to date: “THE WRITING BALL IS A THING LIKE ME: MADE OF IRON YET EASILY TWISTED ON JOURNEYS. PATIENCE AND TACT ARE REQUIRED IN ABUNDANCE AS WELL AS FINE FINGERS TO USE US." In addition to viewing several of Nietzsche’s original typescripts at the Malling-Hansen Society website, those wanting a closer look at Nietzsche’s model can view it in the video above. Note: This post originally appeared on our site in December 2013. Ilia Blinderman is a Montreal-based culture and science writer. Follow him at @iliablinderman. Related Content: Mark Twain Wrote the First Book Ever Written With a Typewriter The Keaton Music Typewriter: An Ingenious Machine That Prints Musical Notation The Enduring Analog Underworld of Gramercy Typewriter Discover Friedrich Nietzsche’s Curious Typewriter, the “Malling-Hansen Writing Ball” (Circa 1881) is a post from: Open Culture. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus, or get our Daily Email. And don't miss our big collections of Free Online Courses, Free Online Movies, Free eBooks, Free Audio Books, Free Foreign Language Lessons, and MOOCs. |
| 2:00p | A Mesmerizing Trip Across the Brooklyn Bridge: Watch Footage from 1899
It’s hardly original advice but bears repeating anyway: no one visiting New York should leave, if they can help it, before they cross the Brooklyn Bridge—preferably on foot, if possible, and at a reverential pace that lets them soak up all the Neo-gothic structure’s storied history. Walk from Manhattan to Brooklyn, then back again, or the other away around, since that’s what the bridge was built for—the commutes of a nineteenth century bridge-but-not-yet-tunnel crowd (the first NYC subway tunnel didn’t open until 1908). In 1899, filmmakers from American Mutoscope and Biograph elected for a mode of travel for a New York century, putting a camera at “the front end of a third rail car running at high speed,” notes a 1902 American Mutoscope catalogue. They accelerated the tour to the pace of a modern machine, chosing the Manhattan to Brooklyn route. “The entire trip consumes three minutes of time, during which abundant opportunity is given to observe all the structural wonders of the bridge, and far distant river panorama below.” (See one-third of the trip just below.)
Filmmaker Bill Morrison looped excerpts of those three New York minutes and extended them to nine in his short, stereoscopic journey “Outerborough,” at the top, commissioned by The Museum of Modern Art in 2005 and scored with original music by Todd Reynolds. Taking the 1899 footage as its source material, the film turns a rapid transit tour into a moving mandala, a fractal repetition at frighteningly faster and faster speeds, of the bridge’s most mechanical vistas—the views of its looming, vaulted arches and of the steel cage surrounding the tracks. One of the engineering wonders of the world, the Brooklyn Bridge opened 136 years ago this month, on May 24th, 1883. The first person to walk across it was the woman who oversaw its construction for 11 of the 14 years it took to build the bridge. After designer John Roebling died of tetanus, his son Washington took over, only to succumb to the bends during the sinking of the caissons and spend the rest of his life bedridden. Emily, his wife, “took on the challenge,” notes the blog 6sqft, consulting with her husband while actively supervising the project. She “studied mathematics, the calculations of catenary curves, strengths of materials and the intricacies of cable construction.” On its opening day, Emily walked the bridge’s 1,595 feet, from Manhattan to Brooklyn, “her long skirt billowing in the wind as she showed [the crowd] details of the construction,” writes David McCullough in The Great Bridge. Six days later, an accident caused a panic and a stampede that killed twelve people. Some months later, P.T. Barnum’s Jumbo led a parade of 21 elephants over the bridge in a stunt to prove its safety.
Barnum’s theatrics were surprisingly honest—the bridge may have needed selling to skeptical commuters, but it needed no hype. It outlived most of its contemporaries, despite the fact that it was built before engineers understood the aerodynamic properties of bridges. The Roeblings designed and built the bridge to be six times stronger than it needed to be, but no one could have foreseen just how durable the structure would prove. It elicited a fascination that never waned for its palpable strength and beauty, yet fewer of its admirers chose to document the journey that has taken millions of Brooklynites over the river to lower Manhattan, by foot, bike, car, and yes, by train. Leave it to that futurist for the common man, Thomas Edison, to film the trip. See his 1899 footage of Brooklyn to Manhattan by train just above. Related Content: Immaculately Restored Film Lets You Revisit Life in New York City in 1911 An Online Gallery of Over 900,000 Breathtaking Photos of Historic New York City New York City: A Social History (A Free Online Course from N.Y.U.) Josh Jones is a writer and musician based in Durham, NC. Follow him at @jdmagness A Mesmerizing Trip Across the Brooklyn Bridge: Watch Footage from 1899 is a post from: Open Culture. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus, or get our Daily Email. And don't miss our big collections of Free Online Courses, Free Online Movies, Free eBooks, Free Audio Books, Free Foreign Language Lessons, and MOOCs. |
| 5:28p | Tangled Up in Blue: Deciphering a Bob Dylan Masterpiece
Dylan’s “Tangled Up in Blue” strikes a middle point between his more surreal lyrics of the ‘60s and his more straightforward love songs, and as Polyphonic’s recent video taking a deep dive into this “musical masterpiece” shows, that combination is why so many count it as one of his best songs. It is the opening track of Blood on the Tracks, the 1975 album that critics hailed as a return to form after four middling-at-best albums. (One of them, Self-Portrait, earned Dylan one of critic Greil Marcus’ best known opening lines: “What is this shit?”--in the pages of Rolling Stone no less.) Blood on the Tracks is one of the best grumpy, middle-age albums, post-relationship, post-fame, all reckoning and accountability, a survey of the damage done to oneself and others, and “Tangled” is the entry point. Dylan’s marriage to Sara Lowndes Dylan was floundering after eight years--affairs, drink, and drugs had estranged the couple. Dylan would later say that “Tangled” “took me ten years to live and two years to write.” It would also take him two studios, two cities, and two band line-ups to get working. A version recorded in New York City is slower, lower (in key), and more like one of his guitar-only folk tunes. In December of 1974, Dylan returned home to Minnesota and played the songs to his brother, who wasn’t impressed and suggested he rerecord. The version we know is faster, brighter, janglier, and as Polyphonic explains, sung at a key nearly too high for Dylan. But it’s that wild, near exasperation of reaching those notes that gives the song its lifeblood. And he also reworked the lyrics, removing whole verses and changing others, until the finished version is, indeed, tangled. It jumps back and forth from present to past to wishful future, verse to verse, and even line to line. The pronouns change too--the “she” is sometimes the lost love, sometimes a woman who reminds the singer of the former. The further he goes to get away from his first love, the more he meets visions of her elsewhere. Then there’s the details of the travels and the jobs the narrator takes on, leaving fans to parse which are true and which are not (Sara Lowndes, for example, was working at a Playboy club--the “topless place”--when he met her). And even if we could know who the man is in verse six who “started into dealing with slaves”...would it make any difference? In the end the song feels universal because it is both so specific and so intentionally confounding. “Tangled Up in Blue” affects so many of its listeners, yours truly included, because it recreates the way memories nestle in our minds, not as a linear sequence but as a kaleidoscope of images and feelings. Related Content: Watch Joan Baez Endearingly Imitate Bob Dylan (1972) Hear Bob Dylan’s Newly-Released Nobel Lecture: A Meditation on Music, Literature & Lyrics Ted Mills is a freelance writer on the arts who currently hosts the artist interview-based FunkZone Podcast and is the producer of KCRW's Curious Coast. You can also follow him on Twitter at @tedmills, read his other arts writing at tedmills.com and/or watch his films here. Tangled Up in Blue: Deciphering a Bob Dylan Masterpiece is a post from: Open Culture. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus, or get our Daily Email. And don't miss our big collections of Free Online Courses, Free Online Movies, Free eBooks, Free Audio Books, Free Foreign Language Lessons, and MOOCs. |
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