Language is beautiful. Vowels — not to be confused with the Ken Burns parody of the same name — is an exquisite reminder of that from filmmaker and visual storyteller Temujin Doran, who has previously delighted us with his thoughtful meditations on democracy and the art of protest, a bittersweet short film about his day job in a dying occupation, and some damn good advice. The film is based on a 1945 Linguaphone instructional recording.
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Unpacking the secrets of happiness and creativity one poster at a time.
What better way to kick off the new year than with words of wisdom from those who have threaded before us? That’s precisely the premise of advice to sink in slowly, a wonderful project enlisting design graduates in passing on advice and inspiration to first-year students through an ongoing series of posters — part Live Now, part Everything Is Going To Be OK, part Wisdom, part something completely refreshing, based on the idea that we all have subjective wisdom we wish we’d known earlier, but often don’t get a chance to pass it on to those who can benefit from it in a way that makes them pay heed.
Advice is subjective. But, by passing on advice in a creative way, it is possible to create something that lasts, that people will want to live with and which can let the advice sink in slowly and help out later on.”
'to create ideas is a gift, but to choose wisely is a skill' by Ryan Morgan
'Do what you love' by Andy J. Miller
'Take Time' by Temujin Doran
'Use your library…you'll miss it when you leave' by Rebecca Cobb
'Finish what you start* *it may seem insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.' by Irina Troitskaya
'Ignore both of them' by Eleni Kalorkoti
'Go and look outside' by Robert Evans
'You have to leave your room to get there' by Ben Javens
'if in doubt, make tea' by Owen Davey
'trust your gut instincts' by Carys Williams
'Don't be afraid, everything will be alright' by Ben Javens
'collaborate' by Simon Vince
'Believe in the marks that you will make' by Stephie Ginger
'how to make friends in your first term' by Temujin Doran
'eat breakfast' by Always With Honor
'Be free!' by Anna-Kaisa
'don't keep your worries to yourself' Rebecca Cobb
'Find some place to stop & be quiet' by Lizzy Stewart
'everything is possible' by Lee Basford
Free posters are available to first-year students across the U.K. upon request. Four of the posters are available for purchase in a fundraising effort, with 100% of the proceeds feeding back to support this wonderful project — so go ahead and grab one, then let its wisdom sink in slowly.
Donating = Loving
Bringing you (ad-free) Brain Pickings takes hundreds of hours each month. If you find any joy and stimulation here, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner:
You can also become a one-time patron with a single donation in any amount:
Brain Pickings has a free weekly newsletter. It comes out on Sundays and offers the week’s best articles. Here’s what to expect. Like? Sign up.
Vintage lessons in civic harmony, or how small-scale common courtesy paves the way for large-scale peace.
In 1945 and 1946, immediately following the end of World War II, Encyclopedia Britannica’s films division produced two educational short films, one on democracy and one on despotism, exploring how societies and nations rank on the spectrum from democracy to despotism by measuring the degree to which power is concentrated and respect for individuals restricted. More than half a century later, these analyses remain a compelling metric of social harmony and discord, in an era when we’re still struggling to understand the psychology of riots in a global political climate where the tension between despotism and democracy is in sharper focus than ever.
A community is low on a respect scale if common courtesy is withheld from large groups of people on account of their political attitudes, if people are rude to others because they think their wealth and position gives them that right, or because they don’t like a man’s race or his religion. Equal opportunity for all citizens to develop equal skills is one basis for rating a community on a respect scale.”
Sharing respect means that each shares the respect of all, not because of his wealth or his religion or his color, but because each is a human being and makes his own contribution to the community — from healing its sick to collecting its garbage, from managing its railroads to running its trains.”
You might recognize footage from the films, which are both in the public domain, from Temujin Doran’s provocative observations on the distortions of democracy in Market Maketh Man, highly recommended if you haven’t already seen it.
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What fruit machines have to do with the last samurai armer and Louis Armstrong.
Buckminster Fuller famously said, “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” And the new models of the digital age have been making increasingly more old-timey crafts obsolete. But there seems to be something remarkably poetic about these dying professions. In recent years, there has been a groundswell of cinematic microdocumentaries romanticizing this impending obsolescence. Here are seven favorites.
THE ARCHIVE
Paul Mawhinney has the world’s largest record collection. And 83% of the music he owns is so rare you can’t find it anywhere else, at any price. But due to health issues and the general decline of the record industry, he is being forced to sell it. The Archive captures his touching and heartbreaking story, hinting at the tragic loss of something very real and rich as we rush all too hastily into our digital lust.
The music is a hundred times better on a vinyl album. And I’ve had problems with the kids, because they don’t believe me, they don’t believe that’s true. First of all, imagine this: They move the music by computers and what they do is they chop off the highs, they chop off the lows, and then they compress everything. How could that possibly be equal to the open sound you get on a record with the basses and the highs and the fullness in the middle?”
THE SHOE BLACK
Assen Ivanov Yordanov has been a shoe black for 40 years. The Roma widower he has been working at the Central Train Station in Sofia, Bulgaria, since the early 1990’s, supporting his three daughters, eight grandchildren and ten great-grandchildren. Despite the inaccurate translation, which waters down some of the most poetic undertones of Yordanov’s words, The Shoe Black offers a fascinating glimpse of a lifestyle so remote to most of us, both geographically and ideologically, that it seems almost otherworldly.
I thank God for my children, who grew up even though I was just a shoe black.
FACTS ABOUT PROJECTION
We’ve been longtimefans of British filmmaker Temujin Doran. In Facts About Projection, he takes us behind the scenes of his day job as a projectionist, which he truly loves and celebrates as the fulfillment of a childhood dream yet recognizes for its imminent obsolescence.
I switch on the neon lights, which turn on like a fruit machine, and then we let the customers in and try to self them embarrassingly overpriced drinks and snacks that apparently can double their enjoyment of the film.
TAIWAN’S LAST SWORD-MAKER
Once considered the work of God, sword-making in Taiwan has today been reduced to one 65-year-old man. He spends months on end refining a single blade, earning $20-30 a month. Best known for crafting the Green Destiny Sword in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, the skilled sword-maker cares less about fame than he does about passing on the ancient tradition.
I was only about 13 when I started learning from my father, who learned from his. Every day, I’ve tried to better the skills passed down through the generations.
PRINTER’S BLOCK
We love all things letterpress. (Even though Apple may have just made the fringe craft painfully mainstream.) Naturally, anyone who makes a career out of not only doing it but also preserving its heritage is our hero. Printer’s Block is the story of Master Printer Robert Warner, who prints with the famous 1901 clamshell press, The Golding Jobber, out of his studio in Lower Manhattan’s historic South Street Seaport district.
If I’m printing a hundred cards, they’ll be seen by at least a thousand people because they’ll be sent out into the world. And to be able to send letterpress-printed images through the mail is just my idea of heaven.”
DAVID SMITH: SIGN ARTIST
Glass embosser David Smith is one of Britain’s last remaining glass artists. His reverse glass signs and decorative mirrors are a thing of beauty. In this short documentary, Smith takes us behind the scenes of his creative process and offers a fascinating glimpse of his truly masterful technique, bespeaking a level of patience rare, if not extinct, in the productivity-obsessed, multitasking-manic timescale of today.
You gotta have patience to do the word. Especially when you get to the cutting — you get one chance, really. You can tell when the cut’s going well and just hearing the noises, you get used to certain cuts the wheels make.
WILL
Will Gains was born in Detroit and spent half a century in England. In his eighties, he remains one of the best tap dancers in the world, having danced alongside some of history’s most iconic musicians — Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Thelonious Monk, Sarah Vaughan. Will is part of a Channel 4 series of three-minute shorts titled My Home Is My Shoes, documenting how dance has shaped different people’s lives.
Everything haven’t gotta be right, everything can come right when I’m dancing. My home is my shoes.
Donating = Loving
Bringing you (ad-free) Brain Pickings takes hundreds of hours each month. If you find any joy and stimulation here, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
You can also become a one-time patron with a single donation in any amount.
Brain Pickings has a free weekly newsletter. It comes out on Sundays and offers the week’s best articles. Here’s what to expect. Like? Sign up.
Brain Pickings has a free weekly interestingness digest. It comes out on Sundays and offers the week's best articles. Here's an example. Like? Sign up.
donating = loving
Brain Pickings remains free (and ad-free) and takes me hundreds of hours a month to research and write, and thousands of dollars to sustain. If you find any joy and value in what I do, please consider becoming a Member and supporting with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner:
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Language is beautiful. Vowels — not to be confused with the Ken Burns parody of the same name — is an exquisite reminder of that from filmmaker and visual storyteller Temujin Doran, who has previously delighted us with his thoughtful meditations on democracy and the art of protest, a bittersweet short film about his day job in a dying occupation, and some damn good advice. The film is based on a 1945 Linguaphone instructional recording.
Brain Pickings has a free weekly newsletter. It comes out on Sundays and offers the week’s best articles. Here’s what to expect. Like? Sign up. 
What better way to kick off the new year than with words of wisdom from those who have threaded before us? That’s precisely the premise of 
In 1945 and 1946, immediately following the end of World War II, Encyclopedia Britannica’s films division produced two educational short films, one on democracy and one on despotism, exploring how societies and nations rank on the spectrum from democracy to despotism by measuring the degree to which power is concentrated and respect for individuals restricted. More than half a century later, these analyses remain a compelling metric of social harmony and discord, in an era when we’re still struggling to understand the 
THE ARCHIVE
THE SHOE BLACK
FACTS ABOUT PROJECTION
TAIWAN’S LAST SWORD-MAKER
PRINTER’S BLOCK
DAVID SMITH: SIGN ARTIST
WILL
