Open Culture

Audio Book FYI

Dan Colman — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 07:25:41 +0000

A quick fyi: We’ve spent some time beefing up our collection of Free Audio Books. The collection now features over 250 works of fiction, non-fiction and poetry, all of which can be downloaded to your computer or mp3 player for free.

Among the new additions you’ll find some media from The New Yorker Magazine, including a series of mp3’s that feature Paul Theroux reading a short work by Jorge Luis Borges, T. Coraghessan Boyle reading Tobias Wolff’s Bullet in the Brain, and Junot Diaz reading his short piece, How to Date a Brown Girl (Black Girl, White Girl, or Halfie). Also you will find newly added works by Charles Dickens, Alexandre Dumas, F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Joyce, Shakespeare, Kurt Vonnegut and more. You can peruse the full collection here. Enjoy.

“Charlie Rose” by Samuel Beckett

Dan Colman — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 06:51:39 +0000

What happens when Charlie Rose interviews himself and enters an “absurd world where illogic, inane dialogues, and open hostility rule?” You know, like a Beckett play? Watch the clip below and see. (Thanks to Scott for the heads up on this one, and we’ve added it to our YouTube Favorites.)

What Will Change Everything? (According to the World’s Leading Scientific Minds)

Dan Colman — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 18:55:55 +0000

At the start of each new year, the Edge.org asks some of the world’s leading scientific thinkers a big enchilada question. This year, it’s “What Will Change Everything? What game-changing scientific ideas and developments do you expect to live to see?” Here you can find the answers given by 151 thinkers. (Collectively, the full set of replies runs 107,000 words.) Some of the intriguing answers include:

The detection of extraterrestrial life. And this life may take the form of digital organisms that can move through the universe at the speed of light (wow!),
A major upgrade of the human brain through technology,
Our life span will potentially be extended to 150 years through genomics,
The discovery of another universe within our own universe,
The discovery of new time space dimensions, and
The creation of a universal translation machine that will facilitate translation across the globe.

For the longer list, visit the full collection.

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The History of the Internet in 8 Minutes

Dan Colman — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 06:12:04 +0000

We have here a short, catchy animated documentary that explains how we get from the 1950s to the internet that we know and love today. Along the way, it covers inventions ranging from time-sharing to filesharing, from Arpanet to Internet. Have a look:

The 10 Best American Movies (With Videos)

Dan Colman — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 07:12:10 +0000

Over at his Think Again blog, Stanley Fish, the eminent literary critic, has listed his all-time favorite American films. The list is a good one, so we figured why not add some video clips to the mix, and give you a little taste of each classic. See the full list after the jump. And if you have your own favorites, feel free to list them in the comments. And now with no further delay…

1) The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)

Directed by William Wyler. With Myrna Loy, Fredric March and Dana Andrews.

2) Sunset Boulevard (1950)

Directed by Billy Wilder with William Holden and Gloria Swanson.

3) Double Indemnity (1944)

Directed by Billy Wilder. With Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, and Edward G. Robinson.

4) Raging Bull (1980)

Directed by Martin Scorsese, with Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci and Cathy Moriarty.

5) Red River (1948)

Directed by Howard Hawks & Arthur Rosson. With John Wayne, Montgomery Clift, and Joanne Dru.

6) Vertigo (1958)

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock with Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak.

7) Shane (1953)

Directed by George Stevens with Brandon De Wilde, Elisha Cook Jr., Jack Palance and Ben Johnson.

8) Groundhog Day (1993)

Directed by Harold Ramis. With Bill Murray, Andie MacDowell, & Chris Elliott.

9) Meet Me in St. Louis (1944)

Directed by Vincente Minnelli. With Judy Garland, Margaret O’Brien, Mary Astor.

10) A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945)

Directed by Elia Kazan with Dorothy McGuire, Joan Blondell, James Dunn, Lloyd Nolan & James Gleason

Stanford Online Writing Courses - The Winter Lineup

Dan Colman — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 20:50:43 +0000

A quick fyi: If you made a New Year’s resolution to become a serious writer, then you might be interested in these online writing courses offered by Stanford Continuing Studies (which, caveat emptor, I help oversee) and Stanford’s Creative Writing Program. These online courses give beginning and advanced writers, no matter where they live, the chance to refine their craft with gifted writing instructors. Classes start next week. Unfortunately some are already full … and they are not free. For more information, click here, or separately check out the FAQ. And, if you live in the San Francisco Bay Area, feel free to look through the courses taking place on the Stanford campus.

The Science of Happiness

Dan Colman — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 07:50:37 +0000

As we’re all wishing one another a “Happy New Year,” it seems like a good time to dwell on the whole concept of happiness. Is happiness hardwired? Does it depend on circumstance? Or on us? Can we will ourselves to happiness? And just what is happiness? Aired right after Christmas, this interview features Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (the famed psychology professor who wrote Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience) and Sonja Lyubomirsky, also a psych professor and author of The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want. We’ve embedded the radio interview immediately below, or you can get it via mp3 or iTunes.

Bugs Bunny in The Big Snooze (1946)

Dan Colman — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 18:14:23 +0000

On the lighter side for a sleepy Sunday ….

“The Big Snooze” (1946) was the last cartoon that animation director Bob Clampett ever worked on for Warner Brothers. The title? It’s an obvious play on the Raymond Chandler novel, The Big Sleep, which was also turned into a film (starring Bogart and Bacall) in 1946. And the sleeping pill scene? Well, it was censored on television for some time. The clip can otherwise be bought on The Looney Tunes Golden Collection. For now, here it goes:

via Firedog Lake

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The Ten Best Classical Music Recordings of 2008

Dan Colman — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 17:00:52 +0000

Alex Ross, the New Yorker music critic who recently won a MacArthur Genius grant and published The Rest is Noise, a widely praised work that makes sense of 20th century classical music, lists his favorite classical music recordings of 2008.

Steven Spielberg Admits Swallowing a Transistor to Andy Warhol and Bianca Jagger

Dan Colman — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 08:07:23 +0000

In 1979, Andy Warhol spent $40,000 on a broadcast-quality camera and started dabbling in creating television programs that he aired on Manhattan public access cable channels. (Get more on the story here.) One episode featured Warhol, Bianca Jagger and Steven Spielberg simply hanging out on a bed. And here’s how their conversation went down:

via BoingBoing

Put Tolstoy, Twain and Others on Your Mobile Phone

Dan Colman — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 04:13:17 +0000

A good find over at Metafilter. Desjardins asks “Need a little Tolstoy while you’re waiting in line? How about some Mark Twain on the subway? Booksinmyphone puts - surprise! - books in your phone, for free.” For more details on how to download classics to your (java-enabled) mobile phone, check out their FAQ.

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John Lennon Returns to Promote “One Laptop Per Child”

Dan Colman — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 17:15:39 +0000

Thanks to some digital hocus pocus, John Lennon is back and helping promote One Laptop Per Child, a charity working to bring cheap computers and internet access to children in developing countries. Done with the approval of Yoko Ono, the commercial stitches together old recordings of Lennon’s voice and adds at least a couple of new words (did Lennon ever say “laptop”?). In the end, it all comes out fairly seamlessly. If you want to give a laptop (starting at $199) and change the world, go here. Otherwise, here’s John:

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via Goings On via Rolling Stone

The Pleasure of Finding Things Out

Dan Colman — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 20:45:56 +0000

The Pleasure of Finding Things Out was produced in 1981 by the BBC and PBS, and it features Richard Feynman, the charismatic, Nobel prize-winning physicist, talking in a very personal way about the joys of scientific discovery, and how he developed his enthusiasm for science. About the program, Harry Kroto (winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry) apparently said: ”The 1981 Feynman Horizon is the best science program I have ever seen. This is not just my opinion - it is also the opinion of many of the best scientists that I know who have seen the program… It should be mandatory viewing for all students whether they be science or arts students.”

The program runs about 50 minutes. You can get Part 1 below, and the remaining parts here: Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5. They’re also all added to our YouTube Favorites.

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The Life of a Star: 12 billion Years in Six Minutes

Dan Colman — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 06:10:36 +0000

Voila, the birth, life and death of a G-type star, like our Sun. 12 billion years boiled down to six simple minutes. We’ve added it to our YouTube Favorites.

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via Digg

One Year in 40 seconds

Dan Colman — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 04:04:42 +0000

Here’s what it looks like if you plant a camera in the same location for one year and snap photos throughout the changing seasons. Video is striking but random. So we’re filing it under “Random.”

Unauthorized Beatles Masterpieces

Dan Colman — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 08:12:59 +0000

This weekend’s New York Times ran a piece detailing how the record industry has dithered and continually failed to release several long-awaited Beatles’ projects. It also mentioned how fans and collectors have forged ahead and put together unauthorized bootleg projects, some of which the Times calls “curatorial masterpieces.” In particular, the article highlights the Purple Chick label, which “has assembled deluxe editions of each commercially released [Beatles] album, offering the original discs in their mono and stereo mixes, along with the singles (also in mono and stereo) released at the time, as well as every known demo, studio outtake and alternative mix.” Some of Purple Chick’s include “Beatles Deluxe” (which covers 10 CDs); “A/B Road” (which gives you 96 hours of the “Let It Be” sessions); and a series of BBC radio performances.

So how do you get this stuff? It’s a question that Rolling Stone asked rhetorically when it recently gave another positive review to Purple Chick recordings. And it answered the question with this: “Google is your friend: Try searching ‘purple chick and megaupload’ to get started.”

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The Clash of Civilizations (and the Passing of its Author)

Dan Colman — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 08:12:21 +0000

When the twin towers were taken down in September 2001, America looked to make sense of what happened. And it wasn’t long before many started turning to The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, a book written by Samuel Huntington, the Harvard poli sci professor who passed on last week.

The book itself was an elaboration upon a controversial article that Huntington published in Foreign Affairs in 1993. In the opening lines, he wrote: “World politics is entering a new phase… It is my hypothesis that the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic. The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. Nation states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs, but the principal conflicts of global politics will occur between nations and groups of different civilizations. The clash of civilizations will be the battle lines of the future.” Particularly he suggested, it would be the “West versus the Rest,” and within the latter category, he lumped in Islam.

Below, we have posted Huntington’s 1997 appearance on the Charlie Rose show, where he expanded on his world view. You can also get Edward Said’s general retort, The Myth of the Clash of Civilizations, here and Noam Chomsky’s thoughts on the concept here.

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Missing Catwoman

Dan Colman — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 02:30:31 +0000

Eartha Kitt also left us this week. She won fame on Broadway, in movies and cabaret, and through music and films. But my inner four year old will always remember her role as Catwoman on the 1960s TV series “Batman.” (Actually, I’ll really remember her for the leading role she played in my first memorable childhood dream. But that’s probably more interesting to me than it is to you.)

In honor of Eartha, I’m posting an extended clip showing Catwoman in action. Part 1 is below. Part 2 is here. Part 3 here.

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Remembering Harold Pinter

Dan Colman — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 00:10:00 +0000

Harold Pinter, the Nobel Prize-winning playwright, died in London on Wednesday. As The New York Times obit mentions, when Pinter won the Nobel in 2005, his declining health prevented him from attending the awards ceremony in Stockholm. Instead, he gave his acceptance lecture – “Art, Truth & Politics” — via a recorded video, which we’re posting below. (You can also watch it on the Nobel web site here or alternatively read the transcript.) The speech runs a good 45 minutes.

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Open Culture

Audio Book FYI

“Charlie Rose” by Samuel Beckett

What Will Change Everything? (According to the World’s Leading Scientific Minds)

The History of the Internet in 8 Minutes

The 10 Best American Movies (With Videos)

Stanford Online Writing Courses - The Winter Lineup

The Science of Happiness

Bugs Bunny in The Big Snooze (1946)

The Ten Best Classical Music Recordings of 2008

Steven Spielberg Admits Swallowing a Transistor to Andy Warhol and Bianca Jagger

Top 10 Blog Posts of 2008

Put Tolstoy, Twain and Others on Your Mobile Phone

John Lennon Returns to Promote “One Laptop Per Child”

The Pleasure of Finding Things Out

The Life of a Star: 12 billion Years in Six Minutes

One Year in 40 seconds

Unauthorized Beatles Masterpieces

The Clash of Civilizations (and the Passing of its Author)

Missing Catwoman

Remembering Harold Pinter