≡ Category: Books | ≅ Comments
Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road” is turning 50 this month, something we recently noted. And to commemorate the event, Viking has just published the original draft of the novel (check it out here) that Kerouac banged out in three quick weeks, in a New York apartment, on eight long sheets of tracing paper, which he [...]
≡ Category: Music | ≅ Comments
We’re taking you back to 1980, to the evening when John Lennon was shot in New York City. This sound file lets you listen in on what New Yorkers heard that evening — December 8 — as they switched from one radio station to another. The event was covered across the radio dial, and you [...]
≡ Category: Audio Books, English Language, History | ≅ Comments
American Rhetoric has compiled its list of the top 100 American speeches, all of which can be conveniently accessed as mp3 files. Most of the speeches listed here are known for their eloquence, and many for the pivotal role they played in effecting major political and social change. The compilation lets you listen to F.D.R. [...]
≡ Category: Video - Arts & Culture | ≅ Comments
Geared toward beginners, this series of videos created by Wine Library TV offers an introduction to the basics of wine tasting. In these nine videos, you’ll learn how to taste wine and train your palate, why the temperature of wine matters, how wine glasses can affect the taste of wine, and how to decant it. [...]
The advent of digital cameras has changed photography as we know it. It has dramatically lowered the cost of photography, and we’re now snapping more photos than ever before. But we’re not necessarily taking better pictures.
This is where Nikon steps in. Their cameras make casual photographers immensely better than they actually are. (Trust me, I [...]
≡ Category: Current Affairs, Science, Video - Science | ≅ Comments
And now we bring you a public service announcement….
Below, you can watch Al Gore talk about tangible ways that you can be a good environmental citizen. The first 5 minutes start with some wit and banter that would have served him well in 2000; the next 10 minutes get down to some business.
A few, quick [...]
≡ Category: Uncategorized | ≅ Comments
Another week, another wrap:
The Digital Tipping Point: The Wild Ride from Podcast to Book Deal
New Stanford Online Writing Courses
William Gibson, Father of Cyberpunk, Reads New Novel in Second Life
The New Grammar Podcast on the Block
Google GeoMaps the Book World
OnClassical Relaunches
A Short History of Man, God, and Political Philosophy
OnClassical Relaunches
≡ Category: Current Affairs, Harvard, Politics | ≅ Comments
In case you missed it, The New York Times published a lengthy article — The Politics of God — last weekend which essentially traces how the thought of Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and other major political philosophers gave us secular politics, and particularly the separation of Church and State. They’re innovations with many upsides, but [...]
≡ Category: Books, Google | ≅ Comments
Google Earth added new functionality this week that lets you search the world by geographical location and find books that reference that location. So, for example, if you open Google Earth and type “London,” you will be presented with numerous yellow book icons. Click on any one of them, and Google will show you instances [...]
≡ Category: Online Courses | ≅ Comments
Just a quick heads up: Starting today, you can sign up for online writing courses from Stanford. Offered by Stanford Continuing Studies and the Stanford Creative Writing Program (which is one of the most distinguished writing programs in the country), these online courses give beginning and advanced writers, no matter where they live, the chance [...]
≡ Category: Books, Sci Fi, Video - Arts & Culture | ≅ Comments
William Gibson, who launched the cyberpunk genre with the 1984 classic Neuromancer, hasn’t lost any steam. Pattern Recognition, published a good 20+ years later, won wide praise in 2005. Now, he’s come out with Spook Country, and it’s currently #66 on the Amazon bestseller list. Below, you can catch Gibson reading from his new work [...]
≡ Category: Music | ≅ Comments
Here’s a quick fyi for classical music lovers…
OnClassical.com has just relaunched its website, and you may want to give a look. If you don’t already know about it, OnClassical is an independent classical music label based in Italy that features internationally-acclaimed artists. They offer a “maniacally high sound level” and produce their recordings without sharing [...]
≡ Category: English Language | ≅ Comments
It didn’t seem like an obvious blockbuster at first — at least not to me — but The Grammar Girl (iTunes – Feed – Web Site) has remained one of the most downloaded educational podcasts on iTunes. To be precise, each week, about 100,000 people download these short podcasts that offer “quick and dirty tips” [...]
≡ Category: Books | ≅ Comments
We asked our readers what books made the biggest difference in their lives, and here’s what they had to say. The list below tells you what books shaped their lives and why.
1984 – George Orwell
1984 “was the first book I actually enjoyed reading. It completely blew my mind at the time (I was 16) and [...]
≡ Category: Music | ≅ Comments
“Subtract the following 2,400 hours from history and you’d have no mp3s, no LSD, no hip–hop, no soul–sucking corporate rock — actually, can we erase that last one? Blender presents the most earth–shakingly important days in music, ever.”
Here are the top 10. Make sure you see the full list.
10.) April 26, 1977 – Studio 54 [...]
≡ Category: Current Affairs, Politics, Video - Politics/Society | ≅ Comments
Strange culture we live in these days. It’s the comedians that ask the hard questions. See John Stewart below and the referenced Dick Cheney video below that.
≡ Category: Religion, Science | ≅ Comments
The latest podcast put out by The Chronicle of Higher Education (iTunes – Stream – Web Site) doesn’t shy away from hot-button issues. Below, we’ve pasted the summary that accompanies the podcast on The Chronicle’s web site. Read it and then give the audio some time and thought.
“University-trained archaeologists and historians are scared to take [...]
≡ Category: Music | ≅ Comments
We talk a good deal about virtuous podcasts here. But this episode of The Brian Lehrer Show (iTunes – Feed – Web Site) coming out of NYC, focuses on the downright embarrassing songs that you have hidden on your iPod. And they talk about it with Kelefa Sanneh, the pop music critic from The New [...]
≡ Category: Books, Video - Arts & Culture | ≅ Comments
Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road,” a beat classic that defined freedom for generations of young readers, is now amazingly turning 50. It’s indisputably middle-aged. To commemorate the occasion, the 50th anniversary edition of the novel has just been issued by the original publisher (Viking), and The New York Times has made available its original reviews [...]
≡ Category: Web/Tech | ≅ Comments
In 2006, we learned that staff members on Capitol Hill logged into Wikipedia and gave a partisan air-brushing to the biographies of various Congressmen and Senators. Meanwhile, in 2005, 15 paragraphs were mysteriously deleted from a Wikipedia entry on Diebold, the major American voting machine vendor that has found itself at the center of recent [...]
≡ Category: History | ≅ Comments
Here’s another example of podcasts that bring the past back to life. Thanks to Michigan State University, you can listen to audio recordings of twenty modern American presidents (iTunes – Feed – Web Site), starting with Grover Cleveland (1892) and ending with GWB. The recordings mostly taken from inauguration addresses and State of the Union [...]
≡ Category: Music | ≅ Comments
Podcasts often have a nice way of bringing the past back to life. Beatles fans will undoubtedly appreciate several audio files dedicated to the Fab Four. Let’s start with a particularly good one. Rolling Stone Magazine, as part of a web feature called Lennon Lives Foreover, has released a podcast (iTunes – Feed – Web [...]
≡ Category: Uncategorized | ≅ Comments
A quick recap of what we served up this past week:
Bestselling Novelist Sells Story Ideas for $1
The Rich Get Busy and the Poor Get Poorer
Freakonomics Moves to The New York Times
How to Make Your Podcasts More Mobile
Rowling Reads From New Harry Potter
What Books Made a Difference? Last Call
Download 75 Free University Courses as Podcasts. Click [...]
≡ Category: Uncategorized | ≅ Comments
Over the past week, we’ve been sounding out our readers on what books have made a difference in their lives. We have about 35 replies so far (and probably 75-100 listed books), and we’ll keep collecting replies until tomorrow (Saturday). Feel free to make your book choices known. The basic guidelines for participating can be [...]
≡ Category: Books, Business, History | ≅ Comments
Gregory Clarke, an economic historian at UC Davis, offers an unusual take on the Industrial Revolution in his upcoming book, A Farewell to Alms. Most scholars argue that the changing institutions of industrialization–factories, corporations, cities–worked together to drag us humans into the modern world. Clarke turns that idea on its head.
As the New York Times [...]
≡ Category: Blogs | ≅ Comments
A quick heads up: Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, authors of the major bestseller Freakonomics, have moved the related Freakonomics blogs to the New York Times. You can now catch it here, and you’ll need to create a free user account with the Times if you (inexplicably) don’t already have one. It looks like the [...]
≡ Category: Books | ≅ Comments
This doesn’t need much in the way of an introduction. On July 21, J.K. Rowling presented a public reading of the first chapter of the newly-published Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It took place at the Natural History Museum in London. Take it away J.K.
≡ Category: Books, Literature | ≅ Comments
Bestselling writer Jonathan Lethem — author of one of my favorite novels Motherless Brooklyn — has put together an offer that’s hard to beat. He’ll sell you a story for a book, play, or screenplay for a mere $1. Then you can take the story idea, make it your own, and move it in new [...]
≡ Category: Podcast Articles and Resources, Web/Tech | ≅ Comments
That sounds like a strange proposition. Podcasts are inherently mobile, so what can make them more mobile? Apparently myPodder can. It’s a free, cross-platform software package put out by Podcast Ready that has two notable advantages. Once you register and install their free software, you’ll no longer need to download podcasts first to your computer [...]
≡ Category: Uncategorized | ≅ Comments
A quick review of what we served up this week:
What Books Made a Difference? (Yes, We’re Talking to You)
What books changed your life? Tell us, and find out what 18 of your fellow readers have had to say. Also enter to win a $50 gift certificate from Amazon.com.
The New Yorker Magazine Crosses the Digital [...]
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