Blade Runner: The Final, Final Cut of the Cult Classic

≡ Category: Film |Comments

25 years after the release of Blade Runner, Ridley Scott has assembled a final and definitive director’s cut of the film, giving audiences the chance to see the film as Scott originally intended it.
Before the film’s original release in 1982, preview screenings went horribly, and the money men stepped in and imposed changes on the [...]

Martin Scorsese on The Rolling Stones, Then George Harrison

≡ Category: Film, Music, Video - Arts & Culture |Comments

Martin Scorsese is on a rock ‘n roll tear.
In 2006, he released No Direction Home, an acclaimed documentary on Bob Dylan (long after he filmed his first rockumentary, The Last Waltz in 1978). Next April, he’s set to release another documentary on The Rolling Stones, tentatively called Shine a Light. (Watch the already released trailer [...]

Support Monks’ Protest in Burma on Facebook

≡ Category: Current Affairs |Comments

Social networking is doing some good. In a matter of days, over 110,000 users have joined the Support the Monks’ Protest in Burma group on Facebook, with the larger goal of mobilizing support for the Buddhist monks who have launched a peaceful, “saffron” protest against the military regime that seized power in 1962 and has [...]

The Elegant Universe

≡ Category: Science, Video - Science |Comments

PBS’s NOVA recently aired a three-hour mini-series, The Elegant Universe, that introduced TV viewers to string theory – a radical “theory of everything” that unites major laws of physics and offers a unified explanation for everything that happens in the universe. The program was hosted by Brian Green, a string theorist who wrote a runaway [...]

Newly Minted Genius: 2007 MacArthur Fellows

≡ Category: Current Affairs |Comments

The MacArthur Foundation recently announced its latest crop of “genius grant” recipients. Each winner receives $500,000 “with no strings attached” and they can use the money to live, to fund research, or to buy a very modest condo in the Bay Area. As usual, the recipients come from a wide range of fields and [...]

Hannibal on iTunes: From the Classical World to Archaeology Today

≡ Category: History, Stanford |Comments

Let me elaborate on an item that we touched upon very briefly earlier this week. Stanford University has rolled out a new free course on iTunes (listen here) that takes you inside the life and adventures of Hannibal, the great Carthaginian military tactician who maneuvered his way across the Alps and stunned Roman armies in [...]

Beyond Free Speech: Ahmadinejad at Columbia (on Video)

≡ Category: Current Affairs |Comments

There was a lot of hand-wringing leading up to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s appearance at Columbia University on Monday. But, as it turns out, freedom of speech seemingly worked as it was intended. Ahmadinejad entered the marketplace of ideas and quickly came out the wrong side of the exchange. (You can watch the full video of his [...]

Amazon Goes Head-to-Head with iTunes (and How to Get iTunes Freebies)

≡ Category: Apple, Web/Tech |Comments

The digital music market is big, and so far Apple has owned it. But now Amazon may be quickly emerging as a viable competitor.
Tuesday, Amazon launched Amazon MP3, which gives you access to 2 million songs and more soon to come. Amazon’s product has several nice advantages over iTunes. Let’s list them briefly:

It delivers songs [...]

Halberstam’s The Coldest Winter

≡ Category: Books |Comments

David Halberstam’s no stranger to writing big books about big wars, and he reportedly thought of his final work, The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War, as a “bookend” to his classic on Vietnam, The Best and the Brightest. The book comes out this week with a very unusual publicity blitz.
Halberstam died in a [...]

Classic Films on Google Video

≡ Category: Film, Google, Video - Arts & Culture |Comments

Here’s a little something for the film buffs out there: TheListUniverse has posted a collection of ten classic films from the 1920s, 30s and 40s that you can watch on Google Video. Just click and watch. On the list, you’ll find Fritz Lang’s M, the 1922 German silent film Nosferatu, The Gold Rush with Charlie [...]

≡ Category: Uncategorized |Comments

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Ten Discoveries That Rewrote History

≡ Category: Books, History, Most Popular |Comments

Here are a few facts to know about the adventurous Patrick Hunt. He’s a Stanford archaeologist who has spent more than a decade trying to unravel the mystery of how Hannibal, the great ancient military leader, crossed the Alps in 218 BCE with 25,000 men and 37 elephants. (Listen on iTunes to the course he [...]

The War: New Ken Burns’ Documentary Starts Sunday

≡ Category: History, Television, Video - Arts & Culture |Comments

Mark this on your calendar. Ken Burns, who has produced some of America’s most acclaimed historical documentaries, will air his latest film starting Sunday night on PBS. The War is a seven-part, 15-hour documentary that “tells the story of the Second World War through the personal accounts of a handful of men and women from [...]

Weekly Wrap – September 22

≡ Category: Uncategorized |Comments

Here’s a quick snapshot of what we served up this past week (and the one before that). Have a good weekend.

Bob Dylan Video Goodness
Keeping Wikipedia Honest
NBC Leaves the iTunes Fold
Meet Larry David
The World of Words & Carnal Knowledge
Falling Man – A 9/11 Novel
Life-Changing Books Now on Google’s “My Library”
New Additions to the Podcast Family
iPod Classic [...]

≡ Category: Uncategorized |Comments

The Writing Rooms of Famous Writers

≡ Category: Books |Comments

Here’s where great writing gets done. The Guardian has posted a nice collection of annotated photos of the working spaces used by famous writers, including Seamus Heaney, AS Byatt, Michael Frayn, and Alain de Botton. (Get the full list here.) My favorite selection is Jonathan Safran Foer’s, the Rose Reading Room of the 42nd Street [...]

NBC Leaves the iTunes Fold

≡ Category: Apple, Television |Comments

Apple took the world of digital entertainment by storm when it started offering new television shows on iTunes in 2005. The big networks signed on (eventually) and it was suddenly possible to catch an episode of The Office or Lost for $1.99 on a video iPod or a PC.
NBC was one of the early adopters, [...]

Bob Dylan Video Goodness

≡ Category: Music, Uncategorized, Video - Arts & Culture |Comments

Mark October 1 on your calendar. That’s when Bob Dylan will release a new box set of his “greatest songs.” Now, cut over to the website designed to market the album, and you’ll find a couple notable pieces of video. First up, you can watch the video that accompanies Mark Ronson’s remixing of “Most Likely [...]

iPod Classic Not Quite Ready for Primetime

≡ Category: Apple |Comments

Robert X. Cringley’s weekly article/podcast (iTunes – Feed – Web Site) may make you think twice about buying an iPod Classic … at least for now. Despite the name, the guts of the iPod Classic are actually new, and the bugs haven’t been fully worked out. The list of problems experienced by users includes [...]

The World of Words & Carnal Knowledge

≡ Category: Books, Podcast Articles and Resources |Comments

Grammar is in vogue. The statistics don’t lie. The Grammar Girl (iTunes – Feed – Web Site) remains one of the most popular podcasts on iTunes, and The Grammar Grater (iTunes – Feed – Web Site) is holding its own. From grammar, it’s just a short step to words, to etymology. And, today, we want [...]

The New York Times “Opens Up” at Midnight

≡ Category: Media |Comments

Effective at midnight, The New York Times will make the “TimesSelect” section of its website entirely free. (It used to cost subscribers $49.95 a year.) And it will also free up “its archives from 1987 to the present … , as well as those from 1851 to 1922, which are in the public domain.”
In [...]

Keeping Wikipedia Honest

≡ Category: Web/Tech |Comments

Wikipedia is now the 9th most frequented site on the web, and it hosts over 7 million articles in over 200 languages. Like it or not, Wikipedia is here to stay.
Recognizing this, some innovative programmers have started developing ways to shore up Wikipedia’s sometimes shaky foundations. In particular, they’re finding ways to monitor Wikipedia entries [...]

500 Greatest Albums of All Time

≡ Category: Music |Comments

at least according to Rolling Stone. (Get the list here). Yes, these lists are always highly subjective. But if I were the arbiter of musical taste, I’d pick many of the same, so here it is.

The End of History Revisited

≡ Category: Current Affairs, History |Comments

Stewart Brand, the creator of the iconic Whole Earth Catalog, heads up the The Long Now Foundation, an organization committed to cultivating “slower/better” thinking and fostering greater responsibility over “the next 10,000 years.” (Yes, they’re ambitious.) To help bring this about, Brand hosts a monthly speaking series that you can download as a podcast (iTunes [...]

SmartLinks From Our Readers

≡ Category: Uncategorized |Comments

Below, we have some links recommended by our readers. Feel free to send other good bits our way. The more we give, the more we get. Just click here to send:

Sean Penn reads an excerpt from Bob Dylan’s autobiography, Chronicles, here. (Or check out the full audiobook version.)
Jared Diamond, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Guns, [...]

Remembering Lenny Bruce and When Taboo-Breaking Comedy Collided with the Law

≡ Category: Comedy, History, Television, Video - Arts & Culture |Comments

Lenny Bruce (born Leonard Alfred Schneider) introduced a strongly satirical, taboo-breaking form of comedy during the 1950s and 1960s, which paved the way for some of America’s great comedians — Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Chris Rock, even John Stewart. And for ushering in this new era of comedy, Bruce paid a heavy personal price. In [...]

The New iPod Lineup Versus Its Rivals

≡ Category: Apple, Web/Tech |Comments

Since we talk a lot here about podcasts and mp3 files, it seems worth flagging this Yahoo gadget review that pits the new iPod lineup against its rivals. Here, we’ve got the new iPod Touch v. the Samsung Yepp YP-P2; the new Nano (with video) v. the Sansa View, and the iPod Classic v. Microsoft’s [...]

New R.E.M. Concert Video “Leaving New York”

≡ Category: Music, Video - Arts & Culture |Comments

Below we have “R.E.M. Live, recorded on the Around the World Tour, which promoted Around the Sun, a studio album from 2004. It is to be released October 16.” (Thanks to Justin for the clarification.)
Source: Stereogum. (For more music, check out our collection of MP3 Blogs.)
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FYI for Smart Money Readers

≡ Category: Uncategorized |Comments

We got a nice little mention in the October edition of Smart Money (The Wall Street Journal Magazine), which highlighted our collection of university courses available as free podcasts. If you’re a Smart Money reader, you’ll want to focus on our collection of 75 University Courses as well as on our general University Podcast Collection. [...]

Falling Man 9-11

≡ Category: Books |Comments

On the anniversary of the September 11th attacks, it seems fitting to call attention to Don DeLillo’s Falling Man, a recent addition to the growing body of fiction now known as “9/11 novel.” However you may feel about DeLillo’s writing style (we often find that it grates), Falling Man adeptly captures the emotional [...]

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    Open Culture editor Dan Colman scours the web for the best cultural and educational media. He finds the books you want, the classes you need, and plenty of enlightenment in between.