≡ Category: Books | ≅ Comments
We take you back to the mid 1950s, to an interview with Vladimir Nabokov and Lionel Trilling that was conducted soon after the publication of Lolita (1955). Lolita’s basic plot is well known — middle-aged Humbert Humbert develops a passionate obsession for twelve-year old Dolores Haze and takes her on the road. For some critics, [...]
The video below is fairly mind-blowing. And here you can watch the elephant from another angle. The elephant apparently resides in a safe haven in Thailand, after having been abused in Burma. For more info, see The Elephant Art & Conservation Project. (Video has been added to our YouTube playlist.)
Subscribe to Our Feed
≡ Category: History | ≅ Comments
Dith Pran, a photojournalist and political activist who survived The Killing Fields in Cambodia, and whose experience was narrated in the 1984 film by the same name, has died at 65. You can revisit his photographic work here, and watch a talk he gave in 2006. Here, Pran recounts what happened in Cambodia — [...]
Released in 1922, the German Expressionist film, Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror, offers a chilling adaption of Bram Stoker’s Dracula (get free audiobook of Stoker’s work here). The film was made by F. W. Murnau and stars Max Schreck. Watch it below. (Or buy a copy here).
Subscribe to Our Feed
≡ Category: Podcast Articles and Resources | ≅ Comments
Here’s a quick note for anyone looking for free online courses: The University of California – San Diego now gives you free access to more than 80 courses. (Access the full list here.) The courses, mostly rooted in the sciences, can be accessed via iTunes or rss feed. We’ve integrated some of these courses into [...]
≡ Category: Current Affairs | ≅ Comments
To mark the fifth anniversary of the Iraq invasion, PBS’s Frontline is airing “Bush’s War,” which offers “the definitive documentary analysis of one of the most challenging periods in the nation’s history.” Drawing on an extensive archive, the program lays out the “entire narrative,” showing how “the war began and how it has been fought, [...]
≡ Category: Current Affairs | ≅ Comments
During the run up to the Iraq war, the Bush administration estimated that the military mission would run around $50 billion, even though experts doubted those numbers at the time. (In 2002, Yale’s William Nordhaus guessed that the costs could reach $500 billion within five years.) Now, here we are in 2008, and new tallies [...]
≡ Category: Books, Web/Tech | ≅ Comments
At The Berkman Center for Internet and Society (at Harvard Law School), Clay Shirky gave a talk on his highly touted new book, Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations. You can catch his talk here: video for computer or portable device – high res video – mp3 audio. And sample some of [...]
≡ Category: Music | ≅ Comments
A nice little find for Dead Heads: The Internet Archive hosts a large collection of the Grateful Dead’s live music. Some concerts (usually recorded by members of the audience) can be downloaded. Other audio (usually taken from the soundboard) can be streamed. You can access the overall collection here.
A few items worth sampling include: Live [...]
David Lynch fans, here you go. Below (and added to our YouTube playlist), we have Lynch’s anti-littering public service announcement that has a fairly high creepiness factor. He’s actually not new to the world of commercials. This site collects Lynch’s previous commercial work, starting with his 1988 series of Calvin Klein Obsession ads that played [...]
≡ Category: Books | ≅ Comments
When Amazon’s Kindle hit the streets last November, the critics gave the newfangled ebook reader mixed reviews. The customers, however, have been saying something a little bit different. Sales have been brisk, a bit too brisk actually. Waiting up to six weeks to get the Kindle, customers have been getting huffy, and last week Amazon’s [...]
≡ Category: Current Affairs | ≅ Comments
Are political attack ads such a bad thing? John G. Geer, author of In Defense of Negativity: Attack Ads in Presidential Campaigns, doesn’t necessarily think so. He maintains that they often enrich, rather than corrode, the political process. And now his publisher has assembled The Attack Ad Hall of Fame. Included on the list is [...]
≡ Category: Current Affairs, Politics | ≅ Comments
In response to China’s vigorous crackdown on Tibet (see this photojournalism account), a group of experts were convened to discuss Tibet and its future. The panelists included Robert Thurman (famed Buddhism scholar at Columbia University), John Kenneth Knaus (Harvard University), John Tkacik (Senior Research Fellow at The Heritage Foundation), and Amit A. Pandya (Henry L. [...]
≡ Category: Media | ≅ Comments
This week, UC Berkeley professor Paul Duguid squared off in a debate with provocateur Andrew Keen (author of the flimsy bestseller, The Cult of Amateur). At issue here is the question: “Is the Web 2.0 a Threat to Our Culture?” How did the well-attended debate go? Have a listen here and see photos here.
Subscribe [...]
≡ Category: Podcast Articles and Resources | ≅ Comments
Every now and then, we like to make new readers aware of our extensive Podcast Library that includes 100s of cultural and educational podcasts that will make you smarter. We guarantee that. And the best part is that they’re completely free — perfect for a recession. We’ve lost count of how many podcasts we have [...]
≡ Category: Music | ≅ Comments
Below we have an outtake from one of the earliest rock mockumentaries, which paved the way for the venerable This is Spinal Tap. Co-produced by Eric Idle (Monty Python) and Lorne Michaels (Saturday Night Live), “All You Need is Cash” traced the career of “The Rutles,” whose resemblance to The Beatles was “purely – and [...]
≡ Category: Sci Fi | ≅ Comments
Sir Arthur C. Clarke, the futurist and science fiction writer most well known for his novel 2001: A Space Odyssey, has passed away. (You can read his obit here.) Below, we have posted a video recorded last December for his 90th birthday. Touching in many ways, the video offers a good reminder of how much [...]
≡ Category: Current Affairs | ≅ Comments
This bit of audio (MP3 – Feed – Web Site) lucidly explains what happened at Bear Stearns, and why the Fed acted as it did. It’s worth a good listen if you’ve been trying to piece together the logic. The audio comes from the News Hour with Jim Lehrer.
[Update: I'd also recommend this piece from [...]
≡ Category: Google, Science | ≅ Comments
Here’s what you get when Google engineers put their heads together with astronomers from large observatories: With Google Sky, “you can search for planets, listen to Earth & Sky podcasts, watch some beautiful Hubble telescope images, or explore historical maps of the sky from the comfort of your browser.” The product was rolled out just [...]
≡ Category: Comedy, YouTube | ≅ Comments
A merry, musical St. Pat’s greeting to you from your Irish-American correspondent, presented by his three favorite muppets:
via BoingBoing
≡ Category: Literature | ≅ Comments
Put together by the American Book Review, this list (which comes in PDF format) serves up some of the great last lines from modern literature. Ranking number six on the list is a passage that I happened to read just yesterday: “Yes,” I said. “Isn’t it pretty to think so?” –Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also [...]
≡ Category: Video - Arts & Culture, Video - Politics/Society, Video - Science, YouTube | ≅ Comments
Below, we have gathered together some of the most intelligent video collections on YouTube. A great place to find culturally enriching video…
General
@GoogleTalks
Google has lots of famous visitors speaking at its headquarters, and they’re all recorded and neatly presented here.
Al Jazeera English
The Middle Eastern news service, which has generated its share of controversy, now airs broadcasts [...]
≡ Category: History, Politics, Stanford | ≅ Comments
Here’s a new, free course from Stanford University. Taught by James Sheehan, the History of the International System (iTunes) offers a historical view of international politics in the 20th century, exploring how international players have attempted to project their will and protect their interests, all while negotiating fluid and not always manageable external forces. The [...]
≡ Category: Politics | ≅ Comments
His essay appearing in The Village Voice: Why I Am No Longer a ‘Brain-Dead Liberal’
This video takes you on a fairly amazing tour of the great portraits of women in Western art. It moves from da Vinci to Picasso, and, along the way, the portraits seamlessly morph one into another. This morphing allows you to see how artistic styles changed over time, and also how the human face has [...]
≡ Category: Current Affairs, Politics | ≅ Comments
It’s rare that professors find themselves at the center of a political firestorm. But that’s where Samantha Power, Professor of Practice of Global Leadership and Public Policy at Harvard, found herself last week when, during an off-the-record conversation with a reporter, she referred to Hillary Clinton as a “monster” and then had to resign as [...]
We wanted to post a quick photo from the lighting show at the Adelaide Festival of Arts. During the festival, artists project lights on the city’s architectural monuments, turning the buildings into electronic canvases. We’ve posted one photo below. For more good ones, see here. Thanks Carol for sharing these!
Subscribe to Our Feed
≡ Category: Comedy | ≅ Comments
Apparently not the real deal, but a pretty good impersonation nonetheless…
Subscribe to Our Feed
Get updates as soon as they go live, via RSS feed, email and now Twitter!
Get the latest from our Twitter Stream.
Why can't we be friends?
Got a link we should post? Send it to mail@openculture.com
