Nerve and IFC have pulled together a fun list that counts down the 50 funniest sketches in television history. Happily, the list features many video clips, and this inspired us to post one of our own. Here we have John Belushi, appearing on Saturday Night Live in the late 1970s, performing a classic bit called “Samurai Delicatassen.” Check out the full list of 50 here, and find many more SNL skits on Hulu.com here (if you’re living in the US).
Interview with Pulitzer Prize Winning Poet, Robert Hass
This week, the Pulitzer Prize for poetry went to Robert Hass, a UC Berkeley professor and former U.S. poet laureate. To mark the occasion, we’re posting here Sierra Club Radio’s interview with Hass. The interview, recorded this past Saturday (mp3 — iTunes — web site), delves into Hass’ “thoughts on the intersection between language and our environment, how he decided to use his position as Poet Laureate for advocacy, and has him reading selections from his new book of poetry Time and Materials — winner of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize. He also gives some insights into the collection and stories behind some of the poems.”
Related Content:
101 Early Wallace Stevens Poems on Free Audio
Listening to Famous Poets Reading Their Own Work
The Art of Reading a Poem (According to Harold Bloom)
Philosophy Makes a Comeback
As I write, the most emailed article from today’s New York Times is this piece, which talks about the revival of philosophy on American college campuses. The reasons for this revival are varied — Some see philosophy offering “good training for looking at larger societal questions, like globalization and technology.” Others see it building skills valued by law schools (argumentation and reasoning). Still others believe that philosophy and existential angst can be good for “good for getting girlfriends.” Meanwhile, all seem to agree that philosophical thinking is not simply for “frou-frou” intellectuals. The net result: the number of philosophy majors is up, with some schools seeing increases of 50–100% over the past 5–6 years.
Gehry’s Vision for Architecture
Frank Gehry takes you on a 50 minute tour of his landmark works. The talk, presented at TED Talks in 1990, is complete with slides and gives you a good look at his “messy creative process.” We’ve posted the video below, but you can download a zipped version to your desktop here, or watch it on iTunes here.
In Search of TV 2.0
One of the things they promised us in the heyday of the 1990s Internet boom was the end of television and a brave new world of high quality video online, on demand. Well, we’re still waiting. Youtube is great for short clips, but not designed for the technical (or legal) challenge of serving up whole TV shows or movies.
However, things are getting better. You can pay for reasonably good entertainment, and you can even watch some things for free on network websites (not to mention the many universities and other groups putting video online). But nobody has come quite as close to the original promise as Hulu.com. This promising new site seems to strike a decent balance between commercials and content. They have entire seasons of several decent television shows and a small library of movies–all available for free. So is Hulu the future of Hollywood online? Check it out and let us know what you think.
Thinking Big About John Adams
I’m watching the new HBO miniseries “John Adams” and finding it fascinating. The series is based on a book by Pulitzer Prize winning historian David McCullough (also author of 1776 and Truman). And below we have McCullough giving us, if you will, the quick elevator pitch for Adams — that is, two minutes on what made Adams a particularly noteworthy founding father. (The video, by the way, is produced by BigThink, a fairly new site that positions itself as the “thinking man’s YouTube.” They’re backed by Harvard’s ex-president, Larry Summers, and other folks with deep pockets. Whether they’ll be able to turn a profit on intellectual media, I’m sadly doubtful. But that’s not meant to take anything away from what they’re doing. And if anyone wants to throw a few million dollars our way, we’ll consider taking it.)
Einstein’s Theory of Relativity Explained
Einstein’s Theory of Relativity needs no introduction. Actually maybe it does since we’re not dealing with light concepts here.
Relativity in a Nutshell (MP3) offers a free, 30-minute introduction to Einstein’s theoretical work. The lecture was presented by Richard Wolfson of Middlebury College. And it’s coupled with a second free lecture called Einstein’s Miraculous Year. Both lectures were produced by The Teaching Company to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Einstein’s work on relativity (1905), and they tie into a larger commercial course taught by Wolfson: Einstein’s Relativity and the Quantum Revolution: Modern Physics for Non-Scientists. The Teaching Company courses are not free, but they’re well done. And if you buy the mp3 versions when they’re on sale, you can often get the courses at a good price. Also, you can frequently find DVD versions discounted on Amazon (see, for example, here). And, even better, you can sometimes rent them for free from your local library.
In the meantime, if you’re looking for a good selection of free university courses, visit our meta list of Free Online Courses from Great Universities. Also see our Science Podcast Collection.
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Open Culture scours the web for the best educational media. We find the free courses and audio books you need, the language lessons & educational videos you want, and plenty of enlightenment in between.
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