Back in the late 1930s, Orson Welles launched The Mercury Theatre on the Air, a radio program dedicated to bringing dramatic, theatrical productions to the American airwaves. The show had a fairly short run. It lasted from 1938 to 1941. But it made its mark.

If you don’t already know about it, The New Yorker Fiction Podcast (iTunes - Feed - Web Site) features authors reading the works of other major authors.

A quick item for UK readers. (Did you know that we get more visitors from London than any other city each day?) Starting Tuesday, theauteurs.com will be featuring classic French films from the 1960s.

Paul Samuelson, America’s first Nobel laureate in economics, died this weekend at age 94. In 2003, Samuelson wrote a short essay called How I Became an Economist.  What caught my eye is the last line: “Always, I have been overpaid to do what has been pure fun.” We should all be lucky enough to achieve that.

I like to bring this one back during the holidays. In 1977, just a month before Bing Crosby died, the 40s crooner hosted David Bowie, the glam rocker, on his Christmas show. The awkwardness of the meeting is palpable.

Here’s the intellectual upside of the Tiger Woods kerfuffle: A copy of John Gribbin’s Get a Grip on Physics was spotted in Woods’ wrecked Cadillac. (Photo here.) And, ever since, the book has been in high demand. The Wall Street Journal reports that the book’s Amazon sales rank has jumped from 396,224 to 2,268.

A quick note: Audible is currently running a nice deal. Click here to get a free download of the 1981 Pulitzer Prize winning novel, A Confederacy of Dunces. (Move quickly, it’s probably available for just a short time.) You can also download pretty much any audiobook you want from Audible, with no strings attached.

What is open video? And how does it promote free speech, participation, diversity and a more engaged media sphere? Get the answers from Amy Goodman (Democracy Now), Xeni Jardin (Boing Boing), Nina Paley (Sita Sings the Blues), Yochai Benkler & Jonathan Zittrain (Harvard Berkman Center), among others. This is a mission to get behind.

Looking to take back some of the e-book market from Amazon’s Kindle, Barnes & Noble has released its new reader, the Nook. This week, Walt Mossberg, the influential tech reviewer, gave his thoughts on the new gadget. Needless to say, it’s not a good PR day when he says that it feels like a product “rushed to market.

A little something for Neil Young fans. Right now, you can stream online (click and scroll down) his new album, Dreamin’ Man Live ’92. It’s a live performance of Young’s 1992 album Harvest Moon, which itself returned to the sounds of Harvest, Young’s classic 1972 recording. A good find by About.com.