The best free cultural & educational media on the web
The best free cultural & educational media on the web
≡ Category: Books, Film, Literature | ≅ Leave a Comment
(NOTE: some strong language here…) Back in 1975, filmmaker Tom Schiller (only 20 years old at the time) made a short documentary on the novelist Henry Miller (Tropic of Cancer, Tropic of Capricorn). In the scene above, Miller, then 81 years old, reminisces about his difficult early life in New York, and it all takes place on [...]
≡ Category: Literature | ≅ Leave a Comment
The Guardian asked twenty nine writers to give their 10 Rules for Writing Fiction. Those given by Jonathan Franzen (The Corrections) were arguably the pithiest, and we list them below. The full lineup of writers (including Elmore Leonard, Margaret Atwood, and Richard Ford) can be found here. (The New Yorker has since followed up with [...]
≡ Category: Law, Politics | ≅ Leave a Comment
A quick heads up… Flumotion and the Open Video Alliance will be streaming a live event on Thursday, February 25th featuring Lawrence Lessig, the foundational voice of the free culture movement. The 45-minute speech will be delivered live from Harvard Law School via Flumotion’s Streaming Platform, and will explore the relationship between copyright, fair use, [...]
≡ Category: Music | ≅ Leave a Comment
The BBC brings you Folk America, a three-part documentary series on American folk music, “tracing its history from the recording boom of the 1920s to the folk revival of the 1960s.” We feature above the third segment, Blowin’ in the Wind, which takes you straight to the 1960s, when Bob Dylan and Joan Baez hit [...]
≡ Category: Audio Books | ≅ Leave a Comment
Perhaps you’re already familiar with Librivox. If not, you should be. Librivox provides over 3000 free audio books. The books (all in the public domain) are recorded by a passionate community of volunteers, and they’re all made freely available to you. (See their catalogue here.) Millions of people have downloaded their books. And, as you [...]
≡ Category: Science | ≅ Leave a Comment
The Mariana Trench is the deepest part of the ocean and also the lowest known elevation on earth, plunging down some 36,200 feet. This graphic, sent along by Bill and Ian, puts the Trench into perspective, allowing you to see it in scale just how low it goes…
≡ Category: Music, Television | ≅ Leave a Comment
In the mid-1950s, the American composer Leonard Bernstein made several appearances on Omnibus, a television show dedicated to covering the sciences, arts and humanities. During his visits, Bernstein walked audiences through the art of making music. Take for example the clip above where he breaks down the making of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. Just how did Beethoven [...]
≡ Category: Amazon Kindle, e-books, Education | ≅ 7 Comments
Last fall, Princeton launched a small experiment, replacing traditional textbooks with the Kindle DX, Amazon’s large e-book reader. Almost from the beginning, the 50 students participating in the pilot program expressed dissatisfaction with the devices. Yesterday, a university report offered some more definitive findings. On the upside, students using the Kindle DX ended up using far [...]
≡ Category: Audio Books, Books, Literature | ≅ Leave a Comment
Note: You should be able to download Safran Foer’s new book for free (in audio format) through Audible.com’s no strings attached offer. Details here.
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