The best free cultural & educational media on the web
The best free cultural & educational media on the web
≡ Category: History, Science | ≅ 2 Comments
In July 1945, J. Robert Oppenheimer, a theoretical physicist from UC Berkeley, saw his work on the Manhattan Project culminate with the test of the first nuclear bomb. The genie was let out of the bottle, and, ever since then, world leaders have been trying to put the genie back in … with great difficulty. [...]
≡ Category: Literature | ≅ 2 Comments
Every now and then, we like to present vintage clips of great authors reading classic literary works – works they have often written themselves. These clips can be fairly revealing. Through them, you can recapture the voices of literary greats, most long since passed. And you can hear how they give character and expression to [...]
≡ Category: Science | ≅ Leave a Comment
Just what happens to your brain when that daily cup of joe kicks in? Lifehacker has pulled together a nice little primer based on research appearing in Stephen R. Braun’s book, Buzz: The Science and Lore of Alcohol and Caffeine. The post also references a short video – “A Brain On Caffeine” – from CurrentTV. It’s [...]
≡ Category: Literature | ≅ Leave a Comment
First published in The Atlantic Monthly in February 1940, “A Worn Path” is perhaps Eudora Welty’s most prized piece of short fiction. In this video, Welty talks with dramatist Beth Henley about the writing of the famous short story. The two women, it’s worth noting, share a good deal in common. Both are Pulitzer Prize [...]
≡ Category: Literature | ≅ 1 Comment
In 1957 and 1958, the great American writer William Faulkner spent two years as Writer-in-Residence at the University of Virginia. During this stint, he presented several public speeches, gave many readings from his literary works, spoke at countless public events, and answered questions from hundreds of students. The talks were originally recorded on reel-to-reel tapes, [...]
≡ Category: Music | ≅ Leave a Comment
Appearing in San Francisco this past Saturday night, Paul McCartney recalled for his audience how the Beatles released Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in June, 1967. The album came out on a Friday, and by Sunday night, Jimi Hendrix learned the songs and opened his own show with a cover of the title track. [...]
≡ Category: Film | ≅ 1 Comment
Yesterday, we told you where to find Andrei Tarkovsky’s great films online. Meanwhile, over at Brain Pickings, we wrote a guest piece highlighting where you can watch 15 films (all free, of course) directed by Alfred Hitchcock and Fritz Lang, two great directors whose careers moved in parallel from the silent era, to sound movies, and from [...]
≡ Category: History | ≅ 1 Comment
The Civil War was a watershed moment in US history, and it figures centrally in any American history curriculum. If you missed this course during high school or college, not to worry. Now, thanks to Yale University, you can revisit this historical moment with Prof. David Blight, one of the nation’s leading Civil War scholars. [...]
≡ Category: Film, Most Popular | ≅ 45 Comments
Andrei Tarkovsky (1932-1986) firmly positioned himself as the finest Soviet director of the post-War period. But his influence extended well beyond the Soviet Union.  The Cahiers du cinéma consistently ranked his films on their top ten annual lists. Ingmar Bergman went so far as to say, “Tarkovsky for me is the greatest [director], the one [...]
≡ Category: Current Affairs, Film | ≅ 5 Comments
This morning, the Swiss rejected US requests to extradite Roman Polanksi. This decision effectively brings to a close a rather dark chapter in his personal life and lets the conversation return to his filmmaking. Enter our video above, which features Polanski talking about the making of Chinatown, his 1974 neo-noir film, starring Jack Nicholson, Faye [...]
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