The best free cultural & educational media on the web
The best free cultural & educational media on the web
Vivian Maier grew up in France, immigrated to the US, spent 40 unassuming years working as a nanny, and then, during her free time, took more than 100,000 photographs of life on the Chicago streets. Discovered only in 2009, not long before her death, her photography will be on display at the Chicago Cultural Center from [...]
≡ Category: Film, Music | ≅ Leave a Comment
Back in 1953, Walt Disney Productions released two short and cutting-edge music education films. The initial film, Melody, was the first cartoon ever filmed in 3D. (Unfortunately, current versions only appear in 2D). Then came the sequel, Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom, which proved innovative in its own way. The short film, tracing the evolution of the [...]
≡ Category: e-books | ≅ 8 Comments
A quick fyi for anyone trying to get into college or graduate school: Through January 17th, Kaplan Publishing will let you download 130 eBooks to your iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, Nook and Sony eReader – all for free. (You can find a special page for downloading titles via the Kindle here.) Some select titles include: [...]
≡ Category: Online Courses, Philosophy | ≅ 1 Comment
All Things Shining: Reading the Western Classics to Find Meaning in a Secular Age – This new book by Hubert Dreyfus (UC Berkeley) and Sean Dorrance Kelly (Harvard) hit the bookshelves this week, and it currently ranks #56 on Amazon’s Top 100 List. Quite a coup for serious thinking. Professor Dreyfus has taught many popular [...]
≡ Category: Art, Music | ≅ 1 Comment
Patti Smith. Robert Mapplethorpe. Born in 1946, the two budding artists met in New York City, long before the 21 year olds achieved their eventual fame – before Smith earned her creds as the “godmother of punk,” and before Mapplethorpe put his unique stamp on American photography. Their long-lasting friendship was documented in Smith’s bittersweet [...]
≡ Category: History, Video - Arts & Culture, Video - Politics/Society | ≅ 2 Comments
The Travel Film Archive lets you “see the world the way it was.” Featuring dozens of videos shot between 1900 and 1970, these short travelogues take you across the globe, to farflung places that many Americans considered “exotic” at the time. Above, we have a 1940s clip that revisits the glories of Ancient Greece, taking [...]
≡ Category: Film | ≅ 3 Comments
A few weeks back, The New Times Magazine presented a video gallery featuring actors & actresses doing what they do best — “performing in vignettes that represent classic screen types.” Directed by Solve Sundsbo with music scored by Arcade Fire’s Owen Pallet, the videos (now available on YouTube) feature performers – all important figures in [...]
≡ Category: Math | ≅ 2 Comments
Last month, we posted a dazzling clip – Hans Rosling tracing health trends within 200 countries over 200 years, using 120,000 data points, all in 4 minutes. Pretty quickly you saw why Rosling has earned a reputation for presenting data in extremely imaginative ways. The video was an outtake from a BBC documentary called “The [...]
≡ Category: Life | ≅ Leave a Comment
The Milky Way Over Texas. The Aurora Borealis over Norway. December’s winter solstice lunar eclipse. Last week’s blizzard. What beauty can’t be captured in time lapse photography? Perhaps ten years of human life and development? Not so. No if the parents religiously take a photo a day. Then, voila, human growth in time lapse… via DerrenBrown
≡ Category: History, Science, Technology | ≅ 3 Comments
In the late 1870s, Thomas Edison, America’s prolific inventor, perfected the phonograph and captured a very early recording of the human voice – his own voice reciting the still popular nursery rhyme, Mary Had a Little Lamb. (Get mp3 here.) Later, the Edison cylinder also recorded for posterity Russian composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky (The Nutcracker, the 1812 Overture, [...]
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