The best free cultural & educational media on the web
The best free cultural & educational media on the web
≡ Category: Music, Television | ≅ 1 Comment
Jerry Leiber died yesterday at the age of 78. Leiber wasn’t a household name during most of his career. But his compositions are known worldwide. Along with his partner Mike Stoller, Leiber wrote “Hound Dog,” “Jailhouse Rock,” and “Treat Me Nice,” among others songs made famous by Elvis Presley during the 1950s. They also composed “Stand [...]
≡ Category: Literature, Psychology, Sci Fi | ≅ 2 Comments
Ray Bradbury, one of America’s beloved sci-fi writers, turns 91 today. So how about a little party favor: This retro clip takes you back to the 1970s (we believe) and it features Bradbury giving a rather intriguing take on the role of literature and art. For the author of Fahrenheit 451, literature has more than [...]
≡ Category: Music | ≅ Leave a Comment
“Opera is thrilling, vibrant, versatile – and thriving. In fact, there has never been a better time to fall in love with the art form” — Simon Callow. This weekend, The Guardian published a handy multimedia guide called “How to Enjoy Opera,” and it coincided with the streaming of a live performance of Benjamin Britten’s The [...]
≡ Category: Animation, Film | ≅ 3 Comments
In 2003, Disney released a six minute animated short called Destino, finally bringing closure to a project that began 57 years earlier. The story of Destino goes way back to 1946 when two very different cultural icons, Walt Disney and Salvador Dalí, decided to work together on a cartoon. The film was storyboarded by Dalí [...]
≡ Category: MIT, Science, Video - Science | ≅ Leave a Comment
The video you’re watching is a real-life demonstration of an optical illusion developed in 1995 by Edward Adelson, a professor in MIT’s Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences. The Checker Shadow Illusion, as Adelson calls it, shows that our “visual system is not very good at being a physical light meter.” But more importantly, the optical illusion offers important [...]
When you think photography and Yosemite National Park, you think of Ansel Adams shooting “Moon and Half Dome” or “El Capitan.” But today we’re thinking about something a little different — about the vertigo-inducing photography of Renan Ozturk. Working on behalf of National Geographic, Ozturk heads to Yosemite to shoot a feature story on the climbing [...]
≡ Category: Film | ≅ Leave a Comment
Bout d'essai Marlene Dietrich screentest by astre In 1929, Josef von Sternberg began assembling the cast for the first major German sound film – Der blaue Engel, otherwise known as The Blue Angel. (Watch the English version online here.) A classic of Weimar cinema, the film featured Marlene Dietrich playing Lola-Lola, a seductive singer in the [...]
≡ Category: Animation, Life, Music | ≅ Leave a Comment
Lee Gingold makes the point rather artistically by way of The Beatles. Music can shape our youthful minds (which reminds me of this great animated short, I Met the Walrus). Music provides the emotional soundtrack for the good times and bad times in our lives. It fires the imagination. It brings us together. Just watch 13,500 people [...]
≡ Category: Film | ≅ Leave a Comment
In 1938, Lou Gehrig began his sixteenth season as the New York Yankees’ first baseman. He continued building toward his legendary record of playing 2,130 consecutive games. His batting average held at a respectable .295, though down from the scorching .351 of the year before. And, during the preseason, Gehrig crossed over to Hollywood and [...]
≡ Category: Science, Video - Science | ≅ Leave a Comment
Bob Smerbeck, a senior meteorologist for AccuWeather.com, has figured it all out — how to let loose a tornado in the comfort of his own home. Using a hair dryer, plastic tubes, and a light switch, Smerbeck can recreate the basic dynamics of supercell thunderstorms that produce tornadoes — except his tornadoes are inches, not miles, wide. [...]
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