The Mother of All Funk Chords

Who said there’s not an art to remix­ing? The Israeli artist Ophir Kutiel, oth­er­wise known as Kuti­man, cre­at­ed this video by weav­ing togeth­er scenes and tracks from 22 sep­a­rate music videos, all found ran­dom­ly on YouTube. (Find the full list below the jump.) First he lay­ered in the drums, then the bass and the gui­tar. And it’s hard to argue that the total isn’t greater than the sum of the parts. The video fig­ures into Kuti­man’s larg­er remix project called ThruY­OU, which TIME called one of the 50 best inven­tions of last year. Vis­it the ThruY­OU site to watch more remix videos in Kuti­man’s trade­mark style.

Thanks Evan for flag­ging this for us…

(more…)

Neil Young’s Film “Le Noise” Debuts Online

It’s a dou­ble shot of Neil Young. This week, the Cana­di­an singer-song­writer released his lat­est album, Le Noise, along with an accom­pa­ny­ing 38 minute black & white film. Direct­ed by Adam Vol­lick, the movie fea­tures a live per­for­mance of the full album record­ed at the stu­dios of Daniel Lanois in Los Ange­les. The film offi­cial­ly debuts tonight, but you can catch it online right now. And please note: the album itself can be freely streamed online on NPR’s First Lis­ten site for a lim­it­ed amount of time.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Puppet Making with Jim Henson: A Priceless Primer from 1969

Give Jim Hen­son 15 min­utes of your time, and the father of the Mup­pets will teach you how to make your own pup­pets, using noth­ing oth­er than house­hold items – socks, pota­toes, tacks, ten­nis balls, rub­ber bands, wood­en spoons, and the rest. This primer orig­i­nal­ly aired on Iowa Pub­lic Tele­vi­sion back in 1969, not long before Hen­son joined a fledg­ling TV pro­duc­tion, Sesame Street, where he helped cre­ate the most famous pup­pets of our gen­er­a­tion: Oscar, Ernie, Ker­mit, Bert, Cook­ie Mon­ster, Big Bird and the rest. Though record­ed 40+ years ago, the advice is sim­ple and time­less. The man knows of what he speaks…

Thanks Sarah for send­ing our way.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Jim Hen­son Pilots The Mup­pet Show with Adult Episode, “Sex and Vio­lence” (1975)

Jim Henson’s Zany 1963 Robot Film Uncov­ered by AT&T: Watch Online

Jim Henson’s Vio­lent Wilkins Cof­fee Com­mer­cials (1957–1961)

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The Adventures of Philip Marlowe: Hear the Classic Radio Episodes (1947–1951)

Dur­ing the 1930’s and 1940’s, Ray­mond Chan­dler gave life to the detec­tive Philip Mar­lowe, per­haps the most mem­o­rable char­ac­ter of the hard­boiled crime fic­tion tra­di­tion. Mar­lowe took cen­ter stage in Chan­dler’s influ­en­tial nov­els, The Big Sleep and The Long Good­bye. And, before too long, he start­ed appear­ing in adap­ta­tions for radio and cin­e­ma. Humphrey Bog­a­rt played Mar­lowe in 1946, and Elliot Gould tack­led the char­ac­ter in 1973. Mean­while, The Adven­tures of Philip Mar­lowe took to the radio air­waves in the sum­mer of 1947.

The ini­tial episodes did­n’t quite gel and NBC quick­ly yanked the show. But, a year lat­er, CBS revived the radio pro­duc­tion with new writ­ers and actors, and, by 1949, the show had the largest radio audi­ence in the US. Thanks to the Inter­net Archive, The Adven­tures of Philip Mar­lowe can now be accessed online for free. Find them on the IA site, or stream them below. We’ve also embed­ded of YouTube playlist of 72 episodes above. Each episode runs about 25 min­utes. Find them added to our col­lec­tion, 1,000 Free Audio Books: Down­load Great Books for Free.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hear Ray Bradbury’s Beloved Sci-Fi Sto­ries as Clas­sic Radio Dra­mas

Stream 61 Hours of Orson Welles’ Clas­sic 1930s Radio Plays:War of the Worlds, Heart of Dark­ness & More

Hear 90+ Episodes of Sus­pense, the Icon­ic Gold­en Age Radio Show Launched by Alfred Hitch­cock

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John Waters: The Point of Contemporary Art

If con­tem­po­rary art baf­fles you, if you’ve ever looked at con­tem­po­rary art and won­dered “what’s the point?,” then give some­times con­tro­ver­sial film­mak­er John Waters four min­utes of your time. He’ll break it down for you in sim­ple, if not crude, terms: “Con­tem­po­rary art’s job is to wreck what­ev­er came before it. And from the very begin­ning after the Old Mas­ters, from then on, each gen­er­a­tion wrecked that. That some­thing is pret­ty and beau­ti­ful is prob­a­bly the worst thing that you could say today in con­tem­po­rary art about some­thing, unless it’s so pret­ty it’s nau­se­at­ing.”

This seg­ment is part of a longer Big Think inter­view (23 min­utes) that you can watch in full here.

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Ira Glass Cameo on The Simpsons

If you did­n’t watch the sea­son pre­miere of The Simp­sons this week­end, here is what you missed: The host of This Amer­i­can Life, Ira Glass, mak­ing a brief cameo appear­ance and pok­ing some fun at his ever pop­u­lar show. Watch above.

Mean­while, speak­ing of Ira Glass, be sure to get his thoughts on Why Cre­ative Excel­lence Takes Time. He offers some excel­lent advice for any­one work­ing in a cre­ative field…

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David Simon, Creator of The Wire, Named 2010 MacArthur Fellow

The 2010 MacArthur Fel­lows were named today. The lat­est “genius” grants go to 23 recip­i­ents, includ­ing David Simon, the cre­ator of The Wire, the long run­ning HBO show that was real­ly (Simon once said) “a polit­i­cal tract mas­querad­ing as a cop show.” Above, Simon talks more about the thread run­ning through his work. The Wire, Treme and Gen­er­a­tion Kill – they’re all ulti­mate­ly about the end of the Amer­i­can Empire, and the cit­i­zens that get left behind. Like the oth­er grant win­ners, Simon will receive $500,000 over the next five years to spend how­ev­er he sees fit …

Jason Schwartzman Introduces New Yorker iPad App

The New York­er iPad app. It’s final­ly out, and they have actor Jason Schwartz­man tak­ing the wraps off in a wit­ty video. Give The New York­er points for cre­ativ­i­ty.

Now the big ques­tion. Will read­ers pay $4.99 to have the plea­sure of read­ing each week­ly issue on the iPad? That’s $234 over a year. Or will you be stick­ing with the print sub­scrip­tion that runs a cool­er $1.00 per week? You’ll find me in the lat­ter camp until they work out a more sen­si­ble annu­al pric­ing scheme — some­thing that, accord­ing to recent reports, may be right around the bend.

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Open Culture was founded by Dan Colman.