Books Savored in Stop Motion Film

in Art, Books | November 11th, 2010

This won­der­ful stop motion film makes you pine for the good old fash­ioned print­ed book, per­haps because we all real­ize that Guten­berg’s gift will even­tu­al­ly give way to the Kin­dle and oth­er devices. The three minute film (offi­cial­ly enti­tled This is Where We Live) was shot over three weeks in autumn 2008 to cel­e­brate the 25th anniver­sary of 4th Estate Pub­lish­ers. No less than 20 ani­ma­tors took part in the project, and no less than 1000 books were put to use.

Designrelated.com takes a lit­tle clos­er look at the mak­ing of the nos­tal­gia-induc­ing film. Big thanks to Mike for the good find…

Fol­low us on Twit­ter and Face­book!

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 4 ) |

Writing Studio Floating in Foliage

in Art, Books | November 11th, 2010

When asked to design a writ­ing stu­dio in the woods of New York, archi­tect Andrew Berman began work on his dream project. And here’s what he deliv­ered. If only we could all write in such lux­u­ry…

via Media Bistro

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Out My Window: An Interactive Documentary

in Film, Life, Web/Tech | November 11th, 2010

Out My Win­dow — it’s a new inter­ac­tive doc­u­men­tary, a film unlike any you have seen before. Kate­ri­na Cizek, the direc­tor, put it togeth­er over the course of years, and the award-win­ning film uses its nov­el approach to explore life, as it goes on, with­in high­ris­es — the most com­mon­ly built struc­tures dur­ing the past cen­tu­ry. Cre­at­ed with 360º video and high end web tech­nol­o­gy, Out My Win­dow brings you to 13 dif­fer­ent loca­tions across the globe, mov­ing from Chica­go to São Paulo, to Ban­ga­lore and Johan­nes­burg. And the sto­ry does­n’t unfold lin­ear­ly. You choose where and when you want the sto­ries (49 in total) to begin and end. The film is bet­ter expe­ri­enced than described. So my rec­om­men­da­tion: Watch the trail­er, or just jump into the inter­ac­tive doc­u­men­tary and see for your­self.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 2 ) |

Paul Auster Reads from New Novel, Sunset Park

in Books, Literature | November 10th, 2010

This week, Paul Auster releas­es his 16th nov­el, Sun­set Park, which gives lit­er­ary expres­sion to the eco­nom­ic mis­for­tunes weigh­ing on the coun­try. The fore­clo­sures. The unem­ploy­ment. The reces­sion and depres­sion. The nov­el starts to paint the des­per­ate pic­ture quick­ly. Above, we have Paul Auster read­ing the begin­ning pages, and you can fol­low along with this tran­script post­ed online by Amer­i­can Pub­lic Media.

Auster also hap­pens to nar­rate the entire audio ver­sion of Sun­set Park, and, as pre­vi­ous­ly men­tioned here, you can down­load a free audio copy of the nov­el (or pret­ty much any oth­er book of your choice) if you reg­is­ter for a 14-day free tri­al of Audible.com. Once the tri­al is over, you can con­tin­ue your Audi­ble sub­scrip­tion, or can­cel it. It’s up to you. But, either way, you keep the book.

Thanks to Mike for spot­ting the Auster read­ing…

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

Time Piece: Jim Henson’s Short, Oscar-Nominated Film (1965)

in Film | November 9th, 2010

Back in 1965, Jim Hen­son, the great pup­peteer, wrote, direct­ed and starred in a short exper­i­men­tal film, Time Piece, which pre­miered at the Muse­um of Mod­ern Art in NYC. Run­ning a short nine min­utes, the film takes a sur­re­al look at the pass­ing of time. And, despite veer­ing off into rather strange ter­ri­to­ry, the film struck a chord with crit­ics and the film com­mu­ni­ty. Time Piece would be nom­i­nat­ed for an Acad­e­my Award.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

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!

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

Welcome to the Plutocracy! Bill Moyers Presents the First Howard Zinn Lecture

in Current Affairs, History, Life | November 9th, 2010

Howard Zinn, the Peo­ple’s his­to­ri­an, taught at Boston Uni­ver­si­ty for 24 years, until he died ear­li­er this year. In late Octo­ber, Bill Moy­ers deliv­ered the first Howard Zinn Memo­r­i­al Lec­ture dur­ing which, appro­pri­ate­ly enough, he focus­es on the chal­lenges fac­ing our democ­ra­cy, and par­tic­u­lar­ly Amer­i­ca’s long drift toward plu­toc­ra­cy, where the rich get rich­er at the expense of the aver­age cit­i­zen. The talk (fol­lowed by a Q&A ses­sion) runs a good two hours, and Moy­ers him­self starts speak­ing at the 6:40 minute mark. You can watch the video here, or read the tran­script here.

via Metafil­ter

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 7 ) |

A‑List Authors, Artists & Thinkers Draw Self Portraits

in Art, Literature | November 8th, 2010

Over the years, Burt Brit­ton con­vinced A‑list writ­ers and artists to draw self-por­traits of them­selves. He first enticed Nor­man Mail­er long ago, while work­ing as a bar­tender at the Vil­lage Van­guard in NYC. Then came Miles Davis, Jorge Luis Borges (who was already blind), Mar­garet Atwood, Frank Gehry, Saul Bel­low, David Hock­ney, Allen Gins­berg, Cor­mac McCarthy (see above) and a parade of oth­ers. The doo­dled por­traits were lat­er col­lect­ed in a now out-of-print book, Self-Por­trait: Book Peo­ple Pic­ture Them­selves. You can still find a small­er col­lec­tion online at The Dai­ly Beast. The New York Times gives you more of the back­sto­ry on this col­lec­tion here.

via Maud New­ton

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Spalding Gray Archives Head to the University of Texas

in Art, Theatre | November 8th, 2010

This week, the Har­ry Ran­som Cen­ter at UT-Austin acquired the archives of Spald­ing Gray (1941–2004), the actor and play­wright most well known for his per­for­mance piece “Swim­ming to Cam­bo­dia” (clip here). Accord­ing to The New York Times, the archive spans some 40 years and fea­tures per­for­mance note­books (see image above), diaries, and tapes of Gray’s per­for­mances, includ­ing an ear­ly ver­sion of “Swim­ming to Cam­bo­dia” record­ed in 1983, and a clip from “Life Inter­rupt­ed,” the mono­logue Gray was work­ing on when he died in 2004. Gray’s mate­ri­als will reside along­side the papers of David Mamet, Nor­man Mail­er, James Joyce, Samuel Beck­ett and oth­ers.

 The NYTimes has the full sto­ry here.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

« Go Back — More in this category... »
Quantcast