The Next-Generation Digital Book

in Books, e-books, Technology | May 12th, 2011

There will be a day — maybe it’s already here; maybe it was always here — when the Kin­dle will look incred­i­bly retro. Mike Matas, once a design­er of user inter­faces at Apple and now co-founder of Push Pop Press, may make that day of visu­al reck­on­ing come soon­er rather than lat­er. The demo above (which is eas­i­ly worth a thou­sand words) lets you peer into the near future.. Text, images, audio, video and inter­ac­tive graph­ics — they’ll come togeth­er in a seam­less read­ing expe­ri­ence, mak­ing the tra­di­tion­al ebook look entire­ly one dimen­sion­al. You can down­load the book on dis­play, Al Gore’s “Our Choice,” on iTunes here.

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The Legend of Bluesman Robert Johnson Animated

in Animation, Film, Music | May 12th, 2011

Robert John­son, the leg­endary blues­man, would have turned 100 this week. That’s well beyond the age he actu­al­ly lived to – a very young 27. Dur­ing his short life (1911–1938), John­son record­ed 29 indi­vid­ual songs. But they could not have been more influ­en­tial. Songs like Cross Road Blues, Sweet Home Chica­go, and Kind Heart­ed Woman Blues (all found in this new­ly-released Cen­ten­ni­al Col­lec­tion) had a remark­able influ­ence on musi­cians grow­ing up gen­er­a­tions lat­er. Kei­th Richards, Eric Clap­ton, Robert Plant – they all acknowl­edge a deep debt to John­son.

Speak­ing of debts, you can’t talk about Robert John­son with­out talk­ing about the famous dev­il leg­end. The leg­end holds that John­son made a Faus­t­ian bar­gain with the dev­il, sell­ing his soul in exchange for bound­less musi­cal tal­ent. It’s a great tale, and it all gets brought back to life in “Dev­il­ish Detail,” a new ani­mat­ed film (above) fea­tur­ing illus­tra­tions by Christo­pher Dar­ling. You can view it in a larg­er for­mat on Nowness.com…

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!

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64 Years of Posters for the Cannes Film Festival

in Art, Film | May 11th, 2011

The 64th Annu­al Cannes Film Fes­ti­val opens tonight, and the cineast­es among you have prob­a­bly already book­marked the film site MUBI, where you can find all things Cannes (and all things inter­na­tion­al cin­e­ma, for that mat­ter) at the site’s blog: the MUBI Dai­ly.

Edit­ed by Daniel Kas­man, the MUBI Dai­ly fea­tures stel­lar writ­ers, includ­ing Glenn Ken­ny, Ignatiy Vish­n­evet­sky, and the won­der­ful David Hud­son, whom you may rec­og­nize from his days at Greencine and IFC.  You’ll find review round-ups, com­men­tary, inter­views, updates, trail­ers for many films at Cannes, and final­ly, quirky entries like this one: Con­trib­u­tor Adri­an Cur­ry’s com­men­tary on a L’Ex­press col­lec­tion of 64 year’s worth of offi­cial Cannes Fes­ti­val posters. Cur­ry high­lights the best and worst of the lot (along with a spe­cial wince d’or for 1995’s pas­tel night­mare of a seascape, to which design­er Ryszard Horowitz may as well have added rain­bows and uni­corns).

The site is def­i­nite­ly worth keep­ing tabs on, espe­cial­ly this week, when they’ll be offer­ing a vir­tu­al tick­et to the south of France, minus the lines, mobs, and high like­li­hood of lap­top theft.

A last note: you can find sev­er­al prize-win­ning films from the Cannes Film Fes­ti­val (includ­ing two by Andrei Tarkovksy) in our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online.

via MUBI and A Life in Film

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly

via

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David Lynch’s Organic Coffee (Barbie Head Not Included)

in Film, Video - Arts & Culture | May 11th, 2011

In one of his very best ear­ly essays, David Lynch Keeps His Head (1996), the late nov­el­ist and essay­ist David Fos­ter Wal­lace did his best to pin­point exact­ly what it is that makes Lynch such an odd and won­der­ful direc­tor. The arti­cle is pure plea­sure (and a reminder of just how fresh and orig­i­nal Wal­lace was, and how rarely his imi­ta­tors ever do him jus­tice). One line in par­tic­u­lar stands out — the writer’s now-famous com­par­i­son between Lynch and Taran­ti­no: “Quentin Taran­ti­no,” wrote Wal­lace, “is inter­est­ed in watch­ing some­one’s ear get cut off. David Lynch is inter­est­ed in the ear.”

We’re not quite sure what that line has to do with the direc­tor’s lat­est pro­duc­tion (a com­mer­cial adver­tis­ing his new cof­fee line and star­ring a sev­ered Bar­bie head) except that we could­n’t stop think­ing of either the quote or the essay as we watched it — appalled, dis­mayed, per­plexed, and, as always with the films of Mr. Lynch, com­plete­ly inca­pable of look­ing away.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

David Lynch on his Favorite Movies and Film­mak­ers

Ear­ly David Lynch Films

via David Lynch

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly

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World Literature in 13 Parts: From Gilgamesh to García Márquez

in Books, Literature | May 11th, 2011

Love and long­ing, hope and fear — these threads run through­out all lit­er­a­ture, whether we’re talk­ing about the great ancient epics, or con­tem­po­rary nov­els writ­ten in the East or the West. That’s the main premise of Invi­ta­tion to World Lit­er­a­ture, a mul­ti­me­dia pro­gram orga­nized by David Dam­rosch (Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty), and made with the back­ing of WGBH and Annen­berg Media.

The pro­gram fea­tures 13 half-hour videos, which move from The Epic of Gil­gamesh (cir­ca 2500 BCE) through Gar­cía Márquez’s One Hun­dred Years of Soli­tude (1967). And, col­lec­tive­ly, these videos high­light over 100+ writ­ers, schol­ars, artists, and per­form­ers with a per­son­al con­nec­tion to world lit­er­a­ture. Philip Glass, Francine Prose, Harold Ramis, Robert Thur­man, Kwame Antho­ny Appi­ah — they all make an appear­ance.

Each video is accom­pa­nied by read­ings and relat­ed mate­ri­als. You can get start­ed with Invi­ta­tion to World Lit­er­a­ture here, or find a trail­er intro­duc­ing the series here.

This course will be added to our list of Free Online Lit­er­a­ture Cours­es, a sub­set of our col­lec­tion 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Free Lit­er­a­ture Cours­es from Great Uni­ver­si­ties

Learn Lan­guages for Free

Homer’s Ili­ad and Odyssey: Free Trans­la­tions by Lit­er­ary Greats

The Sounds of Ancient Mesopotamia

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Short Film: “Nuit Blanche” Mixes Romance with Matrix-Style Visuals

in Film | May 10th, 2011

If you’ve ever had doubts about the impact of videogame aes­thet­ics on con­tem­po­rary cin­e­ma — not just action movies, but video and inde­pen­dent film as well — this roman­tic short from Spy Films might well dis­pel them. The plot is basic: A man and a woman lock eyes in the street, and dream of what might have been, while sweet notes fill the air. But direc­tor and cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er Arev Manoukian updates the famil­iar sto­ry with a com­pelling visu­al style which seems inspired by equal parts Matrix tril­o­gy and PlaySta­tion 3. For more infor­ma­tion about the spe­cial effects, there’s a “mak­ing of” video for your view­ing.

Francophones/francophiles of more lud­dite ten­den­cies might find them­selves imme­di­ate­ly rush­ing to play Georges Brassens’ ode to ephemer­al street romance, “Les Pas­santes.” We strong­ly encour­age you to do so, prefer­ably at sun­set, while sip­ping a hot cup of long­ing-infused tea.

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

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William F. Buckley Explains How He Flogged Himself to Get Through Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged

in Books, Video - Politics/Society | May 10th, 2011

Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged sold an esti­mat­ed 25 mil­lion copies between its pub­li­ca­tion in 1957 and 2007. Ear­ly on, the book inspired a young gen­er­a­tion of busi­ness lead­ers, and now, decades lat­er, it holds appeal for a new class of con­ser­v­a­tives. But it was­n’t always that way. Back in the 1950s, William F. Buck­ley, the enfant ter­ri­ble of the con­ser­v­a­tive move­ment, launched the Nation­al Review and pub­lished a review by Whit­tak­er Cham­bers — the Sovi­et spy who famous­ly turned against Com­mu­nism (and Alger Hiss), all while build­ing a remark­able career at TIME Mag­a­zine. About Atlas Shrugged, Cham­bers wrote: ”I find it a remark­ably sil­ly book. It is cer­tain­ly a bump­tious one. Its sto­ry is pre­pos­ter­ous.” And, what’s more, he adds: “Out of a life­time of read­ing, I can recall no oth­er book in which a tone of over­rid­ing arro­gance was so implaca­bly sus­tained. Its shrill­ness is with­out reprieve. Its dog­ma­tism is with­out appeal.”

Rand nev­er for­gave Buck­ley for the review. Per­sona non gra­ta, he was. Years lat­er, in 2003, Buck­ley revis­it­ed the whole affair with Char­lie Rose and made known his per­son­al feel­ings for Rand’s book. “I had to flog myself to read it…”

Note: You can down­load Atlas Shrugged as a free audio­book if you sign up for a free 30-Day Tri­al with Audible.com. Find more infor­ma­tion on that pro­gram here.

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:

Mike Wal­lace Inter­views Ayn Rand (1959)

William F. Buck­ley v. Gore Vidal (1968)

Ayn Rand Talks Athe­ism with Phil Don­ahue

Wealthy Donors Pay­ing Uni­ver­si­ties to Teach Rand

via Roger Ebert

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The Existential Star Wars: Sartre Meets Darth Vader

in Film, Philosophy | May 10th, 2011

A few weeks ago we direct­ed you to a won­der­ful three-part BBC doc­u­men­tary about mod­ern phi­los­o­phy called Human, All Too Human, adding that we con­sid­ered the chap­ter on Jean-Paul Sartre the most sat­is­fy­ing of the three.

Now we give you a light-heart­ed chas­er for that doc­u­men­tary’s strong spir­its: The French philoso­pher’s teach­ings as inter­pret­ed by the sci­ence fic­tion over­lord Darth Vad­er. Per­haps more than any oth­er 20th cen­tu­ry supervil­lain, the dis­graced Jedi knight trag­i­cal­ly and per­fect­ly embod­ies the Sar­tri­an notion that “Free­dom is what you do with what has been done to you.”

For those who might con­sid­er the Jok­er a bet­ter can­di­date, we humbly sub­mit that with the Jok­er, it’s more of a Niet­zschean thing.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Down­load 90 Free Phi­los­o­phy Cours­es and Start Liv­ing the Exam­ined Life

The Phi­los­o­phy of Kierkegaard, the First Exis­ten­tial­ist Philoso­pher, Revis­it­ed in 1984 Doc­u­men­tary

Wal­ter Kaufmann’s Lec­tures on Niet­zsche, Kierkegaard and Sartre (1960)

via Roger Ebert’s Jour­nal

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly

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