John Belushi’s Improvised Screen Test for Saturday Night Live (1975)

in Comedy, Television | March 13th, 2012

In this rare footage from 1975, a 26-year-old John Belushi warms up with some eye­brow cal­is­then­ics before doing his sig­na­ture Mar­lon Bran­do impres­sion in a screen test for a new late-night tele­vi­sion pro­gram called Sat­ur­day Night Live. He got the part, of course, and his star rose rapid­ly along with the show’s. By 1978 Belushi could boast of hav­ing the num­ber one late-night tele­vi­sion show (SNL), the num­ber one movie (Ani­mal House) and the num­ber one musi­cal album (The Blues Broth­ers’ Brief­case Full of Blues). But sad­ly it all came crash­ing down 30 years ago this month–on March 5 1982–when he died of a drug over­dose. In this clip we remem­ber the young Belushi: cocky, tal­ent­ed, with a bril­liant future ahead of him.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Father Gui­do Sar­duc­ci Pitch­es “The Five Minute Uni­ver­si­ty”

William S. Bur­roughs on Sat­ur­day Night Live, 1981

The Stunt That Got Elvis Costel­lo Banned From Sat­ur­day Night Live

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Leonard Bernstein’s Masterful Lectures on Music (11+ Hours of Video Recorded at Harvard in 1973)

in Harvard, Music | March 13th, 2012

In 1972, the com­pos­er Leonard Bern­stein returned to Har­vard, his alma mater, to serve as the Charles Eliot Nor­ton Pro­fes­sor of Poet­ry, with “Poet­ry” being defined in the broad­est sense. The posi­tion, first cre­at­ed in 1925, asks fac­ul­ty mem­bers to live on cam­pus, advise stu­dents, and most impor­tant­ly, deliv­er a series of six pub­lic lec­tures. T.S. Eliot, Aaron Cop­land, W.H. Auden, e.e. cum­mings, Robert Frost, Jorge Luis Borges — they all pre­vi­ous­ly took part in this tra­di­tion. And Bern­stein did too.

Deliv­ered in the fall of 1973 and col­lec­tive­ly titled “The Unan­swered Ques­tion,” Bern­stein’s lec­tures cov­ered a lot of ter­rain, touch­ing on poet­ry, lin­guis­tics, phi­los­o­phy and physics. But the focus inevitably comes back to music — to how music works, or to the under­ly­ing gram­mar of music. The lec­tures run over 11 hours. They’re con­sid­ered mas­ter­pieces, beau­ti­ful exam­ples of how to make com­pli­cat­ed mate­r­i­al acces­si­ble. And they’re avail­able in full on YouTube. You can watch the first lec­ture (on Musi­cal Phonol­o­gy) above, and find the remain­ing five lec­tures below. The lec­tures can also be pur­chased as DVDs or in book for­mat.

Lec­ture 2: Musi­cal Syn­tax

Lec­ture 3: Musi­cal Seman­tics

Lec­ture 4: The Delights & Dan­gers of Ambi­gu­i­ty

Lec­ture 5: The 20th Cen­tu­ry Cri­sis

Lec­ture 6: The Poet­ry of Earth

This lec­ture series has been added to our exten­sive col­lec­tion, 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties.

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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Rome Reborn — An Amazing Digital Model of Ancient Rome

in History | March 12th, 2012

What did ancient Rome look like in A.D. 320? Rome Reborn is an inter­na­tion­al ini­tia­tive to answer this ques­tion and cre­ate a 3D dig­i­tal mod­el of the Eter­nal City at a time when Rome’s pop­u­la­tion had reached its peak (about one mil­lion) and the first Chris­t­ian church­es were being built. The result is a tru­ly stun­ning bird’s-eye and ground view of ancient Rome that makes you feel as if you were actu­al­ly there. There are also some high-res­o­lu­tion images that lend them­selves per­fect­ly to being used as wall­pa­per for your com­put­er. HT @amishare

Relat­ed Con­tent:

How the Egypt­ian Pyra­mids Were Built: A New The­o­ry in 3D Ani­ma­tion

Build­ing The Colos­se­um: The Icon of Rome

Vis­it Pom­peii (also Stone­henge & Ver­sailles) with Google Street View

By pro­fes­sion, Matthias Rasch­er teach­es Eng­lish and His­to­ry at a High School in north­ern Bavaria, Ger­many. In his free time he scours the web for good links and posts the best finds on Twit­ter.

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In Search of Mœbius: A Documentary Introduction to the Inscrutable Imagination of the Late Comic Artist Mœbius

in Art, Film | March 12th, 2012

“I’ll die in some tru­ly banal man­ner, the way I live,” says the sub­ject of BBC Four’s In Search of Mœbius. I don’t know what would con­sti­tute a non-banal man­ner of death — or, for that mat­ter, a banal one — but nobody famil­iar with mod­ern com­ic art could believe that Jean Giraud, also known as Mœbius, could pos­si­bly have lived a banal life. If you haven’t read a com­ic since your child­hood Sun­day fun­nies, you need only watch this pro­gram to under­stand why the artist’s pass­ing on Sat­ur­day brought forth so many breath­less trib­utes. You’ll also catch a glimpse of the vast pos­si­bil­i­ties offered by com­ic art as a form. The inscrutable work­ings of Mœbius’ pecu­liar imag­i­na­tion drove him far into this ter­ri­to­ry, and many cre­ators (in comics and else­where) still strug­gle to fol­low him.

Aside from Mœbius him­self, the pro­gram inter­views the coterie from his ear­ly years in France at Métal Hurlant, the mag­a­zine that would open the space for his dis­tinc­tive­ly sub­con­scious-fueled, near-psy­che­del­ic yet rich­ly tex­tur­al sci­ence-fic­tion sen­si­bil­i­ty. It goes on to talk with well-known admir­ers who, feel­ing the res­o­nance of those par­tic­u­lar (and par­tic­u­lar­ly dif­fi­cult to describe) qual­i­ties of Mœbius’ vision that cross so many nation­al and artis­tic bound­aries, found ways to work with him.

These high-pro­file col­lab­o­ra­tors range from Mar­vel Comics founder Stan Lee, who enlist­ed Mœbius to take Sil­ver Surfer in new aes­thet­ic and intel­lec­tu­al direc­tions, to screen­writer Dan O’Bannon, bio­me­chan­i­cal sur­re­al­ist H.R. Giger, and filmmaker/mystic Ale­jan­dro Jodor­owsky, who worked with him on an unre­al­ized (but still tan­ta­liz­ing) film adap­ta­tion of Dune.

In Search of Mœbius also explores the real land­scapes that must have worked their way into Mœbius’ imag­i­na­tion, con­tribut­ing to the strik­ing­ly unre­al land­scapes that worked their way out of it. We see the deserts of Mex­i­co, traces of which appear in his West­ern series Blue­ber­ry, where he vis­it­ed his moth­er in the 1950s. We see the Los Ange­les he con­sid­ered “real­ly an amaz­ing city,” where his work on Sil­ver Surfer took him. We even see him in his native land, stand­ing before the harsh­ly icon­ic Bib­lio­thèque nationale de France. Mœbius may be gone, but the world inside his head remains for­ev­er open for us on the page to explore. H/T @EscapeIntoLife

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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Michio Kaku: We’re Born Scientists But Switch to Investment Banking (and More Culture Around the Web)

in Physics | March 12th, 2012

Physics of the Future: How Sci­ence Will Shape Human Des­tiny and Our Dai­ly Lives by the Year 2100 — That’s the new book by the­o­ret­i­cal physi­cist, best-sell­ing author, and unabashed pop­u­lar­iz­er of sci­ence Michio Kaku. And, here’s one pre­dic­tion he makes. The U.S. won’t play as promi­nent a role in sci­ence dur­ing the years ahead. The rea­son why he explains in The Wall Street Jour­nal.

Fifty per­cent of Ph.D. physi­cists are for­eign-born, and they’re here com­pli­ments of the H1‑B visa. There’s a brain drain into the Unit­ed States; that’s why we’re still No. 1. But it can’t last for­ev­er.

And indeed while Chi­na and India start to lure their best tal­ent home, the best Amer­i­can stu­dents are leav­ing the hard sci­ences for lucra­tive careers, such as invest­ment bank­ing. Kaku goes on to say:

I have noth­ing against invest­ment bank­ing, but it’s like mas­sag­ing mon­ey rather than cre­at­ing mon­ey. If you’re in physics, you cre­ate inven­tions, you cre­ate lasers, you cre­ate tran­sis­tors, com­put­ers, GPS. [If you’re an invest­ment banker, on the oth­er hand] you don’t cre­ate any­thing new. You sim­ply mas­sage oth­er peo­ple’s mon­ey and take a cut.

More Cul­ture Around the Web:

Paul Gra­ham’s Ambi­tious Star­tups Ideas: #3 Replace Uni­ver­si­ties

World’s Old­est Charles Dick­ens Film Dis­cov­ered

How To Be Cre­ative. Jon­ah Lehrer on Why Any­one Can Inno­vate

Josef Skvorecky on the Nazis’ Con­trol-Freak Hatred of Jazz

Author Neil Gaiman Talks about His Trust­ed Foun­tain Pens

Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Sen­ate Tes­ti­mo­ny from this Week on the Past, Present, & Future of NASA

Beat poet Allen Gins­berg Inter­viewed by Con­ser­v­a­tive Colum­nist John Lofton, 1990

Intro­duc­ing The Curator’s Code: A Stan­dard for Hon­or­ing Attri­bu­tion of Dis­cov­ery Across the Web

The Day the World Took Off. Cam­bridge Doc­u­men­tary on the Ori­gins of the Indus­tri­al Rev­o­lu­tion

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Nabokov Reads Lolita, and Names the Greatest Books of the 20th Century

in Books, Literature | March 10th, 2012

If you heard our inter­view on The John Batch­e­lor Show tonight (catch it at the 29:50 mark), and if you want to check out the mar­velous clip of Vladimir Nabokov read­ing Loli­ta, here it is. Don’t for­get to find us on Twit­ter and Face­book:

Orig­i­nal­ly aired on 1950s French tele­vi­sion, this clip gives you some vin­tage Vladimir Nabokov. Ear­ly on, the Russ­ian nov­el­ist reads the won­der­ful­ly poet­ic first lines of Loli­ta:

Loli­ta, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue tak­ing a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.

Then we get down to real busi­ness. Putting on his lit­er­ary crit­ic cap, Nabokov tells us what 20th nov­els make real or pre­tend claims to great­ness. First the fak­ers:

I’ve been per­plexed and amused by fab­ri­cat­ed notions about so-called “great books.” That, for instance, Mann’s asi­nine Death in Venice, or Pasternak’s melo­dra­mat­ic, vile­ly writ­ten Doc­tor Zhiva­go, or Faulkner’s corn­cob­by chron­i­cles can be con­sid­ered mas­ter­pieces, or at least what jour­nal­ists term “great books,” is to me the same sort of absurd delu­sion as when a hyp­no­tized per­son makes love to a chair.

And then the true greats in order of per­son­al pref­er­ence:

1) James Joyce’s Ulysses

2) Kafka’s The Meta­mor­pho­sis

3) Andrei Bely’s St. Peters­burg

4) The first half of Proust’s fairy tale, In Search of Lost Time

We’re adding this video to our Cul­tur­al Icons col­lec­tion, which fea­tures great writ­ers, artists and thinkers speak­ing in their own words. And if we have piqued your inter­est, don’t miss these oth­er Nabokov gems:

Nabokov Tweaks Kafka’s “The Meta­mor­pho­sis”

Vladimir Nabokov Mar­vels Over Dif­fer­ent “Loli­ta” Book Cov­ers

Vladimir Nabokov on Loli­ta: Just Anoth­er Great Love Sto­ry?

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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How Bertrand Russell Turned The Beatles Against the Vietnam War

in History, Music, Philosophy | March 10th, 2012

The Bea­t­les were so much a part of the youth move­ment that blos­somed in the 1960s that it’s amus­ing to think that one of the main issues that ener­gized the movement–peace–came to the Bea­t­les through a 92-year-old man.

As Paul McCart­ney explains in this clip from a Jan­u­ary 14, 2009 inter­view on The View, it hap­pened when he decid­ed to pay a vis­it to philoso­pher Bertrand Rus­sell. A co-founder of ana­lyt­ic phi­los­o­phy, Rus­sell had been a life-long social and polit­i­cal activist. Dur­ing World War I, he was not allowed to trav­el freely in Britain due to his anti-war views. He lost his fel­low­ship at Trin­i­ty Col­lege, Cam­bridge, and was even­tu­al­ly jailed for six months for sup­pos­ed­ly inter­fer­ing with British For­eign Pol­i­cy. After World War II, Rus­sell lob­bied stren­u­ous­ly for the abo­li­tion of nuclear weapons. In the 1960s, he opposed the Viet­nam War.

After the Bea­t­les became big in 1963 and 1964, McCart­ney began tak­ing advan­tage of his celebri­ty sta­tus by call­ing on peo­ple he admired. In an inter­view with Bar­ry Miles for the book Paul McCart­ney: Many Years From Now, McCart­ney describes his meet­ing with Rus­sell:

Some­how I got his num­ber and called him up. I fig­ured him as a good speak­er, I’d seen him on tele­vi­sion, I’d read var­i­ous bits and pieces and was very impressed by his dig­ni­ty and the clar­i­ty of this think­ing, so when I got a chance I went down and met him. Bertrand Rus­sell lived in Chelsea in one of those lit­tle ter­race hous­es, I think it was Flood Street. He had the arche­typ­al Amer­i­can assis­tant who seemed always to be at every­one’s door that you want­ed to meet. I sat round wait­ing, then went in and had a great lit­tle talk with him. Noth­ing earth-shat­ter­ing. He just clued me in to the fact that Viet­nam was a very bad war, it was an impe­ri­al­ist war and Amer­i­can vest­ed inter­ests were real­ly all it was all about. It was a bad war and we should be against it. That was all. It was pret­ty good from the mouth of the great philoso­pher. “Slip it to me, Bert.”

McCart­ney report­ed his expe­ri­ence to the oth­er mem­bers of the Bea­t­les, and it was John Lennon who real­ly took the anti-war mes­sage and ran with it. For a reminder of those days, watch the video below of Lennon and Yoko Ono at their “Bed-In” for peace in 1969:

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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Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Live at the Apollo

in Music | March 10th, 2012

Last night, Bruce Spring­steen and the E Street Band played the Apol­lo The­ater in Harlem. The “pow­er­house two-and-a-half hour per­for­mance,” as The New York Times called it, aired on the closed air­waves of Sir­iusXM, the satel­lite radio net­work that spon­sored the con­cert. And the show was attend­ed by com­pa­ny VIPs. Mer­ci­ful­ly, Colum­bia Records was kind enough to give us mor­tals a lit­tle sniff, post­ing online Spring­steen’s per­for­mance of “Death To My Home­town,” a new track that rails against bankers and cor­po­rate lead­ers and the dam­age they’ve done to Amer­i­can com­mu­ni­ties. The Boss’ new album, Wreck­ing Ball, is on sale now. H/T @webacion

Fol­low us on Face­book, Twit­ter and now Google Plus and share intel­li­gent media with your friends! They’ll thank you for it.

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