Daniel Dennett (a la Jeff Foxworthy) Does the Routine, “You Might be an Atheist If…”

in Philosophy, Religion | May 28th, 2012

The Amer­i­can come­di­an Jeff Fox­wor­thy has a well known com­e­dy rou­tine called “You Might be a Red­neck If,” where he lists the self-mock­ing pos­si­bil­i­ties that answer the ques­tion. For exam­ple: You Might be a Red­neck If …

  1. Your wife has ever said, “Come move this trans­mis­sion so I can take a bath.”
  2. You own a home­made fur coat.
  3. You think a sub­di­vi­sion is part of a math prob­lem.
  4. You’ve ever financed a tat­too.
  5. You have ever used lard in bed.

The philoso­pher and cog­ni­tive sci­en­tist Daniel Den­nett picked up on this schtick when speak­ing at the Glob­al Athe­ist Con­ven­tion in Mel­bourne, Aus­tralia. And he asked a series of ques­tions meant to show that peo­ple might be a lit­tle less reli­gious, or a bit more athe­ist, than they might care to admit. So here it goes: You Might be an Athe­ist If…

  1. You don’t believe that Jesus is lit­er­al­ly the son of God.
  2. You don’t believe God actu­al­ly lis­tens to each and every­one’s prayers.
  3. You don’t think God picks sides when coun­tries go to war (or when foot­ball teams play each oth­er).
  4. Or, to put things dif­fer­ent­ly, If you believe God isn’t a per­son­al God, but rather is a benign force, a con­cept that enrich­es peo­ple’s lives.

You get the gist. By the time you’re done with the 45 minute talk, you’ll know whether you’re indeed a the­ist, or per­haps an athe­ist after all. It’s a real­i­ty check either way.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 12 ) |

Vladimir Nabokov–Channelled by Christopher Plummer (RIP)–Teaches Kafka at Cornell

in Literature | May 28th, 2012

“From my point of view,” writes Vladimir Nabokov in Lec­tures on Lit­er­a­ture, “any out­stand­ing work of art is a fan­ta­sy inso­far as it reflects the unique world of a unique indi­vid­ual.” He also says it in the video above, a lec­ture on Franz Kafka’s The Meta­mor­pho­sis orig­i­nal­ly aired by WQED in Pitts­burgh. (Find Kafka’s clas­sic work in our col­lec­tion of Free eBooks and Free Audio Books.) But he does­n’t say it him­self; he says it through Christo­pher Plum­mer, who por­trays Nabokov teach­ing in a 1989 re-cre­ation of late-1940s Cor­nell Uni­ver­si­ty. Lit­er­ar­i­ly inclined stu­dents of the era (includ­ing Unit­ed States Supreme Court Jus­tice Ruth Bad­er Gins­burg) must have expe­ri­enced a sim­i­lar intro­duc­tion to Kaf­ka in Nabokov’s class­es, per­haps down to his sketch of poor Gre­gor Sam­sa’s bee­tle form. But this pro­duc­tion adds the the­atri­cal touch, sure­ly not a fea­ture of Cor­nel­l’s lec­ture halls in those days, of spot­light­ing Plum­mer-as-Nabokov and dark­en­ing every­thing else when­ev­er he reads from the sto­ry.

Plum­mer him­self says a few words about Nabokov at the begin­ning of the video, and he assumes the Russ­ian nov­el­ist’s per­sona at about 1:38. Does Plum­mer nail Nabokov’s dis­tinc­tive­ly multi­na­tion­al accent? Does Nabokov’s obser­va­tion that Gre­gor Sam­sa nev­er uses his wings mean any­thing of impor­tance?

Will we ever enter anoth­er era when pub­lic tele­vi­sion res­ur­rects cul­tur­al lumi­nar­ies to give lec­tures by way of our time’s most respect­ed thes­pi­ans? This half-hour pro­gram gives us many such ques­tions to pon­der, and even if we can’t answer them, those of us who failed to draw inspi­ra­tion from the Robin Williams of Dead Poets Soci­ety will sure­ly find, in Plum­mer’s majes­tic eccen­tric­i­ty, a briefer but more mem­o­rable teacher­ly per­for­mance.

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!

Relat­ed con­tent:

Nabokov Reads Loli­ta, Names the Great Books of the 20th Cen­tu­ry

Nabokov Makes Edi­to­r­i­al Improve­ments to Kafka’s The Meta­mor­pho­sis

Franz Kafka’s It’s a Won­der­ful Life

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

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 2 ) |

Andy Samberg Announces Death of Liberal Arts, Coolness of Science Majors at Harvard Class Day

in Comedy, Graduation Speech, Harvard | May 27th, 2012

Every time Har­vard Class Day rolls around, you can expect a few good laughs from a come­di­an. In years past, Sacha Baron Cohen (a Cam­bridge grad), appear­ing as Ali G, offered some words of non­sen­si­cal wis­dom to Har­vard grads. Amy Poehler and Will Fer­rell have done the same. This year brings Andy Sam­berg, a Sat­ur­day Night Live cast mem­ber and co-star in var­i­ous com­ic films. The high­lights?

  • 4:29 mark: Announces that His­to­ry, Lit­er­a­ture, any­thing relat­ed to Art, and any­thing that ends with “Stud­ies,” are offi­cial­ly use­less.
  • 5:12 mark: Declares that Math and Sci­ence majors are cool .… final­ly.
  • 9:13 mark: Reads poem by WB Yeats in his own, nov­el way.
  • 10:20 mark: Impres­sions begin.
  • 14:07: Awk­ward­ly comes on to all the moth­ers in the crowd.
  • 15:04: Awk­ward­ly comes on to all the fathers in the crowd.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

‘This Is Water’: Com­plete Audio of David Fos­ter Wallace’s Keny­on Grad­u­a­tion Speech (2005)

Conan O’Brien Kills It at Dart­mouth Grad­u­a­tion

J.K. Rowl­ing Tells Har­vard Grads Why Suc­cess Begins with Fail­ure

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

Bill Murray Stars in Playful, Slo-Mo, Mock Trailer (and More Culture from Around the Web)

in Film | May 26th, 2012

As Wes Ander­son­’s new film with Bill Mur­ray hits the­aters this week­end, a fun video star­ring the actor has sur­faced on the web. Here’s the quick back­sto­ry. Last year, a crew work­ing on a com­mer­cial shoot with Bill Mur­ray got some­thing bet­ter than an auto­graph. They got to appear in a slow-motion scene with him, all set to music by The Kinks. The Wes Ander­son-style shoot was then turned into a short “trail­er” for a faux film, Les cinéastes, and it’s now online for your enjoy­ment. via @protoncharging

Now dis­cov­er more cul­ture from Around the Web (all links orig­i­nal­ly appeared on our Twit­ter Stream): 

Home Record­ing of 5‑Year-Old Sofia Cop­po­la Being Inter­viewed by Her Father

Bob Dylan, the Beat Gen­er­a­tion, and Allen Gins­berg’s Amer­i­ca. Essay by Sean Wilentz in The New York­er

John Waters Tries Some Des­per­ate Liv­ing on a Cross-Coun­try Hitch­hik­ing Odyssey

Gertrude Stein’s Posthu­mous Alpha­bet Book. Writ­ten in 1939, Final­ly Pub­lished with Illus­tra­tions in 2011

Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty’s Lec­ture Series on Great Writ­ers and Why They Inspire (iTunes)

Young Girl Writes Ein­stein  and Asks, “Do Sci­en­tists Pray?” And He Replies (1936)

Entre­pre­neur Tells Techies to Get a PhD in the Human­i­ties

Frank Zap­pa Lec­tures at Syra­cuse Uni­ver­si­ty, 1975

David Fos­ter Wal­lace Reads “Con­sid­er the Lob­ster” (Added to our list of Free Audio Books)

Video: Woody Allen Reads “Not A Crea­ture Was Stir­ring”

Inten­sive Intro­duc­tion to Com­put­er Sci­ence from Har­vard (Added to our Free Online Course Col­lec­tion)

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Celebrate the 75th Anniversary of the Golden Gate Bridge with a Free iPad App

in History, iPad | May 26th, 2012

When it opened to vehi­cle traf­fic in May, 1937 the Gold­en Gate Bridge was the longest sus­pen­sion bridge in the world. Since then eight bridges have sur­passed it in length, but the icon­ic inter­na­tion­al orange span is still the most pho­tographed bridge in the world. This month marks the Gold­en Gate’s 75th anniver­sary and the Cal­i­for­nia His­tor­i­cal Society’s exhib­it, A Wild Flight of the Imag­i­na­tion, cel­e­brates the event with a look at the bridge’s con­struc­tion. The exhib­it has also been made avail­able as a free eBook for the iPad, which includes his­toric pho­tographs by Ansel Adams and Dorothea Lange as well as a short film of bridge design­er Joseph Strauss speak­ing to a reporter dur­ing the bridge’s con­struc­tion. At the time, experts said that the Gold­en Gate strait’s fero­cious winds and strong, swirling cur­rents would make con­struc­tion impos­si­ble. But the design intro­duced deflec­tion the­o­ry, which uti­lizes a thin, flex­i­ble road­way and long cables that reduce struc­tur­al stress.

The inter­ac­tive app is accom­pa­nied by a musi­cal score—the open­ing selec­tion from com­pos­er Rob Kapilow’s Chrysopy­lae, Greek for “Gold­en Gate.” Ear­ly users of the eBook report­ed glitch­es with the app’s audio. The cul­prit may have been the side mute switch, which must be flipped off for the audio to work. Also, make sure your iPad’s vol­ume is up. Like the exhib­it in the society’s San Fran­cis­co muse­um, the app includes access to images of some 350 objects and ephemera relat­ed to the span’s con­struc­tion. Almost as nice as a walk across the bridge’s 1.7 miles, and not near­ly as windy.

Kate Rix writes about k‑12 instruc­tion and high­er ed. 

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

How David Byrne and Brian Eno Make Music Together: A Short Documentary

in Music | May 25th, 2012

On Mon­day, we post­ed the Artist Series, short pro­files of var­i­ous aes­thet­i­cal­ly-ori­ent­ed cre­ators by the late Hill­man Cur­tis. Today, please enjoy what feels like the jew­el in the Artist Series’ crown, despite not offi­cial­ly being part of it: Cur­tis’ pro­mo­tion­al doc­u­men­tary on Bri­an Eno and David Byrne and their col­lab­o­ra­tion on 2008’s Every­thing That Hap­pens Hap­pen Will Hap­pen Today.

Cur­tis inter­views Eno and Byrne in their sep­a­rate work­spaces, cap­tures their con­ver­sa­tions about parts of their songs, and even — pre­sum­ably in keep­ing with the album’s do-it-your­self pro­mo­tion­al spir­it — lets them pho­to­graph one anoth­er. He also shows them doing what they do best when not cre­at­ing: cycling, of course, in Byrne’s case, and look­ing pen­sive­ly through win­dows in Eno’s.

In none of these nine min­utes do Byrne or Eno per­form any­thing. Cur­tis does­n’t need them to; he taps instead into the com­bi­na­tion of artic­u­la­cy, clar­i­ty, and idio­syn­crasy that has earned them near­ly forty years of sta­tus as cere­bral pop­u­lar music icons. Just as the ear­ly eight­ies’ nascent sam­pling tech­nol­o­gy gave Byrne and Eno a new frame­work with which to think about music when they record­ed My Life in the Bush of Ghosts togeth­er, the abil­i­ty to send sounds over the inter­net and exten­sive­ly mod­i­fy absolute­ly any record­ing after the fact shaped the con­struc­tion of Every­thing That Hap­pens Will Hap­pen Today.

The result­ing pro­duc­tion legit­i­mate­ly earns the crit­i­cal­ly abused adjec­tive “dream­like” — have a lis­ten to the track “I Feel My Stuff” above — and the feel of Cur­tis’ video aligns with the feel of the album, using unblink­ing gazes and drift­ing track­ing shots that would­n’t feel out of place in an Apichat­pong Weerasethakul film. If you still want to see these guys actu­al­ly play some­thing, watch Ride, Rise, Roar (trail­er here, clip below), Cur­tis’ con­cert film of the Songs of David Byrne and Bri­an Eno Tour.

Relat­ed con­tent

Bri­an Eno on Cre­at­ing Music and Art As Imag­i­nary Land­scapes (1989)

David Byrne: From Talk­ing Heads Front­man to Lead­ing Urban Cyclist

Sketch­es of Artists by the Late New Media Design­er Hill­man Cur­tis

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

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 2 ) |

ZeroN: An Amazing, Gravity-Defying New Interactive Technology at M.I.T.

in MIT, Technology | May 25th, 2012

In Stephen Spiel­berg’s film E.T. The Extra-Ter­res­tri­al there is a mem­o­rable scene in which a group of chil­dren ask a strand­ed vis­i­tor from out­er space where he is from, and he tries to com­mu­ni­cate by using an unseen force to lift a group of balls into mid-air and move them around to sim­u­late a solar sys­tem. Now a researcher at the Mass­a­chu­setts Insti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy has tapped into the physics of mag­net­ic lev­i­ta­tion to cre­ate some­thing sim­i­lar: a com­put­er-con­trolled sys­tem that allows users to manip­u­late a met­al sphere float­ing in space.

“I think there is some­thing fun­da­men­tal behind moti­va­tions to lib­er­ate phys­i­cal mat­ter from grav­i­ty and enable con­trol,” writes Jin­ha Lee on his Web site. “The moti­va­tion has exist­ed as a shared dream amongst humans for mil­len­nia. It is an idea found in mytholo­gies, desired by alchemists, and visu­al­ized in Sci­ence Fic­tion movies. I have aspired to cre­ate a space where we can expe­ri­ence a glimpse of this future.”

Lee’s device is part of the M.I.T. Tan­gi­ble Media Group’s larg­er project of giv­ing phys­i­cal form to dig­i­tal infor­ma­tion. The group strives to bring togeth­er the sep­a­rate worlds of bits and atoms in a Tan­gi­ble User Inter­face, or TUI, to allow peo­ple to use their nat­u­ral­ly evolved phys­i­cal dex­ter­i­ty to visu­al­ize and manip­u­late com­pu­ta­tion. To help achieve this, Lee devel­oped a pro­gram­ma­ble inter­face ele­ment he calls “ZeroN.” He describes it in the abstract of a paper pub­lished last Octo­ber with col­lab­o­ra­tors Reh­mi Post and Hiroshi Ishii:

ZeroN serves as a tan­gi­ble rep­re­sen­ta­tion of a 3D coor­di­nate of the vir­tu­al world through which users can see, feel, and con­trol com­pu­ta­tion. To acom­plish this we devel­oped a mag­net­ic con­trol sys­tem that can lev­i­tate and actu­ate a per­ma­nent mag­net in a pre-defined 3D vol­ume. This is com­bined with an opti­cal track­ing and dis­play sys­tem that projects images on the lev­i­tat­ing object. We present appli­ca­tions that explore this new inter­ac­tion modal­i­ty. Users are invit­ed to place or move the ZeroN object just as they can place objects on sur­faces. For exam­ple, users can place the sun above phys­i­cal objects to cast dig­i­tal shad­ows, or place a plan­et that will start revolv­ing based on sim­u­lat­ed phys­i­cal con­di­tions.

You can access the com­plete paper as a PDF. And you can find sim­i­lar videos when you explore our Tech­nol­o­gy sec­tion.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

David Rees and His One-Man Artisanal Pencil Sharpening Service

in Comedy | May 25th, 2012

This is for any­one with a love of old school wood­work­ing — luthiers, ébénistes and the rest. In 2009, the humorist David Rees gave up car­toon­ing and opened up his one-man arti­sanal pen­cil sharp­en­ing ser­vice in Bea­con, New York, an old fac­to­ry town along the Hud­son Riv­er. Just a man, some high qual­i­ty cedar, a knife, and an occa­sion­al pen­cil sharp­er revive a bygone era and a dis­ap­pear­ing instru­ment of com­mu­ni­ca­tion. 400 pen­cils lat­er, at $15 a pop, Rees has some­thing good going. You can learn more about Rees and his crafts­man­ship by read­ing (seri­ous­ly) his new book, How to Sharp­en Pen­cils, with a for­ward by John Hodg­man.

Note: Rees uses some NSFW lan­guage dur­ing the video.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 7 ) |

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