Argument to Beethoven’s 5th

in Comedy, Music | August 20th, 2009

A lit­tle piece of clas­sic Amer­i­cana TV. We take you back to the 1950s and Sid Cae­sar’s com­ic work. It’s hard to imag­ine some­one work­ing Beethoven’s 5th into com­ic mate­r­i­al, but Cae­sar did it. In the mean­time, if you want some­thing a lit­tle more seri­ous, I give you this rare footage of Her­bert von Kara­jan con­duct­ing the same sym­pho­ny in 1966. An old gem. Last­ly, get lots of free clas­si­cal music from our Music Pod­cast Col­lec­tion.

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Al Franken Effortlessly Draws the Map of America

in Comedy, Current Affairs | July 2nd, 2009

Al Franken, the for­mer SNL come­di­an, the Har­vard grad­u­ate, and now US Sen­a­tor, has a spe­cial tal­ent. He can draw the map of Amer­i­ca, state-by-state, while chat­ting up a crowd. Almost makes me feel the 4th of July spir­it…

Thanks for Eric for this one.

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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Oliver Sacks Talks Music with Jon Stewart

in Comedy | June 30th, 2009


The Dai­ly Show With Jon Stew­art Mon — Thurs 11p / 10c
Oliv­er Sacks
www.thedailyshow.com
Dai­ly Show Full Episodes Polit­i­cal Humor & Satire Blog The Dai­ly Show on Face­book

This con­ver­sa­tion, both fun­ny and a lit­tle infor­ma­tive, is worth your time. This will hope­ful­ly whet your appetite, and give you good rea­son to watch Oliv­er Sack­’s new pro­gram on NOVA. It’s called Musi­cal Minds and you can watch it here start­ing on July 1.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Cen­tral Intel­li­gence: From Ants to the Web

If you have prob­lems watch­ing the clip above, you can find a link to the video here.

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Hodgman (and Obama) on Geeks, Jocks & Nerds

in Comedy | June 21st, 2009

All cred­it to Jason Kot­tke on this one. Per­fect for our read­ers. From the 2009 Radio and TV Cor­re­spon­dents’ Din­ner. Give it a lit­tle time. Here it goes:

Relat­ed Video:

John Hodgman@Google

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Curb Your Enthusiasm With Hair

in Comedy | June 19th, 2009

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Sedaris Reads “Solution to Saturday’s Puzzle”

in Audio Books, Comedy | June 14th, 2009

Not long ago, we fea­tured David Sedaris read­ing “Of Mice and Men,” a com­ic bit from his newish book, When You are Engulfed in Flames. Now, we give you anoth­er fun­ny (also live) read­ing from the same book. The sto­ry is called “Solu­tion to Sat­ur­day’s Puz­zle,” and you can get it as an mp3 here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

David Sedaris Deliv­ers a Piz­za (an Imper­son­ation)

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Colbert Goes to Iraq

in Comedy, Current Affairs | June 10th, 2009

In case you missed Col­bert’s trip to the war zone, here’s a fun­ny clip.

You can find the link to this video and more here.

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John Hodgman@Google

in Comedy, Google | May 31st, 2009

He appears in the well-known Mac v. PC com­mer­cials, on The Dai­ly Show and occa­sion­al­ly on This Amer­i­can Life. John Hodg­man is kind of every­where these days, and now, pro­mot­ing his new book, More Infor­ma­tion Than You Require, he hits the stage at Google and gives the crowd an off­beat hour talk.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The British Slant on the Mac v Pc Ads

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