First Meeting Between Papua New Guinea Tribesmen & Outside World

in Film, History | June 24th, 2011

Before click­ing on this extra­or­di­nary video — which shows a meet­ing of civ­i­liza­tions that may nev­er hap­pen again on our plan­et — be sure to turn the sound off and spare your­self the awful sound­track. The expres­sions on the faces of the Toulam­bi tribes­men are enough any­way, and even though his­to­ry tells us that these par­ties end bad­ly for the team with the fewest toys, you can’t help feel­ing a cer­tain amount of awe and joy while watch­ing the encounter.

This footage was shot in Papua New Guinea by Jean-Pierre Dutilleux, a Bel­gian film­mak­er and activist per­haps best known for his Acad­e­my Award-nom­i­nat­ed 1979 doc­u­men­tary Raoni: The Fight for the Ama­zon. You can vis­it Dutilleux’s web site to get more pho­tos and a lit­tle more back­sto­ry on the Toulam­bi. Have a good week­end…

via Metafil­ter

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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Vintage Australian Mugshots from the 1920s

in Art, History | June 21st, 2011

It was anoth­er time, anoth­er place, a moment when crim­i­nals were invit­ed to pose for the cam­era. The mugshot as an art form.

Above we have one of 2500 “spe­cial pho­tographs” tak­en by pho­tog­ra­phers from the New South Wales Police Depart­ment between 1910 and 1930. The four men (Hamp­ton Hirscham, Cor­nel­lius Joseph Keevil, William Thomas O’Brien and James O’Brien) were arrest­ed on charges of bur­glar­iz­ing the home of a book­ie — one Regi­nald Cat­ton — in April 1921. O’Brien was let off the hook, but the oth­er three dap­per ones weren’t so lucky.

You can find 30 vin­tage mugshots nice­ly curat­ed by Twist­ed Sifter. Or you can sift through a larg­er col­lec­tion housed by the Nation­al Library of Aus­tralia. H/T Coudal.com

Give us a fol­low on Face­book and Twit­ter. We’ll send more intel­li­gent media your way…

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230 Cultural Icons: A New Collection

in Film, History, Literature, Music, Philosophy, Psychology | June 13th, 2011


Time to roll out a new media col­lec­tion — a big col­lec­tion of Cul­tur­al Icons. Here you will find great writ­ers, daz­zling film­mak­ers and musi­cians, bril­liant philoso­phers and sci­en­tists — fig­ures who have changed our cul­tur­al land­scape through­out the years. You’ll see them in video, or hear their voic­es in audio.

The list cur­rent­ly fea­tures 230 icons, all speak­ing in their own words. The col­lec­tion will inevitably grow as we add more mate­r­i­al, or as you send sug­ges­tions our way. For now, how about we whet your appetite with 10 favorites? Then you can rum­mage through the full col­lec­tion of Cul­tur­al Icons here.

(Note: Down the road, you can access this col­lec­tion by click­ing “Cul­tur­al Icons” in the top nav­i­ga­tion bar.)

Sal­vador Dali - Video – Sur­re­al­ist artist appears on “What’s My Line?” (1952)

John­ny Depp - Video – The ver­sa­tile actor reads a let­ter from Gonzo jour­nal­ist Hunter S. Thomp­son.

Anne Frank - Video – It is the only known footage of Anne Frank, author of the world’s most famous diary, and it’s now online.

Pat­ti Smith — Video — The “god­moth­er of punk” recalls her friend­ship with artist Robert Map­plethor­pe.

Quentin Taran­ti­no - Video – Pulp Fic­tion direc­tor lists his favorites films since 1992.

Leo Tol­stoy – Video – Great footage of the last days of the tow­er­ing Russ­ian nov­el­ist. 1910.

Mark Twain – Video – America’s fabled writer cap­tured on film by Thomas Edi­son in 1909.

Andy Warhol - Video – In 1979, Warhol cre­at­ed pub­lic access tele­vi­sion pro­grams. In this episode, he chats with Bian­ca Jag­ger & Steven Spiel­berg.

Tom Waits - Video – The raspy singer reads “The Laugh­ing Heart” by Charles Bukows­ki.

Vir­ginia Woolf — Audio — Record­ing comes from a 1937 BBC radio broad­cast. The talk, enti­tled “Crafts­man­ship,” was part of a series called “Words Fail Me.” The only known record­ing of her voice.

Get the rest here. Don’t miss us on Face­book and Twit­ter!

 

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Free: European Cultural History in 91 Lectures by Eminent Historian George L. Mosse (1500–1920)

in History, Online Courses | June 2nd, 2011

Dur­ing the 1960s and 1970s, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wis­con­sin-Madi­son put togeth­er one of the finest his­to­ry pro­grams in the Unit­ed States, and it was anchored by George Mosse, a Ger­man-born cul­tur­al his­to­ri­an who authored 25 books cov­er­ing the Eng­lish Ref­or­ma­tion, Luther­an the­ol­o­gy, Jew­ish his­to­ry, and fas­cist ide­ol­o­gy. Though he died in 1999, Mosse still remains a leg­endary fig­ure in Madi­son, and now the uni­ver­si­ty (where I did my under­grad­u­ate work — in his­to­ry, no less) has dust­ed off record­ings of his cours­es and made them freely avail­able online.

Three of his cours­es tie togeth­er into a nice pack­age, offer­ing a long look at Euro­pean Cul­tur­al His­to­ry. The first course takes you from 1500 to 1800, cov­er­ing the Renais­sance, Ref­or­ma­tion, Eng­lish Rev­o­lu­tion, Enlight­en­ment, and French Rev­o­lu­tion. The sec­ond course moves from 1660 to 1880, focus­ing on the ideas that changed Europe. It’s essen­tial­ly an intel­lec­tu­al his­to­ry that traces the rise of Enlight­en­ment think­ing, Ger­man Roman­ti­cism and Ide­al­ism (includ­ing Hegelian­ism), the birth of lib­er­al­ism and Marx­ism and beyond.

And, final­ly, the last course focus­es on the crit­i­cal peri­od 1880 — 1920. Here we have a sur­vey of the cul­tur­al revolt against bour­geois soci­ety, the rise of mod­ern cul­ture (fig­ures like Niet­zsche, Freud, & Brecht take cen­ter stage), the dam­age wrought by World War I, and the begin­nings of fas­cism in Europe.

The cours­es, all pre­sent­ed in audio, are usu­al­ly accom­pa­nied by text sum­maries. You can down­load a fourth course by Mosse called Mod­ern Jew­ish His­to­ry. They all appear in the His­to­ry sec­tion of our big col­lec­tion, 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties.

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!

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A Digital Reconstruction of Washington D.C. in 1814

in Animation, History | May 31st, 2011

What did the U.S. cap­i­tal look like 200 years ago? Find­ing a sat­is­fac­to­ry answer to this ques­tion is very dif­fi­cult since there are very few reli­able images, maps and writ­ten accounts from Wash­ing­ton’s ear­ly days. This is why Dan Bai­ley, direc­tor of the Imag­ing Research Cen­ter (IRC) at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mary­land, Bal­ti­more, has approached archi­tec­tur­al his­to­ri­ans, car­tog­ra­phers, engi­neers, and ecol­o­gists to “recre­ate a ‘best guess’ glimpse of the ear­ly city.” The video above is the result of the IRC’s work, show­ing a city that was, they say, “a rough work in progress.”

Noth­ing was pol­ished. The scale of the fed­er­al city was that of a per­son, not of immense mar­ble bureau­cra­cy. There were cab­ins and barns on the Cap­i­tal Lawn. The first fence around the Capi­tol was to keep the cows out. Con­gress­men came to town for the leg­isla­tive ses­sions, many times sleep­ing 3 to a room in a board­ing house, and work­ing in unfin­ished build­ings.

An in-depth arti­cle about the ongo­ing project was pub­lished in The Wash­ing­ton Post.

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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A Brief History of Light

in Art, Business, History | May 20th, 2011

No light, no civ­i­liza­tion. It’s pret­ty much that sim­ple. And it’s this sim­ple idea that m ss ng p eces, a Brook­lyn-based cre­ative com­pa­ny, explores ever so art­ful­ly in The Sto­ry of Light. Here’s how they intro­duce the video:

We have used light for sur­vival, to learn by, to enter­tain and express our­selves, mold expe­ri­ences, and illu­mi­nate our imag­i­na­tions. Inspired by such a sin­gu­lar sto­ry we set out to cre­ate a hand­made sto­ry­book fan­ta­sy illus­trat­ing mile­stones in the his­to­ry of light. Each chap­ter invites us through the annals of his­to­ry, lead­ing to present day where a new set of pos­si­bil­i­ties are yet to be real­ized in the light of tomor­row.

When you reach the end of the video, you’ll real­ize that the clip also dou­bles as a com­mer­cial for GE’s new led light bulb. Lend­ing an air of cool­ness to a dowdy con­glom­er­ate (GE)  is no easy feat. But it’s prob­a­bly not so tough when you’ve already made GE Cap­i­tal, a huge recip­i­ent of 2008 bailout mon­ey, look ever so hip. GE Cap­i­tal + Tay­lor Gui­tars = I think I will buy a Mar­tin, thank you very much.

You can learn more about the mak­ing of The Sto­ry of Light with this video …

via PSFK

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The National Jukebox: Play 10,000 Songs Released Between 1901 and 1925

in History, Music | May 19th, 2011

The Nation­al Juke­box, the new dig­i­tal musi­cal play­er of the Library of Con­gress, fea­tures more than 10,000 songs released by the Vic­tor Talk­ing Machine Com­pa­ny between 1901 and 1925 (with the promise of more to come). You can build your own playlist from the many gen­res of music avail­able, which include some extreme­ly rare record­ings from dif­fer­ent gen­res includ­ing 0pera, blues, yodel­ing, jazz, and much, much more.

We also love the dis­claimer on the web­site’s front page: WARNING: His­tor­i­cal record­ings may con­tain offen­sive lan­guage. It’s quite easy to see why the warn­ing is nec­es­sary, espe­cial­ly after some time spent lis­ten­ing to the com­e­dy sec­tion.

If you want to see a Vic­tor Talk­ing Machine in action, you can watch one get­ting demoed here.

via @kirstinbutler

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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Way of Life: Rare Footage of the Hiroshima Aftermath, 1946

in Film, History, Life, Video - Politics/Society | May 3rd, 2011

The recent 9.0‑magnitude Tōhoku earth­quake and tsuna­mi, and sub­se­quent Fukushi­ma nuclear acci­dents were among the most dev­as­tat­ing envi­ron­men­tal dis­as­ters in record­ed his­to­ry. The imme­di­ate con­se­quences are fright­en­ing, but their full, long-term impact remains an unset­tling mys­tery.

This, of course, isn’t the first time Japan has faced a nuclear emer­gency. After the World War II atom­ic bomb­ings of Hiroshi­ma and Nagasa­ki, the U.S. gov­ern­ment record­ed the raw after­math of Hiroshi­ma in can­did, grim detail (while Hol­ly­wood was busy lam­poon­ing Amer­i­ca’s nuclear obses­sion). Filmed in the spring of 1946 by the Depart­ment of Defense, Way of Life doc­u­ments how the peo­ple of Hiroshi­ma adapt­ed to life after the atom­ic bomb. Though the archival footage lacks sound, its imagery — mov­ing, heart­break­ing, deeply human — speaks vol­umes about the del­i­cate dual­i­ty of despair and resilience.

Maria Popo­va is the founder and edi­tor in chief of Brain Pick­ings, a curat­ed inven­to­ry of cross-dis­ci­pli­nary inter­est­ing­ness. She writes for Wired UK, The Atlantic and Desig­nOb­serv­er, and spends a great deal of time on Twit­ter.

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