Marie Curie Invented Mobile X‑Ray Units to Help Save Wounded Soldiers in World War I

in History, Life, Science | June 10th, 2025

A hun­dred years ago, Mobile X‑Ray Units were a brand new inno­va­tion, and a god­send for sol­diers wound­ed on the front in WW1. Pri­or to the advent of this tech­nol­o­gy, field sur­geons rac­ing to save lives oper­at­ed blind­ly, often caus­ing even more injury as they groped for bul­lets and shrap­nel whose pre­cise loca­tions remained a mys­tery.

Marie Curie was just set­ting up shop at Paris’ Radi­um Insti­tute, a world cen­ter for the study of radioac­tiv­i­ty, when war broke out. Many of her researchers left to fight, while Curie per­son­al­ly deliv­ered France’s sole sam­ple of radi­um by train to the tem­porar­i­ly relo­cat­ed seat of gov­ern­ment in Bor­deaux.

“I am resolved to put all my strength at the ser­vice of my adopt­ed coun­try, since I can­not do any­thing for my unfor­tu­nate native coun­try just now…,” Curie, a Pole by birth, wrote to her lover, physi­cist Paul Langevin on New Year’s Day, 1915.

To that end, she envi­sioned a fleet of vehi­cles that could bring X‑ray equip­ment much clos­er to the bat­tle­field, shift­ing their coor­di­nates as nec­es­sary.

Rather than leav­ing the exe­cu­tion of this bril­liant plan to oth­ers, Curie sprang into action.

She stud­ied anato­my and learned how to oper­ate the equip­ment so she would be able to read X‑ray films like a med­ical pro­fes­sion­al.

She learned how to dri­ve and fix cars.

She used her con­nec­tions to solic­it dona­tions of vehi­cles, portable elec­tric gen­er­a­tors, and the nec­es­sary equip­ment, kick­ing in gen­er­ous­ly her­self. (When she got the French Nation­al Bank to accept her gold Nobel Prize medals on behalf of the war effort, she spent the bulk of her prize purse on war bonds.)

She was ham­pered only by back­wards-think­ing bureau­crats whose feath­ers ruf­fled at the prospect of female tech­ni­cians and dri­vers, no doubt for­get­ting that most of France’s able-bod­ied men were oth­er­wise engaged.

Curie, no stranger to sex­ism, refused to bend to their will, deliv­er­ing equip­ment to the front line and X‑raying wound­ed sol­diers, assist­ed by her 17-year-old daugh­ter, Irène, who like her moth­er, took care to keep her emo­tions in check while work­ing with maimed and dis­tressed patients.

“In less than two years,” writes Aman­da Davis at The Insti­tute, “the num­ber of units had grown sub­stan­tial­ly, and the Curies had set up a train­ing pro­gram at the Radi­um Insti­tute to teach oth­er women to oper­ate the equip­ment.” Even­tu­al­ly, they recruit­ed about 150 women, train­ing them to man the Lit­tle Curies, as the mobile radi­og­ra­phy units came to be known.

Note: An ear­li­er ver­sion of this post appeared on our site in 2017.

via Brain Pick­ings

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Marie Curie’s Research Papers Are Still Radioac­tive a Cen­tu­ry Lat­er

Marie Curie Became the First Woman to Win a Nobel Prize, the First Per­son to Win Twice, and the Only Per­son in His­to­ry to Win in Two Dif­fer­ent Sci­ences

An Ani­mat­ed Intro­duc­tion to the Life & Work of Marie Curie, the First Female Nobel Lau­re­ate

Marie Curie Attend­ed a Secret, Under­ground “Fly­ing Uni­ver­si­ty” When Women Were Banned from Pol­ish Uni­ver­si­ties

Marie Curie’s Ph.D. The­sis on Radioactivity–Which Made Her the First Woman in France to Receive a Doc­tor­al Degree in Physics

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine. 

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A Japanese Zen Monk Explains What Zen Is Really About

in Life, Religion | May 6th, 2025

Despite devel­op­ing in Asia, as the Chi­nese form of a reli­gion orig­i­nal­ly brought over from India and lat­er refined in Japan, Zen Bud­dhism has long appealed to West­ern­ers as well. Some of that owes to the spare, ele­gant aes­thet­ics with which pop­u­lar cul­ture asso­ciates it, and more to the promise it holds out: free­dom from stress, anx­i­ety, and indeed suf­fer­ing of all kinds. In the­o­ry, the Zen prac­ti­tion­er attains that free­dom not through mas­ter­ing a body of knowl­edge or ascend­ing a hier­ar­chy, but through direct expe­ri­ence of real­i­ty, unmedi­at­ed by thoughts, unwarped by desires, and undi­vid­ed by the clas­si­fi­ca­tion schemes that sep­a­rate one thing from anoth­er. That’s eas­i­er said than done, of course, and for some, not even a life­time of med­i­ta­tion does the trick.

In the inter­view clip above, Rin­zai zen monk Yodo Kono explains how he arrived in the world of Zen. Hav­ing come from a line of monks, he inher­it­ed the role after the deaths of his grand­fa­ther and his father. Already in his late twen­ties, he’d been work­ing as a physics teacher, an occu­pa­tion that — how­ev­er fash­ion­able the sup­posed con­cor­dances between advanced phys­i­cal and Bud­dhist truths — hard­ly pre­pared him for the rig­ors of the tem­ple.

“I entered a role com­plete­ly oppo­site to log­ic,” he remem­bers, “a world where log­ic does­n’t exist.” Think of the Zen kōans we’ve all heard, which demand seem­ing­ly impos­si­ble answers about the sound of one hand clap­ping, or the appear­ance of your face before your par­ents were born.

Advised by his mas­ter to stop try­ing to gain knowl­edge, skills, and under­stand­ing, the frus­trat­ed Yodo Kono began to real­ize that “Zen is every­thing,” the key ques­tion being “how to live with­out wor­ries with­in Zen.” That can’t be learned from any amount of study, but expe­ri­ence alone. Only direct­ly can one feel how we cre­ate our own suf­fer­ing in our minds, and also that we can’t help but do so. This leaves us no choice but to relin­quish our notions of con­trol over real­i­ty. In dai­ly life, he explains in the clip just above (also from the doc­u­men­tary Free­dom From Suf­fer­ing, about the vari­eties of Bud­dhism), one must be able to move freely between “the undi­vid­ed Zen world and the divid­ed world,” the lat­ter being where near­ly all of us already spend our days: not with­out our plea­sures, of course, but also not with­out won­der­ing, every so often, if we can ever know per­ma­nent sat­is­fac­tion.

Relat­ed con­tent:

A 6‑Step Guide to Zen Bud­dhism, Pre­sent­ed by Psy­chi­a­trist-Zen Mas­ter Robert Waldinger

What Is a Zen Koan? An Ani­mat­ed Intro­duc­tion to East­ern Philo­soph­i­cal Thought Exper­i­ments

Japan­ese Priest Tries to Revive Bud­dhism by Bring­ing Tech­no Music into the Tem­ple: Attend a Psy­che­del­ic 23-Minute Ser­vice

Exer­cise Extreme Mind­ful­ness with These Calm­ing Zen Rock Gar­den Videos

A Beat­box­ing Bud­dhist Monk Cre­ates Music for Med­i­ta­tion

Bud­dhism 101: A Short Intro­duc­to­ry Lec­ture by Jorge Luis Borges

Based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities and the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les. Fol­low him on the social net­work for­mer­ly known as Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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When Salvador Dalí Created a Chilling Anti-Venereal Disease Poster During World War II

in Art, History, Life | March 12th, 2025

As a New York City sub­way rid­er, I am con­stant­ly exposed to pub­lic health posters. More often than not these fea­ture a pho­to of a whole­some-look­ing teen whose sober expres­sion is meant to con­vey hind­sight regret at hav­ing tak­en up drugs, dropped out of school, or for­gone con­doms. They’re well-intend­ed, but bor­ing. I can’t imag­ine I’d feel dif­fer­ent­ly were I a mem­ber of the tar­get demo­graph­ic. The Chelsea Mini Stor­age ads’ saucy region­al humor is far more enter­tain­ing, as is the train wreck design approach favored by the ubiq­ui­tous Dr. Jonathan Ziz­mor. 

Pub­lic health posters were able to con­vey their des­ig­nat­ed hor­rors far more mem­o­rably before pho­tos became the graph­i­cal norm. Take Sal­vador Dalí’s sketch (below) and final con­tri­bu­tion (top) to the WWII-era anti-vene­re­al dis­ease cam­paign.

Which image would cause you to steer clear of the red light dis­trict, were you a young sol­dier on the make?

A por­trait of a glum fel­low sol­dier (“If I’d only known then…”)?

Or a grin­ning green death’s head, whose chop­pers dou­ble as the frankly exposed thighs of two face­less, loose-breast­ed ladies?

Cre­at­ed in 1941, Dalí’s night­mare vision eschewed the sort of man­ly, mil­i­taris­tic slo­gan that retroac­tive­ly ramps up the kitsch val­ue of its ilk. Its mes­sage is clear enough with­out:

Stick it in—we’ll bite it off!

(Thanks to blog­ger Rebec­ca M. Ben­der for point­ing out the composition’s resem­blance to the vagi­na den­ta­ta.)

As a fem­i­nist, I’m not crazy about depic­tions of women as pesti­len­tial, one-way death­traps, but I con­cede that, in this instance, sub­vert­ing the girlie pin up’s explic­it­ly phys­i­cal plea­sures might well have had the desired effect on horny enlist­ed men.

A decade lat­er Dalí would col­lab­o­rate with pho­tog­ra­ph­er Philippe Hals­man on “In Volup­tas Mors,” stack­ing sev­en nude mod­els like cheer­lead­ers to form a peace­time skull that’s far less threat­en­ing to the male fig­ure in the low­er left cor­ner (in this instance, the very dap­per Dalí him­self).

Note: An ear­li­er ver­sion of this post appeared on our site in 2014.

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

What Makes Sal­vador Dalí’s Icon­ic Sur­re­al­ist Paint­ing “The Per­sis­tence of Mem­o­ry” a Great Work of Art

When Sal­vador Dali Met Sig­mund Freud, and Changed Freud’s Mind About Sur­re­al­ism (1938)

When The Sur­re­al­ists Expelled Sal­vador Dalí for “the Glo­ri­fi­ca­tion of Hit­ler­ian Fas­cism” (1934)

Des­ti­no: The Sal­vador Dalí — Walt Dis­ney Ani­ma­tion That Took 57 Years to Com­plete

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, home­school­er, and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.

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Andrei Tarkovsky’s Message to Young People: “Learn to Be Alone,” Enjoy Solitude

in Film, Life | March 3rd, 2025

I remem­ber the first time I sat down and watched Andrei Tarkovsky’s lyri­cal, mean­der­ing sci-fi epic Stalk­er. It was a long time ago, before the advent of smart­phones and tablets. I watched a beat-up VHS copy on a non-“smart” TV, and had no abil­i­ty to pause every few min­utes and swing by Face­book, Twit­ter, or Insta­gram for some instant dis­trac­tion and dig­i­tal small talk. The almost three-hour film—with its long, lan­guid takes and end­less stretch­es of silence—is a med­i­ta­tive exer­cise, a test in patience that at times seems like its own reward.

I recall at the time think­ing about how didac­tic Tarkovsky’s work is, in the best pos­si­ble sense of the word. It teach­es its view­ers to watch, lis­ten, and wait. It’s a course best tak­en alone, like the jour­ney into the film’s mys­te­ri­ous “Zone,” since the pres­ence of anoth­er, like­ly per­plexed, view­er might break the qui­et spell the movie casts. But while watch­ing a Tarkovsky film—whether Stalk­er, Andrei Rublev, Solaris, or any of his oth­er pen­sive cre­ations (watch them online here)—may be a soli­tary activ­i­ty, it need not at all be a lone­ly one.

The dis­tinc­tion between healthy soli­tude and lone­li­ness is one Tarkovsky is par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est­ed in. It’s a cin­e­mat­ic theme he pur­sues, and a ped­a­gog­i­cal one as well. In the video above from The Cri­te­ri­on Col­lec­tion, Tarkovsky offers some thought­ful insights that can only seem all the more rel­e­vant to today’s always-on, mul­ti-screen cul­ture. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the sub­ti­tles trans­late his words selec­tive­ly, but Maria Popo­va at The Mar­gin­a­lian has a full trans­la­tion of the filmmaker’s answer to the ques­tion “What would you like to tell young peo­ple?” Like some ancient Pan dis­pens­ing time­less wis­dom, Tarkovsky reclines in an old, gnarled tree—on what may very well be one of his wild, wood­ed film sets—and says,

I don’t know… I think I’d like to say only that they should learn to be alone and try to spend as much time as pos­si­ble by them­selves. I think one of the faults of young peo­ple today is that they try to come togeth­er around events that are noisy, almost aggres­sive at times. This desire to be togeth­er in order to not feel alone is an unfor­tu­nate symp­tom, in my opin­ion. Every per­son needs to learn from child­hood how to spend time with one­self. That doesn’t mean he should be lone­ly, but that he shouldn’t grow bored with him­self because peo­ple who grow bored in their own com­pa­ny seem to me in dan­ger, from a self-esteem point of view.

Though I speak as one who grew up in an ana­logue world free from social media—the only world Tarkovsky ever knew—I don’t think it’s just the cranky old man in me who finds this advice com­pelling­ly sound. As a Tom Tomor­row car­toon satir­i­cal­ly illus­trat­ed, our rapid-fire, pres­sure-cook­er pub­lic dis­course may grant us instant access to information—or misinformation—but it also encour­ages, nay urges, us to form hasty opin­ions, ignore nuance and sub­tleties, and par­tic­i­pate in group­think rather than digest­ing things slow­ly and com­ing to our own con­clu­sions. It’s an envi­ron­ment par­tic­u­lar­ly hos­tile to medi­ums like poet­ry, or the kinds of poet­ic films Tarkovsky made, which teach us the val­ue of judg­ment with­held, and immerse us in the kinds of aes­thet­ic expe­ri­ences the inter­net and tele­vi­sion, with their non­stop chat­ter, push to the mar­gins.

Tarkovsky’s gen­er­al advice to young peo­ple can be paired with his chal­leng­ing advice to young film­mak­ers, and all artists, in par­tic­u­lar—advice that demands focused atten­tion, patience, and com­mit­ment to indi­vid­ual pas­sion and vision.

Props to The Mar­gin­a­lian for the trans­la­tion.

Note: An ear­li­er ver­sion of this post appeared on our site in 2015.

Relat­ed Con­tent 

Watch Andrei Tarkovsky’s Films Free Online: Stalk­er, The Mir­ror & Andrei Rublev

Andrei Tarkovsky’s Advice to Young Film­mak­ers: Sac­ri­fice Your­self for Cin­e­ma

Andrei Tarkovsky Cre­ates a List of His 10 Favorite Films (1972)

The Mas­ter­ful Polaroid Pic­tures Tak­en by Film­mak­er Andrei Tarkovsky

Andrei Tarkovsky Calls Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey a “Pho­ny” Film “With Only Pre­ten­sions to Truth”

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Mahatma Gandhi’s List of the Seven Social Sins; or Tips on How to Avoid Living the Bad Life

in History, Life, Religion, Uncategorized | January 29th, 2025

Image via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

In 590 AD, Pope Gre­go­ry I unveiled a list of the Sev­en Dead­ly Sins – lust, glut­tony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride – as a way to keep the flock from stray­ing into the thorny fields of ungod­li­ness. These days, though, for all but the most devout, Pope Gregory’s list seems less like a means to moral behav­ior than a descrip­tion of cable TV pro­gram­ming.

So instead, let’s look to one of the saints of the 20th cen­tu­ry–Mahat­ma Gand­hi. On Octo­ber 22, 1925, Gand­hi pub­lished a list he called the Sev­en Social Sins in his week­ly news­pa­per Young India.

  • Pol­i­tics with­out prin­ci­ples.
  • Wealth with­out work.
  • Plea­sure with­out con­science.
  • Knowl­edge with­out char­ac­ter.
  • Com­merce with­out moral­i­ty.
  • Sci­ence with­out human­i­ty.
  • Wor­ship with­out sac­ri­fice.

The list sprang from a cor­re­spon­dence that Gand­hi had with some­one only iden­ti­fied as a “fair friend.” He pub­lished the list with­out com­men­tary save for the fol­low­ing line: “Nat­u­ral­ly, the friend does not want the read­ers to know these things mere­ly through the intel­lect but to know them through the heart so as to avoid them.”

Unlike the Catholic Church’s list, Gandhi’s list is express­ly focused on the con­duct of the indi­vid­ual in soci­ety. Gand­hi preached non-vio­lence and inter­de­pen­dence and every sin­gle one of these sins are exam­ples of self­ish­ness win­ning out over the com­mon good.

It’s also a list that, if ful­ly absorbed, will make the folks over at the US Cham­ber of Com­merce and Ayn Rand Insti­tute itch. After all, “Wealth with­out work,” is a pret­ty accu­rate descrip­tion of America’s 1%. (Invest­ments ain’t work. Ask Thomas Piket­ty.) “Com­merce with­out moral­i­ty” sounds a lot like every sin­gle oil com­pa­ny out there and “knowl­edge with­out char­ac­ter” describes half the hacks on cable news. “Pol­i­tics with­out prin­ci­ples” describes the oth­er half.

In 1947, Gand­hi gave his fifth grand­son, Arun Gand­hi, a slip of paper with this same list on it, say­ing that it con­tained “the sev­en blun­ders that human soci­ety com­mits, and that cause all the vio­lence.” The next day, Arun returned to his home in South Africa. Three months lat­er, Gand­hi was shot to death by a Hin­du extrem­ist.

Note: An ear­li­er ver­sion of this post appeared on our site in 2014.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Tol­stoy and Gand­hi Exchange Let­ters: Two Thinkers’ Quest for Gen­tle­ness, Humil­i­ty & Love (1909)

Albert Ein­stein Express­es His Admi­ra­tion for Mahat­ma Gand­hi, in Let­ter and Audio

Isaac New­ton Cre­ates a List of His 57 Sins (Cir­ca 1662)

Mahat­ma Gand­hi Talks (in First Record­ed Video)

When Mahat­ma Gand­hi Met Char­lie Chap­lin (1931)

Hear Gandhi’s Famous Speech on the Exis­tence of God (1931)

Jonathan Crow is a writer and film­mak­er whose work has appeared in Yahoo!, The Hol­ly­wood Reporter, and oth­er pub­li­ca­tions,

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Bertrand Russell’s Message to People Living in the Year 2959: “Love is Wise, Hatred is Foolish”

in Life, Philosophy | January 5th, 2025

Bertrand Rus­sell, the great British philoso­pher and social crit­ic, appeared on the BBC pro­gram Face-to-Face in 1959 and was asked a clos­ing ques­tion: What would you tell a gen­er­a­tion liv­ing 1,000 years from now about the life you’ve lived and the lessons you’ve learned? His answer is short, but pithy. You can read a tran­script below:

I should like to say two things, one intel­lec­tu­al and one moral:

The intel­lec­tu­al thing I should want to say to them is this: When you are study­ing any mat­ter or con­sid­er­ing any phi­los­o­phy, ask your­self only what are the facts and what is the truth that the facts bear out. Nev­er let your­self be divert­ed either by what you wish to believe or by what you think would have benef­i­cent social effects if it were believed, but look only and sole­ly at what are the facts. That is the intel­lec­tu­al thing that I should wish to say.

The moral thing I should wish to say to them is very sim­ple. I should say: Love is wise, hatred is fool­ish. In this world, which is get­ting more and more close­ly inter­con­nect­ed, we have to learn to tol­er­ate each oth­er. We have to learn to put up with the fact that some peo­ple say things that we don’t like. We can only live togeth­er in that way, and if we are to live togeth­er and not die togeth­er we must learn a kind of char­i­ty and a kind of tol­er­ance which is absolute­ly vital to the con­tin­u­a­tion of human life on this plan­et.

No truer words have been spo­ken. You can watch the com­plete 1959 episode below.

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:

Bene­dict Cum­ber­batch Reads Kurt Vonnegut’s Let­ter of Advice to Peo­ple Liv­ing in the Year 2088

Bertrand Rus­sell: The Every­day Ben­e­fit of Phi­los­o­phy Is That It Helps You Live with Uncer­tain­ty

Bertrand Russell’s Improb­a­ble Appear­ance in a Bol­ly­wood Film (1967)

Bertrand Rus­sell & Oth­er Big Thinkers in BBC Lec­ture Series (Free)

Bertrand Rus­sell & Buck­min­ster Fuller on Why We Should Work Less, and Live and Learn More

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A Simple, Down-to-Earth Christmas Card from the Great Depression (1933)

in Life | December 15th, 2024

The Smith­son­ian sets the scene for this Christ­mas card sent in 1933, a few years into the Great Depres­sion. They write:

Despite the glum eco­nom­ic sit­u­a­tion, the Pinero fam­i­ly used a brown paper bag to fash­ion an inex­pen­sive hol­i­day greet­ing card. They penned a clever rhyme and added some charm­ing line draw­ings of Mom, Dad, and the kids with the mes­sage: “Oh, well—in spite of it all—here’s a Mer­ry Christ­mas from the Pineros.” On Decem­ber 19, 1933, they mailed it from Chica­go to friends in Mass­a­chu­setts, using a one-and-a-half-cent stamp. For a min­i­mal out­lay of cash, they were able to keep in touch with friends and com­ment on their reduced cir­cum­stances with wit and humor.

This hand-let­tered poem is a delight­ful exam­ple of light verse, a whim­si­cal form of poet­ry intend­ed to enter­tain or amuse, even if treat­ing a seri­ous sub­ject in a humor­ous man­ner. In the poem, the Pineros sug­gest that they had strug­gled eco­nom­i­cal­ly for some time, but now, due to the con­tin­u­ing Depres­sion, oth­ers shared their finan­cial plight, which enabled them to be more open and can­did about their sit­u­a­tion.

Like many fam­i­lies, the Pineros prob­a­bly had lots of bills for neces­si­ties includ­ing rent, gro­ceries, util­i­ties, milk, and ice. Because not every fam­i­ly had elec­tric refrig­er­a­tion in 1933, many relied on reg­u­lar deliv­er­ies of ice to keep their per­ish­able foods cold. These bills for milk and ice were sep­a­rate; they were not part of the gro­cery account. Local dairies sup­plied milk and oth­er prod­ucts on a dai­ly basis. Both the Ice Man and the Milk Man would cometh, as long as they were paid!

It’s a his­tor­i­cal case of when less is indeed more…

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!

via The Smith­son­ian

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Behold! The Very First Christ­mas Card (1843)

When Sal­vador Dalí Cre­at­ed Christ­mas Cards That Were Too Avant Garde for Hall­mark (1960)

John Waters’ Hand-Made, Odd­ball Christ­mas Cards: 1964-Present

Langston Hugh­es’ Home­made Christ­mas Cards From 1950

Sal­vador Dalí’s Avant-Garde Christ­mas Cards

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99-Year-Old Dick Van Dyke Sings & Dances in a Touching New Coldplay Video, Directed by Spike Jonze

in Life | December 10th, 2024

There’s one thing right with our world, and it’s Dick Van Dyke. Appear­ing in a new Cold­play music video, Mr. Van Dyke dances bare­foot and sings know­ing­ly a lit­tle off-key—before reflect­ing on a cen­tu­ry of life on this plan­et. What is love? Is he afraid of dying? What does luck look like? He knows the answers. Mr. Van Dyke turns 99 this week. And we’ll be root­ing him on when he turns 100 next year. Enjoy the direc­tor’s cut of the touch­ing new music video, “All My Love,” direct­ed by Spike Jonze.

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 

Binge-Watch Clas­sic Tele­vi­sion Pro­grams Free: The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Lone Ranger, Drag­net, That Girl & More

Dick Van Dyke Still Danc­ing at 96!

Mary Tyler Moore Acci­den­tal­ly Nails a Per­fect Pool Shot on The Dick Van Dyke Show (1962)

Spike Jonze Presents a Stop Motion Film for Book Lovers

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