MLK’s Last Days and Final Speech

in History, Life | January 17th, 2011

Mar­tin Luther King Jr. deliv­ered his last speech, known col­lo­qui­al­ly as his “I’ve Been to the Moun­tain­top” speech, in Mem­phis, Ten­nessee on April 3, 1968. The next day, he would be assas­si­nat­ed. The full address (Part 1 & Part 2) ranges wide­ly. It sweeps through Euro­pean and Amer­i­can his­to­ry, even­tu­al­ly bring­ing us into 1960s Amer­i­ca, a moment fraught with ten­sion, when African-Amer­i­cans were fight­ing for equal rights at home, and a divi­sive Viet­nam War dragged on abroad. Trac­ing the impor­tant moments of the civ­il rights move­ment, the speech ends (high­light­ed above) with Mr. King prophet­i­cal­ly fore­see­ing his own death (see the Life gallery of his last day), but know­ing that his per­son­al sac­ri­fice had cre­at­ed some­thing bul­lets could nev­er stop. A great Amer­i­can and world cit­i­zen.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

I Have a Dream

What Would MLK Say About the USA Today?

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The Secrets to Living an Awesome Life

in Life, Psychology, TED Talks | January 7th, 2011

You have heard the mes­sage before – the secrets to liv­ing an excel­lent life. But they bear repeat­ing from time to time. And Neil Pas­richa, edi­tor of the 1000 Awe­some Things blog, com­mu­ni­cates it all in a rather touch­ing and earnest­ly straight­for­ward way. This talk comes from TEDx­Toron­to, staged in Sep­tem­ber 2010.…

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Every Ted Talk Under the Sun

Daniel Pink: The Sur­pris­ing Truth about What Moti­vates Us

Vik­tor Fran­kl on Our Search for Mean­ing

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Birth to 10 Years Old in Time Lapse Video

in Life | January 3rd, 2011

The Milky Way Over Texas. The Auro­ra Bore­alis over Nor­way. Decem­ber’s win­ter sol­stice lunar eclipse. Last week’s bliz­zard. What beau­ty can’t be cap­tured in time lapse pho­tog­ra­phy? Per­haps ten years of human life and devel­op­ment? Not so. No if the par­ents reli­gious­ly take a pho­to a day. Then, voila, human growth in time lapse…

via Der­ren­Brown

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A New Year’s Wish from Neil Gaiman

in Life, Literature | December 31st, 2010

A few days ago, we gave you Neil Gaiman’s dark ani­mat­ed Christ­mas poem. Now, it’s time for his entire­ly upbeat New Year’s Bene­dic­tion, which has some per­fect words for any­one with a cre­ative urg­ing. This short video was record­ed in 2010 at Sym­pho­ny Hall in Boston. Best wish­es to all…

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Free Neil Gaiman Sto­ries

Neil Gaiman Gives Grad­u­ates 10 Essen­tial Tips for Work­ing in the Arts

Neil Gaiman Gives Sage Advice to Aspir­ing Artists

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Stephen Hawking: Abandon Earth Or Face Extinction

in Life, Physics | December 29th, 2010

As the year winds to a close, Big Think has pulled togeth­er a list of their Most Pop­u­lar Videos of 2010. Per­haps the biggest thinker on the list is Stephen Hawk­ing, the renowned the­o­ret­i­cal physi­cist, who issues a stark warn­ing. “Our only chance of long term sur­vival, is not to remain inward look­ing on plan­et Earth, but to spread out into space.” Pop­u­la­tion growth, lim­it­ed resources, cli­mate change – these pres­sures could dri­ve the human race into extinc­tion with­in two cen­turies, and pos­si­bly even one. That makes space – plan­ets beyond our own – the next great fron­tier.

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Denis Dutton (RIP) Talks Beauty @ TED

in Life, Philosophy, TED Talks | December 28th, 2010

Denis Dut­ton – the founder of Arts & Let­ters Dai­ly and phi­los­o­phy pro­fes­sor at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Can­ter­bury in Christchurch, New Zealand – passed away today. He was 66 years old. In 2009, he wrote his most recent book, The Art Instinct: Beau­ty, Plea­sure, and Human Evo­lu­tion. Above, we have Dut­ton speak­ing at TED, elab­o­rat­ing on these themes in a great lit­tle talk called “A Dar­win­ian The­o­ry of Beau­ty.”

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Visionaries Imagine 2011 in 1931

in Life | December 14th, 2010

Back in 1931, dur­ing anoth­er peri­od of eco­nom­ic malaise, The New York Times asked some big thinkers what the world will look in anoth­er 80 years. (That is, in 2011.) Some proved to be fair­ly pre­scient. Take, for exam­ple, William James Mayo (a founder of the Mayo Clin­ic) who said:

Con­ta­gious and infec­tious dis­eases have been large­ly over­come, and the aver­age length of life of man has increased to fifty-eight years. The great caus­es of death in mid­dle and lat­er life are dis­eases of heart, blood ves­sels and kid­neys, dis­eases of the ner­vous sys­tem, and can­cer. The progress that is being made would sug­gest that with­in the mea­sure of time for this fore­cast the aver­age life time of civ­i­lized man would be raised to the bib­li­cal term of three-score and ten [read: 70 years of age].

That’s not a bad guess, see­ing that most West­ern­ers now have a life expectan­cy some­where in the high 70s. But then, writ­ing in the midst of the Great Depres­sion, the indus­tri­al­ist Hen­ry Ford made this pre­dic­tion:

We shall go over our eco­nom­ic machine and redesign it, not for the pur­pose of mak­ing some­thing dif­fer­ent than what we have, but to make the present machine do what we have said it could do. After all, the only prof­it of life is life itself, and I believe that the com­ing eighty years will see us more suc­cess­ful in pass­ing around the real prof­it of life. The newest thing in the world is the human being. And the great­est changes are to be looked for in him.

Has our eco­nom­ic machine real­ly been redesigned? And has our eco­nom­ic sys­tem “passed around the real prof­it of life?” It’s hard to say an emphat­ic yes as we stum­ble into 2011. And I would­n’t be sur­prised if Ford’s vision seems even more remote in 2012.

For more prophe­cies from 1931, please vis­it the Abnor­mal Use blog that unearthed this fine trea­sure…

via @eugenephoto

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Dear Monsieur Picasso: A Free eBook

in Art, e-books, Life | December 1st, 2010

dear mr picasso

In the sum­mer of 1955, Fred­er­ick Bald­win, a col­lege stu­dent at Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty, set out on a pil­grim­age of sorts, hop­ing to meet Pablo Picas­so. Bald­win trav­eled first to Le Havre (pre­sum­ably by boat), then head­ed south, down to Val­lau­ris and Cannes, until he even­tu­al­ly reached Picas­so’s home on the Riv­iera, known as Vil­la la Cal­i­fornie. It took a lit­tle crafti­ness and mox­ie, but the young Amer­i­can gained entrance into Picas­so’s stu­dio. And there he was, the great painter him­self, wear­ing shorts, san­dals and not much else.

More than five decades lat­er, Bald­win has pro­duced an ele­gant e‑book (avail­able for free right here) that uses pho­tographs and text to pre­serve the mem­o­ry of this defin­ing moment. After meet­ing Picas­so, Bald­win became a pro­fes­sion­al pho­tog­ra­ph­er, work­ing for Audubon, LIFE, Nation­al Geo­graph­ic, Smith­son­ian Mag­a­zine, and The New York Times, among oth­er mag­a­zines. And, lat­er, he looked to “repli­cate the Picas­so expe­ri­ence pro­fes­sion­al­ly,” always con­trol­ling his own agen­da, nev­er tak­ing a job where he was­n’t mak­ing his own deci­sions. You can down­load the 22 page e‑book, Dear Mon­sieur Picas­so, right here. Find more great texts in our col­lec­tion of Free eBooks.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Free: The Guggen­heim Puts 65 Mod­ern Art Books Online

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