Dave Grohl Raises the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge to an Art Form

in Film, Life, Music | August 19th, 2014

Foo Fight­ers front­man Dave Grohl raised an inter­net meme to an art form when he took the ALS Ice Buck­et Chal­lenge while par­o­dy­ing the epic prom scene from Car­rie. John Tra­vol­ta appeared in the 1976 hor­ror film, and Stephen King wrote the book behind it. So Grohl name checks them both. Where Jack Black fits into the pic­ture, I’m not exact­ly sure.

Dona­tions to help find a cure for the hor­rif­ic dis­ease can be made over at the ALS Asso­ci­a­tion. For a tru­ly sober­ing account of what it’s like to live with ALS, read Tony Judt’s essay, “Night,”  in The New York Review of Books. It was pub­lished in Feb­ru­ary 2010, short­ly before the dis­ease took his life.

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Don Pardo (1918–2014), Voice of Saturday Night Live, Suggests Using Short Words

in Comedy, Life, Television | August 19th, 2014

Don Par­do voiced the intro­duc­tions of Sat­ur­day Night Live for 38 sea­sons. He began call­ing out the names of the S.N.L. cast mem­bers dur­ing the first episode in Octo­ber, 1975, and (except for the 1981–82 sea­son) he kept call­ing out those names straight through last May. Chevy Chase, Gil­da Rad­ner, John Belushi, Bill Mur­ray, Eddie Mur­phy, Tina Fey — he called them all. Thanks to an imper­son­ator, you can hear a com­pi­la­tion of Par­do’s call for every cast mem­ber.

Don Par­do died yes­ter­day at 96 years of age. Ear­li­er in his career, he was the announc­er for a num­ber of Amer­i­can TV shows, includ­ing The Price Is Right, Jack­pot, and Jeop­ardy!. But his voice became part of the fab­ric of Amer­i­ca’s great­est com­e­dy show, Sat­ur­day Night Live. And he con­tin­ued voic­ing the intro long after his for­mal retire­ment from NBC in 2004. Not lack­ing ener­gy (watch him blow out his can­dles on his 90th birth­day), Par­do flew from Tuc­son to New York week­ly to get S.N.L. start­ed. Above, we have a short video that fea­tures Par­do, then 88, show­ing off, his sheer lin­guis­tic awe­some­ness.

Some­how, I’m now hop­ing that when­ev­er my day comes, Don Par­do’s voice will intro­duce me on the oth­er side.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Stunt That Got Elvis Costel­lo Banned From Sat­ur­day Night Live

William S. Bur­roughs on Sat­ur­day Night Live, 1981

Lorne Michaels Intro­duces Sat­ur­day Night Live and Its Bril­liant First Cast for the Very First Time (1975)

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Stanford’s Robert Sapolsky Demystifies Depression, Which, Like Diabetes, Is Rooted in Biology

in Biology, Life | August 13th, 2014

We know that depres­sion affects peo­ple from all walks of life. Rich. Poor. Celebs. Ordi­nary Joes. Young. Old. But, some­how after the death of Robin Williams, there’s a renewed focus on depres­sion, and my mind turned imme­di­ate­ly to a lec­ture we fea­tured on the site way back in 2009. The lec­ture is by Robert Sapol­sky, a Stan­ford biol­o­gist, who has a tal­ent for mak­ing sci­en­tif­ic sub­jects pub­licly acces­si­ble. A recip­i­ent of the MacArthur genius grant, Sapol­sky notes that depres­sion — cur­rent­ly the 4th great­est cause of dis­abil­i­ty world­wide, and soon the 2nd — is deeply bio­log­i­cal. Depres­sion is root­ed in biol­o­gy, much as is, say, dia­betes. As the lec­ture unfolds, you will see how depres­sion changes the body. When depressed, our brains func­tion dif­fer­ent­ly while sleep­ing, our stress response goes way up 24/7, our bio­chem­istry lev­els change, etc. You will see that biol­o­gy is at work.

Sapol­sky is one com­pelling teacher. So you might not want to miss his Stan­ford course, Intro­duc­tion to Human Biol­o­gy. It’s equal­ly worth your time. You can always find it housed in our col­lec­tion 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties.

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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Lauren Bacall (1924–2014) and Humphrey Bogart Pal Around During a 1956 Screen Test

in Film, Life | August 12th, 2014

“With deep sor­row, yet with great grat­i­tude for her amaz­ing life, we con­firm the pass­ing of Lau­ren Bacall.” So tweet­ed The Humphrey Bog­a­rt Estate today, let­ting cinephiles every­where know that Hol­ly­wood lost yet anoth­er great one this week. She was 89.

Bacall, of course, met Humphrey Bog­a­rt on the set of To Have and Have Not in 1943. And they became one of Hol­ly­wood’s leg­endary cou­ples, star­ring togeth­er in The Big Sleep (1946), Dark Pas­sage (1947), and Key Largo (1948). Above you can watch Bogie and Bacall share some light moments togeth­er dur­ing a cos­tume test for Melville Good­win, USA, a film the cou­ple nev­er ulti­mate­ly made. The footage was shot on Feb­ru­ary 20, 1956, just after Bog­a­rt learned that he had esophageal can­cer. He passed away less than a year lat­er, on Jan­u­ary 14, 1957. May Bogie & Bacall rest in peace.

Note: The cos­tume test, like many from the peri­od, does­n’t have sound. As you’ll see, you hard­ly need sound to appre­ci­ate the scene that unfolds. Don’t miss the part where the cam­era zooms in.

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A Serious Stephen Colbert Gives Advice on Love & Life to Teenage Girls

in Comedy, Life | August 8th, 2014

Rookie’s nev­er less than wor­thy “Ask a Grown Man” series pro­vides a forum for mature males like actor Jon Hamm and radio per­son­al­i­ty Ira Glass to offer thought­ful, straight­for­ward advice and expla­na­tions, born of per­son­al expe­ri­ence, to teenage girls (and oth­er inter­est­ed par­ties).

The most recent edi­tion adds depth, and could just as accu­rate­ly be titled “Ask a Lev­el-Head­ed 50-Year-Old Father of Three, Who’s Been Hap­pi­ly Mar­ried to His Children’s Moth­er for Years.”

Lurk­ing just beneath Stephen Colbert’s hawk­ish Col­bert Report per­sona is a fair-mind­ed, seri­ous fel­low, who’s unem­bar­rassed to weigh in in favor of parental author­i­ty when a 19-year-old fan com­plains of her dad’s oppo­si­tion to sleep­overs at her boyfriend’s place while she’s still liv­ing at home. Per­haps she should’ve asked a grown man whom expe­ri­ence hadn’t equipped to see things from the oth­er side of the fence, as Col­bert fore­sees that his answer won’t “go over great with every­one.”

Sure­ly, though, his late moth­er would approve.

Per­haps this seg­ment should be called “Ask a Grown Man Whose Unequiv­o­cat­ing Moral Com­pass Is Incon­ve­nient­ly Close to Your Dad’s, But Whose Posi­tion Allows Him to Offer Insights With­out Los­ing His Tem­per or Going Off Mes­sage.”

Colbert’s children’s extreme­ly low pro­file in the media’s line up of celebri­ty off­spring reflects well on those charged with their upbring­ing. Were his 18-year-old daugh­ter to take issue with the old man’s mus­ings on Twit­ter or Snapchat, she’d have the lux­u­ry of doing so in the way of the aver­age Rook­ie read­er, rather than some obses­sive­ly observed near­ly-grown baby bump.

As to how to tell whether a boy—or anyone—likes you, Col­bert says “they want to hear your sto­ries.”

As one view­er not­ed, “ask a grown-up, get grown-up answers.” Word.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Radiohead’s Thom Yorke Gives Teenage Girls Endear­ing Advice About Boys (And Much More)

Stu­dent Asks Noam Chom­sky for Dat­ing Advice

Niet­zsche Dis­pens­es Dat­ing Advice in a Short Screw­ball Film, My Friend Friedrich

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, zine pub­lish­er, and moth­er of a teenage Rook­ie read­er. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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The Art of Structured Procrastination

in Life, Philosophy, Psychology | August 1st, 2014

Proverb "procrastination Is The Thief Of Time" Written On A Blac
If you’re one of our philo­soph­i­cal­ly-mind­ed read­ers, you’re per­haps already famil­iar with Stan­ford pro­fes­sor John Per­ry. He’s one of the two hosts of the Phi­los­o­phy Talk radio show that airs on dozens of pub­lic radio sta­tions across the US. (Lis­ten to a recent show here.) Per­ry has the rare abil­i­ty to bring phi­los­o­phy down to earth. He also, it turns out, can help you work through some world­ly prob­lems, like man­ag­ing your ten­den­cy to pro­cras­ti­nate. In a short essay called “Struc­tured Pro­cras­ti­na­tion” — which Marc Andreessen (founder of Netscape, Opsware, Ning, and Andreessen Horowitz) read and called “one of the sin­gle most pro­found moments of my entire life” – Per­ry gives some tips for moti­vat­ing pro­cras­ti­na­tors to take care of dif­fi­cult, time­ly and impor­tant tasks. Per­ry’s approach is unortho­dox. It involves cre­at­ing a to-do list with the­o­ret­i­cal­ly impor­tant tasks at the top, and less impor­tant tasks at the bot­tom. The trick is to pro­cras­ti­nate by avoid­ing the the­o­ret­i­cal­ly impor­tant tasks (that’s what pro­cras­ti­na­tors do) but at least knock off many sec­ondary and ter­tiary tasks in the process. The approach involves “con­stant­ly per­pe­trat­ing a pyra­mid scheme on one­self” and essen­tial­ly “using one char­ac­ter flaw to off­set the bad effects of anoth­er.” It’s uncon­ven­tion­al, to be sure. But Andreesen seems to think it’s a great way to get things done. You can read “Struc­tured Pro­cras­ti­na­tion” here. 

Have your pro­cras­ti­na­tion tips? Add them to the com­ments sec­tion below. Would love to get your insights.

via LinkedIn

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Sci­ence of Willpow­er: 15 Tips for Mak­ing Your New Year’s Res­o­lu­tions Last from Dr. Kel­ly McGo­ni­gal

The Art of Liv­ing: A Free Stan­ford Course Explores Time­less Ques­tions

The Mod­ern-Day Philoso­phers Pod­cast: Where Come­di­ans Like Carl Rein­er & Artie Lange Dis­cuss Schopen­hauer & Mai­monides

Take First-Class Phi­los­o­phy Cours­es Any­where with Free Oxford Pod­casts

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Learn How Crayons Are Made, Courtesy of 1980s Videos by Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers

in Art, Design, K-12, Life | July 28th, 2014

Some things are dif­fi­cult to improve upon. Take crayons. The new gen­er­a­tion may be clam­or­ing for shades like “man­go tan­go” and “jazzber­ry jam” but the actu­al tech­nol­o­gy appears unchanged since Sesame Street detailed the process in the ear­ly 80s, in the love­ly, non ver­bal doc­u­men­tary above. Not a prod­uct place­ment in sight, I might add, though few can mis­take that famil­iar green and gold box.

Those who pre­fer a bit more expla­na­tion might pre­fer Fred Rogers’ hyp­not­ic step-by-step guide, play­ing in per­pe­tu­ity on Pic­ture Pic­ture.

By the time the indus­try’s giant goril­la got around to weigh­ing in, the wood­en col­lec­tion box­es and ana­log coun­ters had been replaced, but oth­er­wise, it’s still busi­ness as usu­al on the ol’ cray­on-man­u­fac­tur­ing floor. Don’t expect to find the recipe for the “secret pro­pri­etary blend of pig­ments and oth­er ingre­di­ents” any time soon. Just know they’re capa­ble of crank­ing out 8500 crayons per minute. For those play­ing along at home, that’s enough to encir­cle the globe 6 times per cal­en­dar year, with a full third owing their exis­tence to solar ener­gy.

There’s a Home­land Secu­ri­ty-ish vibe to some of the dia­logue, but the Life of an Amer­i­can Cray­on, above, does our native assem­bly lines proud. Proud­er than the Amer­i­can slaugh­ter­house, any­way, or some oth­er fac­to­ry floors, I could name. The work­ers seem con­tent enough to stay in their posi­tions for decades, hap­pi­ly declar­ing alle­giance to this or that hue.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Philip Glass Com­pos­es for Sesame Street (1979)

Mr. Rogers Intro­duces Kids to Exper­i­men­tal Elec­tron­ic Music by Bruce Haack & Esther Nel­son (1968)

How Ani­mat­ed Car­toons Are Made: Watch a Short, Charm­ing Primer from 1919

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

 

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The Touching Moment When Nicholas Winton (RIP) Met the Children He Saved During the Holocaust

in History, Life | July 27th, 2014

Note: This post was orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished on July 27, 2014. Mr. Win­ton sad­ly passed away today (7/1/2015). He was 106 years old. Read his obit­u­ary, which doc­u­ments his amaz­ing deeds, here.

Pro­cras­ti­na­tors take note.

Some teens of my acquain­tance have been agi­tat­ing for a meet­ing with a Holo­caust sur­vivor. These encoun­ters, com­mon enough in my child­hood, are grow­ing less so as those with first­hand knowl­edge enter their gold­en years. Bear in mind that Eva Lavi, the youngest per­son named on Oskar Schindler’s List, is now 76.

Sir Nicholas Win­ton is def­i­nite­ly an inspir­ing fig­ure, and not just for his remark­able longevi­ty. From late 1938 until the start of the war, he man­aged to res­cue 669 Czech children—most of them Jews.

Win­ton made no pub­lic men­tion of his hero­ics, until 1988, when the BBC obtained his res­cue scrap­book and used it to coor­di­nate a mas­sive live on-air sur­prise dur­ing the pro­gram That’s Life (see above).

I plan on using the 60 Min­utes episode below to intro­duce my teen friends—most of whom stout­ly declare they’d have hid­den Anne Frank with­out a sec­ond thought—to a man whose actions speak loud­er than words.

via Holy Kaw

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Mem­o­ry of the Camps (1985): The Holo­caust Doc­u­men­tary that Trau­ma­tized Alfred Hitch­cock, and Remained Unseen for 40 Years

Alice Herz-Som­mer, the Old­est Holo­caust Sur­vivor (Thanks to the Pow­er of Music), Dies at 110

Rudolf Braz­da, Last Man to Wear the Pink Tri­an­gle Dur­ing the Holo­caust, Tells His Sto­ry

Anne Frank: The Only Exist­ing Video Now Online

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

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