Spring: A Short Film Based on Hemingway’s Memoir

in Film, Literature | May 19th, 2010

British film­mak­er Temu­jin Doran may be bet­ter known for his strong, high­ly opin­ion­at­ed views on democ­ra­cy and pol­i­tics, but his adap­ta­tion of Ernest Hem­ing­way’s mem­oir, A Move­able Feast, is some­thing else entire­ly.

Though still nar­rat­ed in Doran’s char­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly urgent, rest­less tone, Spring offers a qui­et trib­ute to Parisian urban­i­ty and the rich­ness of sea­son­al­i­ty, cap­tured with cin­e­mat­ic min­i­mal­ism and eeri­ly indul­gent aes­thet­ic aus­ter­i­ty.

Maria Popo­va is the founder and edi­tor in chief of Brain Pick­ings, a curat­ed inven­to­ry of eclec­tic inter­est­ing­ness and indis­crim­i­nate curios­i­ty. She writes for Wired UK, GOOD Mag­a­zine, Big­Think and Huff­in­g­ton Post, and spends a dis­turb­ing amount of time curat­ing inter­est­ing­ness on Twit­ter.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

Insults Shakespeare Style

in Literature | May 19th, 2010

Search­ing for a sting­ing insult that has a nice lit­er­ary qual­i­ty? Let the Shake­speare Insult Find­er be your guide. And, if you find your­self need­ing a good insult on the go, you can always down­load a free app for the iPhone.

“Your means are very slen­der, and your waste is great.”
–Hen­ry IV, part 2

(Thanks Veron­i­ca!)

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 3 ) |

Tom Waits Reads Charles Bukowski

in Literature, Music, Poetry | May 14th, 2010

Next up: Tom Waits reads Charles Bukowski’s poem, The Laugh­ing Heart. As Zoran (a read­er from Greece) observes, Waits reads the poem much like Bukows­ki would have read it him­self.

Of course, this rais­es the ques­tion: How did Bukows­ki read his poet­ry? The Secret of My Endurance holds the answer.

Thanks Zoran…

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 7 ) |

Jorge Luis Borges: The Mirror Man, A Free Documentary on the Argentine Writer

in Books, Film, Literature | May 12th, 2010

He was Argenti­na’s favorite son, one of the great South Amer­i­can writ­ers of the last cen­tu­ry (along with Gabriel Gar­cia Mar­quez, Car­los Fuentes, and Mario Var­gas Llosa), and the win­ner of 46 nation­al and inter­na­tion­al lit­er­ary prizes. We’re talk­ing about Jorge Luis Borges, the mas­ter of the post­mod­ern short sto­ry. Borges was born in 1899, and to cel­e­brate his 100th birth­day (though he died in 1986), Philippe Molins direct­ed the doc­u­men­tary, Jorge Luis Borges: The Mir­ror Man. The film’s major strength (as one review­er put it) is that it’s a “bit of every­thing – part biog­ra­phy, part lit­er­ary crit­i­cism, part hero-wor­ship, part book read­ing, and part psy­chol­o­gy.” It runs 47 min­utes and includes a fair amount of archival footage. (You can watch it in a larg­er for­mat on Vimeo here.)

A big thanks goes to Mike for send­ing The Mir­ror Man our way. If you have your own great piece of cul­tur­al media to share with us and your fel­low OC read­ers, please feel free to send it along.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 4 ) |

Listen to Brave New World for Free: Dramatized Version Read by Aldous Huxley

in Audio Books, Literature, Radio, Theatre | May 6th, 2010

The CBS Radio Work­shop was an “exper­i­men­tal dra­mat­ic radio anthol­o­gy series” that aired between 1956 and 1957. And it pre­miered with a two-part adap­ta­tion of Aldous Hux­ley’s now clas­sic 1932 nov­el, Brave New World. Hux­ley him­self intro­duced and nar­rat­ed the pro­gram, and now this clas­sic radio dra­ma has resur­faced online. You can lis­ten to Part 1 and Part 2 below. The mp3s will be per­ma­nent­ly housed in our col­lec­tion of Free Audio Books.

Part 1

Part 2

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 22 ) |

William Carlos Williams Reads His Poetry (1954)

in Audio Books, Literature, Poetry | May 6th, 2010

William Car­los Williams – doc­tor by day, poet by night, and cer­tain­ly one of Amer­i­ca’s finest. In this 1954 audio clip, we hear Williams read­ing his own poet­ry at the sto­ried 92nd Street Y in New York City. Poems include: “A Sort of a Song,” “The Maneu­ver,” “Sea­far­er,” “The Three Graces,” “Pater­son, Episode 17,” “The Descent” and “Fish.” The reads are now added to the Poet­ry sec­tion of our Free Audio Books Col­lec­tion.

Poet­ry lovers take note: Peo­ple Read­ing Poems is a very new web site where users can come to hear record­ings of peo­ple read­ing poems they love, and also to share their own favorite poems. It’s all com­plete­ly free and easy to use. If you have a free moment, pay it a vis­it and help the site grow.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

Bill Murray Reads Poetry at a Construction Site: Emily Dickinson, Billy Collins & More

in Film, Literature, Poetry, Television | May 4th, 2010

Anoth­er great New York City moment. In the spring of 2009, con­struc­tion work­ers build­ing the new home for Poets House were treat­ed to a short poet­ry read­ing by the actor Bill Mur­ray. We ini­tial­ly encounter Mur­ray (at the 59 sec­ond mark) read­ing lines from Bil­ly Collins’ Anoth­er Rea­son I Don’t Keep a Gun in the House. Next up? Lorine Niedeck­er’s very pithy poem, Poets Work, and then, of course, a lit­tle Emi­ly Dick­in­son.

For more free poet­ry, vis­it our col­lec­tion of Free Audio Books.

Look­ing for free, pro­fes­­sion­al­­ly-read audio books from Audible.com? Here’s a great, no-strings-attached deal. If you start a 30 day free tri­al with Audible.com, you can down­load two free audio books of your choice. Get more details on the offer here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Bill Mur­ray Gives a Delight­ful Read­ing of Twain’sHuckleberry Finn (1996)

The Phi­los­o­phy of Bill Mur­ray: The Intel­lec­tu­al Foun­da­tions of His Comedic Per­sona

Watch Bill Mur­ray Per­form a Satir­i­cal Anti-Tech­nol­o­gy Rant (1982)

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 4 ) |

Truman Capote Reads from Breakfast at Tiffany’s in NYC (1963)

in Audio Books, Literature | April 29th, 2010

We’re bring­ing you some great authors this week. First it was Hem­ing­way, then Orwell, and now Capote.

In 1958, Tru­man Capote put his stamp on the Amer­i­can lit­er­ary scene when he pub­lished his short nov­el, Break­fast at Tiffany’s, in the pages of Esquire mag­a­zine. Authors and crit­ics were quick to rec­og­nize what Capote had accom­plished here. The always opin­ion­at­ed Nor­man Mail­er would say that Capote “is the most per­fect writer of my gen­er­a­tion, he writes the best sen­tences word for word, rhythm upon rhythm. I would not have changed two words in Break­fast at Tiffany’s which will become a small clas­sic.” About that, Mail­er was exact­ly right. Break­fast at Tiffany’s is now a clas­sic book – not to men­tion a clas­sic film too (watch the trail­er with the icon­ic Audrey Hep­burn here). And now let’s rewind the audio­tape and take you back to 1963, to the great 92nd Street Y in New York city, where Tru­man Capote reads from his lit­tle clas­sic in his own dis­tinc­tive voice. This audio clip runs about 17 min­utes. Have a lis­ten.

Look­ing for free, pro­fes­sion­al­ly-read audio books from Audible.com? Here’s a great, no-strings-attached deal. If you start a 30 day free tri­al with Audible.com, you can down­load two free audio books of your choice. Get more details on the offer here.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

« Go Back — More in this category... »
Quantcast