FYI: Mira Nair, the director of Monsoon Weddingand The Namesake, has just released an online masterclass on independent filmmaking. In 17 video lessons, the Oscar-nominated director teaches students how to “make a big impact on a small budget, evoke the best from actors and non-actors, and protect your creative vision so you tell the story that can only come from you.” Nair’s course runs $90. But for $180, you can get an All-Access Pass to Masterclass’ catalogue of 45 courses, which includes courses by a number of other prominent filmmakers–Martin Scorsese, Spike Lee, Ken Burns, Ron Howard, Werner Herzog and more. Not to mention actors and actresses like Samuel L. Jackson and Helen Mirren.
FYI: If you sign up for a MasterClass course by clicking on the affiliate links in this post, Open Culture will receive a small fee that helps support our operation.
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“Dan Brown visited my English class,” remembers the New Yorker’s Joshua Rothman. “It happened in the spring of 1998,” five years before Brown hit the bigtime with The Da Vinci Code, a thriller best known for its colossal sales numbers. “None of us had heard of Brown, or of his book” — his debut novel, Digital Fortress — “and we were annoying, arty little snooty-snoots. Why would we want to talk with the author of a ‘techno-thriller’ about computer hackers?” But the class’ attitude didn’t stop Brown from sharing the writing wisdom he had to offer, delivered in the form of such guidelines (in Rothman’s memory) as “Set your story in an exotic location,” “Make your characters interesting people with secrets,” “Have lots of plot twists,” and “End each chapter with a cliffhanger.”
At the time, Rothman didn’t understand why Brown would come to his class to “give a bunch of arty high-school kids advice about how to write cheesy thrillers.” But now, as a professional writer himself, Rothman realizes “why Brown’s advice was so practical,” and what it had to teach them about the practical considerations, even rigors, of “how to write for a living.”
Though he doesn’t mention any of his classmates growing up to become the kind of novelists Brown is, a great many others dream of such a writing life, few of whom ever had the chance to benefit from a classroom visit by the man himself. But they can now enroll in “Dan Brown Teaches Writing Thrillers,” a new course from online education company Masterclass whose trailer you can watch above.
Any fan of Brown’s writing — or the blockbuster movies that have been made out of it — knows that, as far as exotic locations, characters with secrets, plot twists, and cliffhangers go, he has hardly abandoned his principles. His Masterclass covers all of those aspects in depth and more besides, from “The Anatomy of a Thriller” to “Creating Heroes and Villains” to “Creating Suspense” to “Protecting Your Process.” Brown also devotes two sections to research, which he once called in a Goodreads question-and-answer session “the most overlooked facet of writing a successful page turner.” If any living writer knows how to come up with a successful page turner, Brown does, and unlike in his novels themselves, he certainly doesn’t seem inclined to bury the secret under layers of history, symbolism, conspiracy, and murder. You can enroll in Brown’s new thriller-writing class (which runs $90) here. You can also pay $180 to get an annual pass to all of Masterclass’ courses.
FYI: If you sign up for a MasterClass course by clicking on the affiliate links in this post, Open Culture will receive a small fee that helps support our operation.
Based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities, language, and culture. His projects include the book The Stateless City: a Walk through 21st-Century Los Angeles and the video series The City in Cinema. Follow him on Twitter at @colinmarshall or on Facebook.
by Colin Marshall | Permalink | Make a Comment ( Comments Off on How to Write a Bestselling Page Turner: Learn from The Da Vinci Code Author Dan Brown’s New Masterclass ) |
“I grew up in an exurb where it took nearly an hour to walk to the nearest shop, to the nearest place to eat, to the library,” remembers writer Adam Cadre. “And the steep hills made it an exhausting walk. That meant that until I turned sixteen, when school was not in session I was stuck at home. This was often not a good place to be stuck. Stan Lee gave me a place to hang out.” Many other former children of exurban America — as well as everywhere else — did much of their growing up there as well, not just in the universe of Marvel Comics but in those of the comics and other forms of culture to which it gave rise or influenced, most of them either directly or indirectly shaped by Lee, who died yesterday at the age of 95.
“His critics would say that for me to thank Stan Lee for creating the Marvel Universe shows that I’ve fallen for his self-promotion,” Cadre continues, “that it was Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko and his other collaborators who supplied the dynamic, expressive artwork and the epic storylines that made the Marvel Universe so compelling.”
Marvel fans will remember that Ditko, co-creator with Lee of Spider-Man and Doctor Strange, died this past summer. Kirby, whose countless achievements in comics include co-creating the Fantastic Four, the X‑Men, and the Hulk with Lee, passed away in 1994. (Kirby’s death, as I recall, was the first I’d ever heard about on the internet.)
Those who take a dimmer view of Lee’s career see him as having done little more artistic work than putting dialogue into the speech bubbles. But like no small number of other Marvel Universe habitués, Cadre “didn’t read superhero comics for the fights or the costumes or the trips to Asgard and Attilan. I read them for fantasy that read like reality, for the interplay of wildly different personalities — and for the wisecracks.” And what made superhero stories the right delivery system for that interplay of personalities and those wisecracks? You’ll find the answer in “The Rise of Superheroes and Their Impact On Pop Culture,” an online course from the Smithsonian, previously featured here on Open Culture and still available to take at your own pace in edX’s archives, created and taught in part by Lee himself. You can watch the trailer for the course at the top of the post.
If you take the course, its promotional materials promise, you’ll learn the answers to such questions as “Why did superheroes first arise in 1938 and experience what we refer to as their “Golden Age” during World War II?,” “How have comic books, published weekly since the mid-1930’s, mirrored a changing American society, reflecting our mores, slang, fads, biases and prejudices?,” and “When and how did comic book artwork become accepted as a true American art form as indigenous to this country as jazz?” Whether or not you consider yourself a “true believer,” as Lee would have put it, there could be few better ways of honoring an American icon like him than discovering what makes his work in superhero comics — the field to which he dedicated his life, and the one which has taken more than its fair share of derision over the decades — not just a reflection of the culture but a major influence on it as well.
Based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities, language, and culture. His projects include the book The Stateless City: a Walk through 21st-Century Los Angeles and the video series The City in Cinema. Follow him on Twitter at @colinmarshall or on Facebook.
by Colin Marshall | Permalink | Make a Comment ( Comments Off on R.I.P. Stan Lee: Take His Free Online Course “The Rise of Superheroes and Their Impact On Pop Culture” ) |
FYI: If you sign up for a MasterClass course by clicking on the affiliate links in this post, Open Culture will receive a small fee that helps support our operation.
You can take this class by signing up for a MasterClass’ All Access Pass. The AllAccessPass will give you instant access to this course and 85 others for a 12-month period.
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The participants in this seminar will dive into learning basic conversational Italian, Italian culture, and the Mediterranean diet. Each class is based on the preparation of a delicious dish and on the bite-sized acquisition of parts of the Italian language and culture. A good diet is not based on recipes only, it is also rooted in healthy habits and in culture. At the end of the seminar the participants will be able to cook some healthy and tasty recipes and to understand and speak basic Italian.
As Rebusco explains in a short video, this course has the advantage of making the language lessons a little less abstract. It gives students a chance to apply what they’ve learned (new vocabulary words, pronunciations, etc.) in a fun, practical context.
Note: An earlier version of this post appeared on our site way back in 2012.
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!
When Leon Theremin debuted his strange electronic device on the world stage, it seemed to many people more like a curious toy than a serious musical instrument. The theremin soon became associated with B‑grade sci-fi movies and novelty soundtracks, an association that made Clara Rockmore furious. Determined to achieve respectability for the theremin, she championed it as “a legitimate classical instrument that deserves a place in the pit,” writes Atlas Obscura, “right next to the violins and piano.” Rockmore’s ambitions may have been outsized, but her talent was undeniable. “As serious as anyone has ever been about the theremin… she left behind a number of valuable lessons,” including a book, freely available, in which she dispenses some very practical advice.
But much has changed since her day, including popular methods of instruction and some of the technical design of theremins. Now, aspiring players will likely go looking for video lessons before consulting Rockmore’s guide, which requires that students read music in order to transition from exercises to “easy pieces” by Camille Saint-Saëns and J.S. Bach.
One series of video lessons offered by “thereminist” Thomas Grillo, an earnest instructor in a white shirt and tie, begins with the very basics and works up to more advanced techniques, including possible mods to the device (Grillo plays a Moog-made theremin himself).
Grillo opens with a disclaimer that his short course is “no substitute for professionally done how-to videos on how to play the theremin,” thereby humbly acknowledging the low production values of his series. Nonetheless, I imagine his classes are as good a place to start as any for newcomers to theremin-ing, not a skill one can pick up as readily online as playing the guitar or piano. He clearly knows his stuff. With the look and demeaner of a high school algebra teacher, Grillo patiently explains and demonstrates many techniques and principles, beginning with lesson one above, then continuing in lessons two, three, four, five, six, and seven.
Once you’ve reached an intermediate stage, or if you already find yourself there, you may benefit from the instruction of Carolina Eyck, who has carried on the serious classical work of Clara Rockmore. See her just above perform a stirring rendition of Rachmaninoff’s “Vocalise,” accompanied on piano by Christopher Tarnow, and check out her YouTube channel for more performances and short lessons.
“When do governments deserve our allegiance, and when should they be denied it?” It’s a question that has perhaps crossed your mind lately. And it’s precisely the question that’s at the heart of The Moral Foundations of Political Philosophy, a free course taught by Yale political science professor Ian Shapiro.
In 25 lectures (all available above, on YouTube and iTunes), the course “starts with a survey of major political theories of the Enlightenment—Utilitarianism, Marxism, and the social contract tradition—through classical formulations, historical context, and contemporary debates relating to politics today. It then turns to the rejection of Enlightenment political thinking. Lastly, it deals with the nature of, and justifications for, democratic politics, and their relations to Enlightenment and Anti-Enlightenment political thinking.”
by OC | Permalink | Make a Comment ( Comments Off on Yale’s Free Course on The Moral Foundations of Political Philosophy: Do Governments Deserve Our Allegiance, and When Should They Be Denied It? ) |
The brewing of beer is as old as agriculture, which is to say as old as settled civilization. The oldest recipe we know of dates to 1800 B.C. Over centuries, beer moved up and down the class ladder depending on its primary consumers. Medieval monks brewed many fine varieties and were renowned for their technique. Beer descended into pubs and rowdy beer halls, whetting the whistles not only of farmers, soldiers, sailors, and pilgrims, but also of burghers and a budding industrial workforce. During the age of modern empire, beer became, on both sides of the Atlantic, the beverage of working-class sports fans in bleachers and La-Z-Boys.
A craft beer Renaissance at the end of last century brought back a monkish mystique to this most ancient beverage, turning beer into wine, so to speak, with comparable levels of connoisseurship. Beer bars became galleries of fine polished brass, pungent, fruity aromas, dark and serious wood appointments. Craft beer is fun—with its quirky names and labels—it is also intimidating, in the breadth of complicated concoctions on offer. (Hipsters and penurious revelers revolted, made a fetish of Pabst Blue Ribbon, Milwaukee’s Best, and ye olde malt liquor.)
“Has craft beer peaked?” wonders The Washington Post’s Rachel Siegel. You can probably guess from the question that most trends point to “yes.” But as long as there is wheat, barley, and hops, we will have beer, no matter who is drinking it and where. One lasting effect of beer’s highbrow few decades remains: a popular scholarly appreciation for its culture and composition. You can study the typography of beer, for example, as Print magazine has done in recent years. A new online course applies the tools of empirical and sociological research to beer drinking.
“The Science of Beer,” taught by a cadre of student teachers from Wageningen University in Holland, explores “how [beer is] made, the raw materials used, its supply chain, how it’s marketed and the effect of beer consumption on your body.” (This last point—in a world turned against sugar, carbs, and gluten—being partly the reason for craft beer’s decline.) Should your voice quaver when you approach the upscale reclaimed walnut bar and survey unfamiliar lagers, ales, stouts, bocks, porters, and hefeweizens… should you hesitate at Whole Foods when faced with a wall of beverages with names like incantations, this free class may set you at ease.
Not only will you learn about the different types of beer, but “after this course, tasting a beer will be an entirely new sensation: you will enjoy it even more since you will better understand what’s inside your drink.” Enrollment for the 5‑week course began this past Monday and the class is currently open and free. (Make sure you select the “Audit” option for the free version of the course.) You should expect to devote 2 to 4 hours per week to “The Science of Beer.” Please, study responsibly.
Josh Jones is a writer and musician based in Durham, NC. Follow him at @jdmagness
by Josh Jones | Permalink | Make a Comment ( Comments Off on The Science of Beer: A New Free Online Course Promises to Enhance Your Appreciation of the Timeless Beverage ) |
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