Thomas Edison’s Boxing Cats (1894), or Where the LOLCats All Began

in Film, Random, Technology | September 18th, 2012

I’m will­ing to bet a lot of some­one else’s mon­ey that there are thou­sands more lol­cat lovers than cat lovers in the world. Since I hap­pen to be unashamed­ly both, I was suck­ered by the lit­tle 1894 film above from Thomas Edison’s Black Maria stu­dios fea­tur­ing “Pro­fes­sor Welton’s Box­ing Cats.” Now, grant­ed, there is no dis­claimer telling us no ani­mals were harmed, but it looks to me like good clean cat-box­ing fun. As the Smith­son­ian page that post­ed this lit­tle gem declares, Edi­son is per­haps the “mogul who start­ed lol­cats.”

Edi­son is giv­en cred­it for invent­ing a lot of things, many of which he sim­ply appro­pri­at­ed, made his own, and mar­ket­ed heav­i­ly. In this way, he exem­pli­fies a par­tic­u­lar brand of Amer­i­can entre­pre­neur skilled not so much in mak­ing things as in patent­ing them. The so-called “Wiz­ard of Men­lo Park” patent­ed 1,093 inven­tions, among them his motion pic­ture cam­era, or “kine­to­graph.” But as the Library of Con­gress reports, it is like­ly that Edison’s awk­ward­ly-named assis­tant William Kennedy Lau­rie Dick­son did the actu­al work of turn­ing Edis­on’s con­cept (which he took from Ead­weard Muy­bridge) into a real­i­ty.

Com­plex­i­ties of due cred­it aside, we can at least thank Edi­son for man­ag­ing an effi­cient oper­a­tion and also, for bet­ter or worse, pio­neer­ing lit­i­ga­tion against his com­peti­tors (putting many of them out of busi­ness). His Black Maria Stu­dios amassed quite an archive of ear­ly “actu­al­i­ty” films and silent fic­tion­al films of the Nick­elodeon era, the most famous of which, The Great Train Rob­bery, you can watch below (with dubbed-in score).

The Library of Congress’s Edi­son page is an excel­lent resource for infor­ma­tion on the his­to­ry of film in gen­er­al and Edison’s con­tri­bu­tions in par­tic­u­lar, and it fea­tures dozens of his short films avail­able for down­load in Real­Me­dia, Quick Time, or as MPEGs.

Josh Jones is a doc­tor­al can­di­date in Eng­lish at Ford­ham Uni­ver­si­ty and a co-founder and for­mer man­ag­ing edi­tor of Guer­ni­ca / A Mag­a­zine of Arts and Pol­i­tics.

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Danny MacAskill, Biker Extraordinaire, Takes on the Streets of San Francisco

in Random | September 5th, 2012


Dan­ny MacAskill spent sev­er­al months rid­ing the streets of Edin­burgh, Scot­land in 2009, demon­strat­ing his unique set of tal­ents on the moun­tain bike. It was all cap­tured in a video called Inspired Bicy­cles. Did you catch it? If so, you’re not alone. The video has clocked more than 31 mil­lion views. Now, Dan­ny is back, this time tak­ing on the mean streets of San Fran­cis­co. It’s all about, as Rem­ing­ton likes to say, pre­ci­sion, pow­er and con­trol. You can find more of Dan­ny’s videos on his web site.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Sci­ence Behind the Bike: Four Videos from the Open Uni­ver­si­ty on the Eve of the Tour de France

Brus­sels Express: The Per­ils of Cycling in Europe’s Most Con­gest­ed City

David Byrne: From Talk­ing Heads Front­man to Lead­ing Urban Cyclist

The Physics of the Bike

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How to Remove Egg Yolks with a Plastic Bottle, and More Strange Culinary Tips

in Random | August 24th, 2012

We’ve told you how to open wine bot­tles with your shoe.

And how to peel a head of gar­lic in less than 10 sec­onds.

Now, by way of Asia, comes our lat­est DIY tip — an easy way to extract egg yolks lick­ety-split.

via Kot­tke

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The Famous Intro to 20th Century Fox Films … As It Ought to Be

in Comedy, Film, Random | August 24th, 2012

The world be an infi­nite­ly more cheer­ful place if every 20th Cen­tu­ry Fox Film start­ed like this, would­n’t it?

Find us on Face­book and Twit­ter, and don’t for­get to check out our col­lec­tion of 500 Free Online Movies.

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Paris in (Stop) Motion

in Random | July 31st, 2012

Thanks to Mayeul Akpovi, we’ll always have Paris.…

via Devour

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Le Fla­neur: Time Lapse Video of Paris With­out the Peo­ple

It’s 5:46 A.M. and Paris Is Under Water

Tui­leries: A Short, Slight­ly Twist­ed Film by Joel and Ethan Coen

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Bill Murray’s Baseball Hall of Fame Speech (and Hideous Sports Coat)

in Comedy, Film, Random | June 21st, 2012

Charleston, South Car­oli­na is a long way from Coop­er­stown, NY. About 622 miles, to be pre­cise. And it’s in Charleston that Bill Mur­ray, the actor, was induct­ed into the South Atlantic League Hall of Fame on Tues­day. Why bestow such an hon­or on the star of Ghost­busters, Stripes, and var­i­ous Wes Ander­son films? Because, rather qui­et­ly, Mur­ray has owned parts of many minor league base­ball teams, includ­ing, these days, the Charleston River­Dogs, a class A affil­i­ate of the New York Yan­kees. So, with the Yan­kees’ Gen­er­al Man­ag­er Bri­an Cash­man in atten­dance, Mur­ray gave his Hall of Fame Induc­tion Speech, know­ing­ly sport­ing a hideous shirt and jack­et. The open­ing min­utes will speak to any­one who remem­bers, as a kid, enter­ing a base­ball sta­di­um for the first time and see­ing that vast field of green.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Fact Check­ing Bill Mur­ray: A Short, Com­ic Film from Sun­dance 2008

Bill Mur­ray Intro­duces Wes Anderson’s Moon­rise King­dom (And Plays FDR In Decem­ber)

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The Karl Marx Credit Card — When You’re Short of Kapital

in Economics, Random | June 19th, 2012

Is it a tragedy? Is it a farce? In the land once called East Ger­many, in a town once called Karl-Marx-Stadt, a bank called Sparkasse Chem­nitz ran an online poll let­ting cus­tomers vote for images to place on their cred­it cards. And the hands-down win­ner was Karl Marx, an iron­ic pick giv­en that … well, you don’t need me to explain why.

In response to this selec­tion, Plan­et Mon­ey has encour­aged read­ers to post a tagline for the card on Twit­ter, using the hash­tag #marx­card. Here are a few of our favorites so far:

  • There are Some Things Mon­ey Can’t Buy. Espe­cial­ly If You Abol­ish All Pri­vate Prop­er­ty.
  • From each accord­ing to their abil­i­ty, to each accord­ing to his need. For every­thing else, there’s #Marx­card.
  • The Marx Card — Because Cred­it is the Opi­ate of the Mass­es.
  • The Karl Marx Mas­ter­Card — When You’re Short of Kap­i­tal

Got your own to sug­gest? cc: us on Twit­ter: @openculture

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:

Read­ing Marx’s Cap­i­tal with David Har­vey (Free Course)

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Moons, Moons, They’re Everywhere. The Unexpected Shadows of the Solar Eclipse

in Random | May 20th, 2012

The eerie (and, for me, the unex­pect­ed) part of the solar eclipse now in full bloom in North­ern Cal­i­for­nia is that you can see the moon in the shad­ows. They’re every­where. Here they appear on the door of a parked car.

Says Wired:

Those not direct­ly in the path of the eclipse will still see some strange effects by step­ping out­side. Shad­ows cast from trees and bush­es will con­tain thou­sands of tiny odd cres­cents, as the spaces between leaves become pin­hole cam­eras.

Any­one remem­ber those pin­hole cam­eras from ele­men­tary school? You can watch a live stream of the eclipse below:

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