Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 — Karajan or Muppet Style

in Music, Video - Arts & Culture | December 21st, 2008

A cou­ple of big blogs recent­ly high­light­ed a clip of the Mup­pets doing Ode to Joy from Beethoven’s Ninth. It’s cute, and I was hard­ly sur­prised that the video logged 3.6 mil­lion views on YouTube.

Not far behind, at 3.2 mil­lion views, is a long video show­ing Her­bert Von Kara­jan lead­ing a live per­for­mance of Beethoven’s Ninth. The fact that Kara­jan, one of the world’s best-known con­duc­tors, lags behind a bunch of pup­pets is unfor­tu­nate, no doubt. But it’s also heart­en­ing in some ways. It tells me that high cul­ture is still com­pet­ing for an audi­ence. So here it goes. Kara­jan in action:

(You can get Part 2 here, and we’ve added both clips to our YouTube Favorites. Also you can find more vin­tage Beethoven/Karajan footage in this guy’s video col­lec­tion.)

 

Sub­scribe to our feed

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

T.S. Eliot on YouTube

in Literature, Video - Arts & Culture | December 8th, 2008

Michael Gough (I believe) reads the poem that launched T.S. Eliot’s career in 1917, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (get the full text of the poem here)

For more free down­loads of clas­sic audio books and poet­ry, see our com­plete col­lec­tion.

Sub­scribe to our feed

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Vintage Nabokov

in Literature, Video - Arts & Culture | November 12th, 2008

Tak­en from a French tele­vi­sion pro­gram, this vin­tage clip fea­tures Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977) read­ing from Loli­ta and reveal­ing his list of the most impor­tant nov­els of the 20th cen­tu­ry, among oth­er things. Nabokov speaks in Eng­lish here. So don’t let the ini­tial French throw you off. We’ve added this gem to our YouTube playlist.

Loli­ta, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue tak­ing a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.

Sub­scribe to our feed

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 2 ) |

Harold Pinter’s “The Dumb Waiter” Animated

in Theatre, Video - Arts & Culture | October 22nd, 2008

and con­densed…

Sub­scribe to Our Feed

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

The Old Man and the Sea Animated

in Film, Video - Arts & Culture | October 19th, 2008

In 1999, Alek­san­dr Petrov won the Acad­e­my Award for Short Film (among oth­er awards) for a film that fol­lows the plot line of Ernest Hem­ing­way’s clas­sic novel­la, The Old Man and the Sea (1952). As not­ed here, Petro­v’s tech­nique involves paint­ing pas­tels on glass, and he and his son paint­ed a total of 29,000 images in total. Rather incred­i­ble. Below, we present the 20 minute short. You’ll find this film list­ed in our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 11 ) |

Morphing Van Gogh Portraits

in Art, Video - Arts & Culture | October 12th, 2008

You’ll get the con­cept of this pret­ty quick­ly. And if you’re a fan, see these oth­er clips (Women in Art & Women in Film). These cre­ative videos by Philip Scott John­son all reside in this larg­er YouTube col­lec­tion, which has now made it on to our our grow­ing list: Intel­li­gent Life at YouTube: 80 Edu­ca­tion­al Video Col­lec­tions.

 

Sub­scribe to Our Feed


by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 3 ) |

And the 2008 Nobel Prize in Literature Goes To …

in Literature, Video - Arts & Culture | October 9th, 2008

You can get more on the author here.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

The Living Camera in Rome

in Art, Video - Arts & Culture | October 8th, 2008

Here’s a rather amaz­ing video (added to our YouTube playlist) that shows what hap­pens when an artist, who hap­pens to be autis­tic, takes a 45 minute heli­copter flight over Rome and then works to artis­ti­cal­ly repro­duce all that he sees. The human brain nev­er ceas­es to amaze:

Sub­scribe to Our Feed

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

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