Billie Holiday Sings “Strange Fruit”

in Music | July 17th, 2011

Before the week­end slips away, we want to remem­ber Bil­lie Hol­i­day who was born 98 years ago today. To this day, Hol­i­day is wide­ly con­sid­ered the great­est jazz vocal­ist of all time, known for her dis­tinc­tive phras­ing and melan­choly voice. Above, we bring you her per­for­mance of “Strange Fruit,” a song record­ed in 1939 that protest­ed the lynch­ing of African Amer­i­cans in the South. The com­po­si­tion intro­duced Hol­i­day to a main­stream audi­ence, giv­ing her career a big break. Down the line, Hol­i­day closed every con­cert with the song, which con­tin­u­al­ly grew in cul­tur­al impor­tance. By 1999, TIME called “Strange Fruit” the song of the cen­tu­ry, solid­i­fy­ing its place in the Amer­i­can song­book.

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Good Vibrations: Guitar and Cymbal Caught on Video

in Music, Video - Arts & Culture, Video - Science | July 15th, 2011

This gor­geous video of a cym­bal (shot with a Phan­tom at 1,000 frames per sec­ond) made our morn­ing. And then Kot­tke’s find below — bril­liant footage of vibrat­ing gui­tar strings — made our after­noon.

Hope you enjoy them as much as we did, and have a great week­end!

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

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David Lynch and Interpol Team Up on Short Film

in Film, Music | July 15th, 2011

Three years ago, the mem­bers of the band Inter­pol sat down with film­mak­er David Lynch. It was a casu­al meet­ing, an “ice break­er,” that paved the way for a future col­lab­o­ra­tion.

Skip ahead to 2010, and the col­lab­o­ra­tion begins. Inter­pol wants to devel­op visu­als to accom­pa­ny their per­for­mance at the 2011 Coachel­la Fes­ti­val, and Lynch agrees to take on the job. The result: “I Touch a Red But­ton Man,” a short ani­mat­ed film that accom­pa­nies Inter­pol’s song “Lights.” The film (orig­i­nal­ly shown at Coachel­la) was offi­cial­ly released online yes­ter­day at Huff­Po, where the band also talked about the gen­e­sis of the project in their own words.

You can find this film list­ed in the Ani­ma­tion sec­tion of our big col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online.

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!

 

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A Secret Bookstore in New York City

in Books, Literature, Video - Arts & Culture | July 14th, 2011

The Paris Review blog, which just gets bet­ter and bet­ter each week, post­ed Andrew David Wat­son’s love­ly video yes­ter­day about Michael Sei­den­berg, who moved his shop, Brazen­head Books, into his New York City apart­ment after his book­shop rent sky­rock­et­ed. “It’s a con­tin­u­a­tion of just me being a book­seller in the way that I want to be… If it’s all about mon­ey, there’s just bet­ter things to sell. Just sell crack. That’s a much bet­ter busi­ness.” As for where he’s locat­ed, he says “My name is in the phone­book, and any­one can call me… I’m hid­ing in plain sight. Come find me, vis­it me, and I’m yours.”

A spe­cial h/t to Rachel Rosen­felt and The New Inquiry for first intro­duc­ing Wat­son (and us) to Brazen­wood Books.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Books Savored in Stop Motion Film

Going West: A Stop Motion Nov­el

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

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In Honor of Louis C.K.‘s Well-Deserved Emmy Nomination

in Comedy | July 14th, 2011

Con­grat­u­la­tions to the come­di­an Louis C.K. whose half-hour F/X show Louie was just nom­i­nat­ed for an Emmy Award (full list of nom­i­nees here). To cel­e­brate, here’s one of our favorite of his riffs from a 2009 appear­ance on the Conan O’Brien show. (Speak­ing of Conan, don’t miss his Dart­mouth grad­u­a­tion address.)

We love Louis for many rea­sons, not the least of which is that he can build a killer, harangue-free rant around lines like “the foun­da­tions of cap­i­tal­ism are crum­bling.” Enjoy.

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

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The Gas Station Designed by Frank Lloyd Wright

in Architecture | July 14th, 2011

The town of Clo­quet lies in north­ern Min­neso­ta along the St. Louis Riv­er. It has a pop­u­la­tion of rough­ly 11,000 res­i­dents, and sev­er­al of its most famous res­i­dents play for the NHL. The town also hap­pens to be home to the R.W. Lind­holm Ser­vice Sta­tion – a gas sta­tion designed by none oth­er than Frank Lloyd Wright.

In the ear­ly 1930s, Wright began devel­op­ing con­cepts for Broad­acre City, a city spread out to the point where it would be ‘every­where and nowhere,’ kind of like what we would even­tu­al­ly call ‘sub­ur­bia.’ The design for the Lind­holm gas sta­tion came direct­ly from this con­cep­tu­al project, and it was built in 1956. The sta­tion remains open and ful­ly oper­a­tional today, and it’s cur­rent­ly get­ting restored to its orig­i­nal con­di­tion. The video above gives you the best out­side view of the Wright cre­ation, and this sec­ond one gives you a clos­er look at some of the fin­er details.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Falling­wa­ter Ani­mat­ed

The Frank Lloyd Wright Lego Set

Gehry’s Vision for Archi­tec­ture

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Name That Painting!

in Art, History, Music | July 14th, 2011

In Feb­ru­ary 2010, the Paris-based band Hold Your Hors­es! released a music video to go with their song “70 Mil­lion,” which became an imme­di­ate suc­cess. In the video, the band mem­bers recre­at­ed famous paint­ings, tak­ing the view­er on an enter­tain­ing tour through art his­to­ry. Try to iden­ti­fy as many paint­ings as pos­si­ble, then com­pare your results with the list of the actu­al paint­ings below the jump. Enjoy — and let us know your scores! And, of course, Hap­py Bastille Day.

(more…)

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125 Science Videos: Our Greatest Hits

in Science, Video - Science | July 13th, 2011

We reached deep into our archives and pulled out a list of our great­est hits — our favorite sci­ence videos from the past five years. 125 videos in total, and the list will grow from here. Right now, it cov­ers every­thing from Astron­o­my and Space Trav­el, to Physics and Biol­o­gy, and then Psy­chol­o­gy and Neu­ro­science. Our rec­om­men­da­tion? Just jump right in here. But if you want a lit­tle pre­view, then let’s start you off with ten slam-dunk videos from the col­lec­tion:

(Note: In the future, you can access this col­lec­tion by click­ing the “Great Sci­ence Videos” link under “Essen­tials.” Top of the cen­ter col­umn.)

  • Earth­rise in HD – Video — In Novem­ber 2007, Japan’s Kaguya space­craft orbit­ed the moon and cap­tured the first HD footage of an “earth­rise” and “earth­set.”
  • Tour­ing the Earth from Space (in HD) – Video — Give NASA 7 min­utes, and they’ll show you the Earth’s most impres­sive land­scapes — as seen from space.
  • “First Orbit”: Cel­e­brat­ing 50th Anniver­sary of Yuri Gagaran’s Space Flight - Video — 99-minute doc­u­men­tary recre­ates the Sovi­et cos­mo­naut’s his­toric launch into space on April 12, 1961.
  • Arthur C. Clarke Presents the Col­ors of Infin­i­ty – Video – The futur­ist brings us inside Mandelbrot’s world of frac­tal geom­e­try.
  • Physics from Hell: How Dante’s Infer­no Inspired Galileo’s Physics – Video – Fas­ci­nat­ing pre­sen­ta­tion by Mark Peter­son, physics pro­fes­sor at Mount Holyoke Col­lege.
  • Lawrence Krauss: Every Atom in Your Body Comes From a Star- Video – The­o­ret­i­cal physi­cist talks about his work at the World Eco­nom­ic Forum in Davos.
  • What It Feels Like To Have a Stroke - Video — Har­vard neu­roanatomist Jill Bolte Tay­lor recounts her expe­ri­ence hav­ing a stroke. One of the most pop­u­lar TED Talks of all time.
  • Nature by Num­bers - Video — Well-known geo­met­ri­cal and math­e­mat­i­cal for­mu­las (The Fibonac­ci Series and Spi­ral, The Gold­en and Angle Ratios, The Delauney Tri­an­gu­la­tion and Voronoi Tes­sel­la­tions) present them­selves in nature.
  • Tsuna­mi Rip­ples Across Globe: Ani­mat­ed Video — Video — The Nation­al Ocean­ic and Atmos­pher­ic Admin­is­tra­tion shows Japan­ese tsuna­mi rip­pling across the Pacif­ic.
  • Daniel Pink: The Sur­pris­ing Truth About What Moti­vates Us - Video — Research reveals what real­ly, tru­ly moti­vates us. And it’s all shown with ani­ma­tion.

Find the full list of Sci­ence Videos here…

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Curated Song Collections to Match the Rhythms of Your Day

in Music | July 13th, 2011

We love the design and over­all lay­out of The Illu­mi­nat­ed Playlists by Brook­lyn-based design­er Adam Parks, but the real delight of the web­site is its sound, not its look. Parks has grouped 21 music col­lec­tions into four cat­e­gories, from slow to very fast  (or rather, Ada­gio to Presto), so you can choose a playlist depend­ing on the pace of your cur­rent activ­i­ty or mood.

As a DJ, Parks has made con­sis­tent­ly sol­id choic­es, culling from both the clas­sics (Bob Dylan, Neal Young, Rolling Stones, Cur­tis May­field) and more recent artists (TV on the Radio, The Decem­berists, Arcade Fire, etc.). These aren’t the lists you would use to impress the cool kids with your eclec­ti­cism, iron­ic tastes, or love of the obscure, but if you’re just look­ing for great sound­tracks for the shift­ing rhythms of the day, they’re a per­fect fit. Dive in here.

We’d love to see sim­i­lar col­lec­tions for jazz and clas­si­cal — we might just need to make a few of our own.

via Metafil­ter

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

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Coming Soon: Kafka’s Metamorphosis, The New Movie

in Animation, Film | July 12th, 2011

We want to be excit­ed about the lat­est film ver­sion of Franz Kafka’s 1915 novel­la The Meta­mor­pho­sis (get free etext here), espe­cial­ly because it’s an indie pro­duc­tion, and we just can’t see the exis­ten­tial dra­ma of Gre­gor Sam­sa’s jour­ney from human to insect sur­viv­ing a major stu­dio adap­ta­tion. Fur­ther­more, we love Nick Searcy in the F/X dra­ma, Jus­ti­fied, and we’re hap­py to see him on the big screen.

We can accept the mar­ket­ing twist of turn­ing Sam­sa into a 17-year-old boy, but after see­ing the con­cept art in the film­mak­ers’ trail­er, we’re won­der­ing if the pro­posed fea­ture’s biggest star might be the spe­cial effects. Give it a watch and let us know what you think.

via A Piece of Mono­logue

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

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A Building Salvador Dali Could Love

in Art | July 12th, 2011

You’ve seen build­ings mag­i­cal­ly trans­formed into artis­tic can­vas­es before — the Astro­nom­i­cal Clock Tow­er in Prague; the icon­ic build­ings at Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty; and then this facade in Ukraine. But have you seen the audi­ence take con­trol of the archi­tec­tur­al paint­ing? That’s what hap­pened in Lyon, France dur­ing the “Fête des lumières,” held last Decem­ber. Throw an audio analy­sis algo­rithm and a micro­phone into the mix, and the audi­ence now dri­ves the sur­re­al archi­tec­tur­al show…

via Boing­Bo­ing

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