Paul Simon’s Christmas Gets Animated in April

in Music | April 20th, 2011

So Beau­ti­ful or So What – Paul Simon’s 12th solo album (and his first release since 2006) hit the streets and ether last week. Crit­ics are call­ing it his best album since The Rhythm of the Saints (1990), if not Grace­land (1986). And it all starts out with “Get­ting Ready for Christ­mas Day,” a song that works well out­side the con­ven­tions of your usu­al Christ­mas song. As The Tele­graph reminds us, the song is over­whelm­ing­ly sec­u­lar, even a tad polit­i­cal:

I got a nephew in Iraq
It’s his third time back
But it’s end­ing up the way it began
With the luck of a begin­ner
He’ll be eat­ing turkey din­ner
On some moun­tain top in Pak­istan.

And it’s writ­ten by some­one out­side the Chris­t­ian faith, though that nev­er stopped Neil Dia­mond, Bar­bara Streisand or Car­ole King from knock­ing out a Christ­mas tune. If there is a spir­i­tu­al ele­ment, it per­haps comes down to this: Quite catchi­ly, the song’s cho­rus builds around excerpts from a 1941 ser­mon by the Rev. J.M. Gates, an influ­en­tial preach­er who became the most record­ed Gospel singer before World War II. Get more on Gates and his sam­pled ser­mon here.

Today, we’re offer­ing three videos that accom­pa­ny this song. First, a splen­did ani­ma­tion fea­tured above. Next, the offi­cial­ly released video. And final­ly a live per­for­mance record­ed on The Col­bert Report late last year.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 2 ) |

The Physics of the Bike

in Physics | April 20th, 2011

Please give this video a sec­ond to get going.

We have all seen or expe­ri­enced it. When trav­el­ing at the right speeds, bikes can prac­ti­cal­ly steer them­selves, remain­ing upright and defy­ing the pull of grav­i­ty. Physi­cists thought they fig­ured out this minor mys­tery long ago. But a new paper (read the PDF here) by Andy Ruina (Cor­nell Uni­ver­si­ty) and Jim Papadopou­los (Uni­ver­si­ty of Wis­con­sin — Stout) chal­lenges the con­ven­tion­al wis­dom. This video, which comes to us cour­tesy of Sci­ence Fri­day, explains…

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Physics: Free Cours­es

Physics from Hell: How Dante’s Infer­no Inspired Galileo’s Physics

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 6 ) |

Morgan Spurlock: The Greatest TED Talk Ever Sold

in Film, Media, TED Talks | April 19th, 2011

Mor­gan Spur­lock­’s newest doc­u­men­tary, The Great­est Movie Ever Sold, expos­es the myr­i­ad ways in which pop­u­lar media is almost whol­ly spon­sored, leased, bought and brand­ed by pow­er­ful cor­po­ra­tions. Iron­i­cal­ly — and inten­tion­al­ly — Spur­lock made sure his doc­u­men­tary would also be almost whol­ly spon­sored, leased, bought and brand­ed by pow­er­ful cor­po­ra­tions. In his very fun­ny TED talk, Spur­lock (Super Size Me, 30 Days) explains how he fur­thered his exper­i­ment in “pure trans­paren­cy” by encour­ag­ing spon­sor­ships of, you guessed it, his very fun­ny TED talk.

Con­fused? That’s because pure trans­paren­cy is a lot eas­i­er to envi­sion than exe­cute. Find out why start­ing at minute 6:18.

via TED

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.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 2 ) |

Rare Footage: Home Movie of FDR’s 1941 Inauguration

in Film, History, Politics | April 19th, 2011

The vin­tage video above is an excerpt from a 16 mm home movie show­ing Pres­i­dent Franklin Delano Roo­sevelt on Jan­u­ary 20, 1941, the day of his Third Inau­gu­ra­tion. This silent col­or movie was shot by FDR’s son-in-law (Clarence) John Boet­tiger, who was then work­ing for the Motion Pic­ture Asso­ci­a­tion of Amer­i­ca, and the qual­i­ty of this rare footage is quite out­stand­ing. Watch the full 14-minute ver­sion here.

FDR can first be seen at 2:45, heav­i­ly sup­port­ed by his old­est son James. This is one of the rare moments on film where Roo­sevelt can actu­al­ly be seen walk­ing, and it’s obvi­ous how dif­fi­cult it was for him to walk after polio left him par­a­lyzed from the hips down in 1921. Next, FDR is seen on the pres­i­den­tial plat­form with his wife Eleanor and Chief Jus­tice Charles Evans Hugh­es, tak­ing the Oath of Office and giv­ing his Inau­gur­al Address. The full text of the address can be read cour­tesy of Yale Law School, and a high-res­o­lu­tion scan of the Inau­gu­ra­tion Cer­e­monies Pro­gram has been uploaded by The Library of Con­gress.

FDR was the first Amer­i­can pres­i­dent to suc­cess­ful­ly run for a third term due to the pre­car­i­ous inter­na­tion­al sit­u­a­tion in 1941. (Get the audio file of FDR’s State of the Union from Jan­u­ary 6, 1941 here). After George Wash­ing­ton declined to run for a third term in 1796, it had become an unwrit­ten rule to fol­low his lead. But it was not until the 22nd Amend­ment from 1947/1951 (“No per­son shall be elect­ed to the office of the Pres­i­dent more than twice.”) that this restric­tion was enshrined into law. FDR was, of course, elect­ed for a fourth term in 1945, but died of a mas­sive stroke on April 12, 1945.

By pro­fes­sion, Matthias Rasch­er teach­es Eng­lish and His­to­ry at a High School in north­ern Bavaria, Ger­many. In his free time he scours the web for good links and posts the best finds on Twit­ter.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 6 ) |

The Discipline of D.E.: Gus Van Sant Adapts a Story by William S. Burroughs

in Film, Literature | April 19th, 2011

Fans of film­mak­er Gus Van Sant (Good Will Hunt­ing, My Own Pri­vate Ida­ho, Milk) will love this 1982 short film – The Dis­ci­pline of D.E. – based on a sto­ry by William S. Bur­roughs. And fans of Bur­roughs him­self will par­tic­u­lar­ly love its theme: The “D.E.” in the title stands for “Doing Easy,” a qua­si-Bud­dhist notion best explained by the short­’s koan-like clos­ing ques­tion, “How fast can you take your time, kid?”

But it is to fans of Bur­roughs’ brief per­for­mance in the 1989 Van Sant clas­sic Drug­store Cow­boy that we ded­i­cate this post. Play­ing the kind, ruined dope-fiend Father Mur­phy — i.e. him­self — Bur­roughs per­fect­ly embod­ied both the allure of his junky aes­thet­ic and its under­ly­ing despair. In the six years between The Dis­ci­pline of D.E. and Drug­store Cow­boy, Van Sant seemed to have trad­ed his youth­ful infat­u­a­tion with a cult hero for the mourn­ful appre­ci­a­tion of a wise but bro­ken man. We high­ly rec­om­mend view­ing both films togeth­er.

Final­ly, in our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online, you will also find Bur­roughs the Movie (a doc­u­men­tary by Howard Bruck­n­er) and The Junky’s Christ­mas, a short clay­ma­tion film writ­ten by William S. Bur­roughs and pro­duced by Fran­cis Ford Cop­po­la.

via Dan­ger­ous Minds

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.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

The Bay of Pigs: 50 Years Later

in History, Video - Politics/Society | April 18th, 2011

50 years ago (April 17, 1961), the CIA launched one of its famous­ly botched oper­a­tions. On that day, 1,500 CIA-trained Cuban exiles stormed the beach­es of south­ern Cuba, begin­ning an inva­sion meant to top­ple Fidel Cas­tro and his Sovi­et-aligned gov­ern­ment.

The plan called for airstrikes to soft­en up Cas­tro’s defens­es, then for troops to land on the beach­es along the Bahía de cochi­nos. But things went quick­ly awry. Ships got stuck in shal­low Cuban waters. Bombers missed tar­gets. Fur­ther airstrikes were called off. And ground forces were even­tu­al­ly left with­out sup­port — as good as dead in the water.

The bun­gled affair, a sting­ing embar­rass­ment for the young Kennedy admin­is­tra­tion, gets revis­it­ed in a new book by Jim Rasen­berg­er, The Bril­liant Dis­as­ter: JFK, Cas­tro, and Amer­i­ca’s Doomed Inva­sion of Cuba’s Bay of Pigs. The video above suc­cinct­ly recaps the events at the Bay of Pigs with the help of his­tor­i­cal footage and inter­views with his­tor­i­cal actors…

via NPR

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

Collaborations: Spike Jonze, Yo-Yo Ma, and Lil Buck

in Music, Video - Arts & Culture | April 18th, 2011

The occa­sion: A ben­e­fit for the arts in pub­lic schools.

The musi­cian: Cel­list Yo-Yo Ma.

The dancer: LA/Memphis street dancer Lil Buck.

The cam­era: Direc­tor Spike Jonze.

The result: A per­for­mance that is also the best pos­si­ble argu­ment for the cause it sup­ports. We could say more, but again, the video speaks for itself.

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:

Ful­ly Flared: Intro to Skate­board­ing direct­ed by Spike Jonze, Ty Evans and Cory Weincheque

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

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 4 ) |

The Pale King: How the Book Came Together (and How to Download the Novel in Audio)

in Books, Literature, Video - Arts & Culture | April 18th, 2011

When David Fos­ter Wal­lace com­mit­ted sui­cide in Sep­tem­ber 2008, he left behind the man­u­script for The Pale King, an unfin­ished nov­el he start­ed research­ing back in 1997, not long after the pub­li­ca­tion of Infi­nite Jest. The Pale King was final­ly pub­lished this past Fri­day (April 15), a date that was hard­ly arbi­trary. Offer­ing a lengthy med­i­ta­tion on bore­dom, The Pale King is set in a Mid­west­ern I.R.S. office. And what was April 15th? The day when Amer­i­cans tra­di­tion­al­ly file their tax­es (although they have until the 18th this year).

The posthu­mous nov­el came togeth­er with the help of Wal­lace’s long­time edi­tor, Michael Pietsch, who spent two years work­ing through heaps of pages left in bins, draw­ers and wire bas­kets, hop­ing to turn this mass of mate­r­i­al into the most com­plete nov­el pos­si­ble. The inter­view with Pietsch above, along with this short piece in The New York Times, brings you inside the editing/making of The Pale King, which has already received some favor­able reviews.

If you’re look­ing to get your hands on the book, give this some thought: If you reg­is­ter for a 14-day free tri­al with Audible.com, you can down­load pret­ty much any audio book in Audi­ble’s cat­a­logue for free. And that cat­a­logue now includes The Pale King. Once the tri­al is over, you can con­tin­ue your Audi­ble sub­scrip­tion (as I did), or can­cel it, and still keep the free book. The choice is yours…

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 2 ) |

El Teide in Time Lapse

in Art, Video - Science | April 16th, 2011

It’s the sec­ond time we have Spain in time lapse video this week. First, the his­tor­i­cal land­scape of Cen­tral Spain. Now El Tei­de, Spain’s high­est moun­tain, and the home to one of the world’s best obser­va­to­ries. This drop-dead gor­geous footage (click here to watch expand­ed ver­sion) was cap­tured just days ago by Ter­je Sorgjerd, whose work can be fol­lowed on Face­book here. And, don’t miss our Face­book page, where you can get our dai­ly posts and share intel­li­gent media with fam­i­ly and friends…

via Metafil­ter

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 6 ) |

Yale Rolls Out 10 New Courses — All Free

in Online Courses, Yale | April 15th, 2011

This week, Yale Uni­ver­si­ty rolled out its lat­est batch of open cours­es. This release, the first since Octo­ber 2009, fea­tures 10 new cours­es, and brings the total num­ber to 35. Find the com­plete list here.

We have list­ed the new addi­tions below, and added them to our ever-grow­ing list of 350 Free Online Cours­es. As always, Yale gives you access to their cours­es in mul­ti­ple for­mats. You can down­load lec­tures (usu­al­ly in audio and video) from iTunes, or direct­ly from the Yale web site. And then, of course, YouTube is a good third option…

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 13 ) |

American Philosophy on Film: Pragmatism, Richard Rorty and More

in Philosophy, Video - Politics/Society | April 15th, 2011

In his online bio, Penn State lec­tur­er Phillip McReynolds con­fess­es his “unhealthy fas­ci­na­tion with movies.”  McReynolds chan­nels that obses­sion to healthy effect in his doc­u­men­tary “Amer­i­can Philoso­pher.” The film — which is real­ly a series of 8 shorts — fea­tures inter­views with Richard Rorty, Hilary Put­nam, Joseph Mar­go­lis, Crispin Sartwell, Richard Bern­stein, and many oth­er promi­nent philoso­phers. The con­ver­sa­tion gen­er­al­ly turns around prag­ma­tism, the nation­al char­ac­ter, and the cen­tral ques­tion: Is there such a thing as a native Amer­i­can Phi­los­o­phy?

Our favorite sec­tion is prob­a­bly Part 6, “Progress:” It fea­tures a live­ly 2002 debate between Rorty and Put­nam which (the film argues) was large­ly respon­si­ble for the revival of prag­ma­tism as a viable school of thought.

(Not sur­pris­ing­ly, Mr. McReynolds did his dis­ser­ta­tion on John Dewey.)

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.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 5 ) |


« Newer Entries | Older Entries »

  • Great Lectures

  • Sign up for Newsletter

  • About Us

    Open Culture scours the web for the best educational media. We find the free courses and audio books you need, the language lessons & educational videos you want, and plenty of enlightenment in between.


    Advertise With Us

  • Great Recordings

  • Book Lists By

  • Syllabi

  • Favorite Movies

  • Archives

  • Search

    • Quantcast