The Bob Dylan Demos: They Are A‑Streamin’

in Music | October 11th, 2010

Next week, Bob Dylan will release The Wit­mark Demos: 1962–1964, a col­lec­tion of 47 songs that the artist record­ed for the M. Wit­mark & Sons pub­lish­ing com­pa­ny, all before his 24th birth­day. The young Dylan knocked out these tracks in a sparse 6x8 foot stu­dio, accom­pa­nied only by his acoustic gui­tar, har­mon­i­ca and piano. And, right now, you can stream 23 of these demos (for free) on NPR’s First Lis­ten site. The line­up includes some of his finest ear­ly sin­gles – Blowin’ In The Wind, A Hard Rain’s A‑Gonna Fall, Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right, Girl From The North Coun­try, Mr. Tam­bourine Man, The Times They Are A‑Changin’… You get the gist.

If you’re inclined to pur­chase the album, then you’ll want to con­sid­er this Ama­zon deal. Buy The Wit­mark Demos on CD or vinyl before 10/18/2010 and you will also get a live con­cert CD – Bob Dylan: In Con­cert, Bran­deis Uni­ver­si­ty, 1963 – that has “nev­er been heard, boot­legged or cir­cu­lat­ed in any way.” Not bad for $13.99. Find more details here.

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The Ware Tetralogy: Free SciFi Download

in Books, Sci Fi | October 11th, 2010

ware tet

Between 1982 and 2000, Rudy Ruck­er wrote a series of four sci-fi nov­els that formed The Ware Tetral­o­gy. The first two books in the series – Soft­ware and Wet­ware – won the Philip K. Dick Award for best nov­el. Lat­er Free­ware and Real­ware fol­lowed. This sum­mer, Prime Books repub­lished the tetral­o­gy in one big vol­ume, com­plete with an intro­duc­tion by William Gib­son that calls Ruck­er “a nat­ur­al-born Amer­i­can street sur­re­al­ist” or, more sim­ply, one sui gener­is dude. And now the even bet­ter part: Ruck­er (who hap­pens to be the great-great-great-grand­son of Hegel) has released The Ware Tetral­o­gy under a Cre­ative Com­mons license, and you can down­load the full text for free in PDF and RTF for­mats. In total, the col­lec­tion runs 800+ pages. For more infor­ma­tion on the book and the free down­load, vis­it here. And don’t for­get to donate to the Cre­ative Com­mons Legion of Super­heroes fundrais­ing cam­paign.

A big thanks to Rosario for the heads up here.

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Dancing in the Rain

in Art | October 10th, 2010

Let me set the stage for this: Last Decem­ber, Richard Davis (22 years old) was killed in a car acci­dent at the cor­ner of 90th and MacArthur in East Oak­land, Cal­i­for­nia. Days lat­er, the half broth­er of the vic­tim, Dar­rell Arm­stead, a pop­u­lar turf dancer, and his crew, The Turf Feinz, paid an art­ful trib­ute at the scene of the crash. Film­mak­er Yoram Savion cap­tured the dance that unfold­ed in the cold win­ter rain. It was just anoth­er RIP video … until the video went viral late this sum­mer, and now again this Octo­ber. You can find more work by Savion and The Turf Feinz on YouTube (find the videos here). Or head over to this col­lec­tion on Vimeo…

via The East Bay Express

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Join the Legion of Creative Commons Superheroes!

in Education | October 10th, 2010

Cre­ative Com­mons has kicked off its Legion of Super­heroes fundrais­ing cam­paign say­ing, “Imag­ine a world where knowl­edge flows freely and can be built upon with­out lim­its. Imag­ine a world where cul­ture, art and media are avail­able to every­one, sci­en­tif­ic con­tent is shared by cor­po­ra­tions and research insti­tu­tions, and shared intel­li­gence aug­ments human rights efforts across bor­ders.”

It’s not hard for us to imag­ine that world. We see it every day. Whether you know it or not, the enrich­ing video/audio fea­tured on Open Cul­ture is often released with a Cre­ative Com­mons license, which means that it can be shared freely across the globe. Our col­lec­tion of free online cours­es offers a good exam­ple. Some of the world’s finest uni­ver­si­ties release their cours­es with a CC license, allow­ing an inter­na­tion­al audi­ence to con­tin­ue learn­ing and grow­ing. And we just help get the word out.

Right now, Cre­ative Com­mons is work­ing to raise $550,000 by the end of the year to sup­port their work. I have includ­ed a lit­tle box below where you can make a con­tri­bu­tion of any size. Or you can head over to their site and do the same. If you would like to sup­port open­ness and inno­va­tion, please con­sid­er being a super­hero and giv­ing what you can.

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For John’s 70th

in Music | October 9th, 2010

In 1975, John Lennon released Rock N Roll, where, work­ing with Phil Spec­tor, he revis­it­ed and cov­ered songs from the ear­ly days of rock. Chuck Berry and Bud­dy Hol­ly songs made their way onto the album, as did Ben E. King’s 1961 clas­sic “Stand By Me” (watch above.) Lennon was 35 years old at the time, and today (if you haven’t heard) he would have turned 70. Imag­ine if the sec­ond half of his life, so abrupt­ly stolen from him, could have been as fruit­ful as the first half. Just imag­ine…

Relat­ed Con­tent:

John Lennon Sings Bud­dy Hol­ly

John Lennon (and Yoko Ono) on the Dick Cavett Show

I Met the Wal­rus: An Ani­mat­ed Short Film with John Lennon

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Art Builds Upon Art: Nina Paley’s New Video

in Art | October 8th, 2010

From the mak­er of Sita Sings the Blues comes a new short film that artis­ti­cal­ly deliv­ers a sim­ple mes­sage: “All cre­ative work builds on what came before.” Using arti­facts from the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Muse­um of Art, Nina Paley draws the visu­al con­clu­sion that art bor­rows and remix­es – that noth­ing is real­ly out of the box. This argu­ment res­onates for some. For oth­ers, it falls flat. Either way, the film is worth a watch. (You can down­load high-res and Ogg ver­sions at the Inter­net Archive.)

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Every­thing is a Remix (A Short Film)

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Footage of the Coronation of the Last Russian Czar (1896)

in History | October 8th, 2010

The coro­na­tion of Nicholas II, the last Russ­ian czar, took place in May 1896, an event cap­tured in some of the old­est footage still in exis­tence (above). The coro­na­tion was a high point, and, from there, it was large­ly down­hill for Nicholas. In 1905, the czar lost a humil­i­at­ing war against Japan, which then part­ly trig­gered an unset­tling rev­o­lu­tion lat­er that year – one that forced the king to live with­in the con­straints of a con­sti­tu­tion­al monar­chy. But this was just the begin­ning. The real rev­o­lu­tion came in 1917, and soon enough the Bol­she­viks, led by Lenin, exe­cut­ed Nicholas II, his wife and son, his four daugh­ters and domes­tic staff in July 1918. Bloody Nicholas – he had a fair amount of blood on his own hands – was dead. And now the new communist/Soviet era was under­way…

Relat­ed note: The Library of Con­gress hosts online a big series of pho­tos from the Russ­ian Empire cir­ca. 1905 — 1915. You can access them via the top lev­el, or by jump­ing direct­ly into the full col­lec­tion of images here. (Thanks Michael for the tip here.)

via How Stuff Works

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Freebies from The New York Times

in Random | October 7th, 2010

Bucks, The New York Times blog ded­i­cat­ed to help­ing con­sumers make the most of their mon­ey, took things a step fur­ther today. They went beyond telling you how to save mon­ey. They told you how to get 10 things for free. Free tech sup­port, pass­port pho­tos, work­outs, med­i­cine, and also free ebooks, free online cours­es from great uni­ver­si­ties, for­eign lan­guage lessons, and movies. And they kind­ly includ­ed two of our col­lec­tions on the list. So if you’re look­ing to save a buck, here you go…

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Star Wars Retold with Paper Animation

in Art, Film | October 7th, 2010

It’s hard not to enjoy this. Artist Eric Pow­er retells the basic sto­ry of the Star Wars tril­o­gy, using cut-paper ani­ma­tion. The film runs a very quick 2:40, and Jere­my Messer­smith’s ‘Tatooine’ pro­vides the sound­track. (You can down­load the song here for what­ev­er price you want.) More ani­mat­ed films by Pow­er appear on his web­site: www.ericpowerup.net

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Watch a Hair-Raising 1954 Animation of Edgar Allan Poe’s “Tell-Tale Heart,” Narrated by James Mason

in Film, Literature | October 6th, 2010

In 1849, the great Amer­i­can writer Edgar Allan Poe met a strange death in Bal­ti­more. If you recall, Poe was dis­cov­ered, either in a state of delir­i­um or uncon­scious (accounts dif­fer) and appar­ent­ly wear­ing some­one else’s tat­tered clothes, out­side a tav­ern. He was tak­en to a hos­pi­tal where he remained, unable to explain what had hap­pened to him, until he died. (A post in our archive breaks down the strange cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing his death pret­ty well.)

To mark the admit­ted­ly grim occa­sion, we are high­light­ing today the 1953 ani­mat­ed film ver­sion of Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart,” nar­rat­ed by James Mason. Upon its release, the film was giv­en a bizarre recep­tion. In the UK, the British Board of Film Cen­sors gave the film an “x” rat­ing, deem­ing it unsuit­able for adult audi­ences. Mean­while, “The Tell-Tale Heart” was nom­i­nat­ed for the Acad­e­my Award for Best Ani­mat­ed Short Film in the US, though it ulti­mate­ly lost to a Dis­ney pro­duc­tion. The film runs a short 7:24, and now appears in our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online.

Bonus: You can also down­load a free text ver­sion of Poe’s clas­sic via Project Guten­berg, and then a free audio ver­sion from our list of Free Audio Books.

Many thanks to Mike S. for send­ing this our way. Have a great piece of Open Cul­ture to share with your fel­low read­ers? Get in touch here.

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:

The Mys­tery of Edgar Allan Poe’s Death: 19 The­o­ries on What Caused the Poet’s Demise

5 Hours of Edgar Allan Poe Sto­ries Read by Vin­cent Price & Basil Rath­bone

Édouard Manet Illus­trates Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven, in a French Edi­tion Trans­lat­ed by Stephane Mal­lar­mé (1875)

Down­load The Com­plete Works of Edgar Allan Poe: Macabre Sto­ries as Free eBooks & Audio Books

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Johnny Depp: A Voom Portrait by Robert Wilson

in Art | October 6th, 2010

The New York Times has described Robert Wil­son, the avant-garde artist, as “a tow­er­ing fig­ure in the world of exper­i­men­tal the­ater and an explor­er in the uses of time and space onstage.” Known for break­ing con­ven­tions and weav­ing togeth­er sound, images and text in evoca­tive ways, Wil­son cre­at­ed a series of “Voom” por­traits in 2007. As he explains in this inter­view (lis­ten here), the Voom series rein­vents the por­trait by pre­sent­ing fig­ures (includ­ing many celebri­ties) in high-def video rather than the tra­di­tion­al still image. And although the fig­ures remain still (per the con­ven­tion), there’s nonethe­less a cer­tain life and motion to them. Above, we fea­ture the Voom por­trait of actor John­ny Depp. Metafil­ter gives you links to 12 oth­ers.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

John­ny Depp Reads Let­ters from Hunter S. Thomp­son

John Waters: The Point of Con­tem­po­rary Art

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