YouTube Launches Library of Congress Channel (and Thomas Edison’s Boxing Cat)

in YouTube | April 8th, 2009

The Library of Con­gress has just set up shop on YouTube. On this new chan­nel, you’ll find some new and vin­tage footage. Above, we’re direct­ing your atten­tion to a clip called “Box­ing Cats.” It’s from 1894 and was pro­duced by Thomas Edis­on’s Black Maria film stu­dio in West Orange, New Jer­sey. In no way do I con­done cat cock­fights, but this is some intrigu­ing his­tor­i­cal footage. And who knew that there was a lit­tle bit of Steve Mar­tin in Thomas Edi­son? I’ve added the Library of Con­gress Chan­nel to our page, Intel­li­gent YouTube: The Best Smart Video Col­lec­tions.

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The Talking Heads at CBGB’s (and a Virtual Tour of the Joint)

in Music | April 8th, 2009

CBG­B’s was a long­time mec­ca of the New York music scene, a venue that helped launch the Ramones, Pat­ti Smith, Blondie, and the Talk­ing Heads onto the nation­al stage. And then it closed in 2006. If you nev­er vis­it­ed the club on Bow­ery and Bleeck­er Streets, you can still take a pret­ty vivid vir­tu­al tour. It starts in the bath­room and you then can wind your way through the rest of the joint. Above, we’ve post­ed some vin­tage footage of the Talk­ing Heads per­form­ing “Psy­cho Killer” at CBG­B’s, some­where back in the mid-70s.

via Metafil­ter

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More New Dylan

in Music | April 8th, 2009

Last week, Bob Dylan released for a lim­it­ed time a free mp3  (“Beyond Here Lies Noth­in”) from his upcom­ing album, Togeth­er Through Life. Over at Newsweek, you’ll now find anoth­er cut being streamed —  “Feel A Change Comin’ On.” Head on over and have a lis­ten.

via Stere­ogum

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Women in Film

in Film | April 8th, 2009

Eggman913 on YouTube has a pret­ty neat schtick. He takes artis­tic images, then morphs them togeth­er in pret­ty cre­ative ways.  The piece above plays with images of famous actress­es from dif­fer­ent moments in Amer­i­can film his­to­ry. Eggman913 has also cre­at­ed a mon­tage called Women in Art, which we’ve fea­tured here before. (It has only 9.2 mil­lion views on YouTube.) Then there are pieces that have fun with the art of Picas­so and Mon­et, plus a com­pan­ion clip called Men in Film. The actress­es shown in the video above include:  

Mary Pick­ford, Lil­lian Gish, Glo­ria Swan­son, Mar­lene Diet­rich, Nor­ma Shear­er, Ruth Chat­ter­ton, Jean Har­low, Katharine Hep­burn, Car­ole Lom­bard, Bette Davis, Gre­ta Gar­bo, Bar­bara Stan­wyck, Vivien Leigh, Greer Gar­son, Hedy Lamarr, Rita Hay­worth, Gene Tier­ney, Olivia de Hav­il­land, Ingrid Bergman, Joan Craw­ford, Gin­ger Rogers, Loret­ta Young, Deb­o­rah Kerr, Judy Gar­land, Anne Bax­ter, Lau­ren Bacall, Susan Hay­ward, Ava Gard­ner, Mar­i­lyn Mon­roe, Grace Kel­ly, Lana Turn­er, Eliz­a­beth Tay­lor, Kim Novak, Audrey Hep­burn, Dorothy Dan­dridge, Shirley MacLaine, Natal­ie Wood, Rita Moreno, Janet Leigh, Brigitte Bar­dot, Sophia Loren, Ann Mar­gret, Julie Andrews, Raquel Welch, Tues­day Weld, Jane Fon­da, Julie Christie, Faye Dun­away, Cather­ine Deneuve, Jacque­line Bis­set, Can­dice Bergen, Isabel­la Rosselli­ni, Diane Keaton, Goldie Hawn, Meryl Streep, Susan Saran­don, Jes­si­ca Lange, Michelle Pfeif­fer, Sigour­ney Weaver, Kath­leen Turn­er, Hol­ly Hunter, Jodie Fos­ter, Angela Bas­sett, Demi Moore, Sharon Stone, Meg Ryan, Julia Roberts, Salma Hayek, San­dra Bul­lock, Julianne Moore, Diane Lane, Nicole Kid­man, Cather­ine Zeta-Jones, Angeli­na Jolie, Char­l­ize Theron, Reese With­er­spoon, Halle Berry.

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Stanford Teaches You to Develop iPhone Apps (Free)

in Apple, iPhone, Stanford | April 5th, 2009

A quick heads up: Stan­ford has just launched a free soft­ware devel­op­ment course for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The lec­tures will be rolled out on iTunes first, and even­tu­al­ly they will be post­ed on YouTube as well. You can get the first lec­ture on iTunes here. This 10 week com­put­er sci­ence course is offi­cial­ly called iPhone Appli­ca­tion Pro­gram­ming. Watch for new lec­tures to be post­ed week­ly. You’ll be learn­ing to devel­op iPhone apps in no time.

You can find this course housed under the Com­put­er Sci­ence sec­tion of our col­lec­tion of Free Uni­ver­si­ty Cours­es.

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The Original Spider-Man TV Series Now Online

in Television | April 5th, 2009

A light (and, for me, nos­tal­gic) way to ease into the week­end…

Over at Marvel.com, they’re stream­ing episodes from the orig­i­nal Spi­der-Man TV series that hit the air­waves back in 1967. A new episode will be post­ed every Thurs­day. Above, you’ll find Episode 1, and see where it all began.

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The Rothko Panoramic Tour: A New Way to See Art

in Art | April 5th, 2009

This real­ly caught my eye…

If you did­n’t make it to the Mark Rothko exhi­bi­tion at the Tate Mod­ern (and chances are you did­n’t), then you can still see it vir­tu­al­ly. As you’ll see, the Tate Mod­ern has cre­at­ed a fan­tas­tic web site that lets you take a panoram­ic tour of the Rothko col­lec­tion. Once you enter the tour here, you should switch into full screen mode (look toward the bot­tom of screen), then use the arrows and your mouse to move around. You can move from room to room, and zoom in on var­i­ous paint­ings. Quite the way to see an exhi­bi­tion if you can’t make a long jour­ney.

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What Did Shakespeare Really Look Like?

in History, Literature | April 5th, 2009

“Over the cen­turies a num­ber of images have been put for­ward as life por­traits of our great­est writer, but at present none of them is gen­er­al­ly accept­ed as such. Up until now… With the emer­gence of the Cobbe por­trait, we are pre­sent­ed with a con­tem­po­rary por­trait that has strong claims to rep­re­sent the drama­tist as he appeared to his con­tem­po­raries.”

These lines from shakespearefound.org.uk (asso­ci­at­ed with the Uni­ver­si­ty of War­wick) set the stage for a 20 minute video/film that fea­tures Prof. Stan­ley Wells talk­ing about the Cobbe por­trait, and why it’s believed to present the real Shake­speare, the tow­er­ing author we still know lit­tle about today. You can watch the video above, or find it on iTune­sU, where it’s among the most down­loaded videos.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Goethe and Shake­speare on Google

Shake­speare and the Uses of Polit­i­cal Pow­er

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Classic Oscar Moments

in Film | April 5th, 2009

On the Oscar Chan­nel on YouTube, you can flip through some clas­sic prize-win­ning moments. Above, we fea­ture Rober­to Benig­ni’s speech upon receiv­ing The Acad­e­my Award for best actor (Life is Beau­ti­ful) in 1998. You can also see vin­tage speech­es by Mar­lon Bran­do, Audrey Hep­burn, Frank Sina­tra, Fed­eri­co Felli­ni, and oth­ers. Per­haps a ques­tion­able call, The Oscar Chan­nel has been added to our page, Intel­li­gent YouTube: The Best Smart Video Col­lec­tions.

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The Gates of Hell

in Art | April 1st, 2009

Let me bring this to your atten­tion. Erwan Bom­stein-Erb, the founder and direc­tor of Canal Edu­catif in Paris, has released a doc­u­men­tary (in Eng­lish) about The Gates of Hell, a mon­u­men­tal project that Auguste Rodin worked on, not nec­es­sar­i­ly con­sis­tent­ly, for 37 years. On its own, this video is worth your time. But you should also know that this is one of ten films about major art­works that Bom­stein-Erb plans to pro­duce in HD. Canal Edu­catif is all about using the inter­net to pro­vide glob­al access to “cul­tur­al cap­i­tal.” A goal that we can whole­heart­ed­ly sup­port. This kind of phil­an­thropic ven­ture is hard to fund, espe­cial­ly dur­ing these dif­fi­cult times. So Bom­stein-Erb is look­ing for spon­sors and part­ners to sup­port his mis­sion. If you would like to get in touch, you can drop him a line through Canal Edu­cat­if’s web site. Last­ly, you should check out the Canal Edu­catif chan­nel on YouTube. Good luck Erwan.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Art His­to­ry Web Book

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The Gates of Hell

in Art | March 31st, 2009

Let me bring this to your atten­tion. Erwan Bom­stein-Erb, the founder and direc­tor of Canal Edu­catif in Paris, has released a doc­u­men­tary (in Eng­lish) about  The Gates of Hell, a mon­u­men­tal project that Auguste Rodin worked on, not nec­es­sar­i­ly con­sis­tent­ly, for 37 years. On its own, this video is worth your time. But you should also know that this is one of ten films about major art­works that Bom­stein-Erb plans to pro­duce in HD.  Canal Edu­catif is all about using the inter­net to pro­vide glob­al access to “cul­tur­al cap­i­tal.” A goal that we can whole­heart­ed­ly sup­port. This kind of phil­an­thropic ven­ture is hard to fund, espe­cial­ly dur­ing these dif­fi­cult times. So Bom­stein-Erb is look­ing for spon­sors and part­ners to sup­port his mis­sion. If you would like to get in touch, you can drop him a line through Canal Edu­cat­if’s web site. Last­ly, you should check out the Canal Edu­catif chan­nel on YouTube. Good luck Erwan. 

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