A World in Your Ear

in Podcasts | November 25th, 2007

Times Online (the large UK-based news web­site) has post­ed today a fea­ture that offers an intro­duc­tion to pod­cast­ing. It explains the whos, hows, whats, etc. and pro­vides some help­ful links, includ­ing one to our col­lec­tion of For­eign Lan­guage Les­son Pod­casts.

Pod­cast­ing offers an amaz­ing way to access free, high-qual­i­ty media, across many top­ics, wher­ev­er and when­ev­er you want it. And it’s some­thing that even techno­phobes can eas­i­ly fig­ure out. For more infor­ma­tion on how to work with pod­casts, see our our Pod­cast Primer. We take you through pod­cast­ing step-by-step. Also check out our exten­sive Pod­cast Library, which gives you access to audio­books, cul­tur­al pro­gram­ming, sci­ence pod­casts, uni­ver­si­ty cours­es and more.

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No Country for Old Men: The Coen Brothers’ Latest

in Film, Video - Arts & Culture | November 24th, 2007

The film­mak­ers who brought you Far­go, Bar­ton Fink, and O Broth­er, Where Art Thou? have released their lat­est film based on a nov­el by Cor­mac McCarthy. No Coun­try for Old Men is, as The New York­er puts it, “a return to the dark, sim­mer­ing days of their best work, in Blood Sim­ple and Miller’s Cross­ing,” which is anoth­er way of say­ing that the film is vio­lent, but also extreme­ly well made. So far, there’s been no short­age of pos­i­tive reviews (look here for exam­ple). But, as always, you’ll find the occa­sion­al pan. Below, we have post­ed some scenes from the film, and we’ll leave you with this print­ed inter­view with Joel and Ethan Coen.

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100 Notable Books of 2007

in Books | November 23rd, 2007

Gift buy­ing sea­son is now offi­cial­ly upon us. If books are part of your gift buy­ing plan, then have a look at this list just pub­lished by The New York Times. The 100 books list­ed here include fic­tion, poet­ry and non­fic­tion. Among oth­ers, you’ll find Philip Roth’s lat­est book, Exit Ghost, and I men­tion it sim­ply because you may want to lis­ten to an inter­view with Roth that aired ear­li­er this week (iTunes — MP3 — Feed — Web Site).

You should also spend some time look­ing at our list of Life-Chang­ing Books, all of which were select­ed by our read­ers this fall. Def­i­nite­ly some good, time-test­ed reads on this list.

Final­ly, a quick heads up: Apple is run­ning a one day sale, which gives up to $100 off some com­put­ers and $30 off iPod clas­sics. Plus there’s free ship­ping on all prod­ucts. If you have Apple prod­ucts on your hol­i­day list, then it may be worth your time. Again, the sale ends at mid­night.

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Nixon and Kissinger: Best of Allies and Rivals

in History, Politics | November 21st, 2007

Robert Dallek’s lat­est book recounts in plen­ti­ful detail (752 pages) the odd work­ing rela­tion­ship that exist­ed between Richard Nixon and Hen­ry Kissinger (Nixon’s nation­al secu­ri­ty advis­er and, lat­er, sec­re­tary of state). They were part­ly allies, in many ways strong­ly depen­dent upon one anoth­er, par­tic­u­lar­ly when it came to mak­ing Amer­i­can for­eign pol­i­cy. But they also dis­trust­ed one anoth­er, some­times deeply, and they’d occa­sion­al­ly maneu­ver behind each oth­ers’ backs. Dallek’s book, Nixon and Kissinger: Part­ners in Pow­er, has just come out in paper­back, which brings us to this NPR inter­view with the author (iTunes — Feed — Web Site). Dallek, who has pre­vi­ous­ly writ­ten exten­sive­ly on Kennedy and John­son, gives a good inter­view that out­lines “Nixinger’s” sub­stan­tive accom­plish­ments and the many behind-the-scenes intrigues. Give a lis­ten.

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The Kindle v. The Book

in Web/Tech | November 20th, 2007

Val­ley­wag, the blog that tracks Sil­i­con Val­ley and things tech, post­ed an amus­ing com­par­i­son between the tra­di­tion­al book and Ama­zon’s new elec­tron­ic read­er (see yes­ter­day’s post). It’s clear­ly meant to be more wit­ty than seri­ous, but it makes some obvi­ous and valid points along the way. (See Val­ley­wag arti­cle here)

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U2’s Joshua Tree Remastered and Expanded

in Music | November 20th, 2007

Today, U2 is releas­ing a remas­tered ver­sion of the album that turned a pop­u­lar band into a super band. Com­mem­o­rat­ing its 20th anniver­sary (how can it be that old already?), the Joshua Tree is being re-issued in four ver­sions — 1) a remas­tered sin­gle CD, 2) a 2‑CD set that fea­tures the remas­tered album and b‑sides/rarities from the Joshua Tree record­ing ses­sions, 3) a 2‑CD/1‑DVD col­lectible box that includes a 56 page book; and 4) a dou­ble vinyl pack­age.

The re-release of this album has a cer­tain unwel­comed com­mer­cial feel to it. I’ll grant that. But, regard­less, I’m buy­ing it. The Joshua Tree loomed in the back­ground dur­ing a great moment in my life. And just hear­ing it brings me back to the sounds and smells of that peri­od. So, if I can hear it remas­tered and get more songs from the record­ing ses­sions, I guess I’ll take it.

In the mean­time, I’ll leave you with these bits of free U2 media. First, spend some time with “Bono: The Rolling Stone Inter­view” (iTunes - Feed — Web Site). Here Jann Wen­ner, the founder of Rolling Stone, leads a long and wide-rang­ing inter­view with Bono Vox. The sec­ond item is a video (below) fea­tur­ing Bono singing and telling the sto­ry behind “Wave of Sor­ry,” one of the b‑sides from the new Joshua Tree release.

For more music pod­casts, click here.

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Museums Crossing the Line?: An Interview with Jori Finkel

in Art, Museums | November 19th, 2007

The New York Times fea­tured yes­ter­day a piece that rais­es seri­ous ques­tions about the art world. Accord­ing to the arti­cle, some major muse­ums are now allow­ing art gal­leries to finan­cial­ly under­write their exhi­bi­tions. And, of course, the gal­leries often have a direct finan­cial stake in the work on dis­play. This trend, which seems to be grow­ing, nat­u­ral­ly prompts ques­tions of influ­ence: are some of the most well-regard­ed muse­ums let­ting financ­ing — some­thing that’s always in short sup­ply — deter­mine what exhi­bi­tions they will put on dis­play? Are the lines between church and state get­ting crossed? (The muse­ums insist that the answer is no.) Then, there are ques­tions of com­merce: are non-prof­it muse­ums help­ing for-prof­it gal­leries, whether inten­tion­al­ly or not, bump up the pres­tige and finan­cial val­ue of their artists — some­thing which almost always redounds to the finan­cial ben­e­fit of the gal­leries?

I had a chance to catch up with Jori Finkel, the author of the arti­cle. She’s an arts jour­nal­ist based in LA where she cov­ers con­tem­po­rary art for The Times, among oth­er places. I asked her a few ques­tions and here’s what she had to say:

DC: What’s essen­tial­ly dri­ving the muse­ums to work so close­ly, per­haps too close­ly, with gal­leries? In short, how did we get here?

JF: One thing I dis­cov­ered in report­ing this sto­ry is just how com­mon it is for gal­leries to help out muse­ums behind the scenes—with research, with loans, and with things gal­leries do in the nor­mal course of busi­ness like fram­ing works of art. But it’s much more unusu­al to find gal­leries writ­ing checks for muse­um shows. Peo­ple I inter­viewed see this as a sign of the art world spin­ning out of con­trol or out of bal­ance because of all the mon­ey chas­ing con­tem­po­rary art late­ly. The imbal­ance being that gal­leries are rich­er than ever before, while muse­ums, which are not sup­posed to be part of the mar­ket, can find them­selves strug­gling or even beg­ging for fund­ing. A muse­um direc­tor once told me he felt his job was a lot like being a beggar—a glam­orous, well-con­nect­ed beg­gar, but a beg­gar.

DC: As I recall, some muse­ums have got­ten into trou­ble when seek­ing out spon­sors for exhi­bi­tions in the past — for exam­ple, from some cor­po­ra­tions. Is what’s hap­pen­ing now any dif­fer­ent, and does it raise par­tic­u­lar­ly new eth­i­cal con­cerns?

JF: We saw a num­ber of con­tro­ver­sies in the late 1990s over cor­po­rate sponsorship—like Armani report­ed­ly gift­ing the Guggen­heim $15 mil­lion and get­ting a show in return, and BMW under­writ­ing a motor­cyle show, also at the Guggen­heim. Then there was the scan­dal over the “Sen­sa­tion” show at the Brook­lyn Muse­um of Art, which fea­tured works from Charles Saatchi’s per­son­al col­lec­tion and was fund­ed in part by Saatchi. Sev­er­al of my sources men­tioned these cas­es because they think gallery spon­sor­ship rais­es rough­ly the same set of eth­i­cal ques­tions. The only dif­fer­ence they point­ed out is that gallery con­flicts might have the poten­tial to be more per­va­sive. (more…)

Free eBook on iTunes: The Millionaires

in Audio Books | November 18th, 2007

iTunes is serv­ing up a free­bie for audio­book fans. Writ­ten by Brad Meltzer, The Mil­lion­aires runs close to 15 hours. Pub­lish­ers Week­ly calls it “a fast-paced, fresh-scrubbed tale of finan­cial adven­ture.” Down­load it here, and check out our larg­er col­lec­tion of free audio­book pod­casts. (Source: Boing Boing)

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Newsweek’s piece on Jeff Bezos’ plans to rein­vent the future of read­ing.

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Intelligent Design on Trial

in Religion, Video - Science | November 16th, 2007

Ear­li­er this week, PBS’s NOVA aired a two-hour pro­gram revis­it­ing the con­tro­ver­sial fed­er­al case, Kitzmiller v. Dover School Dis­trict, which asked whether “intel­li­gent design” could be taught in Amer­i­can schools along­side Dar­win’s the­o­ry of evo­lu­tion. Intel­li­gent design essen­tial­ly holds that “life is too com­plex to have evolved nat­u­ral­ly and there­fore must have been designed by an intel­li­gent agent.” And, along the way, it effec­tive­ly attempts to make God’s role in cre­at­ing the world a sci­en­tif­ic fact, not an item of faith. You can see how the back­ers of intel­li­gent design ulti­mate­ly fared. NOVA has made the pro­gram avail­able online for free. It’s divid­ed into 12 videos, and you can watch them here. For a com­plete descrip­tion of the pro­gram, click here.

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

• Ein­stein and the Mind of God
• 5,000 Years of Reli­gion in 90 Sec­onds
• Phi­los­o­phy Talk and Intel­li­gent Design

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Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Wagner, Some Yo-Yo Ma and More: Free Classical Music Podcasts

in Music, Uncategorized | November 14th, 2007

With last year being the 250th anniver­sary of Mozart’s birth, there was no short­age of pod­casts ded­i­cat­ed to Mozart’s mas­ter­pieces. First, Radio Swe­den (iTunes — Feed — Web Site) reis­sued a dig­i­tal archive of Mozart record­ings by the Roy­al Swedish Opera from the 1940s and 1950s. And, along very sim­i­lar lines, Dan­marks Radio (Feed — Web Site) issued pod­casts of nine Mozart sym­phonies record­ed by the Dan­ish Radio Sym­pho­ny
Orches­tra. (You’ll find here sym­phonies num­bers 15, 17, 23, 34, 35, 36, 39, 40, and 41. Since the web site is in Dan­ish, we’d rec­om­mend access­ing these high qual­i­ty MP3’s through the rss feed list­ed above.) Last­ly, we should men­tion here that, as part of last year’s fes­tiv­i­ties, The Inter­na­tion­al Mozart Foun­da­tion pub­lished online for the first time the entire­ty of of Mozart’s musi­cal scores.

Along with Mozart, you can find plen­ty of Beethoven. We have high­light­ed here before, but it’s worth not­ing again, Deutsche Welle’s pod­cast col­lec­tion called Beethoven­fest (iTunes — Feed — Web Site). You’ll want to give it a look, and also see the pod­cast col­lec­tion put togeth­er by the Boston Sym­pho­ny Orches­tra Con­ser­va­to­ry (iTunes — Feed — Web Site). This edu­ca­tion­al series offers an exten­sive overview and record­ings of Beethoven’s work, as well as that of Arnold Schoen­berg. You can also catch more Beethoven (as well as a lit­tle Mozart and Bach) with the pod­cast series called The Con­cert (iTunes — Feed — Web Site), which fea­tures record­ings from the Isabel­la Stew­art Gard­ner Muse­um in Boston.

Speak­ing of Bach, you may want to give some time to these two pod­casts: Bach Pod­cast from Magnatune.com (iTunes — Feed — Web Site) and Bach Fes­ti­val of Philadel­phia (Feed — Web Site).

Let’s now leave you with a few oth­er good finds: Wag­n­er Operas Pod­cast (iTunes — Feed — Web Site) lets you lis­ten in on record­ings from the annu­al Bayreuth Fes­ti­val, plus more. An Inti­mate Tour Through the Music of Yo-Yo Ma (iTunes — Feed — Web Site) offers essen­tial­ly what the title says. Final­ly, we’d rec­om­mend Clas­si­cal Per­for­mance (iTunes Feed Web Site), which con­sists of clas­si­cal music per­for­mances from WGB­H’s Stu­dio One in Boston; The New York Phi­la­har­mon­ic Pod­cast (iTunes — Feed — Web Site) which intro­duces you to the music and per­form­ers fea­tured in the con­certs of the New York Phil­har­mon­ic; and From the Top. Live from Carnegie Hall Video Pod­cast (iTunes — Feed — Web Site), a pod­cast that show­cas­es the top-notch skills and com­pelling sto­ries of Amer­i­ca’s best young clas­si­cal musi­cians.

Oth­er Pod­cast Sur­veys:

• Lis­ten­ing to Poet­ry Pod­casts
• Sci­ence Pod­casts At a Glance
• Bet­ter Think­ing Through Pod­casts

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