The Memorial Service & Celebration of “Lemmy” Kilmister, Motörhead Frontman, is Now Streaming Live

in Music | January 9th, 2016

Note: Though the ser­vice came to an end ear­li­er today, it looks like you can now watch a record­ing of the farewell cer­e­mo­ny above. If you make it to the end, you’ll notice that there was an issue with the audio when Dave Grohl began speak­ing. You can hear a slight­ly touched-up ver­sion here.

Just a quick note: “Lem­my” Kilmis­ter’s memo­r­i­al ser­vice is now stream­ing live on Youtube. Click play above. Ian Fras­er Kilmis­ter was an Eng­lish musi­cian, singer and song­writer who found­ed and front­ed the rock band Motör­head. He died on Decem­ber 29th, at the age of 70.

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Bruce Lee’s Only Surviving TV Interview, 1971: Lost and Now Found

in Sports, Television | January 7th, 2016

Bruce Lee’s TV act­ing career began in 1966, when he land­ed a part in The Green Hor­net. (Watch his thrilling audi­tion here). But it took anoth­er five years before he gave his first–and, it turns out, only tele­vi­sion inter­view in Eng­lish. For 25 min­utes in Decem­ber 1971, the mar­tial arts star sat down with Pierre Berton, a Cana­di­an jour­nal­ist, in Hong Kong. And their con­ver­sa­tion cov­ered a fair amount of ground – Lee’s suc­cess star­ring in Man­darin films .… despite only speak­ing Can­tonese; his dif­fi­cul­ty devel­op­ing a career in a coun­try still hos­tile toward Chi­na; and his work train­ing oth­er Hol­ly­wood stars in the mar­tial arts.

Taped in 1971, the inter­view aired only once, then went miss­ing, and was­n’t found until 1994, when it final­ly aired again as a TV spe­cial called ”Bruce Lee: The Lost Inter­view’.’ First fea­tured on Open Cul­ture in 2011, the record­ing is now con­sid­ered his only sur­viv­ing on-cam­era inter­view and/or his only mean­ing­ful inter­view con­duct­ed in Eng­lish. A some­what restored ver­sion can be viewed on Vimeo here.

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

Bruce Lee Audi­tions for The Green Hor­net (1964)

The Poet­ry of Bruce Lee: Dis­cov­er the Artis­tic Life of the Mar­tial Arts Icon

Watch 10-Year-Old Bruce Lee in His First Star­ring Role (1950)

An Artful, Animated Tribute to The Wire, Created by a Fan of the Critically-Acclaimed TV Series

in Animation, Television | January 6th, 2016

From direc­tor, design­er, and ani­ma­tor Elliot Lim comes an ani­mat­ed trib­ute to his “favorite show of all time,” HBO’s The Wire – a sen­ti­ment that he shares with Pres. Oba­ma, count­less crit­ics, and many casu­al TV view­ers. As much as the episodes them­selves, fans fond­ly remem­ber The Wire’s open­ing cred­its, which func­tioned, Andrew Dig­nan once wrote, as short films that “dis­till each sea­son’s themes, goals, and motifs.” The open­ing cred­its are what get the ani­mat­ed treat­ment in Lim’s video. Whether his video dis­tills a par­tic­u­lar set of themes, goals and motifs, I’m not yet sure. I’ll need to watch it a few more times and report back soon.

For more on The Wire and the Art of the Cred­it Sequence watch this 2012 video essay.

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via Devour

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Pres­i­dent Oba­ma Chats with David Simon About Drugs, The Wire & Omar

The Wire as Great Vic­to­ri­an Nov­el

Charles Min­gus’ Instruc­tions For Toi­let Train­ing Your Cat, Read by The Wire’s Reg E. Cathey

Bill Gates, Book Critic, Names His Top 5 Books of 2015

in Books | January 4th, 2016

When you think Bill Gates, you think Microsoft co-founder and big-time phil­an­thropist. Now you can add to the list, book crit­ic. This week­end, The New York Times pro­filed Bill Gates’ pen­chant for review­ing books on his blog, Gates Notes, and how (much like Oprah) when Gates gives a book a thumbs up, it moves copies. Many copies.

Above, you can watch a Gates-nar­rat­ed video high­light­ing his five favorite books of 2015. It includes: 1.) Thing Explain­er: Com­pli­cat­ed Stuff in Sim­ple Words by Ran­dall Munroe, which “explains var­i­ous subjects—from how smart­phones work to what the U.S. Con­sti­tu­tion says—using only the 1,000 most com­mon words in the Eng­lish lan­guage and blue­print-style dia­grams”; 2) Mind­set: The New Psy­chol­o­gy of Suc­cess by Car­ol S. Dweck, a best­selling book that uses “clever research stud­ies and engag­ing writ­ing” to illu­mi­nate “how our beliefs about our capa­bil­i­ties exert tremen­dous influ­ence on how we learn and which paths we take in life”; and 3) Sus­tain­able Mate­ri­als With Both Eyes Open, a book writ­ten by Cam­bridge researchers that explores the ques­tion, “How much can we reduce car­bon emis­sions that come from mak­ing and using stuff?”. Oth­er books on Gates’ short list includes David Brooks’ The Road to Char­ac­ter and Being Nixon: A Man Divid­ed, by Evan Thomas.

You can find a num­ber of Gates’ book reviews in the Books sec­tion of his site.

Fol­low Open Cul­ture on Face­book and Twit­ter and share intel­li­gent media with your friends. Or bet­ter yet, sign up for our dai­ly email and get a dai­ly dose of Open Cul­ture in your inbox. And if you want to make sure that our posts def­i­nite­ly appear in your Face­book news­feed, just fol­low these sim­ple steps.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Six Books (and One Blog) Bill Gates Wants You to Read This Sum­mer

Take Big His­to­ry: A Free Short Course on 13.8 Bil­lion Years of His­to­ry, Fund­ed by Bill Gates

View Bill Gates’ Mobile Library: The Books & Cours­es That Help Him Change The World

Hear Tom Lehrer Sing the Names of 102 Chemical Elements to the Tune of Gilbert & Sullivan

in Math, Music | December 29th, 2015

Tom Lehrer earned a BA and MA in math­e­mat­ics from Har­vard dur­ing the late 1940s, then taught math cours­es at MIT, Har­vard, Welles­ley, and UC-San­ta Cruz. Math was his voca­tion. But, all along, Lehrer nur­tured an inter­est in music. And, by the mid 1950s, he became best known for his satir­i­cal songs that touched on some­times polit­i­cal, some­times aca­d­e­m­ic themes.

Today we’re pre­sent­ing one of his clas­sics: “The Ele­ments.” Record­ed in 1959, the song fea­tures Lehrer recit­ing the names of the 102 chem­i­cal ele­ments known at the time (we now have 115), and it’s all sung to the tune of Major-Gen­er­al’s Song from The Pirates of Pen­zance by Gilbert and Sul­li­van. You can hear a stu­dio ver­sion below, and watch a nice live ver­sion taped in Copen­hagen, Den­mark, in Sep­tem­ber 1967.

Decades lat­er, this clas­sic piece of “Tom­fool­ery” stays with us, pop­ping up here and there in pop­u­lar cul­ture. For exam­ple, Daniel Rad­cliffe (of Har­ry Pot­ter fame) per­formed Lehrer’s song on the BBC’s Gra­ham Nor­ton Show in 2010. Enjoy.

Fol­low Open Cul­ture on Face­book and Twit­ter and share intel­li­gent media with your friends. Or bet­ter yet, sign up for our dai­ly email and get a dai­ly dose of Open Cul­ture in your inbox. And if you want to make sure that our posts def­i­nite­ly appear in your Face­book news­feed, just fol­low these sim­ple steps.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Free Online Math Cours­es

The Math in Good Will Hunt­ing is Easy: How Do You Like Them Apples?

Math­e­mat­ics in Movies: Har­vard Prof Curates 150+ Scenes

Cal­cu­lus Life­saver: A Free Online Course from Prince­ton

Bach’s Prélude N°1 Played on Boomwhacker Percussion Tubes

in Music | December 23rd, 2015

Since 1999, the French jug­gling group Les Objets Volants (The Fly­ing Objects) have been enter­tain­ing audi­ences world­wide. Beyond jug­gling, their shows incor­po­rate ele­ments of the­ater, visu­al arts and even math­e­mat­ics. And the group takes spe­cial pride in explor­ing new ways of han­dling and manip­u­lat­ing every­day objects. Which brings us to the per­for­mance above. There you can see Les Objets Volants per­form Bach’s Prélude N°1. (which more typ­i­cal­ly sounds some­thing like this) on “boomwhack­ers,” those hol­low, col­or-cod­ed, plas­tic per­cus­sion tubes, which are tuned to dif­fer­ent musi­cal pitch­es. Record­ed last March, the clip is an out­take from a Les Objets Volants show called “Liai­son Car­bone,” which explores con­cepts in physics. Enjoy.

via Digg

Fol­low Open Cul­ture on Face­book and Twit­ter and share intel­li­gent media with your friends. Or bet­ter yet, sign up for our dai­ly email and get a dai­ly dose of Open Cul­ture in your inbox. And if you want to make sure that our posts def­i­nite­ly appear in your Face­book news­feed, just fol­low these sim­ple steps.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Stream the Com­plete Works of Bach & Beethoven: 250 Free Hours of Music

All of Bach Is Putting Videos of 1,080 Bach Per­for­mances Online

Down­load the Com­plete Organ Works of J.S. Bach for Free

The Genius of J.S. Bach’s “Crab Canon” Visu­al­ized on a Möbius Strip

16 Great Star Wars Fan Films, Documentaries & Video Essays to Get You Ready for Star Wars: The Force Awakens

in Film | December 18th, 2015

Have you had enough Star Wars yet? No, you will nev­er have enough Star Wars, not even after you’ve acquired the Star Wars dinette set, Star Wars bed and bath col­lec­tion, $400 Star Wars Lego Death Star, Star Wars chick­en frank­furter snack with built-in ketchup (seri­ous­ly)… and that’s not even to men­tion the first six movies, re-released every few years in new for­mats and expand­ed edi­tions.

Yeah, the mer­chan­dis­ing may be a lit­tle much; with the inau­gur­al film of the reboot­ed fran­chise open­ing dur­ing the hol­i­days, it’s a feed­ing fren­zy, no doubt. But for true fans, no amount of crass mate­ri­al­ism can put a damper on the enthu­si­asm, and yes, the anx­i­ety, for Star Wars: The Force Awak­ens. Will it eclipse our painful mem­o­ries of the pre­quels? Will Episode VII rekin­dle the mag­ic of Episodes IV-VI (for­mer­ly Episodes I‑III)? By near­ly all accounts, J.J. Abrams reimag­in­ing of the George Lucas lega­cy does all of the above.

To help you pre­pare for open­ing night (I’ve got my tick­ets!), we’ve com­piled some of our top Star Wars posts, fea­tur­ing all man­ner of doc­u­men­tary explain­ers, fan homages, inter­views, par­o­dies, remix­es, etc. From the dead­ly seri­ous to the ridicu­lous, per­haps no pop­u­lar movie prop­er­ty has attract­ed as much com­men­tary and meta-com­men­tary as Star Wars. That isn’t like­ly to change any­time soon, what with the Star Wars uni­verse again expand­ing into infin­i­ty. Before you take the leap for­ward into its future, revis­it its past at the links below.

Doc­u­men­tary Fea­tures and Archival Footage:

Watch the Very First Trail­ers for Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back & Return of the Jedi (1976–83) (see the first above)

The Mak­ing of Star Wars As Told by C‑3PO & R2-D2: The First-Ever Doc­u­men­tary on the Film (1977)

Kurt Rus­sell Audi­tions for Star Wars

The Mak­ing of The Empire Strikes Back Show­cased on Long-Lost Dutch TV Doc­u­men­tary

The Com­plete Star Wars “Fil­mu­men­tary”: A 6‑Hour, Fan-Made Star Wars Doc­u­men­tary, with Behind-the-Scenes Footage & Com­men­tary

How Star Wars Bor­rowed From Aki­ra Kurosawa’s Great Samu­rai Films

2 Hour Anno­tat­ed Star Wars Film Reveals the Cin­e­mat­ic Influ­ences Behind George Lucas’ Clas­sic Film

Joseph Camp­bell and Bill Moy­ers Break Down Star Wars as an Epic, Uni­ver­sal Myth

Star Wars is a Remix

Adap­ta­tions, Fan Films, and Par­o­dies:

Hard­ware Wars: The Moth­er of All Star Wars Fan Films (and the Most Prof­itable Short Film Ever Made)

Fans Recon­struct Authen­tic Ver­sion of Star Wars, As It Was Shown in The­aters in 1977

Star Wars Uncut: The Epic Fan Film

The Empire Strikes Back Uncut: A New Fan-Made, Shot-for-Shot Remake of the 1980 Sci-Fi Clas­sic

The Exis­ten­tial Star Wars: Sartre Meets Darth Vad­er

Star Wars as Silent Film

Watch a New Star Wars Ani­ma­tion, Drawn in a Clas­sic 80s Japan­ese Ani­me Style

And final­ly, if you’ve got the stom­ach for it and you want to catch up on the last six Star Wars films—or watch them all for the first time—you can do so all at once in the mind-bend­ing Meta Star Wars, which lay­ers all six films over each oth­er to cre­ate a psy­che­del­ic onslaught of whoosh­ing space­ships, droid bleeps and bloops, and flash­ing blasters and lightsabers. You won’t come away from the expe­ri­ence, if you can stand it, with any sense of plot or char­ac­ters, but you’ll have an inti­mate knowl­edge of the Star Wars uni­verse’s many unique sound effects.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch George Lucas’ Award-Win­ning Stu­dent Film Elec­tron­ic Labyrinth THX 1138 4EB (1967)

Free: Down­load 151 Sci-Fi & Fan­ta­sy Sto­ries from Tor.com

Blade Run­ner is a Waste of Time: Siskel & Ebert in 1982

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

What Does Sound Look Like?: The Audible Rendered Visible Through Clever Technology

in Photography, Physics | December 16th, 2015

How can you make the invis­i­ble, vis­i­ble? One way to do it is through a nine­teenth cen­tu­ry pho­tog­ra­phy tech­nique called Schlieren Flow Visu­al­iza­tion. Bet­ter demon­strat­ed than explained, the NPR video above shows Schlieren Flow Visu­al­iza­tion in action, ren­der­ing vis­i­ble (after the 2:00 minute mark) the sounds of hands clap­ping, a tow­el snap­ping, a fire­crack­er crack­ing, and an AK-47 fir­ing off a round. The images, which cap­ture changes in air den­si­ty, were pro­vid­ed by Michael Har­gath­er, a pro­fes­sor who leads the Shock and Gas Dynam­ics Lab­o­ra­to­ry at New Mex­i­co Tech.

via NPR 

Fol­low Open Cul­ture on Face­book and Twit­ter and share intel­li­gent media with your friends. Or bet­ter yet, sign up for our dai­ly email and get a dai­ly dose of Open Cul­ture in your inbox. And if you want to make sure that our posts def­i­nite­ly appear in your Face­book news­feed, just fol­low these sim­ple steps.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Visu­al­iz­ing WiFi Sig­nals with Light

George Mason Stu­dents Cre­ate Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Fire Extin­guish­er That Uses Sound Waves to Blow Out Fires

The Neu­ro­science of Bass: New Study Explains Why Bass Instru­ments Are Fun­da­men­tal to Music

The Dis­tor­tion of Sound: A Short Film on How We’ve Cre­at­ed “a McDonald’s Gen­er­a­tion of Music Con­sumers”

Downton Abbey Actors Perform Scene from the Show with American Accents

in Comedy, Television | December 14th, 2015

How­ev­er stiff they may seem on the show, the cast of Down­ton Abbey can let down its hair and have some fun. Last Christ­mas, they put togeth­er a fun par­o­dy episode, where, bor­row­ing from It’s a Won­der­ful Life, they asked us to imag­ine what dai­ly life at the Abbey would look like if Lady Grantham spent her days cavort­ing with George Clooney rather than Lord Grantham.

Now, right before the show’s final sea­son starts air­ing in the US on Jan­u­ary 3, sev­er­al cast mem­bers are giv­ing us anoth­er sce­nario to con­sid­er: What would it look if Down­ton Abbey was per­formed only with Amer­i­can accents? Appear­ing on The Late Show with Stephen Col­bert, Michelle Dock­ery (Lady Mary Craw­ley), Hugh Bon­neville (Lord Grantham) and Allen Leech (Tom Bran­som) per­formed an actu­al scene in their best Amer­i­can accents, and it’s a sight to behold. Par­tic­u­lar­ly Allen, he’s a trip.

Fol­low Open Cul­ture on Face­book and Twit­ter and share intel­li­gent media with your friends. Or bet­ter yet, sign up for our dai­ly email and get a dai­ly dose of Open Cul­ture in your inbox. And if you want to make sure that our posts def­i­nite­ly appear in your Face­book news­feed, just fol­low these sim­ple steps.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

A Fun Par­o­dy of Down­ton Abbey Fea­tures George Clooney & the Cast of the Show

Three Actress­es from Down­ton Abbey Play a Raunchy Card Game (NSFW)

One Woman, 17 British Accents

Watch Meryl Streep Have Fun with Accents: Bronx, Pol­ish, Irish, Aus­tralian, Yid­dish & More

Hear Sun Ra, the Avant-Garde Jazz Legend, Play on a 1966 Batman and Robin Album for Kids

in Comics/Cartoons, Music, Television | December 11th, 2015

In the mid 1960s, when the Bat­man TV show was in full swing, a New Jer­sey toy com­pa­ny released a chil­dren’s record of Bat­man & Robin songs. Called The Sen­sa­tion­al Gui­tars Of Dan & Dale, Bat­man & Robin, the album fea­tured, as WFMU’s Beware of the Blog notes, “one of the great­est uncred­it­ed ses­sion com­bos of all time, includ­ing the core of Sun Ra’s Arkestra and Al Koop­er’s Blues Project.” Anony­mous­ly, Sun Ra played on organ, Jim­my Owens on trum­pet, Tom McIn­tosh on trom­bone & Dan­ny Kalb on gui­tar.

Oth­er than the well-known Bat­man and Robin themes (above), the kid’s album was cre­at­ed around music that had fall­en into the pub­lic domain–e.g. Chopin’s Polon­aise Op. 53, Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Sym­pho­ny and the love theme from Romeo and Juli­et. Over at WFMU, you can hear var­i­ous tracks, includ­ing Bat­man’s Bat­marang, Bat­man and Robin Over The Roofs, Flight of the Bat­man, The Rid­dler’s Retreat, Jok­er is Wild, Pen­guin’s Umbrel­la, and more. Enjoy.

Fol­low Open Cul­ture on Face­book and Twit­ter and share intel­li­gent media with your friends. Or bet­ter yet, sign up for our dai­ly email and get a dai­ly dose of Open Cul­ture in your inbox. And if you want to make sure that our posts def­i­nite­ly appear in your Face­book news­feed, just fol­low these sim­ple steps.

via WFMU

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Sun Ra’s Full Lec­ture & Read­ing List From His 1971 UC Berke­ley Course, “The Black Man in the Cos­mos”

Sun Ra Plays a Music Ther­a­py Gig at a Men­tal Hos­pi­tal; Inspires Patient to Talk for the First Time in Years

Hear Sun Ra’s 1971 UC Berke­ley Lec­ture “The Pow­er of Words”

A Sun Ra Christ­mas: Hear His 1976 Radio Broad­cast of Poet­ry and Music

The Evo­lu­tion of Bat­man in Cin­e­ma: From 1939 to Present