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

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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

The First Episode of Serial: Season 2 Is Now Online: Go Inside the World of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl

in Podcasts | December 10th, 2015

If you’ve been won­der­ing how the Ser­i­al pod­cast would fol­low up on its remark­able first sea­son, the sus­pense is over. This morn­ing, Sea­son 2 is get­ting under­way. Episode 1 is now online, ready for down­load.

A year ago, we got inti­mate­ly famil­iar with the 1999 mur­der of Hae Min Lee and the tri­al of Adnan Syed. Now, host Sarah Koenig will take us deep­er into the world of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the sol­dier held cap­tive by the Tal­iban for five years, who is now fac­ing deser­tion charges by the US Army.

You can sub­scribe to Ser­i­al via Rss feed or iTunes, or lis­ten to the episodes via the web.

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.

A Superconductor Levitating on a Möbius Strip

in Science | December 9th, 2015

We’ve seen some pret­ty cre­ative things done on a Möbius strip – like watch­ing a Bach canon get played for­wards, then back. But how about this? Above, watch Andy Marmery show a super­con­duc­tor lev­i­tat­ing on a Möbius strip made with over 2,000 mag­nets. The mag­ic is in the super­con­duct­ing mate­r­i­al, Yttri­um bar­i­um cop­per oxide, which lets the super­con­duc­tor whiz along, seem­ing­ly float­ing both above and below the track. This video comes from a video series called “Tales from the Prep Room,” cre­at­ed by The Roy­al Insti­tu­tion, “a 200 year old char­i­ty based in Lon­don ded­i­cat­ed to con­nect­ing peo­ple with the world of sci­ence through events, edu­ca­tion, and [its] Christ­mas Lec­tures.”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

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

Math­e­mu­si­cian Vi Hart Explains the Space-Time Con­tin­u­um With a Music Box, Bach, and a Möbius Strip

Free Online Physics Cours­es

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.

Watch the Eagles of Death Metal Perform Live Again Tonight in Paris

in Life, Music | December 7th, 2015

“There’s noth­ing left but to intro­duce you to some peo­ple whose lives will for­ev­er be a part of the life of Paris. These are our broth­ers. They were robbed of their stage three weeks ago, and we would like to offer them ours tonight.” And with those words from Bono, the Eagles of Death Met­al took the stage again tonight in Paris, just three weeks after the hor­rif­ic ter­ror­ist attack at Le Bat­a­clan. Up top, see them sing, along with U2, a ver­sion of Pat­ti Smith’s “Peo­ple Have the Pow­er.” Next, a ver­sion of their own song, “I Love You All the Time.”

Whether the band would per­form again was nev­er in doubt. Inter­viewed days after the attack, the band, still reel­ing, told Vice they had an oblig­a­tion to car­ry on. In the poignant video below, Jesse Hugh­es said it all: “I can­not wait to get back to Paris. I can­not wait to play. I want to come back. I want to be the first band to play at Le Bat­a­clan when it opens.” Play­ing at Le Bat­a­clan may have to wait. But get­ting back to Paris, that’s now cer­tain­ly done.

via The New York Times

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.

The Dresser: The Contraption That Makes Getting Dressed an Adventure

in Art | December 1st, 2015

Joseph Her­sch­er — kinet­ic artist extra­or­di­naire and cre­ator of the great “Page Turn­er” Rube Gold­berg machine — returns with a new con­trap­tion: “The Dress­er”.

Orig­i­nal­ly, “The Dress­er” was a live per­for­mance piece that Her­sch­er per­formed in Char­lotte, NC. He spent a year build­ing the con­trap­tion, then 2 months test­ing it, before stag­ing it for audi­ences. (Watch a short doc­u­men­tary on the live per­for­mance here.) Now, thank­ful­ly, he brings the quirky device to the web, for the rest of us to see. Some­where Rube Gold­berg is smil­ing.

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:

The Page Turn­er: A Fab­u­lous Rube Gold­berg Machine for Read­ers

The Falling Water: A Rube Gold­berg Machine That Makes a Fine Cock­tail

Stu­dents Tells the Passover Sto­ry with a Rube Gold­berg Machine

Leonard Cohen Reads The Great World War I Poem, “In Flanders Fields”

in Poetry | December 1st, 2015

Cour­tesy of Legion Mag­a­zine, you can hear Canada’s icon­ic singer-song­writer Leonard Cohen read­ing “In Flan­ders Fields” by Lieu­tenant-Colonel John McCrae. The clip was recent­ly record­ed to com­mem­o­rate the 100th anniver­sary of the poem.

World War I inspired many poems. But this one, straight from the begin­ning, became one of the most pop­u­lar ones. Poets.org recounts the ori­gins of “In Flan­ders Fields” thus­ly:

As the first shots of World War I were fired in the sum­mer of 1914, Cana­da, as a mem­ber of the British Empire, became involved in the fight as well. [John] McCrae was appoint­ed brigade-sur­geon to the First Brigade of the Cana­di­an Field Artillery.

In April 1915, McCrae was sta­tioned in the trench­es near Ypres, Bel­gium, in an area known as Flan­ders, dur­ing the bloody Sec­ond Bat­tle of Ypres. In the midst of the trag­ic war­fare, McCrae’s friend, twen­ty-two-year-old Lieu­tenant Alex­is Helmer, was killed by artillery fire and buried in a makeshift grave. The fol­low­ing day, McCrae, after see­ing the field of makeshift graves bloom­ing with wild pop­pies, wrote his famous poem “In Flan­ders Field,” which would be the sec­ond to last poem he would ever write. It was pub­lished in England’s Punch mag­a­zine in Decem­ber 1915 and was lat­er includ­ed in the posthu­mous col­lec­tion In Flan­ders Fields and Oth­er Poems (G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1919).

As a sad post­script, McCrae start­ed suf­fer­ing from asth­ma attacks and bron­chi­tis in the sum­mer of 1917, then died of pneu­mo­nia and menin­gi­tis in Jan­u­ary of 1918. It’s fit­ting that Leonard Cohen (an accom­plished poet before he became a musi­cian) would recite “In Flan­ders Fields,” the text of which you can read below. The sec­ond read­ing was record­ed live in Los Ange­les ear­li­er this year.

In Flan­ders fields the pop­pies blow
Between the cross­es, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still brave­ly singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sun­set glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flan­ders fields.

Take up our quar­rel with the foe:
To you from fail­ing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though pop­pies grow
In Flan­ders fields.

Find Cohen’s read­ing in our col­lec­tion, 1,000 Free Audio Books: Down­load Great Books for Free.

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

Young Leonard Cohen Reads His Poet­ry in 1966 (Before His Days as a Musi­cian Began)

Ladies and Gen­tle­men… Mr. Leonard Cohen: The Poet-Musi­cian Fea­tured in a 1965 Doc­u­men­tary

The Poet­ry of Leonard Cohen Illus­trat­ed by Two Short Films