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

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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

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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

People of Nowhere: Short, Powerful Film Captures the Human Dimension of the Syrian Refugee Crisis

in Current Affairs | November 30th, 2015

“The pro­pa­gan­dis­t’s pur­pose is to make one set of peo­ple for­get that cer­tain oth­er sets of peo­ple are human.”
–Aldous Hux­ley (1936)

Lior Speran­deo, who has pre­vi­ous­ly direct­ed short films called Peo­ple of Mum­bai, Peo­ple of Nepal, and Peo­ple of Sene­gal, returns with a film that resists focus­ing on a sense of place. Peo­ple of Nowhere cap­tures the plight of Syr­i­an refugees, flee­ing their worn-torn coun­try for a safer life in Europe. Explain­ing how he came to make the dra­mat­ic film, Speran­deo writes:

I have heard and read dif­fer­ent opin­ions about the wave of Syr­i­an refugees who try to make their way in to the EU. Then I went to Lesvos. 7 days on the Greek Island gave me a health­i­er, human per­spec­tive on the sit­u­a­tion.  See­ing the peo­ple behind the head­lines with my own eyes, and feel­ing their deep strug­gle, broke my heart.  Are they the ‘threat’ peo­ple talk about? All I saw were coura­geous peo­ple in a time of cri­sis, look­ing for hope.  I also got to meet brave vol­un­teers from all over the world who reach out to help all peo­ple regard­less of their reli­gion, race or back­ground. That inspired me.  My hope is that this video might tear down some of the walls of bad ideas and opin­ions we have built around our­selves.

You can watch Lior’s film, a reminder that real lives are stake in the slow-mov­ing geno­cide in Syr­ia, on Vimeo here. And vis­it his Vimeo Chan­nel here.

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.

Mœbius & Jodorowsky’s Sci-Fi Masterpiece, The Incal, Brought to Life in a Tantalizing Animation

in Animation, Sci Fi | November 23rd, 2015

Last year we fea­tured art­work from the Dune movie that nev­er was, a col­lab­o­ra­tion between Ale­jan­dro Jodor­owsky, the mys­ti­cism-mind­ed Chilean direc­tor of such oft-described-as-mind-blow­ing pic­tures as El Topo and The Holy Moun­tain, and the artist Jean Giraud, bet­ter known as Mœbius, cre­ator of oft-described-as-mind-blow­ing comics as Arzach, Blue­ber­ry, and The Air­tight Garage. If ever a meet­ing of two cre­ative minds made more sense, I haven’t heard about it. Alas, Jodor­owsky and Mœbius’ work did­n’t lead to their own Dune movie, but it did­n’t mark the end of their artis­tic part­ner­ship, as any­one who’s read The Incal knows full well.

Telling a meta­phys­i­cal, satir­i­cal, space-oper­at­ic sto­ry in the form of com­ic books orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished through­out the 1980s (with sequel and pre­quel series to come over the fol­low­ing 25 years), The Incal on the page became the fullest real­iza­tion of Jodor­owsky and Mœbius’ com­bined vision.

Its suc­cess made it a log­i­cal can­di­date for film adap­ta­tion, and so direc­tor Pas­cal Blais brought togeth­er artists from Heavy Met­al mag­a­zine (in which Mœbius first pub­lished some of his best known work) to make it hap­pen. It result­ed in noth­ing more than a trail­er, but what a trail­er; you can watch a recent­ly revamped edi­tion of the one Blais and his col­lab­o­ra­tors put togeth­er in the 1980s at the top of the post.

Any Incal fan who watch­es this spruced-up trail­er will imme­di­ate­ly want noth­ing more in this life than to see a fea­ture-film ver­sion of dis­solute pri­vate inves­ti­ga­tor John DiFool, his con­crete seag­ull Deepo, and the tit­u­lar all-pow­er­ful crys­tal that sets the sto­ry in motion. And any­one not yet ini­ti­at­ed into the sci­ence-fic­tion “Jodoverse” for which The Incal forms the basis will want to plunge into the com­ic books at the ear­li­est oppor­tu­ni­ty. Per­haps Blais will one day ful­ly revive the project; until then, we’ll have to con­tent our­selves with Luc Besson’s The Fifth Ele­ment (with its Mœbius-devel­oped pro­duc­tion design, sim­i­lar enough to The Incal’s to have sparked a law­suit) and maybe, just maybe, a live-action adap­ta­tion from Dri­ve direc­tor Nicholas Wind­ing Refn.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Moe­bius’ Sto­ry­boards & Con­cept Art for Jodorowsky’s Dune

The Inscrutable Imag­i­na­tion of the Late Com­ic Artist Mœbius

Moe­bius Gives 18 Wis­dom-Filled Tips to Aspir­ing Artists (1996)

French Stu­dent Sets Inter­net on Fire with Ani­ma­tion Inspired by Moe­bius, Syd Mead & Hayao Miyaza­ki

Mœbius Illus­trates Paulo Coelho’s Inspi­ra­tional Nov­el The Alchemist (1998)

Mœbius Illus­trates Dante’s Par­adiso

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities and cul­ture. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer, the video series The City in Cin­e­ma, and the crowd­fund­ed jour­nal­ism project Where Is the City of the Future? Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as a Free eBook & Audio Book

in | November 19th, 2015

“All mod­ern Amer­i­can lit­er­a­ture comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huck­le­ber­ry Finn. Amer­i­can writ­ing comes from that. There was noth­ing before. There has been noth­ing as good since.” That’s what Ernest Hem­ing­way, had to say about Mark Twain’s 1885 nov­el, The Adven­tures of Huck­le­ber­ry Finn. The book, now in the pub­lic domain, can be down­load for free in ebook and audio­books for­mats. Find them here:

eBooks: iPad/iPhone — Kin­dle + Oth­er For­mats — Read Online Now

Audio Books: Free MP3 — Free MP3 Zip File — Free iTunes — Spo­ti­fy ver­sion

Find many more great clas­sics in our twin col­lec­tions: 800 Free eBooks for iPad, Kin­dle & Oth­er Devices and 1,000 Free Audio Books: Down­load Great Books for Free. And if you are look­ing for a pro­fes­sion­al­ly read ver­sion of Huck­le­ber­ry Finn, you might also want to explore down­load­ing one for free from Audible.com. They have a great, no-strings-attached deal. If you start a 30 day free tri­al with Audible.com, you can down­load two free audio books of your choice. Get more details on the offer here.

Fol­low Open Cul­ture on Face­book, Twit­ter, Google Plus and LinkedIn and share intel­li­gent media with your friends. 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 Lit­er­a­ture Cours­es

Bill Mur­ray Gives a Delight­ful Read­ing of Twain’s Huck­le­ber­ry Finn (1996)

Nor­man Rock­well Illus­trates Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer & Huck­le­ber­ry Finn (1936–1940)

Mark Twain & Helen Keller’s Spe­cial Friend­ship: He Treat­ed Me Not as a Freak, But as a Per­son Deal­ing with Great Dif­fi­cul­ties

An Interactive Timeline Covering 14 Billion Years of History: From The Big Bang to 2015

in History | November 18th, 2015

For his final project in Beza­lel Acad­e­my of Arts and Design in Jerusalem, Matan Stauber cre­at­ed His­tog­ra­phy, an inter­ac­tive time­line that cov­ers 14 bil­lion years of his­to­ry. The time­line, writes Stauber, “draws his­tor­i­cal events from Wikipedia, and it self-updates dai­ly with new record­ed events.” And the inter­face lets users see his­to­ry in small­er chunks (decades at a time) or big­ger ones (mil­lions of years at a time). To get a vague feel for how His­tog­ra­phy works, you can watch the video above. But real­ly the best way to expe­ri­ence things is to dive right in here.

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 Kot­tke

Relat­ed Con­tent:

6,000 Years of His­to­ry Visu­al­ized in a 23-Foot-Long Time­line of World His­to­ry, Cre­at­ed in 1871

An Inter­ac­tive Map of Odysseus’ 10-Year Jour­ney in Homer’s Odyssey

The His­to­ry of Mod­ern Art Visu­al­ized in a Mas­sive 130-Foot Time­line

Big His­to­ry: David Chris­t­ian Cov­ers 13.7 Bil­lion Years of His­to­ry in 18 Min­utes

Free Online His­to­ry Cours­es

Free Entertainment for Cats and Dogs: Videos of Birds, Squirrels & Other Thrills

in Uncategorized | November 16th, 2015

Before Fri­day, we had nev­er man­aged to cov­er NASCAR, but we crossed that off the list when we fea­tured Ter­ry Gilliam’s mock­u­men­tary The Leg­end of Hal­lowde­ga. And now today we have anoth­er Open Cul­ture first: yes, an archive of free, enter­tain­ing videos for cats and dogs.

Over the past 6 years, Paul Din­ning has cre­at­ed a YouTube chan­nel packed with over 400 videos fea­tur­ing the wildlife of Corn­wall, Eng­land. And, from that footage, he has cob­bled togeth­er playlists designed to delight all cats and dogs with access to the inter­net. And, appar­ent­ly cats and dogs are watch­ing. The first video above, called “Squir­rel and Bird Fun,” has clocked some 863,000 views over the past year. And the next video, “The Ulti­mate Videos of Birds for Cats To Watch,” has 946,000 views since Jan­u­ary. I showed the videos to my cat Coc­co [sic] and, I kid you not, he was trans­fixed.

A longer playlist of videos for cats and dogs can be viewed here.

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.