Richard Brautigan’s Story, ‘One Afternoon in 1939,’ Read From a Wooden Spool

in Books, Literature | January 30th, 2012

Today is the birth­day of Richard Brauti­gan, whose fun­ny and imag­i­na­tive books were a touch­stone for the 1960s coun­ter­cul­ture and have remained an inspi­ra­tion to free spir­its ever since. He would have been 77.

In this video, uploaded to the Inter­net exact­ly a year ago, Ianthe Brauti­gan Swensen reads her father’s sto­ry, “One After­noon in 1939,” from his col­lec­tion Revenge of the Lawn. Ianthe was one year old in 1961 when her father sat down with a portable type­writer on a fam­i­ly camp­ing trip to write his most famous work, Trout Fish­ing in Amer­i­ca, and she was 24 when he took his own life in 1984. Now she’s a writer and a teacher.

In 2001 Brauti­gan Swensen pub­lished You Can’t Catch Death: A Daugh­ter’s Mem­oir about her life with a dif­fi­cult but lov­ing father who liked to take her with him to his favorite San Fran­cis­co haunts dur­ing the 60s. “When I’m here,” she told the San Fran­cis­co Chron­i­cle on a vis­it to the city in 2000, “I still feel my father walk­ing the streets, I still feel my hand in his. And that’s a very hap­py feel­ing.”

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

30 Renowned Writers Speaking About God & Reason

in Books, Literature, Religion | January 30th, 2012

This past sum­mer, Jonathan Parara­jas­ing­ham, a neu­ro­sur­geon in Lon­don, cre­at­ed a mon­tage of 100 renowned aca­d­e­mics, most­ly all sci­en­tists, talk­ing about their thoughts on the exis­tence of God. (Find it in two parts here and here.) Now’s he back with a new video, 30 Renowned Writ­ers Speak­ing About God. It runs 25 min­utes, and it offers as much a cri­tique of ortho­dox reli­gious belief as it does a lit­er­ary trib­ute to human­ism and ratio­nal­ism. Isaac Asi­mov, Arthur C. Clarke, Salman Rushdie (who kind­ly tweet­ed us this week­end), Mar­garet Atwood, Philip Roth — they all make an appear­ance. The full list of writ­ers appears below the jump.

And, before we close, let me say this. When­ev­er we post videos like these, we get the ques­tion. Why the occa­sion­al focus on atheism/rationalism/humanism? And the sim­ple answer comes down to this: If you cov­er writ­ers, aca­d­e­mics and sci­en­tists, the think­ing skews in that direc­tion. Yes, there are excep­tions, but they are in short­er sup­ply. But if some­one pulls them togeth­er and makes a mon­tage, we’ll like­ly fea­ture it too. H/T RichardDawkins.net

Note: As you may have noticed, we have been expe­ri­enc­ing inter­mit­tent out­ages over the past cou­ple of days. Our host, Dreamhost, has been stum­bling more than we’d like. So we’re fig­ur­ing out alter­na­tives and hope­ful­ly mak­ing a move soon. Our apolo­gies for the incon­ve­nience!

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The Last (Faxed) Poem of Charles Bukowski

in Literature, Technology | January 30th, 2012

On Feb­ru­ary 18, 1994, Charles Bukows­ki had a fax machine installed in his home and imme­di­ate­ly sent his first Fax poem to his pub­lish­er:

oh, for­give me For Whom the Bell Tolls,
oh, for­give me Man who walked on water,
oh, for­give me lit­tle old woman who lived in a shoe,
oh, for­give me the moun­tain that roared at mid­night,
oh, for­give me the dumb sounds of night and day and death,
oh, for­give me the death of the last beau­ti­ful pan­ther,
oh, for­give me all the sunken ships and defeat­ed armies,
this is my first FAX POEM.
It’s too late:
I have been
smit­ten.

Alas this was also Bukowski’s last poem. Just 18 days after Bukows­ki embraced tech­nol­o­gy, the poet (once famous­ly called the “lau­re­ate of Amer­i­can lowlife” by Pico Iyer) died of leukemia in Cal­i­for­nia. He was 73 years old. Accord­ing to John Mar­tin at Black Spar­row Press, the Fax poem has nev­er been pub­lished or col­lect­ed in a book. Book­tryst has a whole lot more on the sto­ry, and we have the singer/songwriter Tom Waits read­ing Charles Bukowski’s poem, The Laugh­ing Heart. You can also lis­ten to three oth­er Bukows­ki poems (in audio) here on YouTube:

• Blue­bird
• Some­thing For The Touts, The Nuns, The Gro­cery Clerks, And You
• The Secret to My Endurance (read by Bukows­ki him­self)

Find more great reads in our col­lec­tion of Free Audio Books.

via Poet­ry Foun­da­tion

The Lost Guitar Solo for “Here Comes the Sun” by George Harrison, Discovered by George Martin

in Music | January 27th, 2012

Here Comes the Sun — it’s one of George Har­rison’s con­tri­bu­tions to Abbey Road (1969). And, among the many great Bea­t­les’ songs, it’s my sen­ti­men­tal favorite. While we’re feel­ing sen­ti­men­tal, let me bring you this — Dhani Har­ri­son, the son of the late gui­tarist, returns to the record­ing stu­dio (pre­sum­ably at Abbey Road) with George Mar­tin, the Bea­t­les’ leg­endary pro­duc­er, and Mar­t­in’s son Giles. Togeth­er, they play with the mix of “Here Comes the Sun,” and then the won­drous lit­tle moment of dis­cov­ery hap­pens. They stum­ble upon the long lost gui­tar solo that nev­er made the final cut. It’s a plea­sure to see.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

H/T @WFMU

Relat­ed Con­tent

Gui­tarist Randy Bach­man Demys­ti­fies the Open­ing Chord of ‘A Hard Day’s Night’

George Har­ri­son Explains Why Every­one Should Play the Ukulele, With Words and Music

Watch George Harrison’s Final Inter­view and Per­for­mance (1997)

A Tour Inside Salvador Dalí’s Labyrinthine Spanish Home

in Art | January 26th, 2012

Along the Cos­ta Bra­va in north­ern Spain, in the lit­tle sea­side vil­lage of Portl­li­gat, sits the house that became Sal­vador Dalí’s main res­i­dence in 1930. It start­ed off as a small fisherman’s hut. Then Dalí went to work on the struc­ture, ren­o­vat­ing it lit­tle by lit­tle over the next 40 years, cre­at­ing a liv­ing, breath­ing, labyrinthine home that reflects the artist’s one-of-a-kind aes­thet­ic. Writ­ing about the house, the author Joseph Pla once said:

The dec­o­ra­tion of the house is sur­pris­ing, extra­or­di­nary. Per­haps the most exact adjec­tive would be: nev­er-before-seen. I do not believe that there is any­thing like it, in this coun­try or in any oth­er.… Dalí’s house is com­plete­ly unex­pect­ed.… It con­tains noth­ing more than mem­o­ries, obses­sions. The fixed ideas of its own­ers. There is noth­ing tra­di­tion­al, nor inher­it­ed, nor repeat­ed, nor copied here. All is inde­ci­pher­able per­son­al mythol­o­gy.… There are art works (by the painter), Russ­ian things (of Mrs. Gala), stuffed ani­mals, stair­cas­es of geo­log­i­cal walls going up and down, books (strange for such peo­ple), the com­mon­place and the refined, etc.

For many, it’s a long trip to Portl­li­gat, and only eight peo­ple can vis­it the house at a time. So today we’re fea­tur­ing a video tour of Dalí’s Span­ish home. The inte­ri­or shots begin around the 1:30 mark. If you love taxi­dermy, you won’t be wast­ing your time.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Des­ti­no: The Sal­vador Dalí – Dis­ney Col­lab­o­ra­tion 57 Years in the Mak­ing

Sal­vador Dalí Appears on “What’s My Line? in 1952

Alfred Hitch­cock Recalls Work­ing with Sal­vador Dalí on Spell­bound

Un Chien Andalou: Revis­it­ing Buñuel and Dalí’s Sur­re­al­ist Film

Alain de Botton Wants a Religion for Atheists: Introducing Atheism 2.0

in Philosophy, Religion | January 26th, 2012

Last sum­mer Alain de Bot­ton, one of the bet­ter pop­u­lar­iz­ers of phi­los­o­phy, appeared at TED­G­lob­al and called for a new kind of athe­ism. An Athe­ism 2.0. This revised athe­ism would let athe­ists deny a cre­ator and yet not for­sake all the oth­er good things reli­gion can offer — tra­di­tion, rit­u­al, com­mu­ni­ty, insights into liv­ing a good life, the abil­i­ty to expe­ri­ence tran­scen­dence, tak­ing part in insti­tu­tions that can change the world, and the rest.

What he’s describ­ing kind of sounds like what already hap­pens in the Uni­tar­i­an Church … or The School of Life, a Lon­don-based insti­tu­tion found­ed by de Bot­ton in 2008. The school offers cours­es “in the impor­tant ques­tions of every­day life” and also hosts Sun­day Ser­mons that fea­ture “mav­er­ick cul­tur­al fig­ures” talk­ing about impor­tant prin­ci­ples to live by. Click here and you can watch sev­er­al past ser­mons pre­sent­ed by actress Miran­da July, physi­cist Lawrence Krauss, author Rebec­ca Sol­nit, and Alain de Bot­ton him­self.

If Athe­ism 2.0 piques your inter­est, you’ll want to pre-order de Bot­ton’s soon-to-be-pub­lished book, Reli­gion for Athe­ists: A Non-Believ­er’s Guide to the Uses of Reli­gion.

Thanks to Elana for send­ing this our way.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Athe­ism: A Rough His­to­ry of Dis­be­lief, with Jonathan Miller

Watch Sunday & Wild Life: Two Animated Shorts Just Nominated for an Oscar

in Animation, Film | January 25th, 2012

When the 2012 Acad­e­my Award nom­i­na­tions were announced yes­ter­day, there must have been plen­ty of smiles at the Nation­al Film Board of Cana­da. For the eighth time, the Cana­di­an film producer/distributor scored a dou­ble nom­i­na­tion in the same cat­e­go­ry. In this case, Sun­day by Patrick Doy­on, and Wild Life by Aman­da For­bis and Wendy Til­by, were select­ed as final­ists for Best Ani­mat­ed Short Film.

Thanks to the NFB, you can watch Sun­day (above) and Wild Life (below) online for a lim­it­ed time, along with the NFB’s nine Oscar-win­ning films. The film provider also makes hun­dreds of free movies avail­able via the web and the iPad — some­thing to keep in mind for a good rainy day.

More great films can be found in our col­lec­tion of 450 Free Movies Online.

Apocalypse Not Quite Yet: Why Solar Storms Won’t End the World in 2012

in Astronomy, Science, Video - Science | January 25th, 2012

With the largest solar storm since 2005 light­ing up the night skies this week after a pair of solar flares sent streams of charged par­ti­cles hurtling toward the earth, prophets of doom have been light­ing up the Inter­net.

Bob Thiel, a self-described “Church His­to­ry and End Times Exam­in­er” and author of 2012 and the Rise of the Secret Sect, wrote yes­ter­day: “Worse solar flares will ulti­mate­ly hap­pen after the ‘Great Tribu­la­tion’ begins (Rev­e­la­tion 16: 8–9), and one or more that affect satel­lites and elec­tric­i­ty could hap­pen even today.” Hmm. Inter­est­ing.

Although very seri­ous ques­tions do exist about the readi­ness of our elec­tric pow­er grid and satel­lite infra­struc­ture to with­stand a major solar storm like the one in 1859 that short­ed out tele­graph wires and caused auro­rae so bright a crew of gold min­ers in Col­orado report­ed­ly got out of bed in the mid­dle of the night to cook break­fast, the cur­rent increase in solar activ­i­ty is part of a reg­u­lar 11-year cycle and pos­es no spe­cial risk, accord­ing to NASA helio­physi­cist Alex Young. (See the video above.) And any­way, Young says, the peak isn’t expect­ed to hit until 2014, well after the Mayan cal­en­dar has run its course.

For an inter­est­ing dis­cus­sion about the past week’s solar activ­i­ty you can lis­ten to Phil Plait, author of Dis­cov­er Mag­a­zine’s “Bad Astron­o­my” blog, in an inter­view yes­ter­day with Patt Mor­ri­son of Los Ange­les pub­lic radio KPCC. And for a look at the earth-direct­ed coro­nal mass ejec­tion of Jan­u­ary 22, you can watch anoth­er NASA video below.

Jim Henson’s Zany 1963 Robot Film Uncovered by AT&T: Watch Online

in Film, Technology | January 25th, 2012

Before Jim Hen­son joined Sesame Street in 1969, the great pup­peteer took on var­i­ous projects dur­ing the 60s, some­times cre­at­ing exper­i­men­tal films (for exam­ple, the Oscar-nom­i­nat­ed short Time Piece), oth­er times pro­duc­ing primers on pup­pet mak­ing, and then pur­su­ing the occa­sion­al com­mer­cial project — like the one just uncov­ered by AT&T.

Back in 1963, Hen­son was asked to cre­ate a short film for a Bell Data Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Sem­i­nar held in Chica­go. The con­fer­ence orga­niz­ers sent a three-page memo to Hen­son out­lin­ing the main themes of the con­fer­ence — one being the strange and some­times fraught rela­tion­ship between man and machine. Hen­son’s film only runs three min­utes, but it gets the mes­sage across … and then some.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Jim Hen­son Teach­es You How to Make Pup­pets in Vin­tage Primer From 1969

Jim Hen­son Cre­ates an Exper­i­men­tal Ani­ma­tion Explain­ing How We Get Ideas (1966)

Jim Henson’s Orig­i­nal, Spunky Pitch for The Mup­pet Show

Nine PAC Ads from Stephen Colbert Spoof U.S. Election System

in Comedy, Current Affairs, Politics | January 24th, 2012

When the Supreme Court, in its infi­nite wis­dom, decid­ed that cor­po­ra­tions enjoy the free speech rights of indi­vid­u­als, it took a bad cam­paign finance sys­tem and made it worse. Sud­den­ly, free-spend­ing PACs, rep­re­sent­ing pow­er­ful busi­ness inter­ests, could flood our cam­paign finance sys­tem with unprece­dent­ed amounts of mon­ey and dis­tort the way we elect lead­ers in the Unit­ed States. In the ear­ly days of the Repub­li­can nom­i­na­tion process, we’re already see­ing the results. Super PACs, some­times receiv­ing $5 mil­lion from one indi­vid­ual, are run­ning attack ads — lots of attack ads — in pri­ma­ry states. And the real del­uge has yet to come. Just wait until next fall.

What to do about the sanc­tioned dis­tor­tion of our polit­i­cal sys­tem? It’s hard to be opti­mistic when fix­ing the prob­lem would real­is­ti­cal­ly require a con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment. But that’s what Lawrence Lessig (Har­vard law pro­fes­sor and founder of Cre­ative Com­mons) is try­ing to do. Appear­ing at Google (see below), Lessig describes how spe­cial inter­ests cor­rupt our polit­i­cal sys­tem, and what we can do to stop it. But even Lessig will admit that it’s an uphill bat­tle.

That leaves us with the next best solu­tion: turn a joke of an elec­tion sys­tem into a good joke. Enter Stephen Col­bert. The come­di­an has cre­at­ed his own Super PAC (run by Jon Stew­art) that comes com­plete with its own TV ads. The par­o­dy above — an attack ad on attack ads — makes its point pret­ty effec­tive­ly. You can watch eight more Col­bert PAC com­mer­cials here, and make a dona­tion to his PAC here. And, if you’re feel­ing gen­er­ous, you can show your sup­port for Open Cul­ture here.

Break­ing News: Stephen Col­bert ends qua­si-pres­i­den­tial cam­paign