Las Calles de Borges: A Tribute to Argentina’s Favorite Son

in Books, Literature | September 9th, 2011

In the win­ter of 2010, Ian Ruschel paid homage to the Argen­tin­ian writer Jorge Luis Borges, shoot­ing Buenos Aires: Las Calles de Borges in the streets of Argenti­na’s cap­i­tal. This evoca­tive lit­tle film, shot with a Canon 5D, weaves in footage of Borges talk­ing about “the task of art,” which comes from the 1998 doc­u­men­tary, Buenos Aires, meine Geschichte by Ger­man Kral. Also don’t miss Jorge Luis Borges: The Mir­ror Man, anoth­er doc­u­men­tary (47 min­utes) that’s “part biog­ra­phy, part lit­er­ary crit­i­cism, part hero-wor­ship, part book read­ing, and part psy­chol­o­gy.”

Bonus: We have trav­el writer Paul Ther­oux read­ing Borges’ short sto­ry “The Gospel Accord­ing to Mark,” cour­tesy of The New York­er. The audio file is oth­er­wise list­ed in our col­lec­tion of Free Audio Books.

via Curios­i­ty Counts

William S. Burroughs Reads His First Novel, Junky

in Audio Books, Books, Literature | September 8th, 2011

Six years before he pub­lished his break­through nov­el, Naked Lunch (1959), William S. Bur­roughs broke into the lit­er­ary scene with Junky (some­times also called Junkie), a can­did, semi-auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal account of an “unre­deemed drug addict.” It’s safe to say that the book would­n’t have seen the light of day if Allen Gins­berg had­n’t tak­en Bur­roughs under his wing and edit­ed the man­u­script. The book, orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished under the pseu­do­nym “William Lee,” was dis­trib­uted by Ace Books, a pub­lish­ing house that tar­get­ed New York City sub­way rid­ers. You can lis­ten to Bur­roughs, the famous beat writer, read­ing a three-hour abridged ver­sion of the text over at UBUWeb. Also see the playlist on YouTube.

H/T @maudnewton

The Largest Black Holes in the Universe: A Visual Introduction

in Astronomy, Physics, Video - Science | September 8th, 2011

They’re not your ordi­nary black holes. They’re big­ger. They’re bad­der. They are super­mas­sive black holes capa­ble of pro­duc­ing the largest erup­tions since the Big Bang. But, despite their mas­sive size, we’re just start­ing to under­stand these forces oper­at­ing in the cen­ter of galax­ies some­times bil­lions of light years from Earth.

The doc­u­men­tary above (run­ning about 18 min­utes) offers a rea­son­ably good primer on super­mas­sive black holes. Or, to get anoth­er angle on things, you can turn to Fron­tiers and Con­tro­ver­sies in Astro­physics, a course taught by Charles Bai­lyn at Yale. Lec­ture 15 (watch here) is specif­i­cal­ly ded­i­cat­ed to these moth­er-of-all black holes.

The full course is avail­able in these for­mats (YouTube — iTunes Audio — iTunes Video — Down­load Course) and oth­er­wise list­ed in our big col­lec­tion of Free Online Cours­es.

Jack Kerouac Reads from On the Road (1959)

in Books, Literature | September 7th, 2011

Jack Ker­ouac wrote On the Road in three very short weeks in 1951. But then it took six years for the book, famous­ly writ­ten on a long scroll, to reach the read­ing pub­lic in 1957. Short­ly after its pub­li­ca­tion, crit­ics were at least quick to rec­og­nize what the book meant. One New York Times review­er called it “the most beau­ti­ful­ly exe­cut­ed, the clear­est and the most impor­tant utter­ance yet made by the gen­er­a­tion Ker­ouac him­self named years ago as beat.” Anoth­er saw in the nov­el “a descrip­tive excite­ment unmatched since the days of Thomas Wolfe.” 54 years lat­er, those ear­ly reviews have with­stood the prover­bial test of time. These days, Mod­ern Library and TIME place the nov­el on their lists of the 100 great­est nov­els.

And now onto our vin­tage clip of the day — Jack Ker­ouac, the man him­self, appear­ing on The Steve Allen Show in 1959, first field­ing some ques­tions, then read­ing from his beat clas­sic.

Bonus: Yale’s course, The Amer­i­can Nov­el Since 1945, fea­tures two lec­tures ded­i­cat­ed to On the Road. More on that here.

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:

Jack Kerouac’s On The Road Turned Into Google Dri­ving Direc­tions & Pub­lished as a Free eBook

William S. Bur­roughs on the Art of Cut-up Writ­ing

Jack Kerouac’s On the Road Turned Into an Illus­trat­ed Scroll: One Draw­ing for Every Page of the Nov­el

Endless Summer: Hollywood Icons at the Beach (1965)

in Film, Life, Television | September 6th, 2011

It’s a quick glimpse into a bygone era, a more inno­cent era, before TMZ, Perez Hilton and The Super­fi­cial made being a celebri­ty a more dif­fi­cult propo­si­tion. The date is August 1965. The place is Mal­ibu. And the peo­ple? Some of the biggest stars in Hol­ly­wood — Paul New­man, Natal­ie Wood, Robert Red­ford, Jane Fon­da, Julie Andrews, Christo­pher Plum­mer, and Rock Hud­son — enjoy­ing some sim­ple, inti­mate moments at the beach. The video above comes from a set of films orig­i­nal­ly belong­ing to Rod­dy McDowall, all now appear­ing on YouTube for the first time. Oth­er clips in the col­lec­tion fea­ture:

Natal­ie Wood, Jane Fon­da, and Hope Lange Ear­li­er That Sum­mer

Labor Day 1965 at Rock Hud­son’s House

Robert Red­ford at the West­wood Fox 1965

Christo­pher Plum­mer, Sal Mineo, Natal­ie Wood, and Juli­et Mills at Mal­ibu

Natal­ie Wood, Lau­ren Bacall, Suzanne Pleshette and oth­ers togeth­er in Mal­ibu

Jane Fon­da and Julie Andrews Togeth­er

via World­of­Won­der

The First 3D Digital Film Created by Ed Catmull, Co-Founder of Pixar (1970)

in Animation, Art | September 5th, 2011

Long before Ed Cat­mull became pres­i­dent of Walt Dis­ney Ani­ma­tion Stu­dios, he head­ed up the com­put­er graph­ics group at Lucas­film, which even­tu­al­ly spun into Pixar, the mak­er of so many cut­ting edge ani­mat­ed films. And before all of that, Cat­mull went to grad­u­ate school at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Utah, where he cut his teeth on emerg­ing ani­ma­tion tech­nolo­gies, and put him­self in a posi­tion to devel­op this — a very ear­ly (and appar­ent­ly the first) 3D dig­i­tal movie.

Work­ing with Fred Parke, Cat­mull shot A Com­put­er Ani­mat­ed Hand in 1970. The hand makes only a brief appear­ance — about 20 sec­onds — and the rest of the film shows you what went into mak­ing the hand (and oth­er ani­mat­ed body parts). Nerd­PlusAlert has more on the ani­mat­ed reel.

via i09

Relat­ed Con­tent:

A Rare Look Inside Pixar Stu­dios

Vin­cent: Tim Burton’s Ear­ly Ani­mat­ed Film

Ger­tie the Dinosaur: The Moth­er of all Car­toon Char­ac­ters
 

Freddie Mercury’s 65th Birthday: Celebrate with Google Doodle and a Concert

in Animation, Google, Music | September 5th, 2011

Fred­die Mer­cury, the voice behind so many Queen clas­sics (Bohemi­an Rhap­sody, Crazy Lit­tle Thing Called Love, We Are the Cham­pi­ons), would have turned 65 today, an age that means offi­cial retire­ment for most, but not for rock ‘n roll leg­ends. To cel­e­brate the mile­stone, Google has adorned its home­page with a col­lage of Fred­die doo­dles, and released a relat­ed trib­ute video that brings the doo­dles to life. (Note: the doo­dles will grace US Google pages tomor­row — after Labor Day.)

If Queen was before your time, or if you nev­er quite under­stood the band’s appeal, then let us bring you back to their hey­day. First, Queen steal­ing the show at Live Aid in 1985. Bri­an May (now an astro­physi­cist and Chan­cel­lor of Liv­er­pool John Moores Uni­ver­si­ty) plays gui­tar along­side Fred­die. Find the remain­ing parts of the per­for­mance here, here, here, and here.

And next Queen’s leg­endary 1986 con­cert at Wem­b­ley Sta­di­um, which runs 90+ min­utes. This video was released by Queen’s YouTube Chan­nel, and it will only be avail­able online today…

If you’re now a con­vert­ed Queen fan, just sit tight. A biopic with Sacha Baron Cohen (aka Ali G) play­ing Fred­die Mer­cury will be released next sum­mer.

Arthur C. Clarke Predicts the Future in 1964 … And Kind of Nails It

in Sci Fi | September 4th, 2011

In 1964, Sir Arthur C. Clarke, the futur­ist and sci-fi writer best known for his nov­el 2001: A Space Odyssey, peered into the future, to the year 2000, and described what he saw. And a pret­ty good guess it was. Ours would be a world in which…

We could be in instant con­tact with each oth­er, wher­ev­er we may be, where we can con­tact our friends any­where on earth, even if we don’t know their actu­al phys­i­cal loca­tion. It will be pos­si­ble in that age, per­haps only 50 years from now, for a man to con­duct his busi­ness from Tahi­ti or Bali just as well as he could from Lon­don.… Almost any exec­u­tive skill, any admin­is­tra­tive skill, even any phys­i­cal skill, could be made inde­pen­dent of dis­tance. I am per­fect­ly seri­ous when I sug­gest that one day we may have brain sur­geons in Edin­burgh oper­at­ing on patients in New Zealand.

By 2001, Cal­i­for­nia doc­tors were already con­duct­ing vir­tu­al surgery on patients in Rome. And, by 2005, Thomas Fried­man pub­lished his best­seller, The World is Flat, which pret­ty much told us that us that Clarke’s imag­ined world had arrived — with, of course, one big excep­tion. Cities? They’re still stand­ing…

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:

Mar­shall McLuhan: The World is a Glob­al Vil­lage

Arthur C. Clarke Presents the Col­ors of Infin­i­ty

Paola Antonelli on Design as the Interface Between Progress and Humanity

in Art, Education, Video - Arts & Culture | September 1st, 2011

Pao­la Antonel­li — Senior Cura­tor of Archi­tec­ture and Design at the MoMA, long­time pro­po­nent of human­ized tech­nol­o­gy, self-described “curi­ous octo­pus” — has arguably done more for the main­stream infil­tra­tion of design lit­er­a­cy than any oth­er indi­vid­ual in con­tem­po­rary cul­ture. In her recent open­ing keynote at the unequiv­o­cal­ly titled media and ideas con­fer­ence The Con­fer­ence in Malmö, Swe­den, Antonel­li pulls the cur­tain on her cura­to­r­i­al process and, with her sig­na­ture on-stage charis­ma, takes a reveal­ing look at how her shows go about the incred­i­ble bal­anc­ing act of being both bea­cons of the bleed­ing edge of design and an approach­able edu­ca­tion plat­form for instill­ing in the gen­er­al pub­lic a basic under­stand­ing of the fun­da­men­tal impor­tance of design — some­thing she describes as “push[ing] design down from the realm of art and up from the realm of dec­o­ra­tion and pret­ti­fi­ca­tion into real life.”

“What design­ers do is they take rev­o­lu­tions that hap­pen maybe in sci­ence or tech­nol­o­gy or pol­i­tics, and they trans­form them into objects that you and I can use, that you and I can feel some famil­iar­i­ty or at least some curios­i­ty about, so we can be drawn in and we can start a new life and a new behav­ioral pat­tern. And this idea of design­ers as the inter­face of progress, between progress and human­i­ty, is what I try to stay with.” ~ Pao­la Antonel­li

Antonel­li’s excel­lent new show, Talk to Me: Design and the Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Between Peo­ple and Objects, is on dis­play at the MoMA through Novem­ber 7.

Maria Popo­va is the founder and edi­tor in chief of Brain Pick­ings, a curat­ed inven­to­ry of cross-dis­ci­pli­nary inter­est­ing­ness. She writes for Wired UK, The Atlantic and Desig­nOb­serv­er, and spends a great deal of time on Twit­ter.

The Blade Runner Promotional Film

in Film, Sci Fi | September 1st, 2011

A quick addi­tion to yes­ter­day’s look back at Siskel & Ebert’s 1982 review of Blade Run­ner.

As we were say­ing, the film got off to a very shaky start. The pro­duc­tion was a mess. Crit­ics panned the film. Film­go­ers went to see ET. And all of the rest.

It was time to pull out the stops. So, M. K. Pro­duc­tions was enlist­ed to shoot a 16 mm pro­mo­tion­al fea­turette that cir­cu­lat­ed through Amer­i­ca’s hor­ror, fan­ta­sy and sci-fi con­ven­tions. Fea­tur­ing inter­views with Rid­ley Scott, Syd Mead (visu­al futur­ist), and Dou­glas Trum­bull (spe­cial effects), the short pro­mo­tion­al film let view­ers peer inside the mak­ing of the mag­i­cal Blade Run­ner uni­verse. And now you can do the same.

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:

The Mak­ing of the Shin­ing

Blade Run­ner Gets Re-Cre­at­ed, Shot for Shot, Using Only Microsoft Paint

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