Buddy Holly at Age 12: His First Recording

in Music | June 27th, 2011

If you’re look­ing for­ward to this week’s release of the Bud­dy Hol­ly cov­er album Rave On (and you should be, if only for John Doe’s awe­some take on Peg­gy Sue Got Mar­ried), then you’ll def­i­nite­ly get a kick out of the croon­er’s first ever known record­ing. The song is from 1949, and the sound qual­i­ty isn’t great, but no amount of sta­t­ic can block out the kid’s famil­iar war­ble. His voice may not have changed yet, but he’s already Bud­dy Hol­ly.

We have added this Bud­dy Hol­ly clip to our col­lec­tion of 250 Cul­tur­al Icons. There you’ll find great writ­ers, daz­zling film­mak­ers and musi­cians, bril­liant philoso­phers and sci­en­tists pre­sent­ed in video and audio.

via Fla­vor­wire

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

Andy Warhol Eats a Burger King Whopper, and We Watch … and Watch

in Art, Film, Food & Drink | June 24th, 2011

In 1982, Dan­ish film­mak­er Jør­gen Leth direct­ed 66 Scenes from Amer­i­ca, a film that stitched togeth­er a series of lengthy shots, each a visu­al post­card from a jour­ney across Amer­i­ca. And, tak­en togeth­er, you have a tableau of the Amer­i­can expe­ri­ence.

Along the way, the pop artist Andy Warhol makes his appear­ance. The man who coined the expres­sion “15 Min­utes of Fame” takes four min­utes to eat a ham­burg­er, most­ly with­out say­ing a word. And sim­ply because of his fame, we watch … and watch. About this scene Leth gives a few details:

[Warhol] is told that he has to say his name and that he should do so when he has fin­ished per­form­ing his action, but what hap­pens is that the action takes a very long time to per­form; it’s sim­ply ago­niz­ing. I have to admit that I per­son­al­ly adore that, because its a pure homage to Warhol. It could­n’t be more War­ho­lesque. That’s of course why he agreed to do it.

This was pre­sum­ably not a paid place­ment by Burg­er King.

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:

Warhol’s Screen Tests: Lou Reed, Den­nis Hop­per, Nico, and More

Three “Anti-Films” by Andy Warhol: Sleep, Eat & Kiss

Andy Warhol’s ‘Screen Test’ of Bob Dylan: A Clas­sic Meet­ing of Egos

First Meeting Between Papua New Guinea Tribesmen & Outside World

in Film, History | June 24th, 2011

Before click­ing on this extra­or­di­nary video — which shows a meet­ing of civ­i­liza­tions that may nev­er hap­pen again on our plan­et — be sure to turn the sound off and spare your­self the awful sound­track. The expres­sions on the faces of the Toulam­bi tribes­men are enough any­way, and even though his­to­ry tells us that these par­ties end bad­ly for the team with the fewest toys, you can’t help feel­ing a cer­tain amount of awe and joy while watch­ing the encounter.

This footage was shot in Papua New Guinea by Jean-Pierre Dutilleux, a Bel­gian film­mak­er and activist per­haps best known for his Acad­e­my Award-nom­i­nat­ed 1979 doc­u­men­tary Raoni: The Fight for the Ama­zon. You can vis­it Dutilleux’s web site to get more pho­tos and a lit­tle more back­sto­ry on the Toulam­bi. Have a good week­end…

via Metafil­ter

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

The Joy of Easy Listening, BBC Documentary Online

in Music | June 23rd, 2011

A quicks heads up: If you like Herb Alpert and Engel­bert Humperdinck, then this BBC doc is def­i­nite­ly for you. Here’s what you get in 90 min­utes:

In-depth doc­u­men­tary inves­ti­ga­tion into the sto­ry of a pop­u­lar music that is often said to be made to be heard, but not lis­tened to. The film looks at easy lis­ten­ing’s archi­tects and prac­ti­tion­ers, its dan­gers and delights, and the mark it has left on mod­ern life.
From its emer­gence in the 50s to its hey­day in the 60s, through its sur­vival in the 70s and 80s and its revival in the 90s and beyond, the film traces the hid­den his­to­ry of a music that has reflect­ed soci­ety every bit as much as pop and rock — just in a more relaxed way.
Invent­ed at the dawn of rock ’n’ roll, easy lis­ten­ing has shad­owed pop music and the emerg­ing teenage mar­ket since the mid-50s. It is a genre that equal­ly sound­tracks our mod­ern age, but per­haps for a rather more ‘mature’ gen­er­a­tion and there­fore with its own dis­tinct pur­pose and aes­thet­ic. Con­trib­u­tors include Richard Car­pen­ter, Herb Alpert, Richard Clay­der­man, Engel­bert Humperdinck, Jim­my Webb, Mike Flow­ers, James Last and oth­ers.

You can watch Part 1 above, and the remain­ing ones here: Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6

via Boing­Bo­ing

The Best Magazine Articles Ever, Curated by Kevin Kelly

in Literature, Media | June 23rd, 2011

A few days ago, we asked you to send us your favorite non-fic­tion titles. We’ll be post­ing your many excel­lent sug­ges­tions soon, and, in the mean­time, we thought we should offer some­thing in return — more specif­i­cal­ly, yet anoth­er list of excel­lent non-fic­tion com­piled by some­one oth­er than our­selves.

Kevin Kel­ly, web-pio­neer, co-founder of Wired Mag­a­zine, for­mer edi­tor of the Whole Earth Cat­a­log, and one of the best all-around liv­ing argu­ments for ditch­ing col­lege and trav­el­ing the world instead, has put togeth­er a crowd­sourced list of the best mag­a­zine arti­cles from the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s and 10s, almost all of them avail­able on the web. He’s also gath­ered the top 25 of all time (based on the num­ber of votes received) on one thrilling page.

The list includes pieces like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thomp­son, David Fos­ter Wal­lace’s Con­sid­er the Lob­ster, and Gay Tale­se’s leg­endary 1966 Esquire cov­er sto­ry, Frank Sina­tra Has a Cold. It’s an invalu­able resource, whether you’re an aspir­ing jour­nal­ist or nov­el­ist, a his­to­ry buff, or just a per­son who wants to enjoy the evo­lu­tion of the past 60 years of the Eng­lish lan­guage.

You may already be famil­iar with the sites Instapa­per, Lon­greads, and Long­form. All three can help you find great read­ing mate­r­i­al on the web, orga­nize it, and down­load it to your Kin­dle, iPad, or tablet. Enjoy.

Get more clas­sics from our col­lec­tion of Free eBooks.

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

Anatomy of a Computer Virus: A 3.5 Minute Primer

in Science, Technology, TED Talks | June 21st, 2011

Last week, Cit­i­group admit­ted that hack­ers exposed the pri­vate finan­cial data of more than 360,000 cus­tomer accounts. Mean­while, in an unre­lat­ed attack, Lulz Secu­ri­ty man­aged to bring down the CIA web­site, and this week they’ve declared war on gov­ern­ment agen­cies around the world.

Now might be a good time to beef up on your knowl­edge of mal­ware, cyber­crime, and cyber­war­fare, start­ing with Stuxnet, a com­put­er virus that was launched against Iran­ian nuclear infra­struc­tures in 2010 (most like­ly by the U.S.). For a quick primer on Stuxnet, check out Anato­my of a Com­put­er Virus. It’s only three and a half min­utes long, but you’ll learn enough to decide whether or not to set your lap­top on fire, sell every­thing you own, and run scream­ing for the Yukon.

For a more detailed explo­ration of the virus, watch Crack­ing Stuxnet, A 21st-Cen­tu­ry Cyber Weapon, a TED talk by cyber-secu­ri­ty expert Ralph Langn­er. Dis­claimer: It won’t nec­es­sar­i­ly put you at ease — the pre­sen­ter clos­es by thank­ing Mr. Langn­er for “scar­ing the liv­ing day­lights out of us.”

Via PopTech and Hun­gry Beast

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

Vintage Australian Mugshots from the 1920s

in Art, History | June 21st, 2011

It was anoth­er time, anoth­er place, a moment when crim­i­nals were invit­ed to pose for the cam­era. The mugshot as an art form.

Above we have one of 2500 “spe­cial pho­tographs” tak­en by pho­tog­ra­phers from the New South Wales Police Depart­ment between 1910 and 1930. The four men (Hamp­ton Hirscham, Cor­nel­lius Joseph Keevil, William Thomas O’Brien and James O’Brien) were arrest­ed on charges of bur­glar­iz­ing the home of a book­ie — one Regi­nald Cat­ton — in April 1921. O’Brien was let off the hook, but the oth­er three dap­per ones weren’t so lucky.

You can find 30 vin­tage mugshots nice­ly curat­ed by Twist­ed Sifter. Or you can sift through a larg­er col­lec­tion housed by the Nation­al Library of Aus­tralia. H/T Coudal.com

Give us a fol­low on Face­book and Twit­ter. We’ll send more intel­li­gent media your way…

The Animals of Costa Rica, Up Close

in Film | June 20th, 2011

Over at Escape Into Life, Luke Grundy directs us to a mar­velous short film that is as decep­tive­ly sim­ple as its title would sug­gest.  At first view­ing we thought the effect of LA film­mak­er Dou­glas Bur­gof­f’s “Ani­mals” should be cred­it­ed most­ly to the haunt­ing music by famed British com­pos­er Michael Nyman. But then we watched it again with the sound off, and we were just as impressed as before, if not more so. Just take a look at the series of close-ups on the mon­key’s face between the 1:54 and 2:14 marks.

via Matthias Rasch­er

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

What Are Your Favorite Non-Fiction Books?

in Life, Literature | June 20th, 2011

A few days ago, The Guardian pub­lished its list of the 100 Great­est Non-Fic­tion Books of all time. The col­lec­tion spans biog­ra­phy, art, phi­los­o­phy, his­to­ry and sev­er­al oth­er hefty cat­e­gories, and, for the most part, there’s not much for any­one seek­ing light sum­mer read­ing, unless you’re the sort who reg­u­lar­ly brings Kant, Hume, Herodotus, and Pepys down to the sea­side. (Note: The Guardian pub­lished Fri­day The Best Hol­i­day Reads, which goes heavy on vaca­tion-wor­thy fic­tion.)

Inspired by the Guardian project, The New York Times turned to its staff and put togeth­er a list of their own favorite non-fic­tion books. Some of their choic­es are what you’d expect (Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air, Joan Did­ion’s The White Album, Michael Lewis’ Mon­ey­ball), and a few oth­ers both sur­prised and delight­ed us (Geoff Dyer’s Out of Sheer Rage, Adri­an Nicole LeBlanc’s Ran­dom Fam­i­ly and Please Kill Me: The Uncen­sored Oral His­to­ry of Punk by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain). But we still found the list vague­ly incom­plete.

So now, dear read­ers, we turn to you.

Sev­er­al years ago we asked you to tell us about the books that changed your life, and you deliv­ered. (Your first choice by a wide mar­gin was George Orwell’s 1984.) This time around, we want to hear your favorite non-fic­tion books, and we’ll both post your choic­es and — of course — let you know if they’re avail­able for free online.

We’ll kick it off with a few per­son­al favorites:

The Pos­sessed, by Elif Batu­man. A delight­ful rem­i­nis­cence by a recov­er­ing grad­u­ate stu­dent, in which she treats, among oth­er things, Russ­ian nov­el­ists, doomed love affairs, aca­d­e­m­ic con­fer­ences, Tur­kic poet­ry, and most­ly, the plea­sures and per­ils of lov­ing books just a lit­tle bit too much.

The Best Amer­i­can Sports Writ­ing of the Cen­tu­ry, edit­ed by David Hal­ber­stam and Glenn Stout. You don’t even need to know or care about sports, because like all great lit­er­a­ture, these essays aren’t real­ly just about what they’re about. The sub­ject may be sports, but the sto­ries are Amer­i­ca.

Your turn! Feel free to add your favorites to the com­ments sec­tion below…

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

Stephen Colbert Dishes Out Wisdom & Laughs at Northwestern

in Life, Television | June 19th, 2011

Conan O’Brien’s speech at Dart­mouth’s grad­u­a­tion last week­end — that’s a hard act to fol­low. But Stephen Col­bert put on a very good show Fri­day at North­west­ern Uni­ver­si­ty, his alma mater (Class of 1986).

Best Joke:

We did­n’t have cell phones [dur­ing my days at North­west­ern]. If you made plans to meet some­one in a snow storm and they did­n’t show up, you just assumed that they were devoured by wolves and went on with your life. And we could­n’t text, and we cer­tain­ly could­n’t sext each oth­er. If you want­ed to send some­one a pic­ture of your pri­vate parts, you had to fax it. That’s how Kinko’s got its name!

Best Advice:

In my expe­ri­ence, you will tru­ly serve only what you love, because ser­vice is love made vis­i­ble. If you love friends, you will serve your friends. If you love com­mu­ni­ty, you will serve your com­mu­ni­ty. If you love mon­ey, you will serve your mon­ey. If you love only your­self, you will serve only your­self and you will have only your­self… Try to love oth­ers and serve oth­ers, and hope­ful­ly find those who will love and serve you in return…

H/T @webacion