300 Cultural Icons: Great Artists, Writers & Thinkers in Their Own Words

in | June 12th, 2011

• Allen, Woody — Video — The neu­rot­ic New York film­mak­er hosts the Rev­erend Bil­ly Gra­ham in an unlike­ly con­ver­sa­tion.
• Apol­li­naire, Guil­laume — Audio — Reads his famous poem “Le pont Mirabeau” from Alcools. 1913.
• Ash­bery, John — Audio — The Amer­i­can Pulitzer Prize-win­ning poet reads a num­ber of his poems from the 1950s to 1970s.
• Asi­mov, Isaac — Video — Sci-fi writer shares insights on sci­ence, com­put­ing, reli­gion, pop­u­la­tion growth and the uni­verse.
• Auden, W.H. — Audio — Reads lines from his poems at the 92nd Street Y in NYC. 1955.
• Auster, Paul — Audio — Reads from his nov­el Book of Illu­sions at The Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia.
• Baez, Joan - Video — One of our great folk singers filmed in 1958, when only 17, play­ing at Club 47 in Cam­bridge, Mass.
• Bald­win, James - Video — One of America’s best writ­ers declares inde­pen­dence from some of the more trou­bling assump­tions embed­ded in the Eng­lish lan­guage.
• Bartók, Béla — Audio — Inter­view record­ed in 1944 as part of the “Ask the Com­posers” series.
• Bass, Saul - Video — Icon­ic design­er on mon­ey, qual­i­ty work & his cre­ative lega­cy.
• Brad­bury, Ray - Video — The author of Fahren­heit 451 talks about why lit­er­a­ture is the safe­ty valve of all civ­i­liza­tion.
• Bran­do, Mar­lon - Video — Talks about Civ­il Rights with James Bald­win, Har­ry Bela­fonte, Charl­ton Hes­ton, Joseph L. Mankiewicz and Sid­ney Poiti­er.
• Bran­do, Mar­lon - Video — A 23 year old Bran­do screen tests for an ear­ly and even­tu­al­ly aban­doned ver­sion of Rebel With­out a Cause. 1947.
• Beck­ett, Samuel — Video — Rare footage of the avant-garde Irish writer.
• Bel­low, Saul — Audi0 — The Nobel Prize-win­ning author reads from Humboldt’s Gift (1988).
• Bergman, Ing­mar - Video — The Swedish direc­tor makes a lengthy appear­ance on The Dick Cavett Show in 1971.
• Bern­stein, Leonard - Video — The Amer­i­can con­duc­tor breaks down the mak­ing of Beethoven’s Fifth Sym­pho­ny on the mid-1950s tele­vi­sion pro­gram Omnibus.
• Bloom, Harold - Audio — The esteemed Yale lit­er­ary crit­ic talks in inter­view about the Ghast­ly Decline of the Human­i­ties and Oba­ma’s poet­ry.
• Bono — Video — Lead singer of U2/philanthropist tells UPenn grad­u­ates “To pick a fight, Get in it.” (2004)
• Borges, Jorge Luis — Video — Argenti­na’s favorite son fea­tured in doc­u­men­tary called Jorge Luis Borges: The Mir­ror Man.
• Bot­ton, Alain de - Video — A 38 minute look at why pes­simism could be a use­ful approach to liv­ing life, from one of the best pop­u­lar­iz­ers of phi­los­o­phy.
• Bowie, David - Video — Sings “Lit­tle Drum­mer Boy” with Bing Cros­by in 1977. Unex­pect­ed pair­ing.
• Bowie, David - Video — Orig­i­nal music video for Space Odd­i­ty from Bowie’s pro­mo­tion­al film, ‘Love You Till Tues­day’, released in 1969.
• Boyle  T. Cor­aghes­san — Audio — Reads the short sto­ry “Bul­let in the Brain” by Tobias Wolff.
• Brown, James — Video — The God­fa­ther of Soul adapts “Sex Machine” to sell miso soup in a Japan­ese com­mer­cial. (1992)
• Buck­ley, William F. - Video — Con­ser­v­a­tive doyen William F. Buck­ley says he flogged him­self to get through Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged.
• Buck­ley, William F. — Video — Threat­ens to smash Noam Chom­sky in the face. 1969.
• Bukows­ki, Charles — Audio — Reads his poem “Some­thing For The Touts, The Nuns, The Gro­cery Clerks, And You.”
• Buñuel, Luis - Video — Sur­re­al­ist film­mak­er speaks about his col­lab­o­ra­tion with Sal­vador Dali on Chien andalou.
• Bur­roughs, William S. - Video — The great beat writer, 81 years old in this video, resists lit­er­ary con­ven­tion and shoots Shake­speare.
• Bur­roughs, William S. — Video — The cre­ator of exper­i­men­tal nov­els demon­strates his art of cut-up writ­ing.
• Byrne, David - Video — Talk­ing Heads singer tells TED audi­ence how archi­tec­ture helped music evolve.
• Capote, Tru­man — Audio — Reads from his 1958 novel­la Break­fast at Tiffany’s.
• Car­lin, George - Video — The mas­ter riffs through his “Mod­ern Man” rou­tine dur­ing his last appear­ance on The Tonight Show.
• Chan­dler, Ray­mond - Audio — America’s fore­most writer of hard-boiled detec­tive fic­tion in con­ver­sa­tion with Ian Flem­ing, James Bond author. 1958.
• Chom­sky, Noam — Audio/Video — A vast media col­lec­tion focused on Chom­sky and his views on polit­i­cal issues.
• Chom­sky, Noam - Video — The MIT prof talks lin­guis­tics with Ali G. Good for a big laugh.
• Clap­ton, Eric — Video — Back in 1968, a young Eric Clap­ton explains the ele­ments of his sound.
• Clarke, Sir Arthur C. — Video — The futur­ist presents a film about Benoît B. Man­del­brot, the father of frac­tals.
• Clarke, Sir Arthur C. — Video — The author pre­dicts the future in 1964, and nails it.
• Cleese, John — Video — One of the found­ing mem­bers of Mon­ty Python talks about the ori­gin of cre­ativ­i­ty.
• Coel­ho, Paulo — Video — The author of The Alchemist, a mas­sive best­seller, says why the road to suc­cess runs right through fail­ure.
• Cohen, Leonard - Audio — Great singer/songwriter reads sev­er­al poems and per­forms one song that would become an all-time clas­sic. 1966.
• Cohen, Leonard - Video — Reads “The Future” at the begin­ning of a 20 minute inter­view.
• Col­bert, Stephen - Video — Speak­ing at Book Expo Amer­i­ca, Col­bert pumps his book, I Am Amer­i­ca (And So Can You!), and spars with Khaled Hos­sei­ni.
• Col­bert, Stephen — Video — The real Col­bert dish­es out wis­dom & laughs at North­west­ern grad­u­a­tion.
• C0ltrane, John - Video — Trane per­forms “My Favorite Things,” lit­er­al­ly and fig­u­ra­tive­ly breath­ing new life into the sopra­no sax­o­phone. 1961.
• Conan Doyle, Arthur — Video — Revis­its the back­sto­ry to Sher­lock Holmes (1910).
• Cop­po­la, Fran­cis Ford - Video — The direc­tor recounts how The God­fa­ther was almost made with­out Mar­lon Bran­do.
• Costell0, Elvis — Video — Sings “Pen­ny Lane” for Paul McCart­ney and Pres­i­dent Oba­ma. Love the ver­sion.
• Cum­mings, EE - Audio — The poet reads “Some­where I Have Nev­er Trav­elled” and also “Any­one Lived in a Pret­ty How Town.”
• Czik­szent­mi­ha­lyi, Mihaly - Video — The famed psy­chol­o­gist talks about cre­ativ­i­ty, flow and the source of hap­pi­ness.
• Dalai Lama - Video — The Tibetan spir­i­tu­al leader offers an Intro­duc­tion to Bud­dhism at Emory Uni­ver­si­ty.
• Dali, Sal­vador - Video — Sur­re­al­ist artist appears on “What’s My Line?” (1952)
• Dali, Sal­vador — Video — The sur­re­al­ist artist gets sur­re­al on a younger Mike Wal­lace. TV inter­view was record­ed in 1958.
• Davis, Miles - Video — Davis and John Coltrane play­ing a nice ren­di­tion of “So What,” the lead­off tune from Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue (1959).
• Dawkins, Richard — Video — The Oxford biol­o­gist debates athe­ism with Chris­t­ian math­e­mati­cian John Lennox.
• Dawkins, Richard — Video — Talks about the awe of life and sci­ence in a great lec­ture from 1991.
• Dawkins, Richard - Video — Debates Alis­ter McGrath, Pro­fes­sor of His­tor­i­cal The­ol­o­gy at Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty, about the exis­tence (or non-exis­tence) of God.
• Dean, James - Video — Clash­es with Ronald Rea­gan in new­ly dis­cov­ered footage from 1954.
• Depp, John­ny - Video — The ver­sa­tile actor reads let­ter from Gonzo jour­nal­ist Hunter S. Thomp­son.
• Dia­mond, Jared - Video — The author of Guns, Germs & Steel offers a lec­ture at USC on the Evo­lu­tion of Reli­gion.
• Diaz, Junot -Vide0 — Pulitzer Prize-win­ning author of The Brief Won­drous Life of Oscar Wao speaks about his book at Google.
• Diet­rich, Mar­lene — Video — The Ger­man star screen tests for The Blue Angel in 1929, right before becom­ing an inter­na­tion­al star.
• Dis­ney, Walt - Video — The father of Mick­ey Mouse intro­duces the “super car­toon cam­era” that rev­o­lu­tion­ized ani­ma­tion.
• Dylan, Bob — Video — Per­forms “The Times They Are A‑Changin” at the White House.
• Edi­son, Thomas — Audio — The inven­tor recites “Mary Had a Lit­tle Lamb” in the late 1870s. One of the ear­ly record­ings of the human voice.
• Egan, Jen­nifer - Video — Pulitzer Prize-win­ning nov­el­ist talks about A Vis­it from the Goon Squad at Google.
• Ein­stein, Albert — Video — The great physi­cist gives a speech. The occa­sion is unknown.
• Ein­stein, Albert — Audio — Explains the mean­ing of E=mc².
• Eliot, T.S. — Audio — Reads his 1922 poem, “The Waste Land,” con­sid­ered a mod­ernist mas­ter­piece.
• Eliot, T.S. — Audio — Reads “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” accom­pa­nied by Por­tishead.
• Elling­ton, Duke — Video — The jazz leg­end appears in a video explain­ing how records were actu­al­ly record­ed, plat­ed and pressed.
• Ell­roy, James - Video — The crime writer tells you how he goes about writ­ing his­tor­i­cal fic­tion.
• Eugenides, Jef­frey - Audio — The Pulitzer Prize-win­ning author reads “Spring Fugue” by Harold Brod­key.
• Faulkn­er, William — Audio — 28 hours of Faulkn­er record­ings from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Vir­ginia.
• Faulkn­er, William — Audio — Reads from As I Lay Dying.
• Fey, Tina — Video — SNL star and 30 Rock cre­ator brings her Bossy­pants book tour to Google.
• Feyn­man, Richard — Video — The Nobel Prize-win­ning physi­cist gives lec­tures at Cor­nell in 1964. Bill Gates posts them online.
• Feyn­man, Richard - Video — The physi­cist hosts the BBC pro­gram Fun to Imag­ine, which uses physics to explain how the every­day world works. (1983)
• Feyn­man, Richard - Video — Pro­duced in 1981 by the BBC and PBS, the show fea­tures Feyn­man talk­ing in a very per­son­al way about the joys of sci­en­tif­ic dis­cov­ery.
• Feyn­man, Richard — Video — Now he plays the bon­gos and sings praise to orange juice.
• Fitzger­ald, F. Scott - Reads lines from Keats’ Ode to a Nightin­gale and Shake­speare’s Oth­el­lo.
• Ford, Richard — Audio — The author of Inde­pen­dence Day reads “The Reunion” by John Cheev­er.
• Frank, Anne - Video — It is the only known footage of Anne Frank, author of the world’s most famous diary, and it’s now online.
• Franklin, Aretha - Video — An Amer­i­can trea­sure sings “My Coun­try, Tis of Thee” at Pres­i­dent Oba­ma’s Inau­gu­ra­tion.
• Fran­kl, Vic­tor - Video — Aus­tri­an psy­chi­a­trist and Holo­caust sur­vivor on Man’s Search for Mean­ing.
• Franzen, Jonathan — Audio — One of Amer­i­ca’s hottest writ­ers reads “Love Trou­ble Is My Busi­ness” by Veron­i­ca Geng.
• Freud, Sig­mund — Audio — The Only Known Record­ing of His Voice, 1938
• Freud, Sig­mund — Video — Home movies pro­vide a rare glimpse of Freud’s pri­vate life.
• Fried­man, Mil­ton — Video — Influ­en­tial econ­o­mist offers defense of cap­i­tal­ism and greed in 1979 on Phil Don­ahue Show.
• Fry, Stephen — Video — British writer and actor offers some pearls of wis­dom in “What I Wish I Had Known When I Was 18.”
• Fry, Stephen - Video — Gets ani­mat­ed about lan­guage.
• Fry, Stephen - Video — Tells us his thoughts on phi­los­o­phy and unbe­lief.
• Gaiman, Neil - Video — The British writer offers a New Year’s Bene­dic­tion in Jan­u­ary 2010. Record­ed at Sym­pho­ny Hall in Boston.
• Gand­hi, Mahat­ma — Video — The first record­ed video (with sound) of Mahat­ma Gand­hi. Shot some­time before 1947.
• Gehry, Frank — Video/Audio — Two tow­er­ing Cal­i­for­nia artists, the archi­tect Frank Gehry and the composer/conductor Esa-Pekka Salo­nen, dis­cuss their work.
• Gib­son, William - Video — The Father of Cyber­punk reads from his nov­el Spook Coun­try in Sec­ond Life.
• Gilbert, Eliz­a­beth - Video — Author of Eat, Pray, Love talks about writ­ers, their “genius,” and the expec­ta­tions that we place on it.
• Gilliam, Ter­ry - Video — Mon­ty Python animator/cast mem­ber shows you how to make your own cutout ani­ma­tion.
• Gins­berg, Allen — Audio — Mul­ti­ple read­ings by the Beat writer span­ning sev­er­al decades.
• Gins­berg, Allen -Video — The Beat poet takes a tug­boat ride, 1969.
• Gins­berg, Allen — Video — Face to Face with Jere­my Isaacs in 1995.
• Glass, Ira - Video — The host of This Amer­i­can Life talks about the art of sto­ry­telling.
• Godard- Jean-Luc -Video — One of the dri­ving forces behind La Nou­velle Vague cin­e­ma in con­ver­sa­tion with Woody Allen.
• Gould, Glenn — Video — A young Gould plays Bach mov­ing­ly.
• Gould, Glenn — Video — An old­er Gould per­forms Bach’s Gold­berg Vari­a­tions in 1981.
• Green­away, Peter -Video — The film direc­tor presents a lec­ture “Nine Clas­sic Paint­ings Revis­it­ed” at UC Berke­ley.
• Hav­el, Václav - Audio — Speaks at Colum­bia; Revis­its the Vel­vet Rev­o­lu­tion.
• Hawk­ing, Stephen — Audio — The physi­cist tells us to aban­don Earth or face extinc­tion.
• Hem­ing­way, Ernest — Audio — The great Amer­i­can nov­el­ist reads from his work “In Harry’s Bar in Venice.”
• Hem­ing­way, Ernest — Audio — The nov­el­ist records his Nobel Prize accep­tance speech from Havana, Cuba. 1954
• Hen­drix, Jimi - Video — Gui­tar hero plays Bea­t­les’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lone­ly Hearts Club Band in June, 1967, right after the album came out.
• Hen­son, Jim - Video — The leg­endary pup­peteer shows you how to make your own pup­pets. A 15 minute primer. (1969)
• Her­zog, Wern­er — Video — The great film­mak­er in con­ver­sa­tion with anoth­er one, Errol Mor­ris. At Bran­deis Uni­ver­si­ty, 2007.
• Her­zog, Wern­er — Audio — Her­zog in con­ver­sa­tion with Cor­mac McCarthy. High point: Her­zog reads a pas­sage from McCarthy’s All the Pret­ty Hors­es.
• Hitch­cock, Alfred — Audio — Fran­cois Truf­faut, leg­endary French direc­tor, con­duct­ed 12 hours of inter­views with Hitch­cock in 1962.
• Hitch­cock, Alfred - Video — The direc­tor recalls work­ing with Sal­vador Dali on Spell­bound, and Dal­i’s mem­o­rable dream sequence.
• Hitch­cock, Alfred - Video — Rare inter­view con­duct­ed with the film­mak­er by Tom Sny­der in 1973.
• Hitchens, Christo­pher - Video — The essayist/journalist/critic responds to Red­dit user ques­tions.
• Hitchens, Christo­pher - Video —  Revis­es the Ten Com­mand­ments.
• Hitchens, Christo­pher - Video — A well known sup­port­er of the Iraq War gets water board­ed to decide whether it is tor­ture or not.
• Hitchens, Christo­pher - Video — Goes head to head with Dinesh D’Souza in a debate about religion/atheism.
• Hol­i­day, Bil­lie - Video — The great jazz vocal­ist sings “Strange Fruit.” TIME called it the song of the cen­tu­ry in 1999.
• Hol­ly, Bud­dy — Audio — His first record­ing at age 12.
• Hop­kins, Antho­ny — Video — The great actor is well versed in the work of fel­low Welsh­man Dylan Thomas. Reads “Do not go gen­tle into that good night.”
• Hop­per, Den­nis — Video — Easy Rid­er star reads Rud­yard Kipling on John­ny Cash Show. 1970.
• Horne, Lena - Video — The actress appears on “What’s My Line?” in 1958.
• Horowitz, Vladimir - Vide0 — The great Russ­ian pianist returns to Moscow in 1986. Plays Mozart.
• Hurston, Zora Neale - Video — The author sings ‘Uncle Bud,’ a pop­u­lar song in the South in 1939.
• Hus­ton, John - Video — The film­mak­er (The Mal­tese Fal­con, The Asphalt Jun­gle) lives the good life in his Irish cas­tle. 1966.
• Hux­ley, Aldous — Audio — The author him­self nar­rates a dra­ma­tized ver­sion of his nov­el Brave New World.
• Hux­ley, Aldous - Video — The author warns of dic­ta­tor­ship in Amer­i­ca.
• Hux­ley, Aldous — Video — Presents “The Ulti­mate Rev­o­lu­tion” at UC Berke­ley, 1962. Warns of those who will ter­ror­ism and phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals to cre­ate will­ing slaves out of the pop­u­la­tion.
• Ionesco, Eugène - Video — French absur­dist play­wright inter­viewed in 1961.
• Irv­ing, John — Video — The best­selling writer gives advice to aspir­ing nov­el­ists.
• Jobs, Steve — Video — In one of our favorite grad­u­a­tion speech­es, the Apple CEO tells Stan­ford stu­dents about his phi­los­o­phy of life. Stay hun­gry, stay fool­ish.
• Jobs, Steve - Video — The Apple founder demos the first Mac in 1984.
• Jobs, Steve - Video — Talk­ing about what it was like to work with icon­ic design­er Paul Rand.
• Jones, James Earl — Audio — Jones reads pas­sages from Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself” in 1973. From 92nd St. Y in NYC.
• Jones, James Earl — Video — Also reads Oth­el­lo at White House Poet­ry Jam.
• Joyce, James — Audio — Rare audio record­ing of James Joyce read­ing from Ulysses and Finnegans Wake.
• Joyce, James - Video — Rare footage of James in Paris dur­ing 1920s.
• Jung, Carl -Video — The famous psy­chol­o­gist tells us why death is a ful­fill­ment, rather than a nega­tion, of life.
• Kara­jan, Her­bert von - Video — The con­duc­tor leads the Berlin Phil­har­mon­ic through Beethoven’s mas­ter­piece cir­ca 1966.
• Kas­parov, Gar­ry — Video —  Talks Chess, Tech­nol­o­gy and a Lit­tle Life at Google
• Kauf­mann, Wal­ter - Audio — Emi­nent philoso­pher lec­tures on Niet­zsche, Kierkegaard and Sartre (1960)
• Keller, Helen - Video — Helen Keller and her teacher Annie Sul­li­van appear in a rare piece of footage from the 1930s.
• Ker­ouac, Jack — Video — Meets up with the infant ter­ri­ble of the con­ser­v­a­tive move­ment, William F. Buck­ley. (1962)
• Ker­ouac, Jack - Video — Reads from his gen­er­a­tion-defin­ing nov­el On the Road.
• Kesey, Ken — Audio/Video — Ani­mat­ed video fea­tures audio from Kesey’s first acid trip at gov­ern­ment spon­sored research tri­al.
• Kiefer, Anselm — Video — The Ger­man painter cre­ates his world of ruina­tion before your eyes.
• Lacan, Jacques - Video — The psy­cho­analy­sis rock star gives a pub­lic lec­ture at The Catholic Uni­ver­si­ty of Lou­vain in 1972.
• Lang, Fritz — Video — Direc­tor Fritz Lang dis­cuss­es vio­lence in film.
• Leary, Tim­o­thy - Video — The Har­vard psy­chol­o­gist, LSD pro­po­nent gets inter­viewed from prison dur­ing the 1970s.
• Lee, Bruce - Video — Mar­tial arts star Bruce Lee audi­tions for The Green Hor­net (1964).
• Lee, Bruce — Video — The young actor appears in his first and only TV inter­view in Decem­ber 1971.
• Lee, Spike — Video/Audio — In con­ver­sa­tion with Paul Hold­en­gräber at The New York Pub­lic Library.
• Lennon, John — Audio — Short­ly after The Bea­t­les broke up, John Lennon con­duct­ed a 3 hour inter­view with Rolling Stone founder Jann Wen­ner.
• Lennon, John — Video — The Bea­t­le and Yoko Ono appear on The Dick Cavett Show in 1971.
• Lennon, John -Video — Footage recap­tures the “bed-ins” that John and Yoko famous­ly staged in Mon­tre­al and Ams­ter­dam in 1969 to protest the Viet­nam War.
• Less­ing, Doris - Video — Reacts to win­ning the Nobel Prize in Lit­er­a­ture.
• Lévy, Bernard-Hen­ri — Audio/Video — France’s “rock-star philoso­pher” debates Slavoj Žižek, the Slo­van­ian “Elvis of cul­tur­al the­o­ry.
• Lynch, David - Video — The film­mak­er inter­views Paul McCart­ney. The sub­ject? Med­i­ta­tion.
• Lynch, David - Video — Lists his favorite movies and film­mak­ers.
• Mail­er, Nor­man — Video — The con­tro­ver­sial writer in con­ver­sa­tion with anoth­er con­tro­ver­sial writer, Mar­tin Amis. 1991.
• Mail­er, Nor­man — Video — Famous­ly feuds with Gore Vidal on The Dick Cavett Show in 1971.
• Mail­er, Nor­man - Video — The great writer and box­ing enthu­si­ast revis­its the Rum­ble in the Jun­gle: Muham­mad Ali v. George Fore­man.
• Man­dela, Nel­son - Video — His first inter­view ever on TV. Record­ed May, 1961.
• Mar­tin, Steve - Video — Bril­liant come­di­an writes song for hymn-deprived athe­ists.
• McFer­rin, Bob­by — Video — The singer shows the pow­er of the pen­ta­ton­ic scale in a fun video.
• McLuhan, Mar­shall - Video — Debates the mean­ing of the Dig­i­tal Age with Nor­man Mail­er in 1968.
• McLuhan, Mar­shall — Video —  The World is a Glob­al Vil­lage.
• Miller, Arthur - Video — The play­wright (Death of a Sales­man, The Cru­cible) talks about his expe­ri­ence with McCarthy­is­m/an­ti-com­mu­nism in Amer­i­ca. 1971.
• Miller, Hen­ry — Video — The nov­el­ist Hen­ry Miller (Trop­ic of Can­cer, Trop­ic of Capri­corn), then 81 years old, rem­i­nisces about his dif­fi­cult ear­ly life in New York.
• Mor­ri­son, Toni — Video - In con­ver­sa­tion with Fran Lebowitz at the New York Pub­lic Library.
• Mor­ris, Errol — Video/Audio — Film­mak­er talks with Philip Goure­vitch about what actu­al­ly hap­pened at Abu Ghraib prison.
• Mur­ray, Bill — Video — The fun­ny man reads poet­ry, includ­ing Bil­ly Collins, at a con­struc­tion site.
• Mur­ray, Bill - Video — Reads more Collins poet­ry (“For­get­ful­ness”) at the 16th Annu­al Poets House Walk Across the Brook­lyn Bridge.
• Nabokov, Vladimir - Video — The Russ­ian author mar­vels over dif­fer­ent Loli­ta book cov­ers.
• Nabokov, Vladimir - Video — A mid 1950s inter­view with Vladimir Nabokov and Lionel Trilling con­duct­ed soon after the pub­li­ca­tion of Loli­ta (1955).
• New­man, Paul - Video — Screen­tests for role in East of Eden with James Dean.
• New­man, Paul — Video — The star hangs out with oth­er icon­ic stars (Natal­ie Wood, Robert Red­ford, Jane Fon­da, Julie Andrews, Christo­pher Plum­mer, and Rock Hud­son) at the beach in Mal­ibu, 1965.
• Nichol­son, Jack - Video — The actor puts his mon­ey and star pow­er behind hydro­gen pow­ered Chevys in 1978. And he dri­ves one too.
• O’Brien, Conan - Video — The red-head­ed come­di­an pays a hilar­i­ous vis­it to Google.
• O’Brien, Conan — Video — Now deliv­ers the Dart­mouth com­mence­ment address, 2011. The best address of the year.
• O’Connor,  Flan­nery — Audio — Reads “A Good Man is Hard to Find” at Van­der­bilt Uni­ver­si­ty, 1959.
• O’Keeffe, Geor­gia - Video —  Footage of the 92 year old Geor­gia O’Ke­effe tak­en in and around her home in New Mex­i­co.
• Page, Jim­my — Video — Jim­my Page, 13, Plays Gui­tar on BBC Tal­ent Show (1957). Lat­er becomes Led Zep­pelin gui­tarist.
• Page, Lar­ry - Video — Google co-founder/CEO returns to U. Michi­gan to give 2009 com­mence­ment speech.
• Pamuk, Orhan — Audio — The Nobel Prize-win­ning author from Turkey reads “My Russ­ian Edu­ca­tion” by Vladimir Nabokov.
• Pavarot­ti, Luciano — Video — Sings “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World” with the God­fa­ther of Soul, James Brown. Check it.
• Pen­nebak­er, DA - Video — The direc­tor of the clas­sic 1967 Bob Dylan doc­u­men­tary Don’t Look Back talks with music crit­ic Greil Mar­cus.
• Picas­so, Pablo - Video — Picas­so at his home in Val­lau­ris, paint­ing on glass with a cam­era rolling on the oth­er side. (1950)
• Pinker, Steven - Video — Har­vard lin­guist and cog­ni­tive sci­en­tist explains how innu­en­do makes the world work.
• Plath, Sylvia — Video — Reads her poem “Dad­dy,” writ­ten on Octo­ber 12, 1962, short­ly before her death, and pub­lished posthu­mous­ly in Ariel in 1965.
• Plath, Sylvia - Video — Reads “Ariel.”
• Polan­s­ki, Roman - Video — On mak­ing his clas­sic 70s film Chi­na­town.
• Pol­lock, Jack­son — Video — The short film Jack­son Pol­lock 51 fea­tures the abstract expres­sion­ist painter up close, paint­ing on glass.
• Pow­er, Saman­tha - Video — Har­vard prof and Pulitzer Prize-win­ning author gives grad­u­a­tion speech at Pitzer, 2008.
• Pound, Ezra — Audio — A rich col­lec­tion of audio record­ings of Ezra Pound is now online thanks to U. Penn­syl­va­nia.
• Rand, Ayn — Video — Ear­ly in his career, Mike Wal­lace sits down and inter­views the author of Atlas Shrugged. (1959)
• Rand, Ayn — Video — Cir­ca 1979, Rand tells talk show host Phil Don­ahue all about her athe­ist views.
• Rauschen­berg, Robert -Video — Tells of how he knocked on Willem De Kooning’s door and flat-out asked the mas­ter for an orig­i­nal draw­ing – so he could erase it.
• Reed, Lou - Video — Between 1964 and 1966, Andy Warhol shot close to 500 short movies of friends, celebri­ties, mod­els. Along with Reed, you will find Nico, Den­nis Hop­per, and oth­ers.
• Reed, Lou — Video — A very hip and blonde Lou Reed sings Sweet Jane in Paris, 1974.
• Rein­hardt, Djan­go - Video — Djan­go, the great jazz gui­tarist, per­forms “J’Attendrai” (I Will Wait) in 1939.
• Richards, Kei­th — Video — The Rolling Stones’ gui­tarist inter­viewed in a less usu­al set­ting, The New York Pub­lic Library.
• Rogers, Mr. — Video — The chil­dren’s tele­vi­sion icon goes to Wash­ing­ton to explain the impor­tance of fund­ing for pub­lic tele­vi­sion. 1964.
• Roth, Philip — Video — The author of Port­noy’s Com­plaint dis­pels myths about aging.
• Roth, Philip — Video — The cel­e­brat­ed Amer­i­can nov­el­ist talks about the myths of aging.
• Rowl­ing, JK - Video — Author of the Har­ry Pot­ter series imparts wis­dom to Har­vard’s grad­u­at­ing class in 2008.
• Rowl­ing, JK - Video — Gives a pub­lic read­ing of the first chap­ter of Har­ry Pot­ter and the Death­ly Hal­lows.
• Rus­sell, Bertrand - Video — The British philoso­pher sends a mes­sage to peo­ple liv­ing 1,000 years from now.
• Rus­sell, Bertrand - Video — Explains why he doesn’t believe in God.
• Rus­sell, Kurt - Video — Audi­tions for the role of Han Solo in Star Wars.
• Sagan, Carl - Video — His last TV inter­view.
• Sandel, Michael - Video — The Har­vard philoso­pher on the lost art of demo­c­ra­t­ic debate.
• Sandel, Michael — Video — One of the most pop­u­lar Har­vard cours­es, Jus­tice: What’s the Right Thing to Do?, now appears online.
• Sand­burg, Carl - Video — The poet appears on “What’s My Line?” in 1960.
• Sapol­sky, Robert - Video — Lead­ing biol­o­gist demys­ti­fies human behav­ior in free course.
• Schoen­berg, Arnold - Audio — The Aus­tri­an com­pos­er dis­cuss­es art, music, etc.
• Schn­abel, Julian — Video — The artist/filmmaker explains how he over­comes cre­ative ruts.
• Scors­ese, Mar­tin - Video — The leg­endary film­mak­er picks his favorite gang­ster films.
• Sedaris, David - Audio/iTunes — The fun­ny man reads his sto­ry “Of Mice and Men” from When You are Engulfed in Flames.
• Sedaris, David - Audio — Reads “Solu­tion to Saturday’s Puzzle”from When You Are Engulfed in Flames.
• Sear­le, John — Audio — The UC Berke­ley philoso­pher offers three free cours­es online.
• Seeger, Pete - Video — The great Amer­i­can folk singer talks about his clas­sic song, Turn! Turn! Turn!.
• Seeger, Pete - Video — The folk giant, at 91, per­forms BP protest song.
• Segovia, Andrés - Video — Father of clas­si­cal gui­tar plays one of his favorites, “The Leg­end of Asturias.”
• Sell­ers, Peter - Video — The British come­di­an reads lyrics from The Bea­t­les’ A Hard Day’s Night in Shake­speare­an mode. (1964)
• Ser­ling, Rod — Video — The host/creator of The Twi­light Zone tells stu­dents where ideas come from.
• Shake­speare, William - Video — 20 minute video fea­tures Prof. Stan­ley Wells talk­ing about the Cobbe por­trait, and why it’s believed to present the real Shake­speare.
• Sil­ver­stein, Shel — Video — The chil­dren’s author nar­rates a short film based on his famous book, The Giv­ing Tree. (1964)
• Simon, David - Video — The cre­ator of The Wire sits down to talk with Bill Moy­ers.
• Singer, Peter - Video — The Aus­tralian philoso­pher explains how greed dri­ves us, and how it gave rise to the Wall Street melt­down.
• Smith, Pat­ti — Video — The “god­moth­er of punk” recalls her friend­ship with artist Robert Map­plethor­pe.
• Spacey, Kevin — Video — Spacey does nine imper­son­ations in six min­utes. Jim­my Stew­art, Katharine Hep­burn, Mar­lon Bran­do, Al Paci­no, etc.
• Stein, Gertrude - Video — A home movie that gives you a glimpse of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Tok­las. 1927.
• Stein­beck, John — Video — The great Amer­i­can author deliv­ers his Nobel Address in 1962.
• Stevens, Wal­lace — Audio — Exten­sive num­ber of poet­ry read­ings from the 1950s.
• Strauss, Leo — Audio — A father of mod­ern con­ser­vatism presents 15 sem­i­nars at U. Chica­go.
• Streep, Meryl - Video — Oscar-win­ning actress gives com­mence­ment speech at Barnard/Columbia. An inspi­ra­tion on screen and off.
• Talese, Gay — Video — Drink­ing at New York Times put Mad Men to Shame.
• Tan, Amy -Video —  The author of The Joy Luck Club locates the source of her own cre­ativ­i­ty in her fam­i­ly his­to­ry and big exis­ten­tial ques­tions.
• Taran­ti­no, Quentin - Video — Pulp Fic­tion direc­tor lists his favorites films since 1992.
• Tay­lor, Eliz­a­beth — Video — The young star appears on the long-run­ning TV show, What’s My Line?, in 1954.
• Tchaikovsky, Pyotr — Audio — The Russ­ian com­poser’s voice cap­tured on an Edi­son Cylin­der (1890).
• Thomp­son, Hunter S. — Video — Gonzo jour­nal­ist inter­views Kei­th Richards. Not entire­ly coher­ent­ly.
• Thomp­son, Hunter S. — Video — Gets con­front­ed by the Hel­l’s Angels on 1960s Cana­di­an TV show.
• Thomas, Michael Tilson- Video — Direc­tor of San Fran­cis­co Sym­pho­ny on “How Mahler Changed My Life.”
• Tolkien, J.R.R. — Video — The author of The Hob­bit and The Lord of the Rings appears in a BBC doc­u­men­tary.
• Tol­stoy, Leo — Video — Great footage of the last days of the tow­er­ing Russ­ian nov­el­ist. 1910.
• Toscani­ni, Arturo — Video — Con­ducts Beethoven’s 5th at Carnegie Hall in 1952.
• Twain, Mark — Video — Amer­i­ca’s fabled writer cap­tured on film by Thomas Edi­son in 1909.
• Updike, John — Video —  Appears on The Dick Cavett Show with John Cheev­er in 1981.
• Updike, John - Video — Charles McGrath’s wide-rang­ing con­ver­sa­tion with John Updike at the Times Cen­ter in New York on Octo­ber 28, 2008.
• Vidal, Gore - Video — Vidal and William F. Buck­ley going at it, almost com­ing to blows, dur­ing the con­test­ed pres­i­den­tial cam­paign of 1968.
• Von­negut, Kurt - Audio — Reads from his nov­el Slaugh­ter­house Five.
• Von­negut, Kurt - Video — The writer sketch­es some bril­liant blue­prints for envi­sion­ing the “shape” of a sto­ry, all in less than 4 min­utes and 37 sec­onds.
• Von­negut, Kurt - Video — Con­ducts uncon­ven­tion­al inter­view in Sec­ond Life.
• Waits, Tom - Video — The singer reads “The Laugh­ing Heart” by Charles Bukows­ki.
• Walken, Christo­pher — Video — The much loved actor reads lines oh-so-dra­mat­i­cal­ly from Lady Gaga’s Pok­er Face. Hys­ter­i­cal.
• Walken, Christo­pher - Video — And then he reads the chil­dren’s clas­sic.
• Walken, Christo­pher - Audio — Hosts radio show in NYC for a day.
• Wal­lace, David Fos­ter — Audio — A good soul has pulled togeth­er a series of audio record­ings by David Fos­ter Wal­lace.
• Wal­lace, Mike - Video — Before 60 Min­utes, Wal­lace ran his own inter­view show, talk­ing with many celebri­ties.
• Warhol, Andy - Video — In 1979, Warhol cre­at­ed pub­lic access tele­vi­sion pro­grams. In this episode, he chats with Bian­ca Jag­ger & Steven Spiel­berg.
• Warhol, Andy — Video — The painter, who invent­ed the expres­sion “15 Min­utes of Fame, “eats a ham­burg­er in 4 min­utes. (1982)
• Waters, Mud­dy - Video — The blues leg­end sings “You Can’t Lose What You Ain’t Nev­er Had” on The Blues & Gospel Train. (1964)
• Wayne, John — Audio — Great west­ern star recites/interprets the Pledge of Alle­giance.
• Welles, Orson — Video — Great film­mak­er appears on The Merv Grif­fin Show hours before he died of a heart attack at his Los Ange­les home. (1985)
• Welles, Orson - Video — Welles reads a short selec­tion from Melville’s clas­sic, Moby Dick.
• Welles, Orson — Audio — Welles presents dra­ma­tized radio broad­casts dur­ing the 1930s, includ­ing famous Mar­t­ian inva­sion episode.
• Whit­man, Walt — Audio — An authen­tic wax cylin­der record­ing of Whit­man read­ing from his late poem ‘Amer­i­ca’ that appeared in 1888.
• Williams, William Car­los — Audio — Abun­dant num­ber of read­ings record­ed dur­ing the 1940s and 50s.
• Won­der, Ste­vie — Video — Singer/songwriter Ste­vie Won­der pre­mieres “Sketch­es of a Life,” a sprawl­ing, hybrid pop-clas­si­cal con­cer­to, writ­ten between 1976 and 1994.
• Wolff, Tobias — Video — The author/Stanford lit­er­a­ture pro­fes­sor reads his short sto­ry “The Ben­e­fit of a Doubt.”
• Wolff, Tobias — Video —  One of our best short sto­ry writ­ers in con­ver­sa­tion with Tim O’Brien, author of The Things They Car­ried.
• Woolf, Vir­ginia — Audio — Record­ing comes from a 1937 BBC radio broad­cast. The talk, enti­tled “Crafts­man­ship,” was part of a series called “Words Fail Me.” The only known record­ing of her voice.
  
• Wright, Frank Lloyd - Video — The most impor­tant Amer­i­can archi­tect of the last cen­tu­ry appears on What’s My Line? in 1956.
• X, Mal­colm — Video — Debates at Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty in 1964 and makes great ref­er­ence to Shake­speare’s Ham­let.
• Zinn, Howard - Video — The peo­ple’s his­to­ri­an talks about wars and the role gov­ern­ments play in man­u­fac­tur­ing them…
• Zizek, Slavoj -Video — The influ­en­tial philosopher/theorist explains the good kar­ma of cap­i­tal­ism in an RSA ani­mat­ed video.
• Zizek, Slavoj — Video — Liv­ing in the End Times Accord­ing to Slavoj Zizek.

More to come …

Bohemian Rhapsody Played in a Rusty Old VW

in Music | June 11th, 2011

A wit­ty ren­di­tion of Queen’s clas­sic played by the Finnish award win­ning street band Pork­ka Play­boys. More of their work appears on the band’s YouTube chan­nel. Enjoy…

FYI: It looks like “Inside Job,” the Oscar-Win­ning Doc­u­men­tary on the 2008 finan­cial melt­down, is back online, thanks to the Inter­net Archive.

via Alec Couros

A Video Illusion: Can You Spot the Change?

in Science, Video - Science | June 10th, 2011

We’re a bit embar­rassed to admit that it took us three times to spot the change in this fas­ci­nat­ing video illu­sion at New Sci­en­tist, even after read­ing about the research behind the video. The test was devel­oped by Kevin O’Re­gan and his team at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Paris Descartes as part of their work on per­cep­tion. O’Re­gan is best known for his work on change blind­ness, our rel­a­tive inabil­i­ty to per­ceive grad­ual change, and our ten­den­cy to focus sole­ly on what we per­ceive to be the most dynam­ic or inter­est­ing ele­ment of a scene.

If this video isn’t enough to con­vince of you of O’Re­gan’s the­o­ries, he’s post­ed a whole slew of demon­stra­tions at his web­site. Bet­ter yet, you can dis­pel any remain­ing doubts (or self-esteem) by tak­ing this aware­ness test, which is even more dra­mat­ic. It bowled us over. Let us know in the com­ments if it did the same for you.

via Kirstin But­ler

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.

Walt Disney Presents the Super Cartoon Camera (1937)

in Animation, Film | June 10th, 2011

In 1937, Walt Dis­ney Stu­dios shot Snow White and the Sev­en Dwarfs with a new-fan­gled cam­era, the mul­ti­plane cam­era, which allowed car­toon ani­ma­tion to take a quan­tum leap for­ward. Thanks to this new “super car­toon cam­era,” ani­mat­ed scenes sud­den­ly looked more real­is­tic and three-dimen­sion­al. You only need to watch this pre­sen­ta­tion by Walt Dis­ney him­self (record­ed in 1957) and you’ll see what I mean. Dis­ney shot many of its clas­sic fea­ture films – Pinoc­chio, Fan­ta­sia, Bam­bi, and Peter Pan – with the mul­ti­plane cam­era, and it remained in pro­duc­tion right through The Lit­tle Mer­maid, filmed in 1989. Today, only three orig­i­nal Dis­ney mul­ti­plane cam­eras sur­vive.

A big thanks to Sergey for send­ing this vin­tage clip our way. If you see a good piece of open cul­ture, don’t hes­i­tate to send it our way…

Relat­ed Con­tent:

How Walt Dis­ney Car­toons Are Made

Disney’s Oscar-Win­ning Adven­tures in Music

Don­ald Duck Wants You to Pay Your Tax­es (1943)

Stairway to Heaven Played with Google Guitar Doodle

in Google, Music | June 9th, 2011

Google cel­e­brat­ed Les Pauls’ 96th birth­day today with a playable elec­tric gui­tar doo­dle. And, nat­u­ral­ly, some tried to make it sing. Above, we have a ver­sion of Led Zep­pelin’s Stair­way to Heav­en, while oth­ers strummed out ver­sions of The Bea­t­les’ Ob-la-di Ob-la-da, Michael Jack­son’s Bil­lie Jean, and Lady Gaga’s Paparazzi. By pop­u­lar demand, the doo­dle will stay live on Google’s home­page for an extra day.

via Chris­t­ian Sci­ence Mon­i­tor

Samuel Beckett in 3‑D: The Making of Unmakeable Love

in Art, Literature | June 9th, 2011

Samuel Beck­et­t’s haunt­ing short sto­ry “The Lost Ones,” which tells of a group of peo­ple doomed to wan­der for­ev­er inside a nar­row cylin­dri­cal prison, makes Wait­ing for Godot seem like Lit­tle Miss Sun­shine. It is also near­ly unadapt­able since a sto­ry dri­ven by the cer­tain­ty of damna­tion leaves lit­tle room for dra­mat­ic ten­sion … until now, per­haps.

This mon­th’s New Sci­en­tist has a nice piece up about Unmake­ablelove, a 3‑D inter­ac­tive sim­u­la­tion based on “The Lost Ones” in which vir­tu­al bod­ies (cre­at­ed with motion cap­ture, the same tech­nique James Cameron used in Avatar) beat them­selves, col­lide into each oth­er, and slouch eter­nal­ly towards nowhere, all dri­ven by a force even more implaca­ble than fate: the com­put­er algo­rithms with which the piece was pro­grammed.

And as with any good work of Exis­ten­tial­ist Despair That Dooms All of Human­i­ty to A Future With­out Mean­ing or Hope, this one impli­cates the audi­ence — spec­ta­tors can only see inside the exhib­it if they sta­tion them­selves by one of six torch­es sur­round­ing the 30-foot space.  And when they do so, infrared video cam­eras project their own like­ness­es into the cylin­der. There are no spec­ta­tors.

Unmake­ablelove was cre­at­ed by Sarah Kender­dine and Jef­frey Shaw, and pre­sent­ed at the Hong Kong Inter­na­tion­al Art Fair in May. You can read more about the fas­ci­nat­ing nuts and bolts of the project here.

via Maud New­ton and A Piece of Mono­logue

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.

Muddy Waters on The Blues and Gospel Train

in Music | June 9th, 2011

One of the most unique con­certs from the British blues revival of the 1960s was the “Blues and Gospel Train,” filmed May 7, 1964 by Grana­da TV for the BBC. Fans who were lucky enough to get tickets–some 200 of them–were instruct­ed to gath­er at Man­ches­ter’s Cen­tral Sta­tion by 7:30 that evening for a short train ride to the aban­doned Wilbra­ham Road Sta­tion. When the train pulled in at Wilbra­ham Road, the audi­ence poured out and found seats on one plat­form. The oppo­site side, dec­o­rat­ed to look like an old rail­way sta­tion in the Amer­i­can South, served as a stage for Mud­dy Waters, Otis Spann, Sis­ter Roset­ta Tharpe, Son­ny Ter­ry, Brown­ie McGhee, Cousin Joe and Rev­erend Gary Davis. The per­for­mances are avail­able on DVD as part of Amer­i­can Folk-Blues Fes­ti­val: The British Tours 1963–1966. In the scene above, Mud­dy Waters sings, “You Can’t Lose What You Ain’t Nev­er Had.”

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 Leg­end of Blues­man Robert John­son Ani­mat­ed

Andrés Segovia, Father of Classical Guitar, at the Alhambra

in Music | June 7th, 2011

Andrés Segovia first vis­it­ed the Alham­bra, the sto­ried 14th Cen­tu­ry Moor­ish palace in Grana­da, Spain, when he was ten years old. “It was here,” he said, “that I opened my eyes to the beau­ty of nature and art. To be here is to feel one­self to be near, very near, par­adise.”

Segovia is often called the father of clas­si­cal gui­tar. As a young boy he learned to play fla­men­co, the tra­di­tion­al music of his native Andalu­sia, but by the time he was a teenag­er he was tran­scrib­ing Bach and oth­er com­posers, adapt­ing music orig­i­nal­ly intend­ed for dif­fer­ent instru­ments. Over the course of his life­time, Segovia tran­scribed much of the clas­si­cal reper­toire, refined the stan­dard tech­nique, and estab­lished the gui­tar as a seri­ous instru­ment, bring­ing it out of the par­lors and into the con­cert halls.

In 1976, at the age of 84, Segovia returned to the Alham­bra to per­form for the doc­u­men­tary, Andrés Segovia: The Song of the Gui­tar. In the excerpt above, Segovia plays one of his favorite pieces, “The Leg­end of Asturias,” by Isaac Albéniz, who com­posed it for the piano as a pre­lude to his “Can­tos de España.” The com­plete doc­u­men­tary is avail­able on a two-film DVD, Andrés Segovia: In Por­trait.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Gui­tar Prodi­gy from Karachi

Saturday Night Fever: The (Fake) Magazine Story That Started it All

in Film, Music | June 7th, 2011

Thir­ty-five years ago today, New York mag­a­zine pub­lished “Trib­al Rights of Sat­ur­day Night,” a beau­ti­ful­ly-writ­ten paean to the danc­ing teens of the city’s bor­oughs. And the sto­ry focused on a work­ing-class dis­co dancer named Vin­cent:

Vin­cent was the very best dancer in Bay Ridge—the ulti­mate Face. He owned four­teen flo­ral shirts, five suits, eight pairs of shoes, three over­coats, and had appeared on Amer­i­can Band­stand. Some­times music peo­ple came out from Man­hat­tan to watch him, and one man who owned a club on the East Side had even offered him a con­tract. A hun­dred dol­lars a week. Just to dance.

“Vin­cent” become the mod­el for Tony Manero, the hero of John Bad­ham’s 1977 dis­co-gan­za Sat­ur­day Night Fever, a hit film which launched the 70’s hottest dance craze and the career of young John Tra­vol­ta. Plus it gave us the best-sell­ing sound­track album of all time and intro­duced the line dance, an exer­cise in ine­bri­at­ed com­mu­nal humil­i­a­tion that would dom­i­nate the dance floors of Amer­i­can wed­ding recep­tions for decades to come.

With all this to its cred­it, per­haps it should­n’t mat­ter that Nik Kohn’s arti­cle was more fic­tion than non-fic­tion, and that “Vin­cent” was, in Kohn’s own words, “com­plete­ly made up, a total fab­ri­ca­tion.” The osten­si­bly con­science-strick­en jour­nal­ist came clean in the Guardian in 1994:

My sto­ry was a fraud, I’d only recent­ly arrived in New York. Far from being steeped in Brook­lyn street life, I hard­ly knew the place. As for Vin­cent, my sto­ry’s hero, he was large­ly inspired by a Shep­herd’s Bush mod whom I’d known in the Six­ties, a one-time king of Gold­hawk Road.” [Ed. Note: The Guardian piece is not avail­able online, but it was quot­ed exten­sive­ly in Char­lie LeDuf­f’s 1996 arti­cle, “Sat­ur­day Night Fever: The Life”]

Mr. Kohn’s own life sto­ry is also worth a movie or two. In 1983, accord­ing to the New York Times, he was indict­ed on drug traf­fick­ing and con­spir­a­cy counts for the impor­ta­tion of $4 mil­lion worth of Indi­an hero­in. His nar­ra­tive abil­i­ties came to his res­cue once more, this time in the form of a plea-bar­gain in exchange for his tes­ti­mo­ny. His charges were reduced to pro­ba­tion and a $5,000 fine.

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.

Bono Tells Graduates “Pick a Fight, Get in It” (2004)

in Life, Music | June 7th, 2011

Back in 2004, Bono, the co-founder of ONE (an NGO that rais­es aware­ness of AIDS and pover­ty in Africa), received an hon­orary Doc­tor of Laws degree from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia. Of course, Bono is also the lead singer of U2, and he can com­mand the atten­tion of any large audi­ence. Speak­ing to Pen­n’s grad­u­at­ing class of 2004, Bono did­n’t give the usu­al advice — go forth and fol­low your pas­sion. No, the mes­sage was a lit­tle dif­fer­ent. He urged the grad­u­ates to serve their age by betray­ing it, by “expos­ing its con­ceits, it’s foibles, it’s pho­ny moral cer­ti­tudes … and mas­sive moral blindspots,” Africa being per­haps the most glar­ing exam­ple. Then, his speech wraps up with this, the best lines saved for last.

Whether it’s this or some­thing else, I hope you’ll pick a fight and get in it. Get your boots dirty, get rough, steel your courage…, make one last pri­mal scream, and go. Sing the melody line you hear in your own head. Remem­ber, you don’t owe any­body any expla­na­tions. You don’t owe your par­ents any expla­na­tions. You don’t owe your pro­fes­sors any expla­na­tions.

You know I used to think the future was sol­id or fixed, some­thing you inher­it­ed like an old build­ing that you move into when the pre­vi­ous gen­er­a­tion moves out or gets chased out. But it’s not. The future is not fixed, it’s flu­id. You can build your own build­ing, or hut or con­do.

My point is that the world is more mal­leable than you think, and it’s wait­ing for you to ham­mer it into shape.… That’s what this degree of yours is, a blunt instru­ment. So go forth and build some­thing with it. Remem­ber what John Adams said about Ben Franklin, “He does not hes­i­tate at our bold­est mea­sures but rather seems to think us too irres­olute.” Well this is the time for bold mea­sures and this is the coun­try and you are the gen­er­a­tion.

Amen Bono, catch you tonight…

You can find a full tran­script of Bono’s speech here.