Adieu Alfred

in Film, Life | March 20th, 2011

The actor Michael Gough died this past week. He was 94 years old, and best remem­bered for his role as Alfred the But­ler in the Bat­man movies. (We pay quick trib­ute to that role above). Beyond that, Gough had a long stage career, begin­ning back in the mid 1940s, and played char­ac­ter roles in films rang­ing from campy hor­ror films to Out of Africa. The Guardian revis­its his life and act­ing career in fin­er detail right here…

Aftermath of the Tsunami in Japan

in Current Affairs, Video - Politics/Society | March 18th, 2011

It was one week ago that a pow­er­ful 9.0 mag­ni­tude earth­quake struck off the coast of north­ern Japan. The tsuna­mi that fol­lowed, with waves reach­ing as high as ten meters, swept as far as ten miles inward. In this video shot for The Guardian, we see the haunt­ing dev­as­ta­tion in Shin­tona, a small town in the Miya­gi pre­fec­ture (one of the areas worst affect­ed by the tsuna­mi). Amidst the wreck­age on the streets, it is quite stir­ring to peer inside some of the washed-out hous­es, where we observe bro­ken chi­na and dam­aged pho­tographs, remind­ing us how life can be so pro­found­ly and per­son­al­ly inter­rupt­ed by nature’s fury.

The Guardian arti­cle accom­pa­ny­ing this video can be read here. For more videos and resources relat­ed to the earth­quake in Japan, includ­ing ways you can help, see this post.

Eugene Buchko is a blog­ger and pho­tog­ra­ph­er liv­ing in Atlanta, GA. He main­tains a pho­to­blog, Eru­dite Expres­sions, and writes about what he reads on his read­ing blog.

A is for Atom: Vintage PR Film for Nuclear Energy

in Current Affairs, Film, Video - Science | March 18th, 2011

As a dev­as­tat­ed Japan con­tin­ues to strug­gle with the dam­age to its nuclear facil­i­ties, sev­er­al oth­er nations have begun recon­sid­er­ing their nuclear poli­cies. Ger­many, for exam­ple, has tem­porar­i­ly closed down sev­en aging nuclear reac­tors, and oth­er coun­tries (includ­ing Rus­sia, Chi­na, and the US) have announced checks of their own safe­ty stan­dards.

Cyn­ics might sug­gest that these announce­ments are cal­cu­lat­ed less to make sub­stan­tive changes than to calm a fright­ened pub­lic, and attempts to man­age per­cep­tions of the atom­’s volatile pow­ers are noth­ing new. They began imme­di­ate­ly after the bomb­ings of Hiroshi­ma and Nagasa­ki. The video above, pro­duced by Gen­er­al Elec­tric in 1952, was one of many Atom­ic Ener­gy “PR films” designed to sway pub­lic opin­ion in favor of this prof­itable and pow­er­ful new ener­gy resource. (Coin­ci­den­tal­ly, GE built the Fukushi­ma reac­tor that’s now in deep trou­ble.)

A is for Atom was a huge hit — it won sev­er­al hon­ors, includ­ing a spe­cial prize at the Venice Film Fes­ti­val and a Mer­it Award from Scholas­tic Teacher. In some ways those hon­ors were deserved. The movie is a spright­ly car­toon with cheer­ful nar­ra­tion and expla­na­tions of some dif­fi­cult physics, even as it avoids any engage­ment with the dark sides of nuclear ener­gy. In fact, the whole mes­sage boils down to a reas­sur­ance that the atom­’s mas­sive poten­tial is all “with­in man’s com­mand.”

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

A Famous Chess Match from 1910 Reenacted with Claymation

in Art | March 17th, 2011

We take you back to the famous Roesch — Schlage chess match played in 1910. Nor­mal­ly, when we replay match­es in our minds, it looks some­thing like this. Or like this:

Game: 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. Qe2 b5 6. Bb3 Be7 7. c3 O‑O 8. O‑O d5 9. exd5 Nxd5 10. Nxe5 Nf4 11. Qe4 Nxe5 12. Qxa8 Qd3 13. Bd1 Bh3 14. Qxa6 Bxg2 15. Re1 Qf3 16. Bxf3 Nxf3#

But, you have got to admit, it looks infi­nite­ly bet­ter when pre­sent­ed in clay­ma­tion like this. H/T to Metafil­ter

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Kas­parov Talks Chess, Tech­nol­o­gy and a Lit­tle Life at Google

Middle Eastern History: Free Courses

in Current Affairs, History | March 17th, 2011

Image by Muham­mad Mah­di Karim;, via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

Right now, all eyes are turned toward Japan. That’s under­stand­able. But, all the while, the unrest in the Mid­dle East con­tin­ues unabat­ed, espe­cial­ly in Libya and Bahrain. So it seems time­ly to high­light a resource that will give you a deep­er under­stand­ing of this evolv­ing region. Richard Bul­li­et, a pro­fes­sor at Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty, has post­ed a 26 lec­ture course called The His­to­ry of the Mod­ern Mid­dle East. The course takes you back to the found­ing of Islam, then works for­ward to the 19th and 20th cen­turies, cov­er­ing the cre­ation of Mid­dle East­ern states, the Israeli-Pales­tin­ian con­flict, the role of oil, the Iran­ian rev­o­lu­tion, etc. In short, he gives you the lay of the mod­ern land.

For even deep­er con­text, you can access two oth­er free cours­es taught by Bul­li­et: First, the His­to­ry of the World to 1500 AD, avail­able on YouTube here, and sec­ond, the His­to­ry of Iran to the Safavid Peri­od (essen­tial­ly pre-mod­ern Iran) avail­able on the Inter­net Archive here. All three cours­es appear in the His­to­ry sec­tion of our mega col­lec­tion of Free Online Cours­es. In total, you will now find 1,700 cours­es, all free to down­load to your com­put­er or mobile device…

Endangered Species in Unforgettable Images

in Books, Life, Science | March 17th, 2011

Some books lend them­selves espe­cial­ly well to trail­ers. Rare: Por­traits of Amer­i­ca’s Endan­gered Species, pre­sent­ed by Nation­al Geo­graph­ic wildlife pho­tog­ra­ph­er Joel Sar­tore, offers one good exam­ple. Sar­tore’s footage of these rare crea­tures, all shot against a sim­ple white back­ground, leaves you want­i­ng more. For­tu­nate­ly there’s plen­ty more on the book’s site, includ­ing a nice behind-the-scenes video, and an exten­sive gallery (you may need to scroll down). Be sure that you don’t miss the ocelot.

If you’ve gone through the site and you’re still not sat­is­fied, there’s always the Smith­son­ian Insti­tu­tion’s new wildlife pho­to archive, which we’ve been lost in all week.

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

Fukushima Reactor Explained & Tsunami 101

in Current Affairs, Science, Video - Politics/Society | March 15th, 2011

We have two quick primers for you. First, this CNN video breaks down the prob­lems afflict­ing the Fukushi­ma Nuclear Pow­er Plant in Japan. Give the video three min­utes of your time, and you will get a fair­ly com­pre­hen­sive overview of what’s going wrong.

And though it amaz­ing­ly feels like old news now, Nation­al Geo­graph­ic pro­vides a quick tuto­r­i­al on tsunamis. Please note that the video includes some dis­turb­ing footage.

36 Hitchcock Murder Scenes Climaxing in Unison

in Film | March 15th, 2011

It’s a lit­tle mor­bid, I’ll give you that. But you have to give this video some points for cre­ativ­i­ty and many for effort. Some fine soul pulled togeth­er murder/death scenes from 36 of Alfred Hitch­cock­’s movies, then syn­chro­nized them to cli­max in uni­son. We have list­ed the films below, many of which can be found in our col­lec­tion of Free Hitch­cock Films (and also our Free Movie col­lec­tion)…

Row 1: Black­mail, Mur­der!, Rich and Strange, Num­ber 17 (?), The Man Who Knew Too Much, Waltzes from Vien­na (?)
Row 2: The 39 Steps, Sab­o­tage, The Secret Agent, Young and Inno­cent (?), The Lady Van­ish­es, Jamaica Inn
Row 3: For­eign Cor­re­spon­dent, Rebec­ca, Sus­pi­cion, Shad­ow of a Doubt, Lifeboat, Spell­bound
Row 4: Rope, Under Capri­corn, Stage Fright, Strangers on a Train, I Con­fess, Dial M for Mur­der
Row 5: To Catch a Thief, The Trou­ble with Har­ry, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Ver­ti­go, North by North­west, Psy­cho
Row 6: The Birds, Marnie, Torn Cur­tain, Topaz, Fren­zy, Fam­i­ly Plot

via Metafil­ter

Danny Boyle’s Frankenstein Live at a Cinema Near You

in Literature, Theatre | March 14th, 2011

Here’s the trail­er for the play Franken­stein, which opens in Lon­don at the Nation­al The­ater this Thurs­day. Two intrigu­ing points: 1.) This pro­duc­tion is helmed by Dan­ny Boyle, the Oscar-win­ning direc­tor behind Slum­dog Mil­ion­aire, 127 Hours, and the appro­pri­ate­ly ter­ri­fy­ing zom­bie movie 28 Days Lat­er. 2.) Boyle’s Franken­stein is part of the Nation­al The­ater Live pro­gram – now in its sec­ond sea­son – and will be simul­cast live in hun­dreds of movie the­aters all over the world. There are 12 par­tic­i­pat­ing venues in Cal­i­for­nia alone – click here to find out if there’s one near you.

For a pre-screen­ing refresh­er, you can down­load Mary Shel­ley’s clas­sic nov­el for free at Project Guten­berg, or as a free audio­book at Lib­riVox. And what­ev­er you do, don’t miss this video of the gor­geous 1934 illus­trat­ed edi­tion, with wood­cuts by the Amer­i­can artist Lynd Ward.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Franken­stein Hits the Sil­ver Screen (1910)

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.

Floor of Kilauea Volcano Crater Collapses Before Your Eyes

in Video - Science | March 13th, 2011

Nature shows its force once again, this time in Hawaii. Last week­end, the U.S. Geo­log­i­cal Sur­vey detect­ed unusu­al activ­i­ty at the Kilauea vol­cano. And, with­in min­utes, the floor of the Pu’u O’o crater began to col­lapse. It’s all cap­tured in the short video above. The Wash­ing­ton Post has a lit­tle more on the sto­ry…

via @pourmecoffee