Spinal Tap’s Nigel Tufnel Promotes World’s Largest Online Guitar Lesson

in Music | March 3rd, 2011

Nigel Tufnel, lead gui­tarist for Spinal Tap (wink, wink) sets the stage for you. This after­noon (March 3), Berklee Music will hold what it hopes will be the largest online gui­tar les­son ever. It all starts at 1:30 EST. Get details and join in here.

Revolutions in the Middle East: Head of Al Jazeera Speaks at TED

in Current Affairs, TED Talks | March 2nd, 2011

Where will the Mid­dle East go from here? Towards democ­ra­cy, as many hope? Towards a more theo­crat­ic mod­el, as some despair? Or, towards more of the same dis­il­lu­sion­ing autoc­ra­cy?

On the first day of the big TED con­fer­ence, Wadah Khan­far, the head of Al Jazeera, offered a supreme­ly opti­mistic take on the rev­o­lu­tions trans­form­ing Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and per­haps beyond. Through­out the past few weeks, many West­ern­ers have tuned into Al Jazeer­a’s live Eng­lish-lan­guage cov­er­age on the web and found them­selves pleas­ant­ly sur­prised by the bal­ance and depth of their report­ing. Now you get 17 upbeat min­utes with the leader of the Qatar-based news orga­ni­za­tion …

NASA Captures Giant Solar Storm

in Astronomy, Science, Video - Science | March 2nd, 2011

Last Thurs­day, the sun deliv­ered the goods, unleash­ing a beau­ti­ful solar flare. The erup­tions last­ed some­where around 90 min­utes, and the plas­ma flares were all cap­tured in high def by NASA’s Solar Dynam­ics Obser­va­to­ry, a project ded­i­cat­ed to study­ing the sun and its impact on space weath­er. This footage comes soon after anoth­er ground­break­ing NASA video – the First 360 Degree View of the Sun.

via Pop­u­lar Sci­ence

50 Years Ago Today: JFK Authorizes Peace Corps

in History | March 1st, 2011

On March 1, 1961, Pres­i­dent John F. Kennedy signed Exec­u­tive Order 10924, offi­cial­ly autho­riz­ing the estab­lish­ment of an “agency in the Depart­ment of State which shall be known as the Peace Corps.” Fifty years lat­er, that Agency has sent more than 200,000 vol­un­teers to over 93 coun­tries.

A note:  If you’ve ever won­dered about all those CIA-Peace Corps con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries, lis­ten to the Nation­al Archives’ fas­ci­nat­ing audio and tran­script of a con­ver­sa­tion between JFK and his broth­er-in-law R. Sar­gent Shriv­er, the Peace Corps’ first Direc­tor (and Maria Shriver’s grand­fa­ther), dis­cussing “pos­si­ble CIA pen­e­tra­tion” of the Agency.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

JFK Revis­it­ed on YouTube

Jane Russell (RIP) Stars in “Outlawed” Western

in Film, Video - Arts & Culture | March 1st, 2011

Pub­lic­i­ty can be ter­ri­ble. But only if you don’t have any. - Jane Rus­sell

Jane Rus­sell learned the pow­er of noto­ri­ety at an ear­ly age. Direc­tor Howard Hugh­es (the reclu­sive bil­lion­aire) had cast the volup­tuous 19-year-old in his epic West­ern The Out­law (1943), with the full inten­tion of mak­ing her a sex sym­bol. Hugh­es essen­tial­ly made her con­sid­er­able assets the star of the film, even going so far as to design a spe­cial can­tilevered push-up bra for her to wear dur­ing shoot­ing.

Hugh­es did his job almost too well. The promi­nent dis­play of cleav­age in both the film and its trail­er unnerved cen­sors and kept The Out­law out of the­aters until near­ly 1950. (You can watch the full movie above.) The con­tro­ver­sy also launched Rus­sel­l’s career as a WWII pin-up girl, but she con­tin­ued to per­form in films, even­tu­al­ly prov­ing to be a fine actress and singer. Today she is per­haps best remem­bered  for her con­fi­dent, sexy, per­for­mance oppo­site Mar­i­lyn Mon­roe in the 1953 com­e­dy Gen­tle­man Pre­fer Blondes, and espe­cial­ly for her show­stop­ping num­ber, “Ain’t Any­one Here For Love?”

A botched ille­gal abor­tion at the age of 19 left the actress unable to bear chil­dren, and she was a vocal anti-abor­tion activist and advo­cate for adop­tion. Also a proud Repub­li­can, she described her­self to an inter­view­er in 2003 as a “a tee­to­tal, mean-spir­it­ed, right-wing, nar­row-mind­ed, con­ser­v­a­tive Chris­t­ian big­ot — but not a racist.”

Ms. Rus­sell died yes­ter­day of a lung-relat­ed ill­ness at her home in San­ta Maria, Cal­i­for­nia. She was 89 years old.

You can see The Out­law in our free movies col­lec­tion.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

25 Free John Wayne West­erns

The New Yorker: Finger Drumming Keith Moon

in Music | February 28th, 2011

Some­how this flew below my radar. Back in Novem­ber, James Wood, the Har­vard lit pro­fes­sor and New York­er staff writer, revis­it­ed his child­hood idol — Kei­th Moon, the long­time (though now depart­ed) drum­mer for The Who. In “The New York­er Out Loud” pod­cast, Wood demon­strates – using his fin­gers – what makes Moon’s style so dis­tinc­tive. (Lis­ten here.) And, as an added bonus, we give you Wood fin­ger drum­ming on his kitchen table at home. At least one of these clips will make your day…

Gay Talese: Drinking at New York Times Put Mad Men to Shame

in Life, Media, Television | February 28th, 2011

Mad Men brings us back to a bygone era, the ear­ly 60s, when alco­hol flowed freely through­out the work­ing day. (Watch this mon­tage to get up to speed.) An act of his­tor­i­cal revi­sion­ism, many might think. But, appar­ent­ly not so. Accord­ing to a piece in The New York Times, the show basi­cal­ly gets it right. Alco­hol was as com­mon in offices as office sup­plies. And then we have this: Gay Talese, the best­selling author and jour­nal­ist, remem­ber­ing the Times news­room dur­ing the same era – a crew bare­ly fit to pub­lish the news that’s fit to print.

Discovery’s Final Launch Viewed from Airplane

in Technology, Video - Science | February 26th, 2011

A rather dif­fer­ent angle on the Dis­cov­ery’s final launch. The view from 35,000 feet.…

via Boing­Bo­ing

The Art of Making Movie Sounds

in Art, Film | February 26th, 2011

Right in time for the Oscars. Gary Heck­er is what you’d call a “Foley artist,” some­one who spe­cial­izes in cre­at­ing every­day sounds for movies – the sound of hors­es gal­lop­ing, swords being unsheathed, dirt crunch­ing beneath cow­boy boots. In short, the big and small sounds you hear (and take for grant­ed) when­ev­er you see a movie. Tim­ing. Cre­ativ­i­ty. They’re all part of this hid­den art…

A quick PS: This Sound­works video col­lec­tion takes you behind the scenes into the audio post-pro­duc­tion of fea­ture films, video game sound design, and orig­i­nal sound­track scor­ing. Good spot by @sheerly.

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!

Pete Eckert: Blind Photographer, Visual Artist

in Art, Video - Arts & Culture | February 25th, 2011

Pete Eck­ert is blind, total­ly blind. But his dis­abil­i­ty (if you can call it that) has­n’t stopped him from express­ing him­self visu­al­ly. As Pete explains in the video above, he has always been a visu­al per­son. And pho­tog­ra­phy has become more than a cre­ative out­let for Pete. It’s a per­son­al form of artis­tic expres­sion, the way he sees the world through sound.

Eck­ert was named the Grand Prize recip­i­ent of Artists Want­ed: Expo­sure in 2008, an inter­na­tion­al pho­tog­ra­phy com­pe­ti­tion. You can learn more about Pete Eck­ert in this video and on his web page.

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.