Undercity: Exploring the Underbelly of New York City

in Video - Arts & Culture | February 9th, 2011

Steve Dun­can is an urban his­to­ri­an and pho­tog­ra­ph­er whose mis­sion is to “peel back the lay­ers of a city to see what’s under­neath” – to piece togeth­er the com­plex cities we inhab­it. In this fas­ci­nat­ing video, we fol­low Dun­can as he explores the under­bel­ly of New York City. Andrew Won­der, using a Canon 5D Mark II and the Canon 24mm f/1.4L lens, doc­u­ments the adven­ture. The sen­so­ry expe­ri­ences must be extra­or­di­nary, as Alan Feuer (who accom­pa­nied Steve and Andrew on one of their trips) writes in the New York Times:

The sounds down here are even more impres­sive than the sights and smells: the Nia­gara-like crash of water spilling in from side drains; the rum­ble of the sub­way; the guh-DUNK! of cars hit­ting man­hole cov­ers over­head, like two jabs on a heavy bag.

For more, I high­ly rec­om­mend read­ing the NPR sto­ry, “Into the Tun­nels.” Also worth see­ing are Dun­can’s pho­tos of New York City bridges and the under­ground rivers of Lon­don. The video above has a run time of 28 min­utes.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Paris Under­ground

Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song” Played by Musicians Around the World

in Music | February 9th, 2011

Back in 2009, Play­ing for Change, a media project launched by music pro­duc­er Mark John­son, rolled out a video fea­tur­ing a glob­al cast of musi­cians per­form­ing Ben King’s Stand by Me (and, more recent­ly, anoth­er great one fea­tur­ing The Grate­ful Dead­’s “Rip­ple”). To date, the video has clocked more than 79,000,000 views on YouTube, and the song lat­er appeared on this CD/DVD. Now, Play­ing for Change has returned with a new video pay­ing trib­ute to Bob Mar­ley and his clas­sic track, “Redemp­tion Song.” Mar­ley would have turned 66 this week (note: this post was first pub­lished back in 2011), and coin­ci­den­tal­ly the song (watch Mar­ley’s acoustic ver­sion here) ranks 66th on Rolling Stone’s list of The 500 Great­est Songs of All Time. The eclec­tic ver­sion (above) is fea­tured on Songs Around The World, Part 2.

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MIT OpenCourseWare Launches iPhone App

in iPhone, MIT, Online Courses | February 8th, 2011

Last week, MIT Open­Course­Ware offi­cial­ly released its Lec­ture­Hall iPhone app. Put sim­ply, the free app gives you mobile access to MIT video lec­tures. It even lets you down­load lec­tures straight to your phone (handy for times when you may not have con­nec­tiv­i­ty). Anoth­er plus: the Lec­ture­Hall iPhone app adds a social dimen­sion to the learn­ing expe­ri­ence. Face­book inte­gra­tion, dis­cus­sion forums, rat­ings & reviews of indi­vid­ual videos – they’re all lay­ered in. And, just in case you’re won­der­ing, an Android ver­sion of the Lec­ture­Hall app is in the works.

Now a quick plug: Feel free to down­load our Free iPhone app, which includes free audio books, online cours­es, for­eign lan­guage lessons, and intel­li­gent pod­casts. Or, bet­ter yet, sim­ply vis­it Open Cul­ture with your smart phone and get lots of smart media wher­ev­er you go…

Relat­ed Con­tent:

350 Free Online Cours­es from Great Uni­ver­si­ties

The James Dean Story: The Early Documentary by Robert Altman

in Film | February 8th, 2011

On James Dean’s 80th birth­day, this film prob­a­bly deserves its own lit­tle men­tion. The James Dean Sto­ry, a 79 minute doc­u­men­tary chron­i­cling the life and times of Jim­my Dean, came out two years after the young actor’s death in 1955. Most notably, the film was direct­ed by Robert Alt­man, a young direc­tor who would even­tu­al­ly make MASH, Nashville, The Play­er, Gos­ford Park, etc. It’s also cat­a­logued in our col­lec­tion, 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More.

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!

Footage of the World’s Last Uncontacted Tribe, Deep in the Brazilian Amazon

in Video - Arts & Culture | February 7th, 2011

Here we have the first aer­i­al footage of an uncon­tact­ed tribe liv­ing in the Brazil­ian Ama­zon – a peo­ple liv­ing entire­ly apart from civ­i­liza­tion as we know it. The short clip, filmed for the BBC show Human Plan­et, fol­lows Jose Car­los Meirelles, who works on behalf of the Brazil­ian gov­ern­ment to safe­guard the coun­try’s indige­nous peo­ple. The liveli­hood of these indige­nous peo­ples is con­stant­ly threat­ened by ille­gal min­ing and log­ging. And it’s Meirelles’s mis­sion to pro­tect this pop­u­la­tion by pub­li­ciz­ing their exis­tence. This footage was filmed at 1 KM dis­tance with a long tele­pho­to lens to min­i­mize dis­tur­bance. To learn more about this and oth­er uncon­tact­ed tribes, vis­it http://www.uncontactedtribes.org.

via @AlyssaMilano

What if Tarantino Directed the Super Bowl Broadcast?

in Film, Television | February 4th, 2011

What would it look like if our great direc­tors took cre­ative con­trol over the Super Bowl broad­cast? Slate imag­ines it, show­ing you how Quentin Taran­ti­no, David Lynch, Wes Ander­son, Wern­er Her­zog and Jean-Luc Godard would put their cin­e­mat­ic stamp on the broad­cast. The clip gets bet­ter as it moves along…

Enjoy the big game. And, if movies are more your thing, don’t for­get to vis­it our big list of 340 Free Movies Online. Films by some of the great direc­tors men­tioned above appear on the list.

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Watch Ducked and Covered: A Survival Guide to the Post Apocalypse (A Little NSFW)

in Comedy | February 4th, 2011

What to do after the Apoc­a­lypse? This lit­tle pub­lic infor­ma­tion film was made (wink, wink) by the “Aus­tralian Board of Civ­il Defence” dur­ing the ear­ly 1980s. Found some­where in an old uni­ver­si­ty archive, the film, now new­ly dust­ed off, is being shown for the first time. Note: It’s a tad unsafe for work…

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:

Duck and Cov­er: The 1950s Film That Taught Mil­lions of School­child­ren How to Sur­vive a Nuclear Bomb

How a Clean, Tidy Home Can Help You Sur­vive the Atom­ic Bomb: A Cold War Film from 1954

Hiroshi­ma After the Atom­ic Bomb in 360 Degrees

Wunderkind Fun

in Literature, Music, Science | February 3rd, 2011

Only 2 years old, ‘lil Rose from Seat­tle aces her Peri­od­ic Table of Ele­ments game. Next up, a play date with 3 year old Jonathan who con­ducts the 4th move­ment of Beethoven’s 5th for laughs, and anoth­er pal, Samuel, who recites the poet­ry of Bil­ly Collins and Lord Alfred Ten­nyson. I’m feel­ing a lit­tle bet­ter about our future…

via Boing­Bo­ing

Paris Underground

in History | February 3rd, 2011

The Eif­fel Tow­er, Notre Dame, the Lou­vre – these famous mon­u­ments draw mil­lions of tourists to Paris every year, to the part of the city that lives above ground. Few tourists get to the oth­er part of the city, the part that lives and breathes beneath the sur­face. This month, Nation­al Geo­graph­ic has ded­i­cat­ed its fea­ture arti­cle and pho­to gallery to sub­ter­ranean Paris, tak­ing you into the caves and cat­a­combs that twist and turn beneath the city streets. Pro­duced by NPR and Nation­al Geo­graph­ic, the video above fol­lows “cat­aphiles” who trav­el through the dark side of the City of Light.

Fully Flared

in Film, Random | February 1st, 2011

Take the intro to Ful­ly Flared, the 2007 skate­board­ing film direct­ed by Spike Jonze, Ty Evans and Cory Weincheque. And then remas­ter it in 720p HD and you have quite the sen­so­ry expe­ri­ence. Give the clip at least a minute to unfold…