Jorge Luis Borges Explains The Task of Art

in Literature, Poetry | August 4th, 2010

As he neared the end of his life, Jorge Luis Borges (1899 – 1986) offered his thoughts on the “task of art,” essen­tial­ly dis­till­ing 80+ years of wis­dom into a few pithy lines. He says:

The task of art is to trans­form what is con­tin­u­ous­ly hap­pen­ing to us, to trans­form all these things into sym­bols, into music, into some­thing which can last in man’s mem­o­ry. That is our duty. If we don’t ful­fill it, we feel unhap­py. A writer or any artist has the some­times joy­ful duty to trans­form all that into sym­bols. These sym­bols could be col­ors, forms or sounds. For a poet, the sym­bols are sounds and also words, fables, sto­ries, poet­ry. The work of a poet nev­er ends. It has noth­ing to do with work­ing hours. Your are con­tin­u­ous­ly receiv­ing things from the exter­nal world. These must be trans­formed, and even­tu­al­ly will be trans­formed. This rev­e­la­tion can appear any­time. A poet nev­er rests. He’s always work­ing, even when he dreams. Besides, the life of a writer, is a lone­ly one. You think you are alone, and as the years go by, if the stars are on your side, you may dis­cov­er that you are at the cen­ter of a vast cir­cle of invis­i­ble friends whom you will nev­er get to know but who love you. And that is an immense reward.

Thanks to Matthew for send­ing this clip along. Also, on a relat­ed note, let me remind you of the doc­u­men­tary we high­light­ed ear­li­er this year. Jorge Luis Borges: The Mir­ror Man, a film that’s “part biog­ra­phy, part lit­er­ary crit­i­cism, part hero-wor­ship, part book read­ing, and part psy­chol­o­gy.”

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!

via Maud New­ton

Relat­ed Con­tent

Hear Jorge Luis Borges Read 30 of His Poems (in the Orig­i­nal Span­ish)

Hear the Enchant­i­ng Jorge Luis Borges Read “The Art of Poet­ry”

Jorge Luis Borges’ 1967–8 Nor­ton Lec­tures On Poet­ry (And Every­thing Else Lit­er­ary)

Borges Explains The Task of Art

What Does Jorge Luis Borges’ “Library of Babel” Look Like? An Accu­rate Illus­tra­tion Cre­at­ed with 3D Mod­el­ing Soft­ware

Arthur C. Clarke Presents the Colors of Infinity

in Math | August 3rd, 2010

In 1995, Sir Arthur C. Clarke, the futur­ist and sci­ence fic­tion writer most well known for his nov­el 2001: A Space Odyssey, pre­sent­ed a tele­vi­sion doc­u­men­tary on the 1980 dis­cov­ery of the Man­del­brot Set (M‑Set). Frac­tals: The Col­ors of Infin­i­ty brings us inside the world of frac­tal geom­e­try, and soon enough we’re encoun­ter­ing what has been called “the thumbprint of God.” Clarke nar­rates the film, which has a 54 minute run­time. David Gilmour (gui­tarist, vocal­ist and song­writer for Pink Floyd) cre­at­ed the sound­track. Big hat tip to Greg for send­ing along…

Note: You can pur­chase online the DVD of the doc­u­men­tary, along with the orig­i­nal book on which it was based.

Penguin Turns 75 & Two Bestsellers to Give Away

in Books | July 30th, 2010

Today marks the 75th anniver­sary of Pen­guin Books. And to cel­e­brate this mile­stone, they’re dri­ving a Mini Coop­er adorned with the Pen­guin logo across the US this sum­mer, donat­ing books to local libraries and lit­er­a­cy groups. Then, in Sep­tem­ber, the fes­tiv­i­ties will cul­mi­nate with a fundrais­ing par­ty at the New York Pub­lic Library. The folks at Pen­guin were kind enough to include us in their cel­e­bra­tion. So today, we have two free books to give away. One is a copy of Eliz­a­beth Gib­ert’s best­seller Eat, Pray, Love; the oth­er is a copy of The Omni­vore’s Dilem­ma by Michael Pol­lan. They’re just two among Pen­guin’s 4,000 books in print.

So how does this work?: The two copies will go to the first read­ers who send us a com­pelling piece of open/intelligent media that we choose to post on the site. (If you’re look­ing for more guid­ance on what we have in mind, please read the tips on this page.) You can sub­mit your media picks here. And when you do, please indi­cate which book you want. We will select two win­ners (one per book) and announce the names when we post the media picks on Open Cul­ture next week. Thanks for your sug­ges­tions, and have a great week­end.

Elvis Costello Sings “Penny Lane” for Sir Paul McCartney at The White House

in Music | July 29th, 2010

Last month, Pres­i­dent Oba­ma award­ed Paul McCart­ney the Library of Con­gress Gersh­win Prize for Pop­u­lar Song. And then the con­cert (aired last night on PBS) began. Among the high­lights was Elvis Costel­lo singing “Pen­ny Lane” with a mem­ber of the Pres­i­den­t’s Unit­ed States Marine band play­ing the pic­co­lo trum­pet. It’s a down­right won­der­ful ver­sion. You can watch the entire pro­gram online here.

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:

Mal­colm Glad­well on Why Genius Takes Time: A Look at the Mak­ing of Elvis Costello’s “Depor­tee” & Leonard Cohen’s “Hal­lelu­jah”

Hear a Playlist of 300 Songs That Influ­enced Elvis Costel­lo, Drawn From His New Mem­oir, Unfaith­ful Music & Dis­ap­pear­ing Ink

Powers of Ten: 1977 Short Film by Designers Ray & Charles Eames Gives Brilliant Tour of Universe

in Math, Science | July 27th, 2010

In 1977, Ray and Charles Eames, the famous LA design­ers, pro­duced the short film Pow­ers of Ten. The movie starts with a fixed point in Chica­go, then zooms out into the uni­verse by fac­tors of ten. And, before too long, you find your­self 100 mil­lion light years away. Based on Kees Boeke’s 1957 book, Cos­mic View, the 10-minute film offers what amounts to a breath­tak­ing tour of the uni­verse. This clip was sent our way by Hele­na, who will get a free copy of the new Rolling Stones doc­u­men­tary, Stones in Exile.

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!

Mike Wallace and Bennett Cerf (Founder of Random House) Talk Censorship

in Books, Television | July 27th, 2010

Long before 60 Min­utes, Mike Wal­lace host­ed his own talk show, The Mike Wal­lace Inter­view (1957 — 1960), where he asked prob­ing ques­tions to celebri­ties of the day. The com­plete archive – now avail­able via the Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas (access it here) – fea­tures inter­views with Frank Lloyd Wright, Eleanor Roo­sevelt, Sal­vador Dali, Rein­hold Niebuhr, Aldous Hux­ley, and Hen­ry Kissinger, to name a few. In anoth­er notable inter­view, Wal­lace talked with Ben­nett Cerf (watch here), co-founder of the pub­lish­ing giant Ran­dom House, and even­tu­al­ly the con­ver­sa­tion turned to cen­sor­ship. Cer­f’s com­ments date back more than 50 years, but the issue nev­er real­ly goes away. File under: “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.”

WALLACE: Well, yet you say, one of the great­est threats fac­ing book pub­lish­ing and the entire coun­try is cen­sor­ship.

CERF: That’s right.

WALLACE: What is the… Who does the cen­sor­ing, and what is the motive of those who cen­sor?

CERF: Well, now that would take a lot of explo­ration Mike. I think there are an awful lot of peo­ple in this coun­try, who are not sat­is­fied to gov­ern them­selves and their own fam­i­lies. Or the peo­ple who belong to the same cult that they do, but who have tak­en upon them­selves, to tell every­body else what they should read, what they should see, and what they should think.

WALLACE: For what rea­son do they do it?

CERF: I guess, they think it will make them more sure of get­ting to heav­en. I don’t know why they do it. I think they’re sell­ing short, the good taste of the Amer­i­can pub­lic.

WALLACE: Who are these peo­ple, who would like to inflict this kind of cen­sor­ship upon the Amer­i­can pub­lic? What are the groups?

CERF: Self-appoint­ed snoop hounds.

WALLACE: Such as… such as…

CERF: They come from all… walks of life, er… in all the way back to colo­nial days, and in times of the Puri­tans. There were peo­ple who were telling oth­ers, what they most think, how they must behave, and what their morals must be. These peo­ple can­not resist butting in.

via Richard S.

US Government Opens Tech/Culture

in iPhone, Media, Technology | July 26th, 2010

Today’s rul­ing is bound to get a lot of buzz, but prob­a­bly for the wrong rea­sons. Accord­ing to new rules set forth by The Library of Con­gress (which over­sees the Copy­right Office), iPhone own­ers can now legal­ly “jail­break” their device and down­load soft­ware that Apple/AT&T dis­ap­proves of. That will get the head­lines. But we should­n’t lose sight of this: This far-reach­ing rul­ing goes well beyond the iPhone itself and also allows (among oth­er things) “col­lege pro­fes­sors, film stu­dents and doc­u­men­tary film­mak­ers to break copy-pro­tec­tion mea­sures on DVDs so they can embed clips for edu­ca­tion­al pur­pos­es, crit­i­cism, com­men­tary and non­com­mer­cial videos.” (The quot­ed mate­r­i­al comes from the AP, not the rul­ing itself). In short, these new guide­lines give con­sumers greater lat­i­tude to decide how they want to use com­put­ers, gad­gets and media they’ve pur­chased.  And they clear up some legal murk­i­ness that has sur­round­ed these issues, par­tic­u­lar­ly with­in uni­ver­si­ties, for some time. A good day for gov­ern­ment … and the Elec­tron­ic Fron­tier Foun­da­tion, which pushed for these pro­tec­tions.

PS Does this still mean that Apple can void your war­ran­ty if you jail­break your iPhone? I’m not sure whether that goes away or not…

Daniel Schorr’s Introduction to Twitter

in Media | July 23rd, 2010

Daniel Schorr, a leg­endary jour­nal­ist who made his mark dur­ing the Water­gate era, died today at age 93. Through­out the past sev­er­al decades, Schorr nev­er learned to use com­put­ers or word proces­sors. Rather, he stuck with his trusty type­writer. But, when Twit­ter took off last year, he was­n’t averse to giv­ing it a try. Above, Schorr gets his intro­duc­tion to Twit­ter and starts his account.

Let me also flag two items for you: You can read Schor­r’s very first arti­cle as a reporter, which appeared in The Chris­t­ian Sci­ence Mon­i­tor way back in May 1948. Also, NPR (where Schorr report­ed dur­ing his final years), has dug up an unex­pect­ed piece: Frank Zap­pa invit­ing Schorr on stage to deliv­er a polit­i­cal mes­sage and sing a few lines. Good stuff. RIP Mr. Schorr.

Find us on Twit­ter and Face­book!

BBC Launches World Music Archive

in Music | July 22nd, 2010

Today, the BBC has unveiled a new archive of world music, allow­ing you to sam­ple the musi­cal tra­di­tions of more than 40 coun­tries. India, Cor­si­ca, Chi­na, Cuba, Iran, Brazil, Mozam­bique, Turkey – they’re all rep­re­sent­ed in this eclec­tic col­lec­tion of indige­nous music. Often assum­ing a fair amount of risk, BBC 3 trav­eled to each coun­try (includ­ing sev­er­al con­flict zones) to record the music. But it pays off when you get to hear the lit­tle known music com­ing out of North Korea, for exam­ple. Fea­tur­ing 100s of hours of free record­ings, this archive is now avail­able to a glob­al audi­ence. You can start explor­ing right here, right now.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Intro­duc­ing the Free Music Archive

via NZHer­ald and @freemusicarchiv

The 1910 Tour de France Revisited

in Random | July 22nd, 2010

A hun­dred years ago, the orga­niz­ers of the Tour de France took rid­ers high into moun­tains for the very first time. And, from there, the mys­tique of the Tour de France grew and grew. To com­mem­o­rate this occa­sion, a group of mod­ern day rid­ers retraced the same route through the Pyre­nees, which includes some leg­endary climbs: the Col de Peyre­sourde, the Col d’Aspin, the Col du Tour­malet, the Col du Soulor, etc. The weath­er con­di­tions are slight­ly tough for these rid­ers, but their bikes are light and mod­ern, and the gear­ing much more for­giv­ing than what their fore­bears had. Mean­while the film doc­u­ment­ing their ride is a plea­sure to watch. The run­time is about 15 min­utes.

via @vimeo