20 Great Authors (and Actors) Read Famous Literature Out Loud

in Literature | July 19th, 2010

Every now and then, we like to present vin­tage clips of great authors read­ing clas­sic lit­er­ary works – works they have often writ­ten them­selves. These clips can be fair­ly reveal­ing. Through them, you can recap­ture the voic­es of lit­er­ary greats, most long since passed. And you can hear how they give char­ac­ter and expres­sion to their own works … or those of oth­ers. In response to a read­er’s request, we have pulled togeth­er some of the finest exam­ples pre­vi­ous­ly fea­tured here. And, for good mea­sure, we’ve added prime clips of famous celebri­ties giv­ing lit­er­ary read­ings too. Hope you enjoy (and share):

1) William Faulkn­er Reads from As I Lay Dying

2) James Joyce Read­ing Finnegans Wake

3) Vin­tage Radio: Aldous Hux­ley Nar­rates Brave New World

4) Dominic West (aka Jim­my McNul­ty) Reads Jane Austen

5) Tru­man Capote Reads from Break­fast at Tiffany’s

6) Joyce Car­ol Oates Reads Eudo­ra Wel­ty’s “Where Is the Voice Com­ing From?”

7) Orson Welles Reads Moby Dick

8) John­ny Depp Reads Let­ters from Hunter S. Thomp­son

9) Ernest Hem­ing­way Reads “In Harry’s Bar in Venice”

10) T.S. Eliot Read­ing from The Waste­land

11) F. Scott Fitzger­ald Reads Shake­speare Out Loud

12) Den­nis Hop­per Reads Rud­yard Kipling on John­ny Cash Show

13) Kurt Von­negut Reads from Slaugh­ter­house-Five

14) Tom Waits Reads Charles Bukows­ki

15) William Car­los Williams Reads His Poet­ry (1954)

16) Orhan Pamuk Reads Vladimir Nabokov

17) Charles Bukows­ki “Blue­bird”

18) Wal­lace Stevens Reads His Own Poet­ry

19) Tobias Wolff Reads From His New Short Sto­ry Col­lec­tion

20) Lis­ten­ing to Famous Poets Read­ing Their Own Work

Your Brain on Caffeine

in Science | July 18th, 2010

Just what hap­pens to your brain when that dai­ly cup of joe kicks in? Life­hack­er has pulled togeth­er a nice lit­tle primer based on research appear­ing in Stephen R. Braun’s book, Buzz: The Sci­ence and Lore of Alco­hol and Caf­feine. The post also ref­er­ences a short video – “A Brain On Caf­feine” – from Cur­rentTV. It’s re-pre­sent­ed above.

Eudora Welty on “A Worn Path”

in Literature | July 16th, 2010

First pub­lished in The Atlantic Month­ly in Feb­ru­ary 1940, “A Worn Path” is per­haps Eudo­ra Wel­ty’s most prized piece of short fic­tion. In this video, Wel­ty talks with drama­tist Beth Hen­ley about the writ­ing of the famous short sto­ry. The two women, it’s worth not­ing, share a good deal in com­mon. Both are Pulitzer Prize win­ners who have their com­mon roots in Jack­son, Mis­sis­sip­pi. Thanks to Mike S. for send­ing our way…

William Faulkner Audio Archive Goes Online

in Literature | July 15th, 2010

Image by Carl Van Vecht­en, via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

In 1957 and 1958, the great Amer­i­can writer William Faulkn­er spent two years as Writer-in-Res­i­dence at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Vir­ginia. Dur­ing this stint, he pre­sent­ed sev­er­al pub­lic speech­es, gave many read­ings from his lit­er­ary works, spoke at count­less pub­lic events, and answered ques­tions from hun­dreds of stu­dents. The talks were orig­i­nal­ly record­ed on reel-to-reel tapes, and now UVA has dig­i­tized the audio col­lec­tion and made it avail­able through a new web site: Faulkn­er at Vir­ginia: An Audio Archive. In total, the archive presents 1690 min­utes (over 28 hours) of Faulkn­er record­ings. It also includes an archive of pho­tos and news­pa­per items, as well as an audio record­ing of a press con­fer­ence the Eng­lish depart­ment gave when Faulkn­er died on July 6, 1962. A real trea­sure. You can dive into the audio trove right here.

Note: To access the audio, you will need a Quick­Time play­er. If your brows­er does­n’t already sup­port Quick­Time, you can down­load a free Quick­Time plug-in here.

via NPR

Jimi Hendrix Plays “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” Days After the Song Was Released (1967)

in Music | July 14th, 2010

When play­ing a con­cert in San Fran­cis­co in July 2010, Paul McCart­ney recalled for his audi­ence how the Bea­t­les released Sgt. Pep­per’s Lone­ly Hearts Club Band in June, 1967. The album came out on a Fri­day, and by Sun­day night, Jimi Hen­drix learned the songs and opened his own show with a cov­er of the title track. It would have looked some­thing like this. Watch above. And watch out for your ears!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Decon­struct­ing The Mas­ter Track of The Bea­t­les’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lone­ly Hearts Club Band”

Eric Clapton’s Iso­lat­ed Gui­tar Track From the Clas­sic Bea­t­les Song, ‘While My Gui­tar Gen­tly Weeps’ (1968)

The Bea­t­les: Unplugged Col­lects Acoustic Demos of White Album Songs (1968)

In 1969 Telegram, Jimi Hen­drix Invites Paul McCart­ney to Join a Super Group with Miles Davis

Jimi Hendrix’s Final Inter­view on Sep­tem­ber 11, 1970: Lis­ten to the Com­plete Audio

The Civil War & Reconstruction: A Free Course from Yale University

in History | July 14th, 2010

The Civ­il War was a water­shed moment in US his­to­ry, and it fig­ures cen­tral­ly in any Amer­i­can his­to­ry cur­ricu­lum. If you missed this course dur­ing high school or col­lege, not to wor­ry. Now, thanks to Yale Uni­ver­si­ty, you can revis­it this his­tor­i­cal moment with Prof. David Blight, one of the nation’s lead­ing Civ­il War schol­ars. The Civ­il War and Recon­struc­tion “explores the caus­es, course, and con­se­quences of the Amer­i­can Civ­il War, from the 1840s to 1877,” look­ing at how the Unit­ed States was trans­formed on mul­ti­ple lev­els: racial­ly, social­ly, polit­i­cal­ly, con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly and moral­ly. You can access the 27 free lec­tures, pre­sent­ed in audio and video, via YouTube, iTunes, and the Yale web site (plus a syl­labus). We also have it on the list of our Free His­to­ry Cours­es, a sub­set of our col­lec­tion 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties.

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!

Watch Andrei Tarkovsky’s Films Free Online: Stalker, The Mirror & Andrei Rublev

in Film, Most Popular | July 13th, 2010

The stench of Vladimir Putin and his inva­sion of Ukraine should­n’t taint every­thing Russ­ian, espe­cial­ly some of its finest cin­e­ma. So we’ll give you this heads up: Mos­film, the largest and old­est film stu­dio in Rus­sia, has post­ed sev­er­al major films by Andrei Tarkovsky (1932–1986), on its offi­cial YouTube channel. Above, you can watch Stalk­er, which we’ve cov­ered amply here on Open Cul­ture. Below, stream The Mir­ror, Andrei Rublev, and Ivan’s Child­hood.

The Mir­ror

Andrei Rublev

Solaris

Ivan’s Child­hood

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 Mas­ter­ful Polaroid Pic­tures Tak­en by Film­mak­er Andrei Tarkovsky

Tarkovsky’s Advice to Young Film­mak­ers: Sac­ri­fice Your­self for Cin­e­ma

Andrei Tarkovsky Calls Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey a “Pho­ny” Film “With Only Pre­ten­sions to Truth”

Slavoj Žižek Explains the Artistry of Andrei Tarkovsky’s Films: Solaris, Stalk­er & More

Watch Stalk­er, Andrei Tarkovsky’s Mind-Bend­ing Mas­ter­piece Free Online

Andrei Tarkovsky’s Mas­ter­piece Stalk­er Gets Adapt­ed into a Video Game

Three Minute Philosophy — Immanuel Kant

in Comedy, Philosophy | July 12th, 2010

File under com­e­dy. It’s slight­ly cheeky, at times lit­tle crass, but how often do the com­e­dy and phi­los­o­phy worlds col­lide? I mean, real­ly?

S. Peter Davis also has three minute takes on Descartes, Hume, Aris­to­tle, Locke, Galileo, Pythago­ras, and Aquinas.

via Metafil­ter

A Brief, Artistic Introduction to Nikola Tesla

in History, Science | July 12th, 2010

This week­end marked the 154th birth­day of Niko­la Tes­la, the Serbian/Croatian emi­gre whose work on elec­tro­mag­net­ism and electro­mechan­i­cal engi­neer­ing con­tributed to the birth of com­mer­cial elec­tric­i­ty. Espe­cial­ly dur­ing the past year, his name has regained a fair amount of cur­ren­cy, not least because there’s a very sporty elec­tric road­ster now named after him. In hon­or of his birth­day, the clip above gives a very quick and artis­tic intro­duc­tion to Tes­la’s life and work …

The Beginning and Evolution of Life

in Art, Random | July 8th, 2010

It’s an unsci­en­tif­ic point of view by BLU. Thanks @wesalwan for send­ing our way…