Open Meets New Meets Old Publishing

in Audio Books, Books, Media | May 5th, 2010

OC con­trib­u­tor Seth Har­wood has some­thing excit­ing going on over at his site today: he’s launch­ing the pre-order sales of his new nov­el YOUNG JUNIUS, which is due out this fall. This is part­ly worth not­ing because Seth’s path to pub­li­ca­tion involves giv­ing away his work for free as MP3 audio­books. You can even lis­ten to all of YOUNG JUNIUS before you make a buy. If you’re a fan of crime or mys­tery fic­tion, or you dig The Wire, you’ll love this book!

Now, Seth is part­ner­ing with inde­pen­dent pub­lish­er Tyrus Books to break new ground in pub­lish­ing strate­gies. To read the full descrip­tion of what he’s up to, go here. The brief ver­sion involves the pre-order of spe­cial, lim­it­ed edi­tion copies of the book that fea­ture cloth bind­ing, fan-cre­at­ed cov­er art, pho­tos of the sto­ry’s loca­tions, signed per­son­al­iza­tion and more. By offer­ing these for a lim­it­ed time via his site, he and Tyrus are able to print just the quan­ti­ty sold and bal­ance some of the cost (reduce the risk) of the book’s full print run–hardcover, paper­back AND spe­cial edi­tion.

If you’d like to read more about this or order a copy, head over to sethharwood.com. When you do, use the code OC to save $3 off the cov­er price of the book! Enjoy!!

Seth Har­wood is a vora­cious read­er, sub­ver­sive pub­lish­ing maven and crime nov­el­ist.

Bill Murray Reads Poetry at a Construction Site: Emily Dickinson, Billy Collins & More

in Film, Literature, Poetry, Television | May 4th, 2010

Anoth­er great New York City moment. In the spring of 2009, con­struc­tion work­ers build­ing the new home for Poets House were treat­ed to a short poet­ry read­ing by the actor Bill Mur­ray. We ini­tial­ly encounter Mur­ray (at the 59 sec­ond mark) read­ing lines from Bil­ly Collins’ Anoth­er Rea­son I Don’t Keep a Gun in the House. Next up? Lorine Niedeck­er’s very pithy poem, Poets Work, and then, of course, a lit­tle Emi­ly Dick­in­son.

For more free poet­ry, vis­it our col­lec­tion of Free Audio Books.

Look­ing for free, pro­fes­­sion­al­­ly-read audio books from Audible.com? Here’s a great, no-strings-attached deal. If you start a 30 day free tri­al with Audible.com, you can down­load two free audio books of your choice. Get more details on the offer here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Bill Mur­ray Gives a Delight­ful Read­ing of Twain’sHuckleberry Finn (1996)

The Phi­los­o­phy of Bill Mur­ray: The Intel­lec­tu­al Foun­da­tions of His Comedic Per­sona

Watch Bill Mur­ray Per­form a Satir­i­cal Anti-Tech­nol­o­gy Rant (1982)

The Best of Ken Loach on YouTube

in Film | May 2nd, 2010

Ken Loach is Britain’s most famous – and often con­tro­ver­sial – direc­tor, known for his social real­ist direct­ing style and social­ist pol­i­tics. Giv­en his approach, it’s quite fit­ting that he has made some of his finest films avail­able on YouTube – for free. The Ken Loach YouTube chan­nel gives you access to his ear­ly major films, includ­ing Cathy Come Home, a 1966 BBC docu­d­ra­ma that por­trays a young cou­ple grap­pling with pover­ty, unem­ploy­ment, and home­less­ness, and also Kes, a 1970 movie that’s now ranked sev­enth on the British Film Insti­tute’s list of the Top Ten (British) Films.

But you would­n’t want to miss Loach’s more recent films. And the new YouTube col­lec­tion does­n’t dis­ap­point. It fea­tures Hid­den Agen­da (1990), a polit­i­cal thriller that won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Fes­ti­val; Riff Raff (1991), anoth­er prize win­ner that takes a hard look at the work­ing class in the UK; and Ae Fond Kiss (2004), which delves into what hap­pens when a young Pak­istani man enters into a rela­tion­ship with a Cau­casian woman in Glas­gow.

We’re adding the Loach YouTube chan­nel to our Smart YouTube col­lec­tion, and his indi­vid­ual films to our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online.

A big thanks goes to Natal­ie in the UK for this great find. And be sure to check out her tea-lov­ing blog at afternoonteatotal.com.

Jean-Luc Godard Meets Woody Allen

in Comedy, Film | May 1st, 2010

Filmed in 1986, Meetin’ WA is a short (26 minute) film that not many have seen. What you get is Godard, one of the dri­ving forces behind La Nou­velle Vague, in con­ver­sa­tion with Woody Allen. The trade­mark Godard approach to film, the expect­ed dose of Woody Allen neu­roses — they’re all there. You’ll find this gem and 340+ oth­er films (includ­ing many clas­sics) list­ed in our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online.

Apollo 11 Launch in Very Slow Motion

in History | April 30th, 2010

We take you back to July 16, 1969 and the launch of Apol­lo 11, which land­ed humans on the moon for the first time. The footage slows things down, stretch­ing 30 sec­onds of action to over eight min­utes of view­ing time. Here’s what it looked like in real time.

via @SteveSilberman

Truman Capote Reads from Breakfast at Tiffany’s in NYC (1963)

in Audio Books, Literature | April 29th, 2010

We’re bring­ing you some great authors this week. First it was Hem­ing­way, then Orwell, and now Capote.

In 1958, Tru­man Capote put his stamp on the Amer­i­can lit­er­ary scene when he pub­lished his short nov­el, Break­fast at Tiffany’s, in the pages of Esquire mag­a­zine. Authors and crit­ics were quick to rec­og­nize what Capote had accom­plished here. The always opin­ion­at­ed Nor­man Mail­er would say that Capote “is the most per­fect writer of my gen­er­a­tion, he writes the best sen­tences word for word, rhythm upon rhythm. I would not have changed two words in Break­fast at Tiffany’s which will become a small clas­sic.” About that, Mail­er was exact­ly right. Break­fast at Tiffany’s is now a clas­sic book – not to men­tion a clas­sic film too (watch the trail­er with the icon­ic Audrey Hep­burn here). And now let’s rewind the audio­tape and take you back to 1963, to the great 92nd Street Y in New York city, where Tru­man Capote reads from his lit­tle clas­sic in his own dis­tinc­tive voice. This audio clip runs about 17 min­utes. Have a lis­ten.

Look­ing for free, pro­fes­sion­al­ly-read audio books from Audible.com? Here’s a great, no-strings-attached deal. If you start a 30 day free tri­al with Audible.com, you can down­load two free audio books of your choice. Get more details on the offer here.

Gravity Makes Music

in Film | April 26th, 2010

This short film is best watched in full screen mode. Just click here to expand.

Thanks to Yoni for send­ing this one along. If you have a great piece of open cul­ture to share with your fel­low read­ers, feel free to con­tact us any time.

The Hubble Celebrates 20 Years of Discovery

in Astronomy, Science | April 24th, 2010

20 years ago (April 24, 1990) the Hub­ble Space Tele­scope was launched, begin­ning a long peri­od of dis­cov­ery. Today, NASA is cel­e­brat­ing the Hub­ble’s 20th anniver­sary by releas­ing one of the many bril­liant pho­tos tak­en by the space tele­scope. The image shows us a small por­tion of one of the largest star-birth regions in the galaxy, the Cari­na Neb­u­la. As NASA goes on to describe it:

“Tow­ers of cool hydro­gen laced with dust rise from the wall of the neb­u­la. The scene is rem­i­nis­cent of Hub­ble’s clas­sic “Pil­lars of Cre­ation” pho­to from 1995, but is even more strik­ing in appear­ance. The image cap­tures the top of a three-light-year-tall pil­lar of gas and dust that is being eat­en away by the bril­liant light from near­by bright stars. The pil­lar is also being pushed apart from with­in, as infant stars buried inside it fire off jets of gas that can be seen stream­ing from tow­er­ing peaks like arrows sail­ing through the air.”

You can down­load NASA’s fea­tured pho­to in var­i­ous sizes and res­o­lu­tions here. You can also look through an amaz­ing gallery of Hub­ble pho­tos spon­sored by NASA, plus a beau­ti­ful col­lec­tion by Nation­al Geo­graph­ic’s here. Last­ly, NPR has a nice audio slideshow that fea­tures astronomers talk­ing about their favorite Hub­ble images. Thanks @lauraehall for the heads up on that.

Flight of the Bumblebee … On an iPad

in Music | April 22nd, 2010

Great lit­tle find by Doug. At an April 19th con­cert in San Fran­cis­co, the Chi­nese pianist Lang Lang threw his audi­ence a bit of a curve­ball when he start­ed play­ing Niko­lai Rim­sky-Kor­sakov’s Flight of the Bum­ble­bee on … yup … an iPad. Accord­ing to The Wall Street Jour­nal, this per­for­mance comes pre­loaded on the Mag­ic Piano App that retails for 99 cents. Thanks Doug for send­ing this one our way!

via 9to5mac

Michael Pollan on Sustainable Food

in Current Affairs | April 21st, 2010

If you’re look­ing for some quick insight into Michael Pol­lan’s best­selling work on food and “our nation­al eat­ing dis­or­der” (The Omni­vore’s Dilem­ma, In Defense of Food, Food Rules, etc.), then you’ll want to spend some time with his 15 minute talk pre­sent­ed at Pop! Tech 2009. The talk gets down to a time­ly set of ques­tions. How can we, as indi­vid­u­als, eat bet­ter? How can we improve our health? And how can we make our food sup­ply more “green” and sus­tain­able. Pol­lan gives you a quick taste of his think­ing here and offers five take­away tips. Watch above, or down­load his talk in video or audio from this page.