Mark Twain Captured on Film by Thomas Edison in 1909. It’s the Only Known Footage of the Author.

in Books, Literature | March 18th, 2010

Here’s a lit­tle nugget for you. The great inven­tor Thomas Edi­son vis­it­ed the home of Mark Twain in 1909, and cap­tured footage of “the father of Amer­i­can lit­er­a­ture” (says Faulkn­er) walk­ing around his estate and play­ing cards with his daugh­ters, Clara and Jean. The film is silent and dete­ri­o­rat­ed. But it’s appar­ent­ly the only known footage of the author who gave us Huck­le­ber­ry Finn and Tom Sawyer. Twain would die the next year.

Find works by Twain in our col­lec­tion of Free Audio Books and Free eBooks.

And if you like what we serve up, don’t miss us on Twit­ter on Face­book. It’s any easy way to share cul­tur­al gems with fam­i­ly and friends.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Mark Twain Shirt­less in 1883 Pho­to

Thomas Edi­son Recites “Mary Had a Lit­tle Lamb” in Ear­ly Voice Record­ing

Thomas Edison’s Box­ing Cats (1894), or Where the LOL­Cats All Began

The End of Attribution?

in Books | March 17th, 2010

A cou­ple of days ago, we fea­tured a video post­ed on Pen­guin’s YouTube Chan­nel that used a smart video tech­nique to restore faith in the future of book pub­lish­ing. A cou­ple of our read­ers were quick to point out that the video’s cre­ative ele­ment was high­ly sim­i­lar to an award-win­ning video called “Lost Gen­er­a­tion”. (See above.) And yet there was no attri­bu­tion. A prob­lem? Par­tic­u­lar­ly for an enti­ty in the intel­lec­tu­al property/copyright busi­ness?

UPDATE: Tonight, anoth­er read­er tells us that “Lost Gen­er­a­tion” has its own ori­gins in a 2006 adver­tise­ment for Argen­tin­ian pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Ricar­do Lopez Mur­phy called “The Truth.” Does this make this style of video a meme of sorts? A style that’s so out there that attri­bu­tion is not worth a both­er? Per­haps I’m hold­ing Pen­guin’s feet too close to the fire on this one. Per­haps (as, Maria, a blog­ger col­league men­tions via email) this high­lights a big­ger prob­lem. Too much deriva­tion. Not enough orig­i­nal think­ing all around.

The Uniqueness of Humans

in Life, Science | March 16th, 2010

Robert Sapol­sky  — one of the world’s lead­ing neu­ro­bi­ol­o­gists, a MacArthur Fel­low, Stan­ford pro­fes­sor, and author of Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers — breaks down an intrigu­ing ques­tion. Pre­cise­ly in what ways are we (humans) dif­fer­ent from oth­er ani­mals inhab­it­ing our world? The dif­fer­ences are few­er than we think. But there are some, and they’ll make you some­times uncom­fort­able, some­times a lit­tle more con­fi­dent in human­i­ty, and some­times moti­vat­ed to change the world, even in these cyn­i­cal times. The inspi­ra­tion hap­pens dur­ing the last minute. So stay with this engag­ing talk until the very last.

via TED’s Best of the Web

The End of Publishing. Or Is It?

in Books | March 16th, 2010

Smart and hope­ful. But you need to stick with it for a cou­ple of min­utes. A job well done…

Einstein in 60 Seconds (or 40 Hours)

in Online Courses, Physics | March 15th, 2010

Big­Think asked Dr. Michio Kaku to sum up Ein­stein’s lega­cy in a nut­shell. Above, you get his attempt in a quick minute. Obvi­ous­ly, this is just begin­ning to scratch the sur­face, and know­ing you, you want to go deep­er. So here you go: Leonard Susskind, a world famous physi­cist, offered a series of six cours­es for Stan­ford Con­tin­u­ing Stud­ies, which traced the arc of mod­ern physics. It goes from New­ton to Black Holes. Nat­u­ral­ly a tour of mod­ern physics would­n’t be com­plete with­out spend­ing a good amount of time on Ein­stein, and that’s what Susskind does. One course (runs about 20 hours) is ded­i­cat­ed to Spe­cial Rel­a­tiv­i­ty (iTunes – YouTube) and the oth­er focus­es exclu­sive­ly on Ein­stein’s The­o­ry of Gen­er­al Rel­a­tiv­i­ty (iTunes — YouTube). This series of cours­es (all per­ma­nent­ly found in the Physics sec­tion of our Free Online Course col­lec­tion) has been enjoyed by view­ers across the world, and we (at Stan­ford) have recent­ly shipped CDs of the course to remote places with min­i­mal band­width, includ­ing Nepal and Afghanistan. For more on how to learn physics online (for free, of course), see our post: Mod­ern Physics: A Com­plete Intro­duc­tion.

Tony Judt, Leading Public Intellectual, Confronts ALS

in History, Life | March 15th, 2010

Dur­ing the past decade, Tony Judt emerged as one of Amer­i­ca’s lead­ing pub­lic intel­lec­tu­als. He’s com­bat­ive, often con­tro­ver­sial (espe­cial­ly when talk­ing about Israel), and some­times dis­liked. But he’s tak­en seri­ous­ly. And many have had noth­ing but sheer praise for his mas­ter work, Post­war: A His­to­ry of Europe Since 1945. The NYU his­to­ri­an had built up a career that many envied. But then things start­ed going wrong … phys­i­cal­ly, not intel­lec­tu­al­ly. In 2008, Judt was diag­nosed with ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s dis­ease. And he made his diag­no­sis wide­ly known ear­li­er this year, when he pub­lished an essay, “Night,” in The New York Review of Books. The arti­cle is short, but it brings you right inside his dai­ly expe­ri­ence. He writes:

Dur­ing the day I can at least request a scratch, an adjust­ment, a drink, or sim­ply a gra­tu­itous re-place­ment of my limbs—since enforced still­ness for hours on end is not only phys­i­cal­ly uncom­fort­able but psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly close to intol­er­a­ble. It is not as though you lose the desire to stretch, to bend, to stand or lie or run or even exer­cise. But when the urge comes over you there is nothing—nothing—that you can do except seek some tiny sub­sti­tute or else find a way to sup­press the thought and the accom­pa­ny­ing mus­cle mem­o­ry.

But then comes the night. … If I allow a stray limb to be mis-placed, or fail to insist on hav­ing my midriff care­ful­ly aligned with legs and head, I shall suf­fer the ago­nies of the damned lat­er in the night. I am then cov­ered, my hands placed out­side the blan­ket to afford me the illu­sion of mobil­i­ty but wrapped nonethe­less since—like the rest of me—they now suf­fer from a per­ma­nent sen­sa­tion of cold. I am offered a final scratch on any of a dozen itchy spots from hair­line to toe; the Bi-Pap breath­ing device in my nose is adjust­ed to a nec­es­sar­i­ly uncom­fort­able lev­el of tight­ness to ensure that it does not slip in the night; my glass­es are removed…and there I lie: trussed, myopic, and motion­less like a mod­ern-day mum­my, alone in my cor­po­re­al prison, accom­pa­nied for the rest of the night only by my thoughts.

This expe­ri­ence has­n’t slowed down Judt a bit. In fact, quite the oppo­site, Judt has been ramp­ing up his pub­li­ca­tions, prov­ing even more pro­lif­ic than before. (His lat­est book, Ill Fares the Land, will be pub­lished this week.) Judt’s bat­tle with ALS and his sense of intel­lec­tu­al urgency get dis­cussed in the lat­est edi­tion of New York Mag­a­zine. It’s a piece well worth read­ing. So also is the large pro­file that ran in The Chron­i­cle of High­er Edu­ca­tion in Jan­u­ary. Above we fea­ture an inter­view with Judt post­ed by The Guardian.

Julius Caesar Gets Clipped 2054 Years Ago Today

in History, Theatre | March 14th, 2010

March 15th. It trans­lates to the Ides of March on the Roman Cal­en­dar. And it’s the date when Julius Cae­sar was famous­ly assas­si­nat­ed in 44 B.C. To mark the occa­sion (today is the Ides of March), we bring you a dra­mat­ic, six-minute clip of the assas­si­na­tion scene from the film ver­sion of Shake­speare’s Julius Cae­sar, direct­ed by Joseph Mankiewicz in 1953. The scene fea­tures Louis Cal­h­ern as Cae­sar, John Giel­gud as Cas­sius and James Mason as Bru­tus.  The film also stars Mar­lon Bran­do as Mark Antony, but we only get a fleet­ing glimpse of him in this scene as the plot­ters con­trive to sep­a­rate him from Cae­sar.

Note: You can down­load a free audio ver­sion of Shake­speare’s play thanks to Lib­rivox, or get a free etext here. And if you have an iPhone, feel free to down­load a free app that includes all of Shake­speare plays.

Mike, one of our faith­ful read­ers, gets all of the cred for this one! Many thanks.

Culture Tweets of the Week — March 13

in Twitter | March 13th, 2010

Guar­an­teed to make you smarter, or your mon­ey back. You can fol­low us on Twit­ter here. (Or become a Face­book fan.) Here they go:

• RT @Boing­Bo­ing: Most beau­ti­ful book­store — Buenos Aires’s Libr­ería El Ate­neo Grand Splen­did https://bit.ly/c5iapa
• RT @Alyssa_Milano: Two new MIT class­es focus on help­ing #Haiti: https://is.gd/aa43H (via @brain­pick­er)
• RT @guardian­cul­ture: “Solar” by Ian McE­wan https://bit.ly/dpqBAq
• RT @kirstin­but­ler: View human his­to­ry’s great­est hits in 3‑D https://humanorigins.si.edu/ The Smith­so­ni­an’s Human Ori­gins Ini­tia­tive
• RT @courosa: McLuhan inter­view from 1967 — https://bit.ly/HvVuv — much of this wis­dom from 1967, while repeat­ed , has yet to catch on.
• French bread spiked with LSD in CIA exper­i­ment in 1951: https://bit.ly/cEDEV5
• RT @Guardian­Books: Google part­ners with Italy for ground­break­ing book scan­ning deal https://bit.ly/dxVwE7
• Look­ing for avant-garde film & video? Andy Warhol, Philip Glass, Allen Gins­berg, Jean Genet, etc. Vis­it @ubuweb https://bit.ly/amomfw
• RT @phi­los­o­phy­bites: Notes and links from the Tate Mod­ern Clas­sic Aes­thet­ics course (Pla­to, then Hume) on www.artandallusion.com
• RT @dylan­schenker: Watch The Acad­e­my Award Win­ning Ani­mat­ed Short ‘Logo­ra­ma’ Online https://bit.ly/9yUvQw
• RT @freemu­si­carchiv: https://freemusicarchive.org now hosts over 18,000 free & legal mp3s curat­ed by @wfmu @cbcradio3 @cre­ativecom­mons & more
• Chopin’s 1848 piano played for his 200th birth­day: https://bit.ly/9zyhZR Thanks Leisha
• His­to­ri­an Tony Judt’s strug­gle with ALS (and his recent intel­lec­tu­al life) chron­i­cled in New York Mag­a­zine. https://bit.ly/a8hT1W
• Why Ancient Wis­dom Mat­ters in the Mod­ern World: https://bit.ly/bgyZay Pre­sent­ed orig­i­nal­ly via @Long­now
• @ScottSigler “Who Needs You, Big Pub­lish­ing? How Authors Can Own All Rights and Make More Mon­ey” https://bit.ly/diR2xV (via @seth­har­wood
• RT @Elise­Black­well: Don DeLil­lo on Samuel Beck­ett: https://bit.ly/9GuwMg (via @Rhys­Tran­ter)
• RT @heoj: i love this arti­cle! Alge­bra in Won­der­land https://nyti.ms/aaPH9w
• Spo­ken Verse YouTube Chan­nel — https://bit.ly/aRTRkn — added to our Smart YouTube col­lec­tion: https://bit.ly/SouTb Thanks Ryan for the tip.

Avant-Garde Media: The UbuWeb Collection

in Art, Film | March 9th, 2010

Fans of avant-garde art, take note. UbuWeb hosts a vast archive of online avant-garde media, and they’ve been doing it since 1996.  The site fea­tures a large mp3 sound archive, along­side an exten­sive film/video col­lec­tion where you’ll find some vin­tage clips. Take these items for exam­ple:

• Four Amer­i­can Com­posers: Philip Glass — Peter Green­away’s doc­u­men­tary from 1983 takes you inside the work of John Cage, Philip Glass, Mered­ith Monk, & Robert Ash­ley. The clip here fea­tures the Glass seg­ment.
• Jorge Luis Borges: The Mir­ror Man — This 47 minute doc­u­men­tary focus­es on Argenti­na’s beloved author. As UBU writes, the doc­u­men­tary is a bit of every­thing — “part biog­ra­phy, part lit­er­ary crit­i­cism, part hero-wor­ship, part book read­ing, and part psy­chol­o­gy.”
• La vil­la San­to Sospir — Jean Cocteau, the French poet, nov­el­ist and drama­tist, also shot a movie or two. Here’s his 35-minute col­or film from 1952…
• Scenes from Allen’s Last Three Days on Earth as a Spir­it — A video diary of beat writer Allen Gins­berg’s final days before death, and the days fol­low­ing.
• The Vio­lence of the Image — Jean Bau­drillard lec­tures at the Euro­pean Grad­u­ate School.
• Un Chant d’Amour — French writer Jean Genet’s only film from 1950. Because of its explic­it (though artis­ti­cal­ly pre­sent­ed) homo­sex­u­al con­tent, the 26-minute movie was banned and dis­owned by Genet lat­er in his life, says UBU.
• Warhol’s Cin­e­ma — A Mir­ror for the Six­ties — A 64-minute doc­u­men­tary on Andy Warhol’s cin­e­ma of the six­ties, made in asso­ci­a­tion with The Fac­to­ry, MOMA and the Whit­ney Muse­um of Art.

This is just a quick sam­ple of what UBU has to offer. You can dig deep­er into their avant-garde media col­lec­tion here. As you’ll see, the video qual­i­ty can be a lit­tle uneven. But if you can’t get to a real arts cin­e­ma, then this is not a bad fall­back resource.

Making the Case Against Laptops … With Liquid Nitrogen

in Education, Web/Tech | March 9th, 2010

Pro­fes­sors are increas­ing­ly sour­ing on stu­dents bring­ing their lap­tops to class. Some are ban­ning them. (The Wash­ing­ton Post has more on that.) And some are ban­ning them emphat­i­cal­ly. Like the physics pro­fes­sor from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Okla­homa. (Watch the video above.) What’s the solu­tion? Maybe this stu­dent has the right idea (said in jest).