Salvador Dalí’s Melting Clocks Painted on a Latte

in Art, Food & Drink | February 16th, 2014

In 1931, Sal­vador Dalí paint­ed The Per­sis­tence of Mem­o­ry, a land­mark piece of sur­re­al­ist art that used melt­ing pock­et watch­es to sym­bol­ize the rel­a­tiv­i­ty of space and time in dream­scapes. (More on that below.)

If you haven’t seen the paint­ing at the MoMA in NYC, you’ve almost cer­tain­ly seen those melt­ing watch­es on posters and all sorts of kitschy prod­ucts. Those poor watch­es have been abused over the years. But some­how I don’t mind see­ing them on my favorite ephemer­al can­vas — the frothy milk sur­face of a lat­te. The lat­te above was dec­o­rat­ed by Kazu­ki Yamamo­to, a Japan­ese artist who uses noth­ing but a tooth­pick for a paint brush. You can find an online gallery of his work here, which includes some 3D cre­ations. Or fol­low pic­tures of his lat­est works on Twit­ter.

The 6‑minute intro­duc­tion to Dalí’s 1931 paint­ing (below) comes cour­tesy of Smart His­to­ry.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hon­oré de Balzac Writes About “The Plea­sures and Pains of Cof­fee,” and His Epic Cof­fee Addic­tion

Sal­vador Dalí’s 100 Illus­tra­tions of Dante’s The Divine Com­e­dy

Des­ti­no: The Sal­vador Dalí – Dis­ney Col­lab­o­ra­tion 57 Years in the Mak­ing

The (Beau­ti­ful) Physics of Adding Cream to Your Cof­fee

101 Free Silent Films: The Great Classics

in | February 14th, 2014

Watch over 100 free silent films. Includ­ing some of the most impor­tant films ever made. Watch films by Luis Buñuel and Sal­vador Dali, Char­lie Chap­lin, Dzi­ga Ver­tov, D.W. Grif­fith, Alfred Hitch­cock, Sergei Eisen­stein, Fritz Lang, F.W. Mur­nau and many more. For more great films, please vis­it our com­plete col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online.

• Abra­ham Lin­coln — Free - D.W. Griffith’s biog­ra­phy of the beloved Unit­ed States pres­i­dent.
• A Bur­lesque On Car­men – Free – Orig­i­nal two-reel par­o­dy of Bizet’s Car­men by Char­lie Chap­lin. Also stars Leo White & Edna Pur­viance. (1915)
• A Christ­mas Car­ol - Free — Marc McDer­mott stars as Ebenez­er Scrooge in this 1910 ver­sion of Dick­ens’ clas­sic ghost sto­ry.
• A Dog’s Life — Free – This endear­ing short film tells the sto­ry of under­dogs, hunan and canine, suc­ceed­ing despite the odds. (1918)
• A Fair Exchange — Free — Orig­i­nal­ly released as Get­ting Acquaint­ed, the film’s plot has been sum­ma­rized as fol­lows: “Char­lie and his wife are walk­ing in the park when they encounter Ambrose and his wife. The part­ners become fond of their coun­ter­parts and begin chas­ing each oth­er around. A police­man look­ing for a pro­fes­sion­al Don Juan becomes involved, as does a Turk.” (1914)
• A Man with a Cam­era – Free – Dzi­ga Vertov’s exper­i­men­tal film about life as it is lived. A Sight and Sound mag­a­zine poll named it the 8th best movie ever made. (1929)
• Aeli­ta — Free — A silent film direct­ed by Sovi­et film­mak­er Yakov Pro­tazanov. One of the ear­li­est full-length films about space trav­el, the most notable part of the film remains its remark­able con­struc­tivist Mar­t­ian sets and cos­tumes designed by Alek­san­dra Ekster. (1924)
• After the Ball – Free — One of the first “adult” films in cin­e­ma his­to­ry. By the pio­neer­ing direc­tor Georges Méliès.
• Alice in Won­der­land - Free – The first-ever film ver­sion of Lewis Carroll’s tale. Based on Sir John Tenniel’s orig­i­nal illus­tra­tions. (1903)
• Anémic Ciné­ma - Free – Mar­cel Duchamp’s avant-garde film com­bines whirling opti­cal illu­sions, known as Rotore­liefs, with spi­ral­ing puns and com­plex word play. (1926)
• Bat­tle­ship Potemkin – Free – Direct­ed by the great Russ­ian direc­tor, Sergei Eisen­stein. One of the most influ­en­tial pro­pa­gan­da films of all time. Alter­na­tive ver­sion here. (1925)
• Behind the Screen – Free – A short film writ­ten and direct­ed by Char­lie Chap­lin, the film is long on slap­stick, but it also gets into themes deal­ing with gen­der bend­ing and homo­sex­u­al­i­ty. (1916)
• Between Show­ers - Free — A short Key­stone film from 1914 star­ring Char­lie Chap­lin, Ford Ster­ling, and Emma Bell Clifton.
• Bro­ken Blos­soms – Free – Silent film direct­ed by D.W. Grif­fith and star­ring Lil­lian Gish. (1919)
• Cham­pagne - Free — A silent com­e­dy film based on an orig­i­nal sto­ry by Eng­lish writer and crit­ic Wal­ter C. Mycroft. (1928)
• Char­lie Shang­haied – Free — Char­lie Chap­lin and his Tramp char­ac­ter gets shang­haied by crooks. (1915)
• Charlie’s Recre­ation — Free — Out of cos­tume, Char­lie is a clean-shaven dandy who, some­what drunk, vis­its a dance hall. There the wardrobe girl has three rival admir­ers: the band leader, one of the musi­cians, and now Char­lie. (1914)
• Cin­derel­la – Free – This film by George Méliès is the old­est known film adap­ta­tion of the 1697 fairy tale. It was also appar­ent­ly the first movie to use a “dis­solve tran­si­tion” between scenes. (1899)

• Der Golum – Free – Paul Wegener’s Ger­man expres­sion­ist clas­sic, says Roger Ebert, “is a vivid piece of dark­ly toned fan­ta­sy that exert­ed a pow­er­ful influ­ence over both Euro­pean cin­e­ma and Hol­ly­wood.” (1920)
• Die Nibelun­gen – Free – A series of two silent fan­ta­sy films cre­at­ed by Fritz Lang in 1924. Runs 5 hours.
• Don Quixote — Free — Clas­sic adap­ta­tion of the Miguel de Cer­vantes’ nov­el (find in our col­lec­tion of Free eBooks), direct­ed by Georg Wil­helm Pab­st, and star­ring the famous oper­at­ic bass Feodor Chali­apin. (1933)
• Down­hill – Free – In this silent Hitch­cock film, a pub­lic school­boy takes the blame for a friend’s theft and his life falls apart in a series of mis­ad­ven­tures. Also released under the title, When Boys Leave Home. (1927)
• Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde - Free – Hor­ror film based on Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel­la Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. (1912)
• Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde — Free – John Bar­ry­more stars in the renowned silent adap­ta­tion of the Robert Louis Steven­son clas­sic. (1920)
• Easy Street - Free – Char­lie Chap­lin steps for­ward and keeps the peace. (1917)
• Easy Virtue - Free – Ear­ly silent film direct­ed by Alfred Hitch­cock. Loose­ly based on a play by Noël Cow­ard. (1928)
• Emak-Bakia – Free – Fea­tures film­ing tech­niques used by Man Ray, includ­ing rayo­graphs, dou­ble expo­sures, soft focus and ambigu­ous fea­tures. (1926)
• Entr’Acte - Free — René Clair’s Dadaist mas­ter­piece. Great ear­ly avant-garde film. Fea­tures scenes with Mar­cel Duchamp and Man Ray. (1924)
• Faust — Free - Ger­man expres­sion­ist film­mak­er F.W. Mur­nau directs film ver­sion of Goethe’s clas­sic tale. This was Murnau’s last Ger­man movie. (1926)
• Franken­stein — Free - The first time Mary Shelley’s lit­er­ary was brought to the big screen. (1910)
• Ghosts Before Break­fast (Vor­mit­tagsspuk) - Free – Silent avant-garde film by Hans Richter. The nazis destroyed the sound ver­sion of the film, deem­ing it “degen­er­ate art.” (1928)
• Greed – Free — Erich von Stroheim’s silent dra­ma orig­i­nal­ly ran 10 hours, but was even­tu­al­ly hacked down to two. It fol­lows a den­tist whose wife wins a lot­tery tick­et, only to become obsessed with mon­ey. (1924)
• Harakiri — Free — Ear­ly silent film by Fritz Lang. (1919)
• Häx­an — Free — Swedish/Danish silent hor­ror film writ­ten and direct­ed by Ben­jamin Chris­tensen. (1922)
• Hell W10 – Free – The Clash stars in 1980s gang­ster par­o­dy. Writ­ten and direct­ed by Joe Strum­mer. (1983)
• Intol­er­ance — Free — D.W. Griffith’s most ambi­tious silent film is one of the land­marks in cin­e­mat­ic his­to­ry. (1916)
• La Souri­ante Madame Beudet – Free – Ear­ly fem­i­nist film by Ger­maine Dulac. Fea­tures a woman trapped in a love­less mar­riage. (1922)
• Joy­less Street – Free – Gre­ta Gar­bo stars in her sec­ond major role. One of the first films of the “New Objec­tiv­i­ty” move­ment. (1925)
• Kid Auto Races at Venice – Free – It’s the first film in which Char­lie Chaplin’s icon­ic “Lit­tle Tramp” char­ac­ter makes his appear­ance. (1914)
• L’Arrivée D’un Train En Gare De La Cio­tat - Free – One of the most famous ear­ly silent films shot by Auguste and Louis Lumière. (1895)
• La Pas­sion de Jeanne d’Arc – Free – Direct­ed by Carl Theodor Drey­er and star­ring Renée Jeanne Fal­conet­ti, this film is con­sid­ered a mas­ter­piece from the silent era. (1928)
• Laugh­ing Gas - Free — Film star­ring Chap­lin is some­times known as ”Busy Lit­tle Den­tist”, “Down and Out”, “Laffing Gas”, “The Den­tist”, and “Tun­ing His Ivories”.
• Le Bal­let Mécanique - Free — His­toric cin­e­mat­ic col­lab­o­ra­tion between Fer­nand Legér and George Antheil. (1924)
• Le Retour à la Rai­son – Free – A film from the avant-garde Ciné­ma Pur move­ment shot by Man Ray in 1923.
• Mabel’s Strange Predica­ment — Free — Watch lots of lots of high jinks go down in a hotel. (1914)
• Mak­ing a Liv­ing - Free – Pre­mier­ing on Feb­ru­ary 2, 1914, Mak­ing a Liv­ing marks the first film appear­ance by Char­lie Chap­lin.
• Menil­montant – Free – When Pauline Kael, long­time New York­er film crit­ic, was asked to name her favorite film, this was it. French silent film. (1925)
• Metrop­o­lis – Free – Fritz Lang’s fable of good and evil fight­ing it out in a futur­is­tic urban dystopia. An impor­tant clas­sic. (1927)
• Nos­fer­atu – Free – Ger­man Expres­sion­ist hor­ror film direct­ed by F. W. Mur­nau. An unau­tho­rized adap­ta­tion of Bram Stoker’s Drac­u­la. (1922)
• Octo­ber: Ten Days That Shook the World — Free – Orig­i­nal­ly called Oktyabr, Sergei Eisenstein’s film doc­u­ments the Russ­ian Rev­o­lu­tion of 1917. A mas­ter­piece by a pio­neer­ing film­mak­er. (1928)
• Old and New - Free – Also called The Gen­er­al Line, Sergei Eisenstein’s film has been called a “bucol­ic epic about the Sovi­et strug­gle to col­lec­tivize agri­cul­tur­al pro­duc­tion.” Find alter­nate ver­sion at the Inter­net Archive here. (1929)
• One A.M. — Free — The first silent film Char­lie Chap­lin starred in alone. (1916)
• Pandora’s Box – Free – G.W. Pabst’s trag­ic melo­dra­ma about the fate of a care­free seduc­tress, mem­o­rably played by Louise Brooks. (1929)
• Romance Sen­ti­men­tale – Free – Direct­ed by Sergei Eisen­stein. (1930) Alter­nate ver­sion here.
• Sher­lock Jr. – Free – A com­ic mas­ter­piece from the silent era. Stars Buster Keaton (1924)
• Sher­lock Holmes and the Secret Weapon – Free – Sher­lock Holmes res­cues an inven­tor of an new bomb site before the Nazis can get him. (1943)
• Sun­rise: A Song of Two Humans — Free — Made by the Ger­man expres­sion­ist direc­tor F.W. Mur­nau. Vot­ed in 2012, the 5th great­est film of all time. (1927)
• The Adven­tur­er — Free – Char­lie Chap­lin plays an escaped con­vict who falls into favor with a wealthy fam­i­ly after he saves a young lady. (1917)
• The Birth of a Nation — Free — Direct­ed by DW Grif­fith. A land­mark work in film his­to­ry (1915) with racist under­tones. (1915)
• The Bond — Free — A pro­pa­gan­da film cre­at­ed and fund­ed by Char­lie Chap­lin for the­atri­cal release to help sell U.S. Lib­er­ty Bonds dur­ing World War I. (1918)
• The Cab­i­net of Dr. Cali­gari – Free – This silent film direct­ed by Robert Wiene is con­sid­ered one of the most influ­en­tial Ger­man Expres­sion­ist films and per­haps one of the great­est hor­ror movies of all time. Watch the restored ver­sion. (1920)
• The Count — Free — The Count was Char­lie Chaplin’s 5th film for Mutu­al Films. Co-star­ring Eric Camp­bell and Edna Pur­viance, it is a sto­ry about Char­lie and his boss find­ing an invi­ta­tion to a par­ty from a real Count. (1916)
• The Cure – Free — Chap­lin plays a drunk who checks into a health spa to dry out and com­e­dy ensues. (1917)
• The Dev­il­ish Ten­ant – Free —  In this Georges Méliès, a new ten­ant moves in and fills the room with fur­ni­ture tak­en from his suit­case. (1909)
• The Drey­fus Affair — Free — Georges Méliès’ cre­at­ed a short docu­d­ra­ma on The Drey­fus Affair, as it unfold­ed in France. The film was banned and not seen until the 1970s. (1899)
• The Fire­man — Free — Char­lie Chaplin’s sec­ond short for Mutu­al con­tin­ued his focus on gags and situations—as the title sug­gests, Chap­lin plays the role of an inept fire­fight­er. (1916)
• The Floor­walk­er — Free – Filmed for the Mutu­al Film Cor­po­ra­tion, the film fea­tured the first “run­ning stair­case” in cin­e­ma his­to­ry. (1916)
• The Four Horse­men of the Apoc­a­lypse – Free – Huge­ly pop­u­lar silent film that made Rudolph Valenti­no a star. (1921)
• The Gen­er­al – Free — Orson Welles said that Buster Keaton’s The Gen­er­al is “the great­est com­e­dy ever made, the great­est Civ­il War film ever made, and per­haps the great­est film ever made. Alter­nate ver­sion here (1926)
• The God­dess — Free — A clas­sic from the Gold­en Age of Chi­nese Cin­e­ma, star­ring the silent film icon Ruan Lingyu. (1934)
• The Gold Rush – Free – Char­lie Chap­lin wrote, pro­duced, direct­ed and starred in The Gold Rush. Chap­lin repeat­ed­ly said that this is the film he most want­ed to be remem­bered for. (1925)
• The Golem: How He Came Into the World – Free – A fol­low-up to Paul Wegener’s ear­li­er film, “The Golem,” about a mon­strous crea­ture brought to life by a learned rab­bi to pro­tect the Jews from per­se­cu­tion in medieval Prague. Based on the clas­sic folk tale, and co-direct­ed by Carl Boese. (1920)
• The Golem: How He Came Into the World — Free – The same film as the one list­ed imme­di­ate­ly above, but this one has a score cre­at­ed by Pix­ies front­man Black Fran­cis. (2008)
• The Good for Noth­ing — Free — Made at the Key­stone Stu­dios, the film involves Chap­lin tak­ing care of a man in a wheel­chair. (1914)
• The Great Train Rob­bery — Free — Ear­ly west­ern film by Edwin S. Porter. A land­mark in nar­ra­tive film­mak­ing. (1903)
• The Hearts of Age — Free — The first film/short film shot by Orson Welles. It’s a play on Jean Cocteau’s movie, The Blood of a Poet. (1934)
• The Hunch­back of Notre Dame – Free – With Lon Chaney. (1923)
• The Immi­grant – Free – Char­lie Chap­lin plays an immi­grant com­ing to the Unit­ed States who gets accused of theft along the way. (1917)
• The Impos­si­ble Voy­age – Free ‑Direct­ed by Georges Méliès, this 1904 film, based on a Jules Verne’s play, is a satire of sci­en­tif­ic explo­ration in which a group of geo­g­ra­phers attempt a jour­ney into the inte­ri­or of the sun. (1904)
• The Kid – Free – This was Char­lie Chaplin’s first full-length film as a direc­tor, and it is still con­sid­ered one of his best. (1921)
• The Lady and the Hooli­gan — Free — Russ­ian silent film direct­ed by Vladimir Mayakovsky and Yev­geni Slavin­sky. (1918)
• The Last Laugh - Free – F.W. Murnau’s clas­sic cham­ber dra­ma about a hotel door­man who falls on hard times. A mas­ter­piece of the silent era, the sto­ry is told almost entire­ly in pic­tures. (1924)
• The Lit­tle Match Girl - Free —  a 40-minute silent film by Jean Renoir based on a sto­ry by Hans Chris­t­ian Ander­sen. (1928)
• The Lodger: A Sto­ry of the Lon­don Fog — Free — One of Hitchcock’s silent clas­sics. A land­la­dy sus­pects her lodger is a mur­der­er killing women around Lon­don. (1927)
• The Lost World — Free — The “grandad­dy of mon­ster movies,” the film adap­ta­tion of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s clas­sic nov­el about a land where pre­his­toric crea­tures still roam. (1925)
• The Manx­man – Free – This was Hitchcock’s last silent film. (1929)
• The Pawn­shop – Free – Rich in slap­stick, The Pawn­shop was one of Chaplin’s more pop­u­lar movies for Mutu­al Film, the pro­duc­er of some of the great­est Chap­lin come­dies. (1916)
• The Phan­tom Car­riage – Free – One of the cen­tral works in the his­to­ry of Swedish cin­e­ma. Notable for its influ­ence on Ing­mar Bergman. Direct­ed by Vic­tor Sjöström, (1921)
• The Phan­tom of the Opera – Free – A clas­sic silent film fea­tur­ing Lon Chaney as the Phan­tom. (1925)
• The Plea­sure Gar­den — Free — After sev­er­al col­lab­o­ra­tive efforts, Hitch­cock made his solo direc­to­r­i­al debut in the Ger­man-British co-pro­duc­tion based on a nov­el by Oliv­er Sandys.
• The Ring – Free – This silent film focus­es on a love tri­an­gle between two men and a woman. One of Hitchcock’s minor works. (1927)
• The Rink – Free – The Rink, Chaplin’s 8th film for Mutu­al Films, show­cas­es the actor’s roller skat­ing skills. (1916)
• The Sealed Room – Free – Direct­ed by DW Grif­fith, the film is based on based upon Edgar Allan Poe’s “A Cask of Amon­til­la­do”, with appear­ances by Mary Pick­ford and Mack Sen­nett.
• The Seashell and the Cler­gy­man – Free – The first sur­re­al­ist film ever. Direct­ed by Ger­maine Dulac. (1928)
• The Sheik – Free – Silent film with Rudolph Valenti­no. (1921)
• The Toll of the Sea – Free — The first gen­er­al release film in tech­ni­col­or. 1922.
• The Tramp - Free — The film made Chaplin’s great Tramp char­ac­ter famous. (1915)
• The Vagabond – Free – A silent film by Char­lie Chap­lin that co-starred Edna Pur­viance, Eric Camp­bell, Leo White and Lloyd Bacon. Chap­lin appears as The Tramp. (1916)
• The Wiz­ard of Oz – Free – The ear­li­est sur­viv­ing film ver­sion of L. Frank Baum’s 1900 nov­el. (1910)
• The Wiz­ard of Oz – Free – The first major film adap­ta­tion of the clas­sic nov­el. Fea­tures Oliv­er Hardy as the Tin Woods­men. (1925)
• Tillie’s Punc­tured Romance – Free – Among oth­er things, the film is notable for being the last Chap­lin film didn’t write or direct by him­self. (1914)
• Trip to the Moon / Le Voy­age dans la lune – Free – French black & white silent sci-fi film loose­ly based on two nov­els: From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne and The First Men in the Moon by H. G. Wells. (1902)
• Un Chien Andalou – Free – Sal­vador Dali and Luis Buñuel’s short, silent sur­re­al­ist film. (1929)

For a full line­up of great movies, please vis­it our com­plete col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online.

Boston’s Great Molasses Flood of 1919: How One of America’s Strangest Tragedies Happened

in History | February 14th, 2014

It fits per­fect­ly into ear­ly 20th-cen­tu­ry Amer­i­can lore, this all-too-real dis­as­ter: on Jan­u­ary 15, 1919, a fif­teen-foot wall of molasses rushed through Boston’s North End, killing 21, injur­ing 150, doing $100 mil­lion in today’s dol­lars worth of dam­age, and requir­ing 80,000 man-hours to clean up. Those fig­ures come from a post on the sub­ject at Men­tal Floss, which inves­ti­gates what loosed the Great Molasses Flood in the first place. The Unit­ed States Indus­tri­al Alco­hol Com­pa­ny, own­ers of the brown, sticky sub­stance in ques­tion and the explod­ing tank that con­tained it, pinned it on bomb-chuck­ers, claim­ing that, “since its alco­hol was an ingre­di­ent in gov­ern­ment muni­tions, anar­chists must have sab­o­taged the tank.” Inves­ti­ga­tions lat­er revealed the cause as none oth­er than seat-of-the-pants cap­i­tal­is­tic hubris, anoth­er stand­by of ear­ly 20th-cen­tu­ry Amer­i­ca.

The tank’s “absurd­ly shod­dy con­struc­tion work,” led by a man who “could­n’t even read a blue­print,” came down to this: they “threw up a gigan­tic tank as quick­ly and cheap­ly as pos­si­ble, skimped on inspec­tions and safe­ty tests, and hoped for the best.” You can learn more about what hap­pened in the video above, a drama­ti­za­tion of the events lead­ing up to the Great Molasses Flood from the pilot episode of The Folk­lorist. 

The con­tem­po­rary images above and below come from the Boston Pub­lic Library’s Flickr set. For the most defin­i­tive study of this gooey calami­ty, you’ll want to seek out Dark Tide: The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919 by Stephen Puleo, who speaks in some detail about the event and its after­math in this Real His­to­ry video. All these well-doc­u­ment­ed facts aside, leg­end has it that, on a par­tic­u­lar­ly hot day on Com­mer­cial Street, you can still smell the stuff.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Voltaire & the Lis­bon Earth­quake of 1755

The Titan­ic: Rare Footage Before Dis­as­ter Strikes

How the Titan­ic Sank: James Cameron’s New CGI Ani­ma­tion

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on cities, Asia, film, lit­er­a­ture, and aes­thet­ics. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on his brand new Face­book page.

What Did Charles Darwin Read? See His Handwritten Reading List & Read Books from His Library Online

in Biology, History, Science | February 12th, 2014

Click to enlarge

Today marks the 215th anniver­sary of pio­neer­ing Eng­lish nat­u­ral­ist Charles Dar­win’s birth — a suit­able occa­sion, per­haps, to final­ly take that copy of On the Ori­gin of Species down off your shelf (or from our col­lec­tion of Free eBooks). Though Dar­win’s best-known pub­li­ca­tion lays out his obser­va­tions on evo­lu­tion by nat­ur­al selec­tion, cul­mi­nat­ing in the the­o­ry often and unhesi­tat­ing­ly called the most impor­tant in biol­o­gy, the book remains more respect­ed than read. Still, any sci­en­tist’s lega­cy, even that of one with a name so wide­ly known as Dar­win’s, comes down to what they under­stood, and thus what they allowed the rest of human­i­ty to under­stand, not what they wrote. But you still have to won­der: what did Dar­win read?

We have two answers to that ques­tion, the first of which comes in the form of Dar­win’s 1838 “to read” list above, which runs as fol­lows:

Humboldt’s New Spain — — —
Richardson’s Fau­na Bore­alis
Ento­mo­log­i­cal Mag­a­zine — — —
Study Buf­fon on vari­eties of Domes­ti­cat­ed ani­mals — — — —
Find out from Sta­tis­ti­cal Soc. where M. Quetelet has pub­lished his laws about sex­es rel­a­tive to the age of mar­riage
Brown at end of Flinders & at the end of Con­go voy­age (Hook­er 923) read
Decan­dolle Philoso­phie
Decan­dolle on Geo­graph dis­trib: —
F. Cuvi­er on Instinct read
L. Jenyns paper in Annals of Nat. Hist.
Prichard; a 3d vol  Lawrence read
Bory St Vin­cent Vol 3. p 164 on unfixed form: Dr Royle on Him­malaya types (read)
Smellie Phi­los­o­phy of Zool­o­gy.
Flem­ing Dit­to
Fal­con­ers remark on the influ­ence of cli­mate

You can find more on the list’s con­text at End­pa­per, whose post describes it as found in Dar­win’s “series of note­books for the­o­ret­i­cal work now known as Note­books A, B, C, D, etc.,” specif­i­cal­ly Note­book C. (The famous Tree of Life sketch, they add, came from Note­book B.) For our sec­ond answer to the ques­tion of which books equipped the cel­e­brat­ed biol­o­gist’s mind, we offer the books that fur­nished his home: back in 2011, we fea­tured Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty’s Bio­di­ver­si­ty Her­itage Library and its project to dig­i­tize and make freely avail­able 330 texts from Dar­win’s library. All come anno­tat­ed by the man him­self, so you can learn not just from what he read, but about how he read. The next, much more dif­fi­cult step, then presents itself: to think how he thought.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch Dar­win, a 1993 Film by Peter Green­away

Read the Orig­i­nal Let­ters Where Charles Dar­win Worked Out His The­o­ry of Evo­lu­tion

The Genius of Charles Dar­win Revealed in Three-Part Series by Richard Dawkins

Darwin’s Per­son­al Library Goes Dig­i­tal: 330 Books Online

Darwin’s Lega­cy, a Stan­ford course in our col­lec­tion of 750 Free Online Cours­es

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on cities, Asia, film, lit­er­a­ture, and aes­thet­ics. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on his brand new Face­book page.

David Foster Wallace’s Sharp Letter to His Editor: “Don’t F with the Mechanics of My Piece”

in Letters, Literature | February 11th, 2014

Click for expand­ed ver­sion

We might imag­ine that David Fos­ter Wal­lace worked out his neu­roses pri­mar­i­ly in his volu­mi­nous fic­tion­al and crit­i­cal out­put, but as we see from a fax above to Harper’s edi­tor Joel Lovell, the painful self-con­scious­ness that drove his writ­ing man­i­fest­ed in even the most mun­dane of doc­u­ments. Wal­lace sub­mit­ted the faxed let­ter with a short essay on Kaf­ka that appeared in Harper’s in 1998. The essay itself—an account of the dif­fi­cul­ties of teach­ing the arch Czech author to Amer­i­can undergraduates—slices through com­mon­places, arriv­ing at the con­clu­sion that “the hor­rif­ic strug­gle to estab­lish a human self results in a self whose human­i­ty is insep­a­ra­ble from that hor­rif­ic strug­gle. That our end­less and impos­si­ble jour­ney toward home is in fact our home.” Reas­sur­ing stuff this ain’t, but then, nei­ther is Kaf­ka. Even amidst all of its elab­o­rate defen­sive strate­gies, Wallace’s writ­ing also expos­es the unheim­lichkeit of human embod­i­ment, and in the Kaf­ka essay, it’s a point he want­ed to make in a very par­tic­u­lar way, unmedi­at­ed by any edi­to­r­i­al inter­ven­tion.

His faxed let­ter to Lovell antic­i­pates and resists crit­i­cism and alter­nates between dis­mis­sive, self-effac­ing, and mock-threat­en­ing in his expressed desire that the Harper’s staff “not copy­ed­it this like a fresh­man essay.” He explains the con­ver­sa­tion­al style of the piece as an effort to “pro­tect me from people’s ire.” The body of the let­ter fin­ish­es with Wallace’s foot­not­ed promise to “find a way to harm you or cause you suf­fer­ing* if you fuck with the mechan­ics of this piece.” It’s clas­sic DFW: com­plete­ly idio­syn­crat­ic, a prose style induced by his “hor­rif­ic strug­gle” to estab­lish an authen­tic self. Read a tran­script below, cour­tesy of Let­ters of Note. All, of course, sic.

ATTEMPTED FAX COVER SHEET

From: David Wal­lace

To: Joel Lovell, Harper’s [redact­ed] (Office [redact­ed])

This is pret­ty much the best I can do, I think. I feel shit­ty stick­ing a lot of what you want­ed in FN’s, but I didn’t see any work to work it into the main text w/o hav­ing to rewrite whole ¶s and throw the thing’s Sty­ro­foamish weight off.

The deal is this. You’re wel­come to this for READINGS if you wish. What I’d ask is that you (or Ms. Rosen­bush, whom I respect but fear) not copy­ed­it this like a fresh­man essay. Idio­syn­cra­cies of ital, punc­tu­a­tion, and syn­tax (“stuff,” “light­bulb” as one word, “i.e.”/“e.g.” with­out com­mas after, the colon 4 words after ellipses at the end, etc.) need to be stet­ted. (A big rea­son for this is that I want to pre­serve an oral­ish, out-loud feel to the remarks so as to pro­tect me from people’s ire at stuff that isn’t expand­ed on more; for you, the big rea­son is that I’m not espe­cial­ly psy­ched to have this run at all, much less to take a blue-skyed 75-degree after­noon futz­ing with it to bring it into line with your specs, and you should feel oblig­ed and bor­der­line guilty, and I will find a way to harm you or cause you suf­fer­ing* if you fuck with the mechan­ics of this piece.

Let Me Know,

Dave Wal­lace

* (It may take years for the opor­tu­ni­ty to arise. I’m very patient. Think of me as a spi­der with a phe­nom­e­nal emo­tion­al mem­o­ry. Ask Charis.)

via F yeah, man­u­scripts!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

30 Free Essays & Sto­ries by David Fos­ter Wal­lace on the Web

David Fos­ter Wallace’s 1994 Syl­labus: How to Teach Seri­ous Lit­er­a­ture with Light­weight Books

David Fos­ter Wal­lace Cre­ates Lists of His Favorite Words: “Mau­gre,” “Taran­tism,” “Ruck,” “Prima­para” & More

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

An Artistic Portrait of Stephen Fry Made From His Own Bacteria

in Art, Biology | February 10th, 2014

Stephen Fry is tak­ing part in a curi­ous sci­ence exper­i­ment. It involves cre­at­ing a por­trait of the writer/comedian/science enthu­si­ast, using noth­ing but his own bac­te­ria and cells. Accord­ing to the web site of The Big Bang UK Young Sci­en­tists & Engi­neers Fair, the “bac­te­ri­ographs” — as the por­traits are called — are “made from the sub­jects’ own cells – and have been grown by Zachary Copfer, an Amer­i­can micro­bi­ol­o­gist and pho­tog­ra­ph­er.” “To make the Pop Art style images, Zachary clev­er­ly expos­es areas of a petri dish to radi­a­tion in order to stim­u­late the bacteria’s growth. This cre­ates a pho­to­graph grown entire­ly from the bac­te­ria itself.” Find more of Copfer­’s work below, and oth­er sci­en­tif­ic work fea­tur­ing Stephen Fry fur­ther down the page.

Relat­ed Con­tent

Stephen Fry Hosts “The Sci­ence of Opera,” a Dis­cus­sion of How Music Moves Us Phys­i­cal­ly to Tears

Stephen Fry Explains Cloud Com­put­ing in a Short Ani­mat­ed Video

Stephen Fry Intro­duces the Strange New World of Nanoscience

Free Online Biol­o­gy Cours­es

Jimi Hendrix’s Final Interview Animated (1970)

in Music | February 8th, 2014

We’ve pre­vi­ous­ly fea­tured Jimi Hendrix’s final inter­view, pre­served as an audio record­ing by NME’s Kei­th Altham, who sat down to talk with him on Sep­tem­ber 11, 1970, one week before Hendrix’s death. Now, we bring you mul­ti­me­dia org Blank on Blank’s ani­ma­tion of that interview—breezy, sur­re­al, fun­ny, and pro­found. As I wrote in our pre­vi­ous post, Hendrix’s “off­hand lyri­cism and frac­tal imag­i­na­tion” are on full dis­play here. It’s rare that a musi­cian is as inter­est­ing to hear speak­ing as play­ing, but Hen­drix was one of them. Take, for exam­ple, Hendrix’s response when Altham sug­gests that he invent­ed psy­che­del­ic music:

Jimi Hen­drix: [chuck­les] A mad sci­en­tist approach. The way I write things, I just write them with a clash between real­i­ty and fan­ta­sy most­ly. You have to use fan­ta­sy to show dif­fer­ent sides of real­i­ty; it’s how it can bend. As a word real­i­ty is noth­ing, but each individual’s own way of think­ing. Then the estab­lish­ment grabs a big piece of that.

Then there’s Hen­drix on destroy­ing gui­tars onstage:

Jimi Hen­drix: One time I said: maybe I should burn a gui­tar tonight. You know [laughs] smash a gui­tar or some­thing like that. And they said: yeah, yeah! I said: you real­ly think I should? They said: yeah, that’d be cool. I said: well, ok. So like I just worked up enough anger where I could do it, you know. But like I didn’t know it was anger until they told me that it was, like with destruc­tion and all that. But I believe every­body should have like a room where they can get rid of all their releas­es, where they can do their releas­es at. So my room is a stage. [laughs]

There are many more of these gems in the full inter­view that didn’t make the cut above, but the abridged Blank on Blank ver­sion appro­pri­ate­ly cap­tures the whim­sy and good humor of the late lament­ed genius.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

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

Watch Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Voodoo Chile’ Per­formed on a Gayageum, a Tra­di­tion­al Kore­an Instru­ment

Pre­vi­ous­ly Unre­leased Jimi Hen­drix Record­ing, “Some­where,” with Bud­dy Miles and Stephen Stills

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

Two Animations of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave: One Narrated by Orson Welles, Another Made with Clay

in Philosophy | February 7th, 2014

The ever-flick­er­ing lights, the ever-present screen, the stu­pe­fied spec­ta­tors immune to a larg­er real­i­ty and in need of sud­den enlightenment—Plato’s alle­go­ry of the cave from Book VII of The Repub­lic is a mar­ket­ing department’s dream: it sums up an entire brand in a stock-sim­ple para­ble that almost any­one can fol­low, one that lends itself to com­pelling­ly brief visu­al inter­pre­ta­tions like those above and below. In the top video, Orson Welles nar­rates while the cam­era pans over some col­or­ful­ly styl­ized illus­tra­tions of the fable by artist Dick Oden. This pre­serves the didac­tic tone of the text, but it is a lit­tle dry. In con­trast, the award-win­ning three-dimen­sion­al ren­der­ings of the pris­on­ers and their non­stop nick­elodeon in the Clay­ma­tion Cave Alle­go­ry below offers dra­mat­ic close-ups of the chained prisoner’s faces and the hyp­not­ic move­ment of fire­light over the cave’s rock walls.

Plato’s “brand” is a doc­trine of ide­al­ism that posits a realm of ide­al forms, of which every­thing we know by our sens­es is but an infe­ri­or copy. The iron­i­cal­ly poet­ic Socrates relates the sto­ry to illus­trate “the effect of edu­ca­tion and the lack of it on our nature.”

And yet it does much more than this—Plato illus­trates an epis­te­mol­o­gy that sup­ports notions of the soul and immor­tal­i­ty, and hence his ideas sur­vived in the­ol­o­gy long after they was sup­pos­ed­ly van­quished by ana­lyt­ic phi­los­o­phy.

Plato’s idea of rea­son as a per­fect, unchang­ing realm of which we’re only dim­ly aware is intu­itive­ly com­pelling. Most of us are at some time con­scious of how lim­it­ed our per­cep­tions tru­ly are. But just because the alle­go­ry of the cave is fair­ly easy to com­mu­ni­cate to phi­los­o­phy 101 stu­dents doesn’t mean it’s easy to adapt to the screen like the two exam­ples above. Mark Lin­sen­may­er of The Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life points us toward these 20 YouTube takes on Plato’s cave, “many of them,” he writes, “fright­ful­ly ama­teur­ish and some of them pre­sent­ing a warped and/or incom­pre­hen­si­ble ver­sion of the sto­ry.” I am par­tic­u­lar­ly intrigued by the silent film ver­sion below. As always, your com­ments on the sound­ness of these var­i­ous inter­pre­ta­tions are most wel­come.

Cours­es on Pla­to can be found on our list of 100 Free Phi­los­o­phy Cours­es, a sub­set of our larg­er Free Online Course col­lec­tion.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Drink­ing Par­ty, 1965 Film Adapts Plato’s Sym­po­sium to Mod­ern Times

Phi­los­o­phy Bites: Pod­cast­ing Ideas From Pla­to to Sin­gu­lar­i­ty Since 2007

Famous Philoso­phers Imag­ined as Action Fig­ures: Plun­der­ous Pla­to, Dan­ger­ous Descartes & More

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

James Taylor and Joni Mitchell, Live and Together (1970)

in Music | February 5th, 2014

“I’m ready when you are, James.”

“… I know.”

Some­thing extreme­ly sweet was going on between James Tay­lor and Joni Mitchell when they played togeth­er at Lon­don’s Paris The­atre in 1970. You can hear it in these record­ings, taped by the BBC and broad­cast as one of John Peel’s Sun­day Shows.

Mm, just lis­ten to Sweet Baby James’ “mag­ic fin­gers boo­gie up and down those gold­en frets.” Is it any won­der he became the sub­ject of so many songs, two of them Joni’s?

(For the record, here are crit­ic David B. Wil­son’s Top 5 Songs About James Tay­lor:

1. Joni Mitchell, “See You Some­time”
2. Car­ly Simon, “We Have No Secrets”
3. Joni Mitchell, “Just Like This Train”
4. Car­ly Simon, “Jesse”
5. James Tay­lor, “That’s Why I’m Here”)

Accord­ing to Joni’s own web­site, James’ “You Can Close Your Eyes,” above, is about her. (That would explain the lit­tle gig­gle at the top.)

He per­formed it solo on his 1971 release, Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Hori­zon.  Joni con­tributed back­ing vocals else­where on the album. In return, he played gui­tar on her Blue.

The gen­er­al pub­lic had to wait anoth­er year to hear  “See You Some­time,” David Wilson’s pick for the num­ber one song about James Tay­lor, but Joni must’ve made sure that James got a pre­view.

As she  lat­er told  Bill Flana­gan of Musi­cian Mag­a­zine, “I wrote a song for James Tay­lor that men­tioned his sus­penders. And then on his next album he went and wore his bloody sus­penders on the cov­er! Well, then the cat was com­plete­ly out of the bag!”

Oh, Joni, I’m not so sure the sus­penders were the give­away.

As for the young man she talks about after “For Free”—the guy who felt he was over the hill at the ripe old age of 21—it’s not James. It’s Neil Young, and the song his gloomy mood inspired was “Cir­cle Game.”  (Good luck find­ing that cut. Once a ubiq­ui­tous boot­leg, with the excep­tion of the songs post­ed here, the con­cert has all but dis­ap­peared, though those who still lis­ten to cds can put it in their bas­kets on Ama­zon’s UK site.)

Relat­ed Con­tent:

James Tay­lor Per­forms Live in 1970, Thanks to a Lit­tle Help from His Friends, The Bea­t­les

James Tay­lor Teach­es You to Play “Car­oli­na in My Mind,” “Fire and Rain” & Oth­er Clas­sics on the Gui­tar

Watch Joni Mitchell Per­form “Both Sides Now” on the First Episode of The John­ny Cash Show (1969)

Ayun Hal­l­i­day was intro­duced to this con­cert as a WBEZ Uncon­cert in the ear­ly 80’s and wor­ries that her home­made cas­sette may one day cease to exist. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

The Drawings of Franz Kafka (1907–1917)

in Art, Books | February 4th, 2014

Run­ner 1907–1908

UK-born, Chica­go-based artist Philip Har­ti­gan has post­ed a brief video piece about Franz Kaf­ka’s draw­ings. Kaf­ka, of course, wrote a body of work, most­ly nev­er pub­lished dur­ing his life­time, that cap­tured the absur­di­ty and the lone­li­ness of the new­ly emerg­ing mod­ern world: In The Meta­mor­pho­sis, Gre­gor trans­forms overnight into a giant cock­roach; in The Tri­al, Josef K. is charged with an unde­fined crime by a mad­den­ing­ly inac­ces­si­ble court. In sto­ry after sto­ry, Kaf­ka showed his pro­tag­o­nists get­ting crushed between the pin­cers of a face­less bureau­crat­ic author­i­ty on the one hand and a deep sense of shame and guilt on the oth­er.

On his deathbed, the famous­ly tor­tured writer implored his friend Max Brod to burn his unpub­lished work. Brod ignored his friend’s plea and instead pub­lished them – nov­els, short sto­ries and even his diaries. In those diaries, Kaf­ka doo­dled inces­sant­ly – stark, graph­ic draw­ings infused with the same angst as his writ­ing. In fact, many of these draw­ings have end­ed up grac­ing the cov­ers of Kafka’s books.

“Quick, min­i­mal move­ments that con­vey the typ­i­cal despair­ing mood of his fic­tion” says Har­ti­gan of Kafka’s art. “I am struck by how these sim­ple ges­tures, these zigza­gs of the wrist, con­tain an econ­o­my of mark mak­ing that even the most expe­ri­enced artist can learn some­thing from.”

In his book Con­ver­sa­tions with Kaf­ka, Gus­tav Janouch describes what hap­pened when he came upon Kaf­ka in mid-doo­dle: the writer imme­di­ate­ly ripped the draw­ing into lit­tle pieces rather than have it be seen by any­one. After this hap­pened a cou­ple times, Kaf­ka relent­ed and let him see his work. Janouch was aston­ished. “You real­ly didn’t need to hide them from me,” he com­plained. “They’re per­fect­ly harm­less sketch­es.”

“Kaf­ka slow­ly wagged his head to and fro – ‘Oh no! They are not as harm­less as they look. These draw­ing are the remains of an old, deep-root­ed pas­sion. That’s why I tried to hide them from you…. It’s not on the paper. The pas­sion is in me. I always want­ed to be able to draw. I want­ed to see, and to hold fast to what was seen. That was my pas­sion.”

Check out some of Kafka’s draw­ings below:

Horse and Rid­er 1909–1910

Three Run­ners 1912–1913

The Thinker 1913

Fenc­ing 1917

via Arts­Cen­tre

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Find Works by Kaf­ka in our Free eBooks col­lec­tion

Watch Franz Kaf­ka, the Won­der­ful Ani­mat­ed Film by Piotr Dumala

The Art of William Faulkn­er: Draw­ings from 1916–1925

Vladimir Nabokov Makes Edi­to­r­i­al Tweaks to Franz Kafka’s Novel­la

Vladimir Nabokov’s Delight­ful But­ter­fly Draw­ings

Jonathan Crow is a Los Ange­les-based writer and film­mak­er whose work has appeared in Yahoo!, The Hol­ly­wood Reporter, and oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low him at @jonccrow.