Hear Homer’s Iliad Read in the Original Ancient Greek

in History, Literature | November 4th, 2013

Sure, you enjoyed hear­ing the way Ancient Greek music actu­al­ly sound­ed last week, but what about the way Ancient Greek poet­ry actu­al­ly sound­ed? We can find few­er fin­er or more rec­og­niz­able exam­ples of the stuff than Home­r’s Ili­ad, and above you can hear a read­ing of a sec­tion of the Ili­ad (Book 23, Lines 62–107 )  in the orig­i­nal Ancient Greek lan­guage.

It comes from what may strike you as an unlike­ly source: Stan­ley Lom­bar­do, a Uni­ver­si­ty of Kansas clas­si­cist (and also, as it hap­pens, a Zen Bud­dhist) best known for his trans­la­tions of the Ili­ad, the Odyssey, and Vir­gil’s Aeneid into con­tem­po­rary-sound­ing Eng­lish. “Sound­ing less like aris­to­crat­ic war­riors than like Amer­i­can G.I.‘s, per­haps,” writes clas­sics-steeped crit­ic Daniel Mendel­sohn in the New York Times review of Lom­bar­do’s Ili­ad, “his epic heroes ‘bad­mouth’ and ‘beat the day­lights out of one anoth­er and with­er­ing­ly call one anoth­er ‘trash’ and ‘pan­sy.’ ”

But Lom­bar­do knows thor­ough­ly the mate­r­i­al he adapts. Even those of us who nev­er learned Ancient Greek — if I may speak for this pre­sum­ably large group of read­ers — can get a feel for Home­r’s tale of the Tro­jan War and the sol­diers’ long return home by lis­ten­ing to the pro­fes­sor’s deliv­ery alone. Just above, you can see him give a read­ing from his Eng­lish trans­la­tion. It won’t sur­prise you to learn that he also reads the audio books. “We lis­tened spell­bound to the incan­ta­to­ry waves of Pro­fes­sor Stan­ley Lombardo’s voice telling the sto­ries of Odysseus and his Odyssey and then those of the Tro­jan heroes of The Illi­ad,” writes Andrei Codres­cu in an arti­cle on them for the Vil­lager. “Pro­fes­sor Lom­bar­do trans­lat­ed anew the immor­tal epics and immersed him­self so deeply in their world his voice sound­ed as believ­able as the hills and val­leys we crossed. His voice knows the tales and their endur­ing charms, and sounds for all the world like an ancient bard’s. Homer him­self couldn’t have done bet­ter. In Eng­lish no less, mil­len­nia lat­er.”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

What Ancient Greek Music Sound­ed Like: Hear a Recon­struc­tion That is ‘100% Accu­rate’

Hear The Epic of Gil­gamesh Read in the Orig­i­nal Akka­di­an, the Lan­guage of Mesopotamia

What Shake­speare Sound­ed Like to Shake­speare: Recon­struct­ing the Bard’s Orig­i­nal Pro­nun­ci­a­tion

Homer’s Ili­ad and Odyssey: Free Audio­Books & eBooks

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

Dissident Poet Joseph Brodsky Gives Six Life Tips to College Grads (1988)

in Life, Poetry | November 4th, 2013

Image from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan Year­book, via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

Although Joseph Brod­sky was one of the most cel­e­brat­ed Sovi­et dis­si­dents of the 20th cen­tu­ry, the Nobel Prize-win­ning poet had been unerr­ing­ly hound­ed by the repres­sive Sovi­et gov­ern­ment, which had labeled his poet­ry as “porno­graph­ic and anti-Sovi­et.” Refus­ing to aban­don his writ­ing, Brod­sky was repeat­ed­ly brought to court, and once sen­tenced to 18 months of labor in the Arc­tic region of Arkhangel­sk. Dur­ing one of his court­room appear­ances, the young poet dis­played an admirable lev­el of tes­tic­u­lar for­ti­tude when the judge asked him, “Who has rec­og­nized you as a poet? Who has enrolled you in the ranks of poets?” Brod­sky, defi­ant, replied “No one. Who enrolled me in the ranks of the human race?”

In 1972, Brod­sky left the USSR for Amer­i­ca, where he was wide­ly sought as a lec­tur­er (his aca­d­e­m­ic bed­post includ­ed notch­es from Cam­bridge, Colum­bia, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mass­a­chu­setts, and Mount Holyoke). On the heels of his win­ning the 1986 Nation­al Book Crit­ics’ award for crit­i­cism for Less Than One and receiv­ing the Nobel Prize for Lit­er­a­ture in 1987 (porno­graph­ic writ­ing, it seems, does quite well with the crit­ics), Brod­sky was invit­ed to give the 1988 com­mence­ment address at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan.

Brod­sky’s remarks are far from the gal­va­niz­ing dose of inspi­ra­tion that many com­mence­ment address­es impart, and cer­tain­ly not what Michi­gan grad­u­ates were expect­ing. Rather than uplift, the poet­’s words sober­ly ground the audi­ence; instead of wrap­ping them in a warm self-assured­ness, the life tips are jar­ring, like an ice bath. Brod­sky’s address is a mix of wry humour, acknowl­edge­ment of our absur­dist exis­ten­tial dilem­ma, and bold, hon­est com­pas­sion. Read­ing Brodsky’s advice, one can’t help but feel that the poet val­ued his flawed human­i­ty even more than his art; like­ly, they were insep­a­ra­ble.

Here’s a boiled-down ver­sion of the poet’s remarks:

1) “Treat your vocab­u­lary the way you would your check­ing account.” Expres­sion often lags behind expe­ri­ence, and one should learn to artic­u­late what would oth­er­wise get pent up psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly. Learn to express your­self. Get a dic­tio­nary.

2) “Par­ents are too close a tar­get… The range is such that you can’t miss.” Be gen­er­ous with your fam­i­ly. Even if your con­vic­tions clash with theirs, don’t reject them—your skep­ti­cism of your infal­li­bil­i­ty can only ben­e­fit you. It will also save you a good deal of grief when they are gone.

3) “You ought to rely on your own home cook­ing.” Do not expect soci­ety to arrange itself to your benefit—there are too many peo­ple whose desires con­flict for that to hap­pen. Learn to rely on your­self, and help those who can­not.

4) “Try to not to stand out.” Do not cov­et mon­ey or fame for their own sake. It is best to be mod­est. There is com­fort join­ing the ranks of those who fol­low their own dis­creet paths.

5) “A par­a­lyzed will is no dain­ty for angels.” Do not indulge in vic­tim­hood. By blam­ing oth­ers, you under­mine your deter­mi­na­tion to change your cir­cum­stances. When life con­fronts you with hard­ships, remem­ber that they are no less an intrin­sic part of exis­tence. If you must strug­gle, do so with dig­ni­ty.

6) “To be social is to be for­giv­ing.” Do not let those who have hurt you live on in your com­plaints. For­get them.

The full text—irrevocably more pithy and eloquent—may be found here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

‘This Is Water’: Com­plete Audio of David Fos­ter Wallace’s Keny­on Grad­u­a­tion Speech (2005)

George Saun­ders Extols the Virtues of Kind­ness in 2013 Speech to Syra­cuse Uni­ver­si­ty Grads

Neil Gaiman Gives Grad­u­ates 10 Essen­tial Tips for Work­ing in the Arts

Vintage Film Shows How the Oxford English Dictionary Was Made in 1925

in Books, Design, History | November 1st, 2013

There was lots of mon­ey to be made at the end of the 19th cen­tu­ry and Dud­ley Dock­er made his share of it. He was what they called a “baron of indus­try” at a time when man­u­fac­tur­ing was explod­ing in Britain. Dock­er made his for­tune in paint, motor­cy­cles, arms man­u­fac­tur­ing, rail­ways, and bank­ing. He was an indus­tri­al boost­er, act­ing as one of the three major financiers behind Ernest Shackleton’s Trans-Antarc­tic Expe­di­tion. In 1916, he found­ed a major asso­ci­a­tion of British indus­try to pro­mote busi­ness inter­ests.

A charm­ing result of that work is a recent­ly dig­i­tized film made in 1925 to demon­strate the work inside Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty Press. For book arts lovers, this is a fas­ci­nat­ing peek into the ear­ly days of mech­a­nized print­ing.

Above we watch a work­er use a mould to make lead type, hun­dreds of them, by pour­ing the molten lead in at the top, mak­ing a quick upward motion and releas­ing the quick­ly dried type. A sep­a­rate team of work­ers then sets up mono­type com­pos­ing machines, and we watch as men demon­strate their use.

The film fol­lows the process of print­ing a run of Oxford Eng­lish Dic­tio­nar­ies. Books were bound by gen­der-divid­ed teams: A room of women labored in the “girls” bindery sec­tion while men bound books in their own sep­a­rate room. We see the sewing, cut­ting and the fas­ci­nat­ing process of gild­ing the page edges.

In our dig­i­tal age, the old ana­log process­es take on a new, deep­er sig­nif­i­cance. This film presents a ter­rif­ic 18-minute tuto­r­i­al on one of the great­est achieve­ments of the mod­ern age: print­ing mass quan­ti­ties of bound books.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Mak­ing of a Stein­way Grand Piano, From Start to Fin­ish

How Walt Dis­ney Car­toons Are Made (1939)

Spike Jonze Presents a Stop Motion Film for Book Lovers

The His­to­ry of the Eng­lish Lan­guage in Ten Ani­mat­ed Min­utes

Kate Rix writes about edu­ca­tion and dig­i­tal media. Fol­low her on Twit­ter.

A Terrifying Reading of the Sweet Children’s Story Goodnight Moon

in Audio Books | October 31st, 2013

Is this wrong? Ben­jamin Per­cy (author of the were­wolf thriller Red Moon) takes the sweet chil­dren’s bed­time sto­ry, Good­night Moon by Mar­garet Wise Brown, and turns it into a sto­ry that will keep kids (and maybe adults) awake for days on end — per­haps leav­ing par­ents no choice but to have the real Wern­er Her­zog read Go the F**k to Sleep. This record­ing comes cour­tesy of Gray­wolf Press, and don’t for­get to look under your bed.

H/T Sheer­ly

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Stephen Fry Reads Oscar Wilde’s Children’s Sto­ry “The Hap­py Prince”

Alfred Hitch­cock Presents Ghost Sto­ries for Young Peo­ple (1962)

James Gan­dolfi­ni Reads from Mau­rice Sendak’s Children’s Sto­ry “In The Night Kitchen”

Hear the Clas­sic Win­nie-the-Pooh Read by Author A.A. Milne in 1929

550 Free Audio Books: Down­load Great Books for Free

Hear Orson Welles’ Iconic War of the Worlds Broadcast (1938)

in History, Radio, Sci Fi, Theatre | October 30th, 2013

Image by Carl Van Vecht­en, via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

One night in Octo­ber of 1938, lis­ten­ers tuned into CBS radio to hear a piece of radio the­ater (lis­ten below) so fright­en­ing and, for its time, real­is­tic, that peo­ple across New Eng­land and east­ern Cana­da fled their homes to escape dan­ger. Or so the leg­end goes. With Orson Welles read­ing the part of an astro­naut and pro­fes­sor, the Mer­cury The­atre on the Air’s broad­cast of War of the Worlds hit a frayed nerve in the Amer­i­can pub­lic.

The show aired dur­ing the tense years lead­ing up to World War II, when fas­cism was on the rise in Europe. Many took the “news” of an alien inva­sion for truth.  It would have been easy to be fooled: the sto­ry, adapt­ed from H.G. Wells’ ear­ly sci-fi nov­el, was writ­ten as a sim­u­lat­ed news broad­cast. It opened with an intro­duc­tion from the nov­el and a note that the adap­ta­tion was set a year ahead (1939). For those who missed that dis­claimer, the remain­der of the show was unset­tling to say the least.

A reporter read a weath­er report. Then came dance music played by a fic­ti­tious band (“Ramon Raque­l­lo and his Orches­tra”) that was inter­rupt­ed by news of bizarre explo­sions on the sur­face of Mars. Soon Orson Welles made his appear­ance, inter­viewed as an expert who denied the pos­si­bil­i­ty of any life on the red plan­et. But then came the news of a cylin­dri­cal mete­orite land­ing in north­ern New Jer­sey. A crowd gath­ered and a “reporter” came on the scene to watch the cylin­der unscrew itself and reveal a rock­et­ship inside.

Chaos ensued, fol­lowed by a Mar­t­ian inva­sion of New York City, where peo­ple ran into the East Riv­er “like rats.”

Welles offered anoth­er dis­claimer at the end of the sto­ry (when the aliens suc­cumbed to Earth’s pathogens) to remind lis­ten­ers that the broad­cast was fic­tion.

Too lit­tle, too late? Or just great the­ater?

The next day, Welles held a bril­liant news con­fer­ence where he apol­o­gized for putting a fright into lis­ten­ers. (It’s anoth­er great piece of the­ater.) Mean­while the broad­cast estab­lished the Mer­cury The­atre on the Air—already an acclaimed stage pro­duc­tion company—as one of Amer­i­ca’s top-rat­ed radio pro­grams. Until then the show had lan­guished in rel­a­tive obscu­ri­ty. After send­ing thou­sands of peo­ple into a pan­ic, the show earned adver­tis­ing spon­sor­ship from Campbell’s Soup.

Kate Rix writes about dig­i­tal media and edu­ca­tion. Fol­low her on Twit­ter.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Orson Welles Meets H.G. Wells in 1940: The Leg­ends Dis­cuss War of the Worlds, Cit­i­zen Kane, and WWII

Aldous Hux­ley Reads Dra­ma­tized Ver­sion of Brave New World

Free: Isaac Asimov’s Epic Foun­da­tion Tril­o­gy Dra­ma­tized in Clas­sic Audio

Watch Very First Film Adaptations of Shakespeare’s Plays: King John, The Tempest, Richard III & More (1899–1936)

in Film, Theatre | October 30th, 2013

Shake­speare sells: coun­ter­in­tu­itive, but seem­ing­ly true. The film indus­try, which pumps out Shake­speare adap­ta­tions (of vary­ing lev­els of cre­ativ­i­ty) on the reg­u­lar, has known this ever since it could hard­ly have had much aware­ness of itself as a film indus­try. At the top, we have the only sur­viv­ing scene from 1899’s King John, where Shake­speare on screen all start­ed.

“The next three decades would see var­ied approach­es to the chal­lenge of film­ing Shake­speare in a medi­um denied the spo­ken word,” writes the British Film Insti­tute’s Michael Brooke, “from the imag­i­na­tive tableaux-style mime of Per­cy Stow’s The Tem­pest (1908) to trun­cat­ed pro­duc­tions of the major tragedies (Richard III, 1911; Ham­let, 1913).” Excerpts from one of these last, F.R. Ben­son’s Richard III, you can watch just below:

Ear­ly Shake­speare adapters like Ben­son tend­ed to make less Shake­speare films than, as Brooke puts it, “com­pi­la­tions of mem­o­rable moments” from the plays. Then again, every genre of movie attempt­ed sim­ple things back then, and Shake­speare­an pro­duc­tions would grow far rich­er in the sound era, which 1929’s The Tam­ing of the Shrew ush­ered in for the Bard, and with no less a sil­ver-screen leg­end than Mary Pick­ford in the role of Kate.

Sev­en years lat­er, the not-yet-Sir Lau­rence Olivi­er, “cin­e­ma’s first great Shake­speare­an artist,” would make his Shake­speare debut as Orlan­do in Paul Czin­ner’s As You Like It (1936), which you can watch below. He’d almost made this debut as the lead in George Cuko­r’s Romeo & Juli­et, but ulti­mate­ly turned it down.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

What Shake­speare Sound­ed Like to Shake­speare: Recon­struct­ing the Bard’s Orig­i­nal Pro­nun­ci­a­tion

A Sur­vey of Shakespeare’s Plays (Free Course) 

Shakespeare’s Satir­i­cal Son­net 130, As Read By Stephen Fry

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

Free: Listen to 298 Episodes of the Vintage Crime Radio Series, Dragnet

in Radio | October 28th, 2013

Before it was a film, and before it became a clas­sic tele­vi­sion series, Drag­net start­ed out as a long-run­ning radio show, air­ing from June 3, 1949, to Feb­ru­ary 26, 1957. One of the most influ­en­tial crime dra­ma shows from the 50s, Drag­net was the brain­child of Jack Webb, the actor, direc­tor and screen­writer who played the lead role of Sergeant Joe Fri­day. We best remem­ber Joe Fri­day implor­ing female infor­mants to pro­vide “Just the facts, ma’am.” But, in actu­al fact, he nev­er uttered pre­cise­ly those words. “All we want are the facts” is what he real­ly said. But I digress. Thanks to Archive.org you can now trav­el back to the 50s and lis­ten to 298 episodes of the show, which was known for its real­is­tic depic­tion of police work — the bore­dom, the drudgery, the dan­ger, the occa­sion­al acts of hero­ism, and every­thing in between.

Note: There were 314 episodes in total. And Archive.org does not house the very first episode called “Rob­bery,” which first aired on June 3, 1949. That’s avail­able 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:

The War of the Worlds: Orson Welles’ 1938 Radio Dra­ma That Pet­ri­fied a Nation

Ray­mond Chan­dler & Ian Flem­ing in Con­ver­sa­tion (1958)

1,000 Free Audio Books: Down­load Great Books for Free

Free Noir Films

Free Alfred Hitch­cock Films

Download Vintage Film Posters in High-Res: From The Philadelphia Story to Attack of the Crab Monsters

in Film | October 25th, 2013

FreeVintagePosters.com offers “hun­dreds of high qual­i­ty print­able posters in adver­tis­ing, trav­el, food/drink, art, movies, west­erns, mil­i­tary, mag­ic and much more.” You may have an inter­est in all those facets of human expe­ri­ence, but we imag­ine you’ll find espe­cial­ly appeal­ing the site’s selec­tion of high-res­o­lu­tion film posters, suit­able for print­ing at home or else­where and hang­ing on walls in need of cinephilic flair.

You might, for exam­ple, choose to put up the orig­i­nal poster for George Cuko­r’s The Philadel­phia Sto­ry, which promis­es you a “Howl with Your Favorite Hol­ly­wood Stars” — Cary Grant, Katharine Hep­burn, and James Stew­art, in this case. Or if you pre­fer west­erns to come­dies, per­haps you’d like to print out one of the three avail­able posters of 1971’s John Wayne-star­ring Big Jake, my favorite of which pitch­es the movie with a sim­ple if odd equa­tion: “Big John = Big Jake = Big West­ern.” (Note: you can watch 21 John Wayne west­erns here.)

Though the site’s col­lec­tion slants toward clas­sic Amer­i­can films, it also has sheets used to adver­tise them abroad. Below you see the pho­to­col­lage-like Japan­ese poster for Bil­ly Wilder’s Some Like It Hot. And the lover of camp will find much to enjoy as well. Might I sug­gest Attack of the Crab Mon­sters? What­ev­er your taste, if you decide to head out to the print shop and com­mis­sion a paper ver­sion of any of these image files in a larg­er size than you can print at home, do con­sult StandardPosterSize.net, which, true to its name, pro­vides all man­ner of infor­ma­tion on the var­i­ous siz­ings of U.S. stan­dard posters, met­ric stan­dard posters, U.S. movie posters, and U.K. movie posters. If that sounds like a lit­tle too much has­sle, you could always just down­load your favorite poster and set it as your desk­top back­ground. Before you sign off, make sure you check out our col­lec­tion 575 Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, etc. It’s some­thing no cin­e­ma lover should miss.

via Men­tal Floss

Relat­ed Con­tent:

50 Film Posters From Poland: From The Empire Strikes Back to Raiders of the Lost Ark

Japan­ese Movie Posters of 10 David Lynch Films

100 Great­est Posters of Film Noir

64 Years of Posters for the Cannes Film Fes­ti­val

John Wayne: 21 Free West­ern Films Online

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

David Sedaris Sings the Oscar Mayer Theme Song in the Voice of Billie Holiday

in Music | October 25th, 2013

I’m going to make your Fri­day, right here, right now. Above, we have a clip of David Sedaris doing a dead-on Bil­lie Hol­i­day impres­sion while singing the famous Oscar May­er theme song. The clip is an out­take from a 1998 episode of This Amer­i­can Life where Sedaris talks about his child­hood fan­ta­sy of singing com­mer­cial jin­gles in Hol­i­day’s voice. You can catch the jin­gles around the 9:00 mark (lis­ten here) … and again at the 17:45 mark. But I’d real­ly encour­age you to lis­ten to the full tale from the very start (6:00). Day made?

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:

Duke Ellington’s Sym­pho­ny in Black, Star­ring a 19-Year-old Bil­lie Hol­i­day

Bil­lie Hol­i­day Sings ‘Strange Fruit’

Bil­lie Holiday–The Life and Artistry of Lady Day: The Com­plete Film

David Sedaris Reads You a Sto­ry By Miran­da July

Find Sto­ries Read by David Sedaris on our list of 800 Free Audio­Books

Mark Twain Plays With Electricity in Nikola Tesla’s Lab (Photo, 1894)

in History, Literature | October 18th, 2013

You’ll get a charge out this pic­ture tak­en long ago. It cap­tures Mark Twain, a lit­er­ary giant of the 19th cen­tu­ry, tin­ker­ing in the lab­o­ra­to­ry of the great inven­tor, Niko­la Tes­la. Accord­ing to the Uni­ver­si­ty of Vir­ginia, the pho­to was tak­en in the spring of 1894, when Cen­tu­ry Mag­a­zine pub­lished an arti­cle called “Tes­la’s Oscil­la­tor and oth­er Inven­tions.” Still avail­able online, the arti­cle begins:

[Mr. Tes­la] invites atten­tion to-day, whether for pro­found inves­ti­ga­tions into the nature of elec­tric­i­ty, or for beau­ti­ful inven­tions in which is offered a con­crete embod­i­ment of the lat­est means for attain­ing the ends most sought after in the dis­tri­b­u­tion of light, heat, and pow­er, and in the dis­tant com­mu­ni­ca­tion of intel­li­gence.  Any one desirous of under­stand­ing the trend and scope of mod­ern elec­tri­cal advance will find many clues in the work of this inven­tor.  The present arti­cle dis­clos­es a few of the more impor­tant results which he has attained, some of the meth­ods and appa­ra­tus which he employs, and one or two of the the­o­ries to which he resorts for an expla­na­tion of what is accom­plished.

Below, we’ve got more vin­tage Twain (includ­ing Twain top­less), plus some choice Tes­la picks:

Mark Twain Shirt­less in 1883 Pho­to

Mark Twain Drafts the Ulti­mate Let­ter of Com­plaint (1905)

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

Thomas Edi­son and Niko­la Tes­la Face Off in “Epic Rap Bat­tles of His­to­ry”

“Sweet Home Alaba­ma” Played on Tes­la Coils