Annie Leibovitz, Photographer of Icons and Iconic Photographer, Profiled on American Masters

in Photography, Television | December 14th, 2012

One must take care, when writ­ing about well-con­nect­ed cul­tur­al fig­ures, not to abuse the word icon­ic. But when one writes about the pho­tog­ra­ph­er Annie Lei­bovitz, one almost has to abuse it. Here we have a woman who took two of the most mem­o­rable pho­tos of John Lennon, col­lab­o­rat­ed (to the extent pos­si­ble) with Hunter S. Thomp­son, went on tour with the Rolling Stones, fol­lowed Richard Nixon out of the White House the last time he left it, con­vinced Whoopi Gold­berg to get into a bath­tub of milk, and loved Susan Son­tag. This whole post could­n’t pos­si­bly con­tain a com­plete list of her pro­fes­sion­al and per­son­al involve­ment with the, yes, icons of twen­ti­eth-cen­tu­ry pop­u­lar cul­ture. Her por­traits of them became icons them­selves, which, in turn, made Lei­bovitz her­self icon­ic. For a visu­al­ly rich sense of the scope of her life and career, look no fur­ther than the doc­u­men­tary above, Life Through a Lens.

This 2008 pro­duc­tion comes from the PBS-dis­trib­uted Amer­i­can Mas­ters tele­vi­sion series, which we fea­tured on Tues­day. Direct­ed by Lei­bovitz’s own sis­ter and there­fore pos­sessed of the unusu­al famil­ial insight you’d expect, Life Through a Lens also includes a great many of the hard-to-inter­view lumi­nar­ies with­out which no pro­file of this pho­tog­ra­ph­er could be com­plete. We hear from Arnold Schwarzeneg­ger, Jann Wen­ner, Hillary Clin­ton, Glo­ria Steinem, Pat­ti Smith, Mick Jag­ger, Kei­th Richards, Bette Midler, Yoko Ono, and George Clooney, to name but a few of her admir­ers who’ve held their own at the busi­ness end of her cam­era. In the four years since this doc­u­men­tary, Lei­bovitz’s pho­tographs — now of 21st-cen­tu­ry celebri­ties like Miley Cyrus, Sasha Baron Cohen, Lady Gaga, Rihan­na, and LeBron James —  have con­tin­ued to impress in the pages of Vogue and Van­i­ty Fair. When­ev­er some­one ris­es toward icon­ic sta­tus, Annie Lei­bovitz’s visu­al imag­i­na­tion can’t be far behind.

Relat­ed con­tent:

Watch PBS’ Amer­i­can Mas­ters Doc­u­men­taries (Includ­ing Scorsese’s Homage to Kazan) Free Online

Alfred Stieglitz: The Elo­quent Eye, a Reveal­ing Look at “The Father of Mod­ern Pho­tog­ra­phy”

1972 Diane Arbus Doc­u­men­tary Inter­views Those Who Knew the Amer­i­can Pho­tog­ra­ph­er Best

Hen­ri Carti­er-Bres­son and the Deci­sive Moment

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

Beatboxing Bach’s Goldberg Variations

in Music | December 13th, 2012

It might not sur­pass Glenn Gould’s record­ing of Bach’s Gold­berg Vari­a­tions from 1981. (Watch him per­form it here). But this clip, fea­tur­ing teenage pianist Kadar Qian and beat­box extra­or­di­naire Kevin Olu­so­la of Pen­ta­tonix, has a charm of its own. The clip comes from From the Top, a non-prof­it whose YouTube chan­nel presents out­stand­ing per­for­mances from the coun­try’s best young clas­si­cal musi­cians.

If you want your own copy of the Gold­berg Vari­a­tions, you can instant­ly down­load The Open Gold­berg Vari­a­tions, the first Kick­starter-fund­ed, open source record­ing of Bach’s mas­ter­piece. It’s avail­able entire­ly for free. Also don’t miss the Com­plete Organ Works of J.S. Bach. They’re free too!

via Boing­Bo­ing

The Complete Sherlock Holmes Now Free on the Kindle

in Books, e-books, Literature | December 13th, 2012

It’s sure­ly worth giv­ing you the quick heads up that, start­ing today, “the com­plete col­lec­tion of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sher­lock Holmes tales, both long and short, have been com­piled togeth­er for the first time.” The Com­plete Sher­lock Holmes (down­load it here) is free on the Kin­dle thanks to Simon & Schus­ter. Unlike many free texts, the for­mat­ting looks quite nice on my Kin­dle Paper­white as well as on the iPad using the Free Kin­dle app. So, we’re glad­ly adding this one to our col­lec­tion of 375 Free eBooks, which gives you imme­di­ate access to many more clas­sics.

NOTE: We have unfor­tu­nate­ly dis­cov­ered that this par­tic­u­lar text is not avail­able in some coun­tries. Sor­ry, there was no way for us to know that in advance. But, fear not, you can find oth­er ver­sions of Sher­lock Holmes on the web. Give these links a try:

Doyle, Arthur Conan - The Adven­tures of Sher­lock Holmes

• iPad/iPhone – Kin­dle + Oth­er For­mats – Read Online

via @kirstinbutler/The Verge

Marilyn Monroe Explains Relativity to Albert Einstein (in a Nicolas Roeg Movie)

in Film, Physics | December 12th, 2012

A cer­tain motion pic­ture has as its main char­ac­ters Joe DiMag­gio, Joseph McCarthy, Albert Ein­stein, and Mar­i­lyn Mon­roe. Sure, the script calls them the Ballplay­er, the Sen­a­tor, the Pro­fes­sor, and the Actress, but there’s no mis­tak­ing their real iden­ti­ties. Sure­ly this already intrigues any­one inter­est­ed in mid­cen­tu­ry Amer­i­can cul­ture, but what if I also men­tioned that in the direc­tor’s chair sits Nico­las Roeg, whose rich­ly askew visions for Walk­a­bout, Don’t Look Now, and The Man Who Fell to Earth so enriched the cin­e­ma of the sev­en­ties? Adapt­ed from a stage play by Ter­ry John­son, 1985’s Insignif­i­cance has each of its icon­ic char­ac­ters pass through a sin­gle New York City hotel room in 1954. Rough­ly halfway through the sto­ry, we get the scene above, an expla­na­tion of the the­o­ry of rel­a­tiv­i­ty: by the Actress to the Pro­fes­sor.

Mar­i­lyn Mon­roe’s inter­est in things Ein­stein­ian seems at least some­what ground­ed in real­i­ty; John­son thought up the play after read­ing about an auto­graphed pho­to of the physi­cist found among the late star’s pos­ses­sions. Roeg felt a sim­i­lar­ly strong reac­tion upon watch­ing the stage pro­duc­tion, seiz­ing the mate­r­i­al as an oppor­tu­ni­ty to explore the theme of how “nobody knows a damn thing about any­one.” This he espe­cial­ly illus­trat­ed in the dis­tant mar­riage of the Actress and the Ballplay­er, their real-life inspi­ra­tions hav­ing been briefly mar­ried them­selves. (In the role of the Actress Roeg cast There­sa Rus­sell, his own then-wife.) Though not Roeg’s best-known film, Insignif­i­cance has nonethe­less inspired a con­stant stream of aca­d­e­m­ic and cinephilic dis­cus­sion since its release, and it received a hand­some Cri­te­ri­on Col­lec­tion edi­tion last year. And if I had my way, I’d encour­age both film and physics teach­ers every­where to fire it up on slow class days.

via Bib­liok­lept

Relat­ed con­tent:

Mar­i­lyn Mon­roe Reads Joyce’s Ulysses at the Play­ground (1955)

Ein­stein Doc­u­men­tary Offers A Reveal­ing Por­trait of the Great 20th Cen­tu­ry Sci­en­tist Einstein’s Big Idea: E=mc²

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

12.12.12 Concert For Sandy Relief. It’s Streaming Live!

in Music | December 12th, 2012

The relief con­cert is stream­ing live from New York City. Artists on the line­up include Bon Jovi, Eric Clap­ton, Dave Grohl, Bil­ly Joel, Ali­cia Keys, Chris Mar­tin, The Rolling Stones, Bruce Spring­steen & the E Street Band, Eddie Ved­der, Roger Waters, Kanye West, The Who, Paul McCart­ney and oth­ers. You can make your dona­tions to the relief effort right here.

Ravi Shankar Gives George Harrison a Sitar Lesson … and Other Vintage Footage

in Music | December 11th, 2012

Ravi Shankar, the Indi­an sitarist (and father of Norah Jones) known for his col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Bea­t­les and oth­er west­ern musi­cians, died Tues­day in South­ern Cal­i­for­nia. He was 92 years old. Born in India in 1920, Shankar began play­ing the sitar dur­ing the late 1930s, and, by the 1940s, he start­ed think­ing about how to bring east­ern music to west­ern audi­ences. Tours brought him to the Sovi­et Union, West­ern Europe and the Unit­ed States dur­ing the 50s. But every­thing changed when he crossed paths in 1966 with a rock star devel­op­ing his own inter­est in the sitar.

George Har­ri­son taught him­self enough to play the sitar on “Nor­we­gian Wood,” the east­ern-inflect­ed song writ­ten by Lennon and McCart­ney in 1965. Shankar and Har­ri­son met the next year in Lon­don, mark­ing the begin­ning of an impor­tant musi­cal part­ner­ship. Soon enough, Har­ri­son trav­eled to India — to a remote region in the Himalayas — to study the sitar and read spir­i­tu­al texts with Shankar. Return­ing the favor, Har­ri­son saw to it that Shankar per­formed at the Mon­terey Pop Fes­ti­val in June 1967. Lat­er, the two orga­nized the influ­en­tial Con­cert for Bangladesh, which brought them togeth­er with Bob Dylan, Eric Clap­ton, and Bil­ly Pre­ston.

Above, we have doc­u­men­tary footage fea­tur­ing Shankar and Har­ri­son togeth­er in a sitar les­son. Below, we present oth­er clips from that fer­tile peri­od.

Ravi Shankar’s Appear­ance with Har­ri­son on the Dick Cavett Show (1971)

Shankar at Mon­terey Pop (1967)

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 an Animated Film of Emily Dickinson’s Poem ‘I Started Early–Took My Dog’

in Literature, Poetry | December 10th, 2012

Today is the birth­day of Emi­ly Dick­in­son, an extra­or­di­nar­i­ly shy woman who rarely left her house but whose poems have gone out to meet the world.

Dick­in­son’s poet­ry is wide­ly cel­e­brat­ed for its beau­ty and orig­i­nal­i­ty. As her biog­ra­ph­er at the Poet­ry Foun­da­tion Web site writes, “To make the abstract tan­gi­ble, to define mean­ing with­out con­fin­ing it, to inhab­it a house that nev­er became a prison, Dick­in­son cre­at­ed in her writ­ing a dis­tinc­tive­ly ellip­ti­cal lan­guage for express­ing what was pos­si­ble but not yet real­ized.”

To cel­e­brate Dick­in­son’s birth­day (she was born on Decem­ber 10, 1830) we bring you this lit­tle film of her poem, “I Start­ed Early–Took My Dog,” from the “Poet­ry Every­where” series by PBS and the Poet­ry Foun­da­tion. The poem is ani­mat­ed by Maria Vasilkovsky and read by actress Blair Brown. You can also read the poem for your­self here.

Relat­ed con­tent:

Bill Mur­ray Reads Emi­ly Dick­in­son to Con­struc­tion Work­ers

A Sec­ond, Pre­vi­ous­ly Unknown Pho­to of Emi­ly Dick­in­son Emerges

Find Emi­ly Dick­in­son Poet­ry in our Free Audio Books and Free eBooks col­lec­tions

Neil Gaiman Gives Sage Advice to Aspiring Artists

in Art, Literature | December 10th, 2012

“I want to be a direc­tor, and I’ve been told that there are enough artists in the world, and that’s not some­thing I should pur­sue. Do you [agree with that]?”

A young woman put that ques­tion to sci-fi and fan­ta­sy writer Neil Gaiman at The Con­necti­cut Youth Forum last week. And he respond­ed with an answer that might sound famil­iar, espe­cial­ly if you viewed the thought­ful com­mence­ment speech he gave at The Uni­ver­si­ty of the Arts in Philadel­phia last spring. There, he gave 10 Essen­tial Tips for Work­ing in the Arts, and, if you have a real­ly sharp mem­o­ry, you’ll recall sug­ges­tions #6 and #10.

• Make your own art, mean­ing the art that reflects your indi­vid­u­al­i­ty and per­son­al vision.
• Leave the world more inter­est­ing than it was before.

They’re wise tips, but they’re bet­ter tak­en in con­junc­tion with sug­ges­tions 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, and 9. Watch them all here. And don’t miss our col­lec­tion of Free Neil Gaiman Sto­ries, avail­able in text, audio and video.

Gary Larson’s The Far Side Comes Alive in Series of Animated Cartoons

in Animation, Comedy, Comics/Cartoons | December 9th, 2012

It used to be that you could­n’t go into a book­store this time of year with­out being lit­er­al­ly sur­round­ed by Gary Lar­son­’s The Far Side. His cal­en­dars and books were mas­sive best sell­ers and his sin­gle-pan­el comics seemed to be every­where, taped to cubi­cle walls and pinned to bul­letin boards. Lar­son­’s hilar­i­ous­ly sub­ver­sive sense of empathy–his way of ren­der­ing peo­ple with the detach­ment of an ento­mol­o­gist while invest­ing his ani­mal char­ac­ters with the most sym­pa­thet­ic of human traits–endeared him to mil­lions.

But in 1995, after 15 years of strug­gle against grind­ing dead­lines, Lar­son called it quits. Since then he’s been about as reclu­sive as Gre­ta Gar­bo or J.D. Salinger. And while Lar­son­’s cal­en­dars and books con­tin­ued to appear for some years after his retire­ment, The Far Side is not much in evi­dence these days. Which is sad. You can’t buy your friends a 2013 Far Side desk cal­en­dar this hol­i­day sea­son, but per­haps you can share this: a few twist­ed scenes from Lar­son­’s 1994 ani­mat­ed film, Tales From the Far Side. The film was orig­i­nal­ly aired as a Hal­loween spe­cial on CBS. The clip above begins on a fit­ting­ly nos­tal­gic note.

Relat­ed con­tent:

Jazz Toons: Allen Mezquida’s Jour­ney from Bebop to Smigly

Orson Welles’ The Stranger Free Online, Where 1940s Film Noir Meets Real Horrors of WWII

in Film | December 4th, 2012

Did Orson Welles ever make an non-notable movie? Sure, the sheer cin­e­mat­ic impor­tance of Cit­i­zen Kane, Touch of Evil, The Lady from Shang­hai, and even the famous­ly incom­plete The Mag­nif­i­cent Amber­sons, tend to draw all the atten­tion most peo­ple have for his fil­mog­ra­phy. Make sure you watch those — no self-respect­ing lover of Amer­i­can film could do with­out them — but then look beyond them.

Per­son­al­ly, I yield to no one in my endorse­ment of Welles’ for­mal­ly unique mul­ti-genre qua­si-doc­u­men­tary F for Fake. But first, I sug­gest you look to the top of this post and watch 1946’s The Stranger, a far more main­stream pic­ture (for one can hard­ly trav­el far­ther from the main­stream than F for Fake), and in fact the only Welles film to meet with imme­di­ate box office suc­cess. Con­sid­er­ing what it shows, that may come as a sur­prise.

The pic­ture pits a Unit­ed Nations Nazi hunter, played by Hol­ly­wood Gold­en Age leg­end Edward G. Robin­son, against a Third Reich war crim­i­nal played by Welles him­self. The hunter tracks down the hunt­ed, who has tak­en on a new, near­ly anony­mous iden­ti­ty in small-town Con­necti­cut. The U.N. man becomes des­per­ate to bring the Nazi to jus­tice, the Naz­i’s becomes des­per­ate to live his new life in peace, and his unsus­pect­ing wife becomes des­per­ate to deny the truth about her hus­band’s past. In order to con­vince the lady, Robin­son’s char­ac­ter screens her actu­al footage of Nazi con­cen­tra­tion camps. The shock on actress Loret­ta Young’s face was the shock on the faces of Amer­i­can audi­ences; nei­ther pre­vi­ous­ly had much of a chance to see what had real­ly hap­pened in wartime Europe. Leave it to Welles, whose fas­ci­na­tion with and hatred of fas­cism led him to write a series of columns on the sub­ject for the New York Post, to smug­gle this depth of real human hor­ror into what looks at first glance like a plain old 1940s noir thriller.

You will find The Stranger, a film now in the pub­lic domain, list­ed in our col­lec­tion, 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More.

Relat­ed con­tent:

Orson Welles on the Art of Act­ing: ‘There is a Vil­lain in Each of Us’

The Hearts of Age: Orson Welles’ Sur­re­al­ist First Film (1934)

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.