Steve Jobs Demos the First Macintosh in 1984

in Apple, Life, Technology | October 5th, 2011

We orig­i­nal­ly post­ed this video back in 2009, and it seems like the right time to bring it back. It cap­tures the first of many times that Steve Jobs thrilled audi­ences with the promise of what tech­nol­o­gy could deliv­er. The video takes you back to Jan­u­ary 1984, when Jobs demoed the first Mac­in­tosh. (The event was famous­ly pro­mot­ed by Rid­ley Scot­t’s com­mer­cial dur­ing the Super Bowl. See below) A young Jobs, sport­ing a bow tie and a fuller head of hair, could bare­ly hold back his smile and some tears, and the crowd sim­ply could­n’t con­tain its enthu­si­asm, giv­ing Jobs a five-minute stand­ing ova­tion. That’s where the video ends, fad­ing hap­pi­ly and suit­ably to black. We’ll miss you Steve. Read the New York Times obit here.

For anoth­er great Steve Jobs moment, don’t miss his inspir­ing Stan­ford 2005 grad­u­a­tion talk where he dis­cussed his approach to liv­ing and urged the young grad­u­ates to “Stay Hun­gry, Stay Fool­ish.” So far as com­mence­ment speech­es go, it’s hard to beat this one.

Both video men­tioned above appear in our Cul­tur­al Icons col­lec­tion — a media col­lec­tion that fea­tures great artists and thinkers speak­ing in their own words.

George Harrison in the Spotlight: The Dick Cavett Show (1971)

in Music, Television | October 3rd, 2011

This week, HBO will air George Har­ri­son: Liv­ing in the Mate­r­i­al World, a two-part doc­u­men­tary ded­i­cat­ed to The Bea­t­les’ gui­tarist who long played in the shad­ow of John and Paul. While George slips back in the spot­light, we should high­light his vin­tage inter­view with Dick Cavett. Record­ed 40 years ago (Novem­ber 23, 1971), the con­ver­sa­tion starts with light chit-chat, then (around the 5:30 mark) gets to some big­ger ques­tions — Did Yoko break up the band? Did the oth­er Bea­t­les hold him back musi­cal­ly? Why have drugs been so present in the rock ‘n roll world, and did The Bea­t­les’ flir­ta­tion with LSD lead young­sters astray? And is there any rela­tion­ship between drugs and the Indi­an music that so fas­ci­nat­ed Har­ri­son? It was a ques­tion bet­ter left to Ravi Shankar to answer, and that he did.

The rest of the inter­view con­tin­ues here with Part 2 and Part 3. Also, that same year, Cavett inter­viewed John Lennon and Yoko Ono, and we have it right here.

Jimmy Page Tells the Story of “Kashmir”

in Music | September 30th, 2011

One of the most orig­i­nal and dis­tinc­tive songs Led Zep­pelin ever record­ed was the exot­ic, eight-and-a-half minute “Kash­mir,” from the 1975 album Phys­i­cal Graf­fi­ti. In this clip from Davis Guggen­heim’s film It Might Get Loud (2009), Jim­my Page explains the ori­gins of the song to fel­low gui­tarists Jack White and The Edge. Then Page demon­strates it by pick­ing up an old mod­i­fied Dan­elec­tro 59DC Dou­ble Cut­away Stan­dard gui­tar that he played the song with on some of Led Zep­pelin’s tours. (Watch Kash­mir live here.)

In 1973, Page had been exper­i­ment­ing with an alter­na­tive D modal, or DADGAD, tun­ing often used on stringed instru­ments in the Mid­dle East, when he hit upon the hyp­not­ic, ris­ing and falling riff. The song came togeth­er over a peri­od of a cou­ple of years. John Bon­ham added his dis­tinc­tive, over­pow­er­ing drums dur­ing a two-man record­ing ses­sion with Page at Headley Grange. Singer Robert Plant wrote the lyrics while he and Page were dri­ving through the Sahara Desert in South­ern Moroc­co. (Nei­ther Page nor Plant had ever vis­it­ed Kash­mir, in the Himalayas.) Bassist and key­board play­er John Paul Jones added the string and horn arrange­ments the fol­low­ing year. In a 1995 radio inter­view with Aus­tralian jour­nal­ist Richard Kingsmill, Plant recalled his expe­ri­ence with “Kash­mir”:

It was an amaz­ing piece of music to write to, and an incred­i­ble chal­lenge for me. Because of the time sig­na­ture, the whole deal of the song is…not grandiose, but pow­er­ful. It required some kind of epi­thet, or abstract lyri­cal set­ting about the whole idea of life being an adven­ture and being a series of illu­mi­nat­ed moments. But every­thing is not what you see. It was quite a task, because I could­n’t sing it. It was like the song was big­ger than me.

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:

Led Zep­pelin Plays One of Its Ear­li­est Con­certs (Dan­ish TV, 1969)

Thir­teen-Year-Old Jim­my Page Makes his BBC Tele­vi­sion Debut in 1957

Hear Led Zeppelin’s Mind-Blow­ing First Record­ed Con­cert Ever (1968)

What Earth Will Look Like 100 Million Years from Now

in Science, Video - Science | September 30th, 2011

This is what you’d call effi­cient. In two min­utes, we watch our plan­et take form. 600 mil­lion years of geo­log­i­cal his­to­ry whizzes by in a snap. Then we see what the next 100 mil­lion years may have in store for us. If you don’t have the patience to watch 700 mil­lion years unfold in 180 sec­onds (seri­ous­ly?), then we’ll give you this spoil­er: Coastal real estate is not a long-term buy…

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!

How to Peel a Head of Garlic in Less Than 10 Seconds

in Food & Drink | September 29th, 2011

Ran­dom? Yes. Handy? Dou­ble yes. The ulti­mate culi­nary life­hack from SAVEUR mag­a­zine’s Exec­u­tive Food Edi­tor, Todd Cole­man…

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!

Steven Pinker on the History of Violence: A Happy Tale

in History, Psychology | September 29th, 2011

In July, the Edge.org held its annu­al “Mas­ter Class” in Napa, Cal­i­for­nia and brought togeth­er some influ­en­tial thinkers to talk about “The Sci­ence of Human Nature.” The high­lights includ­ed:

Prince­ton psy­chol­o­gist Daniel Kah­ne­man on the mar­vels and the flaws of intu­itive think­ing; Har­vard math­e­mat­i­cal biol­o­gist Mar­tin Nowak on the evo­lu­tion of coop­er­a­tion; Har­vard psy­chol­o­gist Steven Pinker on the his­to­ry of vio­lence; UC-San­ta Bar­bara evo­lu­tion­ary psy­chol­o­gist Leda Cos­mides on the archi­tec­ture of moti­va­tion; UC-San­ta Bar­bara neu­ro­sci­en­tist Michael Gaz­zani­ga on neu­ro­science and the law; and Prince­ton reli­gious his­to­ri­an Elaine Pagels on The Book of Rev­e­la­tions.

The Edge.org has now start­ed mak­ing videos from the class avail­able online, includ­ing, this week, Steven Pinker’s talk on the his­to­ry of vio­lence. You can watch Pinker’s full 86 minute talk here (sor­ry, we could­n’t embed it on our site.) Or, if you want the quick gist of Pinker’s think­ing, then watch the short clip above. In five min­utes, Pinker tells you why vio­lence is steadi­ly trend­ing down, and why some things are actu­al­ly going right in our momentarily/monetarily trou­bled world.

John Hodgman Riffs on Magicians and Their Craft at Maker Faire

in Books, Comedy, Random | September 27th, 2011

John Hodg­man, your favorite quirky, mus­ta­chioed humorist, made an appear­ance at the Mak­er Faire fes­ti­val in NYC ear­li­er this month. And, in the DIY spir­it of the event, he gave a 30+ minute com­ic riff on mate­r­i­al appear­ing in his upcom­ing book That is All — a com­pendi­um of “com­plete world knowl­edge” that can help you sur­vive an apoc­a­lypse. The bet­ter part of the talk focus­es, quite nat­u­ral­ly, on the mag­ic of mag­ic tricks — some­thing we all need to know more about…

R.E.M.‘s Final Encore (and an Early Concert from Germany)

in Music | September 23rd, 2011

They weren’t quite The Bea­t­les, and they did­n’t go out in the same style. (Catch The Bea­t­les’ rooftop gig here.) But R.E.M. gave us 30 good years (ok, maybe 15), and, after call­ing it quits ear­li­er this week, we thought it worth­while to present their final live moments. So here it goes: R.E.M.‘s final encore played in Mex­i­co City back in Novem­ber, 2008. It’s a 36 minute set that fea­tures “Super­nat­ur­al Super­se­ri­ous,” “Los­ing My Reli­gion,” “I Believe,” “Coun­try Feed­back,” “Life and How to Live It,” and “Man on the Moon.”

Thanks to @opedr for the great find and, for good mea­sure, we’re throw­ing in a vin­tage R.E.M. con­cert record­ed in Ger­many in 1985 from the Fables of the Recon­struc­tion tour. These were good old days.

Three “Anti-Films” by Andy Warhol: Sleep, Eat & Kiss

in Art, Film | September 22nd, 2011

We recent­ly told you the sto­ry. In the mid 60s, Andy Warhol quit paint­ing rather abrupt­ly and began some new adven­tures in mul­ti­me­dia. Tak­ing a quick detour into music, Warhol became the man­ag­er, “pro­duc­er” and over­all patron of the up-and-com­ing band, The Vel­vet Under­ground. But film is where he focused his cre­ative ener­gies.

Between 1964 and 1966, the pop artist shot close to 500 short movies — or what he called “screen tests” — of friends, celebri­ties and mod­els. (Find screen tests of Lou Reed, Nico, Edie Sedg­wick, and Den­nis Hop­per here.) And then he shot a series of longer films, or rather “anti-films,” that chal­lenged the con­ven­tions of film­mak­ing. No three act struc­tures here. Above, we start you off with his first film, Sleep (1963). Orig­i­nal­ly Warhol want­ed to make Brigitte Bar­dot the star, but he even­tu­al­ly set­tled for his friend John Giorno, and you get what the title promis­es. 40 silent min­utes of Giorno’s long slum­ber.

Next in the loose tril­o­gy comes Kiss, a 54 minute film built out of a series of short­er films. It’s all cou­ples kiss­ing. Men & women. Women & women. Men & men. And it’s all silent again.

Then we cap things off with Eat (1964), 40 min­utes of watch­ing the starv­ing pop artist Robert Indi­ana gnaw on a raw mush­room and noth­ing more. The tril­o­gy-ender was first screened at the Wash­ing­ton Square Gallery, along with anoth­er long-take film, Blow Job.…

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

4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More

The Big Ideas Behind Andy Warhol’s Art, and How They Can Help Us Build a Bet­ter World

Andy Warhol’s 1965 Film, Vinyl, Adapt­ed from Antho­ny Burgess’ A Clock­work Orange

David’s Diary: The New David Sedaris App for Apple & Android

in Books, Comedy, iPad | September 21st, 2011

A lit­tle David Sedaris on your mobile device? Yes, please!

Last week, Hachette Dig­i­tal released David’s Dairy, a new app that brings six ani­mat­ed short films inspired by David Sedaris’ diary to your Apple and Android devices. The films are short — most run about 45 sec­onds. They’re char­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly quirky and art­ful­ly designed. And the com­plete app costs runs only $1.99. But, at min­i­mum, you get the longest video in the col­lec­tion here for free and then this:

Bonus Mate­r­i­al: In our col­lec­tion of Free Audio Books, you will find two read­ings by David Sedaris. Here they go:

• “The Mouse and the Snake” from Squir­rel Seeks Chip­munk: A Mod­est Bes­tiary — Free MP3
• “Solu­tion to Saturday’s Puz­zle” from When You Are Engulfed in Flames - Free MP3

And, you can always down­load a com­plete David Sedaris book (in audio) by tak­ing advan­tage of Audible.com’s Free Tri­al offer.