Way of Life: Rare Footage of the Hiroshima Aftermath, 1946

in Film, History, Life, Video - Politics/Society | May 3rd, 2011

The recent 9.0‑magnitude Tōhoku earth­quake and tsuna­mi, and sub­se­quent Fukushi­ma nuclear acci­dents were among the most dev­as­tat­ing envi­ron­men­tal dis­as­ters in record­ed his­to­ry. The imme­di­ate con­se­quences are fright­en­ing, but their full, long-term impact remains an unset­tling mys­tery.

This, of course, isn’t the first time Japan has faced a nuclear emer­gency. After the World War II atom­ic bomb­ings of Hiroshi­ma and Nagasa­ki, the U.S. gov­ern­ment record­ed the raw after­math of Hiroshi­ma in can­did, grim detail (while Hol­ly­wood was busy lam­poon­ing Amer­i­ca’s nuclear obses­sion). Filmed in the spring of 1946 by the Depart­ment of Defense, Way of Life doc­u­ments how the peo­ple of Hiroshi­ma adapt­ed to life after the atom­ic bomb. Though the archival footage lacks sound, its imagery — mov­ing, heart­break­ing, deeply human — speaks vol­umes about the del­i­cate dual­i­ty of despair and resilience.

Maria Popo­va is the founder and edi­tor in chief of Brain Pick­ings, a curat­ed inven­to­ry of cross-dis­ci­pli­nary inter­est­ing­ness. She writes for Wired UK, The Atlantic and Desig­nOb­serv­er, and spends a great deal of time on Twit­ter.

Oil’d, by Chris Harmon

in Current Affairs, Video - Politics/Society | May 2nd, 2011

We’re often obsessed with oil. A year ago, the issue was off­shore drilling. The Deep­wa­ter Hori­zon rig had explod­ed, and crude oil was spilling into the Gulf of Mex­i­co at a rate of 53,000 bar­rels a day. We all watched help­less­ly as BP threw every­thing but the kitchen sink at the prob­lem. (Remem­ber the golf balls?) Three months passed and 4.9 mil­lion bar­rels ripped into the ecosys­tem before the well was final­ly capped. Time to talk about it? Hard­ly. Now the dis­cus­sion has moved on to sky­rock­et­ing oil prices and the issues sur­round­ing them, like the caus­es (con­flict in the Mid­dle East, ris­ing con­sump­tion in Chi­na and India, com­mod­i­ty spec­u­la­tion at home…) and the polit­i­cal impli­ca­tions for the 2012 U.S. pres­i­den­tial elec­tion if gas prices stay high. Weighty issues, to be sure. But before we allow the Deep­wa­ter Hori­zon oil spill of 2010 to fade into our col­lec­tive amne­sia, Chris Har­mon, a Brook­lyn-based design­er, ani­ma­tor and writer, has cre­at­ed a work of ani­mat­ed typog­ra­phy to put some of the stag­ger­ing facts into per­spec­tive.

Vladimir Nabokov Marvels Over Different “Lolita” Book Covers

in Books, Literature | May 2nd, 2011

In this short excerpt from a TV pro­gram called “USA: The Nov­el,” Vladimir Nabokov com­ments on dif­fer­ent for­eign edi­tions of his nov­el Loli­ta. The indi­vid­ual cov­ers he dis­cuss­es are list­ed here; the full pro­gram is avail­able here, and it con­tains some mem­o­rable quotes by the author (from chap­ter 1: “Mr Nabokov, would you tell us why it is that you detest Dr. Freud?” — “I think he’s crude, I think he’s medieval, and I don’t want an elder­ly gen­tle­man from Vien­na with an umbrel­la inflict­ing his dreams upon me. I don’t have the dreams that he dis­cuss­es in his books, I don’t see umbrel­las in my dreams or bal­loons.”).

Find­ing a pub­lish­er for Loli­ta proved to be rather dif­fi­cult for Nabokov. A Decem­ber 1953 review of the man­u­script said: “It is over­whelm­ing­ly nau­se­at­ing, even to an enlight­ened Freudi­an. To the pub­lic, it will be revolt­ing. It will not sell, and will do immea­sur­able harm to a grow­ing rep­u­ta­tion. […] I rec­om­mend that it be buried under a stone for a thou­sand years.” (Get more infor­ma­tion at Stan­ford’s “The Book Haven”) Loli­ta was first pub­lished in 1955 (orig­i­nal cov­er here) and has since been trans­lat­ed into many lan­guages with a wide vari­ety of cov­er designs (find a good col­lec­tion at this site).

Short­ly after Loli­ta’s pub­li­ca­tion, Nabokov dis­cussed his nov­el on the CBC pro­gram “Close Up”: see part one and part two.

Bonus: Lit­tle known detail — Nabokov held the post of cura­tor of lep­i­doptera at Har­vard’s Muse­um of Com­par­a­tive Zool­o­gy. He col­lect­ed many but­ter­flies and devel­oped a the­o­ry of but­ter­fly migra­tion which dis­put­ed all pre­vi­ous the­o­ries and was­n’t tak­en seri­ous­ly by biol­o­gists then. Only recent­ly did genet­ic stud­ies vin­di­cate his once bold the­o­ry. Some of Nabokov’s beau­ti­ful draw­ings of the but­ter­flies he stud­ied can be enjoyed cour­tesy of Fla­vor­wire.

You can find this video housed in our col­lec­tion of 235 Cul­tur­al Icons.

By pro­fes­sion, Matthias Rasch­er teach­es Eng­lish and His­to­ry at a High School in north­ern Bavaria, Ger­many. In his free time he scours the web for good links and posts the best finds on Twit­ter.

Spy Magazine (1986–1998) Now Online

in Comedy, Media | April 28th, 2011

You want to know why Rupert Mur­doch runs the world and you don’t? Here’s a hint: In 1990, Spy Mag­a­zine (now archived at Google Books) sent Mur­doch and a slew of oth­er wealthy celebri­ties checks for $1.11 as a prank. Mur­doch cashed his right away — because even when he was just a low­ly bil­lion­aire, the guy under­stood mon­ey.

And the edi­tors at Spy (1986–98) under­stood celebri­ty cul­ture, which is why they became arguably the most influ­en­tial mag­a­zine of the late 20th cen­tu­ry, or, in Dave Eggers’ words “cru­el, bril­liant, beau­ti­ful­ly writ­ten and per­fect­ly designed, and feared by all.” Com­bin­ing an ele­gant house style, barbed satire, and a healthy dose of class-rage, Spy inspired a rad­i­cal tonal shift in Amer­i­can jour­nal­ism just in time for the arrival of a per­fect­ly suit­ed new plat­form: The Inter­net.

You can read more about the mag­a­zine’s lega­cy in Will Hines’ excel­lent arti­cle Div­ing into the Archives of Spy, The Fun­ni­est Mag­a­zine Ever, at the com­e­dy blog Split­sider. Before accus­ing Hines of hyper­bole, take a look at some of his finds:

Joe Queenan sends up the The Cult of Bob Dylan

The edi­tors list Clin­ton’s First 100 Lies

Newt Gin­grich, top­less, on the cov­er

And that’s with­out even start­ing on the true clas­sics from the 80’s. It’s all at Google Books. Enjoy.

via Split­sider

Relat­ed:  The Onion: Fake News Site Launch­es Real Archive

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

A Very Brief History of Royal Weddings

in Current Affairs, History | April 28th, 2011

I can’t say that we’ll be watch­ing the roy­al wed­ding. But we should at least put a thin veneer of intel­li­gence on top of the shal­low spec­ta­cle. That’s our job. In two very quick min­utes, Emory his­to­ri­an Patrick Allitt sketch­es out the his­to­ry of roy­al wed­dings, and tells you why this “Roy­al Willd­ing” stands out…

“Jersey Shore” in the Style of Oscar Wilde

in Comedy, Theatre | April 27th, 2011

We gid­di­ly present “Jer­sey Shore” Gone Wilde, as per­formed by the cast of The Impor­tance of Being Earnest, a pro­duc­tion cur­rent­ly being staged by the Round­about The­atre Com­pa­ny in New York City.

Go ahead and catch this inspired mashup of Vic­to­ri­an com­e­dy and MTV “real­i­ty” at Play­bill Video in 5 parts … unless you have work to do this after­noon.

via @MaudNewton

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly

Fire Ants Create Life Raft in 100 Seconds Flat

in Science, Video - Science | April 27th, 2011

The cen­tral intel­li­gence of ants – the way ant colonies orga­nize them­selves with­out a leader and get things done – con­tin­ues to amaze sci­en­tists and sci­ence writ­ers alike. Back in 2003, Deb­o­rah Gor­don, a Stan­ford biol­o­gist, gave a whole TED Talk called “How Do Ants Know What to Do?,” which sheds light on how ants can form stun­ning­ly com­plex, lead­er­less sys­tems. Then, sev­er­al years lat­er, Radi­o­Lab con­tin­ued to mull over Gor­don’s fas­ci­nat­ing research in one of its very first episodes.

Now we get this great bit of video. It comes to us via researchers at the Geor­gia Insti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy, and it shows how ants, when placed in water, can form a com­plete­ly water­tight raft in under two min­utes. “They’ll gath­er up all the eggs in the colony and will make their way up through the under­ground net­work of tun­nels, and when the flood waters rise above the ground, they’ll link up togeth­er in these mas­sive rafts,” says Nathan J. Mlot, an engi­neer­ing stu­dent involved in the project. Amaz­ing­ly, even the ants at the bot­tom of the raft nev­er get sub­merged. They all sur­vive, which rais­es the ques­tion: Can this research lead to new floata­tion devices for the rest of us to use?

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!

via Dai­ly Mail and Geek Sys­tem

Astrophysics Goes Extreme

in Physics, Video - Science | April 22nd, 2011

You would­n’t nec­es­sar­i­ly guess it, but astro­physics comes with occu­pa­tion­al risks. Try­ing to unrav­el the mys­ter­ies of the uni­verse, some physi­cists jour­ney to inhos­pitable parts of the world (Siberia, the Antarc­tic, deep mine shafts, etc.), search­ing for ide­al con­di­tions to per­form exper­i­ments into dark ener­gy, dark mat­ter, and beyond. This all gets detailed by Anil Anan­thaswamy, a soft­ware writer turned sci­ence writer, who recent­ly pub­lished a new book The Edge of Physics: A Jour­ney to Earth­’s Extremes to Unlock the Secrets of the Uni­verse. The talk above was pre­sent­ed at the INK Con­fer­ence last Decem­ber. You can also watch him give a fuller 50 minute talk at Google here.

Kevin Spacey & Alec Baldwin Go to Bat for the Arts

in Art, Current Affairs, Video - Politics/Society | April 22nd, 2011

Both Alec Bald­win and Kevin Spacey are long­time advo­cates for gov­ern­ment fund­ing of  the Arts. If you missed their tes­ti­mo­ny before the House Appro­pri­a­tions Subcom­mi­tee on the Inte­ri­or ear­li­er this month, you aren’t alone. They were kicked off the sched­ule because of prepa­ra­tions for a con­gres­sion­al shut­down. These speech­es were deliv­ered not to the sub­com­mit­tee but to a crowd of advo­cates and fans.

Both are well worth watch­ing. Spacey, who is also the artis­tic direc­tor of Lon­don’s Old Vic The­atre, has long been one of the most respect­ed and artic­u­late actors in Hol­ly­wood. (See his inspir­ing pep talk to a young actor on Inside the Actor’s Stu­dio here.) He packs more wis­dom in these 12 and a half min­utes than some per­form­ers do in a life­time.

As for Alec Bald­win, his speech is short­er, but equal­ly com­pelling. If you’re in a rush, head straight to minute  4:00, which begins with this teas­er: “I come from a busi­ness where we all know a great secret …”

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

Eagles Hatch, Millions Watch

in Video - Science | April 21st, 2011

The Iowa-based Rap­tor Resource Project works to fos­ter pop­u­la­tion growth among threat­ened bird pop­u­la­tions through­out the mid­west. They man­age 23 nests, edu­cate oth­ers in nest-site man­age­ment, and — best of all for those liv­ing far from the wilder­ness — main­tain sev­er­al web­cams at their sites. You can fol­low sev­er­al fam­i­lies online, includ­ing fal­cons, owls and osprey.

But the most pop­u­lar live stream keeps track of these bald eagles in Dec­o­rah, Iowa. While we were typ­ing up this post, we had the stream up in anoth­er win­dow: Along with about 90,000 oth­er view­ers, we watched one of the eagles shel­ter­ing three eaglets from a strong wind, 80 feet high in the snow-cov­ered nest. The oth­er was pre­sum­ably out hunt­ing. (The RRP’s blog has a nice expla­na­tion of how the par­ents pro­tect their young from cold and snow, both in the moment and through smart nest design.) The video above shows the 24-hour hatch­ing of their first egg, on April 1st and April 2nd, edit­ed down to just 10 min­utes.

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.