The Great Elephant Escape

in History | November 3rd, 2010

Let me set the scene: Not long after the attack on Pearl Har­bor, Japan invad­ed Bur­ma, a “back­wa­ter of the British Empire,” hop­ing to put the Chi­nese and British at a strate­gic dis­ad­van­tage. (Get more details here.) Ini­tial­ly the Japan­ese cam­paign met with suc­cess, and, in ear­ly 1942, the British and local allies beat a retreat, try­ing to escape over the bor­der to India. But when they reached the bor­der, they found rivers, flood­ed by mon­soons, block­ing their way. That’s when a British tea planter named Gyles Mack­rell stepped in and moved 200 refugees across the bor­der using the only means avail­able to them — ele­phants. This amaz­ing sto­ry is now being told for the first time, thanks to the Cen­tre of South Asian Stud­ies at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cam­bridge and its short film (13 min­utes) shown above. You can read more about the great ele­phant escape here.

Down to the Bone

in Film, Life | November 2nd, 2010

Every Novem­ber 2nd, Mex­i­cans cel­e­brate the Day of the Dead. Close­ly asso­ci­at­ed with oth­er Catholic hol­i­days (All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day), the Day of the Dead gives par­tic­i­pants a chance to pray for and remem­ber dear­ly depart­ed fam­i­ly mem­bers and friends. And it’s often car­ried out in a fes­tive spir­it, not one marked by melan­choly. As Car­los Fuentes, one of Mex­i­co’s most cel­e­brat­ed writ­ers, once said about death: “We Mex­i­cans don’t advance towards death, we return to it, because death is not the end but the begin­ning, the start of every­thing: we descend from death.”

Today, on the Day of the Dead, we give you a clay­ma­tion film that cap­tures the mood of the hol­i­day — Has­ta los hue­sos or Down to the Bone. René Castil­lo, a self-taught ani­ma­tor from Guadala­jara, wrote and direct­ed the film back in 2001. And it went on to win many inter­na­tion­al awards for excel­lence in film. Down to the Bone runs nine min­utes, and it’s a wild ride through­out. H/T M.S.

The Milky Way over Texas

in Astronomy, Science, Video - Science | October 29th, 2010

This 45 sec­ond time­lapse video of the “Galac­tic Cen­ter of the Milky Way” ris­ing over Texas Star Par­ty (2009) just gets more spec­tac­u­lar as it rolls along. William Castle­man cre­at­ed this sequence using a Canon EOS-5D, with expo­sures at 20 and 40 sec­ond inter­vals. This com­ple­ments nice­ly Stéphane Guis­ard’s panoram­ic view of the Milky Way tak­en from the Ata­ca­ma desert in Chile. See the The Milky Way in 360 Degrees here.

Find us on Face­book and Twit­ter!

The Best American Science Writing 2010: Free Essays

in Books, Science | October 27th, 2010

Jerome Groop­man, the New York­er staff writer and Har­vard med school prof, has edit­ed The Best Amer­i­can Sci­ence Writ­ing 2010 - a new col­lec­tion that brings togeth­er “the most cru­cial, thought-pro­vok­ing, and engag­ing sci­ence writ­ing” dur­ing the past 12 months. The 368 page book runs $10.19 online. But before you run out and buy it, let me say this: you can read many of the col­lect­ed essays online for free. The Truth About Grit by Jon­ah Lehrer; My Genome, My Self by Steven Pinker; Are We Still Evolv­ing? by Kath­leen McAu­li­ffe – they’re among 16 essays avail­able online, and they’re all includ­ed in a handy list pulled togeth­er by Metafil­ter. Mean­while, if you want to read these essays lat­er on (when you have some time to delve into longer arti­cles) give Instapa­per a try. As I’ve men­tioned before, it’s a great way to read texts in a clean for­mat on the iPad, iPhone, and Kin­dle.

Shakespeare in the Original Voice

in Literature, Theatre | October 26th, 2010

This fall, Paul Meier, a the­atre pro­fes­sor at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Kansas, is work­ing with stu­dents to stage the first-ever Amer­i­can ren­di­tion of a Shake­speare play – A Mid­sum­mer Night’s Dream – in its orig­i­nal pro­nun­ci­a­tion. As The His­to­ry Blog writes, there have only been “three oth­er pro­duc­tions of orig­i­nal pro­nun­ci­a­tion (OP) Shake­speare before this one, 2 at The Globe the­ater in Lon­don, and 1 at Cam­bridge in the 1950s.” But this dif­fi­cult project became pos­si­ble when Meier and his stu­dents start­ed work­ing with David Crys­tal, a lin­guis­tics schol­ar who wrote Pro­nounc­ing Shake­speare (Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty Press) in 2005. Pri­or to the KU pro­duc­tion, Crys­tal con­sult­ed on a pro­duc­tion of Romeo and Juli­et at the Globe the­atre on London’s South Bank (men­tioned above), and you can lis­ten to audio clips tak­en from that Eng­lish per­for­mance right here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

What Did Shake­speare Real­ly Look Like

Shake­speare Free on the iPhone

The Milky Way in 360 Degrees

in Science | October 25th, 2010

Stéphane Guis­ard trav­eled to the Paranal obser­va­to­ry, sit­u­at­ed in Chile’s remote Ata­ca­ma desert, in search of the “dark­est sky.” The result? Some amaz­ing zoomable, fish­eye images that reveal the dark­est of dark skies (includ­ing a glimpse of the Gegen­schein). And then also this “byprod­uct”: a 360 degree panoram­ic view of the Milky Way that lies on the dark sky hori­zon. You can view Los Cie­los de Chile here.

Please note that the page can take a lit­tle time to load. But once you’re there, you can tog­gle around the images and con­trol the views.

Free Movies: Watch the Classics & Gems Online

in Film | October 24th, 2010

Almost a year ago, we start­ed scour­ing the web for free movies — for films worth your pre­cious time. We start­ed with 75, and now we’re above 200. What will you find on the ever-grow­ing list of Free Movies Online? Films by Orson Welles, Fran­cis Ford Cop­po­la, Alfred Hitch­cock, Stan­ley Kubrick, David Lynch, Bri­an DePal­ma, Jean-Luc Godard, Andrei Tarkovsky, Fritz Lang, Elia Kazan, Howard Hawks, Ida Lupino, Ken Loach, Aki­ra Kuro­sawa, Bil­ly Wilder, and Mar­tin Scors­ese. The list cov­ers many dif­fer­ent gen­res (come­dies, film noir, indies, doc­u­men­taries, short and ani­mat­ed films, even some note­wor­thy B movies) and spans the entire his­to­ry of cin­e­ma, mov­ing from ear­ly silent films to con­tem­po­rary movies. It also fea­tures bril­liant per­for­mances by major actress­es and actors — too many to name right here. For copy­right rea­sons, there’s gen­er­al­ly a heavy empha­sis on the clas­sics. If you have time to spare, check out the full col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online. And if we’re miss­ing any good ones, please feel free to send us your tips or add them to the com­ments sec­tion below.

Fol­low Open Cul­ture on Face­book and Twit­ter!

The Office Meets the Twilight Zone

in Comedy, Film | October 22nd, 2010

‘The Black Hole’ runs two min­utes. Be sure to hang with it until the end. H/T @ellmcgirt

Fol­low Open Cul­ture on Face­book and Twit­ter!

Nikon Small World Photography: The Winners

in Art | October 22nd, 2010

The Nikon Inter­na­tion­al Small World Com­pe­ti­tion first began in 1974 as a “means to rec­og­nize and applaud the efforts of those involved with pho­tog­ra­phy through the light micro­scope.” A good 36 years lat­er, Nikon named the win­ners of the 2010 com­pe­ti­tion, which means we can take anoth­er artis­tic look inside the world of small things, get­ting down to the very micro lev­el of ani­mals, plants and min­er­als. Above, you’re look­ing at an image of glial cells in the cere­bel­lum mag­ni­fied 400 times. This image and 28 oth­ers appear in the always excel­lent The Big Pic­ture sec­tion of the Boston Globe. Also vis­it a gallery of images on the Nikon site. Thanks to @wesalwan for send­ing our way.

Vintage Literary T‑Shirts

in Books | October 21st, 2010

Out of Print Cloth­ing “cel­e­brates the world’s great sto­ries through fash­ion,” work­ing with artists to design t‑shirts that fea­ture icon­ic book cov­ers. The cat­a­log lets you choose from Orwell’s Ani­mal Farm, Salinger’s Catch­er in the Rye, William S. Bur­roughs’ Naked Lunch, Bul­gakov’s Russ­ian clas­sic Mas­ter and Mar­gari­ta or 29 oth­er vin­tage shirts, each of which costs a fair­ly rea­son­able $28. See the full list of shirts here.

via @AndrewHazlett

Fol­low Open Cul­ture on Face­book and Twit­ter!!