New Twain Online

in Literature | July 8th, 2010

Mark Twain died a good cen­tu­ry ago. But new Twain writ­ings keep com­ing out. Lat­er this fall, his auto­bi­og­ra­phy will hit book­stores for the first time. And just this week, PBS pub­lished online a new Twain essay called “Con­cern­ing the Inter­view.” It begins:

No one likes to be inter­viewed, and yet no one likes to say no; for inter­view­ers are cour­te­ous and gen­tle-man­nered, even when they come to destroy.

You can read a high res­o­lu­tion, hand-writ­ten copy of the essay here.

via @alyssa_milano

The Stanford Mini Med School: The Complete Collection

in Science, Stanford | July 8th, 2010

Image by King of Hearts, via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

Through­out the past year, Stanford’s School of Med­i­cine and Stan­ford Con­tin­u­ing Stud­ies (my day job) teamed up to offer The Stan­ford Mini Med School. Fea­tur­ing more than thir­ty dis­tin­guished fac­ul­ty, sci­en­tists, and physi­cians, this year­long series of cours­es (three in total) offered stu­dents a dynam­ic intro­duc­tion to the world of human biol­o­gy, health and dis­ease, and the ground­break­ing changes tak­ing place in med­ical research and health care. Now you can watch these lec­tures for free. The fall and win­ter lec­tures (20 lec­tures in total) are com­plete­ly avail­able online. And the spring lec­tures are get­ting rolled out start­ing this week. You can access the full lec­tures series in mul­ti­ple for­mats below:

• Fall 2009, The Dynam­ics of Human Health — iTunes — YouTube — Web Site
• Win­ter 2009, Human Health and the Fron­tiers of Sci­ence — iTunes — YouTube — Web Site
• Spring 2010, Trans­form­ing Our Under­stand­ing of Human Health and Dis­ease — iTunes — Web Site

The entire series also appears in our col­lec­tion of Free Online Cours­es.

West Bank Story: Parody for Peace

in Current Affairs, Film | July 7th, 2010

With Ben­jamin Netanyahu vis­it­ing Barack Oba­ma this week, we’ll hear some chat­ter about get­ting the Israeli-Pales­tin­ian peace talks back on track. But, let’s be hon­est, no one is expect­ing any real break­throughs here. Peace, love and under­stand­ing – the rad­i­cals and reac­tionar­ies won’t give you that these days. Only movie mak­ers will, which brings us to West Bank Sto­ry, a 21 minute film that par­o­dies the 1950s clas­sic musi­cal, West Side Sto­ry, a pro­duc­tion which is itself adapt­ed from Shake­speare’s Romeo and Juli­et. Direct­ed by US film­mak­er Ari Sandel, West Bank Sto­ry pre­miered at the Sun­dance Film Fes­ti­val in 2005, and then won an Acad­e­my Award for Best Live Action Short Film in 2006. In mak­ing the film, Sandel had three main goals: to make peo­ple laugh, to advo­cate peace, and to por­tray the Israelis and Pales­tini­ans in a fun­ny but bal­anced way. You can learn more about the direc­tor’s approach here.

Oth­er than watch­ing the film above, you can view it direct­ly on Google Video or down­load a copy here. Also find it list­ed in our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online.

Michael Tilson Thomas: How Mahler Changed My Life

in Music | July 6th, 2010

For Gus­tav Mahler’s birth­day this week, we have Michael Tilson Thomas, direc­tor of the San Fran­cis­co Sym­pho­ny … and the YouTube Sym­pho­ny Orches­tra, revis­it­ing the pro­found impres­sion Mahler’s music made on his own per­son­al devel­op­ment. He recalls being intro­duced to Das Lied Von Der Erde when he was 13, and it marked an epiphanal divid­ing point in his life. There was life before Mahler, and a new life after. In this relat­ed clip, Leonard Bern­stein, Amer­i­ca’s great com­pos­er, offers a per­son­al intro­duc­tion to Das Lied Von Der Erde. You can find more inter­views with renowned orches­tra con­duc­tors here.

A big thanks to Zoran in Greece for send­ing these clips our way.

The Crisis of Capitalism Animated

in Business, Current Affairs, Economics | July 5th, 2010

The economic/financial pic­ture is look­ing ugly once again. Indeed, just yes­ter­day, the most emailed New York Times arti­cle warned that the stock mar­ket might be on the verge of an epic crash, one that will bring the Dow below 1,000. So how did we wind up in this glob­al cred­it mess? We’ve heard var­i­ous expla­na­tions, most assum­ing that our cap­i­tal­ist sys­tem did­n’t quite func­tion as it should, and that a few reg­u­la­tions will take care of the prob­lem. But this is not the posi­tion tak­en by David Har­vey, an impor­tant social the­o­rist and geo­g­ra­ph­er (now at CUNY). Draw­ing on Marx­i­an analy­sis (it’s still alive and well some­where), Har­vey sug­gests that the cri­sis is built into cap­i­tal­ism itself. It’s not the result of too few reg­u­la­tions. Rather it’s part of cap­i­tal­is­m’s inter­nal log­ic. (Mark Man­call, an emer­i­tus Stan­ford his­to­ry prof, echoes some of these basic thoughts on “Enti­tled Opin­ions” by the way.) The ani­mat­ed video above is an out­take from a longer lec­ture pre­sent­ed by Har­vey at the Roy­al Soci­ety for the Encour­age­ment of Arts, Man­u­fac­tures and Com­merce in the UK. You can watch the video in full here. Mean­while, David Har­vey has also made avail­able online a free, 26 hour course that offers a close read­ing of Karl Marx’s Cap­i­tal. It appears in the Eco­nom­ics sec­tion of our col­lec­tion of Free Online Cours­es.

Move Over Oil, Algae is Coming

in Current Affairs, Science | July 1st, 2010

We’ve entered the “Age of Tough Oil.” Hav­ing tapped out the easy oil, we’re now left drilling in geo­log­i­cal­ly and polit­i­cal­ly risky places. And, of course, this makes BP-style oil spills more an inevitabil­i­ty than a one-time fluke. Lis­ten to today’s NPR inter­view with Michael Klare for more on this.

Find­ing reli­able sources of renew­able ener­gy is now the order of the day. Hap­pi­ly, researchers at Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty have iden­ti­fied an unlike­ly fuel source. Algae. Watch above.

Leon Levinstein: Photography Reveals How Little We See

in Art, Life | June 29th, 2010

In the 1960s, while now-icon­ic pho­tog­ra­phers like Robert Frank and Diane Arbus were busy becom­ing icon­ic — apply­ing for grants, enter­ing award shows, hus­tling for high-pro­file mag­a­zine assign­ments — Leon Levin­stein was blend­ing into crowds, unno­ticed, doc­u­ment­ing street life and the era’s hip­sters: beach bums, down­town der­ri­eres, street hus­tlers. An unsung pho­tog­ra­phy hero of the 20th cen­tu­ry, Levin­stein craft­ed and inhab­it­ed a lone­ly, her­mit-like world behind his lens, yet man­aged to cap­ture the rich­ness of the world in front of it with remark­able ele­gance and vig­or.

In fan­tas­tic 1988 inter­view recent­ly fea­tured on NPR, the lone pho­tog­ra­ph­er shares his cre­ative ethos and his ulti­mate approach to his art: “You got­ta be alone and work alone. It’s a lone­ly occu­pa­tion, if you wan­na call it that.”

Image © Howard Green­berg Gallery

Image © Howard Green­berg Gallery

What makes Levin­stein a par­tic­u­lar­ly unlike­ly mas­ter of street pho­tog­ra­phy — or, per­haps, pre­cise­ly what makes him a mas­ter — is that he nev­er received any for­mal train­ing in pho­tog­ra­phy. Instead, he exit­ed the army, bought him­self a used cam­era, and qui­et­ly set to shoot­ing.

“A good pho­to­graph will prove to the view­er how lit­tle our eyes per­mit us to see. Most peo­ple only see what they have always seen and what they expect to see. Where a pho­tog­ra­ph­er, if he’s good, will see every­thing.”

Image © Howard Green­berg Gallery

Image © Howard Green­berg Gallery

This month, a new exhi­bi­tion at New York’s Met­ro­pol­i­tan Muse­um of Art pays homage to the obscure pho­tog­ra­ph­er. Hip­sters, Hus­tlers, and Hand­ball Play­ers: Leon Levin­stein’s New York Pho­tographs, 1950–1980 is as much a ret­ro­spec­tive of Levin­stein’s work as it is a unique time cap­sule of the era’s every­day cul­ture-mak­ers. You can view the col­lec­tion of pho­tographs on the muse­um’s web­site and catch the exhi­bi­tion at the Met until Octo­ber 17.

Maria Popo­va is the founder and edi­tor in chief of Brain Pick­ings, a curat­ed inven­to­ry of eclec­tic inter­est­ing­ness and indis­crim­i­nate curios­i­ty. She writes for Wired UK, GOOD Mag­a­zine, Big­Think and Huff­in­g­ton Post, and spends a dis­turb­ing amount of time on Twit­ter.

5,000 Years in 90 Seconds

in History | June 28th, 2010

Great empires rise and fall, most­ly in the Mid­dle East. Watch his­to­ry play itself out on dynam­ic maps and time­line.

Thanks Bob. (Got a great find for read­ers? Send it our way.)

Early Films of New York City

in History | June 28th, 2010

In 1900, New York City was head­ing into a cen­tu­ry of unimag­in­able trans­for­ma­tion. And, thanks to The Library of Con­gress (LOC), you can now revis­it 43 videos show­ing the city lay­ing the foun­da­tions for their bur­geon­ing metrop­o­lis. The clips, all black & white and silent, appear on iTune­sU, YouTube and the LOC web site. And I list iTune­sU first because it offers the eas­i­est way to nav­i­gate through the full col­lec­tion. Above, we fea­ture a scene show­ing New York­ers build­ing the city’s first sky­scrap­ers. The more you watch, the more of the per­ils you see. The col­lec­tion also includes scenes show­ing the Flat­iron Build­ing, the open­ing of the Williams­burg Bridge, skat­ing on a lake in Cen­tral Park, and the exca­va­tion of the tun­nel that would even­tu­al­ly enter Penn Sta­tion.

Hitchens Cancels Speaking Engagements

in Books | June 25th, 2010

Hav­ing recent­ly turned 60, Christo­pher Hitchens decid­ed it was time to write a mem­oir. Hence Hitch-22, his new book pub­lished ear­li­er this month. For a moment, the pub­lic­i­ty machine got rolling. (Above, we have him talk­ing with Antho­ny Layser in a short video called “Drink­ing with Hitchens.” Watch Part 2 here.) But, for what­ev­er rea­son, things have now come to a halt.  Mul­ti­ple speak­ing engage­ments on the West coast (my neck of the woods) have sud­den­ly been can­celed, as True/Slant notes. And, right­ly or wrong­ly, there’s now spec­u­la­tion about Hitchen­s’s health. Nei­ther Hitchens nor his rep­re­sen­ta­tives have offered any offi­cial expla­na­tion. Dailyhitchens.com will inevitably keep mon­i­tor­ing the sit­u­a­tion.

Note: You can down­load Hitch-22 (nar­rat­ed by Hitchens him­self) for free via Audible.com. Read more about their no-strings attached pro­mo­tion here.