Deep Thinking on the Web

in Education | February 17th, 2010

This morn­ing, a New York Times edi­to­r­i­al is help­ing get the word out. Deep think­ing is alive and well on the web:

There is a lot of talk about how the Inter­net is dri­ving cul­ture ever low­er, but it also makes a wealth of seri­ous think­ing avail­able. From the com­fort of home, one can down­load free audio books by authors like Jane Austen and Joseph Con­rad and free pod­casts of uni­ver­si­ty lec­tures (openculture.com has an assort­ment of both).

The rest of the piece right­ly focus­es on a BBC pod­cast called In Our Time (iTunes — Feed — Web Site). It’s list­ed in our Ideas & Cul­ture Pod­cast Col­lec­tion, along with many oth­er thought­ful pro­grams that make mean­ing­ful sub­jects rel­e­vant to a broad­er, glob­al audi­ence. (For some­thing sim­i­lar in video, see our col­lec­tions of Intel­li­gent Video Sites and Smart YouTube Chan­nels.)

Yes, intel­li­gent media does­n’t dom­i­nate the web. But, it’s flour­ish­ing in the nich­es and crevices, and we want to bring it to the sur­face. Per­haps you’ll want to join us? If you’re inter­est­ed in con­tribut­ing to Open Cul­ture, we’re always look­ing for your sug­ges­tions. I have put togeth­er a page that out­lines our edi­to­r­i­al approach. Take a look, and if you find great pieces of intel­li­gent media while surf­ing the web, please send them our way. We thank you in advance.

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater Animated

in Art | February 15th, 2010

Falling­wa­ter was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1935. Con­struc­tion began a year lat­er and was even­tu­al­ly com­plet­ed in 1939. Many con­sid­er Falling­wa­ter one of Wright’s finest cre­ations. Hence why Smith­son­ian Mag­a­zine count­ed it as one of the 28 Places to See Before You Die. Now, thanks to the mini movie above, you can watch the build­ing of Falling­wa­ter take place right before your eyes, and then take a tour of the house. It’s all done in com­put­er graph­ics and runs 4+ min­utes. And, as one read­er tells us, the “video is as real as it gets.” You can learn more about the film and the house at this web site. Thanks Mike for the great tip.

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!

Validation, or The Magic of Free Parking

in Comedy, Film | February 15th, 2010

Kurt Kuen­ne’s short film, “Val­i­da­tion,” has played at 34 film fes­ti­vals and won 17 awards. This 16 minute indie offers a “fable about the mag­ic of free park­ing” — mean­ing they’re talk­ing about “val­i­da­tion” in a larg­er sense than park­ing per se … We’ve added the clip to our YouTube favorites.

Django at 100

in Music | February 14th, 2010

Djan­go Rein­hardt, one of Europe’s finest jazz gui­tar play­ers, would have turned 100 on Jan­u­ary 24. It’s fair­ly aston­ish­ing to think that he mas­tered the gui­tar as he did, ele­vat­ing it to a lead jazz instru­ment, despite being self taught, and hav­ing lost the use of two fin­gers in a fire. (More on that in the LA Times.) Above, we fea­ture Djan­go and his group, Quin­tette du Hot Club de France, per­form­ing “J’At­tendrai” (I Will Wait) in 1939. As you’ll note, he only has two fin­gers mov­ing on the frets.

Editorial Tips

in | February 14th, 2010

When we post new con­tent to Open Cul­ture, here are some ques­tions that we gen­er­al­ly ask our­selves.

1) Will the mate­r­i­al be inter­est­ing to a broad intel­li­gent audi­ence? Is it live­ly and engag­ing? (Or is it a lit­tle too esoteric/ponderous?)

2) Is there a piece of media (video, audio, text, etc) that can be fea­tured in the post? That’s some­thing that we gen­er­al­ly try to include.

3) Is the media free? Can it be accessed at no cost (or at least very min­i­mal cost)?

4) Can the media be accessed in all geo­graph­ic loca­tions? (Some­times con­tent will only be avail­able, for exam­ple, to a US audi­ence. We try to avoid that. This is par­tic­u­lar­ly an issue with movies. If you have ques­tions, feel free to ask.)

When we gath­er mate­r­i­al for the site, here are sev­er­al things we keep our eyes open for…

• Audio/video clips deal­ing with icon­ic cul­tur­al fig­ures. See exam­ple or this one.
• Audio/video clips fea­tur­ing important/well known con­tem­po­rary cul­tur­al fig­ures. See exam­ple.
• Awe inspir­ing sci­ence videos. See exam­ple. Or this one.
• Great cul­tur­al resource col­lec­tions avail­able on the web. This includes music, film, lit­er­a­ture archives with free con­tent. etc. See exam­ple. Here’s anoth­er. And yet anoth­er. And final­ly anoth­er.
• Posts that tell peo­ple where they can find new books, songs, movies, etc. released in free for­mats. See exam­ple, this one, or this one.
• Audio/video that does a good job of mak­ing qual­i­ty cul­ture rel­e­vant to a broad­er pub­lic. See exam­ple.
• Online aca­d­e­m­ic cours­es (usu­al­ly from lib­er­al arts or sci­ences) that will gen­er­ate broad inter­est. See exam­ple.
• New tech­nol­o­gy (Kin­dle, iPad, Google soft­ware, iPhone apps) that changes the way that we read and learn, or engage with cul­ture. See exam­ple. Or this exam­ple. Or this one.

These are just a few items that we gen­er­al­ly look out for. But we can always move in new direc­tions. If you have any ques­tions or con­tri­bu­tions, feel free to con­tact us here.

Notre Dame Marching Band Performs “This Too Shall Pass”

in Music | February 14th, 2010

The Notre Dame March­ing Band hit the field (a real field), where they per­formed OK Go’s “This Too Shall Pass.” The per­for­mance was arranged by Notre Dame’s direc­tor of bands, Dr. Ken Dye. And it was all record­ed live on the spot. You can watch the video in a larg­er for­mat here. Inci­den­tal­ly, if you’re not famil­iar with OK Go’s music, you can watch them per­form an acoustic ver­sion here.

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!

Tweets of the Week (2/13)

in Twitter | February 13th, 2010

Why let good tweets (and re-tweets) go to waste? Each week, we’re going to list some of the cul­tur­al good­ies that appeared in our Twit­ter stream. You can start fol­low­ing Open Cul­ture on Twit­ter here.

• Fun video. Notre Dame March­ing Band Doing Things Dif­fer­ent­ly RT @mwesch: OK Go — This Too Shall Pass https://bit.ly/9DZ8h7
• Ira Glass on the Art of Sto­ry Telling https://bit.ly/U9cRm
• Author, 17, Says It’s ‘Mix­ing,’ Not Pla­gia­rism:https://nyti.ms/94tpIK
• What info do peo­ple (like you) tend to share on Twit­ter? A uni­ver­si­ty research team gets inter­est­ing results:https://bit.ly/b1PjnX
• RT @kirstin­but­ler: An ancient lan­guage thought to have exist­ed for 65,000 years goes extinct https://is.gd/7Wvth
• RT @nytime­sarts: Unsealed Let­ters Offer Glimpse of Salinger https://nyti.ms/c0i3It
• Odd arti­cle on the dan­gers of singing Sina­tra’s “My Way” in Fil­ipino karaoke bars. https://nyti.ms/cnYX1z
• @brain­pick­er: NPR’s This Amer­i­can Life launch­es iPhone app, just $2.99 to stream any episode from the last 15 yearshttps://ow.ly/16SeB
• RT @Harvard_Law: Lessig in The New Repub­lic: Google, copy­right and our future: https://www.law.harvard.edu/news/2010/02/05_lessig.html
• RT @phi­los­o­phy­bites: Who is Oba­ma’s favourite ‘philoso­pher’? Answer here: https://tinyurl.com/yfr2jqf
• Haber­mas on Twit­ter? Not the real deal: https://bit.ly/bi84s1

Picasso Painting on Glass

in Art | February 12th, 2010

A deeply mem­o­rable scene. Picas­so at his home in Val­lau­ris, paint­ing on glass with a cam­era rolling on the oth­er side. The scene is an out­take from Vis­ite à Picas­so (A Vis­it with Picas­so), a 1950 film by Bel­gian film­mak­er Paul Hae­saerts. The full film, run­ning 20 min­utes, can be watched in its entire­ty on Vimeo (or right below). You can find this film in our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online. For good mea­sure, we have also added an excerpt from the 1956 film Le Mys­tere Picas­so, by Hen­ri-Georges Clouzot, oth­er­wise known for Les dia­boliques (1955). The film is avail­able on YouTube in two parts: Part 1 — Part 2.

Fol­low us on Face­book, Twit­ter, Google Plus and LinkedIn and  share intel­li­gent media with your friends. Or bet­ter yet, sign up for our dai­ly email and get a dai­ly dose of Open Cul­ture in your inbox.

Hyperspace to Berlin, Watch Metropolis Live

in Uncategorized | February 12th, 2010

Restored ‘Metropolis’ to Stream Live on Friday

in Film | February 11th, 2010

Clas­sic film buffs take note. Roger Ebert writes:

The eager­ly await­ed restored ver­sion of Fritz Lang’s silent clas­sic “Metrop­o­lis” will steam live on the inter­net on Fri­day Feb. 12. In Amer­i­ca, it can be see in the after­noon. It’s said that near­ly an hour of footage, long thought to be lost, has been added. The footage was dis­cov­ered in a film archive in Buenos Aires.… It will be streamed via web­sites in both Ger­man and France. The actu­al film is sched­uled to start play­ing at 1:40 PM CST, Chica­go time.”

The French site stream­ing the film can be found here, and the Ger­man site here.