Rod Serling: Where Do Ideas Come From? (1972)

in Literature, Television | January 18th, 2010

Rod Ser­ling, the Amer­i­can screen­writer & tele­vi­sion pro­duc­er best known for The Twi­light Zone, field­ed ques­tions from stu­dents about the whole art of writ­ing for tele­vi­sion. In the clip above, he gives a rather dra­mat­ic response to the ques­tion, “Where do ideas come from?” (They come from the Earth… They’re in the air. And, to put them on paper, you bleed!) If you keep watch­ing, the con­ver­sa­tion with Ser­ling con­tin­ues for a good while.

This con­tri­bu­tion was sent to us by Elan, who dates the clip to around 1972. You can always write us and sug­gest a link 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!

The Beatles as Teens (1957)

in Music | January 17th, 2010

B- Classic Movies Now Online

in Film | January 14th, 2010

If you get your kicks from uber kitschy B- films, then we’ve got a lit­tle some­thing for you. AMC has launched a new site called B- Minus Clas­sics, which we have added to our grow­ing col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online. (Our list now con­tains 125 free clas­sic movies, and numer­ous sites where you can watch free movies online). AMC describes its new site as:

Your new go-to site for B‑movies by the likes of John Car­pen­ter (Dark Star) and Roger Cor­man (Saga of the Viking Women). Now online and in full screen, watch unsung clas­sics like Asy­lum by Psy­cho screen­writer Robert Block or Cor­ri­dors of Blood with the inim­itable Christo­pher Lee. Want to see inter­na­tion­al icons before they made it big? Check out Raquel Welch in A Swingin’ Sum­mer or kung fu king Son­ny Chi­ba in Ter­ror Beneath the Sea. Look­ing for the unex­pect­ed? How about The Ruth­less Four, a spaghet­ti West­ern star­ring Klaus Kin­s­ki. Now updat­ed with even more B‑movies fea­tur­ing femmes fatales (The Cat Girl), jun­gle adven­tures (Curse of the Voodoo) and talk­ing ven­tril­o­quist’s dum­mies (Dev­il Doll). What­ev­er your B‑movie taste, BMC has got you cov­ered.

Thanks to @brainkpicker for flag­ging this new col­lec­tion.

Two Gentlemen of Lebowski

in Film, Literature | January 13th, 2010

Take the Coen Broth­ers’ 1998 cult film, The Big Lebows­ki, and put it in Shake­speare­an verse, and what do you get? Two Gen­tle­men of Lebowski as writ­ten by Adam Bertoc­ci. It begins:

In wayfarer’s worlds out west was once a man,
A man I come not to bury, but to praise.
His name was Geof­frey Lebows­ki called, yet
Not called, except­ing by his kin.
That which we call a knave by any oth­er name
Might bowl just as sweet. Lebows­ki, then,
Did call him­self ‘the Knave’, a name that I,
Your hum­ble cho­rus, would not self-apply
In home­lands mine; but, then, this Knave was one
From whom sense was a bur­den to extract,
And of the arid vale in which he dwelt,
Also dis­like in sen­si­bil­i­ty;
May­hap the very search for sense reveals
The rea­son that it striketh me as most
Int’resting, yea, inspir­ing me to odes.

The Wall Street Jour­nal has more on this cre­ative bit that has gone viral dur­ing the past week, and will be soon per­formed on stage in NYC. See Kottke.org for more on that.

A.C. Grayling on “Teaching the Controversy”

in Philosophy, Religion, Science | January 12th, 2010

In this clip from Richard Dawkins’ YouTube Chan­nel, philoso­pher A.C. Grayling offers an argu­ment for why intel­li­gent design should’t be taught along­side evo­lu­tion in the class­room. Some will agree with his posi­tion, and some won’t. And prob­a­bly few will have no opin­ion. If you have reac­tions to Grayling’s argu­ment, please state them civil­ly and intel­li­gent­ly in the com­ments below.

via @courosa

Is Anything Real?

in Film, Life | January 11th, 2010

Wel­come to the new world of dig­i­tal film­mak­ing. Give this one a minute to get going.

Thanks Nats and Gary for send­ing this one along. Have a great link to share with us? (I know you do!) Write us at mail at open­cul­ture dot com.

The Best of Books, 2009–2010

in Books, Literature | January 7th, 2010

This almost slipped by me. As 2009 drew to a close, The New York Times post­ed two annu­al lists. First, its list of 100 Notable Books and then its 10 Best Books of 2009. 5 Fic­tion. 5 Non­fic­tion. It’s a pret­ty good dis­til­la­tion of the bet­ter works pub­lished last year. But enough about ’09. What’s com­ing in 2010? The Mil­lions has pre­viewed the most antic­i­pat­ed books (all fic­tion) set for pub­li­ca­tion this year.

Look­ing for more good reads? Check out the col­lec­tion of Life Chang­ing Books assem­bled by our read­ers.

Yellow Sticky Notes

in Film | January 7th, 2010

Ani­mat­ed and direct­ed by Jeff Chi­ba Stearns. The short film is the win­ner of the Prix du Pub­lic at Cler­mont-Fer­rand.

How to Live to Be 100 and Beyond: 9 Diet & Lifestyle Tips

in Health, Life, Science | January 6th, 2010

A lit­tle pub­lic ser­vice announce­ment… Dan Buet­tner, a writer for Nation­al Geo­graph­ic, has stud­ied the world’s longest-lived peo­ples. Most of his find­ings are summed up in his book, The Blue Zones: Lessons for Liv­ing Longer From the Peo­ple Who’ve Lived the Longest. And here, in this Ted Talk, he boils things down even fur­ther, giv­ing you 9 com­mon diet and lifestyle habits found among the world’s old­est pop­u­la­tions. They’ve been use­ful­ly sum­ma­rized by Pre­sen­ta­tionZen as fol­lows:

Move Nat­u­ral­ly
(1) You don’t need a for­mal, rig­or­ous exer­cise plan. We’re talk­ing here a change in lifestyle that is fun­da­men­tal­ly active. We’re designed to move. We’ve not meant to dri­ve 100 meters in a car to pick up chips at the local store. Walk, do yard work, what­ev­er. Do exercises/activities that you enjoy.

Have Right Out­look
(2) Slow down. When you’re con­stant­ly in a hur­ry and stressed out, this has a neg­a­tive impact on your health. Lim­it­ing neg­a­tive stress is one of the health­i­est things you can do for your­self.
(3) Have a clear pur­pose. The Japan­ese call it “iki­gai” 生き甲斐 (lit: life + val­ue, be worth while). You must have a pas­sion, a call­ing, a pur­pose. There’s got to be a rea­son to get out of bed every day.

Eat Wise­ly
(4) Drink a lit­tle (wine) every­day.
(5) Eat main­ly plant-based foods. Small amounts of meat and fish are OK.
(6) Hara Hachi Bu: Eat until 80% full. Do not eat eat until you’re stuffed. (I’ve talked about this many time before in the con­text of pre­sen­ta­tion.)

Be Con­nect­ed with oth­ers
(7) Put fam­i­ly, loved ones first.
(8) Belong to a com­mu­ni­ty. Many in his study belonged to faith-based com­mu­ni­ties.
(9) Belong to the right tribe. That is, hang out with peo­ple with healthy habits, phys­i­cal and emo­tion­al ones.

Takes these tips to heart, and please share them with friends…

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!

Faith and Globalization: Tony Blair Teaches at Yale

in Current Affairs, Politics, Religion, Yale | January 5th, 2010

After he left office in 2007, Tony Blair went across the pond and spent time teach­ing at Yale. Exit Prime Min­is­ter Blair. Enter Pro­fes­sor Blair. Dur­ing the 2008-09 aca­d­e­m­ic year, Blair and Miroslav Volf co-taught “Faith and Glob­al­iza­tion,” a course designed to help stu­dents under­stand the two inter­twined forces shap­ing our world. In some ways, reli­gion is the real focus here, and it is Blair’s argu­ment (above, for exam­ple) that “If you can­not under­stand the world of faith, whether you are in busi­ness, or in pub­lic affairs, or in pol­i­tics, then you actu­al­ly can­not under­stand the world.” The full course can be accessed on iTunes, and we have also added it to our large col­lec­tion of free cours­es from top uni­ver­si­ties. For more infor­ma­tion on this course, please vis­it Yale’s Faith and Glob­al­iza­tion web­site and also be sure to access Yale’s Open Course ini­tia­tive.

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!