Google Brings Massive LIFE Photo Archive to The Web

in Art | November 18th, 2008

A good days for fans of open cul­ture: Google is bring­ing the mas­sive LIFE pho­to archive online. 2 mil­lion pho­tos are already uploaded, and anoth­er 8 mil­lion will be com­ing online soon. The cur­rent archive moves from The Amer­i­can Civ­il War to present, and it includes a large num­ber of pho­tos nev­er seen before. Here’s one of MLK Jr, anoth­er of Pablo Picas­so, and then one of FDR. All of these images will be added to Google Image Search, but if you want to peruse the col­lec­tion, you can sim­ply access it here. You can also read more about this ambi­tious under­tak­ing on Google’s cor­po­rate blog.

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Revisiting the Depression in The Grapes of Wrath (The Film)

in Film | November 18th, 2008

Over at The New York Times, film crit­ic A.O. Scott revis­its John Ford’s 1940 film based on John Stein­beck­’s clas­sic nov­el about the Great Depres­sion. Putting fore­clo­sures and eco­nom­ic strain front and cen­ter, it’s sud­den­ly a film for our age.  Scot­t’s video seg­ment runs about three min­utes, fea­tures footage from the film itself, and takes a look at Hen­ry Fon­da’s lead­ing role. Have a look.

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Einstein the Talking Parrot

in Random | November 17th, 2008

No com­men­tary real­ly need­ed. Just watch. Filed under “Ran­dom” and added to our YouTube playlist.

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The Death of Planet Finance

in Business, Current Affairs | November 14th, 2008

British his­to­ri­an Niall Fer­gu­son has achieved the aca­d­e­m­ic holy trin­i­ty, hold­ing posi­tions at Har­vard, Oxford, and Stanford’s Hoover Insti­tu­tion. Only 44 years old, he has 9 books to his cred­it (includ­ing a new one: The Ascent of Mon­ey: A Finan­cial His­to­ry of the World), and you’ll often find him writ­ing in the pub­lic press. In the lat­est edi­tion of Van­i­ty Fair, Fer­gu­son takes a good look at the demise of the glob­al finan­cial sys­tem and locates the cri­sis “in the long run of finan­cial his­to­ry.” The sto­ry he tells is how the 20th cen­tu­ry — and par­tic­u­lar­ly Amer­i­ca’s urge to become a “prop­er­ty-own­ing democ­ra­cy” — brought us into “The Age of Lever­age,” which car­ried with it a “del­uge of paper mon­ey, asset-price infla­tion, [an] explo­sion of con­sumer and bank debt, and the hyper­trophic growth of deriv­a­tives.” The Lever­age Age is now over. But will its col­lapse have eco­nom­ic and social effects as dis­as­trous as the Great Depres­sion? Or will gov­ern­ment action pull us back from the brink? Def­i­nite­ly give this piece a read, and thanks to “Hanoch” for mak­ing us aware of it. As always, it’s great to get read­er sug­ges­tions.

As a relat­ed aside, I should direct your atten­tion to a new arti­cle by Michael Lewis, who first wrote about Wall Street’s excess­es in Liar’s Pok­er. It’s called “The End,” and it offers an inside account of how Wall Street sowed the seeds of its own destruc­tion. It’s also appar­ent­ly the basis for a new book.

Final­ly, you may want to check out a fas­ci­nat­ing piece in the Wall Street Jour­nal called “Mem­o­ries of the 1930s Still Sear.” It fea­tures inter­views with the old­er gen­er­a­tion who endured the Depres­sion, how they coped, and what lessons they learned.

Fire Ants Create a Living Lifeboat in the Amazon

in Science, Video - Science | November 13th, 2008

Yet fur­ther proof that ants are end­less­ly fas­ci­nat­ing, and, on a relat­ed note, see our ear­li­er piece: Cen­tral Intel­li­gence: From Ants to the Web.

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Vintage Nabokov

in Literature, Video - Arts & Culture | November 12th, 2008

Tak­en from a French tele­vi­sion pro­gram, this vin­tage clip fea­tures Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977) read­ing from Loli­ta and reveal­ing his list of the most impor­tant nov­els of the 20th cen­tu­ry, among oth­er things. Nabokov speaks in Eng­lish here. So don’t let the ini­tial French throw you off. We’ve added this gem to our YouTube playlist.

Loli­ta, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue tak­ing a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.

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Oxford Scholars Name Top Ten Irritating Phrases

in Random | November 11th, 2008

What are some of the most annoy­ing phras­es in the Eng­lish lan­guage? In a new forth­com­ing book, A Damp Squid: The Eng­lish Lan­guage Laid Bare, Oxford researchers list the com­mon phras­es that we use incor­rect­ly or just all too exces­sive­ly. Here’s the list (and if you have your own dis­liked expres­sions, list them below in the com­ments).

1 — At the end of the day
2 — Fair­ly unique
3 — I per­son­al­ly
4 — At this moment in time
5 — With all due respect
6 — Absolute­ly
7 — It’s a night­mare
8 — Should­n’t of
9 — 24/7
10 — It’s not rock­et sci­ence

via The Tele­graph

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Joss Whedon: The Death of Orson Welles, The History of Women and Beyond

in Film, Television | November 10th, 2008

One of my friends from way back, Sheer­ly Avni, has just post­ed an inter­view with Joss Whe­don, who has now dom­i­nat­ed in four media cat­e­gories: film (Seren­i­ty), tele­vi­sion (Buffy the Vam­pire Slay­er), comics (Run­aways, The Aston­ish­ing X‑Men) and final­ly the inter­net. (Dr. Hor­ri­ble’s Sin­ga­long Blog). The inter­view was con­duct­ed for Moth­er Jones, so there’s a lot about pol­i­tics, gen­der, the writ­ers’ strike, and, yes, TV and film. It runs about 38 min­utes. Have a lis­ten.

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Woody Allen and the Reverend Billy Graham In Conversation

in Comedy, Religion, Video - Politics/Society | November 9th, 2008

Here we have the odd cou­ple. The agnos­tic film­mak­er and one of Amer­i­ca’s most influ­en­tial reli­gious fig­ures engaged in a live­ly con­ver­sa­tion. It’s actu­al­ly a rather gen­tle­man­ly exchange from the late 1960s, and it’s added to our video col­lec­tion of Cul­tur­al Icons. Part 1 appears below, and you can get Part 2 here.

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

Obama’s Victory: The View From Grant Park (Chicago)

in Current Affairs | November 8th, 2008

Here’s the moment when Chica­go, Oba­ma’s adopt­ed home­town, learned about his vic­to­ry Tues­day night. It has been a long time since we’ve seen this kind of civic engage­ment and excite­ment. Catch the moment below and watch his vic­to­ry speech here.