Betty Boop for President (1932)

in Uncategorized | October 5th, 2008

A quick bit of vin­tage Amer­i­cana via The Dai­ly Dish

Peter & Ben

in Film | October 4th, 2008

Now show­ing in the YouTube Screen­ing Room: “Peter and Ben is a touch­ing and quirky sto­ry of how two “black-sheep” form an unusu­al and endur­ing bond.” The 10-minute short film was named Best Doc­u­men­tary at the Aspen Shorts Fest 2008. It’s added to our YouTube playlist. Here it goes:

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NPR’s Planet Money Podcast

in Business | October 2nd, 2008

This is worth a quick men­tion: If you’re try­ing to make sense of our rapid­ly chang­ing (and these days dete­ri­o­rat­ing) econ­o­my, then you’ll want to spend some time with NPR’s Plan­et Mon­ey. The pod­cast has been tak­ing an expert look at the day-to-day break­down of the finan­cial sys­tem and gov­ern­ment efforts to bail it out. Plus, it’s been keep­ing an eye on how the fias­co poten­tial­ly affects you. To stay on top of things, you can grab the pod­cast here: iTunes — Rss Feed. Also see the Plan­et Mon­ey Pod­cast web site here.

Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book, Read by Neil Gaiman

in Audio Books, Books, Sci Fi | October 1st, 2008

Sci-fi author Neil Gaiman has the right idea. After mak­ing his well-known nov­el Amer­i­can Gods freely avail­able online last year, he has gone the extra mile again in releas­ing his new nov­el, The Grave­Yard Book. In brief, he has just kicked off a nine day book tour, and each day he’s read­ing a chap­ter that you can lat­er watch on the web. You can watch all of the videos above. And find more read­ings here:

Hear Neil Gaiman Read Aloud 15 of His Own Works, and Works by 6 Oth­er Great Writ­ers: From The Grave­yard Book & Cora­line, to Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven & Dick­ens’ A Christ­mas Car­ol

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!

Now and Then: More Poetry in Motion

in Literature, Video - Arts & Culture | October 1st, 2008

Bil­ly Collins, for­mer US Poet Lau­re­ate and one of Amer­i­ca’s best-sell­ing poets, reads his poem “Now and Then” with ani­ma­tion by Eun-ha Paek of Milky Ele­phant. (Yup, it’s added to our YouTube playlist and also see the pre­vi­ous ani­mat­ed Bil­ly Collins poem.)

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The Web According to Google in 2001

in Google, Web/Tech | October 1st, 2008

Google recent­ly turned 10, and, as part of the cel­e­bra­tion, it has re-pub­lished its first search engine index from 2001. A mere 1.3 bil­lion pages. Now, go ahead and do your van­i­ty search and see if you show up. Me, I’m bare­ly there. You?

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Dave Eggers in Conversation with Chris Elliott

in Comedy, Literature, Video - Arts & Culture | September 30th, 2008

“Come­di­an, actor and satirist Chris Elliott has made a career of blur­ring truth and absur­di­ty. Elliott wrote and per­formed for Late Night With David Let­ter­man, and went on to per­form in oth­er tele­vi­sion pro­grams, includ­ing Sat­ur­day Night Live.” Here he is in con­ver­sa­tion with writer Dave Eggers (A Heart­break­ing Work of Stag­ger­ing Genius). The video is cour­tesy of Fora.TV, and you can watch it here.

Jonathan Franzen Reads

in Audio Books, Literature, Video - Arts & Culture | September 29th, 2008

In a quick three min­utes, you can watch the some­times cocky author of The Cor­rec­tions read from an essay on bird watch­ing, cour­tesy of BigThink.com, where you can also find more videos with intel­lec­tu­al heft.

For more thought­ful video, also see our YouTube playlist and the relat­ed col­lec­tion: Intel­li­gent Life at YouTube: 70 Edu­ca­tion­al Video Col­lec­tions.

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China’s Space Walk: Fresh Footage

in Current Affairs, Science, Video - Science | September 29th, 2008

As US stock declines, Chi­na’s stock keeps going up. It’s the sto­ry of the decade, real­ly. Here’s footage from Chi­na’s first space walk this past week …

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What Happens on Mars

in Science, Video - Science | September 29th, 2008

From The Dai­ly Dish:

“Clouds move across the sky on Mars. The sun ris­es. Snow falls — but nev­er touch­es the ground.”

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