Jorge Luis Borges Creates a List of 16 Ironic Rules for Writing Fiction

in Literature, Writing | September 20th, 2016

“Jorge Luis Borges 1951, by Grete Stern” via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons.

When we first read the work of Jorge Luis Borges, we may wish to write like him. When we soon dis­cov­er that nobody but Borges can write like Borges, we may wish instead that we could have col­lab­o­rat­ed with him. Once, he and his lumi­nary-of-Argen­tine-lit­er­a­ture col­leagues, friend and fre­quent col­lab­o­ra­tor Adol­fo Bioy Casares and Bioy Casares’ wife Silv­ina Ocam­po, got togeth­er to com­pose a sto­ry about a writer from the French coun­try­side. Though they nev­er did fin­ish it, one piece of its con­tent sur­vives: a list of six­teen rules, drawn up by Borges, for the writ­ing of fic­tion.

Or at least that’s how Bioy Casares told it to the French mag­a­zine L’Herne, which reprint­ed the list. Instead of six­teen rec­om­men­da­tions for what a writer of fic­tion should do, Borges play­ful­ly pro­vid­ed a list of six­teen pro­hi­bi­tions–things writ­ers of fic­tion should nev­er let slip into their work.

1. Non-con­formist inter­pre­ta­tions of famous per­son­al­i­ties. For exam­ple, describ­ing Don Juan’s misog­y­ny, etc.
2. Gross­ly dis­sim­i­lar or con­tra­dic­to­ry two­somes like, for exam­ple, Don Quixote and San­cho Pan­za, Sher­lock Holmes and Wat­son.
3. The habit of defin­ing char­ac­ters by their obses­sions; like Dick­ens does, for exam­ple.
4. In devel­op­ing the plot, resort­ing to extrav­a­gant games with time and space in the man­ner of Faulkn­er, Borges, and Bioy Casares.
5. In poet­ry, char­ac­ters or sit­u­a­tions with which the read­er can iden­ti­fy.
6. Char­ac­ters prone to becom­ing myths.
7. Phras­es, scenes inten­tion­al­ly linked to a spe­cif­ic time or a spe­cif­ic epoch; in oth­er words, local fla­vor.
8. Chaot­ic enu­mer­a­tion.
9. Metaphors in gen­er­al, and visu­al metaphors in par­tic­u­lar. Even more con­crete­ly, agri­cul­tur­al, naval or bank­ing metaphors. Absolute­ly un-advis­able exam­ple: Proust.
10. Anthro­po­mor­phism
11. The tai­lor­ing of nov­els with plots that are rem­i­nis­cent of anoth­er book. For exam­ple, Ulysses by Joyce and Homer’s Odyssey.
12. Writ­ing books that resem­ble menus, albums, itin­er­aries, or con­certs.
13. Any­thing that can be illus­trat­ed. Any­thing that may sug­gest the idea that it can be made into a movie.
14. Crit­i­cal essays, any his­tor­i­cal or bio­graph­i­cal ref­er­ence.  Always avoid allu­sions to authors’ per­son­al­i­ties or pri­vate lives. Above all, avoid psy­cho­analy­sis.
15. Domes­tic scenes in police nov­els; dra­mat­ic scenes in philo­soph­i­cal dia­logues. And, final­ly:
16. Avoid van­i­ty, mod­esty, ped­erasty, lack of ped­erasty, sui­cide.

The astute read­er will find much more of the coun­ter­in­tu­itive about this list than its focus on what not to do. Did­n’t Borges him­self spe­cial­ize in non-con­formist inter­pre­ta­tions, espe­cial­ly of exist­ing lit­er­a­ture? Don’t some of his most mem­o­rable char­ac­ters obsess over things, like imag­in­ing a human being into exis­tence or cre­at­ing a map the size of the ter­ri­to­ry, to the exclu­sion of all oth­er char­ac­ter­is­tics? Could­n’t he con­jure up the most exot­ic set­tings — even when draw­ing upon mem­o­ries of his native Buenos Aires — in the fewest words? And who else bet­ter used myths, metaphors, and games with time and space for his own, idio­syn­crat­ic lit­er­ary pur­pos­es?

But those who’ve spent real time read­ing Borges know that he also always wrote with a strong, if sub­tle, sense of humor. He had just the kind of sen­si­bil­i­ty that would pro­duce an iron­ic, self-par­o­dy­ing list such as this, though his­to­ry has­n’t record­ed whether his, Bioy Casares’, and Ocam­po’s young provin­cial writer would have per­ceived it in that way or pious­ly hon­ored its dic­tates. Borges does, how­ev­er, seem to have fol­lowed the bit about nev­er writ­ing “any­thing that may sug­gest the idea that it can be made into a movie” to the let­ter. I yield to none in my appre­ci­a­tion for Alex Cox’s cin­e­mat­ic inter­pre­ta­tion of Death and the Com­pass, but I enjoy even more the fact that Borges’ imag­i­na­tion has kept Hol­ly­wood stumped.

via lasesana/fae­na

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Jorge Luis Borges’ Favorite Short Sto­ries (Read 7 Free Online)

Jorge Luis Borges Selects 74 Books for Your Per­son­al Library

Jorge Luis Borges’ 1967–8 Nor­ton Lec­tures On Poet­ry (And Every­thing Else Lit­er­ary)

Bud­dhism 101: A Short Intro­duc­to­ry Lec­ture by Jorge Luis Borges

Borges: Pro­file of a Writer Presents the Life and Writ­ings of Argentina’s Favorite Son, Jorge Luis Borges

7 Tips from Edgar Allan Poe on How to Write Vivid Sto­ries and Poems

Kurt Vonnegut’s 8 Tips on How to Write a Good Short Sto­ry

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities and cul­ture. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer, the video series The City in Cin­e­ma, the crowd­fund­ed jour­nal­ism project Where Is the City of the Future?, and the Los Ange­les Review of Books’ Korea Blog. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

Every Exhibition Held at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) Presented in a New Web Site: 1929 to Present

in Archives, Art, Design | September 19th, 2016

Images cour­tesy of MoMA

We all hate it when we hear of an excit­ing exhi­bi­tion, only to find out that it closed last week — or 80 years ago. New York’s Muse­um of Mod­ern Art has made great strides toward tak­ing the sting out of such nar­row­ly or wide­ly-missed cul­tur­al oppor­tu­ni­ties with their new dig­i­tal exhi­bi­tion archive. The archive offers, in the words of Chief of Archives Michelle Ellig­ott, “free and unprece­dent­ed access to The Muse­um of Mod­ern Art’s ever-evolv­ing exhi­bi­tion his­to­ry” in the form of “thou­sands of unique and vital mate­ri­als includ­ing instal­la­tion pho­tographs, out-of-print exhi­bi­tion cat­a­logues, and more, begin­ning with MoMA’s very first exhi­bi­tion in 1929,” a show of post-Impres­sion­ist paint­ings by Cézanne, Gau­guin, Seu­rat, and Van Gogh.

The pho­to­graph of Andy Warhol’s Mar­i­lyn Mon­roe por­traits at the top of the post comes from a much more recent exhi­bi­tion, 2015’s Andy Warhol: Campbell’s Soup Cans and Oth­er Works, 1953–1967. But MoMA, of course, did­n’t just just dis­cov­er the king of pop art last year: search by his name and you’ll find no few­er than 128 shows that have includ­ed his work, start­ing with Recent Draw­ings U.S.A. in 1956.

You can track any num­ber of oth­er cul­tur­al icons through the muse­um’s his­to­ry: Yoko Ono, for instance, a view of whose One Woman Show, 1960–1971, which also opened in 2015, appears above, but whose work you can see in eleven dif­fer­ent exhi­bi­tions archived online.

A look through even a frac­tion of the 3,500 shows whose mate­ri­als MoMA has so far made avail­able (and pub­lic-domain) reveals a the­mat­ic vari­ety through­out the muse­um’s entire exis­tence: not just indi­vid­ual artists or groups of them, but fast cars (the idea of a “ratio­nal auto­mo­bile” in gen­er­al in the 1960s and the Jaguar E‑Type in par­tic­u­lar in the 90s), trav­el posters, Japan­ese archi­tec­ture (fea­tur­ing an entire tra­di­tion­al Japan­ese house built in and shipped from Nagoya for the occa­sion), and the font Hel­veti­ca. You can also have a look at the mate­ri­als archived from the var­i­ous film series and per­for­mance pro­grams they’ve put on over the years.

This sort of tech­no­log­i­cal inno­va­tion demon­strates that MoMA has, since that moment in the late 1920s when “a small group of enter­pris­ing patrons of the arts joined forces to cre­ate a new muse­um devot­ed exclu­sive­ly to mod­ern art,” remained as excit­ing an insti­tu­tion as ever. But noth­ing can replace the expe­ri­ence of actu­al­ly going there and see­ing its exhi­bi­tions in per­son, which is why, when­ev­er I pay a vis­it to its dig­i­tal archive, I’ll also click over to its cal­en­dar of upcom­ing shows. For 86 years, it has giv­en the pub­lic the chance to expe­ri­ence the thrill of the mod­ern, but as a trip through the dig­i­tal archive reveals, the thrill of the mod­ern goes much deep­er than the shock of the new.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Muse­um of Mod­ern Art (MoMA) Puts Online 65,000 Works of Mod­ern Art

Kids Record Audio Tours of NY’s Muse­um of Mod­ern Art (with Some Sil­ly Results)

Muse­um of Mod­ern Art (MoMA) Launch­es Free Course on Look­ing at Pho­tographs as Art

The Guggen­heim Puts Online 1600 Great Works of Mod­ern Art from 575 Artists

Free: The Met­ro­pol­i­tan Muse­um of Art and the Guggen­heim Offer 474 Free Art Books Online

Down­load Over 300+ Free Art Books From the Get­ty Muse­um

The His­to­ry of Mod­ern Art Visu­al­ized in a Mas­sive 130-Foot Time­line

Art Crit­ic Robert Hugh­es Demys­ti­fies Mod­ern Art in The Shock of the New

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities and cul­ture. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer, the video series The City in Cin­e­ma, the crowd­fund­ed jour­nal­ism project Where Is the City of the Future?, and the Los Ange­les Review of Books’ Korea Blog. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

John Austen’s Haunting Illustrations of Shakespeare’s Hamlet: A Masterpiece of the Aesthetic Movement (1922)

in Art, Books, Literature | September 19th, 2016

We’ve pop­u­lar­ly come to think of the Vic­to­ri­an era as one in which a prud­ish, sen­ti­men­tal con­ser­vatism ruled with impe­r­i­al force over the arts and cul­ture. But that broad pic­ture ignores the strong coun­ter­cur­rent of weird eroti­cism in the work of aes­thetes like Dante Ros­set­ti, Oscar Wilde, and Aubrey Beard­s­ley.

Beardsley’s ele­gant, bawdy illus­tra­tions of Wilde’s erot­ic play Salome scan­dal­ized British soci­ety, as did the play itself. His pen­chant for occult sub­jects and a wicked­ly sen­su­ous style res­onat­ed well into the 20th cen­tu­ry. Salome was a high­light of the Aes­thet­ic move­ment,” writes the Met, “and an ear­ly man­i­fes­ta­tion of Art Nou­veau in Eng­land.” By the 1920s, Beard­s­ley was per­haps one of the most influ­en­tial of lit­er­ary illus­tra­tors.

Irish artist Har­ry Clarke took direct­ly from Beard­s­ley in work like his rich­ly-detailed 1926 edi­tion of Goethe’s Faust. And in 1922, British artist John Austen mod­ern­ized Ham­let by draw­ing on Clarke’s ear­li­er work, as well as, quite clear­ly, on Beard­s­ley. As artist John Coulthart remarks, “If you’re going to bor­row a style then you may as well take from the best.” Like Beardsley’s Salome and Clarke’s Faust, Austen’s Ham­let “is often rat­ed as his chef d’oeuvre, and with good rea­son, he man­ages to lend some visu­al splen­dor to a play whose con­cerns are a lot more intro­spec­tive than the usu­al illus­tra­tion stan­dards of The Tem­pest and A Mid­sum­mer Night’s Dream” (just as T.S. Eliot had crit­i­cal­ly argued two years ear­li­er).

Pub­lished by Dover’s Calla Edi­tions (and recent­ly back in print), Austen’s illus­trat­ed Ham­let takes the fine, spare lines of Beardsley—well rep­re­sent­ed in his Poe edi­tion—and clothes them, so to speak, with Clarke’s “man­ga faces, spiny fin­gers and swathes of black.” Each of the three artists has a dif­fer­ent take on the macabre: Beardsley’s sub­tle sym­bol­ism giv­ing way to Clarke’s sur­re­al­ism and the heavy iconog­ra­phy in Austen’s Ham­let, per­me­at­ed by the play’s arche­typ­al images of “masks, swords and skulls.” Austen would soon leave behind the influ­ence of both artists, adopt­ing a much block­i­er style for lit­er­ary illus­tra­tions lat­er in the decade. In many ways, he rep­re­sents a bridge between the ele­gant Art Nou­veau aes­thet­ics of Beard­s­ley and the mod­ernism of Art Deco, by way of Clarke’s unique goth­ic style.

You can view and down­load all of the Austen illus­tra­tions online: The Fol­ger Shake­speare Library hosts all 121 orig­i­nal draw­ings in high res­o­lu­tion scans, each of which is down­load­able in res­o­lu­tions up to 3072px. Coulthart excerpts sev­er­al of these images at his blog {feuil­leton}. And at fulltable.com, you can see the Austen illus­tra­tions in con­text with the play’s text in high res­o­lu­tion scans. There, you’ll also find more mod­ernist illus­tra­tions Austen con­tributed to edi­tions of Tris­tram Shandy, Byron’s Don Juan and E.C. Lefroy’s Echoes from The­ocri­tus, and a 1937 instruc­tion­al book on pen and ink draw­ing. In at least one oth­er instance, how­ev­er, Austen retained the styl­ized, Sym­bol­ist Clarke and Beard­s­ley approach—an erot­ic pen draw­ing of She­herezade that pays full homage to Beardsley’s sen­su­al Salome illus­tra­tions.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Oscar Wilde’s Play Salome Illus­trat­ed by Aubrey Beard­s­ley in a Strik­ing Mod­ern Aes­thet­ic (1894)

Har­ry Clarke’s 1926 Illus­tra­tions of Goethe’s Faust: Art That Inspired the Psy­che­del­ic 60s

Aubrey Beardsley’s Macabre Illus­tra­tions of Edgar Allan Poe’s Short Sto­ries (1894)

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

How Literature Can Improve Mental Health: Take a Free Course Featuring Stephen Fry, Ian McKellen, Melvyn Bragg & More

in Health, Literature, Online Courses | September 19th, 2016

The great 18th cen­tu­ry writer Dr. Samuel John­son, who suf­fered from severe bouts of depres­sion, said “the only end of writ­ing is to enable the read­er bet­ter to enjoy life or bet­ter to endure it.”

So…is it true? Can a poem help you cope with grief? Can a son­net stir your soul to hope?

The Uni­ver­si­ty of War­wick have teamed up with some famous faces, and a team of doc­tors to tack­le these ques­tions and oth­ers like them, in a free online course on Future­Learn.

Poets, writ­ers and actors like Stephen Fry, Ian McK­ellen, Melvyn Bragg, Mark Had­don (The Curi­ous Inci­dent of the Dog in the Night Time), Ben Okri (The Fam­ished Road), Rachel Kel­ly (Black Rain­bow) and oth­ers, will dis­cuss their own work and the work of famous writ­ers like Austen, Shake­speare and Wordsworth — explor­ing how they can impact men­tal health and why works of writ­ing are so often turned to in times of cri­sis.

Here’s Stephen Fry on the plea­sure of poet­ry:

Plus through­out the 6‑week course doc­tors will offer a med­ical per­spec­tive, giv­ing an insight into dif­fer­ent men­tal health con­di­tions.

The course is offered through Future­Learn which means it’s bro­ken into chunks — so you can do it step by step. Future­Learn also fea­tures lots of dis­cus­sion so you can share your ideas with oth­er learn­ers, which often can be as ben­e­fi­cial as the course mate­r­i­al (as one pre­vi­ous learn­er put it “a real­ly won­der­ful expe­ri­ence and I’ve loved the feed­back and com­ments from fel­low course mem­bers”).

Here’s a run­through of what’s on the syl­labus. The course focus­es on six themes:

1. Stress: In poet­ry, the word “stress” refers to the empha­sis of cer­tain syl­la­bles in a poem’s metre. How might the met­ri­cal “stress­es” of poet­ry help us to cope with the men­tal and emo­tion­al stress­es of mod­ern life?
2. Heart­break: Is heart­break a med­ical con­di­tion? What can Sidney’s son­nets and Austen’s Sense and Sen­si­bil­i­ty teach us about suf­fer­ing and recov­er­ing from a bro­ken heart?
3. Bereave­ment: The psy­chol­o­gist Elis­a­beth Kübler-Ross famous­ly pro­posed that there are five stages of grief. How might Shakespeare’s Ham­let and poems by Wordsworth and Hardy help us to think dif­fer­ent­ly about the process of griev­ing?
4. Trau­ma: PTSD or “shell­shock” has long been asso­ci­at­ed with the trau­mat­ic expe­ri­ences of sol­diers in World War 1. How is the con­di­tion depict­ed in war poet­ry of the era? Can poems and plays offer us an insight into oth­er sources of trau­ma, includ­ing mis­car­riage and assault?
5. Depres­sion and Bipo­lar: The writer Rachel Kel­ly sub­ti­tles her mem­oir Black Rain­bow “how words healed me – my jour­ney through depres­sion”. Which texts have peo­ple turned to dur­ing peri­ods of depres­sion, and why? What can we learn from lit­er­a­ture about the links between bipo­lar dis­or­der and cre­ativ­i­ty?
6. Age­ing and Demen­tia: One of the great­est stud­ies of age­ing in Eng­lish Lit­er­a­ture is Shakespeare’s King Lear. Is it help­ful to think about this play in the con­text of demen­tia? Why are suf­fer­ers of age-relat­ed mem­o­ry loss often still able to recall the poems they have learned “by heart”?

Start the course for free today.

Jess Weeks is a copy­writer at Future­Learn. The one poem which helps her endure is The Orange by Wendy Cope.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Study Finds That Read­ing Tol­stoy & Oth­er Great Nov­el­ists Can Increase Your Emo­tion­al Intel­li­gence

Book Read­ers Live Longer Lives, Accord­ing to New Study from Yale Uni­ver­si­ty

New Study: Immers­ing Your­self in Art, Music & Nature Might Reduce Inflam­ma­tion & Increase Life Expectan­cy

Hear Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice as a Free Audio Book

in | September 18th, 2016

First pub­lished in 1813, Jane Austen’s Pride and Prej­u­dice has become one of the most wide­ly read books in Eng­lish lit­er­a­ture. When the BBC con­duct­ed a mas­sive poll in 2003, try­ing to deter­mine the “UK’s Best-Loved Book,” Pride and Prej­u­dice came in sec­ond, right behind The Lord of the Rings. And all told, some 20 mil­lion copies of the book have been sold. Through the links below, you can down­load free audio­book (and ebook) ver­sions of Pride and Prej­u­dice. 

Audio Book: Lib­rivox ver­sion – Free iTunes – Free MP3

Audio Book: Spo­ti­fy ver­sion read by Wendy Elli­son Mullen — Spo­ti­fy

eBook: iPad/iPhone – Kin­dle + Oth­er For­mats – Read Online Now

Look­ing for free, pro­fes­sion­al­ly-read audio books from Audible.com? Here’s a great, no-strings-attached deal. If you start a 30 day free tri­al with Audible.com, you can down­load two free audio books of your choice. Get more details on the offer here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

As Pride and Prej­u­dice Turns 200, Read Jane Austen’s Man­u­scripts Online

This Is Your Brain on Jane Austen: The Neu­ro­science of Read­ing Great Lit­er­a­ture

700 Free Audio Books: Down­load Great Books for Free

Jane Austen Used Pins to Edit Her Aban­doned Man­u­script, The Wat­sons

800 Free eBooks for iPad, Kin­dle & Oth­er Devices

Free AudioBook: Hamlet Starring John Gielgud (1951)

in | September 17th, 2016

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!

Free AudioBook: The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

in | September 16th, 2016

“When Hes­ter Prynne bears an ille­git­i­mate child she is intro­duced to the ugli­ness, com­plex­i­ty, and ulti­mate­ly the strength of the human spir­it. Though set in Puri­tan com­mu­ni­ty cen­turies ago, the moral dilem­mas of per­son­al respon­si­bil­i­ty, and con­sum­ing emo­tions of guilt, anger, loy­al­ty and revenge are time­less.” That’s the gist of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scar­let Let­ter, as described by Bartle­by.

Text copies of The Scar­let Let­ter can be found in our col­lec­tion of Free eBooks. And below you can stream a read­ing of the clas­sic Amer­i­can text. It’s avail­able on Spo­ti­fy, and if you need a copy of their free soft­ware, down­load it here. An alter­na­tive ver­sion can be found on Lib­rivox. Both edi­tions can be found in our col­lec­tion, 1,000 Free Audio Books: Down­load Great Books for Free.

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!

Watch 222 Great Films in the Public Domain: Alfred Hitchcock, Fritz Lang, Buster Keaton & More

in Archives, Film | September 16th, 2016

Want to learn about film his­to­ry? You can take a class on the sub­ject, where you’ll like­ly need a copy of Kristin Thomp­son and David Bor­d­well’s stan­dard text Film His­to­ry: An Intro­duc­tion, and pos­si­bly the com­pan­ion book, Film Art: An Intro­duc­tion. These are phe­nom­e­nal resources writ­ten by two top-notch schol­ars who have spent their lives watch­ing and ana­lyz­ing films, and should you have the time and mon­ey to study their com­pre­hen­sive intro­duc­tions, by all means do so. But of course, there’s no sub­sti­tute for actu­al­ly watch­ing the hun­dreds of films they ref­er­ence, from the ear­ly days of the medi­um through its many re-visions and inno­va­tions in the 20th cen­tu­ry.

But why, ask Thomp­son and Bor­d­well, “should any­body care about old movies?” The obvi­ous answer is that they “offer intense artis­tic expe­ri­ences or pen­e­trat­ing visions of human life in oth­er times and places.” Anoth­er key schol­ar­ly the­sis these the­o­rists advance is that in study­ing nar­ra­tive film his­to­ry, we see the devel­op­ment of film (and lat­er, by exten­sion, tele­vi­sion, video games, and oth­er visu­al media) as an inter­na­tion­al visu­al language—one near­ly every­one on the plan­et learns to read from a very young age.

In films like The Great Train Rob­bery (1903) and the tech­ni­cal­ly ground­break­ing, if nar­ra­tive­ly deplorable, Birth of a Nation (1915), we see the cre­ation and refine­ment of cross-cut­ting as an essen­tial cin­e­mat­ic tech­nique used in every visu­al sto­ry­telling medi­um. In Georges Méliès’ bril­liant fan­tasies A Trip to the Moon (1902) and The Impos­si­ble Voy­age (1904), we see the joy­ful ori­gins of the spe­cial effects film. In Sergei Eisenstein’s Bat­tle­ship Potemkin (1925), we see mon­tage the­o­ry brought to life onscreen. And in the many films of Alfred Hitch­cock, we see the inge­nious cam­era and edit­ing moves that define hor­ror and sus­pense.

All of these films, and many hun­dreds more, are in the pub­lic domain and free to view online as many times as you like, whether you do so as part of a for­mal course of study or sim­ply for sheer enjoy­ment. Nathan Heigert at MUBI has com­piled a list of 222 “Pub­lic Domain Greats” that rep­re­sents a wide spec­trum of film his­to­ry, “from the silents of Grif­fith, Keaton and Chap­lin, to neglect­ed noirs and the low-bud­get bliss of Roger Cor­man, plus near­ly all of Hitchcock’s British films—all free for down­load or stream­ing (though, nat­u­ral­ly, not in Cri­te­ri­on qual­i­ty)” from the Inter­net Archive. Heigert’s item­ized list offers a tremen­dous range and breadth, and con­tains a great many of the essen­tial films ref­er­enced in most film his­to­ry texts.

• A Man with a Movie Cam­era (Dzi­ga Ver­tov, 1929)
• Scar­let Street (Fritz Lang, 1945)
• M (Fritz Lang, 1931)
• D.O.A. (Rudolph Mate, 1950)
• Nanook of the North (Robert Fla­her­ty, 1922)
• Nos­fer­atu (F.W. Mur­nau, 1922)
• The Cab­i­net of Dr. Cali­gari (Robert Wiene, 1920)
• Night of the Liv­ing Dead (George Romero, 1968)
• His Girl Fri­day (Howard Hawks, 1940)
• The 39 Steps (Alfred Hitch­cock, 1935)
• The Lodger (Alfred Hitch­cock, 1927)
• Sab­o­tage (Alfred Hitch­cock, 1936—find many more Hitch­cock films at our Hitch­cock list)
• Intol­er­ance (D.W. Grif­fith, 1915)
• The Gen­er­al (Buster Keaton, 1926)
• Car­ni­val of Souls (Herk Har­vey, 1962)
• Lit­tle Shop of Hor­rors (Roger Cor­man, 1960)

Most of the films on Heigert’s list can also be found in Open Culture’s col­lec­tion, 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More. That includes 16 films above that we’ve pre­vi­ous­ly fea­tured with help­ful con­text on our site. So start watch­ing!

Note: You can find a list with links to all 222 films on Archive.org here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The His­to­ry of Stop-Motion Films: 39 Films, Span­ning 116 Years, Revis­it­ed in a 3‑Minute Video

Hol­ly­wood, Epic Doc­u­men­tary Chron­i­cles the Ear­ly His­to­ry of Cin­e­ma

A Trip to the Moon (and Five Oth­er Free Films) by Georges Méliès, the Father of Spe­cial Effects

The 5 Essen­tial Rules of Film Noir

Thomas Edi­son & His Trusty Kine­to­scope Cre­ate the First Movie Filmed In The US (c. 1889)

Free: British Pathé Puts Over 85,000 His­tor­i­cal Films on YouTube

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

Watch Bacteria Become Resistant to Antibiotics in a Matter of Days: A Quick, Stop-Motion Film

in Biology | September 16th, 2016

The video above should ter­ri­fy you a lit­tle. Record­ed at Har­vard Med­ical School (HMS), the time-motion film lets you see “bac­te­ria [Escherichia coli] devel­op resis­tance to increas­ing­ly high­er dos­es of antibi­otics in a mat­ter of days.” And it amounts, says Har­vard, to “the first large-scale glimpse of the maneu­vers of bac­te­ria as they encounter increas­ing­ly high­er dos­es of antibi­otics and adapt to survive—and thrive—in them.” You can learn more about the exper­i­ment itself, and the video tech­niques used to make the stop motion, over at HMS. The exper­i­ment is also described in the Sep­tem­ber 9 issue of Sci­ence. 

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!

Relat­ed Con­tent

An Artis­tic Por­trait of Stephen Fry Made From His Own Bac­te­ria

Carl Sagan Explains Evo­lu­tion in an Eight-Minute Ani­ma­tion

Har­vard Thinks Big 4 Offers TED-Style Talks on Stats, Milk, and Traf­fic-Direct­ing Mimes

Free Online Biol­o­gy Cours­es

400 Ways to Make a Sandwich: A 1909 Cookbook Full of Creative Recipes

in Books, Food & Drink, History | September 16th, 2016

Good news for any­one look­ing to escape the tired old sar­dine sand­wich rut — The Up-To-Date Sand­wich Book: 400 Ways to Make a Sand­wich, above, boasts no few­er than ten vari­a­tions, plus a hand­ful of canapés.

The omega-3-rich fish­es may be swim­ming their way back onto trendy 21st-cen­tu­ry lunch menus, but back in 1909, when The Up-To-Date Sand­wich Book was pub­lished, con­vinc­ing din­ers to order them wasn’t such an uphill bat­tle.

Oth­er pop­u­lar ingre­di­ents of the peri­od include tongue, Eng­lish wal­nuts, flow­ers, and of course, cheese, with nary an avo­ca­do in sight.

Author Eva Greene Fuller had a clear pref­er­ence for spread­able con­sis­ten­cies, an insis­tence on “per­fect bread in suit­able con­di­tion” and an eye for detail, evi­dent in such sug­gest­ed gar­nish­es as smi­lax and maid­en­hair fern.

Nat­u­ral­ly, there are some mis­fires amid the 400, at least as far as mod­ern palates and sen­si­bil­i­ties are con­cerned.

The Mex­i­can Sand­wich calls for a spoon­ful of baked beans mixed with cat­sup and but­ter, served atop a large square crack­er.

The Ori­en­tal Sand­wich fea­tures a spread made of cream cheese, maple syrup, and sliced maraschi­no cher­ries.  

The Dys­pep­tic Sand­wich is the only one to use gluten-free bread… sprin­kled with brown bread crumbs. 

The Pop­corn Sand­wich sounds quite tasty except for the tit­u­lar ingre­di­ent, which is passed through a meat chop­per and com­bined with sar­dines, pri­or to being spread with Parme­san and slid under the broil­er.

As for peanut but­ter, it’s a mix-your-own affair, using chopped peanuts and the cook’s choice of may­on­naise, sweet­ened whipped cream, sher­ry or port wine.

And chil­dren are sure to approve of the School Sand­wich, a sim­ple con­coc­tion of but­tered white bread and brown sug­ar.

Below is a taste to get you start­ed, though all 400 recipes can be browsed above. The ini­ti­at­ed may also be inter­est­ed in the ety­mol­o­gy of the word “sand­wich” on the Pub­lic Domain Review, who brought this cook­book to our atten­tion, 

Can­ni­bal Sand­wich

Chop raw beef and onions very fine, sea­son with salt and pep­per and spread on light­ly but­tered brown bread.

Bum­mers Cus­tard Sand­wich

Take a cake of Roque­fort cheese and divide in thirds; moist­en one third with brandy, anoth­er third with olive oil and the oth­er third with Worces­ter­shire sauce. mix all togeth­er and place between split water bis­cuits toast­ed. Good for a stag lunch. 

Aspic Jel­ly Sand­wich

Soak one box (two ounces) of gelatin in one cup of chick­en liquor until soft­ened; add three cup­fuls of chick­en stock sea­soned with a lit­tle pars­ley, cel­ery, three cloves, a blade of mace and a dash of salt and pep­per. Strain into a dish and add a lit­tle shred­ded breast of chick­en; set in a cold place to hard­en; when cold, slice in fan­cy shaped and place on slight­ly but­ter whole wheat bread. Gar­nish with a stick of cel­ery.  

Vio­let Sand­wich

Cov­er the but­ter with vio­lets over night; slice white bread thin and spread with the but­ter. Put slices togeth­er and cov­er with the petals of the vio­lets.

via Pub­lic Domain Review

Relat­ed Con­tent:

An Archive of 3,000 Vin­tage Cook­books Lets You Trav­el Back Through Culi­nary Time

Food­ie Alert: New York Pub­lic Library Presents an Archive of 17,000 Restau­rant Menus (1851–2008)

The New York Times Makes 17,000 Tasty Recipes Avail­able Online: Japan­ese, Ital­ian, Thai & Much More

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  She will serv­ing as both emcee and ref­er­ee in this weekend’s Brook­lyn Book Fes­ti­val Illus­tra­tor Smack­down. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.