The New Yorker’s Fiction Podcast: Where Great Writers Read Stories by Great Writers

in Literature, Podcasts | June 1st, 2012

Each major print pub­li­ca­tion expands into pod­cast­ing dif­fer­ent­ly. Some, hav­ing failed to find a suit­able form for the audio com­pan­ion to their text, scale the oper­a­tion way back and declare pod­cast­ing dead or dying. Oth­ers, through tri­al and error, even­tu­al­ly hap­pen upon a way of pod­cast­ing that clicks with both their own sen­si­bil­i­ty as well as their read­ers’ lis­ten­ing fas­ci­na­tions. The New York­er’s fic­tion pod­cast stands as an exam­ple of the lat­ter, trad­ing on more than one of the mag­a­zine’s strengths. As one of the longest-run­ning and last remain­ing venues for the short sto­ry, the New York­er has access to a wealth of fic­tion that one can read out loud with­in a com­fort­able pod­cast run­time. Giv­en their count­less con­nec­tions to respect­ed writ­ers, they’ve also got access to plen­ty of inter­est­ing peo­ple to do the read­ing.

Here’s the big inno­va­tion: these writ­ers don’t read their sto­ries out loud; they read their favorite sto­ries by oth­er writ­ers out loud. This has brought us pod­casts from, to name a few pair­ings:

In the past year, we’ve also heard Alle­gra Good­man read John Updike, Salman Rushdie read John Barthelme, and Matthew Klam read Charles D’Am­bro­sio. (A new episode appears every month.) The read­ers also have a brief dis­cus­sion about the sto­ry they’ve select­ed with the New York­er’s fic­tion edi­tor Deb­o­rah Treis­man. Being writ­ers them­selves, they talk about the pieces with a much dif­fer­ent sort of scruti­ny than you might remem­ber from all those hours of short-sto­ry analy­sis in Eng­lish class. They engage, to put it broad­ly, more with the writ­ing’s craft than with its testable mechan­ics. Some pod­cast-lis­ten­ers won­der aloud about the place of fic­tion in this new form; the New York­er has devel­oped a place for it by look­ing back to an old one.

The record­ings above have been indexed in our col­lec­tion of Free Audio Books.

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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The Bill Evans Trio in London, 1965: Two Sets by the Legendary Combo

in Music | May 31st, 2012

On March 19, 1965, the Bill Evans Trio stopped by the BBC stu­dios in Lon­don to play a pair of sets on Jazz 625, the now-leg­endary pro­gram host­ed by the British trum­peter Humphrey Lyt­tel­ton. The combo–which fea­tured Evans on piano, Chuck Israels on bass and Lar­ry Bunker on drums–played two sets, includ­ing most of the songs from their just-com­plet­ed album, Trio ’65. The two 35-minute pro­grams (shown con­sec­u­tive­ly in the video above) take us back in time to see and hear one of the most bril­liant and influ­en­tial jazz pianists of all time, at work in a tight­ly inte­grat­ed trio.

Set One:

  1. “Five,” by Bill Evans
  2. “Elsa,” by Earl Zin­dars
  3. “Sum­mer­time,” by George Gersh­win
  4. “Come Rain or Come Shine,” by Harold Arlen
  5. “My Fool­ish Heart,” by Vic­tor Young
  6. “Re: Per­son I Knew,” by Bill Evans
  7. “Israel,” by John­ny Carisi
  8. “Five,” by Bill Evans (reprise)

Set Two:

  1. “Five,” by Bill Evans
  2. “How My Heart Sings,” by Earl Zin­dars
  3. “Nardis,” by Miles Davis
  4. “Who Can I Turn To?” by Antho­ny New­ley and Leslie Bricusse
  5. “Some­day My Prince Will Come,” by Frank Churchill
  6. “How Deep is the Ocean?” by Bill Evans
  7. “Five,” by Bill Evans (reprise)

Relat­ed con­tent:

The Uni­ver­sal Mind of Bill Evans: Advice on Learn­ing to Play Jazz

Thelo­nious Monk, Bill Evans and More on the Clas­sic Jazz 625 Show

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“Good Chemistry” Explains Chemical Bonds with Cutout Animation and Teenage Romance

in Chemistry, K-12, Video - Science | May 31st, 2012

Love, or the promise of it, sells clothes, cologne and many a com­pact disc—but who’d think love could sell chem­istry? Six­teen-year-old Eli Ciri­no did, and was he ever right. The tenth grad­er sub­mit­ted an extra cred­it video for his chem­istry class and what he got was prob­a­bly way more than he bar­gained for. Good Chem­istry explains chem­i­cal bonds using con­struc­tion paper ani­ma­tion of pos­i­tive and neg­a­tive ions and cova­lent bonds set against an orig­i­nal song sung by Ciri­no. It’s all edit­ed togeth­er with images of a cute cou­ple reach­ing out and clasp­ing hands. A sam­ple of Cirino’s lyrics: “We always on the look­out for a part­ner­ship, pos­i­tive and neg­a­tive you get the drift.” It’s catchy and sweet, to the tune of more than 290,000 views on YouTube by the end of the day Wednes­day. Extra cred­it for Ciri­no for bring­ing the video in at pi-time: three min­utes, four­teen sec­onds.

Kate Rix is an Oak­land-based free­lancer. Find more of her work at .

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Entitled Opinions, the “Life and Literature” Podcast That Refuses to Dumb Things Down

in Life, Literature, Podcasts | May 31st, 2012

Proust. Mimet­ic desire. The infla­tion­ary uni­verse. 1910, Amer­i­can writ­ers in Paris. The his­to­ry of the book. These top­ics may sound unusu­al enough to pique your inter­est. They may float through your mind once in a while, cap­tur­ing an hour or two of your curios­i­ty. They may peri­od­i­cal­ly send you to the library on read­ing binges. But for KZSU-FM’s Enti­tled Opin­ions, they are meat and drink. Since 2005, pro­fes­sor-broad­cast­er Robert Har­ri­son has explored these top­ics and many more besides in the intel­lec­tu­al­ly expan­sive long-form con­ver­sa­tions he con­ducts on Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty’s radio sta­tion. Always begin­ning with a mono­logue, Har­ri­son spends the bulk of his broad­casts think­ing aloud about these rich top­ics with philoso­phers like Richard Rorty, nov­el­ists like Orhan Pamuk, many a fel­low aca­d­e­m­ic, lis­ten­ers, and his own broth­er. (Some­times he up and con­ducts the entire show in French.) Each and every one of these he makes avail­able as a pod­cast, on the show’s site and on iTunes.

“These are not like Stan­ford cours­es online,” said Har­ri­son in a Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty News pro­file. “These are pro­grams where intel­lec­tu­als speak to each oth­er at a high lev­el of intel­lec­tu­al exchange—no one is exclud­ed per se, but you do have to have intel­lec­tu­al curios­i­ty. We refuse to dumb it down.” Hav­ing recent­ly returned from a pro­longed hia­tus, Enti­tled Opin­ions has kept not dumb­ing it down with con­ver­sa­tions on geog­ra­phy, her­maph­ro­ditism, polit­i­cal philoso­pher John Rawls, and Petrar­ch and Petrar­chism. I myself engaged Har­ri­son in a long-form inter­view on my pre­vi­ous pod­cast, The Mar­ket­place of Ideas, in which we dis­cussed the evo­lu­tion of his show; his books on forests, gar­dens, and the dead;  his life as a rock musi­cian (so that explains those episodes on Pink Floyd, The Doors, and Jimi Hen­drix); and get­ting called “the most pre­ten­tious man in the world” over e‑mail. We die-hard Enti­tled Opin­ions fans demand to know these things.

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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The Art of Making a Flamenco Guitar: 299 Hours of Blood, Sweat & Tears Experienced in 3 Minutes

in Music | May 31st, 2012

The Fla­men­co gui­tar grew up in Andalu­sia, the major province in south­ern Spain, where it became inte­gral to the cul­ture dur­ing the 19th cen­tu­ry. The mod­ern fla­men­co gui­tar (a first cousin of the mod­ern clas­si­cal gui­tar) is typ­i­cal­ly made with two of three woods — spruce on the top, and cypress or sycamore on the back and sides. When put in the hands of the right luthi­er, the gui­tar can become a thing of beau­ty. Case in point: This art­ful video by Greek film­mak­er Dim­itris Ladopou­los brings you inside the work­shop of Vasilis Lazarides, who spe­cial­izes in mak­ing high qual­i­ty fla­men­co gui­tars by hand. (Vis­it his gui­tars online here.) 299 hours of blood, sweat, tears and love go into mak­ing each fine gui­tar. But you can watch it all hap­pen in a mat­ter of three min­utes, with the music of Edsart Udo de Haes pro­vid­ing the sound­track.

If elec­tric gui­tars hap­pen to be your thing, you can also watch Fend­ers being made in 1959 and 2012.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

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:

Watch FLAMENCO AT 5:15, a Life-Affirm­ing, Oscar-Win­ning Doc­u­men­tary About a Fla­men­co Dance Class

Hear Metallica’s “Noth­ing Else Mat­ters” Cov­ered in Unex­pect­ed Styles: Gre­go­ri­an Choir, Cel­lo Ensem­ble, Finnish Blue­grass, Jazz Vocal & More

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Building the Golden Gate Bridge: A Retro Film Featuring Original Archival Footage

in History | May 30th, 2012

This past week­end, San Fran­cis­co cel­e­brat­ed the 75th anniver­sary of the Gold­en Gate Bridge. And if Beth­le­hem Steel were still around, it would have been cel­e­brat­ing too. Once Amer­i­ca’s sec­ond-largest steel pro­duc­er, the now bank­rupt com­pa­ny fab­ri­cat­ed the steel used in the con­struc­tion of the icon­ic bridge — all 68,000 tons of it. Some­where dur­ing the 1950s, the Penn­syl­va­nia-based firm revis­it­ed the mak­ing of the Gold­en Gate Bridge, pro­duc­ing a 26 minute film that incor­po­rat­ed some amaz­ing archival footage. Every phase of con­struc­tion gets cov­ered, and the film ends with the bridge’s big open­ing day in 1937. It’s not to be missed.

via The Atlantic

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Download David Hockney’s Playful Drawings for the iPhone and iPad

in Apple, Art, iPad, iPhone | May 30th, 2012

Last year, the Roy­al Ontario Muse­um (ROM) in Toron­to staged an exhib­it of David Hock­ney’s play­ful draw­ings pro­duced with/for the iPhone and iPad. Hock­ney became an ear­ly adopter of Apple’s pop­u­lar devices and start­ed cre­at­ing fin­ger-drawn images (using the Brush­es app) in 2008. Ini­tial­ly, the Eng­lish painter only shared his dig­i­tal draw­ings with a small cir­cle of friends. Then he decid­ed to make them avail­able to the larg­er world, pre­sent­ing them first in Paris in 2010, and then lat­er in Toron­to. Here, Hock­ney explains the basic think­ing behind his Fresh Flow­ers exhi­bi­tions.

Through­out the Cana­di­an exhi­bi­tion, the ROM invit­ed the pub­lic to down­load a series of free images by Hock­ney. They’re all still online, and we’ve gath­ered them below. What will you do with them? Put them on your iPhone or iPad, of course. (Find instruc­tions here and here.) Or what­ev­er oth­er device you please.

via coudal.com

 

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When Respected Authors, from Goethe to Henry Miller, Try Their Hand at Painting

in Art, Literature | May 30th, 2012

Fresh­ly post­ed on pub­lish­er Melville House’s blog, you’ll find exam­ples of visu­al art by tex­tu­al artists; draw­ings and paint­ings, in oth­er words, drawn and paint­ed by peo­ple who have gone down in his­to­ry for their way with sen­tences. This could eas­i­ly turn into a les­son about not quit­ting one’s day job. But, as you can see from the work above, Maria Nys Hux­ley at Sies­ta, Melville House blog­ger Kevin Mur­phy has­n’t put togeth­er a study in the incom­pe­tence of the dilet­tante. You’ve sure­ly already guessed the lit­er­ary con­nec­tion: the paint­ing came from the hand of Brave New World author Aldous Hux­ley, who put his wife Maria Nys to can­vas in 1920, when both were still in their twen­ties.

The post fea­tures more paint­ings from the late eigh­teenth cen­tu­ry to the mid-twen­ti­eth by Johann Wolf­gang von Goethe, Vic­tor Hugo, Mar­cel Proust, Her­mann Hesse, e.e. cum­mings, Zel­da Fitzger­ald, Jack Ker­ouac, Flan­nery O’Con­nor, and Hen­ry Miller. Each one reflects  some­thing famil­iar about the painter’s main line of work: Goethe’s, bucol­ic rever­ie; Proust’s, the sketch­i­ness of fad­ing mem­o­ry enriched by a scat­ter­ing of bold details; Hes­se’s, a stare of unbro­ken inten­si­ty. One par­tic­u­lar out­lier, with its sim­ple pen-and-ink com­po­si­tion as well as its overt humor, express­es the lit­er­ary per­son­al­i­ty of its cre­ator more strong­ly than all the oth­ers put togeth­er:

Can you guess the author — er, artist?

Find the full col­lec­tion here.

via @KirstinButler

Relat­ed con­tent:

Pho­tos of Famous Writ­ers (and Rock­ers) with their Dogs

The Writ­ing Rooms of Famous Writ­ers

Famous Authors Read Oth­er Famous Authors

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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William F. Buckley Meets (Possibly Drunk) Jack Kerouac, Tries to Make Sense of Hippies, 1968

in History, Literature, Television | May 30th, 2012

The first mod­ern use of the word hip­pie can be traced back to 1965, when Michael Fal­lon, a San Fran­cis­co jour­nal­ist, used the word to refer to the bohemi­an lifestyle emerg­ing in the city’s Haight-Ash­bury dis­trict. (Appar­ent­ly, Fal­lon took the word hip­ster used by Nor­man Mail­er and then short­ened it into hip­pie.) By 1967, the mass media could­n’t stop talk­ing about hip­pies. It was the Sum­mer of Love in San Fran­cis­co, the defin­ing moment of the coun­ter­cul­ture, and the rest of the coun­try was scratch­ing its col­lec­tive head, try­ing to make sense of it all. Who bet­ter to do it than William F. Buck­ley, the emerg­ing voice of con­ser­v­a­tive Amer­i­ca?

In this clas­sic 1968 episode of Fir­ing Line, Buck­ley tries to demys­ti­fy the hip­pie move­ment with the help of three guests: Lewis Yablon­sky, a pro­fes­sor of soci­ol­o­gy and crim­i­nol­o­gy at Cal State-North­ridge; Ed Sanders, the activist poet who helped form The Fugs; and then Jack Ker­ouac, author of the Beat clas­sic, On the Road. In many ways, Ker­ouac inspired the hip­pie move­ment. And he, him­self, acknowl­edges the rela­tion­ship between the Beats and the hip­pies. But, in watch­ing this clip, one thing becomes clear: in style and sub­stance, he and the hip­pies were also worlds apart.…

Don’t miss Yale’s lec­ture on Ker­ouac and On the Road here.

via Bib­liok­lept

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Jack Ker­ouac Reads from On the Road (1959)

Ken Kesey’s First LSD Trip Ani­mat­ed

William F. Buck­ley Flogged Him­self to Get Through Atlas Shrugged

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Neil deGrasse Tyson Delivers the Greatest Science Sermon Ever

in Astronomy, Physics, Religion | May 29th, 2012

Just when you think you’ve had enough Neil deGrasse Tyson, anoth­er not-to-miss video comes along. This one comes from the 2006 Beyond Belief Con­fer­ence, and it fea­tures the astro­physi­cist giv­ing what’s been called the “great­est sci­ence ser­mon ever.” As a young­ster, Tyson stepped into the Hay­den Plan­e­tar­i­um (the insti­tu­tion he now runs) and he felt an unshak­able call­ing to study the uni­verse. It was­n’t unlike the feel­ing some­one under­goes when they’re reli­gious­ly born again. And ever since, Tyson has expe­ri­enced rev­e­la­tion after rev­e­la­tion, epiphany after epiphany, when study­ing the uni­verse, and espe­cial­ly when­ev­er he’s remind­ed that, chem­i­cal­ly speak­ing, we are in the uni­verse, and the uni­verse is in us. We’re all made of the same star­dust. How can that not leave us with an incred­i­bly spir­i­tu­al feel­ing?

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Neil deGrasse Tyson Lists 8 (Free) Books Every Intel­li­gent Per­son Should Read

Stephen Col­bert Talks Sci­ence with Astro­physi­cist Neil deGrasse Tyson

Neil deGrasse Tyson & Richard Dawkins Pon­der the Big Enchi­la­da Ques­tions of Sci­ence

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Breaking News: Socrates Tried Again in Athens and Acquitted!

in History, Philosophy | May 29th, 2012



Note: the action starts at about the two minute mark, and the video is accom­pa­nied by an Eng­lish trans­la­tion.

The tri­al and exe­cu­tion of Socrates at Athens in 399 B.C.E. has come down to us as the arche­type of intel­lec­tu­al mar­tyr­dom. But the facts of the case, as fil­tered through the writ­ings of Socrates’ stu­dents Xenophon and Pla­to, are sketchy.  “Why,” asks Dou­glas Lin­der on the Famous Tri­als Web site, “in a soci­ety enjoy­ing more free­dom and democ­ra­cy than any the world had ever seen, would a sev­en­ty-year-old philoso­pher be put to death for what he was teach­ing?”

Last Fri­day the Onas­sis Cul­tur­al Cen­tre in Athens gave Socrates a new tri­al, assem­bling a pan­el of dis­tin­guished jurists from Europe and Amer­i­ca to reopen the case. As the Onas­sis Cen­tre’s Web site explains, the event was “not a re-enact­ment but a mod­ern per­spec­tive based on cur­rent legal frame­work sup­ple­ment­ed with ancient Greek ele­ments and com­i­cal the­atrics.” This time the ver­dict was different–but just bare­ly. The vote by the jury was a 5–5 tie, which meant Socrates was acquit­ted. The audi­ence’s vote was more deci­sive: 5 to con­vict, 584 to acquit. Of course, it was a lit­tle late for Socrates.

You can down­load The Apol­o­gy of Socrates from our col­lec­tion of Free Audio Books and Free eBooks.

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