The Greatest Composers: According to You & The New York Times

in Music | January 8th, 2011

Antho­ny Tom­masi­ni, the chief music crit­ic for the New York Times, has start­ed the year with a play­ful way of find­ing out “what makes great music great?” To answer the ques­tion, he has invit­ed read­ers to make a list of the Top 10 com­posers in his­to­ry. And that invites answers to a series of sec­ondary ques­tions: “Should influ­ence mat­ter, or just the works them­selves? What about pop­u­lar­i­ty? Are there any objec­tive cri­te­ria?” The Times will actu­al­ly post a bal­lot next week. (Keep an eye on the Arts­Beat blog.) But, in the mean­time, Tom­masi­ni has kicked off the project by post­ing a video (above) focus­ing on the tow­er­ing Baroque com­pos­er, J.S. Bach. And, speak­ing of Bach, don’t miss our pre­vi­ous post show­ing where you can down­load the com­plete organ works of Johann Sebas­t­ian Bach for free.  Thanks to Joshua and Robin for the tip on the NYTimes project!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

How a Bach Canon Works

A Young Glenn Gould Plays Bach

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The Secrets to Living an Awesome Life

in Life, Psychology, TED Talks | January 7th, 2011

You have heard the mes­sage before – the secrets to liv­ing an excel­lent life. But they bear repeat­ing from time to time. And Neil Pas­richa, edi­tor of the 1000 Awe­some Things blog, com­mu­ni­cates it all in a rather touch­ing and earnest­ly straight­for­ward way. This talk comes from TEDx­Toron­to, staged in Sep­tem­ber 2010.…

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Every Ted Talk Under the Sun

Daniel Pink: The Sur­pris­ing Truth about What Moti­vates Us

Vik­tor Fran­kl on Our Search for Mean­ing

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Vivian Maier, Street Photographer, Discovered

in Art | January 6th, 2011

Vivian Maier grew up in France, immi­grat­ed to the US, spent 40 unas­sum­ing years work­ing as a nan­ny, and then, dur­ing her free time, took more than 100,000 pho­tographs of life on the Chica­go streets. Dis­cov­ered only in 2009, not long before her death, her pho­tog­ra­phy will be on dis­play at the Chica­go Cul­tur­al Cen­ter from Jan­u­ary to April 2011. This marks the first solo exhi­bi­tion of her work. The video above, along with this ded­i­cat­ed blog, will intro­duce you to this belat­ed­ly dis­cov­ered tal­ent. Thanks to @eugenephoto for send­ing this along.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Leon Levin­stein: Pho­tog­ra­phy Reveals How Lit­tle We See

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Disney’s Oscar-Winning Adventures in Music

in Film, Music | January 6th, 2011

Back in 1953, Walt Dis­ney Pro­duc­tions released two short and cut­ting-edge music edu­ca­tion films. The ini­tial film, Melody, was the first car­toon ever filmed in 3D. (Unfor­tu­nate­ly, cur­rent ver­sions only appear in 2D). Then came the sequel, Toot, Whis­tle, Plunk and Boom, which proved inno­v­a­tive in its own way. The short film, trac­ing the evo­lu­tion of the horn, flute, gui­tar and drum, was the first car­toon filmed and shown in widescreen Cin­e­maS­cope. It won the 1954 Acad­e­my Award for Best Short Sub­ject (Car­toons) and was lat­er vot­ed #29 of the 50 Great­est Car­toons of all time. Giv­en these creds, you will find Toot, Whis­tle, Plunk and Boom in our col­lec­tion 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More.

Fol­low Open Cul­ture on Face­book and Twit­ter and share intel­li­gent media with your friends. Or bet­ter yet, sign up for our dai­ly email and get a dai­ly dose of Open Cul­ture in your inbox. And if you want to make sure that our posts def­i­nite­ly appear in your Face­book news­feed, just fol­low these sim­ple steps.

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130 Free eBooks from Kaplan Publishing

in e-books | January 6th, 2011

A quick fyi for any­one try­ing to get into col­lege or grad­u­ate school: Through Jan­u­ary 17th, Kaplan Pub­lish­ing will let you down­load 130 eBooks to your iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, Nook and Sony eRead­er – all for free. (You can find a spe­cial page for down­load­ing titles via the Kin­dle here.) Some select titles include: Get Into Grad­u­ate School, Get Into Law School, Kaplan Portable SAT, and Kaplan AP Sta­tis­tics. The full list of titles appears here, and you can start down­load­ing the books right here. Note that you will need to ini­ti­ate the down­load from a device list­ed above, and not your com­put­er. Remem­ber: this free offer will only last for the next few days …

Note: This offer pre­vi­ous­ly expired on Jan­u­ary 10th. Now it has been extend­ed to Jan­u­ary 17th.

via Gal­l­ey­cat

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Existentialism with Hubert Dreyfus: Five Free Philosophy Courses

in Online Courses, Philosophy | January 5th, 2011

Image by  Jörg Noller, via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

All Things Shin­ing: Read­ing the West­ern Clas­sics to Find Mean­ing in a Sec­u­lar Age – This new book by Hubert Drey­fus (UC Berke­ley) and Sean Dor­rance Kel­ly (Har­vard) hit the book­shelves this week, and it cur­rent­ly ranks #56 on Ama­zon’s Top 100 List. Quite a coup for seri­ous think­ing.

Pro­fes­sor Drey­fus has taught many pop­u­lar exis­ten­tial­ism and phe­nom­e­nol­o­gy cours­es at UC Berke­ley, some of which laid the foun­da­tion for this book. Hap­pi­ly, you can find Drey­fus’ phi­los­o­phy cours­es online. And, even bet­ter, you can down­load them for free. The cours­es are list­ed below, and also in the Phi­los­o­phy sec­tion of our big col­lec­tion of Free Online Cours­es.

  • Exis­ten­tial­ism in Lit­er­a­ture & Film - Stream – Hubert Drey­fus, UC Berke­ley
  • Hei­deg­ger – Stream — Hubert Drey­fus, UC Berke­ley
  • Heidegger’s Being & Time – Stream — Hubert Drey­fus, UC Berke­ley
  • Hei­deg­ger’s Being and Time, Divi­sion II — Free Online Audio — Hubert Drey­fus, UC Berke­ley
  • Man, God, and Soci­ety in West­ern Lit­er­a­ture — Free Online Audio – Hubert Drey­fus, UC Berke­ley

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Phi­los­o­phy with John Sear­le: Three Free Cours­es

What’s the Right Thing to Do?: Michael Sandel’s Pop­u­lar Har­vard Course Now Online

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Patti Smith Remembers Robert Mapplethorpe

in Art, Music | January 5th, 2011

Pat­ti Smith. Robert Map­plethor­pe. Born in 1946, the two bud­ding artists met in New York City, long before the 21 year olds achieved their even­tu­al fame – before Smith earned her creds as the “god­moth­er of punk,” and before Map­plethor­pe put his unique stamp on Amer­i­can pho­tog­ra­phy. Their long-last­ing friend­ship was doc­u­ment­ed in Smith’s bit­ter­sweet mem­oir, Just Kids, which won the 2010 Nation­al Book Award for Non­fic­tion. Above, while appear­ing at The New York Pub­lic Library, Smith recounts the day she met Map­plethor­pe as a young­ster. Now 64 years old, she also elab­o­rates on this sto­ry (and more) dur­ing a lengthy inter­view on NPR’s Fresh Air. Stream the audio right below…

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A Journey Back in Time: Vintage Travelogues

in History, Video - Arts & Culture, Video - Politics/Society | January 4th, 2011

The Trav­el Film Archive lets you “see the world the way it was.” Fea­tur­ing dozens of videos shot between 1900 and 1970, these short trav­el­ogues take you across the globe, to farflung places that many Amer­i­cans con­sid­ered “exot­ic” at the time. Above, we have a 1940s clip that revis­its the glo­ries of Ancient Greece, tak­ing you through the ruins of Athens. But you will also find count­less oth­er des­ti­na­tions — Asia (aka The Far East), India, Hawaii and the South Seas, the Mid­dle East, South Amer­i­ca, and Egypt and North Africa. Paris, Venice, and a sam­pling of Euro­pean loca­tions get cov­er­age too, as do the ear­ly days of com­mer­cial air trav­el. You can dig through the full list right here. Thanks @KirstinButler

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14 Actors Acting: A Gallery of Classic Screen Types

in Film | January 4th, 2011

A few weeks back, The New Times Mag­a­zine pre­sent­ed a video gallery fea­tur­ing actors & actress­es doing what they do best — “per­form­ing in vignettes that rep­re­sent clas­sic screen types.” Direct­ed by Solve Sunds­bo with music scored by Arcade Fire’s Owen Pal­let, the videos (now avail­able on YouTube) fea­ture per­form­ers – all impor­tant fig­ures in today’s cin­e­ma – act­ing out scenes with­out the ben­e­fit of dia­logue. Above, we have Antho­ny Mack­ie (The Hurt Lock­er) in a chase scene rem­i­nis­cent of Hitch­cock­’s North by North­west. You can also catch Robert Duvall shav­ing in a moment of reflec­tion; Natal­ie Port­man dis­rob­ing and seduc­ing; Michael Dou­glas schem­ing; and Jen­nifer Lawrence doing anoth­er Hitch­cock-inspired scene from Psy­cho. You can watch all 14 scenes on the NYTimes web site, or again on YouTube.

And speak­ing of Hitch­cock, you will find 15 of his films, most­ly ear­ly ones, in our col­lec­tion of 275 Free Movies Online.

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The Joy of Stats: Hans Rosling’s Rollercoaster Ride Through the Wonderful World of Statistics

in Math | January 3rd, 2011

Last month, we post­ed a daz­zling clip – Hans Rosling trac­ing health trends with­in 200 coun­tries over 200 years, using 120,000 data points, all in 4 min­utes. Pret­ty quick­ly you saw why Rosling has earned a rep­u­ta­tion for pre­sent­ing data in extreme­ly imag­i­na­tive ways. The video was an out­take from a BBC doc­u­men­tary called “The Joy of Stats,” which is now ful­ly avail­able online. It runs 59 min­utes and takes you on a “roller­coast­er ride through the won­der­ful world of sta­tis­tics.” When it’s all over, you’ll nev­er doubt that stats can change how you under­stand our world.

The Joy of Stats will be added to our col­lec­tion of Free Doc­u­men­taries Online, a sub­set of our col­lec­tion, 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More.

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!

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Birth to 10 Years Old in Time Lapse Video

in Life | January 3rd, 2011

The Milky Way Over Texas. The Auro­ra Bore­alis over Nor­way. Decem­ber’s win­ter sol­stice lunar eclipse. Last week’s bliz­zard. What beau­ty can’t be cap­tured in time lapse pho­tog­ra­phy? Per­haps ten years of human life and devel­op­ment? Not so. No if the par­ents reli­gious­ly take a pho­to a day. Then, voila, human growth in time lapse…

via Der­ren­Brown

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