High School Student Talks Symbolism with 75 Big Authors (1963)

in Literature, Writing | December 8th, 2011

Let’s let The Paris Review give you the back­sto­ry:

In 1963, a six­teen-year-old San Diego high school stu­dent named Bruce McAl­lis­ter sent a four-ques­tion mimeo­graphed sur­vey to 150 well-known authors of lit­er­ary, com­mer­cial, and sci­ence fic­tion. Did they con­scious­ly plant sym­bols in their work? he asked. Who noticed sym­bols appear­ing from their sub­con­scious, and who saw them arrive in their text, unbid­den, cre­at­ed in the minds of their read­ers? When this hap­pened, did the authors mind?

Of the 150 authors McAl­lis­ter solicit­ed, 75 wrote back, and most offered the young­ster some sub­stan­tive thoughts. Over at The Paris Review, you will find replies by Jack Ker­ouac, Ayn Rand (above), Ralph Elli­son, Ray Brad­bury, John Updike, Saul Bel­low, and Nor­man Mail­er. Not bad for a kid who sent out a form let­ter … and nev­er both­ered to send a thank-you let­ter.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Paris Review Inter­views Now Online

Down­load 20 Pop­u­lar High School Books Avail­able as Free eBooks & Audio Books

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The Dark Knight: Anatomy of a Flawed Action Scene

in Film | December 8th, 2011

There are many ways to make a movie, says film crit­ic Jim Emer­son, and many ways to make a mess.

The truck chase scene from Christo­pher Nolan’s 2008 film The Dark Knight is frankly a mess, as Emer­son demon­strates in a fas­ci­nat­ing video essay (above) pro­duced as the first in a three-part series on the lan­guage of action sequences for the Indiewire blog Press Play. “We notice laps­es in visu­al log­ic whether our brains reg­is­ter them con­scious­ly or not,” writes Emer­son. “I found this scene utter­ly baf­fling the first time I saw it, and every sub­se­quent time. At last, I now know exact­ly why.”

After study­ing the sequence shot by shot he real­ized that Nolan had vio­lat­ed fun­da­men­tal rules of film gram­mar. You can fol­low along as Emer­son, a Seat­tle-based crit­ic who writes the Scan­ners film blog for the Chica­go Sun-Times, sorts out the con­fu­sion. (There is an accom­pa­ny­ing anno­tat­ed tran­script on Scan­ners.) And be sure to watch Emer­son­’s fol­low-up essays (below) which offer shot-by-shot analy­ses of action scenes that are clear­ly intel­li­gi­ble.

In Part II of his series (above), Emer­son breaks down the high­way chase scene from Phillip Noyce’s 2010 film, Salt. The sequence is easy to fol­low because Noyce is care­ful to estab­lish the spa­tial rela­tion­ships between the var­i­ous ele­ments, both with­in the frame and between shots. Writes Emer­son:

There are cer­tain direc­tors I think of as “one-thing-at-a-time” film­mak­ers. That is, they seem to be inca­pable of com­pos­ing shots that have more than one piece of infor­ma­tion in them at a time. This makes for a very flat, rather plod­ding style. You see what the cam­era is point­ed at in each shot, but you get very lit­tle sense of per­spec­tive when it comes to relat­ing it to oth­er ele­ments in the scene. Noyce’s tech­nique is much more flu­id, organ­ic and sophis­ti­cat­ed. He keeps things from one shot vis­i­ble in the next, even when shift­ing perspective–whether it’s only a few feet or clear across sev­er­al lanes of traf­fic.

In Part III (above), Emer­son revis­its clas­sic chase scenes from three films: Don Siegel’s The Line­up (1958), Peter Yates’s Bul­litt (1968) and William Fried­kin’s The French Con­nec­tion (1971). In each case the direc­tor takes you on a chaot­ic, bumpy ride–but nev­er los­es you.

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Life-Affirming Talks by Cultural Mavericks Presented at The School of Life

in Life, Philosophy | December 8th, 2011

Since the late 1990′s, Alain de Bot­ton has been break­ing down dif­fi­cult philo­soph­i­cal and lit­er­ary ideas and see­ing how they apply to people’s every­day lives. He did this with his 1997 best­seller, How Proust Can Change Your Life. And he took things a step fur­ther with his tele­vi­sion series called Phi­los­o­phy: A Guide to Hap­pi­ness.

Then, in the sum­mer of 2008, de Bot­ton and some col­leagues set up The School of Life, a Lon­don-based insti­tu­tion that offers cours­es “in the impor­tant ques­tions of every­day life,” in areas we all tend to care about: careers, rela­tion­ships, pol­i­tics, trav­els, fam­i­lies, etc. The school also hosts a series of “Sun­day Ser­mons” that fea­ture “mav­er­ick cul­tur­al fig­ures” talk­ing about the virtues they cling to, and the vices to be wary of.

Today, we’re fea­tur­ing sev­er­al of these ser­mons. Above, the actress, writer, and direc­tor Miran­da July takes an off­beat and endear­ing look at strangers, and the role they play in our lives. Then come some notable men­tions:

Physi­cist Lawrence Krauss on Cos­mic Con­nec­tions. (Also don’t miss this oth­er unre­lat­ed but splen­did talk by Krauss.)

Author Rebec­ca Sol­nit on Hope.

And Alain de Bot­ton him­self on the impor­tance of defy­ing pes­simism.

Again, you can find the full list of ser­mons orga­nized chrono­log­i­cal­ly here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Free Phi­los­o­phy Cours­es

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Philosophy in Prison: Weighty Conversations about Right and Wrong

in Life, Philosophy | December 7th, 2011

When not found­ing tech com­pa­nies, Damon Horowitz teach­es phi­los­o­phy through the Prison Uni­ver­si­ty Project, bring­ing col­lege-lev­el class­es to inmates of San Quentin State Prison. In three min­utes, Horowitz raps about phi­los­o­phy meet­ing real life — about how pris­on­ers con­vict­ed of seri­ous crimes come to terms with Socrates (who fin­ished his days in prison), Hei­deg­ger, Kant, cat­e­gor­i­cal imper­a­tives, ques­tions of right and wrong, and the rest. The “talk” was orig­i­nal­ly pre­sent­ed at TED 2011 last March.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Down­load Free Cours­es from Famous Philoso­phers: From Bertrand Rus­sell to Michel Fou­cault

Noam Chom­sky & Michel Fou­cault Debate Human Nature & Pow­er (1971)

The His­to­ry of Phi­los­o­phy With­out Any Gaps

Bertrand Rus­sell & Oth­er Big Thinkers in BBC Lec­ture Series (Free)

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Can Ants Count? Do They Have Built-In Pedometers? Animated Video Explains

in Animation, Video - Science | December 7th, 2011

Saha­ran desert ants are known to wan­der great dis­tances in search of food. Twist­ing and turn­ing on their way, the ants man­age to return to their nests along sur­pris­ing­ly direct paths. They sense direc­tion using light from the sky, but how do they judge dis­tance? By count­ing steps, appar­ent­ly.

As Nation­al Pub­lic Radio sci­ence cor­re­spon­dent Robert Krul­wich explains in this engag­ing lit­tle car­toon, a group of Ger­man and Swiss sci­en­tists have dis­cov­ered that by manip­u­lat­ing the stride of the ants halfway through their trip–by either length­en­ing or short­en­ing their legs–the ants would invari­ably over­shoot or under­shoot their return des­ti­na­tion. As Prince­ton biol­o­gist James Gould told NPR, “These ani­mals are fooled exact­ly the way you’d expect if they were count­ing steps.”

The exper­i­men­tal results were orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished in 2006. You can lis­ten to Krul­wich’s radio report on the research here.

via Phi­los­o­phy Mon­key

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Ant Archae­ol­o­gy

Fire Ants Cre­ate Life Raft in 100 Sec­onds Flat

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Ryan Adams Live at the Ed Sullivan Theatre (Free Pass)

in Music | December 7th, 2011

The Live on Let­ter­man con­cert series has brought you Peter Gabriel, Cold­play and Wilco (click to watch con­certs), and now it returns with Ryan Adams play­ing solo at the Ed Sul­li­van The­atre in New York city. Dur­ing the 70-minute con­cert record­ed Mon­day night, Adams per­formed “Lucky Now” from his new album Ash­es and Fire, plus some fan favorites “Oh My Sweet Car­oli­na” and “New York, New York.” Enjoy, and don’t miss Adams on his tour that kicks off Thurs­day in Boston.

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The Seven Wonders of the Microbe World

in Video - Science | December 7th, 2011

This video has been removed at the request of open uni­ver­si­ty.

After pro­duc­ing 60 Sec­ond Adven­tures in Thought and The His­to­ry of Eng­lish, the Open Uni­ver­si­ty returns with a new video series, Sev­en Won­ders of the Microbe World.

Microbes have giv­en us some dev­as­tat­ing dis­eases, every­thing from the Black Death to cholera, syphilis, typhoid and the occa­sion­al yeast infec­tion. But our micro­bial friends have also done us some good. With­out microbes, we would­n’t have wine and beer (some­thing the Ancient Egyp­tians start­ed pro­duc­ing some 6,000 years ago), nor much oxy­gen and fix­at­ed nitro­gen, all essen­tial for plant, ani­mal and human life. And don’t for­get antibi­otics, fine cheeses and the rest.

You can watch the Sev­en Won­ders of the Microbe World in sev­en install­ments on YouTube (see list below) or via iTunes. Or, sim­ply sit back and watch the 25 minute con­sol­i­dat­ed video (above) that brings it all togeth­er for you.

1. The His­to­ry of Beer
2. The Black Death
3. Food Preser­va­tion
4. Nitro­gen Fix­a­tion
5. Antibi­otics
6. Genet­ic Engi­neer­ing
7. Life on Mars

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Animated Video Shows Curiosity, NASA’s Mars Rover, in Dramatic Action

in Astronomy, Science, Video - Science | December 6th, 2011

In late Novem­ber, NASA’s Curios­i­ty, the world’s biggest extrater­res­tri­al rover, began rock­et­ing toward Mars (see pho­tos of the launch here) in search of any hint that the red plan­et might have pro­vid­ed a home for micro­scop­ic life. The Curios­i­ty will even­tu­al­ly reach Mars in August after cov­er­ing 345 mil­lion miles. Ear­li­er this year, an artist released a rather dra­mat­ic ani­ma­tion depict­ing key moments in the mis­sion — the voy­age, the land­ing (don’t miss this part!), the explo­ration, and all of the rest. It’s anoth­er can­di­date for our col­lec­tion of Great Sci­ence Videos.

via Coudal.com

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Miniatur Wunderland: The World’s Largest Model Railroad

in Video - Arts & Culture | December 6th, 2011

The con­struc­tion began in the year 2000, and over the years, Miniatur Wun­der­land, locat­ed in Ham­burg, Ger­many, has staked its claim as the largest mod­el rail­way in the world. Watch as you take a ride across the sev­en sec­tions: Harz, the fic­ti­tious city of Knuffin­gen, the Alps and Aus­tria, Ham­burg, Amer­i­ca, Scan­di­navia, and Switzer­land.

As the video attests, it took more than 500,000 work­ing hours to cre­ate this mas­sive minia­ture world. The most recent addi­tion is the Knuffin­gen air­port, locat­ed on 150 square meters, and boast­ing 40 air­planes that can taxi, take off, and land.

Miniatur Wun­der­land is con­stant­ly evolv­ing: the final phase of the project is slat­ed to be com­plet­ed in 2020, by which time the mod­el area will grow to near­ly 25,000 square feet. No won­der Miniatur Wun­der­land is Ham­burg’s most pop­u­lar attrac­tion.

via Giz­mo­do

Eugene Buchko is a blog­ger and pho­tog­ra­ph­er liv­ing in Atlanta, GA. He main­tains a pho­to­blog, Eru­dite Expres­sions, and writes about what he reads on his read­ing blog.

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Crowded House: How the World’s Population Grew to 7 Billion People

in Current Affairs, History, Video - Politics/Society | December 6th, 2011

This fall, the world’s pop­u­la­tion reached sev­en bil­lion. A sober­ing thought. How did we get to this point? Pro­duc­er Adam Cole and pho­tog­ra­ph­er Mag­gie Star­bard of Nation­al Pub­lic Radio have put the world’s accel­er­at­ing pop­u­la­tion growth in per­spec­tive in a two-and-a-half minute video, above.

In those two and a half min­utes, 638 babies will be born world­wide, accord­ing to sta­tis­tics from the Unit­ed States Cen­sus Bureau, and 265 peo­ple will die. That’s a net gain of 373 peo­ple, just while you watch the film. The biggest growth, accord­ing to NPR,  is hap­pen­ing in sub-Saha­ran Africa, where access to fam­i­ly plan­ning is low and infant mor­tal­i­ty rates are high.

It may seem counter-intu­itive that pop­u­la­tion growth rates are high where infant sur­vival rates are low, but as Swedish glob­al health expert Hans Rosling put it dur­ing a recent TED talk, “Only by child sur­vival can we con­trol pop­u­la­tion growth.” Because pop­u­la­tion growth and infant mor­tal­i­ty rates are both cor­re­lat­ed to pover­ty rates, he argues, elim­i­nat­ing pover­ty is the key to achiev­ing a sus­tain­able world pop­u­la­tion. You can learn more in our Novem­ber 1 fea­ture,  “Hans Rosling Uses IKEA Props to Explain World of 7 Bil­lion Peo­ple.”

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Conformity Isn’t a Recipe for Excellence: Wisdom from George Carlin & Steve Jobs (NSFW)

in Comedy, Life, Psychology | December 6th, 2011

Dur­ing the 1960s, George Car­lin had some­thing of an epiphany. Con­front­ed by the coun­ter­cul­ture, the young come­di­an real­ized that he was­n’t stay­ing true to him­self — that he was try­ing to be Dan­ny Kaye, a very main­stream star, when he was real­ly an out­law and a rebel at heart. (Watch him on The Tonight Show in 1966). Even­tu­al­ly, Car­lin learned “not to give a shit,” to break with mil­que­toast con­ven­tions that restrained oth­er come­di­ans, and that’s when his com­ic genius bloomed. Note that some of Car­lin’s com­ments here are … not sur­pris­ing­ly … not safe for work.

Steve Jobs, anoth­er child of the coun­ter­cul­ture, did­n’t learn Car­lin’s les­son over time. As Wal­ter Isaac­son makes clear in his new biog­ra­phy, Jobs under­stood from the begin­ning that excel­lence is rarely achieved by walk­ing down the path of con­for­mi­ty. In a 1995 inter­view, Jobs boiled down his basic approach to life. The mas­ter­mind behind the leg­endary Think Dif­fer­ent tele­vi­sion cam­paign (watch the ver­sion nar­rat­ed by Jobs him­self) said:

When you grow up, you tend to get told the world is the way it is, and your life is just to live your life inside the world. Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice fam­i­ly, have fun, save a lit­tle mon­ey.

That’s a very lim­it­ed life. Life can be much broad­er once you dis­cov­er one sim­ple fact: Every­thing around you that you call life was made up by peo­ple that were no smarter than you and you can change it, you can influ­ence it, you can build your own things that oth­er peo­ple can use. Once you learn that, you’ll nev­er be the same again.

You can find more pearls of wis­dom from Jobs over at Brain­Pick­ings, and we’ll leave you below with more cul­tur­al fig­ures med­i­tat­ing on life:

Stephen Fry: What I Wish I Had Known When I Was 18

Paulo Coel­ho: Suc­cess Nev­er Hap­pens With­out Tak­ing Risks

One of the Biggest Risks is Being Too Cau­tious…

Bono Tells Grad­u­ates “Pick a Fight, Get in It” (2004)

Conan O’Brien: Through Dis­ap­point­ment You Can Gain Clar­i­ty

J.K. Rowl­ing Tells Har­vard Grad­u­ates What They Need to Know

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