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Open Culture
www.openculture.com
33
The best free cultural & educational media on the web
#40280 in All

The Open Goldberg Variations: J.S. Bach’s Masterpiece Free to Download

First published in 1741, J.S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations is often considered the most ambitious composition ever written for harpsichord. As this conversation at NPR notes, the piece begins ...

1 h ago

Jeff Buckley: Everybody Here Wants You. The Musician Remembered in 2002 Documentary

For a brief moment there, it looked like Jeff Buckley would perhaps be the heir apparent to Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen — the next in a line of prolific American musicians. In 1994, Buckley...

18 h ago

Measuring the Universe: How Astronomers Learned to Measure Celestial Distances Explained with Anima...

Have you ever wondered how astronomers figure out the mind-boggling distances between the Earth and various astronomical objects? In this informative animated video from the Royal Observatory at Gree...

20 h ago

Daniel Dennett (a la Jeff Foxworthy) Does the Routine, “You Might be an Atheist If…”

The American comedian Jeff Foxworthy has a well known comedy routine called “You Might be a Redneck If,” where he lists the self-mocking possibilities that answer the question. For exampl...

22 h ago

Vladimir Nabokov (Channelled by Christopher Plummer) Teaches Kafka at Cornell

“From my point of view,” writes Vladimir Nabokov in Lectures on Literature, “any outstanding work of art is a fantasy insofar as it reflects the unique world of a unique individual....

1 day ago 1 person likes this

Andy Samberg Announces Death of Liberal Arts, Coolness of Science Majors at Harvard Class Day

Every time Harvard Class Day rolls around, you can expect a few good laughs from a comedian. In years past, Sacha Baron Cohen (a Cambridge grad), appearing as Ali G, offered some words of nonsensical...

1 day ago

Bill Murray Stars in Playful, Slo-Mo, Mock Trailer (and More Culture from Around the Web)

As Wes Anderson’s new film with Bill Murray hits theaters this weekend, a fun video starring the actor has surfaced on the web. Here’s the quick backstory. Last year, a crew working on a ...

2 days ago

Celebrate the 75th Anniversary of the Golden Gate Bridge with a Free iPad App

When it opened to vehicle traffic in May, 1937 the Golden Gate Bridge was the longest suspension bridge in the world. Since then eight bridges have surpassed it in length, but the iconic internationa...

2 days ago

How David Byrne and Brian Eno Make Music Together: A Short Documentary

On Monday, we posted the Artist Series, short profiles of various aesthetically-oriented creators by the late Hillman Curtis. Today, please enjoy what feels like the jewel in the Artist Series’...

3 days ago

ZeroN: An Amazing, Gravity-Defying New Interactive Technology at M.I.T.

In Stephen Spielberg’s film E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial there is a memorable scene in which a group of children ask a stranded visitor from outer space where he is from, and he tries to communic...

3 days ago 1 person likes this

David Rees and His One-Man Artisanal Pencil Sharpening Service

This is for anyone with a love of old school woodworking — luthiers, ébénistes and the rest. In 2009, the humorist David Rees gave up cartooning and opened up his one-man artisanal pencil sharp...

3 days ago

Jennifer Egan, Pulitzer Prize-Winner, Tweets New Story with The New Yorker

In March, Jennifer Egan (A Visit From the Goon Squad) paid a visit to Google and was asked to sum up her year since winning the Pulitzer Prize in 2011. She said: “I am still not used to the ide...

4 days ago

New Great Gatsby, On the Road Adaptations Revive an Old Debate: Can Great Books Make Great Movies?

Two of the greatest American novels of the 20th century–F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and Jack Kerouac’s On the Road–are headed for the big screen later this year, an...

4 days ago

Leonard Susskind, Father of String Theory, Warmly Remembers His Friend, Richard Feynman

Leonard Susskind — he’s the father of String Theory, someone who won the black hole wars with Stephen Hawking, and a Stanford professor who likes to bring physics to the broader public. (...

4 days ago

Bill Murray Introduces Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom (And Plays FDR In December)

Excited Wes Anderson fans: do you need one more watchable to tide you over before Moonrise Kingdom enters wide release tomorrow? Wes Anderson-neutral filmgoers: do you need a little help cutting thro...

4 days ago

Watch: New Film by Roman Polanski, Starring Helena Bonham Carter, Sir Ben Kingsley & Prada Shoes

At the Cannes Film Festival this week, Roman Polanski screened a restored version of his 1979 film, Tess. And then he tantalized the audience, at least momentarily, when he offered a sneak preview of...

5 days ago

The First Films of Great Directors: Kubrick, Coppola, Scorsese, Tarantino & Truffaut

Great directors – unless they’re Orson Welles – rarely start off making masterpieces. Their craft evolves, reminding us that great filmmaking (like everything else) takes talent, bu...

5 days ago

The Idea TED Didn’t Consider Worth Spreading: The Rich Aren’t Really Job Creators

Late last week, The National Journal published a story called The Inequality Speech That TED Won’t Show You, along with a related story explaining the controversy, which boils down to this: TED...

5 days ago

The First Films of Great Directors: Kubrick, Coppola, Scorsese, Tarantino & Truffaut

Great directors – unless they’re Orson Welles – rarely start off making masterpieces. Their craft evolves, reminding us that great filmmaking (like everything else) takes talent, bu...

5 days ago

Seven Questions for Stephen Hawking: What Would He Ask Albert Einstein & More

If Stephen Hawking could talk with Albert Einstein, what would he say? “I would ask him why he didn’t believe in black holes,” says Hawking in this video from Time magazine. “...

5 days ago

Ridley Scott Demystifies the Art of Storyboarding (and How to Jumpstart Your Creative Project)

Some filmmakers put storyboards, those comic book-looking shot plans you sometimes glimpse in making-of documentaries, at the center of their creative process. Terry Gilliam, he of Brazil and 12 Monk...

5 days ago

Sigmund Freud’s Home Movies: A Rare Glimpse of His Private Life

Not long ago we posted the only known recording of Sigmund Freud’s voice. Today we present rare home movies of the founder of modern psychology, captured during the last decade of his life. The...

6 days ago

Alain De Botton Turns His Philosophical Mind To Developing “Better Porn”

Open Culture readers know that, whenever Alain de Botton looks into traditional intellectual fields, he finds tools for better living. His quest for the founts of happiness has got him reinterpreting...

6 days ago

Charles Bukowski: Depression and Three Days in Bed Can Restore Your Creative Juices (NSFW)

Pico Iyer once called Charles Bukowski the “laureate of American lowlife,” and that’s because he wrote poems for and about ordinary Americans — people who experienced poverty, the tedium ...

22 may 12

Manuel Lima Visualizes Knowledge in Our Interconnected World in a Brand New RSA Animated Video

Throughout 2010 and 2011, the Royal Society of the Arts (RSA) developed a series of catchy videos that feature the words of thought leaders accompanied by the fast-moving animation of Andrew Park. Al...

22 may 12

Manuel Lima Visualizes Knowledge in Our Interconnected World in a Brand New RSA Animated Video

Throughout 2010 and 2011, the Royal Society of the Arts (RSA) developed a series of catchy videos that feature the words of thought leaders accompanied by the fast-moving animation of Andrew Park. Al...

22 may 12 1 person likes this

A Most Unfortunate Commencement Typo at UT Austin

We’ll let you spot the typo to end all typos. Needless to say, the school has issued its mea culpa on Twitter and started printing new commencement brochures. Now they’ll wait with bated ...

22 may 12

Neil Gaiman Gives Graduates 10 Essential Tips for Working in the Arts

Neil Gaiman, considered one of the top ten living post-modern writers, never went to college. He neither started nor finished his advanced studies, but rather put himself into the world and started w...

21 may 12

Last Night’s Solar Eclipse in a 60-Second, 700-Picture Timelapse Video

If you missed the big solar eclipse and its strange shadows last night, not to worry. Cory Poole, a science teacher in Redding, California, has you covered. Above, you’ll find his video that br...

21 may 12

Mussolini Sends a Happy Message to America, Helps Change Cinema History (1927)

Strange as it sounds, Benito Mussolini played a historic role in the introduction of talking motion pictures. Throughout the early 1920s, various sound technologies for cinema were tested and exhibit...

21 may 12

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