Stephen Malinowski is a self-described “Music Animation Machine,” with a penchant for creating animated graphical scores. Above, he does his thing with the first movement of Beethoven’s Symphony 5. How does he make this magic? Malinowski writes: “There were a lot of steps; here’s … | Continue reading
Dziga Vertov is best known for his dazzling city symphony A Man with a Movie Camera, which was ranked by Sight and Sound magazine as the 8th best movie ever made. Yet what you might not know is that Vertov also made the Soviet Union’s first ever animated movie, Soviet Toys. Consi … | Continue reading
Imagine a grand tour of European museums, and a fair few destinations come right to mind: the Rijksmuseum, the Prado, the Uffizi Gallery, the Louvre. These institutions alone could take years to experience fully, but it would be an incomplete journey that didn’t venture farther e … | Continue reading
“Steady Pushkin, matter-of-fact Tolstoy, restrained Chekhov have all had their moments of irrational insight which simultaneously blurred the sentence and disclosed a secret meaning worth the sudden focal shift,” writes Vladimir Nabokov in his Lectures on Russian Literature. “But … | Continue reading
It’s difficult to imagine Iman and David Bowie inviting Vogue readers to join them on the above virtual tour of their mountaintop home near Woodstock, New York when the rock legend was alive. Granted, shortly after their 1992 wedding, he gave Architectural Digest a peek at their … | Continue reading
Donald Duck first appeared in Disney’s 1934 cartoon The Wise Little Hen (below). In his subsequent roles, he quickly developed into that still-familiar figure the New Yorker once described as “personified irritability.” But it would take him another decade or so to become more th … | Continue reading
Evan Puschak, the video essayist better known as the Nerdwriter, has seen a lot of movies. Here on Open Culture, we’ve previously featured his analyses of a range of pictures including Blade Runner, Reservoir Dogs, Parasite, La Dolce Vita, Nostalghia, and You’ve Got Mail. When he … | Continue reading
Jazz pianist and composer Charles Cornell is not alone in his contempt for the sort of dumbed down musical fare typical of children’s programming. The late Johnny Costa, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood’s long-time musical director and a self-described “real jazzer,” was of like mind: … | Continue reading
Westerners tend to think of Japan as a land of high-speed trains, expertly prepared sushi and ramen, auteur films, brilliant animation, elegant woodblock prints, glorious old hotels, sought-after jazz-records, cat islands, and ghost towns. The last of those has, of course, not be … | Continue reading
?si=RFbzFSzSNWzua3‑7 Could you use a mental escape? Maybe a trip to Mars will do the trick. Above, you can find high definition footage captured by NASA’s three Mars rovers–Spirit, Opportunity and Curiosity. The footage (also contributed by JPL-Caltech, MSSS, Cornell University a … | Continue reading
The word sophisticated may sound like praise today, but it originated as more of an accusation. Trace its etymology back far enough and you’ll encounter the sophists, itinerant lecturers in ancient Greece who taught subjects like philosophy, mathematics, music, and rhetoric — the … | Continue reading
A quick final heads up: Coursera’s deal, which offers $200 off of Coursera Plus, ends in two days–February 1. If you’re interested in the discount, you have a couple days to make a call… Coursera has announced that it’s extending (until February 1) a special deal that will let yo … | Continue reading
One needn’t think too hard to come up with a list of celebrated children who seem somehow less exceptional when their baby fat comes off and their permanent teeth come in. We’ll eat Werner Herzog’s shoe if Alma Deutscher’s name is on it. When she was 11, conductor Johannes Wildne … | Continue reading
There was a time in America, not so very long ago, when conventional wisdom discouraged immigrants from speaking the language of the old country at home. In fact, “it used to be thought that being bilingual was a bad thing, that it would confuse or hold people back, especially ch … | Continue reading
Things change… Especially when you’re tracking the continental movement from Pangea to the present day in 5 million years increments at the rate of 2.5 million years per second. Wherever you are, 350 million years ago, your address would’ve been located on the mega-continent of P … | Continue reading
The Codex Seraphinianus is not a medieval book; nor does it date from the Renaissance along with the codices of Leonardo. In fact, it was published only in 1981, but in the intervening decades it has gained recognition as “the strangest book ever published,” as we described it wh … | Continue reading
With the rise of AI tools like ChatGPT, which can generate essay after essay near-instantaneously from even the simplest prompt, surely the skill of writing will soon go the way of arrowhead-sharpening. That would be easy to believe, anyway, amid the current technological buzz. B … | Continue reading
Late last year, Amazon announced AI Ready, a new initiative “designed to provide free AI skills training to 2 million people globally by 2025.” This includes eight free AI and generative AI courses, some designed for beginners, and others designed for more advanced students. As t … | Continue reading
Bruce Hornsby is best known for his first album The Way It Is (1986), but has come light years since then through 18+ albums, experimenting with different styles, playing over 100 shows with the Grateful Dead, and scoring numerous projects for Spike Lee. He’s won three Grammys an … | Continue reading
?si=k7NS-uM-GjVkL0dP Oliver Hermanus’ latest film Living transplants the story of Akira Kurosawa’s Ikiru to postwar London. Apart from its own considerable merits, it has given viewers across the world reason to revisit the 1952 original, a standout work even in a golden decade o … | Continue reading
Everybody who’s been to a Tom Waits concert has stories to tell about it — no few of them heard straight from the mouth of Waits himself. The official live album for his 2008 Glitter and Doom tour actually devotes its entire second disc to “a selection of the comic bromides, stra … | Continue reading
For a variety of reasons, science fiction has long been regarded as a mostly male-oriented realm of literature. This is evidenced, in part, by the eagerness to celebrate particular works of sci-fi written by women, like Ursula K. LeGuin’s Earthsea saga, Octavia Butler’s Parable n … | Continue reading
From the Triton Fountain in the Piazza Barberini to the Fountain of the Four Rivers in Piazza Navona, sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s glorious public fountains have impressed visitors to Rome for centuries. Bernini angled for immorality when carving his Baroque masterpieces from … | Continue reading
It’s winter, and we still have a ways to go. So maybe we could interest you in a free knitting pattern that depicts a vintage Penguin Classics cover of George Orwell’s 1984. A college student gave it a go and posted the results on Reddit. It’s pretty swellegant. You can download … | Continue reading
Imagine, if you will, an evening’s entertainment consisting of an episode of Portlandia, a spin of Nirvana’s In Utero, and a screening of Koyaanisqatsi. Perhaps these works would, at first glance, seem to have little in common. But if you end the night by watching the above episo … | Continue reading
In 1966, the sociologist and critic Philip Rieff published The Triumph of the Therapeutic, which diagnosed how thoroughly the culture of psychotherapy had come to influence ways of life and thought in the modern West. That same year, in the journal Communications of the Associati … | Continue reading
Pliny the Younger may be best remembered for writing the only eye-witness account of the destruction of Pompeii in 79 AD. It’s a memorable letter still found in modern collections of Pliny the Younger’s correspondence. There, you can also find a simple letter authored by Pliny, o … | Continue reading
Image via Wikimedia Commons A quick heads up: On Monday, Stanford Continuing Studies will kick off an online course called Psychedelia and Groove: The Music and Culture of the Grateful Dead. Taught by David Gans (author of Playing in the Band: An Oral and Visual Portrait of the G … | Continue reading
In 1966, Paul McCartney famously sang of “all the lonely people,” wondering aloud where they come from. Nearly six decades later, their numbers seem only to have increased; as for their origin, psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, and Zen priest Robert Waldinger has made it a longtime pr … | Continue reading
?si=1D5y5yGeIhAfGnvh From the guy who brought you 51 Propaganda Techniques Explained in 11 Minutes comes this: Every Political Ideology Explained in 8 Minutes. You get the usual suspects–conservatism, liberalism, socialism, communism and fascism. And then some less frequently enc … | Continue reading
Your hosts Mark, Lawrence, Sarahlyn, and Al explore the characteristics of Jewish comedy with stand-up/graphic novelist Daniel, whose film Reconquistador explores his ancestors being kicked out of Spain. What’s the connection of Jewish humor to anti-semitism? We talk about relati … | Continue reading
“When I first encountered Wright’s work as an eight-year-old boy, it was the space and the light that got me all excited,” says Stuart Graff in the Architectural Digest video above. “I now understand why that gives us the feeling that it does, why we feel different in a Frank Llo … | Continue reading
During the 1940s and 50s, Hollywood entered a “noir” period, producing riveting films based on hard-boiled fiction. These films were set in dark locations and shot in a black & white aesthetic that fit like a glove. Hardened men wore fedoras and forever smoked cigarettes. Women p … | Continue reading
From the time that a nameless genius in either Ethiopia or Yemen decided to dry, crush and strain water through a berry known for making goats nervous and jumpy, coffee has been loved and worshiped like few other beverages. Early Arab doctors proclaimed the stuff to be a miracle … | Continue reading
It can be challenging to parse the meaning of many non-narrative artworks. Sometimes the title will offer a clue, or the artist will shed some light in an interview. Is it a comment on the cultural, socio-economic or political context in which it was created? Or is the act of cre … | Continue reading
Here’s some news that you can use… Coursera has announced that it’s extending (until February 1) a special deal that will let you get a $200 discount on its annual subscription plan called “Coursera Plus.” Normally priced at $399, Coursera Plus (now available for $199) gives you … | Continue reading
After serving two terms as the first President of the United States of America, George Washington refused to continue on to a third. We now see this action as beginning the tradition of peaceful relinquishment of power that has continued more or less ever since (interrupted, as i … | Continue reading
According to the laws of physics — at least in simplified form — an object in motion will stay in motion, at least if no other forces act on it. That’s all well and good in the realm of theory, but here in the complex reality of Earth, there always seems to be one force […] | Continue reading
Six months before his assassination, Martin Luther King Jr. spoke to students at Barratt Junior High School in Philadelphia, and asked What Is Your Life’s Blueprint? Addressing the students, he observed: “This is the most important and crucial period of your lives. For what you d … | Continue reading
In 2018, the Pixies performed live for BBC Radio 6 Music, playing some new songs (“In the Arms of Mrs. Mark of Cain”) and old classics (“Here Comes Your Man”). In that latter category, you’ll find a recording of “Gouge Away,” which I keep coming back to again, and yet again. Abou … | Continue reading
The story behind this painting is so sad! Now using AI we can complete what he couldn’t finish! ❤️ https://t.co/RuASoTfFdk pic.twitter.com/uAwM6SBUGW — Donnel (@DonnelVillager) December 31, 2023 The celebrity graffiti artist Keith Haring died in 1990, at the age of 31, no doubt h … | Continue reading
?si=pnmakCdYBQ6dTM0T From the Royal Society comes a short primer on snowflakes. Narrated by physicist Brian Cox, the video explains how they form, and why no two snowflakes have the exact same dimensions. It also recounts how Johannes Kepler developed a groundbreaking theory abou … | Continue reading
When we first travel somewhere, we see nothing quite so clearly as the usual categories of tourist destination: the monuments, the museums, the restaurants. Take one step deeper, and we find ourselves in places like cafés and bookstores, the latter especially having exploded in t … | Continue reading
Why must we all work long hours to earn the right to live? Why must only the wealthy have access to leisure, aesthetic pleasure, self-actualization…? Everyone seems to have an answer, according to their political or theological bent. One economic bogeyman, so-called “trickle-down … | Continue reading
We’re living in the age of data. Every second, massive amounts of data are being generated, processed, analyzed and, yes, monetized. Companies, governments, and individuals–they’re all awash in data and trying to make sense of it. That makes Data Analytics a valuable skill for pr … | Continue reading
Step right up, folks! Shoot the Chutes! Thrill to the Fire and Flames show! Ride an elephant! See the Bearded Lady! Early in the 20th century, crowds flocked to New York City’s Coney Island, where wonders awaited at every turn. In 1902, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle published a few of … | Continue reading
The concept of propaganda has a great deal of power to fascinate. So does the very word propaganda, which to most of us today sounds faintly exotic, as if it referred mainly to phenomena from distant places and times. But in truth, can any one of us here in the twenty-first centu … | Continue reading
Author, educator and book restoration expert Sophia Bogle is in a constant race against time. Her mission: to rescue and restore ill-treated books before their lamentable conditions can consign them to the landfill. To the untrained eye, many of these volumes appear beyond repair … | Continue reading