Bookmarks (1592)

You can go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art today, and in real life at that. This isn’t true of all the world’s great art institutions, still shut down as many are by measures in response to the past year’s coronavirus pandemic. But then, none of them have offered a digital visiting experience quite like […] Take a New Virtual Reality Tour of the...

Consider that you eat the sins of the people —inscription carved above the entrance to the Monastery of Alcobaça‘s refectory Apparently, the Monastery of Alcobaça‘s resident monks were eating plenty of other things, too. Eventually their reputation for excessive plumpness became problematic. A hefty physique may have signified prosperity and health in 1178 when construction began on […] The Anti-Gluttony Door in Portugal’s Alcobaça Monastery Shamed...

David Lynch is known for being persnickety about delivering the correct viewing experience to his audience, as he considers the cinema a sacred place. In a documentary short a few years back, he explained, “It’s so magical, I don’t know why, to go into a theater and have the lights go down. It’s very quiet […] David Lynch’s Projection Instructions for Mulholland Drive (2001)...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xu2euaQGzDQ “Tell me,” said Beloved, smiling a wide happy smile. “Tell me your diamonds.” The unforgettable portrayal of Beloved, the mysterious, 20-year-old woman (Thandie Newton)—who appears in Sethe’s (Oprah Winfrey) home mysteriously just as the infant ghost haunting the family disappears—leaves an indelible image in the mind’s eye in Jonathan Demme’s 1998 film. We may […] Why Should You Read Toni Morrison’s <I>Beloved</I>? An...

Everybody knows that UFO stands for “unidentified flying object.” Coined by the United States Air Force in 1953, the term has come to stand for a wide range of phenomena that suggest we’ve been contacted by alien civilizations — and in fact has even spawned the field of ufology, dedicated to the investigation of such […] The CIA Has Declassified 2,780 Pages of UFO-Related...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPLJgkVsXpE The early history of the bicycle did not promise great things—or anything, really—for women at the dawn of the 19th century. A two-wheeled bicycle-like invention, for example, built in 1820, “was more like an agricultural implement in construction than a bicycle,” one bicycle history notes. Made of wood, the “hobby horses” and velocipedes of […] How the Bicycle Helped Usher in the Women’s...

The pandemic has kept us out of the movie theaters, forcing new streaming practices so that films can be released at all, but as these restrictions end in 2021, do we want things to go back just to the way they were? Your hosts Mark Linsenmayer, Erica Spyres, and Brian Hirt reviewed many articles where […] Should You Race Back to Theaters When It’s...

If you want to learn how the planets move, you’ll almost certainly go to one place first: Youtube. Yes, there have been plenty of worthwhile books written on the subject, and reading them will prove essential to further deepening your understanding. But videos have the capacity of motion, an undeniable benefit when motion itself is […] A 16th-Century Astronomy Book Featured “Analog Computers” to...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpInOs1Fyno Why do people pledge allegiance to views that seem fundamentally hostile to reality? Maybe believers in shadowy, evil forces and secret cabals fall prey to motivated reasoning. Truth for them is what they need to believe in order to get what they want. Their certainty in the justness of a cause can feel as […] How to Talk with a Conspiracy Theorist (and...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nCzsqKrkhE Modern man still is anxious and tempted to surrender his freedom to dictators of all kinds, or to lose it by transforming himself into a small cog in the machine. —Erich Fromm There are more think pieces published every day than any one person can read about our current moment of social disintegration. But […] Social Psychologist Erich Fromm Diagnoses Why People Wear...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLMoLoGfjyQ Digital filmmaker Garren Lazar gives us a creative parody video and a badly-needed mental health break. Enjoy. To watch previous Peanuts parodies of songs by Queen, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Journey & more, click here. via LaughingSquid Related Content Umberto Eco Explains the Poetic Power of Charles Schulz’s Peanuts The Velvet Underground as Peanuts Characters: Snoopy Morphs […] Peanuts Plays Yes’ “Roundabout” is a post from:...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dD57IkvzE50 When everybody had one or two vodkas and smoked a few joints, it was always the time for the blowgun. —John Giorno From 1974 to 1982, writer William S. Burroughs lived in a former locker room of a 19th-century former-YMCA on New York City’s Lower East Side. When he moved on, his stuff, including his worn out shoes, his […] A Look Inside William S. Burroughs’ Bunker is...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cUUfMeOijg Try not to think too hard about the concept of randomness — and especially about the question of how, exactly, one generates a random number. Most of us, of course, simply ask a computer to do it. But how can a computer, which by its very nature follows unambiguous directions in a predictable manner, come up […] How Lava Lamps Help Secure the Internet is...

The printing history of early English books may not seem like the most fascinating subject in the world, but if you mention the name William Caxton to a book historian, you may get a fascinating lecture nonetheless. Caxton, the merchant and diplomat who introduced the printing press to England in 1476, was an unusually enterprising […] Discover the First Illustrated Book Printed in English,...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRyyNa9DAEQ Kent State University is known as the site of two important events in American culture: the massacre of May 4, 1970, and the formation of Devo. When the National Guard shot thirteen students at a Vietnam War protest, it signaled to many the end of the youth-driven optimism of the late 1960s. It also […] See Devo Perform Live for the Very First...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22PRZO2HnJE “Technology is a tremendous liberator,” says Laurie Anderson in her voiceover narration for the new documentary Sisters with Transistors, a look at the women who have pioneered electronic music since its beginnings and been integral to inventing new sounds and ways of making them. “Women were naturally drawn to electronic music. You didn’t have to […] New Documentary <i>Sisters with Transistors</i> Tells the Story...

It’s not the ingredients that sell the product. It’s how Warhol makes you feel about the product.  —Young and Rubicam employee, circa early 1950s It did not take Andy Warhol long to find the status he sought as a young man. Shortly after moving to New York City in 1949, he established himself as one […] 300 Rarely-Seen, Risqué Drawings by Andy Warhol Published...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_P-0I6sAck He grew up in the ruins of World War II–the ruins created by the Nazism and its ideological commitment to conspiracy theories, violence and white supremacy. Based on that formative experience, the former Republican governor offers his take on this week’s coup attempt in Washington: “Being from Europe, I’ve seen how things can spin […] Arnold Schwarzenegger Reflects on the Parallels Between Trumpism...

Image by Rob Kall, via Flickr Commons Timothy Snyder, Housum Professor of History at Yale University, is one of the foremost scholars in the U.S. and Europe on the rise and fall of totalitarianism during the 1930s and 40s. Among his long list of appointments and publications, he has won multiple awards for his recent international bestsellers […] 20 Lessons from the 20th Century About How...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfiS8MsfSF4 Reporter Ryan Lizza writes: “I don’t think I fully understood what happened Wednesday until I watched this video. It’s long and includes the shooting of one of the rioters, but you will have a new appreciation of the demented psychology coursing through this mob.” This is the insurrection that Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Josh […] Mayhem Inside the Capitol: 40 Minutes of Footage...

Of all the varied objects of creation there is, probably, no portion that affords so much gratification and delight to mankind as plants. —Elizabeth Twining “Who owned nature in the eighteenth century?” asks Londa Schiebinger in Plants and Empire, a study of what the Stanford historian of science calls “colonial bioprospecting in the Atlantic World.” The […] Behold an Interactive Online Edition of Elizabeth Twining’s...

All magazines are their editors, but Flair was more its editor than any magazine had been before — or, for that matter, than any magazine has been since. Though she came to the end of her long life in England, a country to which she had expatriated with her fourth husband, a Briton, Fleur Cowles was […] <i>Flair</i> Magazine: The Short-Lived, Highly-Influential Magazine That Still...

Type selection is an intensive process that requires intimate knowledge of a brand’s values, audience, competition, voice, and goals. —Fonts in Use, FAQ Fonts in Use is a typography nerd’s dream come true. The 10-year-old independent archive of typography has collected over 17,000 designs, each using at least one of over 12,000 typeface families from more than 3,500 type […] Fonts in Use: Enter a Giant Archive of...

Let’s provide the context, just like host Adam Neely and guest Brian Krock do in this video: in 1960 Steve Lacy, a young, white soprano sax player, briefly joined Thelonious Monk’s band. Two years previous, Lacy had  been the first jazz musician to release an album of Monk’s compositions other than the man himself. Even so, […] Thelonious Monk’s List of 25 Tips for Musicians...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVEeXjPiw54 The so-called Enlightenment period encompasses a surprisingly diverse collection of thinkers, if not always in ethnic or national origin, at least in intellectual disposition, including perhaps the age’s most influential philosopher, the “philosopher’s philosopher,” writes Assad Meymandi. Baruch Spinoza did not fit the image of the bewigged philosopher-gentleman of means we tend to popularly […] An Animated Introduction to Baruch Spinoza: The “Philosopher’s...

Some religions prohibit the depiction of their sacred personages. Tibetan Buddhism isn’t quite so strict, but it does ask that, if you’re going to depict the Buddha, you do it right. Hence aids like the Tibetan Book of Proportions, which provides “36 ink drawings showing precise iconometric guidelines for depicting the Buddha and Bodhisattva figures.” […] How to Draw the Buddha: Explore an Elegant...

The holiday film release season has now passed, having issued only one real blockbuster, which is the return of Wonder Woman. This week’s Pretty Much Pop likewise offers a returning hero:  Our college-going guest from ep. 33 on heroine journeys has now grown into a grad student in comics history, and she brings her deep […] Wonder Woman 1984 in Context – Pretty Much...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJlOb7n_iCI Read along with the text of the 25th Amendment online here. And get some background from the Constitution Center here, and Vox’s explainer here. The 25th Amendment: An Introduction is a post from: Open Culture. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus, or get our Daily Email. And don't miss our big collections of Free Online Courses, Free Online Movies, Free eBooks, Free...

Art may seem inessential to those who make the big decisions in times of crisis. But it has never seemed more necessary to artists working in the time of COVID. So it was 360 years ago when Rembrandt painted a portrait of his son, Titus, in a monk’s robe in 1660. Eight years later, Titus […] The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam Has Digitized 709,000 Works...

Tibetan monks in remote regions of the Himalayas have long claimed near miraculous powers through yogic practices that resemble nothing you’ll find offered at your local gym, though they may derive from some similar Indian sources. One such meditative practice, a breathing exercise known as tummo, tum-mo, or g-tummo, supposedly generates body heat and can […] How Tibetan Monks Use Meditation to Raise Their...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4uUchB429M When Lotte Reiniger began making animation in the late 1910s, her work looked like nothing that had ever been shot on film. In fact, it also resembles nothing else achieved in the realm of cinema in the century since. Even the enormously budgeted and staffed productions of major studios have yet to replicate the stark, […] Animation Pioneer Lotte Reiniger Adapts Mozart’s <i>The Magic...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpkADOTWSNg Purveyors of the shocking, primal idiocy of pure rock and roll can in many cases be some of the most intelligent people in pop. Or at least that’s the case with the king of shocking, primal idiocy, Iggy Pop. He has interpreted Whitman‘s “barbaric yawp” and delivered the John Peel Lecture for BBC Music, becoming […] When Iggy Pop Published an Essay, “Caesar Lives,”...

His were usually humorous stories, full of magic, and very often, they contained a connection to the children’s lives, because it was primarily for them that he invented them. –Sarah Zama The fact that “much of the inspiration of the Lord of the Rings came from [J.R.R. Tolkien’s] family,” Danielle Burgos writes at Bustle, has […] Discover J.R.R. Tolkien’s Little-Known and Hand-Illustrated Children’s Book,...

Rome wasn’t built in a day. But one of its most renowned attractions could be returned to its first-century glory in just two years — or at least, part of one of its most famous attractions could be. In our time, the Colosseum has long been a major Roman tourist destination–one that lacks even a […] Rome’s Colosseum Will Get a New Retractable Floor...

Photo by Guilhem Vellut Weary as we are of hearing about not just the coronavirus but viruses in general, shall we we turn our attention to parasites instead? The Meguro Parasitological Museum has been concentrating its intellectual and educational energies in that direction since 1953. Located in the eponymous neighborhood of Tokyo, it houses more […] Discover Tokyo’s Museum Dedicated to Parasites: A Unique...

FYI: Between now and January 10, Coursera is offering a $100 discount on its annual subscription plan called “Coursera Plus.” Normally priced at $399, Coursera Plus (now available for $299) gives you access to 90% of Coursera’s courses, Guided Projects, Specializations, and Professional Certificates, all of which are taught by top instructors from leading universities and […] Coursera Offers $100 Off of Coursera Plus (Until...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nuzYpuPQCI Thanks for allowing me to be a poet. A noble effort, doomed, but the only choice. —John Giorno, Thanx for Nothing Dialing a poem today, I’m connected to Joe Brainard, who died of AIDS-related pneumonia in 1994, reading an excerpt of “I Remember.” He stumbles over some words. It’s exciting. There’s a feeling of immediacy. When the […] Dial-a-Poem: The Groundbreaking Phone Service That Let People...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwnouGHMc7o When it comes to classical composers, Beethoven was pretty metal. But was he writing some kind of classical thrash? Hardcore orchestrations too fast for the average musician to play? 66 out of 135 of Beethoven’s tempo markings made with his new metronome in the early 1800s seem “absurdly fast and thus possibly wrong,” researchers […] Did Beethoven Use a Broken Metronome When Composing...

“The year 1925 was a golden moment in literary history,” writes the BBC’s Jane Ciabattari. “Ernest Hemingway’s first book, In Our Time, Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby were all published that year. As were Gertrude Stein’s The Making of Americans, John Dos Passos’ Manhattan Transfer, Theodore Dreiser’s An American […] What’s Entering the Public Domain in 2021: <i>The...

I want every morning to be a new year’s for me. Every day I want to reckon with myself, and every day I want to renew myself. No day set aside for rest. I choose my pauses myself, when I feel drunk with the intensity of life and I want to plunge into animality to […] Antonio Gramsci Writes a Column, “I Hate New...

Studio Ghibli make lush and captivating animated films. So, on occasion, do other studios, but of how many of their pictures can we say that each and every still frame constitutes a work of art in itself? As a test, try putting on a Ghibli movie and pausing at random, then doing the same for […] Studio Ghibli Makes 1,178 Images Free to Download...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1fiOJDXA-E Combining pop music with opera was always the height of pretension. But where would we be without the pretentious? As Brian Eno observed in his 1995 diary, “My assumptions about culture as a place where you can take psychological risks without incurring physical penalties make me think that pretending is the most important thing […] When Queen’s Freddie Mercury Teamed Up with Opera...

I mean, the idea that you would give a psychedelic—in this case, magic mushrooms or the chemical called psilocybin that’s derived from magic mushrooms—to people dying of cancer, people with terminal diagnoses, to help them deal with their – what’s called existential distress. And this seemed like such a crazy idea that I began looking […] The <i>Golden Guide to Hallucinogenic Plants</i>: Discover the...

Psst. Amazon currently has AirPods Pro headphones for $199, while Apple has them listed for $249. It’s the deal of the day for anyone looking for wireless Bluetooth earbuds, with noise-cancelling, immersive sound. H/T Rolling Stone Technology Arbitrage: Amazon is Selling Airpods Pro Headphones for $50 Less Than Apple is a post from: Open Culture. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus, or...

The late Ray Bradbury wrote a dizzying number of short stories over a career that spanned nine decades. Authorized Bradbury biographer Sam Weller, author of the bestselling The Bradbury Chronicles: The Life of Ray Bradbury and the indispensable companion book, Listen to the Echoes: The Ray Bradbury Interviews makes sense of Bradbury’s voluminous short story […] The Essential Bradbury: The 25 Finest Stories by...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abspZyhQDm0 Have you ever wondered what generations hundreds or thousands of years hence will make of our strip malls, office parks, and sports arenas? Probably not much, since there probably won’t be much left. How much medium-density fibreboard is likely to remain? The colorful structures that make the modern world seem solid, the grocery shelves, […] Archaeologists Discover an Ancient Roman Snack Bar in...

How many Americans have never heard the name of Martin Luther King Jr.? And indeed, gone more than half a century though he may be, how many Americans have never heard his voice, or can’t quote his words? Long though King will doubtless stand as an example of the English language’s greatest 20th-century orators, he […] How Martin Luther King Jr. Got C’s in...

So, it’s been a year. For those of us in parts of the world where the pandemic still rages uncontained, it’s going to be an even longer winter. It may be utterly trivial to speak of silver linings when it comes to clouds this size, but there’s no reason not to use our time wisely […] 15 Posts That Resonated with (and Restored) Open...

What explains the immense quarantine-time popularity in America of this quaint British reality cooking show? What do we get out of watching talented amateurs bake things? Stephen Carlile, who is famous for playing Scar in The Lion King on Broadway (and is VERY British himself), joins your hosts Erica Spyres, Brian Hirt, and Mark Linsenmayer […] Why Has <em>The Great British Baking Show</em> Conquered...

Photo via Wikimedia Commons Each writer’s process is a personal relationship between them and the page—and the desk, room, chair, pens or pencils, typewriter or laptop, turntable, CD player, streaming audio… you get the idea. The kind of music suitable for listening to while writing (I, for one, cannot write to music with lyrics) varies […] Listen to James Baldwin’s Record Collection in a...