Tarantino’s Tops of ’09

in Film | December 17th, 2009

Note that one of Quentin Taran­ti­no’s very ear­ly films (My Best Friend’s Birth­day) can be found in our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online.

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In The Nick of Time: Holiday Book Sampler!

in Books, e-books, Literature | December 17th, 2009

This hol­i­day sea­son, I’m hap­py to have teamed up with eleven fab­u­lous authors in offer­ing a hol­i­day sam­pler just for book lovers! Here you’ll find excerpts of a dozen new nov­els and non­fic­tion books by these New York Times best­selling authors, suc­cess­ful entre­pre­neurs, and tal­ent­ed sto­ry­tellers. The excerpts can all be found in this nice PDF. Includ­ed you will find:

DOWNLOAD THE IN THE NICK OF TIME! HOLIDAY SAMPLER

Spot a great gift oppor­tu­ni­ty? Order from online retail­ers direct­ly from the PDF, or print the order form at the end of the doc­u­ment and present it to your local book­seller. Help­ful staff will find what you’re look­ing for.

Dan Note: Check out Seth’s upcom­ing online writ­ing course at Stan­ford Con­tin­u­ing Stud­ies. The Essen­tial Art: Mak­ing Movies in Your Read­er’s Mind

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Disruptive Technology: Student Brings Typewriter to Class

in Comedy, Web/Tech | December 17th, 2009

A lit­tle case of dis­rup­tive tech­nol­o­gy in Com­put­er Sci­ence 1301 at Geor­gia Tech…

via Andrew Baron

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Sapolsky Breaks Down Depression

in Psychology, Science, Stanford | December 17th, 2009

Robert Sapol­sky, a Stan­ford biol­o­gist, is cur­rent­ly one of the most pub­licly acces­si­ble sci­ence writ­ers in the coun­try, per­haps best known for his book on stress, Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers. In the lec­ture above, Sapol­sky takes a hard look at depres­sion. The top­ic is a lit­tle heavy. I’ll grant that. But, it’s also impor­tant. As Sapol­sky is quick to point out, depres­sion is per­va­sive and get­ting worse. Cur­rent­ly, it’s the 4th great­est cause of dis­abil­i­ty world­wide, and it will soon become the 2nd. For Sapol­sky, depres­sion is deeply bio­log­i­cal; it is root­ed in biol­o­gy, just like, say, dia­betes. Here, you will see how depres­sion changes the body. When depressed, our brains func­tion dif­fer­ent­ly while sleep­ing, our stress response goes way up 24/7, our bio­chem­istry lev­els change, etc. Giv­en the per­va­sive­ness of depres­sion, this video is well worth a watch.

Also don’t miss Sapol­sky’s amaz­ing Stan­ford course, Intro­duc­tion to Human Biol­o­gy. It’s equal­ly worth your time. It’s housed in our col­lec­tion of 750 Free Cours­es Online.

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The War of the Worlds: Orson Welles’ 1938 Radio Drama That Petrified a Nation

in Radio, Sci Fi, Theatre | December 15th, 2009

Back in the late 1930s, Orson Welles launched The Mer­cury The­atre on the Air, a radio pro­gram ded­i­cat­ed to bring­ing dra­mat­ic, the­atri­cal pro­duc­tions to the Amer­i­can air­waves. The show had a fair­ly short run. It last­ed from 1938 to 1941. But it made its mark. Dur­ing these few years, The Mer­cury The­atre aired The War of the Worlds, an episode nar­rat­ed by Welles him­self that led many Amer­i­cans to believe their coun­try was under Mar­t­ian attack. The leg­endary pro­duc­tion was based on H.G. Wells’ ear­ly sci-fi nov­el, also called The War of the Worlds, and you can lis­ten to the clas­sic radio pro­duc­tion here, or above.

The Mer­cury The­atre also adapt­ed a series of oth­er major nov­els, includ­ing Drac­u­la, Trea­sure Island, and The Count of Monte Cristo. And then there’s Dick­ens. In 1938 and 1939, The Mer­cury The­atre pro­duced two ver­sions of Charles Dick­ens’ A Christ­mas Car­ol. In the 1938 ver­sion (get mp3), Welles played the role of Scrooge. The 1939 ver­sion (mp3) fea­tures Lionel Bar­ry­more (yup, the grandun­cle of Drew Bar­ry­more) play­ing the same role. You can lis­ten to these shows and oth­ers at this web site ded­i­cat­ed to The Mer­cury The­atre on the Air.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Orson Welles Meets H.G. Wells in 1940: The Leg­ends Dis­cuss War of the Worlds, Cit­i­zen Kane, and WWII

The Dead Authors Pod­cast: H.G. Wells Com­i­cal­ly Revives Lit­er­ary Greats with His Time Machine

Orson Welles Explains Why Igno­rance Was the Genius Behind Cit­i­zen Kane

Var­i­ous films direct­ed by (or star­ring) Orson Welles can be found in our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online.

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Orhan Pamuk Reads Vladimir Nabokov

in Audio Books, Literature | December 14th, 2009

nabokov quiz

Image by Giuseppe Pino, via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

If you don’t already know about it, The New York­er Fic­tion Pod­cast (iTunes — Feed — Web Site) fea­tures authors read­ing the works of oth­er major authors. One of the lat­est and great­est exam­ples: Orhan Pamuk, the 2006 win­ner of the Nobel Prize in Lit­er­a­ture, read­ing from Vladimir Nabokov’s “My Russ­ian Edu­ca­tion” (MP3 — iTunes — RSS Feed).

With­in our col­lec­tion of Free Audio Books, we have sev­er­al oth­er good reads from this series, includ­ing Paul Ther­oux read­ing Borges, Jef­frey Eugenides read­ing Harold Brod­key, Richard Ford read­ing John Cheev­er, and T. Cor­aghes­san Boyle read­ing Tobias Wolff.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

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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Classic French Films Online (for the UK)

in Film | December 14th, 2009

frenchfilmsA quick item for UK read­ers. (Did you know that we get more vis­i­tors from Lon­don than any oth­er city each day?) Start­ing Tues­day, theauteurs.com will be fea­tur­ing clas­sic French films from the 1960s. Each day brings a new film, and the vir­tu­al film fes­ti­val includes Truf­faut’s Les qua­tre cents coups, Alain Resnais’ Hiroshi­ma, Mon Amour, Godard­’s Mas­culin féminin: 15 faits pré­cis and anoth­er Truf­faut film, Jules et Jim. Sev­en days, sev­en free films, all sub­ti­tled. Get the full sched­ule here. For those out­side the UK, you can find some con­so­la­tion in our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online. It now fea­tures over 130 films direct­ed by Kuro­sawa, Hitch­cock, Capra, Cop­po­la, Scors­ese, Taran­ti­no, and oth­ers, plus 35 sites where you can watch free movies online. If we’re miss­ing any­thing good, please let us know.

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Paul Samuelson: How I Became an Economist

in Economics | December 14th, 2009

Paul Samuel­son, Amer­i­ca’s first Nobel lau­re­ate in eco­nom­ics, died this week­end at age 94. In 2003, Samuel­son wrote a short essay called How I Became an Econ­o­mist.  What caught my eye is the last line: “Always, I have been over­paid to do what has been pure fun.” We should all be lucky enough to achieve that.

To give you a bet­ter feel for Samuel­son’s con­tri­bu­tions to eco­nom­ics, I have includ­ed an NPR inter­view with Paul Krug­man, anoth­er Amer­i­can recip­i­ent of the Nobel Prize in eco­nom­ics. You can lis­ten below.

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