The Whole Earth Catalog Online: Stewart Brand’s “Bible” of the 60s Generation

in Apple, Books, e-books | October 8th, 2011

Time to res­ur­rect anoth­er sud­den­ly rel­e­vant item we first men­tioned back in 2009…

Between 1968 and 1972, Stew­art Brand pub­lished The Whole Earth Cat­a­log. For Kevin Kel­ly, the Cat­a­log was essen­tial­ly “a paper-based data­base offer­ing thou­sands of hacks, tips, tools, sug­ges­tions, and pos­si­bil­i­ties for opti­miz­ing your life.” For Steve Jobs, it was a “Bible” of his gen­er­a­tion, a life ‑trans­form­ing pub­li­ca­tion. Speak­ing to Stan­ford grad­u­ates in 2005, in what Ken Aulet­ta has called the “Get­tys­burg Address of grad­u­a­tion-speechism,” Jobs explained why he drew inspi­ra­tion from this intel­lec­tu­al cre­ation of the 60s coun­ter­cul­ture:

When I was young, there was an amaz­ing pub­li­ca­tion called The Whole Earth Cat­a­log, which was one of the bibles of my gen­er­a­tion. It was cre­at­ed by a fel­low named Stew­art Brand not far from here in Men­lo Park, and he brought it to life with his poet­ic touch. This was in the late 1960’s, before per­son­al com­put­ers and desk­top pub­lish­ing, so it was all made with type­writ­ers, scis­sors, and polaroid cam­eras. It was sort of like Google in paper­back form, 35 years before Google came along: it was ide­al­is­tic, and over­flow­ing with neat tools and great notions.

Stew­art and his team put out sev­er­al issues of The Whole Earth Cat­a­log, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cov­er of their final issue was a pho­to­graph of an ear­ly morn­ing coun­try road, the kind you might find your­self hitch­hik­ing on if you were so adven­tur­ous. Beneath it were the words: “Stay Hun­gry. Stay Fool­ish.” It was their farewell mes­sage as they signed off. Stay Hun­gry. Stay Fool­ish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you grad­u­ate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

The good news is that The Whole Earth Cat­a­log and some relat­ed pub­li­ca­tions are avail­able online. You can read them for free, or down­load them for a fee. We sug­gest div­ing in right here, in Fall 1968, where it all begins. Enjoy.…

Note: If you’re hav­ing prob­lems find your way around the site, check out the Twit­ter stream for the The Whole Earth Cat­a­logue. It includes links to var­i­ous online edi­tions. We’ve also added the text to our col­lec­tion of Free eBooks.

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

in Philosophy | October 7th, 2011

Once again, we’re head­ing back to 1971. Yes­ter­day we had Dick Cavet­t’s 1971 inter­view with George Har­ri­son. Today, it’s the clash of two intel­lec­tu­al titans, Noam Chom­sky and Michel Fou­cault. In ’71, at the height of the Viet­nam War, the Amer­i­can lin­guist and French historian/social the­o­rist appeared on Dutch TV to debate a fun­da­men­tal ques­tion: Is there such a thing as innate human nature? Or are we shaped by expe­ri­ences and the pow­er of cul­tur­al and social insti­tu­tions around us?

40 years lat­er, you can find the clas­sic debate on YouTube. If you need sub­ti­tles, make sure you turn on the cap­tions func­tion at the bot­tom of the video.

A full tran­script of the debate can be read online, or you can pur­chase a copy in book for­mat. Final­ly, a recent BBC pro­gram revis­its  and ana­lyzes the Chom­sky-Fou­cault encounter. H/T Metafil­ter

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Free Online Cours­es in Phi­los­o­phy

Jacques Lacan Speaks; Zizek Pro­vides Free Cliffs Notes

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

Noam Chom­sky vs. William F. Buck­ley, 1969

Ali G and Noam Chom­sky Talk Lin­guis­tics

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Drinking Coffee at Zero Gravity

in Random, Science, Video - Science | October 7th, 2011

All we can say is bless Don Pet­tit. While work­ing on the Inter­na­tion­al Space Sta­tion in 2008, the NASA astro­naut  shot videos that are lit­er­al­ly and fig­u­ra­tive­ly out of this world: The Auro­ra Bore­alis Viewed from Orbit and What It Feels Like to Fly Over Plan­et Earth. And then we dis­cov­er that Pet­tit invent­ed a “zero‑g cof­fee cup” that lets you drink cof­fee in out­er space with­out using a straw. That’s one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind.…

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The Matrix: What Went Into The Mix

in Film | October 7th, 2011

With a series of three films, direc­tor Kir­by Fer­gu­son has been grad­u­al­ly mak­ing the case that “Every­thing is a Remix.” In doing what they do, artists col­lect mate­r­i­al, com­bine and trans­form it, and even­tu­al­ly mold it into some­thing unique, though not entire­ly new. Fer­gu­son has traced this idea through lit­er­a­ture and music, film­mak­ing, and technology/computing. And while we wait for the fourth and final install­ment in the series, we get a lit­tle treat to tide us over — a six minute look at the cin­e­mat­ic ori­gins of the 1999 sci-fi action film, The Matrix. Made by Robert Wil­son and with the help of some crowd­sourc­ing, this fun video iden­ti­fies 24 films that influ­enced The Matrix. They’re are all list­ed below the jump. Con­sid­er watch­ing the clip in a wider for­mat here.

(more…)

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Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl: The Comedy Classic

in Comedy, Film, Television | October 6th, 2011

Yes­ter­day was the 42nd anniver­sary of the first broad­cast of Mon­ty Python’s Fly­ing Cir­cus. The orig­i­nal BBC show aired for only five years, but its impact on pop­u­lar cul­ture has been last­ing. To cel­e­brate, we bring you the 1982 film, Mon­ty Python Live at the Hol­ly­wood Bowl. The image qual­i­ty isn’t the best here, but the humor shines through. The movie com­bines live sketch­es, filmed in 1980, with excerpts from a two-part 1972 Ger­man tele­vi­sion spe­cial, Mon­ty Python’s Fliegen­der Zirkus. High­lights include: “The Min­istry of Sil­ly Walks,” “Nudge Nudge,” “The Lum­ber­jack Song,” “Sil­ly Olympics” (fea­tur­ing the “100 Yards For Peo­ple With No Sense Of Direc­tion” and the “200-Meter Freestyle For Non-Swim­mers”) as well as one of our favorites, “The Philoso­phers’ Foot­ball Match.” Mon­ty Python Live at the Hol­ly­wood Bowl has been added to our grow­ing col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online.

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Steve Jobs Demos the First Macintosh in 1984

in Apple, Life, Technology | October 5th, 2011

We orig­i­nal­ly post­ed this video back in 2009, and it seems like the right time to bring it back. It cap­tures the first of many times that Steve Jobs thrilled audi­ences with the promise of what tech­nol­o­gy could deliv­er. The video takes you back to Jan­u­ary 1984, when Jobs demoed the first Mac­in­tosh. (The event was famous­ly pro­mot­ed by Rid­ley Scot­t’s com­mer­cial dur­ing the Super Bowl. See below) A young Jobs, sport­ing a bow tie and a fuller head of hair, could bare­ly hold back his smile and some tears, and the crowd sim­ply could­n’t con­tain its enthu­si­asm, giv­ing Jobs a five-minute stand­ing ova­tion. That’s where the video ends, fad­ing hap­pi­ly and suit­ably to black. We’ll miss you Steve. Read the New York Times obit here.

For anoth­er great Steve Jobs moment, don’t miss his inspir­ing Stan­ford 2005 grad­u­a­tion talk where he dis­cussed his approach to liv­ing and urged the young grad­u­ates to “Stay Hun­gry, Stay Fool­ish.” So far as com­mence­ment speech­es go, it’s hard to beat this one.

Both video men­tioned above appear in our Cul­tur­al Icons col­lec­tion — a media col­lec­tion that fea­tures great artists and thinkers speak­ing in their own words.

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Stream It: Title Track of David Lynch’s Upcoming Solo Album

in Film, Music | October 5th, 2011

David Lynch has been busy late­ly, cre­at­ing every­thing except the fea­ture films that made him famous. Ear­li­er this year, he “direct­ed” Duran Duran’s con­cert in LA and col­lab­o­rat­ed with Inter­pol to cre­ate an ani­mat­ed sequence for the 2011 Coachel­la Fes­ti­val. Then came his puz­zling video response to the Wash­ing­ton Debt Deal, a creepy com­mer­cial for his new line of cof­fee prod­ucts, a new night­club opened in Paris, and now this: a haunt­ing elec­tron­ic album called Crazy Clown Time that brings his strange aes­thet­ic to a whole new medi­um. The album is due out on Novem­ber 8th, and above you can lis­ten to the title track for free.

via Boing­Bo­ing

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Haruki Murakami: New Short Story. New Book. And Perhaps Nobel Prize?

in Literature | October 5th, 2011

It’s a good time to be a fan of Haru­ki Muraka­mi. Last month, his short sto­ry, “Town of Cats,” was pub­lished in The New York­er. Lat­er in Octo­ber, his new book 1Q84 hits the stands in the US. (Watch the book trail­er above.) And, right now, the British book­mak­er Lad­brokes is giv­ing Muraka­mi 7‑to‑1 odds of win­ning the Nobel Prize in Lit­er­a­ture, to be named tomor­row morn­ing. They’re strong odds. But the Syr­i­an poet Ado­nis (read three poems here) is the actu­al favorite right now with 4‑to‑1 odds. Stay tuned. We’ll know more soon …

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Open Culture was founded by Dan Colman.