The Art of Living: A Free Stanford Course Explores Timeless Questions

in Stanford | February 7th, 2012

What is a lib­er­al edu­ca­tion? And how can it help you live a more authen­tic and pur­pose­ful life? They are time­ly and time­less ques­tions that get answered by The Art of Liv­ing, a team-taught course pre­sent­ed to Stan­ford fresh­men. The first lec­ture (above) address­es these ques­tions head on. And the remain­der of the course (17 videos) puts the ini­tial think­ing into prac­tice, using great works of lit­er­a­ture and phi­los­o­phy to explore what it means to live a well-lived life. Socrates, Pla­to, Shake­speare, Kierkegaard, Niet­zsche, and Toni Mor­ri­son all guide the way. Taught by Lanier Ander­son, Ken­neth Tay­lor and Joshua Landy, the Stan­ford course puts you in a posi­tion to address “fun­da­men­tal and endur­ing ques­tions about what it means to be human.” Whether you work in busi­ness, sci­ence or the arts, you will get some­thing big out of the class.

You can find The Art of Liv­ing in its entire­ty here. Or find the course list­ed in the Phi­los­o­phy Sec­tion of our col­lec­tion, 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More.

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Koyaanisqatsi at 1552% Speed

in Film, Technology | February 7th, 2012

Koy­aanisqat­si: Life Out of Bal­ance — God­frey Reg­gio direct­ed the 1982 film, and Philip Glass com­posed the music. Lat­er, Reg­gio said that the film is wide open to inter­pre­ta­tion, that “the view­er can take for her­self what the film means.” “For some peo­ple it’s an envi­ron­men­tal film, for some peo­ple it’s an ode to tech­nol­o­gy, for some peo­ple it’s a piece of shit, for oth­er peo­ple it moves them deeply.” And for Wyatt Hodg­son, it’s a film worth watch­ing in a com­pressed, five-minute for­mat, maybe because (as one view­er sug­gest­ed) it high­lights “one of the main dimen­sions of the film: the break­neck speed of our (crazy) world.”

Hodg­son’s ver­sion strips out Glass’ orig­i­nal sound­track, replac­ing it with music by the Art of Noise. But some crafty indi­vid­ual found a way to repro­duce Glass’ com­po­si­tion at 1552% speed. You can lis­ten below.

h/t Kot­tke

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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Tom Waits Fishing with John Lurie: ‘Like Waiting for Godot on Water’

in Television, Video - Arts & Culture | February 6th, 2012

John Lurie is a musi­cian, actor and artist. He’s also a hor­ri­ble fish­er­man.

As sax­o­phon­ist and leader of the punk-jazz group the Lounge Lizards, Lurie emerged as a cult fig­ure in New York’s down­town arts scene in the 1980s, and the deal was cement­ed with his surly, straight-faced per­for­mances in Jim Jar­musch’s Stranger Than Par­adise and Down by Law. As writer Tad Friend put it in a 2010 New York­er arti­cle, “Between Four­teenth Street and Canal–the known uni­verse, basically–he was the man.”

In 1991 Lurie ven­tured out­side that uni­verse, into the mid­dle-Amer­i­can realm of the TV fish­ing show. With back­ing from Japan­ese investors, he assem­bled a film crew and invit­ed some famous friends–Jarmusch, Tom Waits, Willem Dafoe, Den­nis Hop­per and Matt Dillon–on a series of improb­a­ble fish­ing trips. Fish­ing with John, as the series is called, builds on the dead­pan, jour­ney-to-nowhere sen­si­bil­i­ty of Stranger than Par­adise: noth­ing much hap­pens.

But that’s the point. As a review­er for the Los Ange­les Times said, Fish­ing with John is “like Wait­ing for Godot on water.” The plea­sure is in observ­ing peo­ple so utter­ly out of their ele­ment. It’s like watch­ing Mar­lin Perkins or Curt Gowdy wan­der into a SoHo per­for­mance art hap­pen­ing.

In the episode above, Tom Waits does­n’t believe his ears when a Jamaican fish­ing guide tells him what time to get up in the morn­ing: “Five o’clock?” Waits report­ed­ly did­n’t speak to Lurie for two years after­ward. “I dun­no why I ever let you talk me into this,” he grum­bles. “It’s the most absurd thing I’ve ever done in my life.”

In addi­tion to the Waits episode, you can watch the Jim Jar­musch seg­ment online or own the entire series (six episodes, 147 min­utes) on the Cri­te­ri­on Col­lec­tion DVD, which includes com­men­tary by Lurie. And to learn about what Lurie has been up to since the series was made–his strug­gle with the neu­ro­log­i­cal effects of Lyme dis­ease, his hid­ing out from an alleged stalk­er, his new focus on painting–be sure to read Lar­son Sut­ton’s 2011 inter­view with Lurie at Jambands.com. H/T Bib­liok­lept

 

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Jim Jar­musch: The Art of the Music in His Films

Tom Waits Reads Charles Bukows­ki

Tom Waits Makes Com­ic Appear­ance on Fer­n­wood Tonight (1977)

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Thomas Edison’s 1889 Recording of Otto von Bismarck‎ Discovered

in History | February 6th, 2012

Otto von Bis­mar­ck (1815 – 1898) — he was a tow­er­ing 19th cen­tu­ry polit­i­cal fig­ure, the Iron Chan­cel­lor who uni­fied Ger­many under Prus­si­a’s lead­er­ship, and the man who invent­ed Realpoli­tik. And now, thanks to Thomas Edis­on’s wax cylin­der, you can hear the voice of this dis­tant his­tor­i­cal fig­ure. The recent­ly-dis­cov­ered record­ing was made back in 1889, when Edis­on’s assis­tant, Theo Wange­mann, head­ed to Europe to attend the World’s Fair in Paris, then trav­eled to Bis­mar­ck­’s cas­tle in Friedrich­sruh (near Ham­burg). Bis­mar­ck­’s wife urged the Chan­cel­lor to make the record­ing, and he went along with it, record­ing lines from the songs In Good Old Colony Times and Gaudea­mus igi­tur; the poem Als Kaiser Rot­bart lobe­sam; and France’s nation­al anthem, the Mar­seil­laise. (The last pick was kind of odd.) It con­cludes with the Chan­cel­lor offer­ing some words to his son Her­bert.

You can lis­ten to the audio above or here (be sure to crank up the vol­ume!) and read the full tran­script below the jump. Also don’t miss some vin­tage record­ings of oth­er 19th cen­tu­ry leg­ends: William Glad­stone, Walt Whit­man, Pyotr Tchaikovsky, and Alfred Lord Ten­nyson. Plus find Euro­pean his­to­ry cours­es in our big col­lec­tion of Free Cours­es Online.

In good old colony times,
When we lived under the King,
Three rogu­ish chaps fell into mishaps
Because they could not sing.

Als Kaiser Rot­bart lobe­sam
Zum heil’­gen Land gezo­gen kam,
Da mußt er mit dem from­men Heer
Durch ein Gebirge wüst und leer.

Gaudea­mus igi­tur,
juvenes dum sumus.
Post jucun­dam juven­tutem,
post molestam senec­tutem
nos habebit humus.

Allons enfants de la Patrie
Le jour de gloire est arrivé
Con­tre nous de la tyran­nie
L’é­ten­dard sanglant est levé.

Treibe alles in Maßen und Sit­tlichkeit, namentlich das Arbeit­en, dann aber auch das Essen, und im Übri­gen ger­ade auch das Trinken.
Rat eines Vaters an seinen Sohn.

When good Emper­or Red­beard
Was jour­ney­ing to the Holy Land,
He had to go with his pious army
Through moun­tains des­o­late and emp­ty.

Let us rejoice, there­fore,
While we are young.
After a pleas­ant youth
After a trou­bling old age
The earth will have us.

Arise, chil­dren of the Father­land,
The day of glo­ry has arrived! Against us of tyran­ny
The bloody ban­ner is raised.

Do every­thing in mod­er­a­tion and moral­i­ty, name­ly work, but then also eat­ing, and apart from that espe­cial­ly drink­ing.
Advice of a father to his son.

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An Animated History Of Aviation: From da Vinci’s Sketches to Apollo 11

in Animation, Technology | February 6th, 2012

It starts with Leonar­do da Vin­ci’s famous sketch­es of fly­ing machines, then moves to the first hot air bal­loon launched by the Mont­golfi­er broth­ers in 1783, the glid­ers cre­at­ed by Sir George Cay­ley (1804), and the Wright broth­ers’ first flight at Kit­ty Hawk in 1903. These great moments and oth­ers all get cov­ered in this Ani­mat­ed His­to­ry of Avi­a­tion, an ele­gant lit­tle film pro­duced by Utah Val­ley Uni­ver­si­ty, a col­lege with a large avi­a­tion pro­gram of its own. We’ll add it to our col­lec­tion of Great Sci­ence Videos.

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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The Instant Mongolian Home

in Life | February 4th, 2012

The nomadic peo­ple of Mon­go­lia don’t stay put very long. They’re always on the move. They trav­el light. And they build a yurt, their home away from home, wher­ev­er they go. The yurt (or “ger” as they call it) takes but an hour to build — some­thing that Daniel Gross­man (Nation­al Geo­graph­ic) and Julia Kumari Drap­kin (The Nature Con­ser­van­cy) cap­ture won­der­ful­ly in a two-minute time lapse video. The sound­track was record­ed at the Choi­jin Lama Tem­ple Muse­um in Ulaan­ba­tor, the Mon­go­lian cap­i­tal.

Want us to bring intel­li­gent media right to you? Fol­low us on Face­book, Twit­ter and now Google Plus.

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A Crash Course in World History

in History, K-12 | February 3rd, 2012

Give John Green 40 weeks, and Green will give you a play­ful and high­ly visu­al crash course in world his­to­ry, tak­ing you from the begin­ning of human civ­i­liza­tion 15,000 years ago through to our mod­ern age. If you’re not famil­iar with him, Green is a best­selling author of sev­er­al young adult books (Look­ing for Alas­ka, An Abun­dance of Kather­ines, and Paper Towns). He’s also part of the pop­u­lar vlog­broth­ers and an active Twit­ter user with more than 1.1 mil­lion fol­low­ers — that’s about 22 times what we have, to put things in per­spec­tive.

The series starts with The Agri­cul­tur­al Rev­o­lu­tion (above) and the Indus Val­ley Civ­i­liza­tion (below). New video install­ments will be released through­out the year here. And more uni­ver­si­ty-lev­el his­to­ry cours­es can be found in our big col­lec­tion of 1,300 Free Cours­es Online.

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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The Intelligent Channel Launches (with Colum McCann Interview)

in YouTube | February 3rd, 2012

In a new effort to estab­lish anoth­er home for intel­li­gent con­ver­sa­tion on the web, the Intel­li­gent Chan­nel went live on YouTube this week. Launched as part of YouTube’s new orig­i­nal chan­nels ini­tia­tive, the Intel­li­gent Chan­nel presents lumi­nar­ies from the edu­ca­tion­al, arts, and cul­tur­al worlds in intense con­ver­sa­tions.

The chan­nel will kick off with three strands of orig­i­nal video pro­gram­ming pro­duced by the channel’s par­ent com­pa­ny Intel­li­gent Tele­vi­sion in New York:

On “The Paul Hold­en­gräber Show,” the renowned founder, direc­tor, and host of “Live from the New York Pub­lic Library” inter­views award-win­ning writ­ers and artists about their work and oth­er pas­sions. Holdengräber’s first guest — the show pre­mieres today — is Colum McCann, author of the Nation­al Book Award-win­ning nov­el Let the Great World Spin. (You can watch the con­ver­sa­tion above.) Holdengräber’s next guest is Eliz­a­beth Gilbert, author of the best­selling Eat, Pray, Love.

In “Richard Belzer’s Con­ver­sa­tion,” the star of “Law & Order SVU” and “Homi­cide” inter­views actors, come­di­ans, direc­tors, musi­cians, and writ­ers. Belzer’s open­ing guest is come­di­an Gilbert Got­tfried, who dis­cuss­es the impli­ca­tions of com­e­dy after Sep­tem­ber 11th and in the face of tragedy more gen­er­al­ly. His next guests will include Dick Cavett and Emmy-award win­ning writer-pro­duc­er Tom Fontana.

In “Enlight­en­ment Min­utes,” the famous and the even more famous speak to the audi­ence about their moments of enlight­en­ment, per­son­al tran­scen­dence, and growth.

The Intel­li­gent Chan­nel also fea­tures the new “Ed Archive” – video, film, and oral his­to­ries from uni­ver­si­ties, muse­ums, libraries, and archives that have yet to hit the web.  “Enlight­en­ment Min­utes” and the “Ed Archive” will pre­miere in Feb­ru­ary 2012.

The Learn­ing Chan­nel has dis­ap­peared, the Dis­cov­ery Chan­nel gives us less to dis­cov­er than it did, and the His­to­ry Chan­nel has hard­ly any his­to­ry any more!  The Intel­li­gent Channel’s guests come on because they love enlight­en­ment.

The Intel­li­gent Chan­nel — here’s to the con­ver­sa­tion!

Peter B. Kauf­man is founder of the Intel­li­gent Chan­nel and Intel­li­gent Tele­vi­sion (www.intelligenttelevision.com) in New York.

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Open Culture was founded by Dan Colman.