An Online Gallery of 30,000 Items from The British Library, Including Leonardo da Vinci’s Notebooks And Mozart’s Diary

in Art, History | February 13th, 2014

DAVINCI

(Click image to enlarge)

This past Decem­ber, we wrote about the British Library’s releas­ing “over a mil­lion images onto Flickr Com­mons for any­one to use, remix and repur­pose.” For those who enjoyed this trea­sure trove of his­tor­i­cal con­tent, we bring more good tid­ings: the British Library also has a freely acces­si­ble online gallery, num­ber­ing some 30,000 items.

MOZART

The vast dig­i­tal col­lec­tion includes books, ancient maps, and price­less prints. Amid the count­less vir­tu­al tomes, some of the more impres­sive hold­ings include Mozart’s musi­cal diary from the last sev­en years of his life, and Leonar­do da Vinci’s note­book (find both above) where the artist and inven­tor the­o­rized about mechan­ics. Da Vin­ci also record­ed rid­dles in his notes, includ­ing: “The dead will come from under­ground and by their fierce move­ments will send num­ber­less human beings out of the world” (Answer: “Iron, which comes from under the ground, is dead, but the weapons are made of it which kill so many men”).

LONDON

The online col­lec­tion also con­tains a num­ber of expert­ly curat­ed exhibits by British Library staff, many of which are accom­pa­nied by a thor­ough intro­duc­tion to guide read­ers through the mate­r­i­al. I’ve always liked get­ting lost in old, detailed maps and par­tic­u­lar­ly enjoyed the Crace Col­lec­tion of Maps of Lon­don, which range from a 16th cen­tu­ry “guide for cun­trey men in the famous cittey of Lon­don by the helpe of wich plot they shall be able to know how far it is to any street,” to a 19th cen­tu­ry puz­zle-type map, whose read­ers must find a par­tic­u­lar route from the Strand to St. Paul’s. The col­lec­tion also con­tains a ter­rif­ic selec­tion of pre-print­ing-press-era illu­mi­nat­ed man­u­scripts, deemed “illu­mi­nat­ed” because they were metic­u­lous­ly dec­o­rat­ed, often using gold leaf. Among these are the open­ing of St. Luke’s Gospel from the Lind­is­farne Bible (below), one of the ear­li­est sur­viv­ing Eng­lish lan­guage Gospels (cir­ca 715 CE), and scenes from the life of St. Guth­lac, which dates to the ear­ly 13th cen­tu­ry.

STLUKE

For more of the British Library’s Online Col­lec­tion, head here.

Ilia Blin­d­er­man is a Mon­tre­al-based cul­ture and sci­ence writer. Fol­low him at @iliablinderman, or read more of his writ­ing at the Huff­in­g­ton Post.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The British Library Puts 1,000,000 Images into the Pub­lic Domain, Mak­ing Them Free to Reuse & Remix

The Get­ty Puts 4600 Art Images Into the Pub­lic Domain (and There’s More to Come)

The Nation­al Gallery Makes 25,000 Images of Art­work Freely Avail­able Online

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

Watch Langston Hughes Read Poetry from His First Collection, The Weary Blues (1958)

in Literature | February 13th, 2014

Today we fea­ture record­ings of Langston Hugh­es read­ing two of his ear­li­est and best-known poems from his debut 1926 col­lec­tion The Weary Blues. The first, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” Hugh­es wrote in 1920 when he was only 17. In her very close read­ing of this poem, Alexan­dra Socarides tells us that Hugh­es was just “emerg­ing from a dis­tinct­ly Mid­west­ern child­hood” and tak­ing a train to Mex­i­co City to spend a year with his estranged father when he wrote the lines: “I’ve known rivers: / I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and old­er than the / flow of human blood in human veins.” (You can hear Hugh­es tell the sto­ry of writ­ing the poem here). The short poem spans four rivers in three dif­fer­ent con­ti­nents, though “at the moment of its com­po­si­tion, it was the land­scape of the Mid­west [Hugh­es] knew best.”

Even before he had trav­eled the globe, Hugh­es’ con­cerns were glob­al in scope. But he is most often asso­ci­at­ed with the jazz-age Harlem Renais­sance scene, and right­ly so. After his year in Mex­i­co City, Hugh­es moved to New York to study at Colum­bia and helped pio­neer a jazz poet­ry that antic­i­pat­ed Beats and Black Arts poets alike. The title poem of The Weary Blues is firm­ly sit­u­at­ed in Harlem—“Down on Lenox Avenue” where a blues­man “made that poor piano moan with melody.” It’s a poem meant to be read aloud, and in the video above, you can see Hugh­es do so with accom­pa­ny­ing jazz ensem­ble The Doug Park­er Band for a 1958 Cana­di­an pro­gram. That next year, Hugh­es col­lab­o­rat­ed with Charles Min­gus and Leonard Feath­er on an album of jazz read­ings called The Weary Blues.

Crit­ic Don­ald B. Gib­son once not­ed that Hugh­es may have “read his poet­ry to more peo­ple (pos­si­bly) than any oth­er Amer­i­can poet.” His gen­er­ous pop­ulism didn’t always mean crit­i­cal success—the two are often at odds—such that in 1969, Lind­say Pat­ter­son called him “the most abused poet in Amer­i­ca” for the neglect or out­right scorn his acces­si­ble poet­ry received from both black and white crit­ics at the time. In a review of Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee’s hard-to-find record­ed read­ings of 50 of Hugh­es’ poem, Pat­ter­son wrote that Hugh­es’ work “must be heard, rather than read silent­ly, for one to real­ize its emo­tion­al scope.” I dis­agree. From ear­ly short poems like “A Woo­ing” to lat­er, longer works like “Pre­lude to Our Age,” Hugh­es’ work on the page is deeply evoca­tive, com­plex, and reward­ing. But while Hugh­es was steeped in his­to­ry, he was also steeped in poet­ic tra­di­tion of a very Amer­i­can variety—Walt Whit­man, Claude McK­ay, Coun­tee Cullen—that priv­i­leged musi­cal lan­guage, ver­nac­u­lar expres­sions, and an exu­ber­ant per­son­al voice, and that makes his work a par­tic­u­lar joy to hear read, espe­cial­ly by the poet him­self.

Relat­ed Con­tents:

Poems as Short Films: Langston Hugh­es, Pablo Neru­da and More

Hear Sylvia Plath Read Fif­teen Poems From Her Final Col­lec­tion, Ariel, in 1962 Record­ing

Hear the Very First Record­ing of Allen Gins­berg Read­ing His Epic Poem “Howl” (1956)

Ezra Pound’s Fiery 1939 Read­ing of His Ear­ly Poem, ‘Ses­ti­na: Altaforte’

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Painters Painting: The Definitive Documentary Portrait of the New York Art World (1940–1970)

in Art, Film | February 12th, 2014

Emile de Anto­nio is one of those peo­ple who sim­ply had a knack for being in the right place at the right time. He was a Har­vard class­mate of John F. Kennedy. He knew all of the core mem­bers of the Beat move­ment, even help­ing to dis­trib­ute the sem­i­nal Beat movie Pull My Daisies. And De Anto­nio was a friend with vir­tu­al­ly every­one in the New York art scene from Jasper Johns to Willem de Koon­ing. He once drank him­self into a stu­por for Andy Warhol’s exper­i­men­tal movie Drink. Warhol even famous­ly praised De Anto­nio say­ing, “Every­thing I learned about paint­ing, I learned from De.”

De Anto­nio was also a major voice of dis­sent dur­ing the Cold War. He direct­ed a series of scathing doc­u­men­taries includ­ing Point of Order (1964), about the McCarthy hear­ings; Rush to Judg­ment (1966), a sta­ple among JFK assas­si­na­tion the­o­rists; and the Oscar-nom­i­nat­ed anti-Viet­nam war movie In the Year of the Pig. (1968)

For his 1972 movie Painters Paint­ing: The New York Art Scene 1940–1970, De Anto­nio man­aged to get artists like Warhol, Johns, and De Koon­ing along with Robert Rauschen­berg, Frank Stel­la, Bar­nett New­man and Helen Franken­thaler to talk about their craft. It is the defin­i­tive doc­u­men­tary por­trait of the New York art world.

De Anto­nio talked about Painters Paint­ing in a 1988 inter­view:

I was prob­a­bly the only film­mak­er in the world who could [have made Painters Paint­ing] because I knew all those peo­ple, from the time that they were poor, and unsuc­cess­ful and had no mon­ey. I knew Warhol and Rauschen­berg and Jasper Johns and Stel­la before they ever sold a paint­ing, and so it was inter­est­ing to [do the film about them]. They appeared in the film along with De Koon­ing, whom I knew very well, and Bar­nett New­man, who is now dead. They talked to me in a way that they would nev­er have talked to any­body else because they knew I knew the sub­ject.

The film, a tad grainy, appears above. A high­er res ver­sion of the film can “rent­ed” on Ama­zon. Ama­zon Prime mem­ber can watch it for free.

Relat­ed Con­tent:
Watch Por­trait of an Artist: Jack­son Pol­lock, the 1987 Doc­u­men­tary Nar­rat­ed by Melvyn Bragg

635 Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, etc.

Rauschen­berg Eras­es De Koon­ing

Jonathan Crow is a Los Ange­les-based writer and film­mak­er whose work has appeared in Yahoo!, The Hol­ly­wood Reporter, and oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low him at @jonccrow.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Mark Twain Creates a List of His Favorite Books For Adults & Kids (1887)

in Books, Letters, Literature | February 12th, 2014

Twainbooklist

In Jan­u­ary of 1887, Mark Twain wrote the above let­ter to a Rev­erend Charles D. Crane, pas­tor of a Methodist Epis­co­pal Church in Maine, to advise him of the most suit­able read­ing for both chil­dren and adults. Twain’s letter—which, as he did near­ly all his let­ters, he signed with his giv­en name of Samuel Clemens (or “S.L. Clemens”)—came in response to a query in three parts from the Rev. Crane. But we do not seem to have Crane’s let­ter (at least a thor­ough search of the exhaus­tive cat­a­log at the online Mark Twain Project yields no results.) Nonethe­less, we can rea­son­ably infer that he asked the famous author—who was between Adven­tures of Huck­le­ber­ry Finn and A Con­necti­cut Yan­kee in King Arthur’s Court—some­thing like the fol­low­ing:

1) What books should young boys read? 2) And young girls? … 3) [and both/either] What should grown-ups read? [and/or] What are Mr. Samuel Clemens’ favorite books?

Twain, in a hur­ry, “took a shot on the wing” and replied with the let­ter below, which, despite his protes­ta­tions of haste, seems fair­ly well-con­sid­ered. I’ll admit that the ambi­gu­i­ty of the last sen­tence, how­ev­er, gives me the researcher’s buzz to go back and dig through more archives for Crane’s orig­i­nal let­ter.

Dear Sir:



I am just start­ing away from home, & have no time to think the ques­tions over & prop­er­ly con­sid­er my answers; but I take a shot on the wing at the mat­ter, as fol­lows:



1.Macaulay;
Plutarch;
Grant’s Mem­oirs;
Cru­soe;
Ara­bi­an Nights;
Gul­liv­er.



= 2. The same for the girl, after strik­ing out out Cru­soe & sub­sti­tut­ing Ten­nyson.
 


I can’t answer No. 3 in this sud­den way.  When one is going to choose twelve authors, for bet­ter for worse, for­sak­ing fathers & moth­ers to cling unto them & unto them alone, until death shall them part, there is an awful­ness about the respon­si­bil­i­ty that makes mar­riage with one mere indi­vid­ual & divorcible woman a sacra­ment sod­den with lev­i­ty by com­par­i­son. 



In my list I know I should put Shak­s­peare [sic]; & Brown­ing; & Car­lyle (French Rev­o­lu­tion only); Sir Thomas Mal­o­ry (King Arthur); Park­man’s His­to­ries (a hun­dred of them if there were so many); Ara­bi­an Nights; John­son (Boswell’s), because I like to see that com­pla­cent old gas­om­e­ter lis­ten to him­self talk; Jowet­t’s Pla­to; & “B.B.” (a book which I wrote some years ago, not for pub­li­ca­tion but just for my own pri­vate read­ing.)



I should be sure of these; & I could add the oth­er three — but I should want to hold the oppor­tu­ni­ty open a few years, so as to make no mis­take.



Tru­ly Yours



S.L. CLEMENS



See all six man­u­script pages of Twain’s let­ter (and zoom in to exam­ine them close­ly) at the Shapell Man­u­script Foun­da­tion. We’ve added links to Twain’s rec­om­mend­ed texts above. You can find many in our Free eBooks and Free Audio Books col­lec­tions.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Christo­pher Hitchens Cre­ates a Read­ing List for Eight-Year-Old Girl

Neil deGrasse Tyson Lists 8 (Free) Books Every Intel­li­gent Per­son Should Read.

“Noth­ing Good Gets Away”: John Stein­beck Offers Love Advice in a Let­ter to His Son (1958)

F. Scott Fitzger­ald Tells His 11-Year-Old Daugh­ter What to Wor­ry About (and Not Wor­ry About) in Life, 1933

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 3 ) |

What Did Charles Darwin Read? See His Handwritten Reading List & Read Books from His Library Online

in Biology, History, Science | February 12th, 2014

darwin-diary-books-to-be-read

Click to enlarge

Today marks the 215th anniver­sary of pio­neer­ing Eng­lish nat­u­ral­ist Charles Dar­win’s birth — a suit­able occa­sion, per­haps, to final­ly take that copy of On the Ori­gin of Species down off your shelf (or from our col­lec­tion of Free eBooks). Though Dar­win’s best-known pub­li­ca­tion lays out his obser­va­tions on evo­lu­tion by nat­ur­al selec­tion, cul­mi­nat­ing in the the­o­ry often and unhesi­tat­ing­ly called the most impor­tant in biol­o­gy, the book remains more respect­ed than read. Still, any sci­en­tist’s lega­cy, even that of one with a name so wide­ly known as Dar­win’s, comes down to what they under­stood, and thus what they allowed the rest of human­i­ty to under­stand, not what they wrote. But you still have to won­der: what did Dar­win read?

We have two answers to that ques­tion, the first of which comes in the form of Dar­win’s 1838 “to read” list above, which runs as fol­lows:

Humboldt’s New Spain — — —
Richardson’s Fau­na Bore­alis
Ento­mo­log­i­cal Mag­a­zine — — —
Study Buf­fon on vari­eties of Domes­ti­cat­ed ani­mals — — — —
Find out from Sta­tis­ti­cal Soc. where M. Quetelet has pub­lished his laws about sex­es rel­a­tive to the age of mar­riage
Brown at end of Flinders & at the end of Con­go voy­age (Hook­er 923) read
Decan­dolle Philoso­phie
Decan­dolle on Geo­graph dis­trib: —
F. Cuvi­er on Instinct read
L. Jenyns paper in Annals of Nat. Hist.
Prichard; a 3d vol  Lawrence read
Bory St Vin­cent Vol 3. p 164 on unfixed form: Dr Royle on Him­malaya types (read)
Smellie Phi­los­o­phy of Zool­o­gy.
Flem­ing Dit­to
Fal­con­ers remark on the influ­ence of cli­mate

You can find more on the list’s con­text at End­pa­per, whose post describes it as found in Dar­win’s “series of note­books for the­o­ret­i­cal work now known as Note­books A, B, C, D, etc.,” specif­i­cal­ly Note­book C. (The famous Tree of Life sketch, they add, came from Note­book B.) For our sec­ond answer to the ques­tion of which books equipped the cel­e­brat­ed biol­o­gist’s mind, we offer the books that fur­nished his home: back in 2011, we fea­tured Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty’s Bio­di­ver­si­ty Her­itage Library and its project to dig­i­tize and make freely avail­able 330 texts from Dar­win’s library. All come anno­tat­ed by the man him­self, so you can learn not just from what he read, but about how he read. The next, much more dif­fi­cult step, then presents itself: to think how he thought.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch Dar­win, a 1993 Film by Peter Green­away

Read the Orig­i­nal Let­ters Where Charles Dar­win Worked Out His The­o­ry of Evo­lu­tion

The Genius of Charles Dar­win Revealed in Three-Part Series by Richard Dawkins

Darwin’s Per­son­al Library Goes Dig­i­tal: 330 Books Online

Darwin’s Lega­cy, a Stan­ford course in our col­lec­tion of 750 Free Online Cours­es

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on cities, Asia, film, lit­er­a­ture, and aes­thet­ics. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on his brand new Face­book page.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

The Haunting Final Portrait of Philip Seymour Hoffman, Part of Victoria Will’s Civil War-Era Photo Collection

in Film, Photography | February 12th, 2014

PSH

No one here gets out alive, but who will live on in the pub­lic’s mem­o­ry?

Last month, pho­tog­ra­ph­er Vic­to­ria Will enticed present-day lumi­nar­ies to sit for tin­type por­traits at the Sun­dance film fes­ti­val. The 19th-cen­tu­ry wet plate pro­cess is ill suit­ed to paparaz­zo-style, on-the-go shoot­ing, but can pro­duce quite stun­ning results with sub­jects accus­tomed to a pro­longed gaze.

As one who reveres movies, I’d much rather my favorite actors be nib­bled about the edges by unpre­dictable, antique chem­istry, then dig­i­tal­ly recon­fig­ured before a vinyl cur­tain. (Those unre­touched Dis­ney Princess­es aren’t that removed from real­i­ty.)

There’s no way that the late Philip Sey­mour Hoff­man’s por­trait could be any­thing but haunt­ing. Eli­jah Wood, Mag­gie Gyl­len­haal and William H. Macy also appear to have per­fect­ed the blank Civ­il War stare.

Musi­cians Flea and Nick Cave have got the look down pat. Pipe in the open­ing bars of “Ashokan Farewell” and cue the water­works.

Esquire has the com­plete gallery of Will’s Sun­dance por­traits (cre­at­ed with dark­room assis­tance from fel­low pho­tog­ra­ph­er Josh Wool).

via Beau­ti­ful Decay

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Har­ry Tay­lor Brings 150-Year-Old Craft of Tin­type Pho­tog­ra­phy into the Mod­ern Day

See The First “Self­ie” In His­to­ry Tak­en by Robert Cor­nelius, a Philadel­phia Chemist, in 1839

Rocks Stars Who Died Before They Got Old: What They Would Look Like Today

Errol Mor­ris Med­i­tates on the Mean­ing and His­to­ry of Abra­ham Lincoln’s Last Pho­to­graph

Ayun Hal­l­i­day‘s graph­ic nov­el, Peanut, is a Young Adult Library Ser­vices Asso­ci­a­tion 2014 Quick for Reluc­tant Young Read­ers. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

The Very First Written Use of the F Word in English (1528)

in History, Writing | February 11th, 2014

Eng­lish speak­ers enjoy what seems like an unmatched curios­i­ty about the ori­gins and his­tor­i­cal usages of their lan­guage’s curs­es. The exceed­ing­ly pop­u­lar “F word” has accret­ed an espe­cial­ly wide body of tex­tu­al inves­ti­ga­tion, wide-eyed spec­u­la­tion, and implau­si­ble folk ety­mol­o­gy. (One of the ter­m’s well-known if spu­ri­ous cre­ation myths even has a Van Halen album named after it.) “The his­to­ry begins in murky cir­cum­stances,” says the Oxford Eng­lish Dic­tio­nary’s site, and that dic­tio­nary of dic­tio­nar­ies has man­aged to place the word’s ear­li­est print appear­ance in the ear­ly six­teenth cen­tu­ry, albeit writ­ten “in code” and “in a mixed Latin-and-Eng­lish con­text.” Above, you can see one of the few con­crete pieces of infor­ma­tion we have on the mat­ter: the first defin­i­tive use of the F word in “the Eng­lish adjec­ti­val form, which implies use of the verb.”

Here the word appears (for the first time if not the last) not­ed down by hand in the mar­gins of a prop­er text, in this case Cicero’s De Offici­is. “It’s a monk express­ing his dis­plea­sure at an abbot,” writes Katharine Tren­da­cos­ta at i09. “In the mar­gins of a guide to moral con­duct. Because of course.” She quotes Melis­sa Mohr, author of Holy Sh*t: A Brief His­to­ry of Swear­ing, as declar­ing it “dif­fi­cult to know” whether this mar­gin­a­lia-mak­ing monk meant the word lit­er­al­ly, to accuse this abbott of “ques­tion­able monas­tic morals,” or whether he used it “as an inten­si­fi­er, to con­vey his extreme dis­may.” Either way, it holds a great deal of val­ue for schol­ars of lan­guage, giv­en, as the OED puts it, “the absence of the word from most print­ed text before the mid twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry” and the “quo­ta­tion dif­fi­cul­ties” that caus­es. If you find noth­ing to like in the F word’s ever-increas­ing preva­lence in the media, think of it this way: at least future lex­i­cog­ra­phers of swear­ing will have more to go on.

To view the com­plete man­u­script page, click here. The doc­u­ment seem­ing­ly resides at Brasenose Col­lege, Oxford.

via io9

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Steven Pinker Explains the Neu­ro­science of Swear­ing (NSFW)

Stephen Fry, Lan­guage Enthu­si­ast, Defends The “Unnec­es­sary” Art Of Swear­ing

George Car­lin Per­forms His “Sev­en Dirty Words” Rou­tine: His­toric and Com­plete­ly NSFW

Medieval Cats Behav­ing Bad­ly: Kit­ties That Left Paw Prints … and Peed … on 15th Cen­tu­ry Man­u­scripts

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on cities, Asia, film, lit­er­a­ture, and aes­thet­ics. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on his brand new Face­book page.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 30 ) |

Play the Great Language Game: It’s Fun and Free

in Language Lessons | February 11th, 2014

great language game

Are you ready to play The Great Lan­guage Game? This online game “chal­lenges you to dis­tin­guish between some eighty or so lan­guages [see a list here] based on their sound alone. In each game you’re allowed three mis­takes, which are kept for you to study at the end. If you’re feel­ing com­pet­i­tive, share your score with some friends and com­pete for some seri­ous brag­ging rights.” You can even see how oth­er play­ers are far­ing inter­na­tion­al­ly.

If you rock the game, let us know in the com­ments below.

If you come out of the game feel­ing like you could brush up on your  lan­guages (which you pret­ty well might), then head over to our col­lec­tion of Free Lan­guage Lessons. It offers free lessons in 46 lan­guages, every­thing from Ara­bic to Yid­dish. Have fun.

via Kot­tke

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Learn 46 Lan­guages Online for Free: Span­ish, Chi­nese, Eng­lish & More

Learn Latin, Old Eng­lish, San­skrit, Clas­si­cal Greek & Oth­er Ancient Lan­guages in 10 Lessons

Speak­ing in Whis­tles: The Whis­tled Lan­guage of Oax­a­ca, Mex­i­co

“Learn Eng­lish With Ricky Ger­vais,” A New Pod­cast Debuts (NSFW)

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 3 ) |

« Go Back — More in this category... »
Quantcast
Open Culture was founded by Dan Colman.