Where to Find Free Art Images & Books from Great Museums, and Free Books from University Presses

in Art, e-books | January 26th, 2014

klee cover

In recent years, many great art muse­ums have decid­ed to open up their col­lec­tions, putting online huge troves of images that show­case the mas­ter­pieces hang­ing on their walls. They’ve also made avail­able free art cat­a­logues and books, let­ting you learn all about impor­tant artists and styles of paint­ing. Now, uni­ver­si­ty press­es and libraries are start­ing to fol­low suit, giv­ing read­ers free access to books from their archives. We’ve tried to keep you post­ed on these cul­tur­al devel­op­ments here on Open Cul­ture. But you’ve like­ly missed a great resource or two. To make sure you stay up to speed, we offer a roundup below:

Art Books

Art Images

Uni­ver­si­ty Press­es

If we’re miss­ing any great col­lec­tion, please let us know in the com­ments sec­tion below. We’re always love to dis­cov­er a new store­house of free knowl­edge. And we’ll make sure that read­ers learn about them.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

825 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties

500 Free eBooks: Down­load to Kin­dle, iPad/iPhone & Nook

550 Free Audio Books: Down­load Great Books for Free

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

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

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A New Free eBook Every Month from the University of Chicago Press

in e-books | January 26th, 2014

murder in ancient china

Here’s a lit­tle tip. Every month the Uni­ver­si­ty of Chica­go Press lets you down­load a free ebook. If you go to this page, you can put your name on an email list and they’ll let you know when a new book is avail­able. The cur­rent free book (for Jan­u­ary 2014) is Mur­der in Ancient Chi­na by Robert Van Gulik. Accord­ing to the press, the book is “avail­able on our web­site DRM-free in your choice of an EPUB file (for most e‑reading devices, phones, and com­put­ers), as well as in a PRC file (for the Kin­dle). Or, you can get Mur­der in Ancient Chi­na free though­out Jan­u­ary at lead­ing e‑book retail­ers, includ­ing in the Ama­zon Kin­dle store, at Apple iBooks, and at Google­Play.”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Read 700 Free eBooks Made Avail­able by the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia Press

500 Free eBooks: Down­load to Kin­dle, iPad/iPhone & Nook

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Build a DIY Rubberband Guitar and Celebrate New York’s Styrofoam Ban

in K-12, Music | January 26th, 2014

In one of its final acts of 2013, the New York City Coun­cil got with the times, pass­ing a ban on poly­styrene foam food con­tain­ers and non-biodegrad­able pack­ing peanuts.

The wide­ly hailed reform isn’t slat­ed to go into effect for anoth­er year, osten­si­bly to give the con­tain­er indus­try  a chance to squeeze into its envi­ron­men­tal­ist suit. (Good luck with that.)

The delay also affords those of us who live here ample time to stock­pile the offend­ing sub­stance for future home­made musi­cal instru­ments.

If you’re fret­ting over a rel­a­tive lack of instru­ment build­ing expe­ri­ence, relax.Three min­utes is more than enough time for John Bertles, com­pos­er, arts edu­ca­tor and founder of Bash the Trash, to show you how you can make beau­ti­ful music from (most­ly) scav­enged mate­ri­als. (Entire­ly scav­enged, should you luck into a sup­ply of giant rub­ber bands. I pre­sume you have access to the more advanced ver­sion’s paper clips and left­over chop­sticks. That alone jus­ti­fies your soon-to-be Sty­ro-free Pan­da Express deliv­ery habit.)

If you’ve been build­ing rub­ber band gui­tars since nurs­ery school, Bertles’ video les­son still mer­its a lis­ten, to hear how the sort of sounds prac­ticed fin­gers are able to coax from these hum­ble mate­ri­als.

PS: Lest we get hung up on tech­ni­cal­i­ties: Sty­ro­foam is a trade­marked poly­styrene prod­uct of Dow Chem­i­cal. To quote Bertles, who has gen­uine claims on giv­ing it a mean­ing­ful sec­ond life, “great mate­r­i­al for build­ing musi­cal instruments…terrible for the earth.”

Note: If the video above intrigues you, we’d hearti­ly rec­om­mend that you vis­it our pre­vi­ous posts — The Recy­cled Orches­tra: Paraguayan Youth Play Mozart with Instru­ments Clev­er­ly Made Out of Trash and A Young Frank Zap­pa Turns the Bicy­cle into a Musi­cal Instru­ment on The Steve Allen Show (1963)

Above you can watch John mak­ing a card­board tube gui­tar.

Ayun Hal­l­i­day pledges to rock one of these in the 2014 Coney Island Mer­maid Parade. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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John Lennon Plays Basketball with Miles Davis and Hangs Out with Allen Ginsberg & Friends

in Music | January 25th, 2014

I’ve always had the impres­sion of John Lennon as an aloof fig­ure, and I’ve some­times had dif­fi­cul­ty rec­on­cil­ing the give peace a chance per­sona with the angry young man and his acid tongue. Motorhead’s Lem­my once called him “the ass­hole of the band,” say­ing, “if you read his books, he’s not the peace-lov­ing nice guy that you heard about.” That may be part­ly true (his first wife Cyn­thia might agree), but it needn’t negate his ideals nor his activism and char­i­ty. Lennon was com­pli­cat­ed, and prob­a­bly not an easy per­son to get close to. On the oth­er hand, he may be the most self-reveal­ing of all the Bea­t­les (lit­er­al­ly). Perhaps—as Lennon says in voice-over nar­ra­tion above—his life, like his exper­i­men­tal 8mm films, was “self-edit­ed.”

Though not shot by Lennon him­self (and not tech­ni­cal­ly “home movies” as the YouTube uploader describes them), the can­did films above and below show a relaxed and play­ful Lennon at his 31st birth­day par­ty on Octo­ber 9, 1971, goof­ing off with Yoko and sev­er­al oth­er well-known fig­ures (the same day, an exhi­bi­tion of Lennon and Ono’s art opened in Syra­cuse). Allen Gins­berg, Ringo Starr, and Phil Spec­tor bob in and out of the shaky frame below.

Above, Miles Davis hangs out with the cou­ple and plays bas­ket­ball with Lennon. Keen­er eyes than mine may spot oth­er leg­endary celebri­ties. Avant-garde film­mak­er and one­time Warhol cam­era­man Jonas Mekas shot the footage, call­ing it “Hap­py Birth­day to John.”  Mekas describes the audio track as “a series of impro­vised songs, sung by John, Ringo, Yoko Ono, and their friends—not a clean stu­dio record­ing, but as a birth­day singing, free and hap­py.”  In a 2002 inter­view, he con­veyed his impres­sions of Lennon:

John was very open and curi­ous, a very quick sort of per­son, who caught on imme­di­ate­ly. He did a lot of 8mm film­ing him­self. At the begin­ning of Hap­py Birth­day John, you will hear him talk­ing about what he was try­ing to do.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Two Appear­ances on The Dick Cavett Show in 1971 and 72

Bed Peace Revis­its John Lennon & Yoko Ono’s Famous Anti-Viet­nam Protests

How I Won the War: John Lennon’s Absur­dist (Non-Musi­cal) Film Appear­ance, 1967

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

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The Big Lebowski Reimagined as a Classic 8‑Bit Video Game

in Film, Video Games, Web/Tech | January 25th, 2014

The above video brings togeth­er two things that few peo­ple of my gen­er­a­tion can resist. The first hard­ly needs an intro­duc­tion: at the risk of anger­ing Coen Broth­ers fans with the com­par­i­son, their 1998 cult hit The Big Lebows­ki has gen­er­at­ed at least as many end­less­ly quotable lines as Cad­dyshack did almost 20 years ear­li­er, and it appeals to a sim­i­lar con­tin­gent of slack­er wiseass­es. The movie gave Jeff Bridges—son of Lloyd, broth­er of Beau, and cer­tain­ly a star in his own right before he played The Dude—the kind of cachet most actors only dream of. I’m not say­ing he wouldn’t have won his 2009 best actor Oscar for Crazy Heart with­out Lebows­ki, but I’m not say­ing that he would have either. And then, of course, there was the renewed inter­est in the “sport” of bowl­ing, Hol­ly­wood weirdo and self-iden­ti­fied gun nut John Mil­ius (who inspired John Goodman’s char­ac­ter), and the creamy vod­ka cock­tail.

The sec­ond thing: the 8‑bit video games that, believe it or not, rep­re­sent­ed a rev­o­lu­tion in home gam­ing, and gave us the first Nin­ten­do and Sega sys­tems and games that, true con­fes­sion, used to keep me up all night, like the var­i­ous ver­sions of Mega­man (which you can play online here). The games now have leg­endary sta­tus and their defin­i­tive­ly col­or­ful, blocky aes­thet­ic has been—or was at least a few years ago—the ulti­mate in geek nos­tal­gia chic, along with a new wave of “chip­tune” music made with, or inspired by, the 8‑bit chips of the games of our youth. So what, I ask, could be more fun than bring­ing Lebows­ki and 8‑bit gam­ing togeth­er for a 3‑minute bowl­ing game? Very lit­tle. As C‑Net describes the video above, it’s “an expe­ri­ence we only wish we’d had back in the 90’s.” Made by Cine­Fix, who have pre­vi­ous­ly ani­mat­ed Pulp Fic­tion, The Hunger Games, Blade Run­ner and a string of oth­er hits as 8‑bit shorts, the 8‑Bit Cin­e­ma Big Lebows­ki isn’t actu­al­ly playable, but it should be. Regard­less, it’s as fun to watch as you might imag­ine a mash-up of the Coen Broth­ers and Super Mario World would be. Get your nos­tal­gia on.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Tim­o­thy Leary Plans a Neu­ro­mancer Video Game, with Art by Kei­th Har­ing, Music by Devo & Cameos by David Byrne

Free Fun: Play Don­key Kong, Pac Man, Frog­ger & Oth­er Gold­en Age Video Games In Your Web Brows­er

Down­load a Pro­to­type of Ever, Jane, a Video Game That Takes You Inside the Vir­tu­al World of Jane Austen

Long Live Glitch! The Art & Code from the Game Now Released into the Pub­lic Domain

Want  to learn about Video Game Law? It’s cov­ered in our list of Free Online Cours­es

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

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George Orwell Got a B- at Harvard, When Michael Crichton Submitted an Orwell Essay as His Own

in Literature | January 24th, 2014

orwell crichton1

Images via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

In his 2002 mem­oir, Trav­els, Michael Crich­ton took his read­ers back sev­er­al decades, to the ear­ly 1960s when, as a Har­vard stu­dent, he tried an inter­est­ing lit­tle exper­i­ment in his Eng­lish class. He recalled:

I had gone to col­lege plan­ning to become a writer, but ear­ly on a sci­en­tif­ic ten­den­cy appeared. In the Eng­lish depart­ment at Har­vard, my writ­ing style was severe­ly crit­i­cized and I was receiv­ing grades of C or C+ on my papers. At eigh­teen, I was vain about my writ­ing and felt it was Har­vard, and not I, that was in error, so I decid­ed to make an exper­i­ment. The next assign­ment was a paper on Gul­liv­er’s Trav­els, and I remem­bered an essay by George Orwell that might fit. With some hes­i­ta­tion, I retyped Orwell’s essay and sub­mit­ted it as my own. I hes­i­tat­ed because if I were caught for pla­gia­rism I would be expelled; but I was pret­ty sure that my instruc­tor was not only wrong about writ­ing styles, but poor­ly read as well. In any case, George Orwell got a B- at Har­vard, which con­vinced me that the Eng­lish depart­ment was too dif­fi­cult for me.

I decid­ed to study anthro­pol­o­gy instead. But I doubt­ed my desire to con­tin­ue as a grad­u­ate stu­dent in anthro­pol­o­gy, so I began tak­ing premed cours­es, just in case.

Most like­ly Crich­ton sub­mit­ted Orwell’s essay 1946 essay, “Pol­i­tics vs. Lit­er­a­ture: An Exam­i­na­tion of Gul­liv­er’s Trav­els.”  He even­tu­al­ly went to Har­vard Med­ical School but kept writ­ing on the side. Per­haps get­ting a grade just a shade below Orwell’s B- gave Crich­ton some bizarre con­fir­ma­tion that he could one day make it as a writer.

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Look­ing for free, pro­fes­sion­al­ly-read audio books from Audible.com, includ­ing works by Crich­ton and Orwell? Here’s a great, no-strings-attached deal. If you start a 30 day free tri­al with Audible.com, you can down­load two free audio books of your choice. Get more details on the offer here.

via Red­dit

Relat­ed Con­tent:

George Orwell’s Five Great­est Essays (as Select­ed by Pulitzer-Prize Win­ning Colum­nist Michael Hiltzik)

T.S. Eliot, as Faber & Faber Edi­tor, Rejects George Orwell’s “Trot­skyite” Nov­el Ani­mal Farm (1944)

George Orwell Explains in a Reveal­ing 1944 Let­ter Why He’d Write 1984

George Orwell’s Har­row­ing Race to Fin­ish 1984 Before His Death

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See Carl Sagan’s Childhood Sketches of The Future of Space Travel

in Art, Astronomy, History | January 24th, 2014

Carl Sagan had his first reli­gious expe­ri­ence at the age of five. Unsur­pris­ing­ly, it was root­ed in sci­ence. Sagan, then liv­ing in Brook­lyn, had start­ed pes­ter­ing every­one around him about what stars were, and had grown frus­trat­ed by his inabil­i­ty to get a straight answer. Like the resource­ful five-year-old that he was, the young Sagan took mat­ters into his own hands and pro­ceed­ed to the library:

“I went to the librar­i­an and asked for a book about stars … And the answer was stun­ning. It was that the Sun was a star but real­ly close. The stars were suns, but so far away they were just lit­tle points of light … The scale of the uni­verse sud­den­ly opened up to me. It was a kind of reli­gious expe­ri­ence. There was a mag­nif­i­cence to it, a grandeur, a scale which has nev­er left me. Nev­er ever left me.”

This sense of uni­ver­sal won­der would even­tu­al­ly lead Sagan to become a well-known astronomer and cos­mol­o­gist, as well as one of the 20th cen­tu­ry’s most beloved sci­ence edu­ca­tors. Although he passed away in 1996, aged 62, Sagan’s lega­cy remains alive and well. This March, a reboot of his famed 1980 PBS show, Comos: A Per­son­al Voy­age, will appear on Fox, with the equal­ly great sci­ence pop­u­lar­iz­er Neil DeGrasse Tyson tak­ing Sagan’s role as host. Mean­while, last Novem­ber saw the open­ing of the Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan Archive at the Library of Con­gress.

Among the papers in the archive was this sketch, titled “The Evo­lu­tion of Inter­stel­lar Flight,” which Sagan drew between the ages of 10 and 13. In the cen­ter of the draw­ing Sagan pen­cilled the  logo of Inter­stel­lar Space­lines, which, Sagan imag­ined, was “Estab­lished [in] 1967 for the advance­ment of transpa­cial and intrau­ni­ver­sal sci­ence.” Its mot­to? “Dis­cov­ery –Explo­ration – Col­o­niza­tion.” Sur­round­ing the logo, Sagan drew assort­ed news­pa­per clip­pings that he imag­ined could her­ald the key tech­no­log­i­cal advance­ments in the space race. Impres­sive­ly drawn astro­nauts in the cor­ner aside, I most enjoyed the faux-clip­ping that read “LIFE FOUND ON VENUS: Pre­his­toric-like rep­tiles are…” Good luck con­tain­ing your sense of won­der on see­ing that.

via F, Yeah Man­u­scripts!

Ilia Blin­d­er­man is a Mon­tre­al-based cul­ture and sci­ence writer. Fol­low him at @iliablinderman.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Carl Sagan’s Under­grad Read­ing List: 40 Essen­tial Texts for a Well-Round­ed Thinker

Carl Sagan Presents Six Lec­tures on Earth, Mars & Our Solar Sys­tem … For Kids (1977)

Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawk­ing & Arthur C. Clarke Dis­cuss God, the Uni­verse, and Every­thing Else

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David Lynch’s Unlikely Commercial for a Home Pregnancy Test (1997)

in Film | January 24th, 2014

Vision­ary direc­tor David Lynch has cre­at­ed some of the most ter­ri­fy­ing, sur­re­al images in cin­e­ma, from a danc­ing dream dwarf in Twin Peaks to that sev­ered ear in a field in Blue Vel­vet. So he might seem like an unlike­ly choice to direct a series of com­mer­cials for Clear Blue Easy One Minute home preg­nan­cy tests, but that’s exact­ly what he did in 1997.

The moody, black and white ad shows a ner­vous-look­ing woman wait­ing for the results of the test. In those ago­niz­ing moments, the face of her watch reads ‘yes’ and ‘no’ instead of num­bers – reflect­ing her anx­i­ety.

While this com­mer­cial might seem tame for Lynch, it is the­mat­i­cal­ly sim­i­lar to his oth­er work. His ear­ly mas­ter­piece Eraser­head is a biz­zaro fever dream about the abject ter­ror of par­ent­hood.

“The client was a lit­tle ner­vous that the spot would be eerie and scary,” David Cohen, exec­u­tive pro­duc­er of the ad, said to Enter­tain­ment Weekly’s A.J. Jacob. “But on the set, Lynch was con­stant­ly mak­ing sure the client was hap­py.”

In fact, Lynch has had a whole sec­ond career as a com­mer­cial direc­tor, mak­ing ads for Nis­san, PlaySta­tion and one incred­i­bly freaky PSA about the evils of lit­ter­ing. He also direct­ed a sur­pris­ing­ly lit­er­ary series of com­mer­cials for Calvin Klein using text penned by such lumi­nar­ies as F. Scott Fitzger­ald and D.H. Lawrence. We’ll post some­thing about those next week.

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.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

David Lynch Teach­es You to Cook His Quinoa Recipe in a Weird, Sur­re­al­ist Video

David Lynch Lists His Favorite Films & Direc­tors, Includ­ing Felli­ni, Wilder, Tati & Hitch­cock

What David Lynch Can Do With a 100-Year-Old Cam­era and 52 Sec­onds of Film

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