Until the end of his life, Carl Sagan (1934–1996) continued doing what he did all along — popularizing science and “enthusiastically conveying the wonders of the universe to millions of people on television and in books.” Whenever Sagan appeared on ‘The Tonight Show” with Johnny Carson during the 70s and 80s, his goal was to connect with everyday Americans — people who didn’t subscribe to Scientific American — and increase the public’s understanding and appreciation of science.
At the end of his life, Sagan still cared deeply about where science stood in the public imagination. But while losing a battle with myelodysplasia, Sagan also sensed that scientific thinking was losing ground in America, and even more ominously within the chambers of the Newt Gringrich-led Congress.
During his final interview, aired on May 27, 1996, Sagan issued a strong warning, telling Charlie Rose:
We’ve arranged a society on science and technology in which nobody understands anything about science and technology, and this combustible mixture of ignorance and power sooner or later is going to blow up in our faces. I mean, who is running the science and technology in a democracy if the people don’t know anything about it.
20 years later, figures like Neil deGrasse Tyson and Bill Nye are out there, trying to popularize science with new forms of media. But the same structural problem, so well articulated by Sagan, remains largely in place. And yet there’s reason to hope. Because even as establishment politicians still play the same games with science, there are early signs that, as with other important issues, public opinion is shifting beneath their feet.
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Last April, Malcolm Young left AC/DC, the band he co-founded with his brother Angus in 1973. Only 61 years old, the guitarist found himself unable to remember his famous licks and riffs. The cause, doctors discovered, was dementia. Young now lives in a nursing home where he receives full-time care.
Above, you can watch a video created by the Brazilian radio station 89FM, where, touchingly, elderly Brazilians, also suffering from dementia, listen to the sounds of AC/DC and summon to mind their younger, carefree days, when rock provided their soundtrack to their youth. Long live rock…
To understand why music seems to trigger memories in unusual ways, and how music therapy can be used to improve the lives of those with dementia, see the research covered at Live Science.
If Facebook knows everything about you, it’s because you handed it the keys to your kingdom. You posted a photo, liked a favorite childhood TV show, and willingly volunteered your birthday. In other words, you handed it all the data it needs to annoy you with targeted advertising.
(In my case, it’s an ancient secret that helped a middle aged mom shave 5 inches off her waistline. Let me save you a click: acai berries.)
Filmmaker Brett Gaylor (a “lefty Canadian dad who reads science fiction) seeks to set the record straight regarding the web economy’s impact on personal privacy.
Watching his interactive documentary web series, Do Not Track, you’ll inevitably arrive at a crossroads where you must decide whether or not to share your personal information. No biggie, right? It’s what happens every time you consent to “log in with Facebook.”
Every time you choose this convenience, you’re allowing Google and other big time trackers to stick a harpoon (akacookie) in your side. Swim all you want, little fishy. You’re not exactly getting away, particularly if you’re logged in with a mobile device with a compulsion to reveal your whereabouts.
You say you have nothing to hide? Bully for you! What you may not have considered is the impact your digital easy-breeziness has on friends. Your network. And vice versa. Tag away!
In this arena, every “like”—from an acquaintance’s recently launched organic skincare line to Star Trek—helps trackers build a surprisingly accurate portrait, one that can be used to determine how insurable you are, how worthy of a loan. Gender and age aren’t the only factors that matter here. So does your demonstrated extraversion, your degree of openness.
(Ha ha, and you thought it cost you nothing to “like” that acquaintance’s smelly strawberry-scented moisturizer!)
To get the most out of Do Not Track, you’ll want to supply its producers with your email address on your first visit. It’s a little counter-intuitive, given the subject matter, but doing so will provide you with a unique configuration that promises to lift the veil on what the trackers know about you.
What does it say about me that I couldn’t get my Facebook log-in to work? How disappointing that this failure meant I would be viewing results tailored to Episode 3’s star, German journalist Richard Gutjahr?
(Your profile… says that your age is 42 and your gender is male. But the real gold mine is your Facebook data over time. By analyzing the at least 129 things you have liked on Facebook, we have used our advanced algorithm techniques to assess your personality and have found you scored highest in Openness which indicates you are creative, imaginative, and adventurous. Our personality evaluation system uses Psycho-demographic trait predictions powered by the Apply Magic Sauce API developed at the University of Cambridge Psychometrics Centre.)
I think the takeaway is that I am not too on top of my privacy settings. And why would I be? I’m an extrovert with nothing to hide, except my spending habits, browsing history, race, age, marital status…
Should we take a tip from our high school brethren, who evade the scrutiny of college admissions counselors by adopting some ridiculous, evocative pseudonym? Expect upcoming episodes of Do Not Trackto help us navigate these and other digital issues.
Ayun Halliday an author, illustrator, and Chief Primatologist of the East Village Inky zine invites you to look into her very soul @AyunHalliday
Are we to look at cherry blossoms only in full bloom, the moon only when it is cloudless? To long for the moon while looking on the rain, to lower the blinds and be unaware of the passing of spring—these are even more deeply moving. Branches about to blossom or gardens strewn with faded flowers are worthier of our admiration.
The only thing one can be certain of is a mob scene, as ardent flower-viewers of all ages stampede toward the cotton candy-colored trees, devices in hand. Modern hanami practice would surely confound the elite of the 8th Century Imperial Court. They wouldn’t have understood the concept of “selfie” if it bit ‘em in the shakuhachi.
Of course, for every determined 21st-century soul who makes a point of admiring the blossoms during their brief appearance, there are thousands more who, in the words of bureaucrat-turned-monk, Kenko, “lower the blinds…unaware of the passing of spring.”
Perhaps this latter group is who Dave Allen, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s former webmaster, had in mind when he installed a camera in a weatherproof box near the Cherry Esplanade. Every 3 minutes, the shutter snapped, capturing not just the glorious Prunus ‘Kanzan’ (aka Sekiyama) that line the walkways, but also a wide range of visitors who flocked to the garden between April 18 to April 26, 2008, seeking respite from the pressures of urban living.
The time lapse video Allen assembled from 3000 captured moments takes slightly more than a minute to view. I think we have time to spare…
Watch it once for the main attraction…
And then again for the (pixillated) people. Randomly press “pause” to catch a kissing couple, a Hasidic man in a shtreimel, and a little girl in pink who somehow found herself the sole human on the path…
Then one more time for the shadows of the clouds. Ah… That’s likely the time-strapped virtual viewer’s best chance for achieving the sort of mindset one might ascribe to The Tale of Genji.
(Though perhaps a calm and contemplative mood was never the goal. As ninth century aristocratic poet Ariwara no Narihira wrote (in translation by Hiroaki Sato & Burton Watson):
Hōshi is a ryokan (a Japanese traditional inn) located in Komatsu, Japan, and it holds the distinction of being the 2nd oldest hotel in the world, and “the oldest still running family business in the world” (per Wikipedia). Built in 718 AD, the ryokan has been operated by the same family for 46 consecutive generations. Count them. 46 generations.
Japan is a country with deep traditions. And when you’re born into a family that’s the caretaker of a 1300-year-old institution, you find yourself struggling with issues most of us can’t imagine. That’s particularly true when you’re the daughter of the Hōshi family, a modern woman who wants to break free from tradition. And yet history and strong family expectations keep calling her back.
The story of Hōshi ryokan is poignantly told in a short documentary above. It was shot in 2014 by the German filmmaker Fritz Schumann.
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Eight years after it aired, the final scene of the final episode of The Sopranos still has people guessing: What happened when the screen suddenly went black? Did Tony Soprano get whacked? Or did he live to see another quasi-ordinary day? Could he really die as Journey sings, “Don’t Stop Believing?”
In a new interview appearing on The Directors Guild of America web site, David Chase, creator of The Sopranos, revisits the making of the final scene. Chase doesn’t directly answer the questions about Tony’s fate. But he does give us some insight into the deeper philosophical questions raised in the scene (watch it above) and how much they’re bound up in the lyrics of Journey’s soundtrack. There’s some deeper meaning in the small town girl and the city boy taking “the midnight train goin’ anywhere”:
I love the timing of the lyric when Carmela enters: ‘Just a small town girl livin’ in a lonely world, she took the midnight train goin’ anywhere.’ Then it talks about Tony: ‘Just a city boy,’ and we had to dim down the music so you didn’t hear the line, ‘born and raised in South Detroit.’ The music cuts out a little bit there, and they’re speaking over it. ‘He took the midnight train goin’ anywhere.’ And that to me was [everything]. I felt that those two characters had taken the midnight train a long time ago. That is their life. It means that these people are looking for something inevitable. Something they couldn’t find. I mean, they didn’t become missionaries in Africa or go to college together or do anything like that. They took the midnight train going anywhere. And the midnight train, you know, is the dark train.
And there’s meaning packed in the idea of “Strangers waiting up and down the boulevard.”
Cutting to Meadow parking was my way of building up the tension and building up the suspense, but more than that I wanted to demonstrate the lyrics of the song, which is streetlights, people walking up and down the boulevard, because that’s what the song is saying. ‘Strangers waiting.’ I wanted you to remember that is out there. That there are streetlights and people out there and strangers moving up and down. It’s the stream of life, but not only that, it’s the stream of life at night. There’s that picture called History Is Made at Night [from 1937]. I love that title. And that kind of echoes in my head all the time.
But if you’re looking for the philosophical essence of the scene, then look no further than the mantra, “Don’t stop believin.’ ” That’s what it’s all about:
I thought the ending would be somewhat jarring, sure. But not to the extent it was, and not a subject of such discussion. I really had no idea about that. I never considered the black a shot. I just thought what we see is black. The ceiling I was going for at that point, the biggest feeling I was going for, honestly, was don’t stop believing. It was very simple and much more on the nose than people think. That’s what I wanted people to believe. That life ends and death comes, but don’t stop believing. There are attachments we make in life, even though it’s all going to come to an end, that are worth so much, and we’re so lucky to have been able to experience them. Life is short. Either it ends here for Tony or some other time. But in spite of that, it’s really worth it. So don’t stop believing.
Plenty of us struggle, in the age when so many traditions in so many parts of the world now seem perpetually up for revision, with the choice of whether to get married. It even confounded no less a mind than that from which On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection flowed. This happened back in 1838, over twenty years before the publication of that most important book in biology. And, for a moment, it must have seemed almost as vexing as the question of how all the species came about.
Lists of Note tells us that the “29-year-old naturalist Charles Darwin found himself facing a difficult decision: whether or not to propose to the love of his life, Emma Wedgwood. This was his handwritten solution — a list of the pros and cons of marriage that includes such gems as ‘better than a dog anyhow’ and ‘not forced to visit relatives.’ ” (See original document above. Or click here to view it in a larger format, and read a complete transcription.)
Of the tantalizing claims of the single life, Darwin also includes “freedom to go where one liked,” “conversation of clever men at clubs,” freedom from the “expense & anxiety of children,” and no risk of the awful possibility that “perhaps my wife won’t like London.” But matrimony presents a strong case of its own, in the form of a “constant companion, (& friend in old age) who will feel interested in one,” “someone to take care of house,” “charms of music & female chit-chat.” (And note his writing of “Children — (if it Please God)” under the pros, an interesting phrasing given the sorts of debates his name gets hauled into today.)
And so Darwin reaches his conclusion: “My God, it is intolerable to think of spending ones whole life, like a neuter bee, working, working, & nothing after all. — No, no won’t do. — Imagine living all one’s day solitarily in smoky dirty London House. — Only picture to yourself a nice soft wife on a sofa with good fire, & books & music perhaps.” He would indeed marry and spend the rest of his life with Wedgwood, a union that produced ten children (one of whom, Francis, would go on to informally illustrate On the Origin of Species manuscript pages).
You can peruse the full list, even in Darwin’s own handwriting (if you can decipher it), at Darwin Online. If he went on to write a list of his secrets of a successful marriage, Darwin scholars haven’t yet discovered it, but I think we can safely say that it would include at least this recommendation: think the decision through, but don’t let it keep you from your life’s work.
Wonderful, presumably. You’re wealthy, well respected, and highly sought. Your random real world cameos bring joy to scores of unsuspecting mortals.
He doesn’t care about what just happened. He doesn’t think about what’s going to happen. He doesn’t even book round-trip tickets. Bill buys one-ways and then decides when he wants to go home.
A stunningly good use of wealth and power. If he were anyone but the inimitable Bill Murray, I bet we’d be seething with envious class rage.
He devises the rules by which he plays, from the way he rubs shoulders with the common man to the toll free number that serves as his agent to indulging in creative acts of rebellion that could get a younger, less nuanced star labelled bratty, if not mentally ill, and desperately in need of rehab.
I’ve retired a couple of times. It’s great, because you can just say, “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m retired.” And people will actually believe that you’ve retired. There are nutters out there that will go, “Oh, okay!” and then leave you alone.
…someone told me some secrets early on about living, and that you just have to remind yourself … you can do the very best you can when you’re very very relaxed. No matter what it is, whatever your job is, the more relaxed you are the better you are. That’s sort of why I got into acting. I realized the more fun I had the better I did it and I thought, that’s a job I can be proud of. If I had to go to work and no matter what my condition, no matter what my mood is, no matter how I feel … if I can relax myself and enjoy what I’m doing and have fun with it, I can do my job really well. It has changed my life, learning that.
When the question was put to him at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival, Murray led a guided meditation, below, to help the audience get a feel for what it feels like to be as relaxed and in the moment as Bill Murray. Putting all joking to the side, he shares his formula as sincerely as Mr. Rogers addressing his young television audience. Don’t forget that this is a man who read the poetry of Emily Dickinson to a roomful of rapt construction workers with a straight and confident face. Complete text is below.
Let’s all ask ourselves that question right now: What does it feel like to be you? What does it feel like to be you? Yeah. It feels good to be you, doesn’t it? It feels good, because there’s one thing that you are — you’re the only one that’s you, right?
So you’re the only one that’s you, and we get confused sometimes — or I do, I think everyone does — you try to compete. You think, damn it, someone else is trying to be me. Someone else is trying to be me. But I don’t have to armor myself against those people; I don’t have to armor myself against that idea if I can really just relax and feel content in this way and this regard.
If I can just feel… Just think now: How much do you weigh? This is a thing I like to do with myself when I get lost and I get feeling funny. How much do you weigh? Think about how much each person here weighs and try to feel that weight in your seat right now, in your bottom right now. Parts in your feet and parts in your bum. Just try to feel your own weight, in your own seat, in your own feet. Okay? So if you can feel that weight in your body, if you can come back into the most personal identification, a very personal identification, which is: I am. This is me now. Here I am, right now. This is me now. Then you don’t feel like you have to leave, and be over there, or look over there. You don’t feel like you have to rush off and be somewhere. There’s just a wonderful sense of well-being that begins to circulate up and down, from your top to your bottom. Up and down from your top to your spine. And you feel something that makes you almost want to smile, that makes you want to feel good, that makes you want to feel like you could embrace yourself.
So, what’s it like to be me? You can ask yourself, “What’s it like to be me?” You know, the only way we’ll ever know what it’s like to be you is if you work your best at being you as often as you can, and keep reminding yourself: That’s where home is.
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