10 Hours of Ambient Arctic Sounds Will Help You Relax, Meditate, Study & Sleep

in Random | March 1st, 2017

Not too long ago, we fea­tured for you 4 hours of ambi­ent music cre­at­ed by Moby, all of which you can down­load for free, and use to sleep, med­i­tate, do yoga and gen­er­al­ly not pan­ic. Sound time­ly? Then down­load away.

Per­haps tak­ing a cue from Moby, the Relax Sleep ASMR YouTube chan­nel has also assem­bled a “video” offer­ing 10 hours of Arc­tic ambi­ent music, fea­tur­ing the sounds of the frozen ocean, ice crack­ing, snow falling, [an] ice­break­er idling and [a] dis­tant howl­ing wind sound.”

Click play above and you can enjoy “white noise sounds gen­er­at­ed by the wind and snow falling, com­bined with deep low fre­quen­cies with delta waves from the pow­er­ful … idling engines” of a Polar Ice­break­er. Very chill.

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!

Look­ing for free, pro­fes­­sion­al­­ly-read audio books from Audible.com? 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 Boing Boing

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Moby Lets You Down­load 4 Hours of Ambi­ent Music to Help You Sleep, Med­i­tate, Do Yoga & Not Pan­ic

Dr. Weil’s 60-Sec­ond Tech­nique for Falling Asleep

Music That Helps You Sleep: Min­i­mal­ist Com­pos­er Max Richter, Pop Phe­nom Ed Sheer­an & Your Favorites

Dai­ly Med­i­ta­tion Boosts & Revi­tal­izes the Brain and Reduces Stress, Har­vard Study Finds

The Pow­er of Pow­er Naps: Sal­vador Dali Teach­es You How Micro-Naps Can Give You Cre­ative Inspi­ra­tion

10 Hours of Ambi­ent Arc­tic Sounds Will Help You Relax, Med­i­tate, Study & Sleep

Music That Helps You Sleep: Min­i­mal­ist Com­pos­er Max Richter, Pop Phe­nom Ed Sheer­an & Your Favorites

240 Hours of Relax­ing, Sleep-Induc­ing Sounds from Sci-Fi Video Games: From Blade Run­ner to Star Wars

How a Good Night’s Sleep — and a Bad Night’s Sleep — Can Enhance Your Cre­ativ­i­ty

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 2 ) |

Marcel Proust Plays Air Guitar on a Tennis Racket (1891)

in Literature, Random | February 24th, 2017

Was “air gui­tar” a thing back in 1891, when a pho­tog­ra­ph­er cap­tured young Mar­cel Proust in this play­ful pho­to­graph? Prob­a­bly not. Maybe it’s anachro­nis­tic to read the pho­to­graph this way. But you have to admit, it’s worth sus­pend­ing dis­be­lief for a moment and imag­in­ing what song Mar­cel was play­ing. Any clever guess­es?

via The Atlantic

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The First Known Footage of Mar­cel Proust Dis­cov­ered: Watch It Online

An Intro­duc­tion to the Lit­er­ary Phi­los­o­phy of Mar­cel Proust, Pre­sent­ed in a Mon­ty Python-Style Ani­ma­tion

When James Joyce & Mar­cel Proust Met in 1922, and Total­ly Bored Each Oth­er

16-Year-Old Mar­cel Proust Tells His Grand­fa­ther About His Mis­guid­ed Adven­tures at the Local Broth­el

Mar­cel Proust Fills Out a Ques­tion­naire in 1890: The Man­u­script of the ‘Proust Ques­tion­naire’

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 7 ) |

Watch Leonard Bernstein Conduct the Vienna Philharmonic Using Only His Eyebrows

in Music, Random | February 23rd, 2017

Per­haps you’ll recall the episode from Sein­feld when Bob Cobb, a con­duc­tor for The Police Orches­tra, insists that every­one call him “mae­stro”–and only “mae­stro.” The pre­ten­tious­ness of the sug­ges­tion makes for some good com­e­dy, that’s for sure.

But occa­sion­al­ly the hon­orif­ic title is fit­ting. Here’s one such instance. Above, watch Leonard Bern­stein con­duct the Vien­na Phil­har­mon­ic Orches­tra, lead­ing them through Haydn’s Sym­pho­ny No. 88 … with only his eye­brows and small facial ges­tures. No baton, thank you. A mae­stro indeed.

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!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Leonard Bernstein’s Mas­ter­ful Lec­tures on Music (11+ Hours of Video Record­ed at Har­vard in 1973)

Hear What is Jazz?: Leonard Bernstein’s Intro­duc­tion to the Great Amer­i­can Art Form (1956)

Leonard Bern­stein Demys­ti­fies the Rock Rev­o­lu­tion for Curi­ous (if Square) Grown-Ups in 1967

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Duet for French Horn and Chair

in Music, Random | February 15th, 2017

Pret­ty clever. Even more bet­ter is the com­ment left by one YouTube user, “I won­der if he’s first chair?” Ha!!

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!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Musi­cian Lugs a Cel­lo Up a Moun­tain, Then Plays Bach at 10,000 Feet, at the “Top of the World”

Down­load the Com­plete Organ Works of J.S. Bach for Free

The Genius of J.S. Bach’s “Crab Canon” Visu­al­ized on a Möbius Strip

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

A Short Anti-LSD Horror Film Made by the Lockheed Corporation (1969)

in Random | February 10th, 2017

Dur­ing the late 1960s, the defense con­trac­tor Lock­heed Cor­po­ra­tion took a strange detour into film­mak­ing and spon­sored a series of short films, each exam­in­ing the per­ils of a par­tic­u­lar hard­core drug. Above, you can watch “Case Study: LSD,” a three-minute short doc­u­ment­ing a young wom­an’s acid trip. Every­thing seems pret­ty groovy, until the 18-year-old pro­tag­o­nist goes to eat a hot dog. That’s when things go hor­ri­bly wrong: the hot dog springs to life, claims it has a wife and sev­en kids to sup­port, and screams bloody mur­der as it gets mer­ci­less­ly ingest­ed. A hor­ror film, if I’ve ever seen one.

You can watch the three oth­er short films in the series here: Case Study: Hero­in, Case Study: Amphet­a­mines, and Case Study: Bar­bi­tu­rates.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The His­toric LSD Debate at MIT: Tim­o­thy Leary v. Pro­fes­sor Jerome Lettvin (1967)

Watch The Bicy­cle Trip: An Ani­ma­tion of The World’s First LSD Trip in 1943

Curi­ous Alice — The 1971 Anti-Drug Movie Based on Alice in Won­der­land That Made Drugs Look Like Fun

Artist Draws Nine Por­traits on LSD Dur­ing 1950s Research Exper­i­ment

Ken Kesey’s First LSD Trip Ani­mat­ed

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 6 ) |

“Every Country in the World”–Two Videos Tell You Curious Facts About 190+ Countries

in Random | December 15th, 2016

From Wen­dover Productions–a Youtube chan­nel ded­i­cat­ed to explain­ing how our world works, from trav­el, to eco­nom­ics, to geography–comes a two part series called “Every Coun­try in the World.”

In 30 min­utes, the videos tra­verse the world, telling you curi­ous facts about 190+ coun­tries, start­ing with this: Chi­na, despite being so vast, does­n’t have time zones. It’s the same time across the entire coun­try. Mean­while it’s neigh­bor, Afghanistan is “off­set from Green­wich Mean Time by a 30 minute inter­val.” When it’s 9 am in San Fran­cis­co and 5:00 pm in Lon­don, it’s actu­al­ly 9:30 pm in Kab­ul.

How about anoth­er fac­toid: Cana­da is so geo­graph­i­cal­ly large that it’s east­ern bor­der is clos­er to Croa­t­ia than Van­cou­ver. Get the gist?

You can watch “Every Coun­try in the World” above and below.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Free: Nation­al Geo­graph­ic Lets You Down­load Thou­sands of Maps from the Unit­ed States Geo­log­i­cal Sur­vey

Down­load 67,000 His­toric Maps (in High Res­o­lu­tion) from the Won­der­ful David Rum­sey Map Col­lec­tion

The His­to­ry of Car­tog­ra­phy, the “Most Ambi­tious Overview of Map Mak­ing Ever,” Now Free Online

New York Pub­lic Library Puts 20,000 Hi-Res Maps Online & Makes Them Free to Down­load and Use

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

A Lccokrkow Garneo: All 245,000 Frames of Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange Randomized.

in Film, Random | December 14th, 2016


Watch with cau­tion if you’re sen­si­tive to flash­ing lights and fast mov­ing images.

Stan­ley Kubrick films take a while to unpack. Watch his A Clock­work Orange once, you’ll see one thing. Watch it again, you’ll notice details you did­n’t get the first time. Dit­to the third time, and beyond.

Think you know A Clock­work Orange back­wards and for­wards? Good. Now check out A Lccokrkow Gar­neo, which takes all 245,000 frames of the 1971 dystopi­an film and ran­dom­izes them. You might see some­thing you’ve nev­er seen before.

If you’re prone to epilep­sy, beware. If you’re not, good luck get­ting very far.

A Lccokrkow Gar­neo was arranged by Andrew Fil­ip­pone Jr. (who gave us “Char­lie Rose” by Samuel Beck­ett, a piece of com­i­cal absur­dist the­ater we fea­tured ear­li­er this fall). The score for this ran­dom­ized film is “an impro­vised work, record­ed in one take while the movie played on a near­by mon­i­tor.” That you can watch unfold below.

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!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

“Char­lie Rose” by Samuel Beck­ett: Watch Char­lie Rose Meet Char­lie Rose in a Com­i­cal Piece of Absur­dist The­ater

Peter Sell­ers Calls Kubrick’s A Clock­work Orange “Vio­lent,” “The Biggest Load of Crap I’ve Seen” (1972)

The Mak­ing of Stan­ley Kubrick’s A Clock­work Orange

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

When Ursula K. Le Guin & Philip K. Dick Went to High School Together

in Literature, Random | December 1st, 2016

pkd-uklg-high-school

Cre­ative com­mons images are by Ras­mus Ler­dorf and Gor­thi­an , via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

When you run a site like this, you learn all kinds of unex­pect­ed things–most of it rich and reward­ing, some of it strange, triv­ial and still nonethe­less intrigu­ing. Dis­cov­er­ing that Adolf Hitler and Lud­wig Wittgen­stein went to the same Aus­tri­an mid­dle school, like­ly at the same time, fits into the lat­ter cat­e­go­ry. And so too does this:

pkd-uklg

On Twit­ter, jazz crit­ic Ted Gioia recent­ly high­light­ed a curi­ous pas­sage from Ursu­la K. Le Guin’s new book, where she men­tions attend­ing high school with anoth­er sem­i­nal fig­ure in sci-fi lit­er­a­ture, Philip K. Dick (Do Androids Dream of Elec­tric Sheep?, Total Recall, Minor­i­ty Report, A Scan­ner Dark­ly etc.).

As she sep­a­rate­ly told The Paris Review, Berke­ley High had 5,300 kids dur­ing the 1940s. It was a big high school. And yet “Nobody knew Phil Dick. I have not found one per­son from Berke­ley High who knew him. He was the invis­i­ble class­mate.” Years lat­er, the two authors talked. But nev­er met. PKD always remained some­thing of a ghost.

via @TedGioia

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Ursu­la Le Guin Gives Insight­ful Writ­ing Advice in Her Free Online Work­shop

Hear Inven­tive Sto­ries from Ursu­la LeGuin & J.G. Bal­lard Turned Into CBC Radio Dra­mas

33 Sci-Fi Sto­ries by Philip K. Dick as Free Audio Books & Free eBooks

Hear 6 Clas­sic Philip K. Dick Sto­ries Adapt­ed as Vin­tage Radio Plays

Hear VALIS, an Opera Based on Philip K. Dick’s Meta­phys­i­cal Nov­el

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 5 ) |

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