The Addams Family Dance to The Ramones’ “Blitzkrieg Bop”

in Random | September 7th, 2017

In the spir­it of Andrew Sul­li­van’s Men­tal Health Break, we give you this: The Addams Fam­i­ly Danc­ing to The Ramones’ 1976 track, “Blitzkrieg Bop.” For a brief moment, for­get the hur­ri­canes, the threat of nuclear war, the fires burn­ing in LA, Mon­tana, Wash­ing­ton, DC and the hearts of white suprema­cists. Breathe in. Breathe out. And repeat after me. “Hey Ho.…..Let’s go!”

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

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:

John Astin, From The Addams Fam­i­ly, Recites “The Raven” as Edgar Allan Poe

Talk­ing Heads Per­form The Ramones’ “I Wan­na Be Your Boyfriend” Live in 1977 (and How the Bands Got Their Start Togeth­er)

The Ramones’ First Press Release: We’re Part Musi­cians, Den­tists & Degen­er­ates (1975)

Hear Joey Ramone Sing a Piece by John Cage Adapt­ed from James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake

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Watch “The Woodswimmer,” a Stop Motion Film Made Entirely with Wood, and “Brutally Tedious” Techniques

in Random | August 3rd, 2017

Above you can watch “The Woodswim­mer,” a new stop-motion music video shot by Brett Foxwell. As Foxwell describes it, the film was shot with “a straight­for­ward tech­nique but one which is bru­tal­ly tedious to com­plete.”  Elab­o­rat­ing, he told the web­site This is Colos­sal, “Fas­ci­nat­ed with the shapes and tex­tures found in both new­ly-cut and long-dead pieces of wood, I envi­sioned a world com­posed entire­ly of these forms.”  “As I began to engage with the mate­r­i­al, I con­ceived a method using a milling machine and an ani­ma­tion cam­era set­up to scan through a wood sam­ple pho­to­graph­i­cal­ly and cap­ture its entire struc­ture. Although a dif­fi­cult and tedious tech­nique to refine, it yield­ed gor­geous imagery at once abstract and very real. Between the twist­ing growth rings, swirling rays, knot holes, ter­mites and rot, I found there is a lot going on inside of wood.”

Final­ly, Foxwell notes on his per­son­al web­site: “As a short film began to build from [the filmed sequences], I col­lab­o­rat­ed with bed­times, an ani­ma­tor and musi­cian of spe­cial tal­ents to write a song and help edit a tight visu­al and son­ic jour­ney through this won­drous and fas­ci­nat­ing mate­r­i­al. WoodSwim­mer is the result.”

Watch it, in all of its glo­ry, above.

via This is Colos­sal

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

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:

The His­to­ry of Stop-Motion Films: 39 Films, Span­ning 116 Years, Revis­it­ed in a 3‑Minute Video

Watch The Amaz­ing 1912 Ani­ma­tion of Stop-Motion Pio­neer Ladis­las Stare­vich, Star­ring Dead Bugs

Mes­mer­iz­ing GIFs Illus­trate the Art of Tra­di­tion­al Japan­ese Wood Join­ery — All Done With­out Screws, Nails, or Glue

Watch Japan­ese Wood­work­ing Mas­ters Cre­ate Ele­gant & Elab­o­rate Geo­met­ric Pat­terns with Wood

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Siri Can Sing Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody”

in Random | August 2nd, 2017

It’s true. And you can try it your­self, at home. Just sing “I see a lit­tle sil­hou­et­to of a man.” Then let Siri do the rest.

Have fun!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

65,000 Fans Break Into a Sin­ga­long of Queen’s “Bohemi­an Rhap­sody” at a Green Day Con­cert in London’s Hyde Park

1910 Fair­ground Organ Plays Queen’s “Bohemi­an Rhap­sody,” and It Works Like a Charm

Inside the Rhap­sody: A Short Doc­u­men­tary on the Mak­ing of Queen’s Clas­sic Song, ‘Bohemi­an Rhap­sody’ (2002)

Bohemi­an Grav­i­ty: String The­o­ry Explored With an A Cap­pel­la Ver­sion of Bohemi­an Rhap­sody

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Attempting to Set the World Record for Most Frida Kahlo Lookalikes in One Place: It Happened in Dallas

in Art, Random | July 14th, 2017

Fun fact: The Dal­las Muse­um of Art and the Lati­no Cen­ter for Lead­er­ship Devel­op­ment cel­e­brat­ed Fri­da Kahlo’s 110th birth­day last week. And the fes­tiv­i­ties were capped off with an attempt to set the Guin­ness World Record for the largest gath­er­ing of peo­ple dressed as Fri­da Kahlo in one space.

Accord­ing to the rules of Fri­da Fest, to par­tic­i­pate in the record attempt, indi­vid­u­als had to pro­vide their own cos­tume, and make sure their cos­tumes includ­ed the fol­low­ing ele­ments:

  • A uni­brow drawn onto the face join­ing the eye­brows. This can be done with make-up or by stick­ing hair.
  • Arti­fi­cial flow­ers worn in the hair, a min­i­mum of three arti­fi­cial flow­ers must be worn.
  • A red or pink shawl.
  • A flower-print­ed dress that extends to below the knees on all sides; the dress must not have any slits up the side.

Notes NPR, there’s “no offi­cial word yet on whether a record was set, but pri­or to Thurs­day, there did­n’t appear to be anoth­er record-hold­er list­ed in the Guin­ness World Records.”

You can see a gallery of 44 pho­tos on the muse­um’s Face­book page. Enjoy.

Pho­to Cour­tesy of Ash­ley Gongo­ra and Kathy Tran — at Dal­las Muse­um of Art.

Pho­to Cour­tesy of Ash­ley Gongo­ra and Kathy Tran — at Dal­las Muse­um of Art.

via Neatora­ma

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

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:

The Fri­da Kahlo Action Fig­ure

1933 Arti­cle on Fri­da Kahlo: “Wife of the Mas­ter Mur­al Painter Glee­ful­ly Dab­bles in Works of Art”

Fri­da Kahlo’s Col­or­ful Clothes Revealed for the First Time & Pho­tographed by Ishi­uchi Miyako

Fri­da Kahlo and Diego Rivera Vis­it Leon Trot­sky in Mex­i­co, 1938

The Artist as Artist’s Mod­el: Au Naturel Por­traits of Fri­da Kahlo Tak­en by Art Patron Julien Levy (1938)

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When a Cat Co-Authored a Paper in a Leading Physics Journal (1975)

in Physics, Random | July 5th, 2017

Back in 1975, Jack H. Het­her­ing­ton, a physics pro­fes­sor at Michi­gan State Uni­ver­si­ty, wrote a research paper on low–temperature physics for the respect­ed sci­en­tif­ic jour­nal Phys­i­cal Review Let­ters. Before send­ing it off, Het­her­ing­ton asked a col­league to review the paper, just to make sure it cov­ered the right bases. What hap­pened next Het­her­ing­ton explained in the 1982 book, More Ran­dom Walks in Sci­ence:

Before I sub­mit­ted [the arti­cle], I asked a col­league to read it over and he said, ‘It’s a fine paper, but they’ll send it right back.’ He explained that that is because of the Edi­tor’s rule that the word “we” should not be used in a paper with only a sin­gle author. Chang­ing the paper to the imper­son­al seemed too dif­fi­cult now, and it was all writ­ten and typed; there­fore, after an evening’s thought, I sim­ply asked the sec­re­tary to change the title page to include the name of the fam­i­ly cat, a Siamese called Chester, sired one sum­mer by Willard (one of the few unfixed male Siamese cats in Aspen, Col­orado). I added the ini­tials F D in front of the name to stand for Felix Domes­ti­cus and thus cre­at­ed F D C Willard.

The edi­tors even­tu­al­ly accept­ed the paper, “Two‑, Three‑, and Four-Atom Exchange Effects in bcc 3 He.” And the ruse last­ed until, remem­bers Het­her­ing­ton, “a vis­i­tor [came to the uni­ver­si­ty and] asked to talk to me, and since I was unavail­able asked to talk with Willard. Every­one laughed and soon the cat was out of the bag.” (Pun sure­ly intend­ed.) Appar­ent­ly only the jour­nal edi­tors did­n’t find humor in the joke.

Above, you can see F.D.C. Willard’s sig­na­ture (a paw print) on the front page of the arti­cle. The web­site, Today­I­Found­Out, has much more on this enchant­i­ng lit­tle sto­ry.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

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:

The Short­est-Known Paper Pub­lished in a Seri­ous Math Jour­nal: Two Suc­cinct Sen­tences 

The Famous Schrodinger’s Cat Thought Exper­i­ment Gets Brought to Life in an Off-Kil­ter Ani­ma­tion

Insane­ly Cute Cat Com­mer­cials from Stu­dio Ghi­b­li, Hayao Miyazaki’s Leg­endary Ani­ma­tion Shop

Nick Cave Nar­rates an Ani­mat­ed Film about the Cat Piano, the Twist­ed 18th Cen­tu­ry Musi­cal Instru­ment Designed to Treat Men­tal Ill­ness

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Dog Crashes a Performance of the Vienna Chamber Orchestra, in the Ancient City of Ephesus: The “Cutest Moment in Classical Music”

in Random | July 3rd, 2017

A quick one for all dog lovers out there. Last week, while per­form­ing Mendelssohn’s ‘Ital­ian’ Sym­pho­ny No.4 in the ancient city of Eph­esus, mem­bers of the Vien­na Cham­ber Orches­tra noticed some­thing strange out of the cor­ner of their eyes: a dog wan­der­ing on stage, mid per­for­mance, and tak­ing a seat, right at the feet of the first vio­lin­ist. The short clip above comes from Turk­ish pianist Fazil Say, who called it the “Cutest moment in clas­si­cal music.” Hard not to agree.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

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:

The Bohr-Ein­stein Debates, Reen­act­ed With Dog Pup­pets 

Kurt Von­negut Reveals “Why My Dog Is Not a Human­ist” in His Human­ist of the Year Award Speech (1992)

Nick Cave Nar­rates an Ani­mat­ed Film about the Cat Piano, the Twist­ed 18th Cen­tu­ry Musi­cal Instru­ment Designed to Treat Men­tal Ill­ness

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Stevie Nicks “Shows Us How to Kick Ass in High-Heeled Boots” in a 1983 Women’s Self Defense Manual

in Music, Random | May 9th, 2017

Yes­ter­day, on Twit­ter, Priscil­la Page remind­ed us of the time when “Ste­vie Nicks showed us how to kick ass in high-heeled boots in her body­guard’s self-defense book,” call­ing our atten­tion to the lit­tle-known 1983 book, Hands Off!: A Unique New Sys­tem of Self Defence Against Assault for the Women of Today.

The book itself was writ­ten by Bob Jones, an Aus­tralian mar­tial arts instruc­tor who dou­bled as a secu­ri­ty guard for Fleet­wood Mac, The Bea­t­les, The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Joe Cock­er and oth­er stars. And it fea­tured what Jones called “mnemon­ic movements”–essentially a series of nine subconscious/reflexive self-defense moves (like a swift knee to the groin). See Jones’ web­site for a more com­plete expla­na­tion of the exer­cise rou­tine that also pro­vid­ed, he notes, a great car­dio work­out.

Ste­vie Nicks agreed to take part in a pho­to­shoot where she would help demon­strate the nine mnemon­ic move­ments. Jones recalls,” This lady was a pro­fes­sion­al: in two hours I had a hun­dred of the most mag­nif­i­cent pho­tos ever offered to the mar­tial arts, and just one would make the cov­er [above].”

“On this day of the shoot I was stand­ing in my mar­tial arts train­ing uni­form, wear­ing my Black Belt. Then Ste­vie appeared, her hair done to resem­ble the mane of a lion. She was psy­ched up for some seri­ous pho­tograph­ing. Ste­vie wore her famil­iar thick-soled, thick-heeled, knee-high brown suede kid leather boots. High roll-over socks appeared over the top of these ele­gant Swedish boots and hung ten­ta­tive­ly around her knees.” “In these kick­ing-style pho­tographs the sun also made her dress par­tial­ly see-through: just enough to be artis­ti­cal­ly inter­est­ing.”

Hands Off is now long out of print. But you can find a series of images from the book on the Voic­es of East Anglia and Dan­ger­ous Minds web­sites.

via Priscil­la Page/Coudal

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

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:

Rad­i­cal French Phi­los­o­phy Meets Kung-Fu Cin­e­ma in Can Dialec­tics Break Bricks? (1973)

Kung Fu & Mar­tial Arts Movies Online

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George Saunders Tries to Order One Mousetrap Over The Phone

in Random | April 27th, 2017

This adven­ture in mod­ern shop­ping is brought to you by Click­hole.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

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:

How to Tell a Good Sto­ry, as Explained by George Saun­ders, Ira Glass, Ken Burns, Scott Simon, Cather­ine Burns & Oth­ers

George Saun­ders Demys­ti­fies the Art of Sto­ry­telling in a Short Ani­mat­ed Doc­u­men­tary

10 Free Sto­ries by George Saun­ders, Author of Tenth of Decem­ber, “The Best Book You’ll Read This Year”

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