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. 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:

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

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. 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:

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”

Last Thurs­day was Nation­al Pen­cil Day, which com­mem­o­rates, accord­ing to The New York Pub­lic Library (NYPL), “the day in 1858 when Philadel­phia immi­grant Hymen Lip­man patent­ed his inven­tion for a pen­cil with an eras­er on top, cre­at­ing the con­ve­nient­ly-designed pen­cil we know and love.”

Of course, Lip­man’s inven­tion did­n’t take place in a vac­u­um. Through­out the 18th and 19th cen­turies, Amer­i­can inven­tors were hard at work, try­ing to find ways to make improve­ments to the pen­cil, whose his­to­ry traces back to 1564. Dur­ing those ear­ly days of our repub­lic, “Amer­i­can pen­cil-mak­ing was in sor­ry shape,” writes NYPL. “Poor mate­ri­als made domes­tic pen­cils smudgy and frail, in com­par­i­son to their supe­ri­or British coun­ter­parts, which were made of pur­er graphite.” So the press­ing ques­tion became: how to improve the qual­i­ty of the graphite? Enter Hen­ry David Thore­au, Amer­i­ca’s great essay­ist, poet, philoso­pher, abo­li­tion­ist, nat­u­ral­ist and tax resister. And appar­ent­ly inno­va­tor too:

Seek­ing employ­ment after study­ing at Har­vard, [Thore­au] worked at his father’s pen­cil fac­to­ry, which Edward Emer­son — son of Ralph Wal­do Emer­son — recalled as being some­what bet­ter than the typ­i­cal Amer­i­can pen­cil fac­to­ry at the time. Still, Hen­ry David Thore­au aspired to improve the fam­i­ly busi­ness, so he hit the books at the Har­vard Col­lege library to find out more.

…Hav­ing no knowl­edge of chem­istry, Hen­ry David nev­er­the­less came up with a for­mu­la to make a pen­cil rival­ing that made in Europe. It was the first of its kind in Amer­i­ca.

Soon, Thore­au pen­cils were tak­ing over the mar­ket, and the fam­i­ly’s busi­ness grew and grew. Thore­au pen­cils were award­ed twice by Mechan­ic Asso­ci­a­tions and gained a local rep­u­ta­tion in Boston for their qual­i­ty. Ralph Wal­do Emer­son him­self praised them. News of Thore­au’s pen­cils spread quick­ly, and soon, Pet­ros­ki writes, they were “with­out peer in this coun­try.”

Add an eras­er to Thore­au’s pen­cil, and you’ve got Hymen Lip­man’s patent for the pen­cil you’re pret­ty much using today. You can see pic­tures of Thore­au’s pen­cil over at The New York Pub­lic Library.

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!

via NYPL

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hen­ry David Thore­au on When Civ­il Dis­obe­di­ence and Resis­tance Are Jus­ti­fied (1849)

David Rees Presents a Primer on the Arti­sanal Craft of Pen­cil Sharp­en­ing

Pat­ti Smith on Vir­ginia Woolf’s Cane, Charles Dick­ens’ Pen & Oth­er Cher­ished Lit­er­ary Tal­is­mans

David Rees and His One-Man Arti­sanal Pen­cil Sharp­en­ing Ser­vice

Hen­ry David Thore­au on When Civ­il Dis­obe­di­ence Against Bad Gov­ern­ments Is Jus­ti­fied: An Ani­mat­ed Intro­duc­tion

Pret­ty cool item. A new exhi­bi­tion in New York, called “Gul­liv­er’s Gate,” shrinks the world’s most famous sites–everything from the Taj Mahal to The Great Wall of China–into minia­ture ver­sions of them­selves, rough­ly 87 times small­er than the orig­i­nal. In the video above, you can take a 360 degree tour of parts of the exhi­bi­tion. Click on the clip, swirl around, and check out the tiny cre­ations. It’s par­tic­u­lar­ly neat if you try it on your phone.

Below, find an intro­duc­tion to the project and don’t miss their behind-the-scenes footage.

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!