The Oldest Known Sentence Written in an Alphabet Has Been Found on a Head-Lice Comb (Circa 1700 BC)

in History | January 10th, 2023

Image by Daf­na Gaz­it, Israel Antiq­ui­ties Author­i­ty

I don’t recall any of my ele­men­tary-school class­mates look­ing for­ward to head-lice inspec­tion day. But had archae­o­log­i­cal progress been a few decades more advanced at the time, the teach­ers might have turned it into a major his­to­ry les­son. For it was on a comb, designed to remove head lice, that researchers in south­ern Israel recent­ly found the old­est known sen­tence writ­ten in an alpha­bet. Invent­ed around 1800 BC, that Canaan­ite alpha­bet “was stan­dard­ized by the Phoeni­cians in ancient Lebanon,” writes the Guardian’s Ian Sam­ple, lat­er becom­ing “the foun­da­tion for ancient Greek, Latin and most mod­ern lan­guages in Europe today.”

The comb itself, dat­ed to around 1700 BC, bears a sim­ple Canaan­ite mes­sage: “May this tusk root out the lice of the hair and the beard.” As Sam­ple notes, “ancient combs were made from wood, bone and ivory, but the lat­ter would have been expen­sive, import­ed lux­u­ries. There were no ele­phants in Canaan at the time.”

Despite its small size, then, this comb must have been a big-tick­et item. The New York Times’ Oliv­er Whang writes that these facts have already inspired a new set of ques­tions, many of them not strict­ly lin­guis­tic in nature: “Where was the ivory comb inscribed? Who inscribed it? What pur­pose did the inscrip­tion serve?”

As our lice-com­bat­ing tech­nol­o­gy has evolved over the mil­len­nia, so have our alpha­bets. From the Canaan­ite script “the alpha­bet con­tin­ued to evolve, from Phoeni­cian to Old Hebrew to Old Ara­ma­ic to Ancient Greek to Latin, becom­ing the basis for today’s mod­ern Eng­lish char­ac­ters.” And that was­n’t its only path: Korea, where I live, has a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent alpha­bet of its own, but one that caught on for the same rea­sons as its dis­tant cousins else­where in the world. The key is sim­plic­i­ty, as against old­er writ­ing sys­tems in which one char­ac­ter rep­re­sent­ed one word or syl­la­ble: “Match­ing one let­ter to one sound made writ­ing and read­ing far eas­i­er to learn,” Whang writes. Not that some stu­dents, even today, would­n’t sub­mit to the lice comb rather than prac­tice their ABCs.

via Smith­son­ian

Relat­ed con­tent:

How to Write in Cuneiform, the Old­est Writ­ing Sys­tem in the World: A Short, Charm­ing Intro­duc­tion

The Evo­lu­tion of the Alpha­bet: A Col­or­ful Flow­chart, Cov­er­ing 3,800 Years, Takes You From Ancient Egypt to Today

How Writ­ing Has Spread Across the World, from 3000 BC to This Year: An Ani­mat­ed Map

The Atlas of Endan­gered Alpha­bets: A Free Online Atlas That Helps Pre­serve Writ­ing Sys­tems That May Soon Dis­ap­pear

An Ancient Egypt­ian Home­work Assign­ment from 1800 Years Ago: Some Things Are Tru­ly Time­less

What the Roset­ta Stone Actu­al­ly Says

Based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities, the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

An Introduction to Hokusai’s Great Wave, One of the Most Recognizable Artworks in the World

in Art, Travel | January 10th, 2023

You need not be a stu­dent of Japan­ese Ukiyo‑e wood­block prints to rec­og­nize artist Kat­sushi­ka Hoku­sai’s Under the Wave Off Kana­gawa — or the Great Wave, as it has come to be known.

Like Leonar­do da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus, it’s been repro­duced on all man­ner of improb­a­ble items and sub­ject­ed to lib­er­al reimag­in­ing — some­thing Sarah Urist Green, describes in the above episode of her series The Art Assign­ment as “numer­ous crimes against this image per­pe­trat­ed across the inter­net.”

Such repur­pos­ing is the ulti­mate com­pli­ment.

The Great Wave is so graph­i­cal­ly indeli­ble, any­one who co-opts it can expect it to do a lot of heavy lift­ing.

For those who both­er look­ing close­ly enough to take in the three boat­loads of fish­er­men strug­gling to escape with their lives, it’s also nar­ra­tive­ly grip­ping, a ter­ri­fy­ing wood­block still from an eas­i­ly imag­ined dis­as­ter film.

It’s also an homage to Mount Fuji, one of a series of 36.

Thou­sands of prints were pro­duced in the ear­ly 1830s for the domes­tic tourist trade. Vis­i­tors to Mount Fuji snapped these sou­venirs up for about the same price as a bowl of noo­dle soup.

Green, a cura­tor and edu­ca­tor, points out how the water-obsessed Hoku­sai bor­rowed ele­ments from both the Rin­pa school and West­ern real­ism for the Great Wave. The lat­ter can be seen in the use of lin­ear per­spec­tive, a low hori­zon line, and Pruss­ian blue.

An 1867 posthu­mous show­ing at the Inter­na­tion­al Exhi­bi­tion in Paris turned such notable artists as Claude Mon­et, Edgar Degas, Mary Cas­satt, and Hen­ri de Toulouse-Lautrec into major Ukiyo‑e fans.

With­out them, this icon­ic plung­ing break­er might nev­er have spilled over onto our dorm room walls, our show­er cur­tains, our yoga mats, t‑shirts, Doc Martens, street art, and tat­toos.

Hell, there’s even a Lego set and an offi­cial San­rio char­ac­ters greet­ing card show­ing Hel­lo Kit­ty non­cha­lant­ly surf­ing the crest in a two piece bathing suit, more inter­est­ed in dis­port­ing her­self than con­sid­er­ing the sort of extreme ocean­ic events we can expect more of, owing to cli­mate change.

Relat­ed Con­tent 

The Ghosts and Mon­sters of Hoku­sai: See the Famed Wood­block Artist’s Fear­some & Amus­ing Visions of Strange Appari­tions

Thir­ty-Six Views of Mount Fuji: A Deluxe New Art Book Presents Hokusai’s Mas­ter­piece, Includ­ing The Great Wave Off Kana­gawa

The Evo­lu­tion of The Great Wave off Kana­gawa: See Four Ver­sions That Hoku­sai Paint­ed Over Near­ly 40 Years

View 103 Dis­cov­ered Draw­ings by Famed Japan­ese Wood­cut Artist Kat­sushi­ka Hoku­sai

Down­load 215,000 Japan­ese Wood­block Prints by Mas­ters Span­ning the Tradition’s 350-Year His­to­ry

- Ayun Hal­l­i­day is the Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine and author, most recent­ly, of Cre­ative, Not Famous: The Small Pota­to Man­i­festo.  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Watch Cher Play All the Major Parts in a 12-Minute Remake of West Side Story (1978)

in Gender, Music, Television, Theatre | January 9th, 2023

Cher, the monony­mous God­dess of Pop, gift­ed the small screens of the 70s with a lot of over-the-top glam­our.

Her work eth­ic, comedic flair and unapolo­getic embrace of camp helped her stand out from the crowd, con­fer­ring the fame she had longed for since child­hood, when she com­man­deered her 5th grade class­mates for an unof­fi­cial, and, from the sounds of it, all-female pro­duc­tion of Okla­homa, cov­er­ing the male roles her­self when the boys declined to par­tic­i­pate.

Some twen­ty years lat­er, she was a house­hold name — one that was no longer append­ed to that of ex-hus­band Son­ny Bono, co-host of the pop­u­lar epony­mous vari­ety hour in which they sang, hammed their way through goofy skits, and bust­ed each other’s chops to the delight of the live stu­dio audi­ence.

The 1978 tele­vi­sion event Cher…special found her bring­ing many of those same tal­ents to bear, along with coun­try star Dol­ly Par­ton, rock­er Rod Stew­art, out­ré glam band, The Tubes, and the crowd-pleas­ing array of span­gled, skin-bar­ing Bob Mack­ie designs that defined her look.

More shock­ing than any of Mackie’s cre­ations or the Musi­cal Bat­tle to Save Cher’s Soul, a set piece where­in Par­ton and a gospel choir endeav­or to coax the diva from a kinky dis­co hellscape, is the star’s 12-and-a-half minute solo ver­sion of West Side Sto­ry, above.

This is no mere med­ley. Cher puts the big pot in the lit­tle, don­ning mul­ti­ple wigs, a fac­sim­i­le of the chaste white par­ty dress Natal­ie Wood wore to the dance at the gym, and flats (!) to embody Tony, Maria, Ani­ta, Bernar­do and var­i­ous Jets, sans irony.

Some of Stephen Sond­heim’s award-win­ning songs have been trans­posed to a dif­fer­ent key to accom­mo­date Cher’s con­tral­to, and when they haven’t, her famous voice is stretched a bit thin.

Vocal­ly, she makes a more con­vinc­ing Jet than she does the ingenue, Maria.

(Speak­ing of which, let’s not for­get that that’s ghost singer Marni Nixon, not Wood, as Maria on the 1961 film’s sound­track…)

Why West Side Sto­ry?

Why not God­spell or Jesus Christ Super­star? Wouldn’t those fit bet­ter the­mat­i­cal­ly with the por­tion of the spe­cial that has Dol­ly and a white-robed cho­rus bat­tling the denizens of Satan’s sexy playpen?

Two words:

1. Vari­ety. That’s what Cher was ped­dling in the 70s.

2. Nos­tal­gia. As Cher recalls in On the Dance Floor: Spin­ning Out on Screen:

I remem­ber danc­ing around my liv­ing room to West Side Sto­ry (1961). I would sing all the parts and dance every sin­gle dance, when there was no one else around.

That admis­sion helps us reframe the cringe fac­tor. Before ye cast the first stone, think: hast thou nev­er stood before a mir­ror singing into a hair­brush?

And if, by some chance, you’re unfa­mil­iar with West Side Sto­ry’s drama­tis per­son­ae and plot, don’t look to Cher for clar­i­fi­ca­tion.

Instead, we refer you to Romeo and Juli­et, and for some mod­ern con­text touch­ing on green screens, gen­der­flu­id­i­ty, and the col­or-con­scious cast­ing of the 2021 remake, the below episode of Chris Frank’s snarky Bad Music Video The­ater.

Relat­ed Con­tent 

David Bowie and Cher Sing Duet of “Young Amer­i­cans” and Oth­er Songs on 1975 Vari­ety Show

Leonard Bern­stein Awk­ward­ly Turns the Screws on Tenor Jose Car­reras While Record­ing West Side Sto­ry (1984)

- Ayun Hal­l­i­day is the Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine and author, most recent­ly, of Cre­ative, Not Famous: The Small Pota­to Man­i­festo.  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

Visit the “Cat Islands” of Japan, Where Felines Outnumber Humans

in Nature, Travel | January 9th, 2023

The world has heard much about the aging and shrink­ing of Japan­ese soci­ety, a process that has cre­at­ed ghost towns like those we’ve pre­vi­ous­ly fea­tured here on Open Cul­ture. But how­ev­er seri­ous­ly Japan’s pop­u­la­tion may be con­tract­ing, its love of cats abides undi­min­ished. Hence the replace­ment of peo­ple by felines — effec­tive­ly, any­way — on the island of Aoshi­ma, vis­it­ed in the CBS Sun­day Morn­ing seg­ment above. “Here, cats out­num­ber humans more than ten to one,” says cor­re­spon­dent Seth Doane. Its “tiny fish­ing vil­lage once had a pop­u­la­tion of 800 peo­ple, but the sar­dine fish­eries deplet­ed, jobs moved to cities, and human res­i­dents left the island.”

Such is the way, it seems, of any post-indus­tri­al soci­ety — but as always, Japan has ways of set­ting itself apart. On Aoshi­ma, Doane says, “the big moment of the day is when the tourist boat shows up. It’s 45 min­utes of bliss for all involved,” includ­ing the cat-lovers bear­ing treats as well as all the peck­ish ani­mals await­ing them at the dock. But Aoshi­ma is only one of ten such “cat islands” around Japan. The much larg­er (but still small) Tashiro­ji­ma boasts not just over 100 res­i­dent cats, but also Neko-jin­ja (猫神社), lit­er­al­ly “Cat Shrine,” one of a host of such feline-ded­i­cat­ed reli­gious sites in the island’s Miya­gi Pre­fec­ture.

Whether Japan’s atti­tude toward cats amounts to wor­ship remains a mat­ter of debate. But the fact remains that cats have proven to be the sal­va­tion of more places in Japan than a few of its islands: take Tama (lit­er­al­ly “ball,” but the Japan­ese equiv­a­lent of “Kit­ty”), a cal­i­co whose assump­tion of the posi­tion of “sta­tion mas­ter” brought a train stop in Wakaya­ma Pre­fec­ture back from the brink of clo­sure. In the old days, Japan­ese cats did the dirty work of killing rodents that would oth­er­wise infest fish­ing boats and destroy silk­worm farms; today, their ances­tors drum up tourism. The Japan­ese may love cats with an enthu­si­asm unknown in the rest of the world, but clear­ly they still expect them to earn their keep.

Relat­ed con­tent:

Cats in Japan­ese Wood­block Prints: How Japan’s Favorite Ani­mals Came to Star in Its Pop­u­lar Art

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

Japan­ese Researcher Sleeps in the Same Loca­tion as Her Cat for 24 Con­sec­u­tive Nights!

Two Cats Keep Try­ing to Get Into a Japan­ese Art Muse­um … and Keep Get­ting Turned Away: Meet the Thwart­ed Felines, Ken-chan and Go-chan

In 1183, a Chi­nese Poet Describes Being Domes­ti­cat­ed by His Own Cats

Dis­cov­er the Ghost Towns of Japan — Where Scare­crows Replace Peo­ple, and a Man Lives in an Aban­doned Ele­men­tary School Gym

Based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities, the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

How to Watch Hundreds of Free Movies on YouTube

in Film | January 6th, 2023

We lived in the age of movie the­aters, then we lived in the age of home video, and now we live in the age of stream­ing. Like every peri­od in the his­to­ry of cin­e­ma, ours has its advan­tages and its dis­ad­van­tages. The qua­si-reli­gios­i­ty of the cinephile view­ing expe­ri­ence is, arguably, not as well served by click­ing on a Youtube video as it is by attend­ing a screen­ing at a grand revival house. But on the whole, we do have the advan­tage of access, when­ev­er and wher­ev­er we like, to a great many films that most of us may have been whol­ly unable to see just a cou­ple of decades ago — and often, we can watch them for free.

That said, these are still rel­a­tive­ly ear­ly days for on-demand view­ing, and find­ing out just where to do it isn’t as easy as it could be. That’s why we’ve round­ed up this col­lec­tion of Youtube chan­nels with free movies, which togeth­er con­sti­tute one big meta-col­lec­tion of hun­dreds of films. Among them are numer­ous black-and-white clas­sics, of course, but also crit­i­cal­ly acclaimed pic­tures by inter­na­tion­al auteurs, rather less crit­i­cal­ly acclaimed (but nonethe­less enjoy­able) cult favorites, doc­u­men­taries on a wide vari­ety of sub­jects, and even twen­ty-first-cen­tu­ry Hol­ly­wood releas­es.

Which films you can watch will vary, unfor­tu­nate­ly, depend­ing on which part of the world you hap­pen to be watch­ing them in. But no mat­ter your loca­tion, you should eas­i­ly be able to find more than a few worth­while selec­tions on all these chan­nels. One under-appre­ci­at­ed aspect of our stream­ing age is that, though the num­ber of choic­es may some­times over­whelm, it’s nev­er been eas­i­er to give a movie a chance. One click may, after all, trans­port you into a pic­ture that changes the way you expe­ri­ence cin­e­ma itself — and if it does­n’t, well, at least the price was right.

If you know of oth­er YouTube chan­nels that legit­i­mate­ly host films online, please add them to the com­ments sec­tion below.

And, for more films, be sure to explore our col­lec­tion, 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More

Relat­ed Con­tent 

60 Free Film Noir Movies

Watch 3,000+ Films Free Online from the Nation­al Film Board of Cana­da

Watch 30+ Excep­tion­al Short Films for Free in The New Yorker’s Online Screen­ing Room

Watch More Than 400 Clas­sic Kore­an Films Free Online Thanks to the Kore­an Film Archive

Watch 70 Movies in HD from Famed Russ­ian Stu­dio Mos­film: Clas­sic Films, Beloved Come­dies, Tarkovsky, Kuro­sawa & More

Kino Lor­ber Puts Online 50 Free Films: Watch Clas­sics by Jean-Luc Godard, Derek Jar­man, Tai­ka Wait­i­ti & Oth­er Major Film­mak­ers

Cha­rade, the Best Hitch­cock Film Hitch­cock Nev­er Made: Stars Cary Grant & Audrey Hep­burn

Watch Free Cult Films by Stan­ley Kubrick, Fritz Lang, Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi & More on the New Kino Cult Stream­ing Ser­vice

Based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities, the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 5 ) |

Watch David Letterman’s Complete Interview with Volodymyr Zelenskyy

in Current Affairs, Television | January 6th, 2023

In a spe­cial episode of My Next Guest Needs No Intro­duc­tion with David Let­ter­man, the icon­ic TV host trav­eled to Kyiv to inter­view Pres­i­dent Volodymyr Zelen­skyy. The con­ver­sa­tion took place in a pro­tect­ed sub­way sta­tion, in front of a small live audi­ence. About Zelen­skyy, Let­ter­man said: “When you first learn about the guy, it seems impos­si­ble to not find him appeal­ing, and his sto­ry to be astound­ing. You just don’t see actions and deeds like this, peo­ple behav­ing like this, on the right side of things.” Above, thanks to Net­flix, you can watch the inter­view in its entire­ty.

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 Mak­ing of Mod­ern Ukraine: A Free Online Course from Yale Uni­ver­si­ty, Fea­tur­ing 23 Lec­tures

How Volodymyr Zelen­skyy Went from Play­ing a Pres­i­dent on a Com­e­dy TV Show to Very Real Life

How Ukraine’s Works of Art Are Being Saved in Wartime–Using the Lessons of World War II

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

How to Make Ancient Mesopotamian Beer: See the 4,000-Year-Old Brewing Method Put to the Test

in Food & Drink, History | January 5th, 2023

The philoso­pher Giambat­tista Vico had quite a few ideas, but we remem­ber him for one above all: Verum esse ipsum fac­tum, often short­ened to the prin­ci­ple of verum fac­tum. It means, in essence, that we under­stand what we make. In accor­dance with verum fac­tum, then, if you want to under­stand, say, ancient Mesopotami­an beer, you should make some ancient Mesopotami­an beer your­self. Such is the path tak­en in the video above by Max Miller, host of the Youtube series Tast­ing His­to­ry.

We pre­vi­ous­ly fea­tured Tast­ing His­to­ry here on Open Cul­ture for its humor­ous and as-faith­ful-as-pos­si­ble re-cre­ations of dish­es from the past, includ­ing peri­ods as recent as the nine­teenth cen­tu­ry and as dis­tant as the dawn of civ­i­liza­tion. No mat­ter the era, human­i­ty has always been eat­ing and drink­ing — and, just as soon as the nec­es­sary tech­nol­o­gy became avail­able, get­ting drunk. That we were doing it 4,000 years ago is evi­denced by the recipe Miller fol­lows in his quest to re-cre­ate Mesopotami­an beer, for which even the research proves to be no sim­ple mat­ter.

In fact, he begins with not a recipe at all, but a hymn to Ninkasi, the Sumer­ian god­dess of beer. But this holy text con­sti­tutes only a start­ing point: Miller goes on to con­sult not just oth­er infor­ma­tion pre­served on archae­o­log­i­cal arti­facts, but at least one expert in the field. The result­ing beer-mak­ing pro­ce­dure isn’t with­out its ambi­gu­i­ty, but you can cer­tain­ly try it at home. You can try it at home if you’ve got about a week to do so, that is; even ancient beer need­ed to fer­ment. (If you’re any­thing like Miller, you’ll use the wait­ing time to research more about Mesopotami­an soci­ety and the sig­nif­i­cant place of beer with­in it.)

How does the final prod­uct taste? Miller describes it as not car­bon­at­ed but “effer­ves­cent,” with a “nut­ti­ness” to its fla­vor: “I’m get­ting, like, a lit­tle bit of a car­damom.” (Mod­erns who pre­fer a sweet­er beer will want to add date syrup.) Per­haps it would go well with a Baby­lon­ian lamb stew, or one of the oth­er ancient dish­es Miller has re-cre­at­ed on Tast­ing His­to­ry. Such a meal would pro­vide a fine occa­sion to test the prin­ci­ple of verum fac­tum — or an even fin­er way to test the Sumer­ian proverb “He who does not know beer, does not know what is good.”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Dis­cov­er the Old­est Beer Recipe in His­to­ry From Ancient Sume­ria, 1800 B.C.

Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty Pro­fes­sor Cooks 4000-Year-Old Recipes from Ancient Mesopotamia, and Lets You See How They Turned Out

Watch a 4000-Year Old Baby­lon­ian Recipe for Stew, Found on a Cuneiform Tablet, Get Cooked by Researchers from Yale & Har­vard

5,000-Year-Old Chi­nese Beer Recipe Gets Recre­at­ed by Stan­ford Stu­dents

Beer Archae­ol­o­gy: Yes, It’s a Thing

Tast­ing His­to­ry: A Hit YouTube Series Shows How to Cook the Foods of Ancient Greece & Rome, Medieval Europe, and Oth­er Places & Peri­ods

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities, the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

The Map of Engineering: A New Animation Shows How All of the Different Fields in Engineering Fit Together

in Science, Technology | January 5th, 2023

In his lat­est ani­ma­tion, physi­cist and sci­ence writer Dominic Wal­li­man maps out the entire field of engi­neer­ing and all of its sub­dis­ci­plines. Civ­il engi­neer­ing, chem­i­cal engi­neer­ing, bio engi­neer­ing, bio­med­ical engi­neer­ing, mechan­i­cal engi­neer­ing, aero­space engi­neer­ing, marine engi­neer­ing, elec­tri­cal engi­neer­ing, com­put­er engineering–they’re all cov­ered here.

In the past, we’ve fea­tured Wal­li­man’s oth­er edu­ca­tion­al ani­ma­tions that cov­er Biol­o­gy, Physics, Chem­istry, Math­e­mat­ics, Quan­tum Com­put­ing, Com­put­er Sci­ence, and more. Click the links to explore each video.

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 Map of Com­put­er Sci­ence: New Ani­ma­tion Presents a Sur­vey of Com­put­er Sci­ence, from Alan Tur­ing to “Aug­ment­ed Real­i­ty”

The Map of Math­e­mat­ics: Ani­ma­tion Shows How All the Dif­fer­ent Fields in Math Fit Togeth­er

The Map of Physics: Ani­ma­tion Shows How All the Dif­fer­ent Fields in Physics Fit Togeth­er

The Map of Chem­istry: New Ani­ma­tion Sum­ma­rizes the Entire Field of Chem­istry in 12 Min­utes

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 13 ) |

What’s Entering the Public Domain in 2023: Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, Franz Kafka’s Amerika & More

in Books, Film, Music | January 4th, 2023

It’s safe to say that few, if any, of us alive today were doing any movie-going in 1927. But that should­n’t stop us from rec­og­niz­ing the impor­tance of that year to cin­e­ma itself. It saw the release of, among oth­er pic­tures, The Lodger, with which the young Alfred Hitch­cock first ful­ly assem­bled his sig­na­ture mechan­ics of sus­pense; Metrop­o­lis, Fritz Lang’s still-influ­en­tial vision of Art Deco dystopia; F. W. Mur­nau’s Sun­rise, a lav­ish roman­tic dra­ma com­plete with sound effects; and even the very first fea­ture-length “talkie,” The Jazz Singer star­ring Al Jol­son. And don’t even get us start­ed on what a year 1927 was for lit­er­a­ture.

Rather, take it from Hyper­al­ler­gic’s Rhea Nay­yar, who high­lights Franz Kafka’s posthu­mous­ly pub­lished first nov­el Ameri­ka, which is now “con­sid­ered one of his more real­is­tic and humor­ous works.” Nay­yar also men­tions Vir­ginia Woolf’s much bet­ter-known To the Light­house, which, like Ameri­ka as well as all the afore­men­tioned films, has just entered the pub­lic domain in the Unit­ed States in 2023 for any­one to enjoy and use as they please.

So has Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Case-Book of Sher­lock Holmes, the final book of sto­ries fea­tur­ing that icon­ic detec­tive, Ernest Hem­ing­way’s col­lec­tion Men With­out Women, Her­mann Hes­se’s Der Step­pen­wolf, and even the very first Hardy Boys nov­el, The Tow­er Trea­sure.

You’ll find many such notable books, movies, and musi­cal com­po­si­tions — that last group includ­ing such immor­tal tunes as “The Best Things in Life are Free,” “Puttin’ on the Ritz” and “(I Scream You Scream, We All Scream for) Ice Cream” — round­ed up here by Jen­nifer Jenk­ins, direc­tor of Duke Law School’s Cen­ter for the Study of the Pub­lic Domain. She also explains why we should care: “1927 was a long time ago. The vast major­i­ty of works from 1927 are out of cir­cu­la­tion. When they enter the pub­lic domain in 2023, any­one can res­cue them from obscu­ri­ty and make them avail­able, where we can all dis­cov­er, enjoy, and breathe new life into them.” We know that many works cre­at­ed in 1927 have stood the test of time; now to find out what they’ll inspire us to cre­ate in 2023.

Find a list of impor­tant works enter­ing the pub­lic domain here.

via Duke Uni­ver­si­ty Law School

Relat­ed con­tent:

The Lodger: Alfred Hitchcock’s First Tru­ly ‘Hitch­cock­ian’ Movie (1927)

Metrop­o­lis: Watch Fritz Lang’s 1927 Mas­ter­piece

Free: F. W. Murnau’s Sun­rise, the 1927 Mas­ter­piece Vot­ed the 5th Best Movie of All Time

Why Should We Read Vir­ginia Woolf? A TED-Ed Ani­ma­tion Makes the Case

Franz Kaf­ka: An Ani­mat­ed Intro­duc­tion to His Lit­er­ary Genius

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities, the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 2 ) |

Joni Mitchell’s Catalog of Albums Now on YouTube: Stream Them Online

in Music, YouTube | January 4th, 2023

2022 — anoth­er dif­fi­cult year for so many — has drawn to a close.

While not a rem­e­dy for all the hard­ships and pri­va­tions we’ve been privy to, Joni Mitchell’s music remains good med­i­cine. Lis­ten­ing to her always makes us feel more con­nect­ed, reflec­tive and calm for at least an hour or two.

Lucky us. The beloved singer-song­writer has giv­en us a New Year’s gift — all her albums post­ed to her offi­cial Youtube chan­nel.

What a love­ly way to ush­er the old year off­stage, and qui­et­ly wel­come the new.

We all have our alle­giances, though many who iden­ti­fy as fans may dis­cov­er they’ve missed a cou­ple releas­es along the way.

She has, to date, released 19 stu­dio albums, 5 live albums, and an EP, as well as inspir­ing 2 trib­ute albums. A recent remark on Elton John’s Rock­et Hour left us hope­ful that more may be in the off­ing.

Sir Elton is but one of many well known musi­cians who are unabashed Mitchell fans. Artists as diverse as Har­ry Styles, k.d. lang, and Her­bie Han­cock have writ­ten songs in response to their favorite Joni cuts.

And the inter­net teems with cov­ers from both heavy hit­ters and unknowns. (See them orga­nized by song title on Mitchel­l’s web­site, where “Both Sides Now” remains the champ with a whop­ping 1576 ren­di­tions.)

Her fourth album, 1971’s Blue, seems to gar­ner the most fer­vent praise…

Tay­lor Swift: She wrote it about her deep­est pains and most haunt­ing demons. Songs like ‘Riv­er,’ which is just about her regrets and doubts of her­self – I think this album is my favorite because it explores some­body’s soul so deeply.”

James Tay­lor:  I said it prob­a­bly too many times that Joni is like, you tap the tree, and you know, it’s like maple syrup. This stuff, this nec­tar comes out of the most unusu­al places.

Jew­el: On Blue, you hear every­thing she expe­ri­enced, the highs and the lows. It’s such a lone­ly album — not in the “I don’t have any friends” sense but in the sense that you’re a lit­tle bit removed, and always watch­ing. It takes a lot of courage to be that hon­est, espe­cial­ly as a woman. 

Prince on The Hiss­ing of Sum­mer Lawns:

It was the last album I loved all the way through.

Boy George on Court and Spark:

I’ve bought this for many peo­ple because it is prob­a­bly her most acces­si­ble [album]. I love unusu­al voic­es and I’ve sat and cried to so many of her songs. My favorite is Car On A Hill because I’ve done what it’s about: wait­ed for the boyfriend to turn up as the cars go by.

Björk on 1977’s dou­ble album, Don Juan’s Reck­less Daugh­ter and Heji­ra:

I think it was that acci­den­tal thing in Ice­land, where the wrong albums arrive to shore, because I was obsessed with Don Juan’s Reck­less Daugh­ter and Heji­ra as a teenag­er. I hear much more of her in those albums. She almost made her own type of music style with those, it’s more a wom­an’s world.”

Sis­ters Danielle and Este Haim on 1974’s live album Miles of Aisles:

There’s a lit­tle bit of every­thing. Songs from all her albums up until then, and she’s play­ing them with the L.A. Express, which was this amaz­ing jazz band… a reimag­in­ing of a lot of her ear­ly work through this jazz lens.

Enjoy a love­ly wan­der through Joni Mitchell’s oeu­vre here. When you click on this page, scroll down to the “Albums & Sin­gles” sec­tion, and then move (from left to right) through the entire discog­ra­phy.

Relat­ed Con­tent 

Joni Mitchell Tells Elton John the Sto­ries Behind Her Icon­ic Songs: “Both Sides Now,” “Carey” & More

Watch the Full Set of Joni Mitchell’s Amaz­ing Come­back Per­for­mance at the New­port Folk Fes­ti­val

Songs by Joni Mitchell Re-Imag­ined as Pulp Fic­tion Book Cov­ers & Vin­tage Movie Posters

Hear Demos & Out­takes of Joni Mitchell’s Blue on the 50th Anniver­sary of the Clas­sic Album

How Joni Mitchell Learned to Play Gui­tar Again After a 2015 Brain Aneurysm–and Made It Back to the New­port Folk Fes­ti­val

How Joni Mitchell Wrote “Wood­stock,” the Song that Defined the Leg­endary Music Fes­ti­val, Even Though She Wasn’t There (1969)

- Ayun Hal­l­i­day is the Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine and author, most recent­ly, of Cre­ative, Not Famous: The Small Pota­to Man­i­festo.  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

“Weird Al” Yankovic Breaks Down His Most Iconic Tracks: “Eat It,” “Amish Paradise,” “White and Nerdy,” and His Other Hilarious Songs

in Comedy, Music | January 3rd, 2023

Few things could have been more amus­ing to a twelve-year-old in 1996 than an Amish-themed par­o­dy of the late Coo­lio’s por­ten­tous­ly grim life-in-the-hood anthem “Gangsta’s Par­adise.” As luck would have it, “Weird Al” Yankovic released just such a song in 1996, when I hap­pened to be twelve years old myself. Like every­one who’s been a kid at some point in the past 40 years, I grew up hear­ing and appre­ci­at­ing Yankovic’s pro­lif­ic out­put of par­o­dies, pas­tich­es, and even orig­i­nal songs. From “Eat It” to “Smells like Nir­vana” to “White and Nerdy,” there was hard­ly a pop-music phase of my child­hood, ado­les­cence, and ear­ly adult­hood that he did­n’t make fun­ny.

That’s to make fun­ny, as dis­tinct from to make fun of: unlike that of a pre­de­ces­sor in com­e­dy song­writ­ing like Tom Lehrer, Yankovic’s body of work evi­dences not the least ten­den­cy toward harsh­ness or ridicule.

Hence his appeal from his very first record­ing “My Bol­og­o­na,” an accor­dion-based par­o­dy of “My Sharona” record­ed in the bath­room of his col­lege radio sta­tion, to no less an advo­cate of silli­ness than Dr. Demen­to, whose air­play launched the young Weird Al’s career — a career that, as Yankovic acknowl­edges while telling the sto­ries behind his icon­ic songs in the GQ video above, has not gone with­out its strokes of luck.

Yet few liv­ing per­form­ers more clear­ly per­son­i­fy the old apho­rism describ­ing luck as the meet­ing of prepa­ra­tion and oppor­tu­ni­ty. “Weird Al approach­es the com­po­si­tion of his music with some­thing like the holy pas­sion of Michelan­ge­lo paint­ing the ceil­ing of the Sis­tine Chapel,” writes Sam Ander­son in a 2020 New York Times Mag­a­zine pro­file. See­ing Yankovic’s notes for “White & Nerdy” “file felt like watch­ing a super­com­put­er crunch through pos­si­ble chess moves. Every sin­gle vari­able had to be con­sid­ered, in every sin­gle line.” To work in musi­cal form, even the sil­li­est humor demands his total ded­i­ca­tion.

Yankovic has long showed a will­ing­ness straight­for­ward­ly to dis­cuss what it’s like to be Weird Al, as well as what it takes to be Weird Al. For a con­sid­er­ably less straight­for­ward ver­sion, we can watch The Roku Chan­nel’s new Weird: The Al Yankovic Sto­ry. Most biopics take artis­tic lib­er­ties with the lives of their sub­jects, but Weird goes all the way, par­o­dy­ing the very form of the biopic itself while per­form­ing colos­sal (and sure­ly fan-delight­ing) exag­ger­a­tions of the facts of Yankovic’s life. In the GQ video, for exam­ple, he men­tions get­ting the idea for “Like a Sur­geon” by hear­ing Madon­na throw it out in an inter­view; in the trail­er above, Madon­na turns at the door at his opu­lent man­sion, a ver­i­ta­ble suc­cubus ready to drag him into the musi­cal under­world. And it seems a safe bet that things only get Weird­er there­after.

Relat­ed con­tent:

“Weird Al” Yankovic Releas­es “Word Crimes,” a Gram­mar Nerd Par­o­dy of “Blurred Lines”

Two Leg­ends: Weird Al Yankovic “Inter­views” James Brown (1986)

Dr. Demento’s New Punk Album Fea­tures William Shat­ner Singing The Cramps, Weird Al Yankovic Singing The Ramones & Much More

Mon­ty Python’s Eric Idle Breaks Down His Most Icon­ic Char­ac­ters

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities, the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |


« Newer Entries | Older Entries »

  • Great Lectures

  • Sign up for Newsletter

  • About Us

    Open Culture scours the web for the best educational media. We find the free courses and audio books you need, the language lessons & educational videos you want, and plenty of enlightenment in between.


    Advertise With Us

  • Great Recordings

  • Book Lists By

  • Syllabi

  • Favorite Movies

  • Archives

  • Search

    • Quantcast