~openculture | Bookmarks (178)
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What Is Religion Actually For?: Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury Weigh In
In the nineteen-sixties, the music media encouraged the notion that a young rock-and-roll fan had to...
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Leonard Bernstein Introduces the Moog Synthesizer to the World in 1969, Playing an Electrified Version of Bach’s “Little Fugue in G”
When Wendy Carlos released Switched-On Bach in 1968, her “greatest hits” compilation of the Baroque composer’s...
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High-Tech Analysis of Ancient Scroll Reveals Plato’s Burial Site and Final Hours
Even if you can name only one ancient Greek, you can name Plato. You can also...
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RIP Paul Auster: Hear the Master of the Postmodern Page-Turner Discuss How He Became a Writer
In the Louisiana Channel interview clip from 2017 above, the late Paul Auster tells the story...
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Artist Draws 9 Portraits on LSD During 1950s Research Experiment
During the 1950s, a researcher gave an artist two 50-microgram doses of LSD (each dose separated by...
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A 5‑Hour Journey Through North Korean Entertainment: Propaganda Films, Kids’ Cartoons, Sketch Comedy & More
Over the second half of the twentieth century, South Korea became rich, and in the first...
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Google Launches a New Course Called “AI Essentials”: Learn How to Use Generative AI Tools to Increase Your Productivity
This week, Google announced the launch of Google AI Essentials, a new self-paced course designed to...
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André Breton’s Surrealist Manifesto Turns 100 This Year
People don’t seem to write a lot of manifestos these days. Or if they do write...
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Behold The Drawings of Franz Kafka (1907–1917)
Runner 1907–1908 UK-born, Chicago-based artist Philip Hartigan has posted a brief video piece about Franz Kafka’s drawings. Kafka,...
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How Édouard Manet Became “the Father of Impressionism” with the Scandalous Panting, Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe (1863)
Édouard Manet’s Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe (1863) caused quite a stir when it made its public...
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Bukowski Reads Bukowski: Watch a 1975 Documentary Featuring Charles Bukowski at the Height of His Powers
In 1973, Richard Davies directed Bukowski, a documentary that TV Guide described as a “cinema-verite portrait...
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The Origins of Anime: Watch Early Japanese Animations (1917 to 1931)
Japanese animation, AKA anime, might be filled with large-eyed maidens, way cool robots, and large-eyed, way...
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What Would Happen If a Nuclear Bomb Hit a Major City Today: A Visualization of the Destruction
One of the many memorable details in Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to...
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Pink Floyd Plays in Venice on a Massive Floating Stage in 1989; Forces the Mayor & City Council to Resign
When Roger Waters left Pink Floyd after 1983’s The Final Cut, the remaining members had good...
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Inside the Beautiful Home Frank Lloyd Wright Designed for His Son (1952)
Being Frank Lloyd Wright’s son surely came with its downsides. But one of the upsides —...
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Steven Spielberg Calls Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange “the First Punk Rock Movie Ever Made”
Steven Spielberg and Stanley Kubrick are two of the first directors whose names young cinephiles get to...
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Hear Flannery O’Connor Read “A Good Man is Hard to Find” (1959)
Flannery O’Connor was a Southern writer who, as Joyce Carol Oates once said, had less in...
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A Guided Tour of the Largest Handmade Model of Imperial Rome: Discover the 20x20 Meter Model Created During the 1930s
At the moment, you can’t see the largest, most detailed handmade model of Imperial Rome for...
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Watch Iconic Artists at Work: Rare Videos of Picasso, Matisse, Kandinsky, Renoir, Monet, Pollock & More
Claude Monet, 1915: We’ve all seen their works in fixed form, enshrined in museums and printed...
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Humans First Started Enjoying Cannabis in China Circa 2800 BC
Judging by how certain American cities smell these days, you’d think cannabis was invented last week....
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Daniel Dennett Presents the 4 Biggest Ideas in Philosophy in One of His Final Videos (RIP)
A week ago, Big Think released this video featuring philosopher Daniel Dennett talking about the four...
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Discover the Singing Nuns Who Have Turned Medieval Latin Hymns into Modern Hits
We now live, as one often hears, in an age of few musical superstars, but towering...
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Watch Stalker, Andrei Tarkovsky’s Mind-Bending Masterpiece Free Online
“I feel like every single frame of the film is burned into my retina,” said Oscar-winning...
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Beautifully-Preserved Frescoes with Figures from the Trojan War Discovered in a Lavish Pompeii Home
Image via Pompeii Archaeological Park Imagine visiting the home of a prominent, wealthy figure, and at...