Independent Astronauts
Atlantis just returned from its last mission and here we are with our feet firmly on the ground. But surely there is an alternative to NASA.For inspiration into space travel here on earth experience...
View ArticleMore Multimedia Borges Appreciation
Besides this, here is another, more visually-focused way to appreciate Jorge Luis Borges on the anniversary of his birth, 112 years later. It’s The Mirror Man, a 47-minute documentary on his life and...
View ArticlePollock on Film
Ever wonder what creating abstract expressionist art looks like? This documentary, made one summer way back in 1950 by Hans Namuth, follows Jackson Pollock in his studio.“Above, you can watch the...
View ArticleEisenhower Answers America: The First Political Advertisements on American TV
Open Culture compiles Eisenhower Answers America, the ad campaign that lead to Dwight D. Eisenhower’s victory in the 1952 presidential election. Eisenhower was an American war hero, and the use of...
View ArticleDavid Biespiel’s Poetry Wire: Why I’m Quitting Ezra Pound
Ever heard that gobsmacking troubadourist Ezra Pound read his elaborate, funkified sestina, “Sestina: Altafore,” in a voice that is one part American-as-European, swilling-with-the-rolling-R’s accent...
View Article“Living On Air”
Via the Poetry Foundation, Open Culture has a 23-minute experimental film by Sandra Lahire using audio of Sylvia Plath reading her poems aloud.Mixing images of Plath’s obsessions (ouija boards, horses,...
View ArticleListen to Sylvia Plath Read Her Poems Out Loud
Open Culture’s Josh Jones suggests listening to Sylvia Plath perform her poems out loud as a way to encounter them anew, “without the morbid celebrity baggage Plath’s name carries.”They do seem, in...
View ArticleJane Austen’s Pin Cushion
Jane Austen invented a clever way of editing her manuscripts: pins. Without the convenience of electronic word processors, Austen relied on a method of pinning snippets of text into her manuscript...
View ArticleFast Friends: Mark Twain and Helen Keller
A new article on Open Culture examines the fascinating friendship between Mark Twain and Helen Keller, two of the 20th century’s most revolution-minded popular authors. Twain was taken with Keller from...
View ArticleBrain Training
Great news for avid readers! It turns out that intense reading is good exercise for your brain. Over at Open Culture, Josh Jones writes about a study by Michigan State University Professor Natalie...
View ArticleThe “Transmutation” of Objects
For Open Culture, Ayun Halliday investigates Patti Smith’s relationship to objects and literature, highlighting how the songwriter, artist, and author looks to objects in order to feel “closer” to her...
View ArticleWho’s Your Dada?
Be the first on your block to download these eight Dada magazines from 1917 which contain all your favorite surrealist heroes. Tristan Tzara, Hugo Ball, Emmy Hennings—the whole gang is here. Celebrate...
View ArticleTerm Paper of Champions
At Open Culture, Ayun Halliday introduces Kurt Vonnegut’s final assignment for his Iowa Writer’s Workshop class. Instead of a conventional essay, Vonnegut asks his students to role-play as short story...
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