Only the Autodidact is Free
Economist and columnist Paul Krugman recently wrote about a current nominee for the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors who called cities like Cincinnati and Cleveland “armpits of America” to laughs from an audience of business leaders. This same nominee has made headlines for saying “capitalism is a lot more important than democracy” and calling the 16th […]
When American Financiers and Business Leaders…
Could the return of marble-based madness be a reaction to our digital age? That we must construct real fantastical machines that perform humble amusements in the face of CGI-filled blockbusters? Do we need to know that if society collapses we can look to members of the Swedish folktronic band Wintergatan to help rebuild it? After […]
Behold the Ingenious Musical Marble Machine…
Meanwhile, Inside the Box, Schrodinger’s Cat Plans Its Revenge… is a post from: Open Culture. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus, or get our Daily Email. And don’t miss our big collections of Free Online Courses, Free Online Movies, Free eBooks, Free Audio Books, Free Foreign Language Lessons, and MOOCs. Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OpenCulture/~3/8slc-vEZc_Y/meanwhile-inside-the-box-schrodingers-cat-plans-its-revenge.html…
When I first moved to North Carolina, one of the first visits I made was to the little town of Carrboro. There sits a plaque on East Main commemorating Elizabeth “Libba” Cotton: “Key Figure. 1960s folk revival. Born and raised on Lloyd Street,” just west of Chapel Hill, in 1893. It’s an accurate-enough description of […]
Elizabeth Cotten Wrote “Freight Train” at…
Children’s books are big business. And the market has never been more competitive. Bestselling, character-driven series spawn their own TV shows. Candy-colored readers feature kids’ favorite comic and cartoon characters. But kids’ books can also be fine art—a venue for well-written, finely-illustrated literature. And they are a serious subject of scholarship, offering insights into the […]
Classic Children’s Books Now Digitized and…
Alien came out 40 years ago this month, not that its age shows in the least. The terror of the ever-diminishing crew of the Nostromo trapped on their ship with the merciless extraterrestrial monster of the title remains as visceral as it was in 1979, and the dank, pre-digital confines of its setting have taken on a […]
Watch Six New Short <i>Alien</i> Films:…
Philosophers have always distrusted language for its slipperiness, its overuse, its propensity to deceive. Yet many of those same critics have devised the most inventive terms to describe things no one had ever seen. The Philosopher’s Stone, the aether, miasmas—images that made the ineffable concrete, if still invisibly gaseous. It’s important for us to see […]
A Dictionary of Words Invented to…
Several weeks back, Colin Marshall told you about an enterprising group of high school students in North Bergen, New Jersey who staged a dramatic production of Ridley Scott’s 1979 film Alien. And they did it on the cheap, creating costumes and props with donated and recycled materials. The production was praised by Ridley Scott and Sigourney Weaver alike. […]
High School Kids Stage <i>Alien: The…
Millions of kids grew up with the groovy yet educational cartoon comedy of Fat Albert, and millions of adults may find it difficult or impossible now to watch the show without thinking of the crimes of its creator. Such is life in the 21st century, but so it was too at the end of the […]
Herbie Hancock’s Joyous Soundtrack for the…
Wherever in the world you live, you’ve heard of Avengers: Endgame, and may well have seen it already — or, depending on your enthusiasm for superheroes, may well have seen it more than a few times. It comes, as fans need not be reminded, as the culmination of a 22-film series in the Marvel Cinematic Universe […]
The Cast of <i>Avengers: Endgame</i> Rendered…