CULTURE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKwCgQxRdUQ The Adven­tures of Tintin may be a chil­dren’s com­ic series from mid-twen­ti­eth-cen­tu­ry Europe, but its appeal has long since tran­scend­ed the bound­aries of form, cul­ture, and gen­er­a­tion. In fact, many if not most seri­ous­ly ded­i­cat­ed fans of Tintin are...

Image via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons Most every­one who knows the work of George Orwell knows his 1946 essay “Pol­i­tics and the Eng­lish Lan­guage” (pub­lished here), in which he rails against care­less, con­fus­ing, and unclear prose. “Our civ­i­liza­tion is deca­dent,” he argues,...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PW7DeYFbIWI Paul Thomas Ander­son­’s lat­est film, the loose Thomas Pyn­chon adap­ta­tion One Bat­tle After Anoth­er, serves up many a mem­o­rable scene. But for a cer­tain kind of cinephile, noth­ing — not the ter­ror­ist attacks, not the chas­es, not the swerves...

Image via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons With the old joke about every gen­er­a­tion think­ing they invent­ed sex, List­verse brings us the papyrus above, the old­est depic­tion of sex on record. Paint­ed some­time in the Rames­side Peri­od (1292–1075 B.C.E.), the frag­ments above—called the...

Mark Twain was, in the estimation of many, the United States of America’s first truly homegrown man of letters. And in keeping with what would be recognized as the can-do American spirit, he couldn’t resist putting himself forth now and...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNmcF6eRE7w If you’ve seen a David Byrne con­cert in recent years, you know that he per­forms with a large ensem­ble of musi­cians, each car­ry­ing their own instru­ments across the stage, all while mov­ing in intri­cate­ly chore­o­graphed pat­terns. On his cur­rent...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjNca1L6CUk For young chil­dren today, just as it was for gen­er­a­tions of their pre­de­ces­sors, noth­ing is quite so thrilling about their first vis­it to a Dis­ney theme park as catch­ing a glimpse of Mick­ey Mouse, Don­ald Duck, or anoth­er beloved...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGnd5w_a2q8 While not every Open Cul­ture read­er dreams of mov­ing to Japan and becom­ing a wood­block print­mak­er, it’s a safe bet that at least a few of you enter­tain just such a fan­ta­sy from time to time. David Bull, a...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tmxfVWDgMM As hard as it may be to believe, some of us have nev­er seen a movie belong­ing to the Mar­vel Cin­e­mat­ic Uni­verse. If you’re one of those unini­ti­at­ed, none of the count­less clips incor­po­rat­ed into the Like Sto­ries of...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5_8U4j51lI Alice’s Restau­rant. It’s now a Thanks­giv­ing clas­sic, and some­thing of a tra­di­tion around here. Record­ed in 1967, the 18+ minute coun­ter­cul­ture song recounts Arlo Guthrie’s real encounter with the law, start­ing on Thanks­giv­ing Day 1965. As the long song unfolds, we...