No Women Need Apply: A Disheartening 1938 Rejection Letter from Disney Animation
openculture.com“Women do not do any of the creative work in connection with preparing the cartoons for the screen,” it flatly states, “as that work is performed entirely by young men. For this reason girls are not considered for the training school.”
Estimated reading time: 2 min
Writing Tips by Henry Miller, Elmore Leonard, Margaret Atwood, Neil Gaiman & George Orwell
openculture.comThe main rule of writing is that if you do it with enough assurance and confidence, you’re allowed to do whatever you like. (That may be a rule for life as well as for writing. But it’s definitely true for writing.) So write your story as it needs to be written. Write it honestly, and tell it as best you can. I’m not sure that there are any other rules. Not ones that matter.
Estimated reading time: 5 min
The Open Goldberg Variations: J.S. Bach’s Masterpiece Free to Download
openculture.comNow, with no further delay, let me direct your attention to The Open Goldberg Variations, the first Kickstarter-funded, open source recording of Bach’s masterpiece, available entirely for free. If you click here, you can download and share the newly-released recording by Kimiko Ishizaka, performed on a Bösendorfer 290 Imperial piano in Berlin. You can do pretty much whatever you want with the recording because it’s released under a Creative Commons Zero license, which automatically puts things in the public domain.
Estimated reading time: 1 min
Isaac Asimov Explains His Three Laws of Robots
openculture.com“singularity”: a point in time when smart machines became much smarter, stronger, and faster than their creators, and then become self-conscious.
Estimated reading time: 3 min
Yiorgos Voulgaris recommended this story.
500 Free Movies Online: Great Classics, Indies, Noir, Westerns, etc.
openculture.com500 Free Movies Online: Great Classics, Indies, Noir, Westerns, etc.
Estimated reading time: 53 min
hfvienna recommended this story.
The Strange Day When Bugs Bunny Saved the Life of Mel Blanc
openculture.comBlanc’s doctor tried to explain how he revived his patient. “It seemed like Bugs Bunny was trying to save his life,” was all he could say.
Estimated reading time: 2 min
kiki recommended this story.
The Odd Collection of Books in the Guantanamo Prison Library
openculture.comAs part of Savage’s reporting on Gitmo, he has also created a photo blog that gives us insight into the prison library and its odd collection of books. The library offers prisoners access to Captain America comics (that must go over well with enemy combatants); pulp romance books by Danielle Steele (another choice pick for Islamists); the complete Harry Potter series (I imagine the Prisoner of Azkaban volume hits home); some more serious works by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, C.S. Lewis, Tolkien and Charles Dickens; an assortment of religious books; and the occasional self help book like The An[…]
Estimated reading time: 2 min
nellynette recommended this story.
How Bertrand Russell Turned The Beatles Against the Vietnam War
openculture.comAs Paul McCartney explains in this clip from a January 14, 2009 interview on The View, it happened when he decided to pay a visit to philosopher Bertrand Russell.
Estimated reading time: 2 min
zeichenriss recommended this story.
Andy Warhol’s ‘Screen Test’ of Bob Dylan: A Classic Meeting of Egos
openculture.comBut Dylan wasn’t having it. After the sullen Screen Test, he walked over to a large painting of Elvis Presley that Warhol had already set aside for him as a gift and, by one account, said “I think I’ll just take this for payment, man.” He and Neuwirth then lifted the painting, which was nearly seven feet tall, carried it out of the studio, down the freight elevator and into the street, where they strapped it–with no protection whatsoever–onto the roof of the station wagon and drove away.
Estimated reading time: 3 min
Max Orgeldinger recommended this story.
