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Thelonious Monk Plays Duke Ellington: Solo Piano, Berlin 1969
//www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGbLRaaqrCc In November of 1969 Thelonious Monk appeared at the Berliner Jazztage (“Berlin Jazz Days,” now known as JazzFest Berlin) and played a series of Duke Ellington...
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Gustave Doré’s Dramatic Illustrations of Dante’s Divine Comedy
Inferno, Canto X: Many artists have attempted to illustrate Dante Alighieri’s epic poem the Divine Comedy, but none have made such an indelible stamp on our collective imagination as the Frenchman...
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The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari: See the Restored Version of the 1920 Horror...
In early 1920, posters began appearing all over Berlin with a hypnotic spiral and the mysterious command Du musst Caligari werden — “You must become Caligari.” The posters were part of an innovative...
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For Joni Mitchell’s 70th Birthday, Watch Classic Performances of “Both Sides...
//www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTVjCWekS1Q Joni Mitchell turns 70 today. A child of rural western Canada, Mitchell endured a series of early hardships that might have crushed a more timid soul — polio,...
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Celebrate The Day of the Dead with The Classic Skeleton Art of José Guadalupe...
In Mexico on November 2, mortality is approached with music and laughter. “On the Day of the Dead, when the spirits come back to us,” explains the Dr. Vigil character in the 1984 film of Malcolm...
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‘Tired of Giving In': The Arrest Report, Mug Shot and Fingerprints of Rosa...
On this day in 1955, Rosa Parks took her fateful bus ride in Montgomery, Alabama. As the story is often told, Parks was a diminutive African-American seamstress who was weary from a long day of work...
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Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour Sings Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18
//www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8Osse7w9fs In 2001 or 2002, guitarist and singer David Gilmour of Pink Floyd recorded a musical interpretation of William Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 18″ at his home studio aboard...
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Patti Smith’s List of Favorite Books: From Rimbaud to Susan Sontag
Image of Patti Smith performing in Rio de Janeiro by Daigo Oliva As a little girl, Patti Smith found liberation in words — first through the bedtime prayers she made up herself, and later in books. “I...
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Edvard Munch’s Famous Painting The Scream Animated to the Sound of Pink...
In this short video, Romanian animator Sebastian Cosor brings together two haunting works from different times and different media: The Scream, by Norwegian Expressionist painter Edvard Munch, and...
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T.S. Eliot, Edith Wharton & Gertrude Stein Tell F. Scott Fitzgerald That...
This month marks the 90th anniversary of the publication of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s masterpiece, The Great Gatsby. Perhaps no other book so embodies the ideal of the Great American Novel as Gatsby — and...
View ArticleJazz ‘Hot’: The Rare 1938 Short Film With Jazz Legend Django Reinhardt
Here’s a remarkable short film of the great gypsy jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt, violinist Stéphane Grappelli and their band the Quintette du Hot Club de France performing on a movie set in 1938....
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Jim Henson’s Commercials for Wilkins Coffee: 15 Twisted Minutes of Muppet...
Drink our coffee. Or else. That's the message of these curiously sadistic TV commercials produced by Jim Henson between 1957 and 1961. Henson made 179 ten-second spots for Wilkins Coffee, a regional...
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Alfred Hitchcock Recalls Working with Salvador Dali on Spellbound: “No, You...
In 1945 Alfred Hitchcock had to explain one of Hollywood's unwritten rules to Salvador Dalí: No, you can't pour live ants all over Ingrid Bergman! Hitchcock had approached Dalí for help with a dream...
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The First Bloomsday: See Dublin’s Literati Celebrate James Joyce’s Ulysses in...
Here's a fascinating glimpse of the very first Bloomsday celebration, filmed in Dublin in 1954. The footage shows the great Irish comedic writer Brian O'Nolan, better known by his pen name Flann...
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Edvard Munch’s Famous Painting “The Scream” Animated to the Sound of Pink...
In this short video, Romanian animator Sebastian Cosor brings together two haunting works from different times and different media: The Scream, by Norwegian Expressionist painter Edvard Munch...
View ArticleHear a Rare Recording of Flannery O’Connor Reading “A Good Man is Hard to...
Flannery O'Connor was a Southern writer who, as Joyce Carol Oates once said, had less in common with Faulkner than with Kafka and Kierkegaard. Isolated by poor health and consumed by her fervent...
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Hear Debussy Play Debussy: A Vintage Recording from 1913
A century ago, the great French composer Claude Debussy sat down at a contraption called a Welte-Mignon reproducing piano and recorded a series of performances for posterity. The machine was designed...
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Guitarist Randy Bachman Demystifies the Opening Chord of The Beatles’“A Hard...
You could call it the magical mystery chord. The opening clang of the Beatles' 1964 hit, "A Hard Day's Night," is one of the most famous and distinctive sounds in rock and roll history, and yet for a...
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Man Ray and the Cinéma Pur: Watch Four Groundbreaking Surrealist Films From...
Man Ray was one of the leading artists of the avant garde of 1920s and 1930s Paris. A key figure in the Dada and Surrealist movements, his works spanned various media, including film. He was a leading...
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Hugh Hefner (RIP) Defends “the Playboy Philosophy” to William F. Buckley, 1966
"Mr. Hefner's magazine is most widely known for its total exposure of the human female," says William F. Buckley, introducing the guest on this 1966 broadcast of his talk show Firing Line. "Though of...
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