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- What a Lack of Social Contact Does to Your Brainby Colin Marshall on October 3, 2025 at 9:00 am
To many of us, the concept of solitary confinement may not sound all that bad: finally, a reprieve from the siege of social and professional requests. Finally, a chance to catch up on all the reading we’ve been meaning to do. Finally, an environment conducive to this meditation thing about whose benefits we’ve heard so
- The Foot-Licking Demons & Other Strange Things in a 1921 Illustrated Manuscript from Iranby OC on October 3, 2025 at 8:00 am
Few modern writers so remind me of the famous Virginia Woolf quote about fiction as a “spider’s web” more than Argentine fabulist Jorge Luis Borges. But the life to which Borges attaches his labyrinths is a librarian’s life; the strands that anchor his fictions are the obscure scholarly references he weaves throughout his text. Borges
- See Beethoven’s Entire 9th Symphony Visualized in Colorful Animationsby Colin Marshall on October 2, 2025 at 9:00 am
While reporting on the Eurovision Song Contest, the New Yorker’s Anthony Lane “asked a man named Seppo, from the seven-hundred-strong Eurovision Fan Club of Norway, what he loved about Eurovision. ‘Brotherhood of man,’ he said — a slightly ambiguous answer, because that was the name of a British group that entered, and won, the contest
- Remembering Jane Goodall (RIP): Watch Jane, the Acclaimed National Geographic Documentaryby OC on October 1, 2025 at 8:44 pm
Jane Goodall, the revered conservationist, passed away today at age 91. In her honor, we’re featuring above a National Geographic documentary called Jane. Directed by Brett Morgen, the film draws “from over 100 hours of never-before-seen footage that has been tucked away in the National Geographic archives for over 50 years.” The documentary offers an
- Discover the Oldest, Weirdest Instrument On Earth: The Lithophoneby Colin Marshall on October 1, 2025 at 9:00 am
Stalactites hang tight to the ceiling, and stalagmites push up with might from the floor: this is a mnemonic device you may once have learned, but chances are you haven’t had much occasion to remember it since. Still, it would surely be called to mind by a visit to Luray Caverns in the American state of
- The Night John Belushi Booked the Punk Band Fear on Saturday Night Live & They Got Banned from the Show (1981)by OC on October 1, 2025 at 8:00 am
Punk rock has a robust tradition of gross-out, offensive comedy—one carried into the present by bands like Fat White Family and Diarrhea Planet, who may not exist were it not for Fear, an unstable L.A. band led by an obnoxious provocateur who goes by the name Lee Ving. Like fellow L.A. punks the Germs, Circle
- An Introduction to Moebius, the Comic Artist Who Influenced Blade Runner and Miyazakiby Colin Marshall on September 30, 2025 at 9:00 am
The work of the comic artist Jean Giraud, better known as Moebius (or, more stylishly, Mœbius), has often appeared on Open Culture over the years, but even if you’ve never seen it here, you know it. Granted, you may never have read a page of it, to say nothing of an entire graphic novel’s worth,
- Musician Plays the Last Stradivarius Guitar in the World, the “Sabionari” Made in 1679by OC on September 30, 2025 at 8:00 am
Last night, while the home team lost the big game on TVs at a local dive bar, my noisy rock band opened for a chamber pop ensemble. Electric guitars and feedback gave way to classical acoustics, violin, piano, accordion, and even a saw. It was an interesting cultural juxtaposition in an evening of cultural juxtapositions.
- Carl Sagan’s Baloney Detection Kit: Tools for Thinking Critically & Knowing Pseudoscience When You See Itby Colin Marshall on September 29, 2025 at 9:00 am
Though he died too young, Carl Sagan left behind an impressively large body of work, including more than 600 scientific papers and more than 20 books. Of those books, none is more widely known to the public — or, still, more widely read by the public — than Cosmos, accompanied as it was by Cosmos:
- Meryl Streep’s First Film Role Was in an Animated Film on Erik Erikson’s Stages of Life (1976)by Colin Marshall on September 29, 2025 at 8:00 am
Difficult as it may be to remember now, there was a time when Meryl Streep was not yet synonymous with silver-screen stardom — a time, in fact, when she had yet to appear on the silver screen at all. Half a century ago, she was just another young stage actress in New York, albeit one