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  • The Song From the 1500’s That Blows Rick Beato Away: An Introduction to John Dowland’s Entrancing Music
    by Colin Marshall on March 28, 2024 at 9:00 am

    In 2006, Sting released an album called Songs from the Labyrinth, a collaboration with Bosnian lutenist Edin Karamazov consisting mostly of compositions by Renaissance composer John Dowland. This was regarded by some as rather eccentric, but to listeners familiar with the early music revival that had already been going on for a few decades, it

  • The Beautiful Art of Making Japanese Calligraphy Ink Out of Soot & Glue
    by OC on March 28, 2024 at 8:00 am

    Founded in 1577, Kobaien remains Japan’s oldest manufacturer of sumi ink sticks. Made of soot and animal glue, the ink stick—when ground against an inkstone, with a little water added—produces a beautiful black ink used by Japanese calligraphers. And, often, a 200-gram ink stick from Kobaien can cost over $1,000. How can soot and animal

  • Get Unlimited Access to Courses & Certificates: Coursera Is Offering $100 Off of Coursera Plus Until March 31
    by OC on March 28, 2024 at 4:26 am

    A heads up on a deal: Between now and March 31, 2024, Coursera is offering a $100 discount on its annual subscription plan called “Coursera Plus.” Normally priced at $399, Coursera Plus (now available for $299) gives you access to 7,000+ world-class courses for one all-inclusive subscription price. This includes Coursera’s Specializations and Professional Certificates, all

  • Hear the Evolution of Mozart’s Music, Composed from Ages 5 to 35
    by Colin Marshall on March 27, 2024 at 9:00 am

    More than a quarter of a millennium after he composed his first pieces of music, different listeners will evaluate differently the specific nature of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s genius. But one can hardly fail to be impressed by the fact that he wrote those works when he was five years old (or, as some scholars have

  • Radiohead’s “Creep” Sung by a 1,600-Person Choir in Australia
    by OC on March 27, 2024 at 8:00 am

    Everybody can sing. Maybe not well. But why should that stop you? That’s the basic philosophy of Pub  Choir, an organization based in Brisbane, Australia. At each Pub Choir event, a conductor “arranges a popular song and teaches it to the audience in three-part harmony.” Then, the evening culminates with a performance that gets filmed

  • The Oldest Known Photographs of India (1863–1870)
    by Colin Marshall on March 26, 2024 at 9:00 am

    After about a century of indirect company rule, India became a full-fledged British colony in 1858. The consequences of this political development remain a matter of heated debate today, but one thing is certain: it made India into a natural destination for enterprising Britons. Take the aspiring clergyman turned Nottingham bank employee Samuel Bourne, who

  • 3,000 Illustrations of Shakespeare’s Complete Works from Victorian England, Presented in a Digital Archive
    by OC on March 26, 2024 at 8:00 am

    “We can say of Shakespeare,” wrote T.S. Eliot—in what may sound like the most backhanded of compliments from one writer to another—“that never has a man turned so little knowledge to such great account.” Eliot, it’s true, was not overawed by the Shakespearean canon; he pronounced Hamlet “most certainly an artistic failure,” though he did

  • The Evolution of Animation, 1833–2017: From the Phenakistiscope to Pixar
    by Colin Marshall on March 25, 2024 at 9:00 am

    This year has given us occasion to revisit the 1928 Disney cartoon Steamboat Willie, what with its entry — and thus, that of an early version of a certain Mickey Mouse — into the public domain. Though it may look comparatively primitive today, that eight-minute black-and-white film actually represents a great many advancements in the

  • The Cult of the Criterion Collection: The Company Dedicated to Gathering & Distributing the Greatest Films from Around the World
    by Colin Marshall on March 25, 2024 at 8:00 am

    There was a time, not so very long ago, when many Americans watching movies at home neither knew nor cared who directed those movies. Nor did they feel particularly comfortable with dialogue that sometimes came subtitled, or with the “black bars” that appeared below the frame. The considerable evolution of these audiences’ general relationship to

  • Learn to Become a Supply Chain Data Analyst with Unilever’s New Certificate Program
    by OC on March 25, 2024 at 7:01 am

    Supply chains—we never thought too much about them. That is, until the pandemic, when supply chains experienced severe disruptions worldwide, leaving us waiting for products for weeks, if not months. That’s when we started appreciating the importance of supply chains and their resilience. Companies like Unilever rely on supply chains to manufacture their goods (e.g.,


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