What cultural goodies did we tweet (and re-tweet) on our Twitter stream in recent days? Here are the highlights. Follow us on Twitter at @openculture to get the rest, or Like us on Facebook. We’ll keep you plugged into quality culture every day.

• Nobel Prize for Literature Goes to Tomas Tranströmer: Read article. Read his poems: After a Death and Outskirts. Tranströmer reads his poem Schubertiana above.
  
• Niels Bohr Dissolves Two Nobel Prize Medals. Fascinating story about what happened when the Nazis overtook Copenhagen in 1940. The article.
• When Kerouac and Kesey Met in 1964. The story told by their literary agent.
• The Seven Greatest Stories from Esquire. Stories by Norman Mailer, Gay Talese, Tom Wolfe and beyond.
• Flannery O’Connor Reads “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” Vanderbilt University, 1959. Audio.
• Miles Davis and John Lennon Playing Basketball in 1971. Watch around 5:00 minute mark. Video.
  
• Radio Mozart: All Mozart, All the Time. Online. Scroll down page, and click “Ecouter la radio.” Audio.
• Nikon’s Small World Photomicrography Competition. 32 images of anything and everything visible under a microscope. Images.
• The 1943 Disney Employee Handbook Digitized. How employees learned the ropes.
• Jon Stewart Explains How The Daily Show is Made. Video courtesy of Rolling Stone. Watch.
• “Marlon I Respect You Enormously.” Francis Ford Coppola’s 1973 letter to Marlon Brando.
• Björk’s New Album ‘Biophilia.’ Stream it free online for a limited time.
• The Films of Roman Polanski:A four-part retrospective.
• Steven Pinker Interviewed by Sam Harris. Talk about his new book, The Better Angels of Our Nature: The Decline of Violence in History and Its Causes. Read interview here.
• Ten Seconds from Every Top 100 Song 1956-1959. Courtesy of WFMU. Audio.
• Bonnie and Clyde Death Scene. Footage from 1934. Video.
• Peter Gabriel Performs 1980s Classics with an Orchestra. Listen to three tracks.
• Audio Slideshow of the Willem de Kooning Retrospective at MOMA. Courtesy of The New Yorker. 3 minutes.
• Christopher Hitchens on George Orwell’s 1984. Audio recorded in 2009. Listen. (Free audio version of the novel here.)
• Jack White Records Lost Hank Williams Song. Found in his notebooks after his death. Listen.
• Finding Fellini’s La Dolce Vita in Today’s Rome. You just need to know where to look for it.
• Brian Wilson Interviewed in Studio Q. Talks about The Beach Boys, the creative process, drugs, and his struggle with mental illness. Video.
• Kanji Characters: Learn to Draw Characters in Japanese. Courtesy of Emory University. iTunes Video. Added to our collection Learn Languages for Free.

Sources: @philosophybites, @opedr, @elizabethkarr, @coudal, @stevesilberman, @brainpicker, @dangermindsblog,  @webacion, @matthiasrascher,

What cultural goodies did we tweet (and re-tweet) on our Twitter stream in recent days? Here are the highlights. Follow us on Twitter at @openculture to get the rest, or Like us on Facebook. We’ll keep you plugged into quality culture every day.

• Haruki Murakami’s New Story, “Town of Cats.” Published in last week’s New Yorker.
  
• 10 Things Henri Cartier-Bresson Can Teach You About Street Photography. Here it goes.
• Paul Simon Performs ‘Sound of Silence.’ A somber and fitting performance at the 9/11 Memorial.
• Read J.D. Salinger’s Words Before They Disappear. Backstory here. Actual Salinger letter here.
• Listen to a Free Audiobook of The 9/11 Commission Report. Plus other related materials. Audio.
• Agatha Christie and Her Surf Board, 1922. Groovy photo.
• Understanding Dostoyevsky Courtesy of Woody Allen: It’s all about existentialism.
• Hubble Captures Time-Lapse Videos Of Stars Being Born. Mind-blowing NASA video.
• Stream Music Courtesy of the David Lynch Foundation. Listen to original music by Alanis Morissette, Tom Waits, Dave Stewart, etc.
• Joan Didion’s “Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream.” Now online.
• Salvador Dali’s Vogue Covers. Produced mostly in the 1930s and 40s.
• Jonathan Lethem Introduces Lost Rolling Stone Interview with Clint Eastwood. Read it here.
• Ernest Hemingway’s Early Life in Letters. Vintage photos.
• Photo of Katharine Hepburn after the Hurricane of 1938. Click images to enlarge.
• Frank Zappa Speaks Out for Dental Hygiene. A humorous public service announcement circa 1981.
• Louis CK Pays Tribute to George Carlin at The New York Public Library. A little NSFW, of course!
• Malcolm Gladwell: How Different are Dogfighting and Football? His latest in The New Yorker. Text.
• Letter of Recommendation Written for 16 Year Old Orson Welles. “He’s talented to the point of genius.”
• Hannah Arendt’s Challenge to Adolf Eichmann. Judith Butler writes in The Guardian. 
  
• The Best Muppet Show Beatles Covers. Fun.
• Amazing Shot of the Surface of Mars. Captured by the Rover Opportunity on Aug 9.
  
• 30 Amazing Stanley Kubrick Cinemagraphs. Photos.
• Leonardo Mural in Florence, a Lost Masterpiece, May Soon Be Revealed. The story
  
• Space Oddity, A Children’s Book Inspired By David Bowie’s Classic Song. Image collection here.
• Steven Soderbergh to Leave Hollywood. Confirms plans to become a painter.
• A History of Ireland in 100 Objects. Starts with Mesolithic Fish Trap, ca. 5000BC

Sources: @matthiasrascher,  @kottke,  @coudal,  @craigmod,  @thebookslut,  @thedailyMUBI, @brainpicker, @Criterion,  @ebertchicago

What cultural goodies did we tweet (and re-tweet) on our Twitter stream during the past week? Here are some highlights. Follow us on Twitter at @openculture … or Like us on Facebook. We’ll keep you plugged in…

• Barcelona 1908: A tram ride shows the old city and its main streets back in the day. Watch above or here.
• Astronomers Find Largest, Most Distant Reservoir of Water. Equivalent to 140 trillion times all the water in the world’s oceans.
• A Clockwork Orange: The Musical. That’s right, a musical based on Anthony Burgess’ novel is coming to the UK soon.
• Corrected Page Proof of Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse. From the Smith College Archives. Image.
• Blitz Britain: Amazing color pictures of London under siege during World War II.
• Fidel Castro Talks about His Ideology in 1959. Interview conducted in English.
• Herman Melville’s Lifetime Literary Earnings. Probably not bad if you adjust for inflation.
• The Auteur Is Dead, Says Jean-Luc Godard. The future is cut-and-paste movie mashups.
• British Pathé Archive: A collection of over 90,000 clips from Pathé newsreels and cinemagazines, shown in British cinemas from 1910 until 1970.
• Lady Gaga and Just a Steinway. Less can be more.
• Harvard University Library’s Extensive Selection of Web-Accessible Collections. From Chinese Art to Musical Scores to Daguerreotypes. Find them here.
• Tom Wolfe on Marshall McLuhan for his 100th Would-Be Birthday.
• Ailing Hugo Chavez finds inspiration in Nietzsche’s Zarathustra.
• FSI Language Courses: Language courses developed by the Foreign Service Institute. Now online and added to our collection Learn Languages for Free: Spanish, English, Chinese & 37 Other Languages
• Wired Magazine Articles as a free spoken-word podcasts.
• Watch Free Films from Melbourne International Film Fest. Includes Tiger Award winner Finisterrae.
• The Dude’s Abode: Big Lebowski House for Sale.
• 2Cellos (Luka Sulic and Stjepan Hauser) perform Michael Jackson’s Smooth Criminal.
• Rupert Murdoch-Detector Browser Add-Ons warn you when you’re reading Murdoch-tainted news.
• Summer Reading Lists from UC Berkeley, 1985-2011.
• Was Thomas Edison the First Travel Filmmaker? Matador TV makes the case.
• Why Does Time Fly? Big enchilada question explained by Scientific American.
• Historian David McCullough looks at French Influence on America. Video and Op-Ed.
• Mark Twain’s whimsical ‘Advice to Little Girls,’ wickedly illustrated by Vladimir Radunsky.

Sources: @coudal,  @kottke,  @philosophybites,  @maudnewton,  @eugenephoto,  @courosa, @matthiasrascher,  @BrainPicker.

These cultural goodies (and others) flowed through our Twitter stream during the past week. Find us at @openculture … or Like us on Facebook get more intelligent media delivered daily.

• Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road is now available as an “amplified edition” on the iPad. Kerouac reads from his classic novel here.
  
• Historian David McCullough in the Wall Street Journal: “We’re raising young people who are historically illiterate.”
  
• Great Opera Houses of the World: Your guided tour.
  
• David Mamet’s Right-Wing Conversion. Book review in New York Times by Christopher Hitchens.
• A Genealogy of Intellectuals. How you get from Mary Shelley to Picasso. Courtesy of Lapham’s Quarterly.
• With ‘Harry Potter’ eBook, publishing finally has its ‘Radiohead Moment.’
• Errol Morris in NYTimes: Did My Brother Invent E-Mail With Tom Van Vleck? A five-part series.
• Vivian Maier’s Self Portraits. More photography from a belatedly discovered talent. Portraits here. Intro to Maier here.
• 330 Books in Charles Darwin’s Library. Newly digitized and freely available.
• Robert Reich explains the problems with the US economy in 2 minutes, 15 seconds with some RSA-style animation.
• Lady Gaga Fugue on a 250-year-old organ.
• A History of the Universe in Sound: Artist-technologist Honor Harger listens to the weird and wonderful noises of stars and planets and pulsars.
• The Real Mahatma Gandhi: Christopher Hitchens questions the moral heroism of India’s revered figure.
• Turn On, Tune In, Drop by the Archives: Timothy Leary Papers at the New York Public Library.
• Sex Selection and the Shortage of Women: Is Science to Blame? by Richard Dawkins.
• World War II, A Retrospective in 20 Parts. Runs from June 19 until October 30, courtesy of The Atlantic.
• Google Books will scan and put online 250,000 texts from The British Library. Texts from between 1700 and 1870. Details.
• A. O. Scott looks back at ‘Rome, Open City,’ Roberto Rossellini’s film about the struggle against oppression.
• Bill Murray Reads Billy Collins’ Poem “Forgetfulness.” Also added to our Cultural Icons collection.
• 9 Classic Poems Published in The Atlantic: Whitman, Frost, Pinsky and more.
• Stanley Kubrick’s letter to projectionists on “Barry Lyndon”
• RadioLab’s Robert Krulwich on how clouds are born.
• The Sound of Silence. The Economist looks at how copyright law keeps vintage audio quiet.
• Vintage Ads: An amazing collection.
• To the people who stole my Les Paul. Craigslist.
• University of Michigan to stop worrying about lawsuits. Starts releasing orphan works.

Sources: @eugenephoto,  @boingboing,  @pbkauf ,  @coudal,  @LAReviewofBooks,  @stevesilberman,  @kottke,  @brainpicker,  @webacion

These cultural goodies (and others) flowed through our Twitter stream during the past week. Find us at @openculture … or Like us on Facebook.

• Being Ernest: John Walsh unravels the mystery behind Hemingway’s suicide.
• Listening to free jazz music online. A guide by the jazz critic for NPR’s Fresh Air.
• 230 Cultural Icons: Great thinkers, artists, writers, musicians in their own words. Big audio and video collection.
• Richard Dreyfuss reads the iTunes End-user license agreement. Dramatic!
• A Cheat’s Guide to James Joyce’s Ulysses: An irreverent simple chapter-by-chapter guide to the key events, characters and Homeric parallels.
• The 7 Greatest Stories in the History of Esquire Magazine… in Full.
• The 100 greatest non-fiction books, according to The Guardian.
• TS Eliot’s “The Waste Land” for iPad lovers. A big seller.
• Learn German. Take some introductory lessons with Deutsch -Warum Nicht? Also see Learn Languages for Free: Spanish, English, Chinese & 37 Other Languages
• ‘A Frightening Time in America’: An Interview with David Foster Wallace.
• A History of Modern Music: Critics chart the history of modern music, tackling a different genre each day and picking 50 key moments.
• The Real Mahatma Gandhi: Christopher Hitchens questions the moral heroism of India’s revered figure.
• Unexpected photos of historical figures. A fun collection.
• Fanhattan, a beautiful, versatile new iPad app that aims to be a navigator of available movies & tv shows.
• Carl Jung’s troubled relationship with Freud – and the Nazis.
• Woody Allen on the influence of JD Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye.
• Fritz Lang on the role of violence in movies.
• HG Wells meets Orson Welles for the first time. Vintage audio
• The 14 Biggest Ideas of the Year: A guide to intellectual trends shaping the US.
• Remarkable photos of Sylvia Plath interviewing Elizabeth Bowen, 1953.
• Not so famous Harvard dropouts revisited 40 years later.
• Neil Young performs with an 8-piece group of Nashville pros.
• Terry Gilliam Explains “Derivative” to a Child.
• Self portrait of Stanley Kubrick, an out-of-focus Jack Nicholson in foreground. Gallery: 23 photos.
• The Ascent of Money: A BBC Financial History of the World. 6-part documentary based on Niall Ferguson’s book.
• Internet Archive, a digital repository, to collect a print copy of every book ever published.

Sources: @TheAtlanticWire,  @philosophybites,  @kottke,  @eugenephoto,  @thebookslut,  @hughmcguire,  @opedr, @brainpicker,  @webacion,   @kristinbutler,  @matthiasrascher.

These cultural goodies (and others) flowed through our Twitter stream during the past week. Find us at @openculture … or Like us on Facebook.

•Cult filmmaker John Waters talks about his transgressive humor, oddball lifestyle, and what inspires him.

•Aussie student finds universe’s ‘missing mass,’ a problem that puzzled astrophysicists for decades.

•Liking Is for Cowards. Go for What Hurts. Op-ed by Jonathan Franzen in The New York Times.

•Mladic the Monster by Christopher Hitchens.

•Lost E.E. Cummings Poem Discovered. Story profiled in The Awl.

•What If Walt Whitman Wrote For Groupon? Whitman’s birthday was yesterday. Read it here.

•1964: Ken Kesey pens letter to The New York Times defending Broadway adaptation of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.

•Lars von Trier interviewed shortly after getting booted from Cannes. 2 Parts.

•Crosby, Nash & Young reunite on Late Night; Sing a Miley Cyrus song. Wink.

•A.O. Scott reviews “The Tree of Life,” Palme d’Or winner at Cannes. See trailer here.

•Pete Townshend profiled in longish Economist piece. New autobiography coming out this fall.

•What is the IMF anyway? The always great Planet Money explains. Audio.

•Yale gives honorary degrees to director Martin Scorsese and writer Joan Didion.

•Egyptian pyramids found by infra-red satellite images.

•Lady Gaga Takes Tea With Stephen Fry.

•How Popular Science magazine has covered the Theory of Evolution since 1923.

•Lindsay Lohan’s newest movie is an art project. Yes, her career has gotten that bad!

•4th-Grade ‘Paleontologists’ Discover 11,500-Year-Old Mastodon Hair.

•Fassbinder’s sci-fi masterpiece “World on a Wire” has been restored. See the trailer.

•The most-rejected published novelist in history dies at 74.

•Rousseau’s documents put on the UNESCO Memory of the World register.

•Summer Reading List: 10 Essential Books for Cognitive Sunshine, courtesy of BrainPickings.

•Want a college education? There’s an app for that.

•The Most Well-Read Cities in America. A list published by Amazon.com.

•Paul Theroux on the concept of being a stranger in different countries and languages.

•Georgetown releases study showing how different college majors translate to earnings.

These cultural goodies (and others) flowed through our Twitter stream during the past week. Find us at @openculture.

Sources for this edition of Open Culture Beat include: @paulconley,  @opedr,  @webacion,  @ebertchicago,  @kristinbutler,  @sheerly,  @stevesilberman, @philosophybites, @matthiasrascher.

You gave “Open Culture Beat” a collective thumbs up. So it continues. This edition serves up 20 culture links from around the web, starting with a series of beautiful photos from 1890s Italy. Want more culture links served up daily? Give our Twitter stream a follow.

• Monochromatic photos of Venice, Rome, Florence, Torino. Circa 1890. Courtesy of The Library of Congress.

• Malcolm McDowell and Leon Vitali Talk About Clockwork Orange on the 40th Anniversary.

• Ma France: The BBC offers 24 video podcasts that will teach you French. Part of our collection How to Learn Languages for Free: Spanish, English, Chinese & 37 Other Languages. It features lessons in 40 languages in total.

• How to stream classical music live from the world’s greatest orchestras and opera companies.

• 20 Films Made Before 1900. A video roundup

• Cannes gives Jean-Paul Belmondo the Palme d’Or  50+ years after “Breathless”

• “The Book of Mormon” Liner Notes. You’ll have to wait until June 7 to read elsewhere. Playbill hosts them here.

• John Grisham: How I became a writer. Video.

• The Conan O’Brien Guide To Creativity. Courtesy of Fast Company.

• Robert Pinsky Reads From “Selected Poems”

• Bioluminescence: The weird and wonderful world. A TEDTalk by Edith Widder.

• New exhibit of post-bomb Hiroshima photos with annotated captions.

• The Beatles Complete on Ukulele is running at full strength again.

• Ebony Magazine: Every issue of Ebony Magazine from 1959 to 2008 is now online.

• Tom Hanks addresses the Yale Class of 2011 this past weekend.

• Denzel Washington delivers commencement address at The University of Pennsylvania.

• How Does A Book Go Viral?: The children’s book Go The Fuck To Sleep has sold 100,000 pre-sale copies.

• London’s Astoria gets dismantled in timelapse video.

• Terry Gross interviews author of new book on Area 51. Fascinating, particularly the part about the famous Roswell landing and its relationship to the famous martian landing broadcast by Orson Welles.

• Frank Capra: 5 Essential Films for his birthday last week.

• The Gospel According to Mark.” Written by Borges and Read by Paul Theroux. MP3.

Sources for this week’s culture links: @brainpicker,  @webacion,  @matthiasrascher,  @opedr,  @pourmecoffee,  @maudnewton,  @sheerly