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[A Tour of the Final Home Designed By Frank Lloyd Wright: The Circular Sun House](https://www.openculture.com/2025/03/a-tour-of-the-final-home-designed-by-frank-lloyd-wright-the-circular-sun-house.html "Permanent Link to A Tour of the Final Home Designed By Frank Lloyd Wright: The Circular Sun House")

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in _[Architecture](https://www.openculture.com/category/architecture-2)_ | March 7th, 2025

[Bluesky](/#bluesky "Bluesky")[Facebook](/#facebook "Facebook")[Threads](/#threads "Threads")[Mastodon](/#mastodon "Mastodon")[Reddit](/#reddit "Reddit")[Message](/#sms "Message")[Email](/#email "Email")[Share](https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.openculture.com%2F2025%2F03%2Fa-tour-of-the-final-home-designed-by-frank-lloyd-wright-the-circular-sun-house.html&title=A%20Tour%20of%20the%20Final%20Home%20Designed%20By%20Frank%20Lloyd%20Wright%3A%20The%20Circular%20Sun%20House)

Some remem­ber the nine­teen-nineties in Amer­i­ca as the sec­ond com­ing of the nine­teen-fifties. What­ev­er holes one can poke in that his­tor­i­cal fram­ing, it does feel strange­ly plau­si­ble inside Frank Lloyd Wright’s Cir­cu­lar Sun House. Though not actu­al­ly built until 1967, it was com­mis­sioned from Wright by ship­ping mag­nate Nor­man Lykes in 1959, the last year of the archi­tec­t’s life. Almost dat­ed though it may have looked by the time of its com­ple­tion, super­vised by Wright’s appren­tice John Rat­ten­bury, it would have accrued some retro cachet over the sub­se­quent decades. Then, in the ren­o­va­tion-mad nineties, the house­’s own­ers brought Rat­ten­bury back out to do a thor­ough update and remod­el.

The result is a kind of hybrid fifties-nineties aes­thet­ic, which will suit some tastes bet­ter than oth­ers. But then, so do all the res­i­dences designed by Wright, of which the Cir­cu­lar Sun House in Phoenix, Ari­zona, is the very last.

In [the _Archi­tec­tur­al Digest_ video above](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHgn-eMxFnk), post­ed when the house went on the mar­ket in 2021, real estate agent Dean­na Peters points out a few of its Wright­ian fea­tures: its cir­cu­lar form, but also its curved hall­ways, its cus­tom-built cab­i­netry (Philip­pine mahogany, of course), its sig­na­ture “com­pres­sion-and-release” and “inside-out” spa­tial effects, its can­tilevered bal­cony, its inte­gra­tion with the desert envi­ron­ment, and even its car­port — Wright’s own coinage, and indeed his own inven­tion.

Also in the man­ner of most Wright-designed homes — as he him­self was known to acknowl­edge, and not with­out a boast­ful note — the Cir­cu­lar Sun House seems eas­i­er to look at than to live in, let alone main­tain. “The 3‑bedroom home last sold in 2019, before it had a brief peri­od on Airbnb (rent­ed for approx­i­mate­ly $1,395 a night),” [wrote _Homes & Gar­dens_’ Megan Slack in 2023](https://www.homesandgardens.com/news/frank-lloyd-wright-circular-sun-house). At that time, it was on the mar­ket for $8.5 mil­lion, about half a mil­lion dol­lars more than its own­er want­ed in 2021. Para­dox­i­cal­ly, though it [remains unsold as of this writ­ing](https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/6836-N-36th-St-Phoenix-AZ-85018/7809607_zpid/), its ask­ing price has risen to $8,950,000. Wright’s name brings a cer­tain pre­mi­um, of course, but so do the trends of the moment: one hears, after all, that the nineties are back.

**Relat­ed con­tent:**

[130+ Pho­tographs of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Mas­ter­piece Falling­wa­ter](https://www.openculture.com/2023/11/130-photographs-of-frank-lloyd-wrights-masterpiece-fallingwater.html)

[Take a Tour of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Ennis House, the Man­sion That Has Appeared in Blade Run­ner, Twin Peaks & Count­less Hol­ly­wood Films](https://www.openculture.com/2024/10/take-a-tour-of-frank-lloyd-wrights-ennis-house.html)

[A Beau­ti­ful Visu­al Tour of Tir­ran­na, One of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Remark­able, Final Cre­ations](https://www.openculture.com/2024/01/a-beautiful-visual-tour-of-tirranna-one-of-frank-lloyd-wrights-remarkable-final-designs.html)

[Take a 360° Vir­tu­al Tour of Tal­iesin, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Per­son­al Home & Stu­dio](https://www.openculture.com/2015/08/take-a-360-virtual-tour-of-taliesin-frank-lloyd-wrights-personal-home-studio.html)

[Inside the Beau­ti­ful Home Frank Lloyd Wright Designed for His Son (1952)](https://www.openculture.com/2024/04/inside-the-beautiful-home-frank-lloyd-wright-designed-for-his-son-1952.html)

[What Frank Lloyd Wright’s Unusu­al Win­dows Tell Us About His Archi­tec­tur­al Genius](https://www.openculture.com/2022/08/what-frank-lloyd-wrights-unusual-windows-tell-us-about-his-architectural-genius.html)

_Based in Seoul,_ _[Col­in](http://blog.colinmarshall.org/)_ _[M](http://blog.colinmarshall.org/)__[a](http://blog.colinmarshall.org/)__[rshall](http://blog.colinmarshall.org/) writes and broad­cas__ts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter_ [Books on Cities](https://colinmarshall.substack.com/) _and the book_ The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les. _Fol­low him on the social net­work for­mer­ly known as Twit­ter at [@colinm](https://twitter.com/#%21/colinmarshall)__[a](https://twitter.com/#%21/colinmarshall)__[rshall](https://twitter.com/#%21/colinmarshall)._

by [Colin Marshall](https://www.openculture.com/author/cjmarshall "Posts by Colin Marshall") | [Permalink](https://www.openculture.com/2025/03/a-tour-of-the-final-home-designed-by-frank-lloyd-wright-the-circular-sun-house.html "Permalink") | [Make a Comment](https://www.openculture.com/2025/03/a-tour-of-the-final-home-designed-by-frank-lloyd-wright-the-circular-sun-house.html#respond "Make a comment") ( [3](https://www.openculture.com/2025/03/a-tour-of-the-final-home-designed-by-frank-lloyd-wright-the-circular-sun-house.html#comments) ) |

[Watch the Sci-Fi Short Film “I’m Not a Robot”: Winner of a 2025 Academy Award](https://www.openculture.com/2025/03/watch-the-sci-fi-short-film-im-not-a-robot-winner-of-a-2025-academy-award.html "Permanent Link to Watch the Sci-Fi Short Film “I’m Not a Robot”: Winner of a 2025 Academy Award")

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in _[Film](https://www.openculture.com/category/film), [Sci Fi](https://www.openculture.com/category/sci_fi)_ | March 7th, 2025

[Bluesky](/#bluesky "Bluesky")[Facebook](/#facebook "Facebook")[Threads](/#threads "Threads")[Mastodon](/#mastodon "Mastodon")[Reddit](/#reddit "Reddit")[Message](/#sms "Message")[Email](/#email "Email")[Share](https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.openculture.com%2F2025%2F03%2Fwatch-the-sci-fi-short-film-im-not-a-robot-winner-of-a-2025-academy-award.html&title=Watch%20the%20Sci-Fi%20Short%20Film%20%E2%80%9CI%E2%80%99m%20Not%20a%20Robot%E2%80%9D%3A%20Winner%20of%20a%202025%20Academy%20Award)

[Vic­to­ria Warmer­dam](https://www.youngdirectoraward.com/how-victoria-warmerdam-tackled-bodily-autonomy-through-comedy/), the writer and direc­tor of the short film, “I’m Not a Robot,” sum­ma­rizes the plot of her 22-minute film as fol­lows: The film “tells the sto­ry of Lara, a music pro­duc­er who spi­rals into an exis­ten­tial cri­sis after repeat­ed­ly fail­ing a CAPTCHA test—leading her to ques­tion whether she might actu­al­ly be a robot. Through a dark comedic lens, \[the film\] explores themes of iden­ti­ty, self-deter­mi­na­tion, love, and tech­nol­o­gy in a world where the line between human­i­ty and arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence is becom­ing increas­ing­ly blurred.” This past week­end, “I’m Not a Robot” won the Oscar for Best Live Action Short, mark­ing the first time a Dutch short film received this hon­or. Dis­trib­uted by _The New York­er_, “I’m Not a Robot” can be viewed free online. We’re adding it to our col­lec­tion of [4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More](https://www.openculture.com/freemoviesonline).

_If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, [please find it here](https://www.openculture.com/newsletter-signup). It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day._

_If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er [mak­ing a dona­tion to our site](https://bit.ly/3EBHjtX). It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your [con­tri­bu­tions](https://bit.ly/3EBHjtX) will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through [Pay­Pal](https://www.openculture.com/help-fund-open-culture), [Patre­on](https://bit.ly/3eB2GRB), and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!_

**Relat­ed Con­tent** 

[_Glass_: The Oscar-Win­ning “Per­fect Short Doc­u­men­tary” on Dutch Glass­mak­ing (1958)](https://www.openculture.com/2016/03/glass-1958.html "Permanent Link to <i>Glass</i>: The Oscar-Winning “Perfect Short Documentary” on Dutch Glassmaking (1958)")

[The Clas­sic 1956 Oscar-Win­ning Children’s Film, _The Red Bal­loon_](https://www.openculture.com/2012/06/the_classic_1956_oscar-winning_childrens_film_ithe_red_ballooni.html "Permanent Link to The Classic 1956 Oscar-Winning Children’s Film, <i>The Red Balloon</i>")

[Watch This Year’s Oscar-Win­ning Short _The Neighbor’s Win­dow_, a Sur­pris­ing Tale of Urban Voyeurism](https://www.openculture.com/2020/02/the-neighbors-window.html "Permanent Link to Watch This Year’s Oscar-Winning Short <i>The Neighbor’s Window</i>, a Surprising Tale of Urban Voyeurism")

[Watch 66 Oscar-Nom­i­nat­ed-and-Award-Win­ning Ani­mat­ed Shorts Online, Cour­tesy of the Nation­al Film Board of Cana­da](https://www.openculture.com/2019/02/watch-66-oscar-nominated-and-award-winning-animated-shorts-online.html "Permanent Link to Watch 66 Oscar-Nominated-and-Award-Winning Animated Shorts Online, Courtesy of the National Film Board of Canada")

by [OC](https://www.openculture.com/author/dancolman "Posts by OC") | [Permalink](https://www.openculture.com/2025/03/watch-the-sci-fi-short-film-im-not-a-robot-winner-of-a-2025-academy-award.html "Permalink") | [Make a Comment](https://www.openculture.com/2025/03/watch-the-sci-fi-short-film-im-not-a-robot-winner-of-a-2025-academy-award.html#respond "Make a comment") ( [1](https://www.openculture.com/2025/03/watch-the-sci-fi-short-film-im-not-a-robot-winner-of-a-2025-academy-award.html#comments) ) |

[Get 40% Off 3 Months of Coursera Plus & Access Unlimited Courses – Offer Ends March 9](https://www.openculture.com/2025/03/get-40-off-3-months-of-coursera-plus-access-unlimited-courses-offer-ends-march-9.html "Permanent Link to Get 40% Off 3 Months of Coursera Plus & Access Unlimited Courses – Offer Ends March 9")

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in _[Deals](https://www.openculture.com/category/deals)_ | March 7th, 2025

[Bluesky](/#bluesky "Bluesky")[Facebook](/#facebook "Facebook")[Threads](/#threads "Threads")[Mastodon](/#mastodon "Mastodon")[Reddit](/#reddit "Reddit")[Message](/#sms "Message")[Email](/#email "Email")[Share](https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.openculture.com%2F2025%2F03%2Fget-40-off-3-months-of-coursera-plus-access-unlimited-courses-offer-ends-march-9.html&title=Get%2040%25%20Off%203%20Months%20of%20Coursera%20Plus%20%26%20Access%20Unlimited%20Courses%20%E2%80%93%20Offer%20Ends%20March%209)

Now through March 9, 2025, Cours­era is offer­ing [40% off a three-month sub­scrip­tion to Cours­era Plus](https://imp.i384100.net/c/165976/2820469/14726). This plan pro­vides access to 7,000+ cours­es for one all-inclu­sive price, includ­ing pro­grams from 350 uni­ver­si­ties (e.g., Duke and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan) and com­pa­nies like Google and IBM.

It’s a great oppor­tu­ni­ty for any­one look­ing to learn new skills or earn cer­tifi­cates to boost their resume. Just as Net­flix offers unlim­it­ed stream­ing, [Cours­era Plus](https://imp.i384100.net/c/165976/2820469/14726) pro­vides unlim­it­ed access to cours­es and certificates—it’s an all-you-can-learn deal. Explore [the offer before March 9, 2025.](https://imp.i384100.net/c/165976/2820469/14726)

_Note_: Open Cul­ture has a part­ner­ship with Cours­era. If read­ers enroll in cer­tain Cours­era cours­es and pro­grams, it helps sup­port Open Cul­ture.

by [OC](https://www.openculture.com/author/dancolman "Posts by OC") | [Permalink](https://www.openculture.com/2025/03/get-40-off-3-months-of-coursera-plus-access-unlimited-courses-offer-ends-march-9.html "Permalink") | [Make a Comment](https://www.openculture.com/2025/03/get-40-off-3-months-of-coursera-plus-access-unlimited-courses-offer-ends-march-9.html#respond "Make a comment") ( [None](https://www.openculture.com/2025/03/get-40-off-3-months-of-coursera-plus-access-unlimited-courses-offer-ends-march-9.html#respond) ) |

[The Classic 1972 Concert Film _Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii_ Gets Restored & Will Soon Hit IMAX Theaters](https://www.openculture.com/2025/03/the-classic-1972-concert-film-pink-floyd-live-at-pompeii-gets-restored-will-soon-hit-imax-theaters.html "Permanent Link to The Classic 1972 Concert Film <i>Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii</i> Gets Restored & Will Soon Hit IMAX Theaters")

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in _[Film](https://www.openculture.com/category/film), [Music](https://www.openculture.com/category/music)_ | March 6th, 2025

[Bluesky](/#bluesky "Bluesky")[Facebook](/#facebook "Facebook")[Threads](/#threads "Threads")[Mastodon](/#mastodon "Mastodon")[Reddit](/#reddit "Reddit")[Message](/#sms "Message")[Email](/#email "Email")[Share](https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.openculture.com%2F2025%2F03%2Fthe-classic-1972-concert-film-pink-floyd-live-at-pompeii-gets-restored-will-soon-hit-imax-theaters.html&title=The%20Classic%201972%20Concert%20Film%20Pink%20Floyd%3A%20Live%20at%20Pompeii%20Gets%20Restored%20%26%20Will%20Soon%20Hit%20IMAX%20Theaters)

Today, when we watch genre-defin­ing con­cert films like _Mon­terey Pop_, _Wood­stock_, _Gimme Shel­ter_, or _Zig­gy Star­dust and the Spi­ders from Mars_, we look upon the audi­ence with near­ly as much inter­est as we do the per­form­ers. But Pink Floyd nev­er did things in quite the same way as oth­er rock bands of that era. In 1972, they put out a con­cert film with no audi­ence at all, sub­sti­tut­ing for visu­al inter­est the majes­tic ruins of the ancient Roman amphithe­ater in Pom­peii. _Pink Floyd at Pom­peii – MCMLXXII_ has late­ly been restored, and you can see [the trail­er for its upcom­ing world­wide cin­e­mas-and-IMAX re-release](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpFK9JCT8PU) above.

Even with­out the unpre­dictable ele­ment of atten­dees (apart from a few local chil­dren who snuck in to watch), the pro­duc­tion had its dif­fi­cul­ties. Ever musi­cal­ly rig­or­ous, the Floyd insist­ed on play­ing live with their actu­al tour­ing gear, which took three days to truck over from Lon­don.

Only then was it dis­cov­ered that the amphithe­ater did­n’t have enough elec­tric­i­ty avail­able to pow­er it all, which ulti­mate­ly required run­ning a half-mile-long exten­sion cord to the town hall. Though hard­ly unim­pres­sive, the result­ing footage fell short of fea­ture length, which required sup­ple­men­tary shoot­ing at the con­sid­er­ably less his­toric Stu­dio Europa­sonor in Paris.

_Pink Floyd at Pom­peii – MCMLXXII_ was orig­i­nal­ly meant, in part, to pro­mote their then-lat­est-release _Med­dle_. That album is best remem­bered for “Echoes,” which occu­pies the entire­ty of side two, and which fore­shad­owed the kinds of ambi­tious com­po­si­tions of which the post-Syd Bar­rett ver­sion of the Floyd would be capa­ble. The film splits it up into two parts, one to open it and the oth­er to close it; you can get a taste of this live ren­di­tion from [the clip just above](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73Bpyta8vOs). In between the two halves of “Echoes” come songs like “Care­ful with That Axe, Eugene,” “A Saucer­ful of Secrets,” and “Made­moi­selle Nobs,” as well as footage of the band in the stu­dio, at work on their next project: an album called _The Dark Side of the Moon_.

**Relat­ed con­tent:**

[An Hour-Long Col­lec­tion of Live Footage Doc­u­ments the Ear­ly Days of Pink Floyd (1967–1972)](https://www.openculture.com/2019/08/an-hour-long-collection-of-live-footage-documents-the-early-days-of-pink-floyd-1967-1972.html)

[Pink Floyd Films a Con­cert in an Emp­ty Audi­to­ri­um, Still Try­ing to Break Into the U.S. Charts (1970)](https://www.openculture.com/2020/01/pink-floyd-films-a-concert-in-an-empty-auditorium.html)

[Pink Floyd Plays in Venice on a Mas­sive Float­ing Stage in 1989; Forces the May­or & City Coun­cil to Resign](https://www.openculture.com/2024/04/pink-floyd-plays-in-venice-on-a-massive-floating-stage-in-1989-forces-the-mayor-to-resign.html)

[Watch the Rare Reunions of Pink Floyd: Con­certs from 2005, 2010 & 2011](https://www.openculture.com/2014/10/the-rare-reunions-of-pink-floyd.html)

[David Gilmour Makes His Live at Pom­peii Con­cert Film Free to Watch Online](https://www.openculture.com/2019/10/david-gilmour-makes-his-live-at-pompeii-concert-film-free-to-watch-online.html)

[Take a High Def, Guid­ed Tour of Pom­peii](https://www.openculture.com/2023/07/take-a-high-def-guided-tour-of-pompeii.html)

_Based in Seoul,_ _[Col­in](http://blog.colinmarshall.org/)_ _[M](http://blog.colinmarshall.org/)__[a](http://blog.colinmarshall.org/)__[rshall](http://blog.colinmarshall.org/) writes and broad­cas__ts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter_ [Books on Cities](https://colinmarshall.substack.com/) _and the book_ The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les. _Fol­low him on the social net­work for­mer­ly known as Twit­ter at [@colinm](https://twitter.com/#%21/colinmarshall)__[a](https://twitter.com/#%21/colinmarshall)__[rshall](https://twitter.com/#%21/colinmarshall)._

by [Colin Marshall](https://www.openculture.com/author/cjmarshall "Posts by Colin Marshall") | [Permalink](https://www.openculture.com/2025/03/the-classic-1972-concert-film-pink-floyd-live-at-pompeii-gets-restored-will-soon-hit-imax-theaters.html "Permalink") | [Make a Comment](https://www.openculture.com/2025/03/the-classic-1972-concert-film-pink-floyd-live-at-pompeii-gets-restored-will-soon-hit-imax-theaters.html#respond "Make a comment") ( [None](https://www.openculture.com/2025/03/the-classic-1972-concert-film-pink-floyd-live-at-pompeii-gets-restored-will-soon-hit-imax-theaters.html#respond) ) |

[Historian Answers Burning Questions About The Renaissance](https://www.openculture.com/2025/03/historian-answers-burning-questions-about-the-renaissance.html "Permanent Link to Historian Answers Burning Questions About The Renaissance")

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in _[Art](https://www.openculture.com/category/art), [History](https://www.openculture.com/category/history)_ | March 6th, 2025

[Bluesky](/#bluesky "Bluesky")[Facebook](/#facebook "Facebook")[Threads](/#threads "Threads")[Mastodon](/#mastodon "Mastodon")[Reddit](/#reddit "Reddit")[Message](/#sms "Message")[Email](/#email "Email")[Share](https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.openculture.com%2F2025%2F03%2Fhistorian-answers-burning-questions-about-the-renaissance.html&title=Historian%20Answers%20Burning%20Questions%20About%20The%20Renaissance)

Cour­tesy of _Wired_, his­to­ri­an [Alexan­der Bevilac­qua](https://history.williams.edu/profile/ab24/) (Williams Col­lege) answers the inter­net’s burn­ing ques­tions about the cul­tur­al rebirth that came to be known as The Renais­sance. In 30+ min­utes, Bevilac­qua cov­ers an array of ques­tions, includ­ing: When did The Renais­sance begin? What exact­ly was the Renais­sance? Why do paint­ings like the [Mona Lisa](https://www.openculture.com/2022/01/how-did-the-mona-lisa-become-the-worlds-most-famous-painting-its-not-what-you-think.html) and [The Birth of Venus](https://www.openculture.com/2022/02/what-made-botticellis-the-birth-of-venus-a-revolutionary-painting.html) remain so famous cen­turies lat­er? What did peo­ple’s diets con­sist of dur­ing The Renais­sance? How was their hygiene? How did [Brunelleschi build a dome in Flo­rence](https://www.openculture.com/2023/03/how-the-worlds-biggest-dome-was-built-the-story-of-filippo-brunelleschi-and-the-duomo-in-florence.html) that defied grav­i­ty? What is inside [Leonar­do da Vin­ci’s note­books](https://www.openculture.com/2021/05/where-to-read-leonardo-da-vincis-notebooks-online.html)? And the ques­tions go on…

_If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, [please find it here](https://www.openculture.com/newsletter-signup). It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day._

_If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er [mak­ing a dona­tion to our site](https://bit.ly/3EBHjtX). It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your [con­tri­bu­tions](https://bit.ly/3EBHjtX) will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through [Pay­Pal](https://www.openculture.com/help-fund-open-culture), [Patre­on](https://bit.ly/3eB2GRB), and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!_

**Relat­ed Con­tent** 

[Michelangelo’s David: The Fas­ci­nat­ing Sto­ry Behind the Renais­sance Mar­ble Cre­ation](https://www.openculture.com/2021/06/michelangelos-david-the-fascinating-story-behind-the-renaissance-marble-creation.html "Permanent Link to Michelangelo’s David: The Fascinating Story Behind the Renaissance Marble Creation")

[How the World’s Biggest Dome Was Built: The Sto­ry of Fil­ip­po Brunelleschi and the Duo­mo in Flo­rence](https://www.openculture.com/2023/03/how-the-worlds-biggest-dome-was-built-the-story-of-filippo-brunelleschi-and-the-duomo-in-florence.html "Permanent Link to How the World’s Biggest Dome Was Built: The Story of Filippo Brunelleschi and the Duomo in Florence")

[What Makes Leonardo’s _Mona Lisa_ a Great Paint­ing?: An Expla­na­tion in 15 Min­utes](https://www.openculture.com/2021/06/what-makes-leonardos-mona-lisa-a-great-painting-an-explanation-in-15-minutes.html "Permanent Link to What Makes Leonardo’s <i>Mona Lisa</i> a Great Painting?: An Explanation in 15 Minutes")

[How to Build Leonar­do da Vinci’s Inge­nious Self-Sup­port­ing Bridge: Renais­sance Inno­va­tions You Can Still Enjoy Today](https://www.openculture.com/2017/06/how-to-build-leonardo-da-vincis-ingenious-self-supporting-bridge.html)

[Renais­sance Knives Had Music Engraved on the Blades & Now You Can Hear the Songs Per­formed by Mod­ern Singers](https://www.openculture.com/2023/11/renaissance-knives-had-music-engraved-on-the-blades-now-you-can-hear-the-songs-performed-by-modern-singers.html "Permanent Link to Renaissance Knives Had Music Engraved on the Blades & Now You Can Hear the Songs Performed by Modern Singers")

[Leonar­do da Vinci’s Note­books Get Dig­i­tized: Where to Read the Renais­sance Man’s Man­u­scripts Online](https://www.openculture.com/2021/05/where-to-read-leonardo-da-vincis-notebooks-online.html "Permanent Link to Leonardo da Vinci’s Notebooks Get Digitized: Where to Read the Renaissance Man’s Manuscripts Online")

[Machiavelli’s _The Prince_ Explained in an Illus­trat­ed Film](https://www.openculture.com/2022/06/machiavellis-the-prince-explained-in-an-illustrated-film.html "Permanent Link to Machiavelli’s <i>The Prince</i> Explained in an Illustrated Film")

by [OC](https://www.openculture.com/author/dancolman "Posts by OC") | [Permalink](https://www.openculture.com/2025/03/historian-answers-burning-questions-about-the-renaissance.html "Permalink") | [Make a Comment](https://www.openculture.com/2025/03/historian-answers-burning-questions-about-the-renaissance.html#respond "Make a comment") ( [None](https://www.openculture.com/2025/03/historian-answers-burning-questions-about-the-renaissance.html#respond) ) |

[How Stephen King Foretold the Rise of Trump in a 1979 Novel](https://www.openculture.com/2025/03/how-stephen-king-foretold-the-rise-of-trump-in-a-1979-novel.html "Permanent Link to How Stephen King Foretold the Rise of Trump in a 1979 Novel")

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in _[Books](https://www.openculture.com/category/books), [Politics](https://www.openculture.com/category/politics)_ | March 5th, 2025

[Bluesky](/#bluesky "Bluesky")[Facebook](/#facebook "Facebook")[Threads](/#threads "Threads")[Mastodon](/#mastodon "Mastodon")[Reddit](/#reddit "Reddit")[Message](/#sms "Message")[Email](/#email "Email")[Share](https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.openculture.com%2F2025%2F03%2Fhow-stephen-king-foretold-the-rise-of-trump-in-a-1979-novel.html&title=How%20Stephen%20King%20Foretold%20the%20Rise%20of%20Trump%20in%20a%201979%20Novel)

Nobody opens a Stephen King nov­el expect­ing to see a reflec­tion of the real world. Then again, as those who get hooked on his books can attest, nev­er is his work ever whol­ly detached from real­i­ty. Time and time again, he deliv­ers lurid visions of the macabre, grotesque, and bizarre, but they always work most pow­er­ful­ly when he weaves them into the coarse fab­ric of ordi­nary, makeshift, down-at-the-heels Amer­i­ca. Though long rich and famous, King has­n’t lost his under­stand­ing of a cer­tain down­trod­den stra­tum of soci­ety, or at least one that regards itself as down­trod­den — the very demo­graph­ic, in oth­er words, often blamed for the rise of Don­ald Trump.

“I start­ed think­ing Don­ald Trump might win the pres­i­den­cy in Sep­tem­ber of 2016,” King writes in [a _Guardian_ piece from Trump’s first pres­i­den­tial term](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/01/stephen-king-on-donald-trump-fictional-voters-truth-about-us-election). “By the end of Octo­ber, I was almost sure.” For most of that year, he’d sensed “a feel­ing that peo­ple were both fright­ened of the sta­tus quo and sick of it. Vot­ers saw a vast and over­loaded apple cart lum­ber­ing past them. They want­ed to upset the moth­er­fuck­er, and would wor­ry about pick­ing up those spilled apples lat­er. Or just leave them to rot.” They “didn’t just want change; they want­ed a man on horse­back. Trump filled the bill. I had writ­ten about such men before.”

King’s most pre­scient­ly craft­ed Trump-like char­ac­ter appears in his 1979 nov­el _The Dead Zone_. “Greg Still­son is a door-to-door Bible sales­man with a gift of gab, a ready wit and the com­mon touch. He is laughed at when he runs for may­or in his small New Eng­land town, but he wins,” a sequence of events that repeats itself when he runs for the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives and then for the pres­i­den­cy — a rise fore­seen by the sto­ry’s hero John­ny Smith, grant­ed clair­voy­ant pow­ers by a car wreck. “He real­izes that some day Still­son is going to laugh and joke his way into the White House, where he will start world war three.”

Fur­ther Still­son-Trump par­al­lels are exam­ined in [the NowThis inter­view clip at the top of the post](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXfklsKGwBU). “I was sort of con­vinced that it was pos­si­ble that a politi­cian would arise who was so out­side the main­stream and so will­ing to say any­thing that he would cap­ture the imag­i­na­tions of the Amer­i­can peo­ple.” Read now, Still­son’s dem­a­gog­i­cal rhetoric — describ­ing him­self as “a real mover and shak­er,” promis­ing to “throw the bums out” of Wash­ing­ton — sounds rather mild com­pared to what Trump says at his own ral­lies. Per­haps King him­self does have a touch of John­ny Smith-like pre­science. Or per­haps he sus­pects, on some lev­el, that Trump isn’t so much the dis­ease as the symp­tom, a man­i­fes­ta­tion of a much deep­er and longer-fes­ter­ing con­di­tion of the Amer­i­can soul. Now there’s a fright­en­ing notion.

**Relat­ed con­tent:**

[Octavia Butler’s 1998 Dystopi­an Nov­el Fea­tures a Fascis­tic Pres­i­den­tial Can­di­date Who Promis­es to “Make Amer­i­ca Great Again”](https://www.openculture.com/2016/07/octavia-butlers-1998-dystopian-novel-features-a-fascistic-presidential-candidate-who-promises-to-make-america-great-again.html)

[Stephen King’s 20 Rules for Writ­ers](https://www.openculture.com/2023/01/stephen-kings-20-rules-for-writers.html)

[Did Plato’s _Repub­lic_ Pre­dict the Rise of Don­ald Trump?: A Chill­ing Ani­mat­ed Video Nar­rat­ed by Andrew Sul­li­van](https://www.openculture.com/2017/02/did-platos-republic-predict-the-rise-of-donald-trump.html)

[Noam Chom­sky on Whether the Rise of Trump Resem­bles the Rise of Fas­cism in 1930s Ger­many](https://www.openculture.com/2016/05/noam-chomsky-on-whether-the-rise-of-trump-resembles-the-rise-of-fascism-in-1930s-germany.html)

[R Crumb, the Father of Under­ground Comix, Takes Down Don­ald Trump in a NSFW 1989 Car­toon](https://www.openculture.com/2016/06/r-crumb-takes-down-donald-trump-in-a-1989-cartoon.html)

[Stephen King Names His Five Favorite Works by Stephen King](https://www.openculture.com/2024/06/stephen-king-names-his-five-favorite-works-by-stephen-king.html)

_Based in Seoul,_ _[Col­in](http://blog.colinmarshall.org/)_ _[M](http://blog.colinmarshall.org/)__[a](http://blog.colinmarshall.org/)__[rshall](http://blog.colinmarshall.org/) writes and broad­cas__ts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter_ [Books on Cities](https://colinmarshall.substack.com/) _and the book_ The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les. _Fol­low him on the social net­work for­mer­ly known as Twit­ter at [@colinm](https://twitter.com/#%21/colinmarshall)__[a](https://twitter.com/#%21/colinmarshall)__[rshall](https://twitter.com/#%21/colinmarshall)._

by [Colin Marshall](https://www.openculture.com/author/cjmarshall "Posts by Colin Marshall") | [Permalink](https://www.openculture.com/2025/03/how-stephen-king-foretold-the-rise-of-trump-in-a-1979-novel.html "Permalink") | [Make a Comment](https://www.openculture.com/2025/03/how-stephen-king-foretold-the-rise-of-trump-in-a-1979-novel.html#respond "Make a comment") ( [None](https://www.openculture.com/2025/03/how-stephen-king-foretold-the-rise-of-trump-in-a-1979-novel.html#respond) ) |

[Carl Jung’s Hand-Drawn, Rarely-Seen Manuscript _The Red Book_](https://www.openculture.com/2025/03/carl-jungs-hand-drawn-rarely-seen-manuscript-the-red-book.html "Permanent Link to Carl Jung’s Hand-Drawn, Rarely-Seen Manuscript <i>The Red Book</i>")

==========================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================

in _[Art](https://www.openculture.com/category/art), [Literature](https://www.openculture.com/category/literature), [Psychology](https://www.openculture.com/category/psychology)_ | March 4th, 2025

[Bluesky](/#bluesky "Bluesky")[Facebook](/#facebook "Facebook")[Threads](/#threads "Threads")[Mastodon](/#mastodon "Mastodon")[Reddit](/#reddit "Reddit")[Message](/#sms "Message")[Email](/#email "Email")[Share](https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.openculture.com%2F2025%2F03%2Fcarl-jungs-hand-drawn-rarely-seen-manuscript-the-red-book.html&title=Carl%20Jung%E2%80%99s%20Hand-Drawn%2C%20Rarely-Seen%20Manuscript%20The%20Red%20Book)

Despite his one-time friend and men­tor Sig­mund Freud’s enor­mous impact on West­ern self-under­stand­ing, I would argue it is [Carl Jung](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Jung) who is still most with us in our com­mu­nal prac­tices: from his focus on intro­ver­sion and extro­ver­sion to his view of syn­cret­ic, intu­itive forms of spir­i­tu­al­i­ty and his indi­rect influ­ence on 12-Step pro­grams. But Jung’s jour­ney to self-under­stand­ing and what he called “indi­vid­u­a­tion” was an intense­ly pri­vate, per­son­al affair that took place over the course of six­teen years, dur­ing which he cre­at­ed an incred­i­ble, folio-sized work of reli­gious art called _[The Red Book: Liber Novus](http://amzn.to/1JqtjSL)_. In the video above, you can get a tour through Jung’s pri­vate mas­ter­piece, pre­sent­ed in an intense­ly hushed, breathy style meant to trig­ger the tingly sen­sa­tions of a weird phe­nom­e­non called “ASMR.” Giv­en the book’s dis­ori­ent­ing and often dis­turb­ing con­tent, this over-gen­tle guid­ance seems appro­pri­ate.

After his break with Freud in 1913, when he was 38 years old, Jung had what he feared might be a psy­chot­ic break with real­i­ty as well. He began record­ing his dreams, mys­ti­cal visions, and psy­che­del­ic inner voy­ages, in a styl­ized, cal­li­graph­ic style that resem­bles medieval Euro­pean illu­mi­nat­ed man­u­scripts and the occult psy­chic jour­neys of Aleis­ter Crow­ley and [William Blake](https://www.openculture.com/2018/09/enter-an-archive-of-william-blakes-fantastical-illuminated-books.html).

Jung had the work bound but not pub­lished. It’s “a very per­son­al record,” writes _[Psy­chol­o­gy Today](https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/evil-deeds/201102/reading-the-red-book-how-cg-jung-salvaged-his-soul)_, “of Jung’s com­pli­cat­ed, tor­tu­ous and lengthy quest to sal­vage his soul.” Jung called this process of cre­ation the “numi­nous begin­ning” to his most impor­tant psy­cho­log­i­cal work. After many years spent locked in a bank vault, _[The Red Book](http://amzn.to/1JqtjSL)_ final­ly came to light a few years ago and was trans­lat­ed and pub­lished in [an expen­sive edi­tion](http://www.amazon.com/The-Red-Book-Philemon-Jung/dp/0393065677).

Since its com­ple­tion, Jung’s book—a “[holy grail of the uncon­scious](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/magazine/20jung-t.html?_r=0)”—has fas­ci­nat­ed artists, psy­chol­o­gists, occultists, and ordi­nary peo­ple seek­ing to know their own inner depths. For most of that time, it remained hid­den from view. Now, even if you can’t afford a copy of the book, you can still see more of it than most any­one else could for almost 100 years. In addi­tion to the whis­pered tour of it above, you can see [sev­er­al fine­ly illus­trat­ed pages—with sea ser­pents, angels, runes, and mandalas—at _The Guardian_](http://www.theguardian.com/books/gallery/2009/oct/16/1), and read [a short excerpt at NPR](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120129676).

And for a very thor­ough sur­vey of Jung’s book, [lis­ten to the lec­ture series by long­time Jung schol­ar Dr. Lance S. Owens](http://gnosis.org/redbook/), who deliv­ers one set of talks for lay peo­ple and anoth­er more in-depth set for a group of clin­i­cal psy­chol­o­gists. Vis­it the [Gnos­tic Soci­ety Library site](http://gnosis.org/redbook/) to stream and down­load the remain­ing lec­tures.

Note: An ear­li­er ver­sion of this post appeared on our site in 2015.

**Relat­ed Con­tent:**

[Enter an Archive of William Blake’s Fan­tas­ti­cal “Illu­mi­nat­ed Books”: The Images Are Sub­lime, and in High Res­o­lu­tion](https://www.openculture.com/2018/09/enter-an-archive-of-william-blakes-fantastical-illuminated-books.html "Permanent Link to Enter an Archive of William Blake’s Fantastical “Illuminated Books”: The Images Are Sublime, and in High Resolution")

[How Carl Jung Inspired the Cre­ation of Alco­holics Anony­mous](https://www.openculture.com/2024/06/carl-jung-inspired-the-creation-of-alcoholics-anonymous.html "Permanent Link to How Carl Jung Inspired the Creation of Alcoholics Anonymous")

[Carl Jung on the Pow­er of Tarot Cards: They Pro­vide Door­ways to the Uncon­scious & Per­haps a Way to Pre­dict the Future](https://www.openculture.com/2023/10/carl-jung-on-the-power-of-tarot-cards.html "Permanent Link to Carl Jung on the Power of Tarot Cards: They Provide Doorways to the Unconscious & Perhaps a Way to Predict the Future")

[Carl Jung’s Fas­ci­nat­ing 1957 Let­ter on UFOs](http://www.openculture.com/2013/05/carl_jungs_1957_letter_on_the_fascinating_modern_myth_of_ufos.html)

[The Famous Break Up of Sig­mund Freud & Carl Jung Explained in a New Ani­mat­ed Video](https://www.openculture.com/2018/06/famous-break-sigmund-freud-carl-jung-explained-new-animated-video.html "Permanent Link to The Famous Break Up of Sigmund Freud & Carl Jung Explained in a New Animated Video")

[_Josh Jones_](http://about.me/jonesjoshua) _is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at [@jdmagness](https://twitter.com/jdmagness)_

by [OC](https://www.openculture.com/author/dancolman "Posts by OC") | [Permalink](https://www.openculture.com/2025/03/carl-jungs-hand-drawn-rarely-seen-manuscript-the-red-book.html "Permalink") | [Make a Comment](https://www.openculture.com/2025/03/carl-jungs-hand-drawn-rarely-seen-manuscript-the-red-book.html#respond "Make a comment") ( [None](https://www.openculture.com/2025/03/carl-jungs-hand-drawn-rarely-seen-manuscript-the-red-book.html#respond) ) |

[How the Nazis Waged War on Modern Art: Inside the “Degenerate Art” Exhibition of 1937](https://www.openculture.com/2025/03/how-the-nazis-waged-war-on-modern-art-inside-the-degenerate-art-exhibition-of-1937.html "Permanent Link to How the Nazis Waged War on Modern Art: Inside the “Degenerate Art” Exhibition of 1937")

==============================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================

in _[Art](https://www.openculture.com/category/art), [History](https://www.openculture.com/category/history)_ | March 4th, 2025

[Bluesky](/#bluesky "Bluesky")[Facebook](/#facebook "Facebook")[Threads](/#threads "Threads")[Mastodon](/#mastodon "Mastodon")[Reddit](/#reddit "Reddit")[Message](/#sms "Message")[Email](/#email "Email")[Share](https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.openculture.com%2F2025%2F03%2Fhow-the-nazis-waged-war-on-modern-art-inside-the-degenerate-art-exhibition-of-1937.html&title=How%20the%20Nazis%20Waged%20War%20on%20Modern%20Art%3A%20Inside%20the%20%E2%80%9CDegenerate%20Art%E2%80%9D%20Exhibition%20of%201937)

Before his fate­ful entry into pol­i­tics, Adolf Hitler want­ed to be an artist. Even to the most neu­tral imag­in­able observ­er, the known exam­ples of [the esti­mat­ed 2,000 to 3,000 paint­ings and oth­er works of art](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paintings_by_Adolf_Hitler) he pro­duced in his ear­ly adult­hood would hard­ly evi­dence aston­ish­ing genius. They do show a cer­tain tech­ni­cal com­pe­tence, espe­cial­ly where build­ings are con­cerned. (Twice reject­ed from the Acad­e­my of Fine Arts Vien­na, the young Hitler was advised to apply instead to the School of Archi­tec­ture, a sub­ject for which he also pro­fessed a pas­sion.) But their lack of imag­i­na­tion and inter­est in human­i­ty were too plain to ignore.

Could Hitler’s fail­ure to gain entry to the art world explain any­thing about the cul­tur­al pol­i­cy of the Nazi Par­ty he went on to lead? Here on Open Cul­ture, we’ve pre­vi­ous­ly fea­tured that pol­i­cy’s sin­gle defin­ing event: [_Die Ausstel­lung “Entartete Kun­st,”_ or the Degen­er­ate Art exhi­bi­tion](https://www.openculture.com/2013/11/nazis-degenerate-art-exhibition-of-1937.html), staged in 1937 at the Insti­tute of Archae­ol­o­gy in Munich’s Hof­garten.

Pre­sent­ing 650 con­fis­cat­ed works of art pur­port­ed to “insult Ger­man feel­ing, or destroy or con­fuse nat­ur­al form or sim­ply reveal an absence of ade­quate man­u­al and artis­tic skill,” it soon became a great hit, attract­ing one mil­lion atten­dees in its first six weeks.

That may not come as much of a sur­prise when you con­sid­er the artists whose work was on dis­play: Paul Klee, Georg Grosz, Otto Dix, Hen­ri Matisse, Pablo Picas­so, Wass­i­ly Kandin­sky, Piet Mon­dri­an, Marc Cha­gall, and even Grant Wood, to name just a few. It seems that the Nazis could come up with noth­ing quite so fas­ci­nat­ing for the planned first _Große Deutsche Kun­stausstel­lung_, or “Great Ger­man Art Exhi­bi­tion,” whose col­lapse inspired Hitler’s chief pro­pa­gan­dist Joseph Goebbels to sug­gest putting on a show not of the work that the Nazis approved, but of the work they didn’t.

An admir­er of cer­tain Expres­sion­ists, Goebbels dis­played more cul­tur­al open-mind­ed­ness than the Führer, who prac­ti­cal­ly declared a war on mod­ern art itself. You can learn more about it from David Gru­bin’s doc­u­men­tary _Degen­er­ate Art_, which is [avail­able to watch online](https://www.openculture.com/2019/04/when-the-nazis-declared-war-on-expressionist-art-1937.html). The Nazis con­fis­cat­ed more than 5,000 works of art, and even main­tained files on no few­er than 16,000 that they’d labeled “degen­er­ate,” a his­toric inven­to­ry that has [been made avail­able to the pub­lic](https://www.openculture.com/2018/05/the-16000-artworks-the-nazis-censored-and-labeled-degenerate-art.html). Sur­pris­ing­ly, their black­list did not include the oeu­vre of Gus­tav Klimt, [w](https://www.openculture.com/2023/08/how-the-avant-garde-art-of-gustav-klimt-got-perversely-appropriated-by-the-nazis.html)[hich they attempt­ed to use for their own ends.](https://www.openculture.com/2023/08/how-the-avant-garde-art-of-gustav-klimt-got-perversely-appropriated-by-the-nazis.html) It could be that, deep down, Hitler, the failed artist, knew good art when he saw it — and that it just made him all the more resent­ful.

**Relat­ed con­tent:**

[When the Nazis Declared War on Expres­sion­ist Art (1937)](https://www.openculture.com/2019/04/when-the-nazis-declared-war-on-expressionist-art-1937.html)

[The 16,000 Art­works the Nazis Cen­sored and Labeled “Degen­er­ate Art”: The Com­plete His­toric Inven­to­ry Is Now Online](https://www.openculture.com/2018/05/the-16000-artworks-the-nazis-censored-and-labeled-degenerate-art.html)

[How the Avant-Garde Art of Gus­tav Klimt Got Per­verse­ly Appro­pri­at­ed by the Nazis](https://www.openculture.com/2023/08/how-the-avant-garde-art-of-gustav-klimt-got-perversely-appropriated-by-the-nazis.html)

[The Nazis’ 10 Con­trol-Freak Rules for Jazz Per­form­ers: A Strange List from World War II](https://www.openculture.com/2013/03/the_nazis_10_control-freak_rules_for_jazz_performers_.html)

[How France Hid the _Mona Lisa_ & Oth­er Lou­vre Mas­ter­pieces Dur­ing World War II](https://www.openculture.com/2022/04/how-france-hid-the-mona-lisa-other-louvre-masterpieces-during-world-war-ii.html)

[When Ger­man Per­for­mance Artist Ulay Stole Hitler’s Favorite Paint­ing & Hung it in the Liv­ing Room of a Turk­ish Immi­grant Fam­i­ly (1976)](https://www.openculture.com/2018/03/when-german-performance-artist-ulay-stole-hitlers-favorite-painting.html)

_Based in Seoul,_ _[Col­in](http://blog.colinmarshall.org/)_ _[M](http://blog.colinmarshall.org/)__[a](http://blog.colinmarshall.org/)__[rshall](http://blog.colinmarshall.org/) writes and broad­cas__ts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter_ [Books on Cities](https://colinmarshall.substack.com/) _and the book_ The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les. _Fol­low him on the social net­work for­mer­ly known as Twit­ter at [@colinm](https://twitter.com/#%21/colinmarshall)__[a](https://twitter.com/#%21/colinmarshall)__[rshall](https://twitter.com/#%21/colinmarshall)._

by [Colin Marshall](https://www.openculture.com/author/cjmarshall "Posts by Colin Marshall") | [Permalink](https://www.openculture.com/2025/03/how-the-nazis-waged-war-on-modern-art-inside-the-degenerate-art-exhibition-of-1937.html "Permalink") | [Make a Comment](https://www.openculture.com/2025/03/how-the-nazis-waged-war-on-modern-art-inside-the-degenerate-art-exhibition-of-1937.html#respond "Make a comment") ( [2](https://www.openculture.com/2025/03/how-the-nazis-waged-war-on-modern-art-inside-the-degenerate-art-exhibition-of-1937.html#comments) ) |

[Andrei Tarkovsky’s Message to Young People: “Learn to Be Alone,” Enjoy Solitude](https://www.openculture.com/2025/03/andrei-tarkovskys-message-to-young-people-learn-to-be-alone-enjoy-solitude.html "Permanent Link to Andrei Tarkovsky’s Message to Young People: “Learn to Be Alone,” Enjoy Solitude")

==========================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================

in _[Film](https://www.openculture.com/category/film), [Life](https://www.openculture.com/category/life)_ | March 3rd, 2025

[Bluesky](/#bluesky "Bluesky")[Facebook](/#facebook "Facebook")[Threads](/#threads "Threads")[Mastodon](/#mastodon "Mastodon")[Reddit](/#reddit "Reddit")[Message](/#sms "Message")[Email](/#email "Email")[Share](https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.openculture.com%2F2025%2F03%2Fandrei-tarkovskys-message-to-young-people-learn-to-be-alone-enjoy-solitude.html&title=Andrei%20Tarkovsky%E2%80%99s%20Message%20to%20Young%20People%3A%20%E2%80%9CLearn%20to%20Be%20Alone%2C%E2%80%9D%20Enjoy%20Solitude)

I remem­ber the first time I sat down and watched Andrei Tarkovsky’s lyri­cal, mean­der­ing sci-fi epic _[Stalk­er](https://www.openculture.com/2024/04/watch-stalker-andrei-tarkovskys-mind-bending-masterpiece-free.html)_. It was a long time ago, before the advent of smart­phones and tablets. I watched a beat-up VHS copy on a non-“smart” TV, and had no abil­i­ty to pause every few min­utes and swing by Face­book, Twit­ter, or Insta­gram for some instant dis­trac­tion and dig­i­tal small talk. The almost three-hour film—with its long, lan­guid takes and end­less stretch­es of silence—is a med­i­ta­tive exer­cise, a test in patience that at times seems like its own reward.

I recall at the time think­ing about how didac­tic Tarkovsky’s work is, in the best pos­si­ble sense of the word. It teach­es its view­ers to watch, lis­ten, and wait. It’s a course best tak­en alone, like the jour­ney into the film’s mys­te­ri­ous “Zone,” since the pres­ence of anoth­er, like­ly per­plexed, view­er might break the qui­et spell the movie casts. But while watch­ing a Tarkovsky film—whether _Stalk­er_, _Andrei Rublev_, [_Solaris_](http://www.openculture.com/2014/12/watch-solaris-1972-andrei-tarkovskys-haunting-vision-of-the-future.html), or any of his oth­er pen­sive cre­ations ([watch them online here](https://www.openculture.com/2010/07/tarkovksy.html))—may be a soli­tary activ­i­ty, it need not at all be a lone­ly one.

The dis­tinc­tion between healthy soli­tude and lone­li­ness is one Tarkovsky is par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est­ed in. It’s a cin­e­mat­ic theme he pur­sues, and a ped­a­gog­i­cal one as well. In the video above from The Cri­te­ri­on Col­lec­tion, Tarkovsky offers some thought­ful insights that can only seem all the more rel­e­vant to today’s always-on, mul­ti-screen cul­ture. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the sub­ti­tles trans­late his words selec­tive­ly, but [Maria Popo­va at The Mar­gin­a­lian has a full trans­la­tion](http://www.brainpickings.org/2013/03/13/tarkovsky-advice-to-the-young/) of the filmmaker’s answer to the ques­tion “What would you like to tell young peo­ple?” Like some ancient Pan dis­pens­ing time­less wis­dom, Tarkovsky reclines in an old, gnarled tree—on what may very well be one of his wild, wood­ed film sets—and says,

> _I don’t know… I think I’d like to say only that they should learn to be alone and try to spend as much time as pos­si­ble by them­selves. I think one of the faults of young peo­ple today is that they try to come togeth­er around events that are noisy, almost aggres­sive at times. This desire to be togeth­er in order to not feel alone is an unfor­tu­nate symp­tom, in my opin­ion. Every per­son needs to learn from child­hood how to spend time with one­self. That doesn’t mean he should be lone­ly, but that he shouldn’t grow bored with him­self because peo­ple who grow bored in their own com­pa­ny seem to me in dan­ger, from a self-esteem point of view._

Though I speak as one who grew up in an ana­logue world free from social media—the only world Tarkovsky ever knew—I don’t think it’s just the cranky old man in me who finds this advice com­pelling­ly sound. As a [Tom Tomor­row car­toon](https://web.archive.org/web/20150224201149/https://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/02/23/1365576/-Cartoon-Quick-What-s-your-opinion) satir­i­cal­ly illus­trat­ed, our rapid-fire, pres­sure-cook­er pub­lic dis­course may grant us instant access to information—or misinformation—but it also encour­ages, nay urges, us to form hasty opin­ions, ignore nuance and sub­tleties, and par­tic­i­pate in group­think rather than digest­ing things slow­ly and com­ing to our own con­clu­sions. It’s an envi­ron­ment par­tic­u­lar­ly hos­tile to medi­ums like poet­ry, or the kinds of poet­ic films Tarkovsky made, which teach us the val­ue of judg­ment with­held, and immerse us in the kinds of aes­thet­ic expe­ri­ences the inter­net and tele­vi­sion, with their non­stop chat­ter, push to the mar­gins.

Tarkovsky’s gen­er­al advice to young peo­ple can be paired with [his chal­leng­ing advice to young film­mak­ers, and all artists, in par­tic­u­lar](http://www.openculture.com/2013/01/tarkovskys_advice_to_young_filmmakers.html)—advice that demands focused atten­tion, patience, and com­mit­ment to indi­vid­ual pas­sion and vision.

Props to [The Mar­gin­a­lian](http://www.brainpickings.org/2013/03/13/tarkovsky-advice-to-the-young/) for the trans­la­tion.

Note: An ear­li­er ver­sion of this post appeared on our site in 2015.

**Relat­ed Con­tent** 

[Watch Andrei Tarkovsky’s Films Free Online: _Stalk­er_, _The Mir­ror_ & _Andrei Rublev_](https://www.openculture.com/2010/07/tarkovksy.html "Permanent Link to Watch Andrei Tarkovsky’s Films Free Online: <i>Stalker</i>, <i>The Mirror</i> & <i>Andrei Rublev</i>")

[Andrei Tarkovsky’s Advice to Young Film­mak­ers: Sac­ri­fice Your­self for Cin­e­ma](https://www.openculture.com/2013/01/tarkovskys_advice_to_young_filmmakers.html "Permanent Link to Andrei Tarkovsky’s Advice to Young Filmmakers: Sacrifice Yourself for Cinema")

[Andrei Tarkovsky Cre­ates a List of His 10 Favorite Films (1972)](https://www.openculture.com/2014/08/andrei-tarkovsky-creates-a-list-of-his-10-favorite-films-1972.html "Permanent Link to Andrei Tarkovsky Creates a List of His 10 Favorite Films (1972)")

[The Mas­ter­ful Polaroid Pic­tures Tak­en by Film­mak­er Andrei Tarkovsky](https://www.openculture.com/2013/08/the-masterful-polaroid-pictures-taken-by-filmmaker-andrei-tarkovsky.html "Permanent Link to The Masterful Polaroid Pictures Taken by Filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky")

[Andrei Tarkovsky Calls Kubrick’s _2001: A Space Odyssey_ a “Pho­ny” Film “With Only Pre­ten­sions to Truth”](https://www.openculture.com/2015/07/andrei-tarkovsky-calls-kubricks-2001-a-space-odyssey-a-phony-film-with-only-pretensions-to-truth.html "Permanent Link to Andrei Tarkovsky Calls Kubrick’s <i>2001: A Space Odyssey</i> a “Phony” Film “With Only Pretensions to Truth”")

by [OC](https://www.openculture.com/author/dancolman "Posts by OC") | [Permalink](https://www.openculture.com/2025/03/andrei-tarkovskys-message-to-young-people-learn-to-be-alone-enjoy-solitude.html "Permalink") | [Make a Comment](https://www.openculture.com/2025/03/andrei-tarkovskys-message-to-young-people-learn-to-be-alone-enjoy-solitude.html#respond "Make a comment") ( [None](https://www.openculture.com/2025/03/andrei-tarkovskys-message-to-young-people-learn-to-be-alone-enjoy-solitude.html#respond) ) |

[Where _The Simpsons_ Began: Discover the Original Shorts That Appeared on _The Tracey Ullman Show_ (1987–1989)](https://www.openculture.com/2025/03/where-the-simpsons-began.html "Permanent Link to Where <i>The Simpsons</i> Began: Discover the Original Shorts That Appeared on <i>The Tracey Ullman Show</i> (1987–1989)")

================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================

in _[Animation](https://www.openculture.com/category/animation-2), [Comedy](https://www.openculture.com/category/comedy), [Television](https://www.openculture.com/category/television)_ | March 3rd, 2025

[Bluesky](/#bluesky "Bluesky")[Facebook](/#facebook "Facebook")[Threads](/#threads "Threads")[Mastodon](/#mastodon "Mastodon")[Reddit](/#reddit "Reddit")[Message](/#sms "Message")[Email](/#email "Email")[Share](https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.openculture.com%2F2025%2F03%2Fwhere-the-simpsons-began.html&title=Where%20The%20Simpsons%20Began%3A%20Discover%20the%20Original%20Shorts%20That%20Appeared%20on%20The%20Tracey%20Ullman%20Show%20\(1987%E2%80%931989\))

When it first went on air in the late nine­teen-eight­ies, Fox had to prove itself capa­ble of play­ing in a tele­vi­su­al league with the likes of NBC, CBS, and ABC. To that end, it began build­ing its prime-time line­up with two orig­i­nal pro­grams more the­mat­i­cal­ly and aes­thet­i­cal­ly dar­ing than any­thing on those staid net­works: the sit­com _Mar­ried… with Chil­dren_ and the sketch com­e­dy series _The Tracey Ull­man Show_. Before and after com­mer­cial breaks, the lat­ter treat­ed its ear­ly view­ers to a series of irrev­er­ent ani­mat­ed shorts cre­at­ed by an acclaimed car­toon­ist and fea­tur­ing the vocal tal­ents of Dan Castel­lan­e­ta, Julie Kavn­er, and Nan­cy Cartwright. I speak, of course, of [_Dr. N!Godatu_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvYKoNKQpv8).

On an alter­nate time­line, per­haps the per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al adven­tures of that near-unflap­pable psy­chother­a­pist were spun off into their own hit series that broke every record for prime-time ani­ma­tion and is now in its 36th sea­son.

Here in our real­i­ty, how­ev­er, that’s been the des­tiny of _The_ _Simp­sons_, which also began as _The Tracey Ull­man Show_’s bumper enter­tain­ment. Dr. N!Godatu van­ished after a few weeks, nev­er to be seen again, but the Simp­son fam­i­ly remained for two full years, mak­ing their final short-from appear­ance in May of 1989. Sev­en months lat­er, _The Simp­sons_ made its Christ­mas-spe­cial debut — an event that, if you don’t remem­ber watch­ing, I can’t count you as a mem­ber of my gen­er­a­tion.

Not that, giv­en my young age, I’d ever actu­al­ly seen _The Tracey Ull­man Show_ at the time. But the hard pro­mo­tion­al push lead­ing up to that first real _Simp­sons_ offered glimpses into an ani­mat­ed world that looked and felt com­plete­ly nov­el. (Hav­ing grown accus­tomed over gen­er­a­tions to the show’s aes­thet­ic, we eas­i­ly for­get how bizarre its yel­low-skinned, uni­ver­sal­ly over­bite-afflict­ed char­ac­ters once looked.) Many who tuned in would­n’t have been aware that that look and feel had­n’t been cre­at­ed out of whole cloth, but rather had emerged through the evo­lu­tion­ary process you can wit­ness in the 48 orig­i­nal _Simp­sons_ shorts col­lect­ed in [the Youtube playlist at the top of the post](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6D2J826PbrRdP3xbOFPZ6jDWrNVbUBSb) (and the [hour-long con­sol­i­dat­ed video here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jZvI11QyIk)).

To even a casu­al _Simp­sons_ view­er, every­thing in these shorts will seem at once famil­iar and “off” in myr­i­ad ways. The design of the char­ac­ters looks both harsh­er and loos­er than it would lat­er become, and cer­tain of their voic­es, espe­cial­ly Castel­lan­e­ta’s Wal­ter Matthau-esque Homer, have yet to reflect the per­son­al­i­ties they would lat­er devel­op. The con­ven­tion­al­ly “car­toony” ani­ma­tion also dis­torts bod­ies and faces in ways that have long since been pro­hib­it­ed by the show’s offi­cial style guide­lines. Even so, there are occa­sion­al jokes and even haunt­ing moments of the kind we know from the first cou­ple of sea­sons, if noth­ing in par­tic­u­lar to fore­shad­ow _The Simp­sons_’ nine­teen-nineties gold­en age — or the [three decades’ worth of episodes](https://www.openculture.com/2018/07/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-simpsons.html) that have fol­lowed it.

**Relat­ed con­tent:**

[The Rise and Fall of _The Simp­sons_: An In-Depth Video Essay Explores What Made the Show Great, and When It All Came to an End](https://www.openculture.com/2018/07/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-simpsons.html)

[Before _The Simp­sons_: Homer Groen­ing Directs a 1969 Short Film, _The Sto­ry_, Star­ring His Kids Mag­gie, Lisa & Matt](https://www.openculture.com/2014/09/homer-groening-directs-the-story.html)

[27 Movies Ref­er­ences in _The Simp­sons_ Put Side-by-Side with the Movie Scenes They Paid Trib­ute To](https://www.openculture.com/2016/02/27-movies-references-in-the-simpsons.html)

[Before _The Simp­sons_, Matt Groen­ing Illus­trat­ed a “Student’s Guide” for Apple Com­put­ers (1989)](https://www.openculture.com/2014/04/before-the-simpsons-matt-groening-illustrated-a-students-guide-for-apple-computers-1989.html)

[_The Simp­sons_ Reimag­ined as a Russ­ian Art Film](https://www.openculture.com/2019/07/the-simpsons-reimagined-as-a-russian-art-film.html)

[Thomas Pyn­chon Edits His Lines on _The Simp­sons_: “Homer is my role mod­el and I can’t speak ill of him.”](https://www.openculture.com/2014/09/thomas-pynchon-edits-his-lines-on-the-simpsons.html)

_Based in Seoul,_ _[Col­in](http://blog.colinmarshall.org/)_ _[M](http://blog.colinmarshall.org/)__[a](http://blog.colinmarshall.org/)__[rshall](http://blog.colinmarshall.org/) writes and broad­cas__ts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter_ [Books on Cities](https://colinmarshall.substack.com/) _and the book_ The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les. _Fol­low him on the social net­work for­mer­ly known as Twit­ter at [@colinm](https://twitter.com/#%21/colinmarshall)__[a](https://twitter.com/#%21/colinmarshall)__[rshall](https://twitter.com/#%21/colinmarshall)._

by [Colin Marshall](https://www.openculture.com/author/cjmarshall "Posts by Colin Marshall") | [Permalink](https://www.openculture.com/2025/03/where-the-simpsons-began.html "Permalink") | [Make a Comment](https://www.openculture.com/2025/03/where-the-simpsons-began.html#respond "Make a comment") ( [None](https://www.openculture.com/2025/03/where-the-simpsons-began.html#respond) ) |

[_The Story Of Menstruation_: Watch Walt Disney’s Sex Ed Film from 1946](https://www.openculture.com/2025/03/the-story-of-menstruation-1946.html "Permanent Link to <i>The Story Of Menstruation</i>: Watch Walt Disney’s Sex Ed Film from 1946")

=================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================

in _[Animation](https://www.openculture.com/category/animation-2), [Education](https://www.openculture.com/category/education)_ | March 3rd, 2025

[Bluesky](/#bluesky "Bluesky")[Facebook](/#facebook "Facebook")[Threads](/#threads "Threads")[Mastodon](/#mastodon "Mastodon")[Reddit](/#reddit "Reddit")[Message](/#sms "Message")[Email](/#email "Email")[Share](https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.openculture.com%2F2025%2F03%2Fthe-story-of-menstruation-1946.html&title=The%20Story%20Of%20Menstruation%3A%20Watch%20Walt%20Disney%E2%80%99s%20Sex%20Ed%20Film%20from%201946)

From 1945 to 1951, Dis­ney pro­duced a series of edu­ca­tion­al films to be shown in Amer­i­can schools. How to [bathe an infant](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81s5pwEL9l4). How not to catch a cold. Why you shouldn’t dri­ve fast. Dis­ney cov­ered these sub­jects in its edu­ca­tion­al shorts, and then even­tu­al­ly got to the touchy sub­ject of biol­o­gy and sex­u­al­i­ty. If there was ever a com­pa­ny suit­ed to talk about “vagi­nas” in the 1940s in a fam­i­ly-friend­ly way, it was Dis­ney. Hence _[The Sto­ry of Men­stru­a­tion](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vG9o9m0LsbI)_.

The film runs 10 min­utes, com­bin­ing sci­en­tif­ic facts with hygiene tips, and it was actu­al­ly com­mis­sioned by the Inter­na­tion­al Cel­lo-Cot­ton Com­pa­ny, the fore­run­ner of [Kim­ber­ly-Clark](http://www.kimberly-clark.com), the mak­er of [Kotex](https://www.ubykotex.com/en-us/) prod­ucts. An esti­mat­ed 105 mil­lion stu­dents watched the film in sex-ed class­es across the US. And, accord­ing to _[Tin­ker Belles and Evil Queens: The Walt Dis­ney Com­pa­ny from the Inside Out](http://amzn.to/IrwVSH)_, the film remained a main­stay in schools until the 1960s. It’s now in the pub­lic domain. When you’re done, you’ll also want to watch [_Fam­i­ly Plan­ning_, Walt Disney’s 1967 Sex Ed Pro­duc­tion, Star­ring Don­ald Duck](http://www.openculture.com/2013/08/family-planning-walt-disneys-1967-sex-ed-production.html).

_If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, [please find it here](https://www.openculture.com/newsletter-signup). It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day._

_If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er [mak­ing a dona­tion to our site](https://bit.ly/3EBHjtX). It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your [con­tri­bu­tions](https://bit.ly/3EBHjtX) will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through [Pay­Pal](https://www.openculture.com/help-fund-open-culture), [Patre­on](https://bit.ly/3eB2GRB), and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!_

**Relat­ed Con­tent:**

[Watch _Fam­i­ly Plan­ning_, Walt Disney’s 1967 Sex Ed Pro­duc­tion, Star­ring Don­ald Duck](https://www.openculture.com/2013/08/family-planning-walt-disneys-1967-sex-ed-production.html "Permanent Link to Watch <i>Family Planning</i>, Walt Disney’s 1967 Sex Ed Production, Starring Donald Duck")

[No Women Need Apply: A Dis­heart­en­ing 1938 Rejec­tion Let­ter from Dis­ney Ani­ma­tion](http://www.openculture.com/2013/04/no_women_need_apply_a_disheartening_1938_rejection_letter_from_disney_animation.html)

[Your Body Dur­ing Ado­les­cence: A Naked­ly Unashamed Sex Ed Film from 1955](http://www.openculture.com/2014/04/your-body-during-adolescence.html "Permanent Link to <i>Your Body During Adolescence</i>: A Nakedly Unashamed Sex Ed Film from 1955")

[Watch Dat­ing Dos and Don’ts: An Old-School Instruc­tion­al Guide to Teenage Romance (1949)](http://www.openculture.com/2013/09/dating-dos-and-donts.html "Permanent Link to Watch <i>Dating Dos and Don’ts</i>: An Old-School Instructional Guide to Teenage Romance (1949)")

by [OC](https://www.openculture.com/author/dancolman "Posts by OC") | [Permalink](https://www.openculture.com/2025/03/the-story-of-menstruation-1946.html "Permalink") | [Make a Comment](https://www.openculture.com/2025/03/the-story-of-menstruation-1946.html#respond "Make a comment") ( [None](https://www.openculture.com/2025/03/the-story-of-menstruation-1946.html#respond) ) |

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*   Great Lectures

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    *   [Michel Foucault](https://www.openculture.com/2012/01/michel_foucault_free_lectures.html)

    *   [Sun Ra at UC Berkeley](https://www.openculture.com/2014/07/full-lecture-and-reading-list-from-sun-ras-1971-uc-berkeley-course.html)

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    *   [Jorge Luis Borges](https://www.openculture.com/2012/05/jorge_luis_borges_1967-8_norton_lectures_on_poetry_and_everything_else_literary.html)

    *   [Leonard Bernstein](https://www.openculture.com/2012/03/leonard_bernsteins_masterful_lectures_on_music.html)

    *   [Richard Dawkins](https://www.openculture.com/2012/04/igrowing_up_in_the_universei_richard_dawkins_presents_captivating_science_lectures_for_kids_1991.html)

    *   [Buckminster Fuller](https://www.openculture.com/2012/08/ieverything_i_knowi_42_hours_of_visionary_buckminster_fuller_lectures_1975.html)

    *   [Walter Kaufmann on Existentialism](https://www.openculture.com/2011/04/walter_kaufmanns_lectures.html)

    *   [Jacques Lacan](https://www.openculture.com/2011/03/jacques_lacan_speaks_zizek_provides_free_cliffs_notes.html)

    *   [Roland Barthes](https://www.openculture.com/2014/07/listen-to-roland-barthes-deliver-his-40-hour-lecture-course-la-preparation-du-roman-in-french-1978-80.html)

    *   [Nobel Lectures by Writers](https://www.openculture.com/2013/05/7_nobel_speeches_by_7_great_writers.html)

    *   [Toni Morrison](http://www.nobelprize.org/mediaplayer/index.php?id=1502)

    *   [Bertrand Russell](https://www.openculture.com/2011/07/bertrand_russell_bbc_lecture_series_.html)

    *   [Oxford Philosophy Lectures](https://www.openculture.com/2012/11/take_first-class_philosophy_lectures_anywhere_with_free_oxford_podcasts.html)

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*   About Us

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    Open Culture scours the web for the best educational media. We find the free courses and audio books you need, the language lessons & educational videos you want, and plenty of enlightenment in between.

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*   Great Recordings

    ----------------

    *   [T.S. Eliot Reads Waste Land](https://www.openculture.com/2012/07/ts_eliot_reads_his_modernist_masterpieces.html)

    *   [Sylvia Plath - Ariel](https://www.openculture.com/2013/05/hear_sylvia_plath_read_fifteen_poems_from_her_final_collection_ariel_in_1962_recording.html)

    *   [Joyce Reads Ulysses](https://www.openculture.com/2013/06/on_bloomsday_hear_james_joyce_read_from_his_epic_iulyssesi_1924.html)

    *   [Joyce - Finnegans Wake](https://www.openculture.com/2012/02/james_joyce_reads_anna_livia_plurabelle_from_ifinnegans_wakei.html)

    *   [Patti Smith Reads Virginia Woolf](https://www.openculture.com/2013/01/watch_patti_smith_read_from_virginia_woolf_and_hear_the_only_surviving_recording_of_woolfs_voice.html)

    *   [Albert Einstein](https://www.openculture.com/2013/03/listen_as_albert_einstein_reads_the_common_language_of_science_1941.html)

    *   [Charles Bukowski](https://www.openculture.com/2013/08/charles-bukowski-poem-read-by-bukowski-tom-waits-and-bono.html)

    *   [Bill Murray](https://www.openculture.com/2013/07/bill-murray-reads-poetry-by-billy-collins-cole-porter-and-sarah-manguso.html)

    *   [Hemingway](https://www.openculture.com/2010/04/ernest_hemingway_reads_in_harrys_bar_in_venice.html)

    *   [Fitzgerald Reads Shakespeare](https://www.openculture.com/2012/09/f_scott_fitzgerald_reads_from_shakespeares_iothelloi_and_john_masefields_on_growing_old_c1940.html)

    *   [William Faulkner](https://www.openculture.com/2010/04/william_faulkner_reads_from_as_i_lay_dying.html)

    *   [Flannery O'Connor](https://www.openculture.com/2012/05/rare_1959_audio_flannery_oconnor_reads_a_good_man_is_hard_to_find.html)

    *   [Tolkien - The Hobbit](https://www.openculture.com/2013/07/j-r-r-tolkien-reads-from-the-two-towers-the-second-book-of-the-lord-of-the-rings-trilogy.html)

    *   [Allen Ginsberg - Howl](https://www.openculture.com/2012/06/allen_ginsberg_reads_his_beat_classic_poem_howl.html)

    *   [W.B Yeats](https://www.openculture.com/2012/06/rare_1930s_audio_wb_yeats_reads_four_of_his_poems.html)

    *   [Ezra Pound](https://www.openculture.com/2012/10/ezra_pounds_fiery_1939_reading_of_his_early_poem_isestina_altafortei.html)

    *   [Dylan Thomas](https://www.openculture.com/2012/08/dylan_thomas_recites_do_not_go_gentle_into_that_good_night_and_other_poems.html)

    *   [Anne Sexton](https://www.openculture.com/2013/02/anne_sexton_confessional_poet_reads_wanting_to_die_in_ominous_1966_video.html)

    *   [John Cheever](https://www.openculture.com/2014/06/john-cheever-reads-the-swimmer.html)

    *   [David Foster Wallace](https://www.openculture.com/2014/09/hear-david-foster-wallace-read-his-own-essays-and-short-fiction.html)

*   Book Lists By

    -------------

    *   [Neil deGrasse Tyson](https://www.openculture.com/2011/12/neil_degrasse_tyson_8_books_every_intelligent_person_should_read.html)

    *   [Ernest Hemingway](https://www.openculture.com/2013/05/ernest_hemingways_reading_list_for_a_young_writer_1934.html)

    *   [F. Scott Fitzgerald](https://www.openculture.com/2013/08/f-scott-fitzgerald-creates-a-list-of-22-essential-books-1936.html)

    *   [Allen Ginsberg](https://www.openculture.com/2013/05/allen_ginsbergs_celestial_homework_a_reading_list_for_his_class_literary_history_of_the_beats.html)

    *   [Patti Smith](https://www.openculture.com/2015/04/patti-smiths-list-of-favorite-books.html)

    *   [Brian Eno](https://www.openculture.com/2015/08/brian-eno-book-lists.html)

    *   [Henry Miller](https://www.openculture.com/2015/04/henry-miller-makes-a-list-of-the-100-books-that-influenced-me-most.html)

    *   [Christopher Hitchens](https://www.openculture.com/2012/09/christopher_hitchens_creates_a_reading_list_for_eight-year-old_girl.html)

    *   [Joseph Brodsky](https://www.openculture.com/2013/11/joseph-brodskys-reading-list-for-having-an-intelligent-conversation.html)

    *   [W.H. Auden](https://www.openculture.com/2013/02/wh_audens_1941_literature_syllabus_asks_students_to_read_32_great_works_covering_6000_pages_.html)

    *   [Donald Barthelme](https://www.openculture.com/2013/03/donald_barthelmes_syllabus_highlights_81_books_essential_for_a_literary_education_.html)

    *   [Carl Sagan](https://www.openculture.com/2012/07/carl_sagans_undergrad_reading_list_from_plato_and_shakespeare_to_huxley_and_gide.html)

    *   [David Bowie](https://www.openculture.com/2013/10/david-bowies-list-of-top-100-books.html)

    *   [Samuel Beckett](https://www.openculture.com/2015/03/the-books-samuel-beckett-really-liked.html)

    *   [Art Garfunkel](https://www.openculture.com/2014/09/art-garfunkel-lists-1195-books.html)

    *   [Marilyn Monroe](https://www.openculture.com/2014/10/the-430-books-in-marilyn-monroes-library.html)

    *   [Jorge Luis Borges](https://www.openculture.com/2015/03/jorge-luis-borges-personal-library.html)

    *   [Picks by Female Creatives](https://www.openculture.com/2015/03/74-books-curated-by-female-creatives.html)

*   Syllabi

    -------

    *   [WH Auden](https://www.openculture.com/2013/02/wh_audens_1941_literature_syllabus_asks_students_to_read_32_great_works_covering_6000_pages_.html)

    *   [David Foster Wallace](https://www.openculture.com/2013/02/david_foster_wallaces_1994_syllabus.html)

    *   [Donald Barthelme](https://www.openculture.com/2013/03/donald_barthelmes_syllabus_highlights_81_books_essential_for_a_literary_education_.html)

    *   [Allen Ginsberg](https://www.openculture.com/2013/05/allen_ginsbergs_celestial_homework_a_reading_list_for_his_class_literary_history_of_the_beats.html)

    *   [Zadie Smith & Gary Shteyngart](https://www.openculture.com/2013/08/zadie-smith-and-gary-shteyngarts-syllabi-from-columbia-university.html)

    *   [Spike Lee](https://www.openculture.com/2013/07/spike-lee-shares-his-nyu-teaching-list-of-87-essential-films-every-aspiring-director-should-see.html)

    *   [Lynda Barry](https://www.openculture.com/2014/11/lynda-barrys-wonderfully-illustrated-syllabus-homework-assignments-from-her-uw-madison-class-the-unthinkable-mind.html)

    *   [Junot Diaz](https://www.openculture.com/2015/02/junot-diazs-syllabi-for-his-mit-writing-classes.html)

*   Favorite Movies

    ---------------

    *   [Kubrick](https://www.openculture.com/2013/07/stanley-kubricks-list-of-top-ten-films.html)

    *   [Kurosawa's 100](https://www.openculture.com/2015/01/akira-kurosawas-list-of-his-100-favorite-movies.html)

    *   [Tarantino](https://www.openculture.com/2013/08/quentin-tarantino-lists-the-12-greatest-films-of-all-time.html)

    *   [Scorsese](https://www.openculture.com/2013/07/martin-scorsese-reveals-his-10-favorite-movies.html)

    *   [Tarkovsky](https://www.openculture.com/2014/08/andrei-tarkovsky-creates-a-list-of-his-10-favorite-films-1972.html)

    *   [David Lynch](https://www.openculture.com/2013/09/david-lynch-on-his-favorite-directors-including-fellini-wilder-tati-and-hitchcock.html)

    *   [Werner Herzog](https://www.openculture.com/2014/05/werner-herzog-picks-his-5-favorite-films.html)

    *   [Woody Allen](https://www.openculture.com/2013/08/woody-allen-lists-the-greatest-films-of-all-time.html)

    *   [Wes Anderson](https://www.openculture.com/2014/03/wes-andersons-favorite-films.html)

    *   [Luis Buñuel](https://www.openculture.com/2015/05/the-10-favorite-films-of-avant-garde-surrealist-filmmaker-luis-bunuel-including-his-own-collaboration-with-salvador-dali.html)

    *   [Roger Ebert](https://www.openculture.com/2014/07/roger-eberts-final-list-of-his-top-10-favorite-films-2012.html)

    *   [Susan Sontag](https://www.openculture.com/2013/12/susan-sontags-50-favorite-films.html)

    *   [Scorsese Foreign Films](https://www.openculture.com/2014/10/scorseses-list-of-39-essential-foreign-films.html)

    *   [Philosophy Films](https://www.openculture.com/2014/10/44-essential-movies-for-the-student-of-philosophy.html)

*   Archives

    --------

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