For nearly eight years now, I’ve written a post every weekday at Open Culture, usually to do with literature, film, music, art, architecture, television, radio, or language. The total comes to more than 2,000 so far, and here are ten of my favorites from the more than 250 I wrote in 2019:
- Alexis de Tocqueville’s Prediction of How American Democracy Could Lapse Into Despotism, Read by Michel Houellebecq
- A Brief History of the Great American Road Trip
- A Documentary Introduction to Nick Drake, Whose Haunting & Influential Songs Came Into the World 50 Years Ago Today
- Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About the Beauty of Brutalist Architecture: An Introduction in Six Videos
- The Greatest Cut in Film History: Watch the “Match Cut” Immortalized by Lawrence of Arabia
- How Andy Warhol and Tintin Creator Hergé Mutually Admired and Influenced One Another
- The Timeless Beauty of the Citroën DS, the Car Mythologized by Roland Barthes (1957)
- Why 1999 Was the Year of Dystopian Office Movies: What The Matrix, Fight Club, American Beauty, Office Space & Being John Malkovich Shared in Common
- Why David Sedaris Hates America’s Favorite Word, “Awesome”
- The Zen of Bill Murray: I Want to Be “Really Here, Really in It, Really Alive in the Moment”
See also my ten favorite Open Culture posts of 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018.