[audio http://culturefilepod.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/pod-v-31101207m47sculturefile-pid0-467280_audio.mp3]

Exploring 17th century picture-in-picture technology with Velázquez expert, Peter Cherry and National Gallery of Ireland’s Kitchen Maid with the Supper at Emmaus (c.1617-1618)

"So I says to her ‘straighten them pots, or you’re out on your ear,’ and she says to me if you think I’m going to…" 
"Ssssssh! Watchit, Jesus, I think she’s listening.."

More/better readings of Velázquez @RTELyricFM, 6.40pm, October 31st, 2012. Or, failing that, just listen here!

[audio http://culturefilepod.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/pod-v-30101207m01sculturefile-pid0-421728_audio.mp3]

Pssssst! Wanna come to a secret cinema? Culture file visits MORB, Dublin’s highly irregular horror film club.

[soundcloud]https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/65043285[/soundcloud]

In case anyone wanted to take a wintery dérive on a Saturday afternoon in Berlin…Bitte sehr!

[audio http://culturefilepod.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/pod-v-22101256m40sculturefile-pid0-3400608_audio.mp3]

Each year the European Broadcasting Festival, the Prix Europa takes place in Berlin where awards are given to the best European Television, Radio and Online productions. This year Culture File has been nominated in the Radio Music category. All this week we feature extracts from the compilation submitted to the awards that have been broadcast on Classic Drive over the past 12 months.

If you were totally/a bit curious to see Monotype Corporation Series 121 Colm Cille (after you’d heard this) then, here ya go!

[audio http://culturefilepod.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/pod-v-19101207m11sculturefile-pid0-431256_audio.mp3]

Early instruments collector and player, Laoise O Brien, on musical nursery rhymes and the stranger danger of old Europe.

[soundcloud]https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/63889282[/soundcloud]

A little bit Xtra from our interview with type historian, Dermot McGuinne, curator of a new exhibition on Irish typography and the rise and fall of Colm Cille. Here, he tells the story of how Elizabeth I may have commissioned the first type for use in Irish language printing.

[audio http://culturefilepod.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/pod-v-18101207m39sculturefile-pid0-459192_audio.mp3]

Dermot McGuinne, curator of a new exhibition at the National Print Museum, on Irish typography and the rise and fall of the fount they call Monotype corporation series 121 Colm Cille.

[audio http://culturefilepod.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/pod-v-17101207m20sculturefile-pid0-440976_audio.mp3]

Turning sciobs into poetry and poetry into skibs, with Galway-based basket artist and willow farmer, Joe Hogan

[audio http://culturefilepod.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/pod-v-16101206m46sculturefile-pid0-406272_audio.mp3]

The background artist hogs the limelight in “Extra! Extra! Read All About It!” - the autobiography of superstar extra, Harry ‘Aitch’ Fielder.

[audio http://culturefilepod.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/pod-v-15101212m55sculturefile-pid0-774600_audio.mp3]

Our regular tech correspondent Aisling Kelliher, of Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Design, on a new wave of devices to promote intimacy over the internet.

[audio http://culturefilepod.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/pod-v-12101207m38sculturefile-pid0-458736_audio.mp3]

Graffiti Classics’ Cathal O’Duill’s talks about building a multi-company outfit, his father, Irish TV legend, Brendan, and taking his street quartet into the theatre.

[audio http://culturefilepod.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/pod-v-11101207m09sculturefile-pid0-429168_audio.mp3]

2012 Turner Prize nominee, Luke Fowler, on adult education, elitism and the Late Late Show, as well as his latest film on historian, EP Thomson.

[audio http://culturefilepod.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/pod-v-10101206m51sculturefile-pid0-411048_audio.mp3]

MacGyver, the former cult TV hero and IED maven, is making his comeback via a new comic book from Cork artist, Will Sliney.

[soundcloud]https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/62778480[/soundcloud]

Vienna-based Japanese counter-tenor, Daichi Fujiki bringing his unearthly voice to "King David" by Herbert Howells.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qCsiNWeX5A?wmode=transparent&autohide=1&egm=0&hd=1&iv_load_policy=3&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&showsearch=0&w=500&h=375]

hypervocal:

“Call Me Maybe” Without Music

Another “Call Me Maybe” parody? HAHAHA YOU THOUGHT IT WAS OVER! But actually, it’s exactly what we wanted! To watch Carly Rae Jepsen roll off a car and get a concussion without any of that pesky music in the way. And maybe also to watch Tattoo Guy take off his shirt (with sound effects!).

These just get better and better. See also: the bizarre, hilarious “Gangnam Style” Without Music.

without a song, what would life be? Slightly improved?

(Source: http://www.youtube.com/)

[audio http://culturefilepod.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/pod-v-09101206m54sculturefile-pid0-414912_audio.mp3]

Listening for Howells (and Bach and Mahler and Gluck) among the tombstones, with Japanese counter-tenor, Daichi Fujiki.

[audio http://culturefilepod.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/pod-v-08101207m17sculturefile-pid0-437352_audio.mp3]

Audio historian, Jonathan Sterne, on why piracy is the wrong word for unauthorised music downloading; and how the tech behind mp3 is helping drive an advertising revolution.

[audio http://culturefilepod.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/pod-v-05101207m27sculturefile-pid0-447096_audio.mp3]

The running time of a CD has little to do with that of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, according to Media historian, Jonathan Sterne, who has some far more obvious explanations.

[audio http://culturefilepod.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/pod-v-04101207m39sculturefile-pid0-459048_audio.mp3]

Media historian, Jonathan Sterne, author of MP3 The Meaning of A Format, on the gruesome experiments that form part of the history of digital music.

[audio http://culturefilepod.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/pod-v-03101210m38sculturefile-pid0-638376_audio.mp3]

Wanna come play in the “Spectrum Playground”? Filling The White Spaces, a conference at Dublin’s Science Gallery, gathers pioneers who want encourage clever uses of soon to be freed-up radio frequencies in Ireland.

[audio http://culturefilepod.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/pod-v-02101206m24sculturefile-pid0-384192_audio.mp3]

In Tromluí Phinocchio / Pinocchio’s Nightmare, Galway’s Moonfish theatre company lay on a bilingual and thoroughly unplugged version of the fibber classic, with the tale stripped back to its dark and scary basics.

[audio http://culturefilepod.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/pod-v-01101206m18sculturefile-pid0-378744_audio.mp3]

Why treating scientology as a religion might be good for everyone, with Prof Hugh Urban, author of “The Church of Scientology: A History of a New Religion”.

[audio http://culturefilepod.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/pod-v-27091207m34sculturefile-pid0-454296_audio.mp3]

Einojuhani Rautavaara: to some he’s the master of Finnish music, to others, a pronunciation pole vault. Guess which camp our guest this time, Finnish violinist, Pekka Kuusisto falls into?

[audio http://culturefilepod.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/pod-v-28091207m46sculturefile-pid0-466320_audio.mp3]

How do you follow a show involving reading aloud F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby over the course of 8 hours? By taking from the shelf a copy of The Sun Also Rises, of course. John Collins of Elevator Repair Company explains.

[audio http://culturefilepod.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/pod-v-24091206m39sculturefile-pid0-399744_audio.mp3]

When Rodin Met GBS…there was nudity involved. Curator, Logan Sisley on the great French sculptor’s bust of the Irish writer.

[audio http://culturefilepod.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/pod-v-25091207m45sculturefile-pid0-465288_audio.mp3]

One or two things you didn’t know about putting on Wagner, including the importance of the pee-plot, with stage manager, Julia Carson-Sims, of Wide Open Opera’s production of Tristan und Isolde

[audio http://culturefilepod.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/pod-v-26091206m41sculturefile-pid0-401424_audio.mp3]

How to survive in the Joycean feeding Frenzy, with Michael West, who has co-adapted the just-out-of-copyright short story collection, Dubliners.

[audio http://culturefilepod.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/pod-v-21091206m46sculturefile-pid0-406128_audio.mp3]

Bessie Burgess and Mrs Gogan remember to breathe as they fight over a pram in the final part of Culture File’s very own Abbey (backstage) Trilogy.

[audio http://culturefilepod.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/pod-v-20091207m18sculturefile-pid0-438480_audio.mp3]

Violinist Lara St John on the best motto a young performer can be taught: When All Else Fails, Lower Your Standards.

[soundcloud]https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/60478788[/soundcloud]

Violinist Lara St John is mystified about the ongoing problems musicians have getting their (often extremely expensive) instruments on board aeroplanes.

The full interview with Lara, about her concert debut (aged 4!) her love of polka, and the importance of the motto “If all else fails, lower your standards” is on Culture File, 6.40pm, Thursday, 20th September, 2012, on RTE Lyric FM at 6pm. And on this tumblr ever after.

[audio http://culturefilepod.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/pod-v-19091206m16sculturefile-pid0-376872_audio.mp3]

Prowling the alleys with the ne’er-do-wells and rakes of “Tribes Alive” Paraic Breathnach’s dramatic walking tour of Galway’s old city.

[audio http://culturefilepod.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/pod-v-18091207m18sculturefile-pid0-438264_audio.mp3]

Can a composer possibly be pleased when someone says their music works very well in the background? Possibly, maybe, says Sam Jackson, a composer best known for his work with Druid Theatre Company.

[audio http://culturefilepod.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/pod-v-17091207m13sculturefile-pid0-433656_audio.mp3]

How to turn a 1,500,000-word novel into a 50-minute show, with the creators of Souvenir, an entry-level pass at Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past.

[audio http://culturefilepod.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/pod-v-14091206m7sculturefile-pid0-367032_audio.mp3]

Follow us to Finglas, where we sniff out the National Theatre’s Costume Hire department, where garments from scores of previous productions are cared for; and where we find a rather becoming hat.

[audio http://culturefilepod.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/pod-v-13091207m29sculturefile-pid0-449208_audio.mp3]

As hundreds of green theatrical talents are getting their first tastes of crappy reviews and stagefright at Dublin Fringe Festival, we meet some who are taking a slightly less extreme-sport route to stagecraft, via community theatre.

[audio http://culturefilepod.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/pod-v-12091207m08sculturefile-pid0-428280_audio.mp3]

Ken Thompson, sculptor and master-baker, on career options and carving.

[audio http://culturefilepod.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/pod-v-11091207m30sculturefile-pid0-450528_audio.mp3]

Simon Reynold’s Skypes in for an attempt to explain the rise and rise of Electronic Dance Music (EDM) in the United States.

Made this list a little while back in response to an RTE Guide request for Culture File’s favourite tunes. Surely it’s time to put it up here

1   Don Rendell & Ian Carr Quintet – Blue Mosque - Shades of Blue

Rather than wondering what my favourite tunes were, I looked them up on last.fm, which is a great service for telling you what you really like, ie, keeping track of which songs you actually play the most. And apparently, best of all I like this piece of 1960s British jazz, originally crate-crawled by Giles Peterson.

2   Iron & Wine – Sunset Soon Forgotten - Our Endless Numbered Days

What these songs mostly have in common is that they are slow and easy enough to be on my random go-to-sleep playlist. Actually that playlist often turns up some possibly unsetting tunes, like this one, which seems to be about death and grief. But is lovely for all that.

[audio http://culturefilepod.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/pod-v-15081207m32sculturefile-pid0-452568_audio.mp3]

Van Morrison did it, and so have Pixies. Latest to commit to performing an album in its entirety is Kíla singer and songwriter, Rónán Ó Snodaigh, who is set to perform all of five of his solo albums in a series of concerts in Dublin’s Whelan’s.

[audio http://culturefilepod.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/pod-v-10091207m37sculturefile-pid0-457488_audio.mp3]

Have you seen Billy? Run into Gorm? We join audience members as they assemble (forgive us!) for the first night of Flatpack, an opera with a libretto composed entirely of Ikea product names.

[audio http://culturefilepod.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/pod-v-07091207m17sculturefile-pid0-437112_audio.mp3]

But what’s Mrs Clitheroe wearing? Creating the audio descriptions for The Abbey’s production of an O’Casey classic.

[audio http://culturefilepod.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/pod-v-06091207m51sculturefile-pid0-471240_audio.mp3]

'Shut up And Play The Hits' is a concert documentary of a now famous night when the ultimate cool kids band, the LCD Soundsytem, played their farewell gig at Madison Square Garden, New York City. We relive the night of the greatest gig ever…

[audio http://culturefilepod.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/pod-v-05091204m49sculturefile-pid0-279960_audio.mp3]

Additional material from Luke’s conversation with mathematics’s author, Dana Mackenzie in which they talk about the work of Irish maths giant, William Hamilton. (Part 4 of 3. Ha-ha!)

[audio http://culturefilepod.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/pod-v-05091207m33sculturefile-pid0-453504_audio.mp3]

They move in mysterious ways. Dana Mackenzie explains how financial derivatives resemble gas molecules, and the mistake at the heart of the financial world’s most important formula. (Part 3 of 3)

[audio http://culturefilepod.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/pod-v-04091208m03sculturefile-pid0-483264_audio.mp3]

How whale geometry scooped Einstein by several millennia, and a short history of the apparently uncontroversial equation: 1 + 1 = 2, with author, Dana Mackenzie. (Part 2 of 3)

[audio http://culturefilepod.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/pod-v-03091207m55sculturefile-pid0-475440_audio.mp3]

In our Back to School special, Dana Mackenzie, author of The Universe in Zero Words, explores where — and why — maths and culture meet. (Part 1 of 3)

[vimeo 48389720 w=500 h=375]

Cork French Film Festival’s Paul Callanan edited some images to go with our episode on The Passion of Joan of Arc. Wonder who’ll take up the challenge… 

(Source: http://player.vimeo.com/)

[audio http://culturefilepod.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/pod-v-16081208m02sculturefile-pid0-482448_audio.mp3]

What do you do with other hand? Ivan Ilic, who has followed a tiny elite of pianists who have recorded Leopold Godowsky’s Chopin studies for left-handed piano, talks about that eccentric, yet persistent genre. (part 1 of 2)