Ted Mills
Open Culture
Santa Barbara, CA, United States
Contact Ted
Discover and connect with journalists and influencers around the world, save time on email research, monitor the news, and more.
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Past articles by Ted:
A Six-Hour Time-Stretched Version of Brian Eno's Music For Airports: Meditate, Relax, Study
Robert Wyatt, Music for Airports started the idea of slow, mediative music that abandoned typical major and minor scales, brought in melodic ambiguity, and began the exploration of sounds that were designed to exist somewhere in the background, beyond the scope of full attention. → Read More
Thieves Steal F.W. Murnau’s Skull, But His Greatest Films Still Remain Free Online
After the great director F.W. Murnau died in a car crash in California at the young age of 42, his body was flown back to his native Germany to be buried, and that's where he has rested since 1931. Until this week, that is, when somebody made off with the director’s skull. → Read More
David Bowie Sells Ice Cream, Sake, Coke & Water: Watch His TV Commercials from the 1960s Through 2013
As the mourning period for David Bowie continues this week, for which I am very much taking part (my favorite Bowie is the Berlin trilogy Bowie in case you’re interested), the Internet continues through its own stages of grief. → Read More
The Most Disturbing Painting: A Close Look at Francisco Goya’s “Saturn Devouring His Son”
Progress is not a guarantee. It can be stunted, outlawed, or usurped. And then you have to fight for it all over again. → Read More
The Trick That Made Animation Realistic: Watch a Short History of Rotoscoping
Can we run a line of influence from the Incredible Hulk back through Superman all the way to...Koko the Clown? If we’re talking about rotoscoping we are. → Read More
When Neil Young & Rick "Super Freak" James Formed the 60’s Motown Band, The Mynah Birds
At the height of Motown’s powers in the 1960s they were setting trends, not chasing them, but even that record company fell under the spell of the British Invasion. → Read More
The Flying Train: A 1902 Film Captures a Futuristic Ride on a Suspended Railway in Germany
We’ve been focusing a lot recently on old films from the turn of the century that a small group of enthusiasts have been “remastering” using AI, smoothing out the herky-jerky framing, upping the frame rate by interpolating between-frames, and more. → Read More
Bars, Beer & Wine in Ancient Rome: An Introduction to Roman Nightlife and Spirits
Rome—having signed the non-intervention paperwork, of course—we’re going to need someone to guide us. I propose that should be Garrett Ryan, host of the Told In Stone YouTube channel, PhD in Greek and Roman History, and author of Naked Statues, Fat Gladiators, and War Elephants: → Read More
Ambient Kyoto: Brian Eno Stages His First Large-Scale Exhibition in Japan
If you live in Kyoto or are traveling to Japan in the next two months or, who knows, maybe you have a whole lotta miles saved up on your credit card, Brian Eno has a career-spanning exhibition going on at the former welfare centre of the Kyoto Chuo Shinkin Bank. → Read More
Watch an Epic, 4-Hour Video Essay on the Making & Mythology of David Lynch's Twin Peaks
If you’re like me, every little bit of information doled out for the upcoming third season of Twin Peaks is like a series of clues found along a dark path through the Ghostwood National Forest. We’ve seen brief views of some major characters. → Read More
Terry Gilliam Visits a Video Store & Talks About His Favorite Movies and Actors
Letting a beloved film director wander through the aisles of a well-stocked video store feels like such guaranteed YouTube fodder that it's a surprise it really hasn’t been done until recently. → Read More
When Orson Welles Became a Speech & Joke Writer for Franklin Delano Roosevelt
As someone who had mastered radio, film, and stage at such a young age, it shouldn’t be a surprise that Orson Welles once flirted with the idea of running for office. → Read More
How People Imagined in 1948 What Cars Would Look Like in the Future
With a few exceptions, car design of the last two decades has been stuck in a rut, with a sameness on the outside—-aerodynamic, sleek, rounded—-hiding the advancements under the hood and in the control panel. → Read More
Revisit Morphine, the 90s Power Trio Who Played the Two-String Bass, Saxophone & Drums
No 90s band flew as low under that radar as Cambridge, Massachusetts three-piece Morphine. Too odd for nostalgia radio, not commercial enough to pop up on a modern soundtrack, Morphine either means nothing to you or, if you were in the right place at the right time, everything. → Read More
Discover 18 Underground Bands From Ukraine
When it comes to supporting the Ukrainian people in their battle against the Russian invasion, it helps when an opportunity matches our own interest. On this site that means directly funding the artists of Ukraine if possible. → Read More
Fritz Lang’s Iconic Film Metropolis with a Kraftwerk Soundtrack
The case of the copyright history of Fritz Lang’s influential sci-fi masterpiece Metropolis is as convoluted as the history of its film print. Lang’s vision, and his original almost-three-hour cut was doomed to censorship right from the start. The Nazis took out its more socialist scenes. → Read More
The Art of Creating Special Effects in Silent Movies: Ingenuity Before the Age of CGI
If anyone tries to claim that modern day movies have too many special effects remind them of this. Films have always used special effects to trick the audience, and we’re just using new variations of tools from a century ago. → Read More
Read Prince's First Interview, Printed in His High School Newspaper (1976)
Two years before Prince released his first album For You and before he began his ascent into the funk-rock-pop pantheon, he was a very talented, very ambitious, and occasionally frustrated high school senior at Central High in Minneapolis. → Read More
Watch Brian Cox of “Succession” Read Hunter S. Thompson’s Profanity-Laden Letter
Brian Cox has maneuvered over four decades of acting while remaining a bit anonymous from one role to the next. Or at least that was the case until his star turn as Logan Roy, the stentorian patriarch at the center of HBO’s Succession. Now it is hard to separate Cox from his character. → Read More
Free: 355 Issues of Galaxy, the Groundbreaking 1950s Science Fiction Magazine
Along with Astounding Science Fiction and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Galaxy Magazine was one of the most important science fiction digests in 1950s America. Ray Bradbury wrote for it--including an early version of his masterpiece Fahrenheit 451--as did Robert A. → Read More