Bbenzon
Description
Humankind got its start on the African savannas some hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of years ago. At various times in our cultural history we’ve moved to distinctly new cultural ground, as it were. And so we are moving now, and have been for the past half century. This blog is how I see that move. Intellectually, I'm broadly interested in culture and the brain. Within that compass, anything could show up here. Literature and films (including animation), certainly, music as well, and graffiti. But, other things may show up as well. It's a blog, don't you know, it moves.
MY BLOGS
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New Savanna
http://new-savanna.blogspot.com/
Humankind got its start on the African savannas some hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of years ago. At various times in our cultural history we’ve moved to distinctly new cultural ground, as it were. And so we are moving now, and have been for the past half century. This blog is how I see that move. I'm broadly interested in culture and the brain. Within that compass, anything could show up here. Literature and films (including animation), certainly, music as well, and graffiti. But, other things may show up as well. It's a blog, don't you know, it moves.
LATEST ARTICLES ( 7356 )
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Friday Fotos: Nite Shots with a Twist in the Middle [hallucinated City]
Posted on 14 March 2025
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Why MAGA and AI Go Together Like a Horse and Carriage, Or a Bat and Ball
Dan Brooks, How Generative A.I. Complements the MAGA Style, NYTimes, March 13, 2025. The article opens by discussing that batshit crazy "Trump Gaza" A.I. video. Read more
Posted on 14 March 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Giant Steps: Carnegie Hall Jazz Band
“Giant Steps” is one of John Coltrane's best known tunes. He recorded it in 1960 on an album of the same name, which has become a jazz classic. When played... Read more
Posted on 13 March 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Coming and Going in Hoboken
Posted on 13 March 2025
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Love-bombing the President: Elon and Donald, Sitting in a Tree, X X X X I N G (n...
Amanda Marcotte, “I am the alpha in this relationship”: What Musk’s romantic history reveals about his hold on Trump, Salon, March 12, 2025. Read more
Posted on 13 March 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Sociogenomnics, is It Just Another Spin of the Nature/nurture Wheel, Or Will It...
Dalton Conley, A New Scientific Field Is Recasting Who We Are and How We Got That Way, NYTimes, 13 March 2025. Since Sir Francis Galton coined the phrase “natur... Read more
Posted on 13 March 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Why Are We as a Culture Addicted to Work? [Because We Have Forgotten How to...
I'm bumping this to the top of the queue, both on general principle, and because it's relevant to a book I'm trying to get off the ground. Read more
Posted on 12 March 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Mighty Quinn [Media Notes 158]
I saw The Mighty Quinn when it was in theaters, 1989 and loved it then. I just watched it on Amazon Prime. I still love it. Wikipedia quotes Roger Ebert as... Read more
Posted on 12 March 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Wheeee!!!
Posted on 11 March 2025
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Do the Rich Nations of the Middle East Foretell the Future?
There was a time, a millennium ago, when the Middle East had nations more advanced than any in Europe. That's where Europe learned mathematics (Arabic... Read more
Posted on 11 March 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Noisy Path from Source to Citation [where's the Boundary Between "loose"...
The Noisy Path from Source to Citation: Measuring How Scholars Engage with Past Research, Hong Chen, Misha Teplitskiy, David Jurgens, arXiv:2502.20581v2 [cs.CL]. Read more
Posted on 11 March 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Facebook is Worse Than I’d Imagined
Jennifer Szalai, A Facebook Insider’s Exposé Alleges Bad Behavior at the Top, NYTimes, 3.10.25. CARELESS PEOPLE: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost... Read more
Posted on 10 March 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Notes on the Erotic: Pole Dancing, Ballet, Fifty Shades of Grey & a...
Back in February I posted, What is it about depicting sex in writing? From shared knowledge to common knowledge. That line of thought led me to take Fifty Shade... Read more
Posted on 10 March 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Side Streets in Hoboken in Late Winter
Posted on 10 March 2025
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Aurora, Exploring & Extending the Limits of the Erotic in Dance
Art video: Grande Duello Dance by Aurora. EDSA content Description from the YouTube page: Prepare to be captivated by this artistic dance performance set to... Read more
Posted on 10 March 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Organic-silicon Hybrid Computer Tech for Sale
From Jack Clark: Cortical Labs puts the CL1 on sale - a computer that combines neural tissue with a silicon chip: …BRAIN IN A COMPUTER! BRAIN IN A COMPUTER!... Read more
Posted on 10 March 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Once Again, the Chinese Have Made AI More Interesting Than It Had Been at the En...
As you may have heard, the Chinese have unveiled a new AI, Manus, that, like DeepSeek before it, is the source of consternation among the Silicon Valley... Read more
Posted on 09 March 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
We Need a Politics of Abundance
Ezra Klein, There Is a Liberal Answer to the Trump-Musk Wrecking Ball, NYTimes, March 9, 2025. Look at the places Democrats govern — liberal strongholds like Ne... Read more
Posted on 09 March 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
What Pretty Things. Let's Have Some Fun.
Posted on 09 March 2025
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Reflections of the Sun One Morning in Hoboken Along the Hudson
Posted on 08 March 2025
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
