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
-
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 )
-
The Problematic of Jaws in a Nutshell
I’ve been thinking about how to revise my original post about Jaws. I think the content will be much the same, but I’m considering one major restructuring. Read more
Posted on 19 February 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Is the Ottawa Trucker's Protest a Bit of the Metaverse That Has Leaked into the...
James McLeod, The Ottawa protest is an online subculture flexing in the physical world, The Line, Feb. 18, 2022. Forget about the Metaverse that Silicon Valley... Read more
Posted on 18 February 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: I Love a Parade [Hallucinated City]
Posted on 18 February 2022
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
-
Jameson Offers a Marxist Reading of Jaws
Fredric Jameson is perhaps the premier American Marxist literary and cultural critic of the last half century. Let’s take a look at what he said about Jaws in... Read more
Posted on 18 February 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Nina Paley Does the Apocalypse
The @internetarchive was the source for this perfect music I found for the https://t.co/u1PXoMxWEV trailer video. https://t.co/yPprTMQtsr— Nina Paley... Read more
Posted on 18 February 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Sean Carroll Interviews Gary Marcus About AI and Common Sense
As you may know, Marcus is skeptical about the ability of (deep) learning approaches to go all the way. Here's one bit of the conversation: 0:11:58. Read more
Posted on 17 February 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Some Problems with Angus Fletcher’s Account of Neurons, Logic, and Narrative
A week or so ago a conversation on Twitter led me to this article: Angus Fletcher, Why Computers Will Never Read (or Write) Literature: A Logical Proof and a... Read more
Posted on 16 February 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
A General Comment Concerning Arguments About Computers and Brains
Arguments about whether or not computers will ever match the powers of the human mind have been around for a long time. As far as I can recall the first such... Read more
Posted on 16 February 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Who's Your Favorite Billionaire?
Billionaires that majority of Democrats approve of: an entertainment celebrity, founder of the company that was found to engage in anticompetitive practices, an... Read more
Posted on 16 February 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Japanese Jazz in Historical Perspective
@bbenzon see this?https://t.co/5S6NE2rylS— Citizen of Somewhere Else (@CitizenSE) February 14, 2022 The first three paragraphs of the linked article (which I... Read more
Posted on 15 February 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
A Park in Maplewood, New Jersey
Posted on 14 February 2022
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
-
Literature as Affective Technology
I was hanging out in the Twitterverse last week and became drawn into a discussion, as sometimes happens. The discussion was about computers and narrative... Read more
Posted on 14 February 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Miles, Cannonball, Trane
Miles Davis ,Julian Edwin "Cannonball" Adderley and John Coltrane #jazz#jazzgiants #trumpet #altosax #tenorsax pic.twitter.com/oHxJSrgdjx—... Read more
Posted on 13 February 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Of Factish Gods and Modes of Existence
Angus Fletcher's odd argumentation on computers and reading (see my recent post, Can computers do narrative?) has gotten me thinking about Latour's notion of... Read more
Posted on 12 February 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Iris Variations in a Narrow Range
Posted on 12 February 2022
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
-
Quint and Ahab, Jaws and Moby Dick – Getting ‘religious’
I have decided to revise my Jaws essay for republication in 3 Quarks Daily. As I won’t be publishing it for two more weeks or so, the rewrite isn’t urgent.... Read more
Posted on 12 February 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Can Computers Do Narrative?
The question has been debated in three recent articles in Narrative: Angus Fletcher, Why Computers Will Never Read (or Write) Literature: A Logical Proof and a... Read more
Posted on 10 February 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
God, the Devil, and Evolution in the 1975 Jaws Trailer
Here’s the opening voice-over on the trailer: There is a creature alive today, who has survived millions of years of evolution, without change, without... Read more
Posted on 10 February 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Music as a Domain of Cumulative Cultural Evolution
🎶🤔🐋 We bring together perspectives from philosophy, musicology and biology. @_SMRU_ @CentreBioDiv @RCStweets @SchoolofBiology... Read more
Posted on 09 February 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Crisis in Shark City: A Girardian Reading of Steven Spielberg’s Jaws
Though I am hardly a Girardian, I recently found myself exploring Girardian themes, mimetic crisis and sacrifice, in Steven Spielberg’s 1975 Jaws [1]. Read more
Posted on 09 February 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
