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 )
-
Tim Morton Talks with a Scientist, and Then a Spirituality of Care [COVID-19 as...
Morgan Meis, Timothy Morton's Hyper-Pandemic, The New Yorker, June 8, 2021. * * * * * The next morning, I was eating a leisurely breakfast at my B. and B. when ... Read more
Posted on 08 June 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Jersey City Mural Festival
Posted on 08 June 2021
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
-
Searching for Unobtanium [you Can't Thread a Needle with a Hammer]
Ever since Collison and Cowen called for a science of progress back in 2019 the web has seen countless proposals about what to do, many of them assuming that th... Read more
Posted on 08 June 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Tech Trends Peaking: WWW, DL, NN
This is what happens when technologies get integrated into daily life. Peak "World Wide Web" was 1998. https://t.co/Y5Gut7YA3C pic.twitter. Read more
Posted on 08 June 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Graffiti, Context, Photographing Street Art, and the Spatial Complexity of...
Pull up a chair and let’s talk. Jersey City just had its Jersey City Mural Festival. I’ve even heard it referred to as “the first annual”, implying that it... Read more
Posted on 07 June 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Three Performances by Henry Lau [remix, Korean Style]
Having presented some of Henry Lau’s work with young musicians, I thought I’d take a look at the kind of music that made him a K-Pop star. Be warned, I know... Read more
Posted on 07 June 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Japanese Paper Dolls
Interesting. 🤔🤔🤔 pic.twitter.com/C0oSDRmIPr— tkasasagi 🐻中二病熊 (@tkasasagi) June 4, 2021 Maybe they go... Read more
Posted on 05 June 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Ramble: How an Idea About Graffiti, SK8boarding, and Preservation Has Informed...
As I explained yesterday, back in the fall of 2007 I wrote a report, Jersey City: From a Skate Park to the World, and revised and reissued it in 2013. Read more
Posted on 05 June 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Jersey City Rising: The French Have Landed [Centre Pompidou in Journal Square]
Here’s a press conference announcing that a branch of the Centre Pompidou will be established in Journal Square in Jersey City: Some years ago I wrote a... Read more
Posted on 04 June 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
One Pill Makes You Larger, One Pill Makes You Small, but the Pills That NIH Give...
Head of @NIH backs steps to expand research into psychedelic drugs, citing promising developments from studies of their use in treating mental... Read more
Posted on 04 June 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Tall Buildings Along the Hudson
Posted on 04 June 2021
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
-
Three Critics on the Eclipse of the Novel and the Rise of Film [rank Shift |...
My friend, Adam Roberts, just yesterday (June 3, 2021) begins a review-essay: I don't propose, here, to write a proper review of Joseph Bottum's The Decline... Read more
Posted on 04 June 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Rememberance of Things Past
Did you know? While we forget most of our early childhood ('childhood amnesia'), we tend to over-remember things that happened to us ages ~16-25. Read more
Posted on 03 June 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Conscious Fly
Fascinating writeup on the consciousness of invertebrates. Spiders play games with their prey, wasps recognize faces, ants recognize their reflections. We are... Read more
Posted on 03 June 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Here's What I Was Eating While Drinking That Coffee and Doing Table-top Physics
Posted on 03 June 2021
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
-
Kids and Music 7: Colt Clark and the Quarantine Kids [Born to Groove]
So far in this Kids and Music series I’ve mostly been looking at the music of gifted children. There’s nothing wrong with that, but, as my underlying... Read more
Posted on 03 June 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Physicist David Deutsch Has Some Interesting Ideas [no Limits to Knowledge, We'r...
Tyler Cowen interviews David Deutsch. I more or less agree with Deutsch on this (and have argued the point against John Horgan, calling on my theory of long ter... Read more
Posted on 03 June 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Table-top Physics: Turbulance in a Coffee Cup [entropy Increases]
See my working paper, A Primer on Self-Organization, for more about entropy and for some photographs of an ink drop diffusing in water. Read more
Posted on 02 June 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Underground Railroad [Media Notes 58] + Bonus Guide to Posts About Racial...
I’ve watched the first episode, “Chapter 1: Georgia”, of The Underground Railroad on Amazon Prime. I’ll not be watching more. Let me explain. After that I’ll... Read more
Posted on 02 June 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
American Democracy is in Danger
2. Democracy - bear with me - is a bit like a sandcastle. By just holding an election, you can make something super basic that looks like a democracy. Read more
Posted on 02 June 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
