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 ( 7846 )
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Q. Where’s Reality? A. Which One? [Howl's Moving Castle]
Back in the early days of the blog I had a lot of posts about Hayao Miyazaka. I'm boosting this one to the top on general principle. It's from August 21, 2010. Read more
Posted on 02 September 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Adam Savage Builds a Totoro Costume [What Costume Are You Building for the Next...
Adam Savage is an experienced special effects designer and fabricator who has a YouTube channel where he shows how to build stuff. Read more
Posted on 29 August 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Reading Spacecraft 7: Muppet Star Wars
This is a documentary about creating digital characters where there had been puppets in Star Wars. Naturally, they spend a fair amount of time on Yoda. Read more
Posted on 28 August 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Pat Metheny Discusses Music with Two Neuroscientists
Interesting, but not as interesting as it could have been if, for example, the neuroscientists had deeper practical experience with musical performance. Read more
Posted on 28 August 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Let's Dance
Posted on 27 August 2021
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Reclaiming the Future from Technology in Favor of Humans [from Homo Ludens to...
Back at the end of June Ezra Klein interviewed James Suzman on the subject of work, which prompted me to write a blog post in which I excerpted the interview,... Read more
Posted on 27 August 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Martin Kay, Pioneering Computational Linguist, Has Died
He was brought to this country (USA) from England by my teacher and colleague, the late David Hays. Hays was leading the RAND Corporation's effort on machine... Read more
Posted on 26 August 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Blaze Away
Posted on 26 August 2021
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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The Devastating Effects of Trauma [and the Return of Freud, Albeit Unnamed?]
Ezra Klein, This Conversation Will Change How You Think About Trauma, NYTimes, Aug 24, 2021. Klein interviews Bessel van der Kolk about his book, The Body... Read more
Posted on 26 August 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
From Reader Response Theory to Intentionless Free Speech [AI and Intentionality]
Lisa Siraganian, Against Theory, now with bots! On the Persistent Fallacy of Intentionless Speech, Nonsite, August 2, 2021. Opening paragraph: If Siri... Read more
Posted on 26 August 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Chair (How Many Women Were on the Faculty of the English Department at...
Having watched The Chair in a single sitting, I suppose I should say something. But I don’t have much to say. For one thing, I haven’t been in a classroom in... Read more
Posted on 25 August 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Reading Spacecraft 6: The Child is Father to the Man
Morton begins Spacecraft by talking about his childhood as an eleven year old boy coming from a family of limited means and walking to school in the morning,... Read more
Posted on 24 August 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
120 Years of Faking Space Travel for the Movies
Starting at about 2:42: "Take this shot of a flying saucer in Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959). It's clearly just a toy on a string. But that would all change... Read more
Posted on 24 August 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Kids and Music 8: Sant Andreu Jazz Band [Born to Groove]
Sant Andreu Jazz Band is a youth jazz band from Barcelona, featuring 7- to 20-year-olds. The bandleader is Joan Chamorro. The Sant Andrew Jazz Band is based... Read more
Posted on 21 June 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Asian Salad with Ginger Dressing and Grilled Chicken Breast at the Malibu Diner
Posted on 21 June 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Heritable Functional Architecture in Human Visual Cortex
End of an odyssey of many years - I'm sure I had the first logistical discussions about this project in 2012... Our twin study on retinotopic (pRF) maps with... Read more
Posted on 21 June 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Long-term Gene–culture Coevolution and the Human Evolutionary Transition
Timothy M. Waring and Zachary T. Wood, Long-term gene–culture coevolution and the human evolutionary transition, Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Vol. 288 No... Read more
Posted on 20 June 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Changing Terms of My Socratic Bargain with the American Academy [and the...
In the course of writing a somewhat quixotic review of Permanent Crisis: The Humanities in a Disenchanted Age for 3 Quarks Daily I decided to conclude by... Read more
Posted on 19 June 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Mural Fest in Jersey City, Again
Posted on 19 June 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Why Are There So Many Male Characters in Folktales? Ross Douthat Suggests an...
Some years ago I was asked to review a collection of articles in the nascent field of Darwinist literary criticism, Jonathan Gottschall and David Sloan Wilson,... Read more
Posted on 19 June 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
