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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Divergence and Reticulation in Cultural Evolution: Some Draft Text for an Articl...
That's the title of my latest working paper. You can download it here:... Read more
Posted on 27 November 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Coupled-group as a Single Unified Cultural Actor, a Brief Note
I have written of a group coupled in music-making as a single actor. There are two aspects to this, physical and intentional. A single physical system When a... Read more
Posted on 27 November 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
My Edwin Moses Swatch
That’s his signature on the inside of the watch strap. Moses has won eight gold medals internationally in the 400 meter hurdles and currently has the fifth... Read more
Posted on 27 November 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Tyler Cowen on the Difference Between Bricks and Buildings in the Construction o...
Mark Zuckerberg recently hosted Tyler Cowen and Patrick Collison for a discussion on progress; as you may recall, they’d recently issued a call for progress... Read more
Posted on 26 November 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Mark Liberman on Speech Recognition 26 Nov 2019
Mark Liberman, Shelties On Alki Story Forest, Language Log, 26 Nov 2019. Last week I gave a talk at an Alzheimer's Association workshop on "Digital Biomarkers". Read more
Posted on 26 November 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Hallucinated City: I Reflect Therefore I Am
Posted on 26 November 2019
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Universality and Idversity in Human Song
Samuel A. Mehr1, Manvir Singh4, Dean Knox, et al., Universality and diversity in human song, Science 22 Nov 2019: Vol. 366, Issue 6468, eaax0868, DOI:... Read more
Posted on 26 November 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Douthat on Why Trump May Survive Impeachement
Ross Douthat, How Trump Survives, NYTimes 26 Nov 2019: ... that part of the country relies on general heuristics rather than the specific details of presidentia... Read more
Posted on 26 November 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Pizza
Posted on 25 November 2019
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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The Great British Baking Show [my Mother Had Skills] [Media Notes 21]
A couple of weeks ago I started watching The Great British Baking Show – known as the Great British Bake Off, Bake Off, or GBBO in Britain. Read more
Posted on 25 November 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Japanese Prints and Drawings
Download 2,500 Beautiful Woodblock Prints and Drawings by Japanese Masters (1600-1915)https://t.co/kf3vbefOX7 pic.twitter.com/hTjY0dkFFF — Open Culture... Read more
Posted on 24 November 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Shaky-cam, New Series
Posted on 24 November 2019
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Work in Progress: Frameworks for Studying the Evolution of Literary Culture
I’ve been working hard over the last two month, writing a response to two reviews of recent work in computational criticism: Nan Z. Read more
Posted on 24 November 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Ways of Polymaths
David Robson, Why some people are impossibly talented, BBC Worklife, 18 Nov 2019: Examples: When examining the lives of historical polymaths, he [Waqas Ahmed]... Read more
Posted on 24 November 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
From Yesterday's Shoot [symmetry – Without Fear]
Posted on 23 November 2019
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Compare and Contrast, Ocean’s 11 (1960) and Mad Men [Media Notes 20]
I’ve just watched the original Ocean’s 11 (1960), featuring members of the (infamous) Las Vegas Rat Pack: Peter Lawford, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis... Read more
Posted on 23 November 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Rosewater Redemption
is the third volume in a trilogy that began with Rosewater. Abigail Nussbaum reviews it in The Guardian (Nov 22, 2019). From the review: As he did in the... Read more
Posted on 22 November 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Signs of the Hallucinated City
Posted on 22 November 2019
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Fascinating, and Sad – A Story of Partition, Loss, of Invention and Fabulation,...
Ellen Barry, The Jungle Prince of Delhi, The New York Times, November 22, 2019. Late in the narrative, but early in the story, at its root: Wilayat followed... Read more
Posted on 22 November 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Grimes (c) in the Zone While Producing [and AGI Too]
From a conversation with physicist Sean Carroll: Sean Carroll: 00:10:13 What you’re given in the workspace is the individual sounds and you put them together... Read more
Posted on 21 November 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
