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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Rambling in Lockdown: Artificial Beings (jinzo Ningen), Ethics, Cultural...
It’s been a good week, but exhausting. Spent a lot of time working on an interview with Hollis Robbins on her new book, Forms of Contention: The African America... Read more
Posted on 19 July 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Music, the Social Mind, and Language
Working paper of that title now up at Academia.edu: https://www.academia.edu/43655788/Music_the_Social_Mind_and_Language It's PDFs of the presentation I... Read more
Posted on 19 July 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
First Thoughts on the Implications of GPT-3 [here Be Dragons, We're Swimming...
A bit revised from a comment I made at Marginal Revolution: Yes, GPT-3 [may] be a game changer. But to get there from here we need to rethink a lot of things. Read more
Posted on 19 July 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Good Morning! First Sunrise Photos Since Lockdown [Covid-19]
Posted on 18 July 2020
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Why is New Savanna Popular in Turkmenistan All of a Sudden?
This shows page views by country for the last month. Notice that Turkmenistan is in second place, a distant second place, behind the United States. But it is... Read more
Posted on 17 July 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Manhattan-Hoboken Counterpoint
Posted on 17 July 2020
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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The Emergence of Modernism in the Arts [it's Called Rankshift]
Samuel Jay Keyser, On his book The Mental Life of Modernism: Why Poetry, Painting, and Music Changed at the Turn of the Twentieth Century, Rorotoko, July 15,... Read more
Posted on 16 July 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Don't They Scare You, These Flowers?
Posted on 15 July 2020
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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From Sunday Evening's Stroll, Looking at Manhattan's Hudson Yards
Posted on 14 July 2020
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Rootie Tootie W. Eugene Smith Jazz Loft [Media Notes 41]
Monk and Overton at the piano The Jazz Loft According to W. Eugene Smith – by Sara Fishko – is based on photographs and recordings Smith made in a loft where... Read more
Posted on 13 July 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
There Be Dragons in Those Black Holes
Like sea monsters on premodern maps, deep-space images are science’s fanciful means to chart the edges of the known world https://t. Read more
Posted on 13 July 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Cory Doctorow on Full Employment and Climate Change
Writing in Locus, Doctorow starts by telling us, " am an AI skeptic. I am baffled by anyone who isn’t." After saying a bit about that he gets down to it:... Read more
Posted on 12 July 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Why So Many Different Methods in Literary Criticism?
Can anyone recommend some good sources on the development of English as a discipline? While I convert my research methods course for online delivery, I'd like t... Read more
Posted on 12 July 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Great Show Trial of Two-Ought-Ought-Six
I'm feeling nostalgic, so I've bumped this 2011 post to the top of the queue. In honor of all interweb traditions The interwebs are hardly old enough for there... Read more
Posted on 12 July 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Hoboken's Theory of Everything
Or is it this? Which is more elegant, and what does that have to do with truty? Read more
Posted on 11 July 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
A Theory of EVERYTHING, Really? [It's Not About Math]
Sabine Hossenfelder asks: Do we need a Theory of Everything? You know what she's going to say, don't you? What physicists mean by a theory of everything is... Read more
Posted on 11 July 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Why Must (white) Folks Always Be Surprised That Good Jazz Musicians Work on...
Sean Carroll's Mindscape #104: David Rosen and Scott Miles on the Neuroscience of Music and Creativity. I was blitzing my way through the transcript and came... Read more
Posted on 11 July 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Hot, Wet, Fountain [greyscale]
Posted on 10 July 2020
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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The Foster Portfolio
I 've loved this Vonnegut story ever since I first read it way back in the Jurassic Era of the late 60s / early 70s. And now it's been made into a wonderful... Read more
Posted on 10 July 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Of Colorblind Casting and Shakespearean Minstrelsy
Maya Phillips, ‘Hamilton,’ ‘The Simpsons’ and the Problem With Colorblind Casting, NYTimes. Though egalitarian in theory, colorblind casting in practice is... Read more
Posted on 09 July 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
