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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Is This the Beginning of the #WorldWideWall ?
Related to my project on analyzing street art through machine learning, I’ve articulated the key points in which I am interested in moving forward. What am I... Read more
Posted on 25 October 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Is This the Beginning of the #WorldWideWall ?
What's the World-Wide Wall? All the world's graffiti, considered as a single aesthetic object, photographically assembled and indexed in virtual space via the... Read more
Posted on 25 October 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
A Review of Daniel Everett, Dark Matter of the Mind
Now up at Academia.edu: https://www.academia.edu/37643210/A_Review_of_Daniel_Everett_Dark_Matter_of_the_Mind. Abstract: Everett’s core assertion is simple: Ther... Read more
Posted on 24 October 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Advice on Buying a Horse from a 17th c. Chinese Magistrate
#Horse buying advice from a 17th c Chinese local magistrate - if you thought Chinese local administration handbooks were impractical, think again. (Tr. Djang... Read more
Posted on 24 October 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
First Man, Where’s the Adventure?
There’s a nice little conversation about First Man over at Tyler Cowen’s joint. The opening line of Tyler’s review: I enjoyed this movie, although I would not... Read more
Posted on 24 October 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Two Tweets of the Day: Paul Klee's Notebooks, Citizen Science
3,900 Pages of Paul Klee’s Personal Notebooks Are Now Online, Presenting His Bauhaus Teachings (1921-1931) https://t.co/JogY0cEez7 pic.twitter. Read more
Posted on 24 October 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Ghee on a Saturday Evening [#JerseyCity]
From the archives, 2003. It was Saturday evening, two days after the blackout that shut down most of the Northeastern quadrant of the country. I decided to... Read more
Posted on 24 October 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Semantic Infromation, Agency, and Statistical Physics
Kolchinsky A, Wolpert DH. 2018 Semantic information, autonomous agency and non-equilibrium statistical physics. Interface Focus 8: 20180041.... Read more
Posted on 23 October 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
What’s the Key Difference Between the MacArthur Fellow’s Program and the (new)...
A couple weeks ago I was blogging away on The MacArthur Fellowship program and the general problem of finding talent. I was going full steam ahead in the... Read more
Posted on 23 October 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Olorun’s Botanica: A Little Note on Diversity in Jersey City
Sometime ago, 2004 in fact, I was walking around in downtown Jersey City and passed this little shop in a street off Newark Avenue. There were two windows. Read more
Posted on 23 October 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Statues of the Ancient Greeks and Romans Were Brightly Colored
Scholars have known for centuries that Greek and Roman marble figures were routinely covered in bright paint. Why does the myth of their whiteness persist?... Read more
Posted on 22 October 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Katyń Memorial (Jersey City)
From Wikipedia: The Katyń Memorial is dedicated to the victims of the Katyn massacre in 1940. Created by Polish-American sculptor Andrzej Pitynski, the... Read more
Posted on 22 October 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Structural Instability: Two Examples and a Question
Bumping this to the top of the queue. Why? Because! FUNdaMentAl. From The Valve. This post concerns two of my favorite texts, "Kubla Khan" and Sir Gawain and th... Read more
Posted on 22 October 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Suburban Domesticity on the Moon? VR, Cyborgs, and Other Strange Beings?
I had a little conversation with Bryan Alexander over First Man and our capacity for experience. It came down to this (Bryan): “Yes, there's a cultural pattern... Read more
Posted on 21 October 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Rudyard Kipling on Military Music
Mr Kipling's “Plea for Bands” is reprinted from The Times of London, 28 January 1915. (Courtesy The International Military Music Society) * * * * * Mr Rudyard... Read more
Posted on 21 October 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Cooperation, Coupling, Music, and Soccer
Bumping this to the top of the queue. Group intentionality is in the air. * * * * * Early in my book on music, Beethoven’s Anvil, I set about conceptualizing... Read more
Posted on 20 October 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
First Man and Our Capacity for Experience
First Man Trailer from Zoom.co.uk on Vimeo. I went to see First Man yesterday. I don’t quite what I think about it. Did I like it? I suppose so, though it was... Read more
Posted on 20 October 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Polyrhythms in the Music of Brahams
Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim, Does Brahms’s Obsession With Rhythmic Instability Explain His Music’s Magic?, NYTimes, 19 October 2018: A century separates the... Read more
Posted on 20 October 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
An American in Paris on the Ronell Affair (remember That?)
Justin Erik Halldór Smith is an American philosopher working in the Continental tradition and living in Paris. Like top chefs who travel far to ply their... Read more
Posted on 19 October 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Chengdu's Going to Light It's Streets with an Artificial Moon
Elle Hunt, The Guardian, 17 October 2018: In Chengdu, there is reportedly an ambitious plan afoot for replacing the city’s streetlights: boosting the glow of th... Read more
Posted on 19 October 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
