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 ( 7631 )
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On the Resistance to Literature
Oh, critics use form as a central theoretical concept. But it's a concept used to authorize certain ideas about meaning interpretation. Read more
Posted on 08 October 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Dizzy Gillespie on the Origins of Bebop, Heard Stravinsky in Fantasia
Once again Twitter comes through. I saw this tweet and linked on over to check out the interviews. @tedgioia @ethan_iverson https://t. Read more
Posted on 08 October 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Cultural Evolution and Human Progress
This is an old one, from the early days of New Savanna, April 21, 2010. I'm bumping it to the top because, 1) Steven Pinker has, for better or worse, given the... Read more
Posted on 07 October 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Dealing with Climate Change is Like Getting to Carnegie Hall, It Takes PRACTICE
Hurricane Sandy hits Jersey City Auden Schendler and Andrew P. Jones, Stopping Climate Change Is Hopeless. Let’s Do It. New York Times, October 6, 2018. Read more
Posted on 07 October 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
2018: Extra Catsup & Double Cheese! The MacArthur Foundation Slathers 25 with...
It’s that time of year, time to update my ongoing critique of the MacArthur Fellows Program, The Genius Chronicles: Going Boldly Where None Have Gone Before? Read more
Posted on 06 October 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Can Cortical Plasticity Be Retained into Adulthood?
Rejuvenation of plasticity in the brain: opening the critical period (BTW, pay attention to the role of the thalamus, which is also critically involved in... Read more
Posted on 06 October 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Boys and Girls Right Left & Back
Posted on 05 October 2018
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Why American Politics is a Tissue of Self-destructive Lies and Misdirections
Elizabeth Bruenig, Kavanaugh is one more step in America’s cycle of self-destruction, Washington Post, October 4, 2018: The Brett Kavanaugh Confirmation Affair... Read more
Posted on 05 October 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Trump Works the Presidency: Imperial Boss and Cyborg Operator
Another working paper; title above; abstract, contents, and introduction below. Download here: Academia.edu:... Read more
Posted on 04 October 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Computation BURNS Energy, It IS a Physical Process, It's NOT Etherial Spirit
From David Wolpert, Why Do Computers Use So Much Energy?, Scientific American (4 oct 2018) Precise estimates vary, but currently about 5 percent of all energy... Read more
Posted on 04 October 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Lost in Math: Sabine Hossenfelder at Stevens Institute
My buddy John Horgan brought Sabine Hossenfelder to Stevens Instituted to talk about her current book, Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray. Read more
Posted on 04 October 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Lady Gaga as Star
When I met Lady Gaga on a hazy afternoon a few days after her Venice tour, at her house so high up in the Hollywood Hills that I broke through the fog line... Read more
Posted on 03 October 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Frank Sinatra as Mother?
I've been going through a a bunch of passages I cut from my book, Beethovens's Anvil, for one reason or another. This one is about Frank Sinatra's singing style. Read more
Posted on 03 October 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Hermeneutic Hairball: Intuition, Tracking, and Sniffing out Patterns
This post serves three purposes: 1) It’s an elaboration on the middle section of a post from last month, Still, why do literary critics find it so difficult to... Read more
Posted on 02 October 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Howard Rheingold is Leaving Facebook
As many of you know, Howard’s been in the vanguard of thinking about and building online communities since the 1980s – see the online version of his 1993 book,... Read more
Posted on 02 October 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Musical High: Free, Rockin’ and Tight as a Frog’s Bottom
This is cobbled together from notes and from out-takes from my book, Beethoven's Anvil: Music in Mind and Culture, and my personal notes. Zoom!!! Read more
Posted on 02 October 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Tyler Cowen on Kavanaugh: Asymmetry Between Male and Female Perceptions
There is an asymmetry between male and female perceptions. Most men are not abusers, yet very large numbers of women have been abused. So if a man is an... Read more
Posted on 01 October 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
I Was Right, Shakespeare Isn’t Real (Lit Lab 17) [#DH]
Yes, I know, all those plays were written by a real person, not by an alien from another world. And no, I’m not alluding to that inane controversy over whether... Read more
Posted on 30 September 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Heart of Darkness: Kurtz’s Mistress is Murdered
Sometime well after I’d finished my various notes about Conrad’s Heart of Darkness I came across an interview that Rachel Kaadzi Ghansa had conducted with Samue... Read more
Posted on 30 September 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Story of My Intellectual Life, Short Version (136 Words)
In the early 1970s I discovered that “Kubla Khan” had a rich, marvelous, and fantastically symmetrical structure. I'd found myself intellectually. I knew what... Read more
Posted on 29 September 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
