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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Ricky Gervais Interview with Garry Shandling
Amy Wallace's GQ profile of Garry Shandling mentions a very awkward interview he did with Ricky Gervais. I bumped onto the interview on YouTube and have linked... Read more
Posted on 30 March 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Musical Creativity in the Brain
Musical Creativity “Revealed” in Brain Structure: Interplay between Motor, Default Mode, and Limbic NetworksDavid M. Bashwiner, Christopher J. Wertz, Ranee A.... Read more
Posted on 29 March 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
This is Your Brain on Freestylin'
Neural Correlates of Lyrical Improvisation: An fMRI Study of Freestyle RapSiyuan Liu, Ho Ming Chow, Yisheng Xu, Michael G. Erkkinen, Katherine E. Swett,... Read more
Posted on 29 March 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Skateboarding as Ecosystem
From California Sunday Magazine:Because of skateboarding’s quirks, the media plays an outsize role in the sport — if you can even call it that. Read more
Posted on 28 March 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Seriously as an Actor: Garry Shandling Profile from GQ 2010
by Amy Wallace – "He’s a boxer, a Buddhist, a hoops junkie, and a kind of Yoda to every funny person born since 1965 (Sandler, Silverman, Apatow, Gervais,... Read more
Posted on 28 March 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Studies in Human-Thing Entanglement
This 2016 book by Ian Hodder, Dunlevie Family Professor and Professor of Anthropology, Stanford University, might have been subtitled, "An Approach to... Read more
Posted on 27 March 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Garry Shandling to Jerry Seinfeld on Expressing Your Spirit
Garry Shandling was on Seinfeld's Comedians and Cars Getting Coffee, season 7, episode 4. They war talking about David Brenner, who'd just died. Jerry remarks... Read more
Posted on 25 March 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Peppers
Posted on 25 March 2016
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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New Journal: History of the Humanities
Edited by Rens Bod, Julia Kursell, Jaap Maat, and Thijs Weststeijn, sponsored by the Society for the History of the Humanities, and published by the University... Read more
Posted on 24 March 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
State of the Art Robot from Boston Dynamics, Watch It Recover from a Fall
Explanatory copy: A new version of Atlas, designed to operate outdoors and inside buildings. It is specialized for mobile manipulation. It is electrically... Read more
Posted on 24 March 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Science Fiction and Muslim Identity
From The Johns Hopkins Magazine: Alif the Unseen, the 2012 debut novel of G. Willow Wilson, takes an inventive approach to the contemporary techno thriller. Read more
Posted on 23 March 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Seinfeld Through the Donut Hole
In a conversation with Howard Stern (at c. 20:46) Seinfled characterized his type of comedy as “heady, wordy, phrasey, thinky” as opposed to “crazy guy” comedy... Read more
Posted on 21 March 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Conducting "enhanced Interrogations" Causes Moral Wounds to Those Who Do It
Eric Fair writing in The New York Times: In my role as a civilian contractor for the Department of Defense, I spent the first three months of 2004 torturing... Read more
Posted on 21 March 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Bayesian Reasoning and Fictional Characters
Last year Stanford's Arcade, Probability and Literary Being, by Hannah Walser and J.D. Porter. Starting from a remark Toni Morrison has made about how character... Read more
Posted on 19 March 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Wet Flowers
Posted on 18 March 2016
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Notes on Attridge and Staten: The Craft of Poetry
You can download the complete working paper here: SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2749862 Academia.edu:... Read more
Posted on 18 March 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Trump Reviews Homer
Odysseus took 20 years to travel 600 miles. Would not want him as captain of my boat. BAD SAILOR pic.twitter.com/iZWpQhBwJQ — Trump Reviews (@LitCritTrump) Marc... Read more
Posted on 17 March 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Cortical Pathways for Speech and Music
Neuron. 2015 Dec 16;88(6):1281-96. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2015.11.035. Distinct Cortical Pathways for Music and Speech Revealed by Hypothesis-Free Voxel... Read more
Posted on 17 March 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Young Americans Have Been Getting More Anxious Over the Past 80 Years
From the New York Magazine: ...Ever since the 1930s, young people in America have reported feeling increasingly anxious and depressed. And no one knows exactly... Read more
Posted on 15 March 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Morphosis: John Green: the Antecession of Adolescence
A post by my old Valve buddy, Adam roberts: Morphosis: John Green: the Antecession of Adolescence: There are only a few more weeks to run of the Children's... Read more
Posted on 12 March 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
