Bbenzon
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 ( 6822 )
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Walt Disney, Stephen Miller and the Future of Jersey City
Buildings ... are not discrete objects. They are building blocks of a democratic society. W. H. Auden once proposed that a civilization could be judged by "the... Read more
Posted on 02 November 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Black and White Not Merely Black and White
When we look at black and white photographs, the brain interpolates color:After recording brain responses to the black and white objects, the scientists... Read more
Posted on 02 November 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Extra! Extra! Japanese Government Funds Distance Education on the Rez
No, it hasn’t happened yet. But who knows, stranger things have happened.By “the rez” I mean, of course, the reservation. In this case I have no particular... Read more
Posted on 01 November 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Wonderful Rainbow Aesthetics, off the Top of My Head: An Essay on Musical...
This was originally published in The Valve on January 06, 2007. Examples of performance range from Louis Armstrong, through Joey Ramone, Elvis Impersonators, no... Read more
Posted on 01 November 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Remembering Sandy
Full set on Flickr. Read more
Posted on 31 October 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Dr. Takeshi Utsumi: Globally Collaborative Environmental Peace Gaming
David Hays introduced me to Takeshi Utsumi sometime back in the 1980s. Both of them were members of an on-going seminar convened at Columbia University by Seth... Read more
Posted on 31 October 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Growing Minds: You Can’t Get There from Here, Anymore
It’s just occurred to me that something’s happened to me like what happened with Coleridge (aka STC: Samuel Taylor Coleridge) and “Kubla Khan. Read more
Posted on 30 October 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Jersey City Future 2: One Jersey City
I’m going to start with the Bergen Arches, move to Buckminster Fuller and his plan for the industrialization of Brazil, and end with a monument in Journal... Read more
Posted on 29 October 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
What Kisses Tell
From the NYTimes:The participants generally rated kissing in casual relationships as most important before sex, less important during sex, even less important... Read more
Posted on 29 October 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
On Street Art: A Note to Mayors Everywhere
Patrick Verel just sent me a link to his Fordham thesis about graffiti:Verel, Patrick, "New York City Graffiti Murals: Signs of Hope, Marks of Distinction"... Read more
Posted on 29 October 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
A Child of the Space Age
One evening in the fall of 1957 my father took me outside. He pointed up to the sky and said “That’s Sputnik.” I’m not sure I saw the (moving) speck of light... Read more
Posted on 28 October 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Malcolm Gladwell: Does He Know What He's Talking About?
I've not read his latest book, David and Goliath (I've only read several chapters of The Tipping Point and a New Yorker article or three). Read more
Posted on 28 October 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
John Wilkins on Biological Species
The concept of a species in biology is tricky and controversial. John Wilkins is an expert on the controversies surrounding the term and he rejects the notion... Read more
Posted on 27 October 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
A Leak in Cool Reason 2: Pattern Matching
I would like to clarify my earlier critique of Lakoff and Turner on “To a Solitary Disciple” (from the third chapter of More Than Cool Reason) by offering a... Read more
Posted on 27 October 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Music and Roller Coasters
I’d originally posted these notes to a private online forum back in 2002. This is their first walk out in public. What I say about music pertains to the other... Read more
Posted on 27 October 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Jersey City on New Savanna
I've posted quite a bit about Jersey City here on (the) New Savanna. You can find general Jersey City posts by clicking on the Jersey City tag, either directly... Read more
Posted on 26 October 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Miami Device: Paradise Regained?
On the one hand I've been working my way through back episodes of Miami Vice, which I'd also watched when it originally aired on network TV. Read more
Posted on 26 October 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Autonomous Aesthetic: A Graduate Syllabus in Naturalist Literary Criticism
I'd originally posted this at The Valve in July of 2007 under a slightly different title: The Autonomous Aesthetic: A Graduate Syllabus in Literary Theory. Read more
Posted on 26 October 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Jersey City Future: the Twilight Zone
I’ve been feeling that there’s something afoot in Jersey City, but I don’t know quite what. For example, here’s an empty block in Lafayette as it was two years... Read more
Posted on 25 October 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Brain "Decoding"
There's an interesting piece in Nature about how neuroscientists are learning to "decode" brain activity, that is, to identify, e.g. what a person is looking... Read more
Posted on 25 October 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY