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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Beyond Good and Evil?
As Breaking Bad nears the end, I thought I'd repost this one from The Valve, 30 March 2008.As the final season of The Wire moved past its midpoint I began... Read more
Posted on 25 September 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Green Onions Rulz!
This tune has been on my mind since forever! Well, not that long since the tune has only been around since 1962. But I heard it then and it got fixed in my soul... Read more
Posted on 25 September 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
How Would You Like to Teach Philosophy in a Cave?
NYTimes:Two of [Singapore's] public universities, Nanyang Technological University and the National University of Singapore, have completed preliminary studies... Read more
Posted on 24 September 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Martians in Jersey City (Spielberg Must Have Left Them Behind)
Posted on 24 September 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
If a Martian Anthropologist Were to Study American Culture, Would She Assign...
This was originally posted to The Valve on 7 Feb 2007 under the title: Discipline: The Aesthetic and the Ethnographic. I’ve edited it slightly so as to insert... Read more
Posted on 24 September 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Was JS Bach a Punk?
Sir John Eliot Gardiner has a new biography coming out that documents the thuggish world of the schools Bach attended in his youth, full of "gang warfare and... Read more
Posted on 23 September 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Notes Toward a Naturalist Cultural History
Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which humanity casts upon the present; the words which express... Read more
Posted on 23 September 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Conjunctions on the Autumn Equinox
Early yesterday afternoon I found myself sitting in the sanctuary at St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church in Manhattan. The Parish was founded in 1835; this is it... Read more
Posted on 22 September 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Jon Faddis in Jersey City
Posted on 21 September 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
J. Hillis Miller on the Profession of Literary Criticism
J. Hillis Miller is now one of the Grand Old Men of literary criticsm. When I first saw him, lecturing on, among other texts, The Secret Agent and A Passage to... Read more
Posted on 20 September 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Frost on the Punkin’
I was looking through my “on deck” folder to see which photos I had ready for uploading to Flickr and I saw this one:And that got me to thinking about George... Read more
Posted on 19 September 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Bye Bye Space and Time?
And hello! amplituhedron!The amplituhedron is "a jewel-like geometric object that dramatically simplifies calculations of particle interactions and challenges... Read more
Posted on 18 September 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
World Oral Literature Project
Hosted by Yale and Columbia. About the project:The World Oral Literature Project is an urgent global initiative to document and disseminate endangered oral... Read more
Posted on 18 September 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Jamming with Isabella
This is Isabella working on a drawing:Judging from her size and the way she talks I’d say she’s between three and four.I met her the other day at Wayquay’s... Read more
Posted on 17 September 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Once Was Bustling with People and Trains
Taken on 22 May 2011, from the eastern end of the platform area:Taken on June 26, 2011. I forget whether I was standing at the eastern end or on the northern... Read more
Posted on 17 September 2013 SELF EXPRESSION -
Madam Wayquay's Curiosity Shack
Posted on 16 September 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Introspection Through the Ages
Carlos G. Diuk, D. Fernandez Slezak, I. Raskovsky, M. Sigman, and G. A. Cecchi, A quantitative philology of introspection, Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience... Read more
Posted on 16 September 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Political Legacy of American Slavery
A new paper (PDF) by Avidit Acharya, Matthew Blackwell, and Maya Sen.Abstract: We show that contemporary differences in political attitudes across counties in... Read more
Posted on 16 September 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Chomsky's Linguistics, a Passing Fancy?
Dismissing Chomsky's political writing as ephemeral, albeit effective, journalism, Pieter Seuren begins an assessment of his work in linguistics:He dominated... Read more
Posted on 15 September 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Muriquis Monkeys Live the Egalitarian Life
Steve Kemper, Humans Would Be Better Off If They Monkeyed Around Like the Muriquis, Smithsonian, Sept. 2013.When [Karen] Strier was first getting to know the... Read more
Posted on 15 September 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY