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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Dennett’s Preformationist Memetics
In thinking about my previous post I realized that my criticism of Dennett’s meme doctrine–that memes are mental entities that move from brain to brain like... Read more
Posted on 27 July 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Page Turner to the Starz, Part 3
This is the last of my three-part series on a recording session involving Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, John Cerminaro, and Cecil Licad. I'm the page turner, WLB.... Read more
Posted on 26 July 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Memes as Data: Targets, Couplers, and Designators
While these posts have been quite critical of Dennett’s use of the concept of information, that should not be taken to mean that I see no use for such a concept. Read more
Posted on 25 July 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Page Turner to the Starz, Part 2
In Part 1 of this series (of three posts) we met our dramatis personae, the Page Turner (WLB, aka me), Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, the fiddler, John Cerminaro, th... Read more
Posted on 25 July 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The United States of the Blues
I have a long-standing interest in African-American music and a not quite so long-standing belief culture is a driving force in history. Read more
Posted on 24 July 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Page Turner to the Starz, Part
Twenty years ago or so I spent the weekend as a page-turner on a classical recording session. Nadia Salerno-Sonnenberg, John Cerminaro, and Cecil Licad were... Read more
Posted on 24 July 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Abundance
A poem by Sally BenzonThe sounds of treesWho fail to be nowhereIf they are not heardHumor into soundsOf all leaps and sizes.The voice unspoken Ages the weathere... Read more
Posted on 24 July 2013 CREATIVITY, SELF EXPRESSION -
Samurai Champloo Episode 23
That episode is entitled Baseball Blues and it depicts a vicious baseball game between an American team captained by Admiral Joey Cartwright and a Japanese... Read more
Posted on 23 July 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Hierophants of Unacknowledged Inspiration
For my sister, on the day before her birthday.I’ve been thinking of Shelley’s famous essay, A Defence of Poetry (1821), which I have read in full, but only... Read more
Posted on 23 July 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Urban Pastoral with Green and Other Materials
Posted on 22 July 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Leapin’ Lizards: Three Lessons from Marching Band
Like many musicians, I was in a marching band in middle school and high school, the Marching Rams of Richland Township in Western Pennsylvania. We were a very... Read more
Posted on 22 July 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
How Do We Account for the History of the Meme Concept?
First, in asking THAT question I do not intend a bit of cutesy intellectual cleverness: Oh Wow! Let’s get the meme meme to examine it’s own history. Read more
Posted on 21 July 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Physical Symbol System Hypothesis
The intellectual partnership of Allen Newell and Herbert Simon began at the RAND corporation in the early 1950s and became one of the most fruitful... Read more
Posted on 21 July 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
It's Time for a Malick Friday
Do you want your Malick with fennel?Or tomato?Perhaps birches in Winter are more your style:Or maybe you just want to burn:Light my fire, baby! Light my fire!I'... Read more
Posted on 19 July 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Japanese Robots in Space
As I've explained in previous posts the Japanese have a different take on robots than we do: The Japanese and Robots, The Robot as Subaltern. Read more
Posted on 19 July 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Corpus Linguistics for the Humanist: Notes of an Old Hand on Encountering New...
I've published another working paper, this one on "digital humanities." Specifically, corpus linguistics. Here's the abstract and the introduction:Abstract:... Read more
Posted on 18 July 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
How I Found a Home in Jersey City and Got Steve Fulop Elected Mayor, Part 3
When the second installment ended I was photographing graffiti and had started volunteering in the Hamilton Park Neighborhood Association. Read more
Posted on 18 July 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
How I Found a Home in Jersey City and Got Steve Fulop Elected Mayor, Part 2
By the end of the first part of this essay I’d made my way to Jersey City and bought a point-and-shoot camera. Jersey City was where I lived, but not my home. Read more
Posted on 17 July 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Why a Graffiti Museum is Beside the Point
Various people have been thinking about a graffiti museum for a while. Graffiti is now in galleries and museum collections, and has been for some time. The graf... Read more
Posted on 17 July 2013 ART & DESIGN, CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
You Know You Want to See It: The World-Wide Wall
Writers are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present; the words which express... Read more
Posted on 16 July 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY