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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Araki and His Models
Almost two months ago I saw the Nobuyoshi Araki exhibit at Mana Contemporary, in the post-industrial hinterlands of Jersey City (and subsequently blogged about... Read more
Posted on 16 August 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Breaking Bad: Breaking Men from the Inside
By now zillions of atoms have be scattered on the internet to the end of explicating Breaking Bad. I've read some of that, but not much. Breaking Bad's Moral... Read more
Posted on 15 August 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Can the Chilltown Rebels Defeat the Empire So That They May Live Long and...
The photographs I’ve placed in this essay have two things in common: 1) I was standing in Jersey City when I took each of them, and 2) the Empire State Building... Read more
Posted on 15 August 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Description as Intellectual Craft in the Study of Literature
Here's another collection of posts, this time on description. You can download the PDF HERE. The abstract and an introduction are below. Read more
Posted on 14 August 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
“The Cat and the Moon” All up in One Another
This is a graduate school exercise that I once tarted up for a special Yeats issue of Some Journal. It was rejected by Some Journal. After which I too rejected... Read more
Posted on 14 August 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Humans and Dogs in Wuthering Heights
I first published this note on The Valve for December 30, 2009. It speaks to my recent posts on animals, especially in cartoons (e.g. Where'd the Animals Go?). Read more
Posted on 13 August 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Into Lévi-Strauss and Out Through “Kubla Khan”
Prefatory NoteI first published this in The Valve on December 7, 2009. This piece tells the story of how, in the early 1970s, I came to abandon "traditional"... Read more
Posted on 13 August 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Oprah and the Sales Clerk
By now you've probably read three versions of the story. It is, after all, buzzing through the internets. As the story is related by The Independent:The US... Read more
Posted on 13 August 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Crispin on Pinker-on-Science
Over at Bookslut:Mary Midgley's Science and Poetry argues for a coming together of these two fields, without one trying to dominate the other. From the looks... Read more
Posted on 12 August 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
What Kind of Experience Can You Get in a Museum?
"THE quest for an experience has taken over giant portions of our lives."Writing in today's NYTimes, Judith H. Dobrzynski complains that museums are going too... Read more
Posted on 11 August 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Welcome to Eden: The Bergen Arches
The local name for the phenomenon, the Bergen Arches, is a bit well, odd. Yes, there are arches, five of them; two are bridges and three are short tunnels. Read more
Posted on 10 August 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Bleg: Graffiti Epidemic?
“Are you getting good graffiti?” she asked. “Or bad graffiti?”The New York Times is reporting what sounds like a graffiti epidemic in Greenpoint,... Read more
Posted on 10 August 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Problematic of Description
We can frame the problematic of description with a remark David Bordwell made while discussing the state of film criticism. Following Monroe Beardsley, he... Read more
Posted on 09 August 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Epic FAIL
So much for this "striking symbol of hope and prosperity..."The original design obviously included specifications for an elevator big enough for a 20-storey... Read more
Posted on 09 August 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Demolition of St. Francis Hospital in Jersey City
I'd been living in Hamilton Park for several years when St. Francis hospital was demolished, much of it thought not all, to make way for new condos. Read more
Posted on 08 August 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Seeds of Recursion in the Child's Mind
Though it has roots in 19th Century mathematics, the idea of recursion owes most of its development 20th Century work in mathematics, logic, and computing, wher... Read more
Posted on 08 August 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Japanese Wedding c. 1995
From the New York Times, Feb. 26 1995:The wedding, last month, took place in a Western-style building that resembles a castle and towers over this town northeas... Read more
Posted on 08 August 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Five Themo Pieces
The first three are inside one of the Bergen Arches in Jersey City, NJ. The fourth is outside, but still down in the Arches. The fifth is at the UMMI Living... Read more
Posted on 08 August 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Walker Evans' American Photographs
At NYTimes Lens photoblog.In case casual readers thought they could flit randomly among the images in Walker Evans’s “American Photographs,” Lincoln Kirstein... Read more
Posted on 08 August 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Cultural Evolution, Memes, and the Trouble with Dan Dennett
This is the final post in my current series on memes, cultural evolution, and the thought of Daniel Dennett. You can download a PDF of the whole series HERE. Th... Read more
Posted on 07 August 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
