"So many artists have lived hard lives and had awful deaths that for years we seemed to expect this of them — that addiction and an early grave were a kind of tax levied on artists, most especially writers." - The New York Times
Let's talk about the film's use of music. "Though music is not intrinsically antithetical to deafness—deaf musicians are not unusual ... — CODA largely treats music as an exclusionary club for hearing people." - The Atlantic
The Dormio enables a limited shaping of the images that appear during sleep’s first stage. Yet this is enough to give bite to the question, to render it slightly less abstract. Why would I want to shape my dreams? What kinds of things can you do with dreams? - Harper's
The sceptical way of life, on Sextus’ presentation, follows a certain rhythm. You feel puzzlement about something. You search for knowledge about it. You arrive at two equally weighty considerations about what is happening. You let go trying to find an answer. - Aeon
What was the simplest task in the geometric domain — independent of natural language, culture, education — that might reveal a signature difference between human and nonhuman primates? The challenge was to measure not merely visual perception but a deeper cognitive process. - The New York Times
What’s curious about the brutality that fuels Internet shaming frenzies is that in real life—that is, IRL, in the usual online parlance—most of us would hesitate to consign a normal nobody to nationwide notoriety and several years of unemployment. - The New Yorker
My Russian training prompted a question: How could a situation where everyone was morally bound to agree help overcome a collectivist mindset? Freedom and democracy, after all, depend on legitimate differences of opinion. - First Things
As cities become more dense—moving in the direction of the “15-minute city,” where offices and simple errands are a short walk or bike ride away from home—designs like the superblock become more feasible. - Fast Company
From earlier work, they had expected the brain to encode the memory by slightly tweaking its neural architecture. Instead, the researchers were surprised to find a major overhaul in the connections. - Wired
Researchers are using AI to parse the “speech” of animals, enabling scientists to create systems that, for example, detect and monitor whale songs to alert nearby ships so they can avoid collisions. - The Wall Street Journal
"I wholeheartedly agree with something that the great historical sociologist Orlando Patterson said in a summer teacher seminar: If you want to critique western culture, you must own the culture and know it from the inside." - Inside Higher Ed
Matt Belloni: "The leading minds at media companies (and the consulting firms that nudge them) have convinced the C-suite trigger-pullers that if you spend enough money streaming ... the riches of global scale and pricing power await." Why? "It’s true, because everyone says it’s true." - Puck News
Ideas and ways of shopping "fall by the wayside and then return at a later date in new guises or with new names. They often have every appearance of being newly invented. Take fast fashion, for instance" - and its origins in 18th century London. - Fast Company
Digitalization has affected both the demand and supply for cultural content. Increasingly sophisticated technology and adoption of digital devices to experience things remote because of the pandemic have developed a taste for new ways to “tour” museums, “attend” theatre and participate in book readings. - The Conversation
Peter Turchin has been warning for a decade that a few key social and political trends portend an “age of discord,” civil unrest and carnage worse than most Americans have experienced. - The Atlantic
