[contextly_auto_sidebar id="QenFCLTcJKBApjGPuMk4yTYCy8otpnpB"] ARE there subjects science, metrics, Big Data, and rational thought can't entirely address? I sometimes thinks that these issues are the ones arts and culture are about, but I'm coming to realize that there's another lineage that engages with them as well: Religion. To many, this will sound obvious, but the relationship between … [Read more...]
La Ciudad de las Ideas festival
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="9AhxX8pf5CvtID3wavJN9goOU6FcNHYU"] YOUR humble blogger is just back from a few days in Puebla, Mexico, which hosted an annual ideas conference that included writer Piper Kerman, filmmaker Werner Herzog, tiger mom Amy Chua, and a host of musicians, neuroscientists, and magicians. There was also an appearance by the Orquestra Esperanza Azteca, one of the many groups … [Read more...]
Imagining Mars
WHATEVER the faults of John Carter, the new film based on the early work of Edgar Rice Burroughs, we're happy to have the chance to head back to Mars. Given the way NASA funding is going, this may be our only chance.As a species, we've been fascinated with the Red Planet for a long time -- the film is only the latest of a long line. Why does it draw us to it, and how has our thinking about Mars … [Read more...]
Creativity and Depression
LAST year I saw a recital of Robert Schumann's music by the great pianist Andras Schiff. The pieces he played were lyrical, full of feeling, and almost consistently uncomfortable -- it was like hearing the mood swings of a rich but unsettled mind. (The composer is sometimes called "the most romantic of the romantics.")The relationship between that unsettled mind and the often transcendent melodies … [Read more...]
The Past Envisions the Future
LOOKING back at mid-century optimism is always both fascinating and depressing. All the labor-saving devices and exotic holidays -- weekends on the moon! -- we were going to get by now.The science-fiction writer Gregory Benford, who teaches at UC/Irvine, and the editors of Popular Mechanics have put together hundreds of these predictions, from asbestos dresses to personal jetpacks, along with the … [Read more...]
February 15 and Galileo
TODAY is an important day for Bright Eyes' Conor Oberst, composer John Adams, jazzman Henry Threadgill -- and that's just the musicians. Throw in Susan B. Anthony and Galileo, and I think it's about as good a day as there is, especially lodged as it is in the middle of the dreary month of February. (And I insist I am totally unbiased on the matter despite my Feb. 15 birthday.)Galileo was one of my … [Read more...]
The Misread City Goes Into the Future
THIS week yours truly will be serving as guest editor for the blog io9, which is devoted to science, futurism, and science-fiction in all its forms. I'll be posting on some topics familiar to readers of The Misread City -- some news regarding author Ursula K. Le Guin, a new film based on a Philip K. Dick novel -- as well as topics largely new to me such as eco-tourism and UFO abductions. (Or … [Read more...]
Alan Alda vs. Science
AMONG the very few things yours truly has in common with Alan Alda is a love of science. (Though my wife tells me he was her first crush, so there may be a joke in here somewhere.)In any case, it was as pleasure to have a beer with the star of the most successful tv show of all time and discuss the new three-part special he's hosting on PBS, "The Human Spark." The show tries to get at what makes … [Read more...]
Einstein vs. Picasso
ONE of my favorite pieces of my own, one that sent me on a real intellectual journey, explored the similarities between albert einstein's breakthroughs in physics and the ferment in modernist art and literature. the artist einstein is usually likened to is cubist-era pablo picasso. these two unconventional bohemians were engaged in what scholar arthur. i. miller calls "the same problem," as … [Read more...]