Of course this literate futurist product is appealing to Walter!!! Nicely done, peeple. Now then, let's see the full run of PLAYBOY given similar treatment! Every page! All ads! High Res! Fully searchable! This NYorker set is fresh, but it's more a fun-ass marker of things to come, heck yes.
Actually, Walter himself is the complete New Yorker.
04 March 2007
Darwin's God
READ THIS he sez to me electronically
it's from nytimes magazine.
it's by robin marantz henig.
here's the beginning:
God has always been a puzzle for Scott Atran. When he was 10 years old, he scrawled a plaintive message on the wall of his bedroom in Baltimore. “God exists,” he wrote in black and orange paint, “or if he doesn’t, we’re in trouble.” Atran has been struggling with questions about religion ever since — why he himself no longer believes in God and why so many other people, everywhere in the world, apparently do.
Call it God; call it superstition; call it, as Atran does, “belief in hope beyond reason” — whatever you call it, there seems an inherent human drive to believe in something transcendent, unfathomable and otherworldly, something beyond the reach or understanding of science. “Why do we cross our fingers during turbulence, even the most atheistic among us?” asked Atran when we spoke at his Upper West Side pied-à-terre in January. Atran, who is 55, is an anthropologist at the National Center for Scientific Research in Paris, with joint appointments at the University of Michigan and the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. His research interests include cognitive science and evolutionary biology, and sometimes he presents students with a wooden box that he pretends is an African relic. “If you have negative sentiments toward religion,” he tells them, “the box will destroy whatever you put inside it.” Many of his students say they doubt the existence of God, but in this demonstration they act as if they believe in something. Put your pencil into the magic box, he tells them, and the nonbelievers do so blithely. Put in your driver’s license, he says, and most do, but only after significant hesitation. And when he tells them to put in their hands, few will.
If they don’t believe in God, what exactly are they afraid of?
rest of hot article here
Some books & vids & articles
PROUST!
Walter sez: THIS IS THE GREATEST INTRODUCTION TO AND NOSTALGIC REMINICSENCE OF PROUST EVER WRITTEN!!! :-D :-D :-D
if there is only one book on Proust one reads it's got to be this one.... 8-) 8-) 8-)
and if one NEVER reads any Proust, or wants to read any Proust, this is the book to read!.... ;-) ;-) ;-)
This funny video: Rachmaninov's big hands
This comprehensive study: The Classical World: An Epic History from Homer to Hadrian by the great Robin Lane Fox. Walter says you can trust Robin cuz he's one of the few who've attempted the mighty task: wrote grand books on Alexander the Great.
Also some super stuff from this article from physicsweb.org on the beauty of equations ~
From NPR this week, Walter recommends this insightful program on the ancient roots of modern science and yes oh yesthis other hot one about the oldest solar observatory (about 1,800 yrs BEFORE the sun-loving Incas!)
Walter sez: THIS IS THE GREATEST INTRODUCTION TO AND NOSTALGIC REMINICSENCE OF PROUST EVER WRITTEN!!! :-D :-D :-D
if there is only one book on Proust one reads it's got to be this one.... 8-) 8-) 8-)
and if one NEVER reads any Proust, or wants to read any Proust, this is the book to read!.... ;-) ;-) ;-)
This funny video: Rachmaninov's big hands
This comprehensive study: The Classical World: An Epic History from Homer to Hadrian by the great Robin Lane Fox. Walter says you can trust Robin cuz he's one of the few who've attempted the mighty task: wrote grand books on Alexander the Great.
Also some super stuff from this article from physicsweb.org on the beauty of equations ~
From NPR this week, Walter recommends this insightful program on the ancient roots of modern science and yes oh yesthis other hot one about the oldest solar observatory (about 1,800 yrs BEFORE the sun-loving Incas!)
26 February 2007
Lincoln's Sword
by Douglas L. Wilson.
NPR progam fulla hot Lincoln data action >>> an interview with heavy-hitter Douglas Wilson, co-director of the Lincoln Studies Center at Knox College, and author of "Honor's Voice: The Transformation of Abraham Lincoln."
His new one focuses on language.LINCOLN'S SWORD is a hot new Lincoln title. Mr. Wilson was here @ The Library last week and he and Walter hit it off immediately. Walter approached him by asking his three Lincoln questions to see where he stands: 1) Pro or Anti Sandburg? As in, do you believe the basics of Carl Sandburg's Lincoln? 2) Does he believe the Ann Rutlege story? Which means, did Lincoln really love her and nearly kill himself? 3) Who is his favorite biographer? +++ Well, Mr. Wilson was clear on all three: Pro Sandburg, believe the Rutledge story, and fave biographer has got to be David Herbert Donald. Of course, we're only talking the one-volume sets. If you really want to learn, though, you GOT TO GO MULTI-VOLUME with the other boys. "When you're with a true Lincoln Guy, these are not flamboyant people. These people are deep into melancholy, because they're with his melancholy, cuz he was so melancholy practically all the time, and that's why I love the Oates. Donald's a great single volume, but I love the Oates cuz he keeps hammering you with the melancholy." And of course, now there's a new volume which is talking JUST ABOUT THAT! Great NPR interview HERE.
Walter continues: "He was a sick man! And he was able to do all this stuff! And you know [Oates] is telling the truth cuz he's got Lincoln saying it. This was my favorite biography. When I want to get to see Lincoln, he's right there. You can open to any page, you are in Lincoln's mind. The Donald is like looking at an archaeological site. He says, we're here in Greece, here's Athens, here's the Parthenon, you're going and looking and examining each exhibit, but you can surely see the difference between the separation. You have all the evidence gathered there, you got it. You got the Donald, you're all right. You want instant flash injection of Lincoln? POW! You get the Oates. You open it up: be prepared. From page one to the end, to the day he died ... and the last chapter on that last day?! Holy Moly! Oh my god! That's incredible! You are with Abe. Now, once you're with that universe, these are these people. This is who Douglas Wilson is: this is a super duper guy!"
NPR progam fulla hot Lincoln data action >>> an interview with heavy-hitter Douglas Wilson, co-director of the Lincoln Studies Center at Knox College, and author of "Honor's Voice: The Transformation of Abraham Lincoln."
His new one focuses on language.LINCOLN'S SWORD is a hot new Lincoln title. Mr. Wilson was here @ The Library last week and he and Walter hit it off immediately. Walter approached him by asking his three Lincoln questions to see where he stands: 1) Pro or Anti Sandburg? As in, do you believe the basics of Carl Sandburg's Lincoln? 2) Does he believe the Ann Rutlege story? Which means, did Lincoln really love her and nearly kill himself? 3) Who is his favorite biographer? +++ Well, Mr. Wilson was clear on all three: Pro Sandburg, believe the Rutledge story, and fave biographer has got to be David Herbert Donald. Of course, we're only talking the one-volume sets. If you really want to learn, though, you GOT TO GO MULTI-VOLUME with the other boys. "When you're with a true Lincoln Guy, these are not flamboyant people. These people are deep into melancholy, because they're with his melancholy, cuz he was so melancholy practically all the time, and that's why I love the Oates. Donald's a great single volume, but I love the Oates cuz he keeps hammering you with the melancholy." And of course, now there's a new volume which is talking JUST ABOUT THAT! Great NPR interview HERE.
Walter continues: "He was a sick man! And he was able to do all this stuff! And you know [Oates] is telling the truth cuz he's got Lincoln saying it. This was my favorite biography. When I want to get to see Lincoln, he's right there. You can open to any page, you are in Lincoln's mind. The Donald is like looking at an archaeological site. He says, we're here in Greece, here's Athens, here's the Parthenon, you're going and looking and examining each exhibit, but you can surely see the difference between the separation. You have all the evidence gathered there, you got it. You got the Donald, you're all right. You want instant flash injection of Lincoln? POW! You get the Oates. You open it up: be prepared. From page one to the end, to the day he died ... and the last chapter on that last day?! Holy Moly! Oh my god! That's incredible! You are with Abe. Now, once you're with that universe, these are these people. This is who Douglas Wilson is: this is a super duper guy!"
Democracy Reborn
Garrett Epps has put together a full-length account of The Fourteenth Amendment and the Fight for Equal Rights in Post-Civil War America.
From Publishers Weekly
In December 1865, the 39th Congress had urgent business, says Epps in this passionate account of Reconstruction politics. If the former Confederate states were readmitted to the Union, ex-slaves would swell those states' congressional power, but without congressional protection, the freedmen would never be allowed to vote, and the Southern white elite would have disproportionate influence in the federal government. Epps follows every twist of Congress's response to this problem, and his energetic prose transforms potentially tedious congressional debates into riveting reading.
From Publishers Weekly
In December 1865, the 39th Congress had urgent business, says Epps in this passionate account of Reconstruction politics. If the former Confederate states were readmitted to the Union, ex-slaves would swell those states' congressional power, but without congressional protection, the freedmen would never be allowed to vote, and the Southern white elite would have disproportionate influence in the federal government. Epps follows every twist of Congress's response to this problem, and his energetic prose transforms potentially tedious congressional debates into riveting reading.
Read it?
Read It?
No, but You Can Skim a Few Pages and Fake It
By ALAN RIDING
~ from nytimes.com
Pierre Bayard, a professor, offers social guidance to the unread.
PARIS, Feb. 23 — It may well be that too many books are published, but by good fortune, not all must be read. In practice, primed by publishers, critics, teachers, authors and word-of-mouth, a form of natural selection limits essential reading to those classics and best sellers that become part of civilized intellectual and social discourse.
Of course, many people don’t get through these books, either, and too embarrassed to admit it, they worry constantly about being exposed as philistines.
Now Pierre Bayard, a Paris University literature professor, has come to their rescue with a survivor’s guide to life in the chattering classes. And it is evidently much in need. “How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read?” has become a best seller here, with translation rights snapped up across Europe and under negotiation in Britain and the United States.
>>>MORE>>>
No, but You Can Skim a Few Pages and Fake It
By ALAN RIDING
~ from nytimes.com
Pierre Bayard, a professor, offers social guidance to the unread.
PARIS, Feb. 23 — It may well be that too many books are published, but by good fortune, not all must be read. In practice, primed by publishers, critics, teachers, authors and word-of-mouth, a form of natural selection limits essential reading to those classics and best sellers that become part of civilized intellectual and social discourse.
Of course, many people don’t get through these books, either, and too embarrassed to admit it, they worry constantly about being exposed as philistines.
Now Pierre Bayard, a Paris University literature professor, has come to their rescue with a survivor’s guide to life in the chattering classes. And it is evidently much in need. “How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read?” has become a best seller here, with translation rights snapped up across Europe and under negotiation in Britain and the United States.
>>>MORE>>>
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