Topics
Arts & Culture
What if There Was Music to Fit Your Mood?
Composer and Inventor, MIT Media Lab
Tod Machover thinks the next breakthrough will come when composers can design music tailored to a listener’s brain activity.
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Science Versus Faith…Versus Fiction?
Why the author of “36 Arguments for the Existence of God” chose fiction as a path into the debate raging between atheists and believers. Watch
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Advice to Artists During a Crisis
The contemporary artist says the best time to make art is when everyone thinks art is dead. Watch
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For a young future author, traveling in France after drawing a high number in the Vietnam draft, the opportunity to live abroad was as lucky as escaping war. Watch
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Wouldn’t it be ironic if the origin of big, bad, brawny Jackson Pollock’s drip and splatter paintings were a wifely homemaker, mother, and grandmother from Brooklyn? And wouldn’t it be true? Gary Snyder Fine Art in New York City presents the work of Janet Sobel, whose early 1940s drip paintings inspired Pollock to explore the possibilities of that style and essentially found the Abstract Expressionist school. Rather than rise likewise into fame and fortune, Sobel moved with her husband and family to Plainfield, New Jersey, and enduring obscurity. Gary Snyder brings Sobel back to the big city and the big stage she deserves. Read more
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Faith, Science, and the "Transcendent Instinct"
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Big Think Interview With Rebecca Newberger Goldstein
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February 3, 2010
Tod Machover thinks that the future of music could be scary. Composers are going to be able to measure more and more of peoples' particular mental structures, their particular reactions to a piece of music, their particular needs at a particular moment. "Perhaps 25 to 50 years from now, I can design a piece of music, not so that it appeals to something common in millions of people, but I can design the music so that it’s exactly right for you and only you at this particular moment for your particular experience, things that have happened to you over 20 years, to your particular mental state right now." Read More
February 3, 2010
What if There Was Music to Fit Your Mood?
Tod Machover thinks the next breakthrough will come when composers can design music tailored to a listener’s brain activity. Read More
February 3, 2010
Imagine a performance where the furniture were characters. It’s called “Death and the Powers.” Read More
February 3, 2010
Daily Ideafeed
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Doesn’t Exist
Existential Problem -
Philosopher BHL has an “existence” rather than existential problem after he made an epic gaffe by quoting a made-up philosopher in his latest book.
February 9, 2010
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Kimberly Reed
Prodigal Sons -
Transsexual film-maker Kimberly Reed has wowed America with new movie “Prodigal Sons” which tells the tale of two young brothers and their battle with sexual identity.
February 9, 2010
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Lazarus of Spoken Word
Scott-Heron, Come Out! -
Anticipating a new album fifteen years after his last release, Gil Scott-Heron gives an interview to The Guardian recalling Rikers Island and his white English fans.
February 7, 2010
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Preposterous & Posthumous
Literary Scandal -
The New Republic takes exception to Nabokov's posthumous "novel" while levelling charges of bad taste against his son and extortion against Knopf publishing.
February 7, 2010
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Evolutionary Biology
Sexy Music? -
Searching for a biological explanation of music, the British science writer Philip Ball takes stock of Darwin's idea that it could aid in the reproductive process and Steven Pinker's view that it is merely icing on the cake.
February 6, 2010
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Booked!
Literary Justice -
Google's controversial plan to create a digital library has been dealt another blow by the Justice Department, which has criticized the plans for having "significant legal problems" despite recent rewrites.
February 5, 2010
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Giacometti
Master Price! -
Alberto Giacometti’s “Walking Man 1” sculpture has smashed global auction records by selling for the equivalent of $104.4m at Sotheby’s auction house in London last night.
February 4, 2010
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Mad or Smart?
Role Model -
What impact will Disney’s first black princess have on kids? The Independent’s Paul McKenzie asks why even watching the advert has got his daughter so excited.
February 4, 2010
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Feline Feeling
“Cat Predicts Deaths” -
A cat which has “predicted the deaths” of more than 50 residents of the nursing home where he lives (by sitting on their laps in their final hours), is the subject of a new book.
February 2, 2010
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J.D. Salinger
Literary Backlog -
It is thought that J.D. Salinger has written as many as ten unpublished novels that now, with his passing, may eventually see the light of day.
January 31, 2010
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Catcher In The…
J.D. Salinger -
Following the death of iconic American author J.D. Salinger yesterday, publisher Roger Lathbury recalls a book deal with the eccentric writer which went sour.
January 29, 2010
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Foodie Recess
Kitchen’s Closed -
The man lauded as “the best chef in the world” is hanging up his apron for a 2-year sabbatical claiming his restaurant’s format is so challenging “it is impossible to keep creating”.
January 28, 2010
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Art Attack
Paper Cuts It -
An artist has created beautiful sculptures by slicing different colored bits of paper and layering them intricately to produce mesmerising kaleidoscopic patterns.
January 27, 2010
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Mysterious Artist
Banksy Unveiled -
British graffiti artist and cult sensation Banksy will be heard speaking for the first time ever in a documentary to be played at the Sundance Film Festival today.
January 24, 2010
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Bienvenidos a Miami
Beer Me, Whopper Me -
After success in Munich, Singapore and Venezuela, Burger King is opening its first American Whopper Bar in Miami which will serve Whoppers and beer twenty-four/seven.
January 23, 2010
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China
Blocking Avatar -
China has banned showing James Cameron’s Golden Globe winning fantasy and CGI-fest Avatar and has instead opted for a patriotic biopic on the life of Confucius.
January 19, 2010
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11m Miles
Sea Ice -
Stunning images of sea ice formations have been published by Wired, capturing the Wilkins ice shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula and other areas of eerie natural beauty.
January 19, 2010
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Pope’s Attacker
The Vatican Code -
The man tried to murder Pope John Paul II and later claimed to be Jesus has emerged from prison demanding $7m for tell-all film and book deals which he wants Dan Brown to write.
January 19, 2010
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Publishing
Global Kindle -
Amazon has expanded its Kindle self publishing platform, otherwise known as the Digital Text Platform, to allow authors worldwide to push out their content.
January 18, 2010
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Haiti Earthquake
Waiting Game -
Foreign aid has reached the ground in Haiti but distribution is hampered by destroyed infrastructure and a government vacuum.
January 17, 2010
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Surround Vision
3D Couch Potato -
Electronics manufacturers are banking on the successes of recent 3D theater hits such as Avatar to offer the same “surround vision” experience in your own home with 3D TVs.
January 15, 2010
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A Handbag?
Lightweight Lady -
Technological advances have led to a dramatic fall in the weight of women’s handbags, according to research from a department store chain.
January 15, 2010
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Miep Gies
Anne’s Diary -
The last surviving member of the group who helped shelter Anne Frank’s family from the Nazis, Miep Gies, has died in a Dutch nursing home aged 100.
January 12, 2010
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Oliver Stone
Humanising Hitler -
Can Hollywood filmmaker Oliver Stone’s new documentary show us the “human side of Hitler?” asks The Independent’s Stephen Foley.
January 11, 2010
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Lennon Recall
Beatles Babe -
Yoko Ono says she will take five years to write her memoirs which will include the Beatles’ breakup and how John took his tea.
January 10, 2010