“A series of cave paintings in Spain are thousands of years older than scientists realized, raising speculation – but no proof – that Neanderthals could have been the earliest wall artists in Europe.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
War Is Inevitable – It’s The Way Humans Evolved
Biologist E. O. Wilson: “Our bloody nature, it can now be argued in the context of modern biology, is ingrained because group-versus-group competition was a principal driving force that made us what we are. … Any excuse for a real war will do, so long as it is seen as necessary to protect the tribe. The remembrance of past horrors has no effect.”
No, War Is Not Inevitable – It’s A Cultural Development, Not An Evolved Trait
Science writer John Horgan: “Many chimpanzee communities – and all known communities of bonobos, apes that are just as closely related to humans as chimps – have never been seen engaging in intertroop raids. Even more important, the first solid evidence of lethal group violence among our ancestors dates back not millions, hundreds of thousands, or even tens of thousands of years, but only 13,000 years.”
Bengali Musician Sues London Local Council Over Humiliating Cross-Language Misprint
Abdul Shahid, a busy, internationally traveled violinist, claims that his career and life have been ruined after the Tower Hamlets council circulated a brochure for an Indian music fair with Shahid’s first named printed as Bal (which means “pubic hair” in Bengali).
Rehearsing Robot Realness: A New Trailer For Pilobolus’s Automaton
A new video showing preparations for the company’s new collaboration with Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, which is “described as a cyborg of a dance that takes place in a mirrored world somewhere between Tron and Metropolis.”
The Weird World Of Online Fan Fiction
“What if Edward Cullen, the moody vampire heartthrob in Stephenie Meyer’s best-selling Twilight series, was an undercover cop? Or a baker who specializes in bachelor-party cakes? Or a kidnapper who takes Bella hostage?” Fans write and post that kind of thing about their favorite fictional franchises all the time – indeed, Fifty Shades of Grey started out that way.
Five Odd Facts You (Probably) Didn’t Know About Erik Satie
The dapper French composer-cum-prankster, best known today for his piano pieces called Gymnopédies, was even more eccentric than you think. For a start, he was a lousy pianist.
Rioting Islamists Attack Art Gallery In Tunisia
“The provocative exhibition was the annual Le Printemps des Arts, the Northern African country’s largest visual arts show, which took place in the Tunis suburb of La Marsa. The exhibition featured a work that spelled out the word ‘Allah’ with a string of ants, as well as other pieces that depicted the city of Mecca.”
Can A New Director Rejuvenate A Stale American Dance Festival?
Jodee Nimerichter spent years working alongside longtime ADF director Charles Reinhart, whose programming had come to rely heavily on artists who made it big in the 1980s and ’90s, such as the Paul Taylor Dance Company and Pilobolus. Nimerichter has re-engaged those two, but she’s already freshening things up with, among other things, a long-overdue ADF appearance by Stephen Petronio and his company.
World’s Richest Book Prize Goes To Jon McGregor’s Even The Dogs
The British novel beat out a formidable shortlist, including Pulitzer Prize winner Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad, to win the €100K International Impac Dublin Literary Award. “Nominations for the prize are received from libraries around the world – Even the Dogs was proposed by a Moscow library.”