Writing is so influenced by the machines we write with. The process of creating something is shaped by the tools. Ergo, what we write is also shaped? And how about readers? With constant demands on their attention, with screens and email and notifications, the process of reading has changed. What’s a writer to do? – The New Yorker
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How Your Body And Your Brain Work Together To Perceive The World
If you pay attention to your heart and bodily responses, they can tell you how you are feeling, and allow you to share in the emotions of others. Interoception can enhance the depth of our own emotions, emotionally bind us to those around us, and guide our intuitive instincts. We are now learning just how much the way we think and feel is shaped by this dynamic interaction between body and brain. – Aeon
MacDowell Colony Gets A New Director
Philip Himberg is joining the 112-year-old MacDowell Colony from the Sundance Institute, where he served as the artistic director of Sundance’s theater program for the past 23 years. He will be based at the organization’s New York office and will work closely with David Macy, MacDowell’s resident director at the organization’s facility in Peterborough, N.H. – The New York Times
Here’s A Good Primer On The Challenges (And Accomplishments So Far) Of Artificial Intelligence
In his masterpiece, “The Lady of Shalott”, Alfred Tennyson describes a character from the Arthurian legend who is cursed to remain in a tower, looking at the world only through a mirror, and weaving the “mirror’s magic sights” into her web. AI today is, it seems, in its Lady of Shalott stage, trying to weave four-dimensional reality into a two-dimensional web by looking into the dim, distorting, and often deceptive mirror of data. – 3 Quarks Daily
Ai Weiwei And Frank Gehry, Sitting Around And Talking
Ai: “When I see your earlier work, the models that look like you crumpled up a piece of paper that you were going to throw out, I think that’s a breakthrough.”
Gehry: “You know, I grew up in the art world — this was the way I wanted to work, more hands-on, sort of like the way you work.” – T — The New York Times Style Magazine
Creative Placemaking
Recently I had the pleasure of reconnecting with a friend and colleague. The Community Engagement Network hosted a conversation with Lyz Crane addressing the topic of creative placemaking and community engagement. – Doug Borwick
Recent Listening: Dave Young And Friends
Dave Young, Lotus Blossom (Modica Music)
Young, the bassist praised by Oscar Peterson for his “harmonic simpatico and unerring sense of time” when he was a member of Peterson’s trio, leads seven gifted fellow Canadians. – Doug Ramsey
Beckett’s ‘Rockaby’ Set by William Osborne
In Rockaby we hear the whispered thoughts of an old woman during the last twenty-five minutes of her life accompanied by the dirge of four distant trombones. “Those arms at last…”
Abbie Conant, actress, singer, all four trombones
– Jan Herman
Classical Music Is Broken Online. What iTunes, Spotify, Apple Music And The Others Should Do About It
It’s difficult to find music, hard to catalog, and just an overall pain in the neck to manage. The problem? “We’re treating around 300 years of music from various countries, forms, philosophies, and so on as one genre. As far as modern commercial music, we don’t group the past 50 years together” – Mac Rumors
Why Do The Covers Of Novels Always Have The Phrase ‘A Novel’ On Them?
“Books have used the ‘XYZ: A Novel’ format since the 17th century, when realistic fiction started getting popular. The term ‘novel’ was a way to distinguish these more down-to-earth stories from the fanciful ‘romances’ that came before … Then, as now, it was a tag that identified the kind of literature you were getting yourself into.” – Vox