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A Prescient Warning From 1994 About Dangers Of A Distraction Culture

Writing in 1994, Sven Birkerts worried that distractedness and surficiality would win out. The “duration state” we enter through a turned page would be lost in a world of increasing speed and relentless connectivity, and with it our ability to make meaning out of narratives, both fictional and lived. The diminishment of literature—of sustained reading, of writing as the product of a single focused mind—would diminish the self in turn, rendering us less and less able to grasp both the breadth of our world and the depth of our own consciousness. – Paris Review

That Old Saw ‘Eskimos Have 50 Words For Snow’? Every Word Of It Is Wrong

Aaron Bady goes through they saying itself and its history to explain why. (For one thing, in Inuit languages, “they can have as many words as they want for almost anything.”) In fact, “what’s been the most interesting discovery is that all the wrong answers are at least as interesting and useful as the so-called right ones.” – Popula

The Video Game That Lets You Fight Back Against Jim Crow And The KKK

“[Video game company] Rockstar’s version of American history is not for the fainthearted. The developer took pains to make Red Dead Redemption 2 as historically accurate as possible. Someone at Rockstar was clearly paying attention in history class, because Red Dead Redemption 2 unflinchingly confronts America’s ugly racial history throughout the game.” – Slate

How Music Gives You The Chills

“Neuroscientists have some ideas of about where these [physical responses] come from — essentially neurological reactions to being pleasantly surprised … Music’s ability to trigger moods, emotions, and memories make it a tool that could help treat patients struggling with anxiety or depression, especially when these conditions are related to other physical ailments, and even types of dementia.” – Quartz

Play Under Attack For Using Puppet To Play Autistic Child

In All In A Row by Alex Oates, “a puppet portrays the character of Laurence, who is described as ‘autistic, non-verbal and occasionally violent’. … The play has faced a backlash online since a production video previewing it was released.” Critics say that the casting “fed into ‘a negative narrative of dehumanising’. A spokesman for the play said it was ‘untenable’ to get autistic performers to play the part.” – London Evening Standard

‘Melancholia: The Diamond’ – Lars Von Trier Wants To Recreate All His Films As Gemstones (With Virtual Reality Attached)

Yes, seriously: the Danish director “intend[s] to turn all 13 of the films he’s made so far into diamonds and to present them at art institutions across the globe. … A museum visitor is invited to wear a virtual reality helmet and step inside an enlarged rendition of the same double diamond, and to stand for a moment inside its silent, glittering core.” – The New York Times