“‘This is your brain on Jane Austen,’ rang the headline [on the Standofrd University study]. Oh, no, not another one, went my head. … This one, however, proved to be different. It’s not about your brain on Jane Austen. Not really. It’s about a far more interesting question: can our brains pay close attention in different ways?”
Tag: 10.22.12
Gargoyles In The Trees Of A Paris Park
“Rooted in the prized soil of [the] Parc de Saint-Cloud, home of Marie Antoinette’s rose garden, the trees bear faces that are alternately twisted in grimaces, bellowing in anger or frowning in the intensest way possible. … Photographer and light artist Clément Briend is responsible for summoning this hostile hardwood.”
Disney Thrashes About, Trying To Solve A Web Strategy
“Disney has now taken several stabs at creating a thriving Web site, and has vacillated on game strategy. Has the entertainment giant finally solved the riddle of new media? Or is it playing a no-win game on the whiplash-fast Web?”
Playwright Challenges German Theatre’s Racial Casting Practices
“The Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Bruce Norris has called for a boycott in Germany of theater productions in which white actors are cast in roles explicitly written for black performers.”
Counter-Intuitive: Is The Internet Making Politics Obsolete?
“In this new world, our political parties (“a two-and-half-horse race”) scarcely begin to reflect the variety of people’s wishes and views. The bigger the state, the less able it is to respond to this new environment, and therefore the less likely to survive.”
One British Media Mogul (And Poet) Still Loves Print’s Siren Song
“Even though he believes that American magazines are overedited and overstaffed — ‘No one else in the world takes so many people to make magazines’ — [former Maxim publisher and poet Felix] Dennis says that there is nonetheless a lot of life left in printed products here.”