World historian William McNeill argued that humans had evolved for synchronous ritual: dancing, chanting, marching in time. The anthropological data seem to support this. For example, researchers recently found that Sufis engaged in the dhikr, […]
Tag: culture
Carnival of Loss
Much of the media we consume is self-consciously mythic, which doesn’t necessarily mean it has swords and wizards, although obviously some of it does. It means it fills the role of myth. Back before culture […]
(Sunday Thought) The anti-Matrix
When authors and pundits want to highlight some incongruity in the world, they’ll often say we’re in the Matrix, referring of course to the 1999 film. But we’re not in the Matrix. We’re in its […]
(Art) SHUNGA! The Japanese Art of the Woodblock Money Shot (NSFW)
A couple years ago, my buddy and I went to see an exhibit on shunga, traditional Japanese erotic art, mostly dating to the Edo and Meiji eras. The term shunga translates as “pictures of spring”, […]
(Music) The Inarticulable Majesty of Being
I find it difficult to answer the question “What is your favorite movie?” but not because I don’t have one. I don’t have a favorite color, or even one favorite food, but I do have […]
(Art) Macabre and Erotic Obsessions: Contemporary Japanese Illustration
For those who don’t know, I’ve been splitting my time between Tokyo and the US for the last four years, but I am not a Japanophile. I didn’t come to teach English. I have no […]
(Curiosity) On the good and the popular
“When young people are just beginning to pass from the ranks of the many to those of the few, a ludicrous, but fortunately transient error may occur. The young person who has only recently discovered […]
(Art) The Andean Futurism of Freddy Mamani
Since 2005, Bolivian architect Freddy Mamani Silvestre and his firm have completed sixty projects in El Alto, the world’s highest city, which sits at nearly fourteen thousand feet, on an austere plateau above La Paz. […]
(Music) The 35-Year-Long Explosion
I joined Google+ in late 2012, something of an internet virgin. Prior to that, I hadn’t been active on social media to any significant degree. I immediately began sharing music, because it’s important to me, […]
(Review) The Book of Symbols
“I brought together all creatures, birds, beasts, reptiles, all trees and plants, usages and appearances, that are found in all tropical regions, and assembled them together in China and Indostan. From kindred feelings, I soon […]
