CULTURE

The history of different peoples, and of humanity as a whole, can be presented in all kinds of ways. But, in the end it comes down to food and hunger. In the final analysis, it’s the stomach that counts. I...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UzS0dwuuHg In the video above, poet, artist, Nation­al Book Award win­ner, and “god­moth­er of punk” Pat­ti Smith reads a selec­tion from Vir­ginia Woolf’s 1931 exper­i­men­tal nov­el The Waves, accom­pa­nied on piano and gui­tar by her daugh­ter Jesse and son Jack­son....

In Soundings, Óscar García Agustín discusses the traces of Eurocommunism that linger on in contemporary European politics. ‘The legacy of Eurocommunism is, at the least, paradoxical. Although few voices from the left claim its validity and relevance for a left...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuA9l77ODbs The Carnegie Hall YouTube Chan­nel sets the scene: On Jan­u­ary 28, 2023, pianist Yuja Wang joined The Philadel­phia Orches­tra and con­duc­tor Yan­nick Nézet-Séguin at Carnegie Hall for a once-in-a-life­time, all-Rach­mani­noff marathon that fea­tured the composer’s four piano con­cer­tos plus...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxhSOcyPCVo It does­n’t take an expert in the field to know that, around the world, there is much dis­agree­ment on the sub­ject of reli­gion. But as explained in the Use­fulCharts video above by Matt Bak­er, whose PhD in Reli­gious Stud­ies makes him...

Dreary, dismal, drab, forlorn. In an issue of Wespennest entitled ‘No future’ (a homage to the Sex Pistols, as the cover makes clear), Jens Balzer writes on ‘Softies, punks and smoked sausage: The pop-cultural marketization of apocalyptic feelings in the...

‘The modern world has established the border between our madness and their sanity … Enlightened despots of the 21st century always have something to say, even if we haven’t asked them to.’  P.B. Preciado. It is a hot first day...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVXqisH6VeM Much has been writ­ten about the loss of col­or in the twen­ty-first cen­tu­ry. Our envi­ron­ments offered prac­ti­cal­ly every col­or known to man not so very long ago — and in cer­tain eras, grant­ed, it got to be a bit...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7x8IW3XnYfo From Wired comes this: “Pro­fes­sor of Eng­lish and Medieval Lit­er­a­ture Dr. Dorsey Arm­strong answers your ques­tions about the Mid­dle Ages from Twit­ter. Why is it called the “Mid­dle” Ages? What activ­i­ties did peo­ple do for fun? Why were ani­mals...

“My first end-of-life patient was a 97-year-old man. He had a much younger girlfriend; she was seventy-four. But they loved each other so much. Back when their spouses were still alive, the four of them had been great friends. They...