The names Leo Fender and Les Paul will be forever associated with the explosion of the electric guitar into popular culture. And rightly so. Without engineer Fender and musician and studio wiz Paul’s timeless designs, it’s hard to imagine what the...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orQKfIXMiA8 The twenty-first century so far may seem light on major technological breakthroughs, at least when compared to the twentieth. An artificial intelligence boom (perhaps a bubble, perhaps not) has been taking place over the past few years, which at...
In the past, and in the burning present – the two often colliding – long-term resistance has taken shape by starting from erasure. By refusing erasure, by exposing it, by opposing it with other stories. Counter-memories unravel not only myths...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qs-FfPq0sb4 We tend to think of the Roman Empire as having fallen around 476 AD, but had things gone a little differently, it could have come to its end much earlier — before it technically began, in fact. In the...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8yU8wk67gY The phrase “when Dylan went electric” once carried as much weight in pop culture history as “the fall of the Berlin Wall” carries in, well, history. Both events have receded into what feels like the distant past, but in...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YtN4_YmEDg When first we take an interest in movies, we must figure out our own method of deciding what to watch next. The central factor may be box office performance, the presence of a favorite performer, adherence to a favorite...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40KcrrfbJ6o Nearly 70 percent of Americans believe in angels, at least according to a statistic often cited in recent years. But what, exactly, comes to their minds — or those of any other believers around the world — when they...
It is possible to recognize historical events, even if their significance is difficult to evaluate while they are still unfolding. While October 7th does not have the magnitude of the fall of the Roman Empire or the Industrial Revolution, it...
As scholars of ancient texts well know, the reconstruction of lost sources can be a matter of some controversy. In the ancient Hebrew and less ancient Christian Biblical texts, for example, critics find the remnants of many previous texts, seemingly stitched...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hb2rKGfIOrM Back in 2015, President Obama joined Marc Maron on the WTF podcast, marking the first time a sitting president took part in this new kind of broadcasting format. It was a watershed moment—a moment when podcasting went mainstream and...
