Category: Arts
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All In The Mind? Thoughts on Identity and Neuroscience
Tweeted about this piece earlier today, but wanted to flag up and reflect further on Henry Marsh’s piece in Granta, detailing his neurosurgical work operating on a tumour in a pineal gland. The pineal gland is buried deep within the brain, and is thus only reached after a perilous journey through the physical matter that…
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Wider Angle | Summer Nods
You ALL wanted a late-summer hip-hop/turntablist* mix I scratched together from some very old head-nodding tunes right? Thought so! Or download. Track listing: Best Foot Forward // DJ Shadow Rocking With The Best // Alkoholics Viagra // DJ Vadim Stakes is High // De La Soul Concrete Schoolyard // Jurassic 5 Showtime // Big Dada…
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Thoughts on The Dark Knight: Weaponised Violence, and Hand-to-Hand Fighting
If you follow my Twitter at all you may have picked up that I went to see the latest (and last) Christopher Nolan installment of the Batman trilogy, The Dark Knight Rises. You may also have picked up that I found the film problematic, partly in terms of the plot – which seemed over-convoluted and lacking true…
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Beating the Bounds: Pussy Riot and Orthodox Pirate Practice
Been meaning to write something on Pussy Riot for a while now. I’ve been reflecting on how their protest resonates with the ancient practice of ‘beating the bounds.’ Traditionally, each year, members of a parish would march around the parish boundary, often singing hymns and songs. The ritual served two purposes. Firstly, it passed on…
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A Very Modern Decathlon: Who Would Win the ‘Whole Person’ Olympic Gold?
One of the things I liked about Tom Wolfe’s novel I Am Charlotte Simmons is the journey that one of the main characters, Jojo, takes, from ‘dumb college jock’ to athletic student of philosophy. It’s an arc that’s not that uncommon: the pursuit of excellence in sport requires careful reflection on the self; top…
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Thoughts on e-books… Removing text from common sight.
Ode to a bookshelf… See now the empty bookshelf that stands still with a thousand volumes now unseen, the bookends racheted so tightly, the pages compressed so absolutely into the digital thinness of silicon. The words remain, though they are now in bits, and can be read, just as they once were… yet not stumbled…