Many philosophers have divided us up into thinking and emotional sides – each often at war with the other. But “for more than a decade, neuroscientists armed with brain scans have been chipping away at the Cartesian façade. Gone is Descartes’ lofty Cogito, reasoning in pristine detachment from the physical world. Fading fast are its sophisticated modern incarnations, including the once-popular ‘computational model,’ according to which the mind is like a software program and the brain like a hard drive. Lately, scientists have begun to approach consciousness in more Spinozist terms: as a complex and indivisible mind-brain-body system. The philosopher anticipated one of brain science’s most important recent discoveries: the critical role of the emotions in ensuring our survival and allowing us to think. Feeling, it turns out, is not the enemy of reason, but, as Spinoza saw it, an indispensable accomplice.”
Tag: 04.19.03
Ballet San Jose Silicon Valley Cuts Budget/Performances
Ballet San Jose Silicon Valley has cut its budget by $1.4 million. “The company’s new budget of $4.9 million for 2003-2004 includes pay cuts for staff members, reduced operating budgets for all departments, reduced hours for some employees and the elimination of Sunday evening performances.”
Theatre Politique
David Edgar says political theatre will never disappear. “For most of the 30 years in which I have been doing political theatre, it has been on its last legs. Over those years, I have spent more time than I care to consider sitting on panels in black-box theatres discussing whether this much-contested genre has any future. In fact, as I argue roundly on such occasions, the anatomising of contemporary society has been the great project of British theatre-writing since 1956, and whenever one wave seemed spent, another arrived to take its place.”
America’s Most Popular Choreographer?
Paul Taylor has legions of fans. “Taking his cue from Martha Graham, once his teacher and mentor, he has generally continued the modern-dance project of unchaining dance from rigid balletic constraints. But unlike more radical figures such as Merce Cunningham, he has also shied away from pure abstraction and has generally retained figurative elements, narrative and lyricism. The result is a highly personal style charged with energy and humour.”
Broadway Hit Closes In London’s West End
Is it because the war kept tourists away from London’s West End? That’s one theory why “Contact” – expected to run for a year or more – is closing after only six months. “Contact came to the West End with an apparently gilt-edged pedigree. It was devised by choreographer Susan Stroman, and John Weldman, and was a smash hit on Broadway, where it won a string of awards, including a Tony.”
Is National Mall Being Memorialized To death?
The National Mall in Washington DC is one of America’s most important public spaces. And space is the key, writes Christopher Knight. But Congress seems intent on cluttering it up with ever more memorials and tributes, which will certainly ruin a grand place. “Approved or proposed Mall additions now include memorials to President Reagan, Martin Luther King Jr., terrorist victims, Native Americans and soldiers lost in peacekeeping missions. Then there’s the network of tunnels, underground security checkpoints and surveillance cameras newly suggested for the Washington Monument. Like other burgeoning examples of a post-Sept. 11 ‘architecture of fear,’ these schemes would destroy the monument in order to save it.”
What Happened To Warnings About Iraq Museums?
Before the war on Iraq, warnings were sent to the Britsh and American governments about protecting Iraq’s cultural treasures. “They were completely ignored by the British government, who failed to acknowledge letters sent to them. That was unspeakably terrible. But meetings did take place with the Pentagon, who were given lists of endangered sites. They made contact with some of the appropriate experts, and assurances were given. But I think they were not prepared for what happened in Baghdad – for any of it. The looting of hospitals, for instance – just the scale of it all. I don’t think anybody foresaw that there would be a disaster on this scale. The letters that were written were not very specific. They probably did not mention possible looting in the Iraq National Museum in Baghdad. It hadn’t crossed my mind that that would even be possible.”
Madonna, Writer Of Children’s Books, Critic
Madonna says the children’s books she’s writing will be “moral tales based on the cabbala”. “She condemned the shallow nature of most children’s books, explaining that the suggestion for her project came from the teacher with whom she has been studying the cabbala for seven years. She spotted the lack of moral children’s books when reading to her first child, Lourdes. ‘Now I’m starting to read to my son, but I couldn’t believe how vapid and vacant and empty all the stories were’.”
America’s Top 20 – All About Product Placement
Of the 20 songs on the American Top 20 list last week, ten of them plugged products in the songs. “Stars love plugging. Brands love getting plugged. But someday the slightly murky relationship of product placement and what initiates that product being placed in a song might have to change. If you were a sandals-wearing, lead-the-people-through-great-hardship kind of a guy, you might say that this was because it was in some kind of fundamental way “wrong” or something like that. If you’re slightly less amazed in these days of ‘created brand relevance that doesn’t appear orchestrated’, then you might just say it’s because it’s all getting a bit boring.”
Andre Breton’s Estate Broken Up, Sold
Surrealist André Breton’s personal art collection has been sold at auction. It brought in €46m (£31.8m), twice the pre-sale estimate. “The auctions, which went on late into the night to accommodate telephone bidders from the US, were disturbed by opponents of the state’s refusal to buy Breton’s rented flat near Pigalle, in the north of Paris, where the surrealist manifesto was drawn up in 1924.”