Ummagumma

I have to start with Barry Lyndon . It turned 50 at the start of this year and normally I would write a review about an all-time favorite film, but I never developed a thirst for this one all year long. I can’t believe I apparently haven’t seen it since 2011 . So much time gone, I need to work in 3+ hours and, more importantly, the head space to take this marvelous film in again. At the time, I was all timed up in Proust and other writings and never got back to it. You don’t just up and watch Barry Lyndon the way I did with One Flew Over the C uc koo’s Nest or Jaws . Kubrick’s film does not entertain in that manner. There’s no easy hook. Instead you have to be willing to become mesmerized on its terms. There is a story but it isn’t remotely compelling. The pacing is deliberately, relentlessly slow. You are to existentially immerse yourself in 18 th century Europe and that just didn’t jibe with me this year for whatever reason. Nevertheless, I have seen it enough to know it...

Time to close out 2024 with various things that were on my mind throughout the year that I didn't write about. As several posts throughout the year suggest, it was another great year to explore music, particularly classical music. I discovered someone new in African-American composer Brain Nabors. His Pulse from 2019 really caught my attention. This piece lasts for almost 12 and a half minutes and is lively, even playful, almost optimistic but most certainly confident. There's little conflict or dissonance to be heard though it is clearly contemporary and relevant. Though performed more or less continually, Pulse consists of the classic three-part structure with the first two parts containing most of the rhythmic drive of the work. Part three is much softer and more tranquil, ending with the uttermost peace and rest. A wonderful few minutes of music that I returned to several times during the course of the year. It is inspirational to me. How lucky I am to have ...

Longtime readers know I am a big fan of Yuval Noah Harari's work (see here , here , here and here ).  In recent years Harari has advanced the idea that we are living in a time when intelligence might be “uncoupling” from consciousness.  In other words, consciousness and intelligence have historically been biologically based.  Intelligence emerges out of consciousness. No longer.  We are witnessing the first years of intelligence becoming self-emerging outside of consciousness.  Historically, this has been seen in the vast bureaucratic systems that control civilized populations.  These systems seem to evolve of their own accord, with human beings merely the resource by which they evolve.   Essentially, this is Martin Heidegger's concept of enframing .  These systems, the welfare state, the security state, the industrial state, the military state, the regulated state, the stock market, consumer goods distribution, all use human beings somewhat in...

This is a continuation of my summary of remarks made by Sam Harris on a recent episode of Andrew Huberman's podcast.  Read Part One here .  I am quoting Harris throughout, with some editing for the sake of brevity.  Also, Harris has command of a vast vocabulary which is indicative of his advanced intelligence.  I provide links to a few words to define them if you don't know exactly what they mean.  I invite you to watch the entire four and one-half hour episode here . Harris is discussing how our illusory sense of self evolved. “We are not set up by evolution to be as happy as we can possibly be or almost anything that interests us well.  We are not set up to be mathematicians or musicians or to create democracies that are healthy.  Evolution can see none of this.  We are doing these things based upon cognitive and emotional hardware that we are leveraging in new directions.  In terms of what we care about and certainly in terms of what's goi...

One of my favorite YouTube channels is Huberman Lab by Andrew Huberman , a Stanford neuroscientist and neurobiology researcher who covers every aspect of the human brain and human psychology from the science-based perspective of his field.  (Visit his website here , where you can subscribe to his free monthly newsletter.)  His weekly episodes are wide-ranging and rather famous for being so expansive and detailed.  In truth, I don't watch a lot of his content because it is either on subjects that aren't that interesting to me or, more frequently, I simply don't have the time devote to them.  Often they are over two or three hours in length and can be demanding for a layperson like myself untrained in the sciences that he navigates with such familiarity. Nevertheless, as of this post, he has over 2.2 million subscribers which is an insane number for a strictly science-based channel.  The reasons are readily apparent.   His information is often fascinati...