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How Music Works

Some very positive reviews in The Economist, The Telegraph, the NYT, and The Independent. I’d imagine that readers attracted to Byrne’s book might also appreciate Oliver Sacks’ book Musicopilia.  Unless new profit-sharing models evolve, musicians can no longer make a living from recording. Something will have to give, he says: “I smell another revolution in the works.” The flip…

The Victim of Thought: The Idealist Inheritance

The penultimate chapter to be trailed – David Boucher on Oakeshott’s idealism. Oakeshott’s indebtedness to philosophical idealism has been touched upon by many commentators as incidental to their main concerns, and his relative silence after the Second World War compared with his defiant proclamations of loyalty before it gave rise to suspicions that he was…

Herbert Simon in Red

Many of you who follow this website will know of my enthusiasm for Herbert Simon. Here is an unusual portrait of Simon painted by the very distinguished Richard Rappaport (wikipedia entry) that I chanced upon and for good measure, I include a link to Simon’s last interview. Artificial intelligenceBehavioral economicsBounded RationalityHerbert SimonRichard Rappaportsocial epistemologySocial SciencesSociology

Philosophy and its Moods: Oakeshott on the Practice of Philosophy

Extract from Ken McIntyre’s chapter: Among non-academic intellectuals and political theorists, Michael Oakeshott is known primarily as a conservative political thinker who produced a series of essays in the 1950s which were critical of “rationalist” or “ideological” politics. Others who have read more deeply in Oakeshott’s corpus are aware of his contributions to the philosophy…

Satchmo At the Waldorf

Here is a play based upon Terry Teachout’s excellent biography. Also check out this time period in Ricky Riccardi’s equally excellent and touching description in his biography. Update: another review from Slant. JazzLouis ArmstrongRicky RiccardiTerry Teachout

po’boy

All about the po’boy My po’boy is a hot mess. The spicy smoked sausage, slicked by its own fireball-orange grease, is determined to slide out the sides of the Leidenheimer loaf. The links are further lubricated by two types of mustard (yellow and Creole) and a slather of chili that ramps up the ooze factor. By…

Eric Hobsbawm

The name Hobsbawm was virtually institutionalized at Birkbeck. While there I felt obliged to read a bit of Hobsbawm at a time when I was also reading G. E. M. de Ste. Croix – the latter so much deeper and more compelling than the former. I took inspiration from De Ste. Croix’s paper “Why were…