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Spent a very sad day viewing CNN International that has been covering the China earthquake almost non-stop. The images of parents outside the collapsed schools screaming for their kids is heartbreaking. One school had over 900 kids, the other had a thousand. The United States has been amazingly lucky throughout its history of avoiding any catastophe on the scale that other places have endured. About 2,900 people were killed in the World Trade Tower attack. About 1,500 died in Hurricane Katrina. Extremely traumatic incidents in recent American history for sure--but in China, at least 13,000 dead in this quake and in Myanmar's cyclone aftermath, some estimates go as high as 100,000. Don't know what more to say on the subject. Cruising around The New York Times brought these two interesting articles about the brain. If I was teaching there, I would be holding the Brain in my hand going over this with you! Don't Become a Creature of Habit! Brain researchers have discovered that when we consciously develop new habits, we create parallel synaptic paths, and even entirely new brain cells, that can encourage a way to innovation. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/04/business/04unbox.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&emc=eta1&adxnnlx=1210731103-xmIXnSbP4ItGiFovmzZ9QA God in the Brain! Thought this column by David Brooks was also intriguing. It talks about the neuroscience (how the brain works) and its connection to spirituality and religion. It was titled "Neural Buddhists"...since I'm not teaching philosophy this semester, i thought i'd pass it along for consideration. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/13/opinion/13brooks.html?ex=1211342400&en=f1709d5171f59b95&ei=5070&emc=eta1 SILLY EXPERIENCE OF THE WEEK: Okay. So what could top the Giant Killer Catfish? Met with a sleezeball Indian movie producer (as big as Ganesh but with an enormous gold chain around his neck and hairy chest) and was pitched a story that takes place in the Khmer Rouge times in Cambodia...but with an Indian slant. A beautiful 24-year-old Indian woman comes to help save Angkor Wat from the American bombings in '73, but a few years later when the KR come to power, they take her hostage. Seems an Indian Delta Force is sent to rescue this gal who is being torturerd by the KR. Fine. Typical Dumb-ass action film. But the producer tells me that Indian audiences like a little comedy and wondered if I could throw humor in somewhere perhaps with screw up, "funny" Khmer Rouge guards who keep messing up during the torture sequences and blaming the other. I'm sure it was hysterical at Auschwitz. Honestly it is a seriously deranged business no matter where in the world you are. I'm not even going to tell you about the elaborate Bollywood dancing dream sequence set at Angkor Wat he thought would help add some "spice". What else...  "I am for Art, but for Art that has nothing to do with Art." --Robert RauschenbergOh, I see the artist Robert Rauschenberg died at 82. If Andy Warhol was the pop artist of the 20th Century with images that let you fill in the blanks, Rauschenberg was the pop artist with a more intellectual and thought-provoking bent. Constantly innovative, Rauschenberg was a wonderful role model for ANY artist. A painter, photographer, printmaker, choreographer, onstage performer, set designer and, in later years, even a composer, Mr. Rauschenberg defied the traditional idea that an artist stick to one medium or style. He pushed, prodded and sometimes reconceived all the mediums in which he worked. “Canyon,” for instance, consisted of a stuffed bald eagle attached to a canvas. “Monogram” was a stuffed goat girdled by a tire atop a painted panel. “Bed” entailed a quilt, sheet and pillow, slathered with paint, as if soaked in blood, framed on the wall. All became icons of postwar modernism. “I really feel sorry for people who think things like soap dishes or mirrors or Coke bottles are ugly,” he once said, “because they’re surrounded by things like that all day long, and it must make them miserable.” Good luck Juniors on the AP Exam! Use that No. 2 Pencil to make Art!    Post a comment in response: |
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