I was first intrigued by this question when I read Kim Stanley Robinson's alternate history The Years of Rice and Salt, which posited a world in which the Bubonic Plague wiped out 90% of Europe's population in the 13th Century, leaving the…
search
Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy gives us a fascinating overview of Islam's long and variable engagement with science. "The question I want to pose—perhaps as much to myself as to anyone else—is this: With well over a billion Muslims and extensive material resources, why is the Islamic world disengaged from science and the process of creating new knowledge?"
I've been spending the last few days exploring Riley Rock Index, billed as music's megaportal—justifiably, I believe.
The Riley in question is Tim Riley, author of Tell Me Why: A Beatles Commentary and Hard Rain: A Dylan Commentary, and a regular critic on NPR's Here and Now. The RRI is one huge time sink—um, I mean, is filled with fascinating links, articles, and destinations that will delight any music lover.
I wasted—er, enjoyably spent—the weekend reading Phil and Kaja Foglio's Girl Genius online. Now I've ordered the printed books, and I recommend you do the same. Here's a taste of the Oz meeets steampunk comic. Order all six volumes—or spend the next three days online. At which point, you'll order all six volumes anyway, so save a step.
Richard Sherman strolls down memory lane, telling us what it was like to work on the last Walt Disney animated feature, The Jungle Book. Well, there were more cartoons from Disney, but TJB was Walt's last.
It's time for a new round of "Shakespeare debunking," arguing that the son of an illiterate laborer could never have written works so full of science, history, legal shenanigans, and aristocratic mores—that it must have been a cabal, one that included at least a few nobles.
I'm no scholar, but Shakespeare was a player—and, even though actors were disreputable in Elizabethan England, I'm sure the successful ones had huge networks of friends and acquaintances, including aristocrats, scientists, lawyers, and foreigners. It was that kind of an age.
Then there's that tricky question of…
I'm a sucker for blimps, so I dream of a day when our skies are filled by them. Air & Space looks at the technological challenges and possibilities of that eventuality.
Paul Hillier decided to record Stockhausen's Stimmung. The composer had a few few thoughts.
"Eventually, every composer has to let go of his work, and I wasn't sure that Stockhausen, even now, was ready to do that."
Murray Lerner spent 1963–1965 filming Bob Dylan, "a study of a major artist in transition." Soon, we'll finally see it.
Steely Dan’s Aja isn’t exactly jazz, but given (a) the presence of such jazz luminaries as Wayne Shorter and Victor Feldman, (b) the jazz sensibility of Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, (c) my blogger’s prerogative to step outside genres once in a while, and (d) the fact that my host, Stereophile, is, after all, an audiophile magazine, I feel entitled to mention—and wholeheartedly recommend—Cisco Music's LP
reissue.
Not much need be said, at this late date, about Aja as a musical masterpiece: the apotheosis of the S.D. sound and sensibility. Some accuse the album, and Steely Dan…
Regarding that Radiohead thing that everyone's talking about, which strikes me as being a whole lot like that Magnatune thing we covered a couple of years back, I refer all dear readers to my brother, Jim Teacher.
Also, everyone should read JA's "The High End, Mid-Fi, & Pretend High End" all over again, please. Commit it to memory, even.
In other news, the 2008 Buyer's Guide is just about as good as gone. Off to the printer, that is. Hallelujah and amen. Now, if someone would just write the "Products of the Year" feature for me, that'd be great. Thanks!