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How to Think About…the Trump Indictments
Our times seem to demand partisanship. While there is very little to be for (Biden/Trump anyone?), there is a great deal to actively hate. It is a situation that makes partisanship easy. Nor is it easy to resist the demands of partisans, loaded as they are with the undeniable proof of the sins of their…
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Reason to Believe & Something to Believe In
Crisis of confidence? Resilience of hope? Springsteen and Clannad (via Mr. Shuffle) offer two hauntingly laments on the seemingly illusory nature of hope, the endless disappointments of life, and the essential challenge we face in finding something to believe in. This might as well be the soundtrack to the latest TW2BR essay on materialism and…
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The Fabelmans
After the disappointingly bland remake of West Side Story, Spielberg returns to form. Yes, it’s obviously a “late” work in the mold of great craftsmen reflecting on their life and craft, but it has all the classic Spielberg touches: masterly direction, a certain innocence, a genuine love of the craft, and a gift for getting…
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The World’s End
The fitting conclusion to the Cornetto Trilogy, each of which has its special pleasures. But I’ve always loved World’s End the best, perhaps for my namesake – the “King” of Gary’s in film. One mile. Twelve pubs. Twelve pints. And a story of friendship, loss, and what the total absence of personal transformation might look…
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Cities in Dust and Go, Go, Godzilla
Seems like Mr. Shuffle might have played these two songs in the wrong order. I would have put them the other way around. But then… History Shows Again and Again How Nature Points Out the Folly of Men.
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Samuel Adams Revolutionary
At a recent Berkeley concert featuring Daniel Hope and the Zurich Chamber Orchestra, Hope introduced Max Richter’s Four Seasons Recomposed (which formed the second half of the concert), recounting the story of the piece’s creation. Richter wrote it for Hope and when he first broached the idea, Hope says he rather flippantly asked Richter what…
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Dr. Fauci and the Public Life
The recent retirement of Dr. Anthony Fauci is a good time to reflect on the virtues and perils of a public life. Because so much of that life and our knowledge of it is colored by the last few years and the Covid pandemic, during which he became nearly as recognizable and almost as ubiquitous…
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Before the Coffee Gets Cold
A few years back we somehow got signed up for a Boksu subscription – a monthly box of seasonal Japanese snacks – that just kept going month after month for years. The boxes are lovely and crafted in way that seems utterly unique to the Japanese as are many of the snacks, and everyone in…
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Prediction & Cognition
Cognitive science can’t settle questions of right and wrong. But it can set the table for theories of rational decision-making and ethics. And the one thing we know for sure about how we think is that, at the most fundamental level, our brains are connection systems that are changed by experience. This, unlike theories of…
We are not rational animals, we are animals that must work to be rational
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