Note-taking for Learning of Culture with Lisa Stulberg We have read some dense canonical European White Guys. None of them have been as difficult and off-putting as Freud. I would have rather read Civilization And Its Discotheques. Freud begins with the observation that for most of human history, our happiness has been tied to our …
Tag Archives: monkeysphere
Samples and community
The defining musical experience of my lifetime is hearing familiar samples in unfamiliar contexts. For me, the experience is usually a thrill. For a lot of people, the experience makes them angry. Using recognizable samples necessarily means having an emotional conversation with everyone who already has an attachment to the original recording. Music is about …
The case for sampling
My friend Adam, a non-musician but devoted music fan, asked me why sampling is good. He’s used to hearing me defend sampling from the accusation that it’s bad, but he’d never heard a positive argument for it. In case you’ve ever asked the same question, here’s my answer.
Don Draper and my dad
Spoiler alert: don’t read until you’ve watched to the end of season three. Mad Men is well-made television, but so is plenty of other television. Why is this particular show so compelling to me and so many of my buddies? I think it’s that watching Mad Men is like watching a documentary about our parents …
Kramer
Kramer is the name my mom’s father’s parents gave at Ellis Island because they thought it they might have an easier time with it assimilation-wise than Garfinkel. In Eastern Europe, if you want a WASP-y sounding name, you usually choose something German rather than British. My mom’s wing of her extended family calls itself the …
Is technological progress good or bad? Yes.
Technology keeps getting better. Do our lives get better as a result? In certain specific ways, maybe yes, but in general, I would say, not really. How is that possible? I think there are two big things at work. Technology is evolving semi-independently of the humans that produce it. We don’t control the evolution of …
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