Pictures I saved while working today

Click on each for full size to see them better!

The Neural Buddhists

I love this article by David Brooks for the NYT. It's about the way "science and mysticism are joining hands and reinforcing each other."

The Neural Buddhists

"This new wave of research will not seep into the public realm in the form of militant atheism. Instead it will lead to what you might call neural Buddhism.

If you survey the literature (and I’d recommend books by Newberg, Daniel J. Siegel, Michael S. Gazzaniga, Jonathan Haidt, Antonio Damasio and Marc D. Hauser if you want to get up to speed), you can see that certain beliefs will spread into the wider discussion.

First, the self is not a fixed entity but a dynamic process of relationships. Second, underneath the patina of different religions, people around the world have common moral intuitions. Third, people are equipped to experience the sacred, to have moments of elevated experience when they transcend boundaries and overflow with love. Fourth, God can best be conceived as the nature one experiences at those moments, the unknowable total of all there is."

American Folklore

By William Gropper. A zoomable, full-size version is available here.

I wish I was there

Stephanie busts out the Godard and time standing still at MOMA, and I bring you... bears on a playground. A family in Alaska woke up to this one Saturday morning:

Time standing still

Olafur Eliasson makes droplets of streaming water appear frozen at the MOMA. I don't want to describe it, because it's better just to see it.

Pierrot Le Fou

On Larry, but really, I think, on life

"The race to keep up with Larry was such an Externalization of the problem, as the Stanislavsky boys would have it. I had no technique for dealing with him: only an overpowering, unnerving, irrational, chemical desire to be with him. Yes, all of that. The fear of losing his physical presence was tying my behavior into such knots that I was incapable of behavior as such."

Elaine Dundy, The Dud Avocado

the best of youtube: lazy cat on a treadmill

six-word short story

I never really loved Hemingway's famous 6-word short story (For sale: baby shoes, never worn) but I do love this... from a collection of shorts comissioned by Wired Magazine. The rest are... well.. kind of a downer.

Machine. Unexpectedly, I’d invented a time
- Alan Moore

Raymond Chandler's instructions on publishing The Little Sister

"No dedication. No front matter from me, unless you want to vary the usual protection clause on the back of the title page by saying that 'The people and events in this book are not entirely fictional. Some of the events happened, although not in this precise time or place, and certain of the characters were suggested by real persons, both living and dead. The author regrets any resemblance to reality that may be found in the pages of his books, and he particularly regrets that he has on occasion made use of the names of real localities. He admits with shame that there actually is a place called Hollywood and a place called Los Angeles. It has streets and he has named some of them. It has a police department and he has referred to it. Los Angeles County has a District Attorney and said District Attorney has an office. To all of these matters the author has alluded. How careless of him! He should have called Los Angeles Smogville. He should have called its police department its Ministry of Corrections.' …"