August 22, 2021
What is life?
Scientists Are Proposing a Radical New Framework to Redefine Life on Earth - "The union of two energetic and informatic processes that can encode and pass on adaptive information forward through time. Using this definition vastly increases what can be seen as life, to include concepts such as culture, forests, and the economy. A more traditional definition might consider these as products of life, rather than life itself." (previously) [more inside]
Just walk
Oppezzo designed an elegant experiment. A group of Stanford students were asked to list as many creative uses for common objects as they could. The more novel uses a student listed, the higher the creativity score. Half the students sat for an hour before they were given their test. The others walked on a treadmill.
The results were staggering. Creativity scores improved by 60 percent after a walk.
25 Playwrights and their Plays, 1700-1799
Mary Pix (1666-1709): Manchester Metropolitan University recently posted a complete performance (production credits) of Mary Pix's comedy, The Beau Defeated (1700). The play was also adapted by the Royal Shakespeare Company under the title The Fantastic Follies of Mrs Rich (trailer), reviewed by Aparna Gollapudi: "Pix's successful play ... features two wealthy widows search of new husbands--Lady Landsworth pursues the disenfranchised younger brother, Younger Clerimont, to assure herself that he is indeed as honest as he is handsome, while Mrs. Rich is determined to marry into aristocracy ... The play includes many classic elements of Restoration comedy, such as the amorous widow, the bumbling country squire, and the extravagant fop; but it also looks forward to eighteenth-century comedy in its valorization of sober moderation, moral behavior, and economic prudence." [more inside]
Put yourself on the map
Brand new Cadillac. Großmodell. Chouette.
Vince Taylor was a rock 'n roll singer in Britain and France. Brand New Cadillac, do you remember? It was 1959. The observatory. What a strange story. [podcast with transcript. CW: mental illness, drug abuse, suicide mention] [more inside]
Everybody knows her by the nickname of la Chona
The catchy 1995 Norteño/pop hit song
"La Chona"
by Los Tucanes de Tijuana has been
covered
hundreds
of
times
by
both
professional
and
amateur
musicians.
There are
also
remixes
and
parodies.
Of course, one can also
just
dance
to
it.
The brave may choose to dance with moving vehicles by participating in the La Chona
Challenge, which is
risky but can be
glorious.
On
occasion,
it
may
become
a
little
bit
silly.
[more inside]
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