Rebecca Newberger Goldstein in The New York Times:

What gives the quickening of life to this elegiac novel and takes the place of the unlikely laughter of “The History of Love”? The feat is achieved through exquisitely chosen sensory details that reverberate with emotional intensity. So, for example, here is George Weisz describing how, when his clients speak of their lives before the war, “between their words I see the way the light fell across the wooden floor. . . . I see his mother’s legs move about the kitchen, and the crumbs the housekeeper’s broom missed.” Those crumbs are an artist’s true touch. They demonstrate how Krauss is able, despite the formidable remove of the central characters and the mournfulness of their telling, to ground “Great House” in the shock of immediacy.

Krauss has taken great risks in dispensing with the whimsy and humor that she summoned for her tragic vision in “The History of Love.” Here she gives us her tragic vision pure. It is a high-wire performance, only the wire has been replaced by an exposed nerve, and you hold your breath, and she does not fall.

More here.

Alex Clark in The Guardian:

The stories that adults invent for children – whether they're designed as entertainment, diversion, education, balm or a mixture – come with a built-in dramatic irony. Not only does the teller have control of a particular narrative, how it proceeds and, perhaps most significantly, how and when it ends, but they will usually have a more developed understanding of what a story is in the first place, and know the approximate coordinates of the border between reality and fiction. But that kind of knowledge, as Salman Rushdie suggests in this engrossing and fantastical fable, loses its lustre if you stop believing in the stories you're telling; at which point, an injection of childlike innocence might be exactly what you need.

Luka and the Fire of Life comes to us 20 years after Haroun and the Sea of Stories, written shortly after the pronouncement of the fatwa against Rushdie. Haroun was partly a response to the monstrousness of his enforced withdrawal from the world and partly a gift for his son Zafar, who had asked him to write something that children might enjoy reading. Its central story – a boy who must enter a magical realm and defeat malevolent forces on his storyteller father's behalf – is repeated in Luka and the Fire of Life, which has been written for Rushdie's younger son, Milan, who rather understandably wanted his own book.

More here.

Justin E. H. Smith in his own blog:

I never know what I'm supposed to be paying attention to when I go to the symphony. In general, wherever I go, I lapse all too easily into sociology, and I start thinking about the posture and the haircuts and the accents of people around me when what I'm supposed to be doing is listening to what they're saying. But at the symphony, where I know so little about what is really at stake, where I am so unskilled in making that judgment learned audiences so love to make as to whether or not the evening's interpretation is a successful one, my reversion to sundry reflexions on anything and everything but the music is almost automatic.

Most recently, I found myself watching Anne-Sophie Mutter playing a violin piece composed specially for her by Sophia Gubaidulina. It was good. I liked it. If anyone was 'off' that evening, I certainly didn't notice, but this may be because I was preoccupied with all sorts of ridiculous and improbable thought experiments, one of which is still with me days later. I tried to imagine, namely, what it would be like if, somehow, I was sent out on stage with a violin in my hands. What could I do? Absolutely nothing. The internal wiring of my body –the neurons and the nerves and the muscles– simply has not been configured so as to enable me to even pretend for a second that I can play a violin. But look at Anne-Sophie Mutter's body. Is it so different? It is a woman's body, but it is not in respect of that difference that she is a violinist and I am not. Where is the difference, then? The difference, obviously, is in the way we were shaped and tendered over the course of years. Her violinist-body and my slouching, contemplative, wholly non-musical body were shaped over the course of many years of handling, of dressage.

Now we're getting close to what I actually wanted to talk about: not music, but the humanities, and the state of higher education in general.

More here.

Melody Dye in Child's Play:

What is experimental philosophy and is it new? How does the language we speak both encode and subsequently shape our moral understanding? How can manipulating someone’s linguistic expectations change their reasoning? And what can we learn about all these questions by productively plumbing the archives of everyday speech?

For those who are not familiar, Joshua Knobe is an up-and-coming ‘experimental philosopher’ at Yale, and is well-known for his experimental work looking at how we interpret a person’s actions depending on linguistic context. The idea underpinning his approach is that we can better understand philosophical concepts if we look at how people use and respond to them in practice. Many of these experiments focus on intentionality : i.e., in what contexts do we say that a person acted intentionally, and in what contexts unintentionally? Based on these findings, Josh wants to claim that he has discovered something ‘deep’ about the nature of theory of mind, intentional action, and moral judgment. But has he? I’d argue that he’s discovered something about how we use certain words and what we take them to mean. Is that deep? Perhaps! Read on — and you tell me.

More here.

From Nature:

Human societies progress in small steps just as biological evolution does, according to a study of the structure and language of societies in South East Asia and the Pacific Ocean.

“One of the big debates in anthropology has been whether there are any recurring patterns or processes in the way societies change over time,” says Tom Currie of University College London, who led the study published in Nature today¹. He and his team wanted to know whether societies increase in complexity through a limited number of different forms — from tribe, to chiefdom, state and empire — or whether different societies each have their own pattern. Their analysis, which uses quantitative methods borrowed from genetics, supports a popular model of political evolution which suggests that societies show a gradual increase in complexity. But the data also back up another theory — societies can decrease in complexity, too, either by the same pattern of small steps or by bigger crashes.

More here.

From Edge:

Three years ago, Edge collaborated with The Serpentine Gallery in London in a program of “table-top experiments” as part of the Serpentine's Experiment Marathon . This live event was featured along with the Edge/Serpentine collaboration: “What Is Your Formula? Your Equation? Your Algorithm? Formulae For the 21st Century.” Hans Ulrich Obrist, curator of the Serpentine, has invited Edge to collaborate in his latest project, The Serpentine Map Marathon, Saturday and Sunday, 16 – 17 October, at Royal Geographical Society, 1 Kensington Gore, London SW7 2AR (Map). The multi-dimensional Map Marathon features non-stop live presentations by over 50 artists, poets, writers, philosophers, scholars, musicians, architects, designers and scientists. The two-day event takes place in London during Frieze Art Fair week. The event features maps by Edge contributors, and an Edge panel of Lewis Wopert, Armand Leroi, and John Brockman, on Sunday (17 October) 1:15pm-2:15pm. This page is a work-in-progress. We are posting Edge Maps as they are received. Click on images to enlarge or click here to begin slide show.

Picture: A somewhat fanciful depiction of a multiverse consisting of a background empty spacetime giving birth to baby universes, as proposed in my 2004 paper with Jennifer Chen. Artwork by Jason Torchinsky. Sean Carroll: Theoretical Physicist, Caltech; Author, From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ulitmate Theory Of Time.

More here.

Elegy Asking That it be the Last

for Ingrid Erhardt, 1951-1971

by Norman Dubie
from The Mercy Sent: Collected and New Poems
Copper Canyon Press, 2001

A groundbreaking exhibition about Adolf Hitler opens in Berlin tomorrow, the first time since the war that a major museum has explored the relationship between the Führer and the German nation. Hitler and the Germans: Nation and Crime, at Berlin’s German Historical Museum, has been praised for smashing taboos and opening afresh the debate about how Hitler managed so successfully to seduce a nation. “Whether we like it or not he remains our strongest trademark,” said Karl Schnorr, a 68-year-old retired engineer at the preview. “Maybe it’s time we shook him off, but first we need to understand how we fell for him so utterly.” The opening coincides with a study published this week in which one in 10 Germans professed they would like a “Führer” figure to “govern Germany with a hard hand”, while 35% said they considered the country to be “dangerously overrun” with foreigners.

more from Kate Connolly at The Guardian here.

Can history come to an end? Arthur Danto has written of art entering a “post-historical” phase; he believes that the history of modern art as moving toward a state of abstraction has been fulfilled—indeed, internally exhausted. Since the 1960s, this particular “narrative,” as he calls it, has come to an end, even as the art world continues to exist, even to flourish. Although I don’t like the phrase “post-historical,” I think Danto is right. I had not, however, considered this idea in relation to history understood in its traditional sense as the actions of great men and nation building. But, a few weeks ago, the unnerving thought that this kind of history had come to an end confronted me. My husband and I were standing at the busiest traffic circle in Paris, the Place de L’Etoile, in front of the Arc de Triomphe, which, as I learned from the guidebook that I was reading aloud to him, was the largest triumphal arch in the world (165 feet tall), which meant that it was larger than any of the ancient triumphal arches still standing in Rome that were undoubtedly its inspiration. Reading that Napoleon dreamed of erecting a triumphal arch to the glory of the French army in 1806 following their victory at Austerlitz—a dream that would not be realized until 1836 when the arch was completed two decades after Napoleon’s final defeat and exile—did not surprise me. But I thought our guidebook was off the mark when it described the project as “grandiose” and attributed it to Napoleon’s “megalomania.” Instead, as I told my husband, raising a triumphal arch that would surpass in scale and magnificence the triumphal arches of antiquity was testimony to the hold of the ancients (especially the Romans) on the imagination and aspirations of modern people living before the twentieth century.

more from Rochelle Gurstein at TNR here.

My admiration for some of Benjamin’s writing, the elegance of his thinking and his language more than anything else, has accompanied me throughout my intellectual life. And this in spite of the irreparable damage I probably inflicted upon myself during my period of obsessive Benjamin reading. Because the confusion of his thinking exponentially propelled my own confusions to new heights, for many years. When you read Benjamin, you must learn to strictly separate admiration and criticism. The history of his influence is suitabably paradoxical. Benjamin’s writing, which was almost exclusively intended to be scientific in method, makes strict claims to the truth, even when it takes the form of aphorism, feuilleton, literary critique or memoir. But Benjamin today enjoys the level of worldwide adoration that is otherwise reserved for poets in Eastern Europe. He is quoted so extensively, his photograph reproduced so often, he is the subject of so many prominent congresses and meticulous exhibitions that you would be forgiven for thinking he was Germany’s leading poet. This misleading (oft kitschifying) treatment of a man who throughout his life regarded himself as a theorist, is most unusual for literary life in the west. At the very least it demands an explanation.

more from Stephan Wackwitz at Sign and Sight here.

Much of what medical researchers conclude in their studies is misleading, exaggerated, or flat-out wrong. So why are doctors—to a striking extent—still drawing upon misinformation in their everyday practice? Dr. John Ioannidis has spent his career challenging his peers by exposing their bad science.

David H. Freedman in The Atlantic:

In 2001, rumors were circulating in Greek hospitals that surgery residents, eager to rack up scalpel time, were falsely diagnosing hapless Albanian immigrants with appendicitis. At the University of Ioannina medical school’s teaching hospital, a newly minted doctor named Athina Tatsioni was discussing the rumors with colleagues when a professor who had overheard asked her if she’d like to try to prove whether they were true—he seemed to be almost daring her. She accepted the challenge and, with the professor’s and other colleagues’ help, eventually produced a formal study showing that, for whatever reason, the appendices removed from patients with Albanian names in six Greek hospitals were more than three times as likely to be perfectly healthy as those removed from patients with Greek names. “It was hard to find a journal willing to publish it, but we did,” recalls Tatsioni. “I also discovered that I really liked research.” Good thing, because the study had actually been a sort of audition. The professor, it turned out, had been putting together a team of exceptionally brash and curious young clinicians and Ph.D.s to join him in tackling an unusual and controversial agenda.

More here.

William Saletan in Slate:

Last week, I tried to figure out why more women are having anal sex and why it correlates so highly with orgasms. Since 1992, the percentage of women aged 20-24 who say they've tried anal sex has doubled to 40 percent. The percentage of women aged 20-39 who say they've done it in the past year has doubled to more than 20 percent. And 94 percent of women who received anal sex in their last encounter said they reached orgasm—a higher rate of orgasm than was reported by women who had vaginal intercourse or received oral sex.

Why? For obvious reasons—anatomical, evolutionary, and aesthetic—anal sex should, on average, be less attractive and satisfying than vaginal or oral sex. In last week's column, based on new survey data, I inferred that female orgasms caused anal sex rather than the other way around. The other acts reported by women who engaged in anal sex—vaginal intercourse, cunnilingus, partnered masturbation—delivered the orgasms. In turn, these women indulged their male partners' requests for anal sex.

Well, shame on me. Not for talking about sodomy—that taboo seems to be fading fast—but for doubting that women love it. These women are now coming forward to affirm that they're into it for their own pleasure, thank you very much.

More here.

Jerry Coyne challenges PZ Myers:

Both Greta Christina and I have written about what sort of evidence would convince us of the existence of a divine celestial being. But maybe P.Z. is a tougher nut to crack. So here’s a challenge to him:

Suppose that you, P.Z., were present at the following events, and they were also witnessed by lots of other skeptical eyewitnesses and, importantly, documented on film: A bright light appears in the heavens and, supported by wingéd angels, a being clad in white robe and sandals descends onto the UMM quad from the sky, accompanied by a pack of apostles with the same names given in the Bible. Loud heavenly music is heard everywhere, with the blaring of trumps. The being, who describes himself as Jesus, puts his hand atop your head, P.Z., and suddenly your arms are turned into tentacles. As you flail about with your new appendages, Jesus asks, “Now do you believe in me?” Another touch on the head and the tentacles disappear and your arms return. Jesus and his pack then repair to the Mayo clinic and, also on film, heal a bunch of amputees (who remain permanently arméd and leggéd after Jesus’s departure). After a while Jesus and his minions, supported by angels, ascend back into the sky with another chorus of music. The heavens swiftly darken, there is thunder, and a single lightning bolt strikes P.Z.’s front yard. Then, just as suddenly, the heavens clear.

Now you can say that this is just a big magic stunt, but there’s a lot of documentation—all those healed amputees, for instance. Even using Hume’s criterion, isn’t it more parsimonious to say that there’s a God (and a Christian one, given the presence of Jesus!) rather than to assert that it was all an elaborate, hard-to-fathom magic trick or the concatenation of many enigmatic natural forces?

More here. And PZ Myers responds with “Eight reasons you won't persuade me to believe in a god”:

I have been challenged by Jerry Coyne, who is unconvinced by my argument that there is no evidence that could convince me of the existence of god. Fair enough, I shall repeat it and expand upon it.

1. The question “Is there a god?” is a bad question. It's incoherent and undefined; “god” is a perpetually plastic concept that promoters twist to evade evaluation. If the whole question is nebulous noise, how can any answer be acceptable? The only way to win is by not playing the game.

2. There's a certain unfairness in the evidence postulated for god. I used the example of a 900 foot tall Jesus appearing on earth; there is no religion (other than the addled hallucinations of Oral Roberts) that ever proposes such a thing, so such a being would not prove the existence of any prior concept of god, and will even contradict many religions. It's rather like proposing a crocoduck as a test of evolution.

More here.

Carl Zimmer in The Atlantic:

We writers always have lots of pieces in the can — stories killed for no good reason, pieces we wrote for the hell of it over a crazed weekend. In my case, I realized I had the makings of a short book about the brain. I write a column about neuroscience for Discover, and earlier this year I also wrote a piece for Playboy on some wild-eyed notions of how you'll be able to upload your brain into a computer in the not-too-distant future. Fortunately, both Discover and Playboy carry on the noble tradition of returning the rights to articles to their authors, rather than treating them as work for hire. I could bring together some of these pieces as an eBook and see if it would become something that people might actually want to buy.

The first thing I did was consult with Charles Nix, my friend and personal book design god. I cobbled together a Word file and sent it to him to show him what I had in mind. It took him a couple hours to transform it into a bare-bones eBook. If I wanted, I could have uploaded it to Kindle right then and there. But I knew that the manuscript was far from ready. I updated the older pieces with new science about the brain, cleaned up clumsy language, and sliced out repetitions.

As I learned about eBooks, I decided that they were not something I could handle completely on my own. I was not willing to abandon the most important things that go into publishing books, such as good design. Yes, we now live in an age where you can upload a Microsoft Word file directly to an eBook seller. But then you're the author of a Microsoft Word file. Who wants to be that?

More here.

When Autumn Came

This is the way that autumn came to the trees:
it stripped them down to the skin,
left their ebony bodies naked.
It shook out their hearts, the yellow leaves,
scattered them over the ground.
Anyone could trample them out of shape
undisturbed by a single moan of protest.

The birds that herald dreams
were exiled from their song,
each voice torn out of its throat.
They dropped into the dust
even before the hunter strung his bow.

Oh, God of May have mercy.
Bless these withered bodies
with the passion of your resurrection;
make their dead veins flow with blood again.

Give some tree the gift of green again.
Let one bird sing

by Faiz Ahmed Faiz
translation Naomi Lazard
from The True Subject;
Princeton University Press, 1987

Nathanial Gronewold in Scientific American:

Tariq Yousafzai, a water and environmental engineer with detailed knowledge of his country's water infrastructure, sees evidence of climate change in the flood disaster that inundated one-fifth of his country. But a more immediate concern of his is the massive deforestation that has silted up the waterways and left Pakistan more vulnerable to storms than ever.

The scene at this reservoir created by the Tarbela Dam and in areas to its north vividly shows what he's talking about. Long after the rains ended, the water level is still almost even with the rim of the dam, seemingly ready to spill over at any moment. Equally striking is the murky color of the water itself.

More here.

Hello, I’m God. Bet you didn’t expect to be talking to me on the interweb (unless, perhaps, your name is Neale Donald Walshe). I wonder if you’re one of those insufferable new atheist types? If so, I reckon you’re probably feeling a bit daft right now! I think I’d better get something clear before we start. I see myself as being a God in the Abrahamic tradition of God(s). What does this mean? Well, let’s put it this way, if you think that God is just another word for nature, or that I’m actually a pink bunny, or somesuch, then probably this activity isn’t for you. Anyhow, let’s get to it. It’s been drawn to my attention – by myself! – that a long time ago a fellow named Euthyphro got into a muddle, and ever since there has been some confusion about my nature. So I thought I’d ask you a few questions – you know, to see if we can get things straight.

more from Philosophy Experiments here.

J. Malcolm Garcia in Guernica:

Amina kept all the flowers her husband Masood gave her over the years. She kept the first bottle of perfume, the first scarf. She believes he will be back as strongly as she believes in God. Tomorrow or the day after or next week or next month. She doesn’t know when, but someday. She must believe this to stay motivated. If she is a fool, okay, let her be a fool. For years she was unaware of the miseries of the world. She decorated their Rawalpindi home, painted pictures and wrote poetry. She never read newspapers. They met in 1977 when she stopped by a gallery he administered and inquired about hanging some of her paintings. He could organize things in an instant.

They married and had children. They loved to go hiking on weekends. They enjoyed impulsively packing up their son and daughter and driving into the countryside with no specific destination in mind. When it snowed in the mountains they would go skiing on a whim, leaving behind the congestion of city life with all its problems and politics. Masood was openly critical of corruption and of his government’s ties with the War on Terror, but otherwise he was not a political person.

Nor was she—until he disappeared.

More here.