Lessons in Creativity from Rick Rubin: Focus on Your Art, Not the Audience

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If you’ve heard Run‑D.M.C.‘s Rais­ing Hell, Rage Against the Machine’s self-titled debut, John­ny Cash’s Amer­i­can Record­ings, or Adele’s 21, you’ve heard the work of Rick Rubin. Yet even if you’ve lis­tened close­ly to every song on which he’s been cred­it­ed as a pro­duc­er over the past 45 years, you may have trou­ble pin­ning down what, exact­ly,…

Enjoy a Medieval Cover of R.E.M.‘s “Losing My Religion”

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Dur­ing her life­time, the medieval abbess Hilde­gard von Bin­gen (1098–1179) com­posed rough­ly 77 songs and hymns. She remains the ear­li­est known woman com­pos­er in West­ern clas­si­cal music and one of the most impor­tant com­posers of the High Mid­dle Ages.

In her hon­or, a YouTu­ber who goes by Hilde­gard von Blin­gin’ has devel­oped…

Scott Galloway Explains How YOU Can Stop Government Overreach Using the Power of Your Purse

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Above, Scott Gal­loway and Kara Swish­er explain how every­day Amer­i­cans can push back against gov­ern­ment overreach—by focus­ing on the eco­nom­ic deci­sions they make each day. “Trump does not respond to out­rage. He responds to mar­kets,” says Gal­loway. Ergo, it’s time for an “eco­nom­ic strike,” a “short-term coor­di­nat­ed with­draw­al from spend­ing.” He con­tin­ues: “if wealthy house­holds…

The World’s Oldest Cave Art, Discovered in Indonesia, Is at Least 67,800 Years Old

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Image by Ahdi Agus Okta­viana

Over the cen­turies, a vari­ety of places have laid cred­i­ble claim to being the world’s art cen­ter: Con­stan­tino­ple, Flo­rence, Paris, New York. But on the scale of, say, ten mil­len­nia, the hot spots become rather less rec­og­niz­able. Up until about 20,000 years ago, it seems that cre­ators and view­ers…

Hannah Arendt Explains How Propaganda Uses Lies to Erode All Truth & Morality: Insights from The Origins of Totalitarianism

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Image by Bernd Schwabe, via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

At least when I was in grade school, we learned the very basics of how the Third Reich came to pow­er in the ear­ly 1930s. Para­mil­i­tary gangs ter­ror­iz­ing the oppo­si­tion, the incom­pe­tence and oppor­tunism of Ger­man con­ser­v­a­tives, the Reich­stag Fire. And we learned about…