at least according to Rolling Stone. (Get the list here). Yes, these lists are always highly subjective. But if I were the arbiter of musical taste, I’d pick many of the same, so here it is.
The End of History Revisited
Stewart Brand, the creator of the iconic Whole Earth Catalog, heads up the The Long Now Foundation, an organization committed to cultivating “slower/better” thinking and fostering greater responsibility over “the next 10,000 years.” (Yes, they’re ambitious.) To help bring this about, Brand hosts a monthly speaking series that you can download as a podcast (iTunes — Feed — MP3s), and, in late June, he brought in Francis Fukuyama to speak. Fukuyama, a professor of international political economy at Johns Hopkins, first made a name for himself in 1989 when, during the waning days of the Cold War, he published an essay called “The End of History?” (Later, he would turn it into a bestselling book, The End of History and the Last Man.) Stealing a page from Karl Marx, Fukuyama maintained that history had a direction to it. It flowed with purpose, always bringing progress. But the end point wasn’t communist utopia. It was liberal democracy mixed with free market economics. That’s where humanity was collectively heading, with a victorious America leading the way. (In his original essay, he wrote, “What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.”)
In the intervening years, the world’s movement toward western democracy hasn’t exactly followed a straight line, and the 9/11 attacks and the ensuing “War on Terror” have seemingly lent credence to a dimmer worldview, one outlined by Samuel Huntington in the controversial book, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. Speaking 18 years after the publication of his original essay (iTunes — Feed — MP3 — Blog), Fukuyama revisits, clarifies and largely defends his thesis that liberal democracy is still on track to prevail. And that’s because, in his mind, there are deep economic, scientific and technological trends in motion that drive almost inexorably toward these political ends. Whether he is right or wrong, it’s impossible to say. Regardless, his talk is smart, hardly dogmatic, and worth your time.
SmartLinks From Our Readers
Below, we have some links recommended by our readers. Feel free to send other good bits our way. The more we give, the more we get. Just click here to send:
- Sean Penn reads an excerpt from Bob Dylan’s autobiography, Chronicles, here. (Or check out the full audiobook version.)
- Jared Diamond, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Guns, Germs, and Steel and Collapse speaks at The Long Now Foundation about why civilizations have historically endured or failed. Two important factors include how they managed their natural resources and dealt with climate change. Does this ring any bells? Get the lecture here: (iTunes — Feed — MP3s)
- Ayn Rand’s Literature of Capitalism. A piece in The New York Times explores Atlas Shrugged and its impact on Alan Greenspan.
- Interview with Hal Varian, Chief Economist at Google (and UC Berkeley Professor), who talks (iTunes - Feed — MP3 — Web Site) about the internet as an “engine for democracy.”
- Appearing in The New York Review of Books, this piece, entitled Citizen Gore, takes a look a Al Gore’s new book, The Assault on Reason, and how Gore, being freed up from politics, has been remarkably able to prod the conscience of the nation. For some, however, it’s not enough. Hence the recent “Draft Al Gore” campaign that has gotten underway.
- Check out the Voodoo Music Festival coming up on October 26, 27 & 28 in New Orleans. The lineup of artists includes Rage Against The Machine, Common, Tiesto, The Smashing Pumpkins, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, M.I.A., Ben Harper, Wilco and more. To win passes to the show and some travel money, you can enter a contest here.
Remembering Lenny Bruce and When Taboo-Breaking Comedy Collided with the Law
Lenny Bruce (born Leonard Alfred Schneider) introduced a strongly satirical, taboo-breaking form of comedy during the 1950s and 1960s, which paved the way for some of America’s great comedians — Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Chris Rock, even John Stewart. And for ushering in this new era of comedy, Bruce paid a heavy personal price. In 1961, San Francisco authorities arrested Bruce on obscenity charges. Then, in 1964, Bruce found himself in the crosshairs of Manhattan’s District Attorney, Frank Horgan. A six month trial followed, which raised important First Amendment issues, and which also brought Woody Allen, Bob Dylan, Allen Ginsberg, Norman Mailer, and William Styron to Bruce’s defense. (Dylan would later write a song about the affair.) But, regardless, the trial ended badly for Bruce, and, two years later, the impoverished comedian would die of a heroin overdose.
For Bruce’s legacy, things have gotten a little better. In 2003, Governor George Pataki granted New York’s first posthumous pardon to the satirist, calling it “a declaration of New York’s commitment to upholding the First Amendment.” Meanwhile, legal scholars have written books that paint Bruce and his First Amendment battles in a rather sympathetic light. Below you can find a video clip of Lenny Bruce appearing on the very popular Steve Allen Show. It gives you a pretty good look at the brand of comedy that Bruce presented to the wider nation. (You can access Part II of the video here.) Beyond this, you may also want to check out the actual FBI file that was kept on Bruce. It’s been published thanks to the Freedom of Information Act. And if you’re up for more video footage, here is a clearly deflated Bruce using his trial as fodder for comedy.
The New iPod Lineup Versus Its Rivals
Since we talk a lot here about podcasts and mp3 files, it seems worth flagging this Yahoo gadget review that pits the new iPod lineup against its rivals. Here, we’ve got the new iPod Touch v. the Samsung Yepp YP-P2; the new Nano (with video) v. the Sansa View, and the iPod Classic v. Microsoft’s Zune. The net result is that the new iPods come out ahead, but not by much. Get review here.
(For another review of the new iPod Touch, have a look at this piece on Gizmodo.)
Quick note: As part of the new lineup, the iPod Classic features a new 160 GB model for $349. It apparently holds 40,000 songs (twice as many as the previous model), which translates to three continuous months of listening entertainment. Imagine how many mind-expanding podcasts that could include.
New R.E.M. Concert Video “Leaving New York”
Below we have “R.E.M. Live, recorded on the Around the World Tour, which promoted Around the Sun, a studio album from 2004. It is to be released October 16.” (Thanks to Justin for the clarification.)
Source: Stereogum. (For more music, check out our collection of MP3 Blogs.)
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Falling Man 9–11
On the anniversary of the September 11th attacks, it seems fitting to call attention to Don DeLillo’s Falling Man, a recent addition to the growing body of fiction now known as “9/11 novel.” However you may feel about DeLillo’s writing style (we often find that it grates), Falling Man adeptly captures the emotional and physical haze that surrounded NYC in the wake of the attacks. In interviews with Guernica and NPR’s All Things Considered, DeLillo talks about the influences that led him to explore the attacks and their aftermath from the perspective of both a terrorist and a survivor. If listening to the book is more your speed, check out the audio version at Amazon or the download at Audible.
This guest post was written by Noah Elkin.
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Meet Larry David (in Video)
HBO just started airing the sixth season of Curb Your Enthusiasm, so it seemed fitting to serve up this lengthy interview with Larry David. The talk is very funny. No shock there. But it also gets into some good substance. How Larry got into comedy; how he struggled during his early standup years and had to scratch together money for a can of Chef Boyardee; how he approaches writing comedy; how he has generated ideas for the most memorable episodes of “Curb” and Seinfeld — it all gets touched on here.
We have included the first part below, plus links to the other seven segments. For more Larry David interviews, check out the 60 Minutes piece on Larry from this past weekend. You can watch it online here.
Life-Changing Books Now on Google’s “My Library”
A few weeks ago, our readers contributed to creating a list of books that left an indelible mark on their lives. You can review the original post here. But we figured why not add them to our “My Library” page on Google, a new product that we briefly mentioned yesterday. You can access the collection here (or get it by rss feed). And, as you’ll see, we also imported to the list all of our users’ comments on the individual books. Explore the list, find a great read, and pass it along to a worthy friend.
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The World Without Us: The Staggering Thought Experiment
Based on his considerable research and extensive interviews with experts, Weisman sees things playing out like this (and here I’m quoting from the New York Times book review): “With no one left to run the pumps, New York’s subway tunnels would fill with water in two days. Within 20 years, Lexington Avenue would be a river. Fire- and wind-ravaged skyscrapers would eventually fall like giant trees. Within weeks of our disappearance, the world’s 441 nuclear plants would melt down into radioactive blobs, while our petrochemical plants, ‘ticking time bombs’ even on a normal day, would become flaming geysers spewing toxins for decades to come… After about 100,000 years, carbon dioxide would return to prehuman levels. Domesticated species from cattle to carrots would revert back to their wild ancestors. And on every dehabitated continent, forests and grasslands would reclaim our farms and parking lots as animals began a slow parade back to Eden.” And, it’s also helpful to know, perhaps, that not even cockroaches would fare well in a world without Homo sapiens.
How Weisman researched this big question and drew his conclusions is fascinating, and fortunately it’s all explained in this Scientific American podcast (iTunes — Feed — Web Site) that features two recent interviews with Weisman. You can also catch Weisman speaking on John Stewart’s Daily Show in less scientific terms. Watch the video here.
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Related Content:
- For more related podcasts, check out our Science Podcast Collection
- Also check out Scientific American’s June 12 interview with Jared Diamond (author of Guns, Germs & Steel: The Fate of Human Societies), who talks about the “State of the World Environment.” (iTunes — Feed — Web Site).
Google’s “My Library” (and Other Bookish Social Networks)
As part of Google’s push into the digital book market (see Friday’s post), the company launched last week My Library, which lets you create lists of your own books, search the content of your book inventory by keyword, and then share your book lists with friends. (You can see examples of these book lists here and here, and also get Google’s official spiel on the project here.) It’s a nice idea for students and scholars, but will it have much take-up with the broader reading public? I’m skeptical, but you tell me? We’ve got many bona fide readers here. Will you be sinking time into building your Google Library? Or are you instead ever-refining your Facebook profile and sharing booklists there? Yeah, that’s what I thought.
Check out the Visual Bookshelf app on Facebook, which offers an effective way of sharing your books with your social network. Also be sure to scan Deeplinking’s compilation, The Big List of Bookish Social Networks. Finally, if you create a booklist on Google Library (start making one here), send the urls our way and we’ll post them.
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