Michael Schaffer didn't want to be one of THOSE people who take excessive care of their pets, but found himself realizing that the line between normal and extreme has made a major shift in our culture in the last fifteen years.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
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No matter how much we learn about the brain, Sacks says we may never understand how the mind works. In this interview, he marvels at how the human brain is fine-tuned to respond to music.
Kevin Smokler tells Steve Paulson that the Internet is changing the world of letters but he thinks it’s progress. Smokler sees a welcome democratization of literature.
Laure-Anne Bosselaar talks with Jim Fleming about finding nature in the city. Bosselaar reads several poems from the poetry anthology she edited, “Urban Nature.”
Piers Vitebsky studies the Eveny or Reindeer People of Siberia. They keep herds of reindeer for meat, but also have personal, consecrated reindeer animal doubles, which they believe will die for them.
In 1776 there were no radios or telephones or honking cars, but there were other sounds. The church bell, the town crier, and women beating their laundry all had distinct sounds.
Marco Iacoboni talks about mirror neurons - neurons hard-wired into us and explain how we feel empathy and compassion and why we feel the need to connect with one another.
Paula Wolfert is one of America’s most admired food writers. Her latest cook book is “The Slow Mediterranean Kitchen.”
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