In case you haven’t seen this yet …
Philip Roth on Indignation
Indignation is Philip Roth’s 29th book and his third novel in the past three years. Pretty good for a writer working at 75. In this extended interview with Michael Krasny (iTunes — Feed — MP3), Roth talks about Indignation, which takes readers back to the Korean War and college life in conservative America.
YouTube Gets a Little More Intelligent
YouTube has had the mass market locked up for some time. But, during the past year, it has been giving a little nod to more “highbrow” viewers. We’ve seen channels sprouting up on YouTube that feature content produced by universities and other high-value content providers. (See our collection Intelligent Life at YouTube: 80 Video Collections.) We’ve also watched the launch of The YouTube Screening Room, which brings short independent films to the viewing public. Now we have The YouTube Symphony Orchestra.
This project brings classical music into the world of Web 2.0. As The New York Times explains it, the initiative will produce a mashup of orchestral pieces contributed by users. And, it will also feature a contest in which musicians can upload samples of their work, and, à la American Idol, winners will be chosen by a panel of judges and brought to perform at Carnegie Hall under the direction of Michael Tilson Thomas, music director of the San Francisco Symphony. (Get more from the video below.) Some purists will find this highly gimmicky, no doubt. Others may see it as a good way to keep classical music relevant. Have an opinion? Let us know in the comments.
Capitalism with Humility
It’s pretty hard to pull this off, but the titans of American industry have made Herbert Hoover look like a very wise man, at least when he said: “You know, the only trouble with capitalism is capitalists; they’re too damn greedy.”
But we shouldn’t consider Hoover rehabilitated. Not quite yet. The video clip below suggests that in Japan the CEOs have figured out how to run their capitalist system with a degree of humility. And they’re doing it voluntarily. That’s a news flash that you can send to our political leaders before they funnel more taxes to mismanaged institutions with no real strings attached.
(A quick PS: Europe’s leading philosopher and sociologist recently spoke in the German press about the financial crisis and what it means for the future of our globalized society. You can find an English translation here.)
The New Psychology of Time
The Time Paradox, a new book by Philip Zimbardo & John Boyd, puts forth an intriguing argument — our attitudes toward time, often unconscious ones, can strongly shape our personalities and the kind of lives we lead. They can contribute to our happiness and success, or our unhappiness and depression.
The argument goes something like this: Not entirely knowingly, we all focus on the past, present or future. And, in moderation, each focus can have some net good. Future-oriented people tend to be ambitious and successful; present-oriented people tend to have friends and fun; and past-oriented people often have close family relationships. But when we associate too strongly with one of these “time zones” (again often without realizing it), we run into problems. When we’re too strongly focused on the future, we sacrifice friends, family and fun. When we’re too present-oriented, we leave ourselves open to hedonism and addictions. And when we cling to the past, we simply get stuck in the past, and depression usually follows. The upshot then is that we need to find a “temporal balance,” and this applies not just to individuals, but to nations, religious groups and social classes as well. According to Zimbardo and Boyd, larger social groups can tend toward distorted senses of time. The American financial crisis boils down to an extreme focus on the present, or a lack of concern for future consequences. That’s essentially what the big credit giveaway was all about.
You may recognize Philip Zimbardo’s name. He’s a widely recognized psychology professor who was behind the famous Stanford Prison Experiment (1971). He has served as the president of the American Psychological Association. And, last year, he published The Lucifer Effect, a New York Times bestseller.
To delve a bit more deeply into The Time Paradox, you should watch (below) the engrossing presentation that Zimbardo gave at Google’s HQ last month. Or you can listen to this radio interview that aired recently in New York City (iTunes Feed MP3). Lastly, you can take a survey on The Time Paradox web site and learn more about your temporal balance.
We Didn’t Start the Fire, or The World From 1949 to 1989
If you could sync up a photo with every name and event mentioned in Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” you’d have a montage that offers a pretty good glimpse into the second half of the twentieth century. That’s what a University of Chicago grad student figured out when he put this viral video together. We’ve added it to our YouTube playlist. Thanks Bob for the tip!
Mozart’s Complete Works
Just a quick heads up: Amazon.com is running a pretty good looking deal on a box set of Mozart’s complete works. The package includes 170 CDs of music. And it also comes with a cd-rom containing essays on his works, artist bio’s, text and libretti’s. User reviews suggest that the recording quality is quite high. The box set is being sold for $74.99, or 50% off the normal list price. I’m not sure how long this sale will go on.
In the meantime, if you’re more in the mood for some free Mozart, then spend some time with the classical music podcasts that we have indexed here.
Books Authors Want (and Plan to Give) for the Holidays
Penguin asked its stable of writers what books they plan to give friends during the holidays, and what books they’d hope to receive. Here’s a quick sampling. And if you want to list your own gift ideas, feel free to add them to the comments below.
Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, is giving The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz. And so, too, is Michael Pollan (The Omnivore’s Dilemma). It won the Pulitzer after all.
Michael Lewis (Liar’s Poker) not so secretly hopes to wind up with a copy of Malcolm Gladwell’s new book Outliers: The Story of Success. He’s not the only one, to be sure.
Friends of Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love) will be getting The Principles of Uncertainty by Maira Kalman. And, in turn, they may be giving her biographies of great adventurers like Captain Cook and Ernest Shackleton. (Personally, I’d recommend Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage. Great read.)
Lastly, Nick Horby (High Fidelity) is offering up Mark Harris’ Pictures at a Revolution.
For more book ideas, visit the full list and also see our reader-created list: Life-Changing Books.
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