Recent Comments

    Music
    Music as an expression of protest against class and racial divisions

    Music as an expression of protest against class and racial divisions

    “Violence only benefits those who have nothing to lose.” – Jean Paul Sartre The great pianist virtuoso Duke Ellington once said that, “the masters, frightened by the silence…

    How Eric Clapton Created the Classic Song “Layla”

    How Eric Clapton Created the Classic Song “Layla”

    The story of Eric Clapton and “Layla” has always bothered me because to understand it is to understand how fallible and crazed any of us can be when…

    The Birth of Joy Division

    The Birth of Joy Division

    The Joy Division story has been told many times, yet it never stops seeming too bizarre to be true. Jon Savage, best known for his classic punk history, England’s Dreaming, was one of the…

    The Accidental Perfection of the Beatles’ White Album

    The Accidental Perfection of the Beatles’ White Album

    To mark this month’s fiftieth anniversary of the Beatles’ ninth album, “The Beatles”—universally known as the White Album—several new expanded and enhanced editions are being released this week. These new…

    About Led Zeppelin

    About Led Zeppelin

    What the Beatles were to the ’60s, Led Zeppelin were to the ’70s: a band so successful and innovative they wound up creating the prism through which their…

    The Velvet Revolution of Claude Debussy

    The Velvet Revolution of Claude Debussy

    Claude Debussy died a century ago, but his music has not grown old. Bound only lightly to the past, it floats in time. As it coalesces, bar by…

    Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Electric Ladyland’

    Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Electric Ladyland’

    “We’ve been doing new tracks that are really fantastic and we’ve just been getting into them,” Jimi Hendrix told Rolling Stone in February 1968, right after he and the Experience had played…

    Beatles’ Acid Test: How LSD Opened the Door to ‘Revolver’

    Beatles’ Acid Test: How LSD Opened the Door to ‘Revolver’

    Psychedelic drug inspired their masterpiece – but also opened wounds that never healed The story of Revolver began in a night of hell and illumination. “We’ve had LSD,” John Lennon told George Harrison. It…

    Movies

    Is Apocalypse Now: Final Cut the best version we’ll ever see?

    Is Apocalypse Now: Final Cut the best version we’ll ever see?

    Everyone in the house at the Beacon Theatre  already knew the legend of Apocalypse Now.…

    10 Movie Directors Who Made More Than 5 Masterpieces

    10 Movie Directors Who Made More Than 5 Masterpieces

    When the writers (and future film makers) of the influential French film journal Cahiers du…

    “North by Northwest” – Hitchcock’s most entertaining film

    “North by Northwest” – Hitchcock’s most entertaining film

    In my childhood, one of the movies that made me fall in love with movies…

    Three Perspectives on Fitzcarraldo

    Three Perspectives on Fitzcarraldo

    In Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo, the jungle, oppressive and thick, provides the perfect backdrop to the…

    Mind and Cognition

    The Hellfire club

    The Hellfire club

    Majority of secret societies are exclusive, intended for a small circle of the chosen ones. Their closeness is the very reason for making them an ideal ground for…

    Underground utopism

    Underground utopism

    It seems to me that, for a long time, we were searching for that particular social order that will guarantee equal rights for all, flawless community development and…

    Time: illusion and/or necessity?

    Time: illusion and/or necessity?

    For a majority of us, time is but an alternate term for what occurs between two random points on the clock. But, here is the gist: clocks –…

    Modern European Mysticism

    Modern European Mysticism

    This article will introduce you to the complex world of modern European mysticism through studying its psychological thought. We shall see that modern European mysticism has its own…

    Sociology

    The liberation of women

    The liberation of women

    Kristen R. Ghodsee (1970) is an award-winning Professor of Russian and East European Studies and a Member of the Graduate Group…

    We all know that we will die, so why do we struggle to believe it?

    We all know that we will die, so why do we struggle to believe it?

      In the novella The Death of Ivan Ilyich (1886), Leo Tolstoy presents a man who is shocked by suddenly realising that his…

    How to Die

    How to Die

    One morning in may, the existential psychotherapist Irvin Yalom was recuperating in a sunny room on the first floor of a Palo…

    The Nature of conflict

    Nature of conflict

    Nature of conflict

    There are several reasons why most people do not approach conflicts in the right way. The basic one is – they see the conflict as a problem,…

    Philosophy

    Secular pilgrimage

    Secular pilgrimage

    Visiting Wittgenstein’s home evokes the philosopher’s serious, ascetic mind (no doubt he would disapprove its restoration) Westerners who see ancestor worship as something only other cultures do…

    Mythology

    Le cheminement vers `l Hyperboree

    Le cheminement vers `l Hyperboree

    ““…question qui troublait Hérodote: “Qui sont les Hyperboréens?” Sont-ils “la population d’au-delà du Vent du Nord, qui pratiquait le culte de ce Vent, tout comme les Thraces…

    Archaeology

    Petra: The rose red city of the Nabataeans

    Petra: The rose red city of the Nabataeans

    There is only one true way to experience Petra—the greatest city of the Nabataeans, a people who occupied the area from Sinai and Negev to northern Arabia…

    Architecture

    The Pantheon (Rome)

    The Pantheon (Rome)

    The eighth wonder of the ancient world The Pantheon in Rome is a true architectural wonder. Described as the “sphinx of the Campus Martius”—referring to enigmas presented…

    Culture

    “Imitation of Life” And the world turned upside down

    “Imitation of Life” And the world turned upside down

    Imitation of Life; Proton Theatre: Written by: Kata Wéber Direction: Kornél Mundruczó; Stage Design: Márton Ágh; Costume Design: Márton Ágh, Melinda Domán; Dramaturgy: Soma Boronkay; Cast: Lili Monori,…

    Religion

    The Taoist View of the Universe – Alan Watts

    The Taoist View of the Universe – Alan Watts

    “Taoists view the universe as the same as, or inseparable from, themselves so that Lao-tzu could say, “Without leaving my house, I know the whole universe.” This implies…

    Art

    The Myth of Whiteness in Classical Sculpture

    The Myth of Whiteness in Classical Sculpture

    Greek and Roman statues were often painted, but assumptions about race and aesthetics have suppressed this truth. Now scholars are making a color correction. Mark Abbe was…

    Unknown Pleasures

    MatchCut-500x558 Unknown-Pleasures_Blog