Category: Culture Corner

  • Culture Corner

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    Bernie Langs David Bowie’s music always showcased complex arrangements, alongside lyrics reflecting the turmoil of our world. To learn more about Bowie and his music, I contacted musicians and producers who had worked with him during his productive recording and touring years (2002-2004) hoping to land an interview. Guitarist Gerry Leonard, who worked with Bowie…

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    Concert Review: Paul Simon at the Prudential Center (Newark, NJ), September 15, 2018 By Bernie Langs Paul Simon sings “The Boxer” at the Prudential Center—YouTube view by audience member. Singer-songwriter Paul Simon completed his farewell tour with an outdoor concert in Queens, New York on September 22, 2018, close to where he and his former…

  • Kelvin Droegemeier, Trump’s Pick for Director of Office of Science and Technology Policy

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    Aileen Marshall Kelvin Droegemeier, November 19, 2014. Credit: Wikimedia Commons On July 31 of this year, Trump nominated Kelvin Droegemeier, a meteorologist, for Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.  This position has been vacant for 19 months since Trump took office, an unprecedented length of time. At this time, Droegeimeir…

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    Camila Cabello’s Havana Wows Pop Music Bernie Langs   Photo: Sony Music Entertainment The first time I heard the pop song Havana by Cuban-American recording artist Camila Cabello was on a radio tuned to one of my 20-year-old daughter’s stations. I was immediately floored by the the great groove and the unusually complex, smooth, and…

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    Visiting Michelangelo’s Sculptures in Florence Bernie Langs One of my personal goals during a late May 2018 visit to Florence, Italy was to view as many sculptures by Michelangelo as possible. Here is a rundown of my thoughts on some of the works that I saw. The Deposition at the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo and…

  • Culture Corner – The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind

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      Bernie Langs The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind Julian Jaynes Houghton Mifflin, 1990; originally published in 1976 491 pages Paperback, $15.00     Two cylinder seals with modern impressions; top: Weather god on a lion dragon, Northern Mesopotamia, Mitannian period, mid-2nd millennium B.C.; bottom: Worshiper and a god with…

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    Emotional Immediacy in Recent Movies Bernie Langs Warning: Spoilers ahead! (Source: Wikipedia) The powerful lessons of the arts, can be used by each of us as tools for enabling the expansion of our emotional dictionaries. As the woes of the world grow in seemingly new dimensions with undercurrents of danger and potential violence, we are…

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    My Thoughts On Two Documentaries: Long Strange Trip (Amazon Studios, 2017) and Eric Clapton: Life in 12 Bars (2017 film; released on Showtime Network in February 2018 for television) Bernie Langs   Cream in the 1960s, (from left to right) Ginger Baker, Jack Bruce and Eric Clapton (source: Wikipedia)   Promotional poster for Long Strange…

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      “Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman & Designer” (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, November 13, 2017 – February 12, 2018)   Bernie Langs   The Metropolitan Museum of Art recently had on view an internationally acclaimed exhibition, “Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman & Designer”, which closed on February 12th. Of the 600 drawings attributed to the great genius of…

  • Culture Corner

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      “Airbag” by Radiohead Bernie Langs I’ve come to believe that there are two masterpiece records that not only predicted the political, cultural and even emotional condition of the 21st century, but expressed them musically and lyrically in such a way as to leave themselves open to years of listening and thoughtful reflection. The first…