‘A commuter poses with D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover in 1960, the day it went on sale after a 32-year ban was lifted.’

James Wolcott in Vanity Fair, What’s a Culture Snob to Do?:

“Pity the culture snob, as Kindles, iPods, and flash drives swallow up the visible markers of superior taste and intelligence. With the digitization of books, music, and movies, how will the highbrow distinguish him- or herself from the masses?”

“We’ve all heard about dumbing down. But there is plenty of evidence that the opposite is also true. Is this, in fact, the age of mass intelligence?”

More Intelligent Life, The Age of Mass Intelligence:

“From opera in cinemas to audio books for judo-players: the expanding market for intelligence is certainly unexpected. But what does it really amount to? Is it a profound cultural change or a mild shift upmarket? Here are three tentative conclusions. First, the growth of a market for intelligence may not imply anything about the quality of art being produced. Artists and patrons do separate, if related, things. Accusations of dumbing down are legion. On the other hand, the LA Times’s view that this is a golden age for serious television might be applied more widely. It is hard to believe that those who accuse arts institutions of dumbing down would want audiences to be smaller.”

“The rumor, according to one (unofficial) e-mail: “Oscar-winning producer Brian Grazer (Da Vinci Code, A Beautiful Mind, American Gangster) is looking for a new cultural attaché.” The e-mail explained:

This person would be responsible for keeping Brian abreast of everything that’s going on in the world; politically, culturally, musically. . . . They’re also responsible for finding an interesting person for Brian to meet with every week . . . an astronaut, a journalist, a philosopher, a buddhist monk. . . . There is LOTS of reading for this position! Grazer may ask you to read any book he’s interested in. You’ll probably get to read about 4 or 5 books a week and you may be required to travel with him on his private plane to Hawaii, New York, Europe—teaching him anything he asks you about along the way. . . . You will also be provided with an assistant. . . . Salary is around $150,000 a year. . . . You will be to Grazer what Karl Rove was to Bush.”

(via)

“When copies are free, you need to sell things which can not be copied.”

De ijsbaan op het Museumplein te Amsterdam met op de achtergrond het Concertgebouw. Photo: Museumplein, by Sonic Julez

The Independent, Cultural elite does not exist, academics claim:

“The “cultural elite” brought up on opera and the higher arts, which supposedly turns up its nose at anything as vulgar as a pop song or mainstream television, does not exist, according to research published by Oxford University academics.

Researchers have used data from the UK and six other countries to test a theory that people born to posh families absorb only “high culture” while “popular” or “mass” culture is strictly for those from ordinary to humble beginnings.

They found that in truth Billy Elliott – the fictional working-class boy from a northern mining village with a passion for ballet – is not the social freak he might seem to be. Equally, someone with an impressive ancestry and blue blood coursing through his veins is not necessarily any more cultured than the rest of us.”

(…)

“Which are you?

Univores

If you will go to the cinema, but not the theatre, you are a consumer of popular culture only. Two thirds of the population are in this category.

Omnivores

Will try anything on offer. Most have jobs that give them confidence, but could be from any social background.

Paucivores

People who consume a ‘limited’ range of cultural activities. Enjoy some form of music, film or television but not art galleries.

Inactives

These people access nothing at all – people who would never go into an art gallery or stop to examine a sculpture.”

“Homo sapiens sapiens has spread across the globe and increased vastly in numbers over the past 50,000 years or so—from an estimated five million in 9000 B.C. to roughly 6.5 billion today. More people means more opportunity for mutations to creep into the basic human genome and new research confirms that in the past 10,000 years a host of changes to everything from digestion to bones has been taking place.

“We found very many human genes undergoing selection,” says anthropologist Gregory Cochran of the University of Utah, a member of the team that analyzed the 3.9 million genes showing the most variation. “Most are very recent, so much so that the rate of human evolution over the past few thousand years is far greater than it has been over the past few million years.”

“We believe that this can be explained by an increase in the strength of selection as people became agriculturalists—a major ecological change—and a vast increase in the number of favorable mutations as agriculture led to increased population size,” he adds.”

TED Talk: Larry Lessig: How creativity is being strangled by the law

“Larry Lessig gets TEDsters to their feet, whooping and whistling, following this elegant presentation of “three stories and an argument.” The Net’s most adored lawyer brings together John Philip Sousa, celestial copyrights, and the “ASCAP cartel” to build a case for creative freedom. He pins down the key shortcomings of our dusty, pre-digital intellectual property laws, and reveals how bad laws beget bad code. Then, in an homage to cutting-edge artistry, he throws in some of the most hilarious remixes you’ve ever seen.”

A field study released Monday by the University of North Carolina School of Public Health suggests that Iraqi citizens experience sadness and a sense of loss when relatives, spouses, and even friends perish, emotions that have until recently been identified almost exclusively with Westerners.

The Onion: Study: Iraqis May Experience Sadness When Friends, Relatives Die