Philosophy, art, and movies, with only the slightest swipe at You Know Who

It’s quiet out there. Too quiet.

It being the off season, I once again want to direct your attention to PhilosophyBites (which is not a noun and a verb). You’ve certainly got the time for it now. Their podcasts have to be the best examination of philosophy out there for the general audience (i.e., us). I was just updating myself on “Cogito” yesterday (I like calling it Cogito, like a real expert; it’s “Cogito ergo sum” to the rest of you pikers). One learns where Descartes was coming from (I know, you think he was coming from the place where they keep Descartes before de horse, but that’s not what I meant) and see the connection to the old mind-body conundrum. All in a fifteen minute interview. Not bad. Not bad at all. You can do a lot worse trying to fill up your vacation hours.

Over the weekend I ordered up a bunch of art theory books, having been inspired by the collection at the Clark museum in Williamstown. They have a Whistler-themed special exhibition that I wanted to see, so we moseyed up there last weekend and quite enjoyed it. Their main collection is also not unimpressive; it’s one of those private collections gone public, like the Frick (except, of course, nothing is quite like the Frick, which has to be the best of this breed). Anyhow, I look forward to attacking these books and then misinterpreting them here for the VCA. At the moment I’m reading about 20th Century World’s Fairs, or more specifically looking at pictures of them in a new photo book I just got on the subject (which is one of my favorites). I like not even having to pretend to do serious reading, which is what summer is all about. For me, beach reading is anything that isn’t French.

Oh, yeah. Loved Wall-E. What’s not to love? Summer is also the time for me to go to the movies, since debate season leaves virtually no time for such frivolities. Unfortunately there aren’t that many movies around that seem worth getting up out of the home theater to bother seeing on the big screen. Wall-E qualified, though. With luck, so will the new Batman. And a couple of others I can’t remember offhand. (On the little screen I did just watch Jet Li in Fearless, which was quite entertaining. Haven’t watched much else, though, that I can remember. Again, there’s other things to be doing.)

If you’ve read this far, you know I have nothing to say. But if you read, ahem, other blogs, you know I’m not the only one in that predicament. On the positive side, the Feed remains new and active and full of good material. When we start zeroing in on topics, it will get that much more specific, but in the meantime, it’ll keep you smarter than most other things you’re doing.