Newsletter

10.26.2004

"Reciting the Iliad could have epic effects on your health. German physiologists have recently shown that such poetry can get your heart beating in time with your breaths. This synchronization may improve gas exchange in the lungs as well as the body's sensitivity and responsiveness to blood pressure changes." link

"The real thorns are the prickly students who expect an A. They are ambitious. Adversarial. Adamant. Anxious. All those begin with A so they must deserve reconsideration from the enemy. Me." link

"American high school students are no better prepared for college than they were 10 years ago, according to a new study by ACT, one of the two big organizations that offer college entrance tests." link

"Knowing what brand you are buying can influence your preferences by commandeering brain circuits involved with memory, decision making and self-image, researchers have found." link

"The Greek mathematician Archimedes used mirrors and the sun's rays to fight Roman sailors. On Magellan's journey, the crew ate rats and boiled leather. And Lewis Carroll used tangram puzzle pieces - five triangles, a square, and a rhomboid - to create characters.

"Welcome to science class, Joy Hakim style. In her new textbooks, Ms. Hakim uses history as a starting point to leap into scientific theory and practice. She hopes to convince young students that science is not just for scientists." link

"'Leonardo promises Heaven, but Raphael, he gives it to us.' When Picasso said this, Raphael still had god-like status: he was the epitome of the classical perfection to which academic tradition from Rubens to Velazquez, Delacroix to Renoir, had bowed for centuries." link

"Some 25,793 CDs were released last year - and there will be as many, if not more, this year. We made Alexis Petridis listen to every single one out this month. What did it tell him about the state of the music industry? And just who are Infected Mushroom?" link

"Reading or teaching all great books all of the time without occasional pause for lighter fare is not necessarily dangerous to your health. But such a practice might be akin to dining on steak au poivre with no appetizer, dessert, or piping hot espresso, preferably taken at an outdoor café. The digestion suffers. One of my graduate school professors, who has spent much of his adult life comparing the variant texts of Hamlet, confessed one evening in a seminar to his guilty pleasure of stooping to Anthony Trollope for bedtime reading. His example, I think, is well taken. An earlier sage, Samuel Johnson, wisely advised, 'A man ought to read just as inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little good.'" link