Tootfinder

"""
Writing has been an instrument for some of the highest expressions of the human spirit: poetry, philosophy, science. But to understand it — why it came into being, how it changed the human experience — we have to first appreciate its crass practicality. It evolved mainly as an instrument of the mundane: the economic, the administrative, the political.
Confusion over this point is understandable. Some scholars have equated the origin of “civilization” with the origin of writing. Laypeople sometimes take this equation to mean that with writing humanity put aside its barbarous past and started behaving in gentlemanly fashion, sipping tea and remembering to say “please.” And indeed, this may be only a mild caricature of what some nineteenth-century scholars actually meant by the equation: writing equals Greece equals Plato; illiteracy equals barbarism equals Attila the Hun.
But, in truth, if you add literacy to Attila the Hun, you don’t get Plato. You get Genghis Khan. During the thirteenth century, he administered what even today is the largest continuous land empire in the history of the world. And he could do so only because he had the requisite means of control: a script that, when carried by his pony express, amounted to the fastest large-scale information-processing technology of his era. One consequence was to give pillaging a scope beyond Attila’s wildest dreams. Information technology, like energy technology or any other technology, can be a tool for good or bad. By itself, it is no guarantor of moral progress or civility.
"""
(Robert Wright, Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny)

More music, more art, more poetry and prose, more gardens and parks, more solidarity.

🔊 #NowPlaying on #BBCRadio3:
#TheEssay
- Highland Tails
Kenneth Steven considers the introduction of wild animals back into the Highlands of Scotland and the impact on rural life, reflecting in poetry at the end of each essay.
Relisten now 👇
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001rr6g

"#Serendipity is generally defined as the accidental discovery of something valuable while searching for something else. It’s also a hotly contested component of the library research process: is it a failure of #library systems or facilitated by the physical design of libraries, the cat…

To The Edge – piano and poetry improvisations
#improvise #piano #poem

To The Edge - piano and poetry improvisations
Stan Stewart - @muz4now

This Queer Online Zine Can Only Be Read Via an Ancient Internet Protocol https://www.404media.co/queer-online-zine-new-session-telnet/

“Pity the nation whose people are sheep,
and whose shepherds mislead them.
Pity the nation whose leaders are liars, whose sages are silenced,
and whose bigots haunt the airwaves.
Pity the nation that raises not its voice,
except to...acclaim the bully as hero”
-- Lawrence Ferlinghetti, 1958
#poetry

Sam Rasnake (@samrasnake.bsky.social)
“Pity the nation whose people are sheep, and whose shepherds mislead them. Pity the nation whose leaders are liars, whose sages are silenced, and whose bigots haunt the airwaves. Pity the nation that raises not its voice, except to...acclaim the bully as hero” Lawrence Ferlinghetti, 1958 #poetry

To The Edge – piano and poetry improvisations that prompted and inspired each other
#PianoImprov #ImprovisedPoetry

To The Edge - piano and poetry improvisations
Stan Stewart - @muz4now

To The Edge – piano and poetry improvisations
#PianoImprov #ImprovPoetry

To The Edge - piano and poetry improvisations
Stan Stewart - @muz4now

🔊 #NowPlaying on #BBCRadio3:
#LateJunction
- Resonant voice, futuristic folk, and ancient poetry
Verity Sharp handpicks a selection of new releases, from Julia Sabra’s voice echoing within a vast concrete dome, to Monasunne’s haunting revival of Anglo-Saxon poetry.
Relisten now 👇
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002f7rx