Church Banning Music: This is Your Brain On Music

This Is Your Brain on Music
Author: Daniel Levitin

This Is Your Brain On Music looks at the psychology of music. The book talks a lot about our relationship between music, our brain, and the social constructs that influence our interpretation. An interesting passage points to the absurdity of medieval church and the power of music on emotion.

The Catholic Church banned music that contained polyphony (more than one musical part playing at a time), fearing that it would cause people to doubt the unity of God. The church also banned the musical interval of an augmented fourth, the distance between C and F-sharp and also known as a tritone (the interval in Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story when Tony sings the name “Maria”). This interval was considered so dissonant that it must have been the work of Lucifer, and so the church named it Diabolus in musica. It was pitch that had the medieval church in an uproar.

Science and spirit: Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers

Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers
Author: Robert Sapolsky

Though I do not fall in the religious camps, I can understand the complexities between modern day science and spiritual beliefs. This extends not only to religion, but also to arts, nature and other things that we feel an "intangible" and "higher" process or feeling.

I love science, and it pains me to think that so many are terrified of the subject or feel that choosing science means you cannot also choose compassion, or the arts, or be awed by nature. Science is not meant to cure us of mystery, but to reinvent and reinvigorate it. 

Joy of understanding, not facts: What Einstein Told His Barber

What Einstein Told His Barber
Author: Robert Wolke

Although What Einstein Told His Barber is full of fun facts and interesting science, one of the most interesting passages is found in the beginning of the book. The passage helps explain the format of the book and perhaps warns the reader that the content isn't merely a list of facts, rather it is full of detailed explanations.

This is not a book of facts. You will not find answers here to questions such as “Who discovered …?” “What is the biggest …?” “How many …are there?” or “What is a …?” Those aren't the kinds of things that real people wonder about. Collections of answers to such contrived questions may help you win a trivia contest, but they are not satisfying; they don't contribute to the joy of understanding. The joy and the fun come not from mere statements of fact but from explanations— explanations in plain, everyday language that make you say, “Wow! Is that all there is to it?”

Contrived Economy: Capitalism and Slavery

Capitalism and Slavery
Author: Eric Williams

It's interesting to look back in history and pinpoint policies, contrived or real, that influenced behavior that remains today. As someone who has lived in the West Indies for two years, I can tell you the importance of salted cod (or salt fish) in West Indian cuisine, especially Jamaican cuisine. It seems a bit odd that a fish from hundreds of miles away would be popular in an island country located in the marine rich Caribbean  And turns out, it doesn't make logical sense, but it makes (or made) economic sense.

The peculiar economy developed in the West Indies concentrated on export crops while food was imported. Most important of all the food supplies was fish, an article dear to the heart of every mercantilist, because it provided employment for ships and training for seamen. Laws were passed in England to encourage the consumption of fish. Friday and Saturday were set apart as fish days. Fish was an important item of the diet of the slaves on the plantations, and the English herring trade found its chief market in the sugar plantations. The Newfoundland fishery depended to a considerable extent on the annual export of dried fish to the West Indies, the refuse or "poor John" fish, "fit for no other consumption." A West Indian tradition was thereby fostered. Imported salted cod is still today a normal and favorite dish in all but the well-to-do West Indian families; whether it is still "fit for no other consumption" is not known.

Development Complexity: Mountains Beyond Mountains

Mountains Beyond Mountains
Author: Tracy Kidder

In one of my favorite books, Mountains Beyond Mountains, Dr. Paul Farmer poses a fiery response to the question of development in rural areas of Haiti. In the world of international development, everyone wants to make sure their investment for boreholes, livelihood projects and other aid are good investments. However, this is easy for educated western people to think, when in truth, we must also take the reality of local people into consideration.

There’s also a sociopolitical lesson to draw, of course: “Look at Alcante’s family. It’s intact, the kids are bright and clever, and the father can’t walk. And they just can’t make it. It’s fucking unfair. The woman who said to me years ago, Are you incapable of complexity? That was an epiphany for me. Are you going to punish people for thinking TB comes from sorcery? It’s like the guy on our own team, a nice guy, who said he would help with a water project in a town here, but only if the people really showed they wanted it. What if that standard had been applied to me when I was a kid, before I knew that water could carry organisms that made people sick?”