Posts by: njanes

Rx Books

In the past year, Great Britain’s National Health Service has launched a new “Books on Prescription” program for people suffering from anxiety, depression, and other behavioral health problems. As an alternative to traditional pharmaco- or psycho- therapy, doctors are now recommending self-help books to patients to equip them with the skills to lift themselves out […]

Classical Self-Help

Please read Rod Dreher’s piece, How Dante Saved My Life, for the March/April 2014 issue of The American Conservative. It is a beautiful reminder that the works on a canonical reading list are not only politically and philosophically applicable, but are often also spiritually and personally invaluable. 

When Humanities and Natural Sciences Meet… In Outer Space

  What do black holes, the mysterious cosmological matter-sucking bodies at the centers of galaxies, have in common with yin and yang, the ancient Chinese philosophical concept? Check out this vid.  

Noise vs. Sound

Silence is hot right now. On the market, it takes the form of headphones, train compartments, dishwashers, vaccum cleaners, and a whole lot of other products that have taken the absence of sound and packaged it up for capitalistic consumption. Not to say that there is necessarily anything wrong with this–but how does it reflect […]

Ascending to the Heavens in a Claustrophobic Box

Apparently, elevators have been much more essential to the development of our modern nation’s urban layout and cultural life than we ever thought to give them credit for. As the elevator enthusiasts of academia maintain, the invention of the elevator paved the way for a new, innovative high-rise style of architecture. Not only this, but elevators have […]

Dante For Kids

Recently, someone had the idea that if Dante’s description of an eternal blazing netherworld were reprinted in comic sans, alongside understandably disturbing yet cartoonish illustrations, it might be more accessible to children. Consequently, a series of picture books based on Dante’s Divine Comedy, titled “Dante for Fun”, was published. Originally in Italian, the books simplify each of […]

I Bet You Thought Neil DeGrasse Tyson Was the World’s Richest Astrophysicist

I like my progressive/arena/opera rock the way I like my education: Far-reaching in the realms of content and style, influenced by timeless masters of the past, and damn groovy. I write of the latter in reference to an integral part of the CC105 curriculum; that is, learning to bump to Professor Alan Marscher’s sweet, sweet […]