Fandoms, Question, Superhero, Cancer, Bread
Artists and Fandoms
Philosophy Tube | YouTube | 18th March 2020
What is art? What are fandoms? What obligations do artists have to their fans? A blend of burlesque costume design, classical philosophy, dark humor and personal confessional, pulling from Nietzsche's theory of Apollo and Dionysus, David Mamet's artistic nihilism, Plato's Republic, and Star Wars: The Last Jedi (45m8s)
How Bernie Sanders Answers A Question
Nerdwriter | YouTube | 28th February 2020
"While it might seem like he's yelling all the time, Bernie does modulate a lot, and if you pick out the moments when his pitch or his volume ramps up, you can see a sketch of what he wants the listener to take away." Compare and contrast with the same channel's 2016 analysis of Donald Trump's linguistic idiosyncracies (9m13s)
How a Superhero Theme Works
Sideways | YouTube | 10th March 2020
Most film composers automatically write for brass when they want to sound heroic – but what are some more interesting ways to musically represent a superhero? John Williams wrote Superman's theme as a Copland-esque march to embody "truth, justice, and the American way." Batman's theme "sounds like someone took a march and threw it in a blender." A detailed analysis of culture and leitmotif (23m50s)
Why Blue Whales Don't Get Cancer
Kurzgesagt | YouTube | 1st March 2020
Peto's Paradox: Very large animals, such as blue whales and elephants, seem to be immune to cancer, even though the science suggests that greater size correlates with greater chance of getting the disease. There are several proposed solutions to this problem; one theory is that big animals develop tumors on top of their tumors ("hypertumors"), which results in a war of cancers that keeps each at bay (8m5s)
Funny Video of the Week
Conan O'Brien interviews a bread expert
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