Intellectual Curiosities and Provocations

May 2006

William James and the Theory of Emotion

 
William James, deep in thought
 

According to William James, we don't smile because we feel happy or cry because we feel sad. The physical reaction happens first, the philosopher said, and it's more correct to say we feel happy because we smile, or we feel sad because we cry.

American,
Existential,
Love,
Nature,
Psychology

Consider this scenario: a 6-year-old kid named Ben invites a friend, Zack, over to play. They go up to Ben's room, where Ben has a big train set, and Zack grabs Ben's favorite train and looks at it, causing Ben to suddenly burst out in tears. His Mom comes rushing in, takes the train from Zack, and comforts Ben until he calms down.

Ben's reaction is so extreme that it worries his mother, and from that time on, whenever a new friend comes to visit she makes a point of whispering to them first, "Be careful not to touch his toys. It gets him upset." This seems to head off any future disasters, and the incident is gradually forgotten.

Simple story, simple resolution -- right? But now let's bring in a favorite philosopher, the distinguished William James, to analyze the situation. James, a highly original and important American thinker who happened to be the older brother of novelist Henry James, had a peculiar theory of emotion. According to James, we don't smile because we feel happy or cry because we feel sad. The physical reaction happens first, the philosopher said, and it's more correct to say we feel happy because we smile, or we feel sad because we cry.

This article is part of the William James series. The next post in the series is My So-Called Truth: William James and the Will to Believe.

Reviewing the Review: May 7 2006

History,
Politics
It's no big surprise when an error appears in the New York Times Book Review. But it is remarkable when a reviewer declares a book to be "riddled with errors" and the book turns out to be demonstrably correct, and especially so when the book is by 92-year-old Watergate whistle-blower Mark "Deep Throat" Felt and the reviewer is John Dean.

This article is part of the Reviewing the New York Times Book Review series. The next post in the series is Reviewing the Review: May 14 2006. The previous post in the series is Skipping the Review: April 30 2006.

Flash Mob Visits The Strand

Internet Culture,
New York City
Some people think the Strand on Broadway and 12th Street in New York City is the best used book store in the world. Some other people hate it. And then there's the occasional flash mob that converges to create a spontaneous Cell Phone Symphony by planting 60 highly synchronized phones in bag check (read about it, then check the video). Amusing and pointless, like so much that is good in life.

My Name Is Red by Orhan Pamuk

Fiction,
Postmodernism,
Religion,
Reviews,
Visual Art


My Name Is Red isn't Orhan Pamuk's most recent book, but it might be his best. This is a surprise because Snow was so good, but in fact the books make a great pair. One is as current as yesterday's newspaper and paints a frozen world of whites and grays, while the other takes place in 1591 and bursts with color and pure vision. Both books are classics, in my opinion, but My Name Is Red is the bigger book, and reaches for the grander statements.

The Long Boat

News,
Poetry,
Tributes
American poet Stanley Kunitz died on Sunday, May 14, at his home in New York City. The former United States Poet Laureate was 100 years old at the time of his death, but he had never slowed down his active literary life. He'd spent his final years delivering powerful poetry readings to wildly appreciative audiences.

Kunitz was born in Worcester, Massachusetts. He was known for a cool and unpretentious lyrical style with a soft-spoken speculative touch.

The Long Boat
by Stanley Kunitz

When his boat snapped loose

Neo-Human, All Too Neo-Human

Fiction,
French,
Postmodernism,
Transgressive
Michel Houellebecq's newest novel is about a future Earth ravaged by disasters and inhabited by two classes of humans: a small number of highly evolved and medically improved "neohumans", and a starving race of devolving savages who subsist in the uncivilized territories outside the settled zones. We are with the neohumans, who have discovered a remarkable way to become immortal: their bodies are genetically duplicated at the end of each generation, and their original memory systems are continually ported from each aging body into the body's younger equivalent.

Reviewing the Review: May 21 2006

News,
Publishing,
Tributes
The New York Times Book Review has clearly aimed to make a big statement with its Top 25 Books of the Last 25 Years list, which it leaked to the blogs ten days ago in preparation for its publication today. Like many, I find this list highly disappointing (and so does Joyce Carol Oates). I don't want to pound on a deceased ungulate mammal, so let me just say that if these were the best 25 books of the last 25 years I wouldn't be interested in enough in contemporary literature to be running this website right now.

This article is part of the Reviewing the New York Times Book Review series. The next post in the series is Ignoring the Review: May 28 2006. The previous post in the series is Reviewing the Review: May 14 2006.

Roll Over, Da Vinci

Film
Despite the fact that my mother is recovering from shoulder surgery, I dragged her with me on Saturday to watch the Ron Howard-directed film version of the Dan Brown schlockfest/international phenomenon known as The Da Vinci Code. Now, I've not been shy about expressing my opinion of Brown's novel (the short version being that I hated it a lot), so why would I go watch a movie based on it? Well, I was either expecting an afternoon of campy fun or I hate myself.

Interview with Steve Aylett

Being A Writer,
Fiction,
Interviews,
News,
Postmodernism


Postmodern novelist Steve Aylett was born in 1967 in the Bromley Borough of London, England. His first book, The Crime Studio, was published in 1994, and his later works include Bigot Hall, Slaughtermatic and his most recent tour de force, Lint. Aylett's work has been variously described as cyberpunk, slipstream, postmodern, bizarro, or, in the words of Grant Morrison: "The Matrix choreographed by Samuel Beckett for MTV."

Ignoring the Review: May 28 2006

Today's edition of the New York Times Book Review is a repulsive pretender, titled "The Food Issue" and devoted entirely -- yes, every single article -- to books about food. I spent about twelve seconds with the issue before concluding that I have no interest in reading any of it.

This article is part of the Reviewing the New York Times Book Review series. The next post in the series is Reviewing the Review: June 4 2006. The previous post in the series is Reviewing the Review: May 21 2006.

Delay For Rain

New York City,
News,
Personal,
Sports
I was planning on writing a brilliant article tonight, and I figured I'd have plenty of time to write it after taking my daughter to the Mets game against the Arizona Diamondbacks. Well, the game started a half hour late due to an earlier rainstorm, and then just after the Mets took a 4-1 lead in the second inning I felt a drop of water on my arm, looked up and saw what looked like an ocean-size bucket of rain aiming for all our heads.