the enchanter

Aesthetic impact in music depends on creating listener expectations then evocatively foiling them. So along comes atonality... Art of the Piano in Philosophy and Literature 27 (2003): 285-94. by Denis Dutton

Sigmund Freud’s triumph was an intellectual catastrophe. Wherever that bearded shadow fell, something rotten festered... on Killing Freud: 20th-century culture and the death of psychoanalysis by Todd Dufresne. Disastrous victory of a 20th-century shaman By Justin Wintle.
"Had Freud and his celebrated "talking cure" never happened, would BT still have come up with "It's Good to Talk"? Would the slogan have such ambiguous ring-tones? Post-Freud, the proposition is scarcely one that entices all subscribers. Good to chat, maybe; good to discuss and debate. But by its one-sided definition of "talk", psychoanalysis unsettles..."

"Arnold Schoenberg was a tragic figure in the history of music, both irrationalist and one who wanted to cast music in the image of science..." Plumbing the Brief, Brilliant Friendship of Arnold Schoenberg and Wassily Kandinsky
By ANDREW PATNER

Against Stalinists, Albert Camus admitted he might be wrong. But “better to be wrong by killing no one than to be right with mass graves”...

The French are too logical, too emotional, and too insecure to possess a complicated sense of humor. Of course, they do love Jerry Lewis... "Very droll."

Dictators, lawyers, and priests have long used obscure speech to maintain authority. Look now at university administration...

and some darned not-free ny times articles.. :( like "Reason and Faith, Eternally Bound By EDWARD ROTHSTEIN (NYT) 1290 words
Late Edition - Final , Section B , Page 7 , Column 1
ABSTRACT - Article explores ongoing battle between Reason and Faith; describes tenets of Oxford University evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in his book A Devil's Chaplain, philosopher Daniel C Dennett in New York Times Op-Ed article, Charles Freeman in his book The Closing of the Western Mind, Jennifer Michael Hecht in her book Doubt: A History, sociologist Alan Wolfe's book The Transformation of American Religion and philosopher Robert Fogelin's new book Walking the Tightrope of Reason: The Precarious Life of a Rational Animal; photo (M)".. "How is Reason feeling these days? Better than postmodernism, which is decidedly under the weather. As for religion, it just plods along..."