• An article about the Primitive Technology videos on YouTube.
“For all the virtuosic craftsmanship on display in these YouTube videos, the real draw may be the absorbing peace of watching a man go about his work…The videos are virtually silent, for one thing—no talking, no explaining—so the only sound is ambient: the rustle of leaves being gathered; the muffled sound of a sharp stone biting into green wood; the occasional clear piping of bird song.”
• An article about creating imagery from sound vibrations.
“Every object has a characteristic frequency, or frequencies, at which it vibrates most, with the least input of energy. Those vibrations are associated with standing wave patterns called modes. When the Chladni plate, for instance, vibrates in one of its modes, a pattern appears in the sand on the plate.”
• An article about the psychology of time perception. (Prelude to a forthcoming book.)
“Time seems to flow in discrete units—it seems somehow independent and self-contained—not because we perceive units of empty time but because each of our acts of perception (or, more likely, our memories of those perceptions) is discrete. ‘Now’ arises again and again only because we say ‘now’ again and again. The present moment, [William] James contended, is ‘a synthetic datum,’ not experienced as much as manufactured. The present isn’t something we stumble through; it’s something we create for ourselves over and over, moment by moment.”
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