Friday Odds & Sods is Ridin' With the King

I only had the pleasure of seeing B.B. King perform once, at a concert near Asheville.  It must have been around the summer of 2010 or so, right after I had graduated from college. At the time my vantage point and now my memory prevent the relating of too many distinct observations from that evening.  One thing that does stand out in my mind even today is this: Here was a man who both had the fortune to do what he loved near every day and also have his art be recognized as touched by genius.  I can think of no better life to lead, and certainly if there was a man who deserved it be B.B. King.

• Sometimes it may seem as though the activities of the Thiels, DeGrasse Tysons, and other of our public intellectuals are just as concerned with policing and disparaging the Humanities as they are with the promotion of the Sciences.  In particular, philosophy has been dismissed as pie-in-the-sky speculation with no relevance to the thinking person today.  A nice rebuttal to this point of view from the pages of Scientific American.
• Two quick articles on the hilarious and heartbreaking human obsession with real estate: Fixing the Lewis Carroll-esque India-Bangaledesh border and the honest if horrible thoughts of a Brooklyn real estate agent.  
• While oftentimes the internet is simply grand experiment in inculcating solipsism on a generational scale, this website from the BBC offers a useful corrective, showing exactly how much the world has gone about its business during your life without any influence from you at all.
• The King is dead.  Long live the King.