Love

From an essay by AS Byatt: As I grow older, the fact of the existence of the world's huge compendium of changing and unchangeable tales seems to me more, not less, mysterious. How can they so steadily resemble each other, wherever they come from? How can they be so abstract and so concrete?
tags: marriage, love, relationships, sex, commitment, Chris Brickler, How Will We Love?, Chris Brickler, streaming video Chris Brickler made a documentary about love and marriage. In this video, How Will We Love?, he starts by interviewing his grandparents who have been married for 68 years and builds on that interview and finds that more than 50% of marriages end in divorce even though many of us still cling to the hope of a happily-ever-after, life-long romance. Brickler also interviews experts in the field of marriage, relationships, sexuality, and communication, as well as sharing…
Check out this clever riff on vintage science books by Nate Wragg, one of a group of Pixar illustrators who teamed up to create the forthcoming Ancient Book of Sex and Science. Wragg says, A favorite series of mine is "The How and Why Wonder Books." These were informational books that would focus on a certain subject or form of science per book. As I looked over the entire series, I thought to myself, "There is no sex and science issue." This gave me the perfect excuse to create my own volume for the series. The end result is the long lost "Sex and Science" edition that was never published.…
As a fan of maps, typography, and anatomy, I think this is a pretty sweet mashup. From orkposters.com via Street Anatomy.
While I was out of town this weekend, one of my friends lost her dog. As I read over the many caring comments on her Facebook page, it struck me how difficult it is to express condolences - especially on the loss of a pet. Like many others, I ended up simply saying "I'm sorry." The significance of the relationship between pet and person is often minimized, even though we know that the unconditional love supplied by a pet can do astonishing things for human mental and physical health. Personally, I don't believe animals have souls, but neither do I believe they are soulless automatons. Cats…
In the June Atlantic Monthly, Joshua Wolf Shenk has a long, moving article about what may be the longitudinal study of all longitudinal studies - the Harvard Study of Adult Development (Grant Study), begun in 1937. Its creator Arlie Beck planned to track 268 "healthy, well-adjusted" men from their sophomore year at Harvard through careers, marriage, families, retirement and eventually death - and somehow, from this glut of longitudinal data, to glean the secrets of "successful living." But the portrait Shenk paints is as full of pathos as it is of success. Delving into the case files, now…
Fixed Heart offal with mixed metal components Lisa Black, 2008 I blogged about New Zealand artist Lisa Black before, but I can't get over this great piece of hers. What does it signify? Does it represent the gradual replacement of the natural world around us with technology, to the point where our own bodies become artificial? Is it critiquing the reductionist tendencies of neurobiologists who believe our deepest emotions are complex but purely chemical reactions? Is it a steampunk Valentine? I don't know, and I don't really care - it's just cool. Check out more from Black here.
This revealing anatomical card by Oregon designer Nathan Chrislip can be had for only $9 plus shipping on etsy. (Chrislip calls it a "valentine," but unless your beloved is also an avowed anatomophile, be sure to enclose a message making your nonviolent romantic intent clear.) Via Rag and Bone Blog
I look back over my life. I try to find analogies. There are none. I have longed for people before, I have loved people before. Not like this. It was not this. Give me a world, you have taken the world I was. --from "Tag" by Anne Carson read the whole poem at the New Yorker
These Periodic Table of Sentiments cards by Pink Loves Brown are the atom bomb. Happy Birthday is represented by element Hb, etc. So clever! But why isn't there a Valentine's Day card suitable for telling that special geek about your deep chemical attraction? What could say "love" better than element Vd?? Believe it or not, I had to write out Vd before I saw the obvious problem. What a catastrophic holiday FAIL that would be. . . I shudder at the thought.
Definitely bio. Definitely ephemera. Definitely NSFW...
Larry Young has written a rather ambitious essay for Nature that skims over the prairie vole/AVPR1A research, breasts as erotic objects, and evidence of dopamine-based mother love on its way to a "view of love as an emergent property of a cocktail of ancient neuropeptides and neurotransmitters." Young then asks whether "recent advances in the biology of pair bonding mean it won't be long before an unscrupulous suitor could slip a pharmaceutical 'love potion' in our drink." Unlikely? Maybe - but his point that antidepressants like Prozac influence the same neurotransmitters implicated in love…
"I Want You To Want Me" Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art for their "Design and the Elastic Mind" exhibition Mining data from online dating profiles, Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar have created a romantic, bittersweet peek into the human psyche. This video tour of the "I Want You to Want Me" installation ends on an up note - apparently "intelligence" is the top turn-on for online daters! Still, the sight of all those balloons bumping randomly past each other in the sky serves as a reminder that finding love anywhere, online or in meatspace, is a total…
tags: A Computer Love Story, streaming video Here's a silly video about electronic love that you will probably enjoy. Includes some cute music by Burt Bacharach and Randy Newman. [4:12]