Hello friends,

A few new links today. All evolving around the themes of exploration, creativity, vitality and resilience.

• I have been listening to the Song Explorer podcast for a while, but had no idea that there is Netflix show now based on the podcast: “Song Explorer: how music gets made”. Same idea. Deconstructing songs, looking for their roots and elements to reveal how they came to be. It is deeply satisfying to to see the creative process at work. THe Netflix version is even better than the podcast. Highly recommended. I just watched the episodes with Lin-Manuel Miranda discussing “Wait for It”; Alicia Keys and “3 hour drive”; and R.E.M “Loosing my religion”. And who knew that the phrase “losing my religion” comes from the South and means “losing one’s temper or civility” or “feeling frustrated and desperate”?

Song Exploder is a podcast where musicians take apart their songs, and piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made. Each episode is produced and edited by host and creator Hrishikesh Hirway in Los Angeles. Using the isolated, individual tracks from a recording, Hrishikesh asks artists to delve into the specific decisions that went into creating their work.

• The author, Eula Bliss, whom you may know from her from her book on immunity (so relevant today, so if you have not read it, highly recommended) was recently a guest at Narrative Medicine Rounds at Columbia University. Here is the link to the youtube video. She has a new book out on capitalism: “Having and Being Had.”

• A friendship in tow. Two strangers forge a surprising connection as they climb a steep Lisbon street. Humorous and moving!

• The way geography of a country determines its climate or resources, our brains seem to be also organized around two axes. THis new insight may help understand the function of specific brain regions and its impact on brain disorders.

One axis stretches from the posterior (back) to the frontal part of the cortex. This reflects a functional hierarchy from basic capabilities such as vision and movement to abstract, highly complex skills such as cognition, memory, and social skills. A second axis leads from the dorsal (upper) to the ventral (lower) part of the cortex. Whereas the ventral system has been associated with functions assigning meaning and motivation, the dorsal system may relate to space, time, and movement.

Evolutionary and heritable axes shape our brain

• How Andrew Wyeth made his best known painting, “Christina’s World”? This short movie takes the “Songexplorer’s” approach to the painting.

Until the next time.