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Need a little last-minute gift to fill out your Christmas presents?
Consider a new book.
People from all walks of life are fascinated by bells, and Jaan Whitehead’s “The Bells: Music, Art, Culture, and Politics from Around the World” examines them from many angles.
This lovely hardcover begins with the author’s great-grandmother, Nannie Spelman Melville, who embarked on a solo three-year round-the-world voyage in 1924.
Melville picked up the handbell along the way. These were passed down to the granddaughter and then to the author.
Owning these clocks brings the author into the world of clock collecting. This in turn was combined with her education in politics, economics, art and culture. Whitehead began looking around for the bells and their stories, which became the book.
After introducing the family stories, the first part includes articles about the history and culture of the chime and the music of the chime.
The rest of the book tells the story of the bells in the following geographic regions: Asia and Africa, Great Britain, Europe and Russia, and the Americas.
Some of these bells are well known: Big Ben and Liberty Bell. Others have deep religious significance. One even lives in space.
Everyone’s story is told with words and photos. Even the music of “Westminster Dorms,” ​​the familiar chime of Big Ben on many clocks, is featured in the book.
This is a beautiful book that brings together the significance of bells in human history.
A Glimpse in African American Religion
For those interested in African American religion, a small photo collection has been released.
“Double Exposure: Action, Action, Moment” is filled with photographs from the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
It begins with two short essays, and then has many photographs of African-American practice.
Some are to be expected: including photos from the funerals of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jesse Jackson and Malcolm X. Harriet Tubman. Include photos of other leaders.
Other photographs are scenes from everyday spiritual life across the country. Not all are Christians. Some are Muslim, spiritualist and other movements.
The photographs stretch from the beginnings of photography itself through the early 2000s. Most are black and white with some modern color prints.
What does the artificial intelligence have to say?
A book for the geek in your life or those who like to explore the depths of thought is “What Makes Us Human?”
It was written by poet Iain S. Thomas, philosopher and researcher Jasmine Wang, and GPT-3, an artificial intelligence developed by Open AI.
GPT-3 ingested 570 GB of writings, including the Bible, Qur’an, Tao Te Ching, Egyptian Book of the Dead, Rumi’s poetry, Leonard Cohen’s lyrics, and more. Then I was asked some basic questions, including “What is love?” “What is real power?” What do I do when people are unkind to me? ’ and ‘Where should I focus my attention? “
GPT-3 was then asked about 200 human late-night philosophical questions.
Suffering, how we should live, what is childhood, our concerns in many areas of life, heritage, prayer, death, life, etc. will be asked and answered.
This book is riveting and creepy. The machine answers these questions, albeit based on human writing, but what happens when the machine is given a different set of data?
another book about problems
Danish author Svend Brinkman wrote My Year with God, his diary for a year.
Each month, Brinkman focuses on a different problem and solves it.
January is “Why Write a Book About God?”
April asks, “Does faith work?” and August, “Can there be more than one god?”
A big question for November is “Where’s the doubt?”
December See what Brinkmans learned in 12 months.
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