‘KANYE WEST WAS A NEUROSCIENTIST’
6 p.m., Sturgis Hall, Clinton School of Public Service. Free.
Pop culture mixed with intellectualism likely beyond my grasp?
Clinton School, you know the way to my heart. On Tuesday, Jonah Lehrer,
a 26-year-old Rhodes Scholar and at-large editor for frequently awesome
Seed magazine, comes to the Clinton School to talk about the premise of
his book, “Proust Was a Neuroscientist.” At the heart of his argument:
the idea that art often presages scientific discovery. Proust and his
madeleines revealed the inaccuracy of memory. Post-impressionist
painter Paul Cezanne demonstrated that the brain fills in what a
painting doesn’t show. West is someone Lehrer has been mentioning
recently in interviews, suggesting that maybe his next book will share
the name of this lecture. Lehrer says West makes “use of the same
musical principles as Beethoven, the same idea of building toward a
pattern but then denying the listener that pattern by injecting
randomness, because that unexpectedness is what your auditory cortex
really craves.” I’m so there.