First up was Anna Celenza, Professor of Music at Georgetown University. Her presentation focused on "the American sound," a concept which arose in the years following WWI. She told its story by highlighting George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue and Duke Ellington's Symphony in Black, and closed with one of the most spectacular pieces of American music I had never heard.
Takeaway 1: Download Ellington's 1964 version of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. Put your headphones on. Turn it up (a little).
We're all so used to Leonard Bernstein's fantastic version (thanks to United Airlines) that Ellington's piece has been lost in the historical shuffle. It didn't help that he recorded this as part of a big band retrospective--smack in the middle of the rock revolution. But consider: A working class Jewish American, son of a leather cutter from Russia, whose career spanned Brooklyn to Paris to Hollywood, has his masterpiece interpreted by another musical genius, a middle class African American from Washington, D.C. whose mother was the daughter of a slave. One was versed in the klezmer clarinet and the other in the stride piano of James P. Johnson.
What could be more American in birth and sound?
Prof. Celenza closed her lecture by playing the piece for us. After it ended, my friend Jerry leaned over and said, "I never really got Ellington before." That's exactly how I felt, right to that moment. Here is Ellington's 1964 Rhapsody in Blue:
Next up was a legend, one of three University Professors at Tufts, Sol Gittleman. Professor Gittleman treated us to the entire history of Judaism, Christianity and Islam in an hour. Actually, it was about an hour and ten, and we would still be sitting there happily listening to his funny, smart, rapid-fire presentation if the day's schedule and lunch break hadn't interfered.
Takeaway #2: "Make your money any way you want, but if you don't have an historical context, you're lost."
Prof. Gittleman not only told fascinating stories, but made clear how events in the ancient world continue to resonate today--often in catastrophic ways. The lecture was a real treat. My sister, who graduated from Tufts in 1979, said that Prof. Gittleman (who arrived at the University in 1964) was already legendary then. (There's some good and related reading here.)
Our first lecture after lunch was by Laurie Santos, professor of psychology at Yale University. She discussed why rational people make irrational decisions, sometimes inferior even to our monkey brethren.
I'm pretty sure if psychologists and social scientists had only wine drinkers to study, they would still be set with enough material to fully understand the human condition.
To wit, here's a study Prof. Santos featured: The exact same wine was placed in four bottles, but priced at $5.00, $10.00, $45.00 and $90.00 respectively. While you yourself would never fall for this old ruse, other wine drinkers enjoyed the $5.00 bottle least, the $10.00 bottle a little more--and the $90.00 bottle the most. Same wine. (This is even without the conventional label tricks.)
So that tells us what we know deep down inside: the wine consumer lives in a house of cards. But, and here's Takeaway #3: When scientists studied the brain receptors of their wine drinkers, they discovered that those believing they were drinking superior $90 per bottle wine actually enjoyed it more. In other words, their "pleasure" brain receptors lit up; they had convinced themselves that the wine really was better. So, wine drinkers are surely tricked, but just as surely it doesn't matter: they win anyway.
It's a scientific reason to just keep buying and drinking the expensive stuff. And to lie to your guests about what you're really serving them.
How the monkeys fit into all this--well, you'll need to read some of the other things Professor Santos has written. As for me, I can never resist a cheap bottle of wine with a monkeys on the label.
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| When I tell you how much I paid, this wine will be the best you have ever had. Trust me. |
Prof. Deshowitz engaged the audience in a kind of Socratic conversation, his rule being that if you asked him a question, he got to ask you a question. (That kept some of the hands down.) Should, he asked, Palestinian songs advocating the stabbing of Jews be protected under a Constitutional right of free speech? The audience wasn't sure and gave mixed answers.
Dershowitz reminded us that in 1977 he had supported the right of Nazis to parade through Skokie, Illinois, the home of many Holocaust survivors. (His mother was not pleased, he recalled.) It was a fascinating discussion around a topic that Dershowitz emphasized was messy and had no perfect answer.
With that in mind, I will leave you with Takeaway #4, one of the lighter Constitutional thoughts the Professor had--perhaps from Woody Allen: "Someday I hope to pass by a fire and be able yell, 'Theater, Theater!'"
from The Occasional CEO http://ift.tt/1PURWuR 4 Takeaways from One Day University - Entrepteneur Generations
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