A theory of genius

Malcolm Gladwell is making podcasts. Revisionist Histories is thoughtful and, as ever, the Hallelujah episode covers many bases. It is built around the idea that there are 2 sorts of geniuses he calls Picassos and Cézannes. To illustrate he cites literature and cinema, but the middle section of the podcast is about Hallelujah for which Leonard Cohen wrote 60 verses in the search for perfection. From 18 min 30 sec, Gladwell tells us of the series of unlikely events which have led to this song becoming so popular (apart from it being near-perfect).

http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/07-hallelujah

You can be blind and still work as an astronomer

We all like TED talks, although there are so many these days it's hard to keep up. But the TED Radio Hour does a great job of distilling the best. Moreover, they edit the salient points and then weave them together with interviews with the talkers. There are many great ones. This one on the 5 senses is excellent for ToK in reminding us of the peculiarities of sense perception. It's worth listening to the whole episode which touches a lot of ToK bases but the first story of the blind astronomer is a great place to start.