Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and its Quarrels with Science by Paul R. Gross, Norman Levitt, and: The Flight from Science and Reason ed. by Paul R. Gross, Norman Levitt, Martin W. Wise (review)

Reviews 67 years, a shot of Heaven Hill Bourbon and a beer chaser every 45 minutes) until August 1970, when, diagnosed with liver disease, he “did not turn to Alcoholics Anonymous or psychotherapy ; he just quit.” The title refers to certain moments at the Lion’s Head when it became so crowded that drinkers had to squeeze in beside him to get to the bar. That is when he would cry out: “Don’t touch the poet, don’t touch the poet.” This candid, kind and sad account— written by a psychotherapist who knew Oppenheimer—is enriched throughout by photographs, commentary from friends and relatives and dozens of examples of his poetry. (Reprinted by permission from Ballast Quarterly Review, Vol. 13, No. 3, Spring 1998.) KNOWLEDGE OF HIGHER WORLDS: RUDOLF STEINER’S BLACKBOARD DRAWINGS edited by Lawrence Rinder. University of California at Berkeley Art Museum, Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, CA, U.S.A. Distributed by University of Washington Press, Seattle, WA, U.S.A., 1998. 134 pp. $19.95. ISBN: 0-29597684 -5. Reviewed by Roy R. Behrens, 2022 X Avenue , Dysart, IA 52224-9767, U.S.A. Email : . Artists who know about Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925), the Austrian-born mystic, are likely to have heard of him in connection with the painters Wassily Kandinsky and Piet Mondrian, both of whom were drawn to the theosophy of Madame Helena Blavatsky, as well as Steiner’s anthroposophical views on the spiritual in art. In the final 25 years of his life, Steiner traveled throughout Europe and delivered more than 5,000 lectures . He illustrated his talks with drawings made with colored chalk on a blackboard, which he erased at the end of each lecture. Beginning in 1919, one of his associates began covering the blackboard with large sheets of black paper in order to preserve Steiner’s lectures . No one thought of these as art during Steiner’s lifetime, but the boundaries have moved, and this book is the catalog for an exhibition of 40 of his curious diagrams, made in connection with lectures he gave from 1919 through 1924. The exhibition will travel in the fall of 1998 to the Slusser Gallery at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor . For related information, see Mike King’s article, “Concerning the Spiritual in Twentieth-Century Art and Science” in Leonardo 31, No. 1, pp. 21–31 (1998). (Reprinted by permission from Ballast Quarterly Review, Vol. 13, No. 3, Spring 1998.) RUDOLF ARNHEIM: REVEALING VISION edited by Kent Kleinman and Leslie Van Duzer. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, MI, U.S.A., 1997. 128 pp. $34.95. ISBN: 0-472-10859-X. Reviewed by Roy R. Behrens, 2022 X Avenue , Dysart, IA 52224-9767, U.S.A. Email : . Arnheim, professor emeritus of the psychology of art at Harvard University, is famous for his writings on the application of Gestalt perceptual psychology to film, art and architecture. The author of 13 books (most recently Film Essays and Criticism), the 94-year-old psychologist and art theorist is still actively writing. This engaging, attractive anthology of essays, exchanges and short tributes is not by him, but about his work. Of particular interest are his dialogues (conversations, not interviews) with the late Paul Rand and architectural historian Vincent Scully, and a brief, admiring note from Gyorgy Kepes. Among other familiar contributors are James Ackerman, Dore Ashton, Sir E.H. Gombrich, and William T. Mitchell. For related information, see an Arnheim bibliography and the articles “Rudolf Arnheim: The Little Owl on the Shoulder of Athene” and “Art, Design and Gestalt Theory” on the Leonardo website, . (Reprinted by permission from Ballast Quarterly Review, Vol. 13, No. 3, Spring 1998.) A DAY WITH PICASSO: TWENTY-FOUR PHOTOGRAPHS by Billy Kluver (Jean Cocteau, photography ). MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, U.S.A., 1997. 136 pp. $25.00. ISBN: 0262 -11228-0. Reviewed by Roy R. Behrens, 2022 X Avenue , Dysart, IA 52224-9767, U.S.A. Email : . Billy Kluver (b. 1927) is both a scientist with a Ph.D. in electrical engineering and an experimental artist. A founder of EAT (Experiments in Art and Technology ), he collaborated with Julie Martin in recent years on two books about Kiki (Kiki...