Get Smart

It’s sad, but apparently true. Humans seem to be getting dumber by the day. As if the overwhelming popularity of Jersey Shore weren’t proof enough of said phenomenon, anthropologists announced earlier this year that mankind’s melons have been continuously shrinking over the past 20,000 years. Yikes. One way to help...

By Benjamin Leatherman

September 15, 2011

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It’s sad, but apparently true. Humans seem to be getting dumber by the day. As if the overwhelming popularity of Jersey Shore weren’t proof enough of said phenomenon, anthropologists announced earlier this year that mankind’s melons have been continuously shrinking over the past 20,000 years. Yikes.

One way to help increase your brainpower (other than sucking down ginkgo biloba like mad) is to get yourself in the presence of either beauteous art or classical music on the double. Recent studies have revealed that both help increases blood flow to the brain, which is reason enough to attend the upcoming staging of Picture Rachmaninoff on Monday, September 19, at the Virginia G. Piper Theater, 7380 East Second Street in Scottsdale.

Penned by local pianist Stephen Cook and playwright Paul Harvey Jr., this multimedia production will feature the high culture from some of Russia’s greatest artists, including the composer Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Etudes-Tableaux, the poetry of Alexander Pushkin, and paintings by Wassily Kandinsky.

Mon., Sept. 19, 7:30 p.m., 2011

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Benjamin Leatherman is a staff writer for Phoenix New Times where he focuses primarily on arts, culture, music, and nightlife. He began writing for New Times in 2003 and joined the staff full-time in 2005. Prior to that, he contributed to magazines such as Tips & Tricks and The Wrestler. Benjamin has earned multiple awards from the Arizona Press Club including an award for sports enterprise reporting in 2009 and an award for statewide arts reporting in 2014. He holds a bachelor’s of arts in journalism from Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

Contact: Benjamin Leatherman

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