unsorted ephemera bits held onto for some reason or another – might be waiting for a category or tags or just be hanging out waiting for a click or a reason to happen
Orson Welles’ Last Interview and Final Moments Captured on Film
The clip brings you back to the final interview and moments of the great filmmaker Orson Welles. On October 10, 1985, Welles appeared on The Merv Griffin Show. He had just turned 70 and, rather ominously, the conversation brought Welles to take stock of his life.
Upon his death in 1955, Albert Einstein’s brain was removed, fixed and photographed from multiple angles. It was then sectioned into 240 blocks, and histological slides were prepared. At the time, a roadmap was drawn that illustrates the location within the brain of each block and its associated slides. Here we describe the external gross neuroanatomy of Einstein’s entire cerebral cortex from 14 recently discovered photographs, most of which were taken from unconventional angles. Two of the photographs reveal sulcal patterns of the medial surfaces of the hemispheres, and another shows the neuroanatomy of the right (exposed) insula. Most of Einstein’s sulci are identified, and sulcal patterns in various parts of the brain are compared with those of 85 human brains that have been described in the literature. To the extent currently possible, unusual features of Einstein’s brain are tentatively interpreted in light of what is known about the evolution of higher cognitive processes in humans. As an aid to future investigators, these (and other) features are correlated with blocks on the roadmap (and therefore histological slides). Einstein’s brain has an extraordinary prefrontal cortex, which may have contributed to the neurological substrates for some of his remarkable cognitive abilities. The primary somatosensory and motor cortices near the regions that typically represent face and tongue are greatly expanded in the left hemisphere. Einstein’s parietal lobes are also unusual and may have provided some of the neurological underpinnings for his visuospatial and mathematical skills, as others have hypothesized. Einstein’s brain has typical frontal and occipital shape asymmetries (petalias) and grossly asymmetrical inferior and superior parietal lobules. Contrary to the literature, Einstein’s brain is not spherical, does not lack parietal opercula and has non-confluent Sylvian and inferior postcentral sulci.
Listen to 21-Year-Old David Letterman’s College Radio Show (1969) (via Open Culture)
Over thirty years at the desk of his very own late-night talk show, multiple generations of fans, the respect of comedians the world over: David Letterman has had, by any measure, an awfully good run.
As with many illustrious careers, Letterman’s humble early shot followed even humbler, earlier shots. Just above, you can hear the 21-year-old “Dave Letterman”’s broadcast from April Fool’s Day 1969 on WAGO-AM, the closed-circuit radio station he helped to found at his future alma mater, Ball State University. Though only a five-minute clip, this recording showcases not just Letterman’s preternatual microphone presence, but his way with the near-psychedelic walls of sound effects, seemingly free-associative speech, and pure wackiness that so came into its own in the late sixties and early seventies. (The Firesign Theater would soon perfect it.) Letterman followers who must know everything — and they certainly exist — should note that, when he calls a delirious-sounding woman in this segment, he calls none other than Michelle Cook, the very first Mrs. Letterman. Though we have yet to learn the identity of Letterman’s Late Show replacement, I feel certain, after this listening experience, that the Letterman of twenty years from now will rise from the ranks of podcasting. Listen out for him; he may not drop colorful phrases just like “horse dentures falling into a rusted howitzer artillery shell,” but you’ll know him when you hear him. Or her.
Audrey Hepburn’s Screen Test for Roman Holiday (1953) (via Open Culture)
In his biography of Ms. Hepburn, the author Barry Paris writes:
Her Roman Holiday test took place at Pinewood Studio in London, September 18, 1951, under [Thorold] Dickinson’s direction. “We did some scenes out of the script,” he said, but “Paramount also wanted to see what Audrey was actually like not acting a part, so I did an interview with her. We loaded a thousand feet of film into a camera and every foot of it went on this conversation. She talked about her experiences in the war, the Allied raid on Arnhem, and hiding out in a cellar. A deeply moving thing.”
Later, so the story goes, the director William Wyler watched the footage (shown above) in Rome and found it irresistible. He claimed: “She had everything I was looking for: charm, innocence and talent. She also was very funny. She was absolutely enchanting, and we said, ‘That’s the girl!'”
Elia Kazan’s Private Letters: Sleeping With Marilyn, Chastising Beatty and Discovering Newman
An excerpt from a new book of the director’s correspondence reveals his infidelities, fights with censors and true feelings about Brando, Dean and other stars.
Director Elia Kazan remains one of Hollywood’s most polarizing figures. He directed such classics as A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), On the Waterfront (1954), East of Eden (1955) and Splendor in the Grass (1961). The native New Yorker’s career began on the stage and, as such, Kazan was an actor’s director; he discovered Marlon Brando, James Dean and Warren Beatty. He also loved writers and proved a nimble collaborator for such icons as Tennessee Williams and John Steinbeck.
But when he testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee about being a member of the Communist Party in the ’30s, he “named names” — an act that drew scorn from some of his contemporaries and colored his career and his 1999 honorary Oscar (some of the attendees, like Kirk Douglas, steadfastly refused to applaud).
The Army & Navy Story
Canada’s first discount department store chain began with “a truck full of bargain merchandise, a bank loan and a simple no-frills philosophy”. The Army & Navy first opened its doors on Gastown grounds in 1919 thanks to Sam Cohen. The Army & Navy initially sold military surplus goods and liquidated stock from other retailers, under the guidance of Sam’s motto “We sell for less” and “Pass the deal on to the customer”.
[Link and content now gone, re-accessed from Archive.org’s Wayback Machine]
By giving every citizen a chance to donate to politicians, could we even the playing field of what issues politicians work to fix?
Lessig’s solution is to expand the fundraising base through small donor financing. His proposal is to give a $50 “democracy voucher” to every citizen to spend on the politician of their choice (on the proviso, they don’t also take big money). But several other proposals would work just as well, including this one, and this one, he says.
“The most important thing is to spread the recognition among ordinary people that this is a root cause to the inability of Congress to deal sensibly with a wide range of issues on the Left and Right,” he says. “When that becomes conventional wisdom, it will create an environment for someone to step forward and take advantage.”
An Illustrated Dictionary of Cyborg Anthropology
Summary
Cyborg Anthropology is a way of understanding how we live as technosocially connected citizens in the modern era. Our cell phones, cars and laptops have turned us into cyborgs. What does it mean to extend the body into hyperspace? What are the implications to privacy, information and the formation of identity? Now that we have a second self, how do we protect it?
This text covers various subjects such as time and space compression, hyperlinked memories, panic architecture, mobile technology, interface evaporation and how technology is changing the way we live.
Who is it for?
Useful for researchers, scientists, interface designers, developers, professors, students, and anyone who engages with or wishes to better understand technology and culture.
About the Author
Amber Case is a Cyborg Anthropologist and UX Designer from Portland, Oregon. Her main focus is applying anthropology to mobile computing and social software.
Case has spoken at various industry conferences including MIT’s Futures of Entertainment and Inverge: The Interactive Convergence Conference, Ignite Portland and Ignite Boulder.
Case founded CyborgCamp, an unconference on the future of humans and technology. In 2010 she was named one of Fast Company’s Most Influential Women in Tech.
You can learn more about Cyborg Anthropology at cyborganthropology.com, and on Twitter at @caseorganic.
6. Voynich manuscript [Wikipedia]
The Voynich Manuscript is a medieval document written in an unknown script and in an unknown language. For over one hundred years people have tried to break the code to not avail. The overall impression given by the surviving leaves of the manuscript suggests that it was meant to serve as a pharmacopoeia or to address topics in medieval or early modern medicine. However, the puzzling details of illustrations have fueled many theories about the book’s origins, the contents of its text, and the purpose for which it was intended.
The document contains illustrations that suggest the book is in six parts: Herbal, Astronomical, Biological, Cosmological, Pharmaceutical, and recipes.