Sixth Sense

Some fish, notably sharks, have a sense organ, the lateral line system, which picks up weak electrical signals in the water, alerting them to prey that would be otherwise invisible and possibly also helps with navigation. There's some evidence that this "organ" is ontogenetically related to the inner ear in humans.

Thought experiment: Say you're a shark, and a yummy snack is hiding just beneath that little pile of sand across the way. Your lateral line is going haywire, but you don't know from lateral lines because, hey, you're a shark, not an ichthyologist. So how do you feel? Off-balance? Out of whack? Or just hungry?

Fry & Laurie, Really Only Slightly Mad

Over lunch today with a friend, as I was picking over ideas for a new novel, I realized I was dreaming up a mash note to psychoanalysis wrapped around a murder mystery. (Oh, come on -- what else could it be?) My friend pointed me to Fry & Laurie's psychiatric sketches. These guys sure had a lot of fun with psychoanalytic psychiatry. I see their sketch "Slightly Mad" as a riposte to the question posed in Freud's "On Creative Writers and Daydreaming": What is the difference between the "normal" work of the creative writer and the pathological productions of, say, a writer like Daniel Paul Schreber, on the one hand; and the work of the psychoanalytic psychiatrist, on the other? (The title image on that last link is emphatically NSFW, unless you work in a Dadaist art gallery. What was Penguin thinking?)



The crux is the business about writing letters to the paper, about 3 minutes in.

Freud kept the patient on the couch, kept himself out of view, and recommended only the occasional provision of interpretations. Modern face-to-face psychotherapies don't protest so much. Here's Fry & Laurie on the result -- the relevant bit starts at 0:57:



At 2:21 there's a playful reference to the "Bender Gestalt Test," which is real, but Fry's invitation to draw a line seems more like a request to play Winnicott's Squiggle Game. Laurie retorts that Fry is using "some sort of psychiatric jargon that you've picked up from the Reader's Digest," which at once notes the confusion and elides it, in a send-up of just the sort of incomplete repression Freud sees in jokes and parapraxes. At 3:00, the preamble ends on the word "masturbation," and the power struggle comes to the fore. "I'm the doctor, and you are the patient." The roles reverse dizzyingly. The question of names comes up at this point: Who is "Dr" and who is "Mr"? The rest of the session raises, only to deconstruct, every piece of stage business in the psychoanalytic psychiatrist's theater: the authority to summon the secretary, to make clinical notes, to prescribe medication, to end the session, to offer appointment times. By 4:53, the joke's on us -- but I won't spoil it. Take a look.

Schumann Resonances

Saved for another day: Wikipedia entry on Schumann resonances, regular disturbances in the earth's electromagnetic field related to global thunderstorm activity. The maximum frequency of these resonances is about 60 Hz.

Catalogue from Darwin

List of plates accompanying The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872):

Diagram of the muscles of the face, from Sir C. Bell; small dog watching a cat on a table; dog approaching another dog with hostile intentions; dog in a humble and affectionate frame of mind; half-bred shepherd dog; dog caressing his master; cat, savage, and prepared to fight; cat in an affectionate frame of mind; sound-producing quills from the tail of the Porcupine; hen driving away a dog from her chickens; swan driving away an intruder; head of snarling dog; cat terrified at a dog; Cynopithecus niger, in a placid condition; the same, when pleased by being caressed; chimpanzee, disappointed and sulky; photograph of an insane woman; terror; horror and agony.

This Just In, From the Edge of the Universe

Apparently, the "edge" of the universe is not metaphysical. It's real, and there's a neighboring universe out there next to ours, blobbier and heavier.

Large Hadron Rap

What strange, clever monkeys we are. The known 'verse, indeed.

NYC-LHR via Telectroscope

How did I miss this?

Resolute

For 2008, I will: stretch more, and grouch less.

A Funny Idea About Cream, ca. 1834

"Cream is very nourishing, but, on account of its fatness, is difficult to be digested in weak stomachs. Violent exercise, after eating it, will, in a little time, convert it into butter." From the Universal Receipt Book of 1834.

"Finally" "!!!!" """"

The Blog of Unnecessary Quotation Marks.

I'm Not So Sure About Him, Either

The Scared Of Santa gallery. Ho ho ho!

Multitasking Radiator

In my Brooklyn office (that sounds so official), I sat next to a radiator with a little shelf on top of it. Used to keep my coffee warm in the winter, very convenient. Would you know, someone's come up with a product that does the exact same thing? Yep, you set this ceramic plate on top of the radiator, plop your drink and snacks on it, and, presto, your radiator is a hot plate.

Assuming the heat's on.

History Not What You Think. Uh. Thought. Uh. Thunk!

I don't even know where to start with this YouTube gem. The idea that all of classical history is merely an early modern fabrication is stunning enough, but then there's the presentation: the monotonous-yet-urgent synthesized speech, the weird powerpoint transition that looks like some kind of masonic emblem, the repeated instructions to buy the book at Amazon... And what is that music playing in the background?

First LOLCats, now this. Life before the innernets was truly impoverished.

Brocade Home Miniatures

Now you can furnish even your dollhouse with overpriced faux-coco.

Make My Logo Bigger Cream

Make My Logo Bigger Cream: workplace and class warfare in the form of a spoof informercial delivered via internet. Hmm.

Whoa

Saved for another day: Charles Fort, the Big Daddy of Funny Ideas.

april hates u, makes lilacs, u no can has!!!

Of all the wonderfully strange media objects -- Hamster Dance, All Your Base -- for which we can thank the innernets, this one's got to be one of the best: a LOLcats version of "The Waste Land." Thanks for the laugh, ET.

Impossible Object Proves Not So Impossible

The Antikythera mechanism, an ancient device that was likely used to forecast astronomical events, is being subjected to all sorts of interventions, including x-ray tomography, which is revealing previously obscured inscriptions on the device.

The New Yorker covered the story five months ago. So now I know what my current news lag is.

Earthships

Link for a less busy day: Earthships, homes made out of tires and tin cans that make their own utilities.

A Hotel Called The Library

This hotel in Thailand is called The Library. It really does have a library. Also, a red pool. Hmm.