#sherry baker

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Sherry Baker

This popped up as a memory and seems appropriate to repost.. The illustration was first released on the back of a book cover in the l940s and then as this poster in 1950.

[bodyalive]

I just saw this headline on an AP story: "Device taps brain waves to help paralyzed man communicate." It's about research going on at the University of California at San Francisco - and elsewhere, for sure. Some of the reporters - most? - who are covering this seem to think this is a totally new area of research and application of a brain/computer interface.

Well, if they actually looked into the background of what they are writing about, they might be more accurate and be able to put this development in context -- because, while there are exciting advances in brain/computer interfaces to help the paralyzed, to help those "locked in" communicate with the neural signals of their brains - this research has been going on since the l990s, at least. About twelve years or so ago, I witnessed an early success with a young "locked in" man "speaking" a few words in a lab via a brain implant and a computer.

But this technology is even more. It is part of the future of humankind which will not only help the paralyzed but will also be key in the creation of cyborgs, be used in space exploration and in other ways to augment the faculties and abilities of Earthlings...

I wrote about this - and interviewed many neuroscientists working in this field - well over a decade ago. If you'd like background, i found a link to the story. I'm posting a screen shot of the first page of the print version ( because the art is far better than the awful illustration on the Discover post of the story) . But here's a link for the whole thing,

if anyone is interested: https://www.discovermagazine.com/.../the-rise-of-the-cyborgs

[from 2021 :: Thanks Sherry Baker]

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

“Happiness often sneaks in through a door you didn't know you left open."

-- John Barrymore.

[thanks Sherry Baker]

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

"Yellow" When they turn the sun on again, I’ll plant children under it, I’ll light up my soul with a match and let it sing, I’ll take my mother and soap her up, I’ll take my bones and polish them, I’ll vacuum up my stale hair, I’ll pay all my neighbors bad debts, I’ll write a poem called Yellow and put my lips down to drink it up, I’ll feed myself spoonfuls of heat and everyone will be home playing with their wings and the planet will shudder with all those smiles and there will be no poison anywhere, no plague in the sky and there will be mother-broth for all the people, and we will never die, not one of us, we’ll go on won’t we? -- Anne Sexton

[Thanks Sherry Baker]

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

“I would prefer to live forever in perfect health. But if I must at some time leave this life, I would like to do so ensconced on a chaise lounge, perfumed, wearing a velvet robe and pearl earrings, with a flute of champagne beside me and having just discovered the answer to the last problem in a British cryptic crossword.”

– Olivia de Havilland, born July 1, 1916, in Tokyo. She currently lives, as she has for several decades, in Paris.

[Thanks Sherry Baker]

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

(Illustration is from Nicholas Rowe's 1709 edition of Shakespeare's plays).

* * * *

"Hell is empty and all the devils are here."

-- William Shakespeare, The Tempest.

(Sherry Baker)

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

For some, autumn comes early, stays late through life where October follows September and November touches October and then instead of December and Christ's birth, there is no Bethlehem Star, no rejoicing, but September comes again and old October and so on down the years, with no winter, spring, or revivifying summer. For these beings, fall is the ever normal season, the only weather, there be no choice beyond.

Where do they come from? The dust. Where do they go? The grave. Does blood stir their veins? No: the night wind. What ticks in their head? The worm. What speaks from their mouth? The toad. What sees from their eye? The snake. What hears with their ear? The abyss between the stars.

They sift the human storm for souls, eat flesh of reason, fill tombs with sinners. They frenzy forth. In gusts, they beetle-scurry, creep, thread, filter, motion, make all moons sullen, and surely cloud all clear-run waters.

The spider-web hears them, trembles - breaks. Such are the autumn people. Beware of them.

-- Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes.

[Thank you Sherry Baker]

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

“It is my considered opinion that the human race (soi-disant) is cruel, idiotic, sentimental, predatory, ungrateful, ugly, conceited and egocentric to the last ditch and that the occasional discovery of an isolated exception is as deliciously surprising as finding a sudden Brazil nut in what you know to be five pounds of vanilla creams.

These glorious moments, although not making life actually worth living, perhaps, at least make it pleasanter.”

- Sir Noel Coward, born December 16, 1899.

(Sherry Baker)