Delanceyplace.com 1/16/08-Sir Isaac Newton

In today's excerpt--Sir Isaac Newton, whose masterwork Mathematical Principles of Natural History was one of the two or three most foundational and influential works in all of Western Science. This work had as its core his three laws of motion and his universal law of gravitation:

"Newton was a decidedly odd figure--brilliant beyond measure, but solitary, joyless, prickly to the point of paranoia, famously distracted (upon swinging his feet out of bed in the morning he would reportedly sometimes sit for hours, immobilized by the sudden rush of thoughts to his head), and capable of the most riveting strangeness. He built his own laboratory, the first at Cambridge, but then engaged in the most bizarre experiments. Once he inserted a bodkin--a long needle of the sort used for sewing leather--into his eye socket and rubbed it around 'betwixt my eye and the bone near to the backside of my eye as I could' just to see what would happen. What happened, miraculously, was nothing--at least nothing lasting. On another occasion, he stared at the sun for as long as he could bear, to determine what effect it would have upon his vision. Again he escaped lasting damage, though he had to spend some days in a darkened room before his eyes forgave him.

"Set atop these ... quirky traits, however, was the mind of a supreme genius. ... [As recounted by] Newton confidant, Abraham DeMoivre, 'In 1684 Dr. Edmond Halley [of Halley's comet fame] came to visit at Cambridge and after they had some time together the Doctor asked [Newton] what he thought the curve would be that would be described by the planets supposing the force of attraction toward the sun to be reciprocal to the square of their distance from it.' This was a reference to a piece of mathematics known as the inverse square law, which Halley was convinced lay at the heart of the explanation, though he wasn't sure exactly how. 'Sir Isaac replied immediately that it would be an ellipse. The Doctor, struck with joy and amazement, asked him how he knew it. 'Why,' saith he, 'I have calculated it,' whereupon Dr. Halley asked him for his calculation without further delay, Sir Isaac looked among his papers but could not find it.'

"This was astounding--like someone saying that he had found a cure for cancer but couldn't remember where he had put the formula. Pressed by Halley, Newton agreed to redo the calculations and produce a paper. He did as promised, but then did much more. He retired for two years of intensive reflection and scribbling, and at length produced his masterwork: the Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica or Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, better known as the Principia."

Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything, Broadway Books, Copyright 2003 by Bill Bryson, pp. 46-48.

Delanceyplace.com 1/15/08-Duke Ellington and the Harlem Renaissance

In today's excerpt--Duke Ellington (1899-1974), one of the most influential composers in jazz if not in all American music, and the Harlem Renaissance. In the early twentienth century, there was an outpouring of American black literature, painting and music known as the Harlem Renaissance. This movement faced its own challenges, though, especially the continued burden of prejudice and exclusion, along with the artistic tension between emulating white forms of art and pursuing a more 'authentic' black art:

"The Harlem Renaissance, insofar as [NAACP founder] W.E.B. Du Bois and others defined it, aspired to create an African-American version of 'high culture.' By the early thirties, that mission was becoming more difficult to sustain. A terrible riot in 1935 exposed the misery and rage behind the illusion of an upwardly mobil black culture.

"As Paul Allen Anderson explains in his book Deep River, a split opened between the original leaders of the Renaissance and younger artists such as Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston, who disavowed what Hughes called the 'Nordicized Negro intelligentsia' and sought a less status-conscious, less politely affirmative definition of black culture. Du Bois and his colleagues had dreamed ... of a 'hybridic fusion' of African-American, mainstream-American, and European ideas. ... By contrast, the young rebel Hughes celebrated the authenticity of 'hot' jazz and rural blues. ...

"The split between the Harlem Renaissance elders and the new radical Negroes formed the backdrop for Duke Ellington's career. Like Gershwin, Ellington had a flair for ambivalence. He partook of Du Bois and Locke's cosmopolitanism, their rhetoric of uplift and transcendence. Yet he also adopted Hughes's slogans of resistance and subversion.

"There's a wonderful scene in a 1944 New Yorker profile in which Ellington is shown deflating the expectations of an Icelandic music student who tries to nudge him toward the 'classical,' 'genius' category. The student keeps peppering the master with questions about Bach, and, before answering, Ellington makes an elaborate show of unwrapping a pork chop he has stowed in his pocket. 'Bach and myself,' he says, taking a bite from the chop, 'both write with individual performers in mind.' With that pork chop maneuver, Ellington puts distance between himself and the European conception of genius, though without rejecting it entirely. Another time he addressed the issue head-on: 'To attempt to elevate the status of the jazz musician by forcing the level of his best work into comparisons with classical music is to deny him his rightful share of originality.' ...

"[Antonin] Dvorak had assumed that American music would come into his its own when it succeeded in importing African-American material into European form, but in the end the opposite thing happened: African-American composers appropriated European material into self-invented forms of blues and jazz."

Alex Ross, The Rest is Noise, Farrar Straus Giroux, Copyright 2007 by Alex Ross, pp. 151-152.

Delanceyplace.com 1/14/08-Simon Bolivar

In today's excerpt--Simon Bolivar (1783-1830), called El Libertador. Bolivar was a leader of several independence movements throughout South America, collectively known as Bolivar's War, which were precipitated in resistance to Napoleon's installation of Joseph Bonaparte as King of Spain and its colonies in 1808. Together with José de San Martín, Bolívar is regarded as one of the Liberators of Spanish South America:

"Bolivar was 'an exceptionally complex man, a liberator who scorned liberalism, a soldier who disparaged militarism, a republican who admired monarchy,' as John Lynch put it in a recent biography. Bolivar was a cultivated man. He had spent several years in Europe, ... while on campaign, his aides lugged around a large trunk of books: Voltaire and Montesquieu were among his favorite reading, but the trunk also included Locke and Bentham. He was a great correspondent, and wrote with clarity and vigour. He admired the systems of government of both the United States and Britain, the most democratic of the day. ...

"And yet his chief political legacy is a yearning for strong government and paternal authoritarianism. He was insistent that without a strong central authority the new republics would fall apart. Though he subscribed to Montesquieu's doctrine of the separation of powers, what he liked most about the French philosopher was his insistence that laws and institutions should be adapted to a country's geography and culture. From Rosseau he took the idea that it is the role of the leader to interpret and represent 'the general will.' In other words, strong and effective leadership is self- legitimating and when necessary should override institutions that guarantee individual liberty. Thus, much as Bolivar admired the United States, he once said that he would rather see the Latin American republics adopt the Koran than US federalism, which was 'too perfect.' In South America 'events ... have demonstrated that perfectly representative institutions are not appropriate to our character, our customs, and our current level of knowledge and experience,' he wrote in 1815.

"The definitive statement of Bolivar's political thought came a decade later, when he was asked to write a constitution for a new republic which had taken his name: Bolivia. This document had some features of liberal democracy: nominally at least, the executive, legislature and judiciary were to be separated, and were to be complemented by a fourth 'moral' power, a 'chamber of censors' with a scrutinizing function. But Bolivar also included a hereditary senate and a president for life, who would have far-reaching emergency powers and the right to name his successor. This is a constitutional monarchy in all but name. This document was swiftly discarded by Bolivia. ...

"It is the great Liberator who still casts a shadow today. ... His name has long been invoked and misused by authoritarian rulers of far less noble qualities, and far less sense. Venezuelan dictators, starting in the late nineteenth century, found it expedient to establish an official cult of Bolivar. His remains were repatriated in 1842, and in 1876 placed in a giant casket which rests in the national Pantheon, a former church a few blocks up the hill from his birthplace in the centre of Caracas. The latest exponent of the cult is Hugo Chavez, who claims to be implementing a 'Bolivarian Revolution' in Venezuela. Chavez included some elements from the Bolivian constitution (such as the 'moral power') in Venezuela's charter of 2001. He shows a Bolivarian disregard for checks on executive power ... and every sign of wanting to be president for life."

Michael Reid, Forgotten Continent: The Battle for Latin America's Soul, Yale, Copyright 2007 by Michael Reid, pp. 64-65.

Delanceyplace.com 1/11/08-Groucho and the Critics

In today's excerpt--Groucho Marx writes in 1959 about the state of the theatre and his not-very-flattering opinion of theatre critics:

"I'm not going to defend critics. The fact is, I don't know what purpose they serve. But whatever it is, they have the right to serve it in any man's theatre, however disastrous the consequences. ...

"Somerset Maugham, in The Summing Up, was asked why he quit writing for the theatre. He said it was too difficult to please both the scullery maid sitting in the third balcony and the critic for the London Times. 'I believe I can write for either one,' he declared, 'but I can't please both. Their tastes are too dissimilar.' ...

"Hokum and roughhouse laughter have virtually disappeared from the stage. There are scores of plays about miscegenation, ... the beat generation, dypsomaniacs and hopheads, but there is very little fun left on the stage. I believe the absence of robust laughter is partially responsible for the present condition of the theatre. Most of the gaiety has been taken out of it, and it has been removed by the critics.

"One prominent reviewer recently wrote about a play called Make A Million, starring Sam Levene. This is what he wrote: 'This is not so much a review as a confession. I spent a good part of last evening laughing at a very bad play.'

"There you have it. This critic laughed all evening, but finally decided it was 'a very bad play.' All it was supposed to do was make people laugh, and it succeeded. They didn't announce that they were bringing in King Lear or Death of a Salesman. All they promised to deliver was a funny comedy--but that wasn't good enough for this critic."

Groucho Marx Groucho and Me, Da Capo Press, Copyright 1959 by Groucho Marx, pp. 174-176.

Delanceyplace.com 1/9/08-The Future

In today's encore excerpt, human beings think about the future:

"The human being is the only animal that thinks about the future. Now ... I do recognize that non-human animals often act as though they have the capacity to think about the future. ... For example ... the squirrels in my yard act as though they know they will be unable to eat later unless they bury some food now ... [but instead] they have regular squirrel brains that run food-burying programs when the amount of sunlight that enters their regular squirrel eyes decreases by a critical amount. Shortened days trigger burying behavior with no intervening contemplation of tomorrow ... Until a chimp weeps at the thought of growing old alone, or turns down a Fudgesicle because it already looks to fat in shorts, I will stand by my [statement]. We think about the future in a way that no other animal can, does, or ever has, and this simple, ubiquitous, ordinary act is a defining feature of our humanity. ...

"The greatest achievements of the human brain is its ability to imagine objects and episodes that do not exist in the realm of the real, and it is this ability that allows us to think about the future. As one philosopher noted, the human brain is an 'anticipation machine,' and 'making future' is the most important thing it does."

Daniel Gilbert, Stumbling on Happiness, Knopf, 2006, pp. 4-5.

Delanceyplace.com 1/9/08-A Tiny Slice of Land

In today's excerpt--70% of the world's population resides on just 7% of the world's land:

"Today, there are just over 6 billion people on earth. Six hundred years ago, in 1400, humankind was just 6 percent of that, or about 350 million, slightly more than the current population of the United States. ... The 350 million people living in 1400 were not uniformly distributed across the face of the earth, but rather clustered in a very few pockets of much higher density. Indeed, of the 60 million square miles of dry land on earth, most people lived on just 4.25 million square miles, or barely 7 percent of the dry land. The reason, of course, is that that land was the most suitable for agriculture, the rest being covered by swamp, steppe, desert, or ice.

"Moreover, those densely populated regions of earth corresponded to just fifteen highly developed civilizations, the most notable being (from east to west) Japan, Korea, China, Indonesia, Indonesia, Indochina, the Islamic West Asia, Europe, Aztec, and Inca. Astoundingly, nearly all of the 350 million people alive in 1400 lived in a handful of civilizations occupying a very small proportion of the earth's surface. Even more astoundingly, that still holds true today: 70 percent of the world's six billion people live on those same 4.25 million square miles.

Robert B. Marks, The Origins of the Modern World, Rowman and Littlefield, Copyright 2007 by Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, pp. 23-24.

Delanceyplace.com 1/7/08-Fifteen Plants

In today's excerpt--the importance of plant domestication and the fifteen most important plants:

"In the long view of time, the domestication of plants ... occurred nearly simultaneously in various parts of the world. In the short view of time, however, within a few thousand years some areas lagged behind others with fateful consequences. Because people in the Americas had no suitable grains and animals for early domestication, the evolution of complex societies there began 3,000 to 4,000 years later than in the Middle East, Europe, and Asia. As a consequence, when Europeans arrived in the Americas in 1500 CE, they found societies in many ways comparable to those of the Middle East in about 2000 BCE. With their horses, guns, and diseases, products of their more evolved agrarian societies, Europeans were able to strangle the more slowly emerging civilizations of the Americas.

"People's experiments with plants between 9000 and 3000 BCE were so successful that no new basic food plants have been domesticated since then. The only exceptions seem to be cranberries, blueberries, and pecans, which were gathered by native North Americans but have been domesticated only in the last two centuries.

"Out of approximately 200,000 species of flowering plants, only about 3,000 have been used extensively for human food. Of these, only fifteen have been and continue to be of major importance: four grasses (wheat, rice, maize, and sugar), six legumes (lentils, peas, vetches, beans, soybeans, and peanuts), and five starches (potatoes, sweet potatoes, yams, maniocs, and bananas)."

Cynthia Stokes Brown, Big History, The New Press, Copyright 2007 by Cynthia Stokes Brown, pp. 82-83.

Delanceyplace.com 1/7/08-Fifteen Plants

In today's excerpt--the importance of plant domestication and the fifteen most important plants:

"In the long view of time, the domestication of plants ... occurred nearly simultaneously in various parts of the world. In the short view of time, however, within a few thousand years some areas lagged behind others with fateful consequences. Because people in the Americas had no suitable grains and animals for early domestication, the evolution of complex societies there began 3,000 to 4,000 years later than in the Middle East, Europe, and Asia. As a consequence, when Europeans arrived in the Americas in 1500 CE, they found societies in many ways comparable to those of the Middle East in about 2000 BCE. With their horses, guns, and diseases, products of their more evolved agrarian societies, Europeans were able to strangle the more slowly emerging civilizations of the Americas.

"People's experiments with plants between 9000 and 3000 BCE were so successful that no new basic food plants have been domesticated since then. The only exceptions seem to be cranberries, blueberries, and pecans, which were gathered by native North Americans but have been domesticated only in the last two centuries.

"Out of approximately 200,000 species of flowering plants, only about 3,000 have been used extensively for human food. Of these, only fifteen have been and continue to be of major importance: four grasses (wheat, rice, maize, and sugar), six legumes (lentils, peas, vetches, beans, soybeans, and peanuts), and five starches (potatoes, sweet potatoes, yams, maniocs, and bananas)."

Cynthia Stokes Brown, Big History, The New Press, Copyright 2007 by Cynthia Stokes Brown, pp. 82-83.

Delanceyplace.com 1/04/08-Steve Martin

In today's excerpt--comedian Steve Martin, who performed in near obscurity for fourteen years before achieving international fame:

"In a college psychology class, I had read a treatise on comedy explaining that a laugh was formed when the storyteller created tension, then, with the punch line, released it. ... What bothered me about this formula was the nature of the laugh it inspired, a vocal acknowledgement that a joke had been told, like automatic applause at the end of a song. ...

"These notions stayed with me for months, until they formed an idea that revolutionized my comedic direction: What if there were no punch lines? What if there were no indicators? What if I created tension and never released it? What if I headed for a climax, but all I delivered was an anticlimax? What would the audience do with all that tension? Theoretically, it would have to come out sometime. But if I kept denying them the formality of a punch line, the audience would eventually pick their own place to laugh, essentially out of desperation. This type of laugh seemed stronger to me, as they would be laughing at something they chose, rather than being told when to laugh.

"To test my ideas, at my next appearance at the Ice House, I went onstage and began: 'I'd like to open up with sort of a 'funny comedy bit.' This has really been a big one for me ... it's the one that put me where I am today. I'm sure most of you will recognize the title when I mention it; it's the Nose on Microphone routine [pause for imagined applause]. And it's always funny, no matter how many times you see it.'

"I leaned in and placed my nose on the mike for a few long seconds. Then I stopped and took several bows, saying, 'Thank you very much.' 'That's it?' they thought. Yes, that was it. The laugh came not then, but only after they realized I had already moved on to the next bit.

"Now that I had assigned myself to an act without jokes, I gave myself a rule. Never let them know I was bombing: This is funny, you just haven't gotten it yet. If I wasn't offering punch lines, I'd never be standing there with egg on my face. It was essential that I never show doubt about what I was doing. ... Eventually, I thought, the laughs would be playing catch-up to what I was doing. Everything would be either delivered in passing, or the opposite, an elaborate presentation that climaxed in pointlessness. Another rule was to make the audience believe that I thought I was fantastic, that my confidence could not be shattered. They had to believe that I didn't care if they laughed at all, and that this act was going on with or without them. ...

"My goal was to make the audience laugh but leave them unable to describe what it was that had made them laugh."

Steve Martin, Born Standing Up, Scribner, Copyright 2007 by 40 Share Productions, Inc., pp. 110-113.

Delanceyplace.com 1/02/08-Optimism

In today's encore excerpt--a tale of optimism to ring in the New Year, from Academy Award-winning screenwriter William Goldman. Here Goldman recounts his first trip as a young boy to Broadway where he attended the Gershwin play Porgy and Bess:

"My family went and we sat there and if you don't know the story, it's about this cripple, Porgy, who can't walk, and he gets around on this pathetic goat cart, towed by a scrawny goat, and we're someplace in the Deep South. Porgy is hopelessly in love with Bess, a beauty but weak. Toward the end, Porgy is sent to jail (he saved his friends by murdering the village monster) and while he is there, Bess is wooed by a pusher, Sportin' Life, who, using drugs as a lure, steals her away, takes her to New York City, which is the other end of the universe as far as anyone in this town is concerned.

"Porgy gets out of jail, and I am dreading the moment when he finds out Bess is gone. I mean, cripples don't win beauties in this world, not unless they are very rich indeed, and Porgy is a beggar. So he is out of jail and I am so scared for him, his life is over, how is he going to survive his loss, and he chitchats with the villagers and then he says it--where's Bess?

"No one wants to answer but finally he finds out - Bess is gone, she is gone forever, gone to New York City.

"Silence in the theatre. Then Porgy says these three amazing words:

" 'Bring my goat.' "

William Goldman, Which Lie Did I Tell?: More Adventures in the Screen Trade, Vintage Books, 2001, p. 247.