rss feedA good fortune cookie message, a shave and a haircut and a fascinating neuroscientist
So, I’m back posting regular blog entries. I’ll try and get caught up in the coming days.
I recently met my friend and former colleague, John Iwasaki, for a tasty Chinese lunch.
And what came in the fortune cookie?
A message that’s a keeper.
The type might be small in the photograph above but the fortune reads: “You will be rewarded for your creativity.”
Without creativity, this economy and many parts of the country would come to a halt – we would be the boring society, just prone to nod and homogenize.
It’s no wonder many of us – myself included – like adventures.
They help us learn. They help us see new things.
Go when you can. There will be no regrets.
If creativity can help the country improve and nudge us to think in new ways, I think the art project that my son and his preschool classmates completed this week also should be duly noted.
That’s right: Life can get confusing when fuzzy grass looks like hair.
So: Pay attention.
Speaking of paying attention, make sure to catch Terry Tazioli’s Author’s Hour chat on May 2 with author and journalist Terry McDermott.
McDermott is the author of “101 Theory Drive: A Neuroscientist’s Quest for Memory.”
If you live in Washington state, the show is on Sundays on TVW. You also can watch chats online at TVW.org.
I attended the taping of the show.
I didn’t know what to expect.
What fascinated me is how McDermott’s quest for the crux of the story and his chronicling of Gary Lynch, a neuroscientist at the University of California at Irvine, illuminated a topic that many might overlook.
From what I can tell, McDermott indeed chronicled the life of a laboratory – what with the brilliance, humor, asides, quirks, characters and quest to reach a scientific and medical breakthrough.
Those experiments, it should be noted, can take years.
And get this: Lynch is known – among many things as McDermott reminds people - for driving a blue Corvette, eating food from a vending machine and studying his own brain after there was a scan of it.
In his talk with Tazioli, McDermott remembered that humor can open doors to serious topics - and he used it to let viewers know that brilliance has levity as well as serious moments.
It’s worth the time to think about neurology. Yes, it’s the stuff that some of us would geek out on.
But the human brain has about 100 billion neurons.
In his talk for Author’s Hour, McDermott asked a fascinating question, which I’m sure brain researchers around the world have thought of at one point: Whether it’s possible for the human brain to think faster and larger, more complex thoughts.
I have interviewed Leroy Hood, a visionary researcher, who wants to help humans live longer.
So, in the context of captivating science, Lynch’s story – as told by McDermott – fascinates.
Journalists in Seattle might want to watch the interview with Tazioli because McDermott mentioned the owners of The Seattle Times, where he once worked.
If you can’t wait for Tazioli’s show, you can read McDermott’s series on memory and Lynch, which was published in the Los Angeles Times.
He also was interviewed on Weekday on Seattle-based KUOW.
You do have to admire McDermott, who most recently was a journalist at the Los Angeles Times, for saying what he thinks.
A few years ago, he left the company because of job cuts, Mediabistro reported.
McDermott was quoted by Mediabistro as saying this:
I’m afraid the folks running things at The Times wouldn’t know a horse to ride it they got run over by it. I’m not sure anyone else knows much more. I’m not a fan of the local LAT management, but the real problem is in Chicago.
McDermott also wrote “Perfect Soldiers,” about the 9/11 hijackers.
It also took McDermott about four years to write “101 Theory Drive.”
I recognize that blogs and tweets these days are excellent platforms to express ideas and convey information.
But there is something to be said – and valued – about long-form journalism.
I should add that Tazioli hired me for an internship at The Seattle Times in 2001.
