Blog number 185 *** 06 June 2008
In a paper, magazine, somewhere, I read that several famous people were asked what book they were reading. Billy Bob Thorton said he was reading, Electric Universe and that it was fascinating. I thought, "Well, I'll order it from the library and give it a shot. Billy Bob was right. It IS fascinating.
It's not about electricity per se. It's about the people involved with electricity - like Watt, Hertz, Morse. It's about their experiments and experiences with electricity. Did you know, for instance, that Morse didn't invent the telegraph? No, he didn't. Lots of people did. He was the one that patented it. What he really wanted to do was to get rid of the Catholics. Yeah, I know. Weird, huh?
He was reviled for his activities and for his behavior. For instance, his lawyer was very embarrassed to have to inform the Supreme Court that Morse's "daily notes" concerning his experiments with the telegraph were burned in a mysterious unwitnessed fire just the night before.
At the beginning of Chapter six, there is an excerpt from the dairy of Heinrich Hertz. It tickled me, so maybe it'll tickle you.
And I quote;
27 Jan 1884. Thought about electromagnetic rays.
11 May. Hard at Maxwellian electomagnetics in the evening.
13 May. Nothing but electomagnetics.
16 May. Worked on electomagnetics all day.
8 July. Electromagnetics, still without success.
17 July. Depressed; could not get on with anything.
24 July. Did not feel like working.
7 August. Saw from Rice's "Friction Electricity" that most of what I have found so far is already known.
(ed. note) Six plus months shot to hell.
14 comments:
Here I am with my one "comments." Was there anything on Thomas Edison in the book? Sounds fascinating. ---angel
Yeah, Angelmia - Edison was not adverse to stealing patents. I don't remember too much about him, but my sense is he didn't come off too good - as a person. I also seem to sense that he got taken by a partner and lost a lot of money.
I'm not too good on remembering what I read. I have thought about this phenomenon before. I had it in high school, I found out when a teacher asked me if I wanted to tell teh class about the Civil War, of which he saw I was reading a lot. When I got up to talk, I couldn't think of a damn thing I had read out of probably six books.
I have trouble remembering how books and movies end, too.
My husband was the same way. He would speed read through books to get the "gist" of it. Then he would ask me if I wanted to know the end of the story while I was only on the second chapter. He would be so excited to tell me that I would say "ok, go ahead." I would remember details several years later; he would vaguely remember that he might have read it. It was the same with movies. I'm sort of "monkish." I keep my spice rack in alphabetical order. That way I can reach for something without looking and know that I will have exactly what I want every time. I guess it comes from my touch-typing course in high school.
Your husband was very lucky, Angelmia. MY wife hates me to tell her anything in what I am reading.
I do it anyhow.
Thank you, Bodhi. When I was a little girl, I used to like to watch cowboy movies, e.g., Gene Autry or Roy Rogers. After I grew up, I gravitated toward science fiction stories and became bored with all things wild west. Lo and behold, hubby comes along and he loves cowboy and indians. And our hero rides off into the sunset once more. Ah! the things we do for love. ---angel
There are some good Westerns, just like there are some good war stories. I have discovered it isn't the genre, it's the story - the characters, the writing. I have a tendency to go toward war stories and away from Westerns, even though I know what I say in the first sentence here. I guess it is a take on that old, "Do what I say, not what I do," in the first person.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could take our own advice like we think others should take our advice? What I mean is that if we could tell someone to stop smoking for instance, and they would have to do it, and that "someone" happened to be us, wouldn't that be wonderful? We could always do what is right instead of what is desired.
But then that would turn out to be kinda boring and where could come the joy of beating the odds? Maybe this is the best way.
I never smoked...didn't inhale either. (smile) I remember being a toddler when my mother answered the door to receive her dry cleaning. There was an ash tray with all sorts of black ashes in it for a little one to stuff her hand into and taste. YUCK!! When I grew older, I used to sing and dance on stage and TV...won all sorts of contests. As a teenager, my friends wanted me to smoke. I really didn't wish to offend them by not going along with the crowd. I just told them I wanted to have a singing career and that cigarettes would ruin breath control. I don't recall losing any buddies. But at that time, I was more of a "private" person with one special friend and somewhat shy despite my "stage" smile. ---angel
I stopped smoking for about twenty years and then I got angry with my wife, and to "teach her a lesson," I started smoking. Honest to Pete, I thought I could quit again. I had completely forgotten that when you smoke, you CAN'T quit! I told myself that if I had the urge to buy a pack, I would quit. Good luck with that!
My husband started smoking when he was 13 years old. Everyone said he would stunt his growth. He reached a height of 6' 4'' before the cigarettes "stunted" him. However, just before the birth of our first child (Teresa), he started coughing up blood. So I went to the book store (of course) and bought a self-help publication on what vitamins to take should you come down with reynaud's disease, for example. He laughed until he almost coughed himself to death. Because smoking creates havoc with one's blood sugar, he went on hard candies for a while (like Kojak) and had a fresh carton of Chesterfields in the refrigerator until he was sufficiently over them. But later on he started chewing tobacco. Oh well. ---angel
I think it was King Edward of England that had people place cigarettes in the hole in his throat where his voice box had been removed due to smoking so that he could smoke. Nicotine is one strong addictive drug.
That is awful, Bodhi. It will take a while to get this picture out of my head. But there is a show I like called "Hell's Kitchen" where 2 of the 3 final chefs smoke. The one I like doesn't smoke and presents fantastic dishes. The other 2 are great, however, all I can think about are ashes in the food...even though this hasn't happened...and you probably can recall where I got this idea. ---angel
That "smoking while cooking comment brought up a memory of a documentary I saw called, "Titticut Follies" about an insane asylum. One of the shots was of an attendent feeding an old man by putting a funnel in his mouth and ladling mush into the funnel while a lit cigarette dangled from his mouth, right over the funnel.
That's another gruesome picture I need to delete from my memory banks, Bodhi. It's worthy of a Felini film perhaps? But speaking of "worthy" photographs: Once while having my hair brushed out at a stylist's, I saw a white coffee mug...similar to ones used at diners...with a lip stick smudge, placed on top of a stack of magazines and being reflected in the mirror. I thought somebody should snap a photo of it, frame it, and hang it on the wall. ---angel
That would have made a good picture! And the "somebody" that took the picture could have been YOU! I know. I do that too. I'll see something that "somebody" should take a picture of - or paint a picture of. I see lots of scenes in movies that should be painted. One I always thought of doing was of some colorful clothes hanging on the line in a fog.
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