"... the essence of the thing ..."

"To become some other thing, you have to not be that thing in the first place, and, if you are that thing, then it is hard for you to really believe that anyone else can become it, since the essence of the thing is having been it all along."

-from The View from a Bridge by Adam Gopnik in this week's issue of the New Yorker.

“This is the only reality there is.”

“Everyone has his own reality in which, if one is not too cautious, timid or frightened, one swims. This is the only reality there is.”

-Henry Miller, from Stand Still Like the Hummingbird (1962)

(photos: backyard, July 18th; click image for full-screen)

"C480782"

I shared on Facebook photographs of Weston model 301 milliammeter number 480782, made in Newark, NJ; acquired by the MIT Department of Electrical Engineering; surplussed by the MIT Department of Physics. Check it out.

Funding opportunity of the week!

"Harvesting the Neuroimaging Cornucopia for Pancreatic Islet Imaging Reagents for Diabetes Research," a request for applications from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, has been released in time for the Sixth Annual World Molecular Imaging Congress.

Analogically speaking...

Today, above the fold, the Washington Post's headline writers gave us a metaphorical harvest, flurry, road, and lightning rod.

Free. Jazz. (or, Sidney & her man Clovis)

May I suggest that you set aside an hour before clicking through to listen to Jason Moran's amazing (and free!) "Live: Time On The Quilts Of Gee's Bend" Suite?

From the NPR website:

Jason Moran, composer and piano
Alicia Hall Moran, vocals
Bill Frisell, guitar
Tarus Mateen, bass
Nasheet Waits, drums

"Teaching to see."

May I suggest that you find a big screen and a comfy chair before clicking through to watch this amazing 38-minute video produced by Edward Tufte?

"I used to think I was alone. Well, I ain't alone no more." [Special Kickin' in 2013 Rockin' New Year's Day Repost!]

Tom Morello's song about his guitar is uplifting:

Not that there'd be anything wrong with that...

My talk at the upcoming Applied Brilliance Conference will be nothing like this:

Acknowledgement of the Month!

In the special issue of NeuroImage on "20 years of fMRI," there is a fascinating and enlightening article by Dr. Rainer Goebel entitled "BrainVoyager — Past, present, future" that closes with this acknowledgement:

"Finally I want to thank Claudia for her beautiful brain that is still a mystery to me after hundreds of fMRI scans."

"How many do you have?"

In "The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity," playing through the end of the month at the Woolly Mammoth Theater in Washington, D.C., Chad Deity says:

"Chad Deity has four crispers in his fridge, and he doesn't even use a crisper."

I've never seen a better or more topical wrestling drama. If you're in the area, go! Tickets available.

Cars go bang! [NeuroCooking FlashBack]

If you get the chance to attend a county fair demolition derby, we suggest that you go. But bring earplugs.

[Photos: At the 2010 Delaware County (NY) Fair.]

"I feel / I feel like I am falling / and it feels / it feels like it's okay..."

"...we ain't nothing / but we are something..."

- from "Fall Apart with You" by Alejandro Escovedo (who will be appearing at Maxwell's in Hoboken on Monday!)

Best. Coffee. Ever.

Following my attendance at the 20th annual meeting of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, I am pleased to present, for NeuroCooking readers in the National Capital Area, these six simple steps to get the best coffee in the world:

1. Take the Washington D.C. Metro to National Airport (DCA).
2. Fly from DCA to Los Angeles (LAX).
3. Fly from LAX to Sydney (SYD).
4. Fly from SYD to Melbourne (MEL).
5. Take a bus or taxi downtown.
6. Go to Naked Espresso at 390 Little Bourke Street, and order an espresso.

"Finally, SUPEREGO-related neural activity was localized to lateral prefrontal and parietal cortex."

"A Triple Dissociation of Neural Systems Supporting ID, EGO, and SUPEREGO" (because "... Social Neuroscience, Neuroeconomics, and Developmental Social Cognitive Affective Clinical Neuroscience are just not cutting edge enough anymore...") appears in Psyence.

Mr. Feffer goes to New York.

With all due respect to Ms. Ginevra de' Benci, when it comes to the arts, one of the best things about Washington D.C. is the Capital Fringe Festival, and, for each of the past three years, one of the best things about the Capital Fringe Festival has been the plays of Mr. John Feffer.

For one night only, on Monday, April 23rd, NeuroCooking friends in the New York City area can see Mr. Feffer play seven characters in his 2011 work, "The Bird" ("In search of adventure in Poland 1989, a young man discovers a female assassin, a Jewish skinhead, a mysterious bird, and the end of innocence.").

That's at the Tada theater, 15 W 28th St, New York, April 23rd, at 8 PM. Tickets here.

"I take no sentence for granted."

Just one sentence (another titles this post) from the essay "My Life's Sentences" by Jhumpa Lahiri in today's New York Times:

"The urge to convert experience into a group of words that are in a grammatical relation to one another is the most basic, ongoing impulse of my life."

See this man if you possibly can!

Mr. Reggie Watts, who is not writing a book entitled "The Coolness of the Closeness of Now", was amazing last night at the Wooly Mammoth Theater, where tickets are selling fast for performances through this Friday.

What is an algorithm?

[Reggie Watts @ Google.]

"An algorithm is someone who feels good on a rainy day..." [starting at 5:44]

"The Hero of Saratoga"

When NeuroCooking last reported on David Kosizek in the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, he was reading a letter home from the Korean War. Yesterday, we caught up again there with Mr. Kosizek – or should we say with General Benedict Arnold, conquerer of Ticonderoga, hero of Saratoga, and commander of West Point:

In a small theater in the museum, General Arnold defended his record to audience members who arrived more familiar with certain later events, such as, um, his attempt to sell to the British the plans to West Point, in order to ensure its capture.