THE SIGNAL from David Katznelson
“At first people refuse to believe that a strange new thing can be done…then they see it can be done… and all the world wonders why it was not done centuries ago.” ― Frances Burnett
Today in 1859 Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection and sold out of its first pressing before the sun set. The book is so incendiary that to this day there are still people among us who don’t think it should be taught in school. Believe it or not: we did not come from Adam and Eve. Or if we did, they looked very different than the story tells us and there were probably a lot more of them, and no apples were involved.
This idea of THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST…not coined by Darwin but instead by English intellectual Herbert Spencer upon reading the manifesto, plays out in so many aspects of our lives, most notably on our socio-economic, environmental and political stages. There are few books that have had the power to tell us of our past and of our ultimate fate as The Origin does and it took years for it to catch on outside of the readership in London. Alfred Russell Wallace was the Darwin-head that brought his theories to America, meeting with the likes of John Muir and Leland Stanford and other big family heads to spread the new gospel (Wallace also led a seance allowing Stanford to talk to his deceased son which some think was a pivotal event in Stanford founding the university (go bears!)). Jack London, in his novel Call of the Wild, used the story of a domesticated dog’s return to the wild to showcase the true connection any of us can have to our primitive origins.
Through Darwin we could understand more of who we are and where we come from. Maybe understanding our nature and where we come from can help us overcome the negative aspects. Maybe…
Julie Nimoy and William Shatner endorse a proposed statue to honor Leonard Nimoy
Every city should have one.
WB Yeats, the Spanish flu and an experiment in quarantine
From the article: WB Yeats maintained that “a poet’s life is an experiment in living and those that come after have a right to know it”. His declaration invites us to ask whether the experiment of his life can tell us anything about navigating the perils of pandemic and quarantine. His own experiment in living demonstrated that the elixir of love is potent medicine for anyone locked in by pandemic or the virus of hatred.
The Kinks unveil special multi-format release plans for the 50th anniversary of ‘Lola’
I am dubious about these big boxsets that come out with a ton of stuff that you really don’t need/have had before/etc. Ultimately, throwing on an original vinyl copy of LolaVersus Powerman is still the best way to celebrate the record. But then again….maybe there is an unheard gem in there…and damn if I do love the Kinks.
The rise and fall of Tab – after surviving the sweetener scares, the iconic diet soda gets canned
This is a great story….I had no idea that diet drinks were created initially for diabetics and people with cardiovascular problems with the original drink being called No-cal! And that Diet Rite Cola was the big fish in the pond back in those days. Fascinating (saying this in my Spock voice).
The Second Coming
By William Butler Yeats
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
