‘Bodies’ In Framingham, MA

A while ago I said that the traveling exhibition called ‘Bodies’ was coming to Framingham, Massachusetts. Well, it’s here, and having seen Bodyworld 2 last year, I recommend staying away. A local pharmacist named Aaron Ginsburg is speaking out against the exhibit, and while I may not feel as strongly as he does, I think he’s on track with his comments, which you can read by clicking here.

The medical advisor of the show claims, in this article from the Metrowest Daily News, that…

…all bodies in the exhibit died of natural causes and were unclaimed. Under Chinese law they were acquired by Dalian Medical University for research and loaned to Premier Exhibitions for the show. After the exhibit, they will be either donated to U.S. medical institutions or returned to China to be cremated and interred.

Do I believe this? Nah. But even if it’s true, some of the displays of human bodies I saw last year at Bodyworld 2, including a literal chest of drawers, aren’t about education, so much as they are about desecration.

Did Jack Kevorkian have a point about dying with dignity? Sure he did. But, c’mon, didn’t it seem there was something “off” about the way he went about it? Same thing, in my view, with Gunther von Hagens saying these body exhibits are solely educational, and Mel Gibson’s claim that he was interested only in portraying the suffering of Jesus in ‘The Passion of The Christ.’ In my opinion, these guys are acting out something very deep and dark.

The Line-Up

This week’s issue of Newsweek speculates on New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, no longer a Republican, as a wild card candidate for President. This raises an amazing prospect of the top candidates being a Catholic and a Mormon, a woman and a black man, and a Jew. It’s going to be a perfect storm of an election!

This quote from the article reminded me of something.

Landing at the Wall Street heliport earlier this year, after the mayor announced he was leaving the Republican Party to become an independent, President Bush gestured to Marine One and told Bloomberg: “That bird could be yours.”

It reminded me that my brother is one of the people who maintains Marine One. He and I do not share the same opinion of Dubya.

Sputtering After Sputnik

Sputnik - 1957

Science News is a consistently excellent weekly magazine for keeping up with what’s really happening in the various scientific disciplines. I enjoyed reading an article about the launching of Sputnik 50 years ago. Something I didn’t know is that the launch was no surprise to American scientists, who were looking forward to it. America’s first attempt at a satellite launch was spectacular, but not successful:

On Dec. 6, the press was invited to Cape Canaveral, Fla., to witness the U.S. response to Sputnik. Newsreel cameras rolled as a modified Navy Vanguard rocket carrying a small satellite lifted off the launch pad. It rose just 4 feet before erupting in a fireball, sending the grapefruit-size satellite in its nose cone hurtling across the sands. The next day’s headlines provided the postmortem: “Flopnik,” “Dudnik,” “Kaputnik.”

You can read the article by clicking here.

‘Recording The Beatles’ at Museum of Making Music

Months ago I raved about the RTB Book — Recording The Beatles, by Kevin Ryan and Brian Kehew. This exquisite $100 tome isn’t for everyone, but for its intended audience it’s the finest work of its kind — the only work of its kind — ever published.

RTB - Recording The Beatles

The authors will be speaking at the Museum of Making Music in Carlsbad, CA, on November 17. Wish I could be there!

And I’ll take this opportunity to toss in another plug for Geoff Emerick’s fascinating remembrance, Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of THE BEATLES.

New Tube Radio

A recording of the song ‘Layla’ is on the audio player. It was taken from an FM tube radio.

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/NOV07/nanoradio-layla.mp3]
Courtesy Zettl Research Group,
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and University of California at Berkeley

Bad reception? An old LP played with a broken needle? No! Quite the opposite. It’s from the most advanced, state-of-the-art FM radio ever devised. It’s not a tube radio, but a nano-tube radio! Edwin Armstrong would be pleased.

June Lockhart’s TV Sons

Today, in Springfield MA, I met Jon Provost and Bill Mumy. They were separated by the Connecticut River — Jon was on the west side and Bill on the east, at two very different events. Jon was appearing at the World of Pets, and Bill was at the United Fan Con. What they have in common is June Lockhart was their mother on TV — Jon as Timmy Martin on ‘Lassie’, and Bill as Will Robinson on ‘Lost In Space’.

Jon Provost and June LockhartBill Mumy and June Lockhart

Bill Mumy shares a distinction with another former child actor — Jerry Mathers, from ‘Leave It To Beaver’. They were both directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Bill was in ‘Bang! You’re Dead’, one of the most famous installments of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and one of the few that the master himself directed. Mathers was in Hitchcock’s film ‘The Trouble With Harry’.

I can honestly say that I liked all of these guys when I watched them on TV as a kid. I’ve never had a chance to see Mathers in person, but I was thoroughly impressed by Provost and Mumy. They’re both very smart guys, as nice as anybody could ever be, and as good at listening as they are at speaking; but, then, I guess that makes sense, given their training and experience, starting at such an early age. Or maybe it comes from having June Lockhart as their TV mom!

Timmy's In The WellA while ago I posted an item about Jon Provost, whose autobiography, Timmy’s In The Well, will be out soon. Timmy was never in the well on TV, so I was pleased to show Jon the one piece of physical evidence I know of that Timmy, in cartoon form, was briefly in a well, and he was nice enough to sign it for me. Here I am today, with Jon Provost.

Jon Provost and DOuG pRATt

Bill Mumy has always been very much into music, and is a musician himself. He’s very, very good. Hear for yourself by playing the Mumy Jukebox. For a while he was in the band America. Mumy has a wide selection of great music available, and I bought his latest CD.

Bill Mumy - The Landlord or the Guest

It was a fun day! Eric got to see somebody as well, and I’m hoping to post something about that later.