BigShinyThing

Hofman first synthesised what was to become known as LSD in 1943. According to his obit, Hofmann was disappointed when his discovery was made illegal and remained convinced that the drug had the potential to counter the psychological problems induced by “materialism, alienation from nature through industrialisation and increasing urbanisation, lack of satisfaction in professional employment in a mechanised, lifeless working world, ennui and purposelessness in wealthy, saturated society, and lack of a religious, nurturing, and meaningful philosophical foundation of life”.

Source: The Telegraph.

On February 8th, the US state of Nebraska declared that execution by electric chair amounted to an unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment. The US state was the only one still using electrocution as its sole method of execution and the move came after a condemned man, Raymond Mata, appealed against his sentence. In its nine-decade history, this particular chair had been used 15 times.

Little by little, America is beginning to balk at capital punishment: the method rather the madness of it. The most popular method — lethal injection — is currently being investigated by the Supreme Court and Nebraska may struggle to find a replacement way of meting out ‘justice’.

Source: The Economist.

The history of invention is littered with brands that had it all, and lost it all. Sadly, Polaroid has just become one of the victims. The iconic instant photography brand announced this week that it is shutting down film production, bringing to an end the era of polaroid photos.

So what went wrong? In short, Polaroid backed the wrong innovation pony. In the late 1970s, sensing that some kind of seismic shift was coming, it invested heavily in Polavision – an instant movie camera system. Not only was the product a complete turkey, Polaroid missed the real market shifts to come: first the videocassette, then digital. In 2001, Polaroid filed for Chapter 11 and in 2005 was bought by a private investment firm. The brand isn’t completely defunct — it will now focus on producing flat-panel TVs and digital photography gear — but its time as an innovator apparently is. Expect a buying and selling frenzy of dead stock on eBay — we’ll be there.

As with the defence of ‘homosexual panic’ in gay bashings, crimes of passion seem to have an automatic ‘get out of jail’ card. We were angered and dismayed to hear that Bertrand Cantat — who hit actress Marie Trintignant an estimated 19 times in one attack — has been freed from jail half way into his eight year sentence for her murder. Apparently a ‘model prisoner’, Cantat now intends to resume his career as a singer and no doubt benefit from the deeply dubious halo effect of being ‘the left wing popstar who smashed his girlfriend’s head in in a jealous rage’.

Born Jan. 21, 1962, in Boulogne-Billancourt, just outside Paris, Marie Trintignant started her film career at age 5 when she appeared in “Mon Amour, Mon Amour,” which was directed by her mother and starred her father. She went on to act in more than 50 films and nominated 5 times for a César. She was also the mother of four children.

La Meute (The Pack), a feminist organisation, said that Cantat’s release sent the wrong signal to men in France, where one woman is killed every three days by a partner.

Kerr starred in The King And I and From Here To Eternity but it is for her role as a sexually-deranged nun in Black Narcissus that we think she should be most fondly remembered.

She was nominated for the best actress Oscar six times and was given an honorary award by the Academy in 1994 (as is the way with brilliant actors who continuously miss out on the Academy’s votes). Kerr, who had suffered from Parkinson’s disease for a number of years, died in Suffolk on Tuesday.

Source: BBC.

His last words, to his trainer Irene Pepperberg (link contains links to video of Alex) of Brandeis University? “You be good. I love you. See you tomorrow.”

Alex was an African grey parrot that Pepperberg bought in a pet store 30 years ago. By the time of his death last Friday, he had a confirmed vocabulary of more than 100 English words that he could apparently understand and use correctly, rather than merely ‘parroting’ them. Pepperberg has published dozens of scientific papers about Alex’s verbal, mathematical and cognitive abilities, and the two have appeared on a wide variety of television programmes and popular press stories. In the process, they have transformed people’s understanding of the mental abilities of non-human animals.

A necropsy performed over the weekend found no apparent cause of death. Alex had seemed in fine health the day before, and no problems were found in a checkup less than two weeks earlier.

Read more at Nature’s website. Image nicked from the New York Times report on Alex’s death.

See also recently published research on the cognitive abilities of crows from New Caledonia.

UPDATE: Alex may well be the first bird to get an obit in The Economist.

All we have to say is: Ceremony, Hallelujah, Blue Monday, Hacienda.

Via NME.

Singer songwriter and producer who famously collaborated with Nancy Sinatra dies aged 78. According to the BBC report, on being diagnosed with kidney cancer in 2005, Hazlewood gave away his gold and platinum discs to friends outside the music industry and started worked on his final album, Cake Or Death.

We were shocked yesterday to hear from our friend Stephen, of the death (apparently suicide) of blogger and video-game author Theresa Duncan, and the disappearance of her partner Jeremy Blake.

Duncan was known and respected for her work in the late 90s designing girl-friendly video games, and more recently for her witty and opinionated culture blog The Wit of the Staircase. Blake is (was?) an animator and artist. Both included a passion for perfumes amongst their wide-ranging interests.

Theresa was an early supporter of BigShinyThing, and her recognition meant a lot to us back then and since. A proposed interview sadly never happened and now never will. Our thoughts and condolences to her family and to Blake’s.

Perhaps aptly, what has been made public of her death and Blake’s disappearance is shaping up as a modern blogosphere noir. Read the news on the New York Times, and some of the mythmaking and speculation here.

A friend of ours has died and we are very sad. He introduced us to the work of Charles Bukowski (amongst other counter-cultural dons) and it is for this reason that we are posting this poem today. For Steven.

Are You Drinking?

washed-up, on shore, the old yellow notebook
out again
I write from the bed
as I did last
year.
will see the doctor,
Monday.
yes, doctor, weak legs, vertigo, head-
aches and my back
hurts.”
“are you drinking?” he will ask.
“are you getting your
exercise, your
vitamins?”
I think that I am just ill
with life, the same stale yet
fluctuating
factors.
even at the track
I watch the horses run by
and it seems
meaningless.
I leave early after buying tickets on the
remaining races.
“taking off?” asks the motel
clerk.
“yes, it’s boring,”
I tell him.
“If you think it’s boring
out there,” he tells me, “you oughta be
back here.”
so here I am
propped up against my pillows
again
just an old guy
just an old writer
with a yellow
notebook.
something is
walking across the
floor
toward
me.
oh, it’s just
my cat
this
time.

Isabella Blow was known for her glorious millinery and ardent support of young fashion talent: she famously bought the whole of Alexander McQueen’s graduate collection. The last words should probably go to Blow herself:

Hats make you look good and feel beautiful. You can wear them for lunch, a wedding or for breakfast. It is like taking drugs: it is more fun and less dangerous. You don’t have to look like an old bat. You can be a crow and look like a hen.

Kurt Vonnegut, author, counter-culture hero, has died at 84, from reported complications resulting from a fall. Time to re-read Slapstick, Mother Night, Cat’s Cradle, The Sirens of Titan, and of course Slaughterhouse 5. And to listen to the man himself reading Breakfast of Champions in 1970. RIP.

It’s not often that a philosopher tips up amongst the American Idol wannabes and Myspace searches that normally litter Technorati’s top ten searches. But then Baudrillard was if nothing else the philosopher of the MySpace generation. Who else would argue that the first Gulf War was but a computer game simulation?

[The Graph counts blog posts that contain Baudrillard per day for the last 30 days]

The dead philosopher’s Technorati spike is nearly up there with Paris Hilton on a bad day. He’d be proud.

The BBC reports that Doctor Robert Adler, inventor of the ultrasonic remote control, has died.

Before Adler’s innovation at Zenith, remote controls were wired, or used flashing lights that were effected by sunlight.

Back then, according to Zenith’s official history of the remote, TV sales people were dead against remotes which needed batteries (how we can learn from the Teachings of the Ancients!) because:

If the battery went dead, the sales staff said, the customer might think something was wrong with the TV. If the remote control didn’t emit light or show any other visible sign of functioning, people would think it was broken once the batteries died.

Respecting this insight, Adler’s remote:

was built around aluminum rods that were light in weight and, when struck at one end, emitted distinctive high-frequency sounds. The first such remote control used four rods, each approximately 2-1/2 inches long: one for channel up, one for channel down, one for sound on and off, and one for on and off.

Bless. Adler went on to win 180 patents in a variety of fields. According to his wife, who survives him, “the remote was not his favourite invention, [...] he rarely watched television and was ‘more of a reader’”.

Robert Adler, we salute you.

Ian Richardson, renowned for his portrait of Machiavellian chief whip Francis Urquhart in 1990 political thriller House of Cards, died in his sleep at his London home. His death came as a shock as he had not been ill and was due to begin filming his next role in TV show Midsomer Murders next week, his agent said.

Richardson’s portrayal of Urquhart was best remembered for his oft-repeated quote: “You might very well think that — I couldn’t possibly comment”.

Dear BBC — we think releasing House of Cards in its entirety online would be a fitting tribute.

Source: BBC.

A five-time Academy Award nominee for best director, most recently for 2001’s Gosford Park, Altman finally won a lifetime achievement Oscar in 2006.

“No other filmmaker has gotten a better shake than I have,” Altman said while accepting the award. “I’m very fortunate in my career. I’ve never had to direct a film I didn’t choose or develop. My love for filmmaking has given me an entree to the world and to the human condition.”

Obituary at Seattle Pi.