Madness is a Feature, Not a Bug
“He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad.” The sentence opens Rafael Sabatini’s novel Scaramouche. It’s also engraved on his tombstone. And it’s also true. Humans as the price for their exalted state of consciousness have been condemned by providence to eternal madness. The two are unalterably…
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Too Much
Winston Churchill remarked that a dominant characteristic of Germany and its people was a tendency to too much. I don’t think the great man was being fair to his Teutonic cousins as the trait seems universal, even more so with every change of the calendar. The descriptor seems to best apply to those parts of…
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Smaller Brains
The human brain is the most complex structure known. As human-like species evolved over several million years into homo sapiens, hominid brain size tripled. Today the average human brain weighs about three pounds. Our nearest primate relative, the chimpanzee, has a brain that weighs less than a pound. Our brains constitute about 2% of body…
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Met Opera Cancels Next 100 Seasons
Metropolitan Opera general Manager Peter Gelb announced that following this season the venerable company will take a century long sabbatical. The not unexpected action followed Anthony Tommasini’s likening of the current run of Franco Zeffirelli’s production of Puccini’s final opera Turandot to “anti-asian” hostility. Mr Tommasini, music critic for the New York Times, has pointed…
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Pericles’ Funeral Oration
Pericles’ Funeral Oration was recorded, in an edited version, by Thucydides in book two of his History of the Peloponnesian War. The speech was delivered at the end of the first year of the war with Sparta – around 430 BC. It was an Athenian custom of the time to hold an annual commemorative event to…
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On Musical Performance
For a long time I thought that the role of the performer was simply to play (or sing) the notes exactly as they were written in the score. It gradually dawned on me that this literal approach to musical performance was rather simple minded. During my come scritto period I thought Toscanini the prince of…
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Henri Legay
Henri Legay (1920-92) was a French tenor whose career was mostly based in Paris. For a while he supported himself singing while accompanying himself with a guitar at Parisian cabarets. He composed some of the songs he sang. He also played for Edith Piaf and Ives Montand. in 1947 he received a first prize from…
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One Flu Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
There are books abut white fragility which get a lot of attention, both pro and con. Someone needs to write a tome entitled Fragility without any modifier. The pandemic now stalking the world is not the one caused by a newish virus, it’s the one due to a fervid worldwide outbreak of the woollies and…
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On Corruption
Lord Acton’s famous line about the relationship of power and corruption needs no more than its first phrase. The two are conjoined twins. Under the right circumstances all of us are likely to succumb to the corrosive effect of authority. Some occupations have it as part of their job descriptions. While corruption is ineluctably part…
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The Greatest Musical Composition Ever – 1
Obviously there’s a contradiction in my title. There can’t be more than one greatest musical composition ever written. My purpose is to list music so good that while you’re listening to it, it seems to be without peer – at least until you happen on the next greatest work. My plan for this series is…
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Why Nothing is Hardest
Nothing is harder than doing nothing, especially when it’s the best alternative among a pack of difficult choices. Medicine’s prime commandment – Primum non nocere – often requires that the physician refrain from treatment when the remedy is worse than the malady. While the maxim is endlessly preached, it is rarely observed. The urge to…
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CRISPR and Human Characteristics
On September 9th PBS series NOVA presented a two hour program devoted to the genetic technique CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats). It’s a technique that allows for gene editing. You can read about by clicking the link above. The PBS program does a pretty good job of explaining how the technique works and…
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On Equality
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal… This self evident truth is obviously not self evident. Thomas Jefferson undoubtedly knew such to be the case. He meant that we all should be equal before the law and that the laws should be designed without bias or special benefit not thought…
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The Invention of Jazz
The conventional view is that jazz is an American art form that originated in African-American communities of New Orleans. It was a derivative of blues and ragtime. Over time it split into many branches. When one thinks of the original New Orleans version, names like King Oliver (1881-1938), Jelly Roll Morton (1890-1940), and Louis Armstrong…
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Livin’ the Dream – Governments, Polls, and Other Blunders
The current state of societal and economic collapse is completely the governments fault. Yet what’s seen as the solution? More Government action. Since the viral epidemic was recognized, we warned here that locking down the economy would make things a lot worse, which sure enough it did. We’ve had worse viral outbreaks, some within living…
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Opera Interludes
My subject is the instrumental music that occurs during a scene or between two. Excluded are overtures, preludes, and ballet music. Sometimes the distinction between an interlude or intermezzo and a prelude can be precious, but if the music below is called an interlude, an intermezzo, or in one case a meditation I accepted it…
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Church Scenes
I recently wrote about the last few minutes of the first act of Tosca, which is set in a church – Sant’Andrea della Valle. There are other operas which have scenes in a church or houses of worship, five are presented below. Giacomo Meyerbeer was a German composer who tried to follow the style of…
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Haydn Piano Trios
No great composer wrote as much music as did Joseph Haydn (1732-1809). The quality of his music is as great as its amount. So vast is his output that it’s hard to count all his compositions. He is famed as the father of both the string quartet and the symphony. He wrote 68 of the…
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The Lack of Effect of Influenza Vaccination on the Elderly
The Annals of Internal Medicine recently published online a study of the effectiveness of influenza vaccination on the likelihood of subjects 65 and older being hospitalized or dying. The study’s objective was: “To determine the effectiveness of the influenza vaccine in reducing hospitalizations and mortality among elderly persons by using an observational research design that…
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Drinking Songs
Opera and alcohol are frequently paired. Accordingly, here are some drinking songs. I’m using the term loosely. Most would fit under this appellation, but some do not and not all the selections are from operas. They are presented in no particular order. If randomness works for quantum mechanics, it’s OK here. First is likely the…
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Mad Scenes Not By Donizetti
Donizetti’s Lucia Di Lammermoor is the poster girl for operatic lunacy. She’s been going mad for close to two centuries with no letup in sight. She should be an honorary member of the American Psychiatric Association; she’d fit right in. She’s probably got her own ICD 10 code. But opera has many other examples of…
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World War 2 Photos
The photos below were found in a box after my mother died. They detail part of her brother Nat’s service in the US Army during World War 2. I know nothing more than what was written on the back of some of these pictures. They were about 60 years old by the time I saw…
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The Met’s House Tenors
The definition I’m using here is this: A Met house tenor is one who has sung at least 500 performances in leading tenor roles with the company. Thus, comprimario singers are not included. Using this rule there are only six tenors who qualify. They are listed below in the order of their birth followed by…
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Dr. Donald W. Seldin, ‘intellectual father’ of UT Southwestern, dies at 97
Dr Seldin died April 25, 2018 at the age of 97. I was one of thousands of physicians whose life and career was shaped by this great man. The article below is the tribute to him that was published by Southwestern Medical Center, the institution that he devoted his life to and which was shaped…
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How Go Completely Crazy in 25 Easy Steps
The first thing to accept is that you don’t have to do anything crazy to go completely crazy – a series of rational small steps will get you there. A to B seems at least OK. The same with B to C, all the way to Z. Twenty five rational, or semi-rational, steps and you’re…
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The Genetically Modified Organism in Your House
Vermont in a spasm of enlightenment has mandated that all genetically modified foods sold in the Green Mountain State be so labeled. According to numerous polls 90% of the population of the USA thinks this a good idea. This is the same concerned and informed group that by an 80% margin supports labeling food that…
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Verdi Chords
One of the most distinctive characteristics of Giuseppe Verdi’s operas is his use of chords to resolve or punctuate the moments of greatest emotional and dramatic tension as his story reaches a crisis point. This simple device would seem within the grasp of almost any composer, but Verdi’s use of it is unique. Below are five…
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A Serious Bird
BOISE, Idaho — Albertson’s LLC said Monday that it has agreed to acquire The United Family, a privately owned chain of 50 supermarkets based in Lubbock, Texas, operating under three banners. Supermarket News Sept 9, 2013 This is really very simple, but I’ll do my best to make it complex. Groucho is a Yellow-Naped Amazon…
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Second Law of Thermodynamics Held Unconstitutional
A deeply divided Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, held the Second Law of Thermodynamics to be unconstitutional. In a decision released Monday the 4th of July, the first time the court has ever met on the nation’s birthday, the court ruled that the law violated the due process section of the 5th amendment. The case (ACLU v. Cal…
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Finale 39 – Benvenuto Cellini
Hector Berlioz was among the most innovative and original of all the great composers. His first opera loosely based on an episode from the Renaissance artist’s memoirs was written in 1838. It sounds like nothing that preceded it. The music moves like the molten metal that is used to cast Cellini’s famous statue of Perseus…
Autonomous Cars VS Autonomous Drivers
The problem with human intelligence is that its normal range is too broad. The difference between the lower limit of normal compared to the upper point of the normal range is so wide that the average comes in at such a low number that the ordinary performance of typical human functions is beyond the capacity…
Finale 38 – Dialogues des Carmélites
Dialogues des Carmélites (Dialogues of the Carmelites) is an opera in three acts with music and libretto by Francis Poulenc. It is the story of the Martyrs of Compiègne, Carmelite nuns who, in 1794 during the closing days of the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution, were guillotined in Paris for refusing to renounce…
Doing Nothing: "Doing Nothing by Dr. Neil Kurtzman takes us through the education of Richard Grollman, from his first day of medical school through his last day as chief resident on the medical service of a busy city hospital. Through his experiences, the reader is taken through a wonderful journey as we see the highs and lows of his life during his “education.” One is taken through the trials of medical school and the challenges faced during residency. This story examines the human side and art of medicine. This is a wonderful book that would be appreciated by most people, but would be greatly enjoyed by physicians who can certainly relate to Richard. It is reasonably priced and very well written. It is very difficult to put down. I would recommend this book without hesitation." - JASON LIFSHUTZ, M.D. › More ...
About Neil Kurtzman
Neil A Kurtzman MD is the Grover E Murray Professor Emeritus and University Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Department of Internal Medicine at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in Lubbock. He has combined careers in clinical medicine, education, basic research, and administration for more than 30 years.› Read the biography
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