Quote:In 1810 John Haslam, a London apothecary, published the first ever book-length description of a mad person’s delusions. Until this point most medical case histories of what we now refer to as mental illness had amounted to a line or two at most, and more often just a single word such as “frenzied” or “melancholy”. But the opinions of James Tilly Matthews resisted any such summary. He described a previously unimagined world of futuristic machines, “magnetic spies” and mass brainwashing, woven into a bizarre but undeniably well-informed narrative of the high politics behind the Napoleonic Wars.

Haslam titled his book Illustrations of Madness, and it was full of lessons for the nascent profession of “mad-doctoring”, later to be known as psychiatry. But it was also written to settle a personal score. Haslam was the apothecary at the Royal Bethlem Hospital — in popular slang, Bedlam — where James Tilly Matthews had for the previous decade been confined as an incurable lunatic. Not everyone, however, believed that Matthews was mad. Haslam’s diagnosis had been contested by other doctors, and the governors of Bethlem had distanced themselves from it. He wrote his book in retaliation against his superiors; but as it turned out, his patient would have the last word.

Although Haslam has been relegated to a footnote in the history of psychiatry, his account of Matthews’ inner world is still cited as the first fully described case of what we now call paranoid schizophrenia, and in particular of an “influencing machine”: the belief, or delusion, that a covertly operated device is acting at a distance to control the subject’s mind and body. For everyone who has since had messages beamed at them by the CIA, MI5, Masonic lodges or UFOs, via dental fillings, mysterious implants, TV sets or surveillance satellites, James Tilly Matthews is patient zero.

.....

Mindcraft from the Wellcome Collection

Lobster-cracking:




The above animation from Beakus is part of of the Wellcome Collection’s new online and digital exhibition titled Mindcraft, which explores a century of madness, murder and mental healing, from the arrival in Paris of Franz Anton Mesmer with his theories of ‘animal magnetism’ to the therapeutic power of hypnotism used by Freud.

Quote:The Beep Heard Around the World

As the sun rose on October 4, 1957, many Americans were talking about baseball. The headlines reported that for the first time in nine years, a team from outside of New York had won a game in the World Series. The day before, in front of 65,202 fans filling Yankee Stadium, Hank Aaron launched a fly ball to center field. Mickey Mantle misplayed it, allowing Aaron to stretch the hit into a triple. The play sparked a rally for the Milwaukee Braves, and the Yankees were unable to recover, losing 4 to 2.

By the time the sun set that evening, however, a completely different topic dominated conversations. On the other side of the world, almost 6,000 miles from Yankee Stadium, another ball had been launched and its effects were both more dramatic and long-lasting.

At the Soviet Baikonur complex in what is now Kazakhstan, at 2:12 in the afternoon New York time, the world suddenly changed. Thirty-two rocket boosters ignited, the desert steppe shook and a three-stage rocket shot skyward, accelerating to over 17,000 miles per hour. At 142 miles above the earth, the rocket’s protective cone released its cargo. Humanity’s first satellite, called Sputnik, started to orbit the earth.

Quote:Consuming less would increase the amount left to share, and it would also help keep prices down at home. So the President had a plan: no red meat on Tuesdays, and no poultry or eggs on Thursdays. Citizens were also asked to eat one less piece of bread each day, and restaurants were requested only to serve bread and butter if it was ordered. As the Citizens Food Committee announced following the speech, even the White House was going along: the President would have cheese souffle for lunch and broiled salmon for dinner on that Tuesday, with an egg-free menu of baked ham the following night. Meatless Mondays had been a wartime solution to shortages dating back to World War I, which TIME later called “the 1917-18 meatless, wheatless, or otherless days,” so there was plenty of precedent for asking Americans to cut back.

There were, however, a few exceptions that even the President would allow: as TIME pointed out the following week, Christmas, New Year’s and Thanksgiving in 1947 all fell on poultry-free Thursdays. The solution would be to conserve on the Mondays of those weeks instead, so Americans could have their turkeys and save them, too.

The Surprising Point of the First Televised White House Speech

Quote:A U.S. Postal Service worker was shot in the face during an altercation Friday afternoon in Everett, Washington, and a rival package delivery driver is in custody, according to local police and a postal inspector.

The incident took place at the West Mall Place Apartments. The victim was transported to Providence Hospital with a gunshot wound, the Everett Police Department said in a Facebook post. He was transferred to Harbor View Medical Center in critical condition, Seattle TV station KOMO reported.

Neighbors said the shooter was an Amazon delivery driver, according to KOMO and social media posts. TV footage showed an Amazon vehicle and USPS van behind police crime-scene tape and the Amazon van being towed away later.

“USPS workers don’t let people in the area when they have the mailboxes open. The Amazon driver didn’t particularly like that, they got into an argument, which escalated to a shoving match, which escalated to the Amazon driver shooting the USPS guy in the freaking eye!!! Then he sat there calmly and waited for the cops to show up and claimed self defense,” a poster named Rich Ryan said on Facebook.

KOMO quoted a U.S. postal inspector as saying the mail carrier was confronted by an individual and the carrier was shot in the face.

The U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the FBI are also investigating the case. The suspect was booked into Snohomish County jail, KOMO said.

US Postal Service Mail Carrier Shot By Amazon Driver

Quote:Replace these "wireless telegraphs" with smartphones, update the dress a little, and this vision from a 1906 issue of Punch magazine could easily be for 110 years in the future. Part of a series of "forecasts" for the year to come, the caption reads: “These two figures are not communicating with one another. The lady receives an amatory message, and the gentleman some racing results.” It's a reminder that the idea of technology leading to a breakdown in "authentic" human interaction is a worry not solely limited to our age.

Punch seemed to have a knack for uncanny predictions of distant technologies to come. See for example this vision of the Skype-like "Telephonoscope" from 1879.

A Vision of Isolating Technology from 1906

Quote:I suppose that this toast is intended to open the way for me to say something. War at the best is terrible, and this of ours in its magnitude and duration is one of the most terrible the world has ever known. It has deranged business totally in many places, and perhaps in all. It has destroyed property, destroyed life, and ruined homes. It has produced a national debt and a degree of taxation unprecedented in the history of this country. It has caused mourning among us until the heavens may almost be said to be hung in black.

And yet it continues. It has had accompaniments not before known in the history of the world. I mean the Sanitary and Christian Commissions, with their labors for the relief of the soldiers, and the Volunteer Refreshment Saloons, understood better by those who hear me than by myself, and these fairs, first begun at Chicago and next held in Boston, Cincinnati, and other cities. The motive and object that lie at the bottom of them are worthy of the most that we can do for the soldier who goes to fight the battles of his country. From the fair and tender hand of women is much, very much, done for the soldier, continually reminding him of the care and thought for him at home. The knowledge that he is not forgotten is grateful to his heart. Another view of these institutions is worthy of thought. They are voluntary contributions, giving proof that the national resources are not at all exhausted, and that the national patriotism will sustain us through all. It is a pertinent question, When is this war to end? I do not wish to name the day when it will end, lest the end should not come at the given time. We accepted this war, and did not begin it. We accepted it for an object, and when that object is accomplished the war will end, and I hope to God that it will never end until that object is accomplished.

We are going through with our task, so far as I am concerned, if it takes us three years longer. I have not been in the habit of making predictions, but I am almost tempted now to hazard one. I will. It is, that Grant is this evening in a position, with Meade and Hancock, of Pennsylvania, whence he can never be dislodged by the enemy until Richmond is taken. If I shall discover that General Grant may be greatly facilitated in the capture of Richmond by rapidly pouring to him a large number of armed men at the briefest notice, will you go? Will you march on with him?

[Cries of "Yes, yes."]

Then I shall call upon you when it is necessary.

Lincoln Address at a Sanitary Fair in Philadelphia

Quote:...the outspoken pastor uncorked his outrage over the insensitive revelry and delivered a blistering broadside from his pulpit at the All Souls Church:

    I have with me here in the pulpit this morning a page from a newspaper. From a very fine newspaper. It contains a picture—as it seems to me, an utterly loathsome picture. If I spoke as I feel I would call it obscene. I do not blame the newspaper for printing the picture, or the photographer for taking it. What fills me with bitterness is the fact that such an event could take place at all. It is a picture of two high naval officers and a very beautiful lady.[3] They are in the act of cutting what is called an atom-bomb cake. And it is indeed a cake shaped in the form of an atomic explosion. The caption [in the Post’s photo] says it is made of angel food puffs. I do not know how to tell you what I feel about that picture. I only hope to God it is not printed in Russia—to confirm everything the Soviet government is telling the Russian people about how ‘American degenerates’ are able to treat with levity the most cruel, pitiless, revolting instrument of death ever invented by man… The naval officers concerned should apologize to the armed service of which they are a part, and to the American people. No apology would be sufficient to efface what it may mean to the people of the world.

Quote:The Chronophage is one of the things I’m most proud of. ‘Chronophage’ is derived from the Ancient Greek words ‘chronos’ and ‘phage’, meaning ‘time-eater’. The creatures that stalk the top of the clocks will continue to eat time for hundreds of years to come, so the majority of the construction is in stainless steel, gold and enamel, chosen for their longevity.

Dr John Taylor demonstrates]Chronophage in motion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCqGtvTA36k  (5 min clip worth a view if you've never seen)

When I returned to Cambridge in 1999, I found the undergraduate library was unchanged since I was a student in 1956. I decided to offer my former college – Corpus Christi – sufficient funds to transform the adjacent bank into a new library. The Corpus Chronophage was created to occupy the old bank’s front door.

We designed the Corpus Chronophage using materials that would last for hundreds of years. The main body is made of stainless steel and gold, both of which will last for a long, long time.

What inspired me to produce the Chronophage? Modern art. The majority of modern art is superficial, there’s nothing to it.

I was inspired to create the Chronophage because of modern art. I’ve never been a fan of it, so I wanted to create something that was modern art but had a bit more to it. I wanted to find a new way of telling time.

The Chronophage

Quote:As one walks down the street known as King’s Parade in Cambridge, just outside Corpus Christi college you will see a rather remarkable clock.  There many strange features to this clock but the most striking and disturbing is the creature that stretches itself across the top.  This is the chronophage – the “time-eater”.  As the seconds turn the outer circle, this locust-like monster crawls along with mouth open, as if it is devouring every second. Periodically, its jaws will snap shut and its eyes will close in satisfaction as he swallows a minute or two. The clock limps along irregularly—stalling sometimes, sometimes speeding forward—like our own experience of life. Only every five minutes can it be trusted to tell the time accurately.  And then on the hour, instead of a chime, the sound of a chain dragging across a coffin appears.  At the base of this gilded disc is carved in stone, Latin words from 1 John 2:17, “mundus transit et concupiscentia eius” – “the world is passing away as are its desires.”  The designer and donor of the clock, John Taylor, sums up the symbolism pretty clearly, “Basically I view time as not on your side. He’ll eat up every minute of your life, and as soon as one has gone he’s salivating for the next.”

Concordia Theology

Quote:October 1965 Issue

A man in Arizona has decided that Americans should be playing a new game called Victory Over Communism. It is described by its creator, a Phoenix businessman, as “America’s first anti-Communist game for children and adults,” and is intended as the all-purpose birthday, Christmas, or graduation gift.

Victory Over Communism is played on a smallish cardboard rectangle bearing a map of the world —with twenty-five “slave” countries etched in red — and a timetable demonstrating that the world will be wholly Communistic by 1973, “the date set by most authorities on the subject of Communism, that the Communists will complete their goal of World Communism, if they are not stopped.”

The players roll dice and, accordingly, grapple with a set of questions designed to test their knowledge of the history and method of the international Communist conspiracy (for example: “Are Communists more interested in adults or children?”; “Are we as a nation and as individuals really in trouble because of the Communist conspiracy and internal infiltration of Communists in our country?”; “What president campaigned that he would ‘clean up the mess in Washington,’ but after elected actually made the job of uncovering security risks almost impossible?”). For the benefit of doubting Thomases, each question and answer is documented, with a page reference to John A. Stormer’s definitive work None Dare Call It Treason.

Closing the Game Gap

Quote:Even though it was never released in the States, Serebristaya Pyl caused outrage overseas, after America’s fiercely anticommunist ambassador to Italy, Clare Boothe Luce, was somehow able to attend a screening of it, and attacked it in a column in Time magazine. Luce called it ”vile propaganda”, despite the fact that most of what the film showed was happening in the USA at the time, even down to the secret medical testing of black people, without their knowledge or consent. For Luce (a former senator) and her contemporary conservatives, who must have known quite well about racial discrimination and the (often officially condoned) activities of the Ku Klux Klan, the film seems to have hit a sore spot.

But Luce wasn’t the only one upset about Serebristaya Pyl. According to Charlotte M. Manning’s book On the Performance Front the US delegate to the UN called it ”an extravagant fiction”, and James Reston of the New York Times described it as ”the most venomous anti-American movie in the history of [the Soviet] film industry”.

Quote:In screaming woods and empty rooms
or gloomy vaults and sunken tombs;
Where monks and nuns in dust decay
and shadows dance at close of day.

II

Where the bat dips on the wing
and spectral choirs on breezes sing;
Where swords of ancient battles clash
and shimmering shades for freedom dash.

III

Where raging storms at midnight howl
and distant rolls of thunder growl.
Where the hounds of hell take flight
and ghost clouds race across the night.

IV

Where silver webs of spiders weave
and star-crossed lovers take their leave.
Where curses lay the spirits low
and mortal footsteps fear to go.

V

Where death holds life in grim embrace
its lines etched on the sinner's face.
Where e'er the march of time is flaunted
voices cry - "this place is haunted."

Quote:On October 21, 1967, almost 100,000 people rallied in Washington, D.C. to peacefully protest the war in Vietnam. Magnum photographer Marc Riboud’s most published image from this protest was the final shot on his last roll of film. Riboud remembered this day for an essay about his career, published in 1989:

“One day in October 1967, I found myself in Washington, swept along in the slipstream of a cause at the time simple and straightforward. A vast, ecstatic crowd was marching for peace in Vietnam as the sunlight of an Indian summer flooded the city’s streets. Hundreds of thousands of young men and women, both black and white, were defiantly closing in on the Pentagon, the citadel of the most powerful army in the world, and for one day America’s youth presented America with a handsome face. I was taking photographs like mad, running out of film as night fell. The very last photo was the best. Framed in my viewfinder was the symbol of that America youth: a flower held before a row of bayonets.”

Behind the Image: Protesting the Vietnam War with a Flower