by Kevin Ashton
37 Nucleobases, essential components of DNA: Callahan et al., 2011.
38 glycolaldehyde, a sugarlike molecule: Jørgensen et al., 2012.
39 Franklin likely inherited: Gabai-Kapara, 2014, suggests that only 2 percent of Ashkenazi Jews carry a BRCA mutation, split evenly between the BRCA1 mutation and the BRCA2 mutation. (Only about three in ten thousand Ashkenazim have mutations in both their BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes.) Not all women with BRCA mutations develop ovarian cancer, and not all ovarian cancers among Ashkenazi Jewish women are caused by BRCA mutations: only 40 percent of Ashkenazi Jewish women who develop ovarian cancer have BRCA2 mutations. It is Franklin’s death from ovarian cancer at such a young age, combined with her Ashkenazi Jewish descent, that indicates she was likely to have been a carrier of a mutated BRCA gene.
40 The BRCA2 mutation makes: Antinou, 2003. While 1.4 percent of all women develop ovarian cancer, 39 percent of women with a BRCA1 mutation and 11 to 17 percent of women with a BRCA2 mutation develop ovarian cancer. BRCA mutations also increase breast cancer risk: while 12 percent of all women develop breast cancer, 55 to 65 percent of women with a BRCA1 mutation and 45 percent of women with a BRCA2 mutation develop breast cancer. See the National Cancer Institute at http://bit.ly/ncibrca for more information about the impact of BRCA mutations on both diseases.
41 all literal cousins of Rosalind Franklin: According to genetic analysis by Carmi, 2014, all Ashkenazi Jews are descended from a population of about 350 people who lived seven hundred years ago, around 1300 CE. If we assume a generation is, on average, twenty-five years, and the founding people were interrelated, this suggests that all living Ashkenazim are about thirtieth cousins or closer.
CHAPTER 6: CHAINS OF CONSEQUENCE
1 William Cartwright’s dog started barking: Details of the attack on Cartwright’s mill taken from the “Luddite Bicentenary” website at: http://bit.ly/rawfolds.
2 The new and improved Enoch sledgehammers: Details about “the Great Enoch” are available on the Radical History Network blog at http://bit.ly/greatenoch.
3 “Governments must have arisen”: Paine, 1791.
4 He begins with Frenchman Philippe Lebon: Lebon’s patent is dated 1801, but Ehrenburg describes him developing the engine in 1798 (Ehrenburg, 1929).
5 “It really boils down to this”: Dr. King first delivered this sermon at Ebenezer Baptist Church, where he served as co-pastor. On Christmas Eve 1967, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation aired the sermon as part of the seventh annual Massey Lectures. Available at http://bit.ly/drkingsermon.
6 “We do not consider modern inventions to be evil”: This quotation, and other details about the Amish, are from Kraybill et al., 2013.
7 “Not everything that could be fixed should be fixed”: Morozov, 2013.
8 When all the processes in Coca-Cola’s tool chain: Analysis based on Ercin et al., 2011.
9 Come on, my love: This is the English translation of a traditional Scottish walking, or “waulking,” song “Coisich, A Ruin” (“Come On, My Love”), probably from around the fourteenth century. There is a beautiful recording by Catriona MacDonald at http://bit.ly/coisich. Craig Coburn summarizes the tradition of the Scottish walking song at http://bit.ly/craigcoburn. Fulling in England is discussed in Pelham, 1944; Lennard, 1951; Munro, 1999; and Lucas, 2006.
10 jobs that, less than a century later: Dating this to Towne, 1886.
11 Between 1840 and 1895, school attendance: Cipolla, 1969.
12 In 1990, America had 30 million: Statistics from Snyder, 1993, summarized at http://bit.ly/snydersummary; full version at http://bit.ly/snyderthomas.
13 The number of Americans earning college degrees: Analysis based on demographic data from InfoPlease, “Population Distribution by Age, Race, and Nativity, 1860–2010” (http://bit.ly/uspopulation); U.S. Census at http://bit.ly/educationfacts; Snyder, 1993 (http://bit.ly/snyderthomas); and Joseph Kish’s table “U.S. Population 1776 to Present” (http://bit.ly/kishjoseph).
CHAPTER 7: THE GAS IN YOUR TANK
1 In March 2002, Woody Allen did something: Biographical details about Woody Allen from Wikipedia entry at http://bit.ly/allenwoody. In 2002 he had won three Academy Awards—two for Annie Hall (Best Original Screenplay and Best Director, 1978) and one for Hannah and Her Sisters (Best Original Screenplay, 1987). He had also been nominated for seventeen other awards: Annie Hall (Best Actor in a Leading Role, 1978), Interiors (Best Original Screenplay and Best Director, 1979), Manhattan (Best Original Screenplay, 1980), Broadway Danny Rose (Best Original Screenplay and Best Director, 1985), The Purple Rose of Cairo (Best Original Screenplay, 1986), Hannah and Her Sisters (Best Director, 1987), Radio Days (Best Original Screenplay, 1988), Crimes and Misdemeanors (Best Original Screenplay and Best Director, 1989), Alice (Best Original Screenplay, 1990), Husbands and Wives (Best Original Screenplay, 1993), Bullets Over Broadway (Best Original Screenplay and Best Director, 1994), Mighty Aphrodite (Best Original Screenplay, 1996), and Deconstructing Harry (Best Original Screenplay, 1998). As of 2014, since appearing at the 2002 Academy Awards ceremony, he has won a fourth award for Midnight in Paris (Best Original Screenplay, 2011) and received three other nominations: Match Point (Best Original Screenplay, 2006), Midnight in Paris (Best Director, 2011), and Blue Jasmine (Best Original Screenplay, 2014). A complete list of Allen’s awards is available at the Internet Movie Database, http://bit.ly/allenawards. The speech in which he said, “For New York City, I’ll do anything” can be seen on YouTube at http://bit.ly/allenspeech.
2 He gives several tongue-in-cheek excuses: From Block and Cornish, 2012: “Audie Cornish, Host: Woody Allen is a favorite to take home at least one Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, but don’t expect the camera to cut to him when the nominees’ names are announced. Melissa Block, Host: With one exception, Woody Allen has never attended the Academy Awards. In spite of his previous 21 nominations and three wins, he declines the invites. He’s known for it, so notoriously so that urban myths are told as to why. Cornish: No, it’s not because of a standing gig playing the clarinet at a New York pub. We were assured of that by Eric Lax, who wrote ‘Conversations with Woody Allen.’ Eric Lax: It was a polite excuse. I think that, if he has a gig that night, he can say, well, I had a gig that night. I needed to be there. You know, that goes all the way back to ‘Annie Hall.’ ” Allen, quoted in Hornaday, 2012: “They always have it on Sunday night. And it’s always—you can look this up—it’s always opposite a good basketball game. And I’m a big basketball fan. So it’s a great pleasure for me to come home and get into bed and watch a basketball game. And that’s exactly where I was, watching the game.”
3 “The whole concept of awards is silly”: From Lax, 2000: “There are two things that bother me about [the Academy Awards],” he said in 1974 after Vincent Canby had written a piece wondering why Sleeper had received no nominations. “They’re political and bought and negotiated for—although many worthy people have deservedly won—and the whole concept of awards is silly. I cannot abide by the judgment of other people, because if you accept it when they say you deserve an award, then you have to accept it when they say you don’t.”
4 “I think what you get in awards is favoritism”: From Weide, 2011. Video clip on YouTube at http://bit.ly/whatyougetinawards.
5 Psychologist R. A. Ochse lists eight motivations: Ochse, 1990.
6 “I want to feel my work good and well taken”: Plath, 1982, as quoted in Amabile, 1996.
7 Amabile asked ninety-five people: Amabile, 1996.
8 Olympia SM2 portable typewriter: Australian blogger Teeritz gives a detailed description of the SM2, with photographs, at http://bit.ly/olympiasm2.
9 “It still works like a tank”: Woody Allen quotations throughout from Lax, 2000, and Weide, 2011; descriptions (e.g., type of typewriter) based on Weide, 2011.
10 Poet John Berryman cong
ratulated him: Simpson, 1982. Cited in Amabile 1983.
11 “When I began to think of what”: Edited from Eliot, 1948. Full text at http://bit.ly/eliotbanquet.
12 an address to the Nordic Assembly of Naturalists: Einstein, 1923.
13 The days are cold and dry: Sausalito weather in February 1976 from Old Farmer’s Almanac at http://bit.ly/pointbonita.
14 A strange redwood hut: Record Plant Studios, 2200 Bridgeway, Sausalito, CA 94965. Photographs of the entrance, with carved animals, at http://bit.ly/recordplant.
15 Christine McVie calls it a “a cocktail party”: Crowe, 1977. Complete quotation: “ ‘Trauma,’ Christine groans. ‘Trau-ma. The sessions were like a cocktail party every night—people everywhere.’ ”
16 Warner Bros. compares it to the rocket: Tusk has a mixed reputation now. Some critics, and some members of Fleetwood Mac, regard it as the band’s best work.
17 Don’t Stand Me Down confused reviewers: As with Tusk, some now consider Don’t Stand Me Down to be a misunderstood masterpiece. See, for example, comments on the Guardian website at http://bit.ly/dontstand, such as, “Don’t Stand Me Down is the statement of a maverick genius that went over the heads of all but the connoisseurs.”
18 Dexys Midnight Runners would not record: Details about Dexys Midnight Runners and Don’t Stand Me Down at Wikipedia: http://bit.ly/dexyswiki and http://bit.ly/dontstandwiki. General discussion of “second album syndrome” in Seale, 2012.
19 “This is my story”: Dostoyevsky, 1923; partly quoted in Amabile 1983, citing Allen, 1948.
20 After getting a doctorate in psychology: Biographical details about Harry Harlow are from Sidowski and Lindsley, 1988, and the Wikipedia entry for Harry Harlow at http://bit.ly/harlowharry.
21 Harlow left puzzles consisting of a hinge: See Harlow, 1950.
22 “tended to disrupt, not facilitate”: Harlow et al., 1950.
23 They consistently rated the commissioned art: Amabile, Phillips, and Collins, 1994, cited in Amabile, “Creativity in Context,” 1996.
24 Princeton’s Sam Glucksberg investigated the question: Glucksberg, 1962, cited in Amabile, 1983.
25 Follow-up experiments by Glucksberg: For example, McGraw and McCullers, 1979.
26 There are more than a hundred studies: See for example, reviews by Cameron and Pierce, 1994; Eisenberger and Cameron, 1996; and Eisenberger et al., 1999.
27 Rewards are only a problem: McGraw and McCullers, 1979, cited in Amabile 1983.
28 Amabile explored and extended this finding: Amabile, Hennessey, and Grossman (1986), cited in Amabile, “Creativity in Context,” 1996.
29 People in America’s Deep South: Among many excellent books about Robert Johnson are Wardlow, 1998; Pearson and McCulloch, 2003; and Wald, 2004.
30 One has even attributed it to “cramping”: Flaherty, 2005.
31 He wrote a play called Writer’s Block: Writer’s Block is two one-act plays. The description given in many playbills is: “In Riverside Drive, a paranoid schizophrenic former-screenwriter stalks a newly successful but insecure screenwriter, believing he has stealing not only his ideas but his life. Old Saybrooke, a combination of old-fashioned sex farce and an interesting look at a writer’s process, involves a group of married couples who have cause to ponder the challenges of commitment.” See, for example, Theatre in LA at http://bit.ly/theatreinla and Goldstar at http://bit.ly/goldstarhollywood.
32 “For the first time in my life”: Transcript of Deconstructing Harry corrected from Drew’s Script-O-Rama at http://bit.ly/harryblock.
33 Allen took the role of Harry: Details about Allen’s process, and Allen quotations, from Lax, 2000.
34 “You have to dip your pen in blood”: Allen may be thinking of the following comment, reported by pianist Alexander Goldenveizer in a memoir translated by S. S. Koteliansky and Virginia Woolf as Talks with Tolstoi, published by the Hogarth Press in 1923: “One ought only to write when one leaves a piece of one’s flesh in the ink-pot each time one dips one’s pen.” This extract from the memoir is also referenced in Walter Allen’s Writers on Writing, 1948.
35 Popular Science described them as “savages”: Barrows, 1910.
36 The last anthropologist to live: Boston Evening Transcript, 1909.
37 Rosaldo captured the Ilongots’ insights in a book: Rosaldo, 1980.
38 “The force of any passion or emotion”: Spinoza, 1677.
39 “We can’t be misled by passions”: Descartes, 1649.
40 Daquan Lawrence celebrated his sixteenth birthday: Daquan Lawrence’s story and lyrics are from Hansen, 2012.
41 the Irene Taylor Trust claimed: The claims, which have been repeated in several of the Trust’s publications as well as by other sources, refer to a production of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar at Bullingdon Prison in Oxfordshire, England, in May 1999. According to the Trust’s original evaluation report, “94% of participants did not offend during the time that they were involved in the Julius Caesar Project” and “There was a 58% decrease in the offence rates of participants in the six months following the project, compared to the offence rates in the six-month period before the project began.” The full report, which is called “Julius Caesar—H.M.P Bullingdon,” and is undated and attributed only to the “Irene Taylor Trust,” can be downloaded from http://bit.ly/taylortrust.
42 In the 1950s, George “Shotgun” Shuba: George Shuba story from Kahn, 1972, cited in Glasser, 1977, which mistakenly calls Shuba “Schuba.”
43 what psychologist William Glasser later called: Glasser, 1976.
44 “I’ll start with scraps and things”: Allen in Weide, 2011.
45 “To begin, to begin”: From the movie Adaptation (2002), directed by Spike Jonze. These lines are written by Charlie Kaufman and said by the character “Charlie Kaufman,” a screen writer struggling with a script, played by Nicholas Cage.
46 “Work brings inspiration”: Notes about Stravinsky, including this quotation, from Gardner, 2011.
47 Science describes the destruction unequivocally: See, for example, Bailey, 2006, which details experimental results and also includes a good literature review.
48 Woody Allen has pondered that: Lax, 2010. The complete quotation from Allen is:
“Why not opt for a sensual life instead of a life of grueling work? When you’re at heaven’s gate, the guy who has spent all his time chasing and catching women and has a sybaritic life gets in, and you get in, too. The only reason I can think of not to is, it’s another form of denial of death. You delude yourself that there’s a reason to lead a meaningful life, a productive life of work and struggle and perfection of one’s profession or art. But the truth is, you could be spending that time indulging yourself—assuming you can afford it—because you both wind up in the same place.
“If I don’t like something, it doesn’t matter how many awards it’s won. It’s important to keep your own criteria and not defer to the trends of the marketplace.
“I hope that somewhere along the line it will be perceived that I’m not really a personal malcontent, or that my ambition or my pretensions—which I freely admit to—are not to gain power. I only want to make something that will entertain people, and I’m stretching myself to do it.”
CHAPTER 8: CREATING ORGANIZATIONS
1 In January 1944, Milo Burcham strolled: Descriptions of the Skunk Works drawn mainly from Johnson, 1990, and Rich, 1994.
2 Lulu Belle’s official name: To be precise: Lockheed’s prototypes, or “experimental” aircraft, had the prefix “X” in their names, so Lulu Belle’s full official name was the “XP-80.” The P-80 was the name of subsequent production aircraft based on her design.
3 “When you’re dealing with a creative process”: Frank Filipetti quotation from Massey, 2000.
4 In November 1960, Robert Galambos figured: Robert Galambos’s biographical details from Squire, 1998.
5 “Quite possibly the
most important roles of glia”: Barres, 2008. This quotation also appears in Martin, 2010. For more on the importance of glia, see Barres, 2008; Wang and Bordey, 2008; Allen, 2009; Edwards, 2009; Sofroniew and Vinters, 2010; Steinhäuser and Seifert, 2010; and Eroglu and Barres, 2010.
6 “Truth-tellers are genuinely passionate”: Edited from a pre-press edition of Downes and Nunes, 2014. Downes and Nunes interviewed me for this part of their book as an example of a “truth-teller.”
7 In 1960, the Puppeteers’ annual Puppetry Festival: There is a photograph of the event program in the Jim Henson Archive at http://bit.ly/puppetry1960.
8 Mike and Frances befriended a first-time attendee: Biographical details about Jim Henson and Frank Oz are mainly from Jones, 2013; Davis, 2009; and the Muppet Wiki at http://bit.ly/muppetwiki.
9 he wanted to be a journalist, not a puppeteer: Douglas, 2007.
10 Henson and Oz found two new Muppets: The story of Bert and Ernie draws from the Wikipedia entry at http://bit.ly/erniebert.
11 After the words “In Color,” two clay animation: The first episode of Sesame Street can be seen on YouTube at http://bit.ly/firstsesamestreet.
12 “Bert and Ernie are two grown men sharing a house”: Various sources, including the Muppet Wiki, attribute this quotation to a radio broadcast by Chambers in 1994. See http://bit.ly/gayberternie.
13 an animated television series they created: South Park, the television series, which first aired in 1997, is based on two animated shorts that Parker and Stone created in 1992 and 1995.
14 Parker and Stone let filmmaker Arthur Bradford: Six Days to Air: The Making of South Park (2011), sometimes known as Six Days to South Park, directed by Arthur Bradford.