Writing #OliverSacks #biography @AAKnopf Philosophical Breakfast Club. Eye of the Beholder. NEH Public Scholar, Sloan/Leon Levy Fellow. Proud mom @UChicago ’26

Joined April 2013
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It’s been an age, but here’s a little #FridayTreat from the #OliverSacks #Archive. How exciting to open a folder & find this sitting right on top! As context, Sacks DID have a tendency to lose/burn/rip up completed works. We are all fortunate that was not the fate of #Awakenings.
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Just had Nuvaxovid (#Novavax) & flu shot. #DannysII on the #UWS #NYC is getting 50 syringes/day while there is demand. Danny himself even *came to my apt* to give them. He says he often does this for folks nearby who can’t get to him. Can’t say enough good things about Danny!💪🏻😷
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Fascinating! Thanks for posting this—so glad I noticed it on my infrequent visits here. #OliverSacks
Dr. Oliver Sacks would have loved this. This man with Parkinsons discovered his dyskenisia disappeared by inducing a tone with 128hz frequency in his chest.
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Replying to @JDVance
@JDVance I’m surprised you didn’t learn this @YaleLawSch, but “due process” is a specific right afforded to any “person” in this country, whether they are citizens or immigrants (even “undocumented” ones). Please reread the Fifth & Fourteenth amendments to the Constitution.1/
16 Apr 2025
Consider that Joe Biden allowed approximately 20 million illegal aliens into our country. This placed extraordinary burdens on our country--our schools, hospitals, housing, and other essential services were overwhelmed. On top of that, many of these illegal aliens committed violent crimes, or facilitated fentanyl and sex trafficking. That is the situation we inherited. The American people elected the Trump administration to solve this problem. The President has successfully stopped the inflow of illegal aliens, and now we must deport the people who came here illegally. To say the administration must observe "due process" is to beg the question: what process is due is a function of our resources, the public interest, the status of the accused, the proposed punishment, and so many other factors. To put it in concrete terms, imposing the death penalty on an American citizen requires more legal process than deporting an illegal alien to their country of origin. When the media and the far left obsess over an MS-13 gang member and demand that he be returned to the United States for a *third* deportation hearing, what they're really saying is they want the vast majority of illegal aliens to stay here permanently. Here's a useful test: ask the people weeping over the lack of due process what precisely they propose for dealing with Biden's millions and millions of illegals. And with reasonable resource and administrative judge constraints, does their solution allow us to deport at least a few million people per year? If the answer is no, they've given their game away. They don't want border security. They don't want us to deport the people who've come into our country illegally. They want to accomplish through fake legal process what they failed to accomplish politically: The ratification of Biden's illegal migrant invasion. President Trump and I will not stand fori t.
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(due) process—1st, a 2/3 vote in BOTH chambers of Congress, OR a constitutional convention called for by 2/3 of state legislatures; THEN ratification by 3/4 of the states. The Constitution cannot be changed merely on the *whim* of a President—who plays no role in this process.
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See also Article VI, which states: “This Constitution, & the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; …shall be the Supreme Law of the Land….” (IANAL but I did learn about this in High School social studies). /fin
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Great interview with @nicoleyh11 about steampunk and quantum physics. I appreciate the the shout out to #ThePhilosophicalBreakfastClub. #CharlesBabbage thought his mechanical calculator could be run by steam; was he the original steampunk? (steampunk er?) 🤔
In this interview, I was asked a question I’d never thought of: which Victorian technology would you most want to quantize? I’m not sure I responded optimally (although I managed to plug an excellent book by @LauraJSnyder!). How would you have answered? smilepolitely.com/culture/ce…
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The trees are blossoming in Central Park and so is my #evermask: Aura 9210 N95 with paper-thin Liberty of London fabric by #LoveTheLookStudio etsy.com/listing/1765754378/… ⁦(Sunnies covering more of the mask than my regular glasses, which fall perfectly above fabric) 😷💪🏻🌸
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My thanks to @ghhughes who tested the efficacy of the mask w/cover & found little difference. I don’t wear them to the doctor but for my outside walks they are great & garner smiles. No loss of breathability even w/my bad lungs! (His cap/suit/no glasses look really rocks!)
Love the Look Studios sent me some updated fabric covers for 3M Aura N95 respirators. The updated pattern worked very well for me when I tested it out at a wedding, covering the mask extremely well and staying out of my eyes. I wore it over a 3M 9210 which has white braided elastic straps. The 3M Aura is a very breathable mask to begin with, and not much affected by the cloth cover. There is still a little bit of exhaled air that is redirected back towards my eyes from under the cover rather than going through the cover fabric. So, the 3M Aura is still a bit more comfortable to wear without the cover, but I'm willing to take the trade off for special occasions. I have tested the earlier, almost identical, design with a PortaCount mask fit testing machine and a pressure meter. In my case, the fabric covered did not affect fit or filtration much and I still passed a fit test. Breathability was reduced a little bit, by about 12% or so. So there is a trade-off. However, many n95s are much less breathable on their own than this combination of a 3M Aura and these covers. YMMV since mask fit is very individual. Here's a link to the original testing I did with the earlier version of these same fabric covers: youtu.be/Y5oCmZUir2w The covers can be found here: etsy.com/listing/1765754378/…
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Going through a bit of a tough time so it's nice to be reminded of ten years ago this week, when I appeared on the Leonard Lopate show on @WNYC & then launched Eye of the Beholder @CornerBookstore to a standing-room-only crowd! A huge thanks to my readers! wnyc.org/story/painter-and-p…
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Dr. Laura J. Snyder retweeted
Epígrafes del “El ojo del observador” de @LauraJSnyder
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Can confirm new supply of #Novavax at Danny’s pharmacy on the UWS in NYC. My husband & I got the first doses of the new box, so plenty are left! 💪🏻
27 Nov 2024
Replying to @LauraJSnyder
You're welcome! That's great to hear that your son got Novavax at Danny's. Independent pharmacies are so much better than chain pharmacies. Hopefully you can get your Novavax soon.
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Anyone in #NewYorkCity have any luck finding #Novavax?
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Happy birthday to #CharlesDarwin’s #OriginofSpecies, published #OTD in 1859, and to my husband, born #OTD 100 years later, in 1959. One of my favorite books and one of my favorite people (the other being my son, of course!).
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Dr. Laura J. Snyder retweeted
It’s been an age, but here’s a little #FridayTreat from the #OliverSacks #Archive. How exciting to open a folder & find this sitting right on top! As context, Sacks DID have a tendency to lose/burn/rip up completed works. We are all fortunate that was not the fate of #Awakenings.
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I’m going to need a LOT more ice cream….
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Dr. Laura J. Snyder retweeted
Happy pub day to LETTERS, the new collection of Oliver Sacks’s correspondence! LETTERS is full of his deepest thoughts on music, art, and science, friendship and resilience, and what it takes to lead a meaningful life. Get your copy here: oliversacks.com/oliver-sacks…
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Thrilled to be able to share this news. Once @NYPL_Archives has all the #OliverSacks material in its possession and processes it—a huge undertaking—everyone will have access to the amazing archive I’ve had all to myself for several years. I hope it will spur much more work on him
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Inspecting the archive will also give readers a sense of the enormous quantity of journals, letters, patient records, book drafts, etc. that I’ve been using to write my #biography of #OliverSacks. He once correctly said he wrote a million words/year—and I’m reading most of them!
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