If you’re not intimately familiar with his novels, then you assuredly know major films based on Dick’s work – Blade Runner, Total Recall, A Scanner Darklyand Minority Report. Today, we bring you another way to get acquainted with his writing. We’re presenting a selection of Dick’s stories available for free on the web. Below we have culled together 11 short stories from our collections. Some of the stories collected here have also found their way into the recently-published book, Selected Stories by Philip K. Dick, which features an introduction by Jonathan Lethem.
Today is the birthday of J.R.R. (John Ronald Reuel) Tolkien, author of the fantasy novels The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. He was born on January 3, 1892 to British parents in Bloemfontein, South Africa. His father died when he was 3 years old, and he moved with his mother to England. The young boy took an early liking to stories of magic and myth. In his 1947 book On Fairy Stories, Tolkien wrote:
I had very little desire to look for buried treasure or fight pirates, and Treasure Island left me cool. Red Indians were better: there were bows and arrows (I had and have a wholly unsatisfied desire to shoot well with a bow), and strange languages, and glimpses of an archaic mode of life, and above all, forests in such stories. But the land of Merlin and Arthur were better than these, and best of all the nameless North of Sigurd and the Volsungs, and the prince of all dragons. Such lands were pre-eminently desirable.
The urge to compose his own tales came early, but Tolkien became sidetracked by an interest in the subtleties of language. In a letter to W.H. Auden in 1955 he wrote:
I first tried to write a story when I was about seven. It was about a dragon. I remember nothing about it except a philological fact. My mother said nothing about the dragon, but pointed out that one could not say “A green great dragon,” but had to say “a great green dragon.” I wondered why, and still do. The fact that I remember this is possibly significant, as I do not think I ever tried to write a story again for many years, and was taken up with language.
Tolkien became a philologist. He studied English Language and Literature at Exeter College, Oxford and–after a harrowing experience in the trenches of World War I–embarked on an academic career. He became an expert on Anglo Saxon and Norse mythology.
But the misty forests of Tolkien’s childhood imagination never left him. One day in the early 1930s, he was at home grading a large stack of student papers when his mind began to wander. On a blank sheet in one of the papers, the professor found himself writing, “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.” He didn’t know what a hobbit was, but soon found himself spinning a tale, which he told to his young children. In 1937 it was published as The Hobbit.
The popularity of The Hobbit, not only with children but with adults, led to requests for a sequel, and in 1954 and 1955 Tolkien’s epic trilogy, The Lord of the Rings was published. It went on to become one of the most popular works of fiction of the 20th century, with over 150 million copies sold worldwide–and counting.
In celebration of Tolkien’s 120th birthday, we present a fascinating film on the author from the BBC series In Their Own Words: British Novelists. The 27-minute film was first broadcast in March of 1968, when Tolkien was 76 years old, and includes interviews and footage of the old man at his haunts in Oxford. H/T The Writer’s Almanac.
The video above gives you mostly the prelude to the actual music. Then, in the first video below, Zappa gives a demo of the instruments. Next comes the Concerto for Two Bicycles, which features the show’s house orchestra joining the cacophonous fun. The clips run a good 15 minutes.
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Scientific discovery is an engine of economic and military power, and America has long prided itself on its leadership in research. But as astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson points out in this video, there are some dark clouds on the horizon.
When you look at the trendline, Tyson says, scientific research in America is clearly in a state of decline compared to other regions, like Asia and Western Europe. “As everyone else understands the value of innovative investments in science and technology in ways that we do not,” says Tyson, “we slowly fade.”
The maps Tyson uses are from Worldmapper.org. The one that he says represents change from “2000 to 2010” actually depicts growth in scientific research from 1990 to 2001. Danny Dorling, professor of Human Geography at the University of Sheffield and part of the team that created Worldmapper, confirmed Tyson’s error but said, “I think Neil’s got it roughly right. He should just have said ‘this is the trend to 2001 and it is not just likely it has continued, but it has probably accelerated.’ ”
Tyson’s comments are from a talk he gave in May at the University of Washington entitled, “Adventures of an Astrophysicist.” For a closer look at the maps he uses, see below.
The color-coded world map above can be used for reference when studying the maps below.
The map above represents territory sizes in proportion to the number of papers published in 2001 that were written by scientists living there. The number of scientific papers published by researchers living in America was more than three times greater than the number published in the second-highest-publishing country, Japan. For more information, including per capita data, see Worldmapper’s PDF poster.
The map above represents the growth in scientific research between 1990 and 2001. Territory sizes are proportional to the increase in scientific papers by authors working in those countries in 2001 compared to 1990. If there was no increase during that period, the country has no area on the map.
Despite the fact that the United States had the most published research in 2001 and a net increase in research betwen 1990 and 2001, its size is smaller on the map because of a significantly greater growth rate by countries like Japan, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, China and Germany. Although the data behind the maps are now a decade old, Dorling suggests that a current map might look similar. “If I had to guess,” he said, “it would look worse for the USA given the massive cuts in funding in California to some of the major state Universities there.”
You can find more on this map, including a printable PDF poster with per capita data by country, along with information on the sources and methodology behind its creation, by visiting Worldmapper.
Before we rush headlong into a new year, it’s worth pausing, ever so briefly, to consider the ground we covered in 2011. What topics resonated with you … and jazzed us? Today, we’re highlighting 10 thematic areas (and 46 posts) that captured the imagination. Chances are you missed a few gems here. So please join us on our brief journey back into time. Tomorrow, we start looking forward again.
1) Universities Offer More Free Courses, Then Start Pushing Toward Certificates: The year started well enough. Yale released another 10 stellar open courses. (Find them on our list of 400 Free Courses). Then other universities started pushing the envelope on the open course format. This fall, Stanford launched a series of free courses that combined video lectures with more dynamic resources — short quizzes; the ability to pose questions to Stanford instructors; feedback on your overall performance; a statement of accomplishment from the instructor, etc. A new round of free courses will start in January and February. (Get the full list and enroll here.) Finally, keep your eyes peeled for this: In 2012, MIT will offer similar courses, but with one big difference. Students will get an official certificate at the end of the course, all at a very minimal charge. More details here.
3) Books Intelligent People Should Read: Neil deGrasse Tyson’s list “8 (Free) Books Every Intelligent Person Should Read” ended up generating far more conversation and controversy than we would have expected. (Users have left 83 comments at last count.) No matter what you think of his rationale for choosing these texts, the books make for essential reading, and they’re freely available online.
4) Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry: Christopher Hitchens left us this past month. And, until his last day, Hitchens was the same old Hitch — prolific, incisive, surly and defiant, especially when asked about whether he’d change his position on religion, spirituality and the afterlife. All of this was on display when he spoke at the American Jewish University in Los Angeles last February. We covered his comments in a post called, No Deathbed Conversion for Me, Thanks, But it was Good of You to Ask. And even from the grave, Hitchens did more of the same, forcing us to question the whole modern meaning of Christmas.
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