Recordin (for Recording)

One man's music is another guy's noise, you might say. Beauty is in the ear, as well as the eye, of the beholder. In the 1960s, long-harried parents, not caring for the long-haired Beatles, would often carry on about all the racket they were making. But that probably had more to do with their screaming fans than with their actual recordings. So which came first: the record or the din? As Oliver Sacks explains in Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain, there are many forms of music appreciation, and the lack thereof. On the far end of the spectrum is a brain disorder called amusia, which can make a symphony, for example, sound like the clattering of pots and pans. I first saw Sacks on C-SPAN in 2001, talking about his book Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood, and noticed then that he had an apparent fondness for tee-shirts: he was sporting a colorful tie-dye that almost seemed like a visual representation of some of his more reactive recollections. The eccentric NYC neurobiologist and best-selling author (Awakenings, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, The Mind's Eye, etc.) also drives a motorcycle, has been in analysis for over forty years, serves on the board of the New York Botanical Garden, and is in touch with his inner werewolf. We found ten cases of Recordin in the OhioLINK database today. Removing this typo from your own OPACs will help restore a certain cerebral harmony to your records.

(Oliver Sacks at TED 2009.)

Carol Reid