A note on the titles of Oliver Sacks, 1933–2015

What is most striking about Oliver Sacks’s many published books and essays is the material itself, but even his titles have sometimes been memorable, perhaps never more so than with “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat.” The case study of that name was first published in 1983, in the London Review of Books, and later provided the title for a collection. If by chance you’ve never read any of Sacks’s work, which typically presents curious cases (sometimes including Sacks himself) with the dispassionate concern and generosity of spirit that Chekhov had earlier displayed in his stories and plays, you’ll find that 1983 essay as good an introduction as any. It’s available online here.

Speaking of titles, another of his works was also, so to speak, ear-catching for me: Uncle Tungsten, a recollection of his childhood in wartime England and his early fascination with chemistry, which came out in 2001. A portion of it was published in The New Yorker in 1999, under the title “Brilliant Light.” A link to that and to everything else that Sacks wrote for TNY (some of which is subscriber only) is here.

Ave atque vale, Dr. Sacks.

The times they are a-changin’ again: Laura Eason revisits Chicago in the grunge era

Lena (Margo Seibert) faces off against Hank (Jeb Brown) on the rock-club set of Laura Eason’s new play. (Photograph by Sandra Coudert)

Near the beginning of Laura Eason’s The Undeniable Sound of Right Now, rock-bar proprietor Hank asks, “How can a D.J. be good?,” arguing that a disc jockey only spins music that someone else has made. It’s 1992 in Chicago, and Hank has been running his now-fabled hole-in-the-wall joint for 25 years. Kiss auditioned there; Stevie Nicks left her scarf after a performance one night; the Clash did a secret show there. The question has a personal dimension for Hank; his daughter, Lena, who helps him run the place, has recently taken up with a D.J. named Nash and is getting into rave culture. More is at stake than Lena’s tastes and the new trends in the music scene, for the landlord senses an upturn in the neighborhood’s fortunes and has just decided to raise the rent.