What’s In A Name?.......Cerebral Organoids!.......Blomuir Video…..
by Bernie Bell - 08:01 on 23 May 2025
What’s In A Name?.......Cerebral Organoids!.......Blomuir Video…..
Dullest headline ever.
It has been a crazed week of novel writing action. I’m staying up too late, SMOKING FAGS, mainlining tea, counting words (71k), checking the weather in Brighton for August 1985, getting family to translate various sentences into French and Spanish, and even taking advantage of the fact that Sylfaen, my long favoured writing font, works well in Georgian. Last night, I wrote the end. Now all I need to do is to write the 15k words that set the end up, and I’ll have a solid second draft to show Richard Beard, great pal, fine close reader and editor. I used to say to my students at BCU, ‘Don’t rush the end,’ and I really haven’t - good to have it done, and shows you where you’re heading.
After a year of solid work, though, this week I noticed a problem, that I should have noticed in the first week.
My main protagonists, the couple at whose wedding The Breaking Wave are due to play, are (were) called Frank Wilson and Anne Whelan. They spend a lot of time together talking, as you’d imagine. Frank said this, Anne said that, Anne said this, Frank said that. Frank and Anne. Anne and Frank. Frank, Anne, Anne Frank.
Shit. That I could write for a year and not notice the problem here. So the other day, I fixed it. I ran some ideas past Hilary, and I came up with a name that works much better, (given that Anne is a Canadian Episcopalian of Irish heritage), which is now Margaret Matilda, known as Tilda. But Hilary usefully pointed out that Whelan is a Catholic name. My old biology teacher at Tideway was called Mr McCausland, a Northern Irish gentlemen with sound Christian beliefs. So, welcome to the world, Margaret Matilda McCausland; which also perhaps calls to mind that fine Canadian singer/songwriter Mary Margaret O’Hara, one of whose songs I quote in the text.
Three hours work, that was. I also used to tell my students, Google your characters names. Clearly, I need to listen to my own advice.
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IAN MARCHANT
May 20
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And my response was….
'Dullest headline ever'....I beg to differ!..... https://frontiersmagazine.org/whats-in-a-name/
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Cerebral Organoids!.....
I’ve shared this from Matthew Manning’s FB page – I’m really not sure what I make of it as a ‘development’!
“A COMPOSER’S BIOLOGICAL MATTER CREATES NEW MUSIC FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE
The American composer Alvin Lucier was known for experimental works that explored the physical properties of sound. In ‘Music for Solo Performer’ from 1965, he strapped sensors to his forehead to transform his own brainwaves into a piece for percussion instruments.
Lucier died in 2021 at the age of 90. But the composer - or rather a surrogate created from biological matter taken from his body with his permission before he died - is now putting out new music. His posthumous composition comes from a new installation at The Art Gallery of Western Australia in Perth called ‘Revivification’.
Collaborating with scientists before his death, he contributed to a project that grew mini-brains, or cerebral organoids, from his own white blood cells. These organoids, wired to transducers and brass plates, generate electrical impulses that strike the plates to create haunting, posthumous music that challenges the boundaries of creativity, consciousness, and what it means to persist beyond biological death.
‘Revivification’ raises profound ethical and philosophical questions. Could a fragment of Lucier’s creative memory live on in these organoids? While the mini-brains lack full consciousness, some scientists speculate that even simple biological forms may harbour a shadow of awareness.
In this melding of life, death, and art, the project invites viewers to consider a future where the echoes of human experience might endure far beyond our final breath.
Karim Jerbi, a professor at the University of Montreal who researches the intersection of neuroscience and artificial intelligence, says: “Given the experimental nature of Lucier’s compositions, he would really appreciate this process.”
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Blomuir Video…..
https://www.nessofbrodgar.co.uk/video-blomuir-2024/
We very much hope to get to visit this site this year - if we do – I’ll tell you all about it!
Meanwhile, you can read about it in the Orkney Archaeology Review….
http://www.spanglefish.com/berniesblog/blog.asp?blogid=17333
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