Word: turn
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Among the most interesting debates we had, especially with our outside experts, were those concerning the relative influence of thinkers vs. tinkerers--those who work mainly inside their own mind vs. those who turn their mind to practical things. In some centuries the tinkerers are more influential. The 15th, for example, was important for Gutenberg building his printing press and Columbus setting sail; the 19th for Fulton and his steamboat, Morse and his code, Bell and his telephone, Edison and his light bulb. But in other centuries the pure thinkers were more influential. The 17th, for example, boasted Newton, Galileo...
...century will also be remembered for its brilliant tinkerers. The ability to transcend gravity, brought about by folks from the Wright brothers to Robert Goddard, affected the way we live as much as Einstein's ability to figure out what gravity actually is. Philo Farnsworth's ability to turn electrons into television images was likewise as influential as figuring out what electrons actually are. Indeed, our century may be noted most for those who went out to their garages (metaphorically, at least) and helped bring us televisions and transistors, plastics and penicillin, computers and the World Wide...
...longed for my trusty Macintosh! Macs are easier than PCs in every way, and fixing a software glitch on one is especially simple. (Turn off all the extensions, then turn them back on one by one until you find the offender.) But resolving a PC conflict means entering a time-wasting morass of Washington-sex-scandal dimensions. Still, I had no choice. After fiddling around importantly for a bit, I did what I always end up doing in PC-land: I called the 24-hour, toll-free so-called help line. This turned out to be a mistake...
...obsession with celebrities' cars, the predominance of Harvard grads in the TV-writing business, the fascination with live police-car chases. Chris Eigeman (the cocky guy in Whit Stillman films) underplays the New Yorker perfectly, avoiding the overly neurotic. And in what may be the bravest turn ever, Jennifer Grey plays herself, with lots of jokes about her nose job, past boyfriends and desperate desire to be recognized...
...lacking in some quality they desire--say, manliness--express their discontent by acting out. "Inferiority complex," a much abused term, is Adlerian. Freud did not regret losing Adler, but Jung was something else. Freud was aware that most of his acolytes were Jews, and he did not want to turn psychoanalysis into a "Jewish science." Jung, a Swiss from a pious Protestant background, struck Freud as his logical successor, his "crown prince." The two men were close for several years, but Jung's ambition, and his growing commitment to religion and mysticism--most unwelcome to Freud, an aggressive atheist--finally...