Sunday night – brain salon

Nice slow day.. spent the morning working on a talk I’m giving in Belgium in a few weeks to a group of grad students from all over the world. Diane helped me edit the talk.. she’s such a huge help in getting the message right in my talks !..

I also spent a few hours figuring out how to get some of my equipment oversees afordably  and safely .. It’s no longer very easy to fly with it on a plane. It just looks too dangerous..   I also had to figure out how to get the stuff to run on 220 volts instead of our 110. That was fun and a bit nail biting.. as I didn’t ‘t want to blow anything up.

Mid day we took a nice break as three friends converged on the house.

 Paul,

 Bob a

and Herb

 all showed up to help on pauls; upcoming ‘Beekman on the Brain’ show. Pauls a wonderful guy.. he’s a puppeteer and a performance artist. He used to lead the Bread and Puppet pageants in Glover.. in the 80’s and 90’s he had a show called ‘Beekman’s world’ that turned oHe lives in LA.. but comes back here to visit hois daughetr and granddaughter. n many kids to science.. he’s one of my inspirations in my current work.. anyway.. Paul’s doing this stage show on the brain..Since I know next to nothing about the brain, d my job is  to introduce Paul to folks who do. Boob is a neurosychologist from down in Cape Cod.. he’s up here frequently to visit friends like Herb..   Bob’s specializes in neuropathology  and neuro pharmacology..

Herb I know from the haunted forest.. he was the sponsor of our 20 foot talk robotic pumpkin.. aka ‘projectX’. He works in criminal justice…

The five of us (Diane hung out with us fro a while too !) talked for several hours about what kides need to kow about the brain.. and how to get that info across in a fun and interesting way fro kids 8-12.   It was so much fun listening to Bob and Paul go back and forth on how the brain worked and how to show it.  

I felt like I was running an 19th century intellectual salon in my house..

We broke for a delicious lunch Diane had made.. then dove back in for a couple of more hours of  brain talk..


This is really a fun project.. stuff anyone out there know any good stuff to include in a presentation on the brain for kids ? Got any good demonstration ideas ? We’re all ears.. and medula oblongati, and hypocanthi and preforntal cortices..

ok.. well.. this brain is tired.. so

nite all.. nite Sam
-me