Oliver Sacks's Blog, page 3

A One-Night-Only East Coast Premiere of Tobias Picker’s “Awakenings”

We are excited to announce that Odyssey Opera, in partnership with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP), will present the East Coast premiere of Tobias Picker and Aryeh Lev Stollman’s Awakenings on Saturday, February 25, 2023 at 7.30pm.

Baritone Jarrett Porter plays the lead role of Dr. Oliver Sacks, alongside a cast including sopranos Joyce El-Khoury and Adrienne Danrich, accompanied by the Odyssey Opera Chorus and BMOP. Tickets for this one-night only, fully-staged operatic production at the Huntington Avenue Theatre are available now.

“a sensitive adaptation [whose] elegaic, autumnal score treads delicately in these stories of unrealized possibility.”

– Wall Street Journal

Tobias Picker, the Grammy Award winning composer, became friends with Oliver Sacks after Picker approached the doctor for help with his Tourette syndrome. Sacks attended many of Picker’s earlier operas at the Metropolitan Opera, in Santa Fe and at Glimmerglass, and they discussed what would become this full-length retelling of the Awakenings story many times over the years. 

Probing into the themes originally explored by the Sacks’s groundbreaking book— statuesque immobilization, locked-in secrets, and the poetic possibility of renewed life, this sensitive operatic adaptation is the first to accurately portray Oliver Sacks as a shy gay man struggling with his sexuality — something he only revealed publicly decades later in his 2015 memoir.

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Oliver Sacks and Tobias Picker. Photo by Anna Schori

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Baritone Jarrett Porter, interviewed for St Louis Public Radio ahead of the world premiere of Awakenings at the Opera Theater of St. Louis last year, said, “There’s a chance to go back and tell that story again, with the perspective of where he got to later in his life. In my generation, I felt late coming out as a gay man — I’d just turned 29. That’s very different to Oliver, who came out when he was in his 80s.”

Dr. Oliver Sacks, as played by Jarrett Porter in “Awakenings” at the Opera Theater of St. Louis in 2022. Photo © OTSL/Eric Woolsey

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Baritone Jarrett Porter, interviewed for St Louis Public Radio ahead of the world premiere of Awakenings at the Opera Theater of St. Louis last year, said, “There’s a chance to go back and tell that story again, with the perspective of where he got to later in his life. In my generation, I felt late coming out as a gay man — I’d just turned 29. That’s very different to Oliver, who came out when he was in his 80s.”

Dr. Oliver Sacks, as played by Jarrett Porter in “Awakenings” at the Opera Theater of St. Louis in 2022. Photo © OTSL/Eric Woolsey

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Celebrate the opera by watching a live screening of the newly digitized 1990 film Awakenings with Robin Williams and Robert De Niro, and a supporting cast including Julie Kavner, John Heard, Ruth Nelson, Anne Meara, Max von Sydow, and Judith Malina. (See if you can also spot jazz legend Dexter Gordon, a young Bradley Whitford and even Vin Diesel!). This film, nominated for three Academy Awards including Best Picture, remains a tour de force.

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Oliver with Robin Williams from Columbia’s 1990 EPK

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The screening, co-sponsored by the Oliver Sacks Foundation, will be introduced by Susan R. Barry (aka “Stereo Sue”) and Aniruddh D. Patel, both of whom were great friends of Dr. Sacks.

Coolidge Corner Theatre, Brookline, MA. Thursday, February 16 at 7 pm

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The post A One-Night-Only East Coast Premiere of Tobias Picker’s “Awakenings” appeared first on Oliver Sacks | Official Website of Author, Neurologist & Foundation.

Last Minute Gifts from the Oliver Sacks Oeuvre

Happy holidays! We hope you’re all taking time to rest and connect with loved ones. Every holiday season we try to recommend a few Oliver Sacks books that make great gifts for anyone who’s doing last minute shopping. This year we have a mix of well-known pillars and slightly lesser-known favorites.

.fusion-body .fusion-builder-nested-column-0{width:50% !important;margin-top : 0px;margin-bottom : 20px;}.fusion-builder-nested-column-0 > .fusion-column-wrapper {padding-top : 15 !important;padding-right : 0px !important;margin-right : 3.84%;padding-bottom : 0px !important;padding-left : 0px !important;margin-left : 3.84%;}@media only screen and (max-width:1024px) {.fusion-body .fusion-builder-nested-column-0{width:50% !important;order : 0;}.fusion-builder-nested-column-0 > .fusion-column-wrapper {margin-right : 3.84%;margin-left : 3.84%;}}@media only screen and (max-width:640px) {.fusion-body .fusion-builder-nested-column-0{width:100% !important;order : 0;}.fusion-builder-nested-column-0 > .fusion-column-wrapper {margin-right : 1.92%;margin-left : 1.92%;}}For the First Time Sacks Reader

This is actually an Oliver Sacks classic with a new twist. Shortly before his death, Oliver Sacks wrote an essay looking back on his seminal 1985 book. The essay gets into a lot of Oliver’s thoughts about the book over the years, and appears for the first time as the preface to this edition.

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This is actually an Oliver Sacks classic with a new twist. Shortly before his death, Oliver Sacks wrote an essay looking back on his seminal 1985 book. The essay gets into a lot of Oliver’s thoughts about the book over the years, and appears for the first time as the preface to this edition.

.fusion-body .fusion-button.button-2{border-radius:50px 50px 50px 50px;}Buy Book.fusion-body .fusion-builder-nested-column-3{width:50% !important;margin-top : 15px;margin-bottom : 20px;}.fusion-builder-nested-column-3 > .fusion-column-wrapper {padding-top : 0px !important;padding-right : 0px !important;margin-right : 3.84%;padding-bottom : 0px !important;padding-left : -30 !important;margin-left : 3.84%;}@media only screen and (max-width:1024px) {.fusion-body .fusion-builder-nested-column-3{width:50% !important;order : 0;}.fusion-builder-nested-column-3 > .fusion-column-wrapper {margin-right : 3.84%;margin-left : 3.84%;}}@media only screen and (max-width:640px) {.fusion-body .fusion-builder-nested-column-3{width:100% !important;order : 0;}.fusion-builder-nested-column-3 > .fusion-column-wrapper {margin-right : 1.92%;margin-left : 1.92%;}}For the Music Lover

The American Scholar described this book as “a Chopin mazurka recital of a book, fast, inventive and weirdly beautiful.” In it, Dr. Sacks investigates the power of music to move us, to heal and to haunt us. He explores a range of psychological and physiological ailments and their intriguing connections to music.

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The American Scholar described this book as “a Chopin mazurka recital of a book, fast, inventive and weirdly beautiful.” In it, Dr. Sacks investigates the power of music to move us, to heal and to haunt us. He explores a range of psychological and physiological ailments and their intriguing connections to music.

.fusion-body .fusion-button.button-4{border-radius:50px 50px 50px 50px;}Buy Book.fusion-body .fusion-builder-nested-column-7{width:40% !important;margin-top : 0px;margin-bottom : 20px;}.fusion-builder-nested-column-7 > .fusion-column-wrapper {padding-top : 15 !important;padding-right : 0px !important;margin-right : 4.8%;padding-bottom : 0px !important;padding-left : 0px !important;margin-left : 4.8%;}@media only screen and (max-width:1024px) {.fusion-body .fusion-builder-nested-column-7{width:40% !important;order : 0;}.fusion-builder-nested-column-7 > .fusion-column-wrapper {margin-right : 4.8%;margin-left : 4.8%;}}@media only screen and (max-width:640px) {.fusion-body .fusion-builder-nested-column-7{width:100% !important;order : 0;}.fusion-builder-nested-column-7 > .fusion-column-wrapper {margin-right : 1.92%;margin-left : 1.92%;}} .fusion-body .fusion-builder-nested-column-8{width:50% !important;margin-top : 0px;margin-bottom : 20px;}.fusion-builder-nested-column-8 > .fusion-column-wrapper {padding-top : 15 !important;padding-right : 0px !important;margin-right : 3.84%;padding-bottom : 0px !important;padding-left : 0px !important;margin-left : 3.84%;}@media only screen and (max-width:1024px) {.fusion-body .fusion-builder-nested-column-8{width:50% !important;order : 0;}.fusion-builder-nested-column-8 > .fusion-column-wrapper {margin-right : 3.84%;margin-left : 3.84%;}}@media only screen and (max-width:640px) {.fusion-body .fusion-builder-nested-column-8{width:100% !important;order : 0;}.fusion-builder-nested-column-8 > .fusion-column-wrapper {margin-right : 1.92%;margin-left : 1.92%;}}For the Mind Traveller

Dr. Sacks weaves together stories of his patients and of his own mind-altering experiences with hallucinogenics to show how hallucinations have influenced every culture’s folklore and art, and question the hard line we draw between “hallucinations” and “reality”.

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Dr. Sacks weaves together stories of his patients and of his own mind-altering experiences with hallucinogenics to show how hallucinations have influenced every culture’s folklore and art, and question the hard line we draw between “hallucinations” and “reality”.

.fusion-body .fusion-button.button-6{border-radius:50px 50px 50px 50px;}Buy Book.fusion-body .fusion-builder-nested-column-11{width:50% !important;margin-top : 0px;margin-bottom : 20px;}.fusion-builder-nested-column-11 > .fusion-column-wrapper {padding-top : 15 !important;padding-right : 0px !important;margin-right : 3.84%;padding-bottom : 0px !important;padding-left : 0px !important;margin-left : 3.84%;}@media only screen and (max-width:1024px) {.fusion-body .fusion-builder-nested-column-11{width:50% !important;order : 0;}.fusion-builder-nested-column-11 > .fusion-column-wrapper {margin-right : 3.84%;margin-left : 3.84%;}}@media only screen and (max-width:640px) {.fusion-body .fusion-builder-nested-column-11{width:100% !important;order : 0;}.fusion-builder-nested-column-11 > .fusion-column-wrapper {margin-right : 1.92%;margin-left : 1.92%;}}For Anyone Who Could Use a Reminder of the Gift of Life

Reflections on what it means to live a good and worthwhile life. One of our holiday favorites every year. These four essays–which went viral when first published in the New York Times–form an ode to the uniqueness of each human being.

.fusion-body .fusion-button.button-7{border-radius:50px 50px 50px 50px;}Buy Book.fusion-body .fusion-builder-nested-column-12{width:60% !important;margin-top : 0px;margin-bottom : 20px;}.fusion-builder-nested-column-12 > .fusion-column-wrapper {padding-top : 15 !important;padding-right : 0px !important;margin-right : 3.2%;padding-bottom : 0px !important;padding-left : 0px !important;margin-left : 3.2%;}@media only screen and (max-width:1024px) {.fusion-body .fusion-builder-nested-column-12{width:60% !important;order : 0;}.fusion-builder-nested-column-12 > .fusion-column-wrapper {margin-right : 3.2%;margin-left : 3.2%;}}@media only screen and (max-width:640px) {.fusion-body .fusion-builder-nested-column-12{width:100% !important;order : 0;}.fusion-builder-nested-column-12 > .fusion-column-wrapper {margin-right : 1.92%;margin-left : 1.92%;}} .fusion-body .fusion-builder-nested-column-13{width:40% !important;margin-top : 0px;margin-bottom : 20px;}.fusion-builder-nested-column-13 > .fusion-column-wrapper {padding-top : 15 !important;padding-right : 0px !important;margin-right : 4.8%;padding-bottom : 0px !important;padding-left : 0px !important;margin-left : 4.8%;}@media only screen and (max-width:1024px) {.fusion-body .fusion-builder-nested-column-13{width:40% !important;order : 0;}.fusion-builder-nested-column-13 > .fusion-column-wrapper {margin-right : 4.8%;margin-left : 4.8%;}}@media only screen and (max-width:640px) {.fusion-body .fusion-builder-nested-column-13{width:100% !important;order : 0;}.fusion-builder-nested-column-13 > .fusion-column-wrapper {margin-right : 1.92%;margin-left : 1.92%;}} .fusion-body .fusion-builder-nested-column-14{width:60% !important;margin-top : 0px;margin-bottom : 20px;}.fusion-builder-nested-column-14 > .fusion-column-wrapper {padding-top : 15 !important;padding-right : 0px !important;margin-right : 3.2%;padding-bottom : 0px !important;padding-left : 0px !important;margin-left : 3.2%;}@media only screen and (max-width:1024px) {.fusion-body .fusion-builder-nested-column-14{width:60% !important;order : 0;}.fusion-builder-nested-column-14 > .fusion-column-wrapper {margin-right : 3.2%;margin-left : 3.2%;}}@media only screen and (max-width:640px) {.fusion-body .fusion-builder-nested-column-14{width:100% !important;order : 0;}.fusion-builder-nested-column-14 > .fusion-column-wrapper {margin-right : 1.92%;margin-left : 1.92%;}}For Anyone Who Could Use a Reminder of the Gift of Life

Reflections on what it means to live a good and worthwhile life. One of our holiday favorites every year. These four essays–which went viral when first published in the New York Times–form an ode to the uniqueness of each human being.

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We hope there’s something here for anyone left on your list.

Wishing you the peace of nature and the warmth of friends during this holiday season,

The Sacks Team

Photo of Oliver Sacks by Bill Hayes

.fusion-body .fusion-builder-column-0{width:100% !important;margin-top : 0px;margin-bottom : 20px;}.fusion-builder-column-0 > .fusion-column-wrapper {padding-top : 0px !important;padding-right : 0px !important;margin-right : 1.92%;padding-bottom : 0px !important;padding-left : 0px !important;margin-left : 1.92%;}@media only screen and (max-width:1024px) {.fusion-body .fusion-builder-column-0{width:100% !important;order : 0;}.fusion-builder-column-0 > .fusion-column-wrapper {margin-right : 1.92%;margin-left : 1.92%;}}@media only screen and (max-width:640px) {.fusion-body .fusion-builder-column-0{width:100% !important;order : 0;}.fusion-builder-column-0 > .fusion-column-wrapper {margin-right : 1.92%;margin-left : 1.92%;}}.fusion-body .fusion-flex-container.fusion-builder-row-1{ padding-top : 0px;margin-top : 0px;padding-right : 0px;padding-bottom : 0px;margin-bottom : 0px;padding-left : -15px;}

The post Last Minute Gifts from the Oliver Sacks Oeuvre appeared first on Oliver Sacks | Official Website of Author, Neurologist & Foundation.

Biophilia, the Love of Nature and Living Things

In Everything In Its Place, Oliver Sacks writes about how much he loved visiting London’s Kew Gardens and the museums in South Kensington as a young boy. In the garden outside the Natural History Museum, he was fascinated by huge fossils of ancient plants, writing: “I dreamed at night, as an adolescent, of giant woody club mosses and tree horsetails, primeval, giant gymnosperm forests enveloping the globe—and would wake furious to think that they had long since disappeared, the world taken over by brightly colored, up-to-date, modern flowering plants.”

Moss is ancient, and grows at a glacial pace, but it lives alongside us everywhere. From hot deserts to damp caves, mosses can survive in extreme conditions and they play an important role in biodiverse habitats across the world. Like ferns, they’re among the first plant colonizers of terrain destroyed through deforestation, and they stabilize the soil surface and retain water, helping new plants to grow.

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Oliver is pictured holding the hair cap moss, Polytrichum. The dried yellowish brown fern to his right is the bracken fern, Pteridium aquilinum. (Thanks to pteridologist Robbin Moran for identifying these for us!)

Oliver is pictured holding the hair cap moss, Polytrichum. The dried yellowish brown fern to his right is the bracken fern, Pteridium aquilinum. (Thanks to pteridologist Robbin Moran for identifying these for us!)

Human health is intimately connected to the natural world, and we are grateful for global efforts to preserve ecosystems and address the climate crisis. Brazil’s president-elect, ‘Lula’ da Silva, has promised to fight to halt deforestation in the Amazon, and the Jane Goodall Institute continues its crucial work saving chimpanzees from extinction, improving health for women, educating girls, and motivating young people to become the next generation of conservation leaders.

There are so many people doing important work to protect our planet, please consider supporting your favorite defenders of biodiversity. Here are some of our favorite, lesser-known organizations: Ecosia (the search engine that plants trees,) Global Mangrove Alliance, Rainforest Alliance, Coral Reef Alliance, Seacology and Stop Ecocide. 

Main image: Oliver is examining the resurrection fern, Pleopeltis michauxiana, a drought tolerant fern that Robbin C. Moran writes about in A Natural History of Ferns. For an in-depth look at how mosses live and how their lives are intertwined with the lives of countless other beings, read Robin Kimmerer’s fascinating book, Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses.

Main image: Oliver is examining the resurrection fern, Pleopeltis michauxiana, a drought tolerant fern that Robbin C. Moran writes about in A Natural History of Ferns. For an in-depth look at how mosses live and how their lives are intertwined with the lives of countless other beings, read Robin Kimmerer’s fascinating book, Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses.

@media only screen and (max-width:1024px) {.fusion-title.fusion-title-1{margin-top:15px!important; margin-right:0px!important;margin-bottom:15px!important;margin-left:0px!important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:640px) {.fusion-title.fusion-title-1{margin-top:10px!important; margin-right:0px!important;margin-bottom:10px!important; margin-left:0px!important;}}Share Oliver Sacks with a loved one this Holiday!

In Gratitude, Dr Sacks writes: “My religion is nature. That’s what arouses those feelings of wonder and mysticism and gratitude in me.”

.fusion-body .fusion-button.button-9{border-radius:50px 50px 50px 50px;}BUY BOOK.fusion-body .fusion-builder-nested-column-16{width:50% !important;margin-top : 0px;margin-bottom : 20px;}.fusion-builder-nested-column-16 > .fusion-column-wrapper {padding-top : 0px !important;padding-right : 0px !important;margin-right : 3.84%;padding-bottom : 0px !important;padding-left : 0px !important;margin-left : 3.84%;}@media only screen and (max-width:1024px) {.fusion-body .fusion-builder-nested-column-16{width:50% !important;order : 0;}.fusion-builder-nested-column-16 > .fusion-column-wrapper {margin-right : 3.84%;margin-left : 3.84%;}}@media only screen and (max-width:640px) {.fusion-body .fusion-builder-nested-column-16{width:100% !important;order : 0;}.fusion-builder-nested-column-16 > .fusion-column-wrapper {margin-right : 1.92%;margin-left : 1.92%;}}

Sacks’s spellbinding account of a trip with a group of fellow fern enthusiasts to the beautiful, history-steeped province of Oaxaca.

.fusion-body .fusion-button.button-10{border-radius:50px 50px 50px 50px;}BUY BOOK.fusion-body .fusion-builder-nested-column-17{width:50% !important;margin-top : 0px;margin-bottom : 20px;}.fusion-builder-nested-column-17 > .fusion-column-wrapper {padding-top : 0px !important;padding-right : 0px !important;margin-right : 3.84%;padding-bottom : 0px !important;padding-left : 0px !important;margin-left : 3.84%;}@media only screen and (max-width:1024px) {.fusion-body .fusion-builder-nested-column-17{width:50% !important;order : 0;}.fusion-builder-nested-column-17 > .fusion-column-wrapper {margin-right : 3.84%;margin-left : 3.84%;}}@media only screen and (max-width:640px) {.fusion-body .fusion-builder-nested-column-17{width:100% !important;order : 0;}.fusion-builder-nested-column-17 > .fusion-column-wrapper {margin-right : 1.92%;margin-left : 1.92%;}}

It’s a perfect day to “see nature’s imagination in a garden,” as Oliver Sacks observes in this outtake from Oliver Sacks: His Own Life. Filmed at New York Botanical Garden.

.fusion-body .fusion-button.button-11{border-radius:50px 50px 50px 50px;}STREAM NOW.fusion-body .fusion-builder-column-1{width:100% !important;margin-top : 0px;margin-bottom : 20px;}.fusion-builder-column-1 > .fusion-column-wrapper {padding-top : 0px !important;padding-right : 0px !important;margin-right : 1.92%;padding-bottom : 0px !important;padding-left : 0px !important;margin-left : 1.92%;}@media only screen and (max-width:1024px) {.fusion-body .fusion-builder-column-1{width:100% !important;order : 0;}.fusion-builder-column-1 > .fusion-column-wrapper {margin-right : 1.92%;margin-left : 1.92%;}}@media only screen and (max-width:640px) {.fusion-body .fusion-builder-column-1{width:100% !important;order : 0;}.fusion-builder-column-1 > .fusion-column-wrapper {margin-right : 1.92%;margin-left : 1.92%;}}.fusion-body .fusion-flex-container.fusion-builder-row-2{ padding-top : 0px;margin-top : 0px;padding-right : 0px;padding-bottom : 0px;margin-bottom : 0px;padding-left : -15px;}

The post Biophilia, the Love of Nature and Living Things appeared first on Oliver Sacks | Official Website of Author, Neurologist & Foundation.

Biophilia, the love of nature and living things

In Everything In Its Place, Oliver Sacks writes about how much he loved visiting London’s Kew Gardens and the museums in South Kensington as a young boy. In the garden outside the Natural History Museum, he was fascinated by ancient plants, writing: “I dreamed at night, as an adolescent, of giant woody club mosses and tree horsetails, primeval, giant gymnosperm forests enveloping the globe—and would wake furious to think that they had long since disappeared, the world taken over by brightly colored, up-to-date, modern flowering plants.”

Moss is ancient, and grows at a glacial pace, but it lives alongside us everywhere. From hot deserts to damp caves, mosses can survive in extreme conditions and they play an important role in biodiverse habitats across the world. Like ferns, they’re among the first plant colonizers of terrain destroyed through deforestation, and they stabilize the soil surface and retain water, helping new plants to grow.

.awb-imageframe-style.awb-imageframe-style-1 .awb-imageframe-caption-container .awb-imageframe-caption-text{font-size:16px;font-family:"Source Sans Pro";font-weight:400;}

Oliver is pictured holding the hair cap moss, Polytrichum. The dried yellowish brown fern to his right is the bracken fern, Pteridium aquilinum. (Thanks to pteridologist Robbin Moran for identifying these for us!)

Human health is intimately connected to the natural world, and we are grateful for global efforts to preserve ecosystems and address the climate crisis. Brazil’s president-elect, ‘Lula’ da Silva, has promised to fight to halt deforestation in the Amazon, and the Jane Goodall Institute continues its crucial work saving chimpanzees from extinction, improving health for women, educating girls, and motivating young people to become the next generation of conservation leaders.

There are so many people doing important work to protect our planet, please consider supporting your favorite defenders of biodiversity. Here are some of our favorite, lesser-known organizations: Ecosia (the search engine that plants trees,) Global Mangrove Alliance, Rainforest Alliance, Coral Reef Alliance, and Seacology. 

Main image: Oliver is examining a resurrection fern, Pleopeltis michauxiana. Read all about this fern’s tolerance to drought in Robbin C. Moran’s A Natural History of Ferns.

@media only screen and (max-width:1024px) {.fusion-title.fusion-title-1{margin-top:15px!important; margin-right:0px!important;margin-bottom:15px!important;margin-left:0px!important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:640px) {.fusion-title.fusion-title-1{margin-top:10px!important; margin-right:0px!important;margin-bottom:10px!important; margin-left:0px!important;}}Share Oliver Sacks with a loved one this Thanksgiving

In Gratitude, Dr Sacks writes: “My religion is nature. That’s what arouses those feelings of wonder and mysticism and gratitude in me.”

.fusion-body .fusion-button.button-1{border-radius:50px 50px 50px 50px;}BUY BOOK.fusion-body .fusion-builder-nested-column-0{width:50% !important;margin-top : 0px;margin-bottom : 20px;}.fusion-builder-nested-column-0 > .fusion-column-wrapper {padding-top : 0px !important;padding-right : 0px !important;margin-right : 3.84%;padding-bottom : 0px !important;padding-left : 0px !important;margin-left : 3.84%;}@media only screen and (max-width:1024px) {.fusion-body .fusion-builder-nested-column-0{width:50% !important;order : 0;}.fusion-builder-nested-column-0 > .fusion-column-wrapper {margin-right : 3.84%;margin-left : 3.84%;}}@media only screen and (max-width:640px) {.fusion-body .fusion-builder-nested-column-0{width:100% !important;order : 0;}.fusion-builder-nested-column-0 > .fusion-column-wrapper {margin-right : 1.92%;margin-left : 1.92%;}}

Sacks’s spellbinding account of a trip with a group of fellow fern enthusiasts to the beautiful, history-steeped province of Oaxaca.

.fusion-body .fusion-button.button-2{border-radius:50px 50px 50px 50px;}BUY BOOK.fusion-body .fusion-builder-nested-column-1{width:50% !important;margin-top : 0px;margin-bottom : 20px;}.fusion-builder-nested-column-1 > .fusion-column-wrapper {padding-top : 0px !important;padding-right : 0px !important;margin-right : 3.84%;padding-bottom : 0px !important;padding-left : 0px !important;margin-left : 3.84%;}@media only screen and (max-width:1024px) {.fusion-body .fusion-builder-nested-column-1{width:50% !important;order : 0;}.fusion-builder-nested-column-1 > .fusion-column-wrapper {margin-right : 3.84%;margin-left : 3.84%;}}@media only screen and (max-width:640px) {.fusion-body .fusion-builder-nested-column-1{width:100% !important;order : 0;}.fusion-builder-nested-column-1 > .fusion-column-wrapper {margin-right : 1.92%;margin-left : 1.92%;}}

It’s a perfect day to “see nature’s imagination in a garden,” as Oliver Sacks observes in this outtake from Oliver Sacks: His Own Life. Filmed at New York Botanical Garden.

.fusion-body .fusion-button.button-3{border-radius:50px 50px 50px 50px;}STREAM NOW.fusion-body .fusion-builder-column-0{width:100% !important;margin-top : 0px;margin-bottom : 20px;}.fusion-builder-column-0 > .fusion-column-wrapper {padding-top : 0px !important;padding-right : 0px !important;margin-right : 1.92%;padding-bottom : 0px !important;padding-left : 0px !important;margin-left : 1.92%;}@media only screen and (max-width:1024px) {.fusion-body .fusion-builder-column-0{width:100% !important;order : 0;}.fusion-builder-column-0 > .fusion-column-wrapper {margin-right : 1.92%;margin-left : 1.92%;}}@media only screen and (max-width:640px) {.fusion-body .fusion-builder-column-0{width:100% !important;order : 0;}.fusion-builder-column-0 > .fusion-column-wrapper {margin-right : 1.92%;margin-left : 1.92%;}}.fusion-body .fusion-flex-container.fusion-builder-row-1{ padding-top : 0px;margin-top : 0px;padding-right : 0px;padding-bottom : 0px;margin-bottom : 0px;padding-left : -15px;}

The post Biophilia, the love of nature and living things appeared first on Oliver Sacks | Official Website of Author, Neurologist & Foundation.

Oliver Sacks on Seeing Voices

The last week of every September is the International Week of the Deaf, to commemorate the first World Congress of the World Federation of the Deaf in Rome in 1958. Here’s a clip from when Oliver was on the Dick Cavett Show in 1989 to talk about Seeing Voices, his book about ASL and the Deaf community.

Dr. Sacks marched with the 1988 “Deaf President Now” protestors at Gallaudet University, The Washington D.C. school for the Deaf and hard of hearing. The protest kicked off when the Board of Trustees appointed a hearing person as the school’s seventh president, and only ended with the appointment of I. King Jordan, the university’s first deaf president.

[image error] Dr. Sacks, as featured on the back cover of Seeing Voices.

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The post Oliver Sacks on Seeing Voices appeared first on Oliver Sacks | Official Website of Author, Neurologist & Foundation.

Remembering Oliver Sacks

Seven years ago today Oliver Sacks died, and the world lost a brilliant mind. We’re so glad Oliver can live on and continue to inspire new generations of neurologists, writers, and thinkers through his books. In a piece of archival audio used in Radiant Minds, the Oliver Sacks podcast, Oliver says “Memory is what makes our lives… life without memory is no life at all.” Listen to the podcast now.

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The post Remembering Oliver Sacks appeared first on Oliver Sacks | Official Website of Author, Neurologist & Foundation.

Happy birthday, Oliver!

Today would have been Oliver Sacks’s 89th birthday. Oliver loved to measure his age by its equivalent element in the periodic table, and element 89 is actinium, a soft, silvery-white radioactive metal that’s currently being studied for use in cancer treatments. André-Louis Debierne, a French chemist, discovered it in 1899, after separating it from pitchblende residues left by Marie and Pierre Curie after they had extracted radium.

Even as a child Oliver had a love of the periodic table, and collected his own element samples throughout his life. He talks about this in the Ric Burns film “Oliver Sacks: His Own Life”.

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Oliver wrote about his early fascination with chemistry in Uncle Tungsten.

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A couple years ago, Oliver’s partner Bill Hayes invited us to visit his apartment and photograph some of the small, unassuming items that filled Oliver’s life. One of the items we found most fascinating was Oliver’s wallet, with his New York driver’s license and other cards still inside. He kept a small periodic table of the elements in his wallet, where most people keep their photo ID, so that he could have it with him always.

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During filming for the documentary, he spoke about why he did this:

“Oh, I carry a periodic table in my wallet. I love it very much. It stands for order, stability – but it also stands for imagination and mystery.”

Happy birthday, Oliver!

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P.S. You may have noticed that the website looks a bit different than it used to. We’ve launched a new, easier to navigate interface, as well as lots of new content. Have a look around!

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Awakenings Opera | Production Photos

Tobias Picker’s opera based on Awakenings premiered in St. Louis last weekend, and we are delighted to share a selection of official production photos from the show. The opera runs until June 24, 2022 and Sacks Foundation followers get 10% off when using the promo code SACKS2022. Plan your break in St Louis with our handy guide for things to do while visiting the city.

All photos © Opera Theatre of Saint Louis/Eric Woolsey

 

 

 

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An Aria to Cycads

It’s spring here in the Northern Hemisphere, so it’s time for some botanical news!

In Oaxaca Journal, Oliver Sacks joins a group of passionate fern enthusiasts to explore a region of Mexico rich in human culture and natural history. (We’re talking about wild avocados, cloud forests, chocolate, and mezcal, as a start.) The Oaxaca region also boasts a number of different cycad species, members of a plant group dating back to pre-dinosaur days. Oliver loved these tough survivors, which live all around the world and have done so for millions of years.

He often took his Awakenings patients to the New York Botanical Garden to show them these remarkable plants—so it is fitting that Tobias Picker’s new opera of Awakenings features an entire aria devoted to cycads. A first in the opera world, we are willing to bet!

So we are excited to share the news that Oliver’s friend Dennis Wm. Stevenson, Curator Emeritus at the New York Botanical Garden, recently named a new species of cycad in honor of Oliver. Dennis, knowing that Kew Gardens would have been the first place that Oliver, as a child, encountered this extraordinary group of plants, published his findings on Ceratozamia oliversacksii in the Kew Bulletin. Thank you, Dennis—Oliver would have been thrilled!

There’s also a fern named after Oliver Sacks – Ceradenia sacksii, by botanist Michael Sundue. Oliver was part of the expedition, organized by the New York Chapter of the American Fern Society and The New York Botanical Garden, which made the earliest known collection of this species. He describes the experience in Oaxaca Journal.

We hope, as the weather warms, you’re finding joy in the sprouting and blooming around you.

Best,

The Oliver Sacks Foundation

P.S. Read the New York Times’ interview with Tobias Picker and Aryeh Lev Stollman ahead of the world premiere of their Awakenings opera in St Louis on June 5, 2022.

Ticket Offer

Get a 10% discount to any performance of Awakenings using the promo code SACKS2022

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Photo of Oliver Sacks at New York Botanical Garden by Roberto Calasso / Illustrations by Abi Inman

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A New Species of Cycad is Named in Honor of Oliver Sacks

It’s spring here in the Northern Hemisphere, so it’s time for some botanical news!

In Oaxaca Journal, Oliver Sacks joins a group of passionate fern enthusiasts to explore a region of Mexico rich in human culture and natural history. (We’re talking about wild avocados, cloud forests, chocolate, and mezcal, as a start.) The Oaxaca region also boasts a number of different cycad species, members of a plant group dating back to pre-dinosaur days. Oliver loved these tough survivors, which live all around the world and have done so for millions of years.

He often took his Awakenings patients to the New York Botanical Garden to show them these remarkable plants—so it is fitting that Tobias Picker’s new opera of Awakenings features an entire aria devoted to cycads. A first in the opera world, we are willing to bet!

So we are excited to share the news that Oliver’s friend Dennis Wm. Stevenson, Curator Emeritus at the New York Botanical Garden, recently named a new species of cycad in honor of Oliver. Dennis, knowing that Kew Gardens would have been the first place that Oliver, as a child, encountered this extraordinary group of plants, published his findings on Ceratozamia oliversacksii in the Kew Bulletin. Thank you, Dennis—Oliver would have been thrilled!

There’s also a fern named after Oliver Sacks – Ceradenia sacksii, by botanist Michael Sundue. Oliver was part of the expedition, organized by the New York Chapter of the American Fern Society and The New York Botanical Garden, which made the earliest known collection of this species. He describes the experience in Oaxaca Journal.

We hope, as the weather warms, you’re finding joy in the sprouting and blooming around you.

Best,

The Oliver Sacks Foundation

P.S. Read the New York Times’ interview with Tobias Picker and Aryeh Lev Stollman ahead of the world premiere of their Awakenings opera in St Louis on June 5, 2022.

Photo of Oliver Sacks at New York Botanical Garden by Roberto Calasso / Illustrations by Abi Inman

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