62
NOVEMBER 2012
•
HEMISPHERESMAGAZINE.COM
culture
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THEMONTHAHEAD
“[
AS A BOY,] THOUGH I COULDN’T HAVE PUT IT
INTOWORDS, I HAD THE DISTINCT IMPRESSION
THAT THE WALL SEPARATING RESPECTABILITY
FROM FUNWAS VERY THIN INDEED.”
—
From
Elsewhere
:
A Memoir
by Richard Russo, Pulitzer Prize–winning
author of
Empire Falls
.
nov. 1
GoodNews, BadNews
Twodifferent takes on the principle of progress hit the shelves
this month.
Mad Science
(
Nov. 13) is a daily affirmation for
humankind, recounting365cool inven-
tions, while
Encyclopedia Paranoiaca
(
Nov. 20) is an A-to-Z of modern perils
—
many of them deriving from the
inventions in
MadScience
.
Here’s how
the two stack up against each other.
UNUSUALSUSPECTS
With the latest James Bond film,
Skyfall
,
out this month, we asked former CIA
man Mark Stout—curator of D.C.’s
International Spy Museum, which opens
the exhibit “Exquisitely Evil: 50 Years of
Bond Villains” on Nov. 16—to shed light
on some of 007’s foes and the real-life
figures who inspired them.
Bond villain:
Dr.
Kananga/Mr. Big
(
Live and
Let Die
, 1973)
Real villain:
Harlem gangster
Frank Lucas
“
Mr. Big had
a big sense of
style, but Lucas
had a chinchilla coat and a sidekick, ‘Sergeant
Smack,’ with whom he devised a plot that
would appeal to any Bond villain: smuggling
heroin out of Southeast Asia in coffins.”
Bond villain:
Franz Sanchez
(
License to Kill
, 1989)
Real villain:
Drug lord Pablo Escobar
“
Here, the real villain was definitely more
flamboyant than the fictional one. Sanchez
had a pet iguana, but Escobar raised
hippopotamuses and had a park filled with
life-size model dinosaurs.”
Bond villain:
Elliot Carver
(
Tomorrow Never Dies
, 1997)
Real villain:
Media tycoon William
Randolph Hearst
“
Carver was a newspaper and TV magnate
who wanted to gin up a war between Britain
and China so that a new government in
China would grant him exclusive broadcast
rights. He was a very Hearst-like character.”
COURTESY EVERETT COLLECTION (
LIVE AND LET DIE
)
TELEPHONES
PHARMA-
CEUTICALS
DENTAL CARE
PLASTICS
PHOTOCOPIERS
MS:
Marvels at Thomas Edison’s
role in standardizing the salutation
for phone calls. Telephone inventor
Alexander Graham Bell’s “Ahoy!”
prevailed in the device’s early
days, until Edison stepped in
with “Hello?”
MS:
Applauds German pharmacist
Felix Hoffmann, whose patent for a
new kind of pain medicine brought
comfort to countless headache suf-
ferers. Marketed under the brand
name Aspirin, this little white pill
“
remains one of the world’s most
widely used pain relievers.”
MS:
Lauds the Chinese emperor
who devised a toothbrush of
hogback bristles set in a bone or
bamboo handle, thereby ushering
in an age of brighter smiles and
banishing the scourge of bad breath.
MS:
Celebrates the birth of Nathan-
iel Convers Wyeth, the DuPont
engineer who invented the plastic
beverage bottle (patented in 1973).
His revolutionary container was not
only light, flexible and strong, but
also “met Food and Drug Adminis-
tration standards for purity.”
MS:
Rejoices in the advent of
Chester Carlson’s xerographic
copying process, which saved busi-
nesses incalculable amounts of time
and money, and had “a profound
cultural influence” to boot.
EP:
Reminds us that telephones
“
are among the very germiest items
we ever come into contact with,”
a problem compounded by the
fact that they don’t respond well
to meaningful amounts of soap
and water.
EP:
Suggests that pain relievers
very often mask the root causes of
headaches, which can foreshadow
such potentially life-threatening
ailments as bubonic plague,
cerebral hemorrhages, dengue fever,
Ebola, lupus, malaria and typhus.
EP:
Warns that the nasties removed
when you clean your teeth tend to
cling to the bristles and lie in wait
until the next brushing. Brushes, the
book adds, can also attract all sorts
of other yucky stuff.
EP:
Frets about the use of bisphenol
A (BPA) in plastic bottles. BPA,
we learn, is a “powerful synthetic
estrogen that can disrupt normal
endocrine function.” Diabetes,
obesity and accelerated puberty
are among the more benign risks
associated with the chemical.
EP:
Notes that emissions from
copiers are capable of causing
dizziness, fatigue, eye irritation,
sore throats, headaches, shortness
of breath and a host of even more
disagreeable ailments.
