Monthly Archives: December 2018

Yto Barrada’s exhibition on the 1960 Agadir earthquake made a lasting impression on me. I saw it at the Barbican, without the supporting actors. A text by Mohammed Khaïr-Eddine was an ignition for this work.

Pío del Río-Hortega, born in Portillo, trained by Nicolás Achúcarro, spent 3 months at the Middlesex Hospital in London in 1915 and cut an isolated figure in the late 1910s. We are nearly in the centenary of his bringing of microglia into sharp focus. It took another 10 years for him to reconcile with Cajal.

1. https://www.barbican.org.uk/whats-on/2018/event/yto-barrada-agadir

2. From the Cajal alumni Achúcarro and Río-Hortega to the rediscovery of never-resting microglia. Marie-Ève Tremblay, Cynthia Lecours, Louis Samson, Víctor Sánchez-Zafra, and Amanda Sierra. Front Neuroanat

 

Dave Trott’s blog is compulsive reading, and I could watch his lectures all day. He can teach many of us working in medicine a thing or two about being unreasonably upstream, making sure form follows function, and how to reach a broad audience – a Gall-Peters projection of who our audience really is.

Another creative writer is composer Anouar Brahem, whose Blue Maqams has gripped my attention. This album was recorded May 2017 in Hell’s Kitchen, with Dave Holland, Jack DeJohnette, and Django Bates. Brahem was born in Halfaouine and took up the oud at the age of 10. Formative years in Paris followed in 1981-1987. I then found out about Django Bates’ reinterpretation of Sergeant Pepper. These musicians really know how to make an impact and then communicate.

1. http://davetrott.co.uk/2009/05/sound-is-more-powerful-than-vision/
2. Dave Trott TEDxCanaryWharf
3. https://www.anouarbrahem.com/fr
4. https://editionrecords.com/releases/saluting-sgt-pepper/