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11 unusual facts about Oliver Sacks


A Kind of Alaska

According to his note in the published text, Pinter's idea for the play was inspired by his reading of Awakenings, by the renowned neurologist Oliver Sacks (3).

At First Sight

-- >14,000 words = short work, so the title should be in quotes, not italicized. --> in neurologist Oliver Sacks' book An Anthropologist on Mars and inspired by the true life story of Shirl Jennings.

Blind Tom Wiggins

In 1999 John Davis recorded an album of Tom's original compositions on a CD entitled John Davis Plays Blind Tom. The CD package included essays by Amiri Baraka, Ricky Jay and Oliver Sacks.

Element collecting

Some amateur chemists have amassed a large collection of elements—Oliver Sacks, for example.

Else Cederborg

Cederborg has published books and articles in both English and Danish language as well as translating e.g. Gloria Steinem's Revolution From Within, Oliver Sacks' The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat and Joyce Johnson's Minor Characters.

Frigyes Karinthy

He describes this experience in his autobiographical novel, Journey Round my Skull, (Utazás a koponyám körül), originally published in 1939; a reissue appeared as a NYRB Classic in 2008 with an introduction by neurologist Oliver Sacks.

Molly Sweeney

The play was in large part inspired by the essay by neurologist Oliver Sacks, "To See and Not See," published in An Anthropologist on Mars.

Shirl Jennings

The family contacted Dr. Oliver Sacks, a famous neurologist known for his book "Awakenings," who, along with other physicians, concluded that Shirl would need to relearn how to identify objects that he could feel and smell by using their visual cues.

Stereoblindness

British neurologist Oliver Sacks lost his stereoscopic vision in 2009 due to a malignant tumor in his right eye and now has no remaining vision in that eye.

The Music Never Stopped

Based on Oliver Sacks' essay The Last Hippie, the film tells the father-son relationship between Henry Sawyer (J.K. Simmons) and his son, Gabriel (Lou Taylor Pucci), who suffers from a brain tumor that prevents him from forming new memories.

Trihexyphenidyl

The neurologist Oliver Sacks reports using the drug recreationally in the 1960s.


Lytico-bodig disease

Neurologist Oliver Sacks detailed this mysterious condition in his book The Island of the Colorblind

National Poetry Month

Hosted each year by the two-time Academy Award-winning actress Meryl Streep, the event has featured readings by Liam Neeson, Tony Kushner, Maya Lin, Sam Waterston, Suzan-Lori Parks, Minnie Driver, Dan Rather, Agnes Gund, Frank Rich, Diane von Furstenberg, Wynton Marsalis, Alan Alda, Wendy Whelan, Mike Wallace, Dianne Wiest, Oliver Sacks, Gloria Vanderbilt, William Wegman, and Christopher Durang, among others.

Postencephalitic parkinsonism

The film Awakenings (starring Robin Williams and Robert De Niro) and its respective book based on genuine cases reported by Oliver Sacks deal with sensitive and largely accurate topics relating to this disease.

Tungsten hexafluoride

In his book Uncle Tungsten, Oliver Sacks describes how his uncle—an avid fan of tungsten and tungsten chemistry—told him about the very high-density of gaseous WF6.