Letters, p.71
Letters, page 71
My warmest good wishes to you and Dan,
Oliver Sacks
To Robert B. Silvers
January 11, 2005
2 Horatio St., New York, NY
Dear Bob,
It is a while since we have seen each other or corresponded—I hope you are well. 2004 was a sad and painful year with the deaths of many friends, from Thom Gunn’s in May to Susan Sontag’s last month (I had known both Thom & Susan since 1962).
It also saw the last illness and death of Francis Crick, whom I had known and corresponded with since 1986. I was very fond of Francis as well, and as I looked through our correspondence after his death I started to wonder about writing a “remembrance” of him. There have been many obituaries and recollections by his fellow neuroscientists, etc, but I think ours was an unusual relation because I was a clinician, and he was hungry to know how people actually experienced various disorders of perception and consciousness, etc.
In particular he was greatly interested in the Colorblind Painter, whose case (by Robert Wasserman and myself) you published in the Review in ’87; and equally interested, fifteen years later, in “Perceptual Moments” and “The River of Consciousness”[*25] which you published in January ’04. (He also remarked to me, in one letter, how he had followed my articles on the Deaf which you published in ’86 and ’88.)[*26]
So, for many reasons, as soon as I had finished writing “Remembering Crick” I felt I should send it to you![*27]
My best,
Oliver
To Sister Marie Geraldine Therese
Little Sisters of the Poor
April 16, 2005
2 Horatio St., New York
Dear Sister,
I have often thought of you—you were the first Little Sister I ever met—and often asked about you, and now I get your wonderful letter and enclosures which reach across the thirty-odd years since we worked together at Notre Dame, the “old” Home on 183rd St.
I felt sad, bereaved almost, when you left the Home for—for Pawtucket—and imagined that you too would feel uprooted; but your letter brought home to me (which I have now seen for myself) how all the Little Sisters are your sisters, and all the Homes are Home, and how moving from one to the other is an essential part of your Service and Life. I heard then that you had moved—to Alabama (was it Alabama? Curiously I have just been in Alabama myself), and then lost touch with you. And now it is lovely to hear from you again, to read about your Jubilee, and that you are (apart from a little arthritis) full of health and activity—scarcely surprising with your mother living to 106 (you must have great genes!). My father lived to 94, practised Medicine almost to his last day, though finding it increasingly difficult to walk because of arthritis in the knees (but this did not affect his swimming—and he remained a grand swimmer even in his nineties). It is similar with me—I hobble a bit walking, but once in the water take off like a porpoise. I was, I guess, forty, give or take a bit, when I met you in 1973 (I forget which month it was), and am now advancing towards my 72nd birthday. I loved seeing all the pictures you sent, from when you were a young Sister to your Jubilee pictures now—and I enclose a photo of myself (I think it was taken five or six years ago—I am whiter now).
I was tickled that you recognized yourself, as the “nursing sister,” in “The Lost Mariner.” […]
I was very fond of brilliant Sister Geraldine, and had a lot of contact with her in the late Seventies, when she moved, as I did, between the three Homes in New York (I started at Queen of Peace in January ’76, and at Holy Family soon after). So tragic that she developed a brain tumor so young—I rarely go to Wakes, but I went to hers (she was in the Philadelphia Home then, I think). Very fond too of Sister Josephine, with her great kindness (she always made me Christmas puddings full of richness and suet—none of your instant, ready-made ones); she had a lovely dry sense of humor, and great courage—as she needed to when she found herself in the long Purgatory of parkinsonism. […]
I still go to Queen of Peace, every fortnight or so—this had been a constant for almost thirty years. I was very sad when Holy Family Home closed, and sad too when Notre Dame (which seemed so comfortable and homey, and so close to the Arthur Avenue district where some of the Residents could go) gave way to the relatively isolated new Home on Baychester Avenue. This, in turn, closed; but now there will be a lovely new Home in the Bronx, built by and for the Little Sisters, and not taken over like the Baychester one. I hope to resume work there this year.
I am babbling on—but your letter has aroused so many memories and feelings in me.
Suddenly, as I write, a memory of Agnes G., in one of her manic moods, chasing Sister Geraldine and myself up three flights of stairs at Notre Dame. I am not sure of the year now (perhaps it was in the late Seventies, after you had left). Agnes, if you remember her, lived to the age of 99. There were several residents at Notre Dame who could remember the great Blizzard of 1888. And in 1976, if I recollect right, at the Bicentenary, there was a Sister (as well as some Residents) who had reached their 100th. And, as memories float up, I remember another centenarian resident (was it Mrs. C. ?), demented, and often agitated, but who could be calmed if given a doll, which she would then hold to her breast and nurse like a baby—a situation which caused some dilemmas for us all (for this strange “mothering” seemed so “inappropriate,” and yet it calmed and organized her as nothing else could).
Enough, enough—I hope we can keep in touch, and (most especially) that some day I can visit you in Indianapolis, pay my respects, and remember old times.
With admiration, affection, and warmest good wishes,
Oliver Sacks
To Sharon Stone
Director of Research and External Programs, Parkinson’s Disease Foundation
May 26, 2005
2 Horatio St., New York
Dear Ms. Stone,
Thank you for your letter regarding the therapeutic value of creativity in Parkinson’s disease.
This is a huge, intriguing, and complex subject—a very important one too—but I am not sure how to organize thoughts on the subject, what one should emphasize, where to begin.
My father was a resident (“houseman”) to Henry Head, the famous neurologist, in 1916. Head, at that time, already had severe Parkinson’s disease—and (my father told me) would festinate the length of the neurology ward at the London Hospital, and have to be caught by one of his own patients. But he was at the height of his powers and creativity at this time (his Studies in Neurology came out in 1920, his great Aphasia volumes six years later). My father would always say that he thought Head’s work, his passion to understand and communicate, kept him going in face of a parkinsonism as would have brought a less creative man to a halt.
When I was a resident in neurology (at UCLA) in 1963, I saw an artist with very severe akinetic parkinsonism—hardly treatable at this time, for l-DOPA was still some years in the future. When he told me that he could still paint large canvases I was incredulous—but he invited me to his ranch to see for myself. He was brought in his wheelchair to a blank canvas, and a paintbrush put in his hand—he was completely motionless, and I could not imagine how he would proceed; but, suddenly, with a wide sweeping movement, he made his first brush-stroke, and from then on completed a large and exuberant painting without the least sign of his parkinsonism or akinesia. When he was finished he sank back in his chair and became almost completely motionless again. I was not sure whether to call this “kinesia paradoxa,” or to see it as the therapeutic power of art in action. Subsequent observations showed me it was the latter.
When I started working with severely parkinsonian post-encephalitic patients in 1966—patients, for the most part, with overwhelming akinesia—I observed, almost from the start, the profound power of music with them. Patients virtually unable to speak or move could be “released” by the flow of music, and sing or dance freely. (I give many examples in my book Awakenings, and there are beautiful examples to be seen in the documentary of Awakenings.)
Here, it seemed to me, it was especially the rhythmic and propulsive quality of music which was so powerful—but this was only part of the matter, for rhythm alone was not as effective. It was clear that melody played a great part too, providing anticipation, “motor shape,” and “images of the future” (as Bernstein puts it), so enabling stuck parkinsonian patients to think and move ahead, to think and move in long cadences, “phrases,” instead of the jammed or stuttering tiny steps they otherwise made. Perhaps it is not a coincidence that Henry Head, himself so aware here of what he was theorizing about, spoke of “kinetic melody” as that which parkinsonian patients lacked and needed, when they were stuck in “kinetic stutter.”
On one occasion I brought the poet W. H. Auden to see my [postencephalitic] patients, and the power of music in particular. He immediately cited an aphorism of Novalis: “Every disease is a musical problem, every cure a musical solution.” Certainly this seems to be so of parkinsonism, though the power of music ceases when the music ceases. But patients can carry music with them (in a Walkman or iPod), and sometimes they are able to move relatively normally if they can imagine an accompanying music.
Should one speak here of the power of music as being “creative”? I think one can, and must; and I think of the words of E. M. Forster in this connection: “The Arts are not drugs. They are not guaranteed to act when taken. Something as mysterious and capricious as the creative impulse has to be released before they can act.”
And speaking of action, and Acting, I have seen parkinsonian patients profoundly disabled for most of the time, activated and able to act in a theatrical setting; and when acting a part able to speak and move in a way which would be impossible at other times. Here again, as with music (and painting) the therapeutic power is temporary—it can deliver the patient for a while, but when the action, the music, the painting, is over, there is a return to the parkinsonism.
But knowing that they can be “liberated,” if only for a while, and respond to music, or perform it, or act, or paint, and in so doing reclaim, for a while, their healthy selves, their powers, is itself profoundly encouraging and therapeutic for patients with parkinsonism.
Moreover I suspect—as my father suspected with Henry Head—that the ability to turn to creative activity may slow the advance of the disease; and, even if it does not do this, will enable patients to resist its power, and the tendency to passivity, to fight it (and sometimes conquer it) for years on end.
These, then, are a few thoughts provoked by your letter! […]
With kind regards,
Oliver Sacks
To Görel Kristina Näslund
Psychologist
May 26, 2005
2 Horatio St., New York
Dear Dr. Näslund,
Thank you for your letter. I will answer as best I can, sometimes (perhaps) giving you more information than you need, sometimes less!
I have always been exceptionally bad at recognizing faces—but not merely faces. I am bad at recognizing people. I am bad at recognizing places. I have left/right confusion. I have no sense of direction. […] My eldest brother had the same (agnosic) problems as I do, though my parents, and my two other brothers, seemingly did not.
The “topagnosia”[*28] (I mention this first, to dismiss it, since you do not ask about it) can be quite disabling. I constantly get lost, unless I follow fixed routes, and have detailed verbal directions. I do not consistently recognize my own street or the building I live in, let alone other people’s streets and buildings. I have repeated illusions of recognition—déjà vu and jamais vu, both false.
Other forms of visual recognition are good—I am an amateur botanist, recognize thousands of plants (more easily, perhaps, than people!). I tend to remember not only page numbers of things which have interested me in books, but the exact appearance of the pages—the fact that the sentence which interests me is a third of the way down on the left, etc. […]
Now your questions about (my) prosopagnosia:
Yes, it is a handicap, and an embarrassment—not so much growing up, as in my adulthood, and perhaps even more now I am ageing (I am 71). My assistant (Kate Edgar, with whom you have communicated) often says to people in advance: “Don’t be upset if he doesn’t recognize you. He may not recognize me—and I have worked with him for twenty years. Introduce yourself by your name.” […] But there are always uncontrollable (and sometimes comic) situations—“cutting” old friends at parties, or in the street; introducing husbands and wives to each other; greeting strangers, etc as old friends.
I have significant problems in self-recognition. On several occasions I have almost collided with a large, bearded man, started to apologize, and realized that I have run into a mirror. The opposite has also occurred. Once, when having a coffee outside a restaurant, I turned to my reflection in the window, and started to smooth my beard, then realized that my “reflection” was doing nothing of the sort, but staring at me in wonder—this was a bearded man inside the restaurant, whom I had mistaken for my own reflection. So the author of The Man Who…has some personal experience of what he writes about!
[…] I try to pay conscious attention to build, clothing, unusual facial features—a long nose, shaggy eyebrows, moles, mustaches, etc) to compensate for the lack of automatic perception. I should add that I am highly sensitive to movement, to gestures, postures, what one might call “motor style,” in striking contrast to some other forms of visual perception.
On one occasion I was questioned by the police regarding a young man who had (perhaps) committed a theft. They asked me if I knew him. I said, “Yes, I see him almost every week.” They asked me to describe him. Trying to remember, I described him as short, tall, dark-haired, blond, thin, fat, etc. The police said that I had indeed given them a mass of contradictions. They said that if I indeed knew the man, how did I recognize him? “By his walk,” I answered, and instantly imitated this.
You will see from this that it is not merely facial recognition I have difficulty with. Much larger categories may be unperceived, so unremembered.
Bertrand Russell, in his Autobiography, speaks of his difficulties recognizing people, and how, if he felt it especially important to recognize them, he would make a mental list, itemize “salient features” in his mind, which he would then try to match with subsequent appearances of the person (I am not sure how successful this was). […]
It seems to me very odd that the subject is “totally unknown” in Sweden, but I am sure that when you publish your book (have you written articles on the subject?) people will see it, or confess it, everywhere. Someone has to draw attention to it. I am reminded of my experiences with Tourette’s syndrome. The day after seeing a patient with it (in 1971), I saw three people in the streets of New York with it, the day after this another two, etc. I realized that I must have been seeing, but not seeing, TS all my life. It supposedly had an incidence of 1 in a million. I suspected from my street experience that it might be a 1000 times commoner. This, in fact, has turned out to be the case. Indeed its incidence approaches ½%, but it was “unknown” before 1970.
With kind regards, and best wishes for your book!
Oliver Sacks
To Bill Borden
November 17, 2005
2 Horatio St., New York
Dear Bill,
What a wonderful, rich letter—but you mustn’t send me all these fabulous fossils, it is over-generous in the extreme. I have not unpacked them yet, but I will do so at the next AFS[*29] meeting, so that everyone can share in the joy of opening—a palaeobotanic Xmas treat for all.
Glad you liked “Recalled to Life”[*30]—I have known Patricia since ’91, but it was only last year, almost exactly a year ago, that we went for our walk together, and I thought what a remarkable person she was, and determined, if it was agreeable, to write about her. It was—and she insisted that I use her real name, as did her daughters Dana and Lari. I feel honored that you will include it in your course. Continued accounts? I guess so. I continue to see patients and—don’t know what to call them, collaborators, subjects. I do have another piece with the New Yorker—no idea when they’ll print it—about a gifted woman, strabismic and stereoblind, who gained stereoscopy at the age of 50, and is enchanted by the new depth and richness of her world. […] I think I probably mentioned her to you before. Otherwise, I have been writing clinical narratives/essays, my hybrid form, on patients with musical disorders, or musicians who have come to visit me—and I think they will come together to make a little book on Music and the Brain. I begin to see the shape it might be. […]
Kate and I did have a little European tour in September—through Belgium and Holland to Italy. We visited Geel,[*31] which you must know about—its “hospitality” (much too faint a word!) to the mad for seven hundred years or more. It was very extraordinary seeing obviously and sometimes deeply schizophrenic people walk freely in the streets, talk, shop, be fully recognized as persons by the townspeople (who serve as foster-parents, or provide foster-homes, as they have done since 1280—so close that the people they take in really become part of the family, with close emotional bonds going both ways. I want (sometime) to write about community-care of the mad/schizophrenic, and I have never seen such a place as Geel.[*32] It could/should be a model for the rest of the world—this place where someone can have the full experience of schizophrenia (positive and negative), free to be schizophrenic, while having a “normal” and often emotionally and socially rich life. I wonder how things would have been for my poor brother had a place like Geel existed in England. We did not see much art in Italy, but we had dinner with the amazing Rita Levi-Montalcini, who (at 96) is a work of art, a miracle, in herself (do you know her autobiography In Praise of Imperfection?).
