Dickens Takes the Stage

Most fans of Charles Dickens know him because of his popular novels, but his talents extended to the theater as well. Having acted in several plays before turning to (1) writing-Dickens continued to participate in a variety of productions while writing such novels as Oliver Twist, The Pickwick Papers, and Nicholas Nickleby. In 1853, he discovered a way to combine these passions. Using his theatrical flair, Dickens staged dynamic public readings of (2) their works that inspired audiences to engage with the author and his writing in new ways.

(3)  Tickets for a Dickens performance were priced inexpensively so that working-class audiences could afford them. Though his stage set was austere-consisting of little more than a reading desk, a pitcher of water, and a drinking glass - Dickens set the scene with (4) just his presence and voice. Reading from an annotated copy of a (5) book; in which he had scrawled stage directions, he would impersonate as many as 23 fictional characters in a single two-hour performance.

(6) As a young man, Dickens had put on plays with his friends. According to one audience member, Dickens (7) will perform the character of Scrooge from A Christmas Carol by drawing "his face down into his collar, like a great turtle drawing in his head, [Putting] on a surly look and [ speaking] in a gruff voice"; then, in the next moment, he spoke as Scrooge's clerk Bob Cratchit, with a soft voice and cowering posture. Bringing characters to life in ways that surprised and delighted audiences, Dickens created performances that augmented his texts.

(8) Dickens's previous experience with stage production included creating scenery and designing costumes. In his warm greetings to the audience before each performance, the author ceased being a remote (9) figure, he became a friend. Dickens further enhanced this intimacy by inviting audience members to openly express their reactions, and he frequently found inspiration in their gasps, chuckles, and applause to improvise lines to prolong moments of comedy or pathos. For example, when acting out a scene from A Christmas Carol in which fiddler at a party "plunged his hot face into a pot of porter," Dickens added hyperbolic exclamations to encourage the audience to laugh. He laughed (10) big time along with them.

From 1853 to 1870, Dickens performed an astonishing 472 readings throughout Great Britain and the United States. Historians have said that Dickens, who sold out every show he scheduled, was perhaps the first author to become a celebrity as much for his performances as for his written works. (11) Creating an unprecedented role for both author and audience, Dickens ultimately became a public figure as well known and as beloved as his most popular characters.

Frederick Douglass "Fritz" Pollard first became famous for his impressive achievements as a football player and coach between 1915 and 1937. Over the course of a long and entrepreneurial career, Pollard used the [12] considerate celebrity he gained from sports to advance professional opportunities for his fellow African Americans.

One of the many entrepreneurial ventures Pollard pursued was publishing a newspaper, the New York Independent [13] News. He wrote a weekly sports column for the newspaper called Sports by Fritz. He used this platform to highlight the accomplishments of African American athletes, such as heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis, and to advocate the end of racial segregation in the National Football League and other professional sports organizations. Pollard also used his column to discuss the parallel roles played by athletes and entertainers in the African American community. [14] At a time when African Americans were denied many avenues for economic and social advancement, sports and entertainment offered opportunities for fame and success; Pollard believed it was essential to preserve and [15] elongate African Americans' access to these industries.

Pollard's engagement with issues of racial equality was not limited to commentary. Pollard also worked as a talent agent, [16] improving the prospects of many African American entertainers who hired him to promote their careers and book their performances. [17] Pollard began his career, early on, as an agent when he allowed a friend to turn vacant office space at the Independent News into a recording studio, dubbed Suntan Studios. Suntan provided African American musicians much-needed space to record and rehearse. At the studio, Pollard became acquainted with many performers, including Billie Holiday and Dizzy Gillespie, who became his clients. Pollard drew on the network of relationships he [18] would cultivate as an athlete, particularly his friendship with the renowned actor and singer Paul Robeson (who, like Pollard, had begun his career as a football player), to find work for Holiday, Gillespie, and many others. [19] By contrast, Pollard often secured engagements for his clients in venues that had previously been segregated. "I got hundreds and hundreds of acts into places where they never got [in] before," he recalled in an interview with biographer John M. Carroll.

[20] He played a number of other professional roles in his extraordinarily far-ranging career, including investment advisor, [21] filmmaker, and, tax consultant. Yet for all the roles he played, one thing about Pollard never changed: [22] the importance of his athletic career in establishing his reputation.

Why We Still Need Mapmakers

For centuries, cartography-the art and science of mapmaking-was the work of skilled individuals who relied on their own explorations, drawing abilities, and knowledge of astronomy and mathematics to chart the world around them. In recent decades, advances in technology and software have (23) taken over. As applications such as Google Maps re-create the world in precise detail, some people wonder if there is anything left to map and (24) is there still a need for cartographers at all. Yet whether they are overseeing complex software to ensure accuracy or innovating content and form to expand our understanding of a particular place, trained cartographers remain essential.

Although software programs known as geographic information systems (GIS) now perform many of the technical aspects of mapping, such as data analysis and projections, (25) their complete capabilities have yet to be fully realized. A satellite image can show a landscape in impressive detail, but it may fail to reflect a new construction detour or a road washed out by recent flooding. To ensure that maps accurately reflect a world in perpetual flux, mapmakers must be (26) vigilant, about monitoring data, and integrating new information. Moreover, digital mapmaking requires input from skilled designers, whose artistic decisions about details ranging from font selection to color scheme (27) influences how effectively information is communicated to users.

Mapmakers are more than just GIS experts and (28) designers though, they're storytellers who craft narratives through the selection, arrangement, and juxtaposition of spatial information. In Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas, a 2010 collection by Rebecca Solnit, each of the atlas's twenty-two maps tells a distinct story. A map pinpointing the city's coffee shops also charts sewer lines and (29) reservoirs to show how commerce, infrastructure, and natural resources are interrelated. Another relays the rise and decline of cinema culture in San Francisco by juxtaposing sites where Alfred Hitchcock filmed his iconic movie Vertigo with locations where movie theaters have recently closed. Of this collection, LA. Times reviewer Lynell George wrote, (30) "We often speak of inhabiting a place-a country, a city or our own small plot of land-but seldom do we pause to deeply consider how that place inhabits us."

Maps such as those in Infinite City don't necessarily show us how to travel from point A to point B. (31) Likewise, they create imaginative, nuanced portraits of the spaces we inhabit. (32) Career opportunities in the GIS industry are plentiful and varied for individuals who possess the right technical expertise. Mapmakers have the ability to reorient our thinking about complex problems; they help us envision alternative narratives and solutions. (33)

The Art of a Cat's Lap

"I always thought that my cat, in lapping her milk, curled her tongue up, but now it's revealed that she curls her tongue down. In other words, she brings the milk up on the underside of her tongue," narrates Pete Smith in the 1940 short documentary Quicker'n a Wink. Using stroboscopic photography, the documentary rendered common events-such as a house cat lapping milk-in slow motion. (34) This technique allowed viewers to perceive details that, in an everyday setting, occur too quickly for the human eye to perceive.

Smith's description suggests that the underside of a house cat's tongue works as a (35) conduit for milk that moves milk into a cat's mouth. At the time, Smith's explanation, which had no scientific support, may have been strengthened through observation of a house cat's other well-known (36) uses for its tongue. A house cat commonly uses its tongue for grooming and tearing meat from bones. Filiform papillae, backward-facing projections on the cat's tongue, give the tongue a sandpaper quality and allow it to act as both hairbrush and cutlery. Smith could have assumed that these projections also acted as an adhesive for liquid.

[1] In 2010 a (37) team, of researchers, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology recorded high-speed movies of house cats lapping water. [2] By studying the recordings, they determined that Smith's explanation was partially true: a house cat's tongue does curl on its way to a water bowl, and water then adheres to the back of the tongue. [3] The researchers discovered that the speed and precision of a house cat s laps also (38) plays important roles in the lapping process. [4] When lapping, a house cat's tongue flicks downward at an extraordinary speed and touches the water's surface with just its tip. [5] The tongue then quickly retracts, which causes the water to be drawn (39) upward,  it forms a column of liquid. [6] The cat closes its mouth around the column just before it separates, thereby capturing the greatest volume of water. [7] The column stretches due to the motion of the cat's tongue, but the pull of gravity causes the column to thin. (40)

The researchers then collected data from a zoo in New England (41) and watched online videos of larger cats lapping liquid. They found that the frequency of lapping varies (42) dependent of the mass of the cat. For example, while house cats lap between three-and-ahalf and four times every second, lions lap (43) between one-and-a-half and two times every second. (44) How did the researchers solve this mystery? The researchers reasoned that larger felines' wider tongues create columns of liquid that are thicker and weigh more, so these cats must be attuned to the threat of gravity. If drawn up too rapidly, their heavier columns will collapse. Larger felines, therefore, lap slower to ensure they secure the maximum amount of liquid in their jaws. Lapping, it seems, really is a precise art.