Nerd Nation 4.5

We actually had cable-tv in the 80s and 90s; but from about 1996 on, it was just an offering on the glass wire that brought the Internet.  We were never much for television.  If I did not have CNN and Reuters for my home pages (PC and Mac), I would never know about Survivor or Dancing with the Stars.  But small screen cinema is a valid medium and we often browse the stacks at the library and even had Blockbuster cards.  

I found Big Bang Theory at the Ann Arbor Public Library.  Mostly we were wait-listed to view it.  Truth to tell, my wife could not watch it at first because it was too embarrassingly like the people she worked with.  But she got over that and we became fans; and came pretty much up to speed via CBS.com (where we also followed NCIS).  Enjoyinging Season 4 on discs here in Austin courtesy of the library (again long wait-lists) we viewed one of the special features.  In a tet-a-tet with show star Jim Parsons, Mayim Bialik said that she studied neurobiology.  That was interesting.  

Her biographies on IMDB and Wikipedia say that playing young Bette Midler was her “most famous” role.  I’ll take their word for it.  She also acted in something called Blossom, a role that first made her “famous” they say.  

We are living in a Renaissance, if there is a “rebirth” at all, and not the continuation of the long trajectory of civilization.  It actually raises the question of what a “dark age” is.  The Bronze Age collapse (1200-1150 BCE) is easy enough to see. The contraction of Rome in the fourth and fifth centuries CE was less dramatic.  Catastrophes happen.  It may be that the European Renaissance was not an exception, at all, but the norm.  Be that as it may, clearly, our electronic age is at once an effect and a cause of cultural complexity.  

Mayim Bialik’s website here.

Mayim Bialik’s doctoral dissertation at Google Books here.  (Hypothalamic Regulation in Relation to Maladaptive, Obsessive-compulsive, Affiliative, and Satiety Behaviors in Prader-Willi Syndrome by Mayim Chaya Bialik; ProQuest, 2007; 285 pages.)

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

• Nerd Nation 1.0 Big Bang Theory, NCIS, and NUMB3RS
• Nerd Nation 2.0: Danika McKeller, Natalie Portman, and Felicia Day 
• Nerd Nation 3.0: Dungeons and Dragons is Mainstream 
• Nerd Nation 4.0: Even GQ Says Smart is Sexy
• Where All the Children are Above Average
• Book Review: She's Such a Geek!