The Common Thread

When I was in junior high I owned an anthology of short stories in speculative fiction titled "Possibilities," which I just loved.  It included weird, twisted tales like those that appeared on "The Twilight Zone" and "Night Gallery."  One of my favourites was called "Button, Button." It's about a couple who find a box at their doorstep.  Inside is a mounted push button and a note explaining that the couple will receive $50,000 if they press the button.  The catch is that if they press it, someone in the world will die.  The rest of the story is about the couple's decision.  I hadn't thought about this for many years until I read that a new film, "The Box," starring Cameron Diaz, will be released next year based on this very story.  That led me to finding out the name of the author of "Button, Button," which turned out to be Richard Matheson (the guy in the picture above).  And that led me to reading more about his other contributions.  Oh my!  It turns out that many of my favourite stories, TV shows, and movies from the '70s and early '80s were written by Matheson, but I had no idea that he was the common thread among all these works.  Among his many accomplishments:

• he was one of the original writers for "Twilight Zone" and he wrote two episodes of "Night Gallery"
  
• he wrote the story and screenplay for "Duel," Steven Spielberg's first major work, which featured motorist Dennis Weaver being terrorised by an unknown trucker for the entire movie
  
• he wrote the novel and screenplay for "Somewhere in Time," starring Christopher Reeve (definitely a sentimental favourite of mine)
  
• he wrote one of the first teleplays that led to the eerie TV show "The Night Stalker," starring Darren McGavin, which was sort of the "X-files" of the early '70s
  
• he wrote the episode for the original "Star Trek" that introduced Spock's "Vulcan grip"
  
• he wrote "I am Legend," which has been filmed in various forms over the years
  

Here's a fuller summary of his life and work (he's now 82).  It's amazing that all of this stuff I loved during my adolescence were all products of the same mind.  Now I want to reread "Button, Button" and some of Matheson's other works, but I'll probably have to wait until I go back to the States in November to find his books, as I haven't been able to locate more than one of two of them here.

For Your Reading Pleasure

Despite its original intent, this blog hasn't had much to say about social neuroscience (SN) lately. Perhaps it's because I have been a little preoccupied with plans to move to the other side of the planet?! Anyway, three SN-relevant books have recently found their way to my home, and I hope to write complete reviews of them in the next six months (what a weak promise!).

The first is co-edited by the granddaddy of SN himself, John Cacioppo, as well as Penny Visser and Cindy Pickett : Social Neuroscience: People Thinking about Thinking People, published by MIT Press. Despite the corny title, this one contains original chapters by many of the leaders of contemporary social neuroscience.

The second represents a more "junior" group of social neuroscientists: Social Neuroscience: Integrating Biological and Psychological Explanations of Social Behavior, edited by Eddie Harmon-Jones and Piotr Winkielman. There is quite a bit of overlap in the list of authors and chapters between this book and the Cacioppo, Visser, and Pickett one. I am more excited about this one, however, as it has a broader coverage of topics and includes some people who appear to have been overlooked by Cacioppo et al.

The third book every budding social neuroscientist should own is the third edition of the classic Handbook of Psychophysiology, edited by Cacioppo, Tassinary, and Berntson. My complimentary copy arrived just this week (check out the chapter on facial EMG--I'm a co-author!). My first impressions are that this one is going to be much easier to carry around, as opposed to that 12-pound monolith that was the second edition...