Aug

Overcoming Obstacles: What’s Right with Lefties

by Janine Boylan on August 12, 2013

lefty writer, illustrating overcoming obstacles and Left-Handers' Day

Happy Left-Handers’ Day!

What is wrong with the photo above? No left-handed person would voluntarily write in a spiral notebook like that—it’s horribly uncomfortable on the hand!

About 10% of the population is left-dominant. They prefer to write, toss balls, cut paper, and open cans with their left hands. Often this means they have to overcome obstacles daily by struggling with tools, like spiral notebooks, thoughtlessly designed only for right-handed people.

About twenty years ago, a fed-up group of lefties, the Left-Hander’s Club, started International Left-Handers’ Day, which is now celebrated annually on August 13. According to the official site, the event allows left-handers to “celebrate their sinistrality and increase public awareness of the advantages and disadvantages of being left-handed.”

So, what are some of the Oh, I see advantages of being left-handed? Here are five.

1. Lefties Are in Great Company

Lefties are a rare, but spectacular, group of people. You probably have heard that four of the last five presidents are lefties: Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, George H. W. Bush, and Ronald Reagan (who was ambidextrous). Other famous lefties include:

Leonardo da Vinci
Henry Ford
John D. Rockefeller
Marie Curie
Albert Einstein
Jimi Hendrix
Whoopi Goldberg
Angelina Jolie
Babe Ruth
Ty Cobb
and more.

This video highlights some other powerful lefties.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6jlsKO62ZU

If the video does not play, watch it here.

2. Lefties Get to Choose Where to Sit at the Table

The best seat is the corner seat. Without hesitation, a lefty deserves to have it. After all, if everyone else eats with their right hands, a lefty doesn’t want to constantly be hitting elbows throughout a meal.

Lefty at the dinner table, illustrating overcoming obstacles and Left-Handers' Day

No bumping elbows at the dinner table!
© Thinkstock

3. Southpaws Excel in Some Sports

It is well-known that left-handers have an advantage over right-handed competitors in numerous sports like baseball, boxing, and tennis. Left-handed players can position themselves differently and hit or throw from the side opposite of their right-handed counterparts.

For example, according to the Oxford dictionary, the term “southpaw” originated with baseball. Fields were built with home plate in the west so a southpaw pitcher was using the hand that was on the south side of the field.

lefty baseball player, illustrating overcoming obstacles and Left-Handers' Day

Throws from left-handed pitchers are actually more difficut for left-handed batters to hit than right-handed batters because of how the ball crosses the plate.
© Thinkstock

Northwestern University professor Daniel M. Abrams and his graduate student Mark J. Panaggio researched the role competition plays in relation to the ratio of left- and right-handed people. Their theory was that the more cooperative an environment is, the more single-handed it is. Conversely, the more competitive an environment is, the more even the split is between right- and left-handers.

Their research results supported their theory: the percentage of lefties in highly competitive sports is higher than the 10% in the rest of society. In fact, more than 50% of top baseball players are lefties.

4. Left Hands Can Type More Words than Right Hands

Using a standard “qwerty” keyboard and following the rules learned in keyboarding class, people can type merely 451 words with only the right hand.

Using only the left hand, however, people can type an astounding 3,403 words.

left hand on keyboard, illustrating overcoming obstacles and Left-Handers' Day

One theory is that the left-hand-dependent “qwerty” keyboard was developed
with input from telegraph operators.
© Thinkstock

Here’s a list of the awesome all-left-hand words, ranging from “ax” to “sweaterdresses.”

5. Lefties Are Faster at Using the Whole Brain

The left side of the brain controls the muscles on the right side of the body. The right side of the brain controls the muscles on the left side of the body. As a popular saying goes, “Lefties are in their right mind.”

a brain, illustrating overcoming obstacles and Left-Handers' Day

There are two sides of a human brain. It’s important for the left and right sides to talk to each other.
© Thinkstock

In general, information from the senses crosses sides like this, too. What you see or feel on your left is processed through the right side of your brain. Language, however, is an interesting exception. The vast majority of right-handers use the left side of their brain for language; 60–70% of left-handers also use the left side of their brain for language.

Australian National University’s Dr. Nick Cherbuin determined that people who are strongly left-handed are able to process information between the two sides of their brain milliseconds more quickly than those who are right-handed.

In a BBC report about this study, psychologist Dr. Steve Williams is noted as saying, “This seems to go with evidence that left-handers use both sides of the brain for language—that they are more bicerebral. They get faster at it because they’re having to use both sides of the brain more.”

Happy Left-Handers’ Day

More informed now about the advantages of being left-handed, we salute all lefties on Left-Handers’ Day! May this world become more equally-handed so you have fewer obstacles to overcome and more time to celebrate the benefits.

But before you all go, take a moment and vote. Let’s see how the OIC community compares to the statistics.

[polldaddy poll=7309691]

Comment on this post below, or inspire insight with your own OIC Moment here.

Janine Boylan Comments

Discoveries

Aug

In Tune with Paris: The Music of the Eiffel Tower

by Meredith Mullins on August 8, 2013

Joe Bertolozzi with rubber hammer on Eiffel Tower railing, a unique form of artistic expression.

Hundreds of feet high, Joe Bertolozzi “plays” an Eiffel Tower railing.
© Franc Palaia

The Voice Inside The Eiffel Tower

The Eiffel Tower has been called many things. La Grande Dame. The Iron Lady. The ultimate symbol of Paris.

Several more imaginative names were provided by the artists and writers who protested its construction in 1887. A truly tragic street lamp. An ungainly skeleton. A half-built factory pipe.

Now, thanks to Joseph Bertolozzi‘s unique path for artistic expression, an even more inspirational name can be applied. The Eiffel Tower has become a musical instrument.

Oh, I see. There is music everywhere. You just have to be open to finding it.

rtolozzi with large mallet playing fence, artistic expression on the Eiffel Tower.

A musical fence . . . with quite a view.
© Franc Palaia

Tower Music

Composer/musician Bertolozzi has a penchant for discovering new ways of creating music. He has a long career of traditional composing, including orchestral works and choral music, but he is also inspired to find the voice inside inanimate objects and draw out natural sounds as the foundation for composition.

Like any percussionist at heart, he has a tendency to beat out rhythms on whatever is handy—the dinner dishes, doorknobs, railings, and any nearby surface that attracts him.

Enter—the Eiffel Tower . . . and the idea to play its surfaces. The seed was planted back in New York with an innocent comment by Joe’s wife in front of an Eiffel Tower poster. She pointed at the poster and made the sound “bong.” Joe’s imagination took over.

Couple that with Joe’s desire to explore an object’s inner rhythms and to let it speak. Add his persistence with layers of French authorities to get permission to “play” the tower.

It took years to pull it all together. He even had time to “practice” with the Mid-Hudson Bridge, an adventure that produced the lively Bridge Music composition.

Finally, all the elements aligned. The result: The Tower Music Project.

Joe Bertolozzi swinging a log into the Eiffel Tower structure, artistic expression in natural sounds.

Even the sturdiest structures vibrate if you hit them hard enough.
© Franc Palaia

An Impressive Range of Tones

Everything vibrates. And 7,300 tons of wrought iron is no exception. The tower has music inside.

“We often bang on it,” said one of the tower’s chief engineers, “to make sure the material isn’t defective.” But safety-check banging is different from Joe’s vision.

For the 12 days he was authorized to collect sounds at the tower, Joe and his team worked hard to leave no surface unbanged.

He tapped railings with assorted mallets at varying intensity. He used drumsticks on girders and spindles. He heaved a log into the sturdy iron legs.

He climbed secret spiral steps and elicited bell-like tones from their underside. He struck panels attached to a security fence and heard sizzle cymbals combined with a thunderous bass drum.

Joe Bertolozzi playing spiral stairs, artistic expression making music with the Eiffel Tower.

The bell-like tones of the secret spiral stairs.
© Franc Palaia

In all, he estimates that he collected more than 10,000 sounds (and managed to pause every now and then to savor Paris unfolding before him).

“I used to think of the tower as one thing, like a single brushstroke. Now, I look at it and see all its individual components,” Joe says with the admiration reserved for a complex literary character or multi-layered painting.

Joe Bertolozzi hammering with two arms, artistic expression on the Eiffel Tower.

Who’s That Man Beating on the Eiffel Tower?

Music is universal. Rhythms are primal and contagious. So the passersby and onlookers during Joe’s percussive riffs often got involved in the action.

A pair of teenage tourists started rapping to Joe’s beat as he improvised. A tower security guard showed Joe pictures of himself playing the djembe (African drum)—perhaps hoping to play some tower parts himself?

Most everyone was curious, as the team of eight seemed dedicated to a quest, and were hard to miss with their microphones, recording gear, and the strange musical “tools” used to strike the tower.

The Tower Music Team in front of the Eiffel Tower, artistic expression from teamwork.

Back Home in the Studio

Now the cataloging of sounds and notes and the subsequent composing take place in the quieter environment of the studio. More long hours are needed, as Joe hopes to complete the final piece and an album in time for the 125^th anniversary of the tower next year.

Ideally, too, there will be a live performance. But that would take hundreds of musicians and more authorizations from the French government. Another goal would be an audio installation at the tower so visitors could hear the composition.

Eiffel Tower, an inspiration for artistic expression.

Brothers in Vision: Eiffel and Bertolozzi

Just like Gustave Eiffel in the original construction of the tower, Joe says, “There were delays and missed deadlines and push back. We were in good company. We both demonstrated perseverance and conviction of purpose to achieve our goals.”

For Eiffel, the tower has achieved a lasting legacy and the appreciation of architects and engineers as well as throngs of Paris visitors (7 million per year).

Bertolozzi, too, hopes that his artistic expression will have a lasting legacy with his completed composition, Tower Music.

And we hope that the OIC Moment of this story lives on. There is music everywhere. You just have to be open to finding it.

See Joe in action at the Eiffel Tower.

See Joe in action at the Mid-Hudson Bridge.

OIC thanks Franc Palaia for the use of his photographs.

Comment on this post below, or inspire insight with your own OIC Moment here.

Meredith Mullins 8 Comments

France (Paris)/The World's Music

Aug

Nancy Judd’s Clever Ideas Keep Trash In Style

by Janine Boylan on August 5, 2013

Convertible Trashique, showing clever ideas in recycled fashion by Nancy Judd

Recycled Fashion Sends a Message

When I first saw Nancy Judd’s work on display, I rushed over to get a closer look at the beautiful fashions.

But, oh, I see! Judd’s work is not at all what it first appears to be. Judd makes her work out of trash.

Janine Boylan 3 Comments

Clever Ideas/Making a Difference

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