Dreams in the Clouds

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

In one of those coincidences that isn’t, after seeing one of my nightmares in real life, I never had that particular nightmare again. For years, it was a recurring nightmare: a storm was coming, and it was coming specifically for me. What plans it had for me, what might happen to me if and when it successfully caught me, I never learned and I never hoped to.

(What is the number, how many appearances in one’s psyche does it take for one to realize or decide that a dream is a “recurring” one? I do not often write about dreams because they are too private; I will almost certainly fail in any attempt to bring you into my head, and who wants to visit that strange inner land, anyway?)
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Today in History: May 23

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

In a letter dated May 23, 1785, Benjamin Franklin refers to “my double spectacles” and proffers a sketch. This letter, and other documents, provide much of the evidence for definitively naming Franklin the inventor of bifocals. A version of a drawing from this letter is above.

He describes the difficulties that every person who wears bifocals (hello: waves to camera) encounters on their way to deciding to wear bifocals: “The same convexity of glass, through which a man sees clearest and best at the distance proper for reading, is not the best for greater distances. I therefore had formerly two pair of spectacles, which I shifted occasionally, as in travelling I sometimes read, and often wanted to regard the prospects.”
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Today in History: May 22

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

To this day, only one U.S. President has been awarded a patent for an invention: Abraham Lincoln. On May 22, 1849, Lincoln received Patent No. 6469 for a device to “buoy vessels over shoals,” an invention which was never manufactured.

His application reads: “Be it known that I, Abraham Lincoln, have invented a new and improved manner of combining adjustable buoyant air chambers with a steam boat or other vessel for the purpose of enabling their draught of water to be readily lessened to enable them to pass over bars, or through shallow water, without discharging their cargoes …”
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