Michael Crichton Essay – Mac Computers

Here’s a find I’m very happy to share.

Recently I was reading the Walter Isaacson biography on Steve Jobs. I remembered that Michael Crichton was a Mac user. (Check out the tribute from Macworld.)

After some digging, I discovered (in a web archive) an essay that Michael Crichton had written about the Mac for the Apple website.

Two excerpts:

Why have I been so loyal to Macs?
One important reason is they’re better designed. By which I mean simpler — simple design is always the most difficult to achieve. I want objects in my environment to be simple and clear, because I don’t want to be bothered figuring out a coffee maker or a TV remote. In fact, I refuse to be bothered.

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But let’s face it, I make my living on a computer. I spend all day in front of it. And in the end, the real reason I prefer Macs is because they stimulate my creativity more than other machines.

It’s difficult to say why this occurs, exactly. For one thing, they reek of innovation, and when I sit in front of one, I feel innovative, too. I like working on them. They’re playful, they don’t take themselves too seriously.
And I do a lot of playing around when I work.

I’m very grateful to late great Steve Jobs and the brilliant folks at Apple for what they contributed to the work of Michael Crichton.

Michael Crichton News 4/25/12

(Please accept my apologies for not posting for so long. Personal circumstances have presented quite a challenge as of late. I’m looking forward to picking up the pace.)

Jurassic Park in 3D
Universal Pictures has slated a 3D re-release of Jurassic Park for July 19, 2013.

In a Dec. 2011 interview, Steven Spielberg said:

“The only movie that I would ever even consider retrofitting is the first 'Jurassic Park,' which I think would look pretty spectacular in 3D. That's the only one of my films that I would consider doing in 3D.”

Raise your hand if you’re looking forward to seeing the T-Rex in 3D.

Though I think it’s good that the original film was not in 3D. Jurassic Park was scary enough in 2D. A friend of mine almost yanked her husband’s arm off the first time they saw the movie.

Micro in Paperback
Micro, the novel began by Michael Crichton and finished by Richard Preston, is coming out in paperback.

The Trade Paper edition (the bigger paperback) will be released on April 25, 2012.

The Mass Market edition (the smaller paperback) will be available on September 25, 2012.

The Michael Crichton Message Board is Gone
The Message Board on the Official Michael Crichton website appears to be gone. The link that used to lead to it now reads:

“Please join the conversation at The Official Michael Crichton Facebook Page. You'll find the link on the Official Website Homepage.”

Such a shame. I made so many friends on that board over the years. Though it wasn't very busy as of late, it was a good resource for fans. (Thank God I've made a habit of downloading everything on the board--and website--for quite some time.) I can understand closing it down, but I can't understand deleting it. Many of the threads have valuable insights and links.

Fortunately, the message board can be viewed in a web archive. Unfortunately, the most recent version is from July 2011 and so does not contain the recent posts about Micro.

I’ll never forget the State of Fear glory days on the board. That was a special time. In May 2007, the State of Fear section was closed to any new posts. (I think the powers that be got tired of breaking up the fights.)

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Here’s a treat: a photo of Michael Crichton in surgical scrubs on the set of The Andromeda Strain film. Crichton had a non-speaking role as a back-up surgeon in the film.

Supreme Court Rules Against Gene Patents

On March 26, the US Supreme Court overruled a 2011 federal appeals court decision that upheld the legality of genetic patents held by Myriad Genetics Inc. The case is Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics.

From the Washington Post:

The Supreme Court threw out that decision, and sent the case back to the lower courts for rehearing. The high court said it sent the case back for rehearing because of its decision in another case last week saying that the laws of nature are unpatentable.

That case, Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Laboratories, Inc. Analysis, was decided on March 20.

Read the transcript of the oral arguments in the Prometheus case.

Crichton published two op-eds in the New York Times on the topic of gene patents:

This Essay Breaks the Law
March 19, 2006

Patenting Life
February 13, 2007

Somewhere, Michael Crichton is smiling… (yet again)

Related posts:

Gene Patents Case Appealed

Newsflash - Gene Patents Ruled Invalid

Ebay Alert – Odds On 3/7/12

A copy of Michael Crichton’s first published book Odds On is up for auction on eBay.

Currently the price is $25 with one bid. Expect it to go higher than $100 by the end. (Only suckers bid early on eBay). Auction ends March 12, 2012 at 20:28:42 PDT.

Seller’s reputation is 100 percent positive.

Item Description:

Odds On by John Lange aka Michael Crichton. This is very readable copy of Michael Crichton's first book originally published in December 1966 by Signet under his pseudonym John Lange. This is a third printing in acceptable condition. Other Signet Titles by John Lange listed on page 2 of this book include Scratch One, Easy Go, Zero Cool, Drug of Choice and Grave Descend, which means this copy was most likely printed about 1970 when the last two books listed were first published.

My Letters to Michael Crichton

Here are links to three letters I wrote to Michael Crichton. After the first letter, he sent me a gracious note and an autographed photo. I didn't expect a response to the other letters as he was a very busy man.

March 17, 2005 – Travels

April 17, 2005 – State of Fear

November 21, 2006 – Next

First Names, Last Names

(This is something I wrote for the Barnes & Noble online discussion of State of Fear in November 2005.)

Something I find curious about State of Fear is that some characters are referred to by their last names and some by their first names.

Characters referred to by their last names:

George Morton - Morton
Peter Evans - Evans
Richard John Kenner - Kenner
Nicholas Drake - Drake
Herb Lowenstein - Lowenstein
Ted Bradley - Bradley
Norman Hoffman - Hoffman
John Balder - Balder
John Henley - Henley

Characters referred to by their first names:

Sanjong Thepa - Sanjong
Sarah Jones - Sarah
Jennifer Haynes - Jennifer
Ann Gardner - Ann
Margo Lane - Margo

I didn’t notice the difference until I was going through the novel and making notes. I wonder if there is any particular reason for this.

Comments from others in the discussion:

One obvious difference is that all females are referred to by their first names. The only male that is referred to by first name is Sanjong, which is sounds cooler than Thapa I think.

Crichton seems to do the same thing in Airframe, and Casey Singleton is the main character. She is referred to as Casey and the men in the story are referred to by their last names--at least as far as I can tell from looking it over. I’ll have to examine Crichton’s other books to see if this is a pattern.

It seems a male thing for men to refer to each other by last names and women by first while women seem to the opposite.

Just another one of the male/female differences!

I am almost finished reading 'Disclosure'. In this book Michael seems to bounce between first and surnames for both males and females.

I disagree. I think we see this pattern frequently in society -- it seems to me that in junior high school, high school, college and in the working world, males are often referred to by their last names, whereas females rarely are.

My husband went to an English state grammar school (he is in his late 40's) and they were expected to call each other by their surnames. He says he had to consciously learn to call his school mates by their Christian names when they were in public. I believe in those times females were either called by Christian names or Miss/Mrs.

My understanding is also that in Australia the same thing was standard practice in our private schools and some state schools. So maybe it is just the tradition - albeit sexist.

I agree. I think it's a man thing. Women don't go around calling each other by their last names.

Good observation about the names--I never noticed. Aside from Sanjong, all the "first namers" are women. That's a common habit of students and instructors when discussing well-known authors. Emily Dickinson becomes Emily, while Hemingway is...well, Hemingway. Maybe it's a subconscious habit, left over from MC's school days.

Hmm, wonder if MC will read this and consider Jones and Haynes for the sequel.

And finally, from Michael Crichton himself:

I noticed it, too. The usual presumption is that reference by first name is demeaning. Or that reference by last name is cold and distancing. But, the presumption is that it means *something.* Once this became an issue several years ago, in other books I have carefully addressed everyone by either first or last name, or at least, primarily in one form or another. But I found that people who see demeaning or cold treatment in the use of names still see demeaning or cold treatment, but transferred their feeling to some other way that the stories treat characters. So it seemed like a lot of trouble for little useful result.

And there is the additional issue of how people are referred to "in dialog." Are they spoken to by first or last names...

Anyway, I argue there is no special meaning here. I could have referred to everyone by first or last name, but didn't.

This is a topic I think I’ll research further. It’s a little on the nitpicky side, but I would still like to find out what Crichton did in his other works.

Micro News 2/7/12

Hello again!

The Courier Mail published an interview with Richard Preston On Jan. 7:

Richard Preston was so captivated by Michael Crichton's The Andromeda Strain he feigned illness so he could stay home from school to finish reading the book.

"I was trying to figure out how to make all the blood in my body clot up like it did in the book, but that didn't really work with my mother," Preston (pictured above) says. "So I faked coughing instead."

A transcript is now available for the Nov. 27 NPR interview with Preston.

On his Facebook page, Preston has been posting some photos of Hawaii that inspired some of the descriptions in Micro. Check it out!

The winners have been chosen for the Micro photo contest. Yours truly is thrilled to be one of the third place winners. The photos that won the grand, first, and second place prizes were photos that I had voted for. Glad to see my judgment validated. Congratulations to all the winners! More details coming soon…