Also see my website, my Live Journal, my Facebook profile, my Twitter profile, my Friendfeed, and my virb. My co-author and I are writing I Am My Beloved's, a collection of interviews and photographs of Jewish-American couples that explores the intersection of each couple's identities as a couple and as Jews and will reflect the diversity of the Jewish-American community. My translation of Israeli poet Rachel Eshed's book "Little Promises" is published in a bilingual edition by Mayapple Press. In its Hebrew original, this collection of intense erotic poetry won the 1992 AKUM prize in Israel. Novelist Tsipi Keller says, "It is hard to speak of Rachel Eshed's poetry without mentioning 'fire' : her poems virtually burn on the page, and David Cooper's renditions not only do justice to the original but magnify its richness." I am the author of two poetry collections, "Glued To The Sky" and "JFK: Lines of Fire" (Burlington VT: PulpBits, 2003). PulpBits went out of business in March 2007. Email me for free PDFs of these ebooks or download them on my website. I cover the NY Jewish Culture beat for Examiner.com . I have taught history, poetry, and writing on the middle school, high school, and college levels.
My interests include Poetry, Literary Fiction, Modern Art, Jazz, Art House and foreign Cinema, Sex, Judaism, History, and Liberal Politics. I'm married to absract painter Shoshana Cooper, and we share our home with Sasson, a Peterbald cat. My Jewish identity is very strong, and on most Saturday mornings and early afternoons you would probably find Shoshana and me at our local synagogue , Park Slope Jewish Center. For those familiar with the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator I am an INFP or maybe an XNFP since the I is not very pronounced. I have non-hyperactive ADD ( the quiet version) and am fairly even tempered.
In addition to non-hyperactive ADD I also have allergies, asthma, osteoarthritis, fibromyalgia, and primary lower limb lymphedema. Lymphedema occurs when the lymphatic system is unable to adequately drain lymph fluid from an affected and thus swollen limb. I control my condition by performing a time consuming maintenance regimen which includes keeping to a low fat, very low sodium diet, sleeping in a soft cast with velcro straps that I can tighten to the correct degree of compression, wearing thigh high compression stockings in the daytime, showering in the evening before putting on the cast, performing a form of gentle self- massage to open the lymph vessels, prescribed breathing and floor exercises wearing the cast before going to bed at night, and repeating the exercises in the morning. I usually eat breakfast before exercising--it's well into the morning before I can actually start my day. Performing the evening part of the regimen precludes going out at night and has curtailed our social life somewhat.
Shoshana and I both look forward to the day thirteen years from now when she can retire from her day job, leave its stresses behind, and be a full time artist. I also look forward to the day when medical science finds cures for my various chronic ailments, especially lymphedema.
Are you Jen's potential bone marrow donor?
Read her story, and if you haven’t already done so join the bone marrow registry.
Posted via web from davidfcooper’s posterous | Comment »
2 days agoNot our holiday week NYC Jewish events Part 2: Xmas Day
Mostly music events for Jewish kids and their parents, as well as movies and comedy for singles in NYC on Friday December 25th, and indie rock music for young adults Saturday night December 26th. To read the article click here
Posted via web from davidfcooper’s posterous | Comment »
3 days agoNot our holiday week NYC Jewish events Part 1: Xmas Eve
ere
By now it’s a cliche that American Jews celebrate Christmas by going to the movies and then eating out at a Chinese restaurant. There is no shortage of other Jewish events this week, especially for young singles.
Posted via web from davidfcooper’s posterous | Comment »
4 days agoSweat glands are secret sensory organs - Behavior
updated 12:12 p.m. ET Dec. 8, 2009The human body may be equipped with a separate sensory system aside from the nerves that gives us the ability to touch and feel, according to a new study.
Most of us have millions of different types of nerve endings just beneath the skin that let us feel our surroundings. However, the once-hidden and recently discovered skin sense, found in two patients, is located throughout the blood vessels and sweat glands, and most of us don’t even notice it’s there.
“It’s almost like hearing the subtle sound of a single instrument in the midst of a symphony,” said senior author Frank Rice, a neuroscience professor at Albany Medical College in New York. “It is only when we shift focus away from the nerve endings associated with normal skin sensation that we can appreciate the sensation hidden in the background.”
Story continues below ↓advertisement | your ad hereSensitive skin
Our skin, the body’s largest organ, seems to have some extraordinary qualities, as another recent study showed skin can hear.The new finding, detailed in the Dec. 15 issue of the journal Pain, could help scientists to understand mysterious pain conditions such as migraine headaches and fibromyalgia. The study, and others by the team, was supported by the National Institutes of Health and several pharmaceutical companies.
The research team discovered the sensory system when studying two patients who were born with very little ability to feel pain — an extremely rare condition called congenital insensitivity to pain. Other individuals with this condition have excessively dry skin, often mutilate themselves accidentally and usually have severe mental handicaps, the researchers say.
It wasn’t their pain-free lives that brought the patients into the lab, but rather excessive sweating.
“Curiously, our conventional tests with sensitive instruments revealed that all their skin sensation was severely impaired, including their response to different temperatures and mechanical contact,” said study researcher Dr. David Bowsher, Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the University of Liverpool’s Pain Research Institute.
“But, for all intents and purposes, they had adequate sensation for daily living and could tell what is warm and cold, what is touching them, and what is rough and smooth.”
Surprise results
Bowsher took skin biopsies and sent them to Rice’s lab for microscopic analyses of the nerve endings.“Much to our surprise, the skin we received from England lacked all the nerve endings that we normally associated with skin sensation,” Rice said. “So how were these individuals feeling anything?”
The answer: While the patients lacked the usual nerve endings in the skin, Rice and colleagues found sensory nerve endings on the small blood vessels and sweat glands embedded in their skin.
“Apparently, these unique individuals are able to ‘feel things’ through these remaining nerve endings,” Rice said. “For many years, my colleagues and I have detected different types of nerve endings on tiny blood vessels and sweat glands, which we assumed were simply regulating blood flow and sweating.”
Rice added, “We didn’t think they could contribute to conscious sensation. However, while all the other sensory endings were missing in this unusual skin, the blood vessels and sweat glands still had the normal types of nerve endings.”
- Discuss Story On Newsvine
- Rate Story:
View popularLowHigh
- Instant Message
Posted via web from davidfcooper’s posterous | Comment »
6 days ago