Everything begins with an idea.
Could a short story written almost 100 years ago have been the inspiration for the birth of the internet?
Maybe not. But it’s fun to think it might have.
THE CEREBRAL LIBRARY was a short story published in the May 1931 edition of the science fiction magazine AMAZING STORIES (1926 – present).
It’s author, David Keller (1880 – 1966) was a practicing psychiatrist.
He wrote fiction as a hobby, until his wife encouraged him to try profiting from it. He went on to publish more than a dozen novels and over 60 short stories.
THE CEREBRAL LIBRARY begins with an advertisement placed in the NEW YORK TIMES classifieds.
Thousands of out-of-work bachelors of arts (tee hee) applied; five hundred were hired. They go to work for a mysterious Elon Musk-like billionaire who is devising “a new plan of universal knowledge.”
In a remote manor in Pennsylvania, shut off from the rest of the world, each man sets about reading three hundred books a year, after which the books are burned to heat the manor.
At the end of five years, the 500 employees, having collectively read three-quarters of a million books, were each to receive fifty thousand dollars.
The twist is that when one by one they go to an office in New York City to pick up their paychecks, they encounter a surgeon.
After sedating them, the surgeon removes their brains and sticks them in glass jars. The literature and knowledge-filled brains are then shipped back to the spooky manor in Pennsylvania.
There, the billionaire mad scientist goes about wiring the jars together, then connecting the jumble of wires to an electrical apparatus, a radio, and a typewriter. He dubs the resulting contraption THE CEREBRAL LIBRARY.
“Now, suppose I want to know all there is to know about toadstools?” he says, demonstrating his invention. “I spell out the word on this little typewriter in the middle of the table,” and then, abracadabra, the radio croaks out “a thousand word synopsis of the knowledge of the world on toadstools.”
Now flash-forward 92 years and what do we have?
IT’S OFFICIAL!
SCENIC WRITER’S SHACK will report live from the DEF LEPPARD – MOTLEY CRUE Brisbane concert in November.
Excitement? Oh yeah. Below, a little taste…
Click HERE to backwards time-travel to HAPPY DAYS.
Oh…my…GOD! That totally WAS the precursor to the web, Glen! That’s amazing! I can’t even imagine that any computer people knew about and/or read that story, but it doesn’t matter. That’s the idea, right there, in black and white infancy, for the worldwide web!!
Wow, what a great story.
Except for the “removing my brain” to put in jars part, lol
And yeah, the thousands of out of work Bachelor of Arts people…. nothing’s changed today either, lol !!! (And probably never will, unless there’s a sea change in perspective and a ban of capitalism and love of $$ and greed)
Also, “reporting live” sounds exciting. Will you be filming with your phone and narrating?
Ha ha.
Anyone with a Bachelor of Arts degree needs everyone’s most heart-felt well wishes I reckon. It’s a fun course to study but not necessarily an easy life path to follow. I should know!
The ‘reporting live’ thing with Motley Crue & Def Leppard? Well… that’s just Glen adding a bit of polish on his words, I’m afraid. Simply put, I’ll be attending their Brisbane concert and then writing a blog post about it soon after. Doesn’t sound quite as exciting put that way, hey?