Librarian upstairs in the virginia room, and im thrilled to welcome you to the city of fairfax regional library. Thank you for coming. Todays event is part of the 18th annual fall for the book literary festival. Be sure to pick up a program or visit fall for the book. Org for information about other author events throughout the region. The web site also has an app that you can download on your phone or tablet. Please help us out, also, by improving the festival by filling out a survey over there. At the end of this event, books will be available for sale and signing just outside the door there. Thank you also to one more page books for providing us with this service. Our guest this evening, claudia kalb, is a local journalist and author who specializes in the fields of medicine, Mental Health and science. Her articles have appeared in newsweek, smithsonian, Scientific American and numerous other publications both in print and online. Kalb broke features and stories for newsweek for 17 years, and her reporting has won numerous awards including a front page award from the news womans page of new york. Originally from hong kong and the daughter of an american journalist, kalb has been steeped in news since childhood. She is passionate about innovative, informative and compelling storytelling with engaging, accessible writing. Her book, andy warhol was a hoarder inside the minds of historys greatest personalities, was published earlier this year ands has received enthusiastic reviews. Kalbs wellwritten exercise in applying modern psychiatric theory to historical figures from Marilyn Monroe to Charles Darwin certainly makes for entertaining armchair speculation. And so, ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming claudia kalb. [applause] thank you so much for the wonderful introduction. Thank you to fall for the book festival, to the Fairfax Library and to all of you for coming out on a rainy night. I am so thrilled to see everybody here. So i wanted to tell you some stories tonight, some reporting stories that you may not find all of them in the book and also give you a sense just to begin with of what this book is. I covered medicine, health and science at newsweek, as chris mentioned, for about 17 years and wrote some wonderful stories, but most of them had to end at about a page, two pages, three pages. This book gave me the opportunity to really delve into a subject that im passionate about, and its the mind and brain. Its what makes us tick. Why to we behave the way we do, why does this person do that and this person do something else. What are the behaviors that we exhibit mean about ourselves. The journey to this book began about three years ago in pittsburgh. I took a trip up there on a fall day. It was pouring rain, kind of like today to go visit the warhol museum. I dont know if anybody has been to the warhol museum, but it is a fascinating place. One Museum Dedicated to one artist. Warhol was a pittsburgh boy. And i went for an event that was one of a kind events that day, it was in the theater at the warhol museum, packed audience. And on the stage under the bright light was a box. And the box was a Cardboard Box that was kind of roughed up. It looked exactly like a box you would have in your basement with all your papers in it, and there were two catalogers from the museum there. And this was a big event because it was one of warhols 600plus time capsules. So warhol, for many years, filled mostly Cardboard Boxes with stuff. You could call it junk, you could call it stuff, you could call it memorabilia. Some of it was worthwhile, some of it, a lot of it wasnt. There were odds and ends, there was junk mail, there were old toothbrush containers that were empty, there were empty prescription bottles. The box that day was up on the stage, and the two catalogers had blue gloves that they put on like they were about to do surgery to protect their hand oils, i guess, from doing anything to the contents, and they went into the box and began pulling out the items that were in this particular box. One of them, very appropriate for this season, was a letter to warhol from playboy magazine, from the editor asking warhol if he were president what would he do first. [laughter] there was a prescription bottle in there. There was an outdated bill that had not been paid to the surgeon who saved warhols life. He was shot in 68 and barely survived, and the poor surgeon had to keep sending overdue bills to warhol saying pay up, pay up. This one was for 3,000. There were old magazines. Pizza dough, old date nut bread. Anything and everything thrown into the box. That was the beginning of the journey and the beginning of the question, what was going on with andy warhol. In Mental Health theres a new condition as of the latest American Psychiatric diagnostic manual which is hoarding disorder. Its not completely new, but its new as a standalone disorder. And the symptoms and characteristics line up with many of the behaviors that warhol exhibited. So he was an endless, endless consumer and shopper. He spent days and days in new york city going from lowend flea markets to highend art shops, and he bought so many things that his townhouse was chock full when he died. The sothebys appraisers came in, they could not enter some of the rooms. The dining room was jammed with stuff, some of it not owned, leaning against the fireplace, the table unusable. There was a picasso stuck in a closet, there were jewelry gems inside the bed. There were 175 cookie jars. Thousands and thousands of items. Warhol said in his writings he wished he could throw stuff out. He just couldnt do it. He wanted a clean space. He didnt have it. He couldnt help himself. He kept bringing stuff home. A collector likes to display. A hundred teacups, come in and see them. A hoarder has trouble with the amounts of stuff, its messy, and they dont invite people over to look at the goods, and this was classic for warhol. Warhol collected, in many ways, and hoarded not only stuff, he taped conversations, 4,000 hours of audiotape of conversations, everyday conversations, not special ones, just everyday. He went around in groups. He always appeared places with an entourage. His paintings, think about his paintings with the multiple images. Theres some sense there that he was more comfortable with a lot. And connecting warhol to hoarding was the beginning of a story, this story, this book of trying to figure out what was behind famous minds, what was going on inside and what dont we know and didnt we know about the people we thought we did. I started this with warhol, and i then proceeded to spend lots of time in libraries looking at biographies, autobiographies, calling experts in the field, Mental Health experts to talk to them about Mental Health conditions and talk to them about some of these famous minds. It was a treasure hunt. It was looking for letters that may have been buried for years, looking for in the case of darwin finding his health journals. Darwin had so many symptoms of various kinds of mental conditions as well as physical conditions. He was constantly complaining about stomach aches and head aches headaches and nausea and vomiting and shaking and fatigue, a long list of symptoms. He kept a health diary that was almost obsessive with notations saying what every day he was feeling, what symptoms and whether he was good that day or poor that day or goodish or poorish. He was very concerned about his childrens health. He was a bit of a hypochondriac concerned about his own health. He had a little bit of panic disorder as diagnosed by some Mental Health experts who looked at his condition. And before he left on his big journey on the beagle, he was so stamm nottic symptomatic with anxiety, he worried about how the journey would go and would he be claustrophobic on the boat that he thought he was going to have a heart attack. There was a lot going on to. We may not know looking back thinking about his great writing and the works he produced and during that whole time, did we not know he was suffering. He was very much suffering with a multitude of symptoms. So im going to talk about a few of the characters and some of the themes that developed as i started researching and got into this book. George gershwin is one perp i want to talk about person i want to talk about in connection to a theme on childhood conditions today. And gershwin was, as a child, a very, very energetic, rambunctious boy. He ran out into the streets, he didnt do his homework, he wouldnt listen to the teachers, he skipped school. The energy just poured out of him. So i went one day, another reporting trip, to hear a psychiatrist who also happens to be trained as a pianist by the julliard. This is a brilliant man on both psychiatry and music. His name is dr. Richard cohen, and he was giving a performance at a beautiful art center in new york about gershwin. So i arrived, and it was a wonderful room with velvet seats, and dr. Cohen came out and proceeded to talk about gershwins life and about his mind. And as he described these childhood symptoms, dr. Cohen raised the proposition that were gershwin alive today, its almost certain that he would have been at least referred to a school psychologist, and if not diagnosed with a condition like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. He was not saying he should have been diagnosed, but just raising the question and the issue in todays time. Take that historical figure, bring him to now, 2016, and its likely that a young kindergartner named George Gershwin would have gone off for an assessment and possibly be prescribed a medication like ritalin. Gershwins story and the energy that poured out of him is fascinating. He, one day, woke up and read the newspaper in new york city. There was an article that said theres going to be a big concert at a hall in new york city, and it listed the performers, the composers and the musicians who would be playing. And there on the list George Gershwin saw his own name, and it was an oh, my gosh moment. He did not remember having committed to this concert, and the concert was going to be happening in about a month. He had nothing. Maybe an idea, but he did not have his piece. So the story goes as he told it he got on a train, he had some business up in boston. He got on a train and took that train to boston, and along the way as he listened to the propulsion of the train, the clacking of the wheels on the rails, the tooting of the horn, that whole noisiness of the train, that by the time he got to boston, he had the entire plot of rhapsody in blue worked out in his head. And he went back to new york, and within three weeks he had produced this masterpiece to a standing ovation audience. He said he heard music and noise. Gershwin was somebody that needed in some ways that noisiness around him to focus. And when i called up an expert on adhd to talk to him about gershwin, he said a lot of people believe with adhd that youre unable to focus, and its actually that you can focus better than even people without the condition if you find your passion. And with gershwin it was music. And gershwin even said it took music to make me a good boy, from a bad boy to a good buy. He knew it was when he found music as a child, it was not he was not coming from a musical family. He found it by hearing it on the streets and learning to play on his own. When he found music, he found his passion. He was energetic, busting with energy for his whole life. He cracked peanuts during rehearsals, he tap danced when waiting for elevators. Kitty carlisle wrote about going to a prize fight with gershwin, and he spent the whole time knocking her in the ribs with his elbow, just couldnt sit still, and she came out, she remembered, black and blue. That was gershwin, up late into the night entertaining, playing, pouring out that energy. So that question that dr. Kogan raised about gershwin and adhd raises the question as well, had he been put on a medication like ritalin, would we have had rhapsody in blue. And its a great person to ponder. Theres another person in the book i profile, albert einstein. And he also falls into this theme of take a historical person from the past and look at them in todays environment, whats going on with einstein as a child. He was somebody who was not socially engaged as a young boy. He did not speak until he was about 3 or 4. His parents were very concerned. They took him to the doctor. He was somewhat isolated in the sense that he did not connect with his cousins when they came to play. He was more interested in building card towers 14 stories high. When his father bought him a compass as a gift, he was immersed in that object, what did it do, what did it mean, what was it. Much more concentration than a typical 5 or to 6yearold at the time. Throughout his life he himself talked about not being all that well connected in terms of socially to other people. He could be brash. He didnt do so well as a teacher. He was kind of disorganized. And he talked about thinking about things in his head through pictures, through images. He was not, despite leaving many letters, wonderful letters that you can read online, he said he was an image, picture person in the sense that he saw things in images. Somebody else who sees things in images is Temple Grandin who maybe you know. Shes a wonderful woman who is a ph. D. , a scientist with animal science, and shes very outspoken and speaks and educates on autism. She has the condition herself. She identifies, she says, with einstein because of some of those characteristics, that way of looking at things and images, that somewhat lack of connection sometimes socially with other people. So in this case of einstein as well, bring him up to 2016, and there is pretty much no doubt that given his characteristics, the late talking and the social issues, that today he would have gone in for an assessment. It would have raised a red flag for autism. Autism is something Everybody Knows about. Pediatricians are on the lookout to be sure they catch it early, because treating early helps. And so einstein today may also have been somebody who would have been diagnosed and treated and whose life may have been different. I want to just share another great reporting story about einstein, because this is so much fun. I went to philadelphia because ive heard you could see einsteins brain in the medical museum. And it turns out that it only got there a few years ago, and it was donated by a scientist who herself or had received this. She worked at the hospital in philadelphia, and this box of slides theres slides of brain tissue. Theyre not chunks of the brain, theyre slide tissue of einsteins in a case that looks like a cigar box. And theyre very beautiful. They look kind of like rorschach, sort of tea leaves. Theyre beautiful sort of graphic, geometric images. She herself, this scientist, was bequeathed the slides by another colleague who was getting older and decided he had been holding on to these slides. When einstein died, his brain was preserved and cut into pieces, and these slides landed at various labs around the country. One of them being with a doctor who then was at philadelphia. So he came in one day and gave this box of slides of einsteins brain to this scientist named lucy adams. And when she turned, i think, 80, she decided she was going to donate them to the museum. And i met her. And what made me i just couldnt believe she had stored this box with einsteins brain in a file cabinet. I sat there, and she said it was right there, she had put them in there, and they had been there for decades. They are right in there, and she had finally donated them to the museum. But einsteins brain now for all to see, and its worth the trip. There were other themes that emerged as i wrote this book and reported on these various individuals. So another theme that comes up is childhood and the impact on a persons life. So Marilyn Monroe m i think everybody can picture her. I open that chapter with her singing to jfk in new york city, Madison Square garden, on his birthday. And if you look it up on youtube, you can see this video of her coming out in a sequinned dress glittering from head to toe. It was reportedly sewn onto her. It just was just marilyn in this dress sparkling, and out she came, and she sang. And just a few months later, she was gone at age 36. And Marilyn Monroe despite this glamorous and vivid and seductive appearance that she had on stage and that i think we all remember and conjure up, she was a very, very, very troubled woman. She was her childhood is where it started. It was very difficult for her. She was born to a mom who also had some Mental Health conditions, could not care for the baby and took her she was then norma jean was her name, marilyns name, and she took her at just two weeks old, she was taken to a foster home where she lived for about seven years. And in about the seventh year, her mother took her back and tried to care for her. Marilyn was delighted, thrilled, wonderful to be back with her real mom, and yet she couldnt do it. And within a number of months, the Young Norma Jean witnessed her mom having a breakdown, coming down the steps of the house screaming and crying and laughing, and she was taken off to a Mental Health institution where she was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. And marilyn herself talked about a feeling, never really knew who her father was, didnt have her mother, a feeling of emptiness, a feeling of loneliness. She didnt have an internal scaffold. She talked about having, being a superstar with no foundation, and she just at no time have the didnt have the identity. She was on a quest throughout her life, a search for identity. And this is the fundamental characteristickic of a condition called borderline personality kiss order. Disorder. And borderline has long had a reputation as being very difficult to treat. And, certainly, when Marilyn Monroe was struggling in the years that she was with these impulsive behaviors that are also characteristic of this, she had treatment that experts now know is not the way to go. So she had treatment with classical psychoanalysis where there was a lot of dwelling in the past and the pain. If Marilyn Monroe were around today and diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, she would likely receive a much better for that condition treatment which is much more hands on. Its accepting of a difficult past, its an a