"Marilyn 
Monroe and Jane Russell appeared 
outside Grauman’s Chinese Theatre
to write their names and leave imprints 
of their hands and high heels in the 
wet concrete. Down on their knees, 
supported by a velvet-covered pillow for their elbows, they wrote “Gentlemen
Prefer Blondes” in looping script, followed by their signatures and the date, 6-26-53. But how did those watching the
events of that day manage to imprint a memory trace of it, etching the details with neurons and synapses in the soft cement of the brain? Where and how are those memories written, and what is the molecular alphabet that spells out the
rich recollections of color, smell, and sound?"

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INSIDE ART: The War Photographer, Way Back in 1666

For decades now we have relied on news photography to capture the horrors of war. But some 350 years ago there were artists risking their lives, sketching away as soldiers and sailors fell and guns blazed.

An unusual canvas by Willem van de Velde the Elder and Younger, depicting a 1666 British naval defeat, is being offered at Sotheby’s.

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