[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 82 (Wednesday, June 3, 2009)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1293]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      HONORING DR. LEONARD SHLAIN

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. LYNN C. WOOLSEY

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, June 3, 2009

  Ms. WOOLSEY. Madam Speaker, I rise today with sadness to honor Dr. 
Leonard Shlain of Mill Valley, California who passed away May 11, at 
the age of 71, after a struggle with brain cancer.
  Dr. Shlain excelled in two professions simultaneously. He was a 
pioneering surgeon in San Francisco as well as a best-selling author. 
As Chairman of Laparoscopic Surgery at California Pacific Medical 
Center and Associate Professor of Surgery at UCSF, he developed his 
surgical techniques to such an extent that he was flown around the 
world to train other doctors and also patented several surgical 
instruments.
  His three published books have been best-sellers, their thoughtful 
and provocative content earning him fans from singer Bjork to Vice 
President Al Gore. Despite some initial skepticism about a surgeon 
writing on other topics, his books wove connections between everything 
from art and physics to human evolution in a highly creative and 
accessible style.
  Art & Physics (1990) was hailed as a visionary exploration of the 
work of scientists and artists over the centuries. The Alphabet vs. the 
Goddess (1998) further enhanced his reputation as an insightful and 
poetic storyteller while Sex, Time and Power: How Women's Sexuality 
Shaped Human Evolution (2003) offers dramatic explorations into the 
emergence of the human species. His fourth book, Leonardo's Brain, The 
Right-Left Roots of Creativity, will be published next year.
  Dr. Shlain won many awards and was in high demand as a speaker from 
Italy to Los Alamos. But the most memorable thing about him was his 
generous and outgoing personality matched by intellectual curiosity and 
encyclopedic knowledge. His colleagues, friends, and family were 
privileged to experience this side of him, and he instilled his 
enthusiasm and drive in his children.
  Daughter Kimberly Brooks relates ``dinner conversations typically 
spanned from the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle to politics, 
literature to an incredibly dirty joke.'' He would often ``diagram the 
operation of the day on a napkin. Later, his diagrams became more 
adventuresome and expanded to thought experiments that included what it 
would be like to sit astride a beam of light and how that corresponded 
with Picasso's rose period.'' She also remembers how, for show and tell 
at her elementary school, her dad brought a human brain in a white 
bucket of formaldehyde and how he built a stained-glass geodesic dome 
(complete with a hot tub) in the back yard instead of a conventional 
swing set.
  Born in 1937 in Detroit, Michigan, to immigrant parents, Dr. Shlain 
graduated from high school at the age of 16 and from medical school 
when he was 23. After a stint as a Captain in the U.S. Army, he got 
married and moved to Mill Valley in the late sixties.
  He is survived by his wife, Judge Ina Gyemant, and children, artist 
Kimberly Brooks, filmmaker and Webby Awards founder, Tiffany Shlain, 
and doctor/entrepeneur Jordan Shlain. He was also father in-law to 
filmmaker Albert Brooks, scientist/artist Ken Goldberg, Ph.D. and 
Caroline Eggli Shlain, Ph.D., respectively. He had two stepchildren, 
attorney Anne Gyemant Paris and writer Roberto Gyemant, Jr. His son-in-
law Michael Paris is a medical engineer. He is pre-deceased by his 
sister Shirley Wollock and survived by siblings Marvin Shlain and 
Sylvia Goldstick, and nine grandchildren (with a tenth on the way).
  Madam Speaker, although Dr. Shlain taught his children never to trust 
a man who needs more than one sentence to describe what he does for a 
living, it is impossible to sum up his own accomplishments so briefly. 
The world is a richer place for his work, his spirit, and his wonderful 
family.

                          ____________________