Still Alice

Subs by: JoeShmoe; Timings by: Commotion7

Okay... happy birthday mom.

- Oh, is that for me? - Incredible. You don't look 40...

much less 50.

Oh Charlie, please.

But thank you. I appreciate it.

- Can I open this now? - Yes open it, please.

My goodness.

Oh.

- Oh I love it. - Do you.

- Oh good. - This is so beautiful.

- You can exchange it if it doesn't fit. - Oh no, I'm not going to.

- I absolutely love it. You always get me things... - Good.

- Sorry I'm late. - Oh hey.

- Hey isn't uh, Lisa coming? - No we split up.

I did notice that your status popped up to single. Way to go.

I uh, forgot your present. I left it in my locker.

That's ok. I hope you didn't spend too much.

Oh no, don't worry, he didn't.

Where have you been?

It was like a mad house. This one guy came in with 6 stab wounds.

I swear one missed his heart by seriously...

- No Tom, it's dinner time, please. - Not yet it isn't.

Hey.

So what kind of antibiotic did you use?

- Mom, have you spoken to Lydia? - Yes.

She wanted to be here tonight but she had a very important audition.

- What for? - Um, a guest spot on some tv thing...

"Something Enemy".

- Maybe this will be her big break. - Uh huh. Yeah, maybe.

Don't hold your breath.

Meow.

Stop it.

You guys must have been something growing up.

I imagine dolls with heads cut off.

No, my sister and I were very close, actually.

No I was uh... I'm sorry I was talking about Anna and Lydia.

Oh my goodness. I don't know why I said that.

Well we're here to celebrate you, mom...

so dad, what about a toast.

Dad, toast!

Oh.

To the most beatiful and the most intelligent woman...

- I've known in my entire life. - Thank you.

- Happy birthday. - Happy birthday.

Cheers, darling.

My name is Frederick Johnson.

I'm associate professor of Cognitive Science here at UCLA...

and I'm here to welcome our speaker who just flew in from NY.

Now, in my dissertation I spent about a chapter...

on how fairly vituperatively citing today's guest...

in saying why I thought she was wrong.

For the record, every time Alice and I have argued, she was right.

Alice Howland is the Lillian Young professor of linguistics at Columbia University.

She famously wrote her seminal textbook...

from neurons to nouns while raising 3 children.

I'm sure getting more than a few "aha" moments from them.

And it is now considered one of the cornerstones...

of linguistics education all over the world.

Please, welcome, Dr. Alice Howland.

Thank you so much.

Most children speak and understand their mother tongue...

before the age of 4 without lessons, homework...

or much in the way of feedback.

How they accomplish this remarkable feat...

well this is a question that's interested scientists at least since Charles Darwin...

kept a diary of the alien language of his infant son.

He observed man has an instinctive tendency...

to speak as we see in the babble of young children.

Much has been learned since then...

but today, I'd like to focus on some recent studies from my lab...

on the acquisition of past tense irregular verb forms...

in children between the ages of 18 months and 2 1/2 years.

Now, you may say that this falls into the great academic tradition...

of knowing more and more about less and less...

until we know everything about nothing.

But I hope to convince you that by observing these baby steps into the...

Into ugh...

I... I knew I shouldn't have had that champagne.

Into the word stack of a given language...

we will learn crucial information about the relationship between memory...

and computation that is the very essence of communication.

Let's not.

Ok I'm gonna go down and get Shel, I'll be right back.

- Hey. - Hi.

You're just coming. I'm surprised.

Come on in, it's um, it's messy but you know I was in the process of...

- cleaning. - It's fine. Don't worry.

The boys are total slobs.

The kitchen is the main battle ground...

but I've got them in training so we'll see how that goes.

So uh, where are they? Working?

Doug's at Starbucks, Matthew has some catering...

I guess that's what they mean by working after, huh?

- Are you involved at the moment? - Uh, Dougs dead and...

Malcom and I did have a thing but...

it's over.

He got me into Open Space though.

- It's the best theater company. - It's a hole.

Oh thank you. Yeah, I'm done.

It would have been awesome if you saw it.

Daddie said you were really good.

Well, it wasn't my best night but at least you could get a sense of it.

Figure out what I was doing.

- You know, do a solid for the company. - What do you mean?

Um, this is really nice of him, to help out.

How is he helping with the company?

It's our responsibility as members to...

to raise equity for the productions we put on.

And then eventually we get a cut of the box office and...

we're sort of shareholders.

So basically you have to pay to act.

No, um, it's a theater group. That's just the reality of the situation.

That's how it is here. It's Los Angeles.

Lydia, don't you think it's time you reconsidered things?

You're so smart. There's so much more you could be doing with your life.

- Like going to college? - Yes, yes, like college.

Yeah like we've never talked about that before. Every single day of my life.

I figured out what I wanted to do and I'm doing it.

- It's a good thing. - But on who's dime?

You're helping Tom with med school.

- You helped Anna with law school. - Sweetheart...

those are real careers. I just don't want you to limit your choices.

- You want to make my choices. - No I don't.

I'm, really happy.

I'm sorry I don't... I don't wanna argue about this.

- Just forget I said anything, okay. - Forgotten!

Is that your phone?

That's just a game, your sister and I...

developed an obsession with "Words With Friends".

That's good.

You don't wanna play with her. She's a demon.

I'm not surprised.

John?

John?

John?

WHERE R U?

Want one? Here you go.

Flyer?

Ali?

- I was wondering where you were. - Don't, I'm really sweaty.

- How did it go? - What?

- UCLA. - Oh, it was good. They were um...

- They were really receptive. - I'm sure they were.

- How was Lydia? - Good, you know.

- Did you guys argue? - Uh, well...

I spent the whole evening trying not to.

Um, I'd have to say the news that your...

bankrolling her theater company didn't exactly help.

- I told you about that. - Uh uh.

- You didn't. - I thought I did.

- You didn't. - Well, you're not gonna like this either...

but I still have a lot of things to do at the lab...

so maybe you could walk me over there right now.

I don't wanna go back to campus.

I just went for a run I really need to be home right now.

- Are you okay? - Yeah.

Yeah I'm fine It's just you said we'd spend the evening in.

I did and we will and the sooner I go...

the sooner I'll be back and we can watch a movie.

I'm sorry. It's just exhausting.

Get some rest. Relax!

I've started forgetting things. Little annoying things like words and names.

And I got lost, completely lost, running on campus.

I talked to my doctor about it and she said it could be menopause...

the last time I had a period was in February...

but then I had one again in September right before my birthday so...

Are you taking any pills, medications, supplements?

Um, I take a multi-vitamin, flax seed oil...

calcium, iron. I ocassionally take a sleeping pill when I travel.

- Have you had any head injuries? - No.

Would you consider yourself depressed or under undue stress at the moment?

No, I work a lot but I thrive on it.

How's your sleeping?

It's fine. Like 7 hours a night.

Now I'm gonna ask you to remember a name and an address...

and then I'm gonna ask you for it again later, okay?

Ok.

"John Black, 42 Washington Street, Hoboken"

Can you repeat that for me?

"John Black, 42 Washington Street, Hoboken"

- Good. How old are you? - I'm 50.

- What's today's date? - November 26th.

Where are we?

We are on the 3rd floor of the New York Presbeterian.

- Can you spell water for me? - W.A.T.E.R

- And can you spell it for me backwords? - R.E.T.A.W

Tell me what you see on these cards.

Pliers, a ladder, a seahorse...

screwdriver, an elephant.

Tell me about your parents.

Well they're both dead.

My mother and my sister died in a car crash when I was 18...

and my father died in 1999 of liver failure.

Hepatitis?

Chirosis. He was an alcoholic.

And what was he like towards the end?

Incoherent... incontinent.

Um, to tell the truth we didn't really see a lot of each other.

He lived in New Hampsire and we weren't that close.