Art

| | |

Einstein’s guiding principle: “Is this beautiful?”

Many scholars have noted how Einstein sought beauty in his theoretical work. “As soon as an equation seemed to him to be ugly, [Einstein] really rather lost interest in it and could not understand why somebody else was willing to spend much time on it. He was quite convinced that beauty was a guiding principle…

| | |

Things that are real take a lifetime to express.

Just finished reading Patti Smith’s book Just Kids. It’s been on my shelf for awhile and I’m so glad I finally got to it. The book is very inspiring… she’s a great writer and has had a fascinating life. Her relationship with Mapplethorpe was instructive about how we can truly create space for one another…

| |

What is ‘good’ writing?

Occasionally I run into someone who tells me that he or she is a good writer, and for whatever reason, this has happened to me recently with two former graduate students. With both of them (bless their hearts),  I thought, “huh?”  To my mind, neither of these individuals are good writers. Smart, capable, creative, interesting,…

End of content

End of content