Neri Oxman, Neil Gaiman and Neil DeGrasse Tyson

We had a night out and that doesn't happen very often.
From the program:
An astrophysicist, a comic book writer, and a kick-ass designer walk into the forum.

Bits I took from it:

the word "nerd" was used 9 times, mostly by the people introducing the panel. Nerds, nerd-fest. One panelist (Neil G?) said geek, but otherwise they didn't do much about that. They dragged up the usual suspects of Brilliance and Vision, Beethoven, Picasso, Einstein, Newton (kick-ass man!), Stephen Hawking, but they said new things about them so cool. Yes. All righty then!

When Neri talked about her thinking, I went into WTF? Huh? mode. The words made sense. The individual sentences worked. They just didn't fit together. Axis? Whu? At the time I decided it was her, and not me. I'm still not sure.

BUT! When she talked about what she did...now that was wildly interesting (so was her thinking. even if I didn't follow), and it made sense. Though really, the whole organic growth thing doesn't fit with the printing off 3-D models of body bits.

"You are a scientist with a preacher's voice." Neri to Neil DeG. T. That's for sure.

Newton invented the cat flap?

"God of the gaps." I'd heard it before and thought it sounded poetic and lovely. Now it seems to be code for lazy brains.

I get why N. DeG. T. is so popular with the teenaged boy set. He does PWNED and oh, snap elegantly. Snark with style. I could listen to him all night, but I'm not sure I'd want to be trapped on a long car ride with him. I suspect the snark transitions to snarl. Neil Gaiman, now he's the one for a cross-country road trip. Neri's the one I want to visit at work. And maybe listen to some more, but only if she could do illustrations. I bet she does better with pictures or maybe I do.

I want to borrow Neil Gaiman's brain for a few hours when I'm plotting or maybe just when I'm bored (...except I'm never really bored because there's always something to plot.)

Things to look up: Jefferson Bible. Jenny Hanovers/chimeras. Leonard Bernstein talking about Beethoven's 9th. Bolides. John Wilmot.

Once I win the billion dollar lottery, I will hire John Dankosky to moderate all conversations, formal and informal. 

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