December 14, 2005

We Pause Now, for Station Identification

I'm bursting with new ideas and information, having been traveling most of the past couple of weeks and gathering up all kinds of tidbits.

But it will have to wait. As tomorrow, at the crack of dawn, we leave for Palau to go diving and relaxing at the other side of the world. We will be without contemporary forms of communications, so I plan to read a bunch of books ranging from "Praying for Gil Hodges" to Ernst Gombrich's history of the world which he wrote in six weeks when he was only 26 years old.

This is such a great story. He was an editor at a publishing house, given the assignment of editing a history of the world that was written for young readers. He thought the book was so lame that he told his boss he thought he could write a better one. The boss said, fine...do it. But I need it in 6 weeks. Gombrich did it. And his book has only recently become available in English, translated by him shortly before his recent death. Isn't that a great story?

(Gombrich, of course, is also the author of the best art survey book ever written: "The Story of Art.")

Anyway...so much to absorb and experience! We come back January 3, and so will my blog entries.

Merry Christmas.