David Shenk's Blog

Keith Mayerson is exhibiting a breathtaking retrospective of his work for the next seven weeks at the Marlborough Gallery in New York. If you can possibly go, go. 

You can see pieces of his at MoMA, the Whitney, LA MoCA, the Corcoran, SF MoMA, and other places. But it's very rare indeed to see it collected like this (most of this work is already purchased and scattered across the world). There is a cumulative power and vision that will, I think, make a lasting impression.

Keith came into this world sideways and there is no one remotely like him. He is tender, uninhibited, joyful, humble, curious, and aesthetically fearless. He sees the world through his own emotional prism, but he also filters everything he does through a deep well of knowledge and ideas. It doesn't take long to become enamored with his unique mind, but it can take a very long time to fully appreciate his breadth. It's taken me thirty years.

We met on the third day of college, in 1984. He and his fantastic roommate Spencer Green had already transformed their room into a living art organism, with drawings, doodles, clippings, posters, cuttings, and quotes covering every square inch of wall and furniture. Odd, dizzying, inspiring.

A year later, in the fall of 1985 (thirty years ago, this month) Jonathan Karp​, Editor-in-Chief of the Brown Daily Herald and my first real mentor in journalism, invited me to revive the Herald's weekend magazine. I thought the idea was nuts, but I also immediately knew that I wanted to do it if I could get Keith to do it with me.  

Ours was a true partnership, two semesters long, one issue per week. Loosely, I was in charge of editorial and he was in charge of art, but we crossed over (I interfered; he suggested) constantly. We yelled at each other some, but there was also some real magic there. Sometimes we negotiated because we had to, other times because we genuinely wanted the other person to take a weird, raw idea and shape it a bit.

Imagine if you got to spend your entire Age 19 in collaboration with Andy Warhol or Robert Plant or Robert Mapplethorpe. I'll tell you what it feels like: You have no notion of becoming more like that person, but you feed off the energy of that person as you become more and more yourself.

In 1988, a few months before graduating, I got paid $400 for an article published in the Brown Alumni Monthly. My first writing paycheck. Can you guess what I did with it? That same week, I went to Keith's senior art show. He had a huge, unstretched canvas filled with an odd, sad, colorful bald man. I bought it for exactly $400. I'm very proud to say I became Keith's first collector.

Years later, I became an odd, sad, colorful bald man myself. As for the others:

Spencer Green went on to write for In Living Color, Mad TV, and other funny shows.

Jon Karp went on to become one of the most influential editors in publishing. He is currently President and Publisher of Simon & Schuster Publishing Group. 

Keith Mayerson painted lots of wonderful paintings, and isn't finished.

Go to Keith's show at the Marlborough. 

__________________

 

I was invited today onto public radio's The Takeaway with the great John Hockenberry to discuss a new Nature Neuroscience study from Emory University demonstrating that memories can be biologically inherited, via epigenetics, from parent to child and even to grandchild. For those of you already familiar with fourteen years of epigenetic studies, this is mostly just further proof that epigenetic inheritance is very real. For those who have not yet heard of epigenetics, or genetic expression, I promise that this will blow your mind. The 20th century was about genetics. The 21st is going to be about epigenetics. 

- Listen to today's 8-minute radio piece.

- Read (for free) the short final chapter from my book The Genius in All of Us.

The Huffington Post invited me to contribute to their TEDWeekends section about the savant Derek Paravicini. Here's my short piece. 

Gretchen Reynolds has a nice summary in the NYTimes of how exercise and diet influence gene activity: http://nyti.ms/13nceWr

Interesting piece in the NYTimes about the development of Van Gogh's extraordinary ability.

The [Denver Art Museum] show traces van Gogh’s development through the 1880s from a struggling, inhibited neophyte, represented by works like the drawings “Girl Carrying a Loaf of Bread” (1882), to a painter in full flourish who could make the shimmering “Landscape from Saint-Rémy” (1889)….

      Mr. Standring said he wanted to give nuance to the popular perception of the artist as sui generis. “People are generally unfamiliar with anything pre-“Sunflowers” or pre-“Wheatfields,” he said, referring to two of van Gogh’s iconic later series. “We’re doing corrective art history.”

     Van Gogh’s struggles with illness and the artistic flourishing of his last two years may have warped the public’s perception of his learning curve, Mr. Van Tilborgh said.

     “We all think he’s a genius, but he placed a lot of value on craftsmanship. When he started, he had no talent for drawing. If you look at his early drawings, they’re horrible. So how did he develop?”

     The answer, Mr. Van Tilborgh said, was persistence. “If he couldn’t do it, he tried it 50 more times. He was one of those rare artists who had the energy to work through the fear of failure.”









"Van Gogh’s Evolution, From Neophyte to Master"

By Ted Loos

New York Times, October 26, 2012

http://nyti.ms/TuPkGX

Foreign Editions for The Genius in All of Us:

 

COUNTRY    PUBLISHER               STATUS                        

Brazil             Zahar                         Published as "O Genio Em Todas Nos"

UK                  Icon                            Published in hardcover and paperback

Spain              Ariel                          Pub'd as "O Genio Que Todos Llevamos Dentro"

Korea              KB                             Published

Germany         Hoffmann & Campe    Published as "Das Genie In Uns"

China             CITIC                          Published, May 2012

Taiwan            EPG                           Published

Japan             Hayakawa                   Fall 2012 (tentative)

Russia            Exmo                         Fall 2012 (tentative)

Vietnam          Alpha                         Expected in 2013

Estonia           AS Äripäev                  Expected by June, 2013

Foreign Editions for The Genius in All of Us:

 

COUNTRY    PUBLISHER               STATUS                        

Brazil             Zahar                         Published as "O Genio Em Todas Nos"

UK                  Icon                            Published in hardcover and paperback

Spain              Ariel                          Pub'd as "O Genio Que Todos Llevamos Dentro"

Korea              KB                             Published

Germany         Hoffmann & Campe    Published as "Das Genie In Uns"

China             CITIC                          Published, May 2012

Taiwan            EPG                           Published

Japan             Hayakawa                   Fall 2012 (tentative)

Russia            Exmo                         Fall 2012 (tentative)

Vietnam          Alpha                         Expected in 2013

Estonia           AS Äripäev                  Expected by June, 2013

A new study of identical twins confirms that genetics are a poor predictor of disease. It's yet another indicator of how the public needs to understand genes as knobs and switches rather than blueprints. Here's my piece at The Atlantic.

New Yorkers:

Join me at the Brooklyn Public Library this Sunday, May 15, 1:30 pm, to hear my book spiel and to ask me vexing questions about IQ, math genes, and musical ears.

If you come, I'll tell you what these mice

and this taxicab

 

                    have to do with your ability to juggle a soccer ball on your head.

 

FREE • Sunday, May 15, 1:30pm, Dweck Center for Contemporary Culture, Brooklyn Public Library, 10 Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn NY 11218. Map here. Event listing here. Books for sale and signing.

 

Please raise your coffee mugs and help me welcome my bouncing new paperback:

**A New York Times bestseller**       **A London Guardian BookShop bestseller**




 Some nice reviews: 

"A deeply interesting and important book."



-- THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW 




"Profound." 

-- LONDON EVENING STANDARD 




"The Genius in All of Us has quietly blown my mind." 

-- LAURA MILLER, SALON




"A welcome new book…compelling." 

-- THE BOSTON GLOBE     




 "A thinking man's Outliers." 

-- NEW YORK MAGAZINE




"Cogent and compelling." 

-- THE WEEK




"Engrossing." 

-- BOOKLIST (starred review)




"Readable and well-researched...The big idea in this book is that talent is not a matter of genetic endowment, but of an ongoing interaction between genes and environment. The nature/nurture debate is therefore dead (or should be)."

-- THE INDEPENDENT




"Inspiring."  

-- THE SCOTSMAN




"An incredibly well-researched meditation on the nature of human talent." 

-- KEVIN ROBERTS, CEO WORLDWIDE, SAATCHI & SAATCHI




"One of the best books I have read in the last year." 

-- RUFUS GRISCOM, BABBLE




"Rather than championing nurture and downplaying nature, [Shenk] paints a picture in which genes and environment interact in a much more complicated way."

-- THE LONDON OBSERVER (Paperback Book of the Week) 




"With a flair for explaining scientific research, [Shenk] debunks outdated assumptions that genes are destiny and shows how environment and mindset are just as important." 

-- THE DAILY BEAST (A Book Pick)




"Empowering...myth-busting...entertaining." 

-- KIRKUS REVIEWS



_____________

DAVID SHENK



davidshenk.com

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