After the Idea Festival:
So I’m camped out in my old hometown of Ann Arbor, Michigan, decmpressing after attending the wildly successful Idea Festival. The amount of collective brain power in there actually make me feel very smart and horribly stupid at the same time.
Got to see my old friends JD Lasica and Elizabeth Spiers. Paled around with Will and Mangesh, founders of Mental Floss magazine whom I’ve known virtually for nearly 2 years but never met. Befriended the new Mental Floss editor Mary Charmicael whose charming as all heck and knows a bunch of science stuff I could stand to learn. And had coffee with Dr. Leonard Schlain who is one of those genius people doubly blessed to be from SE Michigan but currently residing in San Francisco. I hope to be like him when I grow up.
From my wrap-up at the Huffington Post, I had this to say about what I learned…
…I’ve learned from world-renowned primate biologist Robert Sapolsky that chimpanzees commit genocide on rival troupes and that chess masters can burn 6000 calories a day from mental taxation during tournaments. I’ve heard http://www.loe.org/about/steve.htm”>Steve Curwood, host of NPR’s “Living on Earth” propose a government-sponsored corporation ala Fannie Mae to guarantee loans for the building of home solar and wind systems. I’ve heard inventor Ray Kurzweil inform us that we are only a decade and a half away from computers having the processing power of the human brain, witnessed DJ Spooky remixing “Birth of a Nation” live and science writer K.C. Cole explain quantum mechanics in 10 minutes better than my college professors did in 4 months. Along the way, I also missed a presentation on Zora Neal Hurston, another on the mind of Leonardo Da Vinci, and a third on the special effects wizardry of The Matrix. I’m disappointed on the one hand: When will be able to hit on those three topics in a single afternoon again? On the other I’m relieved, because the psychic contradiction they raise may have made my head explode: At the Idea Festival, you feel smart and stupid at the exact same time.
Big thanks to Kris Kimel and his staff for making it all happen. If you’ll have me, I’ll be back next year.
Additional information from…
*The Idea Festival Blog
We now return to regularly scheduled blogging.