The Usefulness of Useless Knowledge An Essay by Abraham Flexner press.princeton.edu A curious factRoaming and capriciousUseFreedomThe Institute for Advanced Study+2 More The research agendaThe technology shelf knowledgelearningdiscoveryprogressexperiments
The way an oyster does A Fragment by Kay Ryan www.csmonitor.com Her poems, [Kay Ryan] says, don't begin with a simple image or sound, but instead start "the way an oyster does, with an aggravation." An old saw may nudge her repeatedly, such as "It's always darkest before the dawn" or "Why did the chicken cross the road?" "I think, 'What about those chickens?' " she says, "and I start an investigation of what that means. Poets rehabilitate clichés." poetrymeaningcliché