From David Byrne of the band Talking Heads, a reckoning with how breakthroughs across the arts and sciences get forgotten, and how they get rediscovered
Byrne’s subtitle – Why Good Ideas Go Dormant and How They Wake Up – makes it sound like a business manual in the cultural industries section of an airport bookshop ... If his prose can sometimes be a bit matey (of Caravaggio he asks: 'Why was he such a crazy asshole?'), he can also be sardonic ('A lesson for contemporary collectors sequestering their assets in places like the Geneva Freeport – there’s a risk the work will fall out of the conversation') ... There’s an (inter)national curriculum here that schools and universities would do well to champion: engage with science and with art, be open to play and to metaphor, consider all that is counterintuitive.
Extensively researched ... Byrne’s writerly voice is conversational and engaging as he marvels at the sheer scope of human ingenuity and the alchemy of time, place and people that leads to world-changing awakenings.
Delightful ... The book loses steam as Byrne slows down to list requirements for sleeping beauties ('useful and relevant'; 'accessible') and necessary conditions for their reawakening, like cross-disciplinary collaboration. Still, the cumulative effort wisely counsels against recency bias ... It’s a wonderful and humbling celebration of the lost and found.
