The Death And Life Of Great American Cities is a book by 1961 by Jane Jacobs. It’s criminally underrated. Scenius is a phrase coined by Brian Eno, first mentioned roughly around 1993 at a business conference in London, and then quoted again in his 1996 book, A Year with Swollen Appendices.

I have a public Roam page where I have lots of notes about scenes. Like all of my notes, it’s quite a mess. This blogpost is an attempt to extract some signal from all the noise in there, and present the information in a way that’s clear and useful to other people.

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Here’s a thread about David Banks’ essay The Problem Of Excessive Genius. (I have a copy of the essay in my archives, too.)

Thread about Gertrude Stein’s salons in Paris.

Lake Poets, ~1810-1850s.

Al Ma’mun and the Baghdad House of Wisdom

Einstein attended Max Planck’s house parties

Thread about Pericles, arguably responsible for Athens’ golden age

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Rivalry

The more I read about golden ages the more I’m stunned that we’re not obsessing about it all the time. During India’s Gupta golden age, they invented zero. During Baghdad’s, they translated Aristotle. The Dutch golden age gave us Descartes. I think “capitalism” is maybe only about half the picture. It’s insufficient. Market forces are insufficient at giving us golden ages.

The real powerful force, I believe, is a bunch of nerds trying to outdo each other. It’s rivalry that drives innovation, IMO, more than prestige, accolades and even financial rewards. It’s Eric Clapton looking at Jimi Hendrix and going What The Fuck.

I’m still in the early stages of digging thru a ton of material so there’s a moderate chance i might change my mind about this stuff, but I broadly think that productive rivalries are underrated and undervalued.

Ernest Rutherford, who split the atom, was aided by a bunch of nerd friends – Geiger, Bragg, Wittgenstein, Bohr. There is no mention of any of these friends on the plaque that bears his name.

When I was in junior college, I read Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, by Doris Kearns Goodwin. I’m grateful that she chose to total the book “Team of Rivals” – it’s a memorable and important riff, that Lincoln’s genius was not just within himself, but in the way he assembled a team.

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Terminology: Scene vs Scenius

I’ve debated internally whether I should use the words scene or scenius, and I’m still kind of 50/50 about it. I think it’s kind of useful as a filter – meaning, people who are familiar with the word have probably done the reading, or would otherwise consider doing the reading. And it’s less likely to get mixed up in conventional discussions about scenes (which, to be clear, are also relevant, interesting, useful – but there’s more noise).

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To be continued.