solitude
Retreated from the world and found something there.
The Rope
What do you call a woman who wouldn't cross the lawn for Emerson, but rigged a rope from her window for children she refused to greet at the door?
Ten Hours, Ten Seconds
He calculated that ten hours of punching holes produced ten seconds of music, and he kept punching for forty years.
The Bait Camp Visionary
How does a shrimp seller who couldn't swim, living alone on a sandspit reachable only by boat, end up on Betty Parsons's walls beside Pollock and Rothko?
The Philosopher Who Took His Own Medicine
What happens when a philosopher who hated water contracts a disease made of it?
The Soot and the Spit
What does a self-taught artist do when the family finally retires the wood stove and his only source of ink disappears?
The Composer Found Under His Coat Stand
What does a man do for twenty-five years after walking offstage at the Paris Conservatoire in disgust?
The Man Who Drew the Curtains
He sailed to Tahiti, India, and Japan in 1920 and never left his cabin — so what exactly was he doing in there?
A House for Foss
A Victorian poet built a second house identical to his first, same rooms, same floor plan, so his cat wouldn't feel disoriented.
The Weatherman Was Wrong Again
For ten years, a Chicago dishwasher kept a secret diary grading the local weatherman against reality.
The Second Television
Paul Dirac's colleagues measured his speech in a unit they invented: one word per hour.
Lights Off
She was being read by twelve million people a day and answered every fan letter by hand. So she dynamited a boulder on a treeless rock and built somewhere to hide.
The Man Who Knew Paris
He kept a shoebox labeled Mouse Material; the archivist who finally opened it found the contents of a vacuum cleaner.