I am going to put this picture of Johann Bernoulli on my wall.
Why? Well, not only is he a beautiful wig-wearing man, but he’s a famous mathematician. His image will remind me every day that we all have potential for greatness, even if we don’t have crazy eyes or are still alive. The problem is that his face here tells so many stories that I, or guests lucky enough to meet eye with him, might get confused as to what exactly the lesson of Johann Bernoulli is. Unfortunately, while Johann is the more good-looking of his huge family of mathematicians, he’s not at all the most famous. That would have to be Daniel Bernoulli, the only quoted Bernoulli. With slightly less wonky eyes you might think he’s the more charming of the two. no.
Anyway, I want to pretend, every day, that Johann Bernoulli is whispering inspiration in my ear. With no quotes of his own to be found, I decided that I would put the word “Eureka!” beneath his photo. While I was trying to figure out what font was best,
I realized that Eureka is a fuck-all ugly word and I hate it. Someone suggested maybe I had bad memories of Eureka or that I resented the California town called Eureka (Eureka, CA also named itself “The Queen City of the Ultimate West” for fuck’s sake). It’s true that when I was ten or so, I did a school project where I had to somehow interpret the word “Eureka” and manifest it in Project-form. I covered used food containers with construction paper and invented “Eureka Supermarket” whose slogan was indeed something like “Eureka! So many bargains to discover!” … sigh. What an awful child I was. And I didn’t even hate Eureka yet.
Chris’s age 8 Eureka moment with a cartoon remake of The Wizard of Oz:
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