job well done.

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellows were announced this morning. Each Fellow will receive $100,000 per year for the next five years, no strings attached. The Genius Grant is made "to talented individuals who have shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction. There are three criteria for selection of Fellows: exceptional creativity, promise for important future advances based on a track record of significant accomplishment, and potential for the fellowship to facilitate subsequent creative work." [1]

This year's Fellows include:
A Fiction Writer
An Urban Farmer
A Rural Family Physician
A Plant Evolutionary Geneticist
A Sculptor
An Infectious Disease Physician
An Astrophysicist
An Anthropologist/Epigrapher (and Mayanist)
A Fiber Artist
A Violinist
A Physicist/Computer Scientist
An Instrument Maker and Composer
A Developmental Biologist
A Geriatrician
A Geomorphologist
A Structural Engineer/Architectural Preservationist
A Critical Care Physician
An Astronomer
A Music Critic
An Historian of Medicine
An Optical Physicist
A Neuroscientist
A Stage Lighting Designer
An Experimental Neurobiologist
A Saxophonist

There's something about this annual role call of extraordinary individuals -- in a world where celebrity culture and its rewards predominate our perceptions of what matters -- that never fails to reassure me that there are good people doing good work that's deeply authentic.

I'm lucky to have met two genius grantees: worked for one; have in my home a stabile (a standing mobile) created by another. Normal folk. Good folk. Solid People. Listeners. Thinkers. Dreamers.

My kind of heroes.



[1] http://www.macfound.org/site/c.lkLXJ8MQKrH/b.4536879/