Town Hall Seattle and Elliott Bay Book Company present
David Byrne
On His New Book Sleeping Beauties: Why Good Ideas Go Dormant
EVENT NOTES
Doors for this event will open at 6:30 PM. Town Hall events are approximately 75 minutes long.
Sleeping Beauties: Why Good Ideas Go Dormant and How They Wake Up (Hardcover)
Elliott Bay Book Company
Buy Book
Town Hall Member presale: September 1
General onsale: September 2
It’s nice to believe in a meritocracy of ideas — genius is always recognized, innovation always seized upon and rewarded. But in reality, so many of the people we now acknowledge as the world’s great creators initially got little traction for their work. It faded out, and only later — often much later — did it somehow come roaring back to life. Musician and creative force David Byrne has found fascination in these erstwhile creators and their ideas, calling them sleeping beauties. Discoveries as diverse as dark matter, lichen, and continental drift . . . technologies from solar panels to the steam engine . . . artists from Bach to Bruegel, Vermeer to Melville . . . all, David Byrne shows us, were sleeping beauties. Why did they fall asleep? How did they wake back up?
Sleeping Beauties: Why Good Ideas Go Dormant and How They Wake Up is a master class in how not to overlook the next great thing. Several times throughout history, the shock of the new landed like a blow on vested interests and entrenched views, putting innovation on hold. Suppression emerged from pushback, the absence of key supporters, or simply a lack of complementary economic conditions. But more important even than why ideas go dormant is why they reawaken.
Byrne’s stories are humbling but also hopeful, adding up to a compass that leads us to the courage to try new things and the wisdom to embrace them.
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David Byrne is a musician, performer, writer, and multidisciplinary artist who has captivated audiences since 1975, when he co-founded Talking Heads. Over the course of his career he has released 20 studio albums, scored films — most notably The Last Emperor, for which he received Academy Award, Golden Globe, and Grammy wins — and brought his singular vision to the stage, from the Broadway production American Utopia, which received a Special Tony Award and was adapted into a film directed by Spike Lee, to Here Lies Love, his disco musical that received four Tony Award nominations including Best Original Score, to Theater of the Mind, an immersive theatrical journey co-created with writer Mala Gaonkar. His visual art — including photography and installation works — has been exhibited internationally, and he is the founder of Reasons to Be Cheerful, an online publication devoted to solutions-based journalism. Byrne has published multiple books, including Bicycle Diaries, How Music Works, and Arboretum.
Presented by Town Hall Seattle and Elliott Bay Book Company.
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The Oculus Series is made possible with generous support from William Donnelly and our Season Sponsors.