What Makes A Meme A Meme?

“‘Ideas have retained some of the properties of organisms,’ [Jacques Monod] wrote. ‘Like them, they tend to perpetuate their structure and to breed; they too can fuse, recombine, segregate their content; indeed they too can evolve, and in this evolution selection must surely play an important role’.”

How Genius Works: A Dozen Geniuses Explain

“Great art begins with an idea. Sometimes a vague or even bad one. How does that spark of creativity find its way to the canvas, the page, the dinner plate, or the movie screen? How is inspiration refined into the forms that delight or provoke us?” Frank Gehry, T.C. Boyle, Paul Simon, Sarah Ruhl, Chuck Close, and Tim Burton (among others) toss around the question.