Proud Papa

What happens when your son publishes an important book, has an article in the New York Times Magazine, appears on a top rated nighttime show in Canada, does several important radio interviews, has a review in the Book Review section of the NY Times, will soon be interviewed in Newsweek, and then heads out on a multi-state book tour? Why, you bust your buttons with pride, of course! That's the happy condition of my husband these days. Here he is wearing his Kluge t-shirt, with daughter Julie, in our local Barnes & Noble, holding a copy of the book, Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind, by Gary Marcus.


What's a "Kluge," (rhymes with "huge") you ask? The short definition is, "A clumsy and inelegant solution to a problem." If you've seen the movie, "Apollo 13," the crew used a kluge to make a repair that brought the damaged spacecraft back to earth safely. If you ever watched the old McGyver series, you saw the hero create kluge after kluge with duct tape and whatever he could find to solve the immediate problem. As to how that applies to the human mind, well, you'll just have to read the book!



We think the cover is brilliant, just like the contents. The British edition has a different cover, also terrific. Either way, Kluge is getting great reviews and making the author's father (and stepmother, too!) very proud.