In this issue, we wanted to tell stories about women like Dot Sulock, a UNCA math professor, and Judy Beck, in UNCA’s physics department, who live in the world of ideas. But also—as something of a counterpoint, we thought—we wanted to include portraits of women who work with their hands. (See Handy Ma’am, page 74). After spending a few hours with three full-time handywomen, though, it was clear to me that their jobs can be as heady and analytical as any professor’s. Karen O’Toole, who spent 20 years in publishing before becoming a handywoman, says her job is mostly about problem solving—first diagnosing the glitch, anything from wiring to a water heater, then deciding how to tackle it. It’s not that she knows everything, she told me. It’s that she knows how to figure just about anything out.

In his relatively new book Shop Class as Soulcraft, Matthew B. Crawford, a Virginia motorcycle mechanic with a Ph.D. in political philosophy, argues that he does more thinking in his bike repair shop than he ever did at his job at a Washington think tank. The intellectual energy required to repair a 30-year-old bike, he says, far exceeds what was required of him when he was called a "knowledge worker" but paid to do mind-numbing nonsense.

This is not to say, of course, that all work with your hands is stimulating or that no real thinking can come from a think tank. But it is a reminder that some of the best brainstorming happens far outside traditional idea incubators, and that the biggest and best ideas can show up in the unlikeliest of places.

Happy reading,

jess@vervemag.com

Jess