On my trip to Barcelona I accidentally came across some post-doctoral applications from hundred years ago.
Application 1.
Name of the applicant: Pablo Picasso
Preferred postdoc location: Paris, France
Hola, my name is Pablo Picasso and I am 19 years old. I have been painting for several years now and the thought that one day they might build a museum to exhibit my work from this period gives me creeps. Sadly, all I have done so far is rather crummy. The point is that I get really bored listening to my teachers and often retreat to painting to avoid socially awkward situations. However, I think that I can paint anything and in any style. I can be symbolic, geometric, realistic or anything else. I can express any human emotion in visual form in many different ways. To wit, I have studied Velazquez' Las Meninas and I made over forty paintings that render parts of this great work. These are just sketches, some not really finished, so I hope that they will not end up in the same museum.
Anyway, the postdoc in Paris is what I need to become a real painter. I need to meet great French artists and a lot of interesting women. This is very hard in Barcelona, particularly with my parents being a suspicious bunch and hovering over me all the time.
The part of the application has to do with presentation of the post-doctoral work plan. I am not really such a great planner, but I expect that when I get to Paris I will work a lot. I have been thinking about simple geometry like cubes to utilize in my work but I am not sure how it will work. If this plan is really important then I propose that I will make all my paintings for next year blue. Blue is a color of depression, solitude and mysticism and all of these might likely be my companions in Paris if my application is granted.
Application 2
Name of the applicant: Joan Miro
Preferred postdoc location: Paris, France
Hola,
my name is Joan Miro and I want to be a painter. I have been painting since I was 13 but most of the time I have been doing what others told me to and this is not very good. What I really like to do is to doodle, and I wonder if there is a future in such activity. So far my work has not been well received, and I do not even mention doodles. Friends tell me that I can make living as a tattoo designer but no respectable person would get one so what kind of living is that. Perhaps in a hundred years...
A postdoc in Paris would be a way to get my doodling career started. By meeting more open-minded and more sophisticated colleagues I can get my doodles to be appreciated. I feel that these ideas are simple but quite expressive. In fact, I often see that the doodles that I make on napkins - and I doodle incessantly - are being put aside between book pages rather than tossed in the dustbin. Once I get sure-footed I anticipate doodling for the rest of my life. Quite frankly I may change my style a bit every few years but at this point my doodling skills are superior to anyone else's.
In Paris I plan to interact with surrealists, but the main goal is to get my career off the ground. One day I might have a museum with 14,000 of my doodles but it will not happen if I do not go to Paris soon.
Application 3
Name of the applicant: Antoni Gaudi
Preferred postdoc location: Paris, France
Hola,
my name is Antoni Gaudi. I want to be an architect and my parents want me to go to Paris to study. I suspect that they are worried that I will become a religious freak and atmosphere of Paris might be an antidote. I disagree completely, I want to live in Barcelona all my life and I do not like to travel. As far as studying I do not see the point. I think about buildings all the time and I know what there is to know. I design my buildings in my head to the finest detail. I want special bricks, moldings, door handles, furniture and I have neat ideas how to use them. People complain that I do not care for indoor plumbing, building codes, or fire hazards but these things are not very interesting anyway. Here is my postdoc plan - a sketch only but I can elaborate on request. I know precisely what I want to build. I expect that all this work will require help of thousands of people and many, many years. This is ok, in fact I suspect that completely different building materials would allow my designs to be executed better. I have something concrete in mind, a plaster like material that can be molded and sets to rock hardness. These might be invented before some of my projects are finished. Another thing that I am really lacking is better computational and modelling tools. I make models in large scale and compute in my head but there ought to be a way to do it symbolically. My math teacher told me about a guy named Babbage who made a computing machine but I never found out more.
I believe that complexity arises by compounding simplicity and in my designs I use the next best thing after a straight line - a degree two curve. This is as much as I can handle in my mind, but too much for most of the workers. This may sound arrogant but both better materials and better computational tools ought to exist because my designs require them. I view my ideas as coming straight from nature, everything that I make can be resolved all the way to water and clay and a bit of math that ties it together. Some people tell me that my buildings look like an American amusement park but I do not believe it, even though I have never been to America. Just come closer and look at the details, my works are part of nature just like other God's creatures.
I hope that this application will be denied. I have no need to go anywhere, and I want to get a cathedral started here in Barcelona. I am not sure about financing, but who knows - maybe one day Chinese will be paying the construction costs.
Application 1.
Name of the applicant: Pablo Picasso
Preferred postdoc location: Paris, France
Hola, my name is Pablo Picasso and I am 19 years old. I have been painting for several years now and the thought that one day they might build a museum to exhibit my work from this period gives me creeps. Sadly, all I have done so far is rather crummy. The point is that I get really bored listening to my teachers and often retreat to painting to avoid socially awkward situations. However, I think that I can paint anything and in any style. I can be symbolic, geometric, realistic or anything else. I can express any human emotion in visual form in many different ways. To wit, I have studied Velazquez' Las Meninas and I made over forty paintings that render parts of this great work. These are just sketches, some not really finished, so I hope that they will not end up in the same museum.
Anyway, the postdoc in Paris is what I need to become a real painter. I need to meet great French artists and a lot of interesting women. This is very hard in Barcelona, particularly with my parents being a suspicious bunch and hovering over me all the time.
The part of the application has to do with presentation of the post-doctoral work plan. I am not really such a great planner, but I expect that when I get to Paris I will work a lot. I have been thinking about simple geometry like cubes to utilize in my work but I am not sure how it will work. If this plan is really important then I propose that I will make all my paintings for next year blue. Blue is a color of depression, solitude and mysticism and all of these might likely be my companions in Paris if my application is granted.
Application 2
Name of the applicant: Joan Miro
Preferred postdoc location: Paris, France
Hola,
my name is Joan Miro and I want to be a painter. I have been painting since I was 13 but most of the time I have been doing what others told me to and this is not very good. What I really like to do is to doodle, and I wonder if there is a future in such activity. So far my work has not been well received, and I do not even mention doodles. Friends tell me that I can make living as a tattoo designer but no respectable person would get one so what kind of living is that. Perhaps in a hundred years...
A postdoc in Paris would be a way to get my doodling career started. By meeting more open-minded and more sophisticated colleagues I can get my doodles to be appreciated. I feel that these ideas are simple but quite expressive. In fact, I often see that the doodles that I make on napkins - and I doodle incessantly - are being put aside between book pages rather than tossed in the dustbin. Once I get sure-footed I anticipate doodling for the rest of my life. Quite frankly I may change my style a bit every few years but at this point my doodling skills are superior to anyone else's.
In Paris I plan to interact with surrealists, but the main goal is to get my career off the ground. One day I might have a museum with 14,000 of my doodles but it will not happen if I do not go to Paris soon.
Application 3
Name of the applicant: Antoni Gaudi
Preferred postdoc location: Paris, France
Hola,
my name is Antoni Gaudi. I want to be an architect and my parents want me to go to Paris to study. I suspect that they are worried that I will become a religious freak and atmosphere of Paris might be an antidote. I disagree completely, I want to live in Barcelona all my life and I do not like to travel. As far as studying I do not see the point. I think about buildings all the time and I know what there is to know. I design my buildings in my head to the finest detail. I want special bricks, moldings, door handles, furniture and I have neat ideas how to use them. People complain that I do not care for indoor plumbing, building codes, or fire hazards but these things are not very interesting anyway. Here is my postdoc plan - a sketch only but I can elaborate on request. I know precisely what I want to build. I expect that all this work will require help of thousands of people and many, many years. This is ok, in fact I suspect that completely different building materials would allow my designs to be executed better. I have something concrete in mind, a plaster like material that can be molded and sets to rock hardness. These might be invented before some of my projects are finished. Another thing that I am really lacking is better computational and modelling tools. I make models in large scale and compute in my head but there ought to be a way to do it symbolically. My math teacher told me about a guy named Babbage who made a computing machine but I never found out more.
I believe that complexity arises by compounding simplicity and in my designs I use the next best thing after a straight line - a degree two curve. This is as much as I can handle in my mind, but too much for most of the workers. This may sound arrogant but both better materials and better computational tools ought to exist because my designs require them. I view my ideas as coming straight from nature, everything that I make can be resolved all the way to water and clay and a bit of math that ties it together. Some people tell me that my buildings look like an American amusement park but I do not believe it, even though I have never been to America. Just come closer and look at the details, my works are part of nature just like other God's creatures.
I hope that this application will be denied. I have no need to go anywhere, and I want to get a cathedral started here in Barcelona. I am not sure about financing, but who knows - maybe one day Chinese will be paying the construction costs.
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