It's cool that they did an architect this time, but it goes beyond that.

I did some surfing the other day, catching up on the intellectual world brouhaha raised by the Times picking Michael Kimmelman to replace Ouroussoff, and the history of that whole thing, including Ourossoff vs. Saints Muschamp and Huxtable, and the opining that this whole Kimmelman thing was just going further downhill. And how important the Times' critic post is as p.r. for the profession to the public, which is why this is such an important thing, yadda yadda.

And then Kimmelman, contrary to dire predictions of many who expected another art-chitecture critic, decided to start with--how should I say it?--function over form, or architecture over art-chitecture. I kinda got a real kick out of that, because it betrayed some old classic prejudices of architecture people towards fine art people, as if a fine art critic is necessarily going to make an effete art-chitecture critic.

Well this MacArthur prize is sort of a wise one in that context, isn't it? It goes both ways!

But actually, my favorite MacArthur prize this year was this one:

....Jad Abumrad, 38, the co-host and producer of “Radiolab,” a program on WNYC in New York that explores questions of science and philosophy, like the nature of altruism.

“This show is the central creative mission of my life right now, and the money might give me the space to bring new things into it,” Mr. Abumrad said...

For purely selfish reasons--I just adore his show, my favorite thing on NPR.