I watched the film “Genius” yesterday, which follows the relationship between famed editor (as much as an editor can be noticed) Maxwell Perkins and literary great Thomas Wolfe. I enjoyed the movie, more for Colin Firth’s overall performance and the sheer energy of Jude Law’s manic frenzy than for the story itself. The Hemingway and Fitzgerald cameos added a sprinkle of intrigue, though the script suffers a bit from introducing a gun and then never using it. That’s not a metaphor, by the way.

I was thinking about the art, music, architecture and literature being created in the generation of this movie. How big players like Hemingway and Picasso would gather in salons in Paris and drink and create and live an artist’s destructive, thrilling life. When will the next creative renaissance take place? Has it happened, and I missed it? Or is it happening now, in the craft beer markets of Portland or the or the El Sistema classrooms of Venezuela or the guerilla performances of Russian punk rock protesters?

Maxwell Perkins had the gift of recognizing the genius of writers who would resonate through a century, and the power of helping them succeed, but how many among us have the clarity and foresight to do the same with our contemporaries?

How’s that for a Monday morning musing.