Tom Waits penned and sang the immortal lines referenced in the title: "Don't you know there ain't no devil, there's just God when he's drunk." He had it right. How else explain the bizarre twists of fate that shape our lives, so well captured in this collection of eighteen stories? As diverse in style as they are in theme they all share a deep sense of irony about the human condition. The settings range from a neuroscience lab (in the award-winning tale of "The Heart Of A Rat") through earthquake-shattered San Francisco to a bar on Bourbon Street. And the harsh realism of stories about...

This is the first in a trilogy on the similarities and the differences in creativity in the arts and in the sciences. While informal in tone and sprinkled with personal anecdotes, it is an in-depth examination of the topic. It specifically looks at the cultural divide between the arts and the sciences that C. P. Snow called "The Two Cultures." By closely examining the similarities and differences in the nature of creativity in these two domains, it resolves the false division of art and science. To accomplish this, the author draws on philosophy and psychology as well as personal experience...

This is the second in a trilogy on the similarities and the differences in creativity in the arts and in the sciences. As with the previous volume the tone is casual but the scholarship sound. This book focuses on the current status of creativity in the arts and sciences. It presents what psychology now knows about the relationship of mental illness, morality, memory, and motivation to creative accomplishment. It also considers the effects of new creative tools on the evolving definition of 'creativity'.

This final book on similarities and differences in creativity in the arts and the sciences is more speculative, for it attempts to extrapolate future developments in creative endeavor. The exponential growth in technology equips artists with new tools, and thus inevitably introduces them to the value of science in their own creative domain. Also considered are probable new forms of collaboration between artists and scientists. Its generally optimistic predictions are based on recent trends that suggest the pointless rift between science and art is finally being bridged.