The repudiation of my work by Schmidt proved a blessing in disguise, for it gave back to me the full control of a piece of research which, if it was not the best that I was ever to do, was certainly close to my best, and which gave me a reputation incomparably greater than that which any of my earlier work had given me
letter to Drayton, 364
"Walmart Scraps Plan to Have Robots Scan Shelves"
I am far from spiritual, she writes toward the end of Art Work, but I have experienced, convincingly, the ineffable magic by which obsession, frustration, repetition, and serendipity miraculously transfigure that thin, Nabokovian slice of time, that tenth of a second, into something eternal. In her book, she describes how these qualities have served her since she was a cocky teenager, confident that her love of photography was all she needed to make a life for herself, into her years as a young mother