- 6 days ago
- 1 min read
About the Work: Ben Peled
In our “About the Work” series, Olga Mexina asks recent contributors for insight into their writing or for current sources of inspiration. Read Ben Peled's work in SER Vol. 43.2.
“The Mathematician Presents”
Years ago, during Glenn Beck's heyday on Fox, Jon Stewart used to do a parody of his show. Donning a pair of fake glasses, he would stand at a board stabbing out lines of chalk to connect the most insanely disparate ideas. That sketch is where this story was born.
By profession I’m a math educator, so naturally that’s where my mind went. As an aside: apologies to Grigori Perelman. I have (in respect and reverence) stolen some of the broader beats of his life. There’s something quasi-spiritual to imagining years given over to the pursuit of a single proof. Luckily for him, it all came off. But I’ve always wondered – what if it hadn’t?
Finally, a tip of the hat to Gary Shteyngart’s “Out of My Mouth Comes Unimpeachable Manly Truth.” And also to Julia Davis, whose Twitter feed provided so much insight into the work of Putinist propagandists, both in the run-up to the invasion of Ukraine and in the war that’s festered since.
BEN PELED's work has been published in Fugue, The Antioch Review, and New England Review. He was a finalist in the Missouri Review Editors’ Contest. He lives in Brooklyn with his incredible wife, Noa, and their two children.