Grandpa Costolo was an agitator. Whether it was as an infant in his crib, screaming "No Milky!" at 4am, or as a student at Vanderbilt University, where he first caught the public's eye with his scathing polemic on the future of Geology, "Whither Granite"; Grandpa was an agitator.
I remember when, late in his life, I asked Grandpa Costolo about the central tenet of his "Granite" piece (he had concluded, after a rudimentary exploration of sedimentary rock in Utah, that "plate tectonics is just bullshit"), Grandpa picked me up, threw me in the air a few times, bounced me off the rubber wall that defined the north side of his little house, and declared "Diatribes are a lousy substitute for careful thought, but ignorant folks, lacking subtlety, commonly find that their only recourse is to yell more." I asked what he was talking about and could he also get a new rubber wall as this one was getting stiff. He just shook his head and said "Kid, funny trumps insolent every time. If 'Whither Granite' had been a humorous look at the lighter side of the fossil record, with chapter titles like 'Trilobite me' and 'Is that an Igneous formation in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?'', I'd be a millionaire right now. Angry doesn't sell. Funny sells. Cut angry, don't cut funny"
Posted by Dick at May 12, 2004 11:24 AM | TrackBack