Martha Graham

Friends, you're familiar with my love of modern art. I see art and science as orthogonal axes on the same plane - different ways of capturing the human experience. I incorporate art with my scientific work and learn from artists whenever I can. Well, today, I am once again drawing on modern art to describe my experience. I am working on a paper revision, and I keep thinking about Martha Graham. 

Martha Graham is the mother of modern dance in the United States. She developed her own unique style and technique - even today, you can take dance classes in Graham Technique, and there is an entire professional dance company that bears her name and uses her style. One of Graham's most famous pieces is called Lamentation. It's a solo ballet performed by a dancer inside of a piece of fabric. As the dancer moves, the fabric stretches, changing shape over and over yet still constraining the dancer's movement. 

This week, I have been dancing inside fabric, friends. I am able to move my body and affect the fabric's shape somewhat, but it has its own constraining force on me. I cannot break free. 

Yes, this is what it feels like to revise a scientific manuscript following peer review. I've told you about peer review before. It is the checks-and-balances system for scientific research. Peer review is simultaneously the worst possible system and the best one that's ever been tried. 

I go through the same cycle of emotions every time I get reviews on a manuscript. First, I get stressed out because there are so many comments I have to respond to. Then, I read the comments and conclude that the reviewers are absolute jerks. Once I start actually making the requested revisions, I become a disgruntled toddler - a dancer in fabric - and the bearer of a very bad mood. Then I finish the revisions, emerge from the cloud of my own thoughts, and read the revised paper. I realize it is much, much better than the original version, and I am sincerely grateful to the reviewers, the editor who selected them, and the entire system of peer review. 

Wish me luck, friends, because I am right in the middle of the Lamentation phase of this particular revision. The reviews are actually really helpful - but helpful does not mean fun. I'll get through the revision; I'll just be unhappy until I'm finished. Constrained by the reviewers like a dancer in fabric. Meh.