From an Email Chain Between Co-Worker and SPAC’s Amphitheater Stage: Maria Popova

Twenty years ago, while Maria Popova was working at an advertisement agency, she started sending weekly emails to her colleagues to elicit an intellectual spark. 

At the time, Popova had recently immigrated to America from Bulgaria to attend the University of Pennsylvania, while balancing four jobs to finance her education. 

The contents of the email compelled her co-workers to share the nuggets of insight they were receiving. This reaction repeated exponentially. So, charged with encouragement, Popova started a weekly publication, Brain Pickings, in 2006.  

Twenty years later, it remains a one-woman passion project to explore the complexity, and often duality of human consciousness. The only thing that has changed over its two-decade legacy is its name – now The Marginalian.

In 2012 the Library of Congress included The Maringalian in its permanent digital archive due to its cultural significance and historical importance. 

On October 23, twenty years to the day of when she emailed her advertisement colleagues, Popova is bringing her curiosity to Saratoga Performing Arts Center, along with friends she has made along the way. “Constellating Wonder: Maria Popova and Friends Celebrate 20 Years of The Marginalian” is an intersection of science, philosophy, and untapped wonder. 

The Marginalian, according to Popova, is not a source of salvation, but rather an embodiment of life’s anomalies. 

“I am one of them – a living question, ambiguous and unanswered, perhaps unanswerable,” Popova wrote. “We are always learning how to live. The Marginalian is just my record of that never-ending process.”

Attendees can expect Popova to read passages from the books that have most touched her over the years, each of which she will introduce with a reflection on its resonance to the eternal questions we live with: what do we make of our suffering, why did the world have to be beautiful, how do we see more clearly and love more purely.

“Maria Popova is one of the most extraordinary thinkers and cultural voices of our time, and her work has had a profound personal impact on how I see and think about the world,” said Elizabeth Sobol, Chief Executive Officer of Saratoga Performing Arts Center. “For years, Maria’s books and The Marginalian have led me into a new way of understanding the deep interconnectedness of art, science, literature, philosophy, and the natural world—and of approaching all of it with greater wonder and curiosity. Maria has inspired millions to think more deeply and expansively, and I am thrilled that SPAC will be the place where we celebrate her remarkable work and the twentieth anniversary of The Marginalian. This evening embodies so much of what we believe in at SPAC: the power of art to connect us, to expand our understanding of the world, and to remind us of the extraordinary miracle of being alive.”

The evening will feature live appearances across a constellation of friends, among them Krista Tippett, Marie Howe, Diane Ackerman, James Gleick, Debbie Millman, Sophie Blackall, Stephon Alexander, Natalie Batalha, Willow Defebaugh, Wendy MacNaughton, Zoë Keating, Joan as Police Woman, and The Young People’s Chorus of New York, alongside special contributions by Nick Cave, Natascha McElhone, and Paola Prestini.

Honoring the spirit by which The Marginalian has endured over the years, offered freely and supported by donations, tickets will be available on a pay-what-you-please basis, ranging from the event’s basic operating costs to higher levels of support. Complimentary tickets will also be available by request for those who need them.

For tickets, livestream access information, and additional details, visit spac.org. To view The Marginalian, visit themarginalian.org.