Thursday, August 2, 2018

Salzberg’s Theory of Pizza

Jeffrey Salzberg is a lighting designer for theater and dance and an occasional college instructor. I learned about his Theory of Pizza from an episode of A Way with Words:

It is better to have pizza you don’t want than to want pizza you don’t have.
Salzberg says that he devised this theory as a college sophomore. He invokes it when explaining to students “the need to be prepared for any and all reasonable possibilities.”

Salzberg’s Theory of Pizza would give someone like Marie Kondo the fits, but I think it makes good sense. Better to have that book on the shelf than not. Better to pack that umbrella than not. You might need it! I think that Salzberg’s Theory of Pizza deserves to be better known.

[The hosts of A Way with Words turned this theory into “Any pizza is better than no pizza.” I’m not sure whether they were joking or really missing the point. See the comments.]

comments: 4

Unknown said...

I'm fairly certain, based upon the email she sent, that Martha got the point.

Thanks for my 15 minutes.

Michael Leddy said...

Thanks for clearing that up. I’ve revised accordingly. Maybe they were getting carried away thinking about pizza. :)

The Arthurian said...

Hi Michael. Good post. Salzberg's theory calls to mind something a fellow at work said, years back: "I'd rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it."

To my mind it's the same thought. The guy at work did a lot of reading; maybe he read and adopted Salzberg's theory.

For me, just trying to state my friend's sentence correctly was a challenge. So it goes.

Michael Leddy said...

Yes, the same idea. As far as I can tell, Salzberg’s Theory of Pizza is something one teacher shares with his students. I think it’s two people with the same thought. But only one has pizza. :)