During last week, I took the family to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. While the Museum has a lot of interesting work on display, I was particularly interested in one piece which I had read about in a book by Lewis Hyde, entitled Trickster Makes … [Continue reading]
Give the Ability to Receive this Year
This is the gift-giving season. And, as we know, it is better to give than to receive. If you're like me, you've bought and exchanged gifts (and perhaps had some of those gifts exchanged at the store afterwards) and, maybe, even now Aunt Minnie is … [Continue reading]
Stay Hungry
Thanksgiving Sunday is hardly the day to talk about keeping hungry. If you're like me, you've had three days of turkey, stuffing, potatoes and pies, plus all the weird side dishes that your mother served and that you hated growing up but now can't … [Continue reading]
Sharing
We learn to share in day one of kindergarten (if not long before). Of course, what we learn to "share" are things, like toys. Then we learn to share friends. We learn to share time. When we fall in love we learn to share our dreams and … [Continue reading]
Surface Area
I'm on a green tea kick and this weekend I was researching tea pots, specifically one called a Yixing tea pot. The Yixing is a clay pot and, according to the description, because it is clay, it is porous, which means that the surface area is many … [Continue reading]
Pepsis not Pepsi
There is a great TED talk given by Malcolm Gladwell (link here) in which Gladwell talks about the findings of Howard Moskowitz, a psychophysicist who has made a career out of consumer preferences. In the early 1970's, Pepsi asked Dr. Moskowitz to … [Continue reading]
Hisses and Pops
Two years ago, for reasons I won't go into here, I bought a turntable. It was quite accidental, but now I find myself scouring e-bay and other sources for records. My wife thinks I'm crazy (or it's another reason for her to think I'm crazy) but I … [Continue reading]
A Stick of Gum
I was on a flight yesterday from San Antonio to Charlotte. A woman sat next to me and ahead of us were, it seemed, her parents. As we were taking off, the woman pulled out a pack of gum, offered a stick to each of her parents and turned and offered … [Continue reading]
Life on the Fly
Today's New York Times has an interesting article about how people visit museums. The author juxtaposed the pre-technological age habit of "deep-diving" into literature and art versus today's "smash-n-grab" approach (walk in to a museum, grab a … [Continue reading]
Time to face your Nightmare
OK, so you've ridden out the worst of the this economic storm. You're still alive, but your car's sputtering and running out of gas. And it's dark and you're not sure where exactly you are or going. It there was a soundtrack to your life, now … [Continue reading]