Heartcrossings

Seeing Mona Lisa live has to be one of the most underwhelming experiences I've had. The quality of the art is not something you can even remotely focus on given the crowds taking their selfies, jockeying for a millimeter to squeeze into the space where they can take a clean shot. You join the crowd, get into the flow as you find it, see what you can unable to comprehend what the fuss is all about. Very quickly it becomes evident that there is no point to whole exercise at all - it is impossible to experience any art under these circumstances. You could check it off your bucket list (if it was on there) and get on with your day and life. It's great to see that a separate room is under consideration for Mona Lisa .  .. museum-goers complain about waiting in line for hours, the stuffy conditions, and only getting to spend a few seconds viewing the painting, which is housed behind bulletproof glass. One recent analysis of visitors' online reviews of big museums and their most l

I recently read Susan Sontag's On Women recently and these words about the nuclear family stuck with me : “The modern “nuclear” family is a psychological and moral disaster. It is a prison of sexual repression, a playing field of inconsistent moral laxity, a museum of possessiveness, a guilt-producing factory, and a school of selfishness.” The "museum of possessiveness" and "guilt-producing factory" are the two that feel most relevant to my own experience being a product of a nuclear family - me and my parents. While I had the benefit of being close to and somewhat connected to extended family, J did not even have that. Her nuclear family for the most part was an unit of two with my parents being there in the periphery, a distant source of comfort.  Possessiveness goes with a territory that small.  It takes a lot of effort to free up from it. Guilt is a by-product of the possessiveness. No matter what you do, it is never quite enough. There is always more to do

Disappointing to read about what goes at Trader Joe's behind the cheerful facade . The small guy with a great product has no real shot here. They can accept the fake invitation to get a deal or have their idea stolen without that meeting anyway ..Trader Joe’s commonly solicits product samples and even asks for potential recipe adjustments—a revealing and time-consuming exercise for bootstrapped founders—before inexplicably abandoning the negotiations and releasing its own private-label versions of similar products at lower prices. The reason they can get away with it is price and selection not to mention the little quirks that make it stand out from competition that may match it on price and selection.  The store’s well-curated selection of convenience foods, particularly those found in the frozen food aisle, comprises a relative United Nations of cuisines from around the globe, tailor-made for the air fryer economy. Young people working and living alone for the first time typicall

Rushdie's advice on writing - don't use adjectives , I am sure is a good and valid one as it forces the writer to think harder about communicating their message without painting a word picture, By the author of the Inc. article takes the advise to business with rather strange outcomes:  Consider a leader describing a future project to their team. Instead of saying, "This will be an exciting, innovative, and impactful project," removing the adjectives could reshape the delivery: "This project pioneers new technologies to transform our industry and redefine customer experience." Notice the shift? The second version doesn't just tell listeners how to feel about the project--it shows what the project does, drawing listeners into a narrative of transformation and innovation. The second example which according to the author meets the Rushdie style directive reads exactly like business-ese. This is the dreary language people are reading and writing every day of

 Getting long overdue justice and then having it all be invalidated is a bitter pill to swallow. But it might be worthwhile to scour for the silver lining in this instance: It will be tempting to frame the overturning of Mr Weinstein’s conviction as a backlash against #MeToo. In a spiky dissent, one of the appeal judges, Madeline Singas, wrote: “Men who serially sexually exploit their power over women—especially the most vulnerable groups in society—will reap the benefit of today’s decision.” However, the various cases against Mr Weinstein have not been for nothing. Improvements to the justice system in several states, such as the abolition of non-disclosure agreements that stopped victims from speaking out, and the lengthening of statutes of limitations, can be directly attributed to the #MeToo/Weinstein legacy. Elizabeth Geddes, a former federal prosecutor who convicted R Kelly, a singer, of racketeering and sex crimes in New York in 2021-22, says one challenge that Mr Weinstein’s o

Over twenty years ago, I was contacted by a recruiter from a company based out of St. Louis. We hit it off at once and she got me in for interviews at a company that seemed way ahead of it's times. The conversations went great and they were ready to bring me on. Around the same time, my life started to unravel and while the details escape me now (and I am grateful for the lapse of memory). I did not end up taking that job or moving. I stayed in touch with R for several years after that even if more and more sporadically - there was something about her that set her apart from others in her profession. it made me think of her every time I was felt misunderstood. She really loved her job for one thing and was excellent at it. My resume was a hot mess but she was able to tease out who I was and what I could do. She made a wonderful match - a great team and a job that would have been a lot of fun if I had been able to take it.  For over a year, off and on, R has been posting very candid

As I was pulling into my driveway yesterday, I heard the familiar sirens of ambulances rushing by. I live near two assisted living facilities and these sounds are woven into the fabric of my life. For some reason, I paused to pay attention to the sound that day and thought about how often I heard them and perhaps they were correlated to the number of elderly who were dying. If there were spikes at certain times of the year, I had not noticed but there are phases when the ambulance sirens are heard more frequently. Somewhere else, there the sounds of a crying infant that has just been born - maybe not even that far away as there are a couple of big hospitals nearby. Birth or impending birth is not imbued with an alarming sound like death or the likelihood of death is. Maybe in that sense we arrive with a relative whimper and some of us might make a lot of noise as we depart.  As I walked into the house, I thought about my grandfather who died in his sleep in his own bed. It was an ordin