I'm turning 70. I'm still a hopeful kid.

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"I’m a pessimist about probabilities, I’m an optimist about possibilities." – Lewis Mumford

A notebook about how we work, learn, love and live.

I will turn 70 next week. The cool news is that Keith Richards is right: "The older you get, the older you want to get."

Being born in 1953 means that I came of age when being a hippie was a distinct career option. There was a lot of cultural support for people who wanted to work for social transformation, starting with personal inner change. There were even top 40 songs that promised that our entire species was on the cusp of a brand new age of peace, love and understanding.

Since then I've become more realistic about the immense chaos, disruption and discord—as well as the amount of sheer work and struggle—that such transition and learning entails. But I am no less optimistic about the possibilities that are still ours.

This weekly notebook is one expression of my steady belief in our collective ability to realize humanity's potential. After all, our planet and the life on it is a miracle. We can certainly do better than we are. I'm really glad to have you, dear reader, along for the ride.

Happy Friday.

How We Live
How eclecticism and "exuberant mismatching" can boost creativity and enhance mental well-being

This is just one of Debbie's work tables in our house, and a fraction of her collection of shoes. It's not uncommon for visitors to our home to refer to it as a museum.

Debbie and I are both collectors. Therefore the very idea of minimalism is antithetical to our lifestyle. Ever since I've known her she has lived by a simple maxim: "Excess is never enough, and there's always room for more. Stuff, food, friends, everything."

So it's reassuring to notice we're not alone. Writing in Psychology Today Jourdan Travers reports on a trend known as “cluttercore” that reflects how we live. She says that it "endorses the idea of decorating your living space with cherished items, regardless of whether they match in style or theme. It seeks to create a sense of unbridled joy by filling your space with a rich variety of objects, adding a layer of personality, sentimentality, and emotional connection to the already bold and evocative approach of maximalism."

Article: Why Maximalism and Cluttercore Can Rewire Your Mental Health

Related Article: Is “Cluttercore” the Chaotic Good We Need Right Now?

Learning
A private library is a research tool. The more you know, the larger the rows of unread books.

Umberto Eco in his library in Milano, Italy, May 9th, 2011. Photo by Martin Grüner Larsen

As I said above, I am a collector. My music collection is now all digital, but I still buy and archive books. While I am assiduous about sorting them by category, at this point most of them go unread. So I was thrilled to find this essay by Maria Popova. She posits that keeping books within reach but still unread provides the setting for a special relationship with knowledge. She cites scholar, statistician, and essayist Nassim Nicholas Taleb's reference to the Italian writer Umberto Eco’s uncommon relationship with books and reading:

"The writer Umberto Eco belongs to that small class of scholars who are encyclopedic, insightful, and nondull. He is the owner of a large personal library (containing thirty thousand books), and separates visitors into two categories: those who react with “Wow! Signore professore dottore Eco, what a library you have! How many of these books have you read?” and the others — a very small minority — who get the point that a private library is not an ego-boosting appendage but a research tool. Read books are far less valuable than unread ones. The library should contain as much of what you do not know as your financial means, mortgage rates, and the currently tight real-estate market allows you to put there. You will accumulate more knowledge and more books as you grow older, and the growing number of unread books on the shelves will look at you menacingly. Indeed, the more you know, the larger the rows of unread books. Let us call this collection of unread books an antilibrary."

Essay: Umberto Eco’s Antilibrary: Why Unread Books Are More Valuable to Our Lives than Read Ones

How We Live, Community
“Conviviality is a richness that is sleeping. When we awaken the sense of place and community, the citizens and urban fabric are transformed.”

La Table d’Aude is an annual banquet held for neighbors on a table 400 meters long, about 440 yards, that runs through the middle of a street. Image via Hyper Voisins

"Talking Cheese — a meet-up which combines a smorgasbord of dairy goods with talks by local residents on their subjects of expertise — is one of a dizzying galaxy of activities run by the Republic of Super Neighbors, a grass-roots initiative whose territory spans about 50 streets in the 14th arrondissement, a largely residential district on the Seine’s Left Bank.

"More than 1,200 of these so-called Super Neighbors communicate via 40 WhatsApp groups dedicated to queries like finding a cat sitter or seeking help to fix broken appliances. They hold weekly brunches, post-work drinks and community gatherings at which older residents share memories with younger generations.

"Started in 2017, the hyperlocal experiment is the brainchild of Patrick Bernard, a local resident and former journalist, who argues that the functioning of cities can be radically improved if urban policy drills down to 'the most local entity in a city.'" - Peter Yeung

Article: Parisians Are Pledging Allegiance to the ‘Republic of Super Neighbors.’ They Must Bring Cheese.

How We Learn
The duo awarded this year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine met while waiting in the same line.

Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman met in 1998 at the University of Pennsylvania. They were waiting in line to use a photocopier. I mage by W. Carter via Creative Commons.

“'I had always wanted to try mRNA,' Weissman said, 'and here was somebody at the Xerox machine telling me that’s what she does.' And as Karikó said: 'I knew little immunology and vaccine biology at the time; I learned most of it from Drew.'

"It was a fruitful match. (On Monday) the duo was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their work, which ultimately led to the development of effective Covid-19 vaccines. (mRNA vaccines are currently being tested in everything from pancreatic cancer to flu.)" - David Epstein

Epstein uses this story of amazing synchronicity to make an important observation: With more remote and hybrid work, we probably have to be more thoughtful about creating connections.

Article: The Latest Nobel Prize is a Testament to the Importance of Serendipitous Collisions.

How We Work, Collaborating
Mistakes happen. The most effective teams feel safe enough to catch, admit, and correct them together.

"Psychological safety helps people take the interpersonal risks that are necessary for achieving excellence in a fast-changing, interdependent world. When people work in psychologically safe contexts, they know that questions are appreciated, ideas are welcome, and errors and failure are discussable. In these environments, people can focus on the work without being tied up in knots about what others might think of them. They know that being wrong won’t be a fatal blow to their reputation."

"...Psychological safety plays a powerful role in the science of failing well. It allows people to ask for help when they’re in over their heads, which helps eliminate preventable failures. It helps them report—and hence catch and correct—errors to avoid worse outcomes, and it makes it possible to experiment in thoughtful ways to generate new discoveries." - Amy Edmondson

Book Excerpt: The Intelligent Failure that Led to the Discovery of Psychological Safety

Culture, Inspiration, Learning
All things Allen Ginsberg

Calcutta Self Portrait with Peter Orlovsky, October 20, 1962 Photo by Allen Ginsberg
(c) The Estate of Allen Ginsberg

When I was a kid I wanted to be a beatnik when I grew up. I knew about beatniks because Life Magazine showed me pictures, pictures that frequently featured Allen Ginsberg. He wrote the poem Howl, which told me about the best minds of his generation, who "studied Plotinus Poe St. John of the Cross telepathy and bop kabbalah". He influenced Bob Dylan and Patti Smith, and he taught at Naropa University. And he was an outspoken voice for human rights, gay liberation, freedom of speech and ecology.

Now, thanks to this amazingly deep website I can continue to learn from and be inspired by him. There's current news and archival articles about his work, the many people with whom he worked, and his and their creative processes. Rich.

Website: The Allen Ginsberg Project

Graphic Design, Social Messaging
A new Global Poster Gallery at London Transport Museum in Covent Garden will celebrate the power of graphic art and design.

London Transport issued this poster in 1966. It promotes travel to the City's contemporary art galleries. The design, by the prolific artist Hans Unger, takes the form of a diagram charting avant-garde art movements. The colours and font make it instantly recognisable as a section of the Tube map.

"When Frank Pick, the first Chief Executive of London Transport, first took charge of the Underground’s publicity in 1908, he revolutionised poster design. Driven by his belief that good design enriches life, Pick injected new life into a previously conservative, text-based medium by commissioning pictorial posters.

"Pick believed that ‘There is room in posters for all styles’ and in the 1920s, he began to commission more adventurous posters. He went on to work with graphic designers influenced by radical and avant-garde art movements, such as futurism, cubism, and surrealism, conveying the modernity of the Underground. Many of the posters in this period had a strong art deco flavour.

"Over three decades, Pick cultivated an extensive network of talented artists and designers. This legacy established London Transport as a leading patron of the arts and brought the capital’s transport system critical and international acclaim for its graphic art and design." - London Transport Museum website

Website: New Global Poster Gallery Opening Soon

One-liners

Article: Brits most likely to say 'we don't live to work'.

Article: US bicycling trips have increased by more than a third since 2019.

Article: Research: Having books in your Zoom background makes you seem more trustworthy.

Article: 6 things Starbucks learned from its reusable cup experiments

Article: Studies find that patients have better outcomes with female surgeons.

Playlist

Video: The Breeders - Divine Hammer. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (9/7/2023)

My friend Carol Conragen bought me a t-shirt that says: "I may be old, but I got to see all the cool bands." She's right. On the short list is two bands that feature Kim Deal. I got to see her when she played bass with The Pixies, and I saw The Breeders, the band she leads with her twin sister Kelley Deal, when they opened for Nirvana's last North American tour.

While drug and alcohol issues forced that band into hiatus in 1994, throughout the late 90s and aughts various combos led by, Kim, and Kim and Kelley recorded and released albums as The Breeders. Then in 2013 the sisters announced that the "classic" line-up (including Josephine Wiggs on bass and vocals and Jim Macpherson on drums) had reunited to tour in celebration of the 20th anniversary of the band's hit album, Last Splash.

The classic Breeders have been together ever since. They are on tour now. Search and you'll find a lot of fan videos, including a number in which they are joined by Dave Grohl for a cover of the The Pixies "Gigantic". I can't help but notice that in every single frame the sisters Deal are smiling their asses off. Their unbridled joy is infectious. Rock music makes me feel so good.

Weekly Mixtape
I was 11 the year The Beatles came to America. Rock music was so new and it felt so good. Now rock music has been one of the soundtracks to my life and it feels better than ever.

Playlist: Happy Kid

Image of the Week
PEARL PAINT, CHINATOWN, 2014, JAMES AND CARLA MURRAY

"Pearl Paint opened its flagship store on Canal Street in NYC in 1933 & closed in April, 2014 after its 11.850 square foot building was listed for sale for $15 million dollars. Pearl Paint was very significant to New York artists because its location at the edge of SoHo helped to foster the area's transition from industrial warehouses to a vibrant artist community in the 1960s and 1970s. When SoHo became gentrified in the 1980s, forcing many artists to leave, Pearl Paint remained and artists continued to get their fine art supplies at the store." - James and Carla Murray

Instagram Page: James and Carla

Website: JAMES and KARLA MURRAY, ARCHITECTURAL & INTERIOR PHOTOGRAPHY

Most Recent Book: Store Front NYC

What's Love & Work?
Love & Work is the weekly newsletter by me, Mitch Anthony. I help people use their brand - their purpose, values, and stories - as a pedagogy and toolbox for transformation.
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You can learn more about me and my work here: mitchanthony.net

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