Author: Haven Pell
I am a big fan of imagination even if I am clueless about the subject. Seeing others do things that are wildly beyond my skillset makes me wonder how they did it or, if that is also beyond me, at least why. Imagination is ephemeral because, once something has been done a few times, it […]
The other day (well, that’s a lie right there; it was in 2005 when I wrote this), I walked out of the East Court in the New York Racquet Club and took a seat in the anteroom to recover. I don’t know whether I had won or lost but, given the venue and the quality […]
There is a good chance we will get to peak email before we get to peak exposure to the coronavirus. People might go stir crazy after too much time sheltered in place, but they might also become homicidal toward those who overuse the send button. Here are a few thoughts that have been on my […]
Thoughtful and well behaved though we ourselves might be, it appears that some might not be staying home in sufficient numbers. There seem to be some pretty broad definitions of “essential” in the phrase essential purposes. John Branch of the New York Times provided the launch pad for a podcast discussion of isolation practices between […]
“Make yourself useful” is one of those family phrases that has taken on a life of its own. I can’t even remember how it began for us. My father sarcastically reversed a well-known adage into “don’t just do something, stand there.” It was especially memorable when shouted at fellow motorists. There are many people having […]
Epidemiologist is the kind of word that makes you grateful for spellcheck. I haven’t gotten it right yet. As it happens, I know one with a PhD and everything. If you had known him when you and he were teenagers and college students, you would not have expected the enormous contributions he has made to […]
Trigger warning: this story is quite judgmental. It is especially harsh because politicians are supposed to be good at managing their images. Yet sometimes they seem uniquely bad at an important skill in their line of work. They are also supposed to be leaders, especially when times are tough. A small part of what we […]
Frazer Rice and I have been recording these podcasts for several months now and we think we have learned a few things along the way. Well, at least we sure hope so. We think beginning with an article and building our conversation from there works best. In today’s case, the launching pad was a story […]
Years ago, Robert C. Townsend, once Chairman and President of Avis, wrote a book called Up the Organization: How to Stop the Corporation from Stifling People and Strangling Profits. There were probably lots of memorable lines in the book, but one has stuck in my mind for several decades. He said that the way to […]