"Look at a day when you are supremely satisfied at the end. It's not a day when you lounge around doing nothing; it's a day you've had everything to do and you've done it."
- Margaret Thatcher
Up - Married Life
I found this experiment so moving.
Two strangers sit back to back having never met, and just talk.
Strangers Meet Without Seeing Each Other - Pure Impressions Episode 4
Two things jump out: the first is that removing the visual element - how someone looks - and only cueing off their voice makes the connection almost instant.
Second, the subtle changes in the wording of the questions change the quality of the responses.
They don’t ask each other - how are you? They ask - how are you, really?
What’s something I wouldn’t believe about you?
Tell me about your first love, and why you fell in love with them?
What is your biggest insecurity?
What is a song that reminds you of someone you love?
Kanye West Sunday Service - Easy On Me (for Virgil Abloh’s funeral)
I love good questions, and in Tyler Cowen’s new book Talent: How to Identify Energizers, Creatives, and Winners Around the World (reviewed well here) he and co-author Daniel Gross suggest a set of better questions to ask when identifying talent:
How did you spend your morning today?
What’s the farthest you’ve ever been from another human?
What’s something weird or unusual you did early on in life?
What’s a story one of your references might tell me when I call them?
How do you feel you are different from the people at your current company?
What views do you hold religiously, almost irrationally?”
How did you prepare for this interview?
What is something esoteric you do?
Did you feel appreciated at your last job? What was the biggest way in which you did not feel appreciated?”
What is one mainstream or consensus view that you wholeheartedly agree with?
How successful do you want to be
When have you experienced great regret in the workplace and why? How much were you at fault in that interaction?”
Related: In previous editions of Branches I’ve covered Cowen and Gross in depth here and here.
As you can see in the Post Malone clip above, Howard Stern is one of the best question askers in the world. He manages to take people to uncomfortable places by making them feel safe going there. He’s at his best when he’s talking with musicians, I think, because he admires them so much.
Related: Music of the Howard Stern Show - A Playlist
It is rare to discover new heroes late in life. But I discovered one last year - Jorn Utzon. Utzon is the architect of the Sydney Opera House, arguably the world’s most recognisable building, and inarguably a masterpiece.
Jorn Utzon: The Man and the Architect
Every time I visit Sydney, I find a way to get to the Opera House, and this past few months, I’ve had it all to myself on a torrentially rainy morning, seen Nils Frahm play there twice, seen it lit up with colour for the Vivid Festival, and spent the day there at TDM’s People & Culture conference.
I was even lucky enough to have lunch in the Utzon Room, the wall emblazoned with a 14 metre long, floor-to-ceiling, woollen tapestry that Utzon designed.
Every visit to the Opera House reveals some new perspective on the place.
Like Paul Keating said:
“Utzon’s building, like all great art, never weakens. No matter how often you see it or from what angle you look at it or in what light it is cast, it always hits you in the heart because it is simply so good.”
Recommended Reading:
Inside the making of the brilliant, moving first 10 minutes of Pixar’s ‘Up’
Dunbar’s number and how speaking is 2.8x better than picking fleas
THE ELEVEN LAWS OF SHOWRUNNING
The Art of Not Taking Things Personally
100 ways to slightly improve your life without really trying
SCHOPENHAUER'S 38 STRATAGEMS, OR 38 WAYS TO WIN AN ARGUMENT
The Six Forces That Fuel Friendship
103 Bits of Advice I Wish I Had Known
What is something you wish you had known sooner?
Benedict Cumberbach reads Nick Cave's letter about grief
In 2004, after a semester studying in Mexico, my whole family and I spent six weeks travelling the country end to end. In Oaxaca, we met a family from Portland, and their youngest son Harry told us about his love for freestyle rap.
When we travelled to the US later that year with stayed with Harry and his family, and to this day I still remember my amazement at his skill, even back then.
Harry’s a global YouTube star now, and watching his brain work in real-time is really something.
Harry Mack Freestyle
“Coach Lue came up to me. I think he could sense something was wrong. I blurted something like, “I’ll be right back,” and I ran back to the locker room. I was running from room to room, like I was looking for something I couldn’t find. Really I was just hoping my heart would stop racing. It was like my body was trying to say to me, You’re about to die. I ended up on the floor in the training room, lying on my back, trying to get enough air to breathe.”
Everyone Is Going Through Something - Kevin Love
Arcade Fire - As It Was (Harry Styles cover)
“Cynicism is not a neutral position — and although it asks almost nothing of us, it is highly infectious and unbelievably destructive. In my view, it is the most common and easy of evils.”
The Red Hand Files - Nick Cave
Fred again… - Actual Life 2 Piano Live (20 March 2022)
Whatever you think of Drake, understanding the source of all the influences on his new album is fascinating: A Brief History of the Club Music You’re Hearing Drake Attempt on Honestly, Nevermind.
Have you ever listened to Taylor Swift’s best song ‘All Too Well’? It’s really good. But start with ‘Taylor’s Version’, and not the 10 minute one.
The 1975’s last album ‘Notes on a Conditional Form’ was considered unwieldy (Pitchfork called it “a long, messy experiment”) but if you start it at ‘I Think There’s Something You Should Know’ and let it play through, it becomes just a great, 11-song album.
I’ve had it on repeat for months.