BITS AND PIECES

Doctor, professor and writer Atul Gawande explores the benefits of coaching in the professional world in this week’s The New Yorker. Listen to him talk with Neal Conan on Talk of the Nation about the article and the ways coaching can enhance performance throughout a career. Read the article here.

Marc Maron has a great job. He talks to comedians in his garage about their careers and what inspires them. Comics share their stories and comedy lore. Who knew that Jonathon Winters and Dick Van Dyke regularly visited an elderly Stan Laurel in his tiny apartment to listen to him talk about the golden age of silent movies and vaudeville?  Maron’s guests have included Richard Lewis, Sandra Bernhard, Louis CK, Amy Poehler and Ken Jeong. Get the WTF podcast here.

Hard Work, Deep Focus and Persistence

From planting over 35 million trees in Kenya to teaching really tall teenagers how to win basketball games (10 NCAA titles), there are opportunities to achieve incredible success in almost any walk of life. Wangari Maathai did it with the Green Belt Movement and John Wooden did it as coach of the UCLA Men’s Basketball team.  

Taking Root: The Vision of Wangari Maathai

John Wooden on True Success



Music and Television: My Favorite Band is a Work of Fiction

The band I want to listen to everyday only exists in the fictional New Orleans of the HBO show ‘Treme.’ Antoine Batiste and His Soul Apostles bring the funk to every soul who craves it. When Ms. Wanda Rouzan, a goddess of New Orleans R&B joins the band, they cannot be touched by any band, even one in the real world.

Anotine Batiste and His Soul Apostles, Slip Away

Artist at Work: Mickalene Thomas

Mickalene Thomas is an artist who re-orients the perspective of the nude portrait.  In her work, the scene is depicted from the model’s point of view; she watches the viewer watching her. The model  is a dark skinned black woman. She exudes self –awareness. This is not the traditional nude. As Jon Berger notes in Ways of Seeing, “The nude is to be seen naked by others and yet not recognized for one ’s self. A nude has to be seen as an object in order to be a nude.”

Thomas also incorporate rhinestones in her portraits, a modern touch dramatizing the way women enhance themselves.

Watch Mickalene Thomas talk about her process.

More about Mickalene:

Mickalene Thomas

http://mickalenethomas.com/index.html

Lehmann Maupin Gallery: Mickalene Thomas

http://www.lehmannmaupin.com/#/artists/mickalene-thomas/

In the Studio: Mickalene Thomas

http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/30446/mickalene-thomas/

Music: Vicente Fernandez

Vicente Fernandez is a disciple of love. He is consumed by its nuances and extremes. He sings of joyous exuberant love and of the torrent of pain and misery experienced by a lover betrayed. For those damned by jealousy or carrying the weight of unrequited love, Mr. Fernandez knows your heart. In his world love will prevail. There is no alternative.

 Here are three songs of love by Vicente Fernandez.

Volver, Volver

Miedo

El Ultimo Beso

Frida and Josephine

This photograph is intriguing and inspirational. Does it document their first meeting? What did they talk about? Where was the picture taken? Mexico City? Paris? New York?

Josephine Baker and Frida Kahlo were uniquely 20^th Century creations; artists and muses who were capable of taking advantage of the historical events of their time to be their true selves. The Great Migration and Paris between the world wars shaped Ms. Baker. Ms. Kahlo thrived in the freedoms provided to artists and middle class women by the Mexican Revolution.  

What can we make of ourselves today? Can we be as bold as Frida and Josephine?