News & Notes
The Stedman whirlybirds
Forgive the sloppy metaphor, but sometimes I think of my time in Paris as being a flowering maple tree and all those exceptional people I met eventually whirlybirded away just like those magical maple keys. Now, more than a decade later, some of those seeds have struck fertile soil and have become impressive trees of their own.
Feeling Dull
The other night, I had one of those shocking collisions between Past Me and Present Me. I wasn’t sleeping well, anxious over how I was going to get my daughter a place in the local international school. So, in those murky hours I ended up on the Internet where I followed a link to a link to a link to a video of Kathleen Edwards performing on The David Letterman Show.
This Knowledge Almost Killed Him
Mark MacKinnon has braved many things in his career as an international journalist, but screw the Israeli helicopters and Japanese radiation poisoning: I bet the greatest threat to his life has been the air in Beijing. Seriously, the guy can barely breathe there.
Genese
I already have the pleasure of teaching at one of the most spectacular university campuses in the world: Aix-Marseille Université, Luminy, which is nestled among the limestone cliffs of the Calanques. If the natural splendor isn’t enough, a brilliant fountain sculpture is about to be installed at the heart of the campus … and it’s by my friend Pierre Luu ! You can see a video of its creation after the jump.
Grit is Good
My latest piece for Ode Magazine (now The Intelligent Optimist) is about the role persistence plays in our lives. Did you know that persistence is a better indicator of success than IQ? And that you can build your neural persistence pathways to make it easier to persist in the future? Seriously, this is heady and uplifting stuff. Continue reading →
Craig Walzer TEDxs it up
A joyful, engaging, funny, rambling, heartfelt tribute to the world’s most beautiful bookstore and the art and lies of bookselling. Continue reading →
