Merce & Russell & Gertrude & Clover & Tommie & Chaim

“His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.”
—James Joyce, The Dead, Dubliners

Last night was the first real snowfall of the season, a couple of inches of soft flakes awaiting us this morning. Birdy insisted on her full 2-mile walk; the snow erased her favorite pit-stops, so she had to improvise.

I re-read the final story of Dubliners each year when that first snow happens. It’s good to have traditions, even if you have to invent them yourself. (I also read, “When You’re Excused, You’re Excused,” by Bruce Jay Friedman on erev Yom Kippur.)

I wrote the last newsletter from the train to Baltimore, on my way to an FDA meeting in Silver Spring, MD. I stayed over in DC that night and went home on the 5am Acela. (I’d planned to go later in the morning, but got zero sleep for a variety of reasons, so I got up for good around 2:45 and decided to book the earliest train.)

I was staying for a holiday party held by the lobbying firm my trade association works with. It was at the National Portrait Gallery, which I’d never visited. It’s funny, but all of these DC trips of mine tend to involve meetings on the Hill and/or agency offices, then heading back to Union Station for a train home. If I do have free time, it’s at night and all the cultural stuff is closed.

This time, I got to see a couple of exhibits at the gallery as I was finding my way to the reception entrance, and later in the evening, after a neat conversation with the firm’s fixer, a 32-year FBI veteran, I saw a sign that the third floor exhibits were open for the party. Having already talked to all the healthcare practice folks and not knowing anyone else in the room, I hied upstairs to look at the 20th Century collection.

While I dug some of the portraits, like Merce and Russell above, a lot of them were pretty conventional, esp. the military figures. I engaged more with the sculptures.

Like this one, which reminded me of the wood-type in Rian Hughes’ foyer when I visited him in October.

And this haunting tribute to Henry Adams’ wife after her suicide —

which put me in mind of Préault’s Silence at the Art Institute of Chicago, a piece of art I found so inspiring.

I also dug this terra cotta of Gertrude Stein

while this tribute to Tommie Smith’s Black Power salute at the 1968 Olympics was bold AF.

But it’s when I saw this one by Chaim Gross —

that my life came into a new focus. I recorded with Chaim’s daughter, Mimi Gross, many years ago, and seeing this felt like passing an old friend on a city street.

It’s funny that it took my lobbying gig to put me in a position to see this piece and hear those echoes. The podcast has opened my life in so many weird and delightful ways, but it’s never all of the picture. Or sculpture, in this case.

Time to go shovel the driveway.

Birdy Of The Week

Birdy on Night’s Watch duty, keeping an eye out for snow-zombies. (Photo by Amy Roth.)

Earlier in the week, she helped me assemble the new bookcase:

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And now, let’s hit the links!

Links & Such

• Recent Virtual Memories Show podcasts: Morten Høi Jensen • Prue Shaw • Glenn Kurtz • Jennifer Hayden • Rian Hughes • Josh Neufeld • Dean Haspiel & Whitney Matheson

• RIP Jo Ann Allen Boyce . . . RIP Arthur L. Carter . . . RIP Peter Greene (yes, Zed’s dead) . . . RIP Martin Parr . . . RIP Rafael Ithier . . . RIP Fern Michaels . . . RIP Joanna Trollope . . . RIP Madeleine Wickham / Sophie Kinsella . . . RIP John Noble Wilford . . . RIP Jubilant Sykes . . . RIP Wenne Alton Davis . . . RIP Jeff Garcia . . . RIP Jerome Lowenstein . . . RIP Tom Hicks . . . RIP Angoulême 2026 . . .

• Former NBA player Jason Collins wrote about his experience getting diagnosed with stage 4 glioblastoma.

• AO Scott gets intimate with a Louise Glück poem.

• I attended a low-rider festival in San Antonio like 30 years ago, and am still astounded by the crazy shit I saw. This one is badass.

• The comedian Anthony Jeselnik reads a lot of books, and would like guys to read more.

• My very first train trip in Germany (Frankfurt to a client in Ravensburg) resulted in a missed connection in Ulm, leaving me to wander around for an hour for the next one. I had the cliche in my head that they were super-efficient, but apparently German trains are the worst (not the würst haha).

• I bet people taking Amtrak’s Mardi Gras route between Mobile and New Orleans aren’t too concerned about being on time.

• Ben Schwartz wrote about the bids to buy Warner Bros.

• “Love is a doing word.” It’s a different way of looking at my question of what change is, framed at considering oneself as a verb, not noun. In this case, it’s about how to reconcile oneself to mortality, but I’m open to interpretation.

• Some midcentury real estate action for you.

• Adam Moss has a new entry in his The Work of Art series, featuring Sasha Gordon.

• Good piece on late-career Russell Crowe by Matt Zoller-Seitz. (Hayley Campbell wrote a 2024 profile of Crowe that is a blast.)

• This piece on the moral injury suffered by military personnel who follow boat-strike orders in the Caribbean put me in mind of my conversation with Robert Meagher about his work in that field (that field = helping veterans cope with moral injury, not illegally blowing up boats and killing civilians).

Current/Recent Reading

Shadow Ticket - Thomas Pynchon

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay - Michael Chabon (I started it 20+ years ago, and for some reason was turned off by it, despite it being up many of my alleys, so I decided to give it another shot, because presumably It Was Me.)

+ the mourner’s Kaddish every morning

Sound Body, Fractured Mind

I missed Wednesday and Thursday weights/yoga because of travel, but am back on track now. That said, I’m heavier than I’ve ever been, so I need to cut back on the eating/snacking. Which I keep saying.

Didn’t meditate much, kept coming up with excuses not to give myself 15 minutes of un-self, but had a good session yesterday, so we’ll see if I can get back to that practice.

Until Next Time

Thanks for reading this far! I’ll back on Wednesday, with a new episode, no new Instax, but maybe some art. On Sunday I’ll be back with links, books, & workout craziness, & maybe a little profundity or something.

We’ll be driving through the mountains / In the cool and clearing air / With the sunlight on the ocean / And the diamonds in your hair / And as you’re falling asleep / I will sing you a lullaby,