Mingle-Thanks | Great Poem, you won't know | High drug prices | MeToo| Clear Lines festival | Jobs | Autism thoughts
Hi Arts - Investing - Personal/Autism
Thanks to all those who came to mingle. Thanks to Ed Spurr, at Marlborough Contemporary. Do go see the Tony Matelli exhibition showing.
Conversations lead to ideas, and who knows where those ideas go.
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A great book-length American poem, you’ve never heard. I took a look at one of the great works of American poetry, Testimony: The United States (1885-1915): Recitative. Charles Reznikoff created two unique works of poetic art of the 20th century. To my mind, these works are amongst the greatest by an American poet, yet he is hardly known.
Perhaps, this should be unsurprising. Most are unable to name the greatest living British (female) playwright, and very few can name an artistic director of a theatre, who is a also a person of colour.
“Drawing on actual US legal records between the years 1885 and 1915 (Reznikoff read “thousands” of such cases), the poem dispassionately, in a minimum of words, generally with all names and hence personality and individuality removed, records accident, injustice, disaster: Reznikoff’s great concern for man’s inhumanity to man, and for sheer ill-fortune, makes Testimony both a painful book to read and at the same time a profoundly moving assertion of human worth, dignity, nobility, and promise.”
Have a read, with a poem extract here. The extract is also notable that there is a poetic thread on the lives of black Americans running throughout the work. This makes the work the most significant on the black American experience by a white (modernist) poet – I do not know of another white poet to portray black America of that time in this un-adorned poetic fashion. (3 min read )
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MeToo: Business Edition. One learning from theatre and #MeToo is that telling your story, anon or publically, can be important part of the healing process for some. Vicky Featherstone lead some of that work for theatre, from the London based Royal Court Theatre. You can see the code arising here:
““You must take responsibility for the power you have. Do not abuse it over others more vulnerable than you. Think about what you want, why you want it, what you are doing to get and what impact it will have.”
In financial services, there has not (as far as I have seen) been the same process, The FT has a process on going now. If you think it would help you, I encourage you to speak out. I know people who have been helped by that process. The post on it is here.
Clear Lines Festival: Also, see details on the Clear Lines festival (details further below) Dec 1-3 in Shoreditch (Richmix), London , to talk about sexual assault and consent and where we are now.
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High drug pricing: I take a look at one component of drug pricing, while asking the question why are drug prices high? I examine the rates of R&D failure and a little bit of patent history, in this post here.
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Random Quick hits: Three or four cups of coffee a day do you more good than harm, a British Medical Journal study suggests. The only harmful associations are related to pregnancy and the risk of fractures for women. Authors warn that complexity means you shouldn't mistake correlation for causation though. Study here.
World still needs lots more toilets. I wasn't aware of world toilet day. I guess that's the point. (There's a day for everything seemingly) I learnt about 892 million people still defecate openly and 60% of world don’t have access to proper enclosed toilets. World health is improving, but still a way to go.
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Charles Reznikoff created two unique works of poetic art of the 20th century. To my mind, these works are amongst the greatest by an American poet, yet he is hardly known. (Have a read, with a poem extract here. The work is also notable as there is a poetic thread on the lives of black Americans running throughout the work. Unique for a modernist 'white' poet.
Expectations: ...we all have expectations for our children. Hopes and dreams. Great expectations, perhaps.
Then the little person comes along. Has not read any of the manuals. Life is reset.
At some point, I think I would have thought it unlikely I would see S on stage, performing actions somewhat enjoying himself. Shouting out some lines.
Yet, this week, that's what I did see. (2 min post, with classic SEN Poem)