Category storytelling

The Saturday Read – ‘All The Beauty In The World’ by Patrick Bringley

Eileen Kohan 1 Comment

One summer I worked in the restaurant at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. No, not one of those that exist today, but the Dorothy Draper designed open space with water, and muses, and gigantic lighting fixtures; furnished with wrought iron tables and chairs and situated at the south end of the building, in the Lamont Wing’s Roman courtyard. The enormity of the space required a hostess (me) to direct hungry museum-goers further south to a self-service cafeteria area. Once seated, waiters would bring beverages and clear the remains of lunch. 

We were members of ‘support staff’, contract labor, adjunct to the mission of The Met. But what a collection of unique experience and talent was hidden from view, behind the facade of a job description! 

It was the memory of that New York summer that drew me to Patrick Bringley’s new memoir, ‘All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me’. Change is a constant and so is beauty. Exhibits rotate, curators create new visual displays, and the museum for the most part, remains blind to the resumes of life experience serving within its marble walls.

Bringley changes the script a bit by sharing his own experience while introducing the reader to some of his colleagues in dark blue suits – keeping the art safe by day, engaging in their individual creative outlets once they leave the building.

We’re all more than our job description. Some folks will never get that. Patrick did.

In the fall of 2008, Patrick Bringley added ‘museum guard’ to his resume, after a stint at The New Yorker “… in a small, somewhat glamourous department that produced the magazine’s public events…”

Like many recent college grads, “… more than a bit blinded by the bright lights…”, he anticipated great success within the culture of an iconic institution. “But it’s very hard, when you’re in a good light – “where did you say you work? The New Yorker?!” – to accept that it isn’t you: it’s just light.”

It’s the insight we get when we take time to reflect on those first career choices: 

“I don’t know exactly what I expected upon entering “the real world” after college, but I expected that it would feel real.”

Life events intervene. “I applied for the most straight-forward job I could think of in the most beautiful place I knew. This time I arrive at the Met with no thought of moving forward.”

The book is a workplace memoir, a meditation on beauty and an insider’s tour of one of the world’s most famous places. 

It’s a personal reflection on career, identity and finding community where you may least expect it. For me, this book is a recognition that each career choice is an overlay of the one before, fitting for the moment.  “Not so long ago, I had a very different sort of job, one where they told me I was “going places” … I find myself happy to be going nowhere.”

And it’s a book about working in a place of beauty. “I have spent my hours absorbing art, but what if instead I actively wrestle with it, trying to bring all different aspects of myself to bear on the questions it raises? It seems to me that this is a worthy mission for anybody entering an art museum. After we quiet our thinking mind to experience art, we will want to switch it back on, reassert ourselves, and in that way learn even more.”

After a decade at the museum, it’s time for a new career choice. “I don’t have a simple purpose anymore, as I did when I came to the museum. Instead I have a life to lead.”

Lucky for the reader, one of his choices was to write his memoir. 

And, about that ‘water feature’ in the middle of the restaurant in the Lamont Wing… the muses are now out of the darkness, in the sunshine.

“At the center of the pool was a work commissioned by the Museum from the Swedish-born sculptor Carl Milles, titled The Fountain of the Muses, which now resides with Brookgreen Gardens—a sculpture garden and wildlife preserve located in Murrells Inlet, South Carolina.”

The Friday Poem – ‘For the young who want to’ by Marge Piercy

Eileen Kohan Leave a comment

When I started ‘work thoughts’ in 2015, I included a poem each Friday to allow the reader to step away from their daily workplace and gain a perspective of work through the words of various artists. To my surprise, looking back, the most searched topic on this site has been the poetry.

Sales for books of poetry have been increasing since 2019, with the majority of purchases in the ‘under-34’ demographic. “Poetry experts say that the pandemic, along with the social unrest the country has been experiencing, could have something to do with it..”

“We’ve been reminded during this time that poetry is an art form that people turn to in times of crisis for comfort and courage… “

Jennifer Benka, president and executive director of the Academy of American Poets

The selection this week is a reflection on work and recognition. Poet Marge Piercy (the first ‘Friday Poet’ considers her own profession as a writer, while offering advice ‘For the young who want to’. Her thoughts are equally relevant to each of us following our own unique calling.

For the young who want to

Talent is what they say
you have after the novel
is published and favorably
reviewed. Beforehand what
you have is a tedious
delusion, a hobby like knitting.

Work is what you have done
after the play is produced
and the audience claps.
Before that friends keep asking
when you are planning to go
out and get a job.

Genius is what they know you
had after the third volume
of remarkable poems. Earlier
they accuse you of withdrawing,
ask why you don’t have a baby,
call you a bum.

The reason why people want M.F.A.’s,
take workshops with fancy names
when all you can really
learn is a few techniques,
typing instructions and some-
body else’s mannerisms

is that every artist lacks
a license to hang on the wall
like your optician, your vet
proving you may be a clumsy sadist
whose fillings fall into the stew
but you’re certified a dentist.

The real writer is one
who really writes. Talent
is an invention like phlogiston
after the fact of fire.
Work is its own cure. You have to
like it better than being loved.

Marge Piercy, ‘Circles on the Water: Selected Poems’  (NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982)

Photo credit: BillMoyers.com ‘Sounds of Poetry’ 1999

The Future is NOT One Thing

Eileen Kohan Leave a comment

Did the pandemic cause us to think differently about work? Did the constant reminder of our mortality in the sound of sirens and breaking news alerts, stop us in our career tracks? Has a ‘great reflection’ occurred to prompt the ‘great resignation’? 

“I think of all the people playing roles, getting further and further away from themselves, from what moves them, what stirs them all up inside.”  Lily King, ‘Writers and Lovers: A Novel’                                          

Have we stepped back, recalculated and narrowed the gap between who we are at work and who we are? 

How do we even do that?

I think the first step is to recognize that we have a choice – at every career ‘hinge-point’ – we can choose. 

And it’s not one decision. Choosing a major in college doesn’t determine your life path. An internship isn’t a lifetime commitment. The first job is just that. 

‘Try to do the work that brings out the best in you. I say this to my university students: You are at university to understand your gifts and what you love to do. If you are lucky, they will be the same thing. If not, let’s talk and see if we can increase the overlap. If you relish your work, you will not have a disappointing career. When failure comes, and they come to everyone, you will have loved the work itself.” Sherry Turkle, ‘The Empathy Diaries’ 

‘If you relish your work, you will not have a disappointing career.” It’s the curiosity thing. The question that you leave at the end of the day, that compels you to get up the following morning. It’s the energy of colleagues who encourage and challenge. It’s being in a place where you can succeed. It’s discovering your gifts as you actively engage with all aspects of your workplace. It’s about sharing those gifts as you put your experience to work.

“That’s what I hope students in MFA programs now can understand – the future is not one thing. So many possibilities can arise as a result of intelligence, education, curiosity, and hard work. No one ever told me that, and I’m sorry it took this long for me to figure it out… My MFA showed me the importance of community. We are social creatures. Even the introverted readers, the silent writers, want a place where they feel welcomed and understood. I had wanted that once, and now I can give it to others. That’s how I’ve wound up putting my degree to work. That’s how I discovered that my truest destiny was I thing I never saw coming.” Ann Patchett, ‘These Precious Days: Essays’

That other thing we learned in the pandemic- we are much better humans as part of a community – face to face. 

As we emerge from our bubbles and begin to connect, we will rediscover how who we are at work can meld with who we are. It really does take a village and in building ours anew, we may discover our destiny is the thing we never saw coming.

“Becoming open again to the generosity of others offers a fresh way to see the world. Small kindnesses from friends and strangers suddenly feel outsize in their humanity.”  Sarah Wildman, ‘Self-Sufficiency Is Overrated’

The future is not one thing. (And, we are not alone.)

The Saturday Read: ‘Manifesto’ by Bernardine Evaristo

Eileen Kohan Leave a comment

“I was never prepared to settle for less than I desired.”

I sometimes think our investment in professional development is better made on novels and memoirs vs. management guides. If you agree, head to your local independent bookstore for a copy of author Bernardine Evaristo’s ‘Manifesto’. (You may add an underlining marker to your purchase as well – take notes!) This memoir by the Booker Prize winning author follows her life and career trajectory and in doing so, describes influences, struggles, priorities, commitment, and the value of life-long learning.

She begins with a question: “Most people in the arts have role models –writers, artists, creatives – who have inspired them, but what are the other elements that lay the foundation for our creativity and steer the direction of our careers?”

How do you find a path to success when you don’t have access to the resources of the elite? How do you move beyond “My school didn’t inspire me to greatness… Nobody encouraged us to think big and make our dreams come true.”?  

In seven chapters, Ms. Evaristo details the evolution of her work ethic, commitment to craft and determination to mentor those who follow. Her story is a lived example of the value and responsibility of experience. Her narrative is relevant because each reader will find a point of connection in following the writer’s journey. 

“… we all learn, eventually that life demands a lot more from us than the ability to get good grades. Combating struggle and disappointment early on in life can instill a strength and determination we would not otherwise possess… Life presents us with obstacles. It’s never a completely smooth ride for anyone, and while nobody wants to struggle, it’s the only way to build resilience.”

And we don’t stop learning. “My goal, as always, is to continue to write stories and to develop my skills. There is no point of arrival whereby one stops growing as a creative person; to think otherwise will lead to creative repetition and stagnation.”

We read memoirs because we are curious. At the center, who is this person?

“I am first and foremost a writer; the written word is how I process everything – myself, life, society, history, politics. It’s not just a job or a passion, but it is at the very heart of how I exist in the world, and I am addicted to the adventure of storytelling as my most powerful means of communication.”

But that’s only part of the story. In her book review for NPR, writer Hope Wabuke described the ‘real world’ impact of Ms. Evaristo’s commitment and influence. “Evaristo’s work in supporting inclusivity in the literary arts is legend. It includes the commission of a Free Verse report, which found that less than 1% of poetry books in the United Kingdom were published by poets of color, and then creating a mentorship program, The Complete Works, to do something about it; this program mentored 30 poets over two years. Evaristo’s advocacy work also created the Brunel Poetry Prize for African writers, the first and largest award of its kind, and led her to work alongside Kwame Dawes in situating the African Poetry Book Fund as a force that has changed the shape of contemporary publishing. Most recently, as the curator of Black Britain: Writing Black, Evaristo is republishing overlooked books by Black authors such as Minty Alley, by C.L.R James originally published in 1936.”

‘Manifesto’ is one more creative endeavor for Ms. Evaristo to share her wisdom. Not all influences are one-on-one connections. Sometimes we find direction in a book. 

“We must pass on what we know to the next generation, & express gratitude to those who help us – nobody gets anywhere on their own.”

Learn more:

Bernardine Evaristo books – https://bevaristo.com/books/

Black Britain: Writing Back – https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/jan/09/booker-winners-mission-to-put-uks-forgotten-black-writers-back-in-print

Brunel African Poetry Prize – https://www.africanpoetryprize.org

An aside: I picked up two new applicable concepts: “period of self-calibration” (which we can all use about now) and “to bounce back in the act of falling.” (advice to her students to continue to be positive) 

The Friday Poem: ‘There are no boring people in this world’ by Yevgeny Yevtushenko

Eileen Kohan Leave a comment

“There are no boring people in this world.

Each fate is like the history of a planet.”

As a society we are exceptional at memorializing celebrity. Yet as a nation, we have yet to have a day of mourning for the casualties of the pandemic: 896,183. 

“… it isn’t people but whole worlds that perish.”

These words were written by poet Yevgeney Yevtushenko, and translated by Boris Dralyuk. This version appeared in The Guardian in 2017, a few weeks after the poet’s death.

“I write poetry, prose, and everything I do, I do on the principle of Russian borscht. You can throw everything into it — beets, carrots, cabbage, onions, everything you want. What’s important is the result, the taste of the borscht.”

‘There are no boring people in this world.’

There are no boring people in this world.
Each fate is like the history of a planet.
And no two planets are alike at all.
Each is distinct – you simply can’t compare it.

If someone lived without attracting notice
and made a friend of their obscurity –
then their uniqueness was precisely this.
Their very plainness made them interesting.

Each person has a world that’s all their own.
Each of those worlds must have its finest moment
and each must have its hour of bitter torment –
and yet, to us, both hours remain unknown.

When people die, they do not die alone.
They die along with their first kiss, first combat.
They take away their first day in the snow …
All gone, all gone – there’s just no way to stop it.

There may be much that’s fated to remain,
but something – something leaves us all the same.
The rules are cruel, the game nightmarish –
it isn’t people but whole worlds that perish.

The Guardian 5/6/17

And the final stanza, omitted in The Guardian, translated by Jennifer Croft and Boris Dralyuk.

People die. Their deaths can’t be reversed.
Their secret worlds won’t be traversed
again. And all that’s ever left for me to do
is cry, How can we lose you, too?

That is our question to answer. How can we lose another whole world without notice?

Photo credit: ‘In America: Remember’ installation William Atkins GW Today 9/28/21

Photo credit: Yevgeny Yevtushenko Brandi Simmons for The New York Times

Just the beginning…

Eileen Kohan 2 Comments

So, the virus went viral, and nothing may ever be the same – job offers on hold, online classes the new norm, home the new workplace.

You may hear comparisons to 2008 or the dot com bubble of 2001 – 2002. There’s no comparison. We’re all pioneers in this new reality of social/physical distancing.

What to do?

First, reach out to the resources available to you through your network. There are a lot of unknowns. But you can only plan around the things you can control.

Second, go for a walk. We can still do that – at a six-foot distance.

Third, add something new to your day that connects you to others (with six-foot spacing). For me, that means joining a virtual book discussion of War and Peace: #TolstoyTogether. Writer Yiyun Li in partnership with @APublicSpace is reading 12 pages a day. (Just started – anyone can join). Robert Macfarlane (Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge) is also leading a global Twitter Reading Group, #CoReadingVirus, discussing ‘The Living Mountain’.

Fourth, contingency plan. #1 plan – the ideal job, #2 plan – other ways to gain experience in the same field, from a different angle, #3 plan – ways to have income, while seeking a permanent position.

It’s ok to be a bit scared. But to quote Swedish director Ingmar Bergman, “The demons hate it when you get out of bed. Demons hate fresh air.”

The Friday Poem ‘Of History and Hope by Miller Williams

Eileen Kohan Leave a comment

For the first ‘Friday Poem’ of 2019, I’ve gone back into the Workthoughts archives to reprise Miller Williams‘ poem ‘Of History and Hope’ delivered at the Inauguration of William Jefferson Clinton in 1997.

The Washington Post obituary for professor Williams, who died on New Years Day in 2015, included an excerpt of an interview with the Oxford American magazine. In the interview the poet shared the intent behind the words.

“…he wanted the poem to be a “consideration of how a look at a nation’s past might help determine where it could be led in the future.

“I knew that the poem would be listened to by a great many people, reprinted around the country, and discussed in a lot of classrooms, so I wanted it to be true, understandable, and agreeable…”

The words of the poet, recited from the steps of the U.S. Capitol building, 22 years ago, speak to us in this current place that is American, 2019.

“We mean to be the people we meant to be,
to keep on going where we meant to go.”

Of History and Hope

We have memorized America,
how it was born and who we have been and where.
In ceremonies and silence we say the words,
telling the stories, singing the old songs.
We like the places they take us. Mostly we do.
The great and all the anonymous dead are there.
We know the sound of all the sounds we brought.
The rich taste of it is on our tongues.
But where are we going to be, and why, and who?
The disenfranchised dead want to know.
We mean to be the people we meant to be,
to keep on going where we meant to go.

But how do we fashion the future? Who can say how
except in the minds of those who will call it Now?
The children. The children. And how does our garden grow?
With waving hands—oh, rarely in a row—
and flowering faces. And brambles, that we can no longer allow.

Who were many people coming together
cannot become one people falling apart.
Who dreamed for every child an even chance
cannot let luck alone turn doorknobs or not.
Whose law was never so much of the hand as the head
cannot let chaos make its way to the heart.
Who have seen learning struggle from teacher to child
cannot let ignorance spread itself like rot.
We know what we have done and what we have said,
and how we have grown, degree by slow degree,
believing ourselves toward all we have tried to become—
just and compassionate, equal, able, and free.

All this in the hands of children, eyes already set
on a land we never can visit—it isn’t there yet—
but looking through their eyes, we can see
what our long gift to them may come to be.
If we can truly remember, they will not forget.

Miller Williams  ‘Some Jazz A While: Collected Poems’  1999



The Friday Poem ‘August’ by Helen Hunt Jackson

Eileen Kohan Leave a comment
The Friday Poem this week is ‘August’ by Helen Hunt Jackson. The poem was published in the August 1876 issue of The Atlantic. Ms. Jackson was a poet, historian, author and childhood friend of Emily Dickinson. As an activist, she would go on champion the rights of Native Americans.”

In 1884 she published ‘Ramona’, a fictionalized account of the plight of Southern California’s dispossessed Mission Indians, inspired by Harriet Beecher Stowe’s ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’.

The Friday Poem – because we all “Hath need of pause and interval of peace.”

 August

Silence again. The glorious symphony
Hath need of pause and interval of peace.
Some subtle signal bids all sweet sounds cease,
Save hum of insects’ aimless industry.
Pathetic, summer seeks by blazonry
Of color to conceal her swift decrease.
Weak subterfuge! Each mocking day doth fleece
A blossom and lay bare her poverty.
Poor, middle-agèd summer! Vain this show!
Whole fields of golden-rod cannot offset
One meadow with a single violet;
And well the singing thrush and lily know,
Spite of all artifice which her regret
Can deck in splendid guise, their time to go!

H.H. 

Reprinted from The Atlantic, August 1876

 

helenhuntjackson
Image: William S. Jackson, Special Collections, Tutt Library, Colorado College

‘Not in the job description’

Eileen Kohan Leave a comment

How many times have you heard that those who succeed ascribe their advancement to going beyond the parameters of their job description? What does that mean?

In some cases it might be asking for additional responsibility or supplementary assignments. But if we step back from a particular job, maybe it’s about being prepared for the bigger picture of your career. It’s the curiosity/lifelong learning thing that connects the dots as you progress as a professional. It’s recognizing a painting in a new client’s office and beginning a conversation, not based on a sale, but a shared interest.

It’s about being multidimensional.

To help on this aspect of professional development, we add a new category this week to ‘workthoughts’ – ‘Not in the Job Description’.

To begin, we follow the advice of The New York Times’ chief classical music critic, Anthony Tommasini. ‘Curious About Classical Music? Here’s Where To Start.’

“Over my many years of reviewing, I’ve often been asked for advice from newcomers to classical music, people excited by what they’ve heard, and eager to hear — and to learn — more.

Naturally, I urge those exploring classical music to find out whatever they can. Yet I’ve found that many people assume that knowledge of the art form is a prerequisite to appreciation. Newcomers to other performing arts, like theater or dance, don’t seem to feel this level of intimidation. I’d encourage those who are curious to just go to a performance and see what they think. A symphony orchestra program — or an opera, or a piano recital — is not an exam. It’s an escape, an adventure, an enrichment.”

Just to emphasize his point. When adding a new dimension to your portfolio think of it as “an escape, an adventure, an enrichment”.

Mr. Tommasini goes on to answer questions in his article, including his definition of ‘classical music’.

“Labels can be problematic in any field; “classical music” especially so. One complication is that music history refers to the years from roughly 1750 to 1825 as the “classical” period, when Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven achieved their glory. But in a broader sense the term classical music has been adopted as a way to describe the continuing heritage of music mostly written to be performed in concert halls and opera houses by orchestras, singers, choruses, chamber ensembles and solo instrumentalists. Another characteristic is that composers in this tradition have been drawn to larger, structured forms. Still, the term is far from ideal, but no one has come up with a good alternative — yet.”

The article includes links to sample recordings to get you started, including clips of Maria Callas’ 1953 performance as Tosca at Teatro alla Scala in Milan.

LaScala.jpg

In addition to following the dots presented by Mr. Tommasini, add a visit to an opera house or concert hall the next time you are planning a trip out of town or out of the country. Identify reviewers and critics that seem to match your tastes and follow them on social media. You will be amazed and delighted as you trace the links connecting the variety of performance.

Where will you begin your new adventure – ‘not in the job description’?

 

 

 

 

 

 

#TBT – Revisiting Neil Armstrong’s Commencement Address to the USC Class of 2005

Eileen Kohan Leave a comment

“Society’s future will depend on a continuous improvement program on the human character.”

It’s Commencement Season. The famous and wise will helicopter onto college campuses to share soundbites of wisdom and humor with the Class of 2018. Some speeches will be memorable, others immediately forgotten. It’s rare when an address can transcend the emotion of the day; when the speaker has been to the moon and back.

Thirteen years ago, Neil Armstrong, the American astronaut and first person to walk on the moon, addressed the graduating Class of 2005 at the University of Southern California. The man who announced to the world, on a July afternoon in 1969, “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.” never mentioned his achievement.

The day was about the graduates. Not about the man who walked on the moon.

But even the youngest family member in attendance knew who was speaking. A little boy climbed up a grassy hill behind a giant screen projecting the event. He hadn’t come to watch TV, but to see the astronaut for himself, in person. This was his connection to dreams beyond. “Mommy, that’s the man who walked on the moon.”

Can you imagine your life defined by one historical, ‘out of this world’ event?

There are few things today that take our breath away. We’ve forgotten the mysteries of space travel as we contemplate only the familiar. We go about our work day as a space station circles above, with no thought of the explorers at work outside our atmosphere.

On May 13, 2005, the parents, graduates, faculty and staff shared an historic moment with a legend. And the legend expressed his doubts about his ability to give advice.

“I feel a sense of discomfort in that responsibility as it requires more confidence than I possess to assume that my personal convictions deserve your attention.”

He encouraged the graduates to “appreciate the elegance of simplicity” and continued his address following his own advice.

“The single observation I would offer for your consideration is that some things are beyond your control. You can lose your health to illness or accident, you can lose your wealth to all manner of unpredictable sources.

What is not easily stolen from you without your cooperation is your principles and your values. They are your most precious possessions and, if carefully selected and nurtured, will well serve you and your fellow man.

Society’s future will depend on a continuous improvement program on the human character. What will the future bring? I don’t know, but it will be exciting.”

His challenge to us all is to lead a life of continuous learning and continuous improvement, even after you have achieved your ‘signature’ career experience.