Endless Knots

5769

One beauty of humanity is our ability to celebrate the New Year in just about every month of the year. In a few hours, the year 5769 begins according to the Jewish calendar and we'll be celebrating with our beloved family and friends. Even if you're not Jewish, please join us in raising a toast tonight to new beginnings and in giving thanks for the joys of the past one. For me, I'm grateful for spending time with the people I love most, especially the immense amount of time I've been able to hang out with our children particularly in the past few months, for the new friends I've made both personally and through my work, for being able to speak honestly even when it's been uncomfortable, and for having the time to write, garden, and do yoga, three gifts that make me very happy.

None of us can ignore how difficult this year has been, and, especially, how scary things are right now. I have a dear friend who may lose her house, another who will be deployed to Iraq in a few weeks, another whom we were lucky to visit with today who just lost her husband, and another who is quite ill. I know all reading here can add to this list. What can we do? We can remember to always say "I love you," be more forgiving moment by moment, and tell jokes. I wish I had one at the ready but, sentimental me, I'm in the teary space.

I leave you for the next day or so with a few snapshots from the opening of Building Steam, where our daughter, Eliza, showed a new piece that caused more than a few wows. When we have a really good shot of the drawing, I'll post that. Meanwhile, here are a few shots that show its detail and in the last photo, one that shows its size with the artist and her father.

 

Building Steam curated by Mike Homer

For those close to Lafayette College in Easton, Penna., don't miss "Building Steam," an exhibition of "emerging New York artists," curated by Mike Homer, a 2000 art graduate of the college. A reception takes place Sunday, Sept 28 from 3-5 PM at the Grossman Gallery of the Williams Visual Arts Building. The show runs through Oct 18.

From the press release:

“Participating artists investigate ideas of urbanization, social or scientific systems, repetition, and accumulation,” says Homer. “Although the work may vary drastically in its appearance, the binding thread is an interest in how a seemingly random system can have order and how that order evolves from the complex process of art making.”

Homer has worked as a gallery assistant at Howard Scott Gallery in New York City; assistant to the director at Peter Blum Gallery Chelsea in New York City; and is currently dealer’s assistant to the president at PaceWildenstein gallery in New York City. In 2006, he curated Real Property, at Gallery on Dean, Brooklyn, N.Y., and in 2005, Hey Moxie at the 210 Gallery in New York City.

Homer was also part of the 2000 Men's Basketball team, which won the Patriot League Championship and was the first Lafayette team in more than 40 years to receive a bid to the NCAA Tournament.

Disclosure: One of the fine artists in this show is Eliza Stamps, known here as Daughter #2, whose work also appeared in Homer's show Real Property in 2006. Mike Homer, a fine artist himself (we're lucky to have one of his portraits), is a close friend of our family.

Other artists in the exhibit: Benjamin Butler, Jose Luis Cortes, Peter Garfield, Anna Von Mertens, Ryan Mrowzowski, Rosemarie Padovano, Duke Riley, Kako Ueda, Joy Whalen, and Will Yackulic.

Signs of stroke: stick out your tongue

I just received this information from my friend, the poet Lea Banks. As my own mother's productive life ended with a massive stroke - and a number of friends have had to endure them - I'm posting this info as per Lea's request.

As a stroke survivor, I will continue to forward this every time it comes around! Thanks for taking the time to read this and taking the time to care. . .Lea

STROKE: Remember The First Three Letters. . .S.T.R.

STROKE IDENTIFICATION: 

During a BBQ, a friend stumbled and took a little fall but she assured everyone that she was fine (they offered to call paramedics). She said she had just tripped over a brick because of her new shoes. 

They got her cleaned up and got her a new plate of food. While she appeared a bit shaken up, my friend went about enjoying herself for the rest of the evening. 

Regrettably, my friend's husband called later telling everyone that his wife had been taken to the hospital and had almost died. She had suffered a stroke at the BBQ. Had they known how to identify the signs of a stroke, perhaps she would be with us today. Some don't die, however - they end up in a helpless, hopeless condition instead.

It only takes a minute to read this...

A neurologist says that if he can get to a stroke victim within 3 hours he can totally reverse the effects of a stroke. . . totally. He said the trick was getting a stroke recognized, diagnosed, and then getting the patient medically cared for within 3 hours, which is tough.

RECOGNIZING A STROKE  ~~~~ THREE steps, STR. Read and Learn!

Sometimes symptoms of a stroke are difficult to identify. Unfortunately, the lack of awareness spells disaster. The stroke victim may suffer severe brain damage when people nearby fail to recognize the symptoms of a stroke .

Now doctors say a bystander can recognize a stroke by asking three simple questions:

S  ~  Ask the individual to SMILE.   
T  ~  Ask the person to TALK and SPEAK A SIMPLE SENTENCE
        (Coherently, i.e. "It is sunny out today")
R ~  Ask him or her to RAISE BOTH ARMS.

If he or she has trouble with ANY one of these tasks, call 911 immediately and describe the symptoms to the dispatcher. 

                                    New Sign of a Stroke -------  Stick Out Your Tongue

Another way to recognize the signs of a stroke is this: Ask the person to stick out his/her tongue. If the tongue is “crooked,” if it goes to one side or the other, that is also a very good indication of a stroke. 

Please join me in following neurologists' and the cardiologists' plea in forwarding this e-mail. You can bet that at least one life will be saved.

I just gotta ask

I've been voting in presidential elections since email was invented and, jeez, louise, I have never received so many forwards as this year. Is everyone else experiencing the same thing? This is the most emotional election I can recall, with friends and family who barely blink at such things, completely on fire. Even friends abroad are all up on things. True for you too?

Close but never touching

How close can you be to someone without any face-to-face contact? Pretty darn close. I'd wager that everyone reading here has had moments of pure love for someone they only know online. The stories are legion and yesterday's post, "Building Social Relationships in Virtual Teams," from Surinder Kahai over at Leading Virtually, tells yet another touching tale of a virtual community swinging into action when one of its own faced extreme trauma. So extensive was the outpouring for a blogger that The New York Times covered it: "After Blogger's Plane Crash, Virtual Becomes Personal."

I have my own stories to tell in this regard, of course, and the study we did some years ago with Ann Majchrzak and Arvind Malhotra--"Can Absence Make a Team Grow Stronger?"--that appeared in Harvard Business Review produced data supporting the belief that face-to-face is not necessary to team success. Preferable, perhaps, more human and fuzzy-wuzzy, absolutely...but alas not required.

Here are the four points Surinder makes in his post, all of which speak to our putting more effort than ever into the human dimension, i.e. better to spend time connecting to people than to the internet (says she, whose "high-speed" modem has literally been taking three hours to download mail for the past few days!). Uh-oh, back to Surinder, whose principal point is that positive affect is the single most important aspect of leading virtually (at least in this post):

• Building social relationships via electronic communication,
• Relevance of social relationships to leading virtually,
• Creating a shared identity to build relationships, and
• Setting a positive tone to build social relationships.

XX makes for virtual team expertise?

Just wondering: John Yuva, senior writer for Inside Supply Management, recently interviewed me for an article on managing the virtual workforce for the magazine's November issue. Good questions from a thorough reporter. When I received the draft for review of my comments for accuracy, I noticed that nearly all (don't have it in front of me) of the experts interviewed were women. Perhaps one man was quoted. So the wheels are turning: are women the true experts on virtual working? If so, why?

Fort Greene Farmers Market

Another in my continuing non-series on the delights of New York. Posting from my phone for first time too. Let me know if you think this is a mess. In order: Tomato cornucopia, squash supreme, nectarine detective, Long Island Sound striped bass

Leading virtual teams - webcast with me and it's free!

On October 8, 2008, 12PM-1PM EDT, I'm presenting "Leading Virtual Teams: Managing People at a Distance," sponsored by American Management Association, with whom I've been working on their new course on the same subject. And in the spirit of the subject, you don't have to move one inch to participate. Dial-in and play Stump-the-Jessica with your brilliant questions. Further to that spirit, I'm recording it tomorrow, then through the miracle of technology, will be online when it's presented taking those clever questions of yours as if it's all in "real." Here's the promotional copy:

Mastering the Fine Points of Managing Your
Distributed Team

As travel costs skyrocket, virtual teams are becoming the standard way of doing business.

Leading a distributed team presents challenges that traditional management techniques can’t always solve. You need to learn new approaches to manage across functional and geographic boundaries and in many cases overcome obstacles of culture and language.

Success comes when you expand your current skills to build a collaborative work environment without benefit of face-to-face interaction. Learning to balance new social skills with technology proves to be the key.

This Webcast focuses on solutions to the unique issues you face when managing in a virtual workplace, whether it be multisite, multicountry, multitime-zone, or all of the above.

What You’ll Learn:

What does it mean to “lead at a distance” and what are the benefits of virtual teams?

For a full hour, we’ll explore these questions so that you’ll gain insights that can help you better grasp and manage the dynamics of your virtual team, including:

• Understanding the problems and opportunities of working in a virtual team
• Lessons learned from global organizations such as Volvo, Shell, and the US Army
• What you can do today to improve your virtual team leadership, including how to have good virtual meetings.

This program includes Q&A session — where we will address specific questions asked by members of the audience!

While attending the Webcast is FREE, reservations are required. Register Now! or call 1-877-566-9441.

Roland on "issueists"

I owe it to all of you to review Roland Merullo's newest send-up of the world around, American Savior, as astute a commentary on the political process as I've seen. And prescient. In short, a certain revered religious figure whose name is bandied about like a shield by certain politicians runs for president on the Divinity Party. It's funny, very, and sad, terribly, when you think about what a candidate like this means/faces/mirrors in our political process. But, as I said, I owe the book a proper review and I can't do it now. Just buy it and then we can actually discuss it.

Meanwhile, Roland has an op-ed in today's Boston Globe, "How not to vote for president." In my view, he is unparalleled in producing the great opening, particularly in his novels, which vacuum you (or to be precise, me) right in. Great work, Roland, once again:

IN THE MIDST of this remarkable campaign for the presidency, it continues to amaze me that some people still want to talk about issues. By now, all but the most naive first-time voter must realize that what's important is not where the candidates stand on healthcare or job creation, but whether or not they would be fun to have a beer with. I mean, do you really think Al Gore or John Kerry would have made a better president than the affable fellow we have in there now? Would you seriously want to have Gore over to your house for dinner and Monday night football? Are you really saying you'd want to sit down in front of "American Idol" with JK instead of GWB?

A lit'ry moment

When the writer TJ Forrester announced his wonderful and imaginative website, Five Star Literary Reviews, I quickly asked if I might be a contributor. The way it works is this: Literary journals, that elegant genre of publications whose death is announced about once a quarter by, typically, a newspaper roundup, nominate a story for review; then a writer like me reviews the story, all of which TJ publishes, along with a bio of the reviewer. This week, TJ published his 25th such review, and I am honored to be the reviewer. That I was able to review a story from AGNI, published by my venerable friends, makes it all that much sweeter. Thanks, TJ, for including me; congrats to AGNI and Steinur Bell, the author of the story I reviewed, for being singled out for this landmark in TJ's great venture.