The Schloss-Blog likes a lot of the articles we see on Fast Company, but some more than others. Oh dear, the others. And we check in with "Monsters" and "The Franchise," among other things.
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Claire Dederer's "Monsters, A Fan's Dilemma," (Penguin, Random House), reminds us that people we perhaps perceive as evil or just plain ill-mannered also produce great works of art.
Woody Allen? Michael Jackson?
See where this is going?
Is it OK not to love their work or the work of others who have also sinned for all of us to see?
The Schloss-Blog will let you decide that question for yourself. We know how we feel. Dederer clicks off artist after artist though and challenges you to be able to do the same.
You might surprise yourself in this entertaining read.
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Fast Company so often produces articles of insight, aplomb and just plain old logic.
And sometimes not.
An article by someone I never heard of at a company I didn't know existed, says to be a "dream employer" there are certain things to do: provide holistic experiences; provide best in-class tech stacks (huh?); and produce a culture of agility (so, hire gymnasts?). In another article, another such author explains things to avoid telling new graduates: to be or have fallback assets; to cut your screen time; to not sweat the small stuff; and to always work for a big company.
I've had books telling me all that (OK, not the tech stuff) since I graduated from college. If I'd have listened, I guess I could've written those words of advice for Fast Company. I've had "Don't Sweat the Small Stuff" forever.
Maybe Fast Company is not so fast, huh?
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Got to give it up for my friend and colleague Bruce Miles.
The former longtime Daily Herald sportswriter, along with co-author Jesse Rogers, just had "The Franchise, A Curated History of the Chicago Cubs" published (Triumph Books, Chicago, 2023). It is a unique history of the Chicago Cubs, who Miles and Rogers both covered for decades.
This is no chronological storytelling, no sir. Miles and Rogers breakdown the Cubs by star players, headline managers, significant trades (good and bad), the team's "Loveable Loser" years and some oddities that even this veteran sportswriter wasn't aware of.
The stories are told with a first-hand attendance vision and will jog your memory of things long forgotten, especially for long-suffering Cubs fans (run into them all the time in Arizona). Even reviled Mets and White Sox fans will appreciate all this.
The book has gotten nice acclaim and a best-seller tag from amazon. Bruce is his usual, humble self about the book but took the time to write me a nice inscription when I brought my copy to the gym to which we both belong.
It's always nice to see fellow sports scribes succeed. Bruce has always been someone I admire and his success is something I point to regularly for my former students.
A good storyteller will always find someone who thinks their ability is worth it.
Congrats, Bruce.
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Quick takes:
- Wimbledon matches have mostly been fun and interesting to watch, but the Brits, with their stuffy all-white attire mandate and continued use of real people instead of reliable modern technology to call lines, are dependably passe. This year though, for the first time, they allowed the ladies to wear colored underwear instead plain white. One question: why aren't they mandating men to wear collared shirts? That would seem to be a stuffy British no-brainer. Although Jannik Sinner, the Italian star, was allowed to bring an off-white gym bag from Gucci onto the court with him before matches. The queen just rolled over.
- Seems that Donald Trump just might have had former FBI directors James Comey and Andrew McCabe audited by the IRS. They either weren't loyal enough to only him or they participated in investigating him. And they should have.
- Elon Musk's new company, xAI, will supposedly explore how the universe works. Good luck with that.
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