A Random Collection of Musings

I was walking in Boston on a frigidly cold January night, overheated in my wool coat but with my face somewhere between painfully cold and thankfully numb, and there on the corner of Stuart Street and Trinity Place, was a child’s book, lost or discarded on the sidewalk, splayed open, askew amongst the pebbles of rock salt. BE KIND , the title admonished me. I had just come from listening to George Saunders in conversation with Paul Tremblay at the Back Bay Event Center hoste

This may be one of my new favorite books. If you haven't read it, the book is written in four parts, the first a fictional novel entitled Bonds by a character named Harold Vanner; the second an unfinished memoir of a rich New York financier, Andrew Bevel; the third, a memoir of a successful writer looking back at her time as Andrew Bevel's secretary and ghost writer; and the final section, a diary written by Andrew Bevel's late wife Mildred. This book is a masterclass in voi

I'm a late arrival to Succession. I started streaming from Season 1 a couple of weeks after Season 4 started but I’m now all caught up and breathlessly awaiting the finale along with everyone else, apparently. I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with Succession. That the acting is top-drawer goes without saying; Sarah Snook, Kieran Culkin and Matthew Macfadyen all deliver my favorite shattering performances. The show is beautiful to look at, all neutral tones and #steal

There is much hysteria going around about AI. It's in my face every day both on mainstream media and the more specialized journals I subscribe to for my day job (which is a misnomer as I work at night, but that is another story for another time). Every time I glance at social media there's another dire prediction. I employ the coping skills that I learned during the last presidential administration: ignore, ignore, panic slightly. I am not terribly far from retiring from m