July 18, 2022

Happy Monday!

The Weekly Three

1. Somethings from How to Change Your Mind: Netflix has released a four episode docuseries based on Michael Pollan's book of the same name. Each episode is about a different psychedelic substance, where it comes from and how it was originally used, how it became illegal and how it has been used to treat different forms of mental illness. As someone with treatment resistant depression, I've looked into ketamine treatments but had always been scared of psychedelics (I am a child of D.A.R.E. after all). Regardless of your stance on psychedelics, I recommend watching one of the first two episodes if only for the testimonials of the clinical trial patients. You'll also learn about lantern consciousness and the scientific measure of a spiritual experience through a 16 item checklist.

Alison Gopnik

2. Something about marginalization in remote work: Yesterday's Charterworks newsletter included an interview with Alan Henry about his new book Seen, Heard, and Paid: The New Work Rules for the Marginalized. I love big ideas for change, but I need them to come with actionable items instead of them remaining abstractions. Henry's interview alone gave plenty. My favorite recommendation was the rotating calendar of tasks that includes managers: "Everyone should book meeting rooms. Everyone should order lunch. Everyone should take notes. Once you build that framework where everybody gets a turn doing the work that no one wants to do, you have a framework for everyone getting a chance to do the work that everyone wants to do....I especially love a rotation that involves a manager, because then you understand exactly how much time it takes out of the day".

3. Something about artist Chase Hall: Vogue's profile on the painter who does not use white paint. "Instead, Hall uses what he calls “conceptual white paint,” which is the unprimed cotton canvas. The black and brown here and in all of his paintings are not paint, either; they’re a stain derived from the African coffee beans Hall drinks. “I’m thinking about this idea of whiteness as acne,” he says. “Those spots in my work—that’s whiteness peeking out of the Black figure.” His chosen materials—cotton and coffee—come through as a kind of light that falls equally on the present and the dark past".

Paisley and I (Bomber and Batsy), 2021. Acrylic and coffee on cotton canvas, 108 x 81 in.

Thank you for taking the time to read, Amber

(she/her)