Hey! It’s Sheril Mathews from Leading Sapiens. Welcome to my newsletter, where I share strategies for getting savvier at the game of work. Want to get better at something? Pay attention to your repertoire of language in that domain. I examine this fundamental idea through the lens of neuroscience, philosophy, & peak performance. ICYMI: As I rode up on the ski lift for my first lesson, feeling somewhat apprehensive, the instructor turned to me and said “My job is to teach people to love gravity.

We all know the song. It's classic. But do you know what the 1979 Rupert Holmes hit is actually about? Based on the chorus - “if you like piña coladas, and getting caught in the rain” - it sounds like any other love song from the 1970s - Hot Stuff by Donna Summer, My Sharona by The Knack, etc. - if you like this and I like this then babe, let’s bone in the sand.

In 1969, in San Francisco, the drummer Mickey Waller came into the Rolling Stone office carrying a copy of the new Rod Stewart album.  It was called The Rod Stewart Album; the cover had black letters on a yellow background. Waller was hoping he could talk someone into reviewing it.  Waller and Stewart were in the Jeff Beck Band together. Beck was the star guitar player who had left the Yardbirds to go solo.

Hey y’all, I’m reading a beautiful expanded edition of Anni Albers’ On Weaving. I originally came to her through my research of Black Mountain College and got very inspired by her ideas about materials. This latest reading has introduced me to another creative tension: thewarp and the weft of fabric. As I understand it, the warp is the thread held in tension by the loom, and the weft is the thread that moves over and under the warp.

I try not to pay much attention to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame nominating process or debates. I was never insider enough even to get the long-form critic nominating form, except for two years in the 1990s. I did write-in votes for doo-wop groups like Vito & the Salutations. But when I heard that Warren Zevon was nominated as one of the finalists last week, I found it bewildering that 1.