Take That Step #59

1) Just came back from 2 weeks in Italy… Feeling lucky!

I'm not sure what to say about Giotto and the experience of being in the Scrovegni Chapel. Stunning. Everyone should try to visit it if they are in a city near Padova on a trip. It's amazing how he painted the story in a spiral, how the lapis lazuli fills the space, how the narrative is didactic and how it all begins with the birth of Mary, mother of Jesus. We are introduced to the scene in which his parents, Joaquim and Ana are asking God to get pregnant. We see the birth of Mary, then her suitors all lined up and, later, the birth of Jesus. The Chapel is a great reminder that everything starts with the mothers :) I'm in love. Oh! Giotto also portrays the first kiss in the history of art and suggests the sky as a setting (in a kind of "The Truman Show" style). Perfection.

2) The Japan Pavilion at the Venice Biennale is sensational. My friend Paula warned me, but I only believed it when I held my own baby. "Grass Babies, Moon Babies" was created by queer Japanese-American artist Ei Arakawa-Nash. Inspired by the experience of becoming a father of twins in 2024, the pavilion turns visitors into temporary caregivers, inviting viewers to carry full-size dolls (heavy like real babies) through space. I never liked dolls when I was a child, but these give the feeling that we are carrying a very well-behaved baby, hahaha — I didn't want to return mine. The little babies wear sunglasses for privacy reasons (since people take a lot of pictures of cute babies all the time). One of the suggested activities of the exhibition is to change the diaper of your baby and photograph a QR Code that reveals the baby's date of birth. The dates are historical and important, especially for the queer community. Mine was born on the same day as Hello Kitty! How cute is that?

3) I'm still in shock after visiting Niki de Saint Phalle's Tarot Garden (Il Giardino dei Tarocch), in Grossetto, Italy. There are 22 monumental sculptures, each dedicated to a tarot game card. The garden connects one monument to another and creates a kind of open-air maze. Inspired by Gaudí's Park Güell, the French artist spent 20 years building this artistic paradise where she also lived. In addition to Gaudí, it also reminded me of Hundertwasser’s house and museum in Vienna. This ability that some artists have to continue playing as if they were children is radical!

4) Another magical experience I had during my Italian vacation was the visit to Mark Rothko's exhibition with Fra Angelico at the San Marco museum in Florence. The Italian painted frescoes between 1439 and 1443 in each cell of the cloister, which was supposed to help with meditation. In the exhibition, currently on display we see some paintings by Rothko next to some of these frescoes. My feeling is that the American (born in Latvia) absorbed something divine, sublime and ethereal from Angelico. The silence of the visitors during the show was almost total — complete concentration.

5) On the plane back home, I watched a documentary on Jeff Buckley, "It's Never Over". It remind me of my college years, when a boyfriend introduced me to Grace (which I consider one of the most perfect albums ever recorded). And, for some reason, perhaps the talent and the early death, made me think of the artist Gordon Matta-Clark. I think the two would have been good friends :)

6) Via New Yorker mag:

The Nobel laureate László Krasznahorkai would “never voluntarily reread” any of his books. But, when his friend Béla Tarr made films using his work as inspiration, Krasznahorkai had to read his text aloud. “I would begin reading, and suddenly I would see a shocking error of rhythm, of melody, of content, a flaw in form, and well, I had inevitably made a mistake, but it’s not only a single mistake to me, it ruins the entire thing. It vexes me so much that I try to remedy this in the following book. My entire life is just such an attempt at recompense. I am not doing too well,” Krasznahorkai told Merve Emre.

Beyond his own work, Krasznahorkai enjoys the “decisive flaws” of an object. He says that such flaws give objects enormous value and particularity. At the link in our bio, read the Hungarian novelist on his notoriously long sentences, the singularity of imperfections, and our estrangement from beauty.

7) Via Linkedin:

Most job candidates walk into interviews armed with polished answers, rehearsed weaknesses, and a list of researched questions aimed to impress. But Apple’s Steve Jobs reportedly had a far less conventional way of deciding who got hired: the “beer test.”

Instead of trying to catch candidates out with a trick question or quizzing them on the latest iPhone, the late cofounder of the $4.3 trillion tech giant wanted to know something much simpler: Would he actually enjoy grabbing a beer with them?

According to multiple outlets, Jobs would even take candidates on an informal walk-and-talk interview to deliberately test whether he could get along with them outside the office. The so-called “beer test” wasn’t really about alcohol. It was about seeing whether a candidate could drop the corporate act long enough to have an actual conversation—and be pleasant to be around.

Jobs would ask potential hires questions like, “What did you do last summer?” to get the conversation going.

There were no right or wrong answers, but it probably wasn’t good news if the chat was awkward, draining, or nonexistent.

That’s because at the end of the saga, Jobs would ask himself: “Would I have a beer with this person? Would I talk to him or her in a relaxed way while taking a walk?” If the answer was no, that told him something a résumé couldn’t.

As I write in Fortune, interview tests are becoming increasingly common—and the bar isn’t always technical. Sometimes it’s whether you’re just good company to be around.

—Orianna Rosa Royle Success Associate Editor, Fortune

8) John O’Donohue:

I would love to live

like a river flows,

carried by the surprise

of its own unfolding.

9) Some questions deserve this look:

10) Back to NYC…: