Week 49, 2025 — sunny Barcelona

I spent most of the week north of Barcelona, co-working with friends. Daily sunshine, a view of the sea and the full moon! It was great to have a break from the grey drizzle of Paris. Maybe it’s time to consider a longer stay in Spain…

•

I finished Brene Brown’s new book, Strong Ground. It’s kind of a taxonomy walkthrough of mindsets and skill sets that she sees are critical for leadership in this day and age, with lots of personal stories, snippets from her past books, podcast interviews and other people’s books, as well as lessons from her experience with leadership training. I enjoyed it alot as a long-time follower of her work. I also read Bonnie Tsai’s On Muscle: The Stuff That Moves Us and Why It Matters. It was one of the books quoted in Strong Ground, a collection of different perspectives on muscle from the fields of anatomy, sports, culture etc. tied together by the author’s stories about her father.

•

I went to a Ryoji Ikeda show at the Philharmonie, probably the first time I experienced his work live, after seeing plenty of installations and video pieces in Tokyo and Paris. There were three sets of musicians—100 cymbals, a choir and an organ—for what felt like very different sonic experiences. There was a quiet stream of bored? people getting up to leave in the last half-hour, which was a bit tough. I wonder if it was a mismatch with the venue, which tends to be more about classic orchestra music. Pity.

Bonus photo of a bouquet I got for a friend who hosted lunch.