"Elizabeth Newton, a psychologist, conducted an experiment on the curse of knowledge while working on her doctorate at Stanford in 1990. She gave one set of people, called “tappers,” a list of commonly known songs from which to choose. Their task was to rap their knuckles on a tabletop to the rhythm of the chosen tune as they thought about it in their heads. A second set of people, called “listeners,” were asked to name the songs. ... Slip over here for more ...

Seasonal greetings to anyone passing by here.

I have long held the tradition of writing a series of Christmas poems. The rules of engagement are simple. Each poem must be written between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day (with a strong preference for before Christmas "morning", which I define as "before people open presents.")

I usually manage something between six and a dozen poems. In the past, I've written a unique poem for unique cards, painting an image that melds my feelings about the person and the picture on the card. This year, I decided to do a series of poems inspired by a single image, one of a youngster catching snowflakes on her tongue. The whole poem cycle, then, is entitled Catching Snowflakes On Your Tongue, which seems to encapsulate my feelings about this Christmas season this year.

Regaining lost innocence emerged unbidden as the overall theme.

Here's one from the series, written for a very special someone and posted here for all of the likewise very special someones who peruse this blog.

“There are so many,” she whined, standing knee-deep in the snow.
“I haven’t a chance to make a difference, unless it’s falling slow.”


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I came across this video this morning, while cruising through the links in Phil proctor's latest Planet Proctor dispatch. It describes my sentiments exactly. Thanks to Randy Newman for his usual terrific composing Slip over here for more ...

My business takes me to Europe every year or so, and things have changed a lot over there since my first visit nearly fifteen years ago. Most noticeable on this latest trip was the weak dollar. Four years ago, a euro was worth eighty five cents. This year, a euro costs me a buck and a half. While this devaluation makes our exports cheap for them, it makes everything expensive for this visiting American. From forty dollar breakfasts to dinners—and not fancy dinners—that set me back over a hundred diluted dollars. The price of oil has sky-rocketed in part because it’s valued in an unstable currency, the dollar. Slip over here for more ...

Amy and I are in the Netherlands, finishing advance work to deliver a Mastering Projects Workshop here in May. It's rainy and cold, appropriate context for the conception of a masterful engagement. We have been warmly welcomed, hospitably housed, and lavishly nourished in this forested former sea bed. Tomorrow, we will live a longest day in this season of early nightfall. Nine daylight hours from Amsterdam to Seattle. And another layover, then another twilight flight over the Cascade Range, back to the more ancient sea bed we call home.

We came here because someone read the Dutch translation of The Blind Men and the Elephant, and emailed to ask if we ever did workshops here. (We did conduct a workshop here last year, but not a Mastering Projects Workshop.) We're open to new experiences, and stopped on our way home from our latest presentation at an ISCT Conference in Vienna to see what we could do to start a community of interest here.

We found Dutch Masters, a term our Dutch friends were unfamiliar with, so I wrote a poem to explain what I meant.

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