Meet Lloyd Kahn, the Counterculture Publisher Who Is Skateboarding at 91

in Life | September 7th, 2026

Lloyd Kahn worked as an insur­ance bro­ker before quit­ting in 1965. Then, he took a turn into the DIY build­ing move­ment that emerged with the 1960s coun­ter­cul­ture. Soon enough, he found him­self edit­ing the influ­en­tial Whole Earth Cat­a­log and pub­lish­ing Shel­ter in 1973, a book still con­sid­ered the bible of hand-built homes. Now 91 years old, Lloyd remains active in pub­lish­ing. He also con­tin­ues to run, pad­dle­board, and skate­board, a sport he took up when he turned 65. How many peo­ple can say that?

In the video above, Sier­ra Clark takes you inside Lloy­d’s world, giv­ing you a snap­shot of his uncon­ven­tion­al life. With a great touch, she high­lights the habits and phi­los­o­phy that have allowed him to live and age in a remark­able way. Stay­ing curi­ous and adven­tur­ous, try­ing new things, keep­ing in motion, eat­ing well, mak­ing life and exer­cise fun—they’re all part of the mix for Lloyd. For Kahn, “Stay hun­gry, stay fool­ish” (the say­ing that appeared on the back of the last Whole Earth Cat­a­log) isn’t just a mot­to. It has been a true way of life.

For more videos focus­ing on longevi­ty and health, vis­it Sier­ra Clark’s YouTube chan­nel here.

Relat­ed Con­tent 

Bertrand Russell’s Advice For How (Not) to Grow Old: “Make Your Inter­ests Grad­u­al­ly Wider and More Imper­son­al”

Simone de Beauvoir’s Phi­los­o­phy on Find­ing Mean­ing in Old Age

You’re Only As Old As You Feel: Har­vard Psy­chol­o­gist Ellen Langer Shows How Men­tal Atti­tude Can Poten­tial­ly Reverse the Effects of Aging

Life Lessons From 100-Year-Olds: Time­less Advice in a Short Film

97-Year-Old Philoso­pher Pon­ders the Mean­ing of Life: “What Is the Point of It All?”

 

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How Phone Addiction Keeps You from Achieving a Productive “Flow State”

in Life, Technology | September 1st, 2026

If you have an iPhone, try push­ing its side but­ton three times in a row. Just like mag­ic, the screen should turn from col­or into black-and-white, or rather grayscale. (To do the same on an Android phone, you’ll have to dive into set­tings, then “acces­si­bil­i­ty,” “vision enhance­ments,” and “col­or cor­rec­tion.”) Why would you want that in the first place? As Har­vard Kennedy School and Har­vard Busi­ness School pro­fes­sor Arthur C. Brooks explains in the Big Think video above, “one of the ways that you can actu­al­ly get less hooked by social media, or any screen-based tech­nol­o­gy, is by turn­ing off the col­or.” When you get only black, white, and the shades of gray in between, “you will care less about your screen, and you will look at it less.”

This may ring true to those of us who remem­ber pure­ly mono­chro­mat­ic cell­phones, and how lit­tle time we spent star­ing at them. But no mat­ter your gen­er­a­tion, Brooks has plen­ty of use­ful advice about how to break the depen­den­cy on your phone from which, as a twen­ty-first-cen­tu­ry inter­net user, you almost cer­tain­ly suf­fer.

“You notice when some­body is addict­ed to hero­in, because it’s not that com­mon for ordi­nary peo­ple,” he says. “You don’t notice when some­body’s addict­ed to their phone, because lit­er­al­ly every­body is addict­ed to their phones.” There­fore, we could all ben­e­fit from turn­ing off noti­fi­ca­tions, set­ting defined “tech times,” exer­cis­ing with­out our devices, and going on mul­ti-day med­i­ta­tion retreats — though we may have to work up to that last one.

The func­tion­al phone addict may believe that all his dai­ly scrolling may not have that much of a neg­a­tive impact on his life, and even that it helps him unwind. What he does­n’t real­ize, in Brooks’ view, is the extent to which dig­i­tal dis­trac­tions keep him out of what psy­chol­o­gist Mihaly Csik­szent­mi­ha­lyi called “flow.” (These com­ments come around the 27:06 mark.) Flow hap­pens “when you’re involved immer­sive­ly in some­thing, and hours turn to min­utes. You lose track of time. It’s intense­ly plea­sur­able,” almost “like a state of Bud­dhist med­i­ta­tion.” Con­scious­ly or uncon­scious­ly, we use our phones and oth­er dig­i­tal devices in a way that pre­vents flow, “mul­ti­task­ing” between numer­ous tasks and dis­trac­tions, nev­er pay­ing sus­tained atten­tion to any one thing. At the root of this impulse is a fear of bore­dom, which must be endured in order to accom­plish any­thing mean­ing­ful. The irony of our new­found abil­i­ty to evade bore­dom every moment is that, if we do so, the whole of life turns out to be pret­ty bor­ing.

Relat­ed con­tent:

How to Enter a ‘Flow State’ on Com­mand: Peak Per­for­mance Mind Hack Explained in 7 Min­utes

The Sur­pris­ing Pow­er of Bore­dom: It Lets You Con­front Big Ques­tions & Give Life Mean­ing

How to Enter Flow State, Increase Your Abil­i­ty to Con­cen­trate, and Let Your Ego Fall Away : An Ani­mat­ed Primer

Why Smart Peo­ple Feel Like Frauds: The Psy­chol­o­gy of Impos­tor Syn­drome and Its Hid­den Ben­e­fits

How to Get into a Cre­ative “Flow State”: A Short Mas­ter­class

Lyn­da Bar­ry on How the Smart­phone Is Endan­ger­ing Three Ingre­di­ents of Cre­ativ­i­ty: Lone­li­ness, Uncer­tain­ty & Bore­dom

Based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. He’s the author of the newslet­ter Books on Cities as well as the books 한국 요약 금지 (No Sum­ma­riz­ing Korea) and Kore­an Newtro. Fol­low him on the social net­work for­mer­ly known as Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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Milton Glaser’s 10 Rules for Life & Work: The Celebrated Designer Dispenses Wisdom Gained Over His Long Life & Career

in Creativity, Design, Life | September 1st, 2026

“None of us has real­ly the abil­i­ty to under­stand our path until it’s over,” the cel­e­brat­ed graph­ic design­er Mil­ton Glaser mused less than a minute into the above video.

The late Mil­ton Glaser’s many con­tri­bu­tions to pop culture—the I ❤ NY logo, the psy­che­del­ic por­trait of a rain­bow-haired Bob Dylan, DC Comics’ clas­sic bul­let logo—con­ferred unde­ni­able author­i­ty. To the out­side eye, he seemed to have a pret­ty firm han­dle on the path he trav­eled for lo those many decades. Aspi­rant design­ers would do well to give extra con­sid­er­a­tion to any advice he might have shared.

As would the rest of us.

His “Ten Things I Have Learned,” orig­i­nal­ly deliv­ered as part of a talk to the AIGA—a ven­er­a­ble mem­ber­ship orga­ni­za­tion for design professionals—qualifies as sol­id life advice of gen­er­al inter­est.

Yes, the Inter­net spawns bul­let-point­ed tips for bet­ter liv­ing the way spring rains yield mush­rooms, but Glaser, a self-described “child of mod­ernism,” did not truck in pithy Insta­gram-friend­ly apho­risms. Instead, his list was born of reflec­tion on the var­i­ous turns of a long and most­ly sat­is­fy­ing cre­ative career.

We’ve excerpt­ed some of his most essen­tial points below, and sug­gest that those read­ers who are still in train­ing give spe­cial empha­sis to num­ber sev­en. Don’t place too much weight on num­ber nine until you’ve estab­lished a sol­id work eth­ic. (See num­ber four for more on that.)

MILTON GLASER”S TEN RULES FOR WORK AND LIFE (& A BONUS JOKE ABOUT A RABBIT).

1. YOU CAN ONLY WORK FOR PEOPLE THAT YOU LIKE

Some years ago I real­ized that… all the work I had done that was mean­ing­ful and sig­nif­i­cant came out of an affec­tion­ate rela­tion­ship with a client.

2. IF YOU HAVE A CHOICE NEVER HAVE A JOB

Here, Glaser quotes com­pos­er John Cage: Nev­er have a job, because if you have a job some­day some­one will take it away from you and then you will be unpre­pared for your old age. 

3. SOME PEOPLE ARE TOXIC AVOID THEM.

Glaser rec­om­mends putting a ques­tion­able com­pan­ion to a gestalt ther­a­py test. If, after spend­ing time with that per­son “you are more tired, then you have been poi­soned. If you have more ener­gy, you have been nour­ished. The test is almost infal­li­ble and I sug­gest that you use it for the rest of your life.”

4. PROFESSIONALISM IS NOT ENOUGH (or THE GOOD IS THE ENEMY OF THE GREAT)

Glaser con­cedes that a record of depend­able excel­lence is some­thing to look for in a brain sur­geon or auto mechan­ic, but for those in the arts, “con­tin­u­ous trans­gres­sion” is the qual­i­ty to cul­ti­vate. Pro­fes­sion­al­ism does not allow for that because trans­gres­sion has to encom­pass the pos­si­bil­i­ty of fail­ure and if you are pro­fes­sion­al your instinct is not to fail, it is to repeat suc­cess. 

5. LESS IS NOT NECESSARILY MORE

I have an alter­na­tive to the propo­si­tion that I believe is more appro­pri­ate. ‘Just enough is more.’

6. STYLE IS NOT TO BE TRUSTED

Style change is usu­al­ly linked to eco­nom­ic fac­tors, as all of you know who have read Marx. Also fatigue occurs when peo­ple see too much of the same thing too often.

7. HOW YOU LIVE CHANGES YOUR BRAIN

The brain is the most respon­sive organ of the body…. Thought changes our life and our behav­ior. I also believe that draw­ing works in the same way…. Draw­ing also makes you atten­tive. It makes you pay atten­tion to what you are look­ing at, which is not so easy.

8. DOUBT IS BETTER THAN CERTAINTY

One of the signs of a dam­aged ego is absolute cer­tain­ty. Schools encour­age the idea of not com­pro­mis­ing and defend­ing your work at all costs. Well, the issue at work is usu­al­ly all about the nature of com­pro­mise…. Ide­al­ly, mak­ing every­one win through acts of accom­mo­da­tion is desir­able.

9. IT DOESN’T MATTER

Glaser cred­its essay­ist Roger Rosenblatt’s Rules for Aging (misiden­ti­fy­ing the title as Aging Grace­ful­ly) with help­ing him artic­u­late his phi­los­o­phy here.  It doesn’t mat­ter what you think. It does not mat­ter if you are late or ear­ly, if you are here or there, if you said it or didn’t say it, if you are clever or if you were stu­pid. If you were hav­ing a bad hair day or a no hair day or if your boss looks at you cock­eyed or your boyfriend or girl­friend looks at you cock­eyed, if you are cock­eyed. If you don’t get that pro­mo­tion or prize or house or if you do – it doesn’t mat­ter.

10. TELL THE TRUTH

It’s inter­est­ing to observe that in the new AIGA’s code of ethics there is a sig­nif­i­cant amount of use­ful infor­ma­tion about appro­pri­ate behav­ior towards clients and oth­er design­ers, but not a word about a designer’s rela­tion­ship to the pub­lic. If we were licensed, telling the truth might become more cen­tral to what we do.

BONUS JOKE

A butch­er was open­ing his mar­ket one morn­ing and as he did a rab­bit popped his head through the door. The butch­er was sur­prised when the rab­bit inquired ‘Got any cab­bage?’ The butch­er said ‘This is a meat mar­ket – we sell meat, not veg­eta­bles.’ The rab­bit hopped off. The next day the butch­er is open­ing the shop and sure enough the rab­bit pops his head round and says ‘You got any cab­bage?’ The butch­er now irri­tat­ed says ‘Lis­ten you lit­tle rodent, I told you yes­ter­day we sell meat, we do not sell veg­eta­bles and the next time you come here I am going to grab you by the throat and nail those flop­py ears to the floor.’ The rab­bit dis­ap­peared hasti­ly and noth­ing hap­pened for a week. Then one morn­ing the rab­bit popped his head around the cor­ner and said ‘Got any nails?’ The butch­er said ‘No.’ The rab­bit said ‘Ok. Got any cab­bage?’’

Read Mil­ton Glaser’s “Ten Things I Have Learned” in its entire­ty here.

Note: An ear­li­er ver­sion of this post appeared on our site in 2017.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Mil­ton Glaser Draws Shake­speare & Explains Why Draw­ing is the Key to Under­stand­ing Life

Mick­ey Mouse In Viet­nam: The Under­ground Anti-War Ani­ma­tion from 1968, Co-Cre­at­ed by Mil­ton Glaser

Mil­ton Glaser (RIP) Explains Why We Must Over­come the Fear of Fail­ure, Take Risks & Dis­cov­er Our True Poten­tial

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, and the­ater mak­er in NYC.

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Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” Slowed Down to 33 RPM Sounds Great and Takes on New, Unexpected Meanings (RIP)

in Gender, Life, Music, Technology | August 26th, 2026

Note: We were sad to see the news that Dol­ly Par­ton passed away. Today we are bring­ing back one of our favorite Dol­ly Par­ton posts. She will be missed.

The Wal­rus is… Dol­ly Par­ton?

Not every record yields gold when played back­wards or spun more slow­ly than rec­om­mend­ed, but a 45 of Parton’s 1973 hit “Jolene” played at 33 RPM not only sounds won­der­ful, it also man­ages to reframe the nar­ra­tive.

As Andrea Den­Hoed notes in The New York­er, “Slow Ass Jolene,” above, trans­forms Parton’s “baby-high sopra­no” into some­thing deep, soul­ful and seem­ing­ly, male.

In its orig­i­nal ver­sion, the much-cov­ered “Jolene” is a straight up woman-to-woman chest-bar­ing. Our nar­ra­tor knows her man is obsessed with the sexy, auburn-haired Jolene, to the point where he talks about her in his sleep.

Appar­ent­ly she also knows bet­ter than to raise the sub­ject with him. Instead, she appeals to Jolene’s sense of mer­cy:

You could have your choice of men

But I could nev­er love again

He’s the only one for me, Jolene

The song is some­what auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal, though the sit­u­a­tion was nowhere near as dire as lis­ten­ers might assume. In an inter­view with NPR, Par­ton recalled a red-haired bank teller who devel­oped a big crush on her hus­band when she was a young bride:

And he just loved going to the bank because she paid him so much atten­tion. It was kin­da like a run­ning joke between us — when I was say­ing, ‘Hell, you’re spend­ing a lot of time at the bank. I don’t believe we’ve got that kind of mon­ey.’ So it’s real­ly an inno­cent song all around, but sounds like a dread­ful one. 

For the record, the teller’s name wasn’t Jolene.

Jolene was a pret­ty lit­tle girl who attend­ed an ear­ly Par­ton con­cert. Par­ton was so tak­en with the child, and her unusu­al name, that she resolved to write a song about her.

Yes, the kid had red hair and green eyes.

Wouldn’t it be wild if she grew up to be a bank teller?

I digress…

In the orig­i­nal ver­sion, the irre­sistible cho­rus where­in the soon-to-be-spurned par­ty invokes Jolene’s name again and again is plain­tive and fierce.

In the slow ass ver­sion, it’s plain­tive and sad.

The pain is the same, but the sit­u­a­tion is much less straight­for­ward, thanks to blur­ri­er gen­der lines.

Par­ton told NPR that women are “always threat­ened by oth­er women, peri­od.”

Jolene’s prodi­gious fem­i­nine assets could also prove wor­ri­some to a gay man whose bisex­u­al lover’s eye is prone to wan­der.

Or maybe the singer and his man live in a place where same-sex unions are frowned on. Per­haps the singer’s man craves the com­fort of a more social­ly accept­able domes­tic sit­u­a­tion.

Or per­haps Jolene is one hot female-iden­ti­fied toma­to, and as far as the singer’s man’s con­cerned, his pas­tor and his granny can go to hell! Jolene’s the only one for him.

Or, as one wag­gish Youtube com­menter suc­cinct­ly put it, “Jolene bet­ter stay the hell away from Roy Orbi­son’s man!”

Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene

I’m beg­ging of you please don’t take my man

Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene

Please don’t take him just because you can

Your beau­ty is beyond com­pare

With flam­ing locks of auburn hair

With ivory skin and eyes of emer­ald green

Your smile is like a breath of spring

Your voice is soft like sum­mer rain

And I can­not com­pete with you, Jolene

He talks about you in his sleep

There’s noth­ing I can do to keep

From cry­ing when he calls your name, Jolene

And I can eas­i­ly under­stand

How you could eas­i­ly take my man

But you don’t know what he means to me, Jolene

Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene

I’m beg­ging of you please don’t take my man

Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene

Please don’t take him just because you can

You could have your choice of men

But I could nev­er love again

He’s the only one for me, Jolene

I had to have this talk with you

My hap­pi­ness depends on you

And what­ev­er you decide to do, Jolene

Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene

I’m beg­ging of you please don’t take my man

Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene

Please don’t take him even though you can

Jolene, Jolene

via @WFMU

Note: An ear­li­er ver­sion of this post appeared on our site in 2018.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Feel Strange­ly Nos­tal­gic as You Hear Clas­sic Songs Reworked to Sound as If They’re Play­ing in an Emp­ty Shop­ping Mall: David Bowie, Toto, Ah-ha & More

Hear Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spir­it” Shift­ed from Minor to Major Key, and Radiohead’s “Creep” Moved from Major to Minor

R.E.M.’s “Los­ing My Reli­gion” Reworked from Minor to Major Scale

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, and the­ater mak­er in NYC.

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The Wisdom of David Bowie: On Art, Religion, Technology and More

in Art, Life, Music | August 25th, 2026

It does­n’t quite ring true to call David Bowie a rock star. Zig­gy Star­dust, the neon syn­thet­ic-clad alien alter ego he both cre­at­ed and retired in the ear­ly sev­en­ties, was, of course, rock star­dom out­landish­ly per­son­i­fied. But then, that was the con­cept of what turned out to be just one of many per­son­ae he delib­er­ate­ly craft­ed through­out the course of his career. That career was in music, pri­mar­i­ly, but look­ing back on it today, more than a decade after Bowie’s death, it looks more like his medi­um was cul­ture itself. That’s under­scored by his inter­views, clips from a vari­ety of which appear in the new video above from YouTube chan­nel T&H Inspi­ra­tion.

Most of T&H’s most pop­u­lar videos add visu­als to speech­es by the pop­u­lar­iz­er of East­ern phi­los­o­phy Alan Watts, who’s been fea­tured here on Open Cul­ture before. He and Bowie had more in com­mon than it may seem at first, begin­ning with an Eng­lish­ness that remained thor­ough­go­ing no mat­ter how far out they ven­tured into the world.

Though Watts’ inter­est in Bud­dhism hard­ly needs stat­ing, it’s worth remem­ber­ing that he chose to be ordained as an Epis­co­palian priest rather than as a Bud­dhist monk. The young Bowie, for his part, very near­ly took the lat­ter path, study­ing under the late Lama Chime Rin­poche, who even­tu­al­ly told him he’d be bet­ter off going into the music busi­ness.

Bowie did so, of course, but with a new “sense of tran­sience and change, which actu­al­ly became fun­da­men­tal to my life and my approach to it,” as he put it decades lat­er. That sense man­i­fests even in his ear­ly work, but embrac­ing and even pur­su­ing imper­ma­nence — the imper­ma­nence of sounds, of fash­ions, of hit records, of life itself — also kept him from get­ting mired in the irrel­e­vance or auto-kitsch that threat­ens every super­star. Giv­en the belief that noth­ing lasts for­ev­er, “look­ing for the source of one’s own being becomes much more impor­tant,” as does attempt­ing artis­tic or intel­lec­tu­al chal­lenges at the very edge of one’s abil­i­ties. Alan Watts would prob­a­bly have agreed. The big­ger ques­tion is, did he ever hear “Changes”?

Relat­ed Con­tent:

David Bowie Offers Advice for Aspir­ing Artists: “Go a Lit­tle Out of Your Depth,” “Nev­er Ful­fill Oth­er People’s Expec­ta­tions”

David Bowie on Why It’s Crazy to Make Art — and We Do It Any­way (1998)

The Art Col­lec­tion of David Bowie: An Intro­duc­tion

David Bowie Pre­dicts the Good & Bad of the Inter­net in 1999: “We’re on the Cusp of Some­thing Exhil­a­rat­ing and Ter­ri­fy­ing”

How Leonard Cohen & David Bowie Faced Death Through Their Art: A Look at Their Final Albums

Stream David Bowie’s Com­plete Discog­ra­phy in a 19-Hour Playlist: From His Very First Record­ings to His Last

Based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. He’s the author of the newslet­ter Books on Cities as well as the books 한국 요약 금지 (No Sum­ma­riz­ing Korea) and Kore­an Newtro. Fol­low him on the social net­work for­mer­ly known as Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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The Daily Routine of Marcus Aurelius: How to Live Like a Stoic

in History, Life, Philosophy | August 24th, 2026

Mar­cus Aure­lius did not have a smart­phone. In fact, he did­n’t have a phone of any kind, owing to the fact that he lived in the sec­ond cen­tu­ry, though we can be rea­son­ably cer­tain that he com­mand­ed more than enough mes­sen­gers to keep him­self informed around the clock. That’s because he was the Roman emper­or at a time when the Roman Empire was at its height. And so, none of us will ever know Mar­cus’ free­dom from dig­i­tal dis­trac­tion, nor will we know the intense respon­si­bil­i­ty he must have felt, no mat­ter how grand a title we attain in our own careers. Still, even here in the twen­ty-first cen­tu­ry, we would all do well to live by the exam­ple he left.

So believes Ryan Hol­i­day, a pop­u­lar­iz­er of Sto­icism, the school of thought pri­mar­i­ly defined by Mar­cus’ writ­ings, as well as those of states­man-drama­tist Seneca the Younger and for­mer slave Epicte­tus. In his Med­i­ta­tions, Mar­cus includ­ed enough detail about his own life that Hol­i­day could make the video above for his YouTube chan­nel Dai­ly Sto­ic, which breaks down the emper­or’s dai­ly rou­tine.

He rose at dawn, but not out of nat­ur­al incli­na­tion. He did his reflec­tion, includ­ing a real­is­tic adjust­ment of his expec­ta­tions for the day, before the siege of duties and requests began. He defined time for what Cal New­port, Hol­i­day’s col­league in the smarter regions of dig­i­tal-era self-help, would call deep work.

As with any pop­u­lar­iza­tion, Hol­i­day con­veys Mar­cus’ life and thought in terms the man him­self would­n’t rec­og­nize, even if they were trans­lat­ed into Latin. One fash­ion­able expres­sion he does­n’t use but could have is “work-life bal­ance.” “Mar­cus was not all about busi­ness,” Hol­i­day says. “We know that he was active in phys­i­cal exer­cise. We know that he enjoyed box­ing and wrestling and hunt­ing and horse­back rid­ing. We know that he would take walks.” He would also go to the Colos­se­um, though with­out hid­ing his lack of inter­est in glad­i­a­to­r­i­al com­bat. If he spent more time read­ing and think­ing in his prime seat than get­ting into the spir­it of the games, why attend at all? Per­haps he thought in the man­ner of Mar­tial, a poet of an ear­li­er gen­er­a­tion whose sen­ti­ments would nev­er­the­less ring true with Sto­ics ancient or mod­ern: “These are my times, and I must know them.”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Mar­cus Aure­lius’ 9 Rules for Liv­ing a Sto­ic Life

Why Jer­ry Sein­feld Lives by the Sto­ic Phi­los­o­phy of Mar­cus Aure­lius

An Ani­mat­ed Intro­duc­tion to Sto­icism, the Ancient Greek Phi­los­o­phy That Lets You Lead a Hap­py, Ful­fill­ing Life

How to Be a Sto­ic in Your Every­day Life: Phi­los­o­phy Pro­fes­sor Mas­si­mo Pigli­uc­ci Explains

What Is Sto­icism? A Short Intro­duc­tion to the Ancient Phi­los­o­phy That Can Help You Cope with Our Hard Mod­ern Times

The Dai­ly Rou­tines of Famous Cre­ative Peo­ple, Pre­sent­ed in an Inter­ac­tive Info­graph­ic

Based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. He’s the author of the newslet­ter Books on Cities as well as the books 한국 요약 금지 (No Sum­ma­riz­ing Korea) and Kore­an Newtro. Fol­low him on the social net­work for­mer­ly known as Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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What Miles Davis Taught Herbie Hancock: In Music, as in Life, There Are No Mistakes, Just Chances to Improvise

in Life, Music | July 28th, 2026

One of my favorite Bri­an Eno quotes, or rather one that became an Oblique Strat­e­gy, is “Hon­or Your Mis­take as a Hid­den Inten­tion.” (Or to be pedan­tic, the orig­i­nal ver­sion was “Hon­or Thy Error…”).

As a teenag­er grow­ing up and try­ing to make art (at that time music and comics) there was no advice more free­ing. It was the oppo­site of what I thought I knew: mis­takes were shame­ful, the sign of an ama­teur or of the lack of prac­tice. But the more art I made, the more I ref­er­enced Eno’s idea, and the more I read and lis­tened, the more I real­ized it wasn’t just Eno.

The Bea­t­les left in an alarm clock meant for the musi­cians on “A Day in the Life” and the sound of emp­ty booze bot­tles vibrat­ing on a speak­er was left in at the end of “Long Long Long” (along with tons more). The Beast­ie Boys left in a jump­ing nee­dle intend­ed for a smooth scratch on “The Sounds of Sci­ence.” Radio­head left in Jon­ny Greenwood’s warm-up chord that became essen­tial to “Creep.” (There’s a whole Red­dit thread devot­ed to these mis­takes if you choose to go down the rab­bit hole.)

But those exam­ples relate to the record­ing process of rock music. What about jazz? Sure­ly there are “wrong” notes when it comes to play­ing, espe­cial­ly if you’re not the soloist.

In this very short video based around an inter­view with pianist Her­bie Han­cock, the mas­ter impro­vis­er Miles Davis hon­ored Hancock’s mis­take as a hid­den inten­tion by play­ing along with it. It’s both a sur­pris­ing look into the arcane world of jazz impro­vi­sa­tion and a reveal­ing anec­dote of Davis, usu­al­ly known as a dif­fi­cult col­lab­o­ra­tor.

“It taught me a very big les­son not only about music,” says Han­cock, “but about life.”

Note: An ear­li­er ver­sion of this post appeared on our site in 2016.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

What Miles Davis Taught Her­bie Han­cock: In Music, as in Life, There Are No Mis­takes, Just Chances to Impro­vise

Saint John Coltrane: The San Fran­cis­co Church Built On A Love Supreme

How Jazz Helped Fuel the 1960s Civ­il Rights Move­ment

Miles Davis’ Album On the Cor­ner Tried to Woo Young Rock & Funk Fans: First Con­sid­ered a Dis­as­ter, It’s Now Hailed as a Mas­ter­piece

Ted Mills is a free­lance writer on the arts.

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Benedict Cumberbatch Reads Albert Camus’ Touching Thank You Letter to His Elementary School Teacher

in K-12, Letters, Life, Literature | July 7th, 2026

It’s nev­er too late to thank the teacher who changed your life.

Oprah Win­frey fell to pieces when she was reunit­ed on air with Mrs. Dun­can, her fourth grade teacher, her “first lib­er­a­tor” and “val­ida­tor.”

Patrick Stew­art used his knight­hood cer­e­mo­ny as an occa­sion to thank Cecil Dor­mand, the Eng­lish teacher who told him that Shakespeare’s works were not dra­mat­ic poems, but plays to be per­formed on one’s feet.

And Bill Gates had kind words for Blanche Caffiere, the for­mer librar­i­an at View Ridge Ele­men­tary in Seat­tle, who des­tig­ma­tized his role as a “messy, nerdy boy who was read­ing lots of books.”

One of the most heart­felt stu­dent-to-teacher trib­utes is that of Nobel Prize-win­ning author and philoso­pher Albert Camus to Louis Ger­main, a father sub­sti­tute whose class­room was a wel­come reprieve from the extreme pover­ty Camus expe­ri­enced at home. Ger­main per­suad­ed Camus’ wid­owed moth­er to allow Camus to com­pete for the schol­ar­ship that enabled him to attend high school.

As read aloud by actor Bene­dict Cum­ber­batch, above, at Let­ters Live, a “cel­e­bra­tion of the endur­ing pow­er of lit­er­ary cor­re­spon­dence,” Camus’ 1957 mes­sage to Ger­main is an exer­cise in humil­i­ty and sim­ply stat­ed grat­i­tude:

Dear Mon­sieur Ger­main,

I let the com­mo­tion around me these days sub­side a bit before speak­ing to you from the bot­tom of my heart. I have just been giv­en far too great an hon­our, one I nei­ther sought nor solicit­ed.

But when I heard the news, my first thought, after my moth­er, was of you. With­out you, with­out the affec­tion­ate hand you extend­ed to the small poor child that I was, with­out your teach­ing and exam­ple, none of all this would have hap­pened.

I don’t make too much of this sort of hon­our. But at least it gives me the oppor­tu­ni­ty to tell you what you have been and still are for me, and to assure you that your efforts, your work, and the gen­er­ous heart you put into it still live in one of your lit­tle school­boys who, despite the years, has nev­er stopped being your grate­ful pupil. I embrace you with all my heart.

Albert Camus

The let­ter was grate­ful­ly received by his for­mer teacher, who wrote back a year and a half lat­er to say in part:

If it were pos­si­ble, I would squeeze the great boy whom you have become, and who will always remain for me “my lit­tle Camus.”

He com­pli­ment­ed his lit­tle Camus on not let­ting fame go to his head, and urged him to con­tin­ue mak­ing his fam­i­ly a pri­or­i­ty. He shared some fond mem­o­ries of Camus as a gen­tle, opti­mistic, intel­lec­tu­al­ly curi­ous lit­tle fel­low, and praised his moth­er for doing her best in dif­fi­cult cir­cum­stances.

Read­ers, please use the com­ments sec­tion to share with us the teach­ers deserv­ing of your thanks.

You can find this let­ter, and many more, in the great Let­ters of Note book.

Note: An ear­li­er ver­sion of this post appeared on our site in 2017.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Albert Camus: The Mad­ness of Sin­cer­i­ty — 1997 Doc­u­men­tary Revis­its the Philosopher’s Life & Work

Albert Camus, Edi­tor of the French Resis­tance News­pa­per Com­bat, Writes Mov­ing­ly About Life, Pol­i­tics & War (1944–47)

Hear Albert Camus Deliv­er His Nobel Prize Accep­tance Speech (1957)

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er in NYC.

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