Spring has sprung

“May is the month of expectation, the month of wishes, the month of hope.” — Emily Brontë

And just like that, winter has faded from our collective memory, though some of my friends in New York are still grumbling about the cold weather and how often the odd warm days lull them into a “spring” mindset. In San Francisco, however, spring doesn’t change much, except on the calendar.

It’s still gray, with phlegmatic morning skies followed by some sunshine in the afternoon, only to have the cold winds return in the evening. Still, I know it is spring because the baseball stadium lights are on. My fantasy team is once again in last place — what’s with the injuries to all my top players every year?

May arrives like a soft song, and that is a perfect reason for me to write down yet another one of these “letters.” It has been a while since the last one. I will admit, over the past two months, my writing (and general creativity) has taken a big step back. It’s hard to pin down a reason for this onset of megrims, but here we are. Even my personal journal seems to be bored with the sheer repetitiveness of my thoughts.

Perhaps it’s the general state of the world.

I read something in one of Pico Iyer’s books that feels prophetic.

“Nowhere else I’ve been, in fact, are individuals so disengaged from the political domain,” Iyer writes in The Beginner’s Guide to Japan. “My Japanese friends assume they can no more address their leaders than they can a group of look-alike men in suits in a corporate boardroom with the doors locked and the curtains drawn. So they turn their backs on the public sphere and make fantastic worlds out of their passions, counter-societies out of their hobbies.”

He was writing about Japan, but he might as well be writing about today’s America. I wonder if we are all destined for such political apathy. My own behavior certainly seems to be heading down this path.

Photography, fountain pens, and reading wonderful books are my distractions from a world that I can’t really control or shape. My constant tryst with mortality has disabused me of any notion of grandeur and self-importance. I empty my mind of the noise of everything and start afresh every day. I let things just be. And I read a lot: long magazine articles, good journalism in places like The Financial Times, and books. Here are some of the books I read over the past two months.

• When the Going Was Good by Graydon Carter
• For Blood and Money: Billionaires, Biotech, and the Quest for a Blockbuster Drug by Nathan Vardi
• I’m a Fan by Sheena Patel
• Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams

I found the first two immensely enjoyable and quick reads. Being a media guy, I loved Carter’s recounting of media industry from the perch of a Condé Nast high priest. Each page felt like a reminder of why the establishment media remains in a pickle. Vardi’s book was a good way to learn about the biotech industry and its shenanigans. Sheena Patel’s book was a fantastic read, though it certainly made me aware of my age. Again, I would highly recommend it. What I won’t recommend: “Careless People.”

I’m not shy about my distaste for Facebook and its amoral ethics. I don’t much care for Mark Zuckerberg’s constant stretching of the truth, so I was the perfect audience for this book. The book is written from the narrow standpoint of an employee, and as a result, you’re left wondering if the author really understood the complex beast of a company she worked for. I can’t recommend it. I know the popular press is singing its praises, but as someone who followed the company closely, consider me unimpressed.

In my non-writing time, I’ve been experimenting with a new editing technique for my photography that allows me to look beyond my past obsession with landscape shots. I’m seeking inspiration in more mundane, everyday scenes and transforming them using this new approach. I’m quite excited about sharing some of this work soon.

ICYMI: Some articles from the recent past that I’ve written:

• Innovation isn’t just about inventing something new. It’s also about reinventing and rethinking what has been around for a century as well. (A torpedo bat of innovation.)
• More than the antitrust action, Google’s biggest problem is the growing mediocrity of its products. (The Mediocrity of Modern Google.)
• In the Age of AI, search is just a feature. No, seriously!
• Apple Intelligence: FUD, Dud, or Both?
• 10 years later. Reflecting on the time after the shutdown of my company.

From CrazyStupidTech:

• Why China’s EV boom is actually bad news for US tech at large.
• The Illusion of the Smart Home.

So, what’s next for the month of May?

Hopefully, I will return to traveling and focus on more writing. And, oh yes, some more photography!

See you soon, folks!

May 4th, 2025. San Francisco