Adapt like Kasparov
“I always say I was the first knowledge worker whose job was threatened by a machine.” And how did you come back, Garry?
Speak up like Zephaniah
Zephaniah lived many lives: poet, activist, actor, vegan, martial artist, Rastafarian. But he lived them all as himself.
Give like Picasso
Where did Picasso’s genius come from? Other people? Two portraits, painted 26 years apart, drag us into the centre of the artist’s tumultuous relationships.
Earn like Eliot
There are two ways to be a wealthy poet. You can be born rich, like Lord Byron. Or earn a living like T.S. Eliot, who hunched over a desk in the City of London.
Engage like Haring
“I live every day as if it were the last.” You sure did, Keith Haring. You left colourful, boogying figures on the walls.
Shoot like Cartier-Bresson
A gun doesn’t make a hunter. And having a Leica camera with a 50mm lens won’t turn me into Henri Cartier-Bresson. I lack the killer instinct. (For now.)
Invest like Peggy Guggenheim
She called herself the poor Guggenheim. But that was only true because her cousins inherited more than she did. She’d get revenge.
Thresholds
A ticking watchAt 20 feet. A bead of perfumeIn a honeymoon suite. An insect wing,Against your cheek. A candle,One town over.
Love like Frank O’Hara
“Personism, a movement which I recently founded and which nobody knows about, interests me a great deal…” If O’Hara was poking fun, it came from a place of love.
Stall
Canary Wharf persuades youPeople can get busy in all directions,But the woman cramming bagels,Wedging salt beef between gherkins,She points directly – right through.