Questions are the new answers

Came across this thought: ‘questions are the new answers’, which sounded immediately interesting. 



Here’s the Youtube clip. 



The art of asking the right questions | Tim Ferriss, Warren Berger, Hope Jahren & more | Big Think



Thought I’d writeup the key points here: 



Questions are becoming more valuable than answers



A lot of the time breakthroughs at the root of an innovation and research findings there is a great question. 



Questions enable us to organize our thinking around what we don’t know.



In a time when so much knowledge is all around us, answers are at our fingertips, we really need great questions in order to be able to know what to do with all that information, and find our way to the next answer.



You can see those things you’ve been seeing a little differently.



Curiosity question. A question that a child might come up with.



The initial curiosity driven question can be turned to other experts who know how that might play out into something that is important to the marketplace. 



There is no substitute to the first step, the little kid question. 



The issue is that schools value the answers and there is almost no value placed on asking a good question. 



Start by asking a naive question to yourself, and let them play out. That process can take us to something that is more concrete, actionable.



Questions are often at the root of innovation. 



A survival skill for all of us.



A tool.



Asking dumb questions can become a superpower.



‘I don’t understand, please explain that’



Absurd questions. Example, ‘if you had to accomplish all of your work or grow your company 2X while working two hours a week. If you had a gun against your head, how would you attempt to do that?’ These absurd questions don’t allow your to user your default frameworks for solutions. Forces you to think laterally, to break boundaries on the sphere of comfort that you’ve created for yourself. 

Journaling asking yourself these questions is powerful. 



You might come up with interesting ideas, leads you to an interesting direction. Take he seed and do something with it. 



Alex Bloomberg asking the dumb question during the subprime mortgage crisis, ‘why would banks lend money to people who stand next to no chance of paying it back?’ The thought that everyone had in their mind, sitting in front of us that no one was asking.  



Often the dumb question that no one seems to be asking is the smartest question you can ask. 



If you can override that embarrassment and be the one who ask dumb questions..it is a superpower. The questions here are the most powerful. 








 







Giuseppe Verdi - Italian Opera Composer


Opera Philadelphia
Giuseppe Verdi | Short Biography | Introduction To The Composer

Giuseppe Verdi  (1813-1901), Roncole, Italy (at the time Italy did not exist, and as the region was controlled by the French, he had a French birth certificate). Comes from a family of traders and small landowners. Mother was a spinner, father a innkeeper. Verdi’s musical talent was evident from his early years, and was trained at the local church, where he was full-time organist by age nine. In 1823, moved to a nearby larger city of Busetto, where he composed and performed. Eventually moved into the house of Antonio Barezzi, a local merchant and amateur musician. Taught singing and piano to Barezzi’s daughter,Margherita, who he would later marry.



At age 18, moved to Milan and applied to the conservatory, but was rejected due to being over the age limit. Instead, began to study with Vincenzo Lavigna, a composer and maestro at the La Scala.  In 1836 he married Margherita and accepted the position as maestro at Busetto Philharmonic. 



1839 first opera Oberto - accepted by La Scala

Next opera Un giorno di regno - was a failure, and he would not compose again until  the maestro at La Scala, Bartolomeo Merelli,  forced the libretto Nabucco on him. This opera became a major success and ascended him to the light across Italy and Europe. He became a leading figure in the movement toward a free, united Italy. 



After Nabucco, Verdi wrote 16 operas in 11 years. Rigoletto (produced in Venice), Il Trovatore, La Traviata. He spends time in Paris, once back in Rome premiered Un ballo in maschera. 



He traveled extensively in Russia, Paris, Madrid, and London, supervising his operas. In the final three years, wrote Aida, Otherllo, and Falstaff. 



Total 26 operas were written, died in Milan at 87, in 1901.





One of the greatest Italian Opera composers. Respected composers such as Richard Wagner, but had strong nationalistic convictions, deeply rooted in traditional Italian operas such as Bellini, 

Best Verdi Works: 10 Essential Pieces By The Great Composer

La Forza Del Destino

Aida

Don Carlos

Falstaff

Il Trovatore

La Traviata

Otello

Rigoletto

Un Ballo In Maschera

Messa Da Requiem


When Verdi died, half the population of Milan showed up for his funeral, wow. 


Here is the link to the photo at the time. 


“To date, it remains the largest public assembly of any event in the history of Italy.”



The best books on Verdi recommended by Francesco Izzo


Great summary of books to read on Verdi. Introduction is also an interesting and educational read.

Verdi's opera Falstaff

Study of Verdi’s Falstaff

Starting to gather information and study Giuseppe Verdi’s Comic Opera ‘Falstaff’.  You might want to tag along and check it out. 

COMPOSER Giuseppe Verdi
LIBRETTIST Arrigo Boito

from the play The Merry Wives of Windsor and scenes from Henry IV, Part 1 and Part 2, by William Shakespeare.

World Premiere: Teatro alla Scala, Milan, 1893.

Synopsis: link to the Met Opera

Libretto in Italian

Libretto in English

Listening to an interview with the Italian Conductor Daniel Gatti.  Verdi composed three Operas based on Shakespeare: Macbeth, Othello, and Falstaff.  He considers Falstaff to be “a great Italian Opera masterpiece, written for musicians, not for the audience in a way… a very sophisticated opera.” 

Story of a man at the sunset of his life. No friend, completely alone. “I’m very fond of the first scene, the monologue…so sad, so dark, so pessimistic in a way…but it is not a monologue of a man at his end of life, but a monologue of a man that has to start his last part of his life….maybe because I am not so far from this age….it’s an opera that is growing every time, because I think I am growing as a human being.”  

“...after [writing] the three or four operas, he began the study of human being. And this is the greatness of the theatre of Verdi, it is not the melodies, not the arias, no, it is how he developed the character.  And sometimes it is very uncomfortable to listen to Verdi opera, because he shows the human being misery…Verdi is all the time, very modern, because he talks about all the problem that we have nowadays… and by going there you may see yourself, in Falsestaff, in Othello, Trovatore, and Rigoletto.”

At nearly 76 years old, Verdi loved the libretto on Sir John Falstaff, written by Boito. Verdi originally wrote to Boito how he was too old to write another large scale opera, but eventually decided to write the piece. Took him four years to complete.  Boito’s libretto for Falstaff is undoubtedly his finest work, and among the finest libretti ever written. Boito was odd, and frankly terrified of editing, altering, and adapting the play, by the man, Shakespeare, on an Italian opera stage. Verdi complained how he was not able to write productively as he once did when he was younger.

KELLY AKASHI "HEIRLOOM" AT VILLA AURORA

Kelly Akashi Heirloom at Villa Aurora

Frieze Projects: Against the Edge

Curated by Jay Ezra Nayssan & Del Vaz Projects

February 13th, 15th, 17th, & 18th, 10:00 AM - 1:45 PM

https://datebook.sfchronicle.com/art-exhibits/kelly-akashi-creates-art-that-explores-from-her-familys-internment

I found out about Kelly Akashi from a newsletter from Barbati Gallery, Venice, Italy.

The exhibition was only for a few days, by RSVP. At Villa Aurora, a beautiful artist residence, set in the hills of Pacific Palisades, on the coast of Los Angeles.

Bridget Riley Drawings: From the Artist's Studio

Link to Bridget Riley

Link to exhibition info - Bridget Riley Drawings: From the Artist's Studio

Hammer Museum, Los Angeles

FEB 4–MAY 28, 2023

William Kentridge: In Praise of Shadows