Greg Stone

The truth about tariffs: the company importing the goods pays them, not the firm selling them.

In other words, US businesses are shelling out the dough at the borders. And they'll no doubt pass the extra cost on to consumers.

Ultimately, we pay.

Gotta protect the tree supports, but what about the tree itself? Cambridge, MA anomaly.

If you want to know what happened with regard to Russia's role in the first Trump campaign, read the Mueller report, as I did. Buy in on Amazon, then you can decide for yourself.

For the record, Mueller, a lifelong Republican, neither exonerated nor condemned Trump.

Take this psychological test. Choose your preferred bookshelf style. What do you think it says about you?

If you study a Jackson Pollock painting and think, “That’s easy, any child could do it,” think again.

I know. I tried my hand at painting in the style of Pollock. I showed it to a video editor I know who said it looks like something Pollock would have done in sixth grade. I have to agree.

In 1929 Kuleshov produced a short film with closeups of a bowl of soup, a dead woman, and a woman in bed, all paired with an actor's face. The audience thought he was hungry in the 1st scene, sad in the 2nd, and in love in the 3rd.

Yet in each case the actor’s face was exactly the same!

I like the 2nd one. Shows more of the bird’s face. Nice work all around.

The first one is best, IMHO. great contrast b

Morning gold in Boston.

Two views of a deck on a sunny day in Boston.

In this little known thriller from 1953, the ex-con narrator makes pronouncements like these in the style of James Cain or Raymond Chandler:

“You’ve never heard a siren until you’ve heard one looking for you and you alone."

“He said solitary itself was nothing but a room and a cot and you ..."

Fantastic short stories!

Jumpha Lahiri’s minute observations proceed slowly but inexorably toward revelations of her characters’ inner souls.

I should have discovered her a long time ago. This book won an amply-deserved Pulitzer back in 2000.

A "benchmark" ad in five words and a captivating pic from the Denver Water Authority. Minimalism with maximum effect.

3rd row, middle.

Here's my latest newsletter with tips on communications, focusing on PowerPoint (my least favorite crutch), storytelling, body language, vocal emphasis, and the power of three messages.
Read it all here: createsend.com/t/t-C6ACDE38...

Is anyone surprised?

Trump suggests hosting UFC matches at the White House US President Donald Trump said Thursday that he’s thinking of staging a UFC match on the White House grounds with upwards 20,000 spectators to celebrate 250 years of American independence.

Make of this what you will.

apnews.com/video/presid...

Kafka asked, "If the book we are reading does not wake us, like a fist hammering on our skulls, then why do we read it?"

In 1952, President Harry Truman said:

Socialism is a scare word they have hurled at every advance in the last 20 years.

Socialism is what they called social security.
Socialism is what they called farm price supports.
Socialism is what they called bank deposit insurance.

San Francisco always intrigues my retinas.

Images that caught my eye inside San Francisco's MOMA.

More works from San Francisco's excellent MOMA: Dorothea Lange's photo of workers cutting lettuce in the Salinas Valley in 1935, Robert Therrien's "Bent Cone," and an early Pollock done before his "Jack The Dripper" phase.

"Fountain" by R. Mutt, AKA Marcel Duchamp at San Francisco's MOMA. Stretching boundaries.

Trump hurts all of us by hurting Harvard. This chart shows the grants he has terminated at the university.

The Mission, San Francisco, June 2015

Stanford, California kindles mine eyes.

Berkeley, California, June 2025

Generally, placing the subject in the center of a photo is unimaginative. But in this view of the empty land on both sides of US 54 north of El Paso in 1938, the positioning creates an essential impression of bleak foreboding.

Did you ever notice that Cézanne's still lives seem to defy gravity? How is it that the fruit won't roll off the tables in these two paintings? Perhaps the off-kilter quality makes still lives move.

Ingres created an abstract shadow in this portrait of Madame Edmond Cavé.