Oscar Wilde's only novel is a masterpiece; one just as accessible and relevant in 2019. In it, young Dorian Gray, a handsome bachelor in his prime, falls in love with his own good looks. He is so enamored that he swears before a just-finished portrait and its painter that he would gladly sell his soul to keep his youth and beauty. 

From there, Gray is ushered into the decadence of high society under the informal mentorship of a cynical gentleman, Lord Henry Wotton. At first, Gray waves aside Lord Henry's caustic jokes and small lies as trifles, but rejects directly participating. Soon though, his own words and deeds begin to mimic the insincerity and immorality of various high society members—culminating in a very real slippery slope of dishonesty, materialism, arrogance, and greater yet self-corruption. 

All the while, something strange isn't happening. Dorian is not aging. He looks just as young and handsome as the portrait used to look. The painting—with each increasing act of sin—changes; ages. His actions are destroying the soul of the face, the beauty that once rightfully belonged to it.  

Written with impressive brevity (250 pages) and a gorgeous lyricism (some favorite quotes and passages below), The Picture of Dorian Gray is a cautionary, epic tale of morality and its essential role in an individual's survival. [JG]

{*} "The studio was filled with the rich odor of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden there came through the open door the heavy scent of lilac, or the mere delicate perfume of the pink flowering thorn." 

{*} "The lad started and drew back. He was bare headed, and the leaves had tossed his rebellious curls and tangled all their gilded threads. There was a look of fear in his eyes, such as people have when they are suddenly awakened. His finely chiseled nostrils quivered, and some hidden nerve shook the scarlet of his lips and left him trembling." 

{*} "...[Dorian Gray] defines for me the lines of a fresh school, a school that is to have in it all the passion of the romantic spirit, all the perfection of the spirit that is Greek. The harmony of soul and body—how much that is! We in our madness have separated the two, and have invented a realism that is vulgar, an ideality that is void." 

{*} "Like all the people who try to exhaust a subject, he exhausted his listeners." 

{*} "He played with the idea, and grew willful; tossed it into the air and transformed it; let it escape and recaptured it; made it iridescent with fancy, and winged it with paradox. The praise of folly, as he went on, soared into a philosophy, and Philosophy herself became young, and catching the mad music of Pleasure, wearing, one might fancy, her wine-stained robe and wreathe of ivy, danced like a Bacchanate over the hills of life, and mocked the slow Silenus for being sober. Facts fled before her like frightened forest things. Her white feet trod the huge press at which wise Omar sits, till the seething grape-juice rose around her bare limbs in waves of purple bubbles, or crawled in red foam over the vat's black, dripping sloping sides. It was an extraordinary improvisation. he felt that the eyes of Dorian Gray were fixed on him, and consciousness that amongst his audience there was one. Who temperament he wished to fascinate, seemed to give his wit keenness, and to lend color to his imagination. He was brilliant, fantastic, irresponsible. He charmed his listeners out of themselves, and they followed his pipe laughing. Dorian Gray never took his gaze off him, but sat like one under a spell, smiles chasing each other over his lips, and wonder growing grave in his darkening eyes. At last, livered in the costume of the age, Reality entered the room in the shape of a servant to tell the Duchess that her carriage was waiting." 

{*} "I am on the side of the Trojans. They fought for a woman." "They were defeated."  "There are worse things than capture."

{*} "The made who calls a spade a spade should be compelled to use one. It is the only thing he is good for."

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) was an Irish playwright and poet best known for The Importance of Being Earnest and The Picture of Dorian Gray. He also wrote children's short stories, collections of epigrams, essays, and poems. Wilde's wit, brevity, and humor make for memorable, jousting dialogues and laugh-out-loud page turns. His tongue-in-cheek cracks come often, but he aims at the right targets: insincerity, dishonesty, boot-lickers and gold diggers, materialistic squabblers and petty social tyrants. Wilde is the funniest writer I've ever encountered. His humor is a sight for modern eyes, because it is entirely devoid of smirks and sneers toward the good, the beautiful, the productive, the honest, and the innocent. Over the years, reading his collection of comedic anthems of romance, justice, and hope have been sheer pleasure. I wish he had been allowed to write and live longer. 

In 1895, he was accused of homosexuality, then a crime in England, and sentenced to two years of hard labor, which he served in various prisons. Upon his release in February 1897, his health had greatly deteriorated. He died from meningitis less than a three years later, exiled and flat broke. In 2017, Wilde was among an estimated 50,000 men who were pardoned for homosexual acts. The Act is known informally as the Alan Turing law. There's an excellent movie about Alan Turing's contributions in WWII to help crack the Nazi's secret message code and his later imprisonment called The Imitation Game.

The infamous trial and execution of Socrates in 399 B.C., as recounted by his then-mentee, Plato, fascinated me since first reading them in undergrad. The charges against the father of Western philosophy—impiety and corrupting the youth of Athens—and moreover, Socrates' decision to drink the poison hemlock instead of flee into exile, was frustrating and an enigma. Why would a critical, curious man accept the unjust death sentence—a sentence thrown down for merely asking uncomfortable questions to friends and strangers in the streets?

These four dialogues are powerful and uniquely relevant again in the age of so-called hate-speech, safe spaces, trigger warnings and phobia-labeling.

While reading, I wouldn't help but think of Jordan Peterson, the Canadian professor whose free speech against compelled speech brought him to the forefront of a profoundly divided conversation on tolerance, civility, and freedom.

I think about Lindsay Shepherd at Wilfred Laurier University and the inquisition into her open discussion of gender pronouns in a grammar course. 

I think about Bret Weinstein at Evergreen State College and the students and teachers who demanded his resignation for refusing to leave the campus because he is caucasian—or even speak to defend himself. 

I think back to Flemming Rose who in September 2005 commissioned and published twelve cartoons about Islam, prompted by his perception of the European media’s self-censorship. One of those cartoons, an image of the prophet Muhammad with a bomb in his hair, sparked what would become known as the “cartoon crisis,” during which both peaceful protests and violence erupted across the world.  

I hope more of us revisit Socrates' trial and execution immediately. [JG]
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"Education must begin at birth."

— Maria Montessori, Education From Birth

I work for an education company based in SoCal that is deeply influenced by Maria Montessori and committed to mainstreaming her philosophy of education. Montessori's life was a harrowing, inspiring, and epic adventure. Seriously, this woman needs a bio-pic starring Meryl Streep and directed by Peter Weir! (Until then, I found this documentary on YouTube fascinating.)

The transcripts of her 1946 London course is, I think, actually an excellent introduction to Montessori's unique perspective on human development and what wholistic early education requires. The book is formatted into 33 approachable, brief, substantive talks. I'm told that these lectures also became the foundation of the Association Montessori Internationale (AMI)'s primary course. 

Maria Tecla Artemisia Montessori (1870-1952) was an Italian physician and educator who devised a new philosophy of education from decades of experience teaching poor children in Rome. She wrote volumes on her scientific pedagogy, the materials and lessons she designed for infants, toddlers, and older children, and the importance of wholistic education to achieve and maintain global peace.

During WWII, Montessori was forced to flee her then-Fascist home to India, where she continued to teach and refine her ideas for seven years. Her legacy in her adoptive country is enormous: the world's largest Montessori school is in Lucknow, India with 2,500 teachers and nearly 40,000 enrolled children. To this day, Montessori-influenced schools can be found in the Americas, Europe, Africa, Asian, and Australia. As of 2014, it's estimated that over 14,000 Montessori schools exist with tens of thousands of additional practitioners at home or in traditional schools. This woman needs a bio-pic starring Meryl Streep and directed by Peter Weir! (Until then, I found this documentary on YouTube fascinating.)

"If a small child mixes with cultivated people who discuss scientific and lofty things, the child absorbs all the words; he absorbs the most difficult technical words. A child can absorb thousands of words."

— Maria Montessori, Solving the Social Problem
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"What I was six, [my father] required that I should drink a glass of raw blood every day. To strengthen my mental faculties, he ordained that I should eat calves brains three times per week, washed down with a bottle of beer. Blood, brains, and beer; a noble experiment."

​— David Ogilvy
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I first heard the name Ogilvy eight years ago on some forgotten episode of Mad Men. Intrigued by the idea of potentially meeting a real-life Don Draper, I cracked open the perennial bestseller, Confessions of an Advertising Man, the next day. Inside were some of the most juiciest secrets on business, leadership, and life, putting Don Draper's own to shame; namely, the practical value of honesty in work and at home. ​I've (re)read Ogilvy every year since:
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• Confessions is high-level; witty, eloquent, and mindset-shaping. 
• On Advertising is tactical, creative and packed with direct instruction. 
• Unpublished is a mosaic of letters, notes, memos, speeches, ads, & interviews. ​
• Blood is autobiographical, meditative, yet blunt.

From the father of modern advertising's childhood in a string of religious prep schools to his nomadic twenties in French kitchens and Amish farms in Pennsylvania, Ogilvy's life story shines with a spirit of perpetual restlessness and patient discipline. The college dropout's craving for variety and novelty (the man was a farmer, door-to-door salesman, travel companion, chef, and diplomatist) eventually led him to his life's calling in the advertising world. Spinning copy into gold, Ogilvy eventually quit his comfortable job and trekked to Madison Avenue, turning $6,000 into $60+ million in billings. 

​This book is not just for marketers. Blood, Brains, and Beer is a witty, inspiring, and informative self-portrait of a top creative from the 20th Century. His legacy touches all of our lives dozens of times a day in the form of thoughtfully crafted commercials. Ogilvy wrote the books—literally—on how to create successful ads by way of honest and clear communication, respect for the audience's mind and time, and value-oriented, tasteful stories. His ad agency of "gentlemen with brains" set the bar high in the '50s and '60s—a benchmark that creatives should still reach toward for the sake of their own projects and person.  [JG]

"In advertising, the beginning of success is to be different." 
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"We sell—or else." — David Ogilvy
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I love the spirit of this small but mighty book. ​Islam and the Future of Tolerance is a much-needed dialogue on the world's second-largest religion and its 1.6 billion adherents.

Formatted literally as a back-and-forth dialogue between neuroscientist Sam Harris (perhaps the most influential critic of modern religion) and muslim reformist Maajid Nawaz, the conversation is candid, passionate, discerning, and thoroughly refreshing. I particularly appreciated these five discussion points:

1. What Nawaz has termed "The Voldemort Effect" for when any mentioned of Islam is censored out of relevant political and violent contexts, including acts of terrorism
2. Harris' concentric circles of muslim populations organized by secular and religious sentiments derived from poll results in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East
3. Nawaz's four steps to radicalization and his recount of his own journey out of it
4. Harris' contextualizing of religious and political warfare in medieval Europe and the Near East
5. Their shared view that the term "Islamophobia" halts, not helps, discussion and thinking

Harris and Nawaz depart at numerous times as they traverse the landscape of jihadists, Islamists, moderate muslims, the media and allegations of Islamophobia, the crusades and tragedies of history, as well as how to achieve a more tolerant future. But their shared values of free speech and secular tolerance, as well as a conviction in the ability for persuasion and personal reform, shines a light through the disagreements and serves as a vital example to emulate. [JG]
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You can stream the new documentary, Islam and the Future of Tolerance on Amazon Prime and iTunes.