the song of love

what does a dishevelled Apollo, a surgeon’s glove, a green ball and a distant train have in common?

last time I was in NYC, I saw this - one of De Chirico’s definitive works - at MoMA and it stuck with me.

it’s surreal and absurdist and not just because Apollo usually has a tidy cut, but in the strange juxtaposition of the objects.

apparently, when Rene Magritte (of: this is not a pipe) first saw this, he burst into tears.

there’s something to be said about the way this painting evokes a sense of the absence of human presence. a ball is to be played with, yet it features here in this strange deserted landscape. the train is there but with no windows, no visible passengers and shadowed. the glove is hung, yet empty. the bust is from a long lost era.

to me it it could represent the paradox of loneliness in a city. it’s easy to live somewhere massively dense, with a lot going on, yet sometimes still feel like you’re not meeting people enough. in the post-AI world, human connection becomes infinitely more valuable. and a big part of the reason I’m headed to NYC is to connect with humans.

we’re hosting a Data Leaders Dinner on Thursday, I’m meeting customers and prospects on Friday, and then I’ll be judging an AI Agent hackathon for Lightdash along with Google DeepMind, ElevenLabs and Datadog on Saturday.

on Sunday, I’m planning on heading back to MoMA.

let me know if you’d like to catch up for any of the above (including MoMA!) I have some slots free.