Last updated: 25 April 2023
Well, dear friends, it’s been a while since my last update. I hope you enjoy this “year in review” that I intend to update on a much more regular basis in future!
—À bientôt, Kyle
Europe—
Patrick and I, with our dear friends Dana and PJ, took a whirlwind two-week trip through eastern-western Europe. We began in Budapest for a few days, then boarded the ship AmaBella for a 7-day cruise down the Danube which took us to Bratislava, Vienna, Dürnstein, Mondsee, Salzburg, and Linz before departing the ship in Vilshofen. From there, we spent one night in Regensburg before spending our last few days in Berlin.
While the trip was action-packed and full of memorable experiences, a few stand out as exceptional:
The Berkshires—
We are very lucky that my in-laws live in the Berkshires, and we took two trips there this summer to visit family, see some exceptional theater at the Barrington Stage Company (Cabaret, A New Brain) and at Tanglewood (Ragtime: The Symphonic Concert), a great visit to MASS MoCA, and made our collective first visit to the extraordinary and unexpected Frelinghuysen Morris House and Studio.
New York City—
I took three trips to New York this past year to see a total of five exceptional Broadway shows (three of which were written by Stephen Sondheim): Parade, Sweeney Todd, Here Lies Love Merrily We Roll Along, and (possibly most importantly) Here We Are, the show Sondheim was in the midst of completing at the time of his death.
Freddie Mercury accompanied us on two of these trips, and over the course of them he got very used to the hotel life.
Los Angeles—
Taking advantage of the fact that our friend Cher was teaching for the semester at the Emerson College LA campus, we visited her and her husband Brooke there for a long weekend. Sandwiched in between a hop-on, hop-off Hollywood bus tour and unforgettable visits to The Broad and MOCA, the four of us along with their daughter Bea spent two days in Disneyland. A meal at The Dresden Room was the cherry on the sundae of this lovely trip.
2023 has been the year of weddings, with three pairs of dear friends tying the knot this year. Maura and Lauren’s nuptials took place, appropriately for them, inside The Grand night club in Boston’s Seaport. Dolly and Iain’s wedding brought us to Oklahoma City for a lightning-quick 36-hours. And Will and Javier’s wedded life began in the beautiful Boston Public Library.
It’s always such an honor to be included in such celebrations, and the parties that followed each of these three ceremonies were no joke. There were pool parties, disco ball sippy cups, espresso martinis, and a giant oil portrait which I will never forget.
In November, I celebrated my two-year anniversary at Pegasystems, and things are going rather well here. It’s been a delight to continue to grow and hone my skills and put them to use in quite unexpected places.
One of my major projects this year has been producing, editing, and sometimes presenting in a series of short videos about our new software release (like this one). This has been an incredibly rewarding experience, working with so many stakeholders across the business to create my first externally facing (non-client-focused) content for Pega.
In January, I traveled to Denver for our Americas sales kickoff confeference, and was honored with an award for exemplifying the “Greater good” value at Pega.
I got to see the Simone Leigh exhibition that was at the Venice Biennale when we were there, but weren’t able to see because of Patrick’s Covid.
I was lucky enough to attend the tenth annual Julia Child Dinner at Cambridge’s Puritan and Co.
I had a life-changing evening seeing Death Cab for Cutie and The Postal Service play their iconic 2003 albums (Transatlanticism and Give Up, respectively) at the new MGM Music Hall by Fenway Park.
Our car died while driving to my in-laws’ on Thanksgiving, so against any preference at all, we bought a new car on Black Friday (much to my chagrin, it was not at a 70% discount).
Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster
Dana Thomas
Quant by Quant: The Autobiography of Mary Quant
Mary Quant
Kurt Weill On Stage: From Berlin to Broadway
Foster Hirsch
And the Category Is: Inside New York’s Vogue, House, and Ballroom Community
Ricky Tucker
The New York Subway Map Debate
Gary Hustwit
The Grand Affair: John Singer Sargent in His World
Paul Fisher
The Fawn
Magda Szabó
The Loft Generation: From the de Koonings to Twombly: Portraits and Sketches, 1942-2011
Edith Schloss
Where All Good Flappers Go: Essential Stories of the Jazz Age
Zelda Fitzgerald, Dana Ames, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Rudolph Fisher, John V. Watts, Dorothy Parker, Katherine Brush, Gertrude Schalk, Dawn Powell, Viña Delmar, Guy Gilpatric, Zora Neale Hurston, and Anita Loos; selected and introduced by David M. Earle
The Woman in Me
Britney Spears
Hotel Splendide
Ludwig Bemelemans
Capote’s Woman
Laurence Leamer
Affinities: On Art and Fascination
Brian Dillon
Calling the Spirits: A History of Seances
Lisa Morton
Watermark: An Essay on Venice
Joseph Brodsky
Answered Prayers
Truman Capote
Summer Crossing
Truman Capote
Insult and the Making of the Gay Self
Didier Eribon, translated by Michael Lucey
The Real Housewives of Orange County, New Jersey, Potomac, Salt Lake City, and more
My membership to the amazing Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and season subscription to SpeakEasy Stage Company
Kinfolk, Disegno, and Blau International magazines
The Articles of Interest podcast