On Sunday, I rode in a wheelchair through the Oakland Airport, experiencing a taste of humbling dismay. I’ve been dealing with a pinched nerve for weeks now, learning through my own complaints how many fellow sufferers there are. (Along with another participant in the meeting I attended, I got down on the floor during the [...]
No, it isn’t an exotic bean curd dish at a very special Japanese restaurant. It’s Hebrew for “without form” and “void,” or “formless” and “empty,” as most English versions of Genesis 1:2 translate the Hebrew description of the chaotic state that preceded creation: “And the earth was without form, and void (tohu v’bohu); and darkness [...]
The French have a saying I love: even a broken clock is right twice a day. Our court system is broken in so many ways, perhaps chiefly owing to judicial appointments’ use as political tools. But even so, sometimes they get it right and those times are worth noting with appreciation. Here are two of [...]
I’m snowed into a hotel room in Madison, Wisconsin, setting the alarm for 4:15 a.m. to make my replacement flight home. Ah, life on the open road! What to do with my suddenly free time? Blog, of course.
One of the dedicated arts people I met on this trip forwarded me an article from The [...]
More and more, the things I care about seem to turn on a single question: can we human beings choose our actions, or are we in some very real sense controlled by other forces (whether our own brain chemicals or the commands of those in authority)?
The oft-cited behavorial studies of Stanley Milgram in the [...]
We Americans have strange ideas about social class. In study after study, the vast majority (often more than 80 percent) self-identify as “middle class,” suggesting that for some people identity is aspiration and for some illusion. When social scientists study class distinctions based on measurable factors such as income, it turns out unsurprisingly that 1/3 [...]
I took a short trip to an alternate universe the other night. It started with a 5-minute ride on a party bus equipped with a huge refrigerator and gleaming stainless-steel sink. Tiny twinkling stars were set into the ceiling. From my cushioned seat, I stared at freeform glass panels separating passengers from the driver: they [...]
In my travels over the last few weeks, I’ve encountered quite a few arts advocates in the grip of a singular and persistent obsession, conveying art’s value through “hard evidence” such as numbers, graphs and charts intended to convince funders and policy makers to invest in cultural programs.
The dean of an arts college confided [...]
I’m off to Mississippi to visit with Thousand Kites, one of the projects described in my just-published book, New Creative Community.
In prison slang, a “kite” is a message, such as a note or letter to a prisoner. The project is a collaboration between Holler to the Hood (H2H) and Roadside Theater, two groups based [...]
There is no more powerful reminder that something has value than to see another risk everything to embrace it. Brave immigrants have been marching this week through my memories, reminding me that the essence of human freedom is to stand and be counted.
My ancestors have been immigrants much longer than I know or can [...]
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