You know the “Stockholm Syndrome,” right? It’s when hostages empathize with their captors, a form of what psychologists call “traumatic bonding.” Welcome to the Stockholm Syndrome State. The culture of politics is in a coma, the result of an overdose of deference to authority dissolved in a long drink of state-sponsored fear. Shall we wake …
When we have rights, it’s easy to take them for granted. It’s when they are contested that they matter most. Today, I write about two very different examples provided by the U.S. Supreme Court and the movement for Scottish independence. There have been many times in my adulthood that I questioned the meaning of voting. …
I first got wind of it in Linda Essig’s post on Facebook (Linda, who writes the blog “Creative Infrastructure,” was also kind enough to post a “love letter” to The Culture of Possibility last week). Then I got a note from my friend David Francis in Edinburgh, a wonderful musician (he and Mairi Campbell make …
It’s interesting to have opportunities to give advice to young artists. Each time, I learn something about myself, something about the way I may appear in others’ eyes—and something about the gap between them too. I suppose the easiest way to explain that gap is that to those several decades my junior, my life—or at …
My sweetheart loves to fly fish. He never keeps the fish, just tenderly tips them back into the sea. So he’s plugged into various fishing networks, some devoted to survival of species that are imperiled by human impact. He’s the one who turned me onto Twyla Roscovich’s quite remarkable film, Salmon Confidential. The film painstakingly …
In New York for my book launch, I did some of the things I usually do: walked the streets endlessly on my way from one meeting to another, connected with old friends, wondered what exactly it says about “civilization” that we are increasingly expected to get along without public restrooms…. I walked crosstown from NYU …
(This post is a part of the Artistic Innovation blog salon curated by Caridad Svich for the 2013 TCG National Conference: Learn Do Teach in Dallas). “When I use a word,’Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.” (Lewis G. Carroll, Through The …
(Dear Readers: I’d love to see you at my upcoming book launch in Berkeley at 2 pm on Sunday, 2 June.) Last night, almost done reading one of my two new books, The Culture of Possibility: Art, Artists & The Future, my partner said this: “You’re a feather-ruffler, aren’t you?” Well, sure. Speaking truth to—and …
Dear Readers: I’d love to see you at my upcoming book launches in New York at 6 pm on Thursday, 23 May and Berkeley at 2 pm on Sunday, 2 June. What comes to mind when I write that someone has used words as blunt instruments? Insults or arguments maybe, the kind of hate-speech that …
I was on the tarmac in Las Vegas, gazing from my window seat at the dusty prospect below. Ten yards away, three robust men in fluorescent pink-and-green vests and orange jumpsuits crouched in the shade made by the roof of an empty luggage-wagon, resting between loads. The youngest jumped up and walked to a spot …