(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 …
After dinner the other night, a friend who’d recounted the rather impressive incompetence of the powers-that-be at his workplace said that he tried not to think about how messed up things are in the larger world beyond his 9 to 5, because when he got in touch with all that could go wrong, it terrified …
It all comes down to this: no matter how you parse it—art, politics, spirit, planet; body, mind, heart, and soul—the realms that are reckoned separate in the official version of our current reality are in truth a unity, and recognizing that is the path to wholeness. When we violate—ignore, deny, falsify—the absolute indivisibility of our …
If you stick around long enough writing books and essays and giving talks, people come to you for advice. Very often, the requests I get turn on choices between alternate futures. Graduating students, youngish artists and activists, members of an older generation considering “encore” careers or avocations—sometimes, people seek me out for advice on what …
It’s been one of those times when the pace of events—both interior and exterior—accelerates almost beyond reckoning. Granted, these days I get much of my news from “The Daily Show,” but still: Inauguration! Republican vote-rigging! Somalia! Egypt! I had a birthday with all the attendant thrill and agony, met a bunch of deadlines, and—big news …
I had a conversation last week with someone who gave up making films to start a business he hopes will earn enough money to finance major social-change organizing projects. He condemned progressives for their illusions, saying they that think if they’ve watched a hard-hitting film, they’ve done something, but really, “they’ve done nada. The most …
One feature of the history of ideas is a persistent belief in progress that isn’t disrupted by learning that trendy ideas often turn out to be as flawed as the silliest old ones. Part of the problem has got to be a deficit of reality-testing: how often do you go back to reality-check your expectations, …
These are tender times. The usual end-of-the-year retrospective ache has been amplified in the aftermath of so many storms, inner and outer. It’s often hard to know whether an ambient mood is the aggregate of personal response to the brokenness we are perceiving in world events or the opposite: a projection of personal angst onto …