My husband and I moved to Washington, DC in 1979 to head a national organization of community artists. At that time, the federal government was allocating about $200 million a year to public service jobs for artists: painting murals, designing community gardens, running neighborhood circuses, offering music classes, and so on. One of Don’s and …
I am not a Pollyanna. I feel the need to say this because I have gotten so many messages since my last blog post, both from people thanking me for suggesting a basis for hope that is grounded in reality, and from people who feel certain that now, any remnant of hope is merely insulation …
This morning, a message posted to a list I’m on cited a teaching of Rebbe Nachman of Bratslav: all of life is just a narrow bridge; we must remember the most important thing is not to fear. There’s a beautiful tune that goes with those words, and I’ve been letting it circulate behind my thoughts …
I have a habit of mentally preparing for the worst, especially when I hope for the best. I think my particular habit must stem from my father’s sudden death when I was a child: that experience installed a piece of software I’ve used ever since to insulate myself from unbearable shock. But it isn’t unique …
As readers of this blog know, I’ve been troubled by nagging symptoms of surrealism in everyday life. President Bush fills me with the same uneasiness I feel when confronted with the sort of demented-clown figure that populates horror pictures: Chucky, or Leatherface, or the jaunty paleface who appears in \Friday The 13th,\ I think it …
I was in New York last week, mainly talking with groups of NYU arts students about roles for artists in social change. Every once in a while in such milieux, I run into the complacent view that artists are doing good just by being artists. It annoys me when people trot out essentialist ideas of …
I’ve been thinking about elections (not just the current one) because I’ll be speaking on Friday at a panel on “Elections and Democracy” at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. (Check my Web site for information on this, my \Clarity\ reading on 13 October, and other appearances this week in New York City.) The two …
Here it is, handily arranged in a single Quicktime movie a minute or two long.
This morning our local paper ? \The Contra Costa Times\ ? featured a Knight-Ridder story about Kerry’s denunciation of Bush as living “in a fantasy world of spin.” I was glad to see a glimmer of truth in print, but by the time I’d read past the lead, a sinking feeling replaced my pleasure. “For …
I apologize for disappearing for a week, but the Republican convention scared me blogless, which I think was the general idea. I didn’t watch the actual convention on TV, but I saw most of the stellar footage on Comedy Central’s very funny “Daily Show.” I had to scrape my jaw off the floor after three …