Lately, whenever I speak, I’ve been handing out small cards bearing two optical illusions. Last night, I handed them out at dinner. My friends hosted a lovely evening of teachings devoted to Passover’s theme of liberation. When I thought about what I wanted to share, these images came immediately to mind. Gaze at the image …
Spring thrusts its face through the fog of war and disaster the way those delicious green fuses, asparagus spears, drive upward through the earth. Even in circumstances that beggar imagination, this season brings consolation, green shoots rising to the promise of renewal. Despite the blows it has sustained, the earth abides and grants us a …
Someone I know wrote the other day that his friends in Japan are “getting used to the aftershocks; they’ve become normal.” But of course, “normal” doesn’t quite describe what happens when we sustain repeated shocks, becoming inured. What actually happens has more to do with numbing, with defensive insulation, and with the denial or evasion …
Note to readers: based on response to my recent 3-part series on cultural funding, Life Implicates Art, I’m letting people know about my workshop on Reframing The Arts, a powerful generator of new ideas, fresh inspiration, and transformative action. Please contact me if you want to explore sponsoring one. Triage is the process of culling …
The word of the week is blame. Who should be blamed for Jared Lee Loughner, the loony white male devotee of the Sovereign Citizen Movement who shot nineteen people outside a Tucson supermarket on Saturday, killing six and wounding fourteen, including Representative Gabrielle Giffords? What happens when scapegoating overtakes a culture, as it has overtaken …
Someone sent me a clip of the comedian Dave Attell on “The Jimmy Fallon Show,” responding to the host’s query about his holiday plans. “Christmas is a long day for the Jews,” Attell says. “Very long.” Then he takes viewers on a quick tour of Fallon’s set through Jewish eyes, and for a few seconds, …
Something wonderful happened to me yesterday. I got a call from the director of an organization I’ve been working with, who said that a check had arrived from an anonymous donor, earmarked to support the new book I’m working on. My new book’s working title is But Beautiful: Art, Eros, and The World We Make. …
How much does the past constrain the future? To what degree are we bound by the chain of causality? In many forms—inherited guilt, pathways of desire, the freedom of art—the past week has brought these questions to my attention. The more I ponder them, the more I am convinced that the answer encompasses opposites. We …
We are suffering from an epidemic distortion of reality, the byproduct of commercial media addiction to shock and awe. What are we going to do about it? I recommend an immediate moratorium on believing the sensational garbage blasted through the mediaverse simply to sell airtime; and a reality-check that helps liberals and progressives kick the …
A few days ago, a wise friend told me, “You’ve really lost faith in everything, haven’t you?” But he had to modify the statement immediately. If faith means “confidence” or “trust,” then I have plenty of it. I have what seems to be an unshakable faith in human possibility: consistently, I see that what seems …