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 …
A tidal wave of hindsight washes over the country after every election, drenching us in a not-quite-drinkable cocktail of hypothesis and certainty. When things go badly—as they did for Democrats, especially conservative ones, in some key races—it is consoling to believe we know precisely how the outcome could have been reversed. But that particular consolation …
Election time brings it out, I suppose: the deafening clash of certitudes. However vainly, I find myself wishing to hear a candidate ask a question without a foregone conclusion, actually engaging us in discovering new answers. But no matter how clueless they may feel inside, politicians act like they know it all. And no matter …
What grounds you? That’s a serious question for a person who travels for work as much as I do. When I’m rooted in my own time zone, my tastes run toward a particular balance of the exalted and earthy: intensely bittersweet music, especially the most baroque blues; accidental intimations of eternity in a conversation I …
This is my sixth and final post about the Grantmakers in the Arts 2010 conference, where I was invited to take part as a live blogger. It was tremendous fun: I got to write morning, noon, and night, which is my preferred type of ecstatic meditation. It was also a perfect antidote to the anxiety …
On Tuesday, I attended a Grantmakers in the Arts conference presentation on “Participatory Arts and Community Health: Challenges and Opportunities,” organized by Amy Kitchener of the Alliance for California Traditional Arts. It began with presentations on exemplary projects braiding art with individual and community well-being, offered by Maria Rosario Jackson of the Urban Institute, Beatriz …
The first plenary session of this Grantmakers in The Arts’ conference focused on the National Capitalization Project, a GIA initiative launched this past January. It was premised on the plain truth that arts organizations are often under-capitalized. A task force of funders and experts studied the literature, agreed on terms, and has just now published …
The movie star Tony Curtis died this past week at 85. Curtis occupies a special place in my mental pantheon, as the embodiment of Hollywood’s shrewd and cynical rendering of cultural identity during the middle years of the last century. In the milieu I came up in, a much-loved pastime was identifying the hidden Jews …
This is my second dispatch from the brave new world of online dating, just over a month after I posted the first one. This essay comes with a premium, like the toy in a box of Cracker Jack: a pocket guide to constructive curiosity, a skill that will improve any man’s chances of dating success. …
Dear Readers: I’m excited that my talk for The Field in New York—”Why America Needs Artists (It’s Not What You Think)”—will be live-streamed online at 7 pm EDT on Monday, 27 September, 2010. Please click on this link to see it. Taste is a complex process. Tasting entails integrating information from our eyes, noses, and …