Halloween is commonly considered a time when the barrier between the physical and the supernatural worlds is especially fluid. The late fall holiday has its origins in the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, when the dead were thought to freely roam the earth. People… Read More
For Christmas last year, when she was 94, my Mother asked for a Barbie doll — not just any one, mind you, but an “Andy Warhol” Barbie® (above). Part of Mattel’s Collector series, this doll is the second (of three) produced in collaboration with the… Read More
Hamilton, the critically successful musical that opened on Broadway in 2015 and won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2016, is based on the 2004 biography written by historian Ron Chernow. The play traces the rise of Alexander Hamilton, an orphaned immigrant from… Read More
I love deserts — which is a good thing, considering that where I live is rapidly becoming one. The world’s best deserts, the ones that haven’t been defiled and defaced by over-development and tourist debris, are stark, uncluttered, and magical. They speak to… Read More
A professional restaurant chef won’t even begin to cook until everything is gathered and organized, basic ingredients are chopped, juiced, crushed and otherwise prepared, and everything is set up at the work station. It’s part of the prep for service and it’s called… Read More
Inspiration; where does it come from? And what do you do with it when you have it? I, being a writer, write it down: endless notes, ideas, configurations, interpretations, quotations. I have always been an inveterate note-taker, so this is my default mode.… Read More
New Orleans is jazz. More precisely, New Orleans is improvisational jazz: a city built on the familiar strains of complex cultural chords — French, African, Creole, Spanish — with ever-expanding riffs and variations on one enduring melody. With its “blended family” of history,… Read More
Most people have never been to Abilene, Texas. I, myself, had probably been there, or through there, in my childhood, but who remembers? It is familiar to most people because of the song, Abilene, Abilene, recorded over the years by country greats since the 1960s… Read More
I can still recall how I felt that day, now over 30 years ago, when I had my first piece of writing accepted for publication. Thrilled wasn’t the word; I became positively giddy when the editor called. I had recently been laid off from my… Read More
Sustained concentration takes a lot out of you, especially when your project gets derailed at the end. (See “Goal Digger, 3/1/17) Buoyed by the promise of a rescheduled museum exhibition in the near future, I have now hung “Busted” in my studio in my own… Read More
the narrative thread 