It is only when we have the courage to face things exactly as they are, without any sort of self-deception or illusion, that a light will develop out of events by which the path to success may be recognized. –The I Ching or Book of Changes, Wilhelm Baynes edition, Princeton University Press LAST YEAR’S GIFT You are […]
Digressions
Poem: Difficult
In Africa, lion after lion fell before the Colonel’s artillery. Rhinos, hippos, antelopes, wildebeests, and all manner of game were struck down, helpless as Democrats. When a skeptical George Creel asked one of Theodore Roosevelt’s guides how the former President, “blind in one eye, and myopic in the other,” could hit any of the animals […]
A Nearly-Successful Attempt to Write the Perfect Role for Jacqueline Bisset—An Appreciation of “Mystery” Writer Ross Thomas
“Kissing her, Stallings decided, was like kissing your first older woman—the one with all the wicked experience. He then decided not to decide anything else and simply go along with whatever happened except that what happened was far from simple. Instead, it was intricate, a trifle wild, totally sensual and innovative even to Stallings who […]
Remembrance of Things Past: The Sheep Squadron
Long emails
I am addicted to writing long emails. Some people read my long emails. Most do not. My sister does not read them. The number of people who fill my inbox with complaints about the size of my emails is enormous. What’s a long email writer to do? Reform. Blog instead. Hence, this blog.
Self: Cultural identity Judaism
The following appeared in Brit Shalom of State College, PA’s quarterly publication The Center Scroll, January/February 2011 Teach It Diligently to Your Children I remember clearly that astonishing first visit to the obstetrician, the one where I saw for the first time a sonic image of my first child inside her mother’s womb and […]
Strangers and Snow
From where I sit stuck in the February snow on the Allen Street hill facing home after breakfast at Webster’s Café and Bookstore, the words come to mind like a mantra that has governed the last 15 years of my life as a man who cannot walk, “…I have always depended on the kindness of […]
Background Whimsy for February 2010 Voices Column above
MY NEW POWER CHAIR Picture 1. It is nearly dawn here at my apartment in Addison Court. Lately, I have been getting up early, drinking 5 cups of Ethiopian coffee and so ending my caffeine for the day. Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Pictured here is the view from my kitchen/dining room/living room window. I look out East onto […]