I seem to express myself best lately in angry podcasts for World BEYOND War, the very worthy global nonprofit where I’ve worked since 2018. Why can’t I ever just … Read the rest
I used to write a lot about Long Island and Queens, but it’s taken me a long time to write about Brooklyn. I’ve been living here eight years now, in the neighborhood variously known as Prospect … Read the rest
Sometimes a picture can help me understand what I feel. It’s nice when this happens in an art museum. It’s also nice when it happens after I take a break from a frustrating moment at work to send Gemini some wacky image prompt, and joyously find a masterpiece in response.… Read the rest
I always used to wonder what it would feel like to live through the sudden collapse of a peaceful and integrated society. We like to scare ourselves with this question when we read books or watch movies about military invasions or hostile occupations or war crimes: what if we ourselves … Read the rest
I was walking in Prospect Park, thinking heavy thoughts about the world, when my mind suddenly generated a new thought: I had a new all-time favorite author. And this favorite author was the great Irish/British novelist Iris Murdoch, who died in 1999.
It’s a funny thing to be hit with … Read the rest
“It is happening again.” A distressed old man on a mysterious stage speaks these words slowly and painfully in the climactic episodes of David Lynch’s brilliant “Twin Peaks”.
Genocide is happening again in more than one region of planet earth today. We talk about Israel’s violence in Palestine on the … Read the rest
Dear reader: I wrote this for World BEYOND War, where I’m director of technology. While this isn’t about me, it feels like one of the most personal things I’ve ever written, because I had to dig deep and work hard to try to explain my most elusive beliefs about … Read the rest
I threw the I Ching for America the other day.
This is a good spiritual practice when you come to a moment in your life when things are changing fast and you want to get a grip on what’s happening. My own version of this ancient Chinese tradition is quite … Read the rest
“Out demons out!” I don’t know why it’s feels so cathartic to me every time I listen to the recording on the 1968 Fugs album “Tenderness Junction” of a historic event a year before, the exorcism and attempted levitation of the Pentagon in USA’s capital city by a determined group … Read the rest
