Maintaining quiet confidence in the face of uncertainty My wife Jane is the type of person who likes to ask a lot of questions during a movie. She has never quite accepted the idea that the filmmakers are only interested in revealing the amount of information they want to reveal, at…
We Can Be Heroes
How tragedy plus time equals comedy “I wish you could swim, like the dolphins, like dolphins can swim. Though nothing, nothing will keep us together. We can beat them, forever and ever. We can be heroes, just for one day.” — David Bowie Tragedy plus time equals comedy. You could probably amend it to…
Is Your Imagination Robbing You Of Real Experiences?
A vivid imagination can let you explore life in ways otherwise impossible, but is it keeping you from experiencing the real thing? The Nobel Prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman said that he never allowed himself to dream of winning the Nobel, because as a child, growing up during World War II,…
All That Remains
“In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.” ―Robert Frost When it’s all over, who and what will live on Sometimes, I think of hope as the palliative we use to keep from getting lost or going insane, and not much more. It may…
When Huey Newton Ruled The Roost
When the protection racket fails to produce a beneficial outcome Huey Newton is a bad boy, a hard case, a tough guy. It was kind of the point, and how he got his name. The problem is, he’s so disruptive that we had to kick him out of the house for…
The Man Beneath The Beard
The tricky nuances of visual identity and personal expression I lost the beard yesterday. The whole thing. Kaput. Gone. Adios. Sayonara. I went upstairs with a long, grey beard, and when I came down, it was gone. Just some stubble in the shape of a beard, like the shadow of an…
Stories I Tell Myself
A few years ago, I came across a story that has stuck in my mind ever since. It was about a small-town newspaper in Alaska.
The Reason You Need To Be Making Art Right Now
In the fight against fascism, art is not only necessary, but essential.
The World Burns While I Wrestle A Chicken
Say It Loud (Black And Proud) There is an Eastern European proverb that goes something like, “The village is burning and grandmother combs her hair.” I’ve seen several variations of this attributed to multiple European countries and cultures, from the Romanians to the Greeks. Sometimes it has to do with war…
The Moral Failure Of Using AI In Your Art
The moral ascendancy of the Luddites and why you should resist AI in your work and life with ecclesiastical fervor In the early days of the 19th century, highly-skilled textile workers in England revolted against the industrialization they rightly believed would replace them with the introduction of machinery that required only…