. “The ecstatic is our compass, pointing to our true north.” “Art is far more powerful than our plans for it.” —Advice for artists from The Creative Act, by Rick Rubin . There’s nothing quite like a consuming passion. It often comes about unexpectedly when encountering a new idea, project or person. And then it […]
Theater
The Wife of Willesden
Zadie Smith in rehearsal for Wife of Willesden. Photo: Marc Brenner. . There are many reasons to make your way to Zadie’s Smith’s play, The Wife of Willesden. Based on Geoffrey Chaucer’s Wife of Bath, it draws on 600 years of admiration for Chaucer, the undisputed father of English poetry. And bringing this play to […]
Life of Pi: A Seismographic Ear to the Earth
Who knows where the art making impulse comes from? I certainly don’t. Considering all the people who, like me, are laboring daily to bring something new into existence even when it is thankless and difficult, this is a question best placed in the “no explanation” file. For a culture that is doggedly focused on what […]
Both a Wail and a Whelp of Joy
. In the ancient archetype of the spiritual quest, the focus is almost exclusively on the itinerary of a solitary journeyer. Eastern wisdom traditions have long advocated for a path of solitude, isolation, self sacrifice, meditation. Models from the Western literary canon take a different route but they also feature an essentially solo journeyer: Dante […]
Wildly Protopian
On the set of Wild, at American Repertory Theater (Photo: Maggie Hall-Nile Scott Studios) Most of the thinkers I follow closely are actively exploring alternative models, ones that can impact our ability to continue as a species on this planet. That search for a change is summed up by Daniel Schmachtenberger: Rather than just iterative […]
A Tempest for These Times
Ah Prospero. You are my favorite character in all of Shakespeare! The masterful conjurings, the lonely exile, the fierce revenge still raging after twelve years away from the lost Dukedom of Milan, the Other embodied in ethereality and earthiness, the willingness in the end to forgive and forego—there are so many parts of his story […]
Movement in the Macro
Like the difference between weather and climate, big patterns are not easy to see. Trying to tap into the larger forms can feel counterintuitive, furtive, confusing. As the old saying goes, no matter how good their eyes, the short person can never get the overview. My personal bookmark for that problem of perception is a […]
Moby-Dick: A Musical Reckoning
More than any other American writer, Herman Melville creates a distortion in the fabric of the author spacetime continuum. A complex and moody man whose early books gave no indication he was capable of writing the greatest American novel, Melville engenders a devotion today that is famously passionate, intractably opinionated and deeply personal. (Melvilleans have […]
The Voice That Comes in Through the Window
You can’t start writing until you know what you’re doing, and you don’t know what you’re doing until you start writing. I still have to resist the false intuition that I need to know as much as possible in advance. The essential thing is to know as little as possible. Ideally, when things fall out […]
Behind the Music
Falling in love. Finding a passion. Feeling drawn to a particular place. These are common human experiences that play a significant role in the ultimate trajectory of a life. They happen well outside the domain of logic and intentionality. Even in a culture like ours that places such high value on linear thinking, we all […]