Tonight is Halloween so it’s time for a scary tale. But this one isn’t about ghosts and goblins. It’s a tale far more horrible. It’s about a feminine myth that has kept women from reaching their full potential. We start with Hysteria, the Greek word for muse. Literal
Haruki Murakami’s new book, Colorless Tsukuru and His Years of Pilgrimage, is receiving critical acclaim, most recently from Rivka Galchen. (“The Monkey did it,” By Rivka Galchen, Harper’s Magazine, October 2014, pgs. 86-89.) I haven’t read Murakami’s newest work yet,
After the play reading with live actors, I met the director a couple of weeks later. She had organized her notes from that evening and we began reviewing the play, line by line, scene by scene. She added comments of her own, indicating places where the language was too stilted mak
Who knew? Among the government’s millions of documents, the CIA has a style guide to help agents write better reports. Apparently the MLA Style Sheet isn’t good enough for the spooks, so it’s invented its own. I’m not surprised. They’ve bent the language before (Bl
When I was a child and did something my father thought was stupid, he’d shake his head and say, “Must be something in the water.” He said it countless times before I was old enough to drink wine instead of water so his words never left me. I’m inclined to revive them again a
My life is pretty hectic at the moment. Besides caring for my 98 year-old mom, there’s my play to worry about and preparations for my move to a retirement center. When I saw my calendar for the upcoming week, I threw up my hands. “Oh no. Not another lunch, coffee, movie!
While having lunch with a friend, I expressed frustration in my attempt to obtain a permit from the city that would allow a moving van to park in front of my house. The commission staffers overseeing the traffic department had no idea which division handled permits and so I stumbl
While scientists attempt to map the human mind in a well-funded program called The Brain Activity Map Project (BAM), theologians and philosophers wonder if that mapping will give us a greater understanding of consciousness and free will than we have now. As writer and Pulitzer priz
We humans have curious minds and I use the word in two senses: 1) as minds that take an interest in the world around them, and 2) as minds being strange in themselves. Hamlet observed, “What a piece of work is man,” (Hamlet II, ii) and I couldn’t say it better. The entire
Each year when the time comes to renew my subscription to More Magazine, I equivocate. At 78, I’m too old to care about mascara that will make my eyelashes grow. I have naked, Mona Lisa eyes. I don’t mind. I no longer wish to paint a face “to meet the faces I shall meet.