The current New Yorker cover illustration by Christoph Niemann brought back a tingling rush of pleasure for those long summer days during graduate school when I played more than my fair share of tennis. The body's arc of contraposto just before letting loose...
Indignation: film review
Screenwriter James Schamus turns director with this supple adaptation of the 2008 Philip Roth novel Indignation, starring Logan Lerman as socially innocent, intellectually precocious Marcus Messner, son of a kosher butcher from Newark, New Jersey. We meet...
art imitates life
Painter Hildy Bernstein is an existentialist and a shamanic seeker. In her relentless artwork she probes her own unconscious as well as the unseen world of mythic archetypes. She waits, all her skills ready like the sword of a trained fighter, until that elusive...
behind the Big Screen
I'm a fool for Big Screen movies. No hand-held device, no TV, no laptop will ever be able to deliver that tangible, chewable breathtaking immersion in another reality that movies seen in a theater can do. Before you think "oh how yesterday," consider the...
ode to a frozen Charlotte
What is this? I asked the saleswoman at the store in Berkeley. I held in my hand a tiny white figure of a little girl made of porcelain, with one arm missing. That's a "frozen Charlotte" she smiled. There was a cautionary tale behind this figurine: it told of a girl...
dreaming of paper and pen
In a digital landscape — would she have survived? It is a bit of a seance, your fingers feeling for something deep within the paper, locked inside—or beyond. Hoping that the fingers can channel the exact right word, or phrase for some subtle distinction or nuance...
what would Virginia Woolf do?: Part Two
Virginia Woolf used to complain when she ran out of ink, or if she needed a new nib for her pen. Definitely old school. But those of us who write for a living, or out of passion, we each have rituals that not only define our process but which define the outcome as...
crystal palace
My grand-mother collected S&H Green Stamps and Meissen milkmaids. My mother collects wasps’ nests. I have managed to acquire an unlikely group of spheres: an ornament embedded with mirrors from an import store, two quartz globes from a gem show, a huge...
unlikely textures
The roughness of the world is as sweet as its silkiness. Sweeter even because of all it asks of us. The beauty of something like my repurposed backyard cactus takes more work to find. But it's there. This summer I am rewarded for my care by the sudden starburst of...
what would Virginia Woolf do? Part One
I'm inspecting the inside of the oven door. Yes, it really does need some attention from a single edge razor blade. You see I plan to set my fat-encrusted oven on "Self Cleaning," a process that will require the dedication of four hours during which the house will...
random shrines
"Perhaps because I had no roots to hold me tight to one path or one place, I was free to explore. In the process I have filled each event in my life with as much color, movement, and awareness as it could hold. The quest for home has provided me with incredible joys,...
identity portals
"Many of us have trouble parting with old clothes, toys, or games from childhood, papers from college, single gloves that have long since lost their mates, and empty perfume bottles still heady with scent. We keep them because they still transmit an aura of pleasure,...
liquid music
After so many years of writing about wine I experienced another epiphany yesterday. In the company of 75 gathered aficionados I listened to winemakers and viticulturists talk about their land, their soil, the tender regard they had for their particular slope of eden....
why we live here
Unsettling and yet soothing. Our mother, the sea.
digital dystopia in full swing
That's right, Neo IS the one, as my 304 students in the Spring 2016 FILM 80S class are finding out. Big fun.
pretty good track record
I was right about Spotlight (best picture), and Mark Rylance (best supporting actor) and Leo DiCaprio (best actor). Not too shabby given my lackluster attendance at nominated movies. Gotta confess that I was at Opera Parallele's terrific performance of "The...
Inside the Flame
Watch this space!—you'll find information and updates about my upcoming book, Inside the Flame: the joy of treasuring what you already have, launching November 2016 from Parallax Press.
Oscar Predix
First off, let me admit that I haven't seen all the films nominated this year. But that won't stop me from making a few informed (and highly opinionated) predictions. This was the year in which nominated films exhibited similar virtues—seamless ensemble acting. E.g....
Galuszka at Gabriella….until March 7
Paintings by Frank Galuszka—from the lake district of Italy to the Davenport coast— at Gabriella Cafe, January through March 2016.
Carol – an excuse to eat popcorn
How could this many members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences be wrong? I wondered as I rummaged around in my purse for some dental floss. Once found, the floss gave me the excuse I needed to stay in my seat during this turgid, self-absorbed...
Gorgeous Baroque Music
UCSC's notoriously ambitious Concert Choir—under the direction of Nathaniel Berman—works its way gracefully through some outstanding Baroque oratorios, works from the A-list of the 17th century—Scarlatti, Carissimi, Schütz and Charpentier—on Friday December...
Assemble This!
Assembly in downtown Santa Cruz continues to amaze me—great service, seasonally savvy menu and this colossal burger! with fries to drool for.
Gabriella Cafe—exhibit of portrait paintings
Salon: Tuesday, Dec. 8 6-8pm. My painting exhibit is currently showing at Gabriella Cafe & Gallery, in downtown Santa Cruz. Come and check out this unexpected and colorful work, including many very recent pieces. Even better, make plans to join me next Tuesday —...
Hamlet – the HD simulcast experience
At the urging of my friend, veteran theater-goer Bruce Bratton, I reserved a ticket to a recent HD simulcast of the National Theater production of Hamlet. The one with Benedict Cumberbatch as Hamlet. I had seen the production exactly one month ago, live, in London....