Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “Blog”
Lying there among the trees, despite a learned wariness towards anthropomorphism, I find it hard not to imagine these arboreal relations in terms of tenderness, generosity and even love: the respectful distance of their shy crowns, the kissing branches that have pleached with one another, the unseen connections forged by root and hyphae between seemingly distant trees. I remember something …
I was interested to read about the polling app NewNew, which is creating something like the Opposite of Influencers. NewNew, a start-up in Los Angeles, describes its product as creating a “human stock market.” On the app, fans (aka random people on the internet) pay to vote in polls to control some of a creator’s day-to-day decisions. Whether it’s the …
If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than …
I’m in the process of reevaluating how I start my day. Generally, I rise, stretch, make and drink coffee, feed and pet BeBop, and check my email. Ugh. That last bit. I am reading that how you start the day, your morning routine, is make-or-break for the rest of that day. I don’t believe that; I believe I can restart …
I’ve been slow to add blog posts lately, as I’m working to complete Act II of my new play about ethics in Big Tech. Or rather, lack of ethics. The play was originally titled Zero Tolerance, but that doesn’t really apply any more. The new working title is The Engine of our Destruction. I’m examining the ethical choices of two …
Poet Diane Ackerman on reinventing yourself: “Living things tend to change unrecognizably as they grow. Who would deduce the dragonfly from the larva, the iris from the bud, the lawyer from the infant? Flora or fauna, we are all shapeshifters and magical reinventors. Life is really a plural noun, a caravan of selves.” Source: Cultivating Delight
I’ll be a guest on KALW’s Open Air radio show, along with a generous excerpt of my audio play BYSTANDERS, Thursday, February 18, at 1 pm Pacific. BYSTANDERS was directed by Gary Graves, and features Maria Marquis and Hannah and Kimberly Ridgeway as Zayne. In it, two women grapple with grief and guilt in the aftermath of a mass shooting. …
In case you weren’t aware, I have been hosting a podcast over the course of the pandemic on behalf of Central Works Theater. The concept behind it is to read a script, and then hear from the playwright. We choose from among the many world premiere plays that Central Works has produced. You can listen to my interviews with Nicole …
I’m working on a comedy (hooray! finally) with the working title The Engine of Our Destruction. I became fascinated by the psychological condition scrupulosity, and the main character suffers from this fascinating variant of OCD. Scrupulosity is akin to OCD but for ethical and moral matters. People with scrupulosity fixate on moral actions and experience extreme stress and anxiety if …
Elizabeth Bishop’s heartfelt villanelle, One Art, eloquently speaks to our current moment. Bishop’s epitaph, which she wrote herself, is this: “All the untidy activity continues,awful but cheerful.” ONE ARTby Elizabeth Bishop The art of losing isn’t hard to master;so many things seem filled with the intentto be lost that their loss is no disaster. Lose something every day. Accept the …