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How I love this poem by Carol Ann Duffy, former Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom. Mrs. Midas It was late September. I’d just poured a glass of wine, begunto unwind, while the vegetables cooked. The kitchenfilled with the smell of itself, relaxed, its steamy breathgently blanching the windows. So I opened one,then with my fingers wiped the other’s glass …
Originally set to be on stage in New Consrvatory Theatre Center’s 2020-21 Season, I reworked The Law of Attraction to be a hilarious and snarky (“zingy” says the Bay Area Reporter) radio play. The cast is amazing and the audio engineering and design delightful. This comedy of bad manners takes on the self-help industry and the search for perfection. Tickets …
This little story by Hans Christian Anderson, “The Fir-Tree,” holds a valuable lesson. Out in the woods stood a nice little Fir-tree. The place he had was a very good one; the sun shone on him; as to fresh air, there was enough of that, and round him grew many large-sized comrades, pines as well as firs. But the little …
Artist Lorna Simpson discussing her use of text with photographs: “I started to concentrate more upon how the viewer looks at photographs… I would insert my own text or my own specific reading of the image to give the viewer something they might not interpret or surmise, due to their ‘educated’ way of looking at images, and reading them for …
Poet David Whyte on personal power and writing: “Every action taken, from the moment we switch off the alarm clock in the morning to the way we write a line of poetry or design a product, has the potential to change the world, leave it cold with indifference, or perhaps more commonly, nudge it infinitesimally in the direction of good …
The following is an excerpt from the poem To Bless the Space Between Us by John O’Donoghue. It resonates today: especially its urging to pause and reflect in the quarantine winter. This is the time to be slow,Lie low to the wallUntil the bitter weather passes. Try, as best you can, not to letThe wire brush of doubtScrape from your …
“It’s not so terrible a feeling, aloneness, or it’s so terrible it’s mind-blowing. I’ve never felt so present as I do now, every second on the brink of life and death. No sense of space or scale. I picture myself as a tiny person teetering on the rim of a glass of milk. (I don’t know why milk, I don’t …
I recently hate-watched the HBO limited series “The Undoing,” with Nicole Kidman in an assortment of glorious coats and execrable wigs, and with Hugh Grant as her husband. This travesty was written by David E. Kelley, who wrote “The Practice,” which I quite liked, and “Big Little Lies,” same. There were a lot of things wrong with the series. It …
Gwendolyn Brooks died on this day in 2000, 20 years ago. She is one of the most admired, influential, and widely-read poets of 20th-century American poetry. She had the distinction of being the first Black author to win the Pulitzer Prize. She also was poetry consultant to the Library of Congress—the first Black woman to hold that position—and Poet Laureate …
I’m working on a play about a woman who is challenged by moral scrupulosity OCD, a condition that affects sufferers in a variety of ways. My questions are, how does such a person react when faced with a moral dilemma at work? If the antagonist learns the hero suffers from scrupulosity, how can the antagonist overcome her objections to a …