thoughts & observations

Creating something new is hard. Can I protect myself from those telling me it can’t be done? It hurts when they point out, rightly or wrongly, that I don’t have what it takes to see it through, that the obstacles are too great, that my skills, my plan, or my temperament is not up to…

A trick of the light, a shadow, a memory. It isn’t real. It’s distorted and backwards…a mystery. Why look at ghosts? Why look back when the future lies ahead? Good question. Perhaps finding truth requires more than a single perspective? I can’t see myself without a mirror. I can’t understand someone else without hearing thir…

It doesn’t happen often. Abundant noise can fragment signal. Meaning is hard to see when every screen is yelling out one more disturbing detail, another enticing sensation, and distractions built upon a haphazard foundation of what came before. But every once in a while, the sounds become a chord and the words penetrate. No more…

My family left Philadelphia to live in Alaska in 1970. Today I’m visiting Philly and for the moment sitting under a birch tree to admire it’s latest green outfit. Childhood memories painted this downtown in black and white, thick with grime, larger than a monster movie, darker than a noir crime story. But childhood memories…

Back when I was an actor, reading reviews was a fraught activity. I won’t forget what it felt like to wait at Sardi’s to read the early reviews of my first (and only) Off-Broadway appearance. To protect myself from criticism and appear like some sort of misunderstood artist, I might say something along the lines…

reading…out loud A book is a pleasure to hold, fun to turn its pages, a satisfaction to close when finished. But reading out loud is a particular joy for me. When I read to friends willing to listen, my heart, mind, and voice become the author’s instrument. My only concern is to find whatever music…

I noticed cracks in the sidewalk… Twenty-five years ago, I attended a business meeting in Paris. Not the 19th Century Central Paris that lives in our dreams with grand boulevards crossing cozy neighborhoods, but in the business district, La Défense, a mid-20th century fantasy of steel towers and glass façades surrounded by smooth concrete plazas.…

do we need this? When I’m told to “mind the gap” in train stations, I wonder how necessary the warning might be. Maybe some people forget to notice the hole between where they are and where they want to be. The warning might prevent a terrible accident. But gaps are obvious. Difference demands attention, it…

Alaska was changing even before I left it in 1982. Global warming was easier to notice up there. The solid blanket of snow from November to May was no longer solid, with rain a common occurrence in December and even January. The Portage Glacier ice field, once bordering the Seward Highway, retreated over a mile…

In 1982, Hank Williams, Jr. released a song called “A Country Boy Can Survive”. Angry, resentful, and proud, it delineated what the musician believed were fundamental differences between people in the country and those in the city. The lyrics describe the city as place where his condescending urban friend is killed by a mugger and…