A year into the plague, we’ve now missed two Passovers, one Rosh Hashanah and one Thanksgiving, the three holidays on which my wife and I generally gather with lots of family. We’ve also missed untold visits from friends and family from out of town, or our frequent outings with those in the New York area. […]
Read More… from A YEAR INTO THE PANDEMIC AND MISSING THE BEST OF TIMES:FAMILY GATHERINGS AT HOLIDAYS
Long before I read Mercea Eliade’s assertion that Yohanan ben Zakkai (and not Jesus Christ) was the most important religious figure in the first century of the common era, Zakkai was one of my heroes because he managed to escape from Jerusalem under siege by the Romans through a clever ruse. He was my favorite Jewish […]
Read More… from A POEM FOR PASSOVER THAT IS NOT ABOUT PASSOVER
Here’s another poem for Passover. “Just Like Brian Wilson” starts as a critique of the concept of royalty, which I despise. It proposes that at the point in the Passover seder when people sing “Next Year in Jerusalem” (“L’Shana Haba’ah B’Yerushalayim”), we instead should say “Wherever you want to be.” Jerusalem, after all, is a […]
The end of the pandemic represents an opportunity to find provisional answers to an eternal question: Do we have a core self that persists through decades of change? Or are we, like Ibsen’s Peer Gynt, but onions that have only peels—our outward personas—but no central essence that exists from birth to death? Once we are […]
Read More… from DO WE HAVE A CORE SELF THAT PERSISTS THROUGH DECADES OF CHANGE?
Sometimes I wonder what I would do if I knew I had only one more day to live. A few years back I catalogued the possible activities for a hypothetical last day on Earth. Surprisingly, wild fantasies of exotic travel, sex with strangers, and meetings with famous people did not make the list. Most of […]
Read More… from WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOU KNEW YOU WERE GOING TO DIE TOMORROW?
One thing I’m sure most people don’t miss during the pandemic are long staff meetings in ice-cold air conditioning with insipid sandwiches and donuts. At least on Zoom, you can dress comfortably, easily distract yourself on the sly with Facebook posts and online games, turn the temperature in the room to a comfortable level, and […]
Read More… from ANYONE MISS LONG BUSINESS MEETINGS IN ICE-COLD AIR CONDITIONING?
My guess is that most adults have experienced the following, although probably not since the pandemic began: You meet someone and have an immediately physical attraction, and feel vibes that the other person is attracted to you, too. But one or both of you is involved with someone else, or the situation makes pursuing your […]
Read More… from WHEN ATTRACTED TO SOMEONE TABOO TO YOU, WHAT DO YOU DO INSTEAD OF PURSUING SEX?
From almost the beginning of literature in ancient times, writers have toyed with the idea of alternate visions of reality: dream worlds, the reality after death, fantasy worlds, the world when under the influence of foreign substances, life at the royal court, the lifestyles of the rich and famous. Now, with the rise of the […]
Whatever the reason for being in recovery—be it from substance abuse, childhood trauma, violence, sexual abuse, or war—the feelings are similar: guilt and shame, as survivors of trauma and substance abusers both tend to blame themselves. Both often long deeply for a return to the bad situation—substance abusers for the fleeting pleasure indulgence provides, trauma […]
Read More… from BE IT FROM SUBSTANCE ABUSE, VIOLENCE OR TRAUMA, RECOVERY IS DIFFICULT
Some years back, the University of Pittsburgh’s Frick Fine Arts Museum asked me to write a poem about its exhibition of Audubon bird prints and include it in a reading there. I decided to do with words to Audubon what Coltrane did with sounds to “My Favorite Things”—to turn a well-loved work of traditional art […]