“If you smile at me I will understand, that is something everybody everywhere does in the same language.” — from the song “Wooden Ships,” performed at Woodstock Dear Friend and Reader: THIS WEEK is the 38th anniversary of Woodstock festival that occurred the summer of 1969. At the peak of the Vietnam War, nearly … Read more
Dear Friend and Reader: When that bridge collapsed in Minneapolis last week, it was more than a symbol of America’s national infrastructure crumbling — it was the real thing. There were miracles (the school bus full of kids that didn’t explode) and there are warnings (much of the infrastructure of the United States is the … Read more
Dear Friend and Reader: ONE DAY last month, standing in a convenience store in northern Belgium, I decided to join the Nestlé boycott. I’ve always tried to avoid Nestlé products, but it’s difficult in Europe because they have such vast market share. I was standing in the store, wanting some chocolate, looking at a lot … Read more
Dear Friend and Reader: A FEW years ago in a storm of indignant inspiration, I wrote a short piece called The Seven Definitions of Monogamy. The joke was basically this: the outer perception is that monogamy is one thing, one concept; in reality, everyone has a different definition, or lack thereof. The dictionary says it means … Read more
Dear Friend and Reader: Where two signs meet is rich territory. Often it seems that the 12 meeting points of the signs are like another set of archetypes that we often hop over so we don’t break our mother’s back. Yet in those subtle spaces, we can slip between the worlds. They are the zones … Read more