This morning I learned that mom has not been cooperating with the physical therapists – one of the nurses described her behavior of late to me and I said, hey, sounds like my mom. A long time ago she told me that if someone told her to do something she would do the opposite even if it meant harm to her. I asked her then, and you think this is a sound policy? Maybe you…
I was having a drink with a long time source of mine in New York at the Capitol Grille and we were talking about home and architects and renovating. He found a magical place in the Hamptons and built himself a tree house that my house could easily slip inside of. I told him that there was nothing like being home and sitting on my front porch watching the bayou and the people and animals…
Several of Kadinsky’s paintings are images of an apocalypse. His belief was that the apocalypse signaled a transition not an end – and I might have to agree having gone through the apocalypse called Katrina – it became a transition, not an end. I would say that there is nothing that calls me back to my youth except for one single quality that haunts my older mind – innocence, ignorance, naivete – these are the…
I remember being in Marin and sitting on my sofa looking out to the large cedar tree in the yard and feeling as if I was underwater – suffocating. I woke this morning in my hotel room in New York with a similar feeling. A feeling that I’m underwhelmed by big things and overwhelmed by the details. It all translates into a sort of all repulse response to just about everything – I didn’t want…
I went to the Guggenheim to see the Kadinsky exhibit and still feel as if my love for his work resides in his earlier pieces – the thicker, darker hues, the Russian influence over the German and then French. Then I took a taxi to JFK. The driver was from Pakistan and we talked about the traffic that the UN delegation was causing – “Every year, the delegates come but don’t think about what it…
Intake Interview What is today’s date? Who is the President? How great a danger do you pose, on a scale of one to ten? What does “people who live in glass houses” mean? Every symphony is a suicide postponed, true or false? Should each individual snowflake be held accountable for the avalanche? Name five rivers. What do you see yourself doing in ten minutes? How about some lovely soft Thorazine music? If you could have…
If I were trying to find Obama in this city, it would be nigh impossible. At every meeting, every meal, I have come this *** close. Alas he keeps escaping me over and over. My dinner companions on Tuesday were late because Obama’s motorcade went by, my colleague was late on Wednesday because Obama’s motorcade went by, my source was late today because Obama’s motorcade went by. Damn.
I was listening to a lot of smart people talk about the new advertising today and one of the things that came across loud and clear is how we have to “unlearn” most everything we know. And not just now, but continuously learning and unlearning because change is the new black.
Part of getting to 50 is realizing that there is no need to pretend you like someone, sit through a bad play or movie or concert, finish a book that you have no interest in, or continue to send gifts and birthday cards to people who never seem to respond to your niceties. You just open your eyes and go, why am I bothering. This truth is freeing.
There are people everywhere standing around with signs, flags, here in New York waiting for the motorcades to go by and guess who they want to see? Obama Obama Obama.