The Traveling Onion It is believed that the onion originally came from India. In Egypt it was an object of worship—why I haven’t been able to find out. From Egypt the onion entered Greece and on to Italy, thence into all of Europe. –Better Living Cookbook When I think how far the onion has traveled […]
Silence, Part 2
As an addendum to yesterday’s post, here’s another call to silence: There is no need for you to leave the house. Stay at your table and listen. Don’t even listen, just wait. Don’t even wait, be completely quiet and alone. The world will offer itself to you to be unmasked; it can’t do otherwise; in […]
Inviting Silence
Once again Henri Nouwen has verbalized insights that resonate with me. I’ve never read any of the wise man’s books, but he keeps bobbing to the surface. My friend Nicole sent me quotes by him while she was completing her masters in theology. My favorite online wisdom guide, Whiskey River, has also provided some wonderful […]
60’s Redux
April 15, 1967 Spring Mobilization to End the War, San Francisco (API). This is a chapter from my account of the story. I can’t sit by and let the 40 year anniversary of Woodstock come and go without taking a moment to reconnect with my own memories of those days. You know, the ones that […]
Wrenching and Wrangling
Silent Letter It’s what you don’t hear that says struggle as in wrath and wrack and wrong and wrench and wrangle. The noiseless wriggle of a hooked worm might be a shiver of pleasure not a slow writhing on a scythe from nowhere. So too the seeming leisure of a girl alone in her blue […]
Ted Time
The death of Ted Kennedy has brought an atmospheric inversion to Boston, one that holds the sorrow of his passing in the air, everywhere. Today the motorcade made its way through South Boston, not far from my studio, terminating at the Kennedy Library that overlooks Southie’s Carson Beach and Pleasure Bay. The sentiment heard most […]
A Call for the Imagination
Artist, writer, creativity coach and friend Nadine Boughton sent this message to several of us yesterday. Her insights touch into the delicate corner turning that happens every August. It is as if the seasons give us a gentle nudge since what is to come is inevitable and sublime, especially here in New England. Her photograph […]
Mad Women
John Hamm as Don Draper (Photo: Associated Press/AMC) If you aren’t a Mad Men fan, all I can say is, I’m so sorry. It is mesmerizing, especially for those of us who know that the brutally sexist world of the early 60s Matthew Weiner has created is authentic and legit. My kids can’t quite believe […]
Non-Linear
The Lawrence Tree, by Georgia O’Keefe. Photo: Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, and Georgia O’Keeffe Museum/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York We spent several days last week in western Massachusetts, seeing Shakespeare plays and looking at art. There’s lots of both (plus music and dance) to be had within an amazingly small radius. As […]
Adieu Michael Mazur
Photo: Cape Cod Times/Ron Schloerb I offer a moment of silent respect for the passing of Michael Mazur, a larger than life presence in the Boston art scene for years. Printmaker, painter and professional art advocate, Mazur’s absence creates a void of a very particular nature. Fall Mountains for Kuo Shi Bowdoin College Museum of […]