Hope? . . .

—From CB— A friend posted a Facebook note asking, “What gives you hope?” A worthy question when every day’s news brings a thousand little Hiroshimas of the heart. It elicited many responses, but I found myself unable to think of a thing. I “hope” for many things. That...

Metamorphoses . . .

—From EF— Myths are public dreams, dreams are private myths. Those words of Joseph Campbell are quoted in Mary Zimmerman’s “Metamorphoses,” and they hit me square in the middle of where I live and imagine. I saw this production just now at Berkeley Rep, and I will go...

Old White Men . . .

—From CB— Forgive yet another political rant—we’ve got a lifetime supply from every side of the biosphere—but I try to keep them infrequent. I stay pretty aware of all that’s going on, have my opinions, and vote, but I see little point in saying...

Start of a Journey . . .

—From EF—        I’m working on my own solo memoir, and I encountered a really good piece of advice. “Start with the hardest part.” OK, here’s a first draft of the beginning of my hardest part, the time between going off to college to the first move to California....

Six-year-olds out there?

—From CB— Everyone was six once, or will be soon. And granted that there’s as much variation in six-year-olds as in seventy-seven-year-olds—and even with this guy it changes day to day. Still, I’m asking the question: what’s it like to be six? Our current fiction...

Love Story . . .

—From EF— We impulsively said “yes” to a performance that we’d have to pull out of a hat. It wouldn’t be the first time we let impulse land us in something that a cooler head wouldn’t have done, but there you go. We are friends with another performing couple whose...

That’s Entertainment . . .

—From CB— It’s certainly not my only news source, but I regularly tune into Google News to get a broad sense of what’s “trending” for my fellow Americans. At odd times, for no clear reason, I get the Google news feed focused on Nigeria or Peru...

On Glaciers & Hagfish . . .

—From EF— I’ve been reading John McPhee’s In Suspect Terrain, originally published in 1983. His work has been published in The New Yorker since 1963, and I have long been a fan of his relentlessly inquisitive mind and his laser-sharp writing style. While he writes on...

Furioso . . .

—From CB— Today I make a formal announcement of my insanity. I’m nearly halfway through a reading of ORLANDO FURIOSO. For the unenlightened: it’s Ariosto’s 16th century Italian epic, replete with jousts, beheadings, enchanted castles, virgins in jeopardy, evil queens,...

The Nightmare . . .

—From EF— This morning I woke sweating and shaking from what felt like the most drastic nightmare of my life. I threw on my robe and staggered downstairs, dizzy and wobbly, and sat down on the floor in the corner of the kitchen and asked the cats to help me ground....