The Decalogue . . .

—From CB— Moses brought the Ten Commandments down from the mountain, broke the tablets, went back up for the second draft. I just went to the dentist. Any how-to list carved in stone 3000 years ago, proclaimed by the vengeful god of a desert tribe should be subject to...

Connection . . .

—From EF— There are no words, but I’ll try. I had no blood family except for our kids, and now I have held my brother in an embrace, I have looked into his eyes and seen our mother, our grandmother, our grandfather. My brother’s wife has become my sister. There was a...

A Mother . . .

—From EF— Mother’s Day, 2018. For me, this one is an entirely new ball game. After about 40 years of searching, I have found who my birth-mother was. Past tense, because she’s no longer living, but also present tense, because after I came and went, she made a marriage...

Untrashed . . .

— From CB — Yesterday after gym, I stopped at the coffee shop where I normally write for 90 minutes, walk to the library, write some more, then walk the mile or so home and start the day. Most times, this span is productive, sometimes not, but it’s from this routine...

Beltane . . .

—From EF— Beltane. A beautiful celebration, with or without a Maypole. Halfway between the spring equinox and the summer solstice, it celebrates the union of male and female, the union of earth and sun, and the general idea that fertility is a good thing, not to...

Fiction . . .

—From CB— One requirement for being a writer, you’d think, would be to love reading. And indeed for me that sometimes happens. Much more often, especially as I’ve been writing fiction, it becomes much more a learning experience. and I can’t say that’s always pleasant....

History Repeats . . .

—From EF— “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce.” Depending on your source, this originates with Hegel, Engels, or Marx, although it appears to be Marx who cites both of the others. Whatever, they all have the same idea, and they are referring to...

Pint o’ Guinness, Please . . .

—From CB— Who’s the best actor? That’s not a question, of course, that affects the future of the human race, nor can it even be answered. Film acting is radically different from stage acting, not only in distance but in selection—the film actor is subject to the...

Age Twelve . . .

—From EF— Recently I saw a play that dealt with the difficult issue of a sexual relationship between a very young girl (12) and a much older man (40), fifteen years after their one consensual consummated evening of love. They both remember it as love. Then things go...

Empathy . . .

—From CB— Classical drama at its best traces the motives of vile or stupid deeds. Sometimes it’s stated straight out, as with Lear’s Edmund. Often it’s indirect or even self-contradictory, as with Iago. But it only works if you can believe that the writer has deep...