Category: aging
- Ode to SwimmingGet Back to Where You Once Belonged Yesterday I swam for the first time in over a year. Since 1985—that’s 35 years—I’d gone swimming at the Y three times a week. I’d been a jogger before that, but the North Carolina heat and my aching joints made me turn to swimming at the age of 37. I’d ...Read more
- Alice’s GazeLosing Alice a series by Sigan Avin. On Apple TV. With Ayelet Zurer, Lihi Kornowski, Gal Toren. **** Losing Alice is one of the stranger things I’ve ever seen on a screen. It’s a movie about the creative process, the artistic careers of women and men, and the lengths to which people will go to create ...Read more
- I Like IkeThe Collected Stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer Volume II: A Friend of Kafka to Passions. Library of America. 856 pp. ***** Back in the days when Isaac Bashevis Singer’s stories appeared in the New Yorker, I never missed one. It was a thrill to read the work of a man who wrote so vividly, who seemed ...Read more
- And Talk They DidLet Them All Talk a film by Steven Soderbergh. With Meryl Streep, Dianne Wiest, Candice Bergen, Gemma Chan, Lucas Hedges. Available on HBO Plus. ***** At one point in Let Them All Talk, a movie about three old college friends who do a crossing on the Queen Mary 2, Susan (Dianne Wiest) stops an awkward conversation ...Read more
- Gone Fishin’Haven’t Posted in a While I wanted to drop a line to my loyal readers to say that the reason I haven’t posted in a while is that I recently got an idea for a longer writing project and want to take a look at that. I never know if a longer project is going to ...Read more
- The Height of her PowersThe Friend a novel by Sigrid Nunez. Riverhead Books. 224 pp. $10.39. I don’t know how Sigrid Nunez does it. She seems to begin her novels any old place, with whatever event comes to mind, and moves on from there. She doesn’t tell stories chronologically or in any particular way, but they fall right into place. ...Read more
- What Finally MattersWhat Are You Going Through: A Novel by Sigrid Nunez. Riverhead Books. 224 pp. $19.59. ***** The idea sounds grim beyond belief. Our narrator—living in New York—has a friend in a nearby town who is dying of cancer. At first the woman seems to be in remission, but then the cancer comes back with a vengeance, ...Read more
- Invitation to Die ForThe White House Super Spreader Please Be Warned: This is a Rant. Usually I have better control of myself, but sometimes things get to be a little too much. This nomination was cursed from the start. I don’t mean that Justice Amy Coney (“Grin And”) Barrett won’t sail through the Senate and be confirmed as the next justice ...Read more
- Damned Is RightDamned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett by James Knowlson. Grove Press. 800 pp. $22.00. **** Four Men Shaking: Searching for Sanity with Samuel Beckett, Norman Mailer, and My Perfect Zen Teacher by Lawrence Shainberg. Shambhala. 134 pp. $16.95 ***** The story told in the first half of James Knowlson’s excellent biography is thrilling and fascinating. ...Read more
- Take Me Out to the Flat ScreenAnd the Fake Noise Goes Wild! I don’t know if people have noticed, but it’s a great time to be a sports fan. The US Open of Tennis just happened, as did the Open of Golf; the basketball playoffs are in full swing and the baseball playoffs about to start, at the same time that the ...Read more
- And Another ThingMy First Shrink II The most valuable thing my first therapist did for me was to suggest I could rearrange my life to do the thing I loved, that I didn’t have to stay in a job just because I was good at it or because it seemed safe. I could completely upend my life. It ...Read more
- They Can’t Get StartedShtisel a Netflix series (2 seasons of 12 episodes) by Along Zingman. With Doval’e Glickman, Michael Alom, Neta Riskin, Shira Haas, Zohar Shtrauss. ***** Like everyone else during the pandemic, my wife and I have been searching for streaming series that hold our attention. We’ve been through any number of suggestions—some of which seemed rather desperate—with ...Read more
- He Published HimselfLorenzo Milam 1933-2020 Forty years ago, The Sun magazine was not the polished publication it is today. It was printed on what I believe is called stock, rather than the slick paper the magazine currently uses. It didn’t have a vast staff—often the Editor was it—and didn’t pay its writers much, if at all. Each issue ...Read more
- Sitting with Louis IIThe Other Side One of the problems with my earlier piece about talking and sitting zazen with my autistic brother in law is that I sound so kind, compassionate, magnanimous, and patient. A true Bodhisattva. Actually, I’m no better than anyone else, but it isn’t too surprising that I sound that way. I wrote the piece, ...Read more
- Sitting with LouisNotes During a Pandemic We came to stay at our Asheville cabin during the pandemic in order to take care of my wife’s brother Louis, who has a house on the same property. He’s 68 years old and autistic, diagnosed just a few years ago. His job was bringing in shopping carts at the local supermarket, ...Read more
- Young Master Surpasses His IdolThe Durrell Miller Letters 1935-80. Edited by Ian S. MacNiven. New Directions. 528 pp. ****1/2 In 1935, 23-year-old Lawrence Durrell wrote Henry Miller a fan letter about his novel Tropic of Cancer, which he had either found discarded in a public lavatory (the story he told) or was lent by a friend. “It strikes me as ...Read more
- Books of a LifetimeA House for Buddha by Ross Parmenter. Woodstock Press. 529 pp. Sacred Land, Sacred Sex, Rapture of the Deep: Concerning Deep Ecology and Celebrating Life by Dolores LaChapelle. Kivaki Press. 383 pp. The Lyndoniad by William Guy. Xlibris. 444pp. On my second trip to Mexico—I believe the year was 1991—my wife and I had arrived at the Basilica ...Read more
- Was Jung a Mystic?Jung the Mystic: The Esoteric Dimensions of Carl Jung’s Life and Teachings a new biography by Gary Lachman. Tarcher/Penguin258 pp. $24.95. This is my first biography of Jung, and I’m not at all sure this is the one to start with. Years ago, when my first marriage ended and I was going through a personal crisis, ...Read more
- The Hotel of LifeThoughts During a Pandemic I have two recurring dreams these days, or at least two sites for dreams. One is on a hilly street, maybe cobblestone, where there is an alley with various open-air bars. I tend to choose one of those bars in particular, though I’ve entered others. The other site is a huge luxury ...Read more
- Doing TimeNotes During a Pandemic Living in self-isolation, I’ve been thinking of the inmates I’ve known through the years, as part of our prison outreach at the Chapel Hill Zen Center. The first was at Pender Correctional in Burgaw; I became his pen pal and eventually visited from time to time. He told me at our first visit ...Read more
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You Need to be WritingThe Other SideThe River is Freedom, the Raft ParadiseThe Nothing of GodWe Are Stardust We Are Golden
View Other Essays by Topic
aging (114)American literature (197)art (109)Buddhism (163)Christianity (119)creative process (232)death and dying (128)meditation (118)movies (152)music (36)race (95)religion (180)sex (157)spirituality (167)the art of narrative (238)Uncategorized (19)world literature (23)