Bricoleurs on Garbo Day

March 12, 2010

When you think of Garbo you probably think about a mysterious actress from the black & white era, a beauty in a big hat who, “Vants to be ahlone.”  And if you don’t think of Greta when you think of Garbo, then you probably think of nothing much at all. I, however, think of Garbo […]

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Putting the self in self-esteem

March 11, 2010

While self-esteem is terribly important for healthy functioning, the very concept hinges on having a solid and cohesive sense of “self” in the first place.  Having written on narcissism in this blog, I have worked to differentiate self-absorption and arrogance from cluelessness.  After all, how can one feel good about a self that one does […]

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On the road… with my kid

March 10, 2010

Recently Andy thought it would be cool if I took each of my boys on a separate weekend trip and she suggested I make that happen.  My younger son, Will, was first up and we just got back from our trip. The plan was to simply pick a place we both wanted to go, provided […]

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In Beverly Hills, every day is The Day of the Locust

March 9, 2010

When I first moved to Los Angeles I had serious withdrawal pangs from New York.  In my adjustment period to LA a friend, a poet and former child-actor, gave me a copy of Nathanael West’s Miss Lonelyhearts & The Day of the Locust.  He inscribe the book to me and wrote:  “FAITH” is creation, Lit […]

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When love means… dealing with tech support

March 8, 2010

In any relationship there will be points of contention, but I have to say that for however lame I may be in doing my share of the laundry or the dishes or the overall parenting, my hat’s way off to my wife for spending over an hour and a half on the phone last week […]

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Whole lotta whispering goin’ on

March 7, 2010

“And the women come and go, talking of Michelangelo” (T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock) It strikes me as ironic that we’ve had a slew of stage-whisperers in recent years.  We’ve had horse whisperers, dog whisperers, kid whisperers and even breast whisperers… but isn’t whispering about using a quiet voice?  How can […]

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Could obscure be the new famous?

March 6, 2010

When my son, Nate, was still in preschool Angelyne was at the peak of her fame.  If you’re not an Angeleno, you might not know Angelyne.  She was plastered on huge billboards all around town, Warhol-worthy sunglasses and Grand Canyon cleavage, paid for by mysterious “investors” the way Citizen Kane tries to launch his girlfriend’s […]

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Always look on the bright side of… depression

March 5, 2010

Following in the footsteps of the sagacious Monty Python, a recent New York Times Magazine article by Jonah Lehrer, “Depression’s Upside,” offers some nice insights to encourage us to not just run away, nor hunt down and kill, our dark and gloomy emotions.  Lehrer frames the discussion well.  However, the debate itself is fraught with […]

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Myth-Maker, Myth-Maker, make me a myth

March 4, 2010

Heaven is a myth that gets people to settle for a crap existence.  The future is a myth that puts noses to grindstones until we know nothing at all but work.  Culture itself is a myth that leads to violence (for whoever controls a culture must control its myth about itself, and this inevitably leads […]

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True Grit and Great Teachers

March 3, 2010

When the progress of children is measured, it turns out that the particular school they attend may often be less important than the specific teacher that they get.  A great teacher can move kids academically ahead by multiple years in a single school year, while a mediocre teacher may cause equally able kids to lose […]

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