Archive | Spirit Matters

To Be of Use

firewallMichael Moore wields great influence, and his doomsayer pronouncement that “Trump will win” threatens to be a self-fulfilling prophecy, since people will not try to defeat the Republican nominee if they consider his victory already written in stone. It is highly possible that Moore is trying to rouse us to action with his words. Nonetheless, his sort of Cassandra punditry is profoundly unuseful right now, even brattily entitled. (It also smacks of egotistical link-baiting.) Many of us know that to be alive is to keep fighting–for the roofs over our heads, for fair wages, for the right to go and come as we please. Many of us know that the only way to survive is to live as if we can beat gloomy odds even when they seem unbeatable. What we require now is praxis: positive theory, positive action. We need to keep our eyes on the prize, with our sleeves rolled up to win it. These citizens are beautifully doing just that. This is how we defeat Trump and the culture of greed, hatred, and ignorance he represents.

The Church of Crab Risotto

Screen Shot 2016-07-21 at 10.49.43 AMAs I write this, it is 2:23 pm, the world is exploding, I am completely stuck on all my writing projects, my sunflowers are sagging, and it is too hot to do anything outside happily. But my house is beautifully cool—I sprang for a second AC when I got an extra gig last month—and my refrigerator is brimming with good ideas: produce from the local greenmarkets, red and white wine, seafood from Chelsea Market, butter from an Upstate friend, supplies from the old-school Italian grocery down the street. So I am cooking a crab risotto, the decline of western civilization be damned. Continue Reading →

Summer of Reckoning, Summer of Love

kehinde wiley Astrologically, the heavens right now resemble those of 1969. So why is this the opposite of the Summer of Love? Is everything wicked in our culture–everything rotten that’s been simmering like the worst witch’s stew—coming to a boil so we can recognize it, expel it, brew something better? I incant, I pray, I roll up my sleeves to make it so.

The day after the shootings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, I was riding on a rush hour subway to a Black Lives Matter march to be followed by a screening of the Ghostbusters remake. (An incongruity that underscores how irrelevant I find my work lately.) Around me, shoulder to shoulder, elbow to face, stood the rainbow of New Yorkers that you can find on any MTA subway car at any minute of the day. Everyone looked worn, weary, wary. It wasn’t just me, I was sure of it. If there’s ever been a moment on a New York City subway uninformed by centuries of financial inequities, gender politics, religious wars, and, yes, slavery–and I highly doubt it–this most definitely was not it. Continue Reading →

"All, everything I understand, I understand only because I love."
― Leo Tolstoy