Suprise Me

Think of what we all could accomplish if all parties stopped eye rolling ... and lecturing ... and started working together. Read More

The Perfect Brass Lamp It often takes so little to make this wannabe interior decorator happy! I’m always on the lookout for one more throw pillow,  or a new piece of artwork,  or a knick-knack to grace the coffee table.  Or a new set of bath towels,  or a set of dishes,  or a new… Read More

No matter how many times I’ve seen it, if I happen upon it while channel surfing, I get sucked into it again. Tight writing and directing that doesn’t miss a beat, top-notch actors with believable chemistry, an evocative sense of time and place, great cinematography, and unforgettable music…such movies often define an entire genre. For… Read More

At dinner time, dads cup their hands around their mouths and call their kids home. Read More

One of my fondest memories of raising my children was cuddling up at bedtime with a book and reading together.  Read More

The late ’60s were exciting, turbulent times, especially for a young man growing up in a Catholic seminary.  When I entered the Juniorate of the Brothers of the Sacred Heart in Pascoag, RI in 1966, there were 24 of us guys (most of whom were gay, I now realize), from all parts of New York/New… Read More

This is more about books and reading and being a weird little kid than about any single book. I was a nerd. A geek. A prototypical Poindexter (a nickname I was actually saddled with for a time). Books didn’t beat me up the way other kids did, so I loved them with all my heart… Read More

When Dave returned to the phone and told me the call had been from a “John Steptoe,” I thought my roommates were playing a practical joke. Read More

“Do you think my hair is falling out?” my sister asked. After going through a round of chemotherapy for lung cancer, hair loss would not be unexpected. She raked her fingers through her hair as she asked, and we both noticed  the silver strands she now held in her hand. After a moment, I asked… Read More

My gateway drugs to cosmology were Fritjof Capra’s The Tao of Physics and Gary Zukav’s The Dancing Wu Li Masters. Read More