I have a working premise that anything can be understood with an evolutionary lens. It helps sometimes, like appreciating the resurgence of moon exploration and deciding to vote for the local recreation district. Why we are motivated to explore the moon is the perfect...
You know how sometimes you start something, then end up wishing you had done it differently? Like inviting people to a fancy dinner party in the woods and belatedly realizing you didn’t think about dirty dishes. Or Halloween festivities with elaborate decorations,...
There’s your Life Story, the How I Got Here. It’s usually interesting enough, and…there’s another one. The one underneath guiding the whole show, like an iceberg you may not see. I’ll Out mine so you know what I mean. My surface story is that I grew up in nice...
Something Very Unusual happened when I was hunkered into my little desert retreat. I knew it was possible to piddle away the time, lollygagging in the sunshine, running around to favorite haunts. So I made a resolution to stay focused, unpacked my stack of books, and...
Three years ago the London Philharmonia and Esa-Pekka Salonen produced a series on Stravinsky called Myths & Rituals. Holy Archetypes, do I fly around the world for 30 minutes of The Rite of Spring and the dynamic Esa-Pekka? I binged on Longmire to keep myself in...
I’m fascinated by the 2007 Washington Post experiment with Joshua Bell. Of course, I’m just smittened with Bell, who is handsome, plays a mean fiddle, and is willing to goof off in Mozart in the Jungle. The Post placed Bell and his Stradivarius in a subway station to...
