Can the layered complexity of commercial narrative moviemaking address simplicity? Recoiling from the 70mm version of THE TESTAMENT OF ANN LEE, an experience initially enhanced by the grand old movie palace hidden inside the Angelika East Village cinema, my mind reeled back to another recent film, TRAIN DREAMS. That film, made for what I may assume was less than the catering budget for TESTAMENT (total budget $10million), carefully crafted the emotional journey of an unadorne

A running horse suddenly appears, cresting the incline bordering the road. As I brake, four more horses join, the solo venture now a...

As NPR relayed news of the massive cuts to scientific research and education by the Trump regime, we and two neighbors joined 40 others...

Michael Crow President, Arizona State University April 12, 2025   President Crow: I have been focused over the last two days on a successful fundraising effort to support a student performance by ASU’s DBR Lab at National Sawdust in Brooklyn. As a recent ASU Emeritus Professor (HIDA) returned to NYC, I am delighted that a fund I helped form from a revered fellow artist’s estate will be supporting this effort bringing together ASU and New York. My joy has been mitigated by hea

Questing for some understanding of delusion, I am reading Cervantes’ novel Don Quixote , having just finished two personal accounts...

In the days following the election, our upstate NY, rural neighborhood resounds with lawn “care” (effected through gasoline powered, loud...

What is the takeaway from two days of New Yorkers canvassing in Pennsylvania? No one is home these days. Unless you are delivering...

After Apalachee, Uvalde, Sandy Hook...   I am not there for “thoughts and prayers” pacifying victims pleas to savior and slayer heart in...

June 2024 Jeff McMahon For the past month, spongy moth (nee “gypsy moth”) caterpillars have overtaken most of the trees on our three...

The Biden presidency is distinguished by many visionary responses to current crises, with further movement too often blocked by a...

When I was young and immersed in demonstration politics, I may have said some extreme statements. Having realized a need to engage, to...

Believe/Remember January 2, 2024 If you believe one atrocity is best avenged by another, remember; an eye for an eye leads to all being...

Walking near our hotel in old San Diego, the Gaslamp District, the ubiquitous ragged and often ranting homeless, echoing the decay of so...

I am unpacking my library. Having retired from my university teaching position after 20 years in the Arizona desert, I sold or gave away...

I’m standing in the Huntington Library in Pasadena, to which we were bused as suburban schoolchildren to stare in confused awe (how could...

Reporter Kevin Roose's transcription, in the February 16 New York Times, “Bing’s A.I. Chat: I Want to Be Alive” had me searching for...

As the murder of Tyre Nichols sours our souls as yet another example of over-amped policing, we are reminded that these officers were...

At the end of Annie Ernaux’s 2008 memoir, The Years, translated by Alison L. Strayer, she tells us, using the same third-person we have...

In one evening at Film Forum one can watch several films that are related in ways you may not anticipate; Jafar Panahi’s No Bears, and...

In the one-woman show, Sandra, written by David Cale and currently appearing at The Vineyard, the word “destination” recurs. As is the...