Readers of my books often ask me what I like to read when I’m not writing. And whenever I post a Thought lamenting our aesthetic culture’s descent into exalted mediocrity and irrelevance, the email correspondence usually includes queries like, “Well, if you don’t think Dan Brown is a good writer, who is, smarty pants?” I...
Hope RekindledThis past week has given us more hope for our diseased republic than any other time in 50+ years of paying attention. Observing and participating in a long-overdue peaceful uprising, occupying the streets, feeling the righteous energy of people of all ages, colors, faiths, and wealth (or lack thereof), has…
Clarinetist Glenn Dickson, master of klezmer, has made a solo recording, “Wider Than the Sky,” that’s been on perpetual repeat at our home office. Using over-dubs and electronic digital effects, Dickson fills the aural soundscape with a rich melange of chordal textures supporting the melody. His celebrated virtuosity is subsumed here to long, elegiac musical...
