Significance

After being tossed an opportunity to list the most significant events of my life, I watched the parades of memory march by – different parades on three different passes of the question. My notion of what ‘significant’ means began to crumble. The first pass included the usual suspects: outer events that changed the course of […]

Voice, Format, Audience

Mercy. Another writing career. The inner machinery of expression – the place I go to inside, to feel words form – is changing again. It’s being altered by the convergence of two worlds from opposite extremes: (1) inside-out: shaping ever-subtler inner experience into outer form, and (2) outside-in: practicing the audience-driven formats of screenplays and […]

A Kaleidoscope of Women

Visions of “the feminine” started shape-changing for me this summer, watching Beasts of the Southern Wild. Startling imagery, elaborate mythology, a rich resonant soundtrack, poetic and vivid dialogue – and the unimaginable performance of its tiny girl hero-star – coalesced. Ancient self-images, affections, terrors, and enthusiasms got remembered and rearranged, transformed, even though the movie’s surfaces […]

The Animation in Receiving Art

Such second-hand creative raptures in recent days. I feel blessed. Sometimes, opening the heart to another’s art is as marvelous as the inspiration to express. Yesterday, I got dazzled by a psychologically intriguing Juliette Binoche film called Certified Copy. Following Ms. Binoche’s character and her paramour through their reality-shifting interactions is a levitational experience. This morning, I […]