The Art of Reinvention While watching the new Morgan Neville documentary about Steve Martin ("Steve!," Apple+), I was reminded, and continuously moved by, the ominipresent nature of this person and persona—this face, this voice, this attitude—across 45 years of my life. When I was a kid, my sisters and I would listen to his albums, checked out from the Greenwood Public Library, and I would memorize and recite bits of his standup that still, if not verbatim in their sensibility, show up in my...
about 1 year ago • 4 min read
The Next Thing When asked why he made "Curb Your Enthusiasm," Larry David answered this not-very-interesting question with what is a not-very-interesting but reasonable answer: We made this special, people seemed to like it, so why not? (Ted Danson, who became a regular on the show, famously did NOT think much of that special/pilot) That empty feeling one has after finishing a thing I once heard called (but cannot attribute) "the empty attic of achievement." Many artists never recover from...
about 1 year ago • 4 min read
On Getting Started One of my favorite lines I picked up from Henry David Thoreau, either from his journal or his letters. “The poet is one who, having nothing to do, finds something to do.” When we finally get around to a long overdue task, it is a fair question to ask, why now? The answer is, usually: this is the last (best) possible moment. Or maybe there are taxes to avoid. An acquaintance was asking about the difference between learning and researching, having an itch to do more of the...
about 1 year ago • 3 min read