Godspeed Jane Yolen (1939-2026). Thanks for all the words.

“There are children playing in the streets who could solve some of my top problems in physics, because they have modes of sensory perception that I lost long ago.” - J. Robert Oppenheimer (American theoretical physicist)

THIS

Autotelic (n, adj.) A person who is motivated by the deeper rewards of creativity, immersion, and flow. (art by David Thompson)

Gently read...

The pedestrianization of Broadway through the heart of Manhattan just expanded, and it's glorious:

A man whose axe was missing suspected his neighbor's son. The boy walked like a thief, looked like a thief, & spoke like a thief. But the man found his axe while he was digging & the next time he saw his neighbor's son, the boy walked, looked, & spoke like any other child. Taoist story

I feel better about my desk. (Swiss psychologist and genetic epistemologist Jean Piaget sitting in his home office, 1979.)

"What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world." Paul Hawken

By Jim Benton

By what metaphor will we explain Mystery now that it's five minutes after the invention of AI?

This is really important. “More than 100 retired NASA astronauts have banded together to form a new nonpartisan organization…” and its members believe deeply in “principles such as the rule of law, checks and balances, and the peaceful transition of power.” Follow @astronauts4america.bsky.social

Rebecca Solnit brilliantly discusses climate and health as a signpost of our mutuality on this planet. www.meditationsinanemergency.com/it-makes-you...

“Beware of the differences that blind us to the unity that binds us.” Huston Smith

Vote with your attention and your money by patronizing arts, businesses, and organizations that openly choose authentic intelligence over artificial slop.

“To be sane in a mad time is bad for the brain, worse for the heart.” ~Wendell Berry

We must establish a Retort Hall of Fame, enshrining Dr. Patton's comeback as the signature example of How It Is Done.

What is this heresy? I am on schedule to finish my novel, memoir, mural, and various sculptures by 2050. Okay, 2050-ish.

Vote for the rainbows and sunshine subplot!

We've reached a new low in #poetry critique when a blithering billionaire buffoon says what he deems not good enough is "like poetry without rhyming, it's too easy."

Try to learn to breathe deeply, really taste food when you eat, & when you sleep really to sleep. Try as much as possible to be wholly alive with all your might, & when you laugh, laugh like hell & when you get angry, get good & angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough. William Saroyan