Category Visual Arts

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First: the primeval fear and wonder, the fact of existence itself, the gaping at the savannas, the odd and menacing creatures abounding, the vast sprawl of the stars. Noting the deep growl of hunger, the insistent urge to sample tubers, mushrooms, fruit from the trees, the slow and hapless life forms crawling beneath our gaze.

The terror of being prey for stronger and faster life forms, with their shrieks and snarls and rumbles through the night.

Hearing the helpless wails of our mates being devoured.

The seeking for shelter and haven.

The cowering.

The thinking.

The gathering of stones.

The noting of friction.

The sharpening.

The fine point, primed to stab and gouge, to ward off predators and subdue prey.

The sight of sparks.

The collecting of leaves and twigs.

Combustion.

All of it the rudiments of inquiry and physics itself.

The staggering growth of reason, tools, language, culture.

The imagi...

In the long summer months—which in the generally sunny climes where I have lived I regard as May through at least September—I have long made a habit of swimming in as many backyard and club pools as their owners will abide. And since none of the pools are Olympic-sized, I’ve developed a ritual of dipping underwater upon entry, descending to just a few inches from the bottom, and breaststroking from one end to the other, holding my breath for the 15 to 30 seconds various pools might require.

It always feels invigorating to pop up to the surface with a nice exhalation at the end, ready to move some more water around in pursuit of just about the finest whole-body exercise humankind has ever devised.

Some of these pools can get to a depth of five to eight feet, which seems like small potatoes until, say, you dive down to snag fall leaves or a kid’s unfloatable toy off the bottom...

A young eco-activist confronts the massive evidence of humankind’s abuse of the earth, and he spirals downward in a doom loop of despair. The new life growing in his wife’s belly offers no solace. Quite the contrary—he’s not at all sure he wants to bear the responsibility of subjecting a child to the hellscape he is convinced life on earth is destined to become.

He can’t bear the thought, he confides, that his daughter might look accusingly into his eyes 20 years on and ask, “You knew this all along, didn’t you?”

His wife suggests counseling with the minister of a postcard-of-an-old-world church she occasionally frequents, which is long on history (soon to celebrate its 250th anniversary) but dismally short of people in the pews (maybe a half-dozen) on any given Sunday.

The encounter between minister and activist will prove fateful for both of them, in different ways.

A riveting 11-minute dialogue just m...

Two events drew my attention and stood in severe contrast last week. One was coming across the 2020 Showtime mini-series, “The Good Lord Bird,” about pre-Civil War abolitionist John Brown and his star-crossed effort in 1859 to spark a slave revolt that he convinced himself would spread from Harpers Ferry, Virginia throughout the Southern states and effectively bring an end to slavery in America.

The second was news out of the Southern Baptist Convention’s (SBC) annual meeting last week in New Orleans, at which delegates voted on an amendment to the organization’s constitution that would bring it in line with the tradition’s “statement of faith” that specifically says, “the office of pastor is limited to men.”

What brings these two occurrences together is the radical disparity in the main protagonists’ views on faith and freedom, unbound.

On the surface, Brown would seem to have much in common with the ...

One an observant, mystically inclined Jew, born to wealthy, pedigreed parents outside Montreal, a poet by training and temperament, handsome, charismatic and refined, who drifts down to New York City in his early 30s to shore up a wobbly career by throwing himself into songwriting.

The other from rural Alabama, the son of uncultured, unmoneyed teenage parents whose loud and bitter fighting drives the pudgy and awkward boy to his room, where he teaches himself electric guitar in order to drown out the noise and his own rage and sorrow.

One born in 1934, full of questions, indignation and ardor for a God he doubts as a profession of faith, even as so much of his music probes the places God may be hiding.

The other born 35 years later, seeking escape from the dark gods of domestic hell and hoping he’s found it in rock & roll, only to be felled by its all-too-common underbelly: a wretched excess of drink...