Happy New Year.
Before we jump into 2024, many of us might spend some time reflecting back upon 2023. Among the many questions we ask ourselves are those related to accomplishments; What did we do? What do we have to show for the year? What did we produce?
As I look back, I feel incredibly fortunate to have worked with or been supported by so many talented, wonderful people and organizations that have allowed me to produce more than a handful of things that I can take pride in.…
This weekend two million students who attend land-grant universities returned from Thanksgiving break. A few short days later will mark the end of Native American Heritage month.
I suspect that most of these students, like I once was until recently, are oblivious to the connection.
A few years ago, I was granted the opportunity and honor to give the commencement address at my alma mater, Penn State University. …
In the movie The Intern, Anne Hathaway plays the founder of a tech/fashion startup and Robert DeNiro is her unlikely “senior intern.” At the company’s open layout office, there is a tradition where a bell is rung to celebrate an achievement. You can ring the bell to announce that you’ve done something noteworthy or in recognition of someone else’s efforts or accomplishments. When the bell is rung, everyone stops what they’re doing for a moment to cheer or clap, before going right back to what they were doing.…
Tracy Chapman’s song, Fast Car, tells the story of longing for a better life. Over the course of the song’s four and a half minutes, you’re taken on a ride of yearning, frustration, resignation, and hope.
It is a simple but beautiful song about the complexity of trying to better yourself and your situation.
I heard the song at a pivotal moment in my life where, like the characters in Chapman’s song, I too was longing to escape – to in her words, “leave tonight or live and die this way.”…
The word “news” has been around since at least the 1500’s. The word “newsworthy” was only coined in 1890. The inference being people decided a new word was necessary as much of what was being shared as “news” was not particularly worthy.
I have for the last two years largely taken a hiatus from the daily news. Previously my days began and ended with a dose of it. …
In her new work, The Thanksgiving Play, Larissa FastHorse puts four well-intentioned and ill-equipped white people into a classroom. They are tasked with writing a more culturally sensitive play about Thanksgiving that they will stage for their elementary school students. The premise is genius as is almost everything about this production.
We watch these four characters make mistake after mistake after mistake as they try to find the right approach, plot or words to form their play. …
As I write this, I am looking out at the Palisades – the magnificent vertical walls on the other side of the Hudson. If I look to my left I can see the New York City skyline off in the distance.
Upon seeing both for the first time, I was filled with immense awe. While their familiarity can lessen this sensation, it only takes a few moments of reflection to revive it.…
It was a week for celebration in my home.
Our oldest daughter turned 15.
Our youngest received two call backs for the 5th grade play.
Our middle daughter won her first wrestling match.
My wife won her first competitive tennis doubles match.
And my podcast won two golds – one for best interview show and another for most inspirational podcast.
When my daughter won her wrestling match, her coach picked her up in the air as teammates cheered her on.…
We had decided that given the relatively short holiday break, we would all stay home. No trips to visit the family. No travel at all.
We would just be together.
“Be” unfortunately was conflated with “do” – as is often the case. Each of us had long lists of things we wanted to accomplish; projects to complete, ways to be productive, ideas about how to do fun things.…
This is the fifty-second newsletter I’ve shared this year. The other fifty-one can be found here.
In addition, I’ve shared eight PBS podcast episodes, two NPR special programs, including Seeing Erin Hagerty – which may be the best thing I’ve made in a while
I’ve shared four published articles, including this one for Parents about how to talk to your kids about class
I’ve shared with my publisher drafts of my next two children’s books.…
I’ve read countless memoirs and interviewed dozens of people about their journey but none have been as honest, conflicted and raw as Acceptance by Emi Nietfeld. Her story is marked with countless issues and circumstances that she has had to overcome and her book looks to reconcile them in the context of a culture that likes these stories told in a very particular way.
Her experience in crafting her college essay is particularly telling.…
I love books. Reading them, owning them, sharing them and obviously writing them. The smell of an old book is a reminder of all those who have similarly valued the words born out of another’s mind. The feel of a new book ushers in the anticipated value to be delivered in small doses over the weeks you will spend reading it.
I have always thought of owning a bookstore.…
I have always considered myself a luddite – slow to adopt new technology, warning against its potential downside. Yet here I sit, typing on my MacBook Pro, Apple Watch strapped to my wrist as my iPhone plays music through a bluetooth SONOS speaker. All after another evening ended with my ass firmly planted in my couch watching mindless television wirelessly projected onto my wall.
Lamenting our use of technology is not particularly helpful.…
When I was young, I spent most of my time with friends. As a latchkey kid, I was told to get outside in the morning and wouldn’t return until dinner or after – depending on whether my mom was working that night. As I got older, I hung out with friends after school, after practice or after work – whatever would get me out of my trailer home.…
I could use a break. Perhaps you could too.
Inflation, gas prices, a heat wave, divisive politics, and a pandemic that just won’t go away have made the last few months borderline unbearable.
This is to say nothing of what individual stressors we all might feel.
The summer is by definition supposed to be “a break.” Although that seems to apply more readily to students than the rest of us.…
Marcel Proust once wrote, “The only true voyage of discovery, the only fountain of Eternal Youth, would be not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes, to behold the universe through the eyes of another, of a hundred others, to behold the hundred universes that each of them beholds, that each of them is…”
He is writing about the role artists play in society in a chapter perhaps appropriately named, The Prisoner.…
Spiderman came to Hastings this week. More specifically, Tom Holland was in my town shooting a new anthology series for Apple TV. Throngs of kids lined up in a marked off area to catch a glimpse of him. When he finally arrived, clad in period 70’s garb, they screamed. Calling out his name, filming his every move, clamoring for him to come by and say hello – which to his credit he did.…
What or who do you believe in?
Beliefs can be a tricky thing. We all have them, in fact hold them dearly. Yet seldom do we explicitly state or share them. More often, beneath the surface, they inform, influence or dictate many of our actions.
Beliefs, according to the Oxford dictionary, can be defined in two ways:
One is “an acceptance that a statement is true or that something exists.”…
Words matter. At their best, they evoke common understanding, connection and feeling. At their worst they mislead, misrepresent and divide.
All words are an abstraction of sorts, a representation of something very real. On a range of issues, experts too often rely on particularly abstract words that are so open to interpretation one could drive a truck through it.
Metaphors are the opposite, they attach to an idea something we can easily relate to and understand.…
It was a wonderful week of music in my home.
My children fell in love with a new song (“On My Way” by Jennifer Lopez), that went into heavy rotation and led to many sing alongs.
I interviewed Darryl McDaniels from Run DMC for my podcast, who reminded me that “music can do what politics and religion can’t – unite us.”
Finally, I had my first guitar lesson in three years.…
Two weeks ago I watched a grown man cry and it was extraordinary. They were neither tears of sadness or joy. I suspect they were tears born out of a deep humility, appreciation for others and a calling to serve.
The man was Colin Powell and the event, which was one of his last public appearances before dying last week, was for the school named in his honor; The Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership. …
Recently, I had two exchanges with family members that did not go particularly well. Both were spurred on by trying to refute or debate claims fueled by divisive media outlets. Since the election, I have largely tuned out of political shows, but like Michael Corleone says in the Godfather, “Every time I try to get out, they pull me back in!”
I called one of them the following day and posed this simple question: “Does watching political shows bring you any joy?”…
Over the last several months, I’ve been on a good run.
It started with being asked to give the commencement address at my alma mater.
Then on Friday, I published my first piece for Esquire. I’ve always wanted to write for them and this specific topic, “Dads without Dads” is an especially personal reflection timed for Father’s Day.
There is an NPR special report I’m working on examining inequality in education on Long Island that will air at the end of the month.…
“Who lives, who dies, who tells your story?” This lyric from the final song in Hamilton, captures not only an important question about our history but also about our present.
There are different versions of our histories – within our families, our institutions, our country and our world.
In many ways, it is less important to reconcile our complicated personal and national histories than it is to at least spend some time examining them.…
These are hard.
What would you take for yourself, that you know would help someone else more?
What would you give your child, that if you gave to another child instead would dramatically change their life?
These philosophical questions are ones that we don’t explicitly ask ourselves. They are by design difficult to answer. They pit our egalitarian principles and a belief in a fair world against our most basic desire to provide and protect ourselves and those we love. …
