Poetry for Dogs
My book, Throw Me A Bone: Poetry For Dogs, includes 31 poems written purportedly for a canine audience.
It’s available on Amazon — http://poetryfordogs.com — and priced to generate funds for three humane societies. (Writing poetry is not my get-rich-quick scheme, not a pyramid of dogs with you at the bottom. No.)
The Moment Before
The runner stretches. The chef prepares her mise en place. The t'ai chi master bows. The batter touches the corners of the plate with the bat, spits and adjusts his privates. It is ritual.Before something important, we do that thing, that little dance. It's...
My Greatest Failing
Don't think I'm being humble here. My modesty is only half false. It is at least half earned. During decades in the advertising business, friends and colleagues scolded me for being a little pessimistic, self-denigrating, too risk averse when selling. The...
Cinema Paradiso
Do you have an independent movie theater that you love? I love the Drexel, a longtime cultural landmark in my leafy suburb of Bexley, Ohio. I'm going there tonight. I always want to go to the Drexel. In Columbus, I know there is another beloved independent cinema...
Pick Your Poison
So, how do you want to die? I mean, really: very few of us die old in bed, surrounded by our loved ones. That's the Hollywood ideal, but we can't all order that up. As the old (terrible) joke goes:I want to die in my sleep like my grandfather. Not...
Of Royalty and Marketing
Everyone read William Safire's obituary by Robert D. McFadden in yesterday's Times. It was a piece Safire would have approved. Two of many gems:On Safire's long-running "On Language" series:There were columns on blogosphere blargon,...
Fast and Delicious
As I enter the traditional fast for Yom Kippur at sundown tonight, I am apprehensive. We wish one another "an easy fast," but it is — at best — simultaneous challenges: to forgo eating, drinking, bathing, brushing teeth, sex. Those are predictable challenges as I...
CBS Bless America
Thanks to John H. for sending me to The Economist for this grim item.Our founding fathers would be so disappointed. They were so creative. (Sure, they had their own faults. Keeping slaves is immeasurably worse than watching too much television. I know that.)But here...
Doggie Style
Dear Beauregard,Our relationship is about to change substantially. You are moving in. We are adopting you. Until now, ours has been a casual friendship. For that, I am grateful. I am writing to you today because, on the eve of this new stage of our lives, I want us to...
Where are my keys?
A favorite passage from The Miracle of Mindfulness by Thich Nhat Hanh ("Thay"):There was the time I was cooking furiously and could not find a spoon I'd set down amid a scattered pile of pans and ingredients. As I searched here and there, Thay entered...
Landlord’s Court
On Friday afternoon, I enjoyed a conference call with some friends and clients. At the beginning of the call, as we waited for a couple latecomers, one friend wished me a good new year. Rosh Hashanah would be starting at sunset.He mentioned one of the Jewish...
