June, 26, 2024
This is part 2 about Student Protests in the ‘60’s and Now. To read Part 1, click here. The two key differences between student protests this year and in the 1960’s are: 1—We were at war then in Vietnam, and men could be drafted and killed, if not enrolled in classes. 2—Most students then did not encounter antisemitism. Many student leaders were Jewish and supported Israel, but today, many young Jews have little identification with Israel. Those who do support Israel have been threatened at Columbia, and many chose to move away from […]
Read MoreMay, 25, 2024
I was in New York last November when a dozen young women came marching down Broadway on the upper West Side, carrying flags with Arabic writing and banners, “Free Palestine!” They were laughing and singing, and I found the sight unpleasant. Earlier that day, in a nearby café, a longtime friend who’s a Rabbi told me, “This is the hardest time in my entire life as a Jew.” That seemed an exaggeration, but five months later, in April of this year, the Atlantic published an issue with the cover line: “The Golden Age […]
Read MoreMay, 2, 2024
Coming Soon… Shock of Recognition? Student Protests now versus those in the ’60’s Today: something different. First Road Trip with a Rock Band While cleaning up docs on my Mac, I came across the first article I wrote for a national magazine, Harper’s, in 1969. Yikes! That’s more than 50 years ago. I was married to a man in New York, who arranged for me to have a meeting with his friend, Bob Kotlowitz, who was managing editor of Harper’s magazine. This was the golden age of magazine journalism, and Harper’s was […]
Read MoreFebruary, 17, 2024
It was a shock: seeing him recently on the cover of the…. not the Rolling Stone, but the WSJ (Wall Street Journal magazine.) He still has that arrogant/elegant/nasty vibe, but his face! The skin is deeply wrinkled, not like the wrinkles most of us have, but thick, weather-beaten folds and ridges that start between his eyebrows and run all the way down his cheeks to his neck. He colors his hair, wears a bright lavender suit, and appears to have on lipstick, but those elephantine wrinkles! It’s possible to have them softened surgically, so I […]
Read MoreDecember, 16, 2023
For the past few years, when the first snow falls in Boulder, CO, where I live, I ask myself, Can I still ski? Do I still have the strength and stamina to lug the skis, boots and poles around? Do I have the confidence and balance to avoid falling, and if I do, can I get myself upright again? You may have a similar question, as the years trundle by. Can I still … stay up til 1 a.m., drive, color my hair, wear short-sleeve shirts, have great (or at least good) sex?
Read MoreOctober, 24, 2023
Let me tell you about this book, because it came close to never being published. I met Joan Didion, one of the most admired writers of our time, when I was 27 and she was 35. I was an ambitious reporter in New York, and she was an essayist and novelist in Malibu, whose unique voice had not yet become widely known. The sound of her sentences, the rhythm, the voice, made me take in a breath. And her observations! They were original, they rang true, and made me want to know her.
Read MoreSeptember, 10, 2023
On July 10, 2023, Sally Kempton, who was a shrewd journalist and feminist friend of mine when we were young writers in New York, and who later became a beloved spiritual teacher, died at her home in Carmel Valley, CA. Her life path was unusual: a brilliant, biting young journalist, “one of the best minds of our generation,” we all said; then a swami ordained by the Hindu guru, Muktananda; then a storied teacher in her own right. I hadn’t seen her in years, but suddenly this week I was thinking strongly about […]
Read MoreMarch, 17, 2023
It was years in the planning. And it was over in 7 days, when I stumbled and fell onto concrete and had to be medivacked to a hospital in Arusha, Tanzania. But what a week! I had signed up for a two-week safari in 2020 with Michael Ellils, a naturalist in Northern California who leads “Footloose Forays,” wildlife trips to Africa and South America. The safari was canceled because of Covid, but resumed in 2023. photo by David Shoup It’s expensive and was to have been a birthday present to myself, but when […]
Read MoreFebruary, 26, 2022
Nothing makes me feel more anxious and helpless these days than having a tech crisis. When one of my Apple devices stops functioning, I can feel the adrenaline, the panic rising in my chest. I was calmer when a doctor told me he saw a tumor that could be “a problem” in a scan of my brain. It proved to be benign, but I was calmer then, more accepting, than I was when my iPhone stopped working in Kansas City. I was visiting my daughter, the night before flying home, when I plugged […]
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