Obits
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Needed: A “Remove Recent Incident” Button on Google
Remember when weather radar reports used to reference “ground clutter” near the antennae— the clump of color that looked like it was rain, but wasn’t? We seem to have that same problem in search engine results for items that pop high in the news— ground clutter focused on recent events that stop us from having…
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In Praise of Wolfgang Oehme
This morning I read the obituary of landscape architect Wolfgang Oehme in the NYT. Here’s a snip: For 30 years, Mr. Oehme teamed up with James van Sweden to develop self-sustaining gardens, free of pesticides, that could remain beautiful even as the seasons changed. They planted flowers and bushes not by threes and fives, but…
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In Praise of Gil Scott-Heron
The last two tracks of Kanye’s record brought Gil Scott-Heron back to me. Whatever Kanye wanted that song to mean, to me it’s all about trying to be an artist in the middle of that which is not artful.
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An Appreciation of Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson is dead in Los Angeles at age 50. He was an odd, tortured man who was often accused of having inappropriate relationships with children. It is very likely that he was a criminal who got away with some of the worst crimes our culture has to offer. I have not come to bury…
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On The Same Day: From the Anus to the Heart in Los Angeles
“On the Same Day” is a series of poems I write for people whose obituaries appear on the same day in the New York Times.