Browse Topics
Vocation
June 2020
Featuring Michael Meade, Pema Chödrön, Peter A. Selwyn, and more.
June 2020Sunbeams
June 2020Diseases have no eyes. They pick with a dizzy finger anyone, just anyone.
To be of use
The people I love the best / jump into work headfirst / without dallying in the shallows / and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
December 2019
Cop Diary
Over the past year, more than a hundred people have worn my handcuffs. Not long ago, in a self-defense class, I wore them myself. . . . The catch of the steel teeth as the cuffs tighten is austere and final, and never so much so as when it emanates from the small of your back.
September 2019
The Samples
Helplessness makes monsters of people. He’s seen chairs thrown, exam tables kicked. The rooms pathologists speak to patients in now have everything bolted down.
June 2019
When A Guy Helps You Out
You are sitting in the mail room on that armless gray swivel chair with the duct tape on the seat, sorting the mail, and he’s telling you that corporate life . . . well, it’s a life, is what it is, and you can adapt to it and even start to enjoy it if you just adjust your perspective.
September 2018One Flight Up
One can die in cleanliness, or one can die in filth. I’m not talking about your soul. At the Prince Hotel — an old Bowery flophouse — the men paid a few dollars a night to live in stalls, four feet wide and six feet deep, with chicken-wire ceilings.
April 2018
Last Lecture
Recently I was invited to give a special lecture at the university where I teach. I accepted the invitation though, contrary to what my sons might tell you, I don’t really like to lecture.
March 2018
