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Koscinski’s Opening

Koscinski brings another excuse today. Always, he brings an excuse. This morning he tells his teacher Lazlow that the dog ate his hearing aid.

Purple Nails

At dinner, I was soft-spoken, laughed a lot, and didn’t delve immediately into the deepest possible level of conversation, the way I usually do. It was somehow easy to let my date pull out my chair for me, to wait politely while he served me first, to nod and smile and gracefully sip my wine. When I did talk, my fingertips floated and flashed in the air in front of me, trailing invisible purple sparks. I have no idea what either of us said.

The Role Of The Erotic Imagination

Sex is so stunning and powerful that the sexual gaze would seem to have something in common with the religious gaze. Of course, for many religious people, sexual fascination is the opposite of the religious spirit, but in some traditions where sex is considered sacred, it isn’t much of a leap from honoring the image of a saint to venerating an image of a sexual god or goddess.

Summoning Venus

An Interview With Thomas Moore On Sex And The Soul

The goal of our sexuality — especially in our thinking about lovemaking — should be to evoke the spirit of Venus. That’s really what it’s about. It’s not about the modern idea of people trying to communicate with each other. Nor is it just instinct, nor biology. In The Soul of Sex, I set out to write about sex in a way that was not biological, not psychological, and not sociological. I came to the conclusion that summoning the spirit of sex — which the Greeks called Aphrodite and the Romans called Venus — is still what sex is about, and is what we need to do in today’s world.

My Stupid Harmony

The Wish Family was my family dressed in red-white-and-blue outfits, performing songs written by my father and played by my older brother Todd on our secondhand piano, my sister Mare on a convicted uncle’s guitar, and my little brother Jay on a snare drum so beaten its skin had been taped.

Sunbeams

Man is the only animal who has to be encouraged to live.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Halfway Home

I’m on my way back to my native Illinois to begin the second half of my life. At this moment, my wife is getting settled into our new home, with our mismatched furniture and 126 boxes of stuff. We are returning to the Midwest to care for ill and aging parents, to create fresh memories with them, and to repay the unspoken debts we as children owe. With only the memory of what I am leaving, and little knowledge of what’s ahead, I’m running on faith.

Sunbeams

We have so many words for states of mind, and so few for the states of the body.

Jeanne Moreau

Skin

I like to look at people’s skin. The way others might notice a man’s eyes, or the curve of a woman’s hip, I notice complexion and skin tone. It’s not the face I’m drawn to but the skin on forearms or around the collarbone, the wrinkles on knuckles — that’s real skin.