Happily Lost in Translation

When I was a kid, I loved reruns of I Love Lucy. In one episode, Lucy and her gang are visiting Paris and she is arrested for unintentionally passing off counterfeit money. At the police station, no one speaks English. But Lucy’s husband, Ricky, speaks Spanish and English. A local drunk at the station speaks...

When Traveling, What Art Do You Seek Out?

I just returned from a two-week trip to Portugal and Spain. I know, lucky me! One of my favorite things about traveling is getting to appreciate all the history, architecture, art, crafts, culture, and food of a country or region.    It’s funny, isn’t it, that when we travel–unless we’re swimming in the ocean or...

Hold On Arts Lovers, Here We Go Again

Are we seriously going down this road again? Are we seriously discussing again getting rid of the National Endowment for the Arts, The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and The National Endowment for the Humanities? And do we seriously have to argue again for the value of supporting creativity and culture? Do we really need to...

The Folly of Failure

What if failure didn’t exist? No, I’m serious. What if it’s just a word someone invented because he was feeling down about his work and the word stuck. It’s not hard to imagine a time when this word didn’t exist. There was a time when none of the words we use today existed. But at...