“Aren’t you pretty?” the woman cooed. “Look at you, you’re the sweetest thing!” She pressed her hand up against the glass, simulating contact. “Oh, you sweet thing!” she said. “They’re not usually this social,” said the volunteer. “This one’s got quite the personality. She’s very curious. Usually, they hide, they’re solitary by nature. But this …
We were going to sleep on the sidewalk, if we were going to sleep at all. It was that or the freeway median, and that seemed an even worse choice. I did not want to sleep on the sidewalk or the freeway median, but there were no hotels, there were no campgrounds, there was … …
I’ve been to the Experience Music Project only once before and with a very specific goal in mind: see Ernie. The EMP was having a Muppets retrospective. There was a lot of cool early Jim Hensen artwork and two things that made me surprisingly emotional — Ernie and Cookie Monster. They were big and they …
I know lots of people who hate zoos, won’t visit them, no way, no how. I am ambivalent. It is exciting to be able to get a good close look at animals that most people never see outside their television. But it is also hard to look at the critters and consider where they “should” …
Liu Xiadong‘s paintings are modern — meaning they are of this time — and they look Western to me. The thick application of the paint, the rough expressive brush work, it’s the legacy of painters like John Singer Sergeant or the California school painters, some of whom taught my teachers. Painters like David Park and …
“I need to write something about people being nice to me while I travel.” “You should write about Sock Monkey.” “Oh, that was awesome, wasn’t it? I like thinking about him in the co-pilot’s seat, traveling across the Outback with the mail. The pilot saying (in his Aussie drawl), “Sorry, this is just a drop …