Do you remember in The Invasion of the Body Snatchers (the best one, with Kevin McCarthy) when they open the trunk of the car and you get your first glimpse of the pods? And then when you actually see one oozing and growing in the closet overnight?

That's how I...

In 1973, when Equus, the highly dramatic play by Peter Shaffer first appeared, it caused all kinds of chatter. In the early seventies, we were still seekers and Equus delved into the nature of passion versus the humdrum and asked the question: isn't it better to be driven and mad...

What is the role of the musician in these troubled times? There are fantastic talents in all branches of music and it should be enough just to receive their gifts of composition, shouldn't it?

Well, no. Like any artists, when the world is going to hell in hand basket and...

When I was growing up in and around New York, the Huntington Hartford Museum was already an iconic eyesore at Columbus Circle. Lincoln Center, just up the block, was not considered too much better, I might add, for a world that had become used to the graciousness of Carnegie...

Mayor Bloomberg is multi-tasking just like me (he has better transportation) plus he is on the phone with his posse trying to fix the financial markets. Since I get breathless at the thought of an algebra equation, and quants and derivatives even as vocabulary words daunt me, I will leave...

If you are 27 years old and you've tried and already shed a couple of careers, can you transform yourself into a world class artist?

Can you paint in the dark?

Can you paint not only what you see but what you remember?

Can you use painting as...

It seemed only fitting that tonight was the sober, majestic performance of Verdi's Requiem in honor of Luciano Pavarotti at the Metropolitan Opera.

At the end of a long day of continued substantial turmoil in the financial markets...

Last week I was sent a list that was supposedly the list of books that Sarah Palin asked be banned from her local Wasilla library.

I have been fretting over it ever since.

As readers of the Culture Zohn know, censorship is an abiding concern of mine; last year...

The Fly is a movie that you either loved or hated. Jeff Goldblum is an actor who either sends you and whom you think is lanky and sexy and soulful or gives you the creeps with his eyes that pop....

I didn't know why I was drawn to re-reading and re-seeing The Unbearable Lightness of Being just a few weeks ago and then, unexpectedly...the Russians invaded Georgia.

I remembered the incredible sexiness of Lena Olin in her bowler hat in front...

Running through the Denver Airport last week, I was reminded of my elementary school bulletin board: as an important holiday approached, the board would slowly fill with art projects of various kinds: colored paper and doily collages, carefully lettered (between the three lines) announcements of holiday cheer, a list of...

The NY Times ran a story about Obama and affirmative action earlier this week. The first question I asked was: why was it buried inside? Is this subject not as important as oil drilling or wind farms?

To me, there is...

Let me confess at the outset I have never met T. Boone Pickens: I don't even know what the T stands for (I just looked it up. It's Thomas, after his father. Pickens has a website that puts most to shame)....

How are we going to live in the rest of the 21st century and beyond?

It's a big question, one that is becoming ever more urgent as resources diminish with few answers from our largely dysfunctional government which has repeatedly refused to grapple with...

Maybe it's because I actually decided to miss my high school reunion last week, or maybe it's because there has been a lot of chatter about Hillary's having beencastrating or maybe it's because Obama claims to be aloof from the psychodrama of the baby boom generation, or columnists from

More people than I can count are aggravated, even downright hostile, to the Clintons, especially Bill. His ranting during the primary campaign was a turn-off to those who had supported him in the past as well as those who abandoned him after they felt abandoned by him long ago.

But...

It turns out that most of us have dreams about dancing with stars. I am probably the only person in the whole country who has not been watching Dancing with the Stars or So You Think You Can Dance, two very highly rated television shows and I am going to...

In the no woman's land between artist and public lies a phalanx of people who are ready to tell you what to think: critics, art historians, curators, dealers and your friends. The cacophony of voices who remind you if it's commercial...

Do you believe that writers are born not made? Do you believe that people have some kind of innate gift for storytelling, for stringing words together, for capturing dialogue, for getting under the...

We all have a fantasy about taking off for six months or a year, getting away from the grind in order to have the time to muse and contemplate. We know we would be the better for it, our ideas sharper, our vision about our work clearer. We might even...