This morning, I awoke out of a deep sleep with the memory that I'd been dreaming of my films -- all of them in a row like children -- and somehow in the dream it was clear that each of them was a birth for me. Each one pushing out of me; each one now on the earth; each one making their way and doing what they were meant to do in the world. I couldn't remember much more ... I couldn't sh...

There are few poets as underappreciated today as Michael McClure. For close to six decades now, he has been writing visionary poetry, lauded by many of the most original American minds of the second half of the twentieth century--figures such as Robert Duncan, Robert Creeley, and Allen Ginsberg. McClure seems to have been at the center of many of the most important artistic developments...

"In the beginning was the Word," according to the Bible. God's words created the universe; He spoke us into being. Words created our world -- literally. Words have power -- to uplift or to tear down -- to inspire or to incite -- to heal or to hurt -- to create or destroy. Words define our reality -- for better or for worse. In the aftermath of the massacre in Tucson, we hear much debate ...

China's recent passive-aggressive behavior on the world stage is unfortunate but not unexpected. President Obama is handling the PRC's non-collaboration with great skill and savvy. He realizes the Middle Kingdom's ancient cultural imperatives and contemporary geo-political objectives dictate a balance of caution and steely firmness. If he stays the course, push-me-pull-you tension bet...

In an age when the word "reality" has become synonymous with nasty behaviors on TV shows and "truth" seems impossibly divided between political cults, perhaps we could find a better sense of both in what we lightly call "myth." The tales of the gods and goddesses that we have told ourselves since humanity's first light may seem irrelevant in today's world except as bed-time stories, but t...