King Kong

Good writing goes a long way. I have seen the famous picture of King Kong on the Empire State Building in New York many times. “Isn’t that silly. Such an ape would never climb on top of the New York skyline,” was my reaction every single time. I was never much interested in seeing image [Read More]

Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness

One afternoon of my sophomore year in college my bicycle was stolen. For reasons I no longer can reconstruct, I decided not to buy another used bike, but henceforth to hitchhike to class. I met many interesting people this way: Professors, sex therapists, construction workers, mothers who wanted to recruit boyfriends for their daughters and image [Read More]

Kanye West’s “Late Registration”

I bought my first hip hop CD, Kanye West’s Late Registration, a couple of months ago after hearing his soulful “Gold Digger.” I suspect that Mr. West does not play a single musical instrument. But this does not make him less a musical genius. West proves that most creativity lies in recombining existing material. image [Read More]

Go for Zucker

Go for Zucker is a delightful German comedy written and directed by Dani Levy. With a Midas touch, he navigates around highly sensitive topics for the German national psyche and creates the first post World War II German comedy about a Jewish family. Jacky Zucker (nee Jakob Zuckermann) was born to a Jewish mother in image [Read More]

God and the Human Brain

The reason why people who are convinced of the existence of God are called believers and not knowers is that there is so little direct evidence that God is in charge of our lives. If God appeared in the sky over Manhattan and announced for all New Yorkers to hear that he or she (God image [Read More]