There was a time when idealistic folksingers such as myself believed that Reality TV was a programming vogue that would peak and recede, leaving only its hardiest show-offs. Instead, it has metastasized like toxic mold, filling every nook and opening...
Instead of using new technologies to preserve for ready discovery material that might in the past never have been stored, or deleting everything as soon as possible, we can develop systems that place sensitive information beyond reach until a specifi...
New York musicians rarely have the time for idle chat and conversation after a gig. Despite popular assumption of our scintillating after-hours, that illusion is overtaken by the constant hustle to juggle a part-time or full-time job, a myriad of err...
Usually, at the end of a film it's like I've finally gotten to know this person completely, and then we're done. That actually happened on the set of 'Twilight,' and then it happened again on 'New Moon.' Each time my character Bella became a differen...
In Einstein's equation, time is a river. It speeds up, meanders, and slows down. The new wrinkle is that it can have whirlpools and fork into two rivers. So, if the river of time can be bent into a pretzel, create whirlpools and fork into two rivers,...
I spend a lot of my time on the phone, pestering people. 'What's new in your lab? Can I come visit your lab? When can I come visit your lab?' I'm basically a professional pesterer.
The reason why I've been keeping private for the longest time ever here, I've always wanted to protect my wife's privacy. I don't like - I didn't want to put her picture all over the news. I just wanted to keep her private.
Faced with the collapse of Iraq into something like Lebanon - or worse, Somalia - the Bush administration opted for a new counterinsurgency strategy. Violence was reduced because, for the first time since the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, Iraqis felt th...
What is driving the tendency to discount Joseph Smith's revelations is not that they seem less reasonable than those of Moses; it is that the book containing them is so new. When it comes to prophecy, antiquity breeds authenticity. Events in the dist...
As a New Yorker, or wherever I am, I just want to know I can get our of the house in five minutes if I have to and not have to spend a bunch of time obsessing in the mirror, trying on a million different options. Now, I just know what works.
When I go on vacation, I take very few clothes and a whole lot of books. It's the most soothing thing in the world. Reading 'Moby-Dick' is like being in a time machine. I almost feel as excited as the first time I read it and I always find something ...
L.A. is wonderful. They have something called sleep dentistry. You just go there, and they put you to sleep and go, 'Drrrrrr,' and by the time you wake up a few hours later, you have a whole new set of teeth. I mean, whatever you want them to do.
Well, I've learned a lot from Bill Belichick. I've said time and time again, before I got to New England, I thought I knew a lot about football. But I think he taught me a lot from A to Z. I still carry it to this day.
In Trinidad, where as new arrivals we were a disadvantaged community, that excluding idea was a kind of protection; it enabled us - for the time being, and only for the time being - to live in our own way and according to our own rules, to live in ou...
Ojibwe prophecy speaks of a time during the seventh fire when our people will have a choice between two paths. The first path is well-worn and scorched. The second path is new and green. It is our choice as communities and as individuals how we will ...
I grew up in the South, in New Orleans, where guys torture you all the time. So I didn't really grow up on the self-esteem campaign. When you were lousy at something, they told you you were lousy, and they told you how to fix it.
I always used to travel without a passport case, and because of it I think I'm four passports in. I bought this small Tumi case to protect my new one, and it works really well, not just for protecting it but also for keeping credit cards and small st...
I always have issues with trust. I'm a New Yorker... Really, I think trust is something that comes from the gut. And I think you have to - it's probably the worst advice to give people - but I think you gotta trust people from your gut.
The three-year-old who lies about taking a cookie isn't really a liar after all. He simply can't control his impulses. He then convinces himself of a new truth and, eager for your approval, reports the version that he knows will make you happy.
Black America surely faces an existential crisis, but not the one imagined in the condescending news media - of somehow getting non-black America to be more just and generous. The truth is, we've already been through that, and there is nothing left t...
Emily: When I told you when I had to work late? I really went to go see the new Twilight movie by myself, and it was so bad.
