Voice & Vision Blog

Writing hasn’t been easy this past year. I haven’t written much, and most of what I have written has felt forced. I thought it was the stress of living in “The New Normal.” I thought all the scary things the past year has served up, swirling in my brain, had rendered me unable to focus. I’m sure that has been part of it. But I recently discovered what my bigger problem has been. . . . I miss people. I had a routine colonoscopy last week. (I say “routine” because I didn’t need...

What if you clicked open your news feed one morning and saw your name there . . . . . . followed by your own obituary. You might pinch yourself to make sure you hadn’t died without knowing it. And then you’d probably keep reading to see what had been written about your life. What if you didn’t like what it said? This actually happened to Dr. Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite. He opened his newspaper one morning, and there it was—the announcement of his death. (His brother...

When times are hard, laughter is—as the old saying goes—the best medicine. I can always count on the Seinfeld show to make me laugh. If I come across an episode while I’m channel surfing, I can’t help but watch it to the end. Some of the Seinfeld episodes I find the funniest are the ones that feature the late Jerry Stiller as Frank Costanza. Frank is loud, often obnoxious, and is always coming up with off-the-wall schemes: including ideas for new businesses, new holidays, bizarre inventions,...