Articles Related to Art & Music

Aging Authors

Synopsis:  Prolific author Mary Higgins Clark autographed a children's book for me and Spencer.  Clark has over 40 books in print and is one of the most prolific women in the publishing industry.  I discuss the ascent and descent of her work, and contrast it with that of others--Agatha Christie, and Jaqueline Kennedy Onasis (yes, she earned her place in the list).  What can I and other aging creatives learn from these powerhouses?

Excerpt:  Mary Theresa Eleanor Higgins Clark Conheeney has 40+ books to her name, and they sell. In fact her debut novel, We Are the Children, first published in 1975, is in its seventy-fifth printing! At this point the mathematician in me says "2011 minus 83 equals 1927-28, which is FORTY EIGHT years before 1975. MHC didn't write her first novel until she was almost fifty?

Overstimulation

Synopsis:  I discuss a parent's dilemma between leading an adult life and providing adequate guidance and care for one's child.  How much of what we do is misguided, and how can we know?  A history of hysteria meets the age-old questions of "how much TV?" and "what qualifies as overstimulation?"

Excerpt:  Would you believe that when writing became increasingly available to the masses in early Western history, prominent thinkers railed against it as unhealthy? Socrates railed against the spread of literacy, as he believed it would dwarf the memories of men (the Greek word for read is "anaginosko," literally "to know again," as paper and ink spare the scholar the task of remembering). Indeed, from the dawn of human civilization, bards relayed epic tales, such as Homer's Ilyad, purely from memory.

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