“Children are very good at pulling you into the moment, if you will let them.” I watched a mother I know play with her two year old son, trying to wear him out so he would sleep when she took him downstairs to his bedroom. He lay back on a huge, floppy stuffed lion, commanded “onetwothree,” then squirmed and giggled as his mother blew on his side, tickling him with her hair. Evidently, “onetwothree” was inadvertent education. His parents used it as a drumroll when playing games with him. “Get ready…” Now, the child says it back, onetwothree, make me …

“It’s the future already, a new millenium. I don’t see any flying cars, though.” May I be forgiven. I am about to launch into a fit of nostalgia, and I’ll just say “I’m sorry” up front and get it over with. This isn’t even going to be a mellow, sighing sort of nostalgia, wherein I wax poetic about happier, simpler times, the joys of childhood, the blankies you drag all over the house, and the importance of afternoon naps. No, this is going to be hard-core, the kind of delusional, rose-colored glasses nostalgia engaged in by storytelling grandparents and by …

“Did you make any New Year’s resolutions? Or are you going to do what I’m doing: Using some of the resolutions I have just lying around but which are basically brand new.” Well, here we are, folks. 2001. We can all stop debating when the Second Millennium begins, or if the start of the Second Millennium means the end of the world. For all purposes, the millennium is well under way by now, and as far as I can tell, the world hasn’t ended yet. In fact, it almost seems to be intent on proving its continued existence. The neighboring …

“If they stole my parking lot for some show, I’ll have to go out there and kick someone’s ass… “ The parking lot outside my window is empty of cars, surrounded by a chain-link fence and crawling with men in hard hats. They are raising a large canvas overhead, a feat requiring poles, guy ropes, and perhaps the tractor that keeps driving in tight circles underneath the partially erect tent. The plywood wall that will encircle the lot soon enough is going up in stages. A worker was painting the public side yesterday, careless of her brush in the breeze, …

“I’ve been around the world…” A year ago today, I woke up in Germany for the first time. If I close my eyes, and tune out Sting on the stereo, I can still picture that morning. We had arrived at our hotel in Andernach quite late. I remember standing at the window the next morning looking over the biergarten below our room and admiring the age of the stone gate across the road. The light was golden in an early fall sort of way, gilding my nervousness for this adventure with a fierce excitement. Despite the long day of travel …

“My name is Moby, and I have a dirty little secret to confess… I like to go out to raves and dance until 7:00 a.m.!” We enjoyed Moby‘s third (!) sold out San Francisco concert on Monday. The genius behind the amazing Play (more than one year among the top five bestsellers) is obviously in love with sound: making it, layering it, exploring it, bathing in it, reveling in it. From our balcony seats, I watched the audience reactions as much as the performance. The main floor was so completely packed that the inclination to dance translated itself to a …