Dialogic

I discuss some of my strategies for being a good guy.

I sat down with Miguel Reyna to talk about his production of The Thin Place at the Actors' Theater in Santa Cruz.

Juneteenth, Santa Cruz Shakespeare, Solstice, and more! This may be my best solo podcast yet. I discuss the Juneteenth event organized in Santa Cruz by Thairie Ritchie. I delve into the issues surrounding the Black Lives Matter mural that was defaced in front of the City Hall and Abi Mustapha's search for meaningful reconciliation. I talk about my visit to Santa Cruz Shakespeare and the great...

In this podcast, I discuss the power of supporting local businesses, artists, and media. If we want to build a bright and hopeful future, we must start at home by supporting the efforts of those within our own communities.

The Little Mermaid’s remake as a live action movie improves upon the original in several important respects. The racial diversity of the movie not only helps to invite more people into the fantasy, but it also makes it a more interesting story and one that is truer to life. The ocean scenes are rendered more realistically, are sure to please ocean lovers, and might even entice some people to care...

SJSU’s MFA program held an opening for their exhibition “Liftoff” at Radius Gallery on Thursday and will participate in First Friday Santa Cruz on June 2nd 5-8:00pm with Artist Talks scheduled for Sunday the 4th at 3:30pm. 13 recently graduated artists are showing some of their work at one of the most compelling contemporary art galleries in Santa Cruz. With a wide variety of media, concepts, and...

MAKING THE UNCONSCIOUS VISIBLE The Radius Gallery at the Tannery in Santa Cruz recently hosted a group show entitled “What’s Home” organized by Andrew Purchin. This important and elegant exhibition sought to generate a conversation about one of the biggest problems in Santa Cruz County and beyond: housing. The inspiration for the show came from a painting Purchin did of the homeless encampment in...

I start the podcast out listening to a couple of minutes of Fog Machine by White Reaper from their new album "Asking for a Ride."  Next, I read a little bit from Don DeLillo's novel White Noise , recently made into a movie on Netflix that eerily foreshadowed the events that have taken place in East Palastine, Ohio. Finally, I share some stories and information about the pieces I have availabl...

I have three big announcements to make. 1. I am moving from the Westside of Santa Cruz after 8 fun-filled years of living here. 2. I am clean and sober having given up alcohol and cannabis. 3. My dear sweet father sadly passed away and I have been grieving.

Today, there is a crisis in the world. Well, actually there are lots, but I just want to focus on one to begin with. A solution to this particular crisis might offer auxiliary positive results for other problems.  Drought is an existential problem in much of the world. In California, and probably elsewhere, we are mostly advised to conserve. I'm sorry, that is untenable, giving up and even de...

This is the most important sequence so far. In these poems, the poet delineates a poetics. In their description of form, the poet discusses the idea that less is more in the expression of love. This has been consistent throughout the poems. Consistency is the strongest attribute of the collection, and at its core is this idea that describes the beloved and also the poetry: Fair, Kind, and True. Fa...

The separation is complete. The poet speaks about the reputation of their beloved being both good and bad for the same reasons. They are praised for their youthful easygoing ways and criticized for them too. The poet meditates on what it is like to live without their beloved. The changing of the seasons is full of shadows of memories.

This sequence of sonnets goes into the questionable relationship between appearance and reality, between beauty and goodness. He is still dependent upon the beloved for a sense of value, of self worth and in order maintain his own will to live he willingly allows himself to be deceived. 

In this sequence, the poet is coming to terms with the finality of their separation. In the first poem, they discuss a recent writer's block and what caused it. Very specifically it was NOT the quality of his rival's poetry. In fact, they go to great pains to discuss how the rival poet relies upon other writers to craft their poems. One of those, he refers to as a ghost. The poet has a ghost write...

The poet turns a corner and shares their thoughts about their worth in relation to other poets. The premise is that the poet believes they are superior in relation to other poets because they recognize the true worth of the beloved. A person so full of beauty doesn't need embellishment. We can see that the poet has become more accustomed to their separation. They accuse the beloved of being fond o...

This sequence delves into the poetics contained within this collection. It is here in the moment of recognizing the death of a relationship, after meditating on his own mortality, when the poet crystalizes their view of what matters most in poetry. It is not literary technique that matters most, but the truthfulness of the love the writing contains and expresses.

This cycle of sonnets delves into some thoughts of death, or uses thoughts of mortality to describe the process of breaking up.  The poet spins out a bunch of metaphors describing their own exhaustion, the end of their time. They meditate on their own death as a way of bringing into focus what remains important.  The poet doesn't want their name to be remembered. When it boils down to th...

The poet reaches a truly dark place in this section of sonnets.  Sonnet 66 begins with a suicidal pronouncement. The poet says "Tired with all these, for restful death I cry."  And, following this terrible sentiment they issue a list of complaints. He is over it. The wrong people have power and if it were not for their beloved, the poet would leave the world. This pain is enhanced by the...

Shakespeare can teach you how to survive the emotional dangers of love. The sonnets are instructive as much as they are beautiful. They are about how a poet can rise above their status through truthful expression. Love is a driving force, but it has many dangers and downsides.  The first most important thing to know about love is that the love of self is the primary component. While the poet...

Thanks for tuning into another episode of the Dialogic Podcast, the Changing the Conversation series. If you want to follow along, you can find the sonnets for free online at the Folger Shakespeare Library 's online edition. In this sequence, Shakespeare begins with a call for moderation. He suggests that greed spoils love, and that it is possible to regenerate your powers by fasting. Waiting make...

Thanks for tuning into another episode of the Dialogic Podcast, the Changing the Conversation series. If you want to follow along, you can find the sonnets for free online at the Folger Shakespeare Library 's online edition. This sequence starts with the second poem using a horse as a metaphor for leaving a love. It is a slow horse and the poet suggests that if the beloved were to return his feeli...

This cycle of sonnets begins with an image of the poet at war with himself. Heart and Eye are conflicted about the beloved. The eye is cautious, the heart demands connection and argues for the case. The conflict is staged as a kind of court case and the jury is made up of thoughts.  There is a moment of harmony, as the heart and the eyes find a way to cooperate in this affair. The poet is aff...

The poems take a dark turn as the poet wrestles with news of his beloved's infidelity. Understanding that his beloved is sleeping with a former lover, the poet is left to grapple with the emotions left behind. Depression results from their disconnection and is remedied by news of their beloved, which then turns quickly again to sadness.  The darkness of the unrequited love makes the task of o...

In this sequence of poems, the persona addresses the infidelity of his beloved. He manages to always find a way to negate anything negative about their relations through the power of imaginative transformation. By claiming that they are united by the bond of love, the persona of the poems is able to enjoy what would otherwise be torturous. That's the overarching theme that ties all of them togethe...

References to sex abound in Shakespeare's sonnets. The persona of the poems is in love with a youth. It is mostly framed as an unrequited love  story, due in part to Shakespeare's lower status. However, there are references that suggest they have shared the same lovers.  More interesting than the admission of promiscuity is the way the persona handles their feelings of jealousy. Blocked...