Movies, music & the arts Expert Voices Today

Hooray For 'Reality TV'

When I grew up, the primary occupations we saw on TV were lawmen, doctors and lawyers. From Perry Mason to Miami Vice, from Marcus Welby MD to M*A*S*H, we learned Hollywood details about these professions. Not surprisingly, these professions were the ones everyone wanted their kids to be. Oh sure, Jim Anderson on Father Knows Best was an insurance salesman, but we never learned anything about his work. He was a DAD. Mary Tyler Moore was a producer but the WJM newsroom was just a place where we could see Mary as an INDEPENDENT SINGLE WOMAN. More…

Sundance Film Festival

Here's the thing... More…

The Music of Your Cells

One of the ways we make sense of things is by seeing patterns, by seeing an order emerging from chaos.  Sometimes, we take things, like our body, so for granted, we need a new way of looking at it or listening to it.   I was reminded again of this when I read in Time magazine this week Heart Songs More…

Performing for the well-being of the world

I had an inspiring conversation the other day with a group of older women in my community who are members of the International Women's League for Peace and Freedom. This group helps address the needs of women around the world and works on other social justice causes. Some of these women have experience as professional artists, some do not. But they jointly use artistic expression as a means of drawing attention to important social issues. They have created dramatizations related to genital mutilation of women in some countries. They have produced a video portraying the story of one older woman's experience with racism, using their puppetry to illustrate aspects of the story. They have created a piece of artwork reflecting an "empty" chair to represent women who have not been able to sit at the important decision-making tables. This piece is now on exhibit with other chair sculptures at a theological school. More…