February 17, 2006

Apologies

Sorry for the absence of new posts over the last few days. I'm fighting off a bad cold and related symptoms, and my lack of physical well-being has slowed my brain function to a crawl. (I blame the extraordinarily changeable weather in Los Angeles. After being in the 80s for a week or so, it's turned cold and rainy. Well, cold for Los Angeles at any rate. I realize people in other parts of the country, perhaps the Northeast in particular at the moment, will have little or no sympathy for this complaint.) And the essays I'm working on right now are unusually complicated, so writing is proving to be very difficult.

I hope to be back over the weekend. Please bear with me, and my apologies in the meantime.

P.S. If you haven't yet read it, this essay about Maria Callas remains my personal favorite among all the writing I've done over the last three years. The theme of that piece comes closest to stating what I would regard as my personal credo. I would not dream of comparing my writing to Callas's miraculous achievements in any respect at all -- yet that is the standard I always have in mind, and that is the goal to which I dare to aspire.

And for many related reasons, my essay about Tony Kushner's Angels in America is a close second.