The final days of our mother's life.

Twenty-five years of writing about music! A selection of 17 essays and reviews of music from all over the world.

Is the Objectivist concept of self-esteem partly to blame for the current wave of narcissism?

We usually know what we're going to say before we say it. It's not so obvious how that works..

Steely Dan's song "Deacon Blues" tells the paradoxical story of how an inauthentic man finds liberation. How much is that everybody's story?

When does a fun song about a bad man celebrate wickedness? And is this OK in the name of fun?

The story you didn't know of the classic hymn and how it has been a prolific meme in American culture.

Songs about home: what can we say about them and what do they say about us?

Dr. Thomas Szasz was a staunch opponent of involuntary psychiatric treatment, but there is much more to his thinking.

John Singer Sargent's Madame X was not only a bold artistic statement but a pivotal point in the invention of the modern woman.

Sargent was one of the greatest painters of his time. I underestimated him. Now I am taking a fresh look at him - and my reactions to him.

This is an essay about being authentic, which is the alternative to living a falsified life. It is full of hope.

“Before I sought enlightenment, the mountains were mountains and the rivers were rivers. While I sought enlightenment, the mountains were...

Following Ayn Rand too closely stranded me on a mountain peak. Here's how I came down.

Howard Roark is no statue. This is the story of his development as a human character.

I really enjoyed Greek mythology as a boy, but I was never much interested in Atlas. His brother Prometheus, who created humankind and...

Plato and Aristotle agreed that philosophy starts in wonder, but wonder is a much broader feeling than what they meant. There is...

Meet Beth Harmon. She is the Mozart of chess, but can she beat her demons?

The paradoxical characters of Oskar Schindler, Howard Roark and Shakespeare's Brutus

The name of one of music history's most most difficult sets of sonatas is unknown, but its beauty is evident.