Essays by Larry Barnett
Richard Wagner, the German musical genius of dubious personal behavior, wrote and produced some of the most stunning and memorable operas ever performed. Among others, “The Flying Dutchman” and his “Ring Cycle” of four operas, running a combined total of over 20 hours, contain soaring musical passages… Read the rest
We conventionally view causality moving from “Point A” to “Point B,” a straight line through which we can trace each step and assess responsibility. Even if we move from points “A” to “D” we still think in terms of lines of responsibility, which pass through points “B” and “C.” The framework of our legal… Read the rest
People love stories, particularly melodrama. Thus television programs like “Downton Abbey,” the mini-epic about changing manners and society set within a grand estate in the London countryside is less history than soap opera. Scriptwriters plot their dramas in terms of “narrative arc,” casting… Read the rest
The Chinese Taoist Yin-Yang symbol wordlessly conveys the deepest truth of each moment: that existence is not static but dynamic and the forces of creation and destruction carry the seeds of their opposite. The dynamic quality is represented by one black and one white teardrop-shaped intersecting… Read the rest
We’re all familiar with verbal clichés; they’re a dime-a-dozen and no big deal. We use them all the time as shorthand for the commonplace, experiences so everyday as to resonate with nearly everyone. The path from metaphor to cliché is particularly fast in our information-centric 24-hour news cycle,… Read the rest