Today, I have a day off from teaching school. In New Haven, Connecticut, the holiday is officially called “Indigenous Peoples Day” and “Italian Heritage Day,” a compromise between the liberal community and…
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When I heard my friends and neighbors talking about defunding and disbanding the police, my first instinct was to dismiss it as ignorance. Nope. Absolutely not feasible. When I heard them say…
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E: What do you think it would take to get men to take responsibility for their part in unwanted pregnancies? F: I think we should cleave off their toes.…
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“If you’re going to write an article about ‘being woke,’ I think you should really lean into your personal experiences as a fundamentalist,” my wife suggested after reading the first draft of…
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Not long ago, my wife, a composer, asked me if I would ever advise a student from a low-income family to pursue a career in the arts. “What do you mean? Of…
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As we pulled into the massive Willow Creek Community Church campus, Frances and I tried to figure out the best place to park in case we needed to make a quick exit.…
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I confess: I started going to church again. I swore I wouldn’t. After straying from the fold six years ago, I swore I would never again, by my presence, tacitly condone such…
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“This whole school triflin’.” One of my sophomores back in Baltimore said that while taking his seat in my English class. I wasn’t exactly sure what he meant. “Triflin’’” can mean a…
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One of the major projects for our summer in Aspen (where Frances is a composition fellow) is to work on our opera, Salt. Salt is an adaptation of the biblical story of…
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Frances Pollock and Tia Price’s “Stinney: An American Execution” is a profound and moving opera that I am so excited to be co-producing with Frances and with Beth Morrison Projects. It will…