Recently, I attended a memorial for a dear friend, mentor and sometimes collaborator, Howard Storm. In his life, Howard excelled as a comedian, director, producer, world-class “storyteller” and laugh-out-loud funny guy! Among his many accomplishments, Howard directed almost all the episodes of the iconic sit-com “Mork and Mindy” starring Robin Williams as Mork and Pam […]
My dad’s career as an Air Force officer included working with NASA as an astrobiologist during the early days of the space program. I’m an improviser, interested in science, and specific to this post, astroscience and the search for exoplanets. Exoplanets are planets that orbit around stars other than our sun. The first exoplanet was
When I first heard Thelonious Monk’s music, almost every note held a little surprise for my brain. It reminded me of how I felt when I was doing or watching really good improvisational theater. Jazz critic Nat Hentoff described some of Monk’s compositions as “seemingly bare skeletons for improvisation.” And, as an added bonus, to my
When Pablo Picasso taught art classes, one of the first exercises he told his students to do was to take pen to paper and draw a perfect circle. All of the students worked hard to impress their teacher. Spoiler alert: there is no way to draw a perfect circle! So, after all of the students
