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I give regular tours at a contemporary art museum. One day when I enter the museum, I hear the dreadful sound of a car alarm coming from a back gallery. It sound like the classic one that came out twenty years ago or so.  You would recognize it instantly: a screeching sound track alternates every…

Standing at the edge of a cliff, I gage the expanding swell of a wave as it pushes its apex up the rock wall. If I catch the surf at its highest, I jump about thirteen feet. If I miss it, I plunge twenty-five feet or more. I’m wary. When the water upsurges to its…

Punxsutawney Phil, a handsome groundhog with a long aristocratic nose, scuttled backward into his hole when he felt the ground tremble with Black Wolf’s approach. “Wait a minute, Phil,” howled the sleek Black Wolf who had been tracking the large rodent for weeks. Black Wolf’s fur coat shone in the moonlight, illuminating the stars and…

In a lush park, I was shocked to spy a lime green gecko standing still against a bright red palm stalk, like a living Hawaiian Christmas tree ornament. Why would that gecko stay there, easy pickings for a mongoose to gobble? Mesmerized, I stared a long time because I have recently come to understand that…

In daily life, I regularly heard tirades of complaining from people around me, and also from radio and TV. It seemed the more years I accumulated, the more polarized voices became, bitter and divided. Over time, I gravitated toward more positive friends and turned off the radio and TV when they veered into sensationalism-most of…

I walk sideways with arms outstretched, waving here and there for balance, like a large praying mantis using its antennae. My feet walk on angled glass, so I slip and glide on shadows. But I am used to walking among shady illusions and my feet bend easily to odd angles on the shimmery slope. After…

In childhood, I believed all basements smelled like hops. As I descended the long, narrow stairs into our damp underworld for chores – washing clothes, turning on our cranky furnace whose upstairs thermostat rarely worked – or play – roller skating or a game of tag amidst piles of old furniture, mysterious boxes and aromatic…