Published inILLUMINATION-Curated·Updated Aug 26Malaga SkyMalaga Sky kisses the sea Becomes one with the air Warmed by the sun Malaga Sky extends beyond thought Enveloping everything Wanting nothing Malaga Sky has only one mood Beyond good or bad Forever content Get an email whenever Martin D. Hirsch publishes. Get an email whenever Martin D. Hirsch publishes. By signing up, you will create a Medium account if you don't already…medium.comPoetry1 min readPoetry1 min read
Published inILLUMINATION-Curated·Jul 27Member-onlyAmerican Democracy Jumps the Shark“I couldn’t help but think of you.” That was the subject line of an email from an old friend of mine — a fellow American expat who worked with me both in the U.S., as well as in Switzerland when our pharma company sent us on assignments there in the…Democracy6 min readDemocracy6 min read
Published inILLUMINATION-Curated·Jul 22Member-onlyAn AI Description of Tony Bennett’s VoiceYou be the judge. Who explains it better — the robot or the trained human journalist? — Tony Bennett, who died this week at 96, spanned my parents’ generation and my own. As Time magazine reported, he sang duets with Judy Garland and Lady Gaga. And he had almost half a million followers on Instagram. When I read his obituary in The New York Times, I was…AI4 min readAI4 min read
Published inILLUMINATION-Curated·Jul 18Member-onlyEavesdropping in New York, №3: Trending Designer Graphic T-Shirts at UniqloI like to look. And listen. The combination of sight and sound map the course of my curiosity as I wander the city. The French poet Charles Baudelaire came up with a name for the ever-observant street rambler: he called such a person a “flaneur.” The great Makhail Baryshnikov, answering…Flaneur4 min readFlaneur4 min read
Published inILLUMINATION-Curated·Jun 16Member-only81-Year-Old Graham Nash’s Intimate Show Takes Me On a Musical Tour of My LifeAt 81, Graham Nash is 10 years older than me. In 1962, when he was 21 and starting The Hollies, I was 11 and starting 6th grade. My family had just moved from the little chicken farm in rural central New Jersey where I was born to the teeming Philadelphia…Singer Songwriter7 min readSinger Songwriter7 min read
Published inILLUMINATION-Curated·May 25Member-onlyA Writer’s PoemI write in the shower,Writing1 min readWriting1 min read
Published inILLUMINATION-Curated·May 20Member-onlyEavesdropping in New York — №2: Overheard in the Colonoscopy Prep RoomA little while ago I wrote a piece about a conversation I overheard at a Manhattan restaurant between a couple of septuagenarian doctors with personal reflections on the medical care of Michael Jackson and Elizabeth Taylor. At the end I paraphrased Yogi Berra’s famous saying that “You can observe a…Eavesdropping4 min readEavesdropping4 min read
Published inILLUMINATION-Curated·May 12Member-onlyWhat Was CNN Thinking?“Keep your friends close and your enemies closer,” the Chinese general Sun Tzu wrote 25,000 years ago in “The Art of War.” …Politics And Elections4 min readPolitics And Elections4 min read
Published inILLUMINATION-Curated·Apr 14Member-onlyA Poem for My Wife on Our 32nd AnniversaryA pretty Chinese girl with her Chinese mom in tow We glanced at one another and it changed the status quo Our lives seem not to happen as we plan or we expect Sometimes you just accept life out of faith and due respect Things pan out picture perfect like…Poem2 min readPoem2 min read
Published inILLUMINATION-Curated·Apr 12Member-onlyOld Straight White Hound Dog Asks Smart, Pretty Women To Teach Him New Tricks: What Did He Learn?A couple of stories back I posted a piece called “The Boy Who Loved Pretty Women: Was He Born That Way, or Brainwashed by a Sexist, Patriarchal Society?” …Beauty10 min readBeauty10 min read