This morning, I started to write a post about the evolution of humanity’s relationship to photography. Then, kind of like technological innovation, it spiraled off in several competing directions. That's not such a problem for me, but it does push up against systematic expectations of communication; something that I typically struggle with. I'm going to go ahead and start with...
WHEN HEALERS ARE AHEAD OF HISTORY While historians credit Louis Pasteur with articulating the germ theory of disease, many others came before him who began to tease out the ideas that led to this deeper understanding of illness. One of these doctors, the 18th century physician Ignatz Semmelweis, spent much of his time taking care of women who developed puerperal fever (childbed...
Humans have brains that are capable of complex thoughts about the future and the past. This gives us the ability to both plan, as well as fall into the abyss of regret. This brain has incredible powers to shape our reality, and language is one of the many tools we use to carve out meaning from the things that we...
I don't know if I have always held my tension in my left leg, but I know I have for at least 25 years. When I was in my early 20's and my back would "go out", it was always on the left side. I got rid of that for about 5 or 10 years after I read "Healing Back...
Last year, Tony Kapel had me on his radio show in Miami to discuss my mall photo work and our film Half-Cocked. Afterwards he suggested trying to show it at Art Basel in Miami in December 2021 with a show of my photo work. We started brainstorming and refocused on showing work by all the people involved with the film...
In the first episode of Ted Lasso the newly appointed coach of a premier league soccer team and eponymous namesake of the show tapes a hand-written sign on the locker room wall that simply says, “BELIEVE.” At this point in the narrative, Lasso - an American football coach and not a soccer coach - bets big on belief. However, he...
I saw this on Twitter today. I get it - people want to feel listened to rather than lectured. It also highlights the difference between empathy and sympathy. I come from a family with a long history of chronic pain and other health issues. I spent much of the past two decades making a film about the mind body connection...
[caption id="attachment_26522" align="alignnone" width="800"] self portrait on the first day of the festival[/caption] My memory is more metaphorical than factual. I had it in my head that my band Sleepyhead went on our first tour in the summer of 1991, our second year as a band, and that the tour ended in August in Chapel Hill (where I grew up). That...
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”- Upton Sinclair This quote is often bandied about when people who believe Dr John Sarno's story - that most back pain is caused by repressed emotions - want to make the point that he saw something that threatened his salary, bucked the...
The following definition of pain was established in 2017 by a taxonomy task force of the International Association for the Study of Pain: "Pain is an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience that is associated with actual or potential tissue damage or described in such terms." If it is read carefully it is clear that pain is both a physical and...
Recently I saw a tweet from an editor seeking science/medicine pitches because he was taking over a new full-time role at a newspaper. I sent him a note with a link to our film "All The Rage," suggesting that he either allow me to write a first-person piece about our experience of making and distributing a film that focused on...
I will be 55 years old in a few weeks. White. Jewish. Grew up in Queens, then Long Island. Attended SUNY at Albany and received my J.D. from Fordham University School of Law. Moved to Westchester County, NY in 1994 with my husband, and I am a mother of two children; my daughter is almost 25 and my son is...