Today I celebrated my 75th birthday with friends …, and shared with them this reflection … In a nutshell, I’m saying that I welcome the new responsibilities that accrue with age, and commit myself to trying to fulfill them. And now I want to make this commitment explicit, by telling you what I will try to do in the next five years. And maybe longer, but let’s just take things one lustrum (5-year period) at a time. (2016.4.3)

… as in 1901, when Strindberg wrote “The Dreamplay,” it seems as though There Is No Alternative (“TINA” – see Daniel Singer’s 1999 book on this tyrannical goddess). Of course, there is an alternative, there always is. Let us pray, to whatever gods we find within ourselves, that it is not the kind of alternative Europe created for itself in 1914. (2000.12.04)