In the aftermath of 9/11, people had not a good time, but a deep, profound, rousing time, woke up from their ennui and isolation and trivialization to feel engaged, connected, purposeful, ready to give, to engage, to care, to learn.

In great cities, spaces as well as places are designed and built: walking, witnessing, being in public, are as much part of the design and purpose as is being inside to eat, sleep, make shoes or love or music. The word citizen has to do with cities, and the ideal city is organized around citizenship -- around participation in public life.

Walking allows us to be in our bodies and in the world without being made busy by them.

The art is not one of forgetting but letting go. And when everything else is gone, you can be rich in loss.

Growing up north of San Francisco, I immersed myself in the local landscape and in books about Native Americans, cowboys, and pioneers that seemed to ground me in it, but to pursue culture in those days meant being spun around until dizzy and then pushed east.

I often think that the reason capitalism hasn't completely destroyed everything is that a huge amount of anti-capitalist endeavor goes on, from labors of love, nurture, friendship, and barter to gift economies and different kinds of exchanges, not just one alternate model but a whole host of other ways in which we engage with each other and with the world that aren't financial and debt-based.

In the aftermath of 9/11, people had not a good time, but a deep, profound, rousing time, woke up from their ennui and isolation and trivialization to feel engaged, connected, purposeful, ready to give, to engage, to care, to learn.