“I’m in no shape to exercise.” Overhearing this sentence in a coffee shop, I glanced over to see an obese fellow holding a gooey pastry and a drink topped with whipped cream. He and his buddy laughed, but there

Several years ago, I joined a small group visiting the set of Saturday Night Live after its Friday night rehearsal. During the visit, executive producer Lorne Michaels discussed SNL’s creative process — emphasizing that the show’s extraordinarily tight schedule

The surveillance cameras throughout the streets of Amsterdam looked really boring to Jill Magid, a conceptual artist. So for her next street-art project, Jill wanted to decorate those dull cameras with rhinestones. But when she presented her plan to

Inspiring Fortitude: Homeless Student Pedals Bike 6 Hours To College     It’s been a hot, dry summer in Georgia. But sweltering heat couldn’t stop Fred Barley, a homeless college student. Nor could more than 50 miles of scorching

Above is a thank-you note I received from Oban, the four-year-old grandson of our neighbor, after he and I fed cracked corn to the two ducks in our community’s pond. (It reads: “Dear Sam, Thank you for taking me

Creativity isn’t a talent granted to a privileged few — it’s innate in all humans. And the ebb and flow of personal creativity helps determine whether or lives — and our work — are bright or bleak, eye-opening or

Roaming about the Cooper Hewitt museum in New York City, I ran across this insight from legendary industrial designer Henry Dreyfuss: “For research, I once got behind the counter in the clock section of a store. My first customer

New Yorker writer Andrew Marantz says “additive tourism” is travel to embellish the self — seeing new art, tasting new foods, hearing new music. “Subtractive tourism,” he explains, is travel taken to remove distractions keeping you from  yourself —

“Gathering string” is jargon sometimes used by newspaper and television reporters to describe their process of seeking out facts, quotes and other tidbits while developing stories. A reporter’s “string” might be a photo hanging on someone’s wall, a nervous