Category Dick Piazza

I held the small boney hand of my aging mother and we both watched the grass beneath our feet as we crossed the lawn. Each step’s rhythm was matched by a slight tightening of her grip on me, her footing more uncertain than her mind; than her whole being. She had become oddly bent, this

“The Good Ship Jesus” brought the first African slaves to the West Indies. The year was 1562. Sir John Hawkins, a deeply religious Christian, captained the vessel. The ship, built in Germany, laid down the first pathway to the new world. The path was a “desire line,” an improvised course from point A to point

  Lyndsay Once, I asked her to become a cat, and before my eyes, furry paws came up, poking. A soft purring floated out of her whiskered face. I scratched her ear and she rolled over and stretched. I asked her to be a banana and, magically her body curved into an arc and a

    A long time ago I copied a quote from an Annie Dillard novel that got stuffed away in an old folder. I found it today and tried to recall what exactly I was thinking and doing when I set it down. Dillard wrote: “No child on earth was ever meant to be ordinary,

Mathematicians spend a lot of time thinking about time and space. Their thoughts are often abstract and dreamlike. I encounter their ideas and find myself fascinated by concepts like infinity. Why would anyone care about infinity? I’m not sure I do, but imagining it interests me. I find that thinking about ideas impossible to wrap