Stop & Start, Continue: 2026

Today's post is the 13th iteration featuring the Stop-Start-Continue model as a new year begins. For an obvious reason, this one combines the stop and start components. If you decide to join me - as many of you have since 2012 - use any combination of the three components that works for you. The important piece is to make a commitment, public or otherwise, about something you plan to stop as this new year begins, and/or something else you plan to start, and/or something else that has worked for you that you plan to purposefully continue doing as 2026 unfolds. 

In 2026, I plan to stop focusing as much in my daily journal on the past and instead to start looking forward and writing about the future. This intention for the new year became clear to me in part because of an insightful conversation on New Year's Eve with good friends. One of them said that keeping a journal had never appealed to her because she saw little value - for herself - in reviewing the past. The other - who, like me, keeps a daily journal - indicated her journal was purposefully future focused. The more I thought about what both of them had said, the stronger my intention to stop and start became.

In 2026, I plan to continue ramping up the number of open jazz jam sessions I attend. Though I disappoint myself frequently in these situations, I know there's no better way to improve as a musician than by performing in front of a live audience. And, for anyone who has doubts about using a stop-start-continue model to hold yourself accountable, I encourage you to read last year's post from this same series, directly below. Note the continue pledge therein.

Reflections from the Bell Curve: Stop - Start - Continue: 2025 

Wish me luck and best of luck to anyone who joins me.   

Best of 2025

Please consider sharing with me and others some things you're grateful for that came your way in 2025. There's ample research citing the mental health benefit connected to a regular practice of acknowledging gratitude. Use the headings below or invent your own. I've used a few of these headings on and off since initiating the series in 2012; others were created for this year. 

Best book finished in 2025, also published in 2025:  Today marks the third time in under five weeks I've mentioned Lily King's 2025 novel Heart the Lover in a blog post. That alone indicates the impact it had on me. A brand-new book in a "Best of..." post has happened only once before - in 2024 - when Percival Everett's James pummeled me, albeit for different reasons altogether. 

Best moment of musical communion: During the maiden voyage of my music course entitled Women of Heart and Mind, I scanned the room of about thirty adults as we all listened to Karla Bonoff's Goodbye My Friend. Witnessing their reaction to that song was a gift I'm reasonably sure I'll never forget.

Best inspirational quote discovered for future blog use: "If love will not swing wide the gates, no other power will" - James Baldwin. 

Best tribe-related moment: I'm auditing a class on short stories led by a reading soulmate. In the same class are - a.) a new friend from my hiker's group; b.) another friend who belongs to my book club; c.) the moderator of a writer's group I joined early in 2025, fast becoming a friend; d.) a regular attendee of my music classes. This wasn't planned; I was as surprised to see the four of them as they were to see me.

Best news: No competition here. Early in December, my daughter and her partner landed a deal to write an animated film for Disney based on the irrepressible Junie B. Jones from the children's book series by Barbara Parks. Stay tuned for future bragging. 

Happy new year! 

Gave Up on Giving Up Until ...

How often do you give up on a book you've started? 

Perhaps unsurprisingly, my response to that question - asked of me recently by a new friend - is different today than it would have been if asked of me at earlier points in my reading life. How about you? Can you identify any discreet phases you've moved through as a reader when you were either more or less inclined to give up on books you'd started?    

As a young adult, I routinely gave up on many books I'd started. But until I carefully considered how to answer my friend's question, I didn't fully realize how my impatience played a large part in that. Then, as I dug deeper, it became clear that much of my impatience was closely tied to immaturity as a reader and insecurity as a thinker. Well into my thirties, any book that regularly challenged me via references I didn't immediately comprehend was impatiently abandoned. Bottom line: If an author knew a lot of things I didn't, I gave up. Aside from insecurity, what could explain this? 

Although not certain when this earlier-in-life reflex began to shift, I do recall a few things that I now equate with my growth as a reader and thinker. The first was a deepening respect for the views of John Leonard, a prominent NY Times book critic. Also, I started trusting the opinions of people who read more widely than me, like my sister. This led me to work harder at finishing things that I would have jettisoned a few years earlier. I can even remember the first book I returned to after giving up on it at least twice before - One Hundred Years of Solitude. Soon after finishing that and recognizing some of my other earlier surrenders were likely a mistake, I decided to give up on giving up if either a respected critic or a trusted reader told me a book was worth some effort. I've never regretted that decision and use the same reasoning to this day. But the full answer to my friend's question now has a third act caveat.

Early in 2010, I stopped working full time, began a book journal, joined my first-ever book club. A year later I started this blog, a decision accompanied by a commitment to become the best writer I could be in my remaining years. How to do that? Devote all my precious reading hours to the best possible prose. As a consequence, when I give up on a book I've started these days - which I now routinely do, again - it's no longer related to impatience, or its malignant first cousins, immaturity or insecurity. Clunky sentences, cliched metaphors, tired dialogue? Give up. Excessive exposition, unidimensional characters, cliff-hanging chapter endings? Move on. Verbs that don't caress, adjectives that add no value, adverbs run amok? Next. These days, even when a book comes my way via a respected critic or trusted reader, if the writing has nothing to teach me, I'm done. 

How often do you give up on a book you've started?  

Forgive Me, In Advance

About a week from now I'll take my once-a-year look at the analytics that Google collects for bloggers. At this point - almost fifteen years in - I'm able to manage my expectations far better than in the early years.

But no matter what those numbers say, my blog gave me more joy in 2025 than in any previous year for a few reasons.

* The number of offline conversations connected to something I mused about here was satisfying. This included an instance when a new friend and sometimes reader used one of my posts as a prompt at a writing workshop and another instance when a few of my Mt. Rushmore entries and goyim journeys into Yiddish ignited a conversation with several people during an extended hike. 

* Though the number of comments received in 2025 were about the same as in years past, the insights were uniformly richer. In addition, several new readers became frequent commenters - online and off - and the number of anonymous comments published here increased enough to be noticeable. Though I recognized some of those "anonymous" folks, there were just as many I couldn't identify. That's kind of fun because it allows me to harmlessly fantasize that someone I don't know stumbled across my blog somehow. Even better - and just as harmless - maybe that new reader will hang in there for a while?

* My joy was most enhanced by the unwavering support of people who have been by my virtual side now for years. I can never thank any of you enough. During a recent phone conversation, I was overcome with gratitude when one stalwart supporter said how much he appreciated me "... putting yourself out there all the time ..."  I hope all of you know how your support sustains and energizes me.

In the meanwhile, wish me luck with those analytics. If it sounds at all like I'm licking my wounds early in 2026, forgive me.      

Reading Re-Cap: 2025

Given my previous two posts centered on music and film, featuring some of my reading highlights from 2025 seems right for today's reflection. Except for people I love, nothing in my life has sustained me as predictably as literature, music, and film. Which of your passions works that way for you?

As in years past, use my headings or invent your own when sharing with me and others some books you finished this past year that you're reasonably sure will remain with you. 

Novel most likely to be recommended to casual readers: Kitchens of the Great Midwest (2015) - Ryan Stradal. To be redundantly clear: My use of the word casual is not meant to diminish any book or author. Since this once-a-year series began in 2018, every novel recommended under this heading has been exceedingly well-crafted. And though each can be enjoyed simply for the surface story being told i.e., read casually, all of them also reveal the way talented authors always have more on their minds than hooking a reader via a compelling surface. These books are page-turning literature. 

Novel most likely to be recommended to discerning readers: Trust (2022) - Hernan Diaz. Casual vs. discerning? Means a reader may have to work a little harder to extract the essence and the surface is not always quite as clear. A musical parallel, perhaps? I'd suggest it's easier extracting the essence of If I Fell than it is doing the same with So What. In the end, does that make that exquisite Beatles song any less than the Miles Davis opus? Of course not. Same goes for the two books under these first two headings.   

Novel and non-fiction that most deepened my experience of living:  Heart the Lover (2025) - Lily King and The Trail of Tears (1975) - Gail Jahoda.

Most worthwhile re-read: The Garden of Last Days (2008) - Andre Dubus III.

Most intriguing: The Glutton (2023) - A.K. Blakemore. Note carefully here the word intriguing. This slice of little-known history from the waning years of 18th century France is clearly not for everyone. But I was riveted and plan on returning to the author.   

Most personally useful: Being Mortal (2014) - Atul Gawande.

Looking forward to hearing which books helped make 2025 a memorable reading year for you. 

Words for the Ages: Line Thirty-Eight

"I've learned how to cry and I'm better for that."

One of my habits when teaching music courses is to ask participants to uncover terse lyrical phrases that strike them as worthy of remembering. While recently delivering an updated version of my course called Tunesmiths, I was caught totally off guard by the line above from a 2007 Sara Bareilles tune entitled Many the Miles. Given there were no songs by Bareilles included in my original iteration of Tunesmiths and, I'd never before closely examined the lyric to Many the Miles, imagine my delight discovering that gem at the exact time I was asking participants to identify words for the ages from any song featured in my class. What a blast!    

Bareilles's succinct phrase from her first-rate song meshes perfectly with criteria established when I initiated this blog series over eight years ago: 1.) It's brief enough to be easily recalled; 2.) It stands alone i.e., needs no rhymes before or after to complete the thought; 3.) It contains a truth difficult to refute. Except for the hard-hearted, who would argue that being able to cry when feeling things deeply makes us more human?

I'm always curious to hear which lyrical phrases you've unearthed fitting the criteria above. Maybe another Sara Bareilles lyric? Maybe something by a favorite lyricist of yours, musical genre aside? One of the clear benefits I've derived since launching this series has been the amount of focused attention I now routinely give to lyrics. Of course, that has helped me with my own lyrics. Further, and more importantly, my listening skills in general have improved. How cool is that? Try it. Then come back and tell me what you notice.   

#76: The Mt. Rushmore Series (Re-Purposed #16)

Of the seventy-five Mt. Rushmores I've erected since initiating my most enduring series in July 2012, the one I've most often been tempted to demolish and re-construct enshrined four perfect one-liners from a movie. I hope you'll join in today by nominating up to four easy-to-remember lines of movie dialogue that you think measure up to those below. (To avoid duplicating any of my flawless choices, be sure to also check out the October 2013 originals on Mt. Rushmore #16.) My repurposed monument orders the four lines via release date of the film. Order yours however you wish.    

1.) "I'll alert the media." From the day I heard Sir John Gielgud deadpan this line to Dudley Moore in Arthur (1981), I've used this one-liner dozens of times. Has there ever been a more perfectly sarcastic response to a banality? 

2.) "Well, that would certainly explain the hostility." My Cousin Vinny (1992) has several Rushmore-worthy lines. But judge Fred Gwynne's offhand remark upon learning that Marisa Tomei is the fiancée of hapless attorney Joe Pesci is an unimprovable line from this top-notch comedy. 

3.) "Show me the money!"  The films of director/screenwriter Cameron Crowe are stuffed with goodies like this. The mercenary challenge hurled at Tom Cruise/Jerry Maguire (1996) by Cuba Gooding Jr. is a moment of pure movie magic.

4.) "I love you but you don't know what the hell you're talking about." From arguably the least well-known film in this group - Moonrise Kingdom (2012) - comes this unforgettable gem. How many times in your life have you had this exact thought even if you never said it aloud to someone you loved?

Reflections From The Bell Curve: #16: The Mt. Rushmore Series

Your turn.

Good Company

Over our nearly forty-eight-year history, my wife and I have had some of our worst and our best moments while in an automobile. The worst moments have often been connected to my driving habits. The best moments have frequently occurred on one of the many extended road trips we've taken. 

This morning, while she slept in the passenger's seat on our return from central Pennsylvania, I began reflecting on earlier road trips. Some things have changed since 1978 - the cars, the ways we listen to music, the games we play to pass the time. Much has stayed the same - the ease of conversation and comfort with silence, our planning for the future, lots of laughter.  

I've always enjoyed long-distance driving. For almost a half-century now, almost all of my road trips have had an added benefit - the company of someone I endlessly enjoy.