Simon Bresler One thing you should know about my father is that he has an abnormally large stomach. The kind of stomach that, if x-rayed, would reveal a picnic bench of five angry truck drivers demanding a 4th serving of fillet mignon and mushrooms (if they happen to be sautéed and available). With that being said, my dad is not a particularly overweight guy. In fact, he spends an hour on the elliptical every morning and works out...

First I’m going to pull out all my brushes, take a good look at them, and then throw them overboard.  Next I’m going to open all the lids to the paint cans, shove my hand in to get warmed up, and then I´m going to Jackson Pollock all over the place, because that was my experience.  So if I lose you along the way, that’s okay, because I’ve lost myself as well.  Just look out for the big picture and try to avoid the...

It’s really a stare; I guess you could call it the ´´Cuzco Stare.´´ It emanates from the eyes, dulls the cheeks and slackens the mandible. It’s a sort of glazed over look, like a donut that’s been left out too long. But it was almost everywhere in La Casa Gringa, a new age hostel that I stayed in for about a week, on and off. It worked like this: I would start to talk to somebody and the conversation would take an inevitable...

Simon Bresler Over the past year and a half I have been taking meditation courses in the city. As a supplement to these courses I have also been studying Eastern philosophy, energy manipulation (in a positive sense), and healing. While I imagine some of you have already begun to role your eyes, as I have just confirmed your suspicion of drinking spiked orange juice, I will say this with no further justification: There comes a point when...

Simon Bresler I usually know exactly where to begin.  I start with an image that takes me in an unknown direction and I follow it like a compass needle until I vaguely see its shape and feel the momentum.  At that point, I know where I’m going and am able to anticipate the turns before I reach them. But right now I feel lost.  Its as if a magnet is spinning my needle in circles and I don’t know if I should begin with the 100...