Where I Go: My Life as a Mentalist

For 20 Years, I’ve Wowed Audiences by Reading Minds—and Making the Impossible Possible

Twenty-three years into my career as a stand-up comedian and television comedy writer, a colleague recommended I go see his cousin, one of America’s top mentalists (a.k.a. mind readers) perform in a suite at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York.

Back then, in 2002, I did not know, exactly, what a mentalist was. But the performance changed my life.

The mentalist asked my wife at the time and another woman—someone we did not know—to get up from the audience, to stand about 8 feet apart in the performance area, and to close their …

Our Favorite Essays of 2021

At a Moment Where There Are No Easy Answers, Zócalo Contributors Asked Unexpected, Tough—and Sometimes Quixotic—Questions

It felt like 2021 was a year of firsts—the first rollout of new vaccine technology; the first insurrection in Washington, D.C.; the first female U.S. vice president; and the first …

Where I Go: Afropalonia | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Where I Go: Afropalonia

Writer and Poet Rashaad Thomas Imagines ‘a Planet Only for Black People’

eath sits next to me, hip bones touching mine on a twin bed in the center of a revolving room in Arizona that’s progressively increasing in speed. Frequency numbers, lifeless …

Where I Go: Seeking Peace on the Upper Slopes of Mount Shasta | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Where I Go: Seeking Peace on the Upper Slopes of Mount Shasta

How Cycling (and Tandem Biking) Has Made My Rural Northern California ‘Neighborhood’ Home

“Lonely as God, and white as a winter moon, Mount Shasta starts up sudden and solitary from the heart of the great black forests of Northern California.”
—Joaquin Miller, from …

Where I Go: Stress Baking | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Where I Go: Stress Baking

When It All Becomes Too Much, I Remind Myself to Be Patient and Wait for My Next Loaf to Rise

It’s July 2020, and San Diego is in a heat wave, but I don’t care; I’m baking bread. I can’t force fools on the street to wear masks, or stop the president …

Where I Go: L.A.’s Arboretum, Where the Peafowl Hunt You in Packs | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Where I Go: L.A.’s Arboretum, Where the Peafowl Hunt You in Packs

Butt-Dancing Birds Have Become My Pandemic Icons

When the pandemic fell upon the earth, my husband Andrew and I went to the L.A. Arboretum. Few other Southern California locations remained open after Gov. Gavin Newsom issued our …