What Bruce, Seurat, and Barb Taught Me About the Pursuit of Perfection

What do Bruce Springsteen, Georges Seurat, and my wife Barb have in common? A restless pursuit of perfection, the constant question “Is this the best I can do?” that pushes them to refine, rethink, and ultimately create something extraordinary.

I’ve been listening to the audiobook Tonight in Jungleland by Peter Ames Carlin. It recounts, in painstaking detail, the intensity, discipline, and obsession behind the making of Springsteen’s 1975 album Born to Run.

After two earlier albums that failed to meet expectations, Bruce knew this record might be his last chance with Columbia Records. His band was evolving, producers were multiplying, and the endless retakes he demanded strained nerves across the studio.

Still, he pushed forward, convinced that if he could capture the sound he heard in his head, he might help redefine rock and roll. The vision kept shifting, but his commitment never did. And even though he remained unsure of what he had achieved, the release of Born to Run became, for many listeners, as close to perfection as music gets.

I have spent many hours standing in front of Georges Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte at the Art Institute of Chicago, studying its stillness, its order, and its quiet intensity. The painting appears serene, a peaceful summer scene along the Seine, yet behind that calm surface lies an extraordinary act of discipline and doubt.

Seurat worked on the painting for more than two years, developing a painstaking new technique built from thousands of tiny dots of color, applied with scientific precision and unwavering patience. He produced study after study, revising forms, recalibrating light, and questioning every decision. What looks effortless on the wall is, in truth, the product of continual uncertainty and relentless refinement, the same inner voice asking, “Is this the best I can do?”

We are often told that perfection is the enemy of good. I once worked with a surgeon who would frequently say “good enough,” as if stopping there were a virtue. But for some creators, whether in a recording studio, a Parisian workshop, or at a needlepoint frame, the refusal to stop at “good enough” is exactly what makes the work extraordinary.

I have written before about Barb’s marvelous needlepoint work, the canvases that fill our walls, and the beautiful gifts she has created for friends and family. With her latest project, she too is engaged in that pursuit of perfection.

Every choice matters to her: the materials, the colors, the number of plies in each thread, the selection of stitches for every section of the canvas, and the willingness to pull out hours of work and begin again if something does not feel exactly right. Even when teachers offer guidance, she weighs their suggestions against her own vision, determined to realize the piece as she imagines it.

Like Bruce and Seurat, Barb understands that perfection is never easily reached, but when this work is finished, another masterpiece will join the ones already hanging in our home.

Demagoguery Makes Anti-Semitic Violence Possible

A friend of mine is spending several months in Australia, navigating a new phase in his life. When I heard about the shootings at a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach in Sydney earlier this week, I messaged him to say that I was sad and angry, and that I hoped he was safe.

The one thing I did not say to him was that I was surprised.

The night before, Barb and I had sat in an almost empty movie theater watching Nuremberg, the new film about the 1945 to 1946 trials that held Nazi leaders accountable for war crimes, including the murder of six million Jews. Watching it now, nearly eighty years later, felt less like a history lesson and more like a warning that we keep needing and keep failing to heed.

Antisemitism does not sleep. Whether it is called the Final Solution or Globalizing the Intifada, whether it erupts at the Nova Music Festival, Bondi Beach, or the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, it is the same unbroken chain of centuries of hatred, cruelty, and inhumanity directed at my religion and my people.

I have lived long enough to recognize the rhythm. As a child, I experienced a few anti-Semitic incidents firsthand, brief but unmistakable. As an adult, it has become increasingly prevalent in our world, first at the margins, then more closely, and now spoken openly with a confidence that would once have been shocking. That confidence is not accidental. It is cultivated.

Demagogues understand how this works. They rarely call for violence directly. Instead, they lower the threshold. They normalize suspicion, repeat accusations, and offer explanations for why anger is justified and blame is obvious. They speak in insinuations and slogans, and then they wait. When violence follows, they deny responsibility. They did not pull the trigger. They simply made it easier to aim.

What unsettles me most is how ordinary this has become. Antisemitism no longer appears only in history books or headline tragedies. It seeps into conversations, into social media, and into the background noise of daily life. That is how dangerous ideas survive and expand, not just by shocking us, but by wearing us down.

As I watched Nuremberg, I thought about the play I am writing, which examines art as a way to confront and resist hatred. It is not about offering easy answers or comfort. It is about bearing witness and insisting on memory, using creativity to push back against the forces that depend on forgetting and distortion.

I think about that as I text a friend half a world away to make sure he is safe. I think about it as I watch my grandchildren grow up in a world where armed guards outside synagogues are routine and Jewish fear may be dismissed as oversensitivity. I am sensitive because I have been paying attention.

That is why I was not surprised by what happened at Bondi Beach. I am angry. I am grieving. And I am writing because silence, too, has a history.

A musical detour from rock anthems to orchestral surprises — and why I’m loving it

Classical music was never part of my childhood soundtrack. I never watched Leonard Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts. My family visited the Art Institute of Chicago often, but we never once stepped inside Orchestra Hall. The LPs in my parents’ cabinet were all show tunes, Allan Sherman parodies, and Sing Along With Mitch. Everything I know about opera I learned from the World Book Encyclopedia while preparing for Jeopardy! But for the last month, I’ve taken a deep dive into classical music. Here’s why.

Recently, I revived my morning workout routine: climbing a never-ending flight of stairs on the elliptical in the basement. My constant companion for these cardio-crushing challenges has always been classic rock, whether it comes from my CDs or from satellite radio. I fit my headphones over my ears, close my eyes, and push through as the minutes roll by. But lately, I’ve been bored with all that Pink Floyd, Bruce Springsteen, and Steely Dan. It was time for a change.

Scrolling through the stations on SiriusXM, I decided to try Classical Pops. I didn’t expect much, just something mellow to fill the background. But within minutes, I was hooked.

To be honest, I’m not even sure what I’m listening to. I don’t know who the composers are, where the orchestras are from, or who the conductors might be. Am I hearing a symphony movement, a fugue, an étude? I can’t tell, and it doesn’t matter. It sounds good, it’s got a good beat, and I don’t even care if I can’t dance to it.

And I’m amazed at how much of it sounds familiar. I’ll hear a melody, and suddenly “A Whiter Shade of Pale” or an Emerson, Lake & Palmer riff pops into my head. Sometimes it’s more subtle, just a fragment that stirs up some half-forgotten tune from years ago.

The experience has been fun, and surprisingly mind- and ear-opening. I may conduct some research and learn more about this old genre I’ve newly discovered. And who knows? Next summer, I might even enjoy a symphony concert at Ravinia or the Petrillo Bandshell.

And as for my usual music? It’ll still be there when I want it. As Bob Seger told us, rock and roll never forgets.