Ampersand Gazette #101
Welcome to the Ampersand Gazette, a metaphysical take on some of the news of the day. If you know others like us, who want to create a world that includes and works for everyone, please feel free to share this newsletter. The sign-up is here. And now, on with the latest …
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The Binary vis-à-vis The Polarity
To the Editor:
Mark Edmundson diagnoses our country’s polarization as stemming from the prevalence and limitations of binary thinking, but falls short of providing a clear alternative. As a high school sophomore experiencing deep despair over our country’s divides, I’d like to suggest one: polarity thinking—an approach used by leaders in business, public policy and other areas.
Whereas binary thinking chooses one pole and eliminates the other, polarity thinking aims to balance and leverage both poles for a sustainable solution. It isn’t about choosing sides; its goal is integration.
In the context of American democracy, binaries like left versus right grossly oversimplify complex issues and lead to polarization. Polarity thinking transcends shortsighted “wins” and can help us replace “which side is right?” with “how can both sides contribute to the common good?” Simply put, as a country we need less either/or thinking and more both/and thinking.
Cecilia Puente
Kalamazoo, Mich.
A Letter to the Editor in The New York Times
October 24, 2025
May I remind you that this letter is from a high school sophomore? A high school sophomore who, contrary to most of our elected officials, has a very good, practical suggestion.
So let’s stage a huge public spectacle of a funeral for the binary, and especially binary thinking, and let it go. It’s not serving us, Belovèd, no matter how tempting is its simplicity, and tempting it is.
We cannot afford to eliminate the opposites of our own dearly belovèd positions. We can’t, and we mustn’t.
Please recall that this entire planet is based upon the principle of polarity, and so polarity has to be the hand we play. Polarity stretched too far is what creates polarization.
The entire purpose of polarity, on the other hand, is integration—taking not one pole, but both, and integrating them to create something greater than either single pole offers.
Like this, if you choose only the North Pole, you get Santa.
If you choose only the South Pole, you get Emperor Penguins.
If you choose both, you get an ingenuous new team of Emperor Penguins pulling Santa’s sleigh.
I kid, and I don’t.
Ms. Puente is very clear: less either/or, more both/and.
I don’t have to tell you that both/and has been my choice for decades, but I do have to tell you that choosing to live by it can be a supreme challenge. I’m a Libra—with four planets in Libra and a Gemini Moon. “Just choose!” is some of the worst advice I ever receive. I just plain can’t.
What I have learned to do, though, in six decades and counting, is to wait upon my own inner wisdom until I can see how to both/and a situation. It’s not a quick turnaround, by any means. If I get impatient, I derail the process. Unless I make my choices this way, I make a mistake, which usually takes more clean-up than if I’d just effing waited.
A sophomore in high school is recommending this path to us through her elegant words. How can we possibly do less than try it, and give it our all when we do?
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How to Rekindle Your Love of Reading
Americans are reading for pleasure less. Let’s get back in the habit. Not only is it delicious to immerse yourself in a good book, but it’s also beneficial to your health to read. Research suggests that reading can keep your memory sharp and help you sleep better, and that reading fiction can increase empathy and improve well-being.
I asked around for tips on how to read more regularly.
Set aside regular time
Take a book with you whenever you go out and read it when you might otherwise reach for your phone.
Look for moments when you can turn reading into a ritual. Try choosing a designated reading spot—your porch or a cozy chair—and pairing your pages with something else you enjoy, like a cup of tea.
Reread something you love
Start with an old favorite if you’re out of practice, said Alan Jacobs, a professor of humanities at Baylor University and the author of “The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction.” And don’t feel sheepish about it, he added: “Read the same thing three times in a row if that gives you pleasure.” I just re-read all of Diana Gabaldon.
Listening counts
Audiobooks grow more popular every year, but some of us still wonder if they’re somehow cheating. Forget about that, the experts told me—listening is just another way to enjoy literature. Audiobooks also leave your hands free. For me, listening to fiction brings back the cozy feeling of childhood, when someone read me a story.
Know when to move on
You don’t have to slog through an entire book just because you started it, the experts said. One of my librarians uses the Rule of 50, developed by Nancy Pearl, the author of “Book Lust.”
Ms. Pearl said that if you’re under 50, you should give every book about 50 pages before you quit. If you’re older than that, subtract your age from 100 to see how many pages to read before setting it aside. “Books are not to be ‘gotten through,’” said Dr. Jacobs. “Books are to be delighted in.”
Seek inspiration in different places
Browse the shelves of your library—or ask your librarian. “Libraries are great places to find things that no algorithm would ever suggest to you,” Dr. Jacobs said, adding: “Libraries are serendipity vendors.”
When I asked my librarians for advice, they produced six pages of handwritten notes for me. I wanted to call them out by name here to credit them, but they asked me not to. They told me they were just doing this to foster a love of reading. Me, too.
Excerpted from an article by Jancee Dunn in The New York Times
“How to Rekindle Your Love of Reading”
August 29, 2025
So “rekindle” made me snicker. The headlines folx must have hit punchy when they titled this one. We certainly couldn’t “renook” our reading habits, now could we?
I read a book, some book, every day. There is never an exception, barring a huge life interruption. Otherwise, of an evening, you will catch me in a nightie reading a book—often on a Kindle.
When television became no longer an option for me and my eyes, I had no hesitation, but walked right back into Books as my boon companions.
The reason I read books, and come to that, the reason that I write books, is to learn about myself and my world. I’ve been all over the world—because of books. I’ve known all sorts of people I might never have known—because of books. I’ve learned a great many useful, and sometimes, not so useful things—because of books.
Books are my friends.
The one caveat I will offer each of you is this: don’t keep track of anything—except the storyline. Don’t count the numbers of pages or chapters. Don’t get ambitious. Don’t push. Just BE with the book.
If you want to stop and think about a paragraph or two along the way: stop. Reading for enjoyment isn’t the same as cramming for high school exams. It’s a way of life, and it’s a way of life that would benefit a great many of us far more than we even know.
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Here’s a universal affirmation. It works every time, for everyone, always and forever …
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I’m still very much in recovery mode from the last trip to the hospital. Stamina, where art thou? And proud, of course, that Impending Decision, the fifth Boots & Boas Romance, is live as an ebook and in print on Amazon. I managed that on my birthday. Here’s the cover:
And the series blurb:
Boots & Boas
Boots & Boas are butch-femme romances based in Boston about
The Butch Brigade, queer buddies seriously committed to their chosen family.
Think “Queer as Folk” meets “Cheers.”
Now, add a parade of scintillating femmes and all the challenges of everyday LGBTQ+ life.
As well as the book blurb:
Impending Decision
A one-note butch. A multi-hyphenate femme. A record-breaking disappointment.
Jamie Jenkins, Esq. loves the law. In fact, the law is his beloved, his mistress, his one and his only. For efficiency’s sake, Jamie has a deep-seated habit of dating his paralegals. Jayne is no exception.
Jayne Jordyn Jewell, who in her heart of hearts is a classical jazz singer, has, in fact, been that paralegal for eight years. At work, the two are golden. So good, in fact, that Jamie has paid in full for Jayne to go to law school, and she is mere weeks away from graduating. On the personal front, things are a lot more … tarnished. It takes Jayne a long time to figure out just how neglected she is, and even longer to decide what to do about it.
She’s approaching a day of serious reckoning when an unexpected relapse sends everything in her world spiraling—downward. Then, whilst she is ill, Jayne is offered the biggest gig of her lifelong singing career. On Christmas Eve, at Club Café, to be the headline entertainment at a private invitation-only party for two of the top music producers in the world.
Can Jamie get out of his own way to show up for the femme who always, but always shows up for him, or will Jayne be singing her heart out solo, a legal widow for the rest of time?
You want to make an indie author happy? Choose one of my series, and read all of them. Then review all of them. That’s the way others find books.
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Jaq Direct is calling to me. The book is finished, but we need to edit and read it before it’s published. Tony Amato is my favorite editor for lots of reasons, but connecting to the creative patterns of each different writer in his bundle is one of the most important. There are times when I finish a book, and can wait months to edit it. Others, not so much.
I didn’t even get a chance to say anything to him when he told me that he’d cleared some of his calendar so he could get to work on it. Perfect. And it’s this surreal ability to be urgent with some of us, and mellow with others. That’s from more than thirty years of experience working with marginalized as well as bestselling authors. He has an uncanny ability to seek, find, recognize, and polish the truth of a writer’s voice.
Seriously, this is the guy. He’s edited my books for more than 20 years, so I ought to know. Find him here. Oh, and here’s his substack Subscribe here.
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I’ve gone back to research reading.
YAY!
So thrilling.
Right now I’m reading: Clara Bow: Runnin’ Wild By David Stenn
Here’s what the blurb says:
“Hollywood's first sex symbol, the 'It' girl, Clara Bow was born in the slums of Brooklyn in a family plagued with alcoholism and insanity. She catapulted to fame after winning Motion Picture Magazine’s 1921 “Fame and Fortune Contest.” The greatest box-office draw of her day—she once received 45,000 fan letters in a single month, Clara Bow's on screen vitality and allure that beguiled thousands, however, would be her undoing off-camera. David Stenn captures her legendary rise to stardom and fall from grace, her success marred by studio exploitation and sexual scandals.”
I’ve always had a “thing” for her—she’s a fellow redhead, after all. Rough and tumble, she started out life as a tomboy and became one of the most famous women in the world because of the motion picture industry. Clara Bow knew how to do realism at a time when acting wasn’t meant to resemble the real in the least.
She captivated audiences, and so will this well-told tale.
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Are you waiting for a sign?
How about this one?
How do you suppose your life
might be different
if you were able to put a
rainbow inside your mind every day?
What if there already is one in your brain?
Would that change how you
thought about yourself?
About others?
About the world?
Like I said,
What if there already is one,
and all you have to do
(get to do)
is see it?
Rainbows make everything better.
Everything.
Always.
Forever.
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I am, without doubt, certain that And is the secret to all we desire.
Let’s commit to practicing And ever more diligently, shall we?
Until next time,
Be Ampersand