Essays

Published Short Stories/Essays

Alaska Quarterly Review, River Styx, 7 Magazine, The Huffington Post


Medium

Read Joshua’s essays on Medium


Huffington Post: Actor Bobby Cannavale Works With His Heroes, Pacino & Woody Allen

Photographer Annie Leibovitz likes to shoot rock bands just after they’ve walked off stage. She says it’s to capture the instant, the thrill and utter exhaustion of the achievement, the crowd still roaring nearby. As I listen to actor Bobby Cannavale speak of his life in theatre, movies and TV, I envision a portrait of him walking home in New York after a two-and-a-half hour stage performance. A full house again, say, Hurly Burly or Mauritius or Glengarry Glen Ross with Al Pacino. It’s February in Manhattan… Read more


Huffington Post: 11 Nominations for Life of Pi

When the phone rang at 5:30 a.m. to celebrate his film The Blind Side, producer Gil Netter was asleep.

“I thought someone had died.”

His 2009 hit movie had been nominated for an Academy Award, and he wasn’t expecting it. Yesterday morning the calls flooded-in again, but this time he knew exactly why. Eleven nominations for Life of Pi, including for Best Picture and Best Director, Ang Lee.

Mr. Netter is smiling. I can hear it through the phone. Today’s a good day. For the moment he’ll take a breath and reflect on what it took to build a realistically proportionate novel adaptation… Read more


Huffington Post: Some Empathy for Eddie Vedder

Pearl Jam singer Eddie Vedder ended his latest solo tour Tuesday night in Clearwater, Fla., where a packed audience tried to sit still and be quiet. Mr. Vedder and his warm-up act on this tour, singer/songwriter Glen Hansard, were gun-shy after disruptive shows in Miami and Jacksonville where audience chatter and abrasive camera-phones became unruly. Mr. Hansard’s music is textured and melancholy at times, the way a river is sad, and he was open about his love of the experience on the road with a legend, a man he respects with all of himself. He then did his part… Read more


Huffington Post: On the Topic of GREATNESS

Muhammad Ali was the GREATEST of all time, at punching men into unconsciousness. Michael Jordan for human flight, Gretzky for hockey, The Babe for hitting, Julia Child for sautéing. Rampal for flute. The GREATEST live performance on television was easily Barbara Streisand and Neil Diamond, “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers,” during the 1980 Grammy Awards. Second place by a hair — The Red Hot Chili Peppers with socks dangling from their johnsons, “Give It Away Now,” from 1994. This week Alex Lifeson was named the GREATEST Canadian guitarist in history by the CBC. It got me thinking about… Read more


Huffington Post: 100 Years Ago, A Man Named Claus Took a Titanic Ride

Last week, I saw a billboard for Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition. A full-scale traveling exhibit that featured actual artifacts from the kitchen shelves and personal closets of the Titanic. Cool. My mom’s in town, we’ll take the kids, sounds unique. We hear they have an actual iceberg, you can touch it. Someone shipped an iceberg to St. Petersburg, Florida? Isn’t it too large, too cold, too much of an iceberg for a museum setting? My nine-year-old suggests it’s kept in a penguin enclosure of glass and faux glaciers. Right. It’ll be blue-lit … Read more


Huffington Post: The Giants Win the Pennant, The Giants Win the Pennant — So Why Am I Crying?

I can’t believe I care this much. Weeping at the sight of Marco Scutaro as he and his family accept the MVP award for the National League Championship Series? In truth, I’ve won nothing. I get no trophy, make no money, receive no kudos. No child was born, no lottery won. But I am elated, gleeful, even exhausted by the tingling in my bloodstream. It’s a Monday night and I am alive and riveted by what I’ve been handed. I own the knowledge that we … Read more


Huffington Post: Baseball as Oxygen — Another Year in Bloom

It’s Baseball season again. The cable guy on the phone says I can see every professional game in the United States. He calls it a “buffet of pro-hardball,” and I begin to see what he means, flipping my new remote higher and higher. Channel one thousand, four hundred and thirty-one? 1431. When did we hit a thousand? … Read more


Huffington Post – Prison Grass

The man being interviewed on TV was a killer, but I knew him because of baseball. In ’07 I’d just become the new center-fielder for the Berkeley Baron’s, an amateur team of ex-college level players. The San Quentin game against the prisoners was optional. It sounded like a story to… Read full story

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