Nostalgia
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Podcast Episode: Hong Kong Travelogue
Note. The underlying article can be found here: https://ajprokop.com/2026/09/28/hong-kong-travelogue/ Pip: Some journals survive the years by accident — a drawer never cleared, a box never tossed — and occasionally that’s a genuine gift. Mara: Andrew Prokop has been publishing exactly that kind of gift on Can You Hear Me Now. Today we’re spending the whole… Continue reading
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Hong Kong Travelogue
The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes. Marcel Proust On March 28, 1998, I flew from Minneapolis to Hong Kong. As with my recently published trip to Ireland, I kept a travel journal that somehow survived the years. As with Ireland, I was there to teach… Continue reading
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Podcast Episode: Irish Travelogue
Note. The underlying article can be found here: https://ajprokop.com/2026/09/14/irish-travelogue/ Pip: There is exactly one post on the docket today, and it is a time capsule — a travel journal from 1997 that survived several computer deaths and one very determined blogger. Mara: Andrew Prokop found a long-lost journal from a work trip to Galway, Ireland,… Continue reading
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Irish Travelogue
Geographically, Ireland is a medium-sized rural island that is slowly but steadily being consumed by sheep. Dave Barry I did a lot of business travel over my long career. Looking back, I realize that it was too much. Both my family and I struggled with the long absences. I didn’t see it at the time,… Continue reading
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Podcast Episode: The Things We Keep, The Stories They Tell
Note. The underlying article can be found at https://ajprokop.com/2026/09/07/the-things-we-keep-the-stories-they-tell/ Pip: A coffee mug, a space-race tin, and a plastic cup from a baseball game that happened before some of our listeners were born — welcome to Can You Hear Me Now, where the objects on your desk apparently have opinions. Mara: Andrew Prokop’s recent writing… Continue reading
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The Things We Keep, The Stories They Tell
Humans think in stories, and we try to make sense of the world by telling stories. Yuval Noah Harari Frequent readers of my blog know that nostalgia plays a significant role in my writing. In fact, just last week in Lost in the In-Between I wrote, “I catch nostalgia like a cold.” While I don’t… Continue reading
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Podcast Episode: Lost in the In-Between
Note. The underlying article can be found at https://ajprokop.com/2026/08/31/lost-in-the-in-between/ Pip: There is a particular kind of melancholy that arrives in early September, right on schedule, whether you asked for it or not. Mara: Andrew Prokop is sitting with exactly that feeling in this episode — the uneasy space between what was and what’s coming, from… Continue reading
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Lost in the In-Between
I feel the taste of summer’s last kissa fond farewella sad goodbyeher warm embrace wears scarlet wingsriding retreat on cool autumn breezes Andrew Prokop It’s not even September and yet I feel the mutterings of autumn. The sun is slightly lower in the sky. The sumacs are already turning red and orange. The loons have… Continue reading
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Let it Go
Life is a balance of holding on and letting go. Rumi Warning: This is a bit of a convoluted, shaggy-dog article. It’s my hope that if you hang in long enough, it will eventually make sense. That is assuming any of my articles ever make sense. Despite not being related, I called my parents’ best… Continue reading
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Podcast Episode: Where do the Children Play
Note: The underlying article can be found at Where do the Children Play. Pip: There’s a site called Can You Hear Me Now, which is either a meditation on human connection or a very long complaint about cell service — and today, Andrew Prokop makes the case that it’s definitely the former. Mara: Andrew Prokop’s latest… Continue reading
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Where do the Children Play
It is right that he too should have his little chronicle, his memories, his reason, and be able to recognize the good in the bad, the bad in the worst, and so grow gently old down all the unchanging days, and die one day like any other day, only shorter. Samuel Beckett As a grandfather… Continue reading
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Podcast Episode: Our Profile in Courage
Note: The underlying article can be found at Our Profile in Courage. Pip: One phone per house, one number for the whole family — and somehow, that’s the metaphor Andrew Prokop reaches for when talking about a Kennedy Profile in Courage award. It works, which is the mildly annoying thing about good writing. Mara: This… Continue reading
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Get Off My Lawn — The AI Edition
I often tell my students not to be misled by the name ‘artificial intelligence’ – there is nothing artificial about it. AI is made by humans, intended to behave by humans, and, ultimately, to impact humans’ lives and human society. Fei-Fei Li I recently came upon an article that stated that AI is creating a… Continue reading
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As Time Goes By
All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages. William Shakespeare I recently stumbled upon a website of world events throughout time. By poking around the years, I was able… Continue reading
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Point and Click
Looking through some photographs I found inside a drawerI was taken by a photograph of youThere were one or two I know that youWould have liked a little moreBut they didn’t show your spirit quite as trueYou were turning around to see who was behind youAnd I took your childish laughter by surpriseAnd at the… Continue reading
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Step and Glide
It’s coming on ChristmasThey’re cutting down treesThey’re putting up reindeerAnd singing songs of joy and peaceOh, I wish I had a riverI could skate away on Joni Mitchell I grew up in the Arizona desert where seeing snow required a long car ride. I have very strong memories of driving from my home in the… Continue reading
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Sensory Ghosts
All credibility, all good conscience, all evidence of truth come only from the senses. Friedrich Nietzsche Did you know that us humans possess between five and six million olfaction (smell) sensors. Because those sensors combine their data to determine odors, we can differentiate an average of one trillion different smells? Comparatively, we have between 2000… Continue reading
