In late 1999, I was walking down Ventura Boulevard in Sherman Oaks with my late producing partner Sharyn Lane after a day of editing 'Sordid Lives.' We passed the Psychic Book Store and decided to go in and get a reading. We weren't believers, but what the hell? We needed a sign.
To look at ourselves from afar, to make the subjective suddenly objective: this gives us a psychic shock.
You name the TV psychic - they're con men.
We live in a culture that is much happier talking about organic brain disease than about psychic illness because the former suggests that something that is physically wrong in a brain is wholly unrelated to that person's upbringing or experiences in the world, but that is not necessarily true.
You can't know what the future holds, though you might conjecture on it, and if you're psychic, you might venture a guess.
There is a psychic gulf that exists between myself and my grandparents because they don't really speak English, and I don't speak Chinese, and that's my own personal shame because I did not learn, ever. I only saw my paternal grandma a few times in my life, and that's really crazy.
I experience psychic phenomena, so people think I must be crazy. But you have to be accessible and intelligent to be a good actor. I might not have gotten the best grades in school, but I have a very high level of emotional intelligence. You have to be open to receive.
My obsession with accumulation, which at times has taken on the whisper of a psychic illness - as anyone who has experienced the ode to the Collyer brothers that is my 'Vogue' office will concur - began in infancy.
I don't believe I'm psychic, but if I can get people to focus on a specific thought, I can hack into brains and figure out what they're thinking.
I used to love to untangle chains when I was a child. I had thin, busy fingers, and I never gave up. Perhaps there was a psychiatric component to my concentration but like much of my psychic damage, this worked to everyone's advantage.
My wife has a good sense of humor, and instead of calling me psychic with my novels, she simply refers to me as being 'psycho.' That's because multiple things in my books have come true.
I see many black males grasping for some thread of hope. There are so many destructive practices, glimpses into a psychic abyss. That must be very frightening.
Oh, I just tend to believe in things when I'm writing them. For instance, when I was writing 'Doctor Dee,' I believed in magic. And when I wrote 'Hawksmoor' I believed in psychic geography. But as soon as I type the last full stop, I'm back to being a complete blank again.
One of the most beautiful sights in my neighborhood is on High Holy Days when people walk to temple. Not only does this bring the traditional legendary weather, but it gives off a psychic signal to slow down.
I admit I can't shake the idea that there is virtue in suffering, that there is a sort of psychic economy, whereby if you embrace success, happiness and comfort, these things have to be paid for.
Just as Pollock used the drip to meld process and product, Richter 'found' and used the smudge and the blur to ravish the eye, creating works of psychic and physical power.
I get a little sick of these New Yorkers who want me to make some psychic thing, like 'The Left-Handed Gun.' They don't know anything about Western history.
