I’ve tried to meditate, but never got it to work. I’ve focused on my breath, let ideas go past unnoticed, and still haven’t gotten to the peaceful state described in writings about meditation. Serenity now!
Ohio State University Associate Professor of Psychology Ruchika Prakash says that meditation is actually very difficult. She’ll be the November 12 speaker at Ohio State’s Science Sundays, sponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences. The event is free and open to the public, so get a quick overview of it here and then attend. Afterwards, maybe you’ll find you’re better than I am about attending to your breath and being in the moment. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to break off abruptly here and stare at the dog with the fluffy tail that just walked past my window.
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Brian Kilmeade, co author of three books, will appear with the 
![By Tony Shek (Bruce Campbell) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6d/Bruce_Campbell_2011.jpg)
Actor, producer, and author Bruce Campbell has been in a lot of movies that I’ve enjoyed, like the Evil Dead movie franchise, which is now a TV show on Starz Channel (Ash vs. Evil Dead). But perhaps my favorite is Bubba Ho-Tep, in which Campbell stars as an aged Elvis Presley confined to a retirement home and menaced by an ancient Egyptian mummy. It has all the usual elements of a Bruce Campbell production: off-kilter premise, quotable dialogue, supernatural beings. Check it out.
Ohio State Professor Nick White had a secret, one he didn’t want to tell himself or anyone else: he was gay. But, like most secrets, it eventually came to light, for him in a surprisingly hopeful way. The protagonist of his new novel travels a similar path but with a much more tragic outcome, being sent to a conversion camp as a youth. 
