IT’S UP TO YOU, NEW YORK, NEW YORK I have a speaking gig at a college on Long Island, on the morning of October 28th. I will be taking a train to CT for the high-Halloween holy days on the 29th. But I was thinking I might try and get together some kind of speaking event somewhere in Manhattan for the evening of the 28th. Anybody in the area interested in helping me set something up? We can keep it... Read more

EVER RELEVANT I’ll be on a morning drive time show on Relevant Radio on Friday, October 1. They will be calling me at 6am PST, so I guess that will be 8am for the mid-country people and 9am on the East coast…. Does Relevant Radio air on the East coast? The subject of the hour will be the first annual National Media Prayer Breakfast that will be happening at 8:30am PST here in Beverly Hills. Considering I am also attending... Read more

EMILY MONDAY 1176 We never know how high we are till we are asked to rise And then if we are true to plan our statures touch the skies — The Heroism we recite would be a normal thing Did not ourselves the Cubits warp for fear to be a King — Read more

I’M ACTUALLY MORE OF A QUIZ FAN… …than a M*A*S*H* fan. But I’m just kind of relieved here that I didn’t end up the snotty guy with the CT accident. Read more

EXTREMELY GOOD TELEVISION Okay, I need to know if anybody else out there watches ABC’s Extreme Home Make-Over weeping copious tears. Because I do. Pretty much every show slays me, and the cornier it gets, the more I sit there sobbing and sniveling. Tonight, I actually went and got a box of Kleenex as the episode started. Looking around the sofa, here 47 minutes later, it looks like someone has had pneumonia… Tonight’s episode, they redid the home of a... Read more

AN EXPENSIVE LEARNING CURVE This is going to be a little rant. I’ll introduce it by saying that, on Wednesday, I received a heads-up from a friend who works in marketing that the long-awaited film Therese from St. Luke Productions in Oregon, was having press screenings for its upcoming release. I emailed to be included in one of the area screenings and received the message, “Oh, sorry. The press screenings were last week. If you want to see the film,... Read more

NOT A RACKET The new Kirsten Dunst film, Wimbledon is not as bad as some of the critics have said. I went with one of my twenty-something male students, and he pronounced along with the closing credits, “That was actually entertaining.” High praise, considering I had to drag him there. (It balanced out, because I let him drag me to Sky Captain…) From the standpoint of the new evangelization and guaging the “Signs of the Times,” Wimbledon is pretty much... Read more

SKY CAPTAIN AND THE CINEMA OF ATTRACTIONS I’m not someone who disses movies for being principally vehicles for special effects. The “Lookee what we can do!” impulse is one of the tings that defines the art form which is inseparable from advances in technology. Virginia Wolfe said that there could never really be a mature film criticism, because the medium kept changing so fast that there were no standards of comparison. What I do object to, is boring the audience... Read more

CLOSE—ON FATHER BARRY He stands over the body of Kayo Nolan, which lies on the pallet and has been covered by a tarpaulin. FATHER BARRY I came down here to keep a promise. I gave Kayo my word that if he stood up to the mob I’d stand up with him all the way. Now Kayo Nolan is dead. He was one of those fellows who had the gift of getting up. But this time they fixed him good— unless... Read more

WELL SAID! [AHEM] Fr. Ron Rolheiser has kindly written a column expanding on a talk I gave this summer at a conference on the affective formation of seminarians. My talk was on the connection between the arts and affective formation. (The notes for said talk are somewhere in the archives on the right. Somewhere around July 12 if you’re the curious sort.) Fr. Rolheiser picked up on the second part of my talk which had to do with the spiritual... Read more