CATCHING UP: Three articles I wrote have been published recently! I reviewed Adam and Eve After the Pill: Paradoxes of the Sexual Revolution; also reviewed a really good novel, The Inverted Forest (link is subscribers-only for now); and reviewed two shows of war photography (also subscribers-only). Definitely recommend the photography–at the Corcoran through May 20–and The Inverted Forest. Read more

LOST IN THE COSMO: Bracketing any questions about the actual tv show “Girls,” I note that this review basically says, “The great thing about this show is that it treats sex as banal! The bad thing about this show is that the women aren’t happy.” Read more

(I sometimes think of Ezra as the Yosemite Sam of poetry. “Ya varmits, I want ya to read Ovid and Dante.” I think of T. S. Eliot of the Elmer Fudd. “Be vewy, vewy quiet, I’m saving Western Civilization. Heh, heh, heh.” —here (via Jesse W again?) Read more

GIGER BAR. Awesome. Via Jesse Walker, I think. Read more

“THE SIX BIGGEST FEARS OF PEOPLE WHO ARE BAD WITH KIDS.” Oh hey, someone else who thinks children are great but does not actually want to hold your baby! Read more

I STILL LIKE “THE HAGGIS AND THE FEAR” BEST! But Vicki Boykis’s “pessimist’s guide to Scotland” is now available as an e-book. Go check it out! Read more

Listening to a sermon on Mark 10 yesterday, I was struck by a juxtaposition in Jesus’ encounter with the rich, young ruler in Mark 10:17-31. Specifically, after the young ruler has announced–quite sincerely, I think–that he has kept all the commandments from his youth, Mark tells us in his typically direct language: Jesus, looking at him, loved him… (more, although I was struck primarily just by this image of the look of love; link probably via Wesley Hill?) Read more

“GRITTY PHOTOS OF JAPAN’S RED-LIGHT AND COMMERCIAL DISTRICT.” (What, the one red-light district in all of Japan? It’s Shinjuku in the ’60s-’80s.) Read more

“ALLAN BLOOM’S GUIDE TO COLLEGE.” I did not expect the New Yorker to publish the sharpest thing I’ve read so far about the Closing of the American Mind anniversary! For kids entering college fully trained in this liturgy of prudence and niceness, which I am anxiously imparting to my own young children, it’s not Bloom’s censoriousness they will resist. It’s his decadence. more Also, this phrasing is just self-parodically Straussian: “I’m not a Straussian, but I was taught by Straussians... Read more

MOUNTAIN GOATS AND ANONYMOUS 4. I really, really love some of the new songs. Early favorites are “Tribe of the Horned Heart” and (perhaps predictably) “Lakeside View Apartments Suite.” Link is probably via Flavorwire. Read more