2018-10-31T11:17:59-04:00

I have thought deeply about this question. Also, feel free to be amused by how precisely this list allows you to guess my age. Gerard McMahon, “Cry Little Sister” Michael Jackson, “Thriller” (note the title card!) PJ Harvey, “Man-Sized Sextet” Siouxsie & the Banshees, “Premature Burial” Echo & the Bunnymen, “The Killing Moon” Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, “I Put a Spell on You” Coil, “Love’s Secret Domain” The Cramps, “Eyeball in My Martini” WHAT’S THIS BURDEN THAT I BEAR??? Severed Heads,... Read more

2019-01-04T18:47:06-04:00

[my apologies, taken down as I work on it for publication] Read more

2019-01-04T18:48:00-04:00

[my apologies, taken down as I work on it for publication] Read more

2019-01-04T18:49:18-04:00

[my apologies, I’ve removed this post as I work on it for publication] Read more

2018-10-21T22:08:10-04:00

Prince of Egypt: A haunting cartoon retelling of the Exodus which pulls few punches. The childhood friendship between Moses and Rameses makes the sight of Rameses’ (firstborn) son truly chilling. The women get a lot to do. The animation includes harrowing passages like Moses’ nightmare where he falls into the cuneiform story of the killing of the Hebrew children, or the final plague; and also images luminous with wonder, like the giant fish swimming through the Red Sea as it... Read more

2018-10-21T00:16:08-04:00

Two of them are good. One of them is not good! …Plus bonus Pope Emeritus at the end. When I learned that Netflix had made a series about a 14th-century Spanish serf who takes part in the building of a Barcelona church, I was all about that. When I learned there was a book, I grabbed that book with a swiftness. Cathedral of the Sea, by Ildefonso Falcones, was a bestseller in Spain; and oh how I wanted it to... Read more

2018-10-20T19:54:41-04:00

In 2008, University of Edinburgh theology professor Oliver O’Donovan published a series of essays online, which were intended to clarify the issues at stake in the controversy over gay marriage and gay people within the Anglican Communion. Several people whose opinions I greatly respect urged me to read this book, Church in Crisis (and boy, the bitter laugh with which I have to greet that title should caution me against any triumphalism in what I’m about to say…), and I... Read more

2018-10-18T10:15:43-04:00

In which St Francis de Sales watches season 5 of the depressed-horse show and exclaims, “If only we could have your abjection without, you know, strangling a lady!” So on purely technical grounds, season five is BoJack’s weakest. But it also might be the show’s bravest. BoJack has always left disaster in his wake. His own self-loathing has damaged countless lives—mostly, though not only, women’s lives, even now that he’s trying to do better, to get off the treadmill of... Read more

2018-10-12T15:30:08-04:00

for America magazine: And so begins a haunting stop-motion animation film, like a fairy tale told by cruel parents, in which the real history of an abusive and politically influential cult is cross-pollinated with “The Three Little Pigs,” “Snow White” and “Little Red Riding Hood.” The sets and characters are made mostly of masking tape; the film began as a series of installations in art galleries. Instead of giving the movie a homey, arts-and-crafts feel, however, the constantly unraveling, crumpling... Read more

2018-10-10T16:54:03-04:00

for America magazine: The pony-photos story encapsulates several of the qualities that made Weegee the king of crime photography and one of the godfathers of noir. Weegee knew photographic technology intimately. He could command the camera and push its limits. In the days when each picture required the photographer to load a fresh glass plate into the boxy camera body, Weegee would spend hours practicing his moves until he had the dexterity to shoot faster than his rivals. He knew... Read more


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