“GAY AT WHEATON.” Powerful stuff. Read more

THE CIGARETTE SMOKING BLOG rides again! Read more

FIRST THINGS is doing a survey of college experiences, especially w/r/t religion on campus. Go throw your two cents in the hat! Read more

ME: Where’s this coming from? You were never cruel when you were alive. Not knowingly. YOU: But now I sometimes wish I’d hurt you knowingly instead of accidentally. A deliberate kick is more real and intimate than an accidental one.—Lives of the Circus Animals Read more

THINKING ONE’S OWN THOUGHTS IN THE SPACES AROUND THE PRINT: A dilettante’s notes from the American Constitution Society’s “Constitution in 2020” panel. This is one of those posts where I get up on my hind legs and fuss at my elders and betters. Although in this one, there isn’t much fussin’, since the panel (at the National Press Club, last Tuesday–watch it here!) was really meant more to give the flavor of the perspectives and internal debates you might find... Read more

HAROLD AND KUMAR GO TO HELL: Three more thoughts about Shaun of the Dead–which I loved even more on rewatching! 1. The extra material on the dvd is terrific. Two commentary tracks, which I almost always love; the usual deleted scenes; outtakes; but, fantastically, a section devoted to Plot Holes! The dvd points out three different huge plotholes and, via truly ridiculous comic-book pages, narrates how they might be fixed. I love that they did that. ETA: Now I’ve listened... Read more

OUR CULTURE, WHAT’S LEFT OF IT: Shaun of the Dead. Nobody told me Theodore Dalrymple made zombie flicks! No, this is terrifically fun–and genuinely poignant, sad in the absurd and heartfelt and helpless way that the best horror is always sad. (I’m thinking of the scene in the car with Shaun’s stepdad.) Horror so often exposes our most naked feelings and then ravages them; this film does it with a miserably funny compassion. It gets almost all its humor from... Read more

“A STORY LIKE MINE.” I have a piece in the new Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet. Some few, persistent readers may remember it as a revised version of “Recognition.” It’s… sort of fantasy/”slipstream”? It’s one of those weird pieces where I didn’t expect it to do anything, but it seemed to hit a chord with people–I was surprised at the response. The LCRW version is better than anything you’ve seen, and anyway, I’ve never been able to track down the old... Read more

ZOMG. Luap is real!!! (Second item.) …The three people who get this joke are laughing really hard. It’s just that you can’t hear them. For real! Read more

YOU: At first we talked about hospitals. It was like those awful parties where businessmen talk about their least favorite airports. But what we mostly discussed was what it was like to “pass over.” The fear, the pain, the exhilaration, the relief. We all needed to tell that tale, even though we were afraid we were full of cliches. It’s the dead person’s answer to the coming-out story. ME: And how people treated you? Do you talk about that? Who... Read more