December 23, 2022

Creatures, what ho! It’s been a quiet year here in Lake Woebegone…. Some thoughts, below, on the highlights of my reading, watching, and writing. All lists are roughly from least-best to best-best i.e. the last one is the best. Previous years’ lists here. Books (nonfiction): This was a stronger year for nonfiction than for fiction, for me (at least when it came to books I’d never read before—revisits are below). I read a lot of good books, but the top... Read more

December 21, 2022

This has been a big year for my gay Catholic life, lol. I hinted at some of what has made this year so wonderful on a personal level here; on a more public level, I’ve been so grateful to be a part of Building Catholic Futures, a project to serve the next generation of queer Catholics. BCF has allowed me to spend even more time on in-depth reflection about our community’s experiences and needs. So here are a few observations–not... Read more

December 10, 2022

aka A Criminal Christmas! (An Antisocial Advent?) Best film at the end. Next of Kin: Atmospheric 1982 Australian film about suspicious deaths at a remote old folks’ home. Spooky, lushly-colored, slight and pleasurable. Mandrake: New Irish horror film about the lengths a mother will go for her child. Has a compelling central character, Deirdre Mullins’s parole officer, and Derbhle Crotty is witchy and harrowed as our returning citizen who may be a battered wife or may be a serial killer.... Read more

November 11, 2022

I’m speaking tomorrow morning on this topic, at Notre Dame’s de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture fall conference. This year’s theme is order and creation, so I decided to adapt the relevant chapter from Tenderness. I am bone-lazy and did not make a powerpoint, and then in the very first talk I went to at the conference, I realized how great powerpoints are for audiences when you have a lot of material and references to convey quickly. So I’m... Read more

November 9, 2022

Lydia Tár is a force of nature–or so she wants us to think. Tár, played by Cate Blanchett in full goddess-of-war mode, is a conductor of classical music; a crusty curmudgeon when it comes to identity politics, though also of course of course a defender of her own particular identity group, championing women conductors; the glamor half of a lesbian power couple; a self-assured, sexually-predatory genius who has been keeping some sordid little secrets, which are about to destroy her... Read more

October 28, 2022

Previous years here, here, here, here! Lol so many of these links are broken. MEMENTO MORI. Shonen Knife, “Devil House” English version tbh David Bowie, “Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)” The Fugees, “The Mask” not for kids but like… I love this song Chubby Checker, “Doin’ the Zombie” via Randy’s Rodeo Johnny Cash, “Ghost Riders in the Sky” he’s so great but I cannot hear this without flashing back to like NPR in the ’80s and “Condos for saaaaale! Condos... Read more

October 17, 2022

A cornucopia! Benediction: Terence Davies’s experimental, time-shifting Siegfried Sassoon biopic. The elderly Sassoon’s conversion to Catholicism happens early in the film, and then we flash back to his experience as a soldier protesting the prosecution of World War I, which leads his superiors to order him into a mental hospital. Various gay but not happy things follow, and he gets married and has a kid and that’s not great either. It’s an odd film which felt unbalanced to me. Davies... Read more

August 26, 2022

for Plough: Alcoholism often reveals itself first in broken promises. If you are lucky, these are promises to yourself. I really need to cut back. Jesus, I’m never gonna do THAT again. I’m just going to have one last time – the Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles – and then I’m going to stop. Some of these promises are unspoken: the I would nevers. But one of the most common experiences of addiction is learning that you’re capable of much more... Read more

August 9, 2022

In the order in which I saw them! Good Madam: Post-apartheid South African horror, streaming on Shudder. A woman going through family troubles (Chumisa Cosa) and her daughter move back in with her mother (Nosipho Mtebe), to the house where the mom has worked as a maid for most of her life. Disturbing hints and events pile up: Is the house haunted? Who really holds the power here, and what do they want? I loved the setup for this, and... Read more

July 25, 2022

I had to watch this thing, even though I didn’t know what interesting thing there might be to say about the legend of Elvis Presley, because Baz Luhrmann is a man who directs like Yma Sumac sings. His camera is a tiger on a tilt-a-whirl, he whacks anachronistic scraps of music together like a kid with construction paper and paste, his whole mind just seems cartoony. His Romeo and Juliet was neon Jesus as far as the eye could see.... Read more


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