The young officer bowed with easy politeness. Being strong, he was graceful in his every movement.–Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo Read more

KITCHEN ADVENTURES: BLESS THIS MESS. A sandwich of things mostly on sale. How-to: Set the oven to 375. Take a roll. Cut in in half crosswise, then cut the halves in half lengthwise. (This is not as hard as it sounds. Just do what you need to do to make two smaller rolls, then cut those smaller rolls so you can fill them.) Scoop out the flesh of an avocado. Chop up some kind of hot pepper. (I used a... Read more

SO THE ECONOMY IS TANKING. I HAVE AN AWESOME IDEA!: Overlawyered has rounded up an amazing, heartbreaking bunch of links on the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, a.k.a. the I Hate Small Businesses and Also Children (But Did You Know I Love Unintended Consequences?) Act. This expansion of regulation will hurt families, entrepreneurs, and–in a twist I hadn’t anticipated, but which made sense as soon as it was explained–ethnic costumers like the people who make powwow costumes. Read more

“DEFINING THE RELATIONSHIP”: My new piece at Inside Catholic. Quick summary: “Do you have a personal relationship with God?” is a reductive and kind of cloyingly Hallmark question; but it might still help us understand times when we’re angry at God, when we feel abandoned by God, and when we feel an ironic distance from God. Read more

GONZO: I’d like to try this without the balloon!KERMIT: Try what? Plummeting?GONZO: Yeah!–I aspire to be the Janis, but really I’m the Gonzo at best…. Read more

THE STREET OF CROCODILES, BRUNO SCHULZ: …Polish interwar surrealism, I guess? Hard to describe. Very episodic. Schulz has the kind of lush, hothouse prose I associate with certain fantasy authors–Angela Carter, Tanith Lee, that kind of thing–and the book is basically a series of bizarre, creepy, sad things happening in a small Polish town with a commercial quarter. I found it so episodic that it had a hard time keeping my attention, but I’d accept the judgment that this is... Read more

Narrator: You are entering the realm which is unusual. Maybe it’s magic or contains some kind of monster. The second one. Prepare to enter… The Scary Door. Please send a man ’round back and pick up Clyde Smith, a professional gambler who’s about to have an unfortunate accident. Clyde Smith: [Smith is run over by a car, then awakes in a casino. He plays the slot machine and wins] Ha-ha-ha! A casino where I’m winning? That car must’ve killed me.... Read more

“DOMESTIC DISTURBANCES“: I have an article up at the American Spectator. It was supposed to be a wide-ranging look at the marriage movement as it stands now; it ended up as a bizarre little piece mostly given over to an interview on donor conception with the brilliant Elizabeth Marquardt. Read more

UTILITARIAN UNIVERSALISM: The final paragraph of this article makes me wonder: If we learned that people were more polite, or more conscientious about dental hygiene, after listening to Mozart, would we then say that music exists because it makes us nice and clean? …I mean, would we say it without feeling gross? Of course, the particular measurements by which these studies find that “religion” promotes self-control may suggest that we have tamed the lion: I can’t imagine Catherine of Siena... Read more

“How delightful and happy is the form of existence which you ladies have chosen. How beautiful and simple is the truth which is revealed by your lives. And with what mastery, with what precision you are performing your task. If, forgetting the respect due to the Creator, I were to attempt a criticism of creation, I would say ‘Less matter, more form!’ Ah, what relief it would be for the world to lose some of its contents. More modesty in... Read more