O LITTLE TOWN OF DEATH-LEHEM: Movie reviews, with spoilers for Black Christmas. Or, really, a quickie review and a bit of a rant. Terror Train: “Featuring Jamie Lee Curtis and David Copperfield.” Fo’ reals, yo. This is so much fun!! Look, it’s a bog-standard “frat/soror prank gone wrong–>bullied victim wreaks serial-killer havoc” plot. But it’s briskly paced. JLC brings, as always, a sense of interiority to an otherwise blank character–you always feel, with Our Jamie, that she’s thinking. There are... Read more

TOWARD AN EXPLANATION, NOT AN EXCUSE, FOR POSTMODERNISM: Humanism: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are [redacted] equal….” Personalism: “No, no, no. You can’t get there that way. Follow me.” As Mickey Kaus might say, if he were me: Too bitchy? Or not bitchy enough? Read more

AS I LIVE AND BREATHE, YOU HAVE KILLED ME: So I did go see David Morrison at Theology on Tap. These are some very scattered impressions, and not at all a round-up of everything he talked about or a responsible review of his talk–more an update of my post about his book (he’s working on a new edition) and a set of notes on things that struck me. In chronological order of where these impressions occurred in the talk. Are... Read more

PLAGUE MASS: Finally, a post about The Plague, probably the best book I’ve read this year. This is going to be pretty scattershot. The first thing I noticed was how suspenseful and well-paced it is. I mean, the plot is right there in the title, so the only surprises can come from pacing and from how Camus works the changes on his novel’s situation. In both areas The Plague excels. This might be an artifact of the translation (I was... Read more

CLIFF MAY ASKS: Can someone tell me what controversial procedures have been used at Guantanamo Bay? As far as I’m aware there is not a shred of hard evidence — and certainly no proof — that torture or even enhanced interrogation methods have been employed there. more Air Force Lieutenant General Randall M. Schmidt, appointed to investigate abuses at Guantanamo Bay, said, “For lack of a camera, you could have seen in Guantanamo what was seen at Abu Ghraib.” more... Read more

THAT’S WHEEEERE YOU’LL FIIIIIIIIIND ME: Things I’m planning to do this week include: Tuesday: hearing David Morrison (author of Beyond Gay, or, as I prefer, Extra Double Super Gay) at Theology on Tap–Ireland’s Four Fields, Cleveland Park metro, happy hour at 7 pm and speaker at 7.30 pm. Friday: watching The Mission at St. Matthew’s Cathedral, 7 pm in the North Conference Room. St M’s is at Dupont Circle metro. Saturday: hearing the Suspicious Cheese Lords (“a male a cappella... Read more

“DISTORTIONS”: I have a short story in the current issue of Dappled Things. Find it here! It’s sf-ish; very longtime readers may remember it as “What You Can Do for Your Country.” In my head, its title will always be “tl;dr“–not because it is, but because that’s pretty much what it’s about. Read more

THE HARSH TRUTH OF THE CAMERA EYE: Movie reviews. Mostly very short…. Max Headroom: It can’t possibly be as awesome as you want it to be, right? It is awesomer. Divorce, Italian-Style: I Netflix’d this on reader recommendation after that post I did about Ten Commandments-themed movies. (So yes, you’re getting a rough sense of how long it takes a movie to wander to the top of my queue.) The reader noticed that I didn’t have any comedies listed, and... Read more

One fine dayYou’re gonna watch me for your blog…Arabist: Saudi religious police attacked by girls…. Church of the Masses: Intriguing line from a post on creating heroic characters–one sign of debilitating sentimentalism in Christian artists: “SENTIMENTALISM IS THE PROBLEM FOR US CHRISTIANS. We want to show that God is basically in charge of the world so everything is really okay. We want to give God the benefit of the doubt.” ComixTalk: Doing unexpected things with word balloons. Read more

OH JULIET. The caption below this picture–not the one superimposed on it–is, like, my new motto. Read more