Most of these links have a theme of “aftermath,” I guess. “What Happened After My Kidnapping”: Hello, my name is Brad Pearson. In March 2006, you were one of three people who kidnapped me in West Philadelphia. I’m writing this letter not because I’m angry at you, or upset, or hurt. The opposite, actually. While the kidnapping and investigation were difficult for me, in the end they made me a stronger man. I’m a magazine writer now, and I’ve always... Read more
on the way two recovering alcoholics’ troubled marriage is still bearing fruit, decades after they almost split up: I was six months old, and my mother was ready to leave. My dad had been remarking for some time that he did not want to be married anymore, that it just wasn’t working out for him. My mother had tired of saying that that was fine. They couldn’t communicate much beyond that, though she did know how to make things dramatic.... Read more
for AmCon: Twenty minutes into “Crimson Peak” I was thinking, “Okay, I’ll just turn my brain off and look at the pretty dresses, this’ll be fun if I let it.” That was right before it turned from a kind of dumb, semi-political ghost tale into a terrifically compelling horror-romance swoonfest. Once the movie makes its swerve into full Gothic it is phenomenal, the kind of thing you’ll rewatch if you like your comfort food red and dripping. Director Guillermo del... Read more
I am all about the clickbait headlines today, people. Anyway, I did a talk recently on “The Radical Challenge of Celibacy.” It wasn’t esp well-structured and needs a lot of conceptual work, but I did like the ending, where I contrasted two types of eschatological witness. Catholics may be familiar with the idea that celibacy is a witness to our life in Heaven, where there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage. This is often discussed in terms of priestly... Read more
These are fairly random, a grab-bag of the things that caught my attention from the huge heap of powerful writing on cops, prisons etc being done today. So I urge you all to follow PrisonCulture and the Marshall Project on twitter. After this post I’ll only post links I’m pretty sure I didn’t find through them. Okay, let’s go. The theme for this post is, “Like love, original sin and structural racism will find a way,” or, Things That Aren’t... Read more
at the University Bookman: Agatha Christie’s name is practically synonymous with comfort reading. Her publishers used to promise readers “a Christie for Christmas,” and her works are the inspiration for the mystery subgenre known as “cozies.” Quaint little English villages, low-rent lords and shady ladies, just a spot of murder before tea at the vicarage—this is Dame Agatha’s public image. But on the occasion of her 125th birthday, we might do well to remember that both of Christie’s most memorable... Read more
Today’s lunch. Ingredients: butter, two eggs, splash of milk, maybe a quarter of a large Honeycrisp apple, most of a jalapeno, some shredded cheddar cheese, black pepper, a bit of salt. What I did: Diced the apple and jalapeno. Stirred the milk into the eggs with a fork until it was all basically one color. Added apple and jalapeno and stirred them in. Melted butter in a small nonstick pan. Poured egg mixture into pan. Let it sit on what... Read more
for AmCon: An Austrian television personality comes home to her remote, eerie house to recuperate from extensive plastic surgery. Swathed in bandages, she confronts her twin sons—and they don’t recognize her. She can’t persuade the boys that she’s their real mother, and her inability to remember basic information about her own life doesn’t help. She seems to scapegoat one of the boys as the troublemaker; she sometimes refuses to talk to him or even set a place for him at... Read more
Last night I saw the Halloween on Ice tour in Richmond, VA. Because this is a full-service blog I will give you my impressions. The main thing is that you absolutely should go if you are in the market for a good old-fashioned skating cheesefest. Shawn Sawyer was the MVP. He’s so much fun, and seems to have a gift for weird, creepy skating programs. Tons of cool extension moves and spirals and spins. Nicole Bobek did her aerial hoop... Read more
w/a very touching piece–last anecdote is esp striking: I was once riding in a shuttle-bus with a number of older folks on the way from an airport. They noticed that I was a priest and started asking questions about it. “Do you do all of the priest stuff?” “Yep.” “Even the Confession thing?” “Yeah. All the time.” One older lady gasped, “Well, I think that that would be the worst. It would be so depressing; hearing all about people’s sins.”... Read more
Eve Tushnet
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