Let\u2019s start with the five best things I wrote this year. Not counting the Gay & Catholic<\/em> sequel (forthcoming, if the Messiah tarries and they don\u2019t cancel my contract). Oh and if you want my other year\u2019s-best posts, here are the links for movies<\/a> and books<\/a>.<\/p>\n 5. \u201cOut of Line: \u2018Sticking It to the Man\u2019 and the Pulp Revolution<\/a>\u201c<\/strong>: \u201cPublishers struggled to keep up with the demand for cheap fiction. The hunger for writers allowed unexpected, previously-unpublishable voices to break into the industry: black men coming out of prison, gay and lesbian authors, sardonic and utopian visions of sex and violence. Sticking It to the Man<\/i> implies that pulp fiction was a genuinely revolutionary arena\u2014even if one of the most successful revolutions fostered there was the law-and-order ascension of Ronald Reagan.\u201d<\/p>\n 4. Five Novels of Twentieth-Century Apocalypse<\/a><\/strong>: \u201cWas it really an apocalypse? Did the world really end, somewhere between the Mayor\u2019s arrival at Don Fabrizio\u2019s in a tailcoat and the bomb that kills the mother of the Crouchback heir?<\/p>\n \u201cPeople are killed every day, their children are taken from them, their city is bombed or burned to ash. In every age the eschaton is already here; it\u2019s just unevenly distributed. The main characters of these novels saw their world ending, true enough. (\u2018Only one world?\u2019 as the mother from The Grifters<\/a><\/em> might say.) But did the<\/em> world end? Is it gone?\u201d<\/p>\n 3. \u201cWhat Does Pope Francis Believe About Same-Sex Love?<\/a>\u201c<\/strong> Parts of this offer a preview of parts of the new book; I\u2019m also happy that I managed to get a bunch of things done in a tight word count, although I realize you guys don\u2019t necessarily need to care about that aspect.<\/p>\n 2. \u201cUrsula de Jesus and the Fortress of Patience<\/a>.\u201d<\/strong> A very personal piece about the theology of an enslaved mystic. I discovered Ursula via Shannen Dee Williams, @BlkNunHistorian<\/a>.<\/p>\n 1. \u201cIs Everyone Female?<\/a>\u201c<\/strong>: I review a chapbook of queer theory\/comedy. \u201cPerhaps the greatest indictment of Christianity is that it has induced so few men to become \u2018female\u2019 in this sense.\u201d<\/p>\n SPECIAL GUEST STARS<\/strong> Tomata du Plenty and Sheela Edwards, in \u201cPopulation: 1\u201d: \u201cImagine Laura Ingalls Wilder as the prequel to 2015\u2019s The Witch<\/i>.\u00a0Daalder\u2019s film could\u2019ve just as easily been titled \u2018Little Bunker Under the Prairie.\u2019 And the movie enjoys the hell out of this violent, paranoid nation, a country whose laughter sounds like gunshots. There\u2019s a carnivorous pleasure, a willingness to give us the very entertainment it condemns. It\u2019s Savonarola cabaret<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Piece by me with which I\u2019m least satisfied<\/strong>: that overly-theoretical look at work in recovery culture<\/a>. I already expressed<\/a> quite a bit of ambivalence when I published it and that ambivalence has only grown! A lot left out here, including the pressure from employers to make people work more like robots and less like craftsmen. There\u2019s an anecdote in Phil Christman\u2019s new Midwest Futures<\/em><\/a> where a union man puts up a banner on the shop floor saying QUALITY IS OUR CONCERN TOO! and got \u201cbesieged with angry phone calls from management who reminded him, citing his own contract, that it wasn\u2019t\u201d\u2013by contract only management was allowed to get involved in issues of quality control. That\u2019s a good, sharp correction to what I say in my America<\/em> piece about \u201cautonomy.\u201d I\u2019d understand if you found what was left out of that article more important than what was in it, and anyway I\u2019m not convinced these questions can be discussed well in nonfiction rather than fiction. (You can see various aspects and critiques of a theology of work in Punishment<\/em> <\/a>obvs.) But I\u2019m still thinking about this stuff, I hinted at it in my review of The Pale King<\/em><\/a> and will come up again when I review Convenience Store Woman<\/em>, and so I continue to welcome anything you all have to say about it: thoughts, questions, howls of execration etc etc.<\/p>\n Best articles I read by other people<\/strong>: This year\u2019s list is all \u201creporting from a certain angle,\u201d rather than my usual list of essays. As always, six (lol seven) instead of five.<\/p>\n 6. Cheating by grouping together two explorations of parallels between civil and criminal legal problems<\/strong>. This New Republic<\/em> piece looks at the ubiquity of civil legal problems for poor people<\/a>, and the difficulty of going to civil court or administrative proceedings without any right to an attorney; this from Technology Review looks more specifically at the rise of algorithms<\/a> to determine who gets benefits, who can get housing (both public and private), and more.<\/p>\n 5. Kathleen McGrory and Neil Bedi, \u201cTargeted: Pasco\u2019s sheriff created a futuristic program to stop crime before it happens. It monitors and harasses families around the county.<\/a>\u201c<\/strong> Always read Florida newspapers tbh.<\/p>\n 4. Caroline Spivack, Curbed: \u201cFrom Prada Bags to Sacks of Rice, It\u2019s All Free at These North Brooklyn Stores<\/a>.\u201d<\/strong> A vivid and even charming look at mutual aid as portrait of a neighborhood.<\/p>\n 3. Lizzie Presser, ProPublica: \u201cWhen Medical Debt Collectors Decide Who Gets Arrested<\/a>.\u201d <\/strong>Also a portrait of a place and its people.<\/p>\n 2. Louise Matsakis, Wired: \u201cBehind bars, but still posting on TikTok<\/a>.\u201d<\/strong> Uses \u201cprison TikTok\u201d as a window into larger issues of tech and connection, cell phones as tools to resist dehumanization.<\/p>\n 1. Julia Lurie, Mother Jones: \u201cThey Built a Utopian Sanctuary in a Minneapolis Hotel. Then They Got Evicted<\/a>.\u201d<\/strong> I think if you start reading this long piece you\u2019ll finish it. Via Jesse Walker<\/a>.<\/p>\n And this<\/a> is not a \u201cbest article I read\u201d but I do want to remember it.<\/p>\n Also notable<\/strong>: Simcha Fisher on teaching kids about confession with \u201cthe sheep game<\/a>\u201c; and an honorable mention for the Catholic Herald<\/em>, which got Eduard Habsburg aka the Twitter Habsburg<\/a> to review a book about his family. It\u2019s a good review!<\/a> From now on I only want to read reviews of Habsburg histories written by those most affected, viz. Habsburgs.<\/p>\n Some examples of powerful people yielding power<\/strong>: this boss<\/a>; this ex-politico<\/a>; these priests<\/a> (and many more who are doing this work); the city of Philadelphia<\/a> (more<\/a>); and the director of the Uffizi Gallery<\/a>.<\/p>\n Best music I discovered this year<\/strong>: \u201cStar in the East<\/a>\u201c; a Yiddish \u201cHallelujah<\/a>\u201d from Daniel Kahn; \u201cRide On, King Jesus<\/a>\u201d (performed by the Wilmington\/Chester Mass Choir); and Jim Henley\u2019s Harrowing of Hell song<\/a>. Oh, and the Hillbilly Thomists\u2019 \u201cPoor Wayfaring Stranger<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Unexpected late discovery<\/strong>: \u201cEvery Frame a Painting<\/a>,\u201d a really crisp, thoughtful set of brief introductions to editing and other aspects of film direction. I\u2019d suggest the Edgar Wright visual comedy<\/a> one and the one about the \u201cgeometry<\/a>\u201d of The Bad Sleep Well <\/em>to start you off.<\/p>\n Unexpected midyear discovery<\/strong>: Meg Hunter-Kilmer\u2019s series on the wild diversity of the saints<\/a> for Aleteia. Saints who struggled with addiction, lesser-known indigenous American saints, saints who experienced thoughts of suicide, saints whose early \u201cgoodness\u201d or respectability had to give way to deep holiness, fail!saints, politician saints\u2026 all kinds of saints. Seriously, if you click through<\/a> and take a look I suspect you\u2019ll find at least one or two categories you\u2019re really curious about\u2013and some helpers you may have longed for.<\/p>\n My most underrated twittering<\/strong>: \u201cIdeas Have Consequences II: Ideas Have Unintended Consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n My best line in an otherwise merely okay post<\/strong>: \u201c(We demand a Disney princess with d.t.s!)<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n