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July 2023

July 26, 2023

I’ve Heard of Underground Cinema, But This Is Ridiculous!: Short movie notes

I have so many to write about that I figured I'd do them in reverse...

July 25, 2022

Bright Light City Gonna Set My Soul On Fire: I watch Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis”

I had to watch this thing, even though I didn't know what interesting thing there...

February 2022

February 28, 2022

Two New Reviews: A Southern Gothic Novel About Innocence Sought; Documentary by a Punk Icon’s Daughter

I read Glenn Arbery's The Boundaries of Eden: There’s a kind of American story in...

March 2021

March 05, 2021

“Minari” Is a Portrait of Childhood–And of Several Kinds of Christian Faith

I'm at America: A boy starts to run across a field, and his parents call...

January 2021

January 09, 2021

Search and Rescue: John Edgar Wideman’s “Writing to Save a Life”

I read Writing to Save a Life: The Louis Till File is a very personal...

June 2020

June 19, 2020

The Empty Tomb of the Past: Three short book reviews

Ending with Ralph Ellison's Juneteenth, for today's holiday. Lillian Lee, Farewell My Concubine. I spotted...

June 10, 2020

“The Cross and the Lynching Tree”

James H. Cone's The Cross and the Lynching Tree is probably the most haunting and...

February 2020

February 28, 2020

The Past Isn’t Dead, It’s Just Unevenly Distributed: Two book reviews

of two very different books, which both riff on events in the living memory of...

January 2020

January 21, 2020

Little Bunker Under the Prairie: My tribute to “Population: 1”

at We Are the Mutants: “It is my dubious privilege to confirm the fact that...

December 2019

December 04, 2019

I’d Sell My Soul for Total Control: Staying Gay in the Church of Self-Improvement

I recently read John Wigger's PTL: The Rise and Fall of Jim and Tammy Faye...

September 2019

September 25, 2019

Some Notes from the Catholic Imagination Conference 2K19

I got to go to this biannual thing in order to read from my forthcoming...

May 2019

May 15, 2019

And the Yanks, They Were Within

Michael Brendan Dougherty's My Father Left Me Ireland is a book as concise, and almost...

February 2019

February 14, 2019

“The Conjuring” Is a Perfect Valentine’s Day Movie…

...mostly for bad reasons. Spoilers below. The Conjuring, from Saw perpetrator James Wan, tells the...

January 2019

January 07, 2019

“Confession in America”: I review a history of an individualist country

and her Church: In the 2013 Joseph Gordon-Levitt romantic comedy Don Jon, the porn-obsessed title...

October 2018

October 10, 2018

“The Famous Weegee, Up Close and Personal”: I review a new biography

for America magazine: The pony-photos story encapsulates several of the qualities that made Weegee the...

July 2018

July 17, 2018

I Review “Sorry to Bother You”

for America magazine: If I had to sell you “Sorry to Bother You,” the corporate...

July 13, 2018

Pride and Prejudice: Short movie reviews

...Sorry for the title. Anyway, since I am backward in all things, I waited until...

June 2018

June 29, 2018

You Can Quit ICE

In March, James Schwab quit ICE because he didn't want to repeat his superiors' distortions...

March 2018

March 03, 2018

This Is an Amazing Retrospective Look at Jim and Tammy Faye Baker

and American religion, by Martyn Jones in the Weekly Standard: Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker...

December 2017

December 13, 2017

Sisters and Survivors: Yaa Gyasi, “Homegoing”

Yaa Gyasi's debut novel, Homegoing, is the uneven execution of a brilliant and haunting premise....

November 2017

November 14, 2017

Let Him Be Filthy Still: “Wise Blood” & “Home”

By coincidence I read Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood for the first time right before reading...

November 13, 2017

Embarrassed to Admit It, But It’s Still Rock & Roll to Me

For reasons I should maybe sort out with my confessor, I spent a good chunk...

November 12, 2017

“Secrets of the South/Meet the Secret Society of Radical Black Women”

I'm just quoting one paragraph but there's so much to consider and be thankful for...

November 02, 2017

“Fearful Grasping”: I review “Native Gardens”

for Commonweal: "Your new neighbors”: Few phrases evoke such a mix of hope and dread....

September 2017

September 22, 2017

“The Alphabet and the Inevitability of Death in Early Protestant America”: Fantastic little piece

from the Smithsonian: Do you remember the books that helped you learn to read—maybe Dick...

June 2017

June 29, 2017

“The Smithsonian Goes to Church”: Ivan Plis

has a fun piece on what the Museum of American History says is its very...

June 05, 2017

Post-Demon Stress Syndrome: Some horror-flick reviews

Stake Land: A teenage boy and his grizzled mentor travel north through a vampire-ridden, devastated...

April 2017

April 26, 2017

Maybe Stop Seeking?

“A short story says, 'I looked for x, and didn’t find it,' or, 'I was...

March 2017

March 11, 2017

The Viscerally Satisfying “Get Out”: My review

for America magazine: Rarely have I seen a movie audience as viscerally satisfied as the...

February 2017

February 21, 2017

I review “I Am Michael,” The James Franco Ex-Gay Biopic

for America: For I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter...