My friends and I approached the concession counter. (One of us wanted Milk Duds.) An employee, a black woman, glanced over and inquired which movie we three white men were seeing. I replied, “Kanye’s,” with a hopefully self-aware smirk. She rolled her eyes and shook her head wryly. A lot of people have some thoughts […]
All the Life We Cannot See (and All the Death We Should Be Doing)
Recently my four-year-old son has become obsessed with all things Hamilton: the musical, the person, the coffee table book I bought my husband and repurposed as a spontaneous gift for my boy, who flips through it daily and asks me to sing him the songs. He’s turned his older brother onto the soundtrack, which means […]
Needles & Nails: Finding Identity in Ink
I have little interest in getting a tattoo. Maybe it’s a matter of taste—I prefer expressing myself with music rather than body markings. Or maybe it’s my upbringing. Without a single tattoo in my immediate family there’s a sense of inertia working against me. But my wariness of tattoos is likely the fruit of a […]
Is Nothing Sacred?
When a part of Notre Dame Cathedral burned, there was an instant, worldwide flood of money inundating a Catholic place of worship. And a national icon. And a place of romance. But more than that, Notre Dame is, by design and history, sacred. Would the Paris Opera House in flames evoke the gut-crushing pain of […]
Camp: Notes on Grace
What does grace look like? If it made a movie or wore a dress, how would you describe it, aesthetically? It might be twee or kitsch, since the Gospel is such a personal message that, in our self-absorption, we often sentimentalize, then mass-produce. It could be sublime, as the drama of salvation involves the darkest […]
Rebuilding What We Never Made: Notre Dame
Then answered Peter, and said unto Jesus, Lord, it is good for us to be here: if thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah. (Matthew 17:4) Those tabernacles were the best way that St. Peter could fully express his love of Jesus. But […]
The Sermon in Stone at Notre Dame
Notre Dame has burned. The cathedral had — “had,” how terrible to write — one of the oldest surviving wood frames in Paris’ history, comprising 52 acres of trees. Workers cut those trees down in the 12th century and made the beams. Each beam required the wood of a whole tree. The intricate lattice of […]
I Am Not Karl Lagerfeld
A man who designed things died this week, but what ended was his central, lifelong design: himself. I design things every day, but I am completely clueless about my own design. Death imposes reflection on us, whether we like it or not. So when I see a person pass away who was virtually a cartoon of […]
The Life of a Hermit TV Star: Sister Wendy Beckett
Saint Stephen’s Day 2018 was marked by the passing of the art historian, TV presenter, and author, Sister Wendy Beckett. I surprised myself when a few unexpected tears leaked out on hearing the news. It wasn’t from her untimely death; she was 88 after all. No, the tears, the more I thought about it, were […]
El Huracán: Facing our Fragility
This reflection comes to us from Kyle Holton. A few months ago in a suburban movie theater, I wept uncontrollably. I was watching Incredibles 2 with my family. The tears came on me like gale force winds. My body silently shook while a storm surge of emotion flooded my senses. It was a category-4-Hurricane type […]
Stan Lee, Generational Alienation, and Spider-man: An Aspiring Novelist Becomes a Comics Legend
Grateful to share this reflection by Wenatchee the Hatchet: Just as the world (in Marvel comics) may know Spider-man yet not know Peter Parker, the world may likewise know that Stanley Lieber was Stan Lee, whether or not the world ever knew who Stanley Lieber was. The man Stan Lee, who died this week, became world-famous […]
The Canon That Crushed Richard Meier
Architect Richard Meier recently resigned as the leader of the business he created 50 years ago. He created stark white and glass High Modernist Masterpieces for all those years. He was the very model of a Modernist “Starchitect.” He was compelled to leave because he had been accused of disgusting behavior with women. Not unusual […]
