The complete list, from Brian McMillen: Each year, as our society traverses deeper and deeper into the Golden Era of Television, it becomes increasingly important to acknowledge this form of entertainment’s substantial contributions to the zeitgeist. In the year 2019, we saw an abundance of brilliant shows created and conveniently distributed across the streaming platforms […]
Grace at SantaLand: Why David Sedaris Is My Favorite Advent Reading
This one was written by Jonathan Sanchez. It’s a bit of a weird choice for an Advent meditation, I’ll admit–the last entry of “SantaLand Diaries” by David Sedaris. Honestly, though, I’ve read those two pages so many times, I know them by heart. In the great Christmas stories, there’s a lot of dark stuff. Scrooge […]
Jenny Slate Went to Midnight Mass and Experienced the Gospel
Jenny Slate first came into my life in 2010, though at the time I didn’t know her as such. I knew her as Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, a tiny seashell with one googley eye who said things like, “Guess what I use to tie my skis to my car? A hair.” Marcel was […]
Therapy Time with Davie504
If you are not familiar with famous YouTuber Davie504, just ask one of the youth in your life and chances are they will know who you’re talking about. Davie504 is the smartest bass player in the world. Although the bass is not an instrument that gets a lot of attention, somehow Davie504 has created a […]
From The Onion: Man Thinking About Just Packing Up And Making Exact Same Mistakes Someplace Far Away
Gosh, been missing ones like this from The Onion! From 2015 but… eternal:
TEMPLE TERRACE, FL—Feeling the need to get out of his suburban hometown and make a fresh start for himself, local man Gregory Forlano told reporters Tuesday that… he is on the verge of severing all ties to his current life in the Tampa area and lapsing into an equally unfulfilling existence for himself in a brand-new city.
“I’ve just been spinning my wheels in this town for so long; I feel like I need to get out of here and become mired in the same problems somewhere completely new,” said Forlano, adding that his discontent over residing in a cramped one-bedroom apartment and patronizing the same two dive bars with a group of shiftless, unambitious friends every weekend had motivated him to seek out an identically limited and unsatisfying existence outside of his comfort zone. “I could really use a change of scenery. It’s about time I headed to some new city where I can start over with a totally blank slate and instantly stumble backward into the same self-defeating behaviors that will ultimately leave me in an indistinguishable, pitiful situation within months.”…
Explaining how he believed he needed to “really shake things up,” Forlano emphasized that the time had come for him to get out of Florida and slip into a virtually identical pattern of ordering takeout from one of three nearby restaurants and spending his ample downtime watching reruns of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit in an entirely different state.
Click here to read the whole thing.
When Jesus Tells a Boob Joke: Dolly Parton’s America
It has not been easy for me to listen to the new podcast Dolly Parton’s America. I feel like I am hearing a preacher point to the most self righteous places in me and calling them out. I feel a deep connection to the women in my family. And also Dolly Parton’s America is the […]
Lie Down and Die: The History of Miserable Motherhood (and an Unmapped Plug)
“I declare if I tho’t I was to be thus occupied for the rest of my life, I would — I was going to say — lie down & die.” So wrote a new nursing mother Laura Wirt Randall in 1828, as quoted in the book Scarlett’s Sisters by historian Anya Jabour. To which we reply, […]
Curing the Post-Halloween Blues
Every November 1, without fail, I’m down in the dumps. The moment I wake, I am viscerally aware in the cilia and flagella of my cells that Halloween is gone, having slipped away with the other faithful departed we commemorate on All Saints’ Day. Anymore, even as I’m trick-or-treating with my family, the sadness is […]
From The New Yorker
File this one under the #seculosity of romance:
The Seculosity Creed
Thank you to 1517 for the opportunity to put this bit of sub-Nicene ridiculousness together and then have 400 people recite it in unison…! I’ve made a couple tiny tweaks since then. Probably goes without saying but this was written in a spirit of play and confession, not superiority. A big shoutout to Ben Maddison for his help:
