1. The best thing that hit the web this past week, as far as I can tell, came from Harrison Scott Key, whose name you may remember from such publications as the Thurber award-winning memoir The World’s Largest Man or The Humor Issue of The Mockingbird. His recent “Confessions of a Bad Christian” is, well, […]
Another Week Ends: Conan Reborn, Call-Out Culture, Rockstar Sobriety, Sick Notes, Bookstores, Bossy Razors, and the Bad Place
1. This week, let’s start with the afterlife of Conan O’Brien. After a 4-month hiatus, Team Coco revives, now completely made over: shorter episodes, a more informal set-up — also more embracing of the life cycle of late-night. With 25+ years under the belt, Conan talks to The New York Times about his inevitably approaching retirement/career-death. He […]
Another Week Ends: Prison Seminary, Bingo Card Memes, Tidying Up (and Stuffing It Down), Wendell's Port William, and Four Very Specific Oreos
1. First up is this doozie of an interview from Christianity Today, about a woman recently released from a 30-year sentence in a California prison. Linda Barkman was sentenced with second-degree murder in 1979 after her boyfriend murdered her 2-year-old daughter. That devastating outcome, she says, came at the end of a string of abusive […]
Another Year Begins: Quarter Life Crisis, Relentless Parents, Haunted Houses, Merton's Epiphany, Trendy Church Names, and Jubilee Street
Happy January! So glad to be back at the dials to kick off a fresh year of Mocking-activity and deeply grateful to our many supporters who came through, big time, this past month to make that possible. Stay tuned early next week for details about our upcoming NYC Conference (4/25-27), earlybird registration for which expires […]
Another Advent Ends: Anxiety Baking, Swearing Santa, Authoritarian Sociology, Muscatine Friendship, Multitasking in Marriage, and a Gift of Dentures.
OF COURSE Advent isn’t over yet! But the intrepid team of writers and editors here at Mockingbird are taking a well-deserved break for the next couple of weeks. The blog and the office are transitioning into holiday mode, so expect things to be slow around here till January 3. If you’re interested in charitable giving […]
Another Week Ends: Esther Perel, Tourist Photos, Six-Week Church Services, Perfect Products, and Lunch Brushers
1. For those of you who are, like me, already devotees of Esther Perel’s Where Should We Begin? podcast, much of her interview with the New Yorker will come as no surprise. On multiple platforms I’ve heard her give this explanation about our current marital malaise, but that doesn’t matter because it’s great: Marriage is […]
Another Week Ends: Gene Editing, Political Cults, Ultrarich Scorekeeping, Medical Forgiveness, Depressed Scientists, $25 Naps, and John the Baptist
Before we jump in, our year-end update/appeal letters are out! On snazzy new letterhead, to boot. To be sure you get one, just sign up for our mailing list. We’ve got a ton of exciting things happening, and really need your help. Take it away, Kermit: 1. First up, last week’s Cambridge Literary Festival featured […]
Another Week Ends: A Peaceful Prison, Accidental Killers, Walking Report Cards, Nihilist Dads, Sin and Mental Health, and a Lot of Exorcisms
1. We’ve all been there. Exhausted from the daily grind… Overwhelmed by expectations from work and family and social commitments… Needing the peace and quiet of a nice, structured jail cell… Wait, what? Our first story this week (ht CB) tells of a mock prison where ‘inmates’ pay $90 to spend 24 hours in solitary confinement, […]
Another Week Ends: Silicon Valley #Seculosity, Airborne Absolution, Big Law Kills, Maslow's Smartphone, Stan Lee's Humor, and True Detective Pikachu
Wrapping up the latest from the week, we’d be remiss not to recap the biggest news, which is that DZ’s new book Seculosity is now available for your pre-ordering pleasure! For a preview of the content, go here, and to get in your pre-order, go here. (According to those ‘in the know,’ pre-orders are actually what make […]
Another Week Ends: Purr-fectionism, Soulmates, Ambrose & Augustine, National Jealousy Day, Nick Cave and Patriot
1. First up, some low-hanging fruit from The Atlantic, Olga Khazan’s “The Problem with Being Perfect,” an expert deconstruction of America’s favorite #humblebrag. Khazan fills in the shading a bit more than journalists usually do when tackling this subject, especially toward the end, where she catalogs not just the appeasement response to the law perfectionism, […]
Another Week Ends: A Dark Consensus, Social Credit, Untrainable People, New Detective, Complicit Christianity, and the Unimportance of Jerry Seinfeld
1. A fascinating parable appeared on NPR this week, a 5-minute radio story about China’s “social credit system.” Apparently, this system of credit scoring functions like the US’s in that your financial history affects your financial future: it differs, though, in that “China’s system also considers information like what you buy and how you treat […]
Another Week Ends: Consumer Churches, 30 Year Takeaways, the Other Side, Bull Head Coaches, iPad Tipping and Japanese KitKats
1. Fresh on the heels of hosting a truly, er, glorious theology-of-the-cross-themed conference last weekend in San Diego, our friends at 1517 Legacy posted a brilliantly contrarian reflection from Joel Hess, responding to a critique that’s fairly common among confessional Christians in this country. I’m referring to the criticism that the church, especially in its […]
