All, hail the lowly alley! Shaper of Chicago, home of garbage and gardens, danger and Dumpsters, the arena of kickball, hoops and gossip, of scavengers and shortcuts, of neighbors and rodents.
Chicago's alleys are older than the city itself. They were laid out as part of a 58-block grid in 1830, three years before Chicago…
Patrick T Reardon
At St. Gertrude Church, my home parish, our pastor emeritus is a brilliant guy who still gives homilies that are both witty and profound, erudite and down-to-earth. His replacement, our new pastor, is a story-teller. He enjoys teasing out theological insights from the simplicity (and complexity) of everyday life.
But as much as I like…
There is much in this book that's infuriating.
I'm not referring to the myriad ways in which the people of the United States (and earlier in the American colonies) have failed to live up to the nation's founding ideals. It is sad and shameful how majorities have oppressed minorities throughout our history. And how…
If Emily Dickinson had had a sense of humor, she might have written "A Girl Named Zippy."
And if she'd been born in 1965 in Indiana.
That's when and where Haven Kimmel arrived on the planet and spent her childhood in the small (population: 300) town of Mooreland --- the subject of her fun and funny and…
Photo by Frank CampAt the mountain of God, Horeb, Elijah came to a cave where he took shelter. Then the LORD said to him, “Go outside and stand on the mountain before the LORD; the LORD will be passing by.” A strong and heavy wind was rending the mountains and crushing rocks before the LORD…
I was in a hurry. My wife and I were leaving for a vacation in Paris the next day. So I didn't give much thought to the canned email response I left for anyone who tried to reach me during the 11 days we would be gone.
"Out of contact" was what…
In 1867, the British poet Matthew Arnold published his 37-line lyric poem "Dover Beach," which concludes with this stanza:
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor…
I don't usually read books like this, collections of smaller pieces. In this case, six essays and 23 literary reviews.
I call them "literary reviews" rather than "book reviews" because, in them, Oates examines at least a good chunk — and often the entire breadth — of a writer's work. Her essays deal with the sudden…
Starting to read a new Terry Pratchett novel, for me, has been a different experience since December, 2007. That's when Pratchett announced that he was suffering from early-onset Alzheimer's disease.
Each time, I wonder: Is this the book that will show the impact of the disease? Will this be the one that shows the…