Essay: Still thinking about the thinkable
Eight and a half years ago, an elderly friend of mine died, and one of the guys I play basketball with got leukemia. It got me thinking about that thing [...]
Essay: Rosehill Cemetery, 3.24.20
I think I’ve always enjoyed walking in cemeteries. That may seem odd, especially during our present national crisis. But walking — well-separated from each other — is one of the [...]
Poem: July 10, 1981
July 10, 1981 By Patrick T. Reardon On this porch, on this cool summer day, when the moon is benign in afternoon sky, when birds [...]
Essay: The endless ripples of a book recommendation
Over the last year, I’ve read two books that knocked my socks off — the exquisitely evocative “Song of Solomon” by Toni Morrison and that massive, epic, beautiful [...]
Essay: Walking through the virus
In recent days, I’ve been doing a lot of walking. I know that this may soon come to a halt if the efforts to combat coronavirus in the United States [...]
Book review: “The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood” by Sam Wasson
For a week or so after I finished reading The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood by Sam Wasson, the name of Roman Pulanski kept popping into [...]
Poem: “Family package”
Family package By Patrick T. Reardon I left my phone on the back seat of a taxi, and, when I borrowed one from a cornrowed woman, [...]
Book review: “Divine Conception: The Art of the Annunciation” by Sarah Drummond
It’s the awkward ones that touch me most — the images of an agitated Mary responding to the arrival of the angel Gabriel with the message that, if she consents, [...]
Essay: Being present…when apart
In Chicago, all public Catholic Masses have been cancelled for duration of the coronavirus emergency. So, starting this past Saturday and Sunday, for the first time ever, all of the [...]
Book review: “Feet of Clay” by Terry Pratchett
Eight of Terry Pratchett’s 41 Discworld novels center on the City Watch of Anhk-Morpork. The first was Guards! Guards! (1989), followed by Men at Arms (1993) and, then, by Feet [...]