Soon enough, official photographs of the dead Bin Laden will be released into cyber perpetuity. Phony documents have already shown up online. Given our “chronic voyeuristic relation to the world,” as Sontag described it, not looking at the postmortem imagery will be nearly impossible. I wonder how they will be received, since no one believes photographs tell the absolute truth anymore. More likely, the burden of proof will fall to Bin Laden’s DNA tests. Read More »
On the last Sunday of every month, Father John Jamnicky gets on a scale. Within moments his weight loss is posted on a big chart in the fellowship room of his church. “At 65, I have probably lost and gained more weight than the whole parish combined!” says Jamnicky, laughing.
So far, he’s lost 36 of the 100 pounds he’s promised to shed for the “Building a Church, Pound by Pound” capital campaign for the new St. Raphael the Archangel Church in Old Mill City, Illinois. Parishioners have pledged money for every pound their pastor loses. Some have begun dieting themselves and collecting additional pledges. With that money, matched by a donor, St. Raphael’s stands to raise at least $110,000 and get healthier, too. Read More »
I grew up in Providence on Lennon Street. It was a street of families, each contributing four, five, six children to the tumble — the backbone of the American dream, ’60s style. Ours were endless days of four-square, red rover and hide-and-go-seek. We swam in the summer, burned leaves in the fall, starred in Mr. Nickerson’s Halloween movies, and sang carols at the annual Christmas party at the Dionne’s house — all of us, every season, every year. Even our dogs played together. Read More »
Lately, I’ve been seeing Our Lady of Guadalupe everywhere—on hubcaps, T-shirts, and bumper stickers that read “In Guad We Trust.” Driving on Los Angeles’ Hollywood Freeway recently, I spotted her again—this time as a 12-foot-high sculpture projecting from the highway barrier wall. I shouldn’t have been surprised. The Virgin Mary leaves her fingerprints, as Patty Griffin memorably wrote, everywhere. Read More »
La Guadalupana (detail) D. Montoya, 1999
A while ago, just as summer was ending, I went to an art opening at Yale University. I met a student, a young girl about 18 years old, who possessed the kind of guileless beauty that needs no embellishment. As we talked in the heat of the crowded galleries, she took off her jacket, revealing to my surprise that she was covered, neck to wrist, with tattoos. Inscribed into her body were beautiful, Read More »
Lounging this morning with the Sunday New York Times has already provided considerable food for thought, and I’m not even into the Week in Review yet. The front page of the Style section features a story about the lengths to which people will go in order to bask momentarily in the marketing-glow supersonic jet fuel that is an Oprah endorsement. I should know—the mere mention of my book, Churches, in O Magazine pushed it onto the NYT bestseller list in 2001.
Naturally, with a new book out, I’m thinking about Oprah, about all those people who seem to hold its fate in their hands. It is humbling, annoying, and Read More »
Our Lady of Czestochowa
Today, perhaps, judged by the media’s polished criteria, the historical Mary, a peasant girl from dusty Palestine, might not have looked good. But she was good.
Over the past 2,000 years, the Virgin Mary’s face has been imagined anew by every generation. We depict her beauty according to current standards of attractiveness, re-inventing her to reflect our own priorities. Her portrayal over the centuries was fluid: Mary’s image absorbed the attributes of ancient goddesses; was an anathema to Islamic Read More »
My favorite form of procrastination is house dreaming—that is, hanging out on Zillow and zooming around maps and photos of houses listed for sale. Usually, I’m hovering over New England but sometimes, wanting a complete break from life’s quotidian obligations, and these days there are plenty of them, I’ll travel out West or south of the Read More »
Wellfleet Bay
When my Honda broke down on Labor Day and couldn’t be revived, it was a catastrophe. Epic fail, as my kids would say. The car, you see, decided to die on the Outer Cape, Cape Cod, which, in the last hours of the last day of summer might as well have been Mars. Read More »
On the last day of August, with school starting this week for many of us, it’s a good time to reflect on some summer lessons from the sea. I’m from the Ocean State, Rhode Island, with its miles of sandy beaches. I love going to the beach to swim, sun, and walk on the tide’s edge. Read More »
Soon enough, official photographs of the dead Bin Laden will be released into cyber perpetuity. Phony documents have already shown up online. Given our “chronic voyeuristic relation to the world,” as Sontag described it, not looking at the postmortem imagery will be nearly impossible. I wonder how they will be received, since no one believes photographs tell the absolute truth anymore. More likely, the burden of proof will fall to Bin Laden’s DNA tests. Read More 
