I wrote a story called "The Reception," and it is in the new volume of Pendulous Breasts Quarterly, a literary journal for the discriminating breast enthusiast.

If you are an elderly relative of mine reading this: take heart. It is not actually a pornographic magazine. It's just a hilarious title thought up by one John Howell Harris, formerly of the Onion and a comedy guy in New York (City). The first volume was great and I expect this new one to be the same. My copy has not arrived yet so I am not going to straight up lie and say it is awesome, but with writers from the Onion, the Daily Show, the Colbert Report, 30 Rock, and what not, Volume II is very likely to be killer. BUY IT HERE.

Back in November, 2012, I meant to write some reflections on Adam Kirsch’s essay “Rocket and Lightship” in that month’s Poetry magazine. It’s a meditation on the inevitable oblivion that all writers face and on the rapidly increasing irrelevance of literature and culture in the contemporary world. The fact it has taken me over 18 months (and that I have read the essay at least four times already) is a complimentary refutation of both premises.

Kirsch depicts the act of writing and of literature in general in grand, austere, spare, and intense language (however contradictory those words are) that you rarely hear in daily American speech outside of a freshman dorm. I mean that more as a dis to contemporary American speech than to Adam Kirsch (or to college freshman). Kirsch is but a pup, born in 1976, but statements like these make him sound like he was born in 1846 in one of Germany’s more bookish regions:

St. Bartholomew Catholic Church
Guided by faith. Called to love.

Pseudo-Volunteering Program
Frequently Asked Questions

What is Pseudo-Volunteering?

Pseudo-Volunteering is for people who love the spiritual satisfaction that comes from volunteering but hate the tedium of volunteering.

How does it work?

Each Saturday a group of pseudo-volunteers from St. Bartholomew visits the Little Sisters of the Needy Scholastic Workshop.  We tutor photogenic, disadvantaged youths from 9:00 A.M. to 12:00 P.M.  

Oh, man. That’s way too early for me. Do you do anything on weeknights?