So this past Christmas the family get togethers were particularly trying. You know what I mean.On Christmas Eve, the one branch of the family studiously avoided talking to me about anything at all that I do. This is the nominally Catholic branch, the pro-abortion Catholic branch, the pro-perversion Catholic branch. They are very successful, and some [...]
WHAT I LEARNED IN ENGLANDThis past week I was in England with actors and crew from my company and from Corpus Christi Watershed, as we filmed a short movie on the conversion of the Venerable John Henry Newman. We were graciously granted access to Newman’s retreat house at Littlemore, near Oxford, administered by the delightful Sisters [...]
I am usually not a big booster of “Put Christ back into Christmas”. Even de-Christianized Christmas is a magical time, as it was to me as an atheist before my conversion, and I figure if the secular Christmas (known as “The Holidays”) still manages to touch the hearts of the unwashed Pagans out there, fine. We [...]
I know I’m getting older for two reasons. First, not only do I like Judge Judy, I now like the way she looks. Second, for years I was a young Curmudgeon, but I have now passed beyond Curmudgeon to Crank. You don’t hit Crank until you have the years to back it up.For example, I fired [...]
Ladies and gentlemen, prepare yourselves. You are reading a blog post by THE FIRST ACTOR IN HISTORY TO PLAY ALL THE ROLES IN A SHAKESPEARE PLAY.The play in question is The Merchant of Venice, in particular the audio version of the play as recorded this month for The Merchant of Venice – Ignatius Critical Edition. Incidentally, [...]
I was sitting at the table with a number of priests, one of whom had had a tad too much to drink. It was a fundraiser banquet for an orthodox Catholic cause, and most of the priests were rather stolid types. I had just finished explaining the homily I had endured that day. The Gospel reading [...]
I am convinced that cloning is in fact going on, and has been for many years. For instance, the so-called “cantor” at most suburban Catholic parishes has been cloned. I was on the road last week in the High Plains of Kansas and the cantor for Sunday Mass was the same cantor I’ve seen everywhere – [...]
GEORGE: I’m gonna jump, I tell you! I’m gonna jump!CLARENCE: Don’t jump, George. I’m Clarence, a benevolent illusion.GEORGE: I thought you were my guardian angel.CLARENCE: Who’s to say what I really am? If it helps you personally to believe in angels, then fine, that’s what I am to you. I might be something else to someone [...]
After swearing off the Vast Vacuity that is Facebook for some weeks, I am back on. I still think there’s a way to make it worthwhile, perhaps by kicking off all the friends who are giving me grief – kind of like life.Anyway, I am learning from Facebook the appalling state of Reason in the post-modern [...]
First, there’s simply being too lazy or too preoccupied to produce anything. This explains why, although Joseph Pearce cajoles his writers to blog regularly for The Ink Desk, I haven’t posted anything in over a month. (Ha! Little does Joseph know – writers are almost as unreliable as actors).But more seriously than this, there’s the deliberate [...]
