An article on Rafael Guastavino, his life and his work and one building close to my heart, The Basilica of Saint Lawrence in Asheville, NC.
I'm Catholic. I'm a Catholic in my heart, in my morality and in my soul. I didn't practice Catholicism for a long time — it may well have been forty years. If someone asked me my religion during that time, I said, "I'm a recovering Catholic." Get it?
O'Connor's metaphors and character descriptions are so vivid they jar the mind. Her writing is energetic and barbed with such naked honesty it initially struck me as rude or written by a rube but nothing could be further from the truth.
Svetlana Alexievich wrote Voices from Chernobyl: A History of a Nuclear Disaster, a compilation of the stories of many people tied together by one uncomfortable fact; they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. They were there when the Chernobyl plant blew.
Stories illustrating contradictions, hypocrisy and moral lessons in my childhood. A discussion about the complexity and fluidity of cultural values.
The movie, Clouds of Sils Maria, is cerebral and some reviewers call it pretentious. When I told people it's a great movie they wanted to know what it's about and I responded, "It's about an middle-aged woman who questions her relevance as an older actress," and they look bored. "Oh no," I say, it's exciting.
What I remember,
When I remember,
Becomes intensely urgent.
I'm an American. That's what I say if anyone should ask me my nationality. I'm a mutt made up of various immigrant peoples. My mother's father was the child of a German immigrant mother and an Irish immigrant father. My