There are still faint glimmers of civilization left in this barbaric slaughterhouse that was once known as humanity.

Demon: You should watch a movie tonight.

Tom: I think you’re right. I will.

Demon: What are you in the mood for?

Tom: Something dark, I think.

Demon: Nice.

Tom: Ah, but here’s the thing. I’m going to view a dark movie with my Christian worldview.

Demon: Ooh, I’m really scared. Please don’t write a blog post reviewing the film which persuades other Christians they can watch dark movies, too. Whatever you do, don’t do that.

Tom: I’m going to. I’m going to write a blog post reviewing a dark movie with my Christian worldview.

Demon: Oh, no. How will I ever recover? Are you going to watch Fight Club again?

Tom: Yes, and I’m going to review it with my Christian worldview.

Demon: Fine, but whatever you do, don’t watch and review The Wolf of Wall Street with your Christian worldview.

Tom: Maybe I will, actually.

Demon: Is your blog post going to, like, talk about the nihilism in the movie?

Tom: Yes.

Demon: (yawning) Oh, no. Not that. You don’t think the movie has hidden Gospel themes, do you?

Tom: I might talk about the hidden Gospel themes in my review, too.

Demon: (lighting a cigarette) Oh, God. Please. Anything but that.

Tom: What are you going to do about it?

Demon: There’s nothing to be done. I’ll probably just go take a nap until it’s over.

“Teacher: Can we talk about Oliver? 

Principal: What has he done this time? 

Teacher: Today, just a lot of the same small stuff.  

Principal: Then what’s the problem? 

Teacher: I know that re-enrollment contracts are going out in a couple weeks and I wanted to know if you’re planning on inviting Oliver to come back next year? 

Principal: Look, Oliver is a tough student. I get it. But I’ve seen students turn things around during sophomore year and I think Oliver is capable of change.  

Teacher: Is there any student at this school who isn’t capable of change? 

Principal: No, I think everyone is capable of change.  

Teacher: I agree, but do you ever think it is appropriate to kick a student out? 

Principal: Sometimes, sure.  

Teacher: Then you sometimes have to kick out students who are capable of change.  

Principal: I suppose so.  

Teacher: Then why offer Oliver a re-enrollment contract?” 

-from my latest for CiRCE

Donostia anchovy stuffed green olives: for a memorable martini.

Torres brand foie gras potato chips: according to the label, made with real foie gras.

Primo specialty foods Blackberry Serrano Preserves: the best savory jam I’ve ever tasted.

This Caesar dressing is many orders of magnitude better than every other Caesar dressing.

Divina grilled green olives: not what you’re expecting (but in a good way).

Winter cocktail of the moment: Frangelico and lemon. Very après-ski.

This playlist is fifteen hours long and I’ve been putting it on shuffle and letting it run all day, all week.

It has been the better part of a decade since I was sufficiently dialed into new stuff that I could make convincing lists of the best movies of the year, the best television shows, and so forth. Instead, here’s a list of what made my year good, some of it new, some of it old.

Ripley on Netflix: It wouldn’t be possible to outdo Anthony Minghella’s jazzy, sumptuous, sun-soaked 1999 version of Patricia Highsmith’s novel, so Steven Zaillian completely reimagined every single character, the mood, the look, the music, the themes. Nonetheless, it’s somehow still Highsmith’s story. One of the decade’s great triumphs of adaptation.

Merely & Malibu’s Essential Mixtape: The pretensions of ambient music are softened by the goofiness of new age in this absolutely beautiful snooze fest.

Trust by Domenico Starnone: I was hooked after I heard the premise: boyfriend and girlfriend don’t want to get married, but they do want to be deeply indebted to one another, so they tell one another about the absolute worst thing they’ve ever done. Then break up a few days later.

Easy Does It by Julie London: For the first time in five years, my top Wrapped artist wasn’t Harold Budd, but Julie London. This 1968 record has a blue, gin-soaked tone that typifies my favorite Julie London recordings.

Black Magenta by D.S. & Durga: The only 2024 release I picked up this year: “City at night in bold colorful fumes—pineapple glow, magenta dianthus, iris twilight, tobacco, and black amber. Pair with loud music.”

Laughter in the Dark by Vladimir Nabokov: I picked this up at the Mall of America while marooned in Minneapolis after the Delta Meltdown last summer. This is Nabokov’s most readable book, and his most horrifying.

The Princess on HBO: While I’m an unapologetic Lady Di fan, this 2022 documentary is so elegantly assembled, it might win over a few who are generally indifferent to celebrities.

Good Pop, Bad Pop by Jarvis Cocker: I’ve loved Pulp since I was sixteen. This memoir from Jarvis Cocker was delightful, humane, and I was regularly surprised by how much of his childhood seemed like my own.

A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh: I love a novel that ends very, very, very, very far from what you’re initially expecting.

Baby Reindeer on Netflix: I got Magnolia vibes.

Adarra in Richmond, Virginia: Richmond’s best restaurant, which I only discovered four months before moving. Of the three times I ate there, nothing was less than perfect.

“With the terrible place we’re at historically and with climate change and all that, I don’t know, do you really think it’s ethical to bring another cat into the world?”

“Say It Right” is the latest episode of “In the Trenches,” and this time we’re talking about classical Christian cliches: what they are, where they come from, how they take over, why they make us weak, and what to do about it.

It’s inevitable that a strong movement or institution will create cliches. In this episode, I argue that cliches are basically “intellectual repetitive motion injuries,” they emerge apart from our best intentions, but that once we realize we’ve created cliches, we must work to repair the damage they cause. I would love for flourish, thrive, and wonder to become potent terms again–but we have got to put a moratorium on those terms for a few years.

Listen to the latest episode of “In the Trenches” here.

Given the way the terms are presently used, Eastern Orthodoxy is more “low church” than “high church.”

If you walked into a 90 member Baptist church in Podunk, Kentucky on a Sunday morning and told a long-time member named Tina, “So, your liturgy is pretty low church, huh?” she wouldn’t have a clue what you were talking about. She’d say, “I don’t know what you mean, but we’ve been doing it this way for as long as I remember.”

But that’s the same thing a little Greek grandmother in Santorini would tell you if you said, “So, the liturgy here is pretty high church, huh?”

“High church” and “low church” have relatively little to do with the complexity of worship and quite a lot to do with the naivete of the worshiper–though I’m using the word “naivete” according to Donald Kagan’s usage of the term.

While I think Steve Coogan is the cleverest man alive, I think Chilly Gonzales is a close second.

“The progressive Christian’s error lies in believing that Christianity’s perennial polemic against the rich is an implicit defense of socialist programs. What concerns the Christ of the Gospels is not the economic situation of the poor man, but the moral condition of the rich man.”

― Nicolás Gómez Dávila