Just another writer
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Arguably my biggest Catholic nerd endeavor ever
For some time, I’ve thought that it would be cool to get a list of all the Catholic churches in the Archdiocese of Chicago and each day visit a church whose patron’s feast was that day. Finally, I got around to downloading a list, making a spreadsheet and finding the feast days for the saints.…
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I pretended to be an artist today
The Art Institute of Chicago had a workshop on monotype prints and feeling adventurous, I decided I would go to it since I had the afternoon free. The workshop began by a visit to a monotype by Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione from somewhere in the neighborhood of 1640. Castiglione created the print by filling his copper…
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A visit with my younger self: 16 June 1988
Wow, I was being quite dilligent about keeping up this diary back in the olden days. Thoughts about “A little dignity”—How did Phillotson become the man he is? What trigger the bressedown, I think something here is a façade, but what? Is, the dignified Phillotson rool on is the comical)? Why not lead the reader…
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A visit with my younger self: 15 June 1988
A bit of context on these journal entries, I suppose. This was the summer between my sophomore and junior year of college. I had a job working at the University of Illinois at Chicago computer center. I forget what I was doing that year, although if I remember correctly, I was working in the Medical…
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A visit with my younger self: 14 June 1988
I encountered recently a writer who was publishing his old journal entries on Substack, and it occurred to me that there was probably nothing that private about my old journal entries that I couldn’t do the same, so here it is. “Rescuer”—A boy who wants to grow up to be a hero.. When the opportunity arrives…
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Writerly resolutions: April status
Finally beginning to get back into a groove on the writing. After much delay, I finished my post-workshop revisions on chapter three and then managed to get a first draft and rewrite of a new chapter (which will become chapter two coming before the existing chapter two). I also think I solved a characterization problem…
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Writerly resolutions: March status
This was a terribly unproductive month for my writing. It turns out it still hurts to do things like operate a pencil or scissors. The latter is mostly helpful for things like opening packages, but the former is something I like to do for revising. I did manage to finally finish revisions on chapter two…
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2025 Tournament of Books: James vs. Martyr! (again)
OK, there’s not much point rehashing what I said the last time these two faced off. I still think James is the better book. My judgment on the judgment This is a vote by all the judges, and since last year I did a handy little table, I figured I’d repeat that again this year. I…
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2025 Tournament of Books: The Extinction of Irena Rey vs. James
This would have been my finals matchup had the judging gone my way. Instead, these two books face off in the zombie round. James, as I’ve said every time it comes up, is the best book of 2024, the one that people will be reading decades in the future. The Extinction of Irena Rey, as good…