Death and the absent dancers
Reading Time: 5 minutes Fifteen years ago today, Reverend Jerry Falwell, Sr. went to his reward. Many of those who did not like Falwell were happy that he got this reward, while those who loved him were very, very sad. This is strange. At the time, many of his fellow religious believers shook stern fingers at the rest of us: If the rest of us could not join them in being devastated by his…
Finding Nemo, belly up
Reading Time: 3 minutes There’ve been three deaths in our immediate family in the past 48 hours. Wait, lemme go downstairs…
What if she comes anyway?
Reading Time: 3 minutes Her name was first spoken in hushed tones among children all over America [over] twenty years ago.…
There’s no such thing as routine surgery, except yes there is
Reading Time: 3 minutes On a March Wednesday in 1653, a 20-year-old Londoner named Sam Pepys lay spreadeagled, four limbs tied…
Solving the musical mystery of my life
Reading Time: 3 minutes Ever since I was a wee babe, one song always made me spontaneously burst into tears: “Wiegenlied,”…
My big fat Christian wedding
Reading Time: 3 minutes If major religious differences doom a marriage, mine should have been toe-tagged at the altar. Our religious…
The center of space and time
Reading Time: 4 minutes When I was eight, I’d sit with my father in our basement in St. Louis drinking grape…
Editing the infallible
Reading Time: 3 minutes For nearly a century and a half after the 1859 publication of On the Origin of Species,…
Dissent and the power of two
Reading Time: 6 minutes “Guess what happened today.” When your eighth-grade daughter offers up details of the day uncoerced, drop everything.…
Look up or don’t look up: We probably won’t see the one that gets us
Reading Time: 3 minutes Our planet is tracing an elliptical orbit around a middle-aged star in the outer arm of an…
