The neighborhood, El Presidio, I’d discovered and walked many times on my previous visits. Like much of Tucson, the streets are full of tucked-away courtyards and inviting doors behind which you just know whole worlds are conducted that you may or may not ever see. Nice to know they’re there anyway.
OUTSIDE LIES MAGIC
DESIGNER RUSSEL WRIGHT’S MANITOGA
Those of us of a certain age will remember, at least vaguely, some of his designs. And he had one whole line made of Melamine, a substance I, for one, remember well.
SORROW’S SPRINGS
“It ís the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.”
–Gerard Manley Hopkins
BELOW THE EDGE OF DARKNESS
The saber-toothed viperfish has fearsome curved fangs so long and sharp that if they closed within its mouth would impale the fish’s brain: instead, they slide into grooves in the upper lip. A long fin grows out of its back and curves forward, “dangling a luminescent lure in front of its fearsome maw.”
THE LIVING AND THE DEAD
What with the general desert landscape and color palette in Tucson, many many objects lying on or by the street could be dead animals–or they could be rocks, twigs, branches, palm tree refuse, or clods of dirt, mud or dust.
SEEKING WITH GROANS
“I condemn equally those who choose to praise men, those who choose to condemn him, and those who choose to divert themselves. And I can approve only those who seek with groans.” –Blaise Pascal, “Pensées” Welp, I have been privately praising certain men, condemning certain men, and choosing on many occasions to divert myself. Then […]
SKID ROW MARATHON
LA Superior Court Judge Craig J. Mitchell on the Skid Row Running Club he started in 2012:
“As Catholics, we all have to figure out how we are going to live the Gospel. How are we going to take it out of the church and into the world?”
“My witness for lack of a better word as a practicing Catholic is what I do on Skid Row. I don’t have to wear a rosary around my neck.”
THE BEAUTY WITHIN
Sister Hanna Maria:
It’s a daily being confronted by the truth of God, which is not apart from me. It’s not different from me, not apart from me, but it is to go into my heart and to meet God in my heart. And also by repeating the Psalms day out and day in. They are so rich. There is no mood where you can’t find yourself in the prayers of the Psalms. So whatever mood I’m in, you go to the office and the day is… The office, the liturgy for us, it’s like the spine. It’s like the skeleton of a body. It’s what keeps the day for us. And it is what keeps us up.
SPIKY, HAIRY, SHINY: INSECTS OF LA
“Meet your neighbors!” invites the Natural History Museum, but they’re not talking about the people next door. The exhibit “Spiky, Hairy, Shiny: Insects of LA,” runs through April 1, 2022. All over the city, for the last 10 years people have gathered insects to help the Museum staff with its BioSCAN (Biodiversity Science: City and […]
PRESSURE RELIEF
Does that ever happen in your world–that you’re stuck or struggling or have just come to some major epiphany, and on the instant practically you come upon a passage that seems specifically, directly, written to/for you?
CLOISTERED
“A particularly severe form of asceticism within Christianity is that of anchorites, who typically allowed themselves to be immured, and subsisting on minimal food. For example, in the 4th century AD, one nun named Alexandra immured herself in a tomb for ten years with a tiny aperture enabling her to receive meager provisions. Saint Jerome (c. 340–420) spoke of one follower who spent his entire life in a cistern, consuming no more than five figs a day.”
THE TEMPTATION IN THE DESERT, LA STYLE
Looking out over the vast expanse of our smog-shrouded metropolis, I imagined Satan tempting Christ with the keys of greater LA.
NOMAD: BRUCE CHATWIN AND WERNER HERZOG
Perhaps it was inevitable that these two self-mythologizing figures would meet. Their paths intersected, not always at the same time, at many points throughout their respective travels.