More signs of the Apocalypse

As seen on CraigsList. Oh, Lord.

Erotic Writing for Pittsburgh Blog (Pittsburgh)

We are launching a new blog featuring erotic writing and photography set in Pittsburgh and its surrounds. Our goal is to make Pittsburgh the sexiest city in the United States--heightened eroticism as regional asset key to livability. We are looking for well-written short stories between 500 and 1,500 words. All works should be prominently set in Pittsburgh. Quality of writing is paramount. Stories may feature any kind of encounter or near miss (we are GLBT-interested). We are currently paying between $20 and $50/per post and over time are hoping to build a stable of two or three writers who can keep us all hot and bothered with fantastic tells of sex in the city.

Please include an erotic work sample with your inquiry.

• Location: Pittsburgh
• Compensation: Between $20 and $50 per blog post
• Telecommuting is ok.
• This is a part-time job.

There are two colors in my head, kid, eh?

Awaiting February 2nd: Everything in its right place.

2009 Update and Holiday Letter

Advent 2009 and New Years 2010

Dear Friends,

To say that this was a crazy year would be an understatement. So much has happened since our last holiday letter it seems impossible to fit it all onto only a couple of pages. We'll do our best to fill you in on the highlights, at least.

In January of this year we were still in Nashville. Kira had graduated from Vanderbilt with her master’s degree in December, and at the start of the New Year 2009 she was a few months in to her chaplaincy internship at Baptist Hospital. David had defended his dissertation in December, and was hard at work getting the rewrites done and last pieces in place to turn it in and be finished. We were both very involved in teaching at our parish, Christ the King, though the constant schedule of mentoring, on top of worship, was starting to wear on us a bit. David was also hard at work with a new semester of teaching at American Baptist College, and was working slowly but surely on his book for Yale University Press.

Winter took a sad turn in mid-February, as we learned of the passing of David's mother from lung disease. Kira and David traveled to Columbus, Georgia (David's home town) to see to her affairs and arrangements. They were well supported during this time by family and friends; thought the sense of loss has not yet fully passed.

March brought some distraction, due to a very hectic travel schedule for David. During the month he presented papers at conferences in Durham, North Carolina, in Indianapolis, Indiana, and in Manhattan. In addition to this, he was invited to come to the University of Virginia for several days to present some of his research to the doctoral students in the religious studies program there. During these travels Kira and David became experts at using Skype, a computer program that allows you to talk for free with your laptops. This was a welcome blessing of the Internet age.

As spring progressed we were winding up our long association with Vanderbilt University, and April was full of wonder as to what would happen next. Though David had sent out many job applications in the previous months, the bleak economy had diminished our hopes for a firm offer for the following year for teaching, so April was a month of waiting and hoping. Little did we know.

In late April we were surprised and overjoyed to discover that Kira was pregnant, and that we were going to be parents. We were excited and scared at the news, given the uncertainty of our income for the following year. God was gracious with His timing, however. On the evening of the day we found out Kira was expecting, David got a call from an old graduate school colleague informing him of an opening for the following fall at Christian Brothers University in Memphis. It was a last-minute position, filling a vacancy that had come too late in the year for a normal search. Would David be interested in applying?

Needless to say, David was interested. So he sent in his application and waited on pins and needles as the process took its course over the next couple months. In the meantime, David had the opportunity to receive his doctoral gown and hood at graduation. Both Kira's parents and David's father, brother and step-mom traveled to Memphis for the event, which gave Kira and David the opportunity to give them the good news in person about Kira's "delicate condition." The next weekend, Kira and David were off to Gambier, Ohio for her brother's graduation from Kenyon College.

In June David traveled to Halifax, Nova Scotia for several days to present a paper at the Catholic Theological Society of America conference. When he returned he was happy to learn that he had made the list of candidates to be interviewed for the Christian Brothers' position. The telephone interview went well and David was guardedly hopeful that there might be a job for him in the fall. Kira had her first ultrasound, and we were elated to see an image of our tiny baby, and to learn that mama and Kritter (as we've begun calling the child) were both were healthy and fine.

In early July word came that David had been chosen for the Christian Brothers position, and we began some frantic planning and packing to prepare to move. This was complicated by two major trips that occurred during the month. First, David had been invited to spend another week at UVA, this time meeting with biblical scholars from around the globe who work on an interfaith dialogue project known as Scriptural Reasoning. Then, at the end of the month, Kira and David traveled for a week to Oak Island, North Carolina, for a vacation with Kira's parents at the beach. In between, we made a whirlwind trip to Memphis and hunted down a house to rent that was somewhat affordable and near enough to school for David to be able to walk to work, and made plans to move the first week of August.

All this time, Kira was continuing very successfully in her residency as a chaplain, and was highly praised by her supervisors and co-workers for her skills and poise with patients and their families.

In August David moved to Memphis with the boxes of books and furniture, and Kira moved into the home of her friend and co-worker, Kim Sheehan, in order to finish out the final weeks of her residency. During this time we again got very good at using Skype. David traveled back to Nashville on the 18th for our two-year anniversary, an occasion that was made all the sweeter with another healthy prenatal visit, this time with the first chance for us to hear Kritter's heartbeat and see some amazingly detailed sonogram images (though we elected not to learn whether it was a girl or a boy).

In the first week of September Kira finished her residency and said goodbye to Nashville. David had already been teaching at Christian Brothers for several days by the time she joined him in Memphis, and they set to work finishing the unpacking of the boxes and beginning the arranging of the house.

While David was happy to be employed, it was unclear what was in store for Kira, particularly since she was arriving in the city already quite well along in her pregnancy. A good friend (in fact the wife of the Vanderbilt colleague who had called David about the CBU position in the first place) put Kira in touch with the Church Health Center, a local nonprofit focused on faith and wellness. At Kira's first meeting with them, she signed a contract with them as a freelance writer, and began working thirty hours a week from home on various projects for the center.

In October David took a trip to Montreal for the American Academy of Religion conference, where he had some job interviews and started to work on some advance publicity for his book. He also had an interview at Christian Brothers for the permanent position of the job he now holds (he was hired as a visiting professor for this year). We were also paid a visit by David's dad and step-mom, who were passing through on the way home from visiting his brother in St. Louis.

Kira and David traveled to Washington, Pennsylvania for Thanksgiving and spent the weekend with Kira's parents and extended family. This was the last big trip we would take this year.

Now we have a new perspective on Advent. Kira and the baby are both very healthy, and she is very pregnant. We are counting the days until her projected due date (early January!), and anxiously awaiting the arrival of our new family member.

Meanwhile, we both keep writing, keep unpacking, keep organizing, and keep praying. Our prayers are for you and yours, this holiday season, for your health and happiness, and for a blessed New Year. Merry Christmas, and know that you are remembered and loved,

Fondest regards,

Kira and David

medias in res

We (Kira and I) are in the midst of our first major (as in major major) move. We have moved across Nashville twice already, and so we had thought we had this stuff down pat. Not so. Welcome to Memphis.

To make a long story short, we got flim-flammed by the moving company, and the price we were quoted on the front end was less than half what we ended up paying on the back end (we're in the midst of dealing with that). Next, when we arrived, the washing machine we asked the rental company to install was not installed (though it had been three weeks since the request had been made). Worse, though the air conditoning "worked," in the sense that the units made noise, they barely blew air through the ducts, and the air that came through was close to 90 degrees (I measured it with my nifty thermometer). It is August in Memphis, so outside temperatures are topping 100 degrees Farenheit, and I am writing this from a motel room (in other words, we are in the midst, as well, of dealing with that). I am promised the air conditioning technician will be out "first thing Monday." Hope springs eternal.

When the washer finally was installed, late yesterday, we came home to find that the installation somehow had knocked a door knob clean off the door. On Monday, I will phone in a work order with the rental company to deal with that.

Worst of all, Kira still has three weeks of her chaplain residency left in Nashville, which means that last night I had to say goodbye to her for much longer than I would like. This is the hardest part. I am glad that she is not here to suffer the heat and the headaches of making our new home a home, but I miss her fiercely. I cannot wait for this month to be over, and to get back to normal life, or at least a "normal-er" life.

I needed to vent. Thanks for listening.

Halifax Dispatch

The water in the lakes and in the ocean is always cold here. That is what my wife told me before I got on the plane. Now, banking at below eight thousand feet above the little finger lakes surrounding the final approach to Halifax airport, I believe her. Even from this height, the water looks cold. And clear. I can see the bottoms of the lakes, we are so low now. It is actually quite an uncomfortable way to arrive somewhere, this low to the ground while still in the air. The descent is bumpy. I am glad to be on the ground.

Ahead of me in the border control line a man juggles and drops the duty-free bottle of Scotch he had carried from the airport shop in Newark, where we all got on the plane. In the brisk aroma of the aftermath the man, a religion scholar like myself (most of us were, on this flight), opined simply that "Shit happens."

Every time I fly North, I get the old Thomas Dolby song, "Flying North," stuck in my head - partly because it is a catchy song, and, well, I'm flying North. If you've never heard of Thomas Dolby, you actually have. He's the dude that did "She Blinded Me with Science, back in the '80's, and everybody has heard that. If you've never heard "Flying North," however, don't feel bad. I am one of six people on the planet that has actually heard that song (We have a club, which meets semiannually, usually somewhere in the tropics, like Tahiti).

There are no seagulls in Halifax. At least none that I have been able to find. Again, my wife tells me that this is likely because Halifax is so far North. Same basic reason, for the birds and the water. North. I am wondering if this also would account for the wireless internet reception, which is spotty, it seems, no matter where I go.

Everyone makes eye contact here. Most people smile when you walk past them. If you say "hello," they respond in kind. Evidently, no one here has gotten the Great North American Memo on Standoffishness, which seems to have such a firm hold on the lower 48. Needless to say, for the next two days, I am, for almost the first time, not out of place. These Nova Scotians seem to engage, quite naturally, in behaviors for which I have been scolded and teased for over three decades. Friendliness. Who knew? It is a reasonable substitute for the lack of seagulls.

Apparently, according to a debate I read about in one of the local free papers, Halifax has one adult club where topless dancing is permitted. Only the club is not actually in Halifax; it is in nearby Dartmouth. I noted this because the debate reported was over whether or not local entrepreneurs should be allowed to open Halifax's second topless adult club. Which will not actually be in Halifax, but rather (again) in nearby Dartmouth.

Last night I took myself out for dinner. I had the Surf and Turf at a local establishment that came highly recommended. It was a very pleasant meal. It is reassuring to know that, much like the skill of riding a bicycle never really leaves you, I can still navigate the innards of a crustacean. That being said, the Turf was a lot better than the Surf in this arrangement. When I comented about this to my wife, she reminded me that, traditionally, Maine lobsters are considered superior to Nova Scotian lobsters, whose meats are used primarily in derivative dishes such as bisques.

As a side note, I find myself wondering how my wife seems to be so confidently knowledgeable about the ways and means of Haligonian geography and lifestyle. I think it is because she went to Alleghany College, and received a very good liberal arts education there. Memo to self: start college fund.

This is, without a doubt, the most socially pleasant conference I have ever attended. At the reception last night I was invited to join tables of scholarly strangers who, apparently, just liked the looks of me and wanted to say hello. I am not used to this; I am used to the much more bellicose receptions at the American Academy of Religion. Everybody has an angle there (even me), and the Memo is in full effect. Not so in Halifax, and, perhaps, by extension, not so in the Catholic Theological Society of America. The proof of the pudding will come at next year's conference. Not for the first time are the hopes of a continent riding on the sturdy shoulders of Cleveland. O, sainted land of the Great Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame and the Flats, do not fail us again.

I can only imagine, from the examples I have seen, that the kilt is a difficult fashion choice to accessorize. All or nothing, really, the kilt is. Can't be half-assed about it. Not, at least, without looking a lot sillier than you look already, wearing the kilt. One of the many reasons Alec will always have my undying respect. That man can wear the devil out of a kilt.

Halifax has a surfeit of art galleries and used book shops. Both are a great pleasure to me, but I have not seen many patrons frequenting any of the ones I have visited. However, it is clear that both the galleries and the bookshops have been in place for a good, long while. Now that's an invisible hand I can believe in.

It interests me that the online spell check system for Blogger flags "pungence," which is a perfectly good word, and one I had considered using in a paragraph above (the one referring to the broken bottle of Scotch), but seems to bat nary an eyelash at "Haligonian." Obscurity, like rank, hath its privileges.

Halifax is an hour ahead of Eastern Daylight Time. I have never been in such a timezone, and I think it is adversely affecting me. When going to Europe, the shift is so dramatic that everything is naturally unnatural. Traveling across the US is a known quantity, so I don't think my body has trouble adjusting. But this slight inching ahead in time is just unnaturally natural enough to completely bollix up my circadian rhythms. I am a night owl by nature, and that is a recipe for dead-of-night disaster here in Halifax.

Speaking of disasters, there is no need to mention that a great many of the victims of the Titanic disaster are buried here in Halifax. I have searched in vain so far, but I am still hopeful that before my visit is over I will locate the grave of Leonardo di Caprio.

I got up last night and wanted to wash my hands. The warm water took a very long time to reach the tap. This is because the water is always cold this far North.

This morning, waiting for my taxi to take me to my airport departure, Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World" played over the in-house stereo system in the hotel. I found myself warmed and, by turns, a little tearful.

My Father, thanks to the Army, traveled the world, though he had little taste for the circumstances he was in and what he saw. My Mother cared little for the world outside America, but America she loved fiercely and explored fiercely, at least when she was younger. In both cases, I know of these travels mostly through the pictures I have inherited. They sit in my well-ordered boxes now, these photos of my parents - pictured here together, here singly - along with nameless faces and locations I can only hazily identify by landscape and geography. I find myself wishing I had the stories behind those photos.

Somewhere between my Father's forced marches and my Mother's hermetic isolation, there are my travels. It is, I think to myself, a wonderful world. Halifax ain't bad, either. Here, in my own way, are the pictures.

Of the Human and the Sublime

A few weeks ago, back in late March, I was in Manhattan for a conference and to visit with some old friends, and I had one of those moments that linger with you and affect you for a long time. In order to adequately describe it, I need to give a little context about myself and these sorts of "defining moments" that pop up every decade or so.

Years ago - a lifetime ago, really - when I was eighteen, some friends and I drove to Atlanta to see a show. We went to the Metroplex, a punk club in the heart of downtown Atlanta. It was 1988, and I think the Metroplex was on Moreland Avenue or somewhere like that. At any rate, we were there to see Fishbone. I hadn't seen many shows at that point in my youth. This night, however, would in many ways change and define my life.

The Metroplex was a fairly sizable club. It was rare in that, in addition to "the pit" (the area in front of the stage where the slamdancers "moshed") it had a balcony that circled three sides of the performance area. I was sitting in the balcony. That detail is important.

(The opener was the truly mighty Follow for Now. I remember they started their set out with an instrumental riff on the Rush song "Tom Sawyer" that opened a can of whoop ass in the room. But that just set the stage for what was to follow.)

To say that Fishbone was energetic would be an understatement. They started their shows hard, and then intensity just grew continually through the evening. The very first thing Angelo (the lead singer/saxophonist) did was run across the stage and dive into the audience, surfing on top of the crowd. The crowd, needless to say, was with the band from the first, and the spasmodic energy was palpable.

I have seen a lot of Fishbone shows in my time. One of the common threads to each was a point in the set where Angelo would induct the crowd into what they called the "Fishbone Familyhood." Though never exactly defined, the Familyhood was a sort of transracial love-fest. Ambassadors of goodwill to the cosmos, sort of like if the Deadheads moved faster and looked more like the Rainbow Coalition.

In most shows, the Familyhood induction speech happened from the stage, with Angelo leading the crowd, eventually, in a common "oath," of sorts, culminating in a chant: "Peace. Love. Respect. For everybody! Peace! Love Respect! For everybody!"

This night, however, when it came time for the Familyhood speech, Angelo had surfed the crowd to the back of the room. He had climbed one of the support columns beneath the second floor, and was now hanging from the balcony railing. He was less than ten feet from where we were sitting, and about fifteen feet above the floor below, hanging on with one hand while his other held the wireless microphone. Soon the whole crowd was chanting, "Peace! Love! Respect! For everybody! Peace! Love! Respect! For everybody!"...

...and Angelo leapt into the air, into the empty space above the crowd.

There is something about watching a human body hang in the void, even for a spit second, that stops your breath. I thought of this again, a few months ago, when Kira and I, along with our friend, Katy, went to the Belcourt to watch the award-winning documentary, Man on Wire.

There is a point, right at the end of the film, when - after all the preparation and intrigue, the planning and covert research that preceded Philippe Petit's tightrope walk between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center - Petit mentions that he "made the decision to shift [his] weight from the building to the wire."

What follows is a slow series of still photos of Petit in the air, a quarter mile above the ground, as lilting strains of Eric Satie play without voice or comment. I have seen the film now several times, and the sight of this still stops me short and chokes me up. (If you have yet to see the film, see it. The moment is indescribably beautiful. Sublime.)

So on that day back in March I was walking around Central Park with my old friend Anson. I was feeling bummed because part of what I had planned to do during my visit to New York was to go see a play he was in, "Mourning Becomes Electra," but it had been canceled before the end of its run. Anson, however, was insisting that this was good, in fact, because this meant I now had a chance to go see what he claimed was "the best show in New York" at the time, "FuerzaBruta."

I'm not much for last minute schedule changes, so I was initially hesitant. Anson, however, was both enthusiastic and insistent, and I soon agreed. He made a call on his cellphone to another acquaintance of mine (who was in the show), and arranged to have a ticket discounted for me. Done.

A couple of hours later, I was on the subway heading south to Union Square, in the heart of Greenwich Village. After looking around a bit, I found the Daryl Roth Theatre, which apparently used to be an old bank. I stood in line, got my ticket (thank you, Jon!) and walked up the stairs as the show was just beginning.

How to describe FuerzaBruta? It was like that moment when Angelo leapt out over the crowd; it was like the moment in Man on Wire when Petit makes the decision to shift his weight from building to space; only it went on for more than an hour.

The performance space is cavernous. every inch of it was utilized - horizontally and vertically. The sweep of the themes and narratives (there is very little dialogue) is cavernous as well. The narratives are open-ended and infinitely interpretable. Horrifying, startling, liberating, exhilarating, euphoric... every moment brings a new possibility for feeling huge feelings. I have never seen anything like it. It was beautiful. Afterward, in fact, when discussing it with Anson and Jon (the performer who helped secure me the ticket), I said it was probably one of the most beautiful events I had ever seen. I meant it then, and I mean it now. Beautiful.

More than beautiful, though. The right word isn't "beautiful," I think. The right word here is "sublime."

The sublime was important years ago to folks like Shelley, Wordsworth and Lord Byron - Romantic poets dealt with the sublime. "The sublime has its source in the associated qualities of 'power,' 'vastness,' 'infinity,' and 'magnificence,'" M.H. Abrams wrote in his classic, Natural Supernaturalism, "and its characteristic effects on the beholder are the traditional ones aroused by the conception of the infinite power of a stern but just God: 'terror,' 'astonishment,' 'awe,' 'admiration,' and 'reverence.'"

You will think I am exaggerating, but this is not the case. Standing in the crowd at the Daryl Roth Theatre that evening, I felt those feelings. I think many around me felt them, too, though I am also certain that the range of responses was vast and unpredictable.

As I stood in the crowd, I thought of my Mother, who passed from this Earth the month before. I thought of how differently she and I saw things, and yet how we were still both able to be moved so deeply, in our own ways, by huge intangible things like "Beauty" and "Truth." It is a connection we shared, though our lives together had been been broken asunder by time and circumstance. Standing in that crowd, I missed her and mourned her, as I do now, typing this: in my own way. Death has a sublimity, too. But love, strange and broken and interpretable thought it may be, is still the stronger, in the end.

You will want me to link to video and show you pictures of what I saw that night. I will not. You will want to go to Google and look it up yourself. I cannot stop you, but I will say: you should not.

What I will tell you instead is that you should go to Manhattan. Get on a plane and go to Manhattan and get on the train and go to Union Square. Go the the Darryl Roth Theatre and buy your ticket and stand in the crowd and never forget that you are human. Frail and fragile and lost in the immensity of the universe you may be; but you are human... And it is wonderful to be human.

Angelo leapt into the air. The crowd reached up to him with its arms, and caught him.

Go to Manhattan.

Fall Break in Memphis

Recent visit to Seattle. Dig.

Call it something like, "What I did on my Summer Vacation"