The Family Tree, Stripped
A mainland Chinese student visited my office last week, asking for a letter of recommendation for his transfer to another university. It is hard...
Orwell and Huxley, Together Again: ‘The Interview’ and our Culture of...
By now you’ve already forgotten last month’s most important celebrity cause, namely the embodiment of freedom of expression known as The Interview. Hollywood has...
Christmas Comes But Once a Year; Or, Books to Buy Next...
Philadelphia, PA
R. J. Snell
A slow thinker and slower writer—some might say the reverse—I’ve been chewing over the Christmas season for the past few days,...
Bar Jester’s Writing Seminar II; or, How to Write Like a...
If you want to write worse than the average undergraduate male, consider philosophy.
Local Wonderings in Wichita
Wichita, KS, is the home to a wonderful bookstore, Eighth Day Books. (Which isn't my favorite bookstore in Wichita, but that's partly because my...
Beyond Josh Lyman Politics: How the West Wing Miseducated My Political...
A few years ago, Josh Lyman spoke at Harvard to a packed room of starstruck student politicos. It wasn’t the real Josh Lyman, of...
John Tavener’s The Protecting Veil: A Brief FPR Revaluation
Marian devotion remains stubbornly enduring.
Merry Christmas
Holland MI
Today, Christians will celebrate the birth of Christ. Commenters on these pages have in the past noted some tensions between the Porch’s localist...
Opening Night, Way off Broadway: Greater Tuna in Shiner, Texas
In this edition of Tales from the Kolache Belt, we celebrate community theatre. Not many rural towns of just over 2,000 souls can boast...