Just another writer

  • A visit with my younger self: 21 August 1988

    A visit with my younger self: 21 August 1988

    My stay in Montréal continues. I was still at the auberge at this point in the trip. Montréal is the city where Groucho losdt his virginity. Montréal is also the city where Don Hosek was asked for instructions on the subway. I don’t know, maybe I look helpful. Last night I met three French-speaking girls at…

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  • Catholic nerd pilgrimage: Saint James

    Catholic nerd pilgrimage: Saint James

    Today is the feast of St James the Great and while there are five currently open churches of St James, apparently, no one is exactly sure which Saint James any of them is named for, although not only is there confusion about which Saint James the churches are named for, there’s also confusion about which Saint…

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  • Today’s Saint Picture: Saint Mary Magdalene

    Today’s Saint Picture: Saint Mary Magdalene

    Mary Magdalene is one of those figures in the Bible who tradition has ended up confusing a bit, thanks to the fact that there are so many Marys in the New Testament. For a while, she was associated with both Mary the sister of Martha and with the woman caught in adultery, but has since…

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  • Today’s saint picture: Saint Bonaventure

    Today’s saint picture: Saint Bonaventure

    St Bonaventure Oratory was one of those shadow parishes in the archdiocese which was still in the list of churches that I got from the directory, but had been relegated at some point in the past (trying to determine whether a church has been relegated is its own little challenge, I’ve found with some parish…

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  • Today’s saint picture: Saint Procopius

    Today’s saint picture: Saint Procopius

    Family duties meant that I wouldn’t be able to visit Saint Procopius church today so I decided to draw Saint Procopius instead. He was an 11th century Czech Benedictine monk who was the namesake, not only of the parish on the west side of Chicago but also of the abbey attached to Benedictine University in…

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  • Catholic nerd pilgrimage: Saint Veronica

    Catholic nerd pilgrimage: Saint Veronica

    One of the strange things with the Renew My Church process is that occasionally churches end up becoming part of parishes which have a completely different name than any of the churches that are used as worship sites. And sometimes what ends up happening is that a parish formed from two or more legacy parishes…

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  • A visit with my younger self: 20 August 1988

    A visit with my younger self: 20 August 1988

    At the end of the summer of 1988, UIC where I was working, paid for me to go to the TeX Users Group conference in Montréal. This was my first time traveling alone and, as an added bonus, leaving the country as well, back in an era when it was possible to visit Canada without…

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  • Catholic nerd pilgrimage: Saint Benedict

    Catholic nerd pilgrimage: Saint Benedict

    Today is the feast of St Benedict, the founder of the monastic order which bears his name. The archdiocese has two St Benedict churches, but one has a name at least partially subsumed by the new parish name (they have multiple worship sites, so it’s still St Benedict Church but it’s St Mary Magdalene Parish).…

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  • Today’s Saint Picture: Seven Holy Brothers

    Today’s Saint Picture: Seven Holy Brothers

    I ended up choosing today’s saint, I went with the Seven Holy Brothers, the children of Saint Felicitas, not because of anything about the brothers themselves, of which little is known and much that is said is likely to be false, but because the picture that I worked from today, taken from an illustration in…

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