There is a highly-respected Baylor Religion and English professor who I also happened to attend church with back in my Waco days. He was known amongst our circle of friends as the "Crusty Ole Curmudgeon" for his sour disposition and staunchly-held perspectives on many issues. One of those subjects happened to be Roman Catholicism, of which he was not a member. However, he revered the tradition and considered it the true church. When asked why he wasn't a Catholic himself he said he was better served a signpost, pointing others towards the church.

For most of my life, I never saw any reason for Christians to associate with a denomination that appeared so impersonal and dogmatic. Now, I think they have a leader that can be respected; one with a sense of humor, an understanding of his own humanness, and a true sensitivity towards mankind. Pope Francis is the signpost that will point many towards the church and, perhaps, back to the church. Of course, even Catholicism is the finger pointing at the moon.

This list is making the rounds - the result of a small poll of readers tabulating the Top 20 Books that People Pretend to Have Read. Social stigmas are a powerful force but I don't see why anyone would see me as a literary luddite if I had told them that I never finished The Harry Potter series. Actually, I'm quite proud of this fact. Here's an autobiographical take on this list:

1. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Long a favorite novel of the Mrs.’ (at least, the BBC Miniseries is). I first read it in 2004 on a trip down to Austin. Or was it Austen?

2. Ulysses by James Joyce

Really just a punch line. I know it’s hailed as the holy grail of books and all but I will rely on smarter people that I who have quit on it in disgust. There are entire books written about how to read it and no less than a thousand blog posts, I’m sure. This one and this one are a couple that I liked.

3. Moby-Dick by Herman Melville

Haven’t read it and I don’t know anyone who has. If I do happen to know someone who has, they certainly never recommended it to me.

4. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

I once had an acquaintance who was reading this on a road trip. I understand it features a cast of a thousand characters and nothing quite that memorable happens. No thanks.

5. The Bible

Truly, I am half-way through reading the Bible for the first time in my life (35 years) and I will be done before Christmas. Mark this under “reading schedule” and “slow-and-steady-wins-the-race.” I have found a great deal of Kings I & II pretty fascinating (lots of senseless violence and beheadings). Also, the time of Judges sounds like a tenuous and scary period to be an Israelite (basic lawlessness).

6. 1984 by George Orwell

Never read 1984 but I did read Animal Farm recently and I admire Orwell as a social critic. His take on governmental oversight seem to grow more and more prescient. Also, Christopher Hitchens, was a massive Orwell fan and any friend of Hitchen's is a friend of mine.

7. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

2001 - I was living with my parents right after graduation from Baylor. I knew that Peter Jackson was filming the first movie (Fellowship) which was opening over Christmas 2001, so I didn’t have a whole lot of time. I read The Hobbit first and then the Rings trilogy over the summer and fall.

8. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

High School - like most folks in Texas. Yes, I actually read it and, then, re-read in college for fun. I used to say it was my favorite book for no particular reason other than it sounded good. I never saw the Baz Luhrmann movie.

9. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Never read it. I wouldn't rule it out in my lifetime.

10. Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

Read this one in ’02 or ’03. It didn’t motivate me to kill anyone so there’s that.

11. Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace

It's on my night stand right now. I’m about 50 pages in and I can see why some people have put it down. A real slow burn and a lot going on. I’m guessing (hoping?) the pay-off is good. I LOVE this guy’s non-fiction writing. DFW was one of our more brilliant minds. He's a guy that I would love to know what his writing process was. Sometimes I imagine that he just wrote everything out in one draft and submitted it to his editor without a single re-write. I like to think he was that much of a virtuoso.

12. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

(Was supposed to read it in) High School. Never did. Mostly read the Cliff’s Notes. Faked my way through the test.

13. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Read it on a trip to Thailand in 2004. Really, really good. I still need to see the classic movie. I also read “In Cold Blood” as a companion piece right after.

14. Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James

Cultural phenomenon. No intention of ever reading it.

15. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Again, no intention of every reading this one. I might check out the recent film iteration starring Mia Wasikowska.

16. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Great intentions of reading this someday. It’s in our library. I think the Mrs. had to read it at Baylor.

17. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

Another High School read for me. Honors English, senior year. Not sure what the fascination is with the Bronte sisters is but I could’ve skipped it if given the choice.

18. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

High School - sophomore year. I might also be confusing this with Tale of Two Cities. Either way, I’m not returning.

19. Harry Potter (series) by J.K. Rowling

I began this series when they first debuted. I trailed a few books behind and finally gave up after the fourth one as they began turning into bloated tomes. Ultimately, I will never consider this true literature (children’s lit maybe?). More like a tribute to the ego of someone in love with the world she created. Tolkien might be accused of the same thing. But, then, he created his own fucking language.

20. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

High School. Best of times, worst of times and all that.

A deeply affecting documentary about late term abortions is coming. It seems to me that people who live in a world where everything is black and white might as well be living alone in cave. Obvious point, here: late term abortions are rarely about "I don't want this baby anymore." What an awful decision a human has to make in these cases.

And, to think that the death threats against these doctors are probably carried out by extremist Christianists. Jesus cries over your blood thirst.

The most disturbing movie I have ever seen, a ghost that haunted me since the night I saw it, was David Lynch’s The Elephant Man. Even writing about it won’t provide the mind-clearing catharsis that I so desperately need to erase the experience of seeing it as a young boy. In the 1980s, just before videotape rental houses proliferated, movies that you missed seeing in the theater would be re-broadcast on network TV—NBC, ABC or CBS.  This is also how I first encountered paragons of cinema like the Sound of Music, the Wizard of Oz, and Police Academy. Here's a trailer for an ABC Sunday Night Movie featuring Star Trek II: the Wrath of Khan (another movie that frightened me. Think: worms in ears).

One evening, my Dad, brother and I watched The Elephant Man, Lynch’s 1980 Oscar-nominated picture. Set in Victoria-era England, a surgeon rescues a man with hideous and debilitating tumors all over his body who last lived as life being paraded around “freak shows.”

Despite its deeper tale about inner beauty and sensitivity to be found in all of God’s creatures, the Academy Award-winning make-up job on John Hurt that transformed him into Merrick had me watching nearly the entire movie through my fingers. If ever there was a time when I wasn’t convinced by the line: “it’s only a movie,” it was then. Of course, Lynch ramped up the tension of not seeing the Elephant Man's full countenance for at least a half hour into the film. The reveal was appropriately devastating. As I would find out later, David Lynch has a way of keeping you off balance so that the "scary" moments are beyond effective.

Not that he intended this to be a scary film but he does want you to be horrified by the shear grotesqueness of TEM's physical features and he probably wasn't thinking what effect this might have on the psyche of an 9 or 10 year-old. Nothing since then has scared me more than those images; Lynch's Merrick was my evil clown, my monster under the bed. Midnight trips down the hall to the bathroom turned into terrorizing affairs and I imagined the Elephant Man behind me in his bulky, burlap mask, clawing at me with his [shudder] deformed hand.  As an adult, it seems absurd to consider that the source of my primal fears were the sight of an historical figure. I guess there might be weirder ones out there.

My chief discovery from this experience was the wonders of David Lynch, whose work I would continue to get familiar with over the next years 25 years. He would become one of my favorite artists of all time. More to come…

Like many things I read, I cannot remember where I first heard about this author. The buzz on Hobbs is that he is a absurdly young, crack-shot savant who wrote a destined-to-be-bestseller straight out of college. My expectations were high yet cautious. Unfortunately, the payoff was something akin to a James Patterson paperback. Okay, maybe not that bad. To be fair, I’ve never actually read a Patterson thriller. But, then, I’ve never bought a book at the airport either.

Synopsis: Bank robbery gone wrong. A “fixer” type, called Ghostman, is sent in by the crime boss behind it to clean things up. Another crime boss gets involved. High jinx ensue.

Commentary: I was originally drawn to this book because, in most cases, it takes a really fascinating backstory on the author to get me to read fiction. In this case: brilliant college student pens a griping thriller. Sky’s the limit and all that. Plus, I’m jealous of his skills.

Despite his very-fake name, Roger Hobbs, he put together a tightly spun yarn about the aftermath of a heist-gone-wrong. The pace is “page-turning” and chapters are episodic and short. The book flashes back occasionally to the protagonist’s early days as a thief and “ghost man”-in training. A “ghost” is someone who alters their appearance and persona in extreme ways to get out of tight spots; essentially running around as alter egos. The prose is serviceable but descriptions skirt the edge of high school creative writing class level. Hobbs tries to shock us with gritty, visceral details and dazzle with an insider’s view of criminal activity. But, mostly, it feels like he’s trying to impress us with his dark anti-hero by making him interesting rather than make us feel something about him. I mean, the Ghostman spends a great deal of the book as fake characters. It’s not like Lisbeth Salander, where we are painted a revealing picture of the most fascinating fictional underworld geniuses in so much detail and thorough backstory. I really wanted this Ghostman to be a bad-ass but, he was so undeveloped, I only saw smoke and mirrors.

Finally, (and, I know this is trivial) I was off-put by his naming one of the mob boss characters “the Wolf.” I immediately thought of another “fixer” character in fiction lore, that of Harvey Keitel's Winston "the Wolf" Wolfe from Pulp Fiction. Whether it was unintentional or not, I found it a little lazy. Keep going, Hobbs. You’re a good writer but I have a feeling your best work is ahead of you.

Here's a cutting take on the Abortion issue that's relevant again (in Texas, at least). This comes from a reader of Andrew Sullivan's blog The Dish. It gets to the heart of what I find most appalling about the current Pro-life movement: