Keywords: Portland Magazine
-
ARTS AND CULTURE
- Brian Doyle
- 22 December 2011
1 Comment
A hickory tree peed his pants. A striped bass assaulted an eggplant. A teacher cursed in Gaelic into her mic. Then my kid brother, Tommy, spontaneously stepped forward and sang that jingle. Some moments are unforgettable for reasons we can't articulate. My dad says he'll savour that one on his deathbed.
READ MORE 
-
ARTS AND CULTURE
- Brian Doyle
- 15 November 2011
4 Comments
There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job; and he was essentially a blameless dude, and unarrogant, and he was blessed with seven sons, and three daughters, which is a startling number ...
READ MORE
-
ARTS AND CULTURE
- Brian Doyle
- 05 October 2011
7 Comments
One time my brother Kevin and our father had a fistfight. Our sister herded the kids into a back room, made us kneel and pray. We could hear crashing; sometimes I still hear crashing when I pray. In his 50s Kevin, who I loved but sometimes disliked, got sick. It looks like he will die before Christmas.
READ MORE
-
AUSTRALIA
- Brian Doyle
- 09 September 2011
3 Comments
To remember the roaring courage of the people who rushed to help, or the people who used their last minutes on earth to call their families and say I love you I love you I will you forever, is to pray for them and us and even the poor silly murderers, themselves just lanky frightened children.
READ MORE
-
ARTS AND CULTURE
- Brian Doyle
- 02 August 2011
7 Comments
She lived in an alcove outside Saint Brigid's Church. She had been an artist. She drank. She married a man who slept on the avenue, not near the church; he didn't like the church, said it talked to him at night in a stern rumble. He beat her. Her name was Grace.
READ MORE
-
AUSTRALIA
America, my country, is teetering on the edge of a dark future. We cannot continue in this fashion, or we will enslave our children and grandchildren to ruinous debt; we will twist their lives in unimaginable ways, because we would not pay our bills or reduce the luxury with which we lived.
READ MORE
-
ARTS AND CULTURE
Fell into riveting conversation recently. We talked about Australia's and Oregon's history with assisted suicide, the plight of Indigenous Australians, and his views on the personal and public profiles of Cardinal George Pell. Here's how it happened.
READ MORE
-
ARTS AND CULTURE
Imagine the same man, rather than consumed by hate, alert instead to humour, to the power of mercy, apology, simplicity, conversation, common ground. Imagine what he might have done for the religion he loved, to which he instead did more damage than anyone else in history.
READ MORE
-
ARTS AND CULTURE
To attempt, to begin, is really to dream, to envision, to speculate, and then to work like a burro to implement, to create, to make real. How is it that a word like entrepreneurship, which means vast and amazing things, has become so commonplace and thin?
READ MORE
-
ARTS AND CULTURE
- Brian Doyle
- 18 April 2011
2 Comments
Not one soul on that Easter morning long ago cared a whit about theological matters. They did not even care if the thin man once died and rose again. They were there for each other, out of respect and affection, and habit and custom, and because they wanted to give their children a thing they couldn't explain.
READ MORE
-
ARTS AND CULTURE
- Brian Doyle
- 17 March 2011
2 Comments
They learn to lie, are just not into dental hygiene, skin their knees nine times a day, and do things like smear peanut butter on their abraded knees and shake flour on the dog. Still, best of all, better than every other joy and thrill, are kids.
READ MORE
-
ARTS AND CULTURE
- Brian Doyle
- 02 March 2011
19 Comments
Not until yesterday had I enjoyed a Mass during which I heard reggae music, washing machines, and an argument about basketball. What could be more beautifully human and holy than sitting over food and telling stories and insisting on miracles, in the company of a child and a dog?
READ MORE