A Reflection on the Past, and Also on Art
Exactly twenty-two years ago, in February of 2002, I was living in River Forest, Illinois, finishing up my undergraduate degree. I was living in an enormous old priory, hoping that I would be able to join the Dominicans when I was done with school in the summer (which, in fact, happened). The priory was built in the 50s, when the Dominicans would have classes of a fifty or sixty students a year. Those days were long gone, and so I was the only person living on the hall, on the far other side of the building from the actual Dominicans. Other than meals, I was basically living entirely by myself. In my evenings, after getting done with my homework, I had a ritual on weekdays. I would turn on the radio to the Chicago rock radio station Q101 and listen to the syndicated show Loveline . Loveline was a call-in show, focused on giving sex and relationship advice to teenagers and twenty-somethings. The hosts of the show were comedian Adam Corolla and Dr. Drew Pinsky, whose medical spec