Autonomia

2 weeks ago | scottholleran.substack.com | Scott Holleran

After attending my dearest friend’s 90th birthday party, I learned that screenwriter and director Robert Benton died on Mother’s Day at the age of 92. Today’s news is so shallow, flimsy, compartmentalized and devoid of what matters that news of his death had escaped my notice. This obituary skims the surface. I’ll write with greater clarity and purpose in the future. I met, knew and worked with Robert Benton, who became an admirer of my fiction writing.

3 weeks ago | scottholleran.substack.com | Scott Holleran

Grief and Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief Through the Five Stages of Loss, (2005, Scribner) by David Kessler and death and dying pioneer Elisabeth Kübler-Ross—the co-author’s last book before she died—packs power and insight into a cogent book. Just because this is not easy reading, and I write this as one in grief who grieves for a lost loved one, doesn’t mean it’s not essential to read. The book is packed with wisdom.

4 weeks ago | scottholleran.substack.com | Scott Holleran

The first American pope was elected this week by cardinals at the Vatican in Rome. Chicago priest Robert Prevost also became the world’s first pope born in Chicago. Pope Leo the 14th is 69 years old. Having recently written a short story (“Sesame Flanagan”) which debuted in Classic Chicago magazine in which the title character appeals to the pope for justice—and is ex-communicated—I appreciate the irony.

1 month ago | scottholleran.substack.com | Scott Holleran

The Amateur starring Rami Malek entertains. Watch for characterization and theme, not plot. As a mystery or thriller, the two-hour movie is good. But it’s Malek’s lead character, who goes rogue with reason after his wife’s murdered in a murky act of terrorism, that absorbs attention.

2 months ago | scottholleran.substack.com | Scott Holleran

The article’s title reflects today’s choice in medicine. Though ObamaCare and self-care are not perfect terms, they both denote facts and concepts mixed and smashed into a single makeshift term. The origins of the word care are particularly relevant—the word care was fitted with a facade in the mid-Sixties at the start of America’s steep drop downward—commencing with the government’s ghoulish redistribution scheme dubbed Medicare, which slowly cripples the young to proliferate the old.