Jim Mayzik SJ Blog

Two people recount their first meeting on the New York City subway.

So attentive
to her paws
she seems
leaning over
licking
tirelessly
but thinking
not about what dirt
has climbed under her claws...

“Come on, try it.  You’ll love it,” a friend encouraged me, holding out a fig in her hand.  I resisted. “No thank you,” I said. “I hate Fig Newtons, and I’ll always hate Fig Newtons, and if I hate them I’ll definitely hate that !” I was pretty stubborn, and as she kept urging me, I kept saying no, no, no, no, noooooo...

A short dance film featuring an all-female duet.

Reason number one it can't work: his name is Bill...

I celebrated a wonderful wedding Saturday in Connecticut.  Unlike many weddings these days, it was in a church. For Catholics, that was a given in years past, but not so much anymore.  In the past few years there have been very few weddings celebrated here at this central Manhattan church. Many instead are ‘destination weddings’ in a beautiful natural setting with a beach or mountain background, often officiated by friend who has obtained marrying powers on an internet site.  

Two distinctly disparate characters come together over a broken down Volkswagen Beetle in this sweet, amusing tale of love, loss and… car trouble.

he local newspaper reports
a Houston housewife has found
a three foot long snake indigenous
to California in her electric toaster.

Last night I was invited with the Fr Austin (the Pastor) by a parishioner and her two boys to a Billy Joel concert in Madison Square Garden.

My advice to those of you
just starting out: don't expect too much,
or to make a big splash...

When I meet a family—children of any age, accompanied by their parents—I like to ask the parents a crucial question: “So tell me, Maria, which one of these kids do you love the most?”  Or, “Joe, really…who is your favorite child?  Come on, you can be honest with us!”  And Sarah or Bobby or Julie or Tom immediately look at their parents’ faces, expecting the answer they have heard so many times:

“Why I love them all the same, all of them equally, of course”...

A young man is bending
Over an old man
Lying on a street corner
At the busiest intersection
Of the city...

On Friday the Cassini spacecraft that circled Saturn and its moons for the last 13 years to examine and investigate its mysteries was deliberately crashed into the atmosphere of the planet, burning itself out of existence forever. The New York Times’ online edition published a series of photographs taken by Cassini’s cameras during its lifetime, and they are extraordinary. The photos appear to be a graphic artist’s imaginative representation of the ringed planet, and not the real thing!

Louis, a retired man, resists the overprotection of his daughter Nina to keep his independence.

First forget what time it is
for an hour
do it regularly every day...

I woke up early this morning, and left the rectory around 4:30am to walk around the still-sleeping city.  I passed empty bars and restaurants, chairs upturned over tables, floors already swept from yesterday’s business. Under sidewalk scaffolds I witnessed numerous cardboard habitats of homeless men and women, sleeping soundly despite the noise of the occasional truck barreling down the avenues. The lights of the Empire State building were extinguished, save for a small ring of orange floods at the crown. Doormen in fancy pre-war buildings sat behind concierge counters waiting out the final hours of the night. 

 All this week I’ve been seeing lots of posts on Facebook about people’s children beginning the new school year, whether it be grade school, high school or college.

 I’ve just finished 25 years of teaching filmmaking at Fairfield University in Connecticut. The Facebook posts reminded me of the first day of class, a bunch of new students staring at me as I introduced myself and what I hoped would be a wonderful adventure of learning about film, and maybe more of learning about themselves. 

In the wake of Katrina, New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward was one of the few neighborhoods where relief came slowly. Less than 25% of its pre-Katrina population has returned and many houses have been abandoned or mowed down. As a result, the USDA officially listed the neighborhood as a “food desert”, defined as urban areas without access to affordable food in a five-mile radius.

Burnell Cotlon decided he’d open up his own shops and restore the community one small business at a time. He learned carpentry and electrical work through YouTube videos so that he could build all his operations on a budget. To date, he’s opened a grocery store, a market, a barbershop, and a laundromat all in an effort to centralize and revitalize pride for the Ward.

I was in a restaurant the other day, waiting to pick up an order for some dinner, and I tried to start up a conversation with the waiter. He reluctantly responded to my question about working in the restaurant. He was young—a year out of college---and he told me that he had moved to New York from Ohio to become an actor. 

An amazing view of the universe of which we are a part.  The Atacama desert is home to the darkest and cleanest skies in the world. A view to the nightsky rewards with uncountable numbers of stars and fantastic nebulas in one of the most quiet a empty places on earth. Not a single noise distracts from the grand show the nightsky has to offer.