I write for Jesuit Media Lab on Brian Wilson’s spiritual outlook

Many thanks to Jesuit Media Lab for giving me the opportunity to remember Brian Wilson (pictured with me in 1988) with an essay: "Only God Can Make a Tree: The Cosmic Dreams of Brian Wilson."

Remembering Lou Christie

Lou Christie and I reconnected in the Facebook era on March 14, 2022.

This has been a rough week for me with deaths of great musicians I cared about and interviewed, first Brian Wilson and now Lou Christie. Lou's death hit me harder because I knew him better, and, unlike Brian, whose mind suffered considerable damage from substance abuse, trauma, and psychological illness, Lou was one-hundred-percent present when I interviewed him.

I interviewed Lou a couple of times in early 1993 for what he and his manager envisioned would become an "as told to" memoir. Sadly those plans fizzled—I'm not sure why (though my youth and inexperience as an author probably had something to do with it)—but I did write a brief press bio that his manager used as liner notes to a privately pressed CD of his hits. 

Lou was a supremely talented, terrifically gracious man who loved his fans. He was also a gifted lyricist who wrote songs that told stories—remarkable stories, sometimes with unreliable narrators. Listen to "If My Car Could Only Talk" and you'll feel for the poor soldier coming home from leave to his beloved girlfriend, only to suffer "a flash of suspicion: 'you learned a new way of kissin.'" Or "Rhapsody in the Rain," where he sings about the windshield wipers that once seemed to say "forever/forever" and now only say, "never, never."

Like so many fans, I was in love with "Lugee," and meeting him (chastely) did nothing whatsoever to remove his mystique. There are not a lot of artists of whom I can say that. Lou Christie was a star in the old Hollywood way, though his fame had come with the help of Philadelphia's "Idolmaker," Bob Marcucci. He was big; it's the screens and speakers that got small. I am grateful to have basked in the brief and brilliant glow of his lightning.

Hear me remember my times with Brian Wilson on the Waves and Words video podcast

With Brian at the Hotel Pierre in Manhattan, August 1988. Black-and-white photo taken with my camera (probably by Eugene Landy's assistant, Kevin Leslie) and hand-tinted by Nancy Leigh. A color photo from the same meeting can be seen on my LinkedIn page.

I will always be grateful to have interviewed Brian Wilson twice during my career as a rock-and-roll historian. Katie Webb recently interviewed me about Brian for her Beach Boys podcast, Waves and Words. Click here to watch it on YouTube.

I speak about Pope Leo XIV on The Lead with Jake Tapper

I had the great joy this evening of appearing on CNN's The Lead with Jake Tapper to discuss Pope Leo XIV's election. Later on, I hope to write about the Holy Father's namesake on my Substack, Matters Twomey, which chronicles my work on a biography of the great labor priest (and friend of Martin Luther King) Father Louis J. Twomey, SJ.

I explain to CNN that Church law bars lobbying conclave cardinals

Today on the CNN website, Vatican Correspondent Christopher Lamb's article on an effort by outside organizations to influence cardinals voting in the papal conclave includes a quote from me on what canon law has to say about the matter. In addition to the quote Lamb used in the piece, I told him that Pope John Paul II's apostolic constitution governing conclaves, Universi Dominici Gregis, makes it quite clear that anyone who tries to exercise such influence is automatically excommunicated. To borrow a phrase used by the Canadian Prime Minister to the US President today, the Church is not for sale.

What does St. Joseph have to do with devotion to the Sacred Heart? Watch and find out!

A screenshot from my Sacred Heart talk at St. Joseph's on Capitol Hill

Tonight I had the joy of speaking on my new book The Sacred Heart: A Love for All Times at my home parish, St. Joseph's on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. Here is a a link to a brief clip of me speaking about its patron Joseph's love for Jesus. The full-length video appears below. (Some sound problems come up about eleven minutes in, which are resolved after a short while).

I would love to speak about The Sacred Heart in your town! If you would like to bring me to speak, write me at dawneden @ gmail.com.

“Father, I think we have a pope!” Where Peter Is publishes my reflection on Pope Francis

That's me in the pink scarf, awaiting the announcement of the new pope alongside students and a professor at the Dominican House of Studies, Washington, DC, March 13, 2013. Photo by Genevieve Plaster.

At two in the afternoon of March 13, 2013, I popped into the office of a Dominican priest-professor at the Dominican House of Studies to make confession. From where I sat, facing Father’s desk, I could see the bell tower of the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception, just across Michigan Avenue. 

After Father absolved me, we chatted a bit. Suddenly, as the priest was speaking, the Basilica’s bells started pealing as though summoning the faithful for Mass. But I knew it wasn’t the time for Mass.

“Father!” I interrupted. “I think we have a pope!” 

I have never seen a Dominican run so fast as that priest dashed out the door, sputtering an excuse as he headed to watch the TV in the cloister, his white scapular aflutter. ...

Read the rest in "Francis Remembered: Bishop Richard Umbers and Dawn Eden Goldstein" at Where Peter Is.

Come hear me share the message of my new book on the Sacred Heart

I am excited to have a number of talks lined up to share the message of my new book The Sacred Heart: A Love for All Times, including events in Washington, DC; New Jersey; and West Virginia. Please visit my Upcoming Talks page for details. To bring me to speak in your town, write me at dawneden @ gmail.com.