Sean O’Reilly

I knew this was not going to be a normal day at church when I encountered a tall transvestite in the bathroom. He was preening over the sinkthe sink that I wanted to use. What should I do?

A fifty-something former pioneering teenage skateboarder tries out snowboarding, and discovers his muscles have a long memory.

He travels back to 1950s Manhattan through the magic of a Broadway show.

The City of Nashville first built the Parthenon to house the international art exhibition for the 1897 Centennial Exposition. Nashville's pavilion was constructed of brick, wooden lathe and plaster and was intended to reflect the city's reputation as the "Athens of the South." Following the Exposition and due to popular demand, the city left the temporary structure standing in Centennial Park. (A similar event also occurred in San Francisco with the Palace of Fine Arts, which likewise was never intended to be a permanent structure.) However, by 1921 the building was crumbling to such a degree that the Park Board authorized reconstruction with more lasting materials. The commitment was made to completely replicate the original structure and by May 1931, the Parthenon was reopened to the public, attracting thousands of visitors from the United States and abroad. This version of the Parthenon remained unchanged until 1987 when a radical renovation was undertaken to completely update the facilities and add a critical missing element.

The plaza in front of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome imposes itself on the imagination. It is humbling to stand at the religious center of 2,000 years of creative and passionate spiritual endeavor. Here in the presence of the unthinkable successor to the mighty Roman Empire, the mind tends to implode, to shift into reverie and things besides mere thoughts enter the heart.