Admission

I loves me some saucy.
I hate pious condemnations.
But I believe in piety.

Adventures in Jesus-Buying

From Portnoy's Complaint:

"Tacked up above the Girardi sink is a picture of Jesus Christ floating up to heaven in a pink nightgown... What kind of base and brainless schmucks are these people to worship somebody who, number one, never existed, and number two, if he did, looking as he does in that picture, was without a doubt The Pansy of Palestine. In a pageboy haircut, with a Palmolive complexion - and wearing a gown that I realize today must have come from Frederick's of Hollywood!"

There was a time when that was hard to read. Then came experience. Then came wading through an endless morass of hideous religious art, wallowing in the swamp of Catholic aesthetic impoverishment - goofy hymns, barren prayer-barn/prayer-silo churches, tacky pictures, bum-ugly statuary, etc. etc. - wondering how we went from the producers of the best art Western Civ had to offer to this, this bad joke on beauty.

I was so happy to read this on People of the Book, from B16: “Images are also a preaching of the Gospel. Artists in every age have offered the principal facts of the mystery of salvation to the contemplation and wonder of believers by presenting them in the splendour of colour and in the perfection of beauty. It is an indication of how today more than ever, in a culture of images, a sacred image can express much more than what can be said in words, and be an extremely effective and dynamic way of communicating the Gospel message.” Heads up, art-people.

So yesterday, the wife was walking third son around the block while we waited for our most excellent scallop burritos and chicken rolled tacos at El Zarape, when she passed a Jesus picture (in a glorious and enormous frame) outside an antique shop. Very subdued colors, very Jewish Jesus. Big eyes, sunk deep. There was a whiff of piety about it, but by God, at least it offered something to contemplate. She rarely expresses an interest in art, so I encouraged her to buy it. As we left, we thanked the saleslady. "Yeah," she replied. "It's a beautiful frame."

Mistakes Were Made

Meryl Zegarek of Meryl Zegarek Public Relations, bless her heart, has gone and very sweetly confused me with somebody important. It started with a review copy of Mark McGinnis' The Wisdom of the Benedictine Elders (foreword by Joan Chittister (!)). Then, yesterday, I received The C.S. Lewis Chronicles, and a tearsheet from PW reviewing Pope Benedict XVI: A Personal Portrait by H.J. Fischer. (Apparently, a copy of that last one is in the mail.) "Dear Editor," reads the note at the top of the tearsheet. "I've sent you a copy of this new book - hope you will consider a review."

The books were sent to the San Diego Reader offices, where my title is Staff Writer, and on a good day, Wine Editor. "Poor Zegarek PR," I thought. "They think I'm a books editor - ha! Our Books Editor has a best seller, a NYT Notable, two NEA grants and a Guggenheim! I'm just a punk with a first book! It's not as if I have a forum to spout off about boo..."

Oh. Right. The blog.

Tell ya what, Meryl Zegarek: I'll chalk it up to providence. Maybe I'm getting this stuff for a reason. Watch this space for a review of The C.S. Lewis Chronicles. We'll see what happens.

Father-in-Law: Aphorisms

"Here's to life and to hell with criticism." - standard toast

"There was drinking and dancing and carrying on, and that was just in the parking lot outside."

"Good children get rewards; bad children get criticism."

Just a taste.

A Burnt-Out Case

Pardon the lack of bloggery. In-laws plus grandmother-in-law have been in town, and it has been busy. Haven't been able to think of anything worth sharing, except maybe the image of carrying my youngest into the family room as he gnaws on the head of a baby doll (oh, he's gonna *love* it when the little one arrives), and finding second son affixing handcuffs to the legs of first daughter's giant stuffed dinosaur. Violence is near to the heart of children.

Kids' Songs II

You get kids, you make up songs, revisited:

I once knew a boy
Who just liked to eat
He'd walk into the kitchen
And sit at his seat

Then he'd roar roar roar
For more more more

Bring more peanuts more popcorn
More candy more cake
More eggs and potatoes
More chicken and steak

I don't know why it works to have him asking for dessert first; it just does.

Bookish

A writer-type friend, one far more accomplished than myself, suggested Eudora Welty's One Writer's Beginnings. It turned out that Daedalus had the very book at a typical, fantastically low price, so I jumped at it. A wonderful detail:

"When one of us caught measles or whooping cough and we were isolated in bed upstairs, we wrote notes to each other perhaps on the hour. Our devoted mother would pass them for us, after first running them in a hot oven to kill the germs. They came into our hands curled up and warm, sometimes scorched, like toast. Edward replied to my funny notes with his funny drawings. He was a born cartoonist."

Are you kidding me? How could you not become a writer after that? These precious missives from a beloved, held prisoner upstairs, arriving in such exotic fashion...

Mercury Radio Theater

Growing up, I spent a lot more listening to old-time radio (recordings, collected by my brother) than I ever did watching TV. Radio was one step closer to reading in terms of engaging the imagination, but it had the drama of live theater. This is a link to online recordings of just about all the old shows - Orson Welles when it was still all genius and promise. Welles as the narrator for Our Town? Oh, my, yes. And of course, the radio broadcast of War of the Worlds that shook the nation.

(Link via Thighs.)

The Unstrung Harp

This is one of the funniest things ever written (and - brilliantly - illustrated by the author) about trying to write a novel. Nobody has, as yet, to my knowledge, composed a similarly brilliant take on trying to write the damnable second memoirish thing. I've had a copy for some time, but Maud let me know it was online.

Novel Blog

My machine is still in the shop, so there probably won't be much today, but here's this to help while away the time:

Sam Torode, author of several books, book-jacket designer, artist (check his G.K. Chesterton sketch), and, most importantly, cartoonist (okay, maybe not most importantly to everyone), has gone and written a novel. He's on his third draft. He's also gone and started a blog about being a first-time novelist: Always Emerging. His website is www.torodedesign.com. Do check it out.

If I Were A Ro-Man...

...I'd no doubt be able to make some sort of augery out of this...

There's a short tree I can see from my window, and every day, it's crammed full of enormous crows. They look like the tree's black fruit. But ever since the Cooper's Hawks returned (as they do every summer) to the neighbor's ash tree, one of them has taken to daily attack runs on the crows in the tree. The hawk flies straight into the branches, sending crows scattering everywhere. But the hawk never stays to fight with the crows, and the crows return after the hawk's attack. Nothing seems to be accomplished. And every day, another dive, another scattering.

Terry and Me Redux

Over at the Old Hag's last week, I blogged about the Teachout Cultural Concurrence Index, in which readers of the man's fantabulous blog were invited to compare their own x or y? choices with Teachout's. One that struck me, and that I didn't mention before, was this:

43. Johnny Mercer or Cole Porter?

Had I read that before my 32nd birthday (back in June), I would have had to disagree (Teachout prefers Mercer). Cole Porter was, um, the top, the Louvre Museum, the top, the Coliseum. I will never forget seeing Kiss Me Kate at the Hangar Theater in Ithaca - too darn hot, indeed. That was the life for me, yessir.

But thanks to Teachout, I bought Nancy Lamott's Live at Tavern on the Green, and liked it so much that I told friends about it. They, in turn, bought me this collection of Lamott performing Mercer. When I read that Index entry, I started thinking.

Nobody, but nobody, says me, will ever be as clever as Porter, and I likes me some clever in my songs. But I found myself comparing So In Love, one of my very favorite Porter songs, with Mercer's Come Rain or Come Shine. Here are the lyrics:

So In Love

Strange dear, but true dear,
When I'm close to you, dear,
The stars fill the sky,
So in love with you am I.
Even without you,
My arms fold about you,
You know darling why,
So in love with you am I.
In love with the night mysterious,
The night when you first were there,
In love with my joy delirious,
When I knew that you could care,
So taunt me, and hurt me,
Deceive me, desert me,
I'm yours, till I die.....
So in love.... So in love....
So in love with you, my love... am I....

Come Rain or Come Shine

I'm gonna love you, like nobody's loved you
Come rain or come shine
High as a mountain and deep as a river
Come rain or come shine
I guess when you met me
It was just one of those things
But don't ever bet me
Cause I'm gonna be true if you let me
You're gonna love me, like nobody's loved me
Rain or shine
Happy together, unhappy together
And won't it be fine
Days may be cloudy or sunny
We're in or we're out of the money
I'm with you always
I'm with you rain or shine
You're gonna love me, like nobody's loved me
Come rain or come shine
Happy together, unhappy together
And won't it be fine
Days may be cloudy or sunny
We're in or we're out of the money
But I'm with you always
I'm with you, I'm with you rain or shine
I'm with you, I'm with you rain or shine

Both talk about love 'til death - I'm yours 'til I die vs. I'm with you always. But what a difference otherwise. What gets me in the Mercer song is that one line:

Happy together, unhappy together, and won't it be fine?

Suddenly, love has left the realm of happiness-inducing experience (or uncurable sickness - deceive me/desert me/I'm yours 'til I die...) and entered the realm of willed fidelity - but we haven't left the confines of a proper pop song. Nor have we left behind the capricious character of romantic love, with all its joys and sorrows (Mercer certainly isn't trying to paint love as drudgery, and if you could hear Lamott singing it, you'd see/hear this even more clearly). Amazing. "Days may be cloudy or sunny/we're in or we're out of the money" - these are sung wedding vows.

Modern pop is forever talking about things lasting forever, but it's a house built on sand - the feeling is what must endure, and passion is too slippery a creature for that, too willowy a wisp. Porter presages this with "In love with my joy delirious" - hooked on a feeling, indeed.

I'm with Teachout.

Apologia

Terribly sorry for the radio silence. The OK computer is not OK, and is in the shop. (They told me OS X was practically glitch-free. They lied. Has anybody made a joke about the audio-similarity of UNIX and eunuchs? I'm grumpy.) This message is being posted by my brother, who may or may not consent to fill in a bit. I haven't asked him yet. Actually, since he's posting this, I just did. Either way, I'll get back to y'all as soon as my titanium-encased darling is up and running again.

[Poster's note: Happy to help fill the silence. After all, failure to generate new content incessantly is the kiss of death for any website. Being an addict myself, I know how quick I am to write off any site that does not offer something brand new for my enjoyment every time I hit my Refresh button. That being said, I can't post today...too busy...even to write this...let alone re-work it to make it funnier...ML]

Hello again.

I just posted a ridiculously long goodbye over at Old Hag. Some of you might be interested. Back next week.

Poking my head back through the door...

...I had enlisted JOB to guest-blog, but he seems to be having technical difficulties, and I'm not much for helping when it comes to technical difficulties. Hope we can get it sorted.

Thought I'd pop back here and mention that there's a fun thread on hand-holding and defending the faith and that sort of thing over at Evil Traditionalist.

Funny Can Be Found Elsewhere...

...but then, what else is new?

As for me, I'll be guest-blogging this week over at The Old Hag's place. It looks to be a nightmarish setback for Judeo-Christian relations. Toodles!

(Apologies to T-Muffle for ripping off the post title.)

I Confess...

...I'm excited about this. Does that make me a bad person?

From the preview, it doesn't look like it's going to be an utterly ambiguous, totally wrenching exploration of the collision of faith and psychology, the Church and the law, natural and supernatural man. Pity. Still, with Tom Wilkinson, Laura Linney, and Campbell Scott, it looks to be something more than straight horror.

(via Open Book)

Life Imitates Porn

I've heard about this before, but this is the first I've seen it in print... (gentle readers may wish to skip this one, it's a bit sexually graphic):

From Chuck Shepherd's News of the Weird:

"In March, The Australian newspaper identified an upswing in the business of some beauticians who have responded to their customers' desires to lighten the skin around their anuses. A beautician in Sydney said she had long been helping sex workers for that condition but that lately the clients are civilians trying to please boyfriends who are taken by how 'clean and light' porno actresses seem. Said another beautician of the ingredient she uses, 'I explain that it will give them eczema and [other problems], but they want it anyway.'"

A friend of mine doesn't buy lingerie for his wife because he feels sheepish about holding up some bit of lace nothing and saying, "Will you wear this for me?" How quaint. Boyfriends (let alone husbands) today have no trouble saying, "Will you bleach/shave/augment this for me?" 'Cause, you know, that's where the standard for physical beauty comes from - "porno actresses."

But then again, you have to sympathize with these poor boyfriends, don't you? They arrive at the anus, only to find it doesn't look like an orifice intended by nature to receive them. Steps must be taken, "eczema and [other problems]" be damned.

Tortured Catholic Artist

Go to blockbuster, rent In the Realms of the Unreal.

Them Duke Boys

So they're finally making the Dukes of Hazzard into a movie. A bunch of years back, I wrote TV listings for the Reader, and in commenting on the Dukes, I suggested the following dream cast. Remember, this was years ago. Some folks are just too long in the tooth now. Some have passed on.

Luke and Bo: Val Kilmer and Tom Cruise
Roscoe and Enos: Chevy Chase and Dan Ackroyd
Daisy: Pamela Anderson
Uncle Jesse: Sean Connery
Boss Hogg: Marlon Brando

I called my buddy in Hollywood about the idea, and he reminded me that with that cast, you'd be spending about $100 million just for talent, before you started day one of filming or assembled your crew. But he did chuckle over Jesse and Hogg. Just imagine Connery doin' Southern... "Now, them Duke boys were in a pickle..."

Kiddie Songs

You get kids, you start making up songs. This one's a hit at Casa Lickona:

Oh, the crocodile's
Got a crooked smile
And about two million teeth
He's got a million teeth up top
And a million teeth beneath

When he starts to yawn
Gonna get me gone
Don't wanna end up inside
Gonna stop my fun and start to run
'Cause his yawn is two miles wide

Oh, honey child
Best beware of the crocodile
Oh, honey child
Best beware of the crocodile

Were I a more sophisticated blogger, there would be a sound file attached somehow. As it is, you'll just have to make up a melody.

Whither Doonesbury?

Yes, it's Wednesday, and I'm blogging about Sunday's Doonesbury, probably long after everybody else has blogged about it. But dayum: "Isn't blogging basically for angry, semi-employed losers who are too untalented or too lazy to get real jobs in journalism?" Is the man serious? Somebody call Terry Teachout - he's a pretty good point man for refuting this sort of nonsense. After all, Terry has a day job as a journalist, and he still thinks blogging is the future, at least in some departments of the media.

Honestly, this doesn't seem like Doonesbury's style. It's too establishment. It's hard not to speculate...

***

You wanted to see me, Mr. Editor?

Sit down, Garry.

What's up?

Garry, we couldn't stop you from taking Doonesbury online, posting it on Slate, and distributing it free through email. But the Internet is killing the newspapers, Garry. Especially the blogs. Garry, the newspapers carry your comic. They pay for your comic. If the newspapers go...

So what am I supposed to do about it?

Garry, you know from hip. If you go after the bloggers, call 'em names, erode their cred, maybe people will listen. Maybe they'll come back to us. Garry, we're fighting for our lives here.

I'm on it.

***
Now, of course, that's just silly. Right?

I Married A Genius

We started off calling them Modified Cosmos, our house version of the Cosmopolitan:
shot of vodka (we use Monopolova, a fine potato vodka that sells for $9.99 at Trader Joe's)
juice of one orange (the advantage of having one's own citrus)
splash of pure, unsweetened cranberry juice (for that pure cranberry bite)
pinch of sugar
combine ingredients in shaker over ice, shake and strain into martini glass. Finish with one-eighth of a lime, squeezed and dropped in. That orangey-red and that limey-green make for a striking combination.
Deirdre came up with the recipe. I adore it. I usually draw the line at Manhattans and Martinis in terms of fussiness, but these are special (yes, I'm drinking one now). Hence, the title of this post.
After a brief consideration of the extent of the modifications and the place where we actually lived, we felt compelled to change the name. It's no longer a Modified Cosmo, dressed down for a visit to the Land of Backyards.
It's a Suburban.

The Recycled Sting

The front page of Sunday's San Diego Union Tribune, above the fold photo: Sting, arms stretched wide, singing his heart out at Live8. The caption read something like this: "Sting sent a pointed message to world leaders when he sang, 'Every Breath You Take.'" Get it, world leaders? "Every breath you take, every move you make, every claim you stake, I'll be watching you." Oooh, Sting's watching. Chills.

I wouldn't have bothered to comment, except I used to be a big big big fan. Especially of The Police. That photo sprang (slunk, crawled, skulked) to mind today only because I heard Next To You on the radio. Rockin' early Police. That led me to remembering the Sting parody-essay in The Onion, "Hey, I Used To Be Pretty Cool," in which Sting's in a record store and he hears some oddly familiar, really cool music playing. It's only after he asks the clerk that he realizes it's his own stuff, from his glorious, angry youth.

Thing is, I stuck with Sting past his early bloom. There was a lot of white space on the cover of his double-LP Nothing Liike The Sun, and at the college radio station where I (very rarely) filled in, a lively written debate erupted in the white space. The first salvo: Sting: A Really Deep Guy. I was on the side of the defenders. Nothing Like The Sun teetered on being precious, but there was something special going on. "Fragile" - great song. He should have sung that for Live8 (maybe he did).

But "Every Breath You Take"? Sure, it was his biggest hit. But it's a song about twisted, obsessive love - not social conscience. Reminds me of when Elton John repackaged "Candle in the Wind" for Princess Diana. Somebody, I think it was Tom Tomorrow, savaged him for that, suggesting a rewrite for the guy who played Uncle Jesse on The Dukes of Hazzard:

Goodbye, Uncle Jess
Though "Enos" never did as well,
The Dukes of Hazzard ran for six years
And that was pretty swell.

I hope the headline was wrong. I hope he was just singing an old favorite, not sending "a pointed message."

It's Reagan's Fault!

...that was the standard go to headline for the stressed-out editor in the old Bloom County (diehard Berke Breathed fans have to shake their heads over the way he's shamelessly plundering his old material for jokes in his new Sunday strip). Milo Bloom would read a list of horrors, then ask the boss for a headline...

... the poor man would tremble, then burst out...

"IT'S REAGAN'S FAULT!"

Comic gold. But when my local DJ tells me that during today's all-eighties lunch hour, there's going to be a theme of patriotic music, and then starts up Born in the USA and says that it's pretty much the grandaddy of them all, I have to shake my head and wonder. Didn't Reagan's second campaign co-opt the song, thus signaling to a generation of youngsters that it was a patriotic anthem (just listen to those peppy synth licks)? The lyrics, Mr. DJ:

Born down in a dead man's town
The first kick I took was when I hit the ground
You end up like a dog that's been beat too much
'Til you spend half your life just covering up

[chorus:]
Born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.

I got in a little hometown jam
And so they put a rifle in my hands
Sent me off to Vietnam
To go and kill the yellow man

[chorus]

Come back home to the refinery
Hiring man says "Son if it was up to me"
I go down to see the V.A. man
He said "Son don't you understand"

[chorus]

I had a buddy at Khe Sahn
Fighting off the Viet Cong
They're still there, he's all gone
He had a little girl in Saigon
I got a picture of him in her arms

Down in the shadow of the penitentiary
Out by the gas fires of the refinery
I'm ten years down the road
Nowhere to run, ain't got nowhere to go

I'm a long gone Daddy in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
I'm a cool rocking Daddy in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.

Of course, I checked back to the station ten minutes later and heard a few lines from Kenny Loggins' Highway to the Danger Zone, a hit song from Top Gun. Sigh.

Happy Fourth, all! Think I'm gonna teach my kids the Battle Hymn of the Republic... Hoo!

Hey. Who put the nihilism in my blockbuster?

Saw War of the Worlds last night. So tell me, little girl, aren't you grateful that Daddy committed murder to make sure you stayed safe? What a guy.

Let's Go to the Movies!

...and see a documentary about a victim of priestly sexual abuse.

I'm curious. Looks like it's already aired on HBO, and is opening in NY and SF this weekend. If anybody out there's seen it, I'd love to hear thoughts.

Book Club

Well, now, this might actually prove worthwhile..

A regular reader has begun reading O'Connor - started with The Geranium and A Good Man Is Hard To Find (the story, not the whole collection). Here's his initial reaction, taken from the comments of a previous post:

"I like The Geranium a lot - I liked the contrast between the old man's relationship with Rabie and his attitudes with the neighbor next door.

AGM is a bit harder. I think I need to reread it. I thought it was a well told story, I just didn't really like it all that much on the first go. I didn't see the point in it. I think, when I reread it, I'm going to pay more attention to the men characters. On the first pass, I was so engrossed with the grandmother that I pretty much missed thinking about anything else. I really didn't understand what all transpired there right at the end - what was it that she was seeing (or was it just some kind of breakdown?), and what spooked him so much to do that?"

I'll toss in my two cents in a bit - for now, I'll just say that there's a reason for being so engrossed in the grandmother. But I'd love to see what everybody else has to say. Followup bonus question: What about this story would lead a body to think of O'Connor as a Catholic writer? Anyone? Anyone?

UPDATE: JOB has fired the first volley in the comments section of the Yesterday's Obituaries post...