Dept. of Rejected New Yorker Cartoons

This one is mostly First Son's; I just gave it a lil' tweak:

Two office employees standing by the water cooler, watching as a janitor walks past pushing a wheelbarrow full of suggestion boxes.

Caption: "I guess the boss finally made a suggestion."

Poetry Corner

The Polygamist Speaks In His Own Defense

The plural of mouse is mice
The plural of spouse is spice.

Bookmark

A friend passed this along. It's taken from Beggars for Heaven, a bio of the Maritains. Someone was scandalized by a writer's portrayal of Joan of Arc. Jacques Maritain responded in the writer's defense:

..."[the critic] has no idea of the spiritual war that is being waged beneath the external signs of artistic agitation. There are some Catholics laboring on frontiers that do not appear on his geographical maps; they only ask their brothers not to shoot them in the back."

Jar Jar's Mistake...

...is just one of the exciting titles in the Jedi Readers Step 1 series! Scenes from the Star Wars movies, lovingly illustrated and re-presented as helpful lessons for young readers! In this delightful book, Jar Jar takes a frog hanging from a market stall and begins to slurp it down, only to have the shop owner assault him for stealing! Jar Jar loses the frog, and it lands in Sebulba's soup. What a mess! Sebulba is angry, and prepares to punish Jar Jar. Just then, Jar Jar's friend Anakin steps in and reminds Sebulba that "'Jar Jar is a friend of the Hutts.' The Hutts are bigger and meaner than Sebulba. Now Sebulba is afraid!" What an excellent lesson. When dealing with bullies, it helps to have a bigger bully on your side. After learning a lesson like this, kids are better prepared for prison life!

Of course, Anakin has some advice for our friend: "Be less afraid. Bullies pick on those who are afraid." And since Jar Jar has the Hutts on his side, he needn't be afraid any more! Hooray for the Hutts! (Do they have a title on Jabba's fondness for bloodsport and metal bikinis?)

(Nota Bene: The Wife is not to be criticized for her library book selections. She's working on the fly, and she brings home a remarkable number of winners. She grabbed this one because the kids do love them some Jar Jar Star Wars hijinks...)

If I Had One Wish...

...I think I'd wish for the Christian story to be true - just to make sure...

The Lappy

So the laptop, the one I bought (albeit used) so that I could run OSX, so that I could have a pretty lil' website and run Blogger and develop my platform for my soon-to-be breakout bestselling little book? Yeah...there's duct tape holding the power cord together. A black binder clip is keeping the screen casing from splitting at the seam. One of the hinges rattles with unnerving freedom from any apparent mooring. Thanks to a very funny comment from The Wife, I now have to try very, very hard not to see this as a metaphor for the ol' literary career...

The Wife Has a New Favorite Thing...

After her fifth time watching this, she said, "I want to be Stephen Colbert's friend."

Today in Porn, Humanizing Edition

Rod Dreher recalls an encounter or two with Al Goldstein:

"I had to look at copies of Screw for research, and it was probably the most repulsive, degrading thing I've ever seen. It was utterly despicable, and without the least redeeming merit. Yet I was genuinely startled by how much I pitied Goldstein -- I mean, really pitied him, not in a sneering, condescending way. I don't think I've ever met anyone who was such a black hole of raw emotional need. Nor have I ever met anyone who so plainly despised himself -- or in whom self-loathing manifested itself so strangely. When he talked about his son, Jordan (that he would give his son that kind of name tells us a lot), doing well at Georgetown, he got tears in his eyes. He was, as I recall, estranged from his son at the time, and if memory serves, felt acutely that his boy was ashamed of his old man. And Goldstein thought the boy should be ashamed of him ... and yet he loved that kid ferociously. What a sad, complicated man."

Bookmark

"And then while the hooded-eyed ex-pimp checks the till against receipts, hunched at his table and oblivious to all else, the black scrubbers and sweepers and stackers move about their tasks, pausing often, wooden handles held in work-hardened hands, to watch these young men play purely for each other, laughing joyously between solos, at teh ends of numbers, shaking their heads in admiration at some high flight - Armstrong's pyrotechnic brilliance balanced by Bix's melodic mellowness - oblivious to the hood in the corner making the count, to the whole hooded empire of which this is a part, of which they themselves are interchangeable, easily disposable parts."

- from 1929: A Novel of the Jazz Age by Frederick Turner

Onan Goes Onscreen

And no, we're not discussing Borat...

Barb liked Little Children a lot more than some people:

"Little Children goes way beyond In the Bedroom in looking at sin as the native human disease that afflicts us all in varying degrees. In the film, sin manifests itself as immaturity and all the action in the film proceeds out of the mainly adult characters acting like, well, little children, who play with their seven deadly toys, like toddlers with a set of colorful plastic keys. Some of the adult children in the movie play with more harmful, scandalous toys than others, but the basic point of view here is the omniscient which watches all of the silliness with the same compassion."

"Some people" in that earlier sentence being my man here at the day job, for whom the "omniscient" is merely "smarty-pants." But while Barb worries about the rather explciit sex onscreen, Duncan gets charmingly particular:

"To have three separate male characters masturbate on screen on three separate occasions must set some sort of record."

Hoo! (Yes, I'll be seeing this one anyway. And averting my eyes for the coupling.)

A lil' something something for the crunchies...

Our Daily Bread, the movie:

"In his superb documentary 'Our Daily Bread' the Austrian filmmaker Nikolaus Geyrhalter does exactly what Mr. Pollan proposes: he looks. Much like 'The Omnivore’s Dilemma,' and much like Eric Schlosser’s book and Richard Linklater’s film of 'Fast Food Nation,' this documentary is an unblinking, often disturbing look at industrial food production from field to factory. Mr. Geyrhalter has said that he is fascinated by 'zones and areas people normally don’t see.' His fascination is our gain. 'Our Daily Bread' can be extremely difficult to watch, but the film’s formal elegance, moral underpinning and intellectually stimulating point of view also make it essential. You are what you eat; as it happens, you are also what you dare to watch."

Unschooling

Remarkably restrained piece in the NYT:

"In states with the most permissive regulations — many of them in the Midwest, including Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan and Nebraska — the idea of unschooling has flourished in recent years, with families forming online communities, neighborhood-based support groups and social networks for their children.

Members of such organizations form a united front against sometimes fierce criticism from outsiders.

'When you are in a subculture of a subculture, you often get painted as the freak family,' Ms. Tucker said, 'and people believe that what the expert says is true, instead of thinking the alternative viewpoint portrayed has some merit.'

Ms. Walter, a natural-childbirth instructor, has had to assuage tense feeling from some of her peers.

'Sometimes people take it personally, like, "Oh, school’s not good enough for you?"' she said. 'No, no. It’s just that this is what works for our family.'"

Exchange

Me: First Daughter, you are a clever and beautiful girl, and I love you very much.

First Daughter: Well, what's the cleverness about me?

Me: That's a very clever question.

Nothing New Under the Sun

So last night we rented this ensemble drama from the director of Lost and Alias, starring indie actors from Magnolia, Capote, Pulp Fiction, Charlotte Gray, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Match Point, Shaun of the Dead, Othello, and TV's Felicity.

You have to pass the magazine rack to get to the checkout at the local Blockbuster, and God help us, we couldn't help but notice the following on the cover of Cosmo:

8 New Positions We've Never Recommended Before!

Never before? They must involve bungee harnesses and accordions...

Epicure

Some children might simply eat the chocolate truffle right after it was handed to them out of the fridge. But First Son knows that if he delays his gratification and heats the thing in the microwave for twenty seconds, it's just that much better. Nobody told him this.

Okay, enough with the giving of thanks...

...let's get back to the naked envy and bitterness:

$4 mi for the Angels and Demons screenplay?

As Defamer puts it: "If this deal is going to set a new market for screenwriter salaries, we sincerely hope that Charlie Kaufman's agent is on the phone right now, letting everyone in town know that if 'that hack Goldsman is getting four mil a script to cut-and-paste sh***y Dan Brown dialogue into Final Draft, my guy isn't getting out of bed for less than five.'"

(Link contains salty, nakedly envious language.)

Today in Contraception

Yes, yes, Yesterday's News Today:

Profile of a spermicidal maniac:

“This way, the man can still have sex with the woman and still can ejaculate, it’s just that the ejaculate has no sperm,” said Dr. Cheng, explaining how his discovery, if realized, would work (the results of his study were published in the prestigious Nature Medicine journal). “But you don’t need sperm, because that is not part of the joy in there, so that men should not get upset and the women should not get upset.”

test

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God in the Streets of New York City

I think this is good.

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody.

Local Whine

Well, now - it seems I've received a visit from one of the bloggers over at The Contra-Crunchy Conservative, a blog which recently saw a dustup over this post on Beaujolais Nouveau. As it happens, comments regular Cubeland Mystic also posted about Beaujolais, and included this bit of advice:

"The reason for this post was due to my post about the bogus Beaujolais Nouveau tradition that everyone gets excited about once a year. Last time I had the Beaujolais Nouveau I thought the bottle was prettier than the wine. It was pretty sour as I recall, well worth passing up. For nine dollars why not have a couple of really great beers instead of a bad red wine? If you must have wine with your Thanksgiving dinner blow-off the Duboeuf, and invest your money in Three Thieves. Even better if you live in a wine growing region like California, New York, Washington, Oregon, Virginia, North Carolina, or Texas buy a local wine and really show your support for the local economy."

You know, I often say "go local" when people ask for wine-buying advice, but I mean something quite different. I mean, ask your local retailer, at a shop that is small enough for him to know something about the wines he's got on his shelves. (And no, you don't have to be in a major urban center for this. JOB once took me to a fantabulous wine shop in LaCrosse, Wisconsin. Sadly, it's gone now, but only because the owner retired - not because there wasn't a market.) Case in point: last night I drank a 1996 Chateau Lanessan, a Bordeaux from the Haut-Medoc. Now, Lanessan is not a famous producer - I'd certainly never heard of them - but '96 was a stellar year in Bordeaux. And the price? $18.95. To pay so little for a Bordeaux from a great year with ten years of bottle age on it? My alarms were going off: surely some distributor had this sitting in an overheated warehouse, and just needed to dump it? Surely it was cooked, tired, and not very good to begin with?

Happily, it was being sold in my local wine shop, and I could ask the proprietor about it. He assured me that it came straight from the chateau - had been stored under optimal conditions in the winery's cellar until now. He also assured me that he had tasted the wine, and that it was really everything you might hope for in a bargain-Bordeaux from a great year. And he was right. (Though, sadly, the wine adhered to Murphy's first law of good wine: it always opens up and starts tasting its best right around the time you're down to your last three sips.) As usual, I was happy I bought small and bought local - but here, "small" and "local" referred to the shop, not the producer. Still, I was supporting the local economy - the local distributor, the local retailer.

Exchange

The Wife, lying abed:

"I'm not moving. Fix the covers. Write a screenplay. Get me money."

"Yes, dear."

"Look what the homosexuals have done to me."

This is a public service announcement from Godsbody: from some reason, you can go here and watch the pilot for Arrested Development, one of the tightest, sharpest pieces of television comedy I have ever seen, online.

Not such as men are today

What's that? Find a stand of spruce, fell my own logs, build a cabin, build furniture, mortar up a fireplace, hunt and grow my own food, and survive in the Alaskan wilderness without electricity or gas for 30 years? No problem!

It's well worth seeing, if you've got the inclination...Here's a sample.

Creepy

Jack Shafer looks at the NYT, writes about how "the bus-plunge story rarely stops at West 43rd Street anymore."

Top story at the NYT.com site right now: "Two high school students were killed and more than two dozen were seriously injured in Huntsville, Ala., when the school bus they were riding in went off an elevated highway and plunged 30 feet to a street below."

Dept. of Technological Blessings

The Wife's been having a bit of back trouble of late - something to do with a crippling workload - and the guy at the back store sold her these wonderful gel packs - one for heat and one for cold. Unlike OLD gel packs, these gel packs are super-thin and wonderfully supple. Why, you could wear one under your clothes and no one would notice!

Which got me to thinking...

Sooner or later, it dawns on every NFP-lovin' Catholic Guy that he can't simply head into the bathroom when his wife's fertility starts rearing its terrifying head, turn on the cold shower, and stay there for the next ten days to two weeks. What to do? Well, thanks to recent advances in gel-pack technology, now, he can simply slip on a pair of nicely refrigerated briefs to help him keep his cool.

Now, all I need is a name for my miracle product. A little help here? Go nuts in the comments box!

The Bonds of Matrimony

Okay, so it's a done deal, but still, we would totally pay to see this movie:

"There is really nothing any of us can do to help her, other than hope that as we speak, a ragtag commando group comprised of Holmes ex-boyfriends Joshua Jackson, Chris Klein, and the sweet kid from fifth grade who's now a claims adjuster in Toledo are quietly scaling a turret at Odelschi Castle, making a last-ditch effort to save their former love from her absurdly well-guarded cell. Unfortunately, even this crazy rescue fantasy of ours ends in Klein tripping over his own feet while attempting to dance through a seemingly impenetrable lattice of alarm-triggering lasers, a tragic act of clumsiness that results in the brave trio's public hanging at tomorrow's wedding reception."

Not in my version. I've got Nicole and Oprah infiltrating the crowd and staging a daring rescue/Kate-napping. My goodness, but it'll be exciting.

Today in Porn, Biographical Edition

Autobiography from the founder of Screw, reviewed by his longtime art director, who went on to work for the New York Times:

"A self-described 'bed-wetting stutterer from Brooklyn' and a punching bag for neighborhood toughs, he feared he would become a milquetoast like his father, a photojournalist who exhibited courage in World War II, working alongside the likes of Ernie Pyle, but addressed elevator operators as 'sir.' (He later toiled in Screw’s mailroom.) Goldstein, forever self-conscious about his weight, compensated by making voraciousness the cornerstone of his identity. He describes, touchingly, how as a teenager he was treated by a diet doctor — with whom it turned out his mother was having an affair, because 'my father was so inadequate.'"

Gotta love the Google ads at the bottom of the page:

Babysitters in San Diego
Church Background Checks

Our long national nightmare has ended...

...no, not the Britney-Fed-ex breakup, and not the glorious Scientological union of TomKat.

Silicone is back:

"The Food and Drug Administration yesterday lifted a 14-year ban on the use of silicone gel breast implants in the United States following a many years of debate over their safety...Because the implants containing silicone gel are softer than saline implants currently available, plastic surgeons said they would quickly become preferred among the more than 300,000 women in this country who have breast implants each year."

BUT: "the agency restricted cosmetic use of the implants to women aged 22 and older."

So upon high-school graduation, pumpkin will just have to make do with "starter breasts." When she gets out of college, she can upgrade.

Exclamations

Pretty much every father begins to censor himself in new and exciting ways when the children arrive (I won't presume to speak for mothers). For me, this often amounts to the brain automatically shifting all profanity into either the "Crap!" or "Dammit!" category. Not ideal, I'll grant you, but better than several of the alternatives.

Apparently, a friend of mine uses the same two fallback curses, because his penultimate child recently combined the two into what may be a curse for the ages:

"Crappit!"

It's impossible to discipline when you're laughing.

Exchange

So when I get a cold, The Wife makes me drink garlic tea. It's horrible, but it burns viruses into shrivellled husks of protein, so I do it. Today, there was no garlic. Or rather, upon further inspection, there were only a few tiny cloves in the bottom of the garlic container.

"Oh, well," said The Wife. "I might as well harvest the babies."

"Um, that's creepy," I replied.

"What? It's the culture we live in."

Local Boy Makes Good

New release from Tom Waits:

"In the early-Seventies Tom Waits worked as a doorman at the Heritage in San Diego, a nightclub where artists of every genre performed. An avid fan of such authors, songwriters, musicians and performers as Hoagy Carmichael, Lord Buckley, Bob Dylan, Stephen Foster, Raymond Chandler and Marty Robbins, Waits began developing his own idiosyncratic musical style, combining songs with monologues. He took his newly formed act to Monday nights at the Troubadour in LA, where musicians from all over stood in line all day to get the opportunity to perform on-stage that night. Shortly thereafter, Waits was signed to Asylum Records. He was 21 years old."

Lyrics to Waits' "San Diego Serenade":

I never saw the morning til I stayed up all night
I never saw the sunshine til you turned out the light
I never saw my hometown until I stayed away too long
I never heard the melody, until I needed a song.

I never saw the white line, til I was leaving you behind
I never knew I needed you til I was caught up in a bind
I never spoke i love you til I cursed you in vain,
I never felt my heartstrings until I nearly went insane.

I never saw the east coast til I move to the west
I never saw the moonlight until it shone off your breast
I never saw your heart til someone tried to steal,
Tried to steal it away
I never saw your tears until they rolled down your face.

Jukebox

Working on building
It's a Holy Ghost building
For my Lord
Oh, for my Lord
If I was a sinner
I tell you what I'd do
I'd keep on sinning
And work on that buiding too

- "Working on a Building," Cowboy Junkies

Now I'm Just Depressed, Revisited

Hearing my daughter's wonderfully deep and throaty voice - the one that croons out rambling melodies when nobody's around about ending up in her grave (!), the one that's going to go platinum in about 15 years and help take care of Daddy when he's old - thoughtlessly taking up the Great Amen from the less-than-great Mass of Creation: " Aa-aa-MEN, AA-aa-ME-EN, Aa-aa-aa-aa-MEN..." This is the musical heritage I have bequeathed unto them? It has become their traditional music. It's deep in their bones.

We used to play this game called Encore - you drew a card with a word on it, and you had to sing a line from a song that included that word. When we wanted a challenge, we'd play a version where you could sing only Glory & Praise songs. It was scary how easy it was, scary how many of those songs were right there in the short term memory, hanging like bats, just waiting for the darkness to descend...

Now I'm Just Depressed

"In a New York Times article last August, Nina Munk wrote that 'shopping … has become the defining occupation of [Gen X].' She reported that the average Gen Xer spent 18 percent more on luxury goods than the average baby boomer. So much for anti-proliferation.". And oh, there's much, much more: "According to OnPoint Marketing and Promotions (whose clients include Ford, Microsoft and Pepsi), Gen Xers are 50 million strong, make up 17 percent of the population and spend $125 billion on consumer goods each year. Whereas Mr. Coupland’s characters removed themselves from families, schools and potential career paths to tend bar and dwell in bungalows in Palm Springs, grown-up Gen Xers retreat into gated communities, planned developments and luxury loft condominiums. They used to be obsessed with other people’s money; now, they obsess over their own." And on and on and on.

Apologies for the lack of posting. A bit burnt.

Catholic Sex Blog

Via Amy, a report on the Bishops and Catholic sex:

The document on reception of communion grew out of disputes in 2004 about whether politicians who support abortion rights should be refused communion.

Some bishops thought both topics should have been included, and also wanted to add contraceptive use to a list of reasons that Catholics should refrain from communion. An earlier report indicated that only 4 percent of Catholic married couples of child-bearing age practice the church-recommended natural family planing.

Bishop Arthur Serratelli of Paterson, N.J., said that the drafters did not include contraception because it was not intended to be a comprehensive list of sins and there was a concern that this "particularly difficult pastoral problem" would distract from everything else in the document. Bishop Salvatore Cordileone, auxiliary of San Diego, argued that not mentioning it would draw even more attention.

"If we are silent on this issue, perhaps people won't go so far as to say we are winking at it, but at least we would easily create the misperception that this is not an issue involving grave matter." "Grave matter," along with informed reflection and willful intent, constitutes mortal sin.

Victory Revisited

Question posed to the boys at dinner:

Why is it that we want lives of comfort and peace, yet we enjoy stories best when there is trouble and suffering in them?

Victory

Last time I'll dip into the well on Straight Man, I promise:

Our hero is arriving at work. His nose is torn and swollen, thanks to a poorly received joke he made the previous day. Lily is his wife; Rachel is his secretary:

"She is speechless, looking at me, and her reaction, I realize, is what I'd secretly been hoping for from Lily, who over the years has learned to take me in stride. There's no reason a wife shouldn't take her husband in stride, of course, yet it's disappointing to be so taken, especially for a man like me, so intent on breaking people's gait."

He has my deepest sympathies there. After ten years of familiarity (and I know this has been said elsewhere, and better), surprising The Wife - better still, best of all, getting her to laugh, really laugh, not simply smile in acknowledgment of some well-executed display of wit - is nothing less than a major victory, a sign that I've still got some remnant of whatever it was that convinced her to yoke her life to mine in the first place.

Dept. of Nostalgia

The day job runs a section entitled Back When, which brings up snippets from the Reader's storied history. This week's entry includes a snippet from an early story of mine, back when I was on the farm beat: bovine insemination, starting with semen collection:

Ten Years Ago: The bull is unwilling to be corralled because it is sexually frustrated. It is not finished with its business. But then, it never will be. "There's no mating season for bulls," Milan tells me. "They just keep going. The whole year, several times a day. They're always trying to mount each other. They'll mount most anything, they don't care; they'll just keep right on working." --"2400 POUNDS OF PASSION," Matt Lickona, November 7, 1996

Holy Cards

The author of this book has had the bright idea of taking cool old holy cards and making them into Christmas and blank-note cards. Then he got the equally bright idea of asking various bloggers to link to his site. His only mistake was posting a request to the outlying desert region of Godsbody. But still - I like the cards, so here's the link.

Exchange

The Wife was a blonde when we married, but five pregnancies have gradually darkened her hair. Which led me to ask my relation the visiting priest, "Do you think I could get an annulment? I thought the person I was marrying was a blonde. Obviously, I was mistaken about her true nature."

The Wife met my father before we married, which led her to ask my relation the visiting priest, "Do you think I could get an annulment? I thought the person I was marrying had a work ethic."

My relation the visiting priest kept a wise silence. I don't think I'll take that particular case to court.

Marketing

"Well, you see Mr. Lickona, whereas once upon a time, an editor could champion a young writer, nurture him through his early years and simply tell marketing to find a way, market realities today dictate otherwise. Today, marketing makes the decisions - they have to look at what they can sell, and they tell editorial what to do accordingly."

Yada yada yada.

I suppose I should be sadder about the 5.2 million than the 1.2 million, but seriously - 1.2 mil for a memoir? From a youngster? On the basis of a proposal???

If anyone wants me, I'll be huddled in the crawlspace under the house, slowly counting to 1.2 million.

Tom's Adventures in Lapsoland

Via Defamer, news that TomKat may have trouble with the whole Catholic wedding thing:

"The priest with responsibility for Bracciano has said that whatever ceremony Cruise and Holmes have, it cannot be Catholic because Cruise is divorced and does not have parish permission.

'Cruise is divorced,' Monsignor Nicola Fiorentini told Italian media. 'Even if the actor were not divorced, another fundamental requirement to validate the rite would be missing: the authorization of the parish.'"

First Nicole (Raised Catholic), then Katie (Raised Catholic) - and now, looking for a Catholic wedding? Come on home, son.

Baby's First Rule of Hair Conditioner

If it smells like mangoes and coconuts, it's probably gonna taste like 'em, too.

Godsbody's Kid's Joke of the Day

What's another name for an eye doctor's office?

A site for sore eyes.

Godspy

Another momentary lapse of reason on their part, another review from your humble servant. This time: Scorcese's The Departed.

I'm not a politician...

...but Colbert is a funny, funny man.

Aphorism of the Day

The true Christian makes the best sort of hero: because he knows his life is not his own, he is not careless with it. He does not lay it down rashly. But because he has Christ for a model, he will lay it down freely when love calls him to do so.

Naturally, this occurred to me when I was musing on the profound differences between myself and said true Christian.

Father Borden

I received this email yesterday from my alma mater:

"Father Borden was taken to Santa Paula Hospital this morning after suffering a stroke at his residence. He is presently in the emergency room and will soon be moved to ICU. The doctor described the stroke as “serious”. Presently, Father is unable to speak and swallow. The next 24 hours are crucial. His doctor will keep us informed. Please keep Father in your prayers."

Got another email today; he seems to be doing much better. Father Borden is a great priest. I wrote about him a little bit in Book Two:

F. Scott Fitzgerald has always been a favorite author of mine. I did my duty and waded through The Great Gatsby in high school like everybody else, but then I happened upon it in a friend’s room at college. Reading it again, without the dead weight of obligation hanging on every sentence, I was seduced by Fitzgerald’s poetic sense of language, and delighted by his psychological acuity. I’m sure someone else has compared him to an extremely sensitive instrument, the needle twitching as it registers the most minute and distinct interior tremors. Whether or not he was great, I found him fascinating.
My friend Joseph, who is more literary than I, has seized upon this fondness, peppering me with Fitzgerald biographies, collected letters, and the like, hoping to encourage some artistic appetite in his friend the scribbler. In Andrew Turnbull’s biography of the man, I found this, written in a diary by a friend of the Fitzgeralds’, Alexander McKaig: “Fitz made another true remark about himself – draw brilliant picture of [critic George Jean Nathan] sitting in chair but how [Nathan] thinks he cannot depict – cannot depict how any one thinks except himself & possibly Zelda. Find that after he has written about a character for a while it becomes just himself again.”

That’s certainly what happened to me in “Meat.” Father Dunleavy is based upon Father Borden, a retired priest who came to Thomas Aquinas College during my Junior year. Father had spent time among lobster fishermen, and one night, he had a few of us down to the priests’ residence for a lobster dinner. I was amazed at his knifework as he started in on the shells – the combination of force and dexterity that brought forth great chunks of precious, creamy flesh. No nutcrackers and tiny forks here, no digging in crevices for strands of stubborn shellfish. Everything sweet and easy. It was the first time I had ever seen a priest at work in a kitchen.

But Father Borden was no glutton – not as far as I knew, anyway. He certainly didn’t share in Father Dunleavy’s bulk. As far as I knew, Father Borden was a great and holy priest. It was true that his general tone was not as intellectual as that of his predecessors – where Father Steckler might devote several months’ worth of sermons at daily Mass to an examination of the sacraments, Father Borden might quote Bill Cosby or Groucho Marx as he exhorted us toward kindness and charity. And where Father Vincent lingered over the Mass, devoting care to each motion and phrase, Father Borden’s 7:30 a.m. Sunday Mass was known as the Borden Express – if you could haul your body out of bed in time, you could be out in as little as 40 minutes. But it took only a few years for the story to start circulating that Father had won more converts at TAC than any other priest. He liked sports, and because students were not allowed to have televisions, he often played host to large groups of us, generously doling out beers to his parched guests. (Loyola Hall was perhaps the only spot on campus where a student could drink, outside of special occasions.) People liked him; they saw something in him.

No, Father Dunleavy’s spiritual life is mine, together with the vice that gave such volume to his physical being. (Correction: it seems I can’t even do what Fitzgerald does. My “picture of George Jean Nathan sitting in a chair” isn’t brilliant – it isn’t even accurate. It’s distorted, swollen beyond recognition by what I’ve stuffed into it.) I may not share his bloated shape, but that’s my anxiety at the deadening effect of sensual indulgence, my guilt over the twin gluttonies of excess and delicacy, my fear of engaging the world to the point where, instead of being transformed, the world transforms me.

Jesus?

Not only did the Son of God fail to intervene on behalf of Prop 85, the South Dakota abortion ban, and the La Mesa mayoral election, He also failed to preserve the earthly life of a woman who apparently took that whole thing about handling serpents a little too seriously:

"Linda Long, 48, was bitten Sunday at East London Holiness Church, where neighbors said the reptiles are handled as part of religious services, The Lexington Herald-Leader reported Tuesday.

Long died at University of Kentucky Medical Center about four hours after being bitten, authorities told the newspaper."

Yes on 85

If you're a registered California voter, please read and please vote.

Question

Okay, so I got forwarded a link to an online video showing an abortion - well-developed pieces being extracted. A friend sent it with this comment:

"This could be a little strong for your blog to link, but it makes the silent scream look like an episode of teletubbies. I have a strong stomach, but I feel like barfing in my trash can."

To which I replied:

"Oh my God.  This brings me back to those Confessions columns I wrote back when, the ones about whether images like this were obscene.  This, far more than even the horrific photos, struck me as something that should not be seen, though I do not doubt the good intentions of the people showing it, though I agree that the horror of abortion needs to be made manifest.
I, too, feel like barfing."

To which he replied:

"I would modify the point to say it shouldn't HAVE TO be seen. But under the circumstances... maybe it does. I'm certainly not going to watch it again. But I'm glad I saw it once. I think it should be mandatory viewing before abortions, in the interest of full disclosure. I still think there's mass societal ignorance of what physically is going on there, i.e. dismemberment of a [baby] combined with rape by medical instrument. Women need to know."

After which, he suggested I open up the question for discussion here on Godsbody.

UPDATE: Besides the stuff going on in the comments, I thought I'd add this - the continuing exchange with my friend:

Me: "If in fact it is an obscene treatment of the body of the victim, I would say that no circumstances justify it. But I'll grant that there's a point to be argued."

My friend: "The obscene treatment is not the filming, it's the abortion itself. And don't half the movies we watch feature obscene treatments of the body through sex and violence."

Me: "If we were watching actual sex and actual death, I would agree. But the movies we see feature representations of obscene treatments, not the treatments themselves. I think it a real and important distinction."

Dept. of Rejected New Yorker Cartoons

Caption: Take Your Daughter To Work Day
Little girl on psychiatrist's couch, pychiatrist (her father) in chair, saying, "Tell me about your mother."

Oh, my dear sweet Lord...

...but that hurts. Last night, I stopped postponing the inevitable, and introduced new, crappy self to old, athletic self. Always a pleasure when the old soccer instincts kick in, when you can feel your brain sending the signals to your legs to work the old magic, and when you then feel your legs quiver like those of the AT-AT Walker in The Empire Strikes Back just before it pitches forward to the ground and explodes. And now, the morning after...

Dept. of License Plates

MT GYRL

Now, it may be that this gal was shooting for Mighty Girl - the plate was on the back of a black Nissan Titan pickup truck - and was afraid that MIT GYRL would have people thinking she was not so much mighty as brainy. But if you read it as it sounds, you get Empty Girl, which sounds as sad as anything I've ever seen on the back of a car. Mourning a miscarriage? Unless, of course, she sees herself as a manifestation of the Sacred Feminine, the vessel waiting to be filled...

Poetry Corner

Children in Fall

I
got
snot.

Jukebox

Have you heard
The coast of Maine
Just got caught in a hurricane.
Well, did you evah?
What a swell party this is!
What daiquiris!
What sherry, please!
What burgundy!
What pommery!
Have you heard?
Professor Munch
Ate his wife and divorced his lunch.
Well, did you evah?
What a swell party this is!
Have you heard?
It's in the stars
Next year we collide with Mars
Well, did you evah?
What a swell part this is!
What brandy, wow!
What whiskey, here’s how!
What gin and what beer,
Will you sober up, dear?

- Well, Did Ya Evah?

Good party Saturday. Met commentor Charles - a pleasure. Who says the Internet is just a bunch of abstracted ghosts? Also met this author, newly arrived in SanDiegoLand. The community expands - we've got guitarists, singers, novelists...

Kill the Father

So Third Son, he of the broken arm, is playing Kill the Hand. Eventually, he succeeds - I drop my hand, limp, to the couch, and say, "Oh, it's dead. You killed it." I expect him to grin in victory, maybe stomp on the hand for good measure. Instead, without hesitation, he picks up my limp hand and begins beating me on the head with it. I'm thinking he'll go far.

Requiem

A different take on the events that inspired The Exorcism of Emily Rose.

Whatever else it has...

...SoMA (The Society of Mutual Autopsy) has one of the best titles of any religious website out there. And they quote Korrektiv hero Soren Kierkegaard to boot: "All faith is autopsy."

Brilliant.

Mrs. Darwin visits the Neitzsche Family Circus, and the second result is simply profound.

Today in Porn, Research Edition

Does porn reduce rape? Hm:

"Similarly, psychologists have found that male subjects, immediately after watching pornography, are more likely to express misogynistic attitudes. But as professor Kendall points out, we need to be clear on what those experiments are testing: They are testing the effects of watching pornography in a controlled laboratory setting under the eyes of a researcher. The experience of viewing porn on the Internet, in the privacy of one's own room, typically culminates in a slightly messier but far more satisfying experience—an experience that could plausibly tamp down some of the same aggressions that the pornus interruptus of the laboratory tends to stir up."

I could get into it about the consequentialist vs. intrinsic arguments against porn, but I'm still chuckling over pornus interruptus.

"I'm geeking out just thinking about it!"

Homestar's latest Halloween toon features Strongmad as The Maxx, whom I first encountered while watching MTV's Oddities in a pizza parlor back in upstate NY in the brief weeks between graduation and employment. Oh, they were heady days...

And yes, I know Halloween was Tuesday. Godsbody - Yesterday's Holidays Today!

Dept. of License Plates

WRM BENZ

Now, it was on the back of a Mercedes-Benz, so it might be the Benz belonging to William Randolph Manchester. But the first thing I read was Worm Bends, which made me think of The Worm Has Turned, which led me to conclude that the driver of this Mercedes, so blessed in life, was going to end up in hell, "where the Worm Dies Not."

Notice is hereby served.

Jon Stewart, Ian McKellan, Judi Dench, and William H. Macy are going to meet God someday, and they're going to have to explain Doogal. "I needed the money" ain't gonna cut it on this one, I fear.

Barker stops barking.

The old man has groused his last. (No, not Bob Barker. Broderick Barker. Infinitely less important.)

Sinfest

I'm a big fan, but often, it's very blue. Today is a happy exception.

Well, now.

Quin Finnegan of the Korrektiv went and read him some J.F. Powers, and has posted a thoughtful comment, and is looking for some engagement:

"I was a little confused about the ending - let me make that clear from the beginning. While I found the last chapter interesting for the scene in which Father Joe Hackett has moved outside the fictional space he has occupied for most of the novel, I have no idea what this is supposed to mean for him. The last word of the book is 'Cross,' as in 'Holy Cross,' the parish to which he has been assigned, but I don't remember this being mentioned anywhere else in the novel. Does it refer to the Cross that Father Hackett has finally learned to bear? Hasn't he been bearing it all along? Or in this last chapter has he come to a realization which I myself lack the insight to attain? I felt like I was grasping at straws here, and several rereadings of his earlier interaction with the characters that comprise the final chapter haven't helped me."

There's hope.

The story does, after all, use the term "hundreds of glasses of red wine a day":

"A new study of mice suggests that massive amounts of red wine extract slow the aging process, even when a high-fat, seemingly unhealthy diet is consumed."

Squeak!

Thanks to Father Stephanos for the heads-up.

Bookmark

"Best of all, his life didn't leak out of him gradually, like a tire with a tiny puncture. He died of the Black Death, and he never saw it coming until it was upon him, a dirty, brutish, democratic foe who argued with William in precise, elegant syllogisms, defeating all the philosopher's logic and unifying in swift death, as life never could, the conflicting impulses of reason and faith that had shaped his life."

- Hank Devereaux, Jr. musing on William of Occam in Richard Russo's novel Straight Man

Aphorism of the Day

You can tell a great deal about a man by what he will not joke about, what he refuses to find funny.

Pinot

Someone asked me for my take on Pinot Noir. The easy answer would be that if you're buying, and if I have no qualms about spending vast sums of your money, I'm drinking Red Burgundy. My favorite wines have all been Red Burgundies. Pinot Noir is the most transparent of all the red wines (I'll vote for Riesling among the whites.) This means that, more than any other grape, it shows the influence of place - the soil, the sun, the everything. There's a reason why a tiny region like Burgundy is chopped up into so many tiny parcels. The places are different, and it shows in the wine. This transparency produces a tremendous range of textures, aromas, and flavors, all of which still maintain that lovely Pinot character.

But the easy answer is woefully incomplete. Pinot Noir is called the heartbreak grape for many reasons. It's very difficult to grow - susceptible to all sorts of woes in the vineyard. It's tempramental in the winery - fragile and fickle. It's not tremendously consistent - even the great vineyards produce plenty of not-so-great results in imperfect years. It's known to go dumb as it ages - start off fresh and vibrant, then get dull and uninteresting before blooming in its maturity - but who knows exactly when all these things take place? And if you wait too long, you can lose out again.

So - the real answer is that if you're buying, you're loaded, and you know the wine in question well - in fact, if you just had a bottle of the stuff last night and it showed brilliantly - then Burgundy it is. Otherwise, it's an awfully risky venture, a rich man's game, and still not a sure bet no matter how much you're spending.

I have great regard for a number of domestic Pinots, but have never been transported in quite the same way. (Then again, I've never had a Sea Smoke.) On the bargain front - way back when, Napa Ridge managed an amazing Pinot for under $10. Just now, I'd say your best bet was Castle Rock. Fellow in Malibu buys excess wine from high-end producers all over California, and has it blended and released under his label. He knows his business, and he gets good juice. He can't say where he gets it, but he gets enough to have a Russian River or a Santa Barbara appellation, instead of the standard "California" that usually attends such blends. This year, the Santa Barbara is pretty good.

I'll shut up now. Happy Feast of All Saints.