Daniel Mitsui...

man on fire, goes after Eric Gill (whose work is pictured at left):

"Such hypocrisy should not be unexected from Gill, the consummate fraudster who made countless men believe his sham religiousity. In a great satanic prank, he concealed the weird, disgusting wrongness of his religious art just enough to convince patrons to place it within their chaste sanctuaries.

He duped Rev. Vincent McNabb, the spiritual advisor to the Ditchling Guild, and one of its benefactors. He duped his fellow craftsman Hilary Pepler, although after Gill moved to Wales their friendship ended and never resumed, even after their children married. Gill duped G.K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc, who published his articles in their distribuist journals. He duped Peter Maurin and Dorothy Day of the Catholic Worker. Day admiringly quoted Gill in her essay On Pilgrimage. This is what he wrote, what she quoted:

'The point is that the whole world has got it firmly fixed in its head that the object of working is to obtain as large an amount of material goods as possible, and that with the increased application of science and the increased use of machinery that amount will be very large indeed, while at the same time the amount of necessary labor will become less and less, until machines being minded by machines, it will be almost none at all. And the point is that this frame of mind is radically un-Christian and anti-Christian. And the point of that is that it is therefore contrary to Nature and contrary to God - as anti-God as any atheist could wish.'

True words, but wholly insincere. For sexual predation is the ultimate materialism; nothing is more materialistic and mechnanical than the reduction of a person to a mere instrument for orgasm, a warm piece of flesh with a few wet orifices. Abusive and unnatural sex implies the mere carnality of the body. In no other sin save murder is the person more thoroughly thinged. To Gill, the person ceased to exist entirely: man, woman, child, blood relation and lower beast were all the same to him.

A sexual predator, to paraphrase one, has got it firmly fixed in its head that the object is to obtain as large an amount of sex as possible, and that with the increased application of science and the increased use of machinery that amount will be very large indeed, while at the same time the amount of necessary love will become less and less, until machines being minded by machines, it will be almost none at all. A worldview that does not count chastity among its foundational virtues is necessarily materialistic; a degradation of personhood that begins in the bedroom will find its way into the battlefield and the torture chamber, the factory and the mini-mall."

That's just a Godsbodyish snippet. It's really an excellent essay. Do go read.

As opposed to what? The Gilbert & Sullivan version?

Heard this on the radio today - Carrie Underwood doing her best attempt at a he-done-me-wrong ditty:

Right now, she's probably up singing some
white-trash version of Shania karaoke..
Right now, she's probably saying "I'm drunk"
and he's a thinking that he's gonna get lucky...

Speaking of weddings...

Last Friday's nuptials inspired a new* Easter Island Humor. (Yes, I am aware that "inspired" may be a bit strong here...)



*Old Easter Island Humor may be found here.

California Stars

The Manhattan Lawyer went and got married last Friday. The Wife and I were fortunate enough to be in attendance. This was the song for their first dance.

San Diego Serenade

The intro:

The song:

Now I'm just sad.

Who is Spidey talking about, you ask? No, it's not the Pope...

(Via Dawn Eden.)

Gawker Bad New Yorker Cartoon Contest

Is on. My submission (an old joke, and no, I didn't take a lot of time on the art, and yes, I know it shows):

Percy Redux

Novelist/humorist (notjealousnotjealousnotjealous) Kevin Guilfoile talks about writing, and cites Percy as his favorite novelist. Major points for the following:

"When I was in college and started to read these other Southern writers and began to understand and I read the biographies of him and maybe the best book I have ever read on writing, which is the correspondence between Shelby Foote and Percy."

Garden & Gun

Dorian has been hearing from Walker Percy of late. Six flavors of awesome. And now I have to go out and buy Garden & Gun.

Take that, Michael Bay

Okay, okay, Michael; you had your fun taking an awesome kids' cartoon about robot cars and turning it into a crappy teen romance (complete with masturbation references - Special Happy Time??? - that I don't feel like explaining to my 10- and 8-year-old). And now, people are afraid that nothing is sacred, that all of our beloved childhood cartoons will be re-purposed and violated.

But what if the trend actually ended up producing something amazing, something visionary, something beyond anything a director like Bay could ever possibly hope to begin to try to understand? What if, say, a director like Darren Aronofsky, he of Pi and Requiem for a Dream fame, got in on the action? Mightn't the mind-blowing, soul-harrowing result look something like this?

Today in Porn, "Just Can't Love Real Women" Edition

This one may be a bit much for some. But...wow. Just wow.



(via Goldenfiddle.)

Regret and Neglect

"- Waste and horror - what I might have been and done that is lost, spent, gone, dissipated, unrecapturable. I could have acted thus, refrained from this, been bold where I was timid, cautious where I was rash.
I need not have hurt her like that.
Nor said this to him.
Nor broken myself trying to break what was unbreakable.
The horror has come now like a storm - what if this night prefigured the night after death - what if all thereafter was an eternal quivering on the edge of an abyss, with everything base and vicious in oneself urging one forward and the baseness and viciousness of the world just ahead. No choice, no road, no hope - only the endless repitition of the sordid and the semi-tragic. or to stand forever, perhaps, on the threshold of life unable to pass it and return to it. I am a ghost now as the clock strikes four."
- F. Scott Fitzgerald, "Sleeping and Waking," from The Crack-Up.

This passage has stayed with me, and of late, that list of "need nots" has come to include neglected things - unanswered letters, unread books, unimplemented plans. Places where something has been asked of me, however oddly or casually, and I have failed to respond because I am looking up my own ladder, fretting over my own requests. So there's that.

Mudflap Girls

The Wine Drinker, The Final Chapter

Take That, Patrick Bateman

"Did you know that Whitney Houston's debut LP, called simply Whitney Houston, had four number-one singles on it ?
Did you know that, Christie ? It's hard to choose a favorite among so many great tracks, but 'The Greatest Love of All' is one of the best, most powerful songs ever written about self-preservation, dignity. Its universal message crosses all boundaries and instills one with the hope that it's not too late to better ourselves. Since, Elizabeth, it's impossible in this world we live in to empathize with others, we can always empathize with ourselves. It's an important message, crucial really. And it's beautifully stated on the album."
- Patrick Bateman, "American Psycho," the movie.

Of course, Bateman is a brutal, soulless, misogynistic murderer, so he might not be perfectly sincere in this sentiment. Then again, since it's a song about "empathizing with ourselves," and therefore amenable to the narcissist, maybe he is being sincere.

At any rate, Houston's "I Wanna Dance With Somebody" is not about loving yourself. It's about wanting to find somebody else to love. And David Byrne covered it:

Where's the Video Camera When I Need It?

First Daughter: "I'm so glad I'll always have you and Mommy to help tell me what to do."

Today in Porn, Pop Lyrics Nostalgia Edition

1986: I was 13. If memory serves, the big albums were Bon Jovi's Slippery When Wet and The Beastie Boys' Licensed to Ill. People generally liked one or the other. I fear that I bought the former, and later, traded an Eddie Murphy comedy tape for the latter. Which, famously, featured the following lyric on its first hit single, "(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (to Party)":

Man living at home is such a drag
Now your mom threw away your best porno mag.

Ah, those sweet days of youth...

Today in Porn, Hit Parade Edition

The Manhattan Lawyer sends along this article, which includes perfect line after perfect line. It's almost worth just copying the whole article. But here are just a few gems about Mr. Skin, a website whose "chief sexecutive officer" is "concerned about the nudity" in Hollywood movies: "who's naked, and what they show."

* "Mr. McBride, 44, a former futures trader, made nude-scene compilations on VHS tapes as a hobby before starting the site in 1999." (Find what you love and do that!)

* "...the movie studios not only tolerate Mr. McBride but also court him by sending advance screeners of DVD releases. 'The movie companies aren’t stupid,' Mr. McBride said. 'I’m a guest on radio shows at least 300 times a year as the expert on celebrity nudity in film. If I’m on the radio talking about a movie like "Ask the Dust," and telling guys, "You’ve got to check it out: Salma Hayek has a full-frontal at the 33-minute mark," it’s going to make guys want to rent or buy the movie.'” (300 times a on celebrity nudity in film! 300 times a year!)

* “'That’s why filmmakers and Hollywood put sex scenes in movies — because it sells,' Mr. Sokel said...'This is normal; you’re not a freak for wanting to see a Hollywood star in a film be naked.'” (And there it is.)

* "The site’s membership is 98.4 percent men; members spend an average of 13 minutes at the site per visit." (Say no more. Please, say no more.)

* “'But it is an R-rated site, not a porn site, so hopefully men aren’t too embarrassed to tell their wives.'” (The wise man distinguishes.)

Update to the previous post.

That whole "not arrested yet" thing? Never mind. This is what I get for dipping into celebrity journalism. I should just stick to Today in Porn.

Dept. of Shattering the Conventional Wisdom on Beggars and Choosers

The New Mexico Nurse turned up this awesome bit of social reporting in Newsweek: a story about niche dating websites that cater to people with various conditions/diseases, and who would rather not have to deal with the big reveal. It's splendidly done all the way through, but the writer wisely saves the money quote for the end:

"Indeed, having a diagnosis doesn't make people less romantic—or less choosy. William C. Rickard, a recovering alcoholic with bipolar disorder who is on six antidepressants and tranquilizers, says he prefers to date women who have red hair. 'I'm very picky in spite of my disability,' he says."

What a catch! Ladies, fire up that Revlon Colorsilk!

(Note to the Godsbody legal department: inclusion of Lindsay Lohan image in a story about a recovering alcoholic with bipolar disorder who is on six antidepressants and tranquilizers is entirely coincidental - she was just the first pic that came up on a Google Image search for "redhead." Also entirely coincidental: the fact that she has yet to be charged for her underage DUI-cocaine thingy back in May.)

Harder to Believe than Not To.

Other people are commenting on this story about the loss of faith. I won't try to add to their thoughts, only toss in this tidbit from Book Two:

I’ve long been a sucker for religious-minded pop (sometimes – okay, often – even when it’s anti-religious). Hence the fondness for singers like Bono and Sting. I have never been tempted, however, to base personal convictions on rock lyrics, even if they are the poetry of the age.. I remember all too well the “Personal Quotes” that accompanied the senior photos in my high school yearbook: “It’s better to burn out than to slowly fade away” popped up more than a few times. Thank you, Jim Morrison and The Doors. My own late-adolescent offering? Sweet of you to ask. “Reason is the highest order; emotions are the deepest reality.” It’s cringeworthy, I know, but my heart was in the right place. I wanted to get at the idea that while the mind discerns the good, it’s the heart that moves us. I remember this terrible and beautiful passage from Jeremiah: “I say to myself, ‘I will not mention him, I will speak in his name no more.’ But then it becomes like a fire burning in my heart, imprisoned in my bones; I grow weary holding it in. I cannot endure it.” The fire is not in the brain – it’s in the heart, the bones. It’s love that manifests what’s really real to us.

Back to the music. The nearest I have come to taking a lyric seriously enough to ponder it was when I heard Christian rocker Steve Taylor’s “Harder To Believe Than Not To”:

They shiver with doubts
That were left unattended
Then they toss away the cloak
That they should have mended
Don’t you know by now why the chosen are few
It’s harder to believe than not to.

It was years before I found out that the title was taken from the (Catholic) writer Flannery O’Connor. Small world.

(And in a special, humiliating bonus: this video of the song in question. As you marvel at Taylor's hair, recall that this was 1987 or so. I was 14. A difficult age.)

Pot, meet Kettle.

The Wisconsin Poet was in fine form for my belated birthday present. All the subtlety of a charging rhino, that one.

Today in Porn, Pop Lyrics Edition

The Wife heard this one on the radio today...The song is "Her Eyes" by Pat Monahan; I think this is a picture of the dude. Points for rhyming "gets" and "Mets."

She’s not afraid; she just likes to use her night light
When she gets paid, true religion gets it all
If they fit right.

She’s a little bit manic, completely organic
Doesn’t panic for the most part.

She’s old enough to know, and young enough not to say no
To any chance that she gets for home plate tickets to see the Mets.
Like everybody, she’s in over her head,
Dreads Feds, Grateful Dead, and doesn’t take meds.

She’s a Gemini Capricorn
Thinks all men are addicted to porn.
I don’t agree with her half the time,
But, damn I’m glad she’s mine.

The Best Thing We'll Read Today

FOG Smokee sent in this perfect gem for the wannabe author:

David Lassman sent off to 18 publishers assorted chapters from Austen novels in which he changed just the titles and the names of the characters. He called himself Alison Laydee after Austen's early pseudonym 'A Lady.' Seventeen publishers rejected or ignored his bid for literary glory. Only one spotted the ruse and told him not to mimic 'Pride and Prejudice' so closely. Lassman, who decided on the experiment when struggling to get his own novel published, told media: 'Getting a novel accepted is very difficult today unless you have an agent first. But I had no idea of the scale of rejection poor old Jane suffered.'"

A Note on Book Two

A couple of readers* (hi, AC!) have suggested that I go ahead and sort of self-publish Book Two, and have even said they'd pay to read it, which is very kind and humbling and flattering and appreciated. In light of that, a touch of history: after Book Two was rejected from by its intended publisher, I shopped the thing all over God's green earth. Eventually, I found a hardy soul who was willing to publish the thing. I had the contract in hand. Then I got a letter from a kind soul whom I had asked to read the book, and her comments convinced me that the craft and structure of the book were simply not enough to support its aims. I must have already known this to some extent, because as soon as I read it, I lost all heart for the project, and the project did require heart.

So I put the thing on a shelf, and have been carving off bits ever since - for the blog, for Dappled Things, for various other essays. Hopefully, more bits will surface in other arenas as time goes by. I'm pretty sure that's the way it's going to end up. But seriously, thanks awfully for the interest.

I had a title I liked, though: Fingers Crossed That There's A Heaven: Further Confessions of a Young Catholic. It's taken from an old Ian McCulloch song - he's the frontman for Echo & The Bunnymen.


*That's what, a quarter of my readership?

Martha, Martha...

Godsbody: all pictures, all the time. I love the painting that serves as this month's Magnificat cover, especially Martha and Mary. The hand on the hip vs. the hand in the lap is fantastic.

Mudflap Girls

With a little help from my friends...

There's nothing like intimations of mortality to help renew one's prayer life. So this morning, I was in my local Eucharistic chapel, when I noticed that one of the pens used to inscribe the books in the back of the chapel - the binders listing favors requested and favors granted - was simultaneously doing duty as an advertisement for Zoloft. The long and winding road...

Related: Zoloft for everything.

Unthinkable.

In N Out in NYC?

Why don't we just give them carne asada burritos while we're at it?

[sobs]

(Via Gawker)

So, when did you find out you were going to die?

I mean, everybody knows it, but when did you know it?

My own moment of grand bull-moose enlightenment came, what, three years ago? I wrote about it a bit for Book Two:

I have read that a heart attack feels as though an elephant is sitting on your chest. When I woke up that night – I think it was around 3 a.m., not too long after the laundry room episode – there was no elephant in the room. Instead, it felt as though a full-grown man – maybe a little over his ideal weight – was sitting on my chest, while his buddy stood on my left arm. So I knew it wasn’t a heart attack. I also knew because I have read that red wine helps prevent heart attacks, and I drink plenty of red wine. And I also knew because I was 31 years old, in good health, 6’2”, 200 pounds, a trifle soft in the middle but not anybody’s idea of obese, a non-smoker AND DID I MENTION THAT I WAS ONLY 31 YEARS OLD? It wasn’t a heart attack. But it did hurt, and it wasn’t going away.

Backstory: I had recently finished a big work-related push, after which I promptly collapsed with what turned out to be pneumonia. That had been five days previous, during which we’d entertained some of Deirdre’s relatives from out of town. Later that morning, we were supposed to get on a plane and visit my family in New York. Deirdre and I had slogged through an ugly fight the night before – I felt too sick to travel; she felt too dragged out not to go somewhere where she could get help taking care of four kids plus a sick husband. The fight had lasted until nearly midnight. She had won; we were going. Now what?

I woke Deirdre, told her about the pain, asked her to go downstairs to the computer and check the symptoms for a heart attack on the Internet. Beautiful creature that she is, she assented, got up, and stopped into the bathroom before heading down. The light from the crack above the door (lousy contractors) illuminated the crucifix on the wall above – a smallish, silver Jesus on a honey-colored cross. I could just make Him out in the diffused glow.

At that moment, I did not wonder whether He existed. I was not scared that He wasn’t there. I was scared that He was there, and that I would soon be meeting Him for judgment. After that, my fate would be sealed forever. The thought of heaven was no consolation; the thought of hell was a powerful misery. I begged Him to forgive my sins. Then I begged Him not to take me yet. I did not protest that I was too young, or that I had a wife and family to support. I just told Him that I was not ready. I had eaten, drunk, and been merry, and now I feared that my life was being required of me.

I laugh when I tell people about it now. How typical – “Don’t take me now, Lord!” Or as Ralph Stanley sang it in O Brother Where Art Thou?, “O Death, won’t you spare me over for another year?”

Deirdre shuffled downstairs to the computer. Too afraid to just lie there alone, I followed after her. She Googled, clicked, and then read the symptoms aloud. Suddenly, I felt a whole lot worse.

I lay down on the office floor. Deirdre called the ambulance. Oh, the smirks, the barely-contained smiles on the faces of those strapping young ambulance drivers when they arrived and found me on the floor.

“What’s the matter with you? You sleeping on the floor?”

I recounted the events of the evening.

“You got the symptoms off the Internet?” Dork. “A lot of people tend to feel worse when they read stuff like that.”
But they took me in all the same, and the ER docs ran blood tests, and they took x-rays. That’s how they found the pneumonia. They also found “slightly higher than normal levels” of troponin, an enzyme that’s not supposed to leave the heart. Usually, it ventures out into the bloodstream only when there’s been trauma at home. Hm. They gave me nitroglycerine. Besides making me woozy to the point of passing out and bringing on a nasty headache – my blood pressure was low already – it relieved the pain in my chest. Just like it would if the pain were caused by a constricted coronary artery. Hmmmmm.

They kept me in the ER for six hours or so, drawing blood every hour, monitoring my troponin. The levels kept rising. They started talking about a “heart event.” “Events” are much less hostile-sounding than “attacks.” Finally, somewhere around the time I would have been getting up and herding children toward the airport, they moved me to the ICU and set me up with a television. I saw The Philadelphia Story and Gaslight back-to-back on Turner Classic Movies. I received an angiogram that turned up nothing. “What’s a young guy like you doing in a place like this?” someone asked before running a tube into my thigh.

Today in Porn, Colbert Edition

Putting the "feminine" back in "feminism:" The Susan B. Anthony of Pole Dancing. [Heads up: pole dancing.]

The Wine Drinker, Part II

Gotta run, so here's more genius from Ernesto...

The Wine Drinker

Well, last time we posted about wine, we got quite a response. So: here are some cartoons from FOG Ernesto Pinamonti, celebrating Godsbody's love of the grape. Cheers!

Produce update

The tomato from a while back:



Moon and stars watermelon:

Settled?

Sounds like LA has settled its abuse cases, to the tune of $650 million or so.

You Kill Me

Good dialogue, weak story, great acting. It ain't no Red Rock West. Tea Leoni: our generation's Katherine Hepburn?

Casting, continued...

Rufus calls it on The Witches: the women of The View (edit out the red-haired one):

Still more casting...

Cubeland Mystic calls it: Tilda Swinton for Lady Macbeth.

More fun with casting...

Stellan Skarsgard as Duncan:



Clive Owen as Banquo:

Fun with Casting

Russell Crowe as Macbeth:



Sean Bean as Macduff:



Any other ideas?

Dept. of Questionable Taste

This is a graf from Book Two that probably wouldn't have survived the editorial process:

I was alone in the house on a Sunday – a rarity when you have five children under eight – and painting the laundry room. Oatmeal over Alligator Green on the walls, Maplebuff over Ghostly Yellow on the trim and cabinets. After The Passion came out, I found myself wondering about some soulless marketer pitching a line of house paints with “colors inspired by The Passion of the Christ. Combining America’s passion for Jesus with its passion for home improvement! Choose from the dramatic Darkened Sky, the dusty Via Dolorosa, the deeper Rusty Nail, or the paler Shroud! Accent with Purple Cloak, Bruised Reed, or the brilliant Blood of the Lamb!” A body could go on and on: Potter’s Field? Temple Veil? Crown of Thorns?

How God Treats His Friends, Celebrity Edition

Nichole Richie drives the WRONG WAY DOWN THE 405 in a drug-induced stupor, and gets...pulled over by the police. Jenna Fischer - aka Sugar and Spice and All Things Nice Pam from The Office - goes out to celebrate her series being renewed, slips and breaks her back. Yesterday's News Today, I know, but it's stuck in my craw. I like Pam.

UPDATE: An alert reader (and former LA resident) informs me that it was the 101, not the 405...

Today in Porn: High School Drama, Identity Theft and Ensuing Litigation Edition

The D.C. Lawyer sends in this gem:

"Kristen Syvette Wimberly, 25, is asking that Lara Madden and film distributor Vivid Entertainment Group stop using or publicizing her name, which Madden took as a stage name...Madden, 25, began her adult-film career in 2004 and has appeared in about a dozen adult films using the name Syvette Wimberly...Caj Boatright, attorney for Kristen Syvette Wimberly, said her client started being contacted by friends and acquaintances asking about her career in pornography."

Humiliating, yes. But Ms. Wimberly could always turn the tables: "And how do you know about my supposed career in pornography?" "Just Googling around" could be the truth, but it doesn't sound terribly convincing when it comes to this sort of thing...

Degeneration

Godsbody reader MEP sends this along, with the following comment: "This is a double platinum album, and the number one iTunes download in ALL of Canada--not just the Quebec Province. i think it strikes the young single crowd profoundly." Amazing - though I imagine some would say that such things are to be expected.

The Bastard Report

Parents are always complaining about the crap to which their children are exposed. They should stop complaining and start parenting. Instead of demanding ratings on TV shows, they should keep track of what their children watch themselves. They should exercise their own control instead of demanding that the government do it for them.



Likewise, if a movie is rated PG-13, parents should think twice before letting small children see it. If it's based on a kiddie ride at an amusement park - well, all the more reason to be careful before exposing little Britney to the sight of ritual axe-murder at the hands of a squid-faced monster.



These things are PG-13 for a reason, people. We're marketing them to adult audiences who happen to be nostalgic for the things that enchanted them as children, and who are interested in seeing a more adult take on their childhood favorites. Quit whining.

(For those of you with a higher crudity tolerance, Letterman gives his take on the matter here.)

Aphorism of the Day*

Marriage is the one blessing not washed away by the Flood, and sex is the one blessing not washed away by marriage.

*What? Like Neitzsche never got off any rim-shot lines of questionable veracity?

The Philosopher at the Mall

Saw this in the mall outside my local Barnes & Noble:

Liberals, Rejoice!

The Motu Proprio has freed up the ol' Tridentine Rite! Folks can worship in diverse ways, according to their own lights - a notion dear to the liberal heart! (Point made by the New Mexico Nurse.)

Exchange.

"It says here [in Cook's Illustrated Best Recipe] that for a Grunt, "fruit is topped with biscuit dough, covered, and baked to that biscuits steam rather than bake. Texture is akin to dumplings and is often gummy. Sometimes made on top of the stove. Also called a Slump."

"Mmmm...Did you say gummy?"

"Did you say Slump?"

"Grunt?"

"Yeah. Do you guys want a Grunt or a Slump? Or maybe a Slunt?"

"I'll have the Peach Slunt."

"When you open Curiously Poor Desserts, you can feature the Slunt of the Day."

A very good weekend.

Light Posting Today

The College-Roommate/Seminarian is in town. In the words of the trolls in The Hobbit: "How could the morning...come so soon?"

100!

Defamer thinks the most important aspect of the Al Gore III drug arrest is the fact that the dude was at least driving a Prius, thus honoring his father's commitment to saving the planet while baked to the gills (well, maybe not that last part). But Godsbody thinks the most important thing is that Gore was reportedly doing 100 m.p.h. when he was busted. Who knew a hybrid could manage that type of speed?

Three days?!

Subject for future poem: Abraham's misery over the THREE DAY hike he took with his son on his way to Yahweh-yireh - where he was to slaughter the boy as an offering to the Lord. Three days of ordinary conversation, three days about the importance of worshipping the Lord, three days of life as if life would endure, all the while knowing what lay at the end of those three days. Dayum.

Scandal

This is terrible:

"Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa confirmed Tuesday that he is in an ongoing relationship with a television reporter, three weeks after sidestepping questions about whether he was involved in an extramarital affair. The mayor, who is in divorce proceedings, made the disclosure at sometimes tense news conference where he pleaded for privacy and insisted his relationship with Telemundo newswoman Mirthala Salinas would not interfere with his job. 'I have had a relationship with Ms. Salinas over time. It has evolved, and today I have acknowledged that relationship,' said the mayor, who announced his separation from his wife, Corina, last month."

His Honor is behaving in a shockingly selfish manner, showing blatant disregard for all the other powerful men out there who have a piece of chicken on the side. Thanks to his reckless decision to divorce his wife and admit his relationship, hundreds, maybe thousands of mistresses will start entertaining grand delusions - "The Mayor of LA left his wife for his mistress. Maybe there's hope for me! I'll start my campaign tonight!"

Tradition, people. There's a reason why things are done a certain way.

(via Some Have Hats)

One Word

“One word, Ma’am. One word. All you’ve been saying is quite right, I shouldn’t wonder. I’m a chap who always likes to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won’t deny any of what you said. But there’s one thing more to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things – trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that’s a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We’re just babies making up a game, if you’re right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world that licks your real world hollow. That’s why I’m going to stand by the play-world. I’m on Aslan’s side even if there isn’t any Aslan to lead it. I’m going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn’t any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we’re leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that’s small loss if the world’s as dull a place as you say."
- Puddleglum, in The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis

(It occurs to me that I may have posted this particular bit before. But if I did, it was in the days before I could post it along with a photo of the incomparable Tom Baker as Puddleglum.)

New Dappled Things Is Out

Here.



UPDATE: The issue contains a fun essay on the plight of the writer-artist that concludes thusly:

"Why, then, doesn’t the literary artist just quit? The answer, I think, lies in what the act of authentic writing means personally to the literary artist. At the deepest level, it is an act of love: love of God’s creation, love of goodness and beauty and truth, love of the well-created work, love of the reader. This act of love is a gift to the common good. It helps diminish the alienation that human beings experience from ourselves and from each other because of original sin. And it can survive even in a mainly apathetic or hostile society, because it is essentially a communication of the inner life, offered freely to any persons willing to receive it by a corresponding act. Both acts require effort and skill, which is why relatively few are willing to make them. Yet, like all communications of love, they prove themselves many times over to be worthwhile."

This is an extremely gentle way of saying that the artist doesn't quit because he can't make himself shut up about what he sees and what he thinks about what he sees, no matter how often the world tells him that shutting up is really for the best in his case. Amen. But seriously, it's a neat essay. Go read it.

Speaking of Mudflap Girls...

...and keeping with the generally lowbrow theme here at Godsbody today, here's a cartoon I did for the day job a while back. There are more of these than I care to admit.

Today in Porn, Spellcheck Edition

So The Wife spotted someone wearing some Nakid Industries apparel while grocery shopping last night, and thought, "Hey, someone decided to have the Mudflap Girls go lesbian!" She suggested that we find out who these Nakid people were (all for the blog!), and it was then that we came to the dispiriting realization that "Nakid" might not be a sort-of clever attempt at branding through phonetics, but rather, a simple spelling error. The website's tagline: "Being online isn't any fun unless your [sic] getting nakid..." Sigh.

Today in Porn, Hooters Are Owls Edition

A Pink Taco restaurant has opened in LA, and should open down here in my town later this year.

Ecumenism

The day job involves regular visits to churches from various denominations. Yesterday, I was among the Southern Baptists, and was fascinated to see, in the slideshow of images behind the lyric-display screen, shot after shot of a gorgeous Italian Catholic church, its exterior festooned with statues of saints. Later, it was announced that the images had been put together by a member of the congregation. It played against the notion that Southern Baptists are suspicious of Catholics and statues and all that sort of thing...

Tomatoes

My friend the New Mexico Nurse has two watchwords when it comes to awesome heirloom tomatoes: wrinkled and dark. This is a (yet-to-ripen) Pink Accordion. Best of all, it's a volunteer, sprung from last year's compost and lovingly transplanted and nurtured by The Wife and Second Son. Life is good.

Lo-Tech

So far, I know two people who own iPhones. They're both lawyers. This is for them.



UPDATE: One of said lawyers - the Manhattan one - went so far as to send me a picture from his newly-acquired bit of finery. Note the delightful caricature on the dry-erase board immediately behind him. I believe he is burning evidence which would prove detrimental to his client's case. You can't pay for dedication like that.

But is it white?

From Ye Olde NYT:

"Ferrari had 1,000 orders for the $650,000 Enzo after the car was unveiled in 2002, but the company stuck to its decision to build only 399 cars (plus one for the pope)."

Oh, drat. Apparently, it isn't.

So. Would Benedict have kept the thing?

Hellfire.

So there was a ridiculously long wait in the line at the In 'n Out drive-thru last night (the horror!) I guess I didn't look serene when I pulled up to the window, or maybe it was standard procedure by that point, but the very polite dude manning the register apologized for the long wait and said they were short-staffed that night. I felt appropriately silly for being impatient, and waved my hand in the standard, "It's nothing; don't worry about it" way.

But then, une jeune fille came to the window and handed me my cheeseburgers, and as she did so, she gave me a winning smile and a wink. And it actually cheered me up.

I am old.