Three!

Brutal.

The Wife, re: holiday weight gain: "Mr. Incredible got back in shape."

"Hell? That's where I live." (File Under: Lapsos Make Interesting Artists)

Lovelovelove this profile of raised-Catholic Philip Seymour Hoffman.

“'I heard that Eastwood is saying that this will be his last film as an actor,' Hoffman said. 'There’s part of me that feels that way during almost every movie. On "Synecdoche," I paid a price. I went to the office and punched my card in, and I thought about a lot of things, and some of them involved losing myself. You try to be artful for the film, but it’s hard. I’d finish a scene, walk right off the set, go in the bathroom, close the door and just take some breaths to regain my composure. In the end, I’m grateful to feel something so deeply, and I’m also grateful that it’s over.' He smiled. 'And that’s my life.'”

Merry!

Tree

Finished it.

Well, the First Part, anyway. Eleven months to the day. Sigh. They don't make bedtime story-readers like they used to. Though I do manage a pretty decent Gandalf.

Tom Cruise v The Master of Ceremonies in Cabaret

Has this been done?

Disenchanted evening
Everyone’s a stranger
Everyone’s a stranger
Known only to themselves
So why even try
You’ll try and you’ll fail
Just give up right now fool
Just don’t even rhyme.

Happy Feast!

Seven years ago, I wrote an article about the image on the Tilma. I have a copy of the "pre-restored" face (pictured) on my office wall.

Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us.

Is It a Sin to Enjoy This?

"Prop 8 - The Musical" starring Jack Black, John C. Reilly, and many more... by Jack Black

Nah. Guilty pleasure, maybe. Vicious delight, no.

Let's face it, the "culture war" is in the main between psuedo-Christians, i.e., heretics who really do "pick and choose" (though the charge is irrelevant here, since homosex is also condemned in the NT) and pagans (most likely lapsed Catholics in the main, esp. in Hollywood) who are actually smarter than the pseudo-Christians. Jesus waving goodbye to both sides and saying "See ya later, sinners?" Nice. Calling out fundamentalism as an intellectual house of cards? Nicer. Not to mention that in this country it really does come down to money (it has to, really; that's the house we built), so the final cynicism is really quite justified. Plus, as a musical "(a)morality play," it's rather well put together -- as well as something like this can be.

So what's not to like? Only that the pagans are illiterate (not saying there's no vincible ignorance here...but then, how much ignorance really is vincible? There's so much damage out there...). So let's belly up to the gay bar, Catholic artists, and have a few drinks (maybe after working on a few sets) with the sodomites and those who heart them; who knows what words we might get in edgewise, especially when we're not actually preaching the Gospel, i.e., with chapter and verse.

That said, it has to be acknowledged that there's a new blacklist shaping up in Hollywood. Things look like they're about to get a little un-lovey. Not to mention unprofessional. If Hollywood ever was professional. Meaning that if we really are on the edge of the apocalypse, conversions may be very few and far between from here to the end.

POSTSCRIPT: I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that there's something inspired about this little ditty...not only because it depicts (even if beside-the-point-edly) the inadequacy of the "right" side of the culture war, but because it also tells on the other side.


Todd Haynes' Safe (1995) is a film that Haynes is on record describing as an allegory for how people with AIDS are treated like pariahs. But not only was Safe manifestly about the isolation of abstracted modern man, the most manifestly abstract character in that film was the film's gay "guru," who exiled the tragically horrific faceless outcast pictured above for what amounted to his refusal to think positively. In short, Safe was art, because it told the truth, the director's stated intentions notwithstanding.

Now consider that the finale of "Prop 8: The Musical" trades on the anticipation of a flood of gay divorces (and the accompanying demand for "tattoo removing"). It wouldn't be funny if it weren't true, right? I mean, that gay relationships tend to be a bit unstable (yes, even more so than today's hetero relationships, which have queered their sex through contraception)? Just as gays tend to be a little over-the-top (e.g., tattoos, the four white horses, the musical number itself)? Will and Grace traded in such verities, didn't it? And yet the truth that works is also a truth that hurts! Did you notice that Doogie literally "ducks"/"dodges" (i.e., diverts attention from) the self-inflicted gay-divorce barb? I've even seen defenders of gay "unions" try to claim that male homosexual couples don't really practice sodomy all that much...maybe precisely because it's just as ridiculous/unseemly as it's "depicted" in the musical number!

In short, the vid is as damning to gays as it is to bible-thumpers...most especially when it comes to the divorce problem, which no homosexual with a romantic bone in his/her body wants to defend at the very same time s/he's arguing for the god(dess)-given right to marry...even as s/he'd be darned if s/he let anybody tell her/im s/he couldn't get divorced if s/he wanted to! Which makes the following video not only astonishingly consistent in its argument, but appallingly hypocritical in its strategy:

Protect Marriage, Protect Children, Prohibit Divorce - watch more funny videos

Here endeth the postscript. I'll make the next one a post.

Ut Unum Sint

File Under: Catholics working together.

First, in February, screenwriter Benedict Fitzgerald sued Mel Gibson and Icon Productions over compensation for Fitzgerald's work on The Passion. The language was pretty heated for a legal brief:

"Fitzgerald, after lengthily describing his own Catholicism and fervent belief in the project (which he claims is how he got hired in the first place), says Gibson 'preyed monetarily' on him, 'taking advantage of his unbridled enthusiasm for the project and with full cognizance of [Fitzgerald’s] fundamental personal and spiritual beliefs. In making a mockery of his own purported belief system, Gibson callously and greedily exploited [Fitzgerald],' the suit read. 'He shamelessly minted and cobbled gobbles of money from ‘The Pasion.’ And just as Gibson extracted shared screenplay credit from [Fitzgerald], he also extracted sums of money due [Fitzgerald],' the suit continued."

"Minted and cobbled gobbles of money?" Wow. He also alleged that Gibson said that the movie was "a personal gift to his faith," and that "'because he was so rich,' he wouldn't take a cut of any profits, but that they would be divided among the other people who worked on the movie, 'excluding Gibson.'” Wow again.

What followed has been torturous and ugly. One hilarious example: Gibson claimed that Fitzgerald "waited too long to file his suit and hasn't offered an adequate explanation for the delay." O-kay then. And so on. Anyway, it looks like Fitzgerald will get his, or rather Gibson's, day in court.

Wow, this is ugly. These guys labored together over The Passion, fer Pete's sake.

[Nota Bene: The attached photo is included only because that beard is awesome.]

O Christmas Tree

Ornamental pear out front:



Wish I were a better photographer.

"It will hit me about a week after his funeral."

Please take a moment to say a prayer for Monsignor Michael Minehan, pastor of my hometown parish, who died on the day before Thanksgiving. He was a great priest.

He had, at one time, been Chancellor of the Diocese of Syracuse. When I first met him, soon after his installation in my little town, I asked, "So, what did you do to get sent down here?"

He didn't skip a beat, and his response was perfect. "Oh, the bishop sent me down to keep an eye on your parents."

"Well, at least you've got a beautiful church here," I replied. (That's it in the picture up above.)

"Yeah, but you know what? I'm thinking of putting in a nice drop ceiling. It'll save us a fortune in heating."

Oh, but he was a sharp one.

My brother The Hollywood Farmer was interviewed for the local paper's story on his passing:

"Minehan made an impression on the St. Mary’s parish with his leadership and his love for the church and the priesthood, said During and Mark Lickona, director of religious education for St. Mary’s School. 'He was unswerving in his devotion to the whole mission of the Catholic church, even the parts that seem antiquated,' Lickona said. 'He loved the depth and breadth of the church, was loyal to traditions where some people might pick and choose what they embrace.' Lickona said Minehan was too self-effacing to see himself as a change agent in St. Mary’s, 'but a guy like him hadn’t been seen in these parts in a long time. He was the reason I took this job after moving back here from Michigan. He is why our musical director and principal work for the school. He was a ray of light...It will hit me about a week after his funeral,' Lickona said. 'The monsignor is now gone but his presence and mission will still be carried forth.'"

Shortly before he died, he had dinner with my family. As he prepared to leave, he mentioned that, as a celibate, he sometimes worried that there would be no one to pray for him after he was gone.

Eternal rest grant to him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May he rest in peace.

(A second shot of the church is below.)

Here Comes Everybody

I wrote an essay! Seriously, if you know anyone who's looking for a stimulating collection of pieces on Catholic Studies in American Higher Education, this might just be your ticket. The essays are based on talks given at St. Scholastica up in Duluth, where Father William Graham heads up the college's Catholic Studies program. I'm pretty sure I was brought on as comic relief - John Allen had been there a week previous. Anyway, I was honored to be invited to contribute.

Every Mother's Favorite Party-Time Amusement Fun Ride!

Ever since his exile from Nickelodeon, the Slime Time Man roams the highways...

Douthat on Abortion in the NYT

Here.

"The culture of (sometimes violent) protest that once defined the movement is largely a thing of the past: Pay a visit to any locus of anti-abortion sentiment — an evangelical megachurch, say, or a conservative Catholic parish — and you’ll find that the bulk of pro-life energy is being channeled into grassroots efforts, from crisis pregnancy centers to post-abortion counseling, that seek to reduce the abortion rate one woman and one child at a time..."

X-Files: I Want to Believe

I saw a movie!

Today in Porn, Who's Taking Your Picture Edition

Yeah, yeah, yesterday's news today...

Remember Gregory Dark? The ex-pornographer who went on to make videos for Britney Spears & Co.? Remember how when the word got out about Dark's past work, Spears ditched him? Remember how we all shook our heads and said, "That's showbiz"? I mean, strange bedfellows and all that, right? Oh, wait, that line is about politics...

Ring, ring.

"Senator Obama's office."

"Hey, we want to put a cover shoot of the Senator together for the September '07 issue of Vibe magazine."

"Cool! Who do you have in mind for the photographer?"

"Terry Richardson. Dude is cutting-edge. Very rough, very unpolished. A very real-life vibe, almost like candids."

"Awesome. Let me just do a little checking around, and we'll get back to you asap. The Senator does have to be careful about how he is perceived these days. You know how it is."

"Um...maybe don't bother checking around. Everything's cool."

"Oh. Okay. See you there!"



This post is not about President-Elect Obama. This post is about porn going mainstream. Because if the person on Team Obama who okayed this shoot spent just a couple of minutes on Google Image Search, they encountered some pretty special work from Mr. Richardson. A (cropped) image from his GQ shoot of Jessica Alba:



Of course, that photo is merely suggestive, if luridly so. I post it only to establish Richardson's celebrity status (there's plenty more). But the celeb stuff is only a trifle. From an '04 profile in The Guardian [language alert]:

"I am standing in an overcrowded art gallery in downtown Manhattan, feeling slightly queasy. In front of me, taking up most of the wall, is a huge photograph of a naked girl engaged in the kind of sexual act that defies description here. Let's just say that her hair is in a mess. There are many questions going through my head at this moment, not least why an image of this kind has ended up in an art gallery...

The gallery is bedecked with similar photographs: naked and glistening young girls, their legs akimbo, backsides thrust in the air, lipsticked mouths open in anticipation. Sometimes there is just one girl, snapped from above in an act of oral devotion, or in a post-coital daze; sometimes there are two, occasionally three. Sometimes, on closer inspection, the girls turn out to be boys, or boy-girls, their petite penises dangling helplessly between their long feminine legs. The only penis that does not dangle belongs to the photographer whose name graces the show, and whose naked frame and goofy, bespectacled face features throughout. His name is Terry Richardson, and the whole show consists of self-made images of Terry thrusting, rucking, prodding, pumping and, sometimes, grinning at the camera like a nerd let loose in porno heaven."

Richardson doesn't regard his work as porn: "'The thing is, I don't personally like porn,' he says, shaking his head, and sucking on the first of several cigarettes he will get through over the next few hours, his voice sounding even deeper than usual due to all the talking he has done since the show's opening. 'Porn kind of bums me out because there is so much sadness and pain in that world. So little joy or even pleasure. I don't use porn or even go to strip clubs, like a lot of my friends. I don't like to exploit anybody. That's not my bag. Everyone has fun on my shoots.'

This would indeed seem to be the case. The girls who now come knocking on the door of Terry Richardson's studio to take part in what he calls his 'spontaneous sex acts' may be young or impressionable, exhibitionist or insecure, or all of the above, but they are all too eager and willing to perform for his camera."

It's a pretty heartbreaking story - the man has a tattoo on his torso of himself as a sad child. I'd spend more time on it, but Richardson's story isn't the point of this post.* The point of the post is that either a) whoever okayed the shoot didn't bother to check the photographer out, even though the photographer was famous (and famously skeevy), or b) whoever okayed the shoot did check Richardson out, and just didn't care.

And why should anyone care? Dude's an artist; he's just expressing himself. "'Oh, I have lots of stuff I am working out through my work,' he freely admits, though one suspects he tends to view his neuroses the way the rest of us might view our hobbies. 'I mean, I don't think I'm a sex addict, if that's what you're asking, but I do have issues, tons of them. Like, this current show could be about my midlife crisis. Or it could be something to do with the fact that since I gave up drinking and taking drugs, I have to get high on sex and being an exhibitionist. Or maybe it's the psychological thing that I was a shy kid, and now I'm this powerful guy with his boner, dominating all these girls. In a way, that's the very stuff I'm trying to work out in the work.'"

*Okay, I can't resist including this: "'I love sex,' he says, 'and, above all, I love the first time I have sex with someone. That's the real buzz. Often girls have said to me: "Terry, it was all downhill after the first f*ck," and that's kind of true, I guess. Sometimes, lately, I find myself thinking I'd really love to settle down, get married, have kids, have a regular relationship.'"

No, I don't care about the clever cultural reference. I just want it.

[Available here.]

Flannery Speaks: The Grotesque in Southern Fiction

The Morning Oil has done us all a wonderful service by posting a link to audiofiles of Flannery O'Connor speaking on the grotesque and reading "A Good Man is Hard to Find." Knockout quote from the essay:

"There are reasons that intensify the grotesque quality of some writing in these times. I feel that the grotesque quality of my own work is intensified by the fact that I am a Southern, and a Catholic writer. It is standard for the Catholic writer to say that he is not a Catholic writer but a writer who happens to be a Catholic. This is a formula that has its uses. But I often wish that Cardinal Spellman had said it instead of Mr. Graham Greene. Then we would have heard no more about it. I have always been more tempted to say that I am not a Southern writer, but a writer who happens to be a Southerner. However, I feel that both of these are evasions, and that they stop discussions that they ought to begin. The Southern writer can't escape the image of the South that has built up a life of its own in his senses, any more than a Catholic can escape the indelible marks of the sacraments put on his soul..."

[via Inside Catholic, via JOB.]

Tom Wolfe in Harper's, 1989

"This brings me to one last point. It is not merely that reporting is useful in gathering the petits faits vrais that create verisimilitude and make a novel gripping or absorbing, although that side of the enterprise is worth paying attention to. My contention is that, especially in an age like this, they are essential for the very greatest effects literature can achieve. In 1884 Zola went down into the mines at Anzin to do the documentation for what was to become the novel Germinal. Posing as a secretary for a member of the French Chamber of Deputies, he descended into the pits wearing his city clothes...and carrying a notebook and pen. One day Zola and the miners who were serving as his guides were 150 feet below the ground when Zola noticed an enormous workhorse, a Percheron, pulling a sled piled high with coal through a tunnel. Zola asked, 'How do you get that animal in and out of the mine every day.' At first the miners thought he was joking. Then they realized he was serious, and one of them said, 'Mr. Zola, don't you understand. That horse comes down here once, when he's a colt, barely more than a foal, and still able to fit into the buckets that bring us down here. That horse grows up down here. He grows blind down here after a year or two, from the lack of light. He hauls coal down here until he can't haul it anymore, and then he dies down here, and his bones are buried down here." When Zola transfers this revelation to the pages of Germinal, it makes the hair on your arms stand on end. You realize, without the need of amplification, that the horse is the miners themselves, who descend below the face of the earth as children and dig coal down in the pit until they can dig no more and are buried, often literally, down there. The moment of The Horse in Germinal is one of the supreme moments in French literature - and it would have been impossible without that peculiar drudgery that Zola called documentation. At this weak, pale, tabescent moment in the history of American literature, we need a battalion, a brigade of Zolas to head out into this wild, bizarre, unpredictable, Hog-stomping Baroque country of ours and reclaim it as literary property."

[Full article here. Thanks, JOB.]

Elsewhere.

Yes, I'm a terrible blogger (oh, no, wait - I'm just a slow blogger!)

Apologies. The tank is pretty much empty on this front of late. Elsewhere, things are fomenting, but nothing to show for it yet.

But I do want to note that Amy Welborn went to Rome, and has some lovely words and pictures over at Charlotte was Both. This is my favorite. The Foundling Wheel should be the title of a novel. Or a band.

The Redeemed Tour Rolls On

Heather King's memoir of metanoia Redeemed continues to attract attention: Jeff Gardner at Catholic Radio International has an interview with the author up at the station's Heart of the Matter program. Go thou and listen.

(And there's more! Dappled Things EIC Katy Carl gives it a warm review as well, and interviews King to boot.)