opinin’: So no, the pope does not support gay marriage; those who believe these latest clips indicate a change of his stance will be disappointed. But many people wanted the pope to talk about gay people’s own longing to form a family because they hunger for some acknowledgment that being gay is about more than sexual desire. What surprised and delighted many gay people, both outside and within the church, was the possibility that he would speak about our longings... Read more
Surprisingly themeless! The Eagle: Absolutely gorgeous nature scenery for this strange tale of a Roman soldier desperate to restore his family honor by finding and fetching the eagle standard of the Ninth Legion, lost in Roman-occupied Britain. Rome is the villain and yet everybody is won over by it and finds its whole honor and conquest and killin’ folk thing sort of endearing by the end; Marcus, our Roman, saves a British slave from death in the arena and then... Read more
magazine, reviewing… a horror novel, actually: They thought they were lucky. The antiheroes of Stephen Graham Jones’s revenge-horror novel, The Only Good Indians, are four Blackfeet men, childhood friends, who on the Saturday before Thanksgiving go poaching in the part of the forest set aside for tribal elders. They dub the trip the “Thanksgiving Classic,” and they are in the woods for fun, for friendship—but also out of economic need and shame. Winter is coming, and they haven’t managed to... Read more
Previous years here and here. This year has a bit less variety than the two previous but I think it’s still a fun one. “Did somebody call break?…Break’s over.” Tonio K, “How Come I Can’t See You in My Mirror?” A great addition from reader Don McClane. Oingo Boingo, “Dead Man’s Party” “Theme from ‘Graveyard Shift’” Jonathan Coulton, “Re: Your Brains” Voltaire, “Graveyard Picnic” Martin Tielli, “I’ll Never Tear You Apart” The Smiths, “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle” Lalo... Read more
with an essay which can also serve as a “trailer” for the forthcoming sequel to Gay & Catholic: Sexual integrity… cannot be defined simply as the absence of obvious sexual sin. What looks like chastity from the outside may be a brittle, traumatized despair, or an attempt to earn God’s love. (And unchastity may be part of a long journey of unlearning the backward catechism [of self-hatred]. Where that journey leads may depend, in part, on how confessors, parents, and... Read more
I wrote about Liane de Pougy’s diaries, for America‘s books issue: …For Lianon (as she called herself), life was a banquet, and she took seconds of every dish. Men poured jewels in her lap and women threw themselves at her feet—de Pougy’s 1901 novel, Idylle Saphique, is a roman à clef about her affair with Natalie Barney, then the empress of lesbian Paris. At last she was swept away from the glittering world in the only manner that could have... Read more
Recently finished Susan Crawford Sullivan’s 2011 Living Faith: Everyday Religion and Mothers in Poverty, a qualitative study (ooh fancy) of moms recruited from the waiting rooms of various Boston welfare and social-service offices. Sullivan asks the right questions and, as a practicing Catholic, understands the true weight of the answers. She never instrumentalizes her subjects’ faith; even when she talks about the *~*practical benefits*~* of religious belief, she always notes that the purpose of these women’s prayers and faith are... Read more
subscribers-only, I’m afraid, but I’m out there telling you that you don’t have to become straight to please God, therapists and ministers who pressure you to “fix” your orientation are more likely to do harm than good, and there are havens for your love and longing which are in harmony with the Church’s teachings: In spite of the closure of ex-gay organisations, the defection of ex-gay leaders and studies showing that conversion therapy is rarely “successful” and often harmful, Catholics... Read more
(…sort of.) I’m at First Things: Last year, Oscar-winner Parasite and box-office smash Knives Out gave audiences class warfare in a delicious genre coating. Before we could find out if any new horror flicks or mysteries would offer comparable political pleasures, COVID-19 shuttered theaters and left film fans scouring the streaming services. That’s how I found Hard Labor, a 2011 Brazilian horror film from writers/directors Marco Dutra and Juliana Rojas, which you can watch for free if your local library... Read more
or film impressions, or what have you. Saving the best for last. Tragedy Girls: High-school BFFs seek social media fame by tracking a local serial killer–but they’re really doing all the kills themselves, for the likes. This blank-hearted film has two charismatic leads (Brianna Hildebrand and especially Alexandra Shipp), and there’s a great late-breaking subplot about democracy as social media, but otherwise this did nothing for me. It’s neon-pretty but so are lots of horror movies. If you want hilariously-dressed... Read more
Eve Tushnet
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