Those who came seeking help often did so with a faint trace of shame hovering over them–the sense that they were once again pleading to someone to grant them a right that everyone else they passed on the street, on the subway, and in traffic took for granted trailed them in almost all of their dealings and most likely made them more deferential than they had ever been. Read more
“One day, he will be an iconic choreographer!” Kori Ade, Jason Brown’s coach, had told icenetwork about her protégé’s choreographer, Rohene Ward. At the time, Brown had just finished third in the short program at Trophée Eric Bompard, en route to something he had not even dreamed about at the time: a silver medal at the 2014 U.S. Figure Skating Championships and participation in the Olympic Games in his first season in the senior ranks. In just one evening last November,... Read more
While it was common even among the most disciplined teachers to allow for small fabrications, from the beginning the stories I told my students existed on a more ambitious plane. Now when asked for details about my life, I indulged myself. When one of my students wanted to know what I did before I began teaching at the academy, I told him that I had spent years working in a coal mine and had the blackened lungs to prove it.... Read more
in First Things: In a way, Christianity is the end of archaic religions because it reveals that the victim is innocent. When you understand Christianity correctly in its closeness and distance from archaic religion it is the same structure, the scapegoat phenomenon, that Jesus is victim of. Yet the text is intended to destroy your belief in scapegoat phenomenon instead of using it in order to have sacrifices. more Read more
Mudblood Catholic a) echoes the novel I’m working on and b) frightens me, via CS Lewis: Of course, we’re all insufferable sometimes and to someone. I think it was C. S. Lewis who speculated that one of the disciplinary aspects of Purgatory might well be perceiving ourselves as others perceived us while on earth. Trying to see ourselves from the perspective of someone who dislikes us intensely — and perhaps not altogether unfairly — can be a salutary experience. Though... Read more
Enough is never enough of Gay Catholic Stuff. Anyway here’s a bunch of the Usual Suspects talking about various topics, for an upcoming website. I don’t remember anything I said in these videos so uh… enjoy! (In all seriousness, it’s an interesting group of people with large areas of overlap but also divergent life experiences and vocations, so I think the video series is bound to be interesting no matter what weird mishegoss I ended up saying.) Read more
on a truly excellent film: At the Level Ground film festival the other weekend, I got to see “Desire of the Everlasting Hills,” a truly moving and well-made documentary—and an example of the movement I described in my “Coming Out Christian” piece. “Desire” lets three gay or same-sex attracted Catholics tell their stories. It’s not confrontational or argumentative; the overall tone is tender and reflective. I saw it twice, and it evoked both laughter and sniffles from the audience. And... Read more
Last night I watched Phone Booth, the 2003 thriller (brilliantly directed by Joel Schumacher, for real) in which an unseen killer traps Colin Farrell in a public phone booth and makes increasingly painful demands. It’s terrifically intense–I couldn’t look away. The high concept is so great: the man suffering in public, while nobody around him has any idea what he’s going through. Both Farrell and his character are fun (he’s a publicist, rather than a human being) and, by the... Read more
at the intriguing new site Substance: For anyone interested in addiction and drug policy, the last year or so has been the most fascinating period in recent memory. Having kicked heroin and cocaine in 1988 and written about the subject ever since, I can’t remember a time when public opinion and actual policy have changed so quickly—and in such a rational direction. I’m not just talking about marijuana—although the fact that the Obama administration has allowed two states (Colorado and... Read more
a reader notes that MacIntyre may have been paraphrasing or quoting this guy: To be a witness does not consist in engaging in propaganda, nor even in stirring people up, but in being a living mystery. It means to live in such a way that one’s life would not make sense if God did not exist. from here with some rough historical context Read more
Eve Tushnet
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