“Hounding Whistleblowers Is Wrong”: David Cay Johnston

Last updated on: October 29, 2013 at 10:56 pm By Eve Tushnet

in Newsweek: …I think Keller, my former boss, missed the underlying issue: Why assume that leakers must risk all? Why assume leakers must be prosecuted? My Newsweek piece noted that the British Official Secrets Act included a “public interest” defense for whistleblowers, until Parliament cut it from the law in 1989. The U.S. should enact a public interest defense. Leakers could still face prosecution, but they could try to persuade a jury that their acts were justified in defense of... Read more

A Halloween Art Show from Kate McDowell

Last updated on: October 29, 2013 at 10:48 pm By Eve Tushnet

I was reminded of these haunting, somewhat horrifying sculptures of birds and lungs and birds who live in lungs, etc, by Jendi Reiter. Enjoy! Be unsettled! Read more

Objects in the World Are Words Spoken By God

Last updated on: October 29, 2013 at 10:49 pm By Eve Tushnet

Poet Scott Cairns talks about something adjacent to an element of my own conversion–and, like me, he found this truth in Judaism as well as Christianity. The title of this post comes from Christianity in Jewish Terms, a fascinating little pomo book which helped me quite a bit in sorting through what I believed and how my Christian spirituality was shaped. …Raised a Baptist, Cairns’ faith journey involved a deep study of Jewish texts and Christian theology as well as... Read more

“Material Madchen”: I read “The Artificial Silk Girl”

Last updated on: October 25, 2013 at 1:23 pm By Eve Tushnet

at AmCon: I picked up Irmgard Keun’s 1932 novel The Artificial Silk Girl at the Neue Galerie in New York, basically on a whim. It promised to be a dizzying tour of Weimar Berlin, last call before Hell and all that, from the perspective of a young, single woman whom the introduction compares to Madonna’s “Material Girl.” Certainly our heroine, Doris, is materialistic in a certain sense. She pays her bills by dating men. Her closest relationship is with her... Read more

Indiegogo Campaign for Film Festival on LGBT/Faith Issues

Last updated on: October 22, 2013 at 3:59 pm By Eve Tushnet

The Level Ground film festival is raising money for its second year, & I’ve signed on to support the project. The festival focuses on screening & discussing films which concern, in some way, the intersection of lgbt/queer/same-sex attracted life, and religious faith. I’ve suggested a couple movies for this year, although I can make no promises about the festival’s content. You’ll see from the Indiegogo site that many people involved with it are coming from a very different religious stance... Read more

Remaking Stephen King Flicks

Last updated on: October 19, 2013 at 11:17 pm By Eve Tushnet

I’m surprisingly convinced by some of the choices and judgments on this list. The first one (Neil Marshall remakes Graveyard Shift) is the best, but there are some good calls here. He’d need to keep the working-class grimth, though–the opening of the original movie is the best part. No, wait, the end credits are obviously the best part: Read more

“Disorientation”: I review a photography show at the Sackler Gallery

Last updated on: October 19, 2013 at 10:08 pm By Eve Tushnet

for AmCon: Now that the shutdown is over, I can tell you about a small but punchy photography exhibit at the Sackler. “Sense of Place,” which runs through November 11, disrupts many of the cliches of East vs. West. In these tired oppositions, Europe is a clash of swords and horses; China, Japan, or any other part of the undifferentiated East is a lone monk crossing a quiet pond. The West is the land of change and history, the East... Read more

From Irmgard Keun, “The Artificial Silk Girl”

Last updated on: October 19, 2013 at 10:04 pm By Eve Tushnet

tr. Kathie von Ankum: At the table next to me was a wonderful lady with really expensive shoulders and with a back–it was straight all by itself, and such a wonderful dress, it makes me cry–the dress was so beautiful, because she doesn’t have to think about where she’s getting it from. You could tell by looking at the dress. And I was standing next to her in the restroom, and both of us were looking in the mirror–she had... Read more

“Crawl of Faith”: Me at Acculturated

Last updated on: October 18, 2013 at 2:20 pm By Eve Tushnet

on Balanchine’s “Prodigal Son” ballet: I’m glad nobody told me anything about George Balanchine’s choreography for The Prodigal Son before I watched it. The librettist, Boris Kochno, made a lot of changes to the Biblical story, and all of these changes sound like terrible ideas. more–from my series on portrayals of penitence. I really like how this turned out. Read more

“Wounded Beauty”: Me in America

Last updated on: October 18, 2013 at 2:13 pm By Eve Tushnet

magazine, talking about horror films and the sublime: I love horror movies because they show me the sublime. I love them for a lot of other reasons too, I admit, depending on my mood. I don’t believe in a grand, unified theory of horror, or of any other genre of film; most genres are a welter of traditions and counter-traditions. Sometimes you want to see evil defeated by the triumphant “final girl”; at other times, by contrast, you want to... Read more