Indie horror flick A Horrible Way to Die is a great example of how a moviemaker can misunderstand what’s so special about his idea. The basic story of the film is straightforward: A woman tries to settle in to her new life in a new town, but her serial-killer ex (whom her evidence put away) has escaped from prison and is on the road heading back to her. There are some twists and turns, because Not Everyone Is What They... Read more
reviewing the Met’s recent Dialogues of the Carmelites: The Metropolitan Opera’s recent production of Dialogues of the Carmelites opens with a group of habited women prostrating themselves on the floor with their arms spread. Their bodies are individual crosses that make up one big cross. This opening for Francis Poulenc’s 1956 opera, adapted from a play by Georges Bernanos and based on a real incident during the French Revolution, seems to subsume the women into a collective identity: they’re no... Read more
…farts pastry: While enjoying my Sucre and Orange Donut at Cafe Sardine in Montreal, the pastry chef pointed out a treat I’d not likely find outside the area: the Pet de Soeur. I laughed as he told me that it translates to Nun’s Fart (or Sister’s Fart), and learned that the pet de soeur has its roots in Acadia. more. How did I not know about this? Sounds delicious, too. Read more
but this little tale of the hunt for dirt on Glenn Greenwald should make you a) think of the worst or most shameful things you’ve ever done, b) ask yourself whether it could be reconstructed from your credit card bills, legal records, social media, security camera footage, or internet history, and then c) keep in mind that revelations about state power and secrecy are the important things, not the personal character of the people doing the revelatin’. …So I’ve been... Read more
It happened. It’s so much better than you think it will be. via IP Read more
And it is here within his conception of moral practice as desire-discovery—or as he calls it, “practical wisdom”—that for Thomas a principal means of tracing the way back to what we really want, is prayer, oratio. And our only available starting point for that practice of self-discovery is our wants and desires as we actually experience them. Therefore, Thomas says, we ought to pray for what we think we want regardless. For prayer is “in a certain manner a hermeneutic... Read more
A huge deal in the evangelical world, and probably a big deal for American Christians in general. But I know very little about Exodus, so here’s some stuff by other people who know much more about this kind of thing than I do. Wesley Hill’s thing seems most acute to me–asking the right questions (and do check out his links as well, especially this one). Aaron Taylor sheds light on some of the distorted thinking involved in Exodus’s origins. Gregg... Read more
LOL: “Don’t you dare shake hands with me, or offer signs of peace, You lay a finger on me and I’ll call for the police. Don’t whisper ‘Peace be with You,’ this is the C of E, so bend the knee, say thou and thee, and keep your hands off me.” more Read more
Govind and Mr Biswas had not spoken since their fight. By carrying Mr Biswas in his arms Govind had put himself on the side of authority; he had assumed authority’s power to rescue and assist when there was need, authority’s impersonal power to forgive. Read more
sorry for length!: The idea that “shame works”—that stigmatizing behaviors and shaming the people who do them are necessary and honorable tools of public policy—is a recurring theme in both conservative and more communitarian/paternalistic liberal rhetoric. It’s often based on personal experience, or home truths from one’s mom, and because people do sometimes say that shame worked for them I had a hard time articulating why I rejected this rhetoric so completely. But I recently finished reading Middlemarch for the... Read more
Eve Tushnet
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