Some Notes from the Catholic Imagination Conference 2K19

Last updated on: September 25, 2019 at 2:43 pm By Eve Tushnet

I got to go to this biannual thing in order to read from my forthcoming novel, Punishment: A Love Story. During the conference a lot of the speakers made little videos answering questions about “the Catholic imagination,” and, because this conference had a certain self-awareness, one of the questions was basically, “Is this idea of ‘the Catholic imagination’ a useful or interesting category? Please share your beef with literally the whole premise of what we’re doing here.” And yeah, I... Read more

I Need You Like Tab Needs Rum

Last updated on: September 24, 2019 at 11:04 am By Eve Tushnet

I watched Desperately Seeking Susan, the 1985… is it a woman’s picture????… in which bored housewife Roberta Glass (deer-faced, yearning Rosanna Arquette) becomes obsessed with the imagined romantic life of schemey drifter Susan (Madonna!). It’s mostly a delight, from the very first hyperfeminine scene of Roberta waxing her leg. The producers and one of the writers were women, and it’s directed to the max by Susan “Smithereens” Seidelman. Roberta and Susan have the film’s greatest chemistry, which is both a... Read more

“Authenticity Is the New Authority”

Last updated on: September 19, 2019 at 6:02 pm By Eve Tushnet

So here I am at the Catholic Imagination Conference, hosted by Loyola University in Chicago, & a woman who works in religious publishing says that the title of this post is a commonplace saying in her business. She asked the panelists to comment. We started off with a bang as Bill Gonch busted out with, “I don’t want to say that I’m against authenticity, but–” Which was basically my exact reaction. So here, let me suggest some very short cases... Read more

Just Because You’re Paranoid: I watch “Doubt” at Studio Theatre

Last updated on: September 14, 2019 at 12:26 pm By Eve Tushnet

One of the central points of Gavin de Becker’s terrific book The Gift of Fear is how often we (especially we women) talk ourselves out of listening to our fears. Something seems off–about this person, this relationship, this joke, this dark alley–and yet we tell ourselves not to be so suspicious, not to be hysterical, it’s only a joke, surely I’m imagining things. And de Becker points out that our instinctive sense of something wrong in a situation, something not... Read more

A Lie Is a Wish Your Heart Makes: Four short movie reviews

Last updated on: September 13, 2019 at 1:08 pm By Eve Tushnet

The Trouble with Angels: An essentially charming confection from 1966, set in one of those stern-but-fair ’50s and ’60s Hollywood Catholic schools. Ida Lupino directs a script by Blanche Hanalis based on Jane Trahey’s novel, and if that lineage makes you think this will be a delightful plunge into a world made by women for girls, you are correct. Hayley Mills is the innocent scapegrace constantly getting her best friend into extremely wholesome trouble before facing the stern-but-fair Mother Superior... Read more

Revoice: Hope Rests on Honesty

Last updated on: September 10, 2019 at 12:22 pm By Eve Tushnet

People of Earth! Two years ago Revoice became, as far as I know, the only ecumenical conference for lgbt/same-sex attracted Christians who accept the Church’s teaching that marriage is the union of a man and a woman. I’ve been to both of the conferences so far and they have been amazing experiences. In a way I’d never experienced, I was among my people. Today they’re raising funds not only for Revoice 2020, which I can’t recommend highly enough!!!!, but also... Read more

In Praise of Ill Intentions: I watch “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark”

Last updated on: September 6, 2019 at 3:29 pm By Eve Tushnet

& review for America: What we remember are the pictures. Children of the ’80s through the ’00s—the heyday of the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark series, whose first installment was published in 1981—will tell you that the stories themselves, by Alvin Schwartz, were only O.K. It is true that we think of them now and then: the grisly nursing school prank; the bride who played hide-and-seek and got trapped in a trunk. Eerie phrases do float through our... Read more

Gods of the Lost: Three short book notes

Last updated on: August 31, 2019 at 4:50 pm By Eve Tushnet

It can be hard to tell gifts of the spirit From clever counterfeits… —Mountain Goats Graham Greene, The Power and the Glory. I’d read this before (of course?) but didn’t remember it well. It took me a while to warm up to this harrowing story of a demoralized, alcoholic priest in hiding from Mexican Communist authorities. Looking back, I respect the decision to open with “the bystanders”–the local dentist, the pious family, the surrendered priest-husband Father Jose, and of course... Read more

Salo 2: Salo Harder

Last updated on: August 26, 2019 at 12:52 pm By Eve Tushnet

Some notes and quotations I had to leave out of my intro-to-Salo article due to space constraints. They talked for over an hour. Near the end, after they’d been sitting in silence for a while, Burns said quietly, “Do you know what Christ died of?” Rivers looked surprised, but answered readily enough. “Suffocation. Ultimately the position makes it impossible to go on inflating the lungs. A terrible death.” “That’s what I find so horrifying. Somebody had to imagine that death.... Read more

We Don’t Need No Water…

Last updated on: August 29, 2019 at 12:45 am By Eve Tushnet

A couple thoughts on the Pauline counsel, “It is better to marry than to burn with passion,” as applied to gay people. Now and then I’ve heard the argument that the Church must bless gay marriage, because mutual care and sexual fidelity are preferable to either isolated despair or promiscuity. This position often goes along with an argument that lifelong celibacy is impossible and spiritually damaging for most, and available only to those who have a “gift” for it (citing... Read more