AND PRETTY GIRLS MAKE…: Having just seen House of Gold, the JonBenet Ramsey play, I am not convinced that it adds anything to that one chapter from The Brothers Karamazov other than exploitation. Please do argue with me if you think differently, but for right now, I don’t know why this needed to happen. ETA: The preceding should not be taken as a slam on the actors (or the director except insofar as I question the decision to stage this... Read more

ANTAEUS COMMISERATES: This thread is like good theater: comedy, tragedy, pathos, an asshole getting thrown outdoors by someone in his underwear, and a cat who survived a fire. link Read more

I HAVE A THING about Gay Catholic Whatnot at the Washington Post‘s “On Faith” site. I think I’m trying to do too many things in too few words, and this piece is better on similar subjects, but if you want to see me get on my hind legs and go up against the Pope, there’s your chance. Read more

There was in 1959 a song of brief fashion but lasting receipts. “The fun is over,” it said with exact precision and continued: “The Comandante arrived and commanded it to stop.”—Mea Cuba Read more

HOME IS ANYWHERE YOU HANG YOUR HEAD: For instance, nineteen-year-old Christina says, “Oh, yeah, my dad had failed as a father, but he was my father. He loved me, and it’s been very hard for me to try to build a relationship with him. I want to have a relationship with him, because you only get one dad. Even if your mom remarries, to a certain extent you only get one dad.” more (I don’t think even adults really experience... Read more

Now even the Soviet Union has attained a Utopian destiny: she is, like every Utopia, to be found nowhere.–Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Mea Cuba (1968) Read more

I FORGOT TO POST THIS YESTERDAY, on her feast day, but here’s the Jean Genet quote which is part of the reason I chose Elizabeth of Hungary as my patroness. Read more

But families, even if only the married couple, are not just close friends. In the family, we feel we are near to the deepest mysteries of life and death.—Putting Liberalism in Its Place Eh, you guys already know what I’ll say about these lines: Given how elegiac the literature of friendship actually is, I don’t think Kahn’s attempt to exclude friendship from the life-or-death domain of familial love really works. Read more

TYPICAL GIRLS… ARE SO CONFUSING: Here are two X-Ray Spex songs I’d never heard until tonight! “Good Time Girl”; “Peace Meal.” The latter is… bubble-gum vegetariana plus Heideggerian “factory farms are concentration camps” awfulness. All I can say is that the X-Ray Spex were usually a lot better than that. Still, I’m a completist with them. I still remember that August week in Rehoboth–the week I turned thirteen, or maybe fourteen?–when I failed to learn to ride a bike, uselessly... Read more

I PREFER SURREALITY…: I have an article on Gay Catholic Whatnot in the Irish magazine Reality. I think most of what I say will be familiar to longtime readers, but if you’re newer, there might be good stuff you haven’t seen yet. It’s 1.70EU here. Also, if you found me because of that article, check out the sidebar under “Sicut cervus: Resources on God and homosexuality,” since those are all things I recommend. Read more