DECADENCE AND THE A.M.E. CHURCH: A few thoughts, not a review, about Passing Strange. It’s the story of a young black man from LA who seeks himself, or meaning, or something, through Amsterdam and West Berlin and finally home. ETA: It’s at the Studio Theater through August 8. 1. I loved this! I loved it well beyond reason. I loved it in part because it really connected with the audience Friday night. I get that it’s easy to be cynical... Read more

ONE GOD, THREE OPINIONS: OK, unsurprisingly it looks like I can’t get the more reviewy version of my take on The New Jerusalem: The Interrogation of Baruch de Spinoza published for money before the play’s run ends. But my wallet’s loss is your wallet’s… also loss, since I cannot let you guys go without telling you why you have to see this terrific play!!! It’s showing at the DC Jewish Community Center until July 25 and seriously, people, I can’t... Read more

IT’S ALL IN THE WRISTS. If you want to know what I mean when I use the phrase “la nouvelle Heloise,” here’s a visual aid. An icon of submission as command, that Mobius strip of self-possession I described in my Inside Catholic column on Abelard and Heloise. Read more

If it were any more real, it’d be fictional.—Passing Strange (now at the Studio Theater!), Stew and Heidi Rodewald; the line recurs but it’s always earned Read more

IF I COULD WALK THAT WAY I WOULDN’T NEED BATTERIES! Via John Carney, I Write Like…. My “Contemporary Christian Music” post garnered an “I Write Like HP Lovecraft.” “Romoeroticism”: I Write Like Dan Brown (!!!!!). The first page or so of New Wineskins: I Write Like David Foster Wallace. And an unpublished (so far) review of that Spinoza play: I Write Like James Joyce. There is no humility without humiliation, people. Read more

“THE EXAMINED LIFE BEHIND BARS.” Read more

THEY ALL WANT LITTLE PIECES OF THIS YEAR’S GIRL: Over at the blog where I post stuff which is too long or spoilery for here, I’ve posted a ridiculously long thing about lesbianisms and why I was way too quick to talk as if every girl’s experience was like mine. Toward the end there’s some language which is a bit more explicit than what I want to have on the blog, as well. But overall the main point here is... Read more

THE CREATION OF A PRIVATE LANGUAGE is also, of course, an important way in which tradition functions to make an institution more like a person, and an individual’s acceptance of an abstracted, often difficult or subordinate, role more like a specific relationship of love between two people. Read more

“WHY ARE YOU STANDING OUT HERE IN THE COLD?“ A lovely little confection. I note that Ratty and I have a bunch of these… although the only ones I can think of right now are based on people thinking I’m stupid! Link via the Rattus. Read more

KITCHEN ADVENTURES: GENERAL JINJUR. Postscript since I forgot to write about this in the sorrel/beets post. I already told you all about learning to make crispy baked wontons. Last week I went absolutely crazy for them! I seriously could eat these things three meals a day. This time I filled all the wontons with the same stuff: chopped button mushrooms from the store (the Mushroom People at my farmer’s market weren’t in town, whimper, but otoh this is a great... Read more