I Revisit Saul Bellow’s “Ravelstein,” A 2000 Novel About Love and Tenderness–And the Coming Crackup of the GOP

Last updated on: July 25, 2016 at 11:42 am By Eve Tushnet

here you go: Ravelstein, Saul Bellow’s roman à clef about the last years of philosopher-provocateur Allan Bloom, may be the best post-9/11 novel published in the year 2000. Ravelstein has as many virtues as its subject has grabby, endearing vices. It’s a subtle portrayal of the blurred boundaries between eros, philia, paternal, and filial love. It calls attention to its own provisional nature: “I may return to this subject later,” the narrator says, but “I probably won’t.” It’s a loving... Read more

“Haunting Photos Show Monks Returning to Abbey–500 Years After It Was Destroyed by Henry VIII”

Last updated on: July 18, 2016 at 6:46 pm By Eve Tushnet

And it’s St Aelred’s abbey, too: A hauntingly beautiful set of photos, appearing on DailyMail, shows two Cistercian monks, Father Joseph and Brother Bernard, visting the ruins of a former Cistercian Abbey in England that had been destroyed during Henry VIII’s reign. more Read more

The Cathedral-Builders: Movie notes

Last updated on: July 18, 2016 at 3:16 pm By Eve Tushnet

In chronological order of when I saw them. The cathedrals are toward the end. Vic and Flo Saw a Bear: Formally-daring suspense flick about a lesbian returning home from prison; and yet somehow this didn’t grab me. Victor Morton loved it and argues that it is, in a subtle way, about patriarchy. I can see that, and the subtlety of that is really powerful: The “main villain” is not a man, but men lurk on the edges of the narrative,... Read more

“The Gun Control We Deserve”: Terrific article

Last updated on: July 18, 2016 at 12:01 pm By Eve Tushnet

at n+1: At the deepest level, the schizoid landscape of American gun control is the product of two phenomena, both baked into the American past and protean in their contemporary manifestations. First, a long history of skirmishes over who should be armed and how—fraught battles that pivot on questions of race, class, masculinity, and the role of law enforcement.1 Second, the synergy between American militarism and capitalism: a perennial entanglement that has produced a society in which there are more... Read more

“Humiliation and Reconciliation”: I’m at AmCon

Last updated on: July 15, 2016 at 12:01 pm By Eve Tushnet

as usual I seem to have kept the most important stuff for the last three paragraphs, but here’s the opener: My poolside reading this July has been Mary C. Mansfield’s 1995 work The Humiliation of Sinners: Public Penance in Thirteenth-Century France. The book illuminates human questions we still have not resolved with stories from civilizational past. You don’t have to care as much about the Rogation dragon as I do to see echoes of Mansfield’s medieval world in our own... Read more

“Ecstatic Dance”: I review “The Fits,” A Stunning Film

Last updated on: July 15, 2016 at 11:25 am By Eve Tushnet

review at First Things: Anna Rose Holmer’s extraordinary new film The Fits begins with a young girl whose body obeys her will implicitly. “One,” eleven-year-old Toni (Royal Hightower) counts, as she pulls herself into a sit-up in the very center of the frame. “Two.” She works her body, grunting and gasping and twisting just a little with the effort, all the way past twenty. Then it’s time to box. She spars with her older brother (Da’Sean Minor): She is a... Read more

The Relics of Richard III: An older but provocative post on medieval bones and modern worship

Last updated on: July 11, 2016 at 6:52 pm By Eve Tushnet

by Eleanor Parker aka A Clerk of Oxford. The rest of this post is quite peaceable and non-polemical but I fastened my fangs on the very David Foster Wallace/”everybody worships” bit: There’s no doubt that many people today are fascinated by the relics of kings, even as they look down on the medieval age for caring about the relics of saints. We’re quite accustomed to the idea of a royal shrine as a place of historical pilgrimage – or else... Read more

Cinema Paradiso? Some Things to Consider Before You Throw that Movie Reference into Your Homily

Last updated on: July 11, 2016 at 3:54 pm By Eve Tushnet

Steven Greydanus is the movie critic for Crux and the National Catholic Register, and he’s also a newly-ordained deacon. (Woohoo! PARTY AT STEVE’S HOUSE) But he noted, “FWIW, I have now preached two homilies and have not used any movie references or analogies. No one believes I will keep this up.” “It’s actually kind of important to me that I *not* use movie references in my homilies, or at least try to avoid them as much as possible,” he continued.... Read more

HIeronymus Bosch: Hear Music Straight from the Devil’s Hindquarters

Last updated on: July 11, 2016 at 2:31 pm By Eve Tushnet

Or the hindquarters of somebody being tormented by a devil, anyway: Another mark in the “why the Internet rules” column: an Oklahoma college student named Amelia has transcribed the music written on the ass of a figure from the “Hell” panel of Hieronymus Bosch’s famous triptych painting The Garden of Earthly Delights, and posted a recording of it to her Tumblr. Listen to it here. It’s not the most mind-blowing music you’ll hear in your life, I know, but it’s... Read more

From Saul Bellow, “Ravelstein”

Last updated on: July 11, 2016 at 1:52 pm By Eve Tushnet

Obviously, my purpose in mentioning the Crillon’s valet service was to comfort Abe for spilling the Flore’s strongest coffee on his brand-new jacket. But Abe didn’t want me to console him for being what he was. He would have thought better of me for laughing at his sputtering reckless slobbering, his gauche eager tremors. He liked broad comedy, old vaudeville routines, wounding remarks, brashness, and raw fun. So he didn’t think well of my weak, liberal, let’s-make-it-all-better motive–my foolish kindness.... Read more