![\"\"](\"https:\/\/fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net\/hphotos-ak-prn2\/v\/1080657_10200981587675548_1429364399_n.jpg?oh=887efbf2b080b7d9e214dae31bd6fc59&oe=51F0609F&__gda__=1374697517_db4af07c757093f501e56b758d4220ed\")
Katrina Fernandez was raised\u00a0by hippies\u00a0in Northern Virginia. A self-professed snob, abhorrent of hippies, she writes the delightfully anti-Puritanical\u00a0web log,\u00a0The Crescat<\/a>,<\/em>\u00a0on the Patheos<\/a> Catholic Channel<\/a>. Ms. Fernandez displays a pointed point of view, delivered in expressive and colorful posts that provoke and, oftentimes, astonish.\u00a0<\/em>She is the Liberace\u00a0of the Catholic blogosphere.<\/p>\nWhile certainly shocking, Ms. Fernandez is not a shock jock. But she is a jock: she played rugby for seven years at the position of prop, one of the two pillars of the scrum. If her fearless prose is any indication, she must have delighted in the intensity and sometimes outrageous pageantry of rugby football. And, of course, the contact.<\/p>\n
Like the continuous play of a rugby match, Ms. Fernandez completed her interview within a single eighty-minute session on Facebook chat. And a bottle of wine. The thread was at times chaotic, but never boring, and even adversarial at times \u2014 after all, we are both former ruggers.<\/p>\n
The sport of women\u2019s rugby is a subtle art. Many times the finesse gets lost in the spectacle of women doing battle, verging on the homoerotic. The same might be said of her writing. LOUD, salacious, and fun, the sheer romp of her sentences\u00a0and imagery\u00a0can sometimes obfuscate\u00a0the absolute seriousness of her aesthetic-religious message, sometimes to a degree that verges on being defensive.<\/p>\n
But, as they say, sometimes the best offense is a good defense.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Sam Rocha<\/p>\n
INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Your writing. It\u2019s good. It clips and verves and achieves something pretty wild sometimes, without totally going off the rails. How do you do that? How do you write that way you do?<\/p>\n
KATRINA FERNANDEZ<\/p>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0I talk to myself in my head. Seriously, that\u2019s how a write. Like a running monologue. I\u2019ve kept a journal every day of my life since I was six. I can\u2019t think or figure things out without first fleshing them out on paper<\/p>\n
INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0So, if this were an oral account, a more traditional interview, the transcript would probably be the same, at least in the voice of the prose?<\/p>\n
KATRINA FERNANDEZ<\/p>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Yes. How I write is exactly how I think and talk. Which is why grammar Nazis hate me. I\u2019m a shit writer in technical terms, I suppose. I wrestle with that inferiority complex when I compare myself to real talent. That kid, Max, I have such an Internet crush on his prose. I don\u2019t do radio interviews well either because of it.<\/p>\n
INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Back to your unique voice: I once had a student who wrote in his deeply street-inflected Philly voice. It reminded me of Twain\u2019s folksy voices in Huckleberry Finn<\/em>. He took such a beating from profs who thought he needed to \u201clearn how to write proper English,\u201d but all I could think of was Twain (who certainly had total command of the English language) when I read his work. \u2028All I see today are students (and even some professional writers) who don\u2019t have a voice, and certainly not the one you have. What do you think about that?<\/p>\n KATRINA FERNANDEZ<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0I don\u2019t really know what to think. It\u2019s just my voice in my head. My narrative that never shuts up.<\/p>\n INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0I feel like I could just give you a cue and you would narrate the whole interview for me, like a John Cage interview technique or something. Is that the voice in your head?<\/p>\n KATRINA FERNANDEZ<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Probably. I write in my sleep. I once read somewhere in some pseudo pyscho babble magazine that you weren\u2019t supposed to be able to read in your dreams. That\u2019s BS. I read and write in my dreams all the time.<\/p>\n INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Me too. I think I have some harder questions to ask about this voice in your head business, is that okay? Not intellectually hard, but maybe digging too much, presumptuous\u2026<\/p>\n KATRINA FERNANDEZ<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Sure. Psycho analyze me baby<\/p>\n INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Here\u2019s my reading of your prose: it\u2019s disarming, cool, fast, but never loose. I know some guitar players who are super coy about what they do because they\u2019ve been doing it for so long, but that also seems to be a failure on their part to recognize and see themselves in a certain interior way, as artists. I mean, \u201cI can\u2019t stop talking\u201d doesn\u2019t strike me as telling the whole story. See?<\/p>\n KATRINA FERNANDEZ<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0I guess I\u2019ve honestly never really thought about my writing style because I don\u2019t see myself as having one. It reads more like being all over the place as my mind moves from one subject to the next. Sometimes it really is just me writing to myself. I don\u2019t know why anyone finds that interesting but they do.<\/p>\n INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Do you edit?<\/p>\n KATRINA FERNANDEZ<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0I try. I try to edit for errors but I am terrible at catching them. Edit for content, rarely. If it\u2019s personal I will sit on it for several days. I either publish or trash it. You mean edit for errors or edit for content?<\/p>\n INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0I guess both. What I am driving at isn\u2019t totally clear to me but I think I am trying to ascertain your sense of taste, you have fascinating ability to mix highbrow ecclesial jargon with profanity and loud pictures and shorthand, cool phrases\u2026 And ellipses. How do you do it? And do you think you are being coy?<\/p>\n KATRINA FERNANDEZ<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Coy. \u201cMaking a pretense of shyness or modesty that is intended to be alluring but is often regarded as irritating.\u201d Yes, I\u2019ve been called irritating.<\/p>\n \u201cReluctant to give details, esp. about something regarded as sensitive.\u201d Yes and No.<\/p>\n INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Okay, say more about the yes and no thingy.<\/p>\n KATRINA FERNANDEZ<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Am I annoying? Gee, I sincerely hope not, but I kind of fear that I am. I try not to be. Like really super hard. I took an etiquette class once because I don\u2019t think a lot of people get me. OK. Here\u2019s where I\u2019ll share something personal: I took this class because someone I admire said I\u2019d have better dating luck if I toned my gregariousness once. She said she was sure there was a truck driver somewhere who\u2019d love me. \u201cDay-um,\u201d I said, and thanked her for having the balls to be honest.<\/p>\n Then I decided to stop dating till I figured this out. You know that old saying that you are the only constant in all your failed relationships. Well, I figured it was right and took that class. And had some successful dates just like she predicted. But by the third date I couldn\u2019t hide the fact that I snort when I laugh. And I laugh a bit too loud. And when I get nervous I say things like, \u201cI steal votive candles from church\u201d. So I had to decide. Do I want to be \u201ccoy,\u201d as you called it? Or just me. So no, I do keep things to myself on my blog. I rarely talk about my ex-husband. Or that acid I took. Because I know how much it sucks to be honestly you and have that honest version, your true self, get rejected. Plus the trads would die if they knew I smoked pot and I regularly attend the Novus Ordo mass.<\/p>\n INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0I can see that. But isn\u2019t there a sort of honesty and authenticity that is also about NOT being who I really am, about trying to cling to that \u201cme\u201d that I think I am, but suspect I may not really be? I think there is a fine line, at least for me there is, between being authentic and being scared.<\/p>\n I have to ask: you do realize that you\u2019re giving me all this to post on the Internet about you, right? All these things you \u201cdon\u2019t write about.\u201d Of course that\u2019s the genius of your style, you say what you couldn\u2019t say otherwise by saying what you cannot say about it.<\/p>\n KATRINA FERNANDEZ<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Wait what? This is like Inception<\/em>.<\/p>\n INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Like I said earlier, you are disarming, in an oddly aggressive but playful way, and by doing that you are able to say things others could never get away with. But I\u2019m more interested in you<\/em> and why it is, or how it is, that you do that.<\/p>\n KATRINA FERNANDEZ<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0You know what I miss most? My pathetic never read non-blog from five years ago\u2028\u2028\u2028\u2028\u2028\u2028\u2028\u2028\u2028\u2028 because that never read blog was where the real shit flew. This, this, Patheos<\/em> thing\u2026 it\u2019s like a mental filter. It\u2019s like I am forcing my mind to behave like my every day professional self. Now everybody and my fucking confessor read the damn thing.<\/p>\n INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0In others word: \u201cyou ain\u2019t seen nothing yet \u2014 in reverse\u201d?<\/p>\n KATRINA FERNANDEZ<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0That\u2019s why this interview thing idea you have is great. Cause I can say shit. But I\u2019m not really. I can tell you I steal votive candles from Church and you can do with that as you please but it\u2019s not really my confession because it\u2019s technically not coming from me.<\/p>\n INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Gotcha. Want to get really serious now? Want to fight?<\/p>\n KATRINA FERNANDEZ<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0I played rugby for seven years. You\u2019d lose.<\/p>\n INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Nice! What position?<\/p>\n KATRINA FERNANDEZ<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Prop.<\/p>\n INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Oh boy. You\u2019re right.\u2028Okay then. We\u2019ll do something psychoanalytic instead. Are you familiar with word association?<\/p>\n KATRINA FERNANDEZ<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Yes. It\u2019s where I see an ink blot and tell you it looks like chickens doing it.<\/p>\n INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Yes. Exactly. In fact there is a good, vulgar joke I know from a guy I write about sometimes (Slavoj Zizek). Want to hear it?<\/p>\n KATRINA FERNANDEZ<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0I like jokes.<\/p>\n INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0So there is a peasant being psychoanalyzed using free association. Every cue the therapist gives, he responds to with \u201cFucking Fatima.\u201d Finally the therapist asks him why he keeps saying that and he replies, \u201cI\u2019m sorry, but all I can think of is fucking Fatima.\u201d\u2028 Zizek\u2019s point is that the analyst should have given him the cue \u201cFucking Fatima\u201d to disrupt his consciousness and flip the script on him.<\/p>\n KATRINA FERNANDEZ<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Was that it?<\/p>\n INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Yea, I don\u2019t tell jokes very well\u2026<\/p>\n KATRINA FERNANDEZ<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Obviously.<\/p>\n INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Ouch. How about some free association? Just type the first thing that comes to mind.<\/p>\n \u201cBuilding.\u201d<\/p>\n KATRINA FERNANDEZ<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Fucking Fatima.<\/p>\n INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u201cDress.\u201d<\/p>\n KATRINA FERNANDEZ<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Shirt.<\/p>\n INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u201cLeggings.\u201d<\/p>\n KATRINA FERNANDEZ<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0NOT PANTS!<\/p>\n INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u201cPants.\u201d<\/p>\n KATRINA FERNANDEZ<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Breaths.<\/p>\n INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u201cFrancis.\u201d<\/p>\n KATRINA FERNANDEZ<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Boohoo. \u2028(Sorry, that was my honest reaction.)<\/p>\n INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u201cRabbit\u201d<\/p>\n KATRINA FERNANDEZ<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Food.<\/p>\n INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u201cScouting.\u201d<\/p>\n KATRINA FERNANDEZ<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Gay.<\/p>\n INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u201cSki goggles.\u201d<\/p>\n KATRINA FERNANDEZ<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Also gay.<\/p>\n INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u201cIssues.\u201d<\/p>\n KATRINA FERNANDEZ<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Plenty.<\/p>\n INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u201cEWTN.\u201d<\/p>\n KATRINA FERNANDEZ<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Sucks ass.<\/p>\n INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0I can\u2019t keep going; you\u2019re making me laugh too much.<\/p>\n KATRINA FERNANDEZ<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0I swear these are my honest replies.<\/p>\n INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0I believe you.<\/p>\n KATRINA FERNANDEZ<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0I don\u2019t think I am doing it right.<\/p>\n INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Luckily I\u2019m not a psychoanalyst \u2014 is confession sort of like psychoanalysis?<\/p>\n KATRINA FERNANDEZ<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0No.<\/p>\n INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0How does your confessor handle you in there? Do you make him laugh, too?<\/p>\n KATRINA FERNANDEZ<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0I disguise my voice. I use a fake British accent. I\u2019m so ashamed. \u2028I\u2019m so arrogant I am ashamed myself.\u2028 Sometimes I go full on Cockney.\u2028 He HAS to know it\u2019s me. One of the these days I told myself I\u2019d say \u201cAY gov\u2019nr\u201d to him as sort of a confession that it\u2019s me in there being a self conscious dip shit.<\/p>\n INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0So this is another interesting part of your style\/personality: you seem to also genuinely make mea culpas<\/em> and self-deprecations and confessions and alike all the time. I don\u2019t think it is self-loathing, but is it?<\/p>\n KATRINA FERNANDEZ<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Let\u2019s just say that if I were true to myself I\u2019d spend the rest of my life doing penance for my sins. Like hard-core penance. Hair shirt penance, crawling on glass penance. Join a convent penance. But you don\u2019t a join a convent for penance.<\/p>\n INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Another topic: Recently we\u2019ve agreed on not liking EWTN and other stuff. As a result, you seem to get told that you\u2019re going straight to hell and\u2028 I get called a snobby prick. Which is worse?<\/p>\n KATRINA FERNANDEZ<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Snob doesn\u2019t bother me. Hell does though. I hate the heat. I get called snobby all the time. Art snob. Liturgical snob. Book snob. I can\u2019t help if 95% of the literate world is low brow.<\/p>\n INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0So I should get over it and just accept my snobby fate?<\/p>\n KATRINA FERNANDEZ<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Yes, embrace your inner snob.<\/p>\n INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0You went to lots of fine arts stuff as a kid, right?<\/p>\n KATRINA FERNANDEZ<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0I was poor growing up and we didn\u2019t have air conditioning and my mom worked a lot so I would hang out in the Chrysler museum because it was cool, free, and the people that worked there were nice. I found God in that museum. Seriously.<\/p>\n INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Tell me about THAT!<\/p>\n KATRINA FERNANDEZ<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0I was seven. Memling\u2019s \u201cLast Judgment\u201d was on tour\u2028 and I stared at that painting so long I am convinced Hell looks like a twisted Danish painting. I was only as tall as the bottom of the painting so I was right at eye level with the demons and Hell\u2028, their distorted twisted agony convinced me Hell was real and I was NOT going there. I came back every day for a month to visit that painting. Well, maybe not everyday. But I visited it a lot\u2028. And the Hudson River school painters convinced me that Heaven was real.<\/p>\n INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0I was about to ask, \u201cYou found God in Hell?\u201d<\/p>\n KATRINA FERNANDEZ<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Actually, yes. I found God in Hell. If Hell is real then it stands to reason that God was real. Simple as that.\u2028Why do atheist struggle so? Their arrogance to dismiss their first instinct\u2026 that child voice plainly stating a fact as fact. There\u2019s nothing intellectual about \u201cwell, duh!\u201d which is what happened when I saw Hell. Well, duh! God is real. Landscapes showed me God is kind.<\/p>\n INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Some people, not atheists, might respond by saying that an encounter with Heaven or Hell is not that same thing as an encounter with God in the person of Jesus Christ. How would you reply to that question?<\/p>\n KATRINA FERNANDEZ<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0To which I would reply: BOSH!<\/p>\n INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Why so?<\/p>\n KATRINA FERNANDEZ<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0God created both. To encounter His creation is to encounter Him.\u2028 He is everyfreakingwhere!<\/p>\n INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Sure, but I guess the question is whether or not it makes a difference to have a personal encounter with Jesus Christ or not\u2026<\/p>\n KATRINA FERNANDEZ<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Hudson River school. Look at nature. God left His fingerprints all over that canvas. Cole knew that. Personal encounter? You got a little protty in there trying to come out?<\/p>\n INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0So you are a panentheist, like St. Francis? My Dad is a Catholic evangelist, deeply influenced by the (protestant) Campus Crusade for Christ-style presentation of the Gospel. The kerygma<\/em>. So I guess so, maybe just a little protty in there. \u2028But back to Francis\u2026<\/p>\n KATRINA FERNANDEZ<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Back to encountering God.\u2028What do you consider a personal encounter? Does it have to be like an emotional thing, an emotional connection to be a personal encounter?<\/p>\n INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0I think the standard view would be an encounter with Jesus Christ through the love of the Father and the power of the Holy Spirit. I think I got that right.<\/p>\n KATRINA FERNANDEZ<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0I can encounter God with all that gooey emotional crap by simply appreciating God and what He creates. That\u2019s my encounter.<\/p>\n INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Did you get that sense of spirituality from art alone or are there other influences, too?<\/p>\n KATRINA FERNANDEZ<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Art alone. Through beauty. It\u2019s why I take Pope Francis\u2019 liturgical style as a spiritual assault.<\/p>\n INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0This does makes more sense out of the serious issues you have with Pope Francis. So you\u2019re less of a Franciscan panentheist and more of an aesthetic Catholic.<\/p>\n KATRINA FERNANDEZ<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0YES. Full on senses. Double incense. Interestingly enough my Catholic conversion was Eucharistic, like St. Paul: flash bang boom. Be Catholic! Said the Lord.<\/p>\n INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Was that encounter aesthetic, too? Did it happen like your childhood and the painting?<\/p>\n KATRINA FERNANDEZ<\/p>\n