• Skimming old tabs/bookmarks I find this “Erik Visits a (Non) American Grave” entry on Laurence Olivier.
Fun read on the life of a great actor, but I have to quibble with one line here: “Olivier had starred in Paul Czinner’s 1936 adaptation of Shakespeare’s As You Like It.” That reflects the billing — how Olivier’s role was touted on movie posters and in the credits of the film. But he was playing Orlando in As You Like It and that is simply not a starring role.
That part may be, like Duke Orsino in Twelfth Night, the closest thing the play has to a male lead, but those characters are not the “stars” of these stories. Rosalind is the star in As You Like It. Rosalind is one of the best parts in all of Shakespeare. But Orlando? Orlando is a supporting player, and not even the most memorable of the male supporting players in that play.
Aeons ago I saw Elizabeth McGovern star in a Shakespeare in the Park production of As You Like It. She was terrific, and I remember Richard Libertini was wonderful as Jacques.
I couldn’t tell you who played Orlando. I’m sure he was fine, but whatever, he was just Orlando. It’s Rosalind’s play.
• And speaking of Erik’s grave series and of women outshining men, don’t miss his mini-bio of Lucretia Mott.
• I’ve often mocked Eric Metaxas’s awful biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer as his “autobiography of Bonhoeffer,” suggesting that it should have been called “I’m Dietrich Bonhoeffer … And So Can You!” It’s a self-flattering mess that conscripts the theologian’s reputation in service of the very same politics that he opposed unto death. The message of the book is that Bonhoeffer should be revered as a hero because he was exactly like Eric Metaxas, except not quite as virtuous and cool, because who could be? Ugh.
Tripp Fuller thinks even less of that book than I do, but he explains why in much greater detail.
• “Like Norma Desmond, Donald Trump lives in a fantasy world. He’s bolstered in his delusions by obsequious cabinet members and staffers who puff him up by constantly singing his praises.”
Betty Cracker makes a compelling case that we’re all living in Sunset Boulevard now. That film has one of the all-time great endings, but it’s not a happy ending.
• I’ve been reading Steve Wiggins’ blog for years. And, on a wholly different app, I’ve been reading T. Kingfisher/Ursula Vernon on social media for years. So seeing Steve stumble across, and then review, one of her books was, for me, like seeing a friend from church talking to a friend from school. He liked the book: “Kingfisher is funny and then scary, and passes easily between the two. … I always appreciate writers who make up their own genres while telling a compelling story.”
• Speaking of bloggers I’ve been reading for years, my Patheos neighbor James McGrath has a new book coming out called Beyond Deconstruction. Here’s an interview with him about the book.
I’d summarize his argument as “Test everything. Hold on to the good.” (But then I suppose I summarize a lot of things that way.)
• Hey, do you still remember that revival that started at Asbury University a couple of years ago? No? What about the revival that followed the funeral of that racist podcast guy?
Maggie Phillips takes a long, skeptical look at rumors of revival and the validity of these recent claims. She gives this serious consideration, but the title of her piece probably hints at her conclusions: “There Is No Religious Revival.”
The key to that conclusion is one she remarks on almost off-handedly: “But there is one aspect of the first two great awakenings that appears to be missing this time: a spirit of repentance.”
Test everything; hold on to the good.
• Here’s an interesting exchange on the pages of the National Catholic Reporter. Melinda Henneberger wrote an editorial early last month about wealthy Catholic parishioners possibly assisting the development of an ICE detention center near Kansas City, Missouri — “Catholic brothers are making a Kansas City ICE facility possible. Will institutions they support care?”
Henneberger raises many of the necessary questions that church groups and nonprofits have to contend with given that they’re both dependent on the financial support of wealthy donors and that wealthy donors are sometimes awful.
Steve Miller, a member of the same Kansas City parish as the wealthy donors in question, wrote a response piece a few weeks later: “For Kansas City parish, affiliation is not complicity.” But — and here’s the really interesting bit — Miller is also the chair of NCR’s board. He disagrees with parts of Henneberger’s argument, but he takes pains not to do so in his official capacity — not complaining that her piece shouldn’t have been published or hinting at retaliation toward any of those involved in publishing it.
I lean toward Henneberger’s side of this disagreement, but I’m impressed with the way Miller went about this.
And the happy development here is that these wealthy Catholic developers will not be cooperating with ICE after all.
• The title for this post comes from Radiohead’s “Let Down,” which was recently used without permission or compensation by ICE for use in a promotional video.
The band put out a statement officially demanding that ICE stop using their song. The full statement reads:
We demand that the amateurs in control of the ICE social media account take it down. It ain’t funny, this song means a lot to us and other people, and you don’t get to appropriate it without a fight.
Also, go fuck yourselves.
I’m glad the band objecting and glad they said all of that. If they hadn’t, I’d have been so, so disappointed and …
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