Recently in Arts & Culture Category

It appears that Philip Pullman thinks I'm a Catholic nitwit.

Here is the response I just emailed to the Times On-line:

I pity poor Philip Pullman

The man spends years of his life objecting to Christianity, and now he apparently objects to Christians objecting to his objections. Mr. Pullman even resorts to stereotyping and name-calling when responding to critics like myself. Ironically, his are the same tactics employed by the evil magesterium in his novels.

I would believe such behaviour unbecoming of an award-winning children's author. Certainly Mrs. Rowling has always been graceful in responding to her critics. (And as both a fan and a critic of her work, I was disappointed when the last chapter of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" neglected to Luna Lovegood's future). However, when the average reader is trusted as Mr. Pullman suggests, the number of book sales establishes Mrs. Rowling - a Christian - as clearly the better author.

Cordially,
Pete Vere
Catholic nitwit and co-author of the forthcoming Pied Piper of Atheism: Philip Pullman and Children's Fantasy

Now that I'm trying out semi-retirement, I'm filling in some of the gaps in my education, and today I read the play Oedipus the King for the first time. Having only a minimal acquaintance with the story's outline, I'm struck to find that the story's horrible crimes (parricide, incest) aren't presented as arbitrary results of blind fate, but are rooted in an older crime, a long-hidden attempt to kill a child. In a way, the later horrors were a divine vengeance (or nature's vengeance) for that failed act of infanticide.

To me, the devastating force of the play's revelations comes not from the attempted infanticide alone, but from the mother's consent to it: in putting her husband's interests first, Iocasta makes a perverse substitution of husband for child that eventually proves mortal to both parents.

Other folks are paying attention to this play too: a Maryknoll sister recently helped a group of inmates at Sing Sing put on a production of Oedipus the King in November.

(Incidentally, further down, that page has reviews of Sr. Chan's own 2003 play that takes on China's ruthless one-child policy.)

Truly, Time has descended into asinine self-parody:

Time Magazine's Person of the Year: You

NEW YORK (AP) - Congratulations! You are the Time magazine "Person of the Year."

The annual honor for 2006 went to each and every one of us, as Time cited the shift from institutions to individuals - citizens of the new digital democracy, as the magazine put it. The winners this year were anyone using or creating content on the World Wide Web.

"If you choose an individual, you have to justify how that person affected millions of people," said Richard Stengel, who took over as Time's managing editor earlier this year. "But if you choose millions of people, you don't have to justify it to anyone."

They're starting with Esther, but I'm really looking forward to a cinematic treatment of the book of Judith.

I guess the boy band trend survived in Europe after a fashion: here's a bunch of guys who dress up in robes and sing Gregorian-style arrangements of pop tunes. Here are some of their videos: one with Sarah Brightman and one with some waif named Desireles; and a U2 song. There are also fan-made videos with the group's renditions of "Stairway of Heaven" and a tune by "Green Day".

It seems to be a totally artificial project of some music producer, and somewhat laughable in the way of certain European pop groups, but the fact that this is popular is a good sign.

Update: LOL: Another group is doing the same thing in Polish.

It looks like Over the Hedge is holding its own against the anti-Catholic DVC movie, and even edged it out Friday.

The Epiphany Studio theater company is touring around Minneapolis/St. Paul this summer with its one-man play about the martyrdom of the young St. Maria Goretti and the conversion of her murderer Alessandro.

I spent the past week in Blind River, a community of about 3000 in a peaceful part of Northern Ontario. It was great! No internet, no television, choppy cell phone service and some of the most beautiful tracts of nature to fall within a friendly community.

Every Thursday evening in Blind River the local Legion Ladies Auxiliary holds its charity Bingo. Given that all my co-workers are ladies who enjoy playing Bingo, they invited me to join them. I purchased the smallest Bingo card package at the door and my supervisor passed me a bingo dabber.

"Make sure you turn the cap upside down," she said. "It brings bad luck to the table if turns right side up."

I glanced around me. Sure enough, everyone's cap was upside down. I had only been to a Bingo once before in my life -- about fifteen years ago -- but I found this superstition ridiculous. Thus I grabbed my bingo dabber cap, turned it right side up, and slammed it down on the table.

Everyone around me gasped. "You'll bring bad luck to the table," they protested.

"I'm Catholic. My God trumps the god of Bingo."

The ladies just kinda stared at me for a moment, then went back to helping me get set up and play.

Throughout the evening, everyone at my table won a small Bingo pot except me. So our table was pretty lucky and my coworkers began to doubt this Bingo superstition.

Then came one of the last games of the evening with one of the largest pots. My supervisor said: "I have a feeling Pete is going to win this. If that happens, I will put all my caps right side up from now on."

I sorta laughed it off. I hadn't invoked God's name in the gamble, but against this silly Bingo superstition. Well God showed everyone that He wasn't bound by which way a dabber cap stood. I won the Bingo pot.

Today is the traditional date of Shakespeare's birthday, and also the day of his death. You may not have learned in school that Mr. Shakespeare may have been a closet Catholic; it is indisputable that he was surrounded by Catholics his entire life, and they must have had some influence over him. Wikipedia has a brief but cogent discussion of his possible religious committment(s).

Of course, today is an excellent day to visit Open Source Shakespeare.