Today in Porn: Don Jon
Never mind Yahoo! buying Tumblr, which is pretty much one step shy of Google buying YouPorn, here’s the big porn-related news of the week:
“My Church, my boys, my girls, my porn.”
Augustine’s Member can rest in peace.
More McLuhan
I’m not sure about McLu’s connecting Mary with Wisdom here (“playing before God in the beginning” — Prov 8?). But good stuff re. “faith comes from hearing” and his own conversion. “You have to knock pretty hard.”
Darkness
From the Dominican Office of Tenebrae (‘Darkness’) for Good Friday, A.D. 2009, at Blackfriars, Oxford.
The text for this portion of the service is the Benedictus, or Canticle of Zechariah. Though this canticle, comprising Luke 1:68-79, is part of the Church’s morning prayer every day of the year (at the hour of Lauds), it has a special resonance on these days.
Because of the compassionate kindness of our God,
the dawn from on high shall break upon us
To shine on those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death,
to guide our feet in the way of peace.
Bob Dylan, Jakob Dylan, and the Catholic Church
From an interview with Bob Dylan that appeared in Der Spiegel on October 16, 1997:
Q: How was it for you to be playing for the Pope in Bologna a few weeks ago?
A: A great show.
Q: Why?
A: It just was.
In another interview (recently cited by Ken Layne, writing irreverently in The Awl), Bob said of the show, “He’s the Pope. You know what I mean? There’s only one Pope, right?”
Admittedly, these are just a couple of odd, tiny pieces in the giant jigsaw puzzle that is Bob Dylan, but they perhaps point to certain sympathies, certain leanings with regards to Catholicism.
The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Now we have Bob’s son Jakob coming out with a new Wallflowers album that has a lead-off song entitled “Hospital for Sinners” that also bespeaks a leaning in the direction of a distinctly Catholic sensibility. Listen to it here and see what you think.
Finally, let’s hear from Fr. Barron on Keith Richards, Bob Dylan, and Thomas Merton.
I’m not sure where I’m going with this, other than: Bob, Jakob, Thomas, Keith … I’ll see you at Mass sometime.
I’ve been reading Richard Ford lately
… if listening to the audio books (The Sporstwriter and Independence Day so far) counts as reading. (Does it? In the grand Reading Olympics of life, does listening to the book count the same as “reading” the book? Can I say, “I’ve been reading Richard Ford lately” if I’ve actually only been listening to Richard Ford being read?) Anyway, you Percy fans may recall Mr. Ford from his (and his Mississippi drawl’s) prominence in the Walker Percy documentary. Ford is like a Percy that never quite grabbed aholt of faith and The Sportswriter is like The Moviegoer without Kierkegaard or Catholicism — but with something fundamental and bemused and piercing and good all the same.
Glibness, Caution
Alice McDermott quotes O’Connor on the dangers of glibness when treating religion, then goes on to say some very fine things. Her remarks begin at around the 9:30 mark.
Commonweal Conversations 2011 – The Writing Life: What’s Faith Got to Do with It? from Commonweal Magazine on Vimeo.
On an unrelated note, another of the participants in that panel had a piece in the Times the other day.
Wendell B
That’s when Wendell B takes a shot
At all the folks that hold that marriage means
Just one man and one woman
They were reared to pledge their faith
Somewhere down the line they chose
To stand howe’er the wind blows
Stand howe’er the wind blows from he
Thanks for the heads-up, Mrs. D.