Roman Catholicism just doesn’t “get” America. We want a Church that sanctifies our narcissism and social pathologies without making unreasonable demands on our conscience.

Tuesday night at the Bible study
We lift our hands and pray over your body
But nothing ever happens

- The Gospel according to Sufjan Stevens

Bless the Magyar, Lord we pray,
Nor in bounty fail him
Shield him in the bloody fray
When his foes assail him…

as quoted in Krasznahorkai’s “Satantango” and sung by Futaki on the road to Almássy Manor

How he got into my pajamas I'll never know.

After 15,000 years of disappointment, currently looking for new best friend.

Is that a Botero?

Cassavetes - Fugazi.

This morning it was And Your Bird Can Sing. This afternoon it was Blackbird. Tonight it's Dear Prudence.

Extra credit for a 50 word meditation on the Banksy just behind the Kruger.

I couldn't help thinking during Lockjaw's first encounter with Pefidia in OBAA of another nod to Gravity's Rainbow. If that book is about anything at all, it is about erections, both convenient and incovenient. 3/3

Both are chasing their white whales, Tyrone Slothrop in the case of Marvy, and Zoyd Wheeler/Bob Ferguson in the case of Vond/Lockjaw. It's Marvy, I think, who best represents the crackerboy racism and creepy sexual bravado that make Lockjaw such a remarkable creation. 2/3

I think "spiritual fidelity" is right, but OBAA is too much of pastiche to confine its inspirations to Vineland. Major Duane Marvy in Gravity's Rainbow seems to me much closer in spirit to Colonel Stephen J. Lockjaw than Brock
Vond, the antagonist in Vineland. 1/3

Dost know this water-fly?
No, my good lord.
Thy state is the more gracious; for
‘tis a vice to know him.

The barbarians have certainly arrived, and though perhaps not the ones Reno expected, I suspect he will find a way to work with them. 4/4

for a laugh). As you suggest, Reno and others are certainly calling for authoritarianism and they are no doubt pleased to see the country well on the way there. What this authoritarianism will continue to lack, however, is much that is recognizably Christian, never mind Catholic. 3/4

and the aspiring Francoists around him are capable of mobilizing a movement capable of the kind of transformation in faith and national governance he appears to be promoting (go take a look at the "End of Democracy" symposium on judicial overreach sponsored by First Things in 1996 2/4

Reno insisting that others 'need not fear 'Christian Nationalism of the sort he is advocating is true, but not for the reason he thinks. First Things has a vanishingly small subscriber base, and even among practicing Catholics its influence is negligible. It is fanciful to think that Reno 1/4

In the midst of the most devastating health crisis in my long lifetime who did we give the biggest megaphones to: the vaccine skeptics and anti-maskers. The last ten years in this country have been a moral catastrophe, but Covid stands out for the shocking barbarity of our response.

Excellent. Thanks.

Looking forward to your campaign for President.

I am sure someone has asked these two questions below, but:
1) Position on Medicare-for-All; and
2) Increased marginal tax rates for high earners (My percentage is 60% on annual AGEs above $3 million...high, but realistic?)

I have fond memories of Strawberry Fields. My first visit must have been around 1970 when I was searching for a particular suit coat so I could look like members of the Fabulous Flippers. Their covers were legendary, but none better than the Spiral Starecase's "More Today Than Yesterday."

Viva la revolución!

Scrofula and long queues for the King's Touch.

Why do all these ghouls look like the Social Chairman for the Christmas Adventurers Club? "All hail St. Nick."

“Then again, it’s the whole Reagan program isn’t it- dismantle the New Deal, restore fascism at home and around the world, flee into the past, can’t you feel it, all the dangerous childish stupidity - I don’t like the way it turned out. I want it to be my way.”

Pynchon in “Vineland,” 1990

Earlier in his life Philip Glass had a day-job as a plumber and for a time was a Yellow Cab driver in New York. Just tell these guys that his latest symphony, "Lincoln," is about the assassination of George Lincoln Rockwell. They'll be back.

Have we heard from the Bishop of Winona-Rochester on the ongoing occupation of the neighboring archdiocese? He could start by resigning from the risible Religious Liberty Commission and return to his true apostolate of flogging bibles and telling "protestors" to stop interfering with ICE.

Why on earth is the Irish government still using Twitter? A not insignificant number of its accounts are bots and other than the dead-enders who persist in maintaining a presence there, the rest of the site is a cesspool. What would Leopold Bloom say?

Canned Ham share.google/lEkt0M09Ujil...

Defenseless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages;
May I, composed like them of
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and Despair,
Show an affirming flame.

- W.H. Auden