EPISODE 422: SEVERNAYA ZEMLYA, I LONG FOR YOU
POP CULTURE SPIRIT WOW
I was reading Warren Ellis’ Orbital Operations today and got stopped short in a strange place:
Right now, I'm listening to Ian Holloway's (as British Space Group's) new piece "Ley Of The Land," which is electronic ambient music which is notRadiophonic Workshop/library music pastiche or homage - it nods with awareness to the antecedents and then drifts off across the landscape for new spaces. That's what I like. New space.
I don’t know what most of the references mean, but there’s that moment at the end: “That’s what I like. New space.”
I had so much to do today, but I can’t seem to get past those last lines. Where is the new space?
Every new book I start, every new movie or TV show, even every new character, I think I’m looking for it, a doorway into somewhere or something I did not know was there. Just a glimpse is enough, the ray of light from a single line of dialogue, one comic book panel.
(That’s from Kill or Be Killed #1, by Ed Brubaker, Sean Phillips and Elizabeth Breitweiser. There’s nothing that makes me stop and reconsider the world around me like a comic book panel of nighttime New York City. Even when it's a moment otherwise filled with darkness.)
There was a wedding scene in the second season of Glee with the kids song-and-dancing Kurt’s Dad and Finn’s Mom up to the altar. It’s the kind of moment that probably couldn’t work in real life—even now I found myself thinking can these kids ever stop being on stage? But every time I watch it I feel like somewhere in there is a glimpse of what a wedding could be.
(Also, is there anything as beautiful as the wedding of two people who have already lived a whole lot of life, their commitment made somehow both more fragile and more gorgeous for the wounds they have?)
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Over the weekend I kept running into the headline “Drogon Knew”. I love me a good pop culture piece, but this one turns out to be a pretty hard sell.
Still, author Charles Pulliam-Moore wrote thousands of words in pursuit of what would be really about a centimeter of ground that has somehow not yet been fully plowed by the Game of Thrones thinkpiece machine. What kind of longing goes into that? What kind of thirst for new space?
There’s been some pieces in the press recently about whether or not the Catholic church should get rid of the priesthood. And of course a lot of the arguments revolve around sex, celibacy as both leading to violence and also in some ways a form of violence, a sacrifice that God never asked for and neither did the Church originally.
I love an argument that questions the foundations of an institution pretty close to as much as I love a good pop culture think piece, and I can absolutely imagine a world where priests have partners (see: every other Christian denomination) and also are not men (ditto).
But I also think there’s an element of being celibate that people don’t really get – that it’s not just some kind of crazy forced-upon-us sacrifice, but emerges from a sense that there is an adventure to be had, a journey into unknown waters where we may learn a lot about ourselves, God and life.
Honestly I don’t think anyone would do this if that wasn’t a part of the whole deal. A big part. Even “helping others” is a subset, I’d say, of “coming to know the face of God and letting it change me”.
Speaking of which, if you read one article this week, can I suggest this one from the New York Times about non-Catholic millennials choosing to live with Sisters of Mercy nuns because they want to learn how to live a spiritual life? It’s got some wonderful stuff in it.
(Also speaking of which, if you haven’t watched Fleabag Season 2 on Amazon, aka “Hot Priest”, it is in many ways about this. And it is SO GOOD.)
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From the bluffs of Loyola we can see the ocean. It's in the distance but somehow that only makes it more alluring than it is up close. Even in the dark, when it merges with the sky as a sheet of black, the ocean makes you wonder what might be there. It pulls at you, suggests it might be time finally to head out.
Some nights I can just sit in my chair and marvel at where it takes me.
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John Wick Chapter 3 - Parabellum, A Summary:
Knives.
Dogs.
Horses.
Taxi Medallions.
Halle Berry.
Fanboys.
Yes, I say
Yes, Thank You
Yes.
++ LINKS ++
History is So Much More Interesting When We Include the Stories of Everyone who Was A Part of It Episode #437, The Tale of the Woman in the Control Room for Apollo 11.
What People Bring into the New York Subways (aka Why It’s Too Bad We Don’t All Have Subways aka Guy with Pen and Dog and Book You are Everything)
Kate Wagner on Why People Who Tell You To Just Let Them Enjoy Their Things Have it All Wrong: A Symposium on Trash-Talking Pop Culture.
The Seven Second Rule i.e. Forgive Yourself and Move On, You are Only Human and that Means You Will Occasionally Say/Do Dumb Things.
Lastly, just in time for the movie, Elton John's “Rocketman”, reimagined here as a story about a refugee trying to get to America.
(Why is it that songs about outer space are so damn sad? And why do I like them so damn much?)
In my journeys today I also came upon this great poem:
The Suitor
We lie back to back. Curtains
lift and fall
like the chest of someone sleeping.
Wind moves the leaves of the box elder;
they show their light undersides,
turning all at once
like a school of fish.
Suddenly I understand that I am happy.
For months this feeling
has been coming closer, stopping
for short visits, like a timid suitor.
Jane Kenyon
May happiness sneak up on you this week like a timid suitor, a school of glittering fish or the archipelago you didn't even know was there.
See you soon.
