Warren Jeffs and such

I don't have any useful comment on the Warren Jeffs case-you know, the cult leader (there I go again with the cult leaders!) who allegedly forced a 14 year old girl to marry her first cousin. I heard a bit of her tearful testimony on the radio, saw Jeffs' smug "I'm-the-Prophet-of-God-so-bite-me" smirk, and decided this was way more interesting than O.J. bum-rushing a sporting-goods auction.

2 things: in theory I have no problem with polygamy, but it always seems to lead to old patriarchs pushing girls around. Maybe if it were legalized and regulated polygamous abuses would be as rare as monogamous abuses. Uh, never mind, then.

Second thing. FLT3 is the Warren Jeffs of Birmingham Theatre. On The Christmas Carol he gave me a teenage wife and ordered me to hug and kiss on her. I reluctantly-so reluctantly-complied. It would be funny (in a not-funny way) to see Becca weeping in the witness box and pointing an accusing finger at Birmingham favorite Frank Thompson, but I don't think it'll happen because she was actually pretty cool about it. I gave her the whole "let me know if I do anything that makes you uncomfortable" rap and she looked at me like I was nuts. What could possibly be upsetting about having a balding tubby old creep slobbering on her? Phew. But it's the principle that counts, so I hope that in the sad event that Frank makes me hug and kiss more pretty young women, we will face justice for our crimes. The Law is proving slow to take action, so we must force their hand. Frank, I call on you to give me more roles in which I get frisky with teenage girls! Only thus can we bring this matter to a fair and just resolution.

A brief glimpse of a doomed face

A couple years ago an adjunct professor from my alma mater (who started teaching there a few years after I graduated) was shot and killed by a teen guy on the street. According to the boy the prof had driven up, waved the boy over, and solicited sex. So the boy (teenaged, but legal-ish) shot the prof, took his car and used his credit card to buy a bunch of junk. He got a couple decades in prison, but it was a relatively light sentence because apparently some Alabama judges think the gay panic defense doesn't seem like a crap excuse for murdering someone.

A friend of mine was really upset about the case because she knew the late prof; his death was bad enough, but she had known him as a clean-living straight guy, so the assertion that he was on the down low being splattered over the news really distressed her. I never knew the guy, but I did a Google search for his picture. I found a nice headshot, and I instantly thought "Oh, it's that guy!"

One night I was on my way to my car from a laundromat that's in a cruisy part of town, and a guy who looked like the late Prof pulled his sports car up by me and said "Hello." I didn't shoot him; I don't approve of cruising, but I don't approve of lots of stuff I do, so it's not like I'm gonna play judge, jury and executioner. Either he could tell I wasn't interested or he decided my tubby balding self wasn't up to snuff, so he said "Sorry" and drove away.

Maybe it's on my mind because last night I saw a movie (Teorema, or Theorem) which includes a character who cruises, and was directed by a guy (Pasolini) who was apparently killed by a guy he picked up while cruising. It's haunting to me that I may have caught a glimpse of someone's not-so-secret life shortly before it ended in stupid, pointless death.

The Masks of God

I stumbled across this article on an unrelated Google search, and although I haven't read it all (that would require an attention span) it got me ponderin'. It distinguishes between the God Concept (what we intellectually believe about God) and the God Image (how we feel about and perhaps what we picture when we imaginatively envision God), and how both our God Concepts and our God Images tend to be patchworks made up from various things from various sources, and sometimes the parts don't fit together very well, leading to cognitive dissonance. I never really thought about it, but I guess that between all the different ideas and images in the Bible, the different ideas I picked up from various preachers, Sunday School teachers and books, and just plain stuff I made up, my God Concept and God Image are Frankenstein monsters. A Medieval mystic wrote that God dwells behind a Cloud of Unknowing; seems we've put a lot of graffiti on that Cloud.

Continuing a Week of Morbid Fixations

The Sidewalk Film Festival is coming up, and as usual all the films I really want to see are showing at the exact same time. The documentary "Join Us" is one I really wanna catch; it's about a family that realizes the church they just left was a cult. I recently read a book titled Rogue Messiahs by Colin Wilson; it's all about cult leaders, and it's pretty intriguing, not least because seemingly intelligent people seem awfully slow to realize the preacher who's sodomizing their children as part of the Sunday worship service is a derange-o cult leader. Here's a health tip from the book:

If you go to a church and the preacher says the whole congregation has to move onto a compound and sever ties with friends and family, and you do it, and then he announces that he's the Second Coming of Christ and the end times are about to begin, and all the women and girls of the congregation have to have sex with him, and you try to leave but they stop you, then you sneak away in the dead of night, then they call you up a few months later and say "Hi! We're having a barbeque, and thought it would be fun to see you there. Hey, bygones, no worries about old conflicts. Just drop by. It'll be fun!" then (here's the health tip part) DON'T GO TO THE BARBECUE. THEY'RE GONNA KILL YOU.

This might seem pretty obvious to you, but it didn't seem obvious to a lot of people who wound up buried in barns.

Horror

Some folks-like my Mom-remain mystified by my love for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I'm grateful that I've watched it and other films of its ilk, though, because when I read about this (warning: horrible) I have a sort of myth that helps me make sense of it. A curdled hillbilly family pointlessly torments an innocent young woman. Slasher flicks tell us that humans are capable of doing such things to one another, but also that humans are capable of dealing with it-sometimes.

Speaking of horror, Osama's still alive. What can one say? If Dems had won the elections in 2000 and 2004, and Osama were still alive (which I doubt) Repubs would ceaselessly harp on Osama's alive-and-well status as proof of the yellow-bellied gutlessness of Democratic Presidents.

(BTW I'm in a fine mood personally, despite focusing on awful stuff today. It's odd how my mood can be so out of sync with the subject matter I'm considering. I dunno if that's indicative of excellent mental health or lousy mental health.)

Edit: In the Associated Press account of that first story the mother of the victim says that she "didn't know there were people like that out there." How does one not know that? Anyway, it occurs to me that while my TCM fixation may help me deal with stories like this, it also draws me to stories like this. There is a bit of a self-sustaining feedback loop about morbid fixations.

Second post of the day: random blather

Would comprehensive health and dental coverage for all US citizens cost more than the bazillion bucks a day we're spending in Iraq? If not, then it's dopey to pretend there's anything left to debate except how, exactly, to implement universal health care.

Much news coverage about a recent study asked single (and apparently straight) people to list what they looked for in a mate, then followed them through speed dating. According to reports on this study it turns out guys really choose potential mates on the basis of looks, while women choose mates who seem attractive but not... TOO attractive, since supercute guys tend to cheat and/or leave.

Well, I'm not one to argue that guys aren't shallow, but it's important to note this was determined on the basis of speed dating. In speed dating only first impressions matter. But in my experience the more time I spend with a woman the more the superficial elements of her appearance recede as her personality, conversation, values, opinions and general behavior come into focus. So maybe guys really do pick mates on the basis of deeper values... if they have the chance to get to know someone. As the old saw goes, good looks get attention, but don't hold it.

Over the Weekend

It was a bit on the busy side. I waddled around Artwalk, the big yearly downtown art festival, and enjoyed bumping into a bunch of folks I knew, as well as looking at cool art. Since there's a spending moratorium on me I couldn't buy any tempting art-treats, but I got a lot of business cards and will be placing some orders soon.

Also I attended the Virginia-Samford Gala; not the deluxe ticket that would get me into the reception so I could tell all the performers how awesome they were, but hey. The orchestration was probably the lushest and most singer-supportive I've ever heard on that stage; amazing, considering it was 22 musicians sawing away. Coordinating all that behind the performers is quite a task. It was a treasure trove of Birmingham's music theatre talent. Very little hoofin' but fantastic singing, enough for three musicals. (Take a bow, Frank!) I do wish they'd do something like this with some lesser-known treasures of the music theatre repertoire, though; if Leigh Sherer Seirafi (whom I don't believe I've heard before the Gala) had broken into Cole Porter's "Where, oh Where" (my favorite song, period) I would have ascended bodily into Heaven.

Sunday I cleaned. I have a walk-in closet which is full of piles of books. Now I'm taking the books out with the intention of ordering them... somehow. Buying bookshelves will no doubt be a necessity, but now I just have to get that musty closet empty and scrub it down. I think I may have my apartment in acceptable condition by February and the one-year anniversary of The Virginia Sister's intervention.

Check out strange world botanicals and bradbrad to see some groovy art by my former classmates.