"and this frozen world, somehow it all falls down..."

[hermionesviolin]

Parental love for the day: Thank you for not needing to be given a copy of the "I am the Parent of a College Senior" Riot Act.

Oh, feeling so t-shirt-ed out.  Protestant!Carolyn and i both got sucked into buying "God Squad" t-shirts from Newman ($5 to Box 7549).  And okay, so i am mildly discomfited, but the discomfort at having a t-shirt that says "God Squad" is won over by the multi-level coolness of having a t-shirt that says "God Squad."  It says "Les Femmes Catholiques" in pretty script underneath, but the type of script means it isn't immediately legible.

Size Matters is getting "A waist is a terrible thing to mind" t-shirts, which people should buy 'cause we have to have more than just us ordering for it to be a reasonable price.

And y'all have convinced me of the lowercase "word" for the English Department t-shirts.

Laughing Wild starring Christopher Durang at Huntington Theatre?  ahlksey wins at life for informing me of this.  It runs June 3-26 at Virginia Wimberly Theatre at the Calderwood Pavilion.  [539 Tremont]  Tickets are $42, except "Last Row Orchestra" are only $14.  I am not paying $42, but $14 is totally cool.  And with only 360 people, i figure the seats can't suck that much.
Googling the director, i learned that there is an Internet Broadway Database.  ::heart::  (Okay, so it's not particularly relevant to me, being as i am not so much a theatre-goer, but it pleases me that such a thing exists.)

I got mad in Inklings class today.  CZ was talking about George McDonald and how his writing isn't all that great though the mythic stories themselve are arguably compelling, and she talked about Lewis' literary criticism and how he basically said you should forgive the hackneyed language because myth is a different entity than literature -- and admittedly it's problematic that i haven't read any of what Lewis had to say about literary criticism nevermind the specifics of what he said about McDonald, so we didn't exactly have the same frame of reference, but i was irked, because retelling a powerful myth in a shoddy manner makes on a bad storyteller, and you shouldn't hide behind the myth or excuse bad writing by saying the powerful story shines through the bad storytelling, and maybe that isn't exactly what he was saying, but i had definitely forgotten what it felt like to get mad in that class as i've been so nonparticipatory recently (since i mostly haven't been doing the reading).

And in doing my Beauty and the Beast readings for seminar, i found stuff i wanted to work into my Little Red Riding Hood paper (women, beasts, sex... we are hardly surprised).

Pope roundup via InstaPundit.  I read it quickly and have read few of the links (yet).  This is a useful bullet list about him, though.  And one thing it says is that he has said is that priestly celibacy is "Not a dogma of the faith" -- though obviously a lot of the other things he's said are problematic.  And yes, even i find some of them problematic.  Though i've gotta say a part of me really likes his opposition to relativism.  I mean, i'm Capital T Truth Girl.  And yet i much prefer my churches to be "We think we're more right than everyone else, but we think other people have some of the truth as well, and maybe even some of the truth that we don't have."  So yeah, i don't know.  And being as i am not Catholic, this is mostly an academic question for me.  Though look how i'm still talking about it.

This is an interesting NYTimes op-ed on the new Pope.  And thinking about the reasons the new Pope chose his name, my father writes

When St Benedict--the founder of the Benedictines--lived, the Roman Empire had recently fallen.  Since the Catholic Church had been the official church of the Empire, this left it in kind of a jam.  Benedict tried to preserve Church teaching and knowledge in these smaller groups, which also did a certain amount of outreach.  It will be interesting to see if the new Pope considers present-day Europe to be in a similar situation, where Catholicism is in danger of disappearing because of its loss of official support and falling away of the flock (and indeed the Church is losing numbers and influence at a remarkably fast rate in the wealthier countries of Europe.  It has become a cliche to say that "old Europe" is entering a "post-Christian" era.).  Will he try to re-energize the European Church by going for a "fewer people, more commitment" strategy?

TBQ wrote: "what could happen was the election of someone so conservative that finally some of the absurdities of what the Church clings to would come to light. Or, at the very least, that the Church on the whole becomes so conservative that people finally stop putting up with it. [...] Something. Anything so that the Church can finally break, as it's so obviously in need of right now, and then it can right itself and the new thing can right itself and hopefully some good will come of it."

That's an interesting idea, and feels to me slightly more nuanced to me than the calls i keep hearing for people to leave the Church.  I'm not Catholic, but i respect that many Catholics feel the Church as a home and deeply value the liturgy and the sacraments and things that you can't get oustide of the Church, and i'm certainly big on the idea of changing institutions from within.  Allie pointed out the parallels to liberals leaving the USA after last November's elections, which feels apt to me.

Layna points out that what is most important is our actions in the world and advocates a focus on doing palpable good in the world, which is important to keep in mind, though i fully admit to being a living in my head kind of girl, big with the theorizing and debating and less with the actual acting.

After deep talk, i give you fic: Kyrie Eleison by Kyra Cullinan (Angel-centric) and Simple Things (the “Judged By Its Cover” remix) by Kurukami (Book-centric).

And for lightness: springy Jossverse icons and bright shiny Firefly ones.

Selections from my Random playlist: "Little Musgrave" by John Wesley Harding, "Toy Soldiers" by Martika, "welcome to" by Ani DiFranco, "One of These Days" by Michelle Branch, "Ice Cream" by Sarah McLachlan, "Waltzing With Him" by Christine Lavin, "Blood From a Stone" by Jonatha Brooke, "Spending My Time" by Roxette, "Deliver Me" by Sarah Brightman, "Innocence Maintained" by Jewel, "Wonderland" by Collapsis

(Avoiding my homework?  Me?)