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All Flesh To Thee Shall Come, Part III

Walker Percy's grave, St. Joseph's Abbey, Covington, Louisiana

All Flesh To Thee Shall Come, Part II

St. Joseph's Abbey Church, Covington, Louisiana

All Flesh To Thee Shall Come

From this morning's prayer, Psalm 65. Image from the rear wall of the Abbey Church at St. Joseph's Abbey, Covington, Louisiana.

Gone Fishin'

Here.

And incidentally, hello, everybody.

Painter's Corner

Ryan Hannigan does good work.

Ruins - Paging David Fincher

The Wisconsin Poet passes along this blearily brilliant link to Marchand-Meffre's The Ruins of Detroit. How the above room has never served as a horror film set is beyond me.

Ruins

The Wisconsin Poet passes along this marvelous link to Britain's (former) Cistercian abbeys. His comment: "Sadness for what could have been."

Lenten Songbook

And in this moment, I need to be needed
With this darkness all around me, I like to be liked
In this emptiness and fear, I want to be wanted
'Cause I love to be loved

- Peter Gabriel, "Love to be Loved"

November's Visit to Cubeland Mystic?

Headed out into the desert with the family and sought CM in the caves. Got wedged at one point, crawled into a dead-end wormhole at another. Never did find the Mystic himself. A pity. I brought a handful of harissa to sprinkle on his grubs 'n lentil stew. But the kids had a good time.

Alphonse in the news.

The American Culture gives Alphonse a shot, and sees something worthwhile.

Alphonse in the news.

Guns and/or Roses gives Alphonse a shot, but declares it a failure:

"This leaves us with two questions. The first is whether or not this particular device to scare you constitutes pro-life propaganda. The second is if you have some cognitive dissonance about the morality of abortion-as I do-does Alphonse succeed in converting those conflicted feelings into the free-floating dread and twitchy anxiety that are the measure of a good ghost story?

...

But the real question is whether or not it's scary. In this sense, I think Alphonse fails. Chris Gugliotti, who drew the book, uses the unsightly, ugly appearance of a developing fetus to unsettle you. In the moment, when you're reading it, it sometimes does. At other times though, it's laughable kitch. Alphonse is like Chucky; he's alternately creepy and hilarious. The longer you read it, the funnier it becomes, until after a certain point, you can't imagine how you ever found it scary to begin with- just like the Child's Play movies. When this 'monster' starts leaping at people with knives, the moral overtones of the story seem like crass attempts to make a lame story 'important.'"

Hope?

I love Whit Stillman's film Metropolitan. (Lord help me, I had this poster on my dorm room wall freshman year.) And I'm not alone - The Criterion Collection! But you know what Metropolitan wasn't? Commercially successful. I mean, wow - an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay, and it pulled in only $3 million in theaters? (Of course, Box Office Mojo says that the film's widest release was only five theaters - which means Cinemopolis on the Ithaca Commons, where I saw it, was in pretty rare company, and that the per-screen average was pretty darn impressive.)

I mention this because I was recently discussing my own little project, Alphonse, with a friend who works in publishing. He said something about how, at the very least, my experience with trying to get the graphic novel made might teach me something about fitting my projects to a prospective audience.

I saw his point. Alphonse has been, shall we say, slow to take off, despite receiving a better-than-decent amount of attention. The attention itself may give some indication as to why that is. The comments at The Awl, Jezebel, and Broadsheet made it clear that the concept was more than a little radioactive - some people clued in to the fact that a revenge-minded fetus wasn't exactly the most sympathetic character, but still weren't able to imagine that what I was trying to make was anything other than propaganda. They still weren't able to discuss a work of art about abortion that explored the moral anxiety surrounding the fetus without entering into a political argument.

Tracy Clark-Flory at Broadsheet, for example, decided that Alphonse was "yet one more attempt to argue for the personhood of the fetus by literally giving it a voice." She decided that I had created a caricature of my own moral viewpoint.

To the latter claim, I say - damn straight. Alphonse is absolutely a caricature. That is, he is a gross exaggeration - a fetus whose personhood is so manifest that he can walk and talk and think and fight. But Clark-Flory was dead wrong about the purpose of that exaggeration. Alphonse is not arguing for the personhood of the fetus by literally giving it a voice. It's not arguing for anything at all. It's telling a story. There's a difference. As I said at the end of my essay at The Awl, "I was trying to make a work of art (however minor) that would do some of the things that art does - reflect experience, engage imagination, and just maybe, enlarge perspective."

Which brings me to problem number two: it's not propaganda. Folks looking for something that's straightforwardly "Yay for our side, boo for their side!" are going to be disappointed. So who's my audience?

Fair question. Maybe it's just me and a curious few. But my friend in publishing is - sadly - mistaken. Two issues in, I haven't learned anything about fitting my projects to my prospective audience. I'm still begging, still trying to finish the story. Metropolitan was worth it, even at five screens and three million. I think Alphonse is worth it, too.

Which brings me, at long last, to my point. The ridiculous generosity of both friends and strangers is about to bump my Kickstarter fund for Issue Three from $600 to $1600. Still shy of halfway to my goal of $4000, but gosh-all, it's amazing. As of tomorrow, I will have twenty days left to raise the rest. I had pretty much given up. Now, I'm daring to hope again.

So if you're still reading by this point, and if you're at all intrigued, please consider helping out. If you've already donated, maybe forward this post on to a friend. If you blog or Tumble or tweet, maybe consider tossing me a link. I've gotten this far. I don't want to quit before it's over. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Lent, Day 16

"For a moment, they" - the apostles on Mount Tabor - "experienced ahead of time something that will constitute the happiness of paradise. In general, it is brief experiences that God grants on occasions, especially in anticipation of harsh trials. However, no one lives 'on Tabor' while on earth. Human existence is a journey of faith and, as such, goes forward more in darkness than in full light, with moments of obscurity and even profound darkness."

- Pope Benedict XVI

This is Christianity's number one spokesperson talking. Heck of a sales pitch, no? I'm going to try to remember this one for the many times I hear the Church treated as a purely political organization, one with no real interest besides swelling the ranks, filling the coffers, demonizing the Other, and controlling the masses.

Life is Precious

Or, you know, not.

Lent, Day 14

Ask and ye shall receive. Just yesterday, I was expressing amazement that the Mass readings for the day weren't doing their usual number on my sense of personal sinfulness. Then, last night, I came across this awesome little book from the early '70s about the strange and exotic world of Italian cookery. No idea where I got it. But as I paged through its wonderfulness, taking particular delight in this image (which really ought to be the banner pic for a food blog), I suddenly remembered the second reading from Sunday:

"Join with others in being imitators of me, brothers and sisters, and observe those who thus conduct themselves according to the model you have in us. For many, as I have often told you and now tell you even in tears, conduct themselves as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction. Their God is their stomach; their glory is in their 'shame.' Their minds are occupied with earthly things."

Ah, yes: "Their God is their stomach." Guilt restored. Lent continues on its merry way.