A Church Made of Dirt

They warned us not to expect much. My heart pounded, for I expected everything: jungle flowers, wild roaring beasts. God’s Kingdom in its pure, unenlightened glory.

--The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver

Paris Syndrome

While older Disney movies were ostensibly for children, the current box office enticement has to target the parents who were children, especially the mothers. It has to give them what they want, and from the shrapnel their children will collaterally learn how to want.

--Sadly, Porn - Edward Teach

I did feel that when I saw Shrek as a kid, a lot of the jokes were meant for the adult members of the audience, and that it's only gotten worse as time has gone on, where now entire movies from Marvel are basically just winks to the audience's pleasure and "i remember that guy" moments.

GOD SAYS THE AFRICANS are the Tribes of Ham. Ham was the worst one of Noah’s three boys: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Everybody comes down on their family tree from just those three, because God made a big flood and drowneded out the sinners. But Shem, Ham, and Japheth got on the boat so they were A-okay. Ham was the youngest one, like me, and he was bad. Sometimes I am bad, too. After they all got off the ark and let the animals go is when it happened. Ham found his father Noah laying around pig-naked drunk one day and he thought that was funny as all get-out. The other two brothers covered Noah up with a blanket, but Ham busted his britches laughing. When Noah woke up he got to hear the whole story from the tattletale brothers. So Noah cursed all Ham’s children to be slaves for ever and ever. That’s how come them to turn out dark. Back home in Georgia they have their own school so they won’t be a-strutting into Rachel’s and Leah and Adah’s school. Leah and Adah are the gifted children, but they still have to go to the same school as everybody. But not the colored children. The man in church said they’re different from us and needs ought to keep to their own. Jimmy Crow says that, and he makes the laws. They don’t come in the White Castle restaurant where Mama takes us to get Cokes either, or the Zoo. Their day for the Zoo is Thursday. That’s in the Bible.

--The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver

I read quotes like this, and then I wonder why the existence of Christian churches is so indelible in certain parts of the African American community. Specifically after just reading, I know why the caged bird sings, and how Maya Angelou's grandmother was extremely Christian. I should look more into this.

Perhaps you see the problem here – the problem with which all talk of ‘quantum mechanics as information’ must wrestle. We’re used to the notion of things that in some sense contain information: books, computer memories, messages left on an answerphone. And we’re used to the idea that we can possess information: I can know your email address, say. And these seem distinct: one is potential knowledge, the other actual knowledge, culled from potential knowledge according to our individual capacity. But quantum mechanics seems to make the interaction two-way: knowledge we possess affects what is knowable (and to others, or just to us?). Yes, it’s confusing. But that is surely the right confusion to embrace, if we want to grapple with what this wonderful theory means. I like to think of this informational perspective in terms of a distinction between a theory of Isness and a theory of Ifness. Quantum mechanics doesn’t tell us how a thing is, but what (with calculable probability) it could be, along with – and this is crucial – a logic of the relationships between those ‘coulds’. If this, then that. What this means is that, to truly describe the features of quantum mechanics, as far as that is currently possible, we should replace all the conventional ‘isms’ with ‘ifms’. For example: Not ‘here it is a particle, there it is a wave’ but ‘if we measure things like this, the quantum object behaves in a manner we associate with particles; but if we measure it like that, it behaves as if it’s a wave’ Not ‘the particle is in two states at once’ but ‘if we measure it, we will detect this state with probability X, and that state with probability Y’ This Ifness is perplexing, because it is not what we’ve come to associate with science. We’re used to science telling us how things are, and if ‘Ifs’ arise, that’s just because of our partial ignorance. But in quantum mechanics, Ifs are fundamental. Is there an Isness beneath the Ifness? That’s possible – and simply admitting as much takes us beyond the simplistic view of the Copenhagen Interpretation according to which there is nothing meaningful to be said beyond the results of observation. But even if there is, it will not be like the Isness of everyday life, in which objects have intrinsic, non-contextual, localized properties. It will not be a ‘common sense’ Isness.

--Beyond Weird - Philip Ball

Everything that is, was first an If.

According to a journalist’s eyewitness account, Mata Hari, the famous exotic dancer turned World War I spy, refused to wear a blindfold when she was executed by a French firing squad in 1917. “Must I wear that?” asked Mata Hari, turning to her lawyer, as her eyes glimpsed the blindfold. “If Madame prefers not, it makes no difference,” replied the officer, hurriedly turning away. Mata Hari was not bound and she was not blindfolded. She stood gazing steadfastly at her executioners, when the priest, the nuns, and her lawyer stepped away from her. Looking mortality straight in the eye is no easy feat.

--Smoke Gets in Your Eyes - Caitlin Doughty

I read more about her on Wikipedia. She actually blew a kiss to her executioners too, which was pretty badass.

“Now, listen Watkins, I didn’t have to do this, but I knew you were bullshitting me back in that bathroom. Man to man, I’ve been in your shoes. I lost my daughter Christina two years ago to leukemia. I think about her every god damn day of my life. You have a chance bro to do right by that little girl in there. Go in there, love all over her, hold her, kiss her, tell her you love her a million times…And after you get out of here, I better not see or hear about your ass in here ever again. Got it?” Austin, hearing Officer Clayton’s words, tore him down. Officer Clayton now seemingly looked a tad frazzled and wracked with grief, but despite almost breaking down himself and crying over his deceased daughter, he wiped a few tears that trickled out of the corners of his eyes, leaned in and gave Austin a tight, brotherly hug. “You got this, young man. Do right by that girl. Be there in every moment of her life…You never know what tomorrow brings.” “Ok-k,” Austin stuttered. Officer Clayton released Austin. The detention center supervisor then turned his attention back to the double doors of the auditorium. Soft, flowery vibrations of Luther Vandross’ “Dance With My Father” poured through the door. Clayton opened the doors, and instantaneously Austin’s passion-filled eyes enclosed onto his family, most importantly, his daughter he hadn’t seen in two long, hard years.

--This Hoe Got Roaches in Her Crib - Quan Millz

You never know what tomorrow brings, so you wanna play dance with my father every chance you get!

So masterfully do we hide death, you would almost believe we are the first generation of immortals. But we are not. We are all going to die and we know it. As the great cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker said, “The idea of death, the fear of it, haunts the human animal like nothing else.” The fear of death is why we build cathedrals, have children, declare war, and watch cat videos online at three a.m. Death drives every creative and destructive impulse we have as human beings. The closer we come to understanding it, the closer we come to understanding ourselves.

--Smoke Gets in Your Eyes - Caitlin Doughty

Much like our waste removal, our death removal is pretty persistent. The living human world has very little fecal matter and very few corpses belonging to our species.

A girl always remembers the first corpse she shaves. It is the only event in her life more awkward than her first kiss or the loss of her virginity. The hands of time will never move quite so slowly as when you are standing over the dead body of an elderly man with a pink plastic razor in your hand.

--Smoke Gets in Your Eyes - Caitlin Doughty

It must be pretty interesting to wake up and decide one day that you just wanna shave dead bodies for the rest of your life. Realizing that you too will one day need to be shaved.

Byron was (or, had been) a man in his seventies with thick white hair sprouting from his face and head. He was naked, except for the sheet I kept wrapped around his lower half to protect I’m not sure what. Postmortem decency, I suppose. His eyes, staring up into the abyss, had gone flat like deflated balloons. If a lover’s eyes are a clear mountain lake, Byron’s were a stagnant pond. His mouth twisted open in a silent scream.

--Smoke Gets in Your Eyes - Caitlin Doughty

Postmortem shame as a concept

This is just a dead person, I told myself. Rotting meat, Caitlin. An animal carcass. This was not an effective motivational technique. Byron was far more than rotting meat. He was also a noble, magical creature, like a unicorn or a griffin. He was a hybrid of something sacred and profane, stuck with me at this way station between life and eternity. By the time I concluded this was not the job for me, it was too late. Refusing to shave Byron was no longer an option. I picked up my pink weapon, the tool of a dark trade. Screwing up my face and emitting a high-pitched sound only dogs could hear, I pressed blade to cheek and began my career as barber to the dead.

--Smoke Gets in Your Eyes - Caitlin Doughty

Humans are common (billions), but our souls are rare (unique).

The sun rose as I walked out of my apartment on Rondel Place, shimmering over discarded needles and evaporating puddles of urine. A homeless man wearing a tutu dragged an old car tire down the alley, presumably to repurpose it as a makeshift toilet. When I first moved to San Francisco, it had taken me three months to find an apartment. Finally, I met Zoe, a lesbian criminal-justice student offering a room. The two of us now shared her bright-pink duplex on Rondel Place in the Mission District. Our home sweet alley was flanked on one side by a popular taqueria and on the other by Esta Noche, a bar known for its Latino drag queens and deafening ranchera music. Making my way down Rondel to the BART station, a man across the alley opened his coat to show me his penis. “Whatcha think of this, honey?” he said, waving it triumphantly at me. “Well, man, I think you’re going to have to do better,” I replied. His face fell. I’d lived on Rondel Place for a year by now. He really would have to do better.

--Smoke Gets in Your Eyes - Caitlin Doughty

Once in SF a Waymo dropped me off by a homeless encampment.

Mother took hold of her hand and also mine—something I would not have tolerated in the slightest back home in Bethlehem. But here in all the hubbub we would have lost track of each other, with how we were just getting swept along on a big dark river of people. And the dirt, law! There was dirt everywhere like red chalk dust, and me with my good green linen suit on the outside, wouldn’t you know. I could just feel the grit in my hair, which is so extremely fair it is prone to get stained. Boy, what a place. Already I was heavyhearted in my soul for the flush commodes and machine-washed clothes and other simple things in life I have took for granted. The people were hurrying us on down toward some kind of open dirt-floor patio with a roof over it, which as it turned out was going to be our father’s church. Just our luck, a church made of dirt.

--The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver

Sepia filter in movies

They called the songs back and forth in their own language between a leader and the rest of the group. They were such weird songs it took me a while to realize they followed the tunes of Christian hymns, “Onward Christian Soldiers” and “What a Friend I Have in Jesus,” which made my skin crawl. I guess they have a right to sing them, but here’s the thing: right in front of our very eyes, some of the women stood up there in the firelight with their bosoms naked as a jaybird’s egg. Some of them were dancing, and others merely ran around cooking, as if nakedness were nothing special. They passed back and forth with pots and kettles, all bare-chested and unashamed. They were very busy with the animal in the fire, pulling it to pieces now and mixing it with something steaming in a pot. Whenever they bent over, their heavy breasts swung down like balloons full of water. I kept my eyes turned away from them, and from the naked children who clung to their long draped skirts.

--The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver

Shame as a Christian concept

On their way, the two not giving a fuck, started making out in the back seat. Fredquisha grazed her hand along Trel’s thigh and felt his hardening meat. Her pussy of course was glowing in excitement. This nigga had to be packing at least nine, if not ten, she thought. “Man, I’m so fuckin’ hard right now. My BM ain’t sucked a nigga up in ages,” Trel chuckled, confessing his sex life with this children’s mother was in the midst of drought. As he planted kisses up and down her neck, he slid his hand in between Fredquisha’s thighs and rubbed her musty, unshaven fat pussy meat popping through her thong. Fredquisha licked and kissed the side of Trel’s tatted up neck, sending blood down to his groin at a million miles an hour. MooMoo then went to do the unthinkable; she unzipped his pants and leisurely whipped out his tanned erect dick leaking with precum. Trel’s eyes flew wide open as he was a bit terrified. He flung his gaze to the front of the car to see if Amadou was creepily observing what was happening in the back seat. “Shit, you gon get us banned from Uber!” Trel whispered. Placing her index finger over his long lips, Fredquisha suppressed Trel’s agitation. “Shhhh,” she cut his mounting apprehension. Without hesitation she buried her head down into his lap and fed her mouth his hard dick. She was gonna show bae what that mouth do. Hoe is life.

--This Hoe Got Roaches in Her Crib - Quan Millz

Shame as a "car called from an app" concept

The cheers were slowing down. He had everybody’s attention now. “And Lot said unto the sinners who crowded at his door, I pray ye, brethren, do not do so wickedly! For the sinners of Sodom pressed their evil will against the entrance to his household.” I shuddered. Naturally I knew Chapter 19 of Genesis, which he’d made us copy out time and again. I detest the part where Lot offered his own virgin daughters to the rabble of sinners, to do with as they might, just so they’d forget about God’s angels that were visiting and leave them be. What kind of a trade is that? And his poor wife, of course, got turned to a pillar of salt. But Father skipped over all that and went straight to the dire consequences: “The emissaries of the Lord smote the sinners, who had come heedless to the sight of God, heedless in their nakedness.” Then he stopped, just froze perfectly still. With one of his huge hands he reached out to the congregation, pulling them in. With the other, he pointed at a woman near the fire. Her big long breasts lay flat on her chest like they’d been pressed down with an iron, but she did seem heedless of it. She was toting a long-legged child all straddly on her hip, and with her free hand was scratching at her short hair. She looked around nervously, for every pair of eyes in the place had followed Father’s accusing gaze straight to her nakedness. She bounced her knees, shifting the big child upwards on her hip. His head lolled. He had hair that stood out in reddish tufts and he looked dazed. For an eternity of silence the mother stood there in the spotlight, drawing her head back on her neck in fear and puzzlement. Finally she turned around and picked up a long wooden spoon and went to poking at the stew kettle. “Nakedness,” Father repeated, “and darkness of the soul! For we shall destroy this place where the loud clamor of the sinners is waxen great before the face of the Lord.” No one sang or cheered anymore. Whether or not they understood the meaning of “loud clamor,” they didn’t dare be making one now. They did not even breathe, or so it seemed. Father can get a good deal across with just his tone of voice, believe you me. The woman with the child on her hip kept her back turned, tending to the food.

--The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver