Dionysium of Eden, “Month of Religion,” Mockery of God and Frum (plus Avengers)

After some imminent tech-tinkering, I’ll try to restrict my online activities from here on out to items related to the onstage goings-on at our periodic Dionysium events (follow me via Blogger, Twitter, Facebook, and e-mail for announcements of our upcoming events). 

In theory, that will also give me more time to work for actual money (NOTE: If you pay me a large amount to make us both famous, part of my motivation will be making other publications, thinktanks, and organizations regret not hiring me, and I think some of you know how powerful a motivator that can be).

Since June 21’s Dionysium (as currently noted in my right margin) will feature, among others, Catholic author Dawn Eden on the topic of her new book My Peace I Give You – and because I spent part of last night live-tweeting criticism of a religious talk – I declare what few blog entries I do this month shall constitute a diplomatic “Month of Religion.”  Really.  (It’ll mostly be about books and movies.)

One last bit of transitional mockery left over from last month, though: When I observed that Avengers is swiftly moving into the top forty films (domestic box office, adjusted for inflation, per BoxOfficeMojo) – as also noted in last night’s religion tweets, actually – last month’s Dionysium speaker, Brian Doherty, noted that he was glad Avengers is eclipsing the (Catholic) film Bells of St. Mary’s.  But I don’t think you need to be an atheist anarchist to think the plot, as described by Wikipedia, sounds nauseatingly opposed to the do-it-yourself, can-do spirit that made America great.  Brace yourself:

Father Charles "Chuck" O'Malley (Bing Crosby), the unconventional priest from Going My Way, continues his work for the Catholic Church. This time he is assigned to St. Mary's, a run-down New York City inner-city Catholic school on the verge of being condemned. O'Malley feels the school should be closed and the children sent to another school with modern facilities, but the sisters feel that God will provide for them. They put their hopes in Horace P. Bogardus (Henry Travers), a businessman who has built a modern building next door to the school and which they hope he will donate to them. Father O'Malley and the dedicated but stubborn Sister Mary Benedict (Ingrid Bergman) have to work together to save the school, though their different views and methods often lead to good-natured disagreements. Towards the end, however, Sister Benedict contracts tuberculosis, and is transferred without being told this. She assumes the transfer is because of her disagreements with O'Malley. In the end, O'Malley informs her that she has tuberculosis, and that is the reason she is being sent away. She then leaves willingly and happily.

Let me count the ways.  But in truth, I’m more interested to see how soon Avengers passes Marvel’s current highest-grossing film, Spider-Man – and then whether Avengers can overtake the highest-grossing superhero film of all, DC Comics’ Dark Knight – just before Dark Knight Rises hits theatres!  (This is like the NBA for me, so bear with me.) 

In other superheroic news, as you may’ve seen on Drudge today, the original 1940s Green Lantern has been turned (young and) gay by DC Comics, which is fine with me (I am more concerned that in the process they got rid of his two grown-up kids, Jade and Obsidian).  He is not to be confused with the bemuscled, bronzed, and often-shirtless pulp fiction character Doc Savage from the same era, who is in turn not to be confused with present-day gay columnist Dan Savage – and that leads us back to Dawn Eden.

For you see, hip conservative Mark Judge explains here why he thinks Dawn Eden is better than Dan Savage.  (Maybe we can ask her about that at the Dionysium on June 21 – 8pm at Muchmore’s in Williamsburg.)  Judge also, by the way, explains in another piece why David Frum is lame, which I think is a much easier case to make.

Indeed, I think David Frum, David Brooks, David Brock, Andrew Sullivan, and Michael Fumento should have a roundtable show, maybe called Traitors!, where they just congratulate each other for being ex-conservatives – but one of them betrays the others in each episode and a panel of moderate, establishment judges has to guess which it'll be.  Maybe that could be a future Dionysium.  Oh, we could also do death panels.