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RE: clerks cartoon, poems & beauty, and planes
--- Dan Temmesfeld <dtemm at yahoo_com> wrote:
> sure, as kelvin mentioned, there IS baggage to
> that word
Actually, that wasn't me. I believe that was some cat
named Kevin. GET THE ELL OUT OF THERE! (snicker,
snicker...)
But, since you've dragged me into this, I'll put in my
two cents worth:
First of all, Mr. Mishler is wrong. The 'Christian'
opinion on this is by no means unanimous. Saying that
on the basis of two responses is like calling Florida
for Gore before polls in half the state closed. I'm
disagreeing on two levels.
First off, I don't thing the poem is all that - with
or without the F word. I'm thinking now of a story I
heard from Micahel Medved concerning the movie "The
Last Temptation of Christ." (sidebar - the
Kazantzakis book was great - to movie was crap.)
Medved sat in a screening of the movie with several
other nationally known film critics. After the
screening was over and they were leaving, they all
enjoyed a pretty unilateral discussion on how
perfectly terrible the film was on many levels.
(Judas with a Brooklyn accent?!?) However, the next
day most of those same critics wrote glowing reviews
of the "film". When Medved asked about this, the
answer he typically got was that they didn't want to
be associated with low-brow, unenlightened Christians
who they knew wouldn't like the film. Basically,
their need to appear as the "enlightened, know-it-all,
keepers of all that is excellent" outweighed their
need to be honest.
I'm not saying that Linford's poem is anywhere near
the disaster that 'The Last Temptation' was. I'm just
wondering how much attention it would get at all if it
used another colorful euphamism. I dunno...you tell
me.
As to the "Christian" aspect...Yeah, I'm a little
disappointed. Not so much that he wrote the thing,
but that he would choose to share it in a public
forum, one in which - like it or not - he is
representing at least a facet of Christianity to those
who aren't Christians. Whatever mindgames or language
games we may want to play with the F word, it is
profane. That is univerally acknowledged. (That's
why if you put it in your movie too many times, you'll
get an R rating.) That creates several problems that
I see.
For those of us who call ourselves Christians, the
Bible says "Let no unwholsome talk come out of your
mouth." I think that word qualifies as unwholesome
talk. Mind you, I can let some corkers slip out of my
mouth from time to time. Heck, only a saint can drive
in Louisville and not utter the occassional profanity.
But we're not talking heat of the moment diarreah of
the mouth. We're talking about writing something that
most people recognize as inappropriate and publishing
it for all to see.
This poem doesn't make me doubt Linford's faith, just
his wisdom in this particular matter. But then again,
I never thought that he and Karin were St. Peter and
the Madonna.
All that being said - although I found the poem
mediocre and unmoving and the language a bit tawdry -
I do appreciate what he is saying. It's basically the
same thing that got Charlie Peacock in trouble with
"Kiss Me Like a Woman" and Ashley Cleveland in more
trouble with "Skin Tight". All of life is lived under
the gaze of God, the good the bad the ugly and the
sexual. Can't run from it.
In my humble opinion...
Kelvin
=====
"I never much liked flying,
The job requires trying;
The hard part's avoiding buildings and concrete."
-- Ellis Paul
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