Plus he's hot. He's the hot Catholic priest who I think I've always pictured as Joe Alwyn.
I want to see the portraits he takes. Ugh, I bet they're beautiful.
The book was almost called A Black Portrait of a White Man, but then I decided, no, no, no, this is too much. In the book, in many ways, Keating exists to destabilize everything Wyeth thought, what he knew about his life, about his motivations for creating art, about desire, about faith, about God—to offer him a chance to perhaps re-invent his life.
Former Protestant Americans tend to think of learning and vega as these complete crosshairs, to the point that someone having a serious crisis of faith appears unfazed. It's like, oh no, we've all been through it and that's when you become an atheist and you have good politics or something like that.
Not for socialism here, but Louis Althusser talks about it in “Ideology and ideological apparatuses“Where he gives an example of how people who have ideologies don’t think they have ideologies. And to illustrate this point, he's like, “Well, if you were talking to Christians and you're an atheist, you think, oh, but you guys don't take it very seriously.” We all know it's a joke.” And Althusser is that for Christians this is not a joke.
The moment you're describing is when Wyeth is like, “Oh, you're serious about this whole God thing. Oh, oh, oh, sorry. You take this so seriously.” Then he has a choice that a lot of people have at that point, which is, okay, am I going to raise this person? Am I going to give it to them in a condescending way, or am I truly acknowledging that as a truth that is equally true for me, that I don't share, but that I respect and can see means a lot to them? So are you being condescending or are you trying to understand? He's not a perfect guy. I didn't want to write a book where he just gets it right away and he's just, like, “Oh yeah, I respect you.” To be honest, this is not realistic. Some people are that good, but not all of us are that good.
You remind me of when my partner tried to explain to me that TransUbstantiation is not actually a metaphor. I was like “Yeah, that's it” like His body or something.”
There have been wars over this, Lauren. People were killed because of this. Isn't this one of the main differences between. Field Paul? I forget which branches. I think maybe that's one of the differences between Lutheranism and Calvinism, really is whether you believe it is or if it's kinda likeField For Catholics, this is definitely not a metaphor.
Not even close.
This is his body and his blood, and it is present everywhere on Earth at the same time. End of discussion. Again, I don't share this truth, but I see it and respect it.
I think that's why a lot of people are still in awe of Catholics, because they're like, “No, we mean that crap.” Thus, the non-genonomic, queer church-
I call it denim culture. And I'm just wondering, do I want to worship a God who thinks it's okay for me to wear shorts to a house of worship? I don't know. I think I need an angry sky, dad. I think I want there to be consequences where God loves me a little less if I wore shorts to church. I grew up with a very strict, very mean God. I need rules, credit moron. I need to know where I stand.
How do you hope or fear your book will be interpreted?
I feel like I wrote an entire book about how I fear the book will be interpreted.
Fair. Very fair.
I hope the book provokes people to talk about questions about black subjectivity and the things that go through the mind of black artists and black people just trying to get through the day as a perceived being with agency and subjectivity. I hope people don't get tired of it and that they release some dubs. This will be my ideal. If people were shooting take about it, I'd be like, oh, I'm honored to run the discourse machine. ♦
