Demons and Angels

Sure I can respond for you: Readerly me, I can read just about anything.
Tru dat.
A few summers ago fearless leader thrust The DaVinci Code into my hands, telling me to read it right now.
Sure, boss.
A few weeks later, wanting to pass it along again, he asked if I'd read it.
Can't, boss. Can't finish it.
Why the hell not?
It's really bad theology, jefe.
I wouldn't know anything about that, said Buddhist he, adding: it's really bad art history too.
Well I wouldn't know anything about that, said I.
We both laughed.
But it's bad bad writing, we agreed, both knowing about that, both qualified to critique, both having read our shares of puke. Tho el bosso liked the Da Vinci tale, poorly written or no, and partial to Buddha rather then Jesus, he was eager to accept the slack prose and bad art history as worthy because if Jesus is diminished then Buddha ascends. That's the hope, anyway. But with the three-fer, the unholy trinity of slop theology, crap art history, and wretched composition, what, really, was there for me -- neither Roman nor Buddhist -- to enjoy? Wasn't going to waste my summertime reading time just to suck up. Anyway, handing his copy back to him, I was off the anti-Christ anti-Roman trash hook. At least for a season.

Now Angels and Demons is at the Sinaplexy near you. Look, I'm too aged, the skin's too battered and thickened, to take offense any more and I much prefer the Colin to the Tom among the Hanks, the son to the father, Big notwithstanding, and I'm from Mayville not Mayberry, tho I truly love Opie Taylor -- to say nothing of Aunt Bea -- and I'm no papist, at least not yet, and both Ron and daughter Bryce were delightful (separately) on Howard Stern this week, but I know hollywood dopacity when I smell its typical, tired, boring scent and this whoward whore-stank is familiar.

Too easy to pick on berobed clerics, Opie. Nothing brave or artistic or cutting edge about attacking the church, Opie. What's your point? Or, what's your problem, really? Allergic to incense? Resent the concept of sin? Diddled by a priest? And please don't speak to me of the hypocrisy of churchmen, Opie. Hypocrisy, in any realm, is merely the tribute vice pays to virtue.

This from Denby on Da Vinci and Demons in this week's New Yorker:

Like Laurence Olivier shouting in merriment forty years ago in “The Shoes of the Fisherman,” McKellen was signalling to us that the [Dan Brown/Ron Howard] material was rot.

Rot.
Kinda sums it up.

The Church, miffed by “The Da Vinci Code,” refused Howard access to the Vatican for “Angels & Demons,” so he re-created St. Peter’s Square in the parking lot of the Hollywood Park racetrack. The sets are convincing, but why has Ron Howard, who made the impressively accurate “Apollo 13,” fallen among frauds and daft dreamers? Apart from conspiracy theorists, who really believes in hokum like Dan Brown’s?

Asked and answered.
Apparently old-timers Ron and Tom are low believers. Read it all here.
Meanwhile, ya don't hafta be all that high-brow to notice hucksters' hokum, for fuck's sake.
Other than that, can't blame the whollywood whooores for hustling a buck where they can. That's their calling, 'cos they sure ain't called to art.

Would that there were a teacher like Sheriff Taylor around these days -- at least the Andy Griffin Show was never boring, Ron. Still isn't.
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Hey now update: Where's the A-rab?