I'm in the middle of a lot of writing and editing deadlines and some projects are in the final final stages, which actually is always the toughest part, and some are partway through. Some are in the very glimmer of being an idea stages. I've bailed on more than one project past the 90% mark. Not gonna let that happen this time, but definitely hoping to pick up some writing speed like I used to have. And if they are all squared away in the next few weeks I will be a very happy editor indeed.
Anyway, in 2 weeks I go to Oregon for 4 days for a family event. Was just looking at my calendar and realized how ridiculous my schedule is. In those 2 weeks, I'm scheduled to:
Have a followup psychiatrist appointment
Eat pizza in a nearby state
Get a car service to a fancy meeting
Finally get a dresser at IKEA
Go to The Moth Business
Meet a fellow sex writer for the first time
Do an online chat
See 2 Fringe Festival shows
See The Talls at Second Stage Theatre
Have 2 sessions with my personal trainer
Appear on The Judy and Mike Show (yay Brooklyn - Roberta's Pizza is the best place I've ever been interviewed)
Have a macaroni and cheese cooking fest with a friend, in which we make 3 or 4 different kinds of mac and cheese
Attend Big Quiz Thing trivia
I'm gonna go out on a limb and say either some of these won't happen, I'm going to need a major caffeine upgrade, and/or by the time I get to Portland my friends are going to convince me to move there and be more mellow. I think part of the problem is that these are all things that I want to do, but when I see it all on my calendar I get overwhelmed and wonder how I'm going to get all my other obligations done too. We shall see. I'm making headway but this month is busy busy busy, trying to make up for last month's slacking.
I'm happy to have the work, bottom line, even when I fear I can't do it. "Face it/it's time you admit that you want to be here" goes a line in a song by The Reputation. And it's something I have to keep reminding myself of. I feel lucky and blessed to have so many opportunities, and I know that I'm the one who doubts my abilities the most. So I'm trying to forge ahead and do the best I possibly can, and admit when I need help. The latter is close to impossible for me, but I'm getting better.
James Frey has written a new life of Jesus set in contemporary New York. Photograph: David Levene
Blasphemy is in the news again, and this time it has nothing to do with the Qu'ran or the prophet Muhammad. The novelist James Frey has written a new life of Jesus, The Final Testament of the Holy Bible. It is set in contemporary New York in which a Jesus-figure, Ben, comes back among New York lowlife, as lowlife. His message is the old hippy one – love, love, love – which he pursues in very practical ways. He makes love to almost everyone he meets – women, men, drug addicts, priests. Hence the blasphemy.Or at least, that is what the publishers are hoping. Written on the cover, in bold, we are told that this is Frey's most revolutionary and controversial work. "Be moved, be enraged, be enthralled by this extraordinary masterpiece," it screams in uppercase letters.I hope people don't rise to the bait. The book is more ludicrous than scandalous. The rabbit-like lovemaking is accompanied by dialogue of the "we-screwed-until-dawn-and-it-was-like-being-joined-with-the-cosmos" type. And then there's the adolescent protest theology. Religion is responsible for all ills everywhere, Ben solemnly informs us. The Bible is a stone age sci-fi text. God is no more believable than fairies. Faith is just an excuse to oppress.That said, the book did set me thinking about blasphemy. For it seems to me that there is good blasphemy and bad blasphemy. Good blasphemy is worth studying, whereas bad blasphemy is not. Good blasphemy conveys ethical and theological insights, whereas bad blasphemy is simply about complaint and shock. Both kinds of blasphemy might be published, but only the good type is worth spending time on. (It's a shame when bad blasphemy upsets believers and gains press coverage that encourages others to react to it.)I was myself involved in a blasphemy case, one of the last to be investigated by the police before changes in British law. We'd published a banned poem, The Love that Dares to Speak its Name by James Kirkup. It strikes me now that while there were important principles of free speech to defend in the case, the poem itself is an example of bad blasphemy. It features a Roman centurion having sex with Jesus after his crucifixion, and is naive and clumsy, replete with ban puns about Jesus being "well hung". Aesthetically it's inept, ethically it's simplistic, theologically it's crass.An example of good blasphemy would be the story about Jesus that was published last year by Philip Pullman, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ. It is a brilliant reflection on how faith so readily goes wrong, though it also has the capacity to bring out the best in us. Moreover, in its central conceit – that Jesus had a twin brother called Christ – Pullman draws on an ancient Christian tradition. At the same time as the Christ comes, another called the antichrist will appear too, who is like the Christ only flawed and so of the devil. The question is whether believers can tell the difference.Another case of good blasphemy is found in the works of the sculptor Guy Reid. One of his pieces, Madonna and Child, is in the church of St Matthew's, Westminster in London. It caused controversy when it was installed because Mary is depicted naked. One Christian commentator called the figure offensive and profane, but he'd missed the point. The nudity speaks of Mary's intimacy with Jesus, as do the medieval images of the Madonna and child that show Jesus suckling from the Virgin's exposed breast.There is theological seriousness in the nudity too. Jesus is called the second Adam in the Bible, the one who liberates humanity from the death of the fall. Within this schema, Mary is called the second Eve, or "the mother of all the living". Mary's nudity speaks of that because it returns her to the prelapsarian state, when Adam and Eve were naked. (In fact, there is a strand of art in the Christian tradition that shows Jesus on the cross in an aroused state. He's not responding to the Roman centurion. Rather, the ithyphallic image is designed to convey the potency of the new life to be found in Christ.)Of course, Jesus was himself accused of blasphemy. In the story that will be rehearsed in churches during holy week, Jesus is asked by the high priest whether he's the son of the blessed one, and he responds: "I am." The high priest tears his clothes, saying: "You have heard the blasphemy."It's usually religious authorities that declare something blasphemous because it challenges their religious power. The point here is that the life and death of Jesus show the world what God is like, Christians believe. Jesus is blasphemous because he challenges the notion that no one can see God and live, as Moses was told in the book of Exodus. It's a good blasphemy. It lies at the foundation of the new faith Jesus inspired. Perhaps new faiths always spring out of good blasphemy.
