Content Warnings: Religion, food, symbolic cannibalism, symbolic gore, penis mention, Blasphemy, SO MUCH BLASPHEMY, weapons, war mention. Mind the warnings and your health always comes first. Its a HILARIOUS story, I promise.
As always, all the names have been changed to protect people’s identities. This is a long one, so Press J now if you want to skip it.
When my dad was a young man and still a practicing catholic, he participated in a small church communion that nearly got him and six other people excommunicated.
Father Patrick ran a small church outside of California Polytechnical and tended to be… rather more liberal in his interpretations of scripture than most of the church was, which made him something of a hit with the local students and liberally-inclined populace. Pat went to all manner of civil demonstrations, condemned the shit out of the vietnam war and the politics that lead to it and so on. In January of 1969 a series of incidents lead him to start exploring “nontraditional” means of holding Mass as a means of reaching out to his community and exploring his own faith, which ultimately culminated in the 1969 Easter Mass Incident.
For those of you who weren’t raised catholic, Communion is this ritual where you become one with Jesus by eating a really horrible bland wafer cookie and taking a shot of wine (called hosts), which then *literally* become the flesh and blood of jesus in your mouth, allowing him to become one with you. It’s big McFucking deal, and you have the opportunity to take communion at every mass. All this had to be explained to me second-hand because after this and Dad’s 51 days in the army, Dad decided he wouldn’t inflict religion on any children he might have in the future.
*
“Hey dad,” Six-year old me asked the first time he told me this story after my practicing friends were talking about getting wine at church. “Isn’t that cannibalism?”
“We’re getting to that.” He waved.
*
The First Incident in January when, due to a serious cock-up by the church, all the hosts Father Pat received were moldering and spoiled and probably would have killed someone if he’d actually fed anyone them. But it was the first mass of the year, when a peak number of people came in after vowing to got to church more for new year’s. He couldn’t NOT have communion.
“I’ll bake.” offered Maria, the parish secretary and probably the best baker in the county. “So we have hosts. Jesus will understand.”
Father Patrick, not one to pass up the chance at Maria’s cooking, immediately agreed.
A Host is supposed to be composed solely of unleavened wheat flour and water, which is why they taste terrible. It’s a theological point of some importance relating to Exodus or something but Maria had an important theological counterpoint: Jesus both divine and loves all his children, ergo, Jesus would neither be a nasty bland cracker nor want his children to suffer as such and so instead, she made Mexican wedding cookies.
They were a SPECTACULAR hit. Many praises were heaped upon father patrick for the Much Better Wafers and that they’d be sure to show up next week as long as Maria kept making them. Father Patrick figuring that hey, anything that gets people in the doors is good and really, if it was turning into Jesus once inside the parishioner, did it really matter what the wafers were made of? So he continued to let Maria bake the Hosts, and encouraged her to try out new flavors, like nutmeg and cinnamon.
This went on swimmingly for a few weeks until The Bishop showed up for a surprise visit the same week Maria decided to experiment with rainbow sprinkles.
Dad remembers hearing the bishop through the windows roaring “THE HOLY BODY OF CHRIST DOES! NOT! CONTAIN! RAINBOW! SPRINKLES!”
The matter went clean up to The Archbishop, who decided that while Pat was probably right to not feed spoiled hosts to his parish, he should attend some remedial classes to remember what Communion was all about, so that if it happened again, he’s come up with a more suitable substitute.
Father Patrick returned in late March, full of spite and some fascinating new ideas.
*
“Is this where the Cannibalism happens?” Six-year-old me asked, eager to get to the good parts.
*
At his remedial classes, the teacher had stressed the importance of transubstantiation, aka “That bit where the wafer and wine, Actually, Literally, become the flesh of Jesus Christ and we expect you to swallow.” Also on the syllabus was understanding the importance of Christ’s suffering and sacrifice.
“So, I was thinking about Easter Service.” Said father Patrick one afternoon while dad was doing his computer science homework at the church because his dorm was a barely-standing fire hazard and the library was where you went to have sex.
“Well, we do re-enactments for christmas. Why not on easter? Why not re-enact the crucifixion of Christ right here? Make it real for everyone. Trauma’s great for bonding a community together.”
“Who’s playing Jesus?” asked Maria, always one for a good laugh.
“That’s the thing- A Host, it doesn’t look much like flesh, right? Doesn’t look like much of anything, really. Not great for reinforcing one’s belief.
What if, instead, we- and I mean you, Maria, I can’t cook to save my life- make a man-sized loaf of bread, maybe in the shape of a T, and we have some of the boys dress up as romans and whip the bread and we pour the wine on so it’s bleeding and them- then we make a big wooden cross and actually nail the bread to it with, I don’t know, railroad spikes, more wine all over. And we raise the cross, all while telling the story of the crucifixion.”
He paused to take a drink, Maria slowly crumpling onto the floor in horrified laughter and Dad now thoroughly distracted from his homework.
“Then we lower the cross, and invite everyone who wants to take communion up to tear a hunk of Jesus off. Just descend into his corpse like vultures. I think that’d really be a good bonding experience for the church.” he nodded thoughtfully. “The hard, part, I suppose, will be finding enough romans.”
“I WANNA BE LONGINUS.” bellowed my father, barreling into the room.
And so, the plan was hatched. Dad hit up every other guy in the Church and eventually rounded up four more romans, three of them from the Education Department of Cal Poly, and one guy from Chemistry, who just liked to watch things burn.
This, being a play, naturally meant that there was a rehearsal, and test Bread jesus. Maria had decided that if they were going to start being extra-literal, she needed to make the most lifelike Bread jesus possible, and made a distressingly buff and human-proportioned Jesus by Advanced bread-braiding, complete with plaited hair, quail’s-egg-and-raisin eyes, bready muscle groups, and an eight-pack because why not make the lord completely shredded?* She also made the important theological decision that since Jesus loves everyone and was happy to die in spite of all his suffering, he should be smiling, and had a toothy corn-kernel smile. He was Wonderful and Terrifying all at once.
“Maria,” asked Father Patrick after a few minutes of delighted and horrified cooing over Jesus’ toothy grin and abdominals. “Why is he wearing a tea-towel?
“Well, he’s the Son of God. A Man. With all that entails.” She said, pointedly staring at Father Patrick while everyone stared at the suspiciously lumpy tea-towel. “And he might have… burnt, slightly.”
Everyone nodded and agreed that the tea-towel was the best course of action. The rehearsal goes splendidly and everyone agrees that this is the most delicious Jesus they’ve ever had.
*
Easter Sunday arrives and the Church is PACKED, from the more lapsed Catholics showing up for a high holiday, parents visiting for spring break and a whole horde of newcomers who had gotten wind that something was up and they ought to come.
Dad is a lanky as hell 21-year old composed mostly of technical jargon and acne but he is STOKED to be playing Longinus, the roman that speared Jesus on the cross, because he gets to do the BEST technical effect in the whole parade. Since he came in at the end me missed a good portion of the sermon, but did hear the “oooh” from the crowd as the massive cross was dragged in by the other Romans, followed by horrified gasps and high screams and a discernible “What the FUCK” as they brought in Bread Jesus 2.0, whipping him enthusiastically, and hammering him into the cross, the sound of wine splashing onto the floor loud in the terrified silence of that Parishioners.
Finally Father Patrick gets to the part about Longinus, and Dad comes sprinting down the aisle as hard as he can, because in order for Bread Jesus to be seen by everyone, his middle had to be about 10 feet off the ground, so Dad had to run, shrieking latin curses, down the length of the church, with a big honking spear and take a flying leap at Jesus in order to spear him in the gut.
Please take moment to imagine you are some normal god-fearing catholic who has decided to visit little bobby or maybe patricia at college and you’re all going to church together like a nice family and this Fucking madman has decided to go all Silence of the Lambs on mass and now there’s some sort of underfed translucently pale man in ill-fitting Roman armor and cape flying at a horrifying glutinous effigy of your lord and savior, with an actual fucking spear, screaming like a madman. Don’t you feel yourself drawing closer to God already? Defensively, perhaps, like an octopus trying to ooze itself into a crevice against the horrors of the ocean.
However, two things happen that were not planned on
1. Dad misses. In his defense, Bread Jesus is close to but not quite the size of a man- more like the size of a doughy teenager, and his middle is a small target 10 feet up in the air and dad is has a computer science minor, not an athletics scholarship. He misses by about 8 inches and instead very solidly stabs Bread Jesus right through the groin, leaving a big hole in Maria’s tea-towel and the spear jutting out at a decidedly… attentive angle, as Bread Jesus’s Bread Dick drops to the floor with a splat. Nobody notices this, however because
2. In rehearsal, Dad had managed to get the spear right in jesus’s navel but neither Father Patrick nor the other romans could get the wine up there to make his middle appropriately bloodied.
Maria come up with the Genius solution that since wine is made of grapes and Jam is made of grapes, she could make a jelly-filled Jesus for Dad to stab. There was a normal-sized test loaf and when dad stabbed it on the table, it had a nicely gooey dribbling effect.
However, this time the loaf was torso-sized, still hot from the oven and upright, so when dad speared the very end of the loaf, all the steam-pressured jam had collected at the bottom and a spray of lukewarm smuckers exploded out from bread jesus, turning the first three pews into a splash zone of symbolic entrails.
There was a hot, sticky minute of complete silence in the church after that.
Then, Father Patrick indicated it was time for the cross to be lowered, and continued on with the normal preparations of the Host, he himself covered in hot smuckers, as though nothing particularly ordinary was occuring, quietly kicking the bread-dick under the altar. At the end of it all, Father Patrick and invited everyone up with the Last Oration:
“Thou, O God, has kindly allowed us to have a part in this Holy Sacrifice; for this we give Thee thanks. Accept it now to Thy glory and be ever mindful of our weakness. Amen.”
…And everybody came up, shuffling like terrified zombies, pinching off tiny bits at first but then the madness took them and they began tearing apart bread jesus by the handful, weeping as they partook, scattered prayers and begging for forgiveness. The whole congregation was kneeling about the altar, tearful and united in their guilt and their need for God.
*
“IS CHURCH ALWAYS LIKE THAT?” six-year-old me asked, absolutely stoked. I’d convert on the spot if I got a show like that.
“No, it’s normally bland wafers and lots of chanting in latin.”
“Well that’s boring as hell.” I remember muttering and Dad snorting the coffee he was drinking out of his nose.
*
As people filed silently out of the Church to a gloriously sunny California afternoon, faces wan and smeared with wine and jam, Father patrick turned to Maria and asked “You don’t think that was too much, do you?”
“No.” Said Maria with a sarcastic deadpan so intense it was hard to tell from sincerity.
It was the exact same tone she used when the Archbishop and Six other high clergy showed up, clutching a letter someone had written, Livid and almost foaming at the mouth, demanding to know if such blasphemy had transpired.
“No. That’s crazy.” She said, staring down the archbishop like he was an idiot.
“Such imaginations some people have!” Said Father Patrick, much less convincingly.
“And you- you didn’t… Spear an effigy of our lord and savior?” the archbishop demanded of my father.
“Do I look like I can jump that high?” Dad asked, having in the interim been drafted for 51 days then nearly died of pneumonia from it, and therefore no longer afraid of the Church, the Law or God.
Somewhat relieved that he’d only received the extremely detailed ramblings of a doddering parishioner, the Archbishop sat down and complemented Maria on her most excellent Mexican Wedding Cookies, may he please have another plate for his nerves? Perhaps the ones with sprinkles?
Dad went on to help build the internet, Father Patrick converted to Buddhism and Maria became a Nun.
*For those of you wondering, Jesus was made of Challah.
If you got a laugh out of this, please consider donating to my Ko-Fi or Paypal, as telling stories on the internet is my only source of income right now. Thank you very much and I hope you enjoyed it!
Wandered into an article with 140 iconic cinematic shots, the comments complained there was no explanation to their composition. Decided to give it a run down and keep it to myself.
The compositions are mostly self explanatory but I wanted to see what patterns I could find. That’s just how you learn stuffs.
I’m gonna deconstruct this scene because I’ve been thinking about it ALL DAY and what the hell, I’ve got time. This clip demonstrates what I love most about Taika Waititi’s filmmaking and it shows off Chris and Tom’s chemistry in the fiercest way. It’s hilarious, sweet, bittersweet, surprising, and poignant.
1) “Loki, I thought the world of you.”
Even though there was an instinctive part of me that screamed, “OK, WELL, YOUR ACTIONS TOLD A DIFFERENT STORY, THOR” due to residual bitterness over what a dickbag Thor was in the first film, I’m 1,000% here for this line. I’m proud of how much Thor has matured, thrilled that these two are actually talking to each other, and happy that Loki’s hearing something he’s probably always wanted/needed to hear even though it’s bittersweet because Thor’s using the past tense.
Tom’s reaction here is SO GOOD. Just the tiniest shift in his eyebrows to indicate that Thor has Loki’s attention and he’s fucking locked in and hanging on to every word.
2) “I thought we were gonna fight side by side forever, but at the end of the day you’re you and I’m me.”
I know there was a minor (?) uproar over Chris’ comments that Thor will be “indifferent” to Loki in Ragnarok, but this scene seems to suggest a kind of acceptance rather than indifference. Maybe for the first time, Thor truly seems to have accepted that he and Loki are fundamentally different beings–and by extension, he’s accepting Loki’s nature. Yes, part of that acceptance means letting go and moving on (note: I did not say giving up) and that’s sad, but realistic I think. How many fakeout deaths and stabbings can a person be expected to withstand? “You’re you” is a significant break in pattern for Thor and Loki appears genuinely taken aback by it.
“You’re you” is a huge deal because to me, the brothers’ central conflict has always boiled down to the fact that Loki isn’t Thor (thanks, Odin, for exacerbating this tension). For Loki, that fact is a source of self-loathing and resentment, something that he can act out against and, as Tom has often said, define himself in opposition to.
By the same token I think it’s become clearer that what Loki thinks of Thor matters to Thor. For an older sibling, having a younger sibling who looks up to you and wants to be like you is perhaps one of the biggest indicators that you’re a good–dare I say worthy–person. Ever since Loki let go of Gungnir Thor has struggled to make sense of Loki’s rejection, to define himself without the security of having his brother by his side. With that in mind I’ve always seen Thor’s past attempts to bring Loki back to the “good” side as heartfelt and genuine, but also somewhat ego-driven and shortsighted.
Cut to now. By acknowledging that he and Loki are each their own person, Thor’s relieving Loki of the pressure and expectation of being anyone other than himself. In a way, that’s a gift, but it’s also terribly sad because it’s accompanied by loss for both of them. Which brings me to:
3) “I dunno, maybe there’s still good in you but let’s be honest: our paths diverged a long time ago.”
It’s in this moment that Loki really seems to realize where this conversation is headed. And he doesn’t like it.
We know Loki lives to test Thor. It’s his (super dysfunctional and unhealthy) way of making sure Thor still cares about him. In The Dark World, Loki tests Thor’s assertions that he doesn’t trust him and has lost hope for him by … getting himself impaled. Yeah, “dying” was also his “get out of jail free, usurp the throne” card, but it’s not insignificant that he calls Thor’s bluff in the process.
4) “Yeah. It’s probably for the best that we never see each other again.”
Speaking of calling Thor’s bluff, I think Loki–because he’s a smart little fucker–says this in order to get ahead of the conversation. He knows what’s coming, so he pulls the classic “I’ll reject you before you reject me” move. But I don’t think he means it. It’s more likely that he’s trying to balance the scales so he’s not on the utter losing side of this conversation. And honestly? Deep down I doubt he can bear to hear Thor say it and by proactively agreeing with Thor he’s holding out hope that Thor will pull a “JK!” and change his mind.
5) “It’s what you always wanted.”
OMG THOR HAS GOTTEN SO SMART. I mean, I guess it’s within the realm of possibility that Thor is still really dumb about Loki’s feelings/motivations, but personally it’s more fun and satisfying to think he sees Loki’s test and raises him an even bigger one.
Loki’s face is so sad-funny. His plan backfired, he’s panicking a little, but he’s got to save face and play it cool, and he’s also legit sad because he knows this outcome is the culmination of his past actions and he did his part in paving this road for both of them. And at the end of the day he’s still the younger brother who doesn’t want to appear weak, so he’s doing his best to match Thor’s tone and attitude.
The moment when Loki lifts his chin and gives a little nod is a dead giveaway; never seeing Thor again is the opposite of what he wants, but he’s prepared to accept that it’s too late for anything else. It’s SO far from an apology, but for Loki it’s about the most mature thing we’ve seen him do.
The fact that for once they’re not arguing with each other is what made me tear up. It’s like they both know they should’ve had this conversation years ago, when it could have made all the difference, but at the same time they know that moment has passed. THIS IS FUCKING TRAGIC.
(If I wrote this movie, this would be the moment that they both dissolve into tears, fall on the floor, and cry-hug it out, which is why I write poetry and not screenplays.)
6) “Hey, let’s do Get Help.”
This was the beginning of the death of me, I will never be the same. I laughed so hard. On the surface this whole exchange may seem like just a gag–and it IS funny as hell–but I feel like it’s working on so many levels and reveals something deeper about Thor and Loki’s bond.
First of all, if you’re me, everything that preceded this moment was really uncomfortable and sad and almost unbearable to witness so I don’t think it’s a stretch to assume that Thor and Loki were feeling some of that too.
What I love about this transition is that Thor immediately cuts through the tension, probably to put both of them at ease and bring them back into the more familiar territory of their rapid-fire banter. Loki seems a bit surprised but relieved.
IMO, this brief exchange of dialogue does more to convey Loki and Thor’s bond and establish their history than anything we’ve been shown in the previous films (not counting that deleted scene from the first movie). I thought it was really poignant to see them revert to/rely upon something from their distant past. You can tell this is an argument they’ve had a zillion times before. You can tell from the stunt itself that it’s something they’ve had many opportunities to perfect.
Even though Loki is reluctant to participate, he does, because he still craves inclusion and acceptance. Even though Thor is no longer quite as overbearing and arrogant as he once was, he regresses into that role so that he can get his younger brother back just for a moment. It’s like they’re consoling themselves without admitting that they want to be consoled. And yeah, on a practical note they also need to find a way off of Sakaar.
In conclusion, they’ve both just conceded that their relationship has reached an impasse with no real way forward, yet in the immediate aftermath of this supposed acceptance they choose to revert to an older dynamic that reflects presumably happier times. They don’t want to quit each other. This is fine. It’s fine. I’m not crying. I love them. The end.
I’m deep in my feels right now and probably projecting a lot (HI, HELLO, I HAVE A TROUBLED YOUNGER BROTHER, I’VE NEVER USED HIM AS A PROJECTILE BUT I UNDERSTAND THE IMPULSE), but even without having seen this scene in the full context of the film, it’s my favorite Thor/Loki moment to date. It’s what I’ve always wanted. It actually brings “We were raised together, we played together, we fought together” to life in a meaningful way, whereas in The Avengers I felt like those were just words.
People adding Nazi apologist shit onto my posts like “but nazis invented cell phones and space rockets so without them we’d be less technologically advanced VuV” like buddy, if you think for one second we wouldn’t have eventually made it to the moon or made instant communication devices without mass genocide then I dunno what to tell you except to get the fuck away from me.
Your kind aren’t welcome here.
Also would I “trade” my cell phone for a world with no Nazis?
Are. You. Fucking. Kidding. Me?!?!
I’d trade my own life for a world without nazis. Fuck my phone. Fuck going to the moon. Human life should not be the cost of societal and technological progress.
What the fuck is wrong with you.
??? We’d have probably had cellphones sooner given the amount of inventors, theorists and artists the nazis killed. We’d have been to the moon sooner if we didn’t have segregation. God only knows where we’d be if women were given the opportunity to invent sooner. Disabled people come up with cool stuff too. It’s a whole new world of creation if you value human life equally!
*the sound of a thousand nuclear physicists laughing*
Buckle up kids, today we’re talking about why the Nazis never invented the atom bomb. We’re gonna do this
to white supremacist minds.
Ok. So the Nazis were all about physics … as long as it was with things you could see & touch. Rockets, improved motors, even radio tech (which gives tangible audio and/or visual results) were awesome and very good careers for good German boys.
Theoretical physics, on the other hand, was viewed as made-up Jewish bullshit. The German scientific old guard did NOT like little punks like Einstein. Who did they think they were, running around with their “time is relative” and “the interstellar ether doesn’t exist” and who the shit even cares what’s INSIDE an atom, Albert, it’s not like the INSIDE does anything. JESUS.
The Nazis saw modern physics as being the same thing as Freud’s psychology, Klimt’s modern art, and Kafka’s stories: a decadent waste of time, way too Jewish, and definitely not cool or manly. So to combat uncool Jewish science, pro-Nazi German scientists founded an actual movement– “Deutsche Physik/Aryan Physics”– all about real stuff like engines and bombs and it was gonna serve the SHIT out of the fatherland. No Jews allowed.
Every single one of them, and more, emigrated to the US in the 1930s. Jewish colleagues from Axis Italy, like Emilio Segrè and Enrico Fermi– aka the guy who built the world’s first nuclear reactor, and married to a Jewish woman– joined the brain drain as Europe hemorrhaged nuclear physicists right into America’s warm, heaving, bloodthirsty bosom.
*artist’s rendition
Albert Einstein’s application to become a US citizen. Dated Jan 18th, 1936.
Nationalist German scientists cheerfully joined the persecution of their Jewish colleagues, because Nazi scientists just really wanted Jewish physicists’ jobs. But the bummer was, the Nazi scientists couldn’t handle the mathematics that made relativity work. They were too dumb to do that science. Look– we’ve all been there. But the nationalist German scientists’ approach was– instead of leveling up their game, just discredit everything their rivals did. Declare it dumb, and made-up, and all the good parts of this stuff we just said was dumb and made-up were already invented by Aryans anyway, so why keep Jewish scientists around? Just forget about this atomic physics crap and keep giving us money to talk shit about Neptune, it’ll be great.
“Hahaha wut?” -Nazis
Eventually the Third Reich figured out that atom bombs were a thing and they should probably make one. They put Heisenberg– who, if you’ll recall, just had to have his mom call in an anti-bullying PSA to the Fuhrer’s secretary three short paragraphs ago– in charge. With every single other person who knew about nuclear fission having left Germany years ago, Heisenberg was pretty much on his own. The Nazi bomb project went nowhere.
A Nazi Germany with nuclear weapons would been able to do whatever the fuck they wanted.
The only thing that stood in their way? Their own. goddamn. antisemitism.
Director of Los Alamos weapons lab and Jewish American, J. Robert Oppenheimer, seen in profile as he oversees final assembly of the Trinity test bomb. Trinity was the first test detonation in the US nuclear weapons program. (x)
Is this a post in support of atom bombs? No.
This is a post about how being so high on your own inferiority complex that you’re down to murder people smarter than you, will fuck you in assholes you didn’t even know you had.
Thank you, Science Tumblr, for that deconstruction of Nazi bullshit.
This is excellent as is, but, I need to point out that the USA political situation is in many ways falling into this same hole now. We are becoming xenophobic and anti science at our top political level. The GOP is practically anti reality at this point. We need to fix this.
Holy shit, this is the best addition to any of my posts.
“This is a post about how being so high on your own inferiority
complex that you’re down to murder people smarter than you will fuck
you in assholes you didn’t even know you had.”
Zynn's Exodus 