“Subverting” Catholic art? Oh, okay. I see, you think this has nothing to do with you. You log onto the internet and you post about how “Wound of Christ” from Psalter and Prayer Book of Bonne de Luxembourg, attributed to Jean le Noir, c.1349, for instance, looks like a vulva because you're trying to tell the world that you enjoy Catholic art and imagery in an alternative, queer, risqué way that challenges Christian beliefs. But what you don't know is that that stigma isn’t just a vulva. It's not just a mandorla. It's not just yonic. It's actually intentionally erotic. And you're also blithely unaware of the fact that around 1297, Saint Angela of Foligno experienced a vision of Christ himself, who called her to put her mouth to the wound in his side and lick the freshly flowing blood. And then I think it was Saint Catherine of Siena who drank blood and a clear liquid from the wound before receiving a ring made from Christ’s foreskin? And then graphically erotic encounters with the side wound of Christ quickly showed up in the writings of eight different mystics. And then the yonic interpretation of the stigmata filtered down through the illuminated manuscripts and then trickled on down into some pseudo-intellectual corner of the internet…where you, no doubt, fished it out of some Pinterest board. However, that interpretation represents hundreds of years and countless visions of religious ecstasy. And it's sort of comical how you think that you've come up with an idea that exempts you from Christian theology when, in fact…you're posting an image that was sexualized for you by the very Medieval saints you think you’re so different than…from “subverted” Catholic art.
Submission: These lovingly organized objects are the contents of my dad’s makeup case from his acting studies at the Pasadena Playhouse in the early 1950s.
—Mel Rodgers
“the recording is of a blackbird in my garden in the north of scotland. the idea of the piece is that it's a letter home from a migrated bird, telling the family of its new life and making the connection between the migrant and the homeland.” - jennifer cantwell
Blue Heron (2025) dir. Sophy Romvari
Mother Mary (2026) dir. David Lowery
Erupcja (2026) dir. Pete Ochs
and
Best of Sixties Spring
Phaedra (1962) dir. Jules Dassin
King and Country (1964) dir. Joseph Losey
The Great Race (1965) dir. Blake Edwards
How to Steal a Million (1966) dir. William Wyler
Oh! What a Lovely War (1969) dir. Richard Attenborough
Gambit (1966) dir. Ronald Neame
Very proud of my film programming for Sixties Spring, it had so many actor bridges and thematic double-features, still ran mostly-loosely chronologically, and also I got cosmically stuck in cinematic Paris. Full line-up below.
The last movie I watched in Vintage April was St. Louis Blues (1959), and then Sixties Spring began with Paris Blues (1961), obviously very pleasing. This was also the first half of my Sidney Poitier bookends for this series, stay tuned.
Then we moved to a pairing of two early-60s films in which Anthony Perkins seduces an older woman: Goodbye Again (1961) and Phaedra (1962). What I had not put together, due I suspect in part to forgetting Yves Montand was in this one and not the other 1961 entry I barely ended up holding for next year (La notte), was that much like Paris Blues, unsurprisingly, takes place in Paris, Goodbye Again does as well, AND also features Paris Blues star Diahann Carroll in one scene. This was kind of crazy. And while Phaedra primarily takes place in Greece (again unsurprisingly), there is a pivotal interlude in, that's right: Paris again.
No real connection to my following period piece moment, apologies, but next was Becket (1964), the only one of all of these I didn't really care for much. For the first time in this series so far, I was not taken to Paris, however Becket does go to France for a spell -- thin ice.
Next up in History: a 1960s do the First World War double feature of King and Country (1964) and Oh! What a Lovely War (1969). It had not at all crossed my mind that obviously these would both take place in, of course, France, as that's where the Western Front was, though emotionally (spiritually) (practically) they're just taking place in "trench." I had actually never even glanced at the cast of Oh! What a Lovely War after having seen several stills with not a single actor I recognized, so didn't think it was that kind of picture. WRONG, many one-scene-only names in this, including for one cameo, surprise Dirk Bogarde, star of King and Country, making this in reality a 1960s do the First World War and also Dirk Bogarde is there double feature.
I figured The Great Race (1965) was a good next entry because period musical black comedy into full-tilt period comedy follows. However I quickly learn that the destination of said Great Race is, ominous accordion chord, Paris, so we're back in the soup. I then follow The Great Race star Jack Lemmon into another comedy project, Irma la Douce (1963), which is nothing but non French actors pretending to be French in, god, Paris.....
Following Irma la Douce star Shirley MacLaine this time, into the 1966 art heists rom-comedies duo of Gambit (1966) and How to Steal a Million (also 1966). Gambit began in Hong Kong and then soon traveled to, ahem, "Dammuz," which was disconcerting as it indicated a possible globe hopping nature that would surely fucking include the City of Light, but we stayed put! Nine films in, I've finally escaped France! Ignore that young Michael Caine is speaking schoolboy French to the cab drivers! (I guess it's like an Algiers comp?) Next though was How to Steal a Million which is set where, well ENTIRELY PARIS. Once again no one in the cast is French. This trend is my best and only excuse for how this kept happening.
Because I KNOW what I'm doing this time when I start up The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967), which IS actually French, at last, and while they talk about going there all the time, we never actually follow anyone to Paris proper. Incredible that I had to go to Real France to finally free myself from the gravitational pull of Fake Paris on this decade in film.
Because Sixties Spring then concluded with Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967), completing the Sidney Poitier bookends on the series, and which is responsibly contained to sound stage San Francisco.
But hang on to the flower in your hair, because what's that coming next? It's a 24 hour gay lockdown for Pride Month -- of course we ended in SF!
I am not just trying to get the vote for women. I'm out to emancipate them from the drudgery of being either servants or saints. Out of the laundry rooms and off the pedestals!
NATALIE WOOD as Maggie Dubois
THE GREAT RACE (1965)— dir. Blake Edwards
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