The Prestidigitator

I really don’t want to contribute to the hyperbole that this debate has already created but I can safely say that this is the finest one hour of debate, one-sided as it is, I’ve seen in a very long time. Two amazingly articulate intellectuals take on Catholicism and religious hypocrisy. To be fair, I do wish that the two proponents of the Catholic church would have been a little more, I don’t know, Christlike instead of pretending that (institutional) child abuse and homophobia are urban myths.

Stephen Fry makes an especially brilliant case against the so called ‘force for good’. Nod along or throw stuff at your computer but this is what good television is all about.

Go watch. Now.

There are barely a handful of artists whose music perfectly accentuates whatever state I’m in. The last time I was this moved by an album was when I listened to Jeff Buckley’s Grace for the first time; an underrated (by today’s general public I mean) masterpiece – the kind of music that slowly grows on you and before you know it, consumes you.

Johnny Cash’s (1932 – 2003) American IV: The Man Comes Around is undoubtedly the work of a man relapsing into the cold comfort of religion in his last days but that shouldn’t put you off of it. Some of the tracks do have not-so-subtle religious overtones but then again, the songs are so organic, so heartfelt that you cannot help but go back and take them in all over again. One of the truly brilliant tracks on the disc is his cover of “Hurt” by Trent Reznor (yes, of Nine Inch Nails fame). The song takes a completely different meaning when sung by Cash; lending credence to that Edith Wharton saying, “There’s no such thing as old age, there is only sorrow.”

The video, for your viewing pleasure-

[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=SmVAWKfJ4Go]