Christian knock-offs?

1 En 8, from Louboutin's fall collection. 

Have you heard about the designer shoe lawsuit in court right now? Christian Louboutin wants to trademark the signature "China-red" soles of his high heels. Yves St. Laurent recently made an all-red shoe with red soles, and insists that designers should be free to use whatever colors they want.

Personally, I think the all-red YSL shoe is not a big deal, but overall I side with Louboutin since the red soles look cool. If Tiffany's can have a signature blue, why not a signature shade of red? This case has major implications for issues of intellectual property and creative licensing blah blah blah. It's also an excuse for editorials with terrible puns and footnoted legal references to Sex and the City 2.

Recently I discovered some designer knock-offs that made me say "Whhhhaaaa?" They weren't at Forever 21, they were in a religious goods catalog. That's right ladies, you can now buy designer Jesus totes for your next Bible study meeting.

Louis Vuitton becomes "Love"

Gucci becomes "God"

And, my personal favorite for preposterousness...

Juicy Couture becomes "Jesus Christ Born to Save"

There's also a spoof of Tiffany's and a Fendi/Faith pattern. All images are from Autom.com, a generally reputable Catholic wholesaler.

Are these fooling anyone? Are the sellers in on the joke? Whom are these for? Would you buy one of these? 

I just....I dunno. It might make the women in your fellowship group chuckle, but anywhere else you would just look like a poser with a cheaply made bag. 

Sure, Christian parodies of corporate logos are nothing new. "Lord's Gym" tshirts have been around since I was a kid. Today you can also get "Faithbook," "Jesus/Reese's," and "God is my [Guitar] Hero." Some college friends and I once dreamed up an ill-fated Gatorade spoof design for "The Eucharist: Is it In You?"

I feel like such things are a fun inside joke for youth group meetings or service trips, but they won't actually "engage THE CULTURE," as they say. Christians are capable of brilliant satire and beautiful design. Let's not settle for cheap imitations of frivolous consumerism. Juicy Couture has a flagship store a block down from St. Patrick's Cathedral, and I think it's clear which landmark will endure longer. 

Homeschool Conference Bingo

For the record, I was never homeschooled myself. My early education was a patchwork of public and independent Catholic schools, driven by my parents' determination to get me the best education possible. Once I was settled at a tiny yet awesome Catholic high school, my Mom did homeschool two of my siblings for a few years. She's getting back in the saddle homeschooling Brother #3 this fall, and so that is how I found myself at a  homeschooling conference this June.

If you live in the DC area, you may know that the IHM conference is the biggest Catholic homeschool event of the year. There are tons of notable speakers, and the people watching is amazing. I felt like some sort of anthropological participant observer. I understand who these people are, and I can speak their language, but I am still not quite one of them. Nevertheless, I made sure to layer several modesty tanks under my v-neck shirt and wear my flowiest skirt, lest I be pegged as an outsider. Nobody sniffed out that I have two degrees from heathen public universities, and I had a great time. I found some good books at vendor tables, and now I am kicking myself for not inventing Piusmedia, a Netflix-like service for Catholic movies.

A gathering this huge showcases how Catholic homeschooling is its own subculture, and thus a huge business market. Parents this dedicated to their children's education invest plenty of time, money, and energy, and it's encouraging to meet others doing the same thing. Just walking through the parking lot makes you realize how many like-minded people are jostling around the hotel ballrooms and vendor booths. Large families and ankle-length skirts are just the beginning. If you'd like to give home education a closer look, try this Bingo game next time you go curriculum shopping.

Evelyn Waugh blog alert!

As I have mentioned on this blog before, I like Evelyn Waugh's writing. A lot. A crotchety, snarky English convert to Catholicism, he alternates between withering criticism of modern society and flowery episodes of spellbinding beauty. 


I'm always excited to find Waugh devotees online - there are even some other blogs with Brideshead Revisited as their namesake! 


The Black Cordelias ( "Send five bob and ask your friends to do the same.")  cites young Cordelia's hilarious enthusiasm for sponsoring babies in the foreign missions. Kudos to this blog's group of authors for finding such adorable pictures of kids in nun costumes.


Sacred Monkeys of the Vatican is a lovely collection of "The Strange, the Random, and the Beautiful." Its author gets a million bonus points for mentioning Cordelia's pranking of half-hearted convert Rex Mottram. That poor unsuspecting Canadian. Teenage little sisters make the worst RCIA instructors.


Earlier this week Why I am A Catholic posted about the convert's prayer in Helena, one of Waugh's loveliest but more obscure works. In that passage, recently-baptized St. Helen prays to the Magi, reflecting on how she and they were late-arriving pilgrims. 


Another of my favorite passages in Helena is her exchange with the peddler who helps her locate the true Cross. (There are some unfortunate twinges of "wandering Jew" anti-Semitism in that character, but that's another story.) Their discussion of relics and kitsch is so marvelously full of material culture. (Emphasis mine.)

"'How I see it, this new religion of the Galilean may be in for quite a run. A religion starts, no one knows how. Soon, you get holy men and holy places springing up everywhere, old shrines change their names, there's apparitions and pilgrimages. There'll be ladies wanting other things besides the cross. All one wants is to get the thing started properly. One wants a few genuine relics in thoroughly respectable hands. Then everyone else will follow. There won't be enough genuine stuff to meet the demand. That will be my turn. I shall get paid. I wouldn't take anything from you now, lady. Glad to see you have the cross. It won't cost you a thing.' 

Helena listened and in her mind saw, clear as all else on that brilliant timeless morning, what was in store. She saw the sanctuaries of Christendom become a fair ground, stalls hung with beads and medals, substances yet unknown pressed into sacred emblems; heard a chatter of haggling in tongues yet unspoken. She saw the treasuries of the Church filled with forgeries and impostures. She saw Christians fighting and stealing to get possession of trash. She saw all this, considered it and said:'It's a stiff price'; and then: 'Show me the cross.'"

Excessive materialism is the ironic flipside of a faith steeped in sensory beauty and physical reminders of the divine. If there are beautiful cathedrals, there can also be glow-in-the-dark Jesus ashtrays, crusaders bickering over bones of saints, and near hoarder-levels of holy card collecting. But is tangible connection to God worth with risk? Oh yeah. 

Play Ball! - finally more fun in Delaware

We really do need to get out of the museum more. Tonight was the long-anticipated grad student outing to see the local Single A minor league baseball team, the Wilmington Blue Rocks. No, their mascot is not a boulder. It's actually a moose named Rocky Bluewinkle. BUT there is also a supplementary mascot named....wait for it .....Mr. Celery.

That's right, a guy in a celery costume comes out and dances when the Blue Rocks score. The 2nd year class first told me of this phenomenon over a year ago, and it did not disappoint.

Add Mr. Celery to cotton candy, $2 hotdogs, fireworks, and a bizarre Village People tribute involving a man connected to 4 marionnette mannequins, and you have a fun evening out where museum objects were only mentioned twice.