'The Voice' nun gives up the habit
Also, Greta Gerwig's Narnia and Elon Musk's weird God tweets
Hello again and so soon since last time! I’ll do my best not to leave posts until Sunday from now on, but if you missed the last one in your inbox, that’s why. Check it out.
Small life update: I used to get the majority of this newsletter written on a Wednesday night but now I attend a gym class at that time, so I guess Thursdays are as official as it gets. On Wednesdays, imagine me like this:
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Cristina Scuccia is no longer a nun
You might remember the nun who surprised the judges on The Voice of Italy in 2014, winning the competition that year.
She was awarded a recording deal with Universal, and the album is on Spotify — it includes everything from a cover of Matt Redman’s worship megahit ‘Blessed Be Your Name’ to a cover of Madonna’s ‘Like a Virgin’ lmao. She was also cast as Sister Mary Robert in the Italian production of the Sister Act musical the next year!
Eight years on, she is no longer a nun, and is working as a waitress in Spain.
Dressed in high heels and a red trouser suit, with a pierced nose and long dark hair flowing freely, she told the Verissimo programme: “I believe that you need to listen to your heart with courage. Change is a sign of evolution, but it is always scary because it is easier to anchor oneself to one’s certainties rather than questioning oneself. Is there a right or wrong?”
Scuccia said that leaving the nunhood – a decision a psychologist helped her to process – did not mean she had renounced her faith, and that she was still chasing her dream of a career in music.
After making such a big change I hope she is doing ok! I’ve added some of her music to the Modern Relics playlist on Spotify where I’ve collated (almost) all the music I’ve written about in this newsletter. There’s still time to make your end of year Spotify Wrapped digest extremely weird!
A good tweet
Elon Musk’s weird God tweets
Real quick because I’ve been writing about him a lot, but Elon Musk has been posting weird, religiously-tinged tweets this week, I guess as a way to justify bringing back suspended users. First, tweeting “Vox Populi, Vox Dei” (Voice of the people, voice of God) multiple times when deciding to reinstate Donald Trump to the platform.
Never mind that the fragment comes from a longer proverb that means exactly the opposite. Regardless, Donald chose not to return, which was obviously a source of enormous frustration for Elon. He fired off this meme depicting the temptation of St Anthony.
Extremely weird and cringe thing for a CEO to post! The same day, in response to New Atheist Sam Harris’ request to reinstate far-right radio host Alex Jones, Elon tweeted “Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven”.
I initially found this extremely gross. Alex Jones was permanently banned from Twitter for consistently sowing disinformation about the Sandy Hook school massacre. But it turns out that was Elon’s point — his own son died as an infant, and he hates how Alex profited from the deaths of children.
Okay, that was the context; here’s a meme:
I didn’t intend to write about Elon Musk so much these last few weeks but there have been odd religion angles to his Twitter takeover again and again. I guess given the increasing legitimisation of Christian nationalism and its growing role in right wing American politics (and therefore Twitter) I shouldn’t be so surprised.
King James was a notorious… happy clapper
Small update: The small King James Onlyist church continues to leaflet our area from time to time. I’d still love to hang this King James Only poster in my study.
Alcohol ban at the World Cup
Among the many controversies surrounding Qatar hosting the 2022 FIFA World Cup is the last-minute decision to uphold Qatari law and ban the sale of beer in stadiums.
Considering how closely associated football is with alcohol consumption, this has come as quite a surprise to many. AP News is here to explain what’s the go with Muslims and alcohol.
While on the subject of the World Cup, please enjoy this tweet:
Greta Gerwig could be remaking Narnia
Netflix has owned the rights to the Narnia franchise for a while now, but we’re yet to see anything come of that. But I learned from Houston Coley’s Twitter that apparently Greta Gerwig of Ladybird and (soon) Barbie Movie fame is in charge of whatever it is Netflix decides to do with this IP. That’s cool!
Houston describes himself as a “theme park theologian [and] movie philosopher.” I’m not sure what religious tradition he comes from but his Substack covers a lot of biblical themes in movies.
He recently posted a YouTube video outlining what he’d love to see from the Netflix Narnia adaptation. Personally, I’m actually up for (yet another) remake of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe but maybe I just spent too long watching the 1988 BBC adaptation when I was a kid (you can find the whole thing on YouTube).
Biblically accurate Pokemon angel
Multiple people sent this to me and I thank every single one of them.
The latest Pokemon release, Pokemon Scarlet and Pokemon Violet, is being pilloried online for being extremely buggy and feeling unfinished. But it has its upsides, for example this video which combines many of my interests.
She’s right and she’s right to say it
Here’s that Westboro Poker Face cover btw. They performed it for University of Michigan students and their faces really make this. Top comment on YouTube: “I’m gay as fuck and this is pure art”.