This just in: Christians *heart* Paris Hilton -- WWPHD??!

Meanwhile, back in my former hometown of Boston, Joshua Glenn posted on the Globe's website today about a bizarre protest at the American Repertory Theater at Harvard this past weekend.

Setup: Mike Daisey, performance artist, doing his show. Things going well. Then he gets to a moment in the show when he compares New York City to Paris Hilton. Not to be a spoiler, but I can't resist relaying the bit---it's also important for the moments to come. According to Daisey, when you're fucking Paris Hilton, you're thinking, "Wow, I'm fucking Paris Hilton, I'm fucking Paris Hilton, etc." But when Paris Hilton is fucking you, all she's thinking is, "Wow, I'm Paris Hilton. I'm Paris Hilton." And that's what New York is like. (As a former Boston resident, I can't help but have some sympathy for Daisey's trenchant observation.)

Anyway, precisely at this moment, 87 protesters stand up and exit the show. One protester even comes down to the stage and pours water all over Daisey's notes. Mild chaos ensues. The Globe is reporting that it's all the workings of a Christian group that took offense to the vulgarity of Daisey's show. Daisey himself also comments on the event on his blog:

I sat behind the table, looking up in his face with shock. My job onstage is to be as open as possible, to weave the show without a script as it comes, and this leaves me very emotionally available--and vulnerable, if an audience chooses to abuse that trust. I doubt I will ever forget the look in his face as he defaced the only original of the handwritten show outline--it was a look of hatred, and disgust, and utter and consuming pride.

It is a face I have seen in Riefenstahl's work, and in my dreams, but never on another human face, never an arm's length from me--never directed at me, hating me, hating my words and the story that I've chosen to tell. That face is not Christian, by any definition Christ would be proud to call his own--its naked righteousness and contempt have nothing to do with the godhead, and everything to do with pathetic human pride at its very worst.

Word up. Not one iota of this group's action was Christian. As a community that faced persecution for ostensibly vulgar and verboten activities for our first--oh, I dunno--fifteen hundred years, this is a pretty ridiculous moment.

And what a lame thing to protest! Seriously. More than 30,000 civilian deaths in Iraq, a lone gunman terrorizing a college campus with guns he should never been allowed to buy, and the land literally sinking beneath our feet due to global warming---and you're protesting the use of the word "fuck." I won't even justify that with anger. That's just pathetic.