Jesus no Mickey Mouse

Finding your paper, the Mirror, at the laundromat, I was angered at your cover of the Sept. 15 issue [Mousetrap, by Ron English]. Regardless of it not being your own work, but the art of Ron English, the responsibility is still yours.

The thoughts of anyone who believes in the sacrifice that Jesus Christ made for us, and anyone whose heart he has touched, would be ones of mockery and humiliation at seeing their saviour portrayed as Mickey Mouse, a cartoon character. Our Lord Jesus Christ did more good and saved more lives, in an attempt to save all, than anyone else ever could. I don’t care what your article said—I never read it. The cover said much about your intelligence, moral values and compassion toward other human beings. If it were made of cloth, not paper, I would have thrown it in the laundry next to mine and washed all the filth out of it.

» Panagioti Douzepi

Saintly facts

Kristian Gravenor’s Sept. 22 hagiography was interesting [“Seven oppressors,” Kristian Perspective]. There was no mention of Prince Wenceslaus’s choppy fate in the Yuletide song, but “the village” that celebrates St. January isn’t a village at all, and people might know him as San Gennaro, patron saint of Naples. Naples is hardly a village at 1.5 million (including the suburbs).

Gravenor writes: “September 19 celebrates St. January, an Italian whose powdered blood sits in a jar in the hills. Every spring they take it out and it turns back to liquid blood, keeping villagers without cable TV somewhat entertained.”

Naples’ main cathedral is where San Gennaro’s relic “liquefies,” warning locals of the eminent eruption from Mount Vesuvius if it doesn’t change. The year of the big earthquake nearby, it didn’t melt—provoking the superstitious “told you so.” New York’s Little Italy also has the San Gennaro celebration in September. Haven’t you seen it in a Martin Scorsese film?

The most interesting tidbit about the saintly doctors Cosma and Damian is that there’s a hermitage devoted to them where the church is famous for its phallic architecture. They call it a rounded tower, a “lantern,” which juts out and sits next to the cupola. The 16th-century church was built over the ruins of a Priapas sect. Between Sept. 25–28, locals (yes, this is a village) serve phallic-shaped cookies and cakes.

I don’t know which of the two St. Christophers is celebrated in September. He got his name from “carrying Christ across the river,” but before he supposedly did that, he was named St. Onofrio (June 12). The other St. Chris was made up; it was prior to and during the Reformation that the Catholic Church was wildly canonizing everyone from Columbus to a saintly man from India they heard about called Buddha.

The following saints may not be celebrated in September but their symbolism still has resonance: St. Francis of Assisi, patron saint of communists and animal right activists; and St. Sebastian and his arrows—the suffering male archetype is favoured by gay male artists, but he is officially known as the patron saint to soldiers.

» Mirella Bontempo

Male pronoun offends

[Re: Artsweek, Is It Art, “Urban elephants,” Sept. 22] The Mirror wrote, “Maybe one day the anonymous craftsman will come forward to claim his fame. Maybe he’ll wish really hard and all the elephants will come to life. Mmm, maybe not.”

Maybe one day the Mirror will come forward into the 21st century. Maybe I’ll wish really hard and they’ll stop using dubious “neutral” male pronouns. Mmm, maybe not.

» Kathleen kampeas-Rittenhouse

Quebec’s black history

It’s truly interesting that the provincial government is investigating some pressing situations concerning blacks in Quebec [Angel, Sept. 15]. They can start by naming a park or putting up a statue in honour of the world’s greatest living jazz pianist, who is the only living Canadian on a postage stamp, Oscar Peterson.

Second, they can put something up anywhere around McGill University of Dr. Charles Drew, the inventor of blood plasma and an undergraduate at McGill along with William Shatner, a B-actor who they named a building after.

The Quebec government can put up a statue in honour of Mathieu Da Costa, the navigator who brought Samuel de Champlain to Quebec. All this and more is part of the black experience in Quebec, but we only read about it in February, Black History Month. I wonder why.

» Bob White

1997 error unearthed!

[Re: Cover, “High Noon,” by Philip Preville, Aug. 7, 1997]: “Today’s big Stampede event will be the chuckwagon races, in which four wagons pulled by six horses each race around a narrow track, 24 horses galloping at the pace of the cowboys’ whips, an Extreme Rodeo event in which both people and horses routinely suffer serious injury, and are sometimes killed.”

Actually, the wagon is pulled by four horses not six. Each wagon also has four outriders/horses, which equals 32 horses per race rather than 24, and they don’t use whips—it takes two hands to race the wagon.

» Raina Henriksen

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