Further Dispatches from the Malmsey Butt: "Oh, excellent device! We'll make a sop of him!"

Thursday, cigarette #4
Pre-debate cigarette

I should clarify what I meant by this post, in particular my endorsement of the statement "Becoming Catholic didn't make me noticeably more moral; it just made me start drinking more." I don't mean that Catholicism removed any concern I had for the moral consequences of drunkenness, nor do I mean that Catholicism drove me to alcoholism, although "Jesus Drove Me to Drink" would make a decent country song. I should have said that Catholicism opened the door to alcohol by smashing the illusion that the loss of control involved (eep!) was a thing that made any sense to talk about. A novelist writes unrealistically dramatic characters because he knows that at the end of the day his world isn't real. I live an unrealistically dramatic life because at the end of the day this world isn't real either. So pour the liquor, pour le droit.