The medium is the message and both are Rod Dreher

I think the final returns are in and are indisputable: Rod Dreher is nothing but the self-promotional product Rod Dreher. There is simply no other there there. If you believe there is and believe you have found something, please, please, prove me wrong.

In a cynical blog commercial badly produced as a heartwarming coming home post, The Comforts of Home, we are first greeted with a picture of what went into Rod's belly last night and will emerge elsewhere today. Not a picture of his family, although, contrary to what he claims, Rod posts pictures of his wife and children all the time when it serves his ends.

No, not his family. Instead, the telos of his very being and existence, what he eats, a thesophagany inseparable, at least for Dreher, from God Himself:

Not tonight; I wanted to drive in silence, and to pray, and to think. I recollected all the good times I’ve had these past 10 days, visiting old friends and making new ones, talking about a book that God used to rescue me, and that I am certain can rescue others who open themselves to it. I thought about all the good meals I’d had, including three Boston dinners in a row featuring raw oysters, and a lunch too, not to mention the delicious Sichuan banquet in Houston.

If Dante can't save you, folks, just try Dreher's ever-ready alternative to God, oysters. But you probably can't afford that many oysters, so just sit on the couch and eat that half gallon of Ben & Jerry's instead.

As he reminisces about the last 10 days, rhetorically rubbing his jaw and gazing up into the unfocused nowhere while the background of the rhetorical camera shot dissolves into the flashback scene and a harp ripples on the sound track, we get, not one, but two book excerpt teases masquerading as contemplative appreciations of himself, one for the Ruthie book and one for the Dante book, together with this clever segue suggesting that, to fully appreciate the Dante book, you probably should really buy and read the Ruthie book first:

She gave me this life. It wasn’t the life I thought I was going to have here. It wasn’t the life I wanted, nor the life I thought I deserved. But it is the life I needed. From How Dante Can Save Your Life:

This is what the contemplation of the comforts of home really means, food past, food present and an integral pitch for the entire Dreher catalog. No word if there is a two-for-one discount.

And it ends, finally, with William F. Buckley himself  tacitly smiling down from Heaven in approval as the credits roll over a D- paragraph from freshman Creative Writing 101

I came into the kitchen, set my bags down, and the kids squealed and ran to embrace Daddy. Roscoe rolled over and showed me his belly. I gave everybody their gifts, then ate my chicken pot pie. Nothing makes me happier than being at home with my family. Tomorrow I’ll be with my other family, in church, at the Divine Liturgy. William F. Buckley was once asked what was his favorite journey. He said one word: “Home.” I know what he meant.

There is simply nothing in this entire post that doesn't ring of a bad brainstorming session from Mad Men, dedicated to nothing beyond Dreher's porcine theology and book selling. The medium is the message and both are Rod Dreher.

Won't you make Rod's life complete and buy everything he writes so he can get even closer to God through his sacraments of thesophagany?

I'd hate to think poor Mollie Hemingway sat there and, from the look on her face, thought of England all night as Rod's date for nothing.