There's a lot of things still going on around Ruthie [Leming]. One recent post shows Rod [Dreher] picking up Hannah in NOLA as if he was the man of that family. Another, "The Little Way of LeBron James", has something to do with Rod's book about Ruthie having something to do with LeBron James returning to Cleveland. Pauli, I see you're from Cleveland. Is that so? Whatever, Rod seems to be all over the Leming family these days, but maybe only in the same way you'd want to shake your leg to get him off. How do the Lemings feel about all this? Normally I'd think this was a private matter, but Rod keeps making it so public it seems okay to ask about.
I've never fathomed the way the mind of Dreher works, nor really even been able to even follow his line of reasoning. I've admitted as much on several occasions, notably here and here. That applies doubly to the post to which Pat is referring.
Initially my reaction to Dreher's titling the book The Little Way of Ruthie Leming was confusion. Little Way is obviously a reference to St. Therese the Little Flower, a Saint and Doctor of the Roman Catholic Church, the church which Dreher famously left. The only notable similarity between the two women seems to be that they both died young, Therese at 24 and Ruthie at 41 years of age. (I write more about the problematic "saint" moniker and comparison in my Amazon book review.)
Now he comes out with the post title The Little Way of LeBron James which fails further at coherence. After all, the way of Ruthie Leming was little precisely because she was the one who stayed in the hometown and didn't leave to seek her fortune elsewhere, let alone enshrine the choice in a television special with the grandiose title The Decision. Little Way? not so much.
I think what he really is attempting is a comparison between LeBron James and himself, even though he throws the name in for Ruthie's. He was the one who, like James, left and came back. But this seems to be projection and merely another failed metaphor. There are plenty of people who move back home after living somewhere else. My neighbors, for example, lived in Michigan (gasp!) for years before coming back to Cleveland and starting a business (husband) and getting elected to public office (wife). My parents moved back to the town we grew up in about 10 years ago. And I have friends whose kids moved away about 5 years ago but they're moving back now that John Kasich and Josh Mandel and have fixed the economy here in Ohio.
I mean really, the coming back home theme is so old and commonplace that the observation that James's reasons for coming home somewhat match his own at points seem to be the presentation of a truism as some type of cosmic revelation. Also, check this out: LeBron James was famous and a superstar before he left Cleveland and after he left, a number of people got irritated. Now he's come back even more famous and a bigger superstar and almost everybody is elated around here, even a nerd like me is experiencing second-hand joyfulness. Reading the Topix thread I referenced earlier will show you that this is not always to case when a famous person returns home.
I should add that the swap of Ruthie's name with LeBron's proves an old comment from TMFKS to be positively prescient. As if proof was needed.
ReplyDeleteRod Dreher is like LeBron James minus the talent, accomplishments, and beneficial impact on his local community.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of beneficial impact ...
DeleteThat's all well and good, Pik, but can LeBron throw on his apron and whip up a fabulous impromptu recipe like this?
DeleteUPDATE: Thought I’d pass along a good idea to you. The tomatoes I roasted the other night in garlic, rosemary and olive oil were so terrific that I’d like to suggest it to you. It’s very, very easy. I don’t have a recipe; I just made it up as I went along, but it’s simple to do. We are at the end of our tomato season, and I was trying to figure out how I could use up the ones we have on the counter before they go bad. Tonight I took all the grape tomatoes we had left, as well as four standard tomatoes (that I quartered), put them in a black iron skillet with four garlic cloves (chopped), four sprigs of rosemary, a generous pour of olive oil, and salt (sea salt if you have it). Into a 400 degree oven they go. I roasted these for an hour an 15 minutes, but after 40 minutes or so, you’ll want to keep a close eye on them. You want them to start to blacken on the bottom, and stick to the skillet. As you get near the end, stir them a little bit so they’ll be able to stay in the oven for as long as possible. You’ll be able to tell when they’re ready; the roasted tomatoes thicken. Taste them to see if they need more salt. Remove the rosemary stems, and serve. They go great over pasta, or as a side dish. The roasting intensifies the flavor dramatically, deepening it and sweetening it, and of course the garlic and rosemary are indispensable.
Don't think so.
(Re: UPDATE: Whenever I see one of these furiously bolded and capped UPDATEs, I'm just waiting for old Uncle Walter Cronkite to break in from the great beyond with one of those minions from Despicable Me sounding off in the background like a Belgian cop in hot pursuit, "MEE-MAW-MEE-MAW-MEE-MAW-MEE-MAW-MEE-MAW-MEE-MAW-...."
Maybe not, but LBJ has a smoothie recipe that has dried goji berries and salba seeds. In your face, Dreher!
DeleteHuh. Pauli, I think for once I might of used less words than you did to analyze this. The only reason I think LeBron James' name popped up in his click bait generator is that Phil Robertson and Duck Dynasty's is old news now.
ReplyDeleteThat Pat guy is a riot. Love his comments.
ReplyDeleteHere's Pat's latest:
DeleteWell now, Pauli, that still explains a lot of disturbing things I've been hearing recently, especially coming from south of the border, down there in the Gulf of Mexico to be precise.
It turns out Miz Sea Turtle had already written a book 5 years ago called "The Little Way of Miz Sea Turtle" about how her and her mama and grandma and great-grandma have been returning to the same beach to lay their eggs for generations now. Now this upstart punk pops up - she's alleging in her filings that he's a hedgehog BTW, probably because of that hair, while reserving the right to amend if new facts come to light - and tries to steal her "coming home" theme. Not only that, but hijacks LeBron James as an unwitting accomplice in the process.
Now she's hopping mad - well, hunching forward slowly mad - and, most alarming of all, she's retained the services of famed Mexican attorney Beto Mole (that's MO-leh; he's human) to press her case. I'm expecting the refried beans to hit the fan in SF any day now and make the Great Sour Cream Scandal sound like a fart in a dark wood if no one's around to hear it by comparison.
Last month or in May RD wrote about a painful family experience that sent him to Dante for comfort. I dont know if he ever spelled it out but Im guessing that involved poor Ruthie's memory and a relative who was fed up and let him have it.
ReplyDelete