somebody call Mark Burnett, stat!

I’ve been reading Roy Blount Jr.’s Long Time Leaving: Dispatches from Up South for the past couple of days. If you haven’t read Blount, I strongly suggest it—he has a sharp wit, combined with the ability to tell a long, rambling and sometimes wacky story to a satisfying conclusion.

I was lying in bed this morning reading it, when the Bee climbed in next to me for some cuddles. She asked me what I was reading, and I explained that it was a collection of essays and then went back to my reading. After about a minute, she said, “that is so true!”

Blount starts an essay about the Atlanta Olympics with the sentiment: “Religious argument ought to be an Olympic event, at least the way it’s practiced in the Five Points area of Atlanta.”

She was reading over my shoulder (note to self: must pick morning reading material with care), and read that sentence, and then composed a twenty-minute riff about how a game show (Arguing with the Stars, I think she called it) where every week, groups of believers in various faiths would have to get together and argue with each other and with atheists about their beliefs in answer to questions posed to them by some kind of celebrity. The questions would range from things like, “what happens after you die?” to “what kind of diet restrictions do you have?”. The celebrities would change from week to week.

I was laughing the whole time, imagining the possibilities of celebrity/faith combinations. Hasids and Fergie from the Black-Eyed Peas! Sunnis and Kim Kardashian! Buddhists and Donald Trump!

Oh, the sacrilege of it all…

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