“The honest system of advertising should be but a simple announcement of the offer of goods for the information of those who desire to purchase, in such a manner that they may by seeking find. But in advertising as it now exists, exaggeration is piled on exaggeration, and falsehood is added to falsehood. The world is filled with monstrous lies, and they are thrust upon attention by every possible means. When a man opens his mail in the morning the letter of his friend is buried among these advertising monstrosities. They are thrust under street-doors, and they are offered as you walk the streets. When you read the morning and evening papers, they are spread before you with typographic display; they are placed among the items you desire to read, and they are given false headings, and they begin with decoy paragraphs. … [T]he whole civilized world is placarded with lies, and the moral atmosphere of the world reeks with the foul breath of this monster of antagonistic competition,” – John Wesley Powell, “Competition as a Factor in Human Evolution,” American Anthropologist 1, no. 4 (October 1, 1888): 297–323. Italics mine. Thanks to a reader for flagging. Previous Dish on the early history of sponsored content here.
While doctors prefer head hair, on rare occasions patients who are balding might be able to use hair from the chest for the surgery, doctors said. “If they are balding, they might need that extra hair for their heads,” said Dr. Glenn Charles, who is based in Florida but said 30 percent of his clients are from the New York City area.
Could the victory of the hirsute be more definitive?
I also wanted to say a personal thanks to those of you who have subscribed this week. We knew you were out there and wanted this experiment in new media to succeed. And when real political fights loom, you come through for the site every time. We’re biased as well as, we hope, balanced. But we’re biased in fighting openly for what we believe in and not shying from the arena. And these next few months, I suspect, will be the truly critical ones for Obama’s legacy. We’re all in – and hope you are too.
This site has never been just about media; it’s been about America and the world and the chance to make things a little better. I make no apology for supporting this president broadly, while whacking his goofs and errors and misjudgments from time to time. I believe as firmly now as I did when I first saw him out there that this president matters, that his success is vital, and that the Dish can be a small but vibrant part of making it happen. So thank you for helping us. And if you haven’t yet, please [tinypass_offer text=”subscribe”]. It takes two minutes tops for just $19.99 a year or $1.99 a month. And you’re the only business model we’ve got.
A spectator watches as the Canadian Forces Snowbirds leave nine smoke trails as they finish their performance during at the Canadian International Air Show that closes out the final weekend of the Canadian National Exhibition at CNE Grounds in Toronto on September 2, 2013. By Steve Russell/Toronto Star via Getty Images.
“An article last Sunday about the documentary maker Morgan Spurlock, who has a new film out on the boy band One Direction, misstated the subject of his 2012 movie “Mansome.” It is about male grooming, not Charles Manson. The article also misspelled the name of the production company of Simon Cowell, on whose “X Factor” talent competition show One Direction was created. The company is Syco, not Psycho,” – NYT.
While it is still a serious house I suppose, I can’t resist mentioning the Jamme Masjid mosque on Brick Lane in the Spitalfields neighborhood of London. The building started life as a French Huguenot chapel in 1742, changed to Methodist in the early 1800s, became the Spitalfields Great Synagogue in 1898, and finally a mosque in the 1980s. I believe it is still the only place in the Western world to be used as a house of worship by all three major monotheistic religions. It seems, to me, to be a lovely thing that it’s still a holy house after 270 years, no matter who prays there now.
Another points to less serious ones:
There is a church converted into an apartment building just off campus where I went to university, in a neighborhood consisting mostly of student housing. It always made me uncomfortable whenever I walked by – mainly, I suppose, because of the guilt that my behavior in my own college apartment was so far out of accordance with the Christian religion I claimed to follow:
The Netherlands seems to be a hotbed for church building conversions; the strangest one I saw was a baby clothing shop in a church in a small city north of Amsterdam. Finally, we stumbled across a bar in Edinburgh with a reputation for wild parties; “The World Famous Frankenstein” is located in an old church. It makes for an interesting space, but it’s just tough to get comfortable drinking beer in the light of a stained-glass window:
Another reader:
You would be remiss to pass over the famous, or rather infamous, disco called The Monastery that operated in Seattle in the ’70s and ’80s in an abandoned church. It was still legally a church, but ran as an all ages, mostly gay night club. The various abuses eventually led to Seattle’s draconian Teen Dance Ordinance.
Another:
I’m really surprised nobody has yet mentioned Mister Smalls Funhouse, a former Roman Catholic church in the Pittsburgh area (map/streetview here) According to their site:
Mr Small’s Funhouse merges together what is becoming Pittsburgh’s new Industry Standard: A state-of-the-art Theatre, two full service Recording Studios, Skate Park, our backstage Rock Hostel for Artist housing, and unique In-House Talent Buying and Production Departments.
I’ve not gone to that many concerts, but this has been my favorite venue by far. For one thing, it’s a neat old building, and for another, being a former church, and having the band playing from the former chancel, the acoustics are pretty fantastic. They Might Be Giants plays there every time they come through eastern Pennsylvania, which is what brought me to the theatre. In fact, as part of their Venue Songs project back in 2005, they wrote and performed one for Mister Smalls:
Another:
You are not allowed to have a thread about churches turned into other things without mentioning the fantastic bar/cafe known as Freud, in the heart of Andrew’s own beloved Oxford!
Another:
No mention of the former Episcopal Church of the Holy Communion is complete without a reference to the Steve Taylor song “This Disco Used to Be A Cute Cathedral” from his 1985 album “On The Fritz.” The song is about the transformation of the former church into the Limelight club. Taylor was a non-traditional musician in the Christian music subculture. His music was often sarcastic, his lyrics clever and witty, and his focus was often hypocrisy within the institutional church. Taylor’s next release was a live album titled … wait for it … “Limelight.”
Last but one of the very best:
Now that the thread has sparked many examples, I thought I would address the original blogger’s comments about his feelings about these places. As someone who has lived in a former church for nearly a decade, I can say definitively that a former church is not “just a pile of stones.” And I also would claim that these spaces should not be torn down.
Our house was a Methodist/Episcopalian church, built in 1889 during the short-lived boomperiod in our town. A lovely but impractical (read: drafty) carpenter’s Gothic, it eventually was sold by the parishioners in 1960 to an antiques dealer, and the parish moved into a new building down the road. With that, the church swiftly changed from being a sober house of worship to a rooming house that was best known for its wild Halloween parties (with rumored stop-bys by the Jefferson Airplane, Taj Majal, the Merry Pranksters, and more) and informal rental agreements and living spaces.
When we bought the building in 2000, it was on its last legs due to decades of neglected infrastructure, funky hippie carpentry, and full of both weird and wonderful shit left by previous renters and owners. My boyfriend set out to restore the church to its original glory (including rebuilding the tower, which had rotted from the hot tub that had been installed at the base of the tower with no ventilation) as well as turn it into a private home. Since we moved in in late 2004, we have tried to honor the building’s full history: we still host epic Halloween parties, we have hosted house concerts by musicians coming through the area, we have provided sanctuary for friends and strangers who have needed a place to live. And last fall we got married in our living room, which is the virtually unchanged sanctuary of the original church.
Every single day we see people slowing down their cars or stopping on the sidewalk to take pictures. Every adult and child who comes inside is blown away by the feeling that the space gives them. We often meet people who tell us stories of going to Sunday school here – or, conversely, dropping acid and swinging from the chandeliers at some raging ’60s party. No one feels creeped out or unwelcome here. What we do experience is the space calling us “feed” it with community: the church comes alive and positively buzzes as people fill it. Singers love to sing in here; sound engineers compare the acoustics to Carnegie Hall.
But the biggest confirmation that we did a good thing by reclaiming this building rather than tear it down came from the group of former parishioners who visited for the first time since 1960. They had all moved away, and had been very concerned about what might have happened to the church that they grew up in, got married in. Seeing their relief and delight when we showed them the place (despite the skeletons in radiation suits hanging in the sanctuary in preparation for our Repo Man-themed Halloween party the next day) was very gratifying to us. We also learned so much more about the building’s church history that day, and we will continue to pass those stories forward.
Here in Philadelphia, we’ve got the entire body of a saint on display. St. John Neumann is not very well-known outside of Philadelphia. He was a Redemptorist priest who became the fourth bishop of Philadelphia and is credited with founding the parochial school system and the Forty Hours devotion. During the canonization process, his body was exhumed from its resting place in the basement of St. Peter the Apostle Church and found to be in excellent condition after nearly 100 years in the ground. The basement of the church was converted into a church and shrine. There’s a side room off of the sanctuary that serves as a mini-museum to St. John Neumann and a gift shop.
I’ve been to the shrine a few times. The entire experience is equal parts fascinating and creepy. I believe in the veneration of saints, but spending time looking at a dead saint’s body feels strange.
Another dead saint:
A relic was actually one of the catalysts for my conversion from Lutheranism to Roman Catholicism. The skeleton of Saint Munditia lies in Old St. Peter’s in Munich, and it is stunning. We simply don’t have stuff like this here – I speak of North America, but particularly of Toronto, where I’m from. I first saw the relic on my first trip to Europe in the late 1990s, and it was part of my broader discovery of the spiritual richness of the Roman church. The old Protestant dig is to disparage Roman Catholicism for the smells and bells, but that’s where my journey of faith was leading me. To me, Lutheranism was dry, untethered to either a rich history (since it seemed Christianity only really began in 1517) or a larger family of faith (since each congregation is essentially independent; when visiting another congregation, you need to pre-clear having Communion with the pastor before the service). Munditia’s relic showed me not only the faith’s ancient roots, but also its physical manifestations. These people in the New Testament – they existed, and you can see their bones. You can see the bones of those who believed so strongly in Christ that they died for it. For me, who grew up in an utterly unadorned and nondescript church, it was a revelation that led to a much deeper faith.
More dead saints and readers’ thoughts on them here.
church swiftly changed from being a sober house of worship to a rooming house that was best known for its wild Halloween parties (with rumored stop-bys by the Jefferson Airplane, Taj Majal, the Merry Pranksters, and more) and informal rental agreements and living spaces.
The Dish 