2/25/2004 » Musings

It's Ash Wednesday again. The Empire State Building is bathed in Lenten purple and white. And the black crosses on people's foreheads still look like Vaishnavites' clay tikas. It's extremely distinct, for a single day people are marked with a letter noir, for one day everyone's Hasidim, everyone's Sikh. The next time I'm walking around with a Diwali or rakhi tika on my forehead in crimson tulsi and haldi shades of gold, I can front like I'm Catholic.

I'd never seen the ashen cross before moving to New York. Is it the high density of churches here, a higher proportion of the devout, or just a greater public acceptance of the diverse and deeply ethnic?

'The Passion of the Christ' is out today, with posters in stark, sponge-painted Roman colors. Monica Bellucci, everyone's favorite voyeuristic beauty ('Irréversible') and latex domi-Matrix, plays Mary Magdalene here. Cast against type indeed.