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Welcome to the March 2022 edition of author David Claiborne’s newsletter, a monthly publication about casting choices, grammar, and Ides.

It is common enough to see real-life, honest-to-goodness celebrity news anchors cast to play themselves in a motion picture or TV (pronounced “tee-vee”) cameo. Wolf Blitzer in Mission Impossible: Fallout, Soledad O’Brien (a name of some mixed parentage no doubt) in Batman v Superman, Sean Hannity in House of Cards, Larry King in any number of productions, but most of all Ghostbusters, Bill O’Reilly in Iron Man 2, Rachel Maddow in 30 Rock, Nina Totenberg in The Notorious RBG Fanclub, you get the idea.

It is entirely uncommon, unknown even, to see celebrity pastors, or even merely competent pastors, playing pastors in film and television.

Is it perhaps because pastors are not supposed to be celebrities?

This is on my mind because I’ve been watching a show I probably should not watch while I tend to one baby child in the afternoon as my other toddler child naps: The Americans. One of the plot lines features the daughter of the anti-protagonists being invited to a youth group to the consternation of her very much Communist (with a capital ‘C’) parents. The daughter persuades the parents to go to church with her on youth Sunday, at which point I puckered up for the usual ham-fisted portrayal of Christians and Christianity which the show had already been setting up for. I was met instead with decidedly not that bad writing in the character of Pastor Tim played by Kelly AuCoin. This is his first appearance in the show, however, so we’ll see.

To the point, Mr. AuCoin is decidedly not a pastor. More to the point, there are many people who are, some of whom may even be capable actors. So why not cast a pastor to play a pastor? Not just in this show, but in any show. I have some thoughts on the answer, but this isn’t an essay, it’s a newsletter for goodness’ sake.

Grammar point: either goodness’ or goodness’s sake is grammatically acceptable, with the latter being preferred (see Chicago 7.18, which I reference but don’t apply chapter and verse). I can’t stand the latter, however. It looks completely clunky in print. With all those esses piled upon esses hissing at each other, it’s enough to make a hydra blush. Forget about it altogether if you stumble across that monstrous construction in a situation where you’re expected to read it aloud correctly the first time. That’s why you’ll see the first form in my books. Speaking of which…

Various

My editor is editing away on Planet Mission: Part Two (that’s ‘deux’ for my Quebecoise readers). I gave him three months, but he was already on page 125 after a couple of weeks, so he’s a professional. I could tell he was not a professional if he was finishing his job merely on time.

I finished outlining a fourth story with no working title at this point. It will be published some time. Maybe.

What about The Halo Sound? Per Stephen King’s recommendation, I’m sitting on it for a few weeks until I forget what I wrote so I can go back and do the rewrite with unabashed and merciless ferocity.

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In Closing

If the prefix or suffix of your name includes the word ‘Caesar,’ beware the Ides of March. Your legacy is having a salad named after you. And being stabbed 23 times to your death. Congratulations! As for the rest of you, just try to get your taxes done before my next newsletter.

David

Chapter 26 is available to listen to on Youtube!