Happy Birthday Giovanni Ribisi

1. You are a Scientologist.
2. I have never knowingly spoken to a Scientologist, or watched Going Clear, or thought about the whole confusing enterprise for any meaningful length of time.
3. On the rare occasion that I am moved to look into it further, it feels like I am reading a book that has been badly translated from a language with a lot of culture-specific idioms.
4. I once lived in a house whose previous occupant had been a Scientologist, and the postbox was always FULL of all kinds of Scientology magazines and fliers and things.
5. They all had a very consistent sort of airport-thriller aesthetic. Many pictures of tall boats and orange sunsets.
6. Many men with enormous pores dressed up like sea captains.
7. As far as content went, the main theme seemed to be how much different things cost.
8. This much for some Scientology DVDs, this much for some other kinds of Scientology DVDs. This much for some Blu-Ray discs, this much for some commemorative coasters.
9. The magazines and fliers were confusing, but not in a way that made me want to find out anything more.
10. This is how I always feel when people say things about Scientology, and I don’t know whether this can be put down to the fact that yours is a highly secretive and famously litigious organisation and there is a veil of profound mystery drawn over all its affairs, or whether it is because it’s weird now in a way that is actually not all that interesting and its sort of gauche and basic to even talk about it.
11. I suspect the latter, but I can’t be sure, because I can’t make myself think about Scientology for long enough to draw any satisfactory conclusions.
12. Is this where Scientology’s power lies? That the whole thing is so baffling and tiresome that people just ignore its continuing existence in order to free up their minds for more immediate and pressing concerns?
13. Well, probably.
14. I will say that I was sharply surprised and disappointed when I found out that you were a Scientologist, which is strange, because I didn’t know I had any feelings about you at all.
15. I read with mild interest about your marriage to and subsequent divorce from Agyness Deyn, because I feel very warmly towards Agyness Deyn, still, and wish her all the best in her current and future endeavours.
16. I have no strong feelings about you though, other than “oddly disappointed that he is a Scientologist.”
17. Same with Beck.
18. Definitely not same with Bijou Philips or Elizabeth Moss: the news of their being Scientologists did not surprise or disappoint me in the slightest.
19. What does any of this mean.
20. What is the point.
21. You win this round, I guess.
22. Happy Birthday.

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