Rocky Horror Picture Show

I've just won two tickets to see Time Warp, a musical tribute to The Rocky Horror Picture Show at a local theatre. The prize includes backstage passes, and as yet undisclosed "memorabilia". To enter, I had to send an email to the competition address for Lifestyle1 magazine. Here is the email that won me the competition:

I just wanted to write to you to let you know how splendidly attractive and talented you are; although I'm sure you must know this by now, as your powers of observation are unrivaled in the journalistic community.

Also, while I'm thinking of it, I noticed you were giving away two Time Warp prize packs. You won't find a candidate for such a prize more deserving than me - I am simultaneously the most enthusiastic about this show, and the most unable to take part in it due to my extreme poverty. I humbly beg you, great and generous writers, email readers, managers, advertising staff and other-hangers-on of Lifestyle1, please: grant me the privilege of seeing a man dressed as a woman singing about being a transvestite.

Keep on being sexy and super-smart.

Yours sincerely,

Ryan Hinshelwood

Now let's see how I can connect another random element of my life to my bad experiences with Christianity... Hmmmmm... I've got it!

Last year I dated an evangelical christian who was as ignorant about popular culture as a 19th century mormon convert would be if suddenly plucked out of time and delivered to the present day (although she could make the argument from irreducible complexity almost verbatim. Go figure). One of her many interesting hangups included a consistent avoidance of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

You see, TRHPS contains both transvestism and depictions of homosexual intercourse. Nevermind that "in 2005, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being 'culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant'". Nevermind that declining to see a film that contains behaviour you disapprove of would probably (in this case) exclude every film ever made (later on in our relationship, I convinced her to watch Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, which she enjoyed but kept her eyes closed for the last 20 minutes or so of the film).

It frustrated me at the time, because I was making the effort to pore through the smut-filled Bible, which contains infinitely worse material in abundance. In any case, I have offered my second ticket to the girl in the hopes that she will take a pro-active step to close the gulf between us.

I doubt she will accept, but I see no harm in treating people as the most generous and forgiving versions of themselves insofar as it costs me nothing to do so.